#& ITS NOT EVEN CAUSE WERE ENTRY LEVEL! a higher up person like a few levels above us used her account to show us the system in orientation

[theresthesnitch]

A Letter from Home

Coming in late on day 2 for this prompt, but I'm happy with how this came out. Another entry for @harryandginuary BINGO event.

O 63: “I’m having the worst day and you've just handed me an envelope with…”

Read it here on AO3!

Rated: Mature

***

The rain is incessant. 

Everything is saturated with it. Weeks and weeks of staking out this post in the neverending rain, hoping that the dark wizards responsible for a string of muggle disappearances would finally, finally make a move and reveal themselves. The intelligence was good. They were sure. This was the right location. All that was left was to wait. 

And wait.

And wait. 

And wait. 

And Harry was so tired of waiting in this fucking rain, and on today of all fucking days, that he was legitimately considering if being an Auror was really worth it. He couldn't just walk away without consequences. He may have saved the wizarding world from the worst dark wizard in a generation (which, the rational part of him that wasn't quite soaked through with rain reminded him was not a card he would ever play), he still didn't have the standing to just walk away from an unfavorable post. He was a junior Auror. He was only just out of his training and had only just achieved Auror status. So he was stuck with no choice but to wait. 

And wait. 

And wait. 

And wait. 

And what's worse is they just received word from Robards that they would have to keep waiting because the intelligence still suggested this was the place they needed to be and the targets were close and they just had to wait and I swear to Merlin I cannot wait in this fucking rain anymore. 

"Auror Potter!" 

Despite the fact that Harry was younger and had less training, Junior Auror Jeffrey Wilson insisted on referring to Harry in a tone and with an honorific that placed Harry at a higher level of seniority. In fact, several of the Junior Aurors referred to him this way. Harry gritted his teeth at the continued use of the title. 

"It's just Harry." 

"Right, sir. Sorry, sir." 

"No, Jeff. Not sir. Just Harry." 

"Oh. Uh, right, si- Harry."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Did you need something, Jeff?" 

"Oh! Yes, sir." Harry bit back the angry retort at the use of sir again, and took the item Jeff was holding out to him. "A letter came for you." 

"A letter?" Harry looked dubiously at the envelope in his hands. "I thought they were blocking our post." 

"I don't know, sir. It came with our weekly rations from the Ministry, not by owl. Seems to be for you, though." 

Harry looked down at the letter in his hands, and his heart warmed at the familiar script that curled and twisted into his name. “Jeff, you are officially my favorite person here.” 

“Oh, thank you, sir! That’s wonderful!” Harry stifled a groan at the man’s overreaction to his offhand comment. “Uh, sir? What did I do?”

“It’s just Harry, Jeff. Not sir.” Why did he bother correcting him when it seemed like he would never learn. “It’s just that it’s my birthday-”

“Oh, happy birthday, sir!”

“-and we are stuck out here in the rain on this awful stakeout. I’m having the worst day, and you've just handed me an envelope with a letter from the love of my life. It’s just about the best present you could have given me.” 

“Oh, well you’re welcome, sir.” Harry shot him a glare that caused him to stagger a step under its weight. “Uh, Harry. You’re welcome Harry.” He scurried away swiftly after that. 

Harry flipped the letter over and broke the seal. He was immediately surrounded with the comforting scent of warm treacle tart, the earthy scent of a broomstick handle, and the flowery scent that had him momentarily transported back home to his bed and wrapped in Ginny’s arms again. He didn’t know how she managed to package everything he loved into this little paper box, but he was nearly overcome with longing, desire, and gratitude before even opening the letter inside. 

He removed the letter from the envelope, fingers trembling slightly. He unfolded it, and began to read: 

My love, 

I miss you so much that I don’t even know where to start. Remember to thank Robards for allowing me to include it in the supplies. I may or may not have yelled at him that the man who saved the whole wizarding world, including Robard’s own useless ass, deserved to receive at least a letter on his birthday. I’m not even a little sorry for doing it either. 

Mum wants to have a party for you as soon as you’re back, so she’s requiring everyone to keep Saturday evenings free until you get back. That resulted in a (not so) small amount of muttering about wasted weekends, but you know mum who shut them all up quickly. I only hope that she does not preemptively prepare a feast every Saturday just in case you turn up at the last minute. I don’t know if I have the heart to tell her that if you do show up without warning on a Saturday that we will not be making an appearance at a party that same night. Honestly, she may have birthed seven kids, but I am not prepared to discuss sex plans with my mother. 

Hermione helped me charm this letter so that it smells like Amortentia to whoever holds it. I hope you like it, and I hope it reminds you of that weekend we spent at Grimmauld Place during Christmas of my seventh year. If it didn’t, I hope that’s what you’re thinking of now.

Did I ever tell you my Amortentia smelled like? I don’t think I got a chance, since that was during my sixth year and you were away. I smell yeast dough and cinnamon, like the cinnamon buns that mum makes on Christmas morning. I smell the crisp, clean scent of new clothes and new shoes. And finally, I smell you, which is vaguely spicy and and dark, with earthy tones to it, like your Auror robes smell like when you return from long trips. I can still remember walking into Slughorn’s classroom and nearly being thrown backwards by the smell of it. It smelled of you so strongly that I searched for you in that room before I realized that it was a potion and not the real thing.

Writing this letter to you is bringing up all kinds of memories of my seventh year, while I was at Hogwarts and you were always just an owl away. I know it was only a few years ago, but I feel like we were such different people then. In that first year after the war, we were so broken down and struggling to come to terms with the post-war world. I’m proud of us for figuring out together how to navigate this new world. After the summer we spent barely apart, I thought we could never deal with just letters and a few Hogsmede trips, but it was leagues better than the year prior. 

I cannot wait for you to be home again. I’ve thought extensively on what that first day would be like when you finally return. I would feed you first, of course, because I know that you always come home from missions hungry. Something light, I think. Sandwiches, maybe, full of crisp green lettuce and juicy tomatoes. Then, I would take you upstairs, peel all of your clothes off and draw us a warm bath.

Do you remember the bath we took together after the Quidditch game against the Tornados my first year on the Harpies? We lost so miserably, and I was so worn down from the match. You took me in the bath, filled with rose oil and petals, and rubbed down all of my sore and tired muscles until I was putty in your lap. Then you made love to me slowly while the water cooled around us, and I swear that I have never orgasmed as hard as I did that night. I’ve been revisiting that memory a lot these last few weeks while you’ve been away, particularly when I’m alone in that great big bathtub, and my hand slips underneath the water and between my legs… 

Did I mention I miss you? Because I do. Touching myself never feels as good as when you touch me. 

I hope you come home again soon. I've been keeping busy with my training schedule during the day, but my nights are empty without you. I've been spending some nights with mum and dad or Ron and Hermione because I hate being here when you are so far away. 

I miss you, and I'll be here planning for the night you come home until I see you again. 

Yours eternally, 

Ginny

Harry reread the letter twice more, then held the paper to his chest and breathed in deeply the scents of Ginny and home. The letter was wonderful, but it also left him feeling empty. Reading her words wasn't half as good as having her in his arms. 

Harry looked up and caught movement at the house they've been watching for weeks. He waited another minute and, sure enough, it's what they've been carefully waiting and watching and hoping to find. 

Wait for me, Gin, he thought as he foldrd the letter and sounded the silent alarm. I'll be home tonight.

[mitigatedchaos]

Review: SAC_2045

(~3,700 words, 15 minutes)

This post will contain some minor spoilers for SAC_2045.

Summary: You may have thought SAC_2045 was a poor entry in the Ghost in the Shell franchise - actually, it's just intended for younger audiences.

Previously: Standalone Complex 202045:1-4 (superseded)

-☆☆☆-

And what did you think of the remaining episodes of GitS:SAC_2045?

[ @irradiate-space​ ]

Standalone Complex

There's a certain indescribable feeling associated with Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex as a work, an artistic touch related to the director associated with it, independent of other considerations. SAC_2045 has it, which isn't too surprising since Kenji Kamiyama is back.

SAC_2045 is Standalone Complex. For a brief moment, while watching it, I inhabited my pre-2016 personality and outlook. I can't tell you how much that means to me. Since the arrival of streaming I've tended to bingewatch series, but on the first run-through I decided not to bingewatch this one.

If you approach this show as season 4 of Standalone Complex (Solid State Society being season 3), it's underwhelming. Now, viewing it again, it's become obvious that a conventional season 4 of Standalone Complex was never the intent of SAC_2045 to begin with.

For those of you who have delayed until now, the English dub has been uploaded - it released without one due to the pandemic. They bring back a number of the voice actors from the excellent Standalone Complex dub, though having already watched it with subtitles, I didn't feel the need to confirm the dub's quality.

Sustainable War

To properly describe a new theory of war is the same thing as to invent it. While the idea of war as a for-profit industry has been kicked around for some time, it's generally assumed that this is a kind of parasitic relationship on the part of the war-making industry.

As time goes on, warfare becomes more abstract (partly because warfare happens where it can happen), much like society itself is becoming more abstract as information moves more quickly and humanity gains access to more energy.[1] In SAC_2045, "Sustainable War" is part of the context of the world and its current issues, but we aren't really told how it works - if it's similar to contemporary information warfare and a blurring of the lines between state and non-state actors, it's bound to be quite confusing.

I believe my earlier assessment of "Sustainable War" is correct. The key feature of sustainable war, the reason they say it's safe if you leave it to the experts, is likely that it involves AIs constantly forecasting against each other and moving units around with few direct confrontations. The goal would be to lock in a victory without having to fire a shot, except for small skirmishes that don't escalate to major incidents (due to the AI forecasting).

The presence of armed separatist movements even in Japan may also indicate that the ruling institutional bodies are engaged in a kind of Post-International Politics,[2] which treats all international relations as fundamentally existing between subnational entities - however, I believe that later information suggests this wasn't their original intent.

What makes it "sustainable"? Since if done correctly, very little is actually physically destroyed, the cost is less than conventional warfare, and thus the war can continue indefinitely. Why does it threaten humanity with destruction? Because there's an awful lot of military hardware waiting for someone to actually pull the trigger.

Season 1: Ep. 2

So what is the intent of the series' creators? I think they may be telling us through this dialogue between Togusa and Section Chief Daisuke Aramaki in episode 2.

Aramaki: Seems time has toughened you up. Togusa: Is that supposed to be a compliment? Aramaki: It is if you want it to be. Togusa: Then thanks for the kind words. “I made the right decision by choosing this line of work over my marriage.” That’s what you’re saying? Aramaki: Perhaps. [...] Togusa: They're bringing back Section 9? [...] Aramaki: But my takeaway from the proposal is this: The PM's reason for the urgent reforming of Section 9 takes priority over his personal motives. I believe his true objective is meeting the Americans' demands for the dispatch of special resources. Togusa: So it's as the Liberals feared? An American-born Prime Minister would be no more than an American puppet? Aramaki: I've yet to meet him in person, so I can't really say. But this is an opportunity to have the Major and the rest of you undertake a major operation for me once more. Togusa: What sort of op? Aramaki: Over the past few years, I have searched for an answer on how to deal with a society in turmoil. I'd like you people to lay the groundwork that will help the next generation find that answer. Togusa: I don't know what a man in my position can contribute, but I'll humbly offer whatever assistance I can.

Those of us who cried, Kamiyama, tell us the future once more! based on Standalone Complex's prophetic analysis of a memetic crime wave were bound to be disappointed. SAC_2045 is less rooted in the near future than in the now - cyberbullying, endless war amidst historic prosperity, employment suppressed by automation, savings eaten up by the complex machinations of finance, and a breakdown of national borders? That's today.

Those of us who hoped for a Ghost in the Shell: Unicorn, a psychically overpowering work that synthesizes the full body of Ghost in the Shell into a single coherent form to elevate us to a higher level of understanding, should have tempered our expectations. To reach each new philosophical level is more difficult than the last - to achieve that with Ghost in the Shell of all things would have required a multidisciplinary genius near the limits of current understanding.

Kenji Kamiyama is just an anime director. And anyhow, Gundam Unicorn was a book before it was an animated series. And who among us even knew we'd have to write a book before 2015? Ghost in the Shell was well-understood enough, so I instead wrote 25,000 words worth of hypothetical country and became a blogger, like the infamous Scott Alexander.[3]

If we approach SAC_2045 from the lens that it's a humbler work designed for younger audiences, however, some of the creative decisions make more sense.

Purin

Just how old is Purin, the MIT grad who joins the team later on? If I had to guess, that's '23歳' on that profile she provides, and Ishikawa notes that she 'skipped a few grades' on her way to a PhD. But she acts like someone a lot younger. She's enthusiastic and we're assured she's intelligent, but seems to be lacking social training. For example, she makes the mistake of assembling an era-accurate music player for Batou combined with a playlist after consulting the Tachikomas to find out what he listens to. There are two ways to take this.

The first is that she's intended as a relateable character for someone who would make this class of mistake. It's the sort of mistake I might have made at age 13-14, meaning that the show would probably be aimed at someone that age or lower. Overly enthusiastic, doesn't understand romantic relationships, impulsive, poor reading of boundaries / poor modelling of others outside of certain domains, impulsive in a way that causes social screw-ups? Yeah that could certainly apply to an ADHD kid of about that age.

And all of a sudden the tone of the first five episodes with the gun-fighting, the literal Agent Smith, the decision to place the focus in America, and even the mystery of the series being much simpler than Standalone Complex 2nd Gig's plot regarding Asian refugees in Japan make a lot more sense. This is Ghost in the Shell for kids!

Wow, I didn't think that could be done!

...is what I should say, except that around the time I acquired the ability to futurist shitpost, and I used that ability to predict that it would.

Purin II

The second reading is that the youth of the future are fucked up. She probably has some tricked out modifications, both cybernetic and genetic. Now usually you would tell someone to try to become a well-rounded human being. But...

The global economy has crashed. Batou mistakes her for a robot - creatures that look like pretty young women are a dime a dozen. In the dating market, she would be competing with full sensory immersion VR pornography on the one hand, and at the upper end of society where cybernetics are more widely available, likely women with a similar appearance but decades more experience and professional standing.

Note that in the original Standalone Complex, the team take down an 80-year-old Russian spy with the full prosthetic body of a 20-year-old. Full cyborgs aren't common then, nor are they in SAC_2045 (though cyberbrains are ubiquitous), but if the economy recovers that may change, and the sector she's trying to get in to (full-time salaried government rather than marginal private employment it would seem) is going to be very tough to enter either way.

So Purin may have to be over-optimized even to just appear on the screen. In fact, she says,

"Just so I could work at Section 9, I moved most of my sentimental memories to external storage."

Youch! It's no wonder she's socially maladjusted. Just how much of her social learning (in particular key events necessary to rebuild logical inferences on the boundaries of behavior on the fly) has she locked away?

Purin III

But you know who Purin looks like? Notorious internet personality, Gamer Girl Bath Water seller, and IRL video game character Belle Delphine.[4]

Or rather, it's the other way around - 2D animation compresses real detail into suggestive abstraction, letting your mind fill in the rest. Going from those impossible 2D shapes to 3 dimensions creates strange results, like training your machine learning algorithm on the salient features of a cat's face, applying it to human shape, and putting pink hair on the result. Belle Delphine adopts that otherworldly kind of appearance as part of her act.

Technically, this a stylistic choice. Within the framework of SAC_2045, this is what "a 23-year-old female" looks like.

Purin is in fact so non-threatening that her big red coat obscures her figure. I'm gonna go with younger audience. Now if only I could remember what pronoun she uses.[5/☆]

Motoko

With a full prosthetic body, outward signs of human-like aging are almost an artistic expression, much like in a world with cheap tissue engineering, visible scars are a choice.

When she was first introduced in the original Ghost in the Shell manga, we don't know how old Motoko Kusanagi is. It was once said that her name is analogous to "Jane Excalibur," which in English would be an obvious alias. In the first movie (from 1995), she's cool, almost cold and robotic.

In the original Standalone Complex, Motoko has a more mature personality than in the manga, but she has a clearly adult look by the standards of anime. Seriously, check out this fantastic character design (combat suit), although admittedly the better-known "leather jacket and bathing suit" design is more ridiculous, fashion-wise.[6] (Fortunately, she gets pants in her much more stylish second season outfit.)

ARISE starts off with a young Motoko Kusanagi in a chaotic post-war period before the Section 9 we know was assembled. This shows in her character design, but it really shows in her personality. This was actually why I had joked about an even earlier Ghost in the Shell.

There is a sense in which the 2017 live-action movie's Motoko is even younger. Scarlett Johansson is a killer cyborg with amnesia. She doesn't even have one day of formal combat training.

Motoko 2045

Ilya Kuvshinov designed SAC_2045's Motoko Kusanagi.

Yes, that Ilya Kuvshinov. You could be forgiven for thinking this is a teenager that hardboiled assassins Saitou and Ishikawa in the background have been hired to bodyguard.

Despite this, Atsuko Tanaka has resumed her role as Motoko's voice actress. Standalone Complex's Motoko looked 25 and felt mid-30s. SAC_2045's Motoko looks 16 and has the voice and attitude of 40.

This may make more sense than you might think.

Through Whose Eyes?

Throughout much of Ghost in the Shell as a franchise, Togusa, the only non-cyborg on the team, who is pulled from a police department instead of a military background, tends to be character used to help the people of our time relate to the future. He's the guy that doesn't know the things we also don't know, so in explaining concepts to Togusa they're explained to the audience.

In SAC_2045, most of the team are off doing cool cyborg things in America. Aramaki (whose in-world function is to create the bureaucratic environment within which Section 9 operates) tasks Togusa with finding them. The original Standalone Complex first aired in 2003. It's been 17 years since it was created - a similar situation to finding someone that reached adulthood who was born after 9/11. And during this time, Togusa's life has changed - the family man is now separated from his wife. And the world has changed - Togusa is now working for a private security firm. Togusa's role in the first five episodes isn't to guide the new viewers.

His purpose is to guide or stand-in for the old viewers.

The New Viewers

"Do you still hold a grudge against the Major and the others for leaving you behind?"

For the original viewers, SAC_2045 is your world, too. Togusa is there. Togusa is you.

The new viewers are Purin. Enthusiastic and smart but awkward and not confident in their skills. How could they measure up to these much more talented and experienced characters? (Also consider who is going to watch any sort of Ghost in the Shell - it's probably going to be a moderately bright and introverted kid, who is the kind of person that may be more comfortable socializing with people outside of their age band.)

But Motoko is visually separated from the rest of Section 9. Batou, Saitou, Ishikawa, Boma... they all have a much more adult look in keeping with their appearance in previous versions of Ghost in the Shell. What gives?

Batou is sort of a cool adult male figure - this is actually a pretty natural use of the character and his sense of humor as previously established in other Ghost in the Shell properties. We especially see this come through in 「PIE IN THE SKY - First Bank Robbery」 episode, with the old folks and the 21st century bank robbery.

Motoko's difference in appearance is because she's acting as a bridge between the two. The new viewer (as represented by Purin) is supposed to grow into being like Motoko as they gain confidence and experience. (The characters aren't each limited to a single role, of course.)

But SAC_2045 is still a work that's shared between two groups, similar to how the excellent Into the Spiderverse features both the teenage Miles Morales and an older Peter Parker that has lost his way, with the loss of the vibrant young adult Peter Parker being what starts the plot going.

The Last Quarter

With this framework, the rest of the work should express its nature as targeted at a younger audience itself. Watch the last few episodes through this lens and you'll see how much sense it makes. One takes place at a school. Even the bizarre 3D style that resembles recent video games makes more sense. If we take Togusa's earlier conversation with Aramaki as a discussion of SAC_2045 itself, later on there's even a sort of acknowledgement that Ghost in the Shell is a difficult work for someone of a young age.

So with that context in mind, does it work?

Standalone Complex

If I remember correctly, years ago, when I was perhaps 15 or 16, I was watching a tiny CRT television some time after midnight, and I saw the thirteenth episode of the original Standalone Complex - NOT EQUAL. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. I was immediately taken by it. And, from what I remember, I immediately understood it.

It was as though it were made just for me.[7]

To me, Ghost in the Shell is like a textbook. I thought that as a creator who has reached a place where I am able to be involved in that kind of work, I'm in a position where I have to convey its contents to a younger audience. Well, I knew it would be a lot of work, but I figured it would be my way of giving back to Ghost in the Shell. I thought that I needed to accept the baton and offer Ghost in the Shell to a young audience, to the same degree that Ghost in the Shell raised me to be who I am.

- Tow Ubukata, in a 2015 interview, regarding ARISE

For many people, Ghost in the Shell is a profound influence. I felt that it lifted me to a new level of understanding.

SAC_2045

But what about SAC_2045?

I can't view Ghost in the Shell with new eyes. When I first saw it, I wasn't the kind of person that casually memes futuristic ethical dilemmas as a means of practicing politics.

Compared to the anime I watched back when I was 13, would I have watched SAC_2045? Yes. Is it more philosophically and politically sophisticated? Yes. Would I have found it memorable? I think so.

Would a 13-year these days watch it? That's difficult to assess. I bet someone who does data science for Netflix could tell us, if they wanted. I'm sure Kenji Kamiyama and Shinji Aramaki are considering the same thing.

2017

How does it stack up compared to the rest of the franchise?

For most enthusiasts it's going to be one of the weaker entries, though it certainly does a better job explaining itself than ARISE.

Compare it to 2017's live action movie, however, and I think we'll find it isn't the weakest. The reason is that the writers of Ghost in the Shell (2017) decided to tell a story about bodily consent in which becoming a cyborg is a form of trauma. On some level this may have been a reasonable decision, but they didn't commit to the concept sufficiently fully to execute it well enough to carry the movie - and simultaneously, they dumbed down parts of the regular Ghost in the Shell material for American audiences. As a result the movie flopped both financially and artistically - except for the visuals.

In fact, I wrote a sequence of posts (1, 2, 3, 4) on how to rewrite the live action movie as an actual Ghost in the Shell property. I feel no need to do so for SAC_2045 - and I can't even think of what changes would need to be made.

I look forward to the second season.

-☆☆☆-

[1] It's short, but that's a concept in this post. "Advanced by Left-Wing theorists, Ninth Generation warfare sees all acts as existing on a spectrum of political violence. Most acts of ninth generation warfare consist of extreme pranks."

[2] If we accept the idea of "Fifth-Generation Warfare" as motivated by a desire to prevent the enemy from using their conventional military assets, then a corresponding theory of international politics would involve preventing enemy factions within foreign governments from taking control of those governments' institutions - effectively treating all countries as in continuous level of conflict analogous to a soft civil war.

[3] There is a kind of technique to this, but in my case I substituted ADHD for raw IQ and conscientiousness, which is part of why my posts are so much shorter than, for instance, Moldbug's. In any case, technically, Scott's blog posts on the matter amount to roughly a mere 11,600 words, and the book of the black forest amounts to approximately 26,000 words (which I'm told is entertaining reading), but I'm sure if we go looking we can find an additional 15,000 words worth of worldbuilding from a man known for writing 16,000 word blog posts.

[4] Would it be more of a legal liability to sell regular water with GGBW branding, or actual GGBW that could prove to be a potential health hazard?

[5/☆] There's some future strand lurking beneath the surface here that I can't quite put into words; a culturally divergent moe meltdown where an appearance this ridiculous becomes normalized among some sub-population. To quote the Funko Pop Hatred post,

There are questions about the anatomy of anime people and their internal organs, and particularly about what sort of impact-dampening alien meta-material their softer bits are made out of, but at least homo sapiens gokuensis looks like it’s a branch off a similar starting hominid! Whatever transhuman engineering company was responsible for manufacturing the creatures in the typical harem anime has some weird ideas about human beings, but we’re clearly in their ancient lineage somewhere.

Under Late Safetyism, everyone is a declawed catgirl.

Anyhow, I don't want to alarm you, but I can't guarantee that this won't be the future somewhere. Both Purin and Belle Delphine resemble Xiaoice, "The AI Girlfriend Seducing China's Lonely Men." (2020)

[6] Motoko's ridiculous outfits are a major flex on the non-cyborgs, who aren't indifferent to ambient temperature and whose natural bodies may have unflattering features. Similarly wild fashions can exist in places like Second Life, a 3D digital platform with mostly user-uploaded content. Presumably they're also a flex on every Japanese salaryman who still has to dress like a normal guy.

[7] "It's as though it were made just for me" is also how I feel about the original game Mirror's Edge. Its follow-up, Catalyst, is also a personal favorite of mine.

[recentanimenews]

ESSAY: Berserk's Journey of Acceptance Over 30 Years of Fandom

  My descent into anime fandom began in the '90s, and just as watching Neon Genesis Evangelion caused my first revelation that cartoons could be art, reading Berserk gave me the same realization about comics. The news of Kentaro Miura’s death, who passed on May 6, has been emotionally complicated for me, as it's the first time a celebrity's death has hit truly close to home. In addition to being the lynchpin for several important personal revelations, Berserk is one of the longest-lasting works I’ve followed and that I must suddenly bid farewell to after existing alongside it for two-thirds of my life.

  Berserk is a monolith not only for anime and manga, but also fantasy literature, video games, you name it. It might be one of the single most influential works of the ‘80s — on a level similar to Blade Runner — to a degree where it’s difficult to imagine what the world might look like without it, and the generations of creators the series inspired.

  Although not the first, Guts is the prototypical large sword anime boy: Final Fantasy VII's Cloud Strife, Siegfried/Nightmare from Soulcalibur, and Black Clover's Asta are all links in the same chain, with other series like Dark Souls and Claymore taking clear inspiration from Berserk. But even deeper than that, the three-character dynamic between Guts, Griffith, and Casca, the monster designs, the grotesque violence, Miura’s image of hell — all of them can be spotted in countless pieces of media across the globe.

  Despite this, it just doesn’t seem like people talk about it very much. For over 20 years, Berserk has stood among the critical pantheon for both anime and manga, but it doesn’t spur conversations in the same way as Neon Genesis Evangelion, Akira, or Dragon Ball Z still do today. Its graphic depictions certainly represent a barrier to entry much higher than even the aforementioned company. 

    Seeing the internet exude sympathy and fond reminiscing about Berserk was immensely validating and has been my single most therapeutic experience online. Moreso, it reminded me that the fans have always been there. And even looking into it, Berserk is the single best-selling property in the 35-year history of Dark Horse. My feeling is that Berserk just has something about it that reaches deep into you and gets stuck there.

  I recall introducing one of my housemates to Berserk a few years ago — a person with all the intelligence and personal drive to both work on cancer research at Stanford while pursuing his own MD and maintaining a level of physical fitness that was frankly unreasonable for the hours that he kept. He was NOT in any way analytical about the media he consumed, but watching him sitting on the floor turning all his considerable willpower and intellect toward delivering an off-the-cuff treatise on how Berserk had so deeply touched him was a sight in itself to behold. His thoughts on the series' portrayal of sex as fundamentally violent leading up to Guts and Casca’s first moment of intimacy in the Golden Age movies was one of the most beautiful sentiments I’d ever heard in reaction to a piece of fiction.

  I don’t think I’d ever heard him provide anything but a surface-level take on a piece of media before or since. He was a pretty forthright guy, but the way he just cut into himself and let his feelings pour out onto the floor left me awestruck. The process of reading Berserk can strike emotional chords within you that are tough to untangle. I’ve been writing analysis and experiential pieces related to anime and manga for almost ten years — and interacting with Berserk’s world for almost 30 years — and writing may just be yet another attempt for me to pull my own twisted-up feelings about it apart. 

  Berserk is one of the most deeply personal works I’ve ever read, both for myself and in my perception of Miura's works. The series' transformation in the past 30 years artistically and thematically is so singular it's difficult to find another work that comes close. The author of Hajime no Ippo, who was among the first to see Berserk as Miura presented him with some early drafts working as his assistant, claimed that the design for Guts and Puck had come from a mess of ideas Miura had been working on since his early school days.

  写真は三浦建太郎君が寄稿してくれた鷹村です。 今かなり感傷的になっています。 思い出話をさせて下さい。 僕が初めての週刊連載でスタッフが一人もいなくて困っていたら手伝いにきてくれました。 彼が18で僕が19です。 某大学の芸術学部の学生で講義明けにスケッチブックを片手に来てくれました。 pic.twitter.com/hT1JCWBTKu

— 森川ジョージ (@WANPOWANWAN) May 20, 2021

  Miura claimed two of his big influences were Go Nagai’s Violence Jack and Tetsuo Hara and Buronson’s Fist of the North Star. Miura wears these influences on his sleeve, discovering the early concepts that had percolated in his mind just felt right. The beginning of Berserk, despite its amazing visual power, feels like it sprang from a very juvenile concept: Guts is a hypermasculine lone traveler breaking his body against nightmarish creatures in his single-minded pursuit of revenge, rigidly independent and distrustful of others due to his dark past.

  Uncompromising, rugged, independent, a really big sword ... Guts is a romantic ideal of masculinity on a quest to personally serve justice against the one who wronged him. Almost nefarious in the manner in which his character checked these boxes, especially when it came to his grim stoicism, unblinkingly facing his struggle against literal cosmic forces. Never doubting himself, never trusting others, never weeping for what he had lost.

    Miura said he sketched out most of the backstory when the manga began publication, so I have to assume the larger strokes of the Golden Arc were pretty well figured out from the outset, but I’m less sure if he had fully realized where he wanted to take the story to where we are now. After the introductory mini-arcs of demon-slaying, Berserk encounters Griffith and the story draws us back to a massive flashback arc. We see the same Guts living as a lone mercenary who Griffith persuades to join the Band of the Hawk to help realize his ambitions of rising above the circumstances of his birth to join the nobility.

  We discover the horrific abuses of Guts’ adoptive father and eventually learn that Guts, Griffith, and Casca are all victims of sexual violence. The story develops into a sprawling semi-historical epic featuring politics and war, but the real narrative is in the growing companionship between Guts and the members of the band. Directionless and traumatized by his childhood, Guts slowly finds a purpose helping Griffith realize his dream and the courage to allow others to grow close to him. 

  Miura mentioned that many Band of the Hawk members were based on his early friend groups. Although he was always sparse with details about his personal life, he has spoken about how many of them referred to themselves as aspiring manga authors and how he felt an intense sense of competition, admitting that among them he may have been the only one seriously working toward that goal, desperately keeping ahead in his perceived race against them. It’s intriguing thinking about how much of this angst may have made it to the pages, as it's almost impossible not to imagine Miura put quite a bit of himself in Guts. 

  Perhaps this is why it feels so real and makes The Eclipse — the quintessential anime betrayal at the hands of Griffith — all the more heartbreaking. The raw violence and macabre imagery certainly helped. While Miura owed Hellraiser’s Cenobites much in the designs of the God Hand, his macabre portrayal of the Band of the Hawk’s eradication within the literal bowels of hell, the massive hand, the black sun, the Skull Knight, and even Miura’s page compositions have been endlessly referenced, copied, and outright plagiarized since.

    The events were tragic in any context and I have heard many deeply personal experiences others drew from The Eclipse sympathizing with Guts, Casca, or even Griffith’s spiral driven by his perceived rejection by Guts. Mine were most closely aligned with the tragedy of Guts having overcome such painful circumstances to not only reject his own self enforced solitude, but to fearlessly express his affection for his loved ones. 

  The Golden Age was a methodical destruction of Guts’ self-destructive methods of preservation ruined in a single selfish act by his most trusted friend, leaving him once again alone and afraid of growing close to those around him. It ripped the romance of Guts’ mission and eventually took the story down a course I never expected. Berserk wasn’t a story of revenge but one of recovery.

  Guess that’s enough beating around the bush, as I should talk about how this shift affected me personally. When I was young, when I began reading Berserk I found Guts’ unflagging stoicism to be really cool, not just aesthetically but in how I understood guys were supposed to be. I was slow to make friends during school and my rapidly gentrifying neighborhood had my friends' parents moving away faster than I could find new ones. At some point I think I became too afraid of putting myself out there anymore, risking rejection when even acceptance was so fleeting. It began to feel easier just to resign myself to solitude and pretend my circumstances were beyond my own power to correct.

  Unfortunately, I became the stereotypical kid who ate alone during lunch break. Under the invisible expectations demanding I not display weakness, my loneliness was compounded by shame for feeling loneliness. My only recourse was to reveal none of those feelings and pretend the whole thing didn't bother me at all. Needless to say my attempts to cope probably fooled no one and only made things even worse, but I really didn’t know of any better way to handle my situation. I felt bad, I felt even worse about feeling bad and had been provided with zero tools to cope, much less even admit that I had a problem at all.

  The arcs following the Golden Age completely changed my perspective. Guts had tragically, yet understandably, cut himself off from others to save himself from experiencing that trauma again and, in effect, denied himself any opportunity to allow himself to be happy again. As he began to meet other characters that attached themselves to him, between Rickert and Erica spending months waiting worried for his return, and even the slimmest hope to rescuing Casca began to seed itself into the story, I could only see Guts as a fool pursuing a grim and hopeless task rather than appreciating everything that he had managed to hold onto. 

  The same attributes that made Guts so compelling in the opening chapters were revealed as his true enemy. Griffith had committed an unforgivable act but Guts’ journey for revenge was one of self-inflicted pain and fear. The romanticism was gone.

  Farnese’s inclusion in the Conviction arc was a revelation. Among the many brilliant aspects of her character, I identified with her simply for how she acted as a stand-in for myself as the reader: Plagued by self-doubt and fear, desperate to maintain her own stoic and uncompromising image, and resentful of her place in the world. She sees Guts’ fearlessness in the face of cosmic horror and believes she might be able to learn his confidence.

    But in following Guts, Farnese instead finds a teacher in Casca. In taking care of her, Farnese develops a connection and is able to experience genuine sympathy that develops into a sense of responsibility. Caring for Casca allows Farnese to develop the courage she was lacking not out of reckless self-abandon but compassion.

  I can’t exactly credit Berserk with turning my life around, but I feel that it genuinely helped crystallize within me a sense of growing doubts about my maladjusted high school days. My growing awareness of Guts' undeniable role in his own suffering forced me to admit my own role in mine and created a determination to take action to fix it rather than pretending enough stoicism might actually result in some sort of solution.

  I visited the Berserk subreddit from time to time and always enjoyed the group's penchant for referring to all the members of the board as “fellow strugglers,” owing both to Skull Knight’s label for Guts and their own tongue-in-cheek humor at waiting through extended hiatuses. Only in retrospect did it feel truly fitting to me. Trying to avoid the pitfalls of Guts’ path is a constant struggle. Today I’m blessed with many good friends but still feel primal pangs of fear holding me back nearly every time I meet someone, the idea of telling others how much they mean to me or even sharing my thoughts and feelings about something I care about deeply as if each action will expose me to attack.

  It’s taken time to pull myself away from the behaviors that were so deeply ingrained and it’s a journey where I’m not sure the work will ever be truly done, but witnessing Guts’ own slow progress has been a constant source of reassurance. My sense of admiration for Miura’s epic tale of a man allowing himself to let go after suffering such devastating circumstances brought my own humble problems and their way out into focus.

    Over the years I, and many others, have been forced to come to terms with the fact that Berserk would likely never finish. The pattern of long, unexplained hiatuses and the solemn recognition that any of them could be the last is a familiar one. The double-edged sword of manga largely being works created by a single individual is that there is rarely anyone in a position to pick up the torch when the creator calls it quits. Takehiko Inoue’s Vagabond, Ai Yazawa’s Nana, and likely Yoshihiro Togashi’s Hunter X Hunter all frozen in indefinite hiatus, the publishers respectfully holding the door open should the creators ever decide to return, leaving it in a liminal space with no sense of conclusion for the fans except what we can make for ourselves.

  The reason for Miura’s hiatuses was unclear. Fans liked to joke that he would take long breaks to play The Idolmaster, but Miura was also infamous for taking “breaks” spent minutely illustrating panels to his exacting artistic standard, creating a tumultuous release schedule during the wars featuring thousands of tiny soldiers all dressed in period-appropriate armor. If his health was becoming an issue, it’s uncommon that news would be shared with fans for most authors, much less one as private as Miura.

  Even without delays, the story Miura was building just seemed to be getting too big. The scale continued to grow, his narrative ambition swelling even faster after 20 years of publication, the depth and breadth of his universe constantly expanding. The fan-dubbed “Millennium Falcon Arc” was massive, changing the landscape of Berserk from a low fantasy plagued by roaming demons to a high fantasy where godlike beings of sanity-defying size battled for control of the world. How could Guts even meet Griffith again? What might Casca want to do when her sanity returned? What are the origins of the Skull Knight? And would he do battle with the God Hand? There was too much left to happen and Miura’s art only grew more and more elaborate. It would take decades to resolve all this.

  But it didn’t need to. I imagine we’ll never get a precise picture of the final years of Miura’s life leading up to his tragic passing. In the final chapters he released, it felt as if he had directed the story to some conclusion. The unfinished Fantasia arc finds Guts and his newfound band finding a way to finally restore Casca’s sanity and — although there is still unmistakably a boundary separating them — both seem resolute in finding a way to mend their shared wounds together.

  One of the final chapters features Guts drinking around the campfire with the two other men of his group, Serpico and Roderick, as he entrusts the recovery of Casca to Schierke and Farnese. It's a scene that, in the original Band of the Hawk, would have found Guts brooding as his fellows engage in bluster. The tone of this conversation, however, is completely different. The three commiserate over how much has changed and the strength each has found in the companionship of the others. After everything that has happened, Guts declares that he is grateful. 

  The suicidal dedication to his quest for vengeance and dispassionate pragmatism that defined Guts in the earliest chapters is gone. Although they first appeared to be a source of strength as the Black Swordsman, he has learned that they rose from the fear of losing his friends again, from letting others close enough to harm him, and from having no other purpose without others. Whether or not Guts and Griffith were to ever meet again, Guts has rediscovered the strength to no longer carry his burdens alone. 

  All that has happened is all there will ever be. We too must be grateful.

      Peter Fobian is an Associate Manager of Social Video at Crunchyroll, writer for Anime Academy and Anime in America, and an editor at Anime Feminist. You can follow him on Twitter @PeterFobian.

By: Peter Fobian

[myupostsheadcanons]

Books “Read” in 2020

Previous entries: 2019, 2018, 2017

I don’t rank these based on actual literary quality, but by how much i enjoyed reading/listening to them. Hopefully with Audible’s new “Premium Included” feature it would cut down on so many Average/Below Average books next year, it’ll give me more of a choice on what kind of books/podcasts i want to listen to rather than given a handful to pick from a month.

The “Top 10″

Forging Hephaestus / Bones of the Past: Villains' Code Series - Drew Hayes has became one of my fav authors over the past couple years, from his Vampire Accountant series, 5-min Sherlock, and his Spells, Swords, and Stealth books. FH is one of the few times he wrote Adult Fiction. This is the second time Drew created a world of super heroes (the YA Superpowereds), thus previous experience in dealing with the nuisances and meta of super meta dynamics. I love the main character, Tori, and especially love many of the side characters (like Ivan) and the comedy is the right tone of dark and not-in-your-face (not quite as well -written as something like The Venture Bros or The Tick, but being adult fiction you can get away with having characters named Johnny Three-Dicks and Captain Bullshit)

Dreadnought / Sovereign - the second super hero series I’ve placed on my top list this year, this one is Young Adult. This one is far more serious and deals heavily in issues like trans and women’s rights, mental abuse, and social acceptance. The main character is full of angst, but that should be a given for a 15 yo with lots of mental baggage and new social pressures. The main character is the main draw, most of the side characters are a bit more one-dimensional.

The Trouble with Peace: Age of Madness, Book 2. It isn’t a “First Law” book if you don’t want to strangle half of the main characters. Many are stepping outside of the shadow of the previous generation and finding themselves falling flat on their faces. If they aren’t at each other’s throats, they would soon have to deal with rebellion in the streets and the constant looming presence of Bayaz, who waits to sweep the board clear and rearrange the pieces the way he sees fit.

Michael J. Sullivan’s: The Riyria and Legend of the First Empire Books.

Riyria Revelations: Theft of Swords / Rise of Empire / Heir of Novron

Riyria Chronicles: The Crown Tower / The Rose and Thorn / The Death of Dulgath

Age of Death / Age of Empyre, Pile of Bones

After finishing the Legend of the First Empire books that came out earlier this year, I went ahead and read the prior series that takes place in the same world. I would suggest reading the entire series by Publish order, but they can be read Chronologically. I read the Legends books first, and it helped me see where Sullivan was heading and when he started to plan out the Legends books in more detail. (The early cameo of the Main characters from Legends in a mural in Heir of Novron, and knowing who is behind the events in Dulgath)

The Dresden Files: Peace Talks / Battle Grounds - They really should be read as one book, because that was how they were written. It is a Feast of Crows / Dances with Dragons situation, where the book got too long and got split up. The fans are pretty divided by the book(s) ending and how some of the main characters are handled, but these are Jim Butcher’s characters not theirs and he can drop bridges on whom ever he wants.

What Lies Beyond: Cycle of Galand, Book 6 - This is a “mythology” book (like Sullivan’s Age of Death was) where it introduces most of the Pantheon of their religion and corrects much of the mythology that had been lost over the decades. They seek a weapon to vanquish the Litch and save their world and the afterlife from oblivion, but not all of their Gods are happy about it.

Will Destroy the Galaxy for Cash - Yahtzee (Zero Punctuation!) has to be one of my favorite internet personalities for the past 10+ years, and I eat up every book he puts out and because he wrote the books, and is an actor himself, he could deliver the lines as they are intended to be. The sequel to Will Save the Galaxy for Food does not disappoint and even ups the stakes from the previous book.

The Girl Who Drank the Moon - This has to be one of the most charming books I’ve read. It is magic and wonder at it’s finest, no need for long explanations on how the world works. If you like Ghibli movies, you’ll be interested in this book. It has its dark moments but isn’t outside of what you’ll find in something like Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Nausicca.

The Goblin Emperor - the youngest son of the Elf King finds himself emperor after the death of his father and brothers in an assassination. The only problem is, that he is only half-elf... his late mother was a Goblin, and he had been in exile as an embarrassment to the family for most of his life. He knows nothing of how the courts work and what’s left of his own family work against him just for being who he is.

Lost Gods: Brom - I liked this book more than I did American Gods (which I read a few years ago). It is darker and bleaker by the bucket loads. One of the few books with a downer ending that I actually liked. I would compare this book to books like All the Pretty Horses and No Country for Old Men-- but it is a Fantasy!

Above Average.

Siege Tactics (Spells, Swords, & Stealth. Book 4)  - What happens to adventurers after they retire? A fun concept that is explored with our party of NPCs running across a town full of epic-level characters that no longer have a player.

The Arthurian Saga - The Crystal Cave / The Hollow Hills  / The Last Enchantment / The Wicked Day - A more realistic version of the Arthurian tales, taking the POV of Merlin, bastard son of a princess, as he earns notoriety as a scholar and wizard.  The Wicked Day takes the POV of Mordred, making him far more sympathetic than other iterations of his character.

Arc of a Scythe - Scythe / Thunderhead / The Toll - Science and Technology eliminates death and in order to prevent over population and complacency an order of grim reapers are chosen to randomly deal out quotas of permanent deaths. An example of what happens when every need and want is satisfied by a higher force and the apathy that causes rot in human society and the superiority complex of those in charge of life and death.

The Diviners / Lair of Dreams / Before the Devil Breaks You / The King of Crows - Horror during the Roaring 20′s. Tackles issues as Racism, Poverty, Government Secrecy, Christian-Evangelical Cults, Nationalism Cult Mentality, Communism, Labor Unions, Eugenics, Post-WW1 trauma... It could almost pass as an adult fiction book. I wouldn’t recommend giving it to someone under High school age.

Ancillary Justice / Ancillary Sword / Ancillary Mercy - Artificial Intelligence takes over human bodies as a form of capital punishment, controlling ships and space stations. The dominate human empire outgrew the need to label any gender, using “she” to refer to everyone rather than the vaguer “them/they” pronouns, and only outlying colonies stick to the binary ideals. Think of “The Left Hand of Darkness” but on a more broader scale and as the default majority/ruling empire. Toss in a solid military action novel on top and it isn’t nearly as boring as Left Hand.

Children of Time / Children of Ruin - War destroys the human population of Earth and those that remain are the ones that headed out to the stars on tera-forming missions. A virus created to advance life forms to prepare a world for human habitation runs amuck with out its overseers, creating intelligent arachnids, crustaceans, and squid.

The Licanius Trilogy - The Shadow of What Was Lost / An Echo of Things to Come / The Light of all that Falls -  It is very heavy on info overload, there is a lot to keep track of, so much so there is a summary of book one and two at the start of the third. I like the twist at the end of the first book and that the villain is actually trying to help save the world, and you spend most of the second stuck between who thinks they are doing the right thing and who is actually doing the right thing - a lot to talk about doing the lesser of two evils.

Mythos - Steven Fry - A humorous retelling of Greek mythology. I read Mythology - by Edith Hamilton prior to this book, which is a more scholarly take on the myths, and helps if you are unfamiliar with classical mythology prior to reading Fry’s take on it.

Iron, Fire and Ice: The Real History That Inspired Game of Thrones - a nice history book about Iron Age royalty. It is actually refreshing to read after going through so much faux fiction that is in Philippa Gregory’s books.

Will My Cat Eat My Eyeballs? - Children ask questions to a Mortician about death and what happens to bodies after people die. I listened to her autobiography last year/year before and it is worth picking up this one along with it.

Average, but still good.

Jack Campbell’s Lost Fleet Universe: Triumphant (Genesis Fleet, Book 3) / Tarnished Knight: Lost Stars, book 1 - The realistic space battles just drag me back in each and every time.

The Case of the Damaged Detective: 5-Minute Sherlock - Drew Hayes can’t write a boring book. It isn’t quite on point as his other series, but still fun to read. Hayes is really good at making YA books with Adult Protagonists. It is a road-trip book, the main character is a washed-out operative that is getting his second chance playing bodyguard and future assistant to the 5-minute Sherlock.

Locked In / Head On - Do you remember “Surrogates”? that Bruce Willis movie where people walk around in robotic avatars, well... it’s almost the same thing. A virus kills millions, save for a select few that experience “lock in” syndrome and are able to connect to robots via their brains and the internet.  The main character is gender neutral and you get a choice to listen to the book with a male or female reader.

Murder by Other Means: The Dispatcher Book 2 - more John Scalzi! The first book was in my top list a few years ago, and i enjoyed the sequel just as much. Between Scalzi’s The Dispatcher and Locked In series, i like the Dispatcher more.

The Shattered Sea Trilogy: Half a King / Half the World / Half a War - Joe Abercrombie’s attempt to make Young Adult books. It keeps all the grim dark, but lacks all the swearing and humor that made The First Law books more enjoyable. Many of Joe’s favorite character tropes are still present and is one of the better “Fall to Darkness” stories I’ve read. It also has different POV characters each book and is one of those “faux fantasy” settings.

Mage Errant: Books 1, 2 & A Traitor in Skyhold: Book 3 - If you are wanting to get away from Harry Potter, pick up this book series. It takes place in magic school, but it is its own world and setting and not just a hidden world within our own. The main group of kids are misfits among the school, unable to master their powers, that get taken up by the badass librarian to be trained in more unconventional ways.

Dawn of Wonder: The Wakening Book 1 - the main character has ptsd from growing up in an abusive household, and i thought it was handled rather well. He would be rather competent and cleaver most of the time until he gets triggered into an episode, he fights really hard to overcome this short-falling of his. Standard classic affair else wise, family leaves home because the local authority figure doesn’t want them around anymore, goes to big city, kid wants to do good and avenge the deaths he was accused of, joins the badass school of hard knocks...  big powerful evil thing trying to consume the world.

The Rage of Dragons - It shares a lot of tropes and story points with Red Rising... just in a fantasy setting, not in space. If you are wanting fantasy with POC main characters and a non-European-centric culture, that doesn’t pull any punches, give it a shot.

Earthsea - Tehanu and Tales from Earthsea - I had read the first three books several years back, and i did re-read them in order to refresh myself prior to reading the final two.

The Secret Garden - I absolutely loved the movie from the 90′s as a kid, and finally got around to listening to the book.

Six of Crows - A heist book in fantasy world with the magic users being heavily “Jewish / Slavic” coded by how they are treated and persecuted. I might have thought more favorably about the book if i hadn’t read other books with “street rat slum” main characters. (Seriously, after spending six books with Royce in Riyria someone like Kas is just second bananas)

Unconventional Heroes / Two Necromancers - Comedic Fantasy, the humor’s not on par with say MogWorld, and has more jokes than Fred The Vampire Accountant. It is still a parody of villains and heroes in fantasy worlds. I would find it safe for a 12/13yo to read, cursing and all, though they might not be aware of many of the tropes that are being deconstructed. The reader of the book did better in this one then he did with Six of Crows and Beezer, still the audio needed some editing because it repeats itself a few times.

Once More Upon A Time (Free Audio Book)  - I don’t always care to read romance stories. I like the idea behind it however, to trade their love for each other in order to save their partner’s life, then learn to re-love one another again.

Monster Hunter International - If you think Dresden is too liberal, this takes a hard turn to the right.. replace the magic with GUNS, lots and lots of GUNS. An organization that hates the government but hunts monsters for government bounties. The main cast is multi-ethnic and they do make fun of that at one point. There isn’t a lot of thought into the plot, because action is #1, but it is fun enough to ignore the politicking.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Collection - i bitched about there not being an omnibus last year, and then Audible uploaded one. The ending is still one big clusterfuck.

Stephen King’s Insomnia - this book is the bridge between Steven King’s two universes. It is a sequel to IT and brings up the Darktower often. IT dealt mainly with childhood fears, Insomnia deals with Elderly and feminine fears.

D’Arc / Culdesac: War with No Name - I liked D’Arc more than i did Mort-e, and Culdesac is more on track with Mort-e. The virus that mutated the ants and animals reminded me of the virus from Children of Time/Ruin, even though i read Mort-e first, reading D’Arc after CoT let me notice it.

Michael McDowell’s:  The Amulet / The Elementals / Gilded Needles / Blackwater - From the guy that wrote the screenplay of Beetlejuice, and the pioneer of the Southern Gothic Horror. Gilded Needles is a bit out of place, taking place in 1890′s, and is more of a social horror rather than a super natural horror the other books are.

Gardens of the Moon: The Malazan Book of the Fallen, Book 1 - high fantasy dark fiction. if you really want some CHONKY door stoppers, there’s over 10 of them in this series. Could’ve done less with the manipulative bastard mage that speaks in 3rd person. I had read The Willful Child, an attempted comedy science fiction novel by the same author, and it showed that the author was unfamiliar with that kind of genera and should stick to grim fantasy.

The Knife’s Edge / Citadel of Fire: The Ronin Saga - This is one of those series that I’m always going “oh, that reminds me of [insert another better series]”  At times it reminded me of The Licanius Trilogy, Shades of Magic, Arc of Scythe, Riyria, Korra... It is just shy of being as good as them, and is rather firmly in that Sci-Fi Fantasy Ghetto and has a bit of “anime” feel to it with their magic users having ‘power levels’ and the power creep. 

In Calabria - My only problem with the book is the massive age-gap between the Main character and his love interest. Outside of that, the whole Unicorns in the modern world concept is done very well.

Pout Neuf (Audible Free Book)  - Journalism and romance during WW2. A quick read and the book really shows that research had been done about the setting and time period.

Nut Jobs: Cracking California's Strangest $10 Million Dollar Heist: An Audible Original - Not only does it talk about the heist, it actually touches on the subject of migrant farmers and slave labor, as well as the desertification of the California Valley.

The Science of Sci-Fi: From Warp Speed to Interstellar Travel (Free Audio Book) - a neat little informative podcast if you are looking for an introduction to some of the harder science fiction.

Mythology - by Edith Hamilton - Text book about Greek Mythology. Like “used in schools” text book. It is a good read if you don’t want to go through Ovid, Virgil, Homer, and all the other classical writers on your own.

The Space Race: An Audible Original - America didn’t win the Space Race. Russia did just about everything first. The only thing we did first was put people on the moon. It also goes into detail about how the inventor of the Nazi’s V2 rockets became employed with the US Space program. As well as the government’s announcement to let space travel become privatized.

Pale Blue Dot / Cosmos: A Personal Voyage - It’s Carl Sagan. Come on! Everyone should be reading them. Pale Blue Dot was being turned into an Audiobook in the 90′s but with Sagan’s death, only the first few chapters were read by him and his partner reads the rest of it (she does a decent job, and i understand why they wanted her to read it, it should’ve been done similarly to Cosmos, with guest readers doing each chapter)

Thicker Than Water (Free Audio Book)  - start up pharmaceutical company scams people out of millions with promises of a miracle machine that was ahead of its time. Story told from the whistleblower himself as he recounts what his job was within the company and how he knew the owner/founder of the company and how coming out about what was going on ruined his relationship with his family and friends.

Don't Panic: Douglas Adams and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - biography on Douglas Adams and the history behind the creative process behind the Hitchhiker’s Guide series.

The Genius of Birds - It reminded me a lot of “The Soul of an Octopus” in quality. It is rather informative about birds, how they behave, and how we judge intelligence in non-human animals.

It’s “ok.”

Les Miserabes - I can see why people favor movies and theater versions because of how dense the book is, getting the cliff notes version of the book instead of reading several chapters about the Battle of Waterloo. 

Viva Durant and the Secret of the Silver Buttons (Audible Free Book) - It’s cute, and I spent the next several weeks humming that freaking song.

Challenger Deep - A book about mental illness by the same person that brought us The Arc of a Scythe series. It isn’t a bad read, but if you are prone to get panic attacks and have mental illness yourself, you might get too into it and make you uneasy. It can help with neurotypical people with understanding how some illnesses work.

Into the Wilds (Warriors, Book 1)  - Ah, the cat book. It is prob because there are soooo many books in this series that it over-saturates the kids impressionable minds.

House of Teeth (Audible Free Book)  - I read this book prior to Monster Hunter International, and thinking back on this one, i am reminded about the other. Save for this one is PG. So... the kid friendly version.

The Martian Chronicles - Space Horror, on Mars. If you like old science fiction, like Classic Trek, Wells, or Forbidden Planet stuff. There is a lot of zerust.

Andrea Vernon and the Corporation for UltraHuman Protection - The third superhero series I’ve read this past year. It is not as ground breaking nor subversive as Villain’s Code or Dreadnought. The humor is a bit too forced and parts of it falls into “we can be more offensive because it is an adult book” category.

Interview with the Robot - Don’t really care for books or programs that are set up in the “interview” format where it is two people talking to one another. (I have no fucking idea how this book got top Kids book of the year on Audible, it is more of a YA book... it must been because it was Free and lots of people picked it because the rest of the choices that month were complete garbage)

Micromegas - perhaps one of the oldest examples of Speculative Science Fiction. Written by Voltaire, it is about a giant from another solar system that is so big that humans and life on Earth are microscopic. “what value are the lives of ants to a man?”

The Three Musketeers - i had forgotten how much espionage there was in this book. I would say this is a good companion book to Don Quixote, as it takes its fair share of inspiration from and even name-drops the character a couple times. 

Charles Dickens: Oliver Twist / David Copperfield / A Tale of Two Cities - DC is the standout IMO among the three, it is Dickens’ Magnum Opus. Les Mis did a far better job with the Revolution than Tale did as well. I felt rather obligated to reading these books because of the subplot in the Age of Madness books being about Poverty during the Industrial Revolution and Workers Revolts against the Ruling Class.

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea - the version i listened too made most of the Americans sound like GWB... which is funny because one of them is Canadian, and the Comic Relief character about how boorish Americans are.

Stuck (Free Audio Book) -  it is a neat idea, getting jarred free of time but everybody else isn’t and doesn’t remember. It gets a little heavy for a kids book near the end, edging into YA territory as the character gets older mentally and the people around him age physically.

Phreaks (Free Audio Book) - i knew a lot about Captain Crunch and other phone hackers of the 60′s. There is a subplot of the big radioactive corporation covering up causing cancer to their workers, and the father (voiced by Christian Slater) being in the closet but still homophobic about it.

Silverswift (Free Audio Book) - If you like fairy tales set in modern times, it is worth a look. It is similar to In Calabira in that way. The mom being the nonbeliever and thinking grandma is off her rocker, but the granddaughter knows it in her bones that grandma is telling the truth.

Sleeping Giants - alien mechs from the distant past, once mistaken as the titans and gods form mythology, now being studied and experimented on by the government. This is another “interview style” story telling.

Celtic Mythology: Tales of Gods, Goddesses, and Heroes - there is a lot of names and stories, it is worth prob getting a physical copy of the book to keep things straight and to use as a reference.

How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps - A love letter to The Legend of Zelda’s Ocarina of Time and other RPG games.

Casino Royal: James Bond - the movie was rather faithful, including the part of being tied to a chair. I do wish they kept more of the book’s ending where Bond was ready to retire prior to his secret-spy love interest gets killed.

Aliens: Bug Hunt - a compilation of Alien stores about people landing on various planets and encountering aliens, not always the Xenomorphs we know, but the term “Bug” came synonymous to any dangerous alien lifeforms encountered.

Macbeth: A Novel - retelling the story of Macbeth but in a novel form. If you can’t get past the language of the original play, this would help. It sets it more firmly in historical fiction.

Hannibal: A Novel -  I went ahead and re watched the tv show after finishing the book. I’ve seen the movie a dozen times, and i understand why they changed the ending to the movie. The book is the main one that characterizes Hannibal and the show uses a lot of the plot. Hannibal Rising wasn’t really needed because Hannibal (in this book) does think/talk about what happened to his sister and home, and i can see why Harris didn’t want to write that book either. The audiobook is rather poor quality, they talked too fast in places and i don’t really care for their acting...

The Power of Six - I read I am Number 4 several years back and this one popped up on sale so i nabbed it. I like Neil Kaplan, and i think this one is better than the first one and actually gets into the meat of the story.

Cut and Run: A Light-Hearted Dark Comedy - body parts harvesting.... mmmm.

Calypso - non-Fiction, biography of the author. Talks about his family, his life with his partner, and what he does. Much of it is charming and it is read by the author. this was prior to him loosing his marbles about retail workers and becoming a karen.

Our Harlem: Seven Days of Cooking, Music and Soul at the Red Rooster - the history of Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance. I didn’t mind this podcast so much because i was reading The Diviners during the same time.

Malcolm and Me - another biographical book. one of the free books i got during Feb’ Black History Month.

History of Bourbon (Free Audio Book) - Informative about the liqueur industry in America.

Junkyard Cats: Shining Smith Book 1 - post apocalyptic action science fiction novel. the moment that guy showed up i was “that’s your bf.” and it was so... the plot wasn’t hard to figure out, it’s all about the action and setting.

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress - One of the better Heinlein books. The man can’t write romance and he is rather big on casual polygamy and open marriages. An anarchist-revolution book written by someone that is more on the Libertarian side of the aisle. Mycroft (the computer) comes off as rather antiquated, an AI that runs on a closed server, communicating through the telephone lines and printed paper, makes me wonder what Heinlein would’ve done if he was told about the internet and Deep Fake tech. (the book takes place in like 2075, but written in 1966)

Caffeine: How Caffeine Created the Modern World - the production of coffee and it’s prevalence around the world.

The Life and Times of Prince Albert - Exactly what it says on the can. *rimshot*

The Real Sherlock: An Audible Original - a biography of Sir. Arthur Conan Doyle.

The Design of Everyday Things - using psychology to improve the design of systems, products, and the modern business model.  It gives proper terminology for several common design features and how to improve on existing structures.

Bottom of the Barrel.

The Pagan World: Ancient Religions before Christianity. I was hoping there would have been something in there about European Religions, there isn’t, and the book was mostly Greek and Roman life styles and how gods are worshiped. It let me know where the word “auger” came from and why it was used in the Licanius Trilogy.

Life Ever After - disjointed at best. a couple that aren’t good for each other spend the next several hundred years in a crappy relationship.

Beyond Strange Lands: An Audible Original - The audio was complete crap on half of the voices. Which is bad because this could’ve been better. It is a Pod Cast Show and the director couldn’t make sure everybody had decent recording equipment and the sound effects often drown out the actors.

Henrietta & Eleanor: A Retelling of Jekyll and Hyde: An Audible Original Drama - They were going for a modern telling, but the language used is archaic. They speak like Dickens characters even though they talk about cellphones and computers.

A Crazy Inheritance: The Ghostsitter book 1 - The concept is there, but it is too nerfed. It was made for the 8-12yo crowd in mind by people that don’t know how to write for children.

Tell Me Lies (Free Audio Book) - It really wants to be smart. Who’s playing who and who is the actual villain of this story? If you want a quick “who done it?” maybe look into it.

Evil Eye (Free on Audible Plus) - told through phone calls between a mother and daughter. The whole genera of evil boyfriends/husbands isn’t really my cup of tea, and the boyfriend’s actor was too fake and the set up to the meat of the story was annoying.

The Half-life of Marie Curie - I didn’t mind learning stuff about Marie Curie... falls squarely in “made for TV lifetime movie” quality though. You should not carry around a vile of uranium where ever you go.

Alone with the Stars - A girl in Florida hears the call for help from Amelia Earhart, but nobody listens to her. Part fiction, part biographical. It would’ve been better as a biography and talking about various conspiracy theories about what happened to her and finding the pieces of the airplane.

Beezer - The son of the Devil learning to become a good person with a found family... however, most of the characters are annoying.

The Year of Magical Thinking (Free Audio Book) - very heavy on the subjects about loss and death.

Complete Garbage.

The Getaway (Free Audio Book) - A man being a POS by stalking and abducting women. It broadcasts just about everything that is going to happen.

Agent 355 (Free Audio Book)  - Do you like “American Mythology?” Like the whole “the founders are the greatest people in the world” kind of vibe? I don’t. I also hate the main character for being one of those “i’m smart, because i read books that women aren’t supposed to” girls when she doesn’t really think for herself at all.

[absolute-immunities]

Are vulgarity and snobbishness two aspects of the same thing? I read this somewhere but they didn’t make it clear what that something is! This somehow relates to saying that a potential danger for commercial art is to end up as a prostitute, and conversely for non-commercial art to end up as an old maid. Maybe the key takeaway was that commercial art has higher communicability so it’s more effective/important.

I think you can see them that way.

Construct a line between points A and B. That line is taste. Point A is the lowest possible taste. Point B is the highest. Then bisect the line at point C. That’s the center of your taste. Construct a circle around point C, which intersects the segment AC at point A’ and the segment CB at point B’. That circle describes the scope of your taste. Those intersections describe its limits. 

Anything in the segment A’B’ is in acceptable taste. Anything in the segment AA’ is unacceptably low taste. It’s vulgar. Anything in the segment B’B is unacceptably high taste. It’s snobbish. There you go: vulgarity and snobbishness are two aspects of the same thing, the AA’ and B’B of AB.

That’s how it used to work, at least. It doesn’t work that way anymore. 

People don’t see AB anymore. They don’t see taste. They can’t place any particular work on AB, say whether it’s high or low. So they can’t define their own taste in those terms, or define its limits. We can describe what’s acceptable, but we don’t define it in AB. We don’t talk about taste.

We define AB in individual terms now, because taste is plural now. We know our ABs don’t match, because we don’t have a common standard. We have own own taste. Other people have different taste. We used to call that relativism, but even that seems strange now. AA’ and B’B aren’t vulgar or snobbish. They're just different. 

You could make a casual periodization of these changing standards of taste. Things were formal in the 1950s, informal in the 1960s. You could make it generational. But I think there’s something happening beneath that change, something bigger than the evenemental.

There’s something structural happening.

Take a standard AB, much like our AB. Each point on AB describes a bundle of practices, possessions, and ascribed characteristics. (Taste is a practice.) You have your own bundle. You do some things, own some things, are some things. That bundle defines where you place. That’s C. 

C is your place in the hierarchy AB. There are people above you, AA’, there are people below you, B’B, and there are your people, A’B’. The people above you are snobs. (They have power over you.) The people below you are slobs. (You have power over them.) Your people are the good people. (You don’t have power over one another, but you have to stick together.)

Taste is one aspect of that broader AB. It’s not that important in defining your place. You don’t move from C to C’ by learning ancient Greek or chamber music. You move by doubling your income. You move by getting hired by a higher-status firm. 

Classically, taste served two roles here: It legitimates the hierarchy AB by appealing to some standard. (AA’ are better than we are, B’B are worse.) It also signals likeness, which helps people sort themselves and one another. It can help you tell whether someone is B’B, A’B’, or AA’. And it helps them tell the same things about you.

Here’s where social change comes in to undermine taste as a means of social distinction. 

First, mass culture undermined the legitimation function. Once upon a time, taste was legible. You knew what burghers and paupers watched and read. Radio, television, and the privatization of public space made taste increasingly invisible. People don’t go out, so they don’t know. 

Second, mass education undermined the signaling function. Once upon a time, taste helped identify the educated and connected. You could tell the quality of someone’s background by their taste. Then education progressively undermined that link. Education became specialized, rather than general. Engineers don’t need Greek. They just need math.

Those transformations predate the 1960s, but the changes of the 1960s were downstream of a burst of changes in mass culture (commercial television) and mass education (the enormous expansion of higher education in Western Europe and the United States). 

The United Kingdom is the exception that proves the rule: Britain didn’t have commercial television as early as the United States, and didn’t expand higher education as early as the United States and Western Europe, so social change was delayed.

Here’s Tony Judt, Postwar (Penguin, 2005):

Rather than open these new universities to a mass constituency, British educational planners chose to integrate them into the older, elite system. British universities thus preserved their right to select or refuse students at the point of admission: only candidates who performed above a certain level in national high school-leaving exams could hope to gain entry to university and each university was free to offer places to whomsoever it wished—and to admit only as many students as it could handle. Students in the UK remained something of a privileged minority (no more than 6 percent of their age group in 1968) and the long-term implications were unquestionably socially regressive. But for the fortunate few, the system worked very smoothly—and insulated them from almost all the problems faced by their peers elsewhere in Europe.

For on the Continent, higher education moved in a very different direction. In the majority of Western European states there had never been any impediment to movement from secondary to higher education: if you took and passed the national school-leaving exams you were automatically entitled to attend university. Until the end of the 1950s this had posed no difficulties: the numbers involved were small and universities had no cause to fear being overwhelmed with students. In any case, academic study in most continental universities was by ancient convention more than a little detached and unstructured. Haughty and unapproachable professors offered formal lectures to halls full of anonymous students who felt little pressure to complete their degrees by a deadline, and for whom being a student was as much a social rite of passage as a means to an education.

Rather than construct new universities, most central planners in Europe simply decreed the expansion of existing ones. At the same time they imposed no additional impediments or system of pre-selection. On the contrary, and for the best of reasons, they frequently set about removing those that remained—in 1965 the Italian Ministry of Education abolished all university entrance examinations and fixed subject quotas. Higher education, once a privilege, would now be a right. The result was catastrophic. By 1968 the University of Bari, for example, which traditionally enrolled about 5,000 people, was trying to cope with a student body in excess of 30,000. The University of Naples in the same year had 50,000 students, the University of Rome 60,000. Those three universities alone were enrolling between them more than the total student population of Italy a mere eighteen years earlier; many of their students would never graduate.

By the end of the 1960s, one young person in seven in Italy was attending university (compared to one in twenty ten years before). In Belgium the figure was one in six. In West Germany, where there had been 108,000 students in 1950, and where the traditional universities were already beginning to suffer from overcrowding, there were nearly 400,000 by the end of the Sixties. In France, by 1967, there were as many university students as there had been lycéens in 1956. All over Europe there were vastly more students than ever before—and the quality of their academic experience was deteriorating fast. Everything was crowded—the libraries, the dormitories, the lecture halls, the refectories—and in distinctly poor condition (even, indeed especially, if it was new). Post-war government spending on education, which had everywhere risen very steeply, had concentrated upon the provision of primary and secondary schools, equipment and teachers. This was surely the right choice, and in any case one dictated by electoral politics. But it carried a price.

Judt is a snob, but these were some changes that made the 1960s: millions of young Americans and Western Europeans attending college and the significance of college education changed.

We remember the 1960s because they happened suddenly and dramatically. But if you take the long view, you can see those changes between the 1800s and the 1830s, or the 1830s and the 1860s, as print culture, public entertainment, and education undermined the legitimation and signaling functions of taste.

That’s why taste matters less now. Culture is even more individuated and private than it was in the 1960s. Education is even more specialized. Legitimation and signaling come from other sources now. And so there’s not much left that’s too vulgar or too snobbish. It’s just different.

But you can imagine a useful variation on that first model.

Imagine that AB actually defines etiquette or formality, rather than taste. You could use the same words: AA’ is vulgar, B’B is snobbish, and A’B’ is acceptable. That’s closer to Western life. And it defines our hierarchy AB better than taste.

[rigelmejo]

random notes about drawbacks/positives of mia:

My biggest incompatibility with the massive immersion approach (and in general a lot of good modern study methods) is I hate flashcards. It’s not that I dislike them as a concept - I am just super bad at concentrating on them. I am NOT good at doing the following: focusing on small bits of information, studying for short periods but Regularly, Reviewing Regularly, and sometimes I just genuinely can’t retain small concentrated reading sentences to the point it takes me 10 MINUTES a flashcard in order to understand/study it. As you can imagine, that last part is NOT efficient, and ends up making flashcards even slower for me as a study method then they’re ever meant to be. I can’t control when I’m unable to figure out/concentrate on small bits of information, so some months flashcards work as intended for me (I can review 10-20 in 10 minutes), but other months suddenly 10 flashcards takes me an hour. So I am not good at sticking to flashcards consistently - once the hard months hit, I don’t keep up with reviews, because they suddenly take way more time then they ‘should.’ However, when I can focus I try to make up the difference - and do 20-100 cards a day while I have the ability to do flashcards at a regular pace. On the upside, I’m proof you can do the SRS flashcard reviews, in a very chaotic way, and still get benefits. How I’ve done flashcards: cram 300-1000 in a couple weeks to a month, including whatever reviews I need. 2nd month - review if I can still focus, and do a few new cards (like 5-15 a day at most). By the time I can’t focus, most words are relatively-known and I only would need to review them once a week or every few weeks - if I COULD focus on reviews. However, I only actually review once a month or less at this point - and I’ll only review 20ish cards usually in that rare instance, unless I have a good day. I will not usually review the majority of those cards until my next burst of can-focus-on-flashcards usually in 2-3 more months. I have done all my flashcards THIS INCONSISTENTLY, and I’ve still retained a lot of what I studied. What I think helps: immersing in other content when you can’t do flashcards, so that you’re often still being exposed to words you studied (so they’re easier to not forget even though you stopped doing flashcards). So yeah... inconsistent flashcards, and some immersion exposure, and I was able to keep some of the gains SRS flashcards generally provide people. I can’t do flashcards consistently, and I usually have to do them in big-chunks then abandon them, but they do help me boost up how much I know when I DO use them.

More regarding my incompatibility with mia. The big thing is: I’m just not a flashcard person, not a consistent person. I have to vary what I’m doing regularly, or I burn out/struggle to focus. When I was in school, I would do the following to study: take notes/focus intently when being taught, then read the textbook/materials if I needed more help. Before tests, or to ‘review’ I would reread my notes from beginning to end of what I needed to remember. This would refresh my memory. If I still forgot/did not understand anything, I’d pinpoint that info in the book/ask my teacher/go online etc and try to just focus most of my ‘harder’ studying on those parts I was struggling with. Usually just taking notes/focusing, then reviewing everything in bulk right before I needed it (so maybe once every few weeks), was enough. When I couldn’t take notes, I would instead skim through book chapter summaries, and rewatch lecture videos if there was a digital copy - focusing most on the videos when info I forgot/sounded like key information was mentioned. Basically - notes, summaries, short cheat sheets, were all my friends. For tests like math and physics, I would read my notes AND make mini-sheets of all key formulas and how to do them/what I needed for them (usually I already had a sheet I just kept adding to over time/rereading). I could not use flashcards back then - I couldn’t focus, not consistently, not the way they’re meant to be used. It took me too long to even make them to warrant them being useful to me (I take SO long to make flashcards, its also a focus issues - also why when I do SRS flashcards I usually just grab some premade deck cause it keeps me MOVING and actually STUDYING instead of getting frozen in a task). 

This has always been my go-to study method. When I started chinese, this is how I learned 400 characters/basic words.  I bought a reference book with mnemonics, and would make myself read through it (as if it were notes I took). Occasionally I’d flip through old pages again, just to see if I still recognized old stuff, but mostly I just kept moving forward. So like - flip back every couple weeks to skim old pages, but read forward every day. I got through half the book before I burned out (because... reference books with their short entries of information? a lot like flashcards in structure, except thankfully I don’t regularly review afterwards like I would with flashcards).  It still took me 10-20 minutes for 10 entries in the book, but unlike flashcards it was a one-time task. When I got done, I had learned them pretty well - and I didn’t do anything to review them. They were just reviewed with immersion naturally, and eventually when I started studying common words these characters came up again (so if I forgot any, I relearned them easier then). This approach is roughly how I learned all words not in my premade-flashcard decks. I’ll read a chinese book - just start reading through it, looking up words I want to learn. I don’t review them, I don’t look them up again. Sometimes, maybe once a month, I’ll reread an old chapter to see what progress I’ve made - and then lookup unknown words then, as review since I didn’t remember them the first time. It sucks in a way... that SRS flashcard style study methods just.... do not work consistently for me. They are still beneficial, because in short month bursts I can quickly learn 500-1000 things with SRS (which is faster than some classes introduce words). But overall I have to rely on other study methods. Which for me feel inconsistent in progress since I can’t measure it as easy lol!  Even with no SRS, doing ‘bursts’ of this read-intensively note-like materials, then very occasionally skim old material again, does seem to work out okay for me. Back when I learned to read french, I did no flashcards. I looked up a common words list (and used my class vocabulary lists). I read through them once. Before tests (if for class), or every few weeks, I re-read/skimmed the word lists. By 3-4 months I learned the first 500 words. Then, since french has a lot of ‘similar’ sort of words, I just sort of dived into reading and then picked up words mostly that way - just checking a word list every month or so to review known words and make sure I didn’t have some big gap of missing vocabulary. 

So I guess: for me the biggest positive in mia is the suggestion to immerse often, frequently, and with a variety of materials. So that you practice different skills, learn a variety of things - and so you can move to something you like, if you get bored/unable to focus on one specific type of material. With mia you can read novels for a month, then get sick of reading and just watch shows/listen to podcasts when you walk, then if you’re burnt out from that you can just browse social media and check out fanfics/manhua/friends posts in the language for a few days or weeks before picking up longer materials again. The point is just to find ways to immerse, and do it. Simple advice. SUPER simple advice. But incredibly useful - every single time I add more immersion, I notice a boost in my comprehension. I notice actual improvement over time. I can’t pinpoint ‘why’ it happens, so unfortunately I’m not sure which complementary study methods or ways of immersing are helping me precisely with improvement in which skills. But I can tell that I am improving. I would 100% agree that immersing more is worth trying, at any language learning stage, as much as you want to. I immersed in the first months in both french and chinese, and I did much better than with japanese (where I did not immerse for 2 years and so my level stayed A1 beginner for like 2 years...). My French last time it was tested was around B1, which is fine since I just wanted to read and guess where my skills are closer to A2 and dragging it down? (Yes. Yes of course its speaking ability, of course). My chinese as far as I can pinpoint it is around HSK 4, as far as material I can easily read/listen to, as far as the practice tests I can take online. (Which, again, I’d self evaluate and say my comprehension is at HSK 4 or higher - I definitely can rely on good ability to guess meanings with hanzi and my comfort following grammar easily to boost comprehension a bit higher, but my speaking/writing is lower and I definitely only feel totally comfortable discussing topics that are manageable at HSK 3 - and my production grammar-wise is understandable but SO full of ‘this is the wrong way, use this instead’ which I’m working on...). So like... I got much farther in a year with each language I immersed in - even with the limited immersion I do actually do! So more immersion - better.  While I’m on the topic of immersion: if you like reading, read often and early. I am better off for telling myself “its not hard to read” and just diving in the deep end. Was it hard? ahahaha yes. ;w; But, I realize if I’d put off reading until say HSK 4 or HSK 5 knowledge in chinese, reading would be EVEN HARDER because I’d be so much worse at quickly reading through grammar/gathering context clues. Reading is a mix of actual reading skill, and vocab. I built up a lot of the actual reading skill by starting to try to read super early. So now my main struggle is generally just lack of vocabulary - and since I understand all surrounding grammar very well, its easier for me to roughly-guess at unknown words function and still follow the gist of what’s going on. Reading early also means, for words and hanzi I DO already know, I learned to recognize the many contexts/phrases they show up in and the various words they combine into earlier. So again, when I’m looking at a new text the hardest words are new vocab made of ALL unknown hanzi - if I know one hanzi in the word, it’s something I can often approximately guess the meaning of especially when I understand the entire rest of the sentence. If a new word is spelled with all known hanzi, I can look it up once or twice and generally remember it very fast - since its connected to what I already know. If I had waited to read until I’d learned more vocab, I would have less of a reading skill foundation to rely on right now. And based on what I’ve read of at least some people’s experiences on chinese-forums.com, many readers will go through a STEEP uncomfortable period when starting to read chinese. Something vocab does not totally mitigate. I think it just takes many hours, of the reading skills getting less and less hard, and then eventually things get more comfortable. There is also the issue of ‘comprehensible’ reading material - depending on your tolerance for ambiguity, chinese can be painfully incomprehensible for a long time. Generally people feel comfortable once they comprehend 98% of a material. But in chinese, even once you learn thousands of vocab, depending on your reading skills and abilities to ‘guess from context clues’, you will not be at 98% yet. Even if you can guess from context clues, that isn’t solid comprehension its still ambiguously understood material. So to get used to reading chinese as a learner, you have to start getting used to how it feels to read stuff only 80% comprehensible. Only 90% comprehensible. And if you get good and learn a lot of vocab and grammar and understand it better when you see it - 95%. Which is still not the range of ‘comfort’ yet. The quicker you learn to not be stressed by the ambiguity, the less painful reading becomes. And the more tolerable it is, the more you can read, and the quicker you can learn more, and the quicker you’ll REACH 95% to 98% comprehensibility. But if its so painful you refuse to keep reading, to keep using reading to push comprehensibility up... it is going to be a long way until you hit 98%... Graded readers are great, and give you stepping stones to transition this experience. Graded readers are MADE to be 98% comprehensible at different learning levels, so they will FEEL comfortable. And if they do feel uncomfortable (because you don’t have high enough comprehension), then they will at least drag your comprehension up - and still be more tolerable than the alternative of even LESS comprehensible native speaker chinese language materials. Basically though... find a way to force yourself through the harder ‘intolerable’ early parts. It happens whether you know 500 words or 2000. So you’ll have to do it eventually. I get demotivated if I’ve ‘studied a lot and still understand nothing’ so my foolish self dived off the deep end at 500 words, then at 1000, then at 1500, then at 2000. Cause I kept trying to read, being frustrated at its difficulty and stopping after a few weeks, then trying again once I’d learned more! But wow did that early trying pay off. Now that I DO know more words, if nothing else the comparison of how NICE it feels to read now in comparison to in the past, motivates me a ton. If I just started reading recently, and all I knew was it felt ‘this hard’ then I might want to give up. But like... when I started, and knew 500 words, my graded readers were PAINFUL. Genuinely intimidating. Once I pushed through one? They felt easy as pie, and graded readers at that vocab-level felt so easy they got boring. Now I find graded HSK 4 material and usually read through it super fast or don’t even bother. So I can 1. read more comfortably. And 2. because I’ve BUILT up a higher tolerance to ‘ambiguity discomfort’ I can allow myself to read harder materials if I do want to - because I can still TELL it feels easier than it used to. 

Finally, about MIA the study method as a concept. So... either because the site is long and people don’t like to finish reading, or maybe the writer is not good at summaries - but people often get confused about how to do it. Particular detail questions about how to do ‘this specific suggested activity’ make sense. But there’s a lot of people who ask “do I just turn on the language shows, and?? How do I learn?” Which, fair enough. So, as I understand it, here’s a summary: You want to learn a language. Find yourself a grammar guide - a free website, a book, whatever. Read the summary/guide, or skim it, whatever gives you a ‘preview’ of the language’s structure and what you’ll be getting used to over time. You will use this guide to reference later in the future, whenever grammar in stuff you see confuses you. You can use multiple guides later to reference. Right now, just zoom through a guide and get a general sense of the language you’re abut to learn. You can also wait to do this step until later, whenever you want. The sooner you do it, the sooner grammar will be less mysterious to you. Find yourself a pronunciation guide. Go through it, you don’t have to be a perfectionist about ANYTHING you do before or after this. Just go through, listen to it all, try to notice how its different from your own language. Notice if there’s any major differences like tones, sounds or patterns your own language doesn’t have. You don’t need to memorize, you’re just becoming aware that these aspects exists and are different. Again, this is to get you used to the language you’re about to dive into. This should probably be done early on. Look up some info about the writing system, if it is different from your own language’s. You will probably find some explanation introductory articles for beginners. If there’s any explanations about how it works, or why it’s like it is, read through it. This will help you understand the system better. You don’t need to memorize - although you may want to save a couple hundred common words, or a copy of all the letters, or a copy of a couple hundred common characters, or a copy of the radicals that combine to make characters. Read over this copied info a few times every once in a while, as you’ll see these things a TON once you start immersing.  You find yourself a premade deck of SRS flashcards (use Memrise app, Anki program/website, some alternative) of common words in that language - ideally in sentences, but single-words work if that’s all you can find. Ideally with audio - but again, whatever you can find. You may also find an SRS deck of characters (like Heisig Remember the Kanji)/writing system specific info, if you want, to go through that deck early on to help you more with recognizing the writing system as you encounter it.  Whatever decks you get, you will study those for 10-30 minutes a day. You can start doing this from day 1. (Or be like me and be inconsistent about it - just try to keep progressing forward and learning new material, even if you don’t always study. For me it was better always to move onto new stuff, instead of review, if I only had time to do one out of the two things.) Find yourself stuff to immerse with - shows, stories, audios, comics, social media, whatever. You will try to immerse every day, and try to immerse as much as you enjoy. Do this from day 1. When immersing: use either the language you are studying’s subtitles or else none at all. When watching/listening - look up words as desired, mainly though focus on context and trying to understand as much of the gist of what’s going on as you can. Over time you will pick things up. For reading - look up words as desired, and in the beginning you may look up a TON of words because you need to look up at least enough to follow the Bare Minimum Gist of What The Main Plot is. You NEED to understand at least basic context, with whatever your immersion material is, in order to learn new words from context. So: you might start with reading simple graded readers. You might use shows/books/audio of things you’ve already experienced in english, so the context is clearer to you. You might read summaries in english ahead of time. If you need more context in order to use immersion to learn any new things - then go ahead and give yourself more context. Immersion will feel difficult at first, the joy is watching you start to just ‘naturally’ pick up more. Audio immersion - for some of this, you do not need to attempt to ‘understand the gist of the plot’, you can just use it to attempt to pick out all the specific words in the language, the language’s rhythm, and get used to the language. If you’re only using an audio to learn the sounds of a language, you can probably use it as ‘background sound’ while doing other daily things, since it won’t require as constant focus as it would if you were trying to catch every single word you knew as you listened. There you go. You’re all set. Do this for a year and see where your progress is at. Quit doing this if you aren’t seeing some improvements, since if that’s the case a different study method may be better for you. Don’t do this method if you don’t like it - whatever gets you to study, is the right methods for you. No point doing something that doesn’t work for you. Eventually, as you make progress, you will decide on goals and notice mistakes/shortcomings in your skills. When that happens, add additional study materials/tasks as needed to focus specifically on those things as desired. For example - if you notice your pronunciation sucks, you may start using audio-focused flashcards, or go through a pronunciation guide again more carefully-thoroughly this time. Or - you realize your writing is bad, so you go through a grammar guide again and do the exercises, and get language partners and write to them regularly so that you get corrections. Eventually, you finish a common word flashcard deck - find a new deck, or make one, with new words you want to learn or need to based on your goals. The massive immersion approach is a basic plan of immerse-while-paying-attention+study new words/review words regularly, it doesn’t include every single thing you might do or want to do. 

Anyway, mm. tldr: massive immersion approach suggests doing immersion of all kinds, from day 1. I couldn’t agree more, every time I add more immersion when studying a language it helps so significantly and over time. however, mia also has half of it’s study method based on SRS flashcards - if you are not a flashcard person like me, my alternative study ‘method’ above works. It’s not perfect, its probably not as effective. But it works if you can’t focus on SRS flashcards reliably. Finally, I summarize mia a little. 

[ranger-report]

Thoughts On: Heretic

Earlier this year, just before the beginning of quarantine, I played a little game called AMID EVIL, something I would not have done were it not for the enchanting video skills of YouTuber Civvie 11. In his video, Civvie demonstrated the awesomeness of the retro shooter, both in graphics and gameplay, and since I was jonesing for something a little more dark fantasy than I was used to, I decided to give it a try. The game is a thrilling rush, and worthy of its own post here, but that game was a segue into me finally picking up and playing a game series that I had been intrigued by for nearly twenty some odd years: the Heretic and Hexen games.

AMID EVIL owes a lot to these games; in fact, it's not much of a leap to say that it owes everything to these games. It's even less of a leap to say that most first person shooters, whether dark fantasy or no, owe a lot to these games. Raven Software introduced a monster of a franchise when they dropped Heretic in December of 1994, working in collaboration with id Software as Raven was creating their games using the DOOM engine (or, as I think we're calling it now, “id tech 1”). John Romero helped in-house, giving advice on how to work with the engine, which was instrumental for Raven to push id tech 1 to its limits. They made changes to the engine which eventually became staples in other FPS games: an inventory system, translucent objects, pushable objects, the ability to look up and down, and the ability to fly. While the game itself was objectively a reskinned version of DOOM, it was stylish and engaging and reworked the most popular game engine at the time. In short, it won accolades in no small amount, and sealed itself in history as a high watermark for boomer shooters, hell, for PC gaming in general. So when we're looking backwards into the foggy past of our ancestors, is Heretic a game that we, in the Year of Our Lord Gaben 2020, should consider playing, either for the first time or as a throwback? Roll up your sleeves, party people, we've got a deep one to dive into today. Because we can't simply look at Heretic alone; oh, no. We're going to have to look at the whole franchise.

Heretic is not a complicated game per se, but it has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. We have the standard issue Run-Gun-Have-Some-Fun gameplay that Wolfenstein and DOOM brought to the table. There's three keys of different colors – yellow, green, and blue – there's a variety of weapons that almost line up point-for-point with DOOM's stack of damage inducers, and there's a horde of enemies that are around every corner waiting for you to come out magic blazing. But where DOOM has a mostly straightforward path from point A to point B, Heretic is a trickster which can and will give cause to tear one's hair out. Secret doors, invisible walls, fake walls, and hidden switches are everywhere, which means that nine times out of ten you'll either be consulting your map to figure out where the fake walls are, or you'll be pressing the space bar on every surface to see if it will open or activate something useful. Raven did a bit of a whammy on the game, setting up the simplistic stuff to lure you in, as though promising a hot night out with the kind of experience you think that you're used to, but then they strap you in for the kinky stuff that you always imagined you'd be into, but now that we're here you're not so sure. Make no mistake, I did consult a walkthrough at least once, maybe twice if I'm remembering right, during my playthrough. And the game is punishing the deeper you get: enemies lie in wait immediately behind doors, around corners, hidden out of sight or just above you since some of them can fly, and as your limited ammunition dwindles down into the red, you'll be forced into running risk-and-reward of melee weapons and inventory items to keep moving. Fortunately, each weapon has its own ammo stock, and some enemies are more susceptible to different weapon types. Adding to the bonus in the player's favor are inventory items that boost weapon damage, specifically the Tome of Power which magnifies the current weapon's attack power into a secondary fire that more often than not is absolutely brutal. But, unlike future entries in this series, the motto of the day is: Keep Moving, Keep Shooting, Don't Stop Moving, Don't Stop Shooting. It's Fun, Fast, and Furious in an entertaining way that only occasionally leaves you pondering why you even booted up the game this morning.

However you may feel about the gameplay itself, it can't be denied that the visual aesthetics and gamefeel are dripping with atmosphere. Everything from top to bottom feels like the best of cheesy 80's style fantasy art, from the front cover to final screen. Gloomy castles, underwater domes, craggy hellscapes. Weapons impress with over-the-top magical properties. The default staff acts like the DOOM pistol, lobbing nearly harmless yellow energy, while the Etheral Crossbow shoots multiple energy arrows at once, like a magic shotgun, easily the most versatile weapon in the game. Besides that one, my other favorite weapons are the Hellstaff (which blasts rapid-fire red energy, and causes acid rain to fall when Tomed up) and the Phoenix Rod (basically a magic rocket launcher that belches fire when overpowered). Depending on what you're facing, proper usage of these weapons (all finely drawn sprites, natch) can either chew through a mob with ease or leave you scrambling to get back. Stun lock Disciples with the Dragon Claw while obliterating Golems with the Crossbow; save the Phoenix Rod for big bads. And enemy creatures run the gamut from the simplistically annoying Gargoyles (red bat-winged creatures who also shoot fireballs) to the sturdy Golems (which come in a secondary variety which throw flaming skulls at you) to the Disciples of D'Sparil (faceless hooded monks who fly, chant, and shoot fireballs at you, on theme). Usually these damage sponges come at you in packs, rarely doing so in solo numbers because otherwise the game wouldn't be a DOOM clone. What really gets challenging is when boss creatures start popping up like regular enemies – in packs. Take the Iron Lich for example, a massive floating skull wearing a spiked helmet that throws walls of fire and tornadoes that do continual damage, they appear as a boss at the end of the final level of the first episode, then appear later on in groups. They take incredible amounts of damage and return fire constantly, which leads to a tense game of bobbing and weaving and staying as far away from them as possible. But the absolute worst is the Maulotaur. Basically, a minotaur that stands head and shoulders taller than the Iron Lich, carries a huge mace, and shoots waves of fire at you which can one-shot you if you're not paying attention. Staying away from them is key, but they can charge forward fast in order to close distance and take a few swings at you with the mace. These assholes also start as a final bosses, then appear as regular enemies surrounded by waves of other mobs. Maulotaurs are the dealbreakers of the game; they require ridiculous amounts of ammo to kill, and will force you through most of your inventory items if you're not already powered up. Thankfully, your inventory can hold quite a few helpful items, such as quartz flasks for health, the aforementioned Tomes of Power to boost weapon damage, invisibility spheres and wings of flight, and even motherfucking time bombs. But amongst all these, the most ridiculous and yet satisfying item is the Morph Ovum. Shaped like an egg, when used it gets thrown outward and whatever it hits is transformed into an easily killable chicken. Got a wave of monsters crowding too close and you need to thin the herd fast? Turn them into chickens, then turn them into fried chickens.

What gets me is that this game doesn't feel nearly as highly regarded as its indirect sequel, Hexen, and that's probably because for the most part this is a full-on DOOM clone. There were a lot of them back in the day, too many to count, and I think that if wasn't for the legacy of Raven and Hexen, this might have fallen through the cracks of history. Is it uninspired? No, not in the slightest. The quality of the spritework and animations are top notch, the production values are stellar, putting it just above the quality of the average obvious Doom clone. The amount of innovation, with the aforementioned inventory system and modifications to the engine, mesh well with the ambitious world/story crafted in the background of a single warrior trudging across worlds to defeat an evil tyrant who has taken over his people's lands. The current version on Steam is actually the second version released; initially, the game launched in 1994 with three episodes, the first one being the shareware version, and then later on in 1996 had a second physical release which added on two new episodes. It was like an expansion pack folded into the main game, and considering that Hexen was released in 1995, it makes sense that the two new episodes of Heretic feel so much more brutal in difficulty by comparison. And thematically it makes sense for them to have a higher base difficulty, since it’s about escaping the dark world you had to break into, and now you're crawling your way back out of it. Kind of a neat trick, having the hero beat the bad guy halfway through the story, then showing his journey to get back home. Hell, even the name of the main character is awesome. A later game in the series will reveal that his name is Corvus, but originally the character was simply referred to as The Heretic, and in a gaming landscape featuring such characters as Doomguy, the Quake Ranger, and the Doomslayer, the Heretic ought to stand right up there with the rest of them.

So is the game worth playing today? Absolutely. Any fan of boomer shooters or retro gaming in general should absolutely play this game. Utilizing DOSBOX (which the Steam release uses) is fine, but doesn't allow for the best playing experience currently. A quick download of GZDOOM to launch the game will give better controls, easier mouse compatibility, and smoother graphics. There's a method to tie GZDOOM into your Steam page so you can even track how long you've been playing it (for those who this is important for). And it's super cheap, meaning there's little to no excuse to not play it. So why then is this game sitting in the background, kind of like the little engine that could? You know, I'm doing my best to get into the meat and potatoes of this game, to be more descriptive of it and really entice you, the reader, into wanting to play this game. The powerups are fun, there are segments where you absolutely get to go apeshit on monsters and laugh hysterically while you do so, there are moments where the “AHA” is so enlighting that the relief is palpable. Some of the bosses are so memorable that to find them around the corner later in the game as minibosses – in multiple! – is downright frightening and adds to the risk/reward, since they're usually guarding something good that you want to pick up. Long story short, if you like DOOM, you'll like Heretic, which feels like selling the experience short. But the real reason I think Heretic is overlooked is because it is overshadowed by the more complex, more engaging, and more brutal Hexen.

If it hasn't become obvious yet, this is going to be a multi-part Thoughts On post. You've read Heretic, which is a fine game that does what it does and is memorable and fun and fine. But next, we're going to dive into the second course of this delicious fantasy meal, Hexen, and talk about how the second game in this series is the one that got everyone to sit up and take notice of what Raven Software was doing.

[otterenergy1962]

Energetic Attraction versus Physical Attraction

I was asked why energetic attraction was more powerful than physical attraction, when it comes to love, dating, friendships, and romance. Finding the answers to this question has caused me to shift my paradigm about what attraction really is. For most of my life, attraction has always been based on the physical aspect of what I saw in another man. I always looked for the physical parts and had a rather narrow view of what I thought I liked. In general, he had to have facial hair, took care of his body and had a great smile.  Also, he could be any colour, culture or race. However, the underlying factors of sexual desire also played a role in my decision making.  There had to be some sort of agreement in the type of role play involved, which I won’t go into detail here.  Suffice it to say, I had a rather fixed notion of what I wanted in bed.

As a result of my work on body confidence, I have begun to look at a person’s energy first, which in turn makes me see him in a different light. What I found interesting in my coaching group calls was that I was suddenly noticing that many different guys were what everyone calls a higher energy. For the sake of this blog, I will use the term of level 5 energy, which is an anabolic energy. This type of energy releases endorphins into our system. This energy can help us be more constructive, healing and growth oriented. Its opposite is catabolic energy, which produces cortisol into our system and can cause a flight or fight situation. While it may be good for an adrenaline rush to get things done, it can’t be sustained and can lead to many negative situations with your mood, how you react to others and so forth.

So, what does a level five energy look like? Someone with this energy tends to be highly conscious of what is going on around them.  They try to find a win/win situation for most issues and always try to put a positive spin on what is happening.  There tends to be more thoughts to reconciling, accepting others for who they are and not trying to change them into something they are not.

In my learning, I have discovered that I have been spending a lot of time in level four energy, which is where many caregivers such as myself are. While being a caregiver is not a bad thing, it can cause problems for someone like me who would automatically go into caregiving mode and attract guys that were like birds with broken wings. They were guys that needed help and I would dive in whole heartedly to try and help fix them.  As a result, I would spend so much of my energy trying to accommodate him that I would forsake myself and my needs. In fact, as a result of my misaligned belief that I was there to help others caused me to forget the most important person of whom I should take care: myself. I always put myself last and ended up suffering needlessly in one-sided relationships that were dysfunctional and down right destructive to me. I attracted narcissists, addicts and self-absorbed individuals who cared for nothing but what would better their lives. What always was lacking in these relationships was someone who wanted me for who I am and didn’t want to change me. Most of my relationships were ones where I had to adapt and change myself to make it work. Sometimes, as was the case in my marriage, that I had to suspend my core beliefs in order to make the relationship work. If you are thinking, that this sounds very codependent, then you are right! I was!

So when I was asked, what is the difference between energetic attraction versus physical attraction in relation to dating, friendships and love, I had to reevaluate my core beliefs. All of a sudden, it was necessary to put myself first, take care of myself and be myself in order to be a better caregiver!  I had it backward most of my life!  I had been raised to believe that you put everyone else first before yourself.  I had this plan to be Mother Teresa and sacrifice everything important for me to help others! I couldn’t have been further from the truth!

I discovered and affirmed many things. I came to understand that “self love is not selfish love.” I learned that I have the right to respect myself and take care of my needs and this would, in fact, improve my ability to be a caregiver.

As a result, here is what I wrote when asked the question about energetic attraction versus physical attraction:

“When a person senses my positive energy or vice versa, the energy is symbiotic and the two of us are comfortable and enjoy the time we spend together.  If I focus on just physical attraction, then I miss out on positive interactions with all sorts of people.  I think that energy attraction is so much more tangible and I believe that it will help me in my dating, friendships, romance and ultimately falling in love. It will prevent me from linking up with narcissists and the abusive. I am finding all kinds of men whom I find attractive because of their energy and this opens up so many possibilities for me.”

What I find interesting since having written this entry is that my energy is so much more positive and that in itself attracts other people with the same kind of energy. I now notice this kind of energy at work, in my friendships and even with a few men that could potentially become more than just friends… People have told me on numerous occasions that there has been a fundamental shift in how I react to the world. A friend recently told me how proud he was of me for what I have been doing. He said that my whole presence is different. He said that I am positive, happy, outgoing and not at all shy!  I just about fell over because I have always considered myself a shy person!

So, is my journal now done?  The answer is clearly no. In my next few blogs, I will be exploring what I have done about my own self awareness and what the next steps will be for me.

Carpe diem!

[desktopdust]

Phantom Network: Antiviral Renewal

So, quick show of hands: who here has been blasted through a wall before? One, two…nobody?  Really?  Just me? Okay.  Well then, let me tell you, kiddos: it’s not fun.

I groaned loudly as I pulled myself out of the rubble, sounding off just to let the world know it hadn’t killed me quite yet.  My fog coat was caked with dust and grime, but the gunmetal alchemar beneath, though not exactly giving off the same shine it gets after a good polishing, remained intact and undamaged.  The debris shifted as I moved—a block fell on the end of my green silk scarf, pinning me for a moment until I pulled it loose—but eventually I got to my feet, shook the dust from my domino mask, and took stock of my surroundings.  The space could be deemed “cramped” horizontally, but vertically, it went on for ages; it was hard to tell exactly how far, the service lights blinking along the walls didn’t entirely stave off the darkness, but I had enough to deduce I had been thrown into an elevator shaft.  My point of entry was only three stories up, I realized, thankful it hadn’t been any higher.

Right, crazy situation, how’d I get here, et cetera.  A couple days ago, a fellow Phantom Thief who goes by “Witch Doctor” approached me for help in a heist she was planning: our local megacorp MiliGrand had recently unveiled a new miracle drug effective in curing over 200 different diseases, and managing the symptoms of at least a thousand more. Problem was, they held exclusive rights and were selling it for millions of dollars a pop.  Doc wanted to bust into their compound, steal the drug, and get it into the hands of people who need it but don’t have the money to buy a new yacht every quarter, and thought she should get some backup to make sure things went smoothly.  Sounded like a good cause, so I agreed.  It was only after that I found out who else she had recruited…

“Roche?  Still breathing, darling?”

My eyes rolled upward.  Leaning into the shaft was an athletic woman with medium brown skin and bright red, shoulder-length hair dangling around her smug face.  Her alchemar was silver and looked very lightweight, the armor itself being very sleek but accentuated by a knee-length half-skirt and off-the-shoulder shawl, both made of smooth pink fabric.  In answer, I let out a loud sigh.

“Excellent,” she said.  “Say, while you’re down there, be a dear and get us into the bottom level, would you? No point in going the long way and wasting even more time.”

“Wonderful suggestion, Kari,” I said.  “I’ll get right on that.”

Kari winked before ducking out into the hall.  Resigning myself to my task, I faced the wall and activated my alchemar, beginning the delicate process of manipulating the force of gravity acting on it.

See, I’ve worked with Kari a handful of times prior to this, and every single one has ended in me getting screwed over in one way or another.  When we sabotaged the test run of an elites-only bullet train, she used me as a distraction so she could rob the facility’s safe on the way out.  When we were contracted to recover a list of museum exhibits, she swapped my list with a fake, made me look like a fool just to be sure she was the only one building goodwill with the client.  Hell, she more or less left me to die the last time I saw her, yet here she was, spewing the same fake charm as ever like none of that had ever happened.  She hasn’t changed, and I doubt she ever will.

Still.  There were a lot of people who needed this drug.  I couldn’t quite bring myself to leave them to it just for the sake of my own comfort.

I curled my fingers as I finished bending the gravitational fields.  Taking a step back, I willed the centermost field I had created to head in the same direction; the wall shuddered, bulged slightly, and finally gave, a huge circular chunk of it floating out to reveal the hall on the other side.  Carefully setting down the hunk of wall, I deactivated my alchemar and looked back up to where I had entered the shaft.  Kari leaned against the side of the opening, polishing her gauntlet as she waited.  Next to her stood Witch Doctor, a woman of similar age and skin tone who looked a touch more frail, face obscured by a surgical mask and massive glasses with blacked-out lenses.

“You sure you’re ready to be on your feet, Doc?” I asked.  “You took some pretty bad hits in that scrap just now.”

She straightened the faded gray robe she wore, almost covering the scorch marks on the thin, pale blue alchemar beneath.  “I’ll be fine, Roche, thank you.  We can’t afford to waste any time.”

Doc shakily held one arm out.  Just as I was about to say something, Kairi tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Allow me.”

Without waiting for a response, she scooped up Witch Doctor and jumped down to the bottom of the shaft.  Doc panicked a little, and honestly, so did I; Kari seemed to be enjoying that fact. I said, “Yeesh, would you take it easy?”

Brushing right past me (and still carrying Doc), Kari said, “You heard her: we can’t afford to waste any time.  Besides, weren’t you concerned about her health?  This way she doesn’t have to strain herself.”

“Yeah,” I grumbled as I followed her into the hall, “and instead you give her a heart attack…”

“Oh, need you be so dramatic?  You’re fine, aren’t you, Doctor?”

Doc didn’t respond.  Craning my neck, I could see she was still staring up at Kari; hard to be sure of much else with her whole face covered, but if I had to guess she was having some difficulty processing what was going on.

Kari chuckled.  “Adorable.”

“Hey, give her some space to breathe.”

Throwing a smirk over her shoulder, Kari asked, “My, is that jealousy I hear?”

“Hah!  Maybe Doc can check your hearing once we get back.  It’s this way, right?”

Somehow I was fortunate enough to have relative quiet the rest of the way to the lab.  The first door didn’t look particularly fancy, just a sliding metal door with a scanner next to it.  Once Kari finally set Witch Doctor down and let her regain her bearing, the Doc reached into her robe and pulled out an eyeball.  I turned back to the door and--

...Wait.

No, yes, that was an eyeball she was holding.  My shock was apparent, it seems, because she said, “Don’t worry, it’s synthetic.  Pardon me.”

She held the very real-looking but apparently fake eyeball up to the scanner, and a few seconds later the door slid open.  Putting the eye away, Doc peered into the next room, and I did the same: it was a pretty spacious square of a chamber, though probably not as big as it looked since it was entirely empty.  On the far wall was a much bigger, more imposing, cooler-looking door than the one we were currently poking through, flanked by a series of panels that blinked and beeped sporadically.

“Alright,” Doc said.  “The bulk of the floor here is made of pressure plates, but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to obtain accurate data on the safe path through them.”

“Easy,” Kari said.  “I’ll just zip right across.”

She took a step forward, but Witch Doctor shook her head furiously.  “No, wait!  If the plates recede for even a fraction of a second, an alarm will trigger!”

“Mmm...how small a fraction?”

“You want to burn your entire charge right here?” I asked.  “This is what I’m here for.  I’ll change you and Doc’s personal gravity and you jump over the plates.”

“Oh? So our fate will be in your hands?”

That’s real damn rich coming from her.  “I’ll keep a close watch as you go and make alterations if needed.  Hurry up and get ready.”

With a sigh and a roll of her eyes, Kari stepped just into the room along with Doc. I switched on my alchemar, using its power to loosen gravity’s hold on the two of them just a bit.

“Go.”

Kari put a bit too much into her jump—I had to act quickly to increase her gravity slightly and prevent her from smacking into the ceiling. (Which I mean, is something I’d like to see, but...time and a place for everything.) Doc, on the other hand, didn’t give quite as much of a push as I expected, so I had to reduce the pull on her even further at the same time.  It wasn’t easy, but in the end I managed.  Both of them landed right in front of the other door, and Doc immediately pressed her ear against it, alchemar lighting up.

She may not be much of a fighter, but Witch Doctor has a precision control over her alchemar the likes of which I’ve never seen.  Metal is her preferred element, usually for creating scalpels out of thin air to be 100% sure they’re sterile, and she’s trained herself to manipulate all the moving parts of nearly any physical lock.  From what she’s told me, though, it uses up a lot of the armor’s energy, and she was already wounded—I guess she expected something like this could happen, which is why she brought the fake eye for the first door. This one must’ve needed a password or something else she couldn’t circumvent.  Whatever the case, it was open in no time flat.

I couldn’t see much of the lab from where I stood, but as soon as the door was open Kari slipped inside moving at inhuman speeds.  Mere moments later she was back, holding in her hands a small tube containing roughly a dozen white pills.  I winced, waiting to see if she had set off some other security measure with her impatience, but fortunately no such thing occurred.

“Anything else while we’re here?” Kari asked.

Doc took the tube in her hands, beaming through her mask.  “Finally...we can do so much good with this!”

Now doesn’t that just warm your heart.  Well, not for Kari, judging by the way she was looking back into the lab with an air of appraisal.

“Okay,” I said, “we got our mark, now let’s get the hell out of here. Ready?”

I got them back across the room and turned to leave.  About three steps past the door, a piercing alarm went off. This sort of thing is so frustrating, really: this constant blaring noise throws off your focus, and there’s usually some flashing red light that distracts you too.  Not to mention it means you’ve kinda failed and put your whole job (and potentially life) in jeopardy.

“What?  How?!” Doc asked, clutching the tube tightly to her chest.

“Those guards we battled earlier must’ve regained consciousness,” Kari said. “Best we get moving, hm?”

I’d like to think this is her fault somehow.  Regardless, moving was indeed the best idea at this juncture, so the three of us dashed back towards the elevator shaft only to be cut off by a wall of security guards who immediately opened fire.  Doc and I deflected their bullets while Kari threw both hands forward and exerted her own power.  Instantly, time froze for the guards, but I knew she wouldn’t be able to hold so many for long.  And we still didn’t know what might be waiting for us past this point…

“Split up,” Kari said through clenched teeth.  “I’ll draw them back towards the lab!”

That didn’t sit well with me.  But, Doc was already moving, and I certainly didn’t want to still be standing here when these trigger-happy twits rejoined us in normal time, so I ran off down a side hallway and hoped for the best.  Soon I could hear the gunshots resume.  Up ahead I could see a large vent in the ceiling, so I reversed gravity to land next to it and climb inside; a bit of crawling later and I emerged in the same elevator shaft as earlier.  I quickly hopped back up to the wall I had been blown right through and prepared to retrace my steps.  That’s when I saw something that brought me to a screeching halt.

The three alchemar-equipped guards we had been fighting earlier?  They were still out cold, strewn across the room at random.  No way they were the ones who sounded the alarm, as Kari had suggested.  Isn’t that suspicious.

“All units, co—"

A radio clipped to one of the downed guards was bursting with sound and static. Snatching it up, I adjusted the dial to get a clearer signal.

“Repeat: intruder has doubled back towards main elevator!  Requesting backup!”

I ground my teeth in anticipation.  Sure enough, it was only a matter of seconds before Kari came bounding out of the shaft, stopping short with wide eyes when she spotted me standing there.

“What’s up, Kari?” I asked.  “Looks like it wasn’t these pricks who set off the alarm.  Got any other ideas?”

Kari put on a smile as she casually walked off to the side.  “Roche...didn’t expect you to head this way.  Well, uh, who knows?  Maybe someone spotted them, or…”

She trailed off as she realized I was increasing gravity on her.  “Or.  Maybe someone with a time-bending alchemar moved so quickly she was able to tap a pressure plate before her associates had a chance to notice.”

The next instant, Kari was right in front of me pressing a gun into my forehead. “Fascinating theory.  Supposing it’s true, what would you do next?”

“Oh, I don’t know, ask her to explain her evil plan probably.”

“Hehe, ‘evil’?  That’s adorable.  You’re expecting something far more elaborate than what your associate is going for, darling.”  She tapped her skirt with her free hand.  “I just pocketed half the pills I found.  It’ll take the good doctor a bit to reverse-engineer them, and in the meantime, I’ll be able to turn a profit unloading my own inventory.”

I should’ve expected as much, really.  Gritting my teeth, I said, “I dunno, still sounds pretty evil to me.”

Kari rolled her eyes.  “Oh, lighten up, Roche.  Look at it this way: a few people are going to have access to the drug a little sooner than planned, and at a lower price than MiliGrand is asking.  Is it so wrong that I get a little bonus out of it?”

“You really don’t get it.”

Nearby yelling alerted us to the approaching guards.  Kari pulled back with a smirk, and the two of us dashed back towards the entrance we had used, narrowly avoiding bullets all the way. Kari stayed more than a few steps ahead—doubt she would have heard me even if I had said anything.  Eventually we made it to the meetup point, finding Doc already waiting there, exuding relief at the sight of us.

“I’m so glad you two are okay!” she said.  “That was a close call, wasn’t it?”

“Nothing to worry about, darling,” Kari said.  “Escaping a place like this easy for any proper Phantom Thief.”

“Yeah,” I said, “and you too, I guess.”

Twirling her gun in her hand, Kari said, “Goodness, Roche, no need to be so petty. Let’s go back to HQ and celebrate a job well done.”

I turned to Witch Doctor.  “She pocketed some pills.”

Pain.  Thankfully alchemars’ protective fields can be left on even when the main power isn’t active, keeping us alive when greedy assholes shoot us in the side of the head, but the bullet still hurts like hell.

“You just had to spoil the good mood, didn’t you?” Kari said.

Doc jumped and backed away.  “K...Kari! What are you doing?!”

“I gave him fair warning, and it’s not like he’s dead.  Look at what you’ve done, Roche: she’s distressed.”

It might not have been quite on par with getting blasted through a wall, but getting shot still proved enough to push me over my limit.  “Kari, why the hell did you even join the Phantom Network?! If you’re only in this for the money, then you don’t understand what sets us apart from the elite bastards we’re stealing from!”

Kari seemed unimpressed by my display.  “I’m sorry, have I hampered your noble cause in any way?  It’s not as though I’ve taken all the pills for my own, or swapped them out with fakes or any such thing.  I’m simply—"

“Securing more money for yourself, I know.  You weren’t satisfied with what Doc had already promised you, so you didn’t see anything wrong with helping yourself to whatever else you wanted.”

“No, I don’t.  As I just said, the numbers—"

“It’s not about the damn numbers!  That’s my entire point!  We may need to turn a profit to make ends meet, but the rest of us are doing this because we care about what the Phantom Network represents! We’re surviving this system to do our part to bring it down, but you’re trying to use it for your own benefit!”

She shot me again.  I didn’t really care.

“You don’t even know what ‘honor among thieves’ means.  You’re just a common criminal who doesn’t care about anyone but herself!”

Kari was taking aim for a third shot when Witch Doctor shouted, “Stop!  That’s enough!”

We both went still.

“...Please.  Let’s just head back.  All that really matters is that we’ve got the drug.  I don’t…”

She trailed off.  My frustration had waned a bit by now, so I was actually feeling just a little bit guilty. Kari holstered her gun and said, “Excellent idea.  Shall we, Roche?”

Tempting.  Quite tempting.  “Fine. I’ll keep my mouth shut.”

And I did.  Doc paid us and got right to work reverse-engineering the drug, and in less than a week she was taking it to contacts in medical facilities around the world.  I’m sure Kari had sold out her inventory well before then.  Much as she pisses me off, the fact is that what she does just isn’t any of my business, so I’m not gonna tattle on her to the Network Admin or anything. But there’s no way in hell I’m working with her again.  Even a wonder drug wouldn’t be enough to get her to change.

[sacredgeometry101-blog]

Meditation's Beneficial Magic

Breathing in the Mind More and more these days we see countless recommendations to practice the age old art and science associated with meditation. Most, if not all, extol its seemingly magical power on the human psyche through its proposed benefits. These recommendations and claims have stood the test of time- they are universally accepted and also well justified. For eons past those who came before us have spoken volumes regarding this terrific gift we all posses but today sometimes, we neglect to use. Why now are we again reminded of this? All of us are participating either aware or unaware. in a quantum shift bringing at times, tumultuous shifts in all areas of our society and world structures. No one is exempt from the effects these rapid improvements bring. While universally experienced, these trans-formative energies are individually unique and processed differently depending on ones own outlook. With a little discipline and practice we can apply this gift of meditation to help balance pressure levels, reduce mind-movies which seem to play non-stop to bring increasing levels of joy, clarity and purpose inside life. While it's true that meditative practices are known by many names in virtually all people each with various forms of practice, finding one that will work for you is quite easy. Best of all, this gently potential customers us ultimately to a special place we often desire and want- greater understanding and acceptance so that you can life's mysteries. So , let's briefly explore the subject for the sole purpose of learning how to reap many positive rewards available through meditation. Besides, it is true, the best things in life are free. So let’s begin to clear our minds of useless, wayward abstract thoughts having no justification to control or stipulate our life's direction. We will find meditation allows you in the purest sense, to create your own life's experiences. (More discussion about that possibility a bit later). For now, consider that during meditation you can replace, and clear out unwelcome thoughts with life affirming versions gaining- a true, lasting peace of mind, body and soul. Meditation is your entry offering all that and more... you can even create some magic in your life through this simple process! As you may have seen or if you are already a dedicated practitioner, individuals report profound psychological, physical and spiritual well-being as they process meditation daily. What then is meditation really all about? For beginners, how can one start? And how far can I pick sincere dedication? In this article are going to examine a few areas- some historical background, benefits, science of the mind plus advanced possibilities. History to Date According to many archeologists, meditation pre dates written records. It could be easily created a person entering an altered state of consciousness by simply gazing in the mind-stilling flicker of fire even though taking no thought. The earliest documented record of meditation comes from India in their Hindu scriptures called tantras. These records date back over 5, 000 years coming from the Indus valley and were combined with precisely what is referred to today as yoga. Along with expanding trade, cultural exchange was also carried westward and introspection practice was soon embedded in eastern thought and spiritual practices. With the advent of Buddha approximately 500 AD, many diverse cultures began to develop their own interpretations and specialized meditative techniques. Some solutions still in use to this day are said to deliver incredible mind-over-matter powers and supernormal skills that transformed a practitioner. Today, these are devout individuals and are not necessarily monks living in some remote mountain monastery. They are people like you and I. Of course advancing through time, the long history of meditation is no longer sole attributed to the Hindus and Buddhists. Not to be left out, Christianity, Islam and Judaism also participate in all the perpetuation of meditation each with its own take on the practice. However , historically these religious faiths don't dominate in their teachings and practices a culture of meditation when compared to the Asian traditions. Meditation sees its place here in our Western culture in the early 1960's into the '70's. This was a time when high of our culture was being tested, demanding to be redefined. Meditation found fertile ground in which to flourish as well as expand. Some could say it was the "hippie" revolution which inspired to embrace acceptance of unusual ideas but only ones that possessed real substantive value. It was not long after that when the Western professional medical and scientific community began to conduct research and studies on meditation. And what did most reviews if not all, to varying degrees find? You guessed it- significant health benefits. One of the most important aspects of self-examination is how it releases stress from our bodies. This is achieved by bridging the gap between this conscious and un-conscious selves, situations or non-justified thoughts that ferment stress become less significant and lose their power. Through meditation, it does not take long before you feel more peaceful and relaxed about almost everything. What happened to cause this nearly miraculous change? Studies have proven that meditation raises serotonin levels which directly affect our behavior and emotional temperament. Conversely, low levels of serotonin lead to unhappiness, headaches even insomnia. All symptoms associated with stress. Today, our western civilization with all our "advanced" knowledge has re-affirmed the ancient knowledge and understanding of meditation's therapeutic power to help alleviate mental and physical ailments. And this was just the infancy of discovery or shall we say re-discovery from unlimited powers available inside each of us. Today, mediation without question is a universally medically accepted version of holistic healing used worldwide. Meditation could be summed up as a natural mechanism within each of us that allows the spirit within, the higher, true self to bridge the communication gap into our physical factors grounding us in unconditional love. Rebirth through Breath Beyond all the medical community assertions lies an infinite segment of the population seeking additional benefits when practicing meditation. How can what appears initially only to be described as a physical act, effect our true inner being so profoundly by simply clearing our conscious thoughts together with focusing on our breath? Well the secret really is in our breath. When you first start a meditative practice at face benefits, it appears really easy. Yet, early on many are easily frustrated because they have really never truly attempted to quiet ones own thoughts while awake. Successfully navigating the mental mind field of what apparently appears to be nonstop water ways of thoughts popping up can at first be a daunting task. Be forewarned this is a common occurrence and really normal and there is a solution. It's funny actually once realization sets in that you really are like a few individuals within a single physical body. And that is not far from the truth. I, like many who meditate found out in the beginning one key to successfully get beyond this mental speed bump is to acknowledge the thought. Proceed to in that case dismiss it entirely or agree to revisit the thought after the meditation session and return the mind's center to your breathing. I have used this method to great success getting past the egos gate keeper role which unfortunately it often plays. You may find this method helpful as well if not, find what brings your focus back without the need of distracting thoughts. Again, breathing's role is of utmost importance in this whole process because it is the gateway bridging the actual physical body with the spiritual body. The goal here is what I refer to as the death of thoughts as a result of focusing on your breath. Becoming more sensitive of taking no thought along with staying present in the moment by way of the simple act being consciously aware of your breathing, an amazing inner rebirth begins. Next, we define some terrific basic steps for all meditation practices. Meditation 101 Chances are in your life you have unknowingly experienced moments in a just meditative state. The odds are that when this occurred, you found yourself outside in nature. In dynamics we more easily find resonance with a deeper more real aspect of ourselves which often comes alive in the habitat. Perhaps it occurred while relaxing on a beach watching the hypnotic like waves repetitively washing on land or possibly noticing the invisible wind rustle leaves on a tree as warming sunlight bathed your face. If you happen to recall during these moments, you found a completely relaxed feeling immerse your entire being because you were free of distracting thoughts. This is what being in "the moment" is all about. It is as if your mind tunes into the higher natural frequencies of life which for the most part, are virtually nonexistent inside buildings and such. Yet, with focus, adequate intentions and processes we can escape these limitations imposed in man-made environments. Of course meditation can be really enhanced when it is practical in natural surroundings. The whole concept of meditation takes on various identities depending what your intention is while performing a chosen meditation. Some may want physical or mental relief, others, solutions or directions for a better life. Either way, choices are clearly individualized. Find yours since this moves a long way in helping you along the path aided with a unique, personalized purpose. Define it for you! To begin some meditation, a few simple rules are universally accepted. These generally are- 1) Break away from distractions. Switch off the outside electrical/technological intrusions like phones, computers, TV's etc . A quiet, calm peaceful place is desired. At first, commit 10 minutes or more with no interruption. 2) Posture is important in that you must be comfortable. Really this is with your back upright and your spine to you head straight. Normally a seated position on the ground is usually preferred with hands in your lap; it can also be done in a chair. Lying down initially is not suggested as you overall body can assume a sleep mode. 3) Close your eyes gently, relax your jaw and makeup muscles. Do a "body scan" looking for any muscle tension that may exist releasing any found. Continue unwinding now for a few moments allowing your body to become comfortable. Be observant of bodily tension arising. The key may be to physically relax. 4) Slowly evacuate your lungs completely. Gently inhale and exhale through your nostrils with a serious (from the belly) rhythmic cycle filling your lungs to capacity and expelling the air completely. Impede, long in and out breaths are ideal. Pausing momentarily at the end of each in and out air. Focus on the feeling and sounds during the entire cycle. 5) Activate the heart-mind connection which provides an initial thought-clearing mode. Do not attempt to suppress these thoughts. Acknowledge them. Briefly as thoughts arise, dismiss them just by surrounding any with the six heart virtues of: appreciation, compassion, forgiveness, humility, valor, and understanding. An additional very powerful technique is to apply unconditional love (without a judgment position) to any thoughts that can arise, release them and return focus to your breathing. 6) Steadily and incrementally increase the time entire length spent in your practice. As the moments of time lengthen between arising thoughts, you are now well on the way to raised levels of meditation. Remind yourself to notice and appreciate the beneficial by-products you have regained. Eleven Benefits of Meditating Daily Here's a short list (certainly not all inclusive) of the benefits that come from a daily meditation practice- one Your life becomes significantly clearer and calm The hustle and bustle of everyday life is choking our minds in the peace we deserve! Our technology advancements shouldn't suffocate our minds; it should allow us to achieve even more peace. Meditation helps put those events in perspective for our daily tasks. 2 . Your blood demand is lowered Science has proven it, meditation lowers the blood pressure, which in return is related to a stress levels and stress management. Much better than taking pills to lower your blood pressure! 3. People all over you enjoy your company Regular meditation leads to higher/positive energy that you are consistently tapping into. This effectively makes you very pleasing to be around, and people like that! People naturally gravitate to the people who make them feel good. 4. Your hitting the ground with God is strengthened Spiritual awareness is strengthened with a daily meditation practice. You naturally become more cognizant of your surroundings, and higher awareness always leads to a deeper connection with God. The trees begin explaining personalities, and the landscape takes on different meanings... all through a deeper awareness. 5. You achieve several hours about sleep in one 20 minute meditation session Another scientific fact is that meditation is known to put you to a deeper state of rest than deep sleep. Deep sleep is associated with a delta brainwave. Deep relaxation can drop you into that delta brainwave rapidly, achieving the effects in a shorter amount of time. 6. Conditions seemed very difficult suddenly have clear solutions For every problem a solution exists. When your mind is clear and additionally you're in a state of peace, solutions appear. Being in a state of peace just naturally lures in solutions and pathways into your field of view. 7. Your productivity sky rockets because of a person's ability to have clear focus If solutions to problems appear more frequently when meditating daily, then imagine when there is to your everyday tasks. Solutions to everyday life become more and more obvious. And you begin to take note of these subtle changes since your spiritual vision grows clearer and wider. 8. Your life expectancy increases Science has shown that usual meditation will increase your life expectancy. It's pretty obvious to see... less stress and more peace promotes healthy skin cells and healthy cells regenerate healthier cells. And likewise, stressed cells regenerate more stressed cells. So stay longer by choosing more peace in your life. 9. You effectively reduce stress in your life Speaking of stress, mind-calming exercise has a profound effect on reducing stress in your body. Because meditation promotes peace and inner calm, stress dissolves dramatically from this meditative process. Again, science has proven it. 10. You can visualize powerfully when blended with positive affirmations and meditation Meditation is powerful at clearing the mind and focusing on simple things... such as breathing... or a flower. But, it can be used for so much more! To powerfully manifest your desires, you must get into an apparent connection with the source of manifesting (God/Universe/Ethers). If your spirits are on high while you visualize then the communication approach for manifesting positive events in your life is strengthened. While meditating I like to repeat affirmations, otherwise known as mantras, to help focus my energy into the positive. These statements can be as simple as "love" or "I are love, I am joy, I am peace". 11. You feel fantastic throughout your day! And finally, when you meditate on a regular basis, you may feel fantastic. Plain and simple. You feel good. Everything else is details. Science of Meditation's Magic Today there is a lot of scientific studies validating in a laboratory setting, that while in a meditative state, significant changes occur with our neurological activity. Just as to why brain frequencies are altered is not yet fully understood. Neuroscientists hypothesize our brain is actually rewiring connections sculpting new avenues of brain circuitry seen during magnetic resonance image resolution. Could we simply be accessing the higher mind which subdues the thinking, egoic-centric mind where restrictions of self-consciousness disappear? Seems very plausible. Regardless of the exact reason for this profound change, some other "super consciousness" force appears to be altering the way our brain functions while in a meditative state. Dr . Gregg Jacobs who was simply the assistant professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a senior research scientist at Harvard's Mind/Body Medical Institute now practicing at UMass Memorial Medical Center, published a book in 1993: That Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power. This book was the subject of a Time Magazine article back in August 2003 providing insight into the science behind meditation. Based on his research he made some interesting observations and arguments referring to what he labeled: the Ancestral Mind and the Thinking Mind. Dr . Jacobs argues, the conventional research implies our emotional well-being is being greatly hampered by the over-reliance on our dominant Thinking Mind- the verbal, rational, analytical and problem-solving part of ourselves. Over vast ages of time we have severed connection with an equally important part of our makeup- the Ancestral Mind. To me, this speaks of becoming a more truly balanced human being, maximizing the potential of consciousness. While that statement may not be in scientific jargon, any implication is the same. The Ancestral Mind: Reclaim the Power Book blurb- Dr . Jacobs offers a practical process for re-engaging with this indelible part of our being, explaining how to access life-enhancing positive emotions while reducing negative ones; connect with a more intuitive intelligence and foster a deeper, expanded sense of daily knowledge; and achieve a more integrated concept of self through a closer harmony of intellect and emotion. What is Taking effect In your Brain During Meditation? Scientists have only recently developed tools sophisticated enough to see what goes on inside your brain when you meditate. Below are a series of three interactive graphics from the 2003 Time "The Science of Meditation" article showing brain activity changes that occur during meditation. Clearly some profound changes occur inside brain. Our brain appears to interact and be directly influenced by our higher-minds and consciousness itself. Frontal cortex - is the most highly evolved part of the brain, responsible for reasoning, planning, emotions and self- sensitive awareness. During meditation it tends to go offline. Parietal lobe - processes sensory information about the surrounding environment, orienting you in time and space. During meditation, activity in the parietal lobe slows down. Thalamus - is a gatekeeper for the senses. It focuses your attention by funneling some sensory data deeper into the human brain and stops other signals in their tracks. Meditation reduces the flow of incoming information to a drip. Reticular Formation - receives incoming stimulus and puts the brain on alert, ready to respond. Meditation calls back the arousal signal. After training in meditation for eight weeks, subjects show a pronounced switch in brain-wave patterns, shifting from the alpha waves of aroused, conscious thought to the theta waves that will dominate the brain during periods of deep relaxation. Even people meditating for the first time will register your decrease in beta waves, a sign that the cortex is not processing information as actively as usual. After your first 20-minute session, patients show a marked decrease in beta-wave activity. Consciousness Directs Matter Are you ready to be able to dive into infinite possibilities of the more unique, inherent benefits of meditation? How far can one go into the universal domain that will retrieve enhanced power to intentionally co-create in this world? And no, you don't have to become a Zen Buddhist monk. Rather than go off in the quantum realm too far, allot is becoming understood within the research community about the creation power of our thoughts. The following knowledge is equally important to understand and apply its power when practicing meditation. Deliberate thought merged with meditation is an extremely powerful combination. By now everyone has got a little taste of the premise in the movie "Secret" regarding the subject of manifestation or as I like to label it- "deliberate intentions of thought". While that subject matter may seem new and novel to a whole segment of the population, like meditation, it has existed to get a very long time. Ever heard the famous quote from Napoleon Hill in his 1937 book titled- Think in addition to Grow Rich? It sure sounds like it could be in the Secret: "What the mind can conceive and believe, it could actually achieve" Interestingly enough in the book, Mr. Hill did not expressly reveal the step-by-step process to create instances which aligned with ones invocation of a positive mental attitude. He left that for the reader to locate. However , he did provide clues and examples which he documented through interviewing over 500 flourishing people while researching his first course study titled: The Law of Success. He went on to describe this approach idea as a "Definite Major Purpose" in order for the reader to be challenged and ask the question- In precisely what do I truly believe? His philosophical perspective was that 98% of people had no firm beliefs contributing them to be handicapped in achieving what they want in life. So yes, change your thoughts, change an individual's world. I mention Mr. Hill because he clearly proved the absolute power of deliberate considered to create your desired life. And this approach succinctly aligns with the infinite possibilities afforded in meditation. Much like a professional stage hypnotist can temporarily manipulate someone's actions by accessing and placing suggestions in a specialized place within their psyche, similar gateways or altered states of consciousness are possible during meditation. Some of our subconscious minds cannot distinguish between the physical "reality" we are witnessing and merely vivid thought projections. It can be here that during certain meditative states one can interject desired images powered by emotions, or predefined affirmations by purposely focusing intent, expediting their arrival in the physical. I personally believe the reason time appears to be collapse between the desire (intention) and actual delivery is directly related to the reduced level of mental (Thinking Mind) resistance we hold while in certain meditative states. We receive sooner that which is wanted within our life because of the drastically reduced counterproductive, opposing beliefs or thoughts. During meditation these contrary brain send thought forms are minimized thereby allowing quantum mechanisms to more fully dominate. Call it miraculous or a miracle or quantum physics in action, but despite of the term used, it is real. This principle is exactly the conclusion Mr. Hill wanted his readers to arrive at. Of course, meditation is not directly mentioned, simply alluded to, but clearly meditation accelerates this entire creative process by reducing resistant thoughts that hinder progress. Regardless if while meditating you receive an urge to take a specific action which leads to a solution and chance meeting bringing you closer or delivering entirely a previously specified outcome, the objective is demonstrated. The only prerequisite is that you must clearly define exactly what you want. Remember- "Definite Major Purpose". Begin to let one self feel (believe) what you will experience when the object desired has arrived and let the universal powers do their a part. You will quickly find this power is quite useful in improving your well-being when practiced routinely using meditation. A New Direction Awaits In closing, meditation is a wonderful gift that is available to all who seek. But, one ought to seek that which is worthy of attention. As we have learned there are many beneficial reasons to practice this lost but reemerging art. And apparently, the distraction and conveniences of this post-industrial age have dulled a part of us that's never forsaken us and remains vigil in wanting to empower us to our full potential. Just think, it's only breaths away! As our socioeconomic landscape is now being radically redefined as we step further faraway from a primarily consumerism driven lifestyle, meditation can play a significant role in this era helping us being more balanced and grounded. Many are awakening to the fact that a life based solely material gain to obtain a state of happiness is fraught with dangers and distorts real, lasting values. Material affluence is not really a problem, but trying to live a life where that is the primary focus distances us further from your higher nature. We have many choices demanding our time and attention today, to sacrifice a critical activity just like meditation which could alter and improve your life beyond where you find yourself now, would be a tragedy. If you do not currently meditate on a regular basis, please consider doing so as this is a proven way for greater well-being, enhanced health and vitality in addition to starting to be more at peace with the world surrounding you. Start today and thank yourself for directing people here- all is purposely directed! Tim's writing expertise and intuition for understanding arcane, nonmainstream theme including esoteric topics begun at the age of 14. It is through his expansive career in financial which affords Tim a unique ability to apply a professional, down-to-earth approach when writing about the science of spirituality.

[kcaruth]

My First Time Playing Dungeons & Dragons

First published in 1974, Dungeons & Dragons has experienced a resurgence in popular culture as of late. From Stranger Things to Stephen Colbert’s references to the game to podcasts galore, many people have at least heard of D&D now and have some basic familiarity with the concept of it.

I had never played Dungeons & Dragons and had no intention of trying it anytime soon...that is, until a friend introduced me to Critical Role. Critical Role is a web series in which a bunch of nerdy professional voice actors come together to play Dungeons & Dragons with Matthew Mercer as the dungeon master. Available on Twitch, YouTube, and as a podcast, Critical Role is currently deep into its second campaign. I decided to tune in to the podcast one day in 2019 when I was on a long drive out of town and began listening to the beginning of this second campaign. With most episodes lasting at least three hours, I figured it would help pass the time and make the drive fly by more than cycling through radio stations ever could. Although it took me a little while to get hooked and I certainly was confused at some parts early on, I can now say I am head over heels in love with Critical Role. Thanks to the superb work of the voice actors and the immersive storytelling of Mercer, I am completely invested in the players’ characters. I am only 10 episodes into the second campaign at the time I am writing this blog post, and I cannot wait to see where the story takes our group of adventurers from here.

With Critical Role having piqued my interest in Dungeons & Dragons, I started keeping an eye open for opportunities to try playing myself. I did a bit of research and checked a handful of local comic book and game shops to see if they had any opportunities available. While some of them did have Dungeons & Dragons events, they did not sound like they were easy for a beginner to join, and a couple of them included a cost to play. I was looking for something where I, as a brand new player, would not feel left out or left behind and buried underneath all of the complexities that come with role-playing games. I needed an environment where I would not feel like I was bringing the game to a screeching halt as I tried to get the hang of things. Additionally, I did not want to financially commit by paying an entry fee and going down the rabbit hole of purchasing dice, the official player’s handbook, miniatures, etc. before I felt like this was a hobby I could truly enjoy.

After a few weeks of searching, I saw a Facebook event post come across my newsfeed promoting the start of a brand new Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The description said the campaign was open to veterans and beginners alike, and best of all, it was completely free. Don’t have any dice or miniatures? Not sure how to go about creating a character? No problem! I paid a visit to the store the week before the game night to chat with one of the owners and confirm that this would be a good first foray into Dungeons & Dragons for me. He was very welcoming and assured me that new players like me were exactly the people they had in mind when designing this campaign. I was sold and told him that I would be there.

I only had a couple of drawbacks going into this. First, the store is located approximately 30 minutes away from me, so I have to fight rush hour traffic to get there in time for the 6:00 pm start. Second, considering the session lasts three hours, that does not really give me any time to stop for dinner beforehand, and by 9:00 it is too late for anything hearty. I may start packing an extra sandwich with my lunch to eat on the road on the way over there if I continue going, but I certainly wish that the store was closer.

When I arrived at the store for the beginning of the campaign, the dungeon master introduced himself and explained the concept of this campaign. Essentially, our characters are in a hamlet searching for jobs and quests. There is a job board with different missions available, and together we decide which one to take. He explained that this format would make it easy for new players to join the game, allow players more flexibility by giving them the opportunity to switch to a completely different character the next week if they so choose, and the story would not get thrown off if the players from one week missed a couple of sessions. We gathered around the table, and he expressed his surprise that so many people had shown up to play. All together, there were 10 of us. With me being one of the three brand new players to the game at the table, he asked me to sit next to him so that he could advise me and walk me through things. He let me borrow his dice and a miniature, and he let me choose my character from a pack that he had created. I selected a half-elf rogue equipped with a rapier, a light crossbow, and a dagger. Once everyone was set, the campaign began.

The dungeon master presented us with three different jobs and asked us to vote as a group on which one to take. The first one involved monsters causing trouble near the port and interfering with trade. The second one was a plea for help from farmers whose cattle had started mysteriously disappearing, leaving behind trails of blood. The third one came from a landowner who was worried about bandits encroaching on his land. Our group opted to pursue the second job.

To make a three-hour story short, we discovered that undead skeletons had been taking and killing the cattle, so we engaged them in combat. We successfully defeated the horde of skeletons, and that is where the game ended for the night.

While I did enjoy my first experience playing Dungeons & Dragons overall, it was not as great as I had hoped it would be. Perhaps my expectations were too high, but we hardly dived into the role-playing aspect of the game, which was the main draw for me. Not a single person ever used or even mentioned his or her character’s name! I did try to interact with the other characters a couple of times to drive the other players into a role-playing mindset, but it did not really lead to anything. At the heart of it, I believe that 10 players is way too many people for Dungeons & Dragons; I think the ideal number is four to six. (For reference, the recurring cast of Critical Role’s second campaign from what I have listened to so far is six to seven players.) The fight with the skeletons was especially unbearable, with almost 10 minutes passing each time before it was my turn to do something again. While most of the other players were easy to play with, a couple of players had obviously played before and brought their higher level characters into this new campaign. That was completely fine with me, but one of them constantly kept referring to his Dungeons & Dragons smartphone app to try to correct the dungeon master or point out certain intricacies or bonuses his character had, completely interrupting the flow of the game.

With all of that being said, I really appreciated this dungeon master’s willingness to take new players under his wing, and I am especially grateful to this particular store for providing this chance to try out Dungeons & Dragons. They clearly enjoy the game and want to share their love for it by making it accessible to more people, no strings attached. I am glad I stepped out of my comfort zone to meet up with these total strangers and try out a new experience. If you have ever had even an inkling of curiosity about Dungeons & Dragons, I highly encourage you to seek out a place or group where you can try playing it. At the very least, give Critical Role a listen and see where things go from there.

[bluewatsons]

Deborah L. Rhode, Appearance as a Feminist Issue, 69 SMU L. Rev. 697 (2016)

In 1929, in A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf maintained that every woman needed to consider “what is your relation to the ever-changing and turning world of gloves and shoes . . . .” Since then, that world has grown ever more complicated. In today’s universe of escalating opportunities for cosmetic enhancement, the issues surrounding beauty have posed increasingly complex challenges. For some women, our cultural preoccupation with appearance is a source of wasted effort and expense, a threat to physical and psychological well-being, and a trigger for workplace discrimination. For other women, the pursuit of beauty is a source of pleasure and agency, and a showcase for cultural identity. The question for the women’s movement is whether it is possible to find some common ground, and to develop a concept of beauty that is a source of pleasure rather than shame, and that enhances, rather than dictates self-worth.

I. Nineteenth and Early Twentieth-Century Debates

Contemporary challenges to appearance-related practices have long- standing roots. During America’s first two centuries, “respectable” women did not “rouge,” a practice associated with prostitutes.3 Women might ingest chalk, vinegar, or even arsenic to achieve a fair complexion, or kiss rosy crepe paper to redden their lips, but any detectable use of paints or powders put their reputations at risk.4 Beauty and virtue were intertwined, and reliance on cosmetics was thought corrosive to a “chaste soul” and a sign of moral depravity.5 Some black women’s leaders similarly condemned anyone who wanted to whiten her skin: “Why does she wish to improve her appearance? Why not improve her real self?”6 On hair, many leaders echoed the advice of Marcus Garvey: “Don’t remove the kinks from your hair! Remove them from your brain!”7

Market forces, however, kept putting temptation within ever-easier reach, and by the early twentieth century much of the stigma surrounding cosmetics had eroded.8 They became seen as a form of self-expression and an emblem of emancipation, as well as a means of moving up in the marriage market.9 According to Zelda Fitzgerald, “paint and powder” were a way for women to “choose their destinies—to be successful competitors in the great game of life.”10 By the early twentieth century, suffragists advocated lip rouge as a symbol of women’s rights and incorporated its use in public rallies.11

Although some activists in this “first wave” of feminism also attempted to link dress reform with other feminist causes, their initial campaigns had little success. In 1851, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Amelia Bloomer launched their crusade against corsets and crinolines by wearing shortened skirts over Turkish-styled pantaloons, a style quickly labeled “bloomers.”12 A few other suffragists joined the effort, but soon dropped out after journalists viciously caricatured the costume and spectators jeered and stoned women who wore them.13 However, many doctors, educators, editors of women’s magazines, and authors of advice manuals supported at least some reform, and “sensible dress” apart from bloomers gradually emerged.14 The increasing popularity of the bicycle and other forms of physical exercise, as well as women’s entry into the paid labor market, ultimately reinforced the demand for functional fashions.15

In the 1960s, the emergence of a “second wave” of feminism brought a more fundamental and sustained challenge to the beauty industry. In 1968, protestors at the Miss America pageant announced a boycott of all products related to the competition, and unceremoniously deposited bras, girdles, curlers, false eyelashes, and women’s magazines into a “Freedom Trash Can.”16 Although no undergarments were burned, the label “bra burner” stuck as an all-purpose pejorative to characterize “radical” feminists.17 Among that group were authors of a statement accompanying the protest, which explained, “Women in our society are forced daily to compete for male approval, enslaved by ludicrous beauty standards that we ourselves are conditioned to take seriously.”18 Building on the premise that the “personal is political,” activists shed a range of conventions along with their undergarments. Unshaved legs and unadorned faces became a symbol of “liberation.”19

The public reception was not unlike the response to early dress reformers. Feminists were seen as “dowdy,” “frumpy” “moralizers,” who hated men because they could not attract them.20 Because radicals gained disproportionate media attention, the early feminist movement, in general, and its critique of beauty in particular, was often dismissed even by those who accepted most of its other egalitarian principles.21 In The Sceptical Feminist, Janet Radcliffe Richards voiced a common concern: “The image of the movement comes from the individuals in it; if large numbers of them are unattractive the movement as a whole is bound to be so too.”22

Over the last quarter century, as the feminist movement has grown increasingly fragmented, different subcultures have differed sharply on matters of appearance. Since the late 1960s, fat activists have sought to challenge discrimination on the basis of weight and to make tolerance for all body sizes a social priority.23 Beginning in the 1990s, a group of young activists, self-labeled as “third-wave feminists,” focused on interlocking categories of oppression and ways of encouraging sexual agency.24 For some of these women, that has involved reclaiming conventional emblems of femininity—sexualized clothing and stiletto heels. For others, such as those in punk rock subcultures, it has meant rejecting traditional images of femininity and asserting deviant styles—green hair or shaved heads.25 And for aging second-wave feminists, the challenge has been finding ways to reconcile their personal attachment to femininity with their political commitments.

II. Critiques of Prevailing Beauty Practices

Despite their other differences, many contemporary feminists have raised shared concerns about current norms of appearance. The most obvious is cost. In her widely publicized account, The Beauty Myth, Naomi Wolf noted that women’s absorption with appearance “leeches money and leisure and confidence.”26 Because women are held to unattainable ideals, their task is boundless. Almost all areas of the female body are in need of something. The result is to focus women’s attention on self-improvement rather than social action.

The costs of our cultural preoccupation with appearance are considerable. The global investment in grooming totals over US $100 billion, and Americans alone spend over US $40 billion a year on diets.27 Much of that investment falls short of its intended effects or is induced by mislead- ing claims. The weight loss industry is a case in point. Ninety-five percent of dieters regain their majority of their weight within one to five years.28 Yet in the fact-free fantasy land of diet marketers, miracle products abound. Claims that the Federal Trade Commission has targeted include topical gels, patches, and dietary supplements that “eliminate fat deposits” and cause “rapid weight loss” without “diets or exercise.”29 Consumers squander millions of dollars on such products because most Americans assume that manufacturers could not make these claims with- out a factual basis.30 Yet resource limitations have prevented state and federal regulatory agencies from keeping up with the barrage of mislead- ing advertisements regarding diet and cosmetic products.31

Our preoccupation with appearance also carries health risks, including eating disorders, yo-yo dieting, and cosmetic surgery.32 From a health perspective, the current obsession with thinness is misdirected; it compromises reproductive and work capacity, and predicts higher rates of sickness.33 Except at extreme levels, weight is less important than fitness in preventing disease and prolonging life.34 Concerns about appearance are also linked to depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem.35 Even fashion footwear carries a cost; high heels are a major contributor to serious back and foot problems.36 Hillary Clinton learned that fact the hard way. One Christmas season during the Clinton presidency, after standing for hours in receiving lines at holiday parties, she became bedridden with back pain.37 A specialist concluded that she “shouldn’t wear high heels again.” “Never?” Clinton asked. “Well, yes, never,” he responded, and added, “With all due respect, ma’am, why would you want to?”38

Another cost of our cultural preoccupation with appearance is discrimination. Appearance skews judgments about competence. Resumes and essays get less favorable evaluations when they are thought to belong to less attractive individuals.39 Overweight individuals are seen as having less effective work habits and ability to get along with others.40 Less attractive teachers get less favorable course evaluations from students,41 and less attractive students receive lower ratings in intelligence from teachers.42 A meta-analysis that aggregated findings of over a hundred studies found that although less attractive individuals are perceived as less competent, the actual correlation between physical appearance and intellectual competence is “virtually zero.”43 Although the relative importance of appearance varies by occupation, less attractive individuals are generally less likely to be hired and promoted and earn lower salaries.44 Penalties are apparent even in professions like lawyer and college professor, where appearance bears no demonstrable relationship to job performance.45 About 60 percent of overweight women report experiences of employment discrimination.46 Such discrimination on the basis of appearance carries both individual and social costs. It undermines self- esteem, diminishes job aspirations, and compromises efficiency and equity.47

The overemphasis of attractiveness diminishes women’s credibility and diverts attention from their capabilities and accomplishments. In the long run, these are more stable sources of self-esteem and social power than appearance. The devaluation and sexualization of women based on appearance is particularly apparent for women in leadership positions. On Condoleezza Rice’s first day as national security adviser, the New York Times ran a profile discussing her dress size (6), taste in shoes (comfortable pumps), and hemline preferences (modest).48 After becoming secretary of state, her appearance in high boots when visiting troops in Germany inspired portrayals as a dominatrix in political cartoons and comedy routines.49

Kamala Harris, California’s Attorney General, received front page coverage when President Barack Obama described her as “by far, the best-looking attorney general in the country.”50 As first lady and then as a political candidate, Hillary Clinton faced a barrage of criticism as frumpy, fat, and “bottom heavy.”51 As secretary of state, when a man at a town hall meeting in Kyrgyzstan asked her which designers she wore, an exasperated Clinton responded, “Would you ever ask a man that question?”52 Shortly after Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO of Yahoo, a Forbes article described her as “attractive, well coifed, and poised under pressure,” and described her reputation as the “hottest CEO ever,” and one of the “sexiest geek girls” of Silicone Valley.53 Although Supreme Court Justices are not known for being eye candy, no male nominee to the Court has attracted comments like those directed at Elena Kagan; to talk show host Michael Savage, she looked “as if she belongs in a kosher deli.”54 I got a personal glimpse into the phenomenon just described after publicizing my book, The Beauty Bias. It was surprising how many men took time to send me comments like “You ugly cunt,” or “Let’s take up a collection to buy the professor a burka and improve the aesthetics at Stanford.”55

One other cost of discrimination on the basis of appearance is the exacerbation of economic and racial inequality. Appearance both reflects and reinforces class privilege. Prevailing beauty standards disadvantage individuals who lack the time and money to invest in attractiveness. Fashion, makeup, health clubs, weight loss products, and cosmetic procedures all come at a cost. Discrimination based on weight is particularly problematic from a class standpoint. Low-income and minority individuals have disproportionate rates of obesity, and as one expert puts it, there is some evidence that “poverty is fattening,” and “much stronger evidence that fatness is impoverishing.”56 Many poor people live in nutritional deserts—areas with no readily accessible grocery stores that sell fresh fruits and vegetables.57 These areas also tend to lack public recreational facilities and schools with adequate physical education programs.58 The bias that overweight individuals confront compromises their educational, employment, and earning opportunities. Although images of beauty are growing somewhat more diverse, they still reflect the legacy of racial privilege. Light skin, straightened hair, and Anglo-American features carry an economic and social advantage.59 Those who look less “white” have lower incomes and occupational status after controlling for other factors.

Discrimination on the basis of appearance also compounds gender inequality by reinforcing a double standard and a double bind for women. They face greater pressures than men to be attractive and greater penalties for falling short; as a consequence, their self-worth is more dependent on looks.60 Overweight women are judged more harshly than overweight men and are more susceptible to eating disorders and related psychological and physical dysfunctions.61 About ninety percent of cosmetic surgery patients are female, with all the financial costs and physical risks that such procedures pose.62 Yet even as the culture expects women to conform, they often face ridicule for their efforts. A case in point was the comment from a Boston Herald columnist about the appearance of a prominent politician: “There seemed to be something humiliating, sad, desperate and embarrassing about [Katherine] Harris yesterday, a woman of a certain age trying too hard to hang on.”63 The “certain age” was forty- three.64 But neither should women “let themselves go,” nor look as if they were trying too hard not to.65 Beauty must seem natural—even, or especially, when it can only be accomplished through considerable unnatural effort.

Feminists are in a particularly problematic situation. Those who defy conventional standards are ridiculed as homely harpies; those who com- ply are dismissed as hypocrites. Jane Fonda’s decision to have breast im- plants and other surgical procedures seemed to “contradict everything she advocates” concerning health and fitness.66 When confronted by the contradiction, Fonda responded, “I never asked to be a role model. . . . I don’t pretend to be different from any other woman. I’m subject to the same foibles and pressures.”67 Most disturbing of all is the toll that these criticisms take on individuals’ own self-esteem. Many women who recognize beauty norms as oppressive feel humiliated by the inability to escape them. They are ashamed for feeling ashamed. Writing about her resort to electrolysis to eliminate unsightly facial hair, Wendy Chapkis confesses: “I am a feminist. How humiliated I then feel. I am a woman. How ugly I have been made to feel. I have failed on both counts.”68 Eve Ensler, in The Good Body, recounts her own struggles with self-deprecating irony: “What I can’t believe is that someone like me, a radical feminist for nearly thirty years, could spend this much time thinking about my stomach. It has become my tormentor, my distractor: it’s my most serious committed relationship.”69

Responses to these critiques have proceeded on multiple levels. Some women stress agency. Cosmetic surgery patients often describe their deci- sion as “the independent choice of a liberated woman” and deny that they are pressured by others.70 In one widely circulated Playboy article, Jan Breslauer, a former Yale feminist theory professor, further insisted that having a “boob job” expressed feminist principles—”a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body.”71 It “made me focus on how far I’ve come. . . . I have arrived at a point where I can go out and buy myself a new pair of headlights if I want. . . . [I]f somebody asks if they’re [mine, I can] tell them, ‘Yes, I bought them myself.’”72

At the same time, many patients have acknowledged ridicule, humiliation, and shame as driving their decisions. One female patient described a common experience: “I wish I could have said, ‘To hell with it, I am going to love my body the way it is’. . . but I had tried to do that for fifteen years and it didn’t work.”73 Hillary Clinton, who has had a number of minor makeovers, captured similarly common views when she told Elle magazine, “Cosmetic surgery may be just as important for someone’s state of mind and well-being as any other kind of surgery.”74

So too, studies of women’s use of makeup, salons, and spas find considerable satisfaction with such purchases. Cosmetics make many individuals feel more “credible” and “professional.”75 Time spent shopping or in spas and salons provides pleasure and opportunities for female bonding. It can also seem like an occupational necessity. One study of women in Congress between ages forty-six and seventy-four found that over ninety percent had no visible grey hair.76 The reasons for tinting are not unlike those that motivate users of Botox. As Susan Brownmiller observed three decades ago, the facelift is “a logical extension of every night cream, moisturizer, pore cleanser and facial masque that has gone before it.”77

Yet as Carolyn Heilbrun argued in a celebrated essay, “Coming of Age,” makeup or hair tints are a form of temporary “camouflage” that can be shed at will.78 Surgery reflects a riskier attempt to alter the body, and the efforts are often only “briefly if at all effective. Worse, they increase the fear of age. . . . [O]ne should encourage youth, not try to be it.”79 Freedom in midlife can only come in understanding that “who I am is what I do” not how I look.80 Eve Ensler makes the same point about diets and other appearance-related regimes: “LOVE YOUR BODY. STOP FIXING IT.”81

While women remain divided over cosmetic practices, they also often share discomfort about the culture that produces them. Appearance is an opportunity for self-expression and self-determination, but many women recognize that their options are far too “limited by circumstances which are not of their making.”82 In one study of makeup in the workplace, virtually all the participants believed that they had a choice about whether to use cosmetics.83 But many also believed that women who de- cline to wear makeup “do not appear to be (1) healthy, (2) heterosexual, or (3) credible.”84 So, too, even women who are satisfied with their deci- sion to have cosmetic surgery are often highly critical of the culture that had led them to take that step. Such surgery is “a symptom of an unjust social order in which women [have] to go to extremes” just to look acceptable.85 To Katha Pollitt:

[W]hat is most of this starving and carving about but accepting that woman is basically just a body . . . with a rather short shelf life? You can postpone the expiration date if you “work” at it . . . or you “have work done,” as if the body were some sort of perpetual construction site. But basically you are suffering a lot to please people . . . and disguising that fact from yourself with a lot of twaddle about self- improvement and self-esteem.86

Not all women are, of course, under such illusions. Many also recognize that in the long run, their efforts to conform to conventional ideals carry “heavy costs for them and for all women.”87 But this seems like the price for success in the short run, which requires “making do with a culture that they believe judges and rewards them for their looks.”88 As one feminist noted, “I am a midlifer in today’s world and I don’t think I have time to reeducate society for the greater good.”89 “Plastic surgery,” she acknowledged, “is a bit of a sellout, but I don’t think it means I have to skewer myself on the feminist spike. . . . The personal may be political, but the personal is also personal. . . . I know that aging naturally is the more honorable way to go but I’m not there to be honorable to my gender. I’ve done quite a lot of that in my life.”90 Jan Breslauer defends her implants along similar lines. Sexism is “not going to change any time soon. Here’s the choice: You can rail at an imperfect world or go get yourself a great pair of bazongas.” As long as “women are judged by their jugs . . . it’s sometimes better to acknowledge that the injustice exists and get on with your life.”91

Such comments point up the discomfiting dilemma that many feminists face between personal interests and political commitments. Even leaders of the women’s movement who try to set the right example frequently fail to achieve the inner peace that their politics demand. As a matter of principle, Susan Brownmiller stopped shaving her legs, but years later she “had yet to accept the unaesthetic results.”92 Patricia Williams makes a similar confession about her attachment to “power point” footwear— shoes with spindle heels and narrow toes that are unsuitable for actual walking.93 Such ambivalence is scarcely surprising, given the deep-seated cultural forces and market pressures that underpin appearance ideals.

So where does that leave us? “Has feminism failed women?” Karen Lehman wonders.94 “Have women failed feminism? Or has society failed them both?”95 Perhaps more to the point, are those helpful ways of framing the question? Is a better way forward to avoid looking back and to get beyond blame? Can we criticize appearance-related practices without criticizing the women who find them necessary?

Underlying this question are deeper, more vexed issues of false consciousness, female agency, and the “authentic” self. Much of the early work on appearance by contemporary feminists underscored the need to link the personal with the political.96 From this perspective, a “choice” to engage in practices that objectified women or imposed undue costs seemed irreconcilable with feminist principles. When women experienced themselves as autonomous agents, making pleasurable decisions, that was simply evidence of the power of repressive ideologies.97 The only answer was to raise women’s consciousness and to demand that they value their authentic unreconstructed selves.98 They should accept their bodies as they “really” are, and please themselves, not others, with the way that they look.99

By contrast, most contemporary feminist theorists, influenced by postmodern perspectives, see no universal, uncontested standpoint from which consciousness can be declared “false” or identities considered “authentic.”100 Yet they also emphasize the link between the personal and political.101 Choices are never wholly “free” or solely “personal.”102 Cultural practices inevitably shape individuals’ preferences, and their individual responses in turn help sustain or alter those practices. According to critics such as Susan Bordo, that entails viewing the body as a site not simply for self-expression but also for political struggle.103

Yet to many activists, such theoretical formulations offer too little guidance on personal choices that have political implications. As Katha Pollitt notes, the failure to take a stance on practices that subordinate women as a group leads all too easily to a “you go, girl” approach, in which “[a]nything is feminist as long as you ‘choose’ it.”104 It has now become “unsisterly, patronizing, infantilizing and sexist to question another woman’s decision. . . . There’s no social context and no place to stand and resist; there’s just a menu of individual options and preferences.”105 An Onion parody makes a similar point.106 Under the title “Women Now Empowered by Everything a Woman Does,” a fictional woman’s studies professor explains that “[f]ortunately for the less impressive among us, a new strain of feminism has emerged,” in which almost all activities—shopping for shoes, or gaining weight—are “championed as proud, bold assertions of independence.”107 Another fictional feminist in the parody says, “Only by lauding every single thing a woman does . . . can you truly go, girls.”108 It was “so much simpler,” Pollitt observes, when feminism could just “tell women to use their famous agency to pull up their socks and say Screw you.”109

IV. Beyond the Impasse

“What do women want?” Freud famously asked, as if the preferences of half the world’s population could be captured in some universal standard.110 When it comes to appearance, what women want is not always the same or always compatible. Many women who opt for cosmetic enhancement feel well-served by the result.111 But the cost is to reinforce standards that make it harder for other women to resist.112

Yet whatever their disagreements on these issues, most individuals appear to share certain core values. Appearance should be a source of plea- sure, not of shame. Individuals should be able to make decisions about whether to enhance their attractiveness without being judged politically incorrect or professionally unacceptable. Our ideals of appearance should reflect diversity across race, ethnicity, age, and body size. In this ideal world, the importance of appearance would not be overstated. Nor would it spill over to employment and educational contexts in which judgments should be based on competence, not cosmetics. Women would not be held to higher standards than men. Neither would their self-esteem be tied to attractiveness, rather than accomplishment. In order for appearance to be a source of enjoyment rather than anxiety, it cannot dictate women’s self-worth.

So how do we get from here to there? There are no easy answers, but refocusing the feminist critique is an obvious place to start. It has not helped feminists’ political agenda or public image to denounce widely accepted beauty practices and women who won’t get with the program.113 Greater tolerance is in order, along with recognition that women are not all similarly situated in their capacity for resistance. Those who write about women’s issues need to recognize that not everyone has the luxury of being able to say “screw you” to the cosmetics industry. In my job as a law professor, no one cares whether I use mascara. For television’s legal commentators, such as Greta Van Susteren, the circumstances are far different, and the condemnation she received for her surgical makeover seemed misdirected.114 Why center criticism on her choice rather than on the preferences of viewers and network executives that made the choice seem necessary? Focusing attention on personal decisions rather than collective practices asks too much of individuals and too little of society.115

To that end, we need a broad range of initiatives. Individuals should educate themselves and others about the risks of cosmetic practices and offer more support for women who resist them. Schools and workplaces should do more to discourage discrimination based on appearance. The media needs to offer more diverse and natural images of beauty, and to avoid promoting fraudulent appearance-related advertisements. The law should prohibit appearance discrimination and more effectively regulate the marketing of beauty products.116 When a leader such as Donald Trump demeans the appearance of his rivals, critics, and even women of who accused him of sexual abuse, the public should make its outrage felt.117

Feminists claim to speak from the experience of women. But that experience counsels tolerance for the different ways that appearance is perceived by different women under different constraints. Fat is a Feminist Issue, declared the title of Susie Orbach’s widely circulated critique.118 So are implants, Botox, stilettos, and a host of other appearance-related concerns. Women need better ways of talking to, rather than past each other, on these issues, which continue to shape their opportunities and identities.

Footnotes

Original publication available at Deborah L. Rhode, Appearance as a Feminist Issue, in BODY AESTHETICS 81 (Sherri Irvin ed., Oxford Univ. Press, 2016). The editorial assistance of Eun Sze is gratefully acknowledged.

Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas 117 (Oxford University Press 2015).

Kathy Peiss, Hope in a Jar: The Making of America’s Beauty Culture 53 (1998).

Id. at 15, 17; Karen Kozlowski, Read My Lips: A Cultural History of Lipstick 18 (1998).

Peiss, supra note 3, at 57.

Id. at 207.

Ayana D. Byrd & Lori L. Tharps, Hair Story: Untangling the Roots of Black hair in America 38 (2001).

Peiss, supra note 3, at 54.

Id. at 59.

Zelda Fitzgerald, The Collected Writings of Zelda Fitzgerald 416 (Matthew J. Bruccoli ed., 1997).

Sarah E. Schaffer, Reading Our Lips: The History of Lipstick Regulation in Western Seats of Power, 62 FOOD & DRUG L.J. 165, 176 (2007).

Susan Brownmiller, FEMININITY 88-89 (1984).

Id. at 89.

Lois Banner, American Beauty 98-99, 147-50 (1983). 15. Id. at 150.

People & Events: The 1968 Protest, PBS.org: Miss America, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/missamerica/peopleevents/e_feminists.html [https://perma.cc/8HHC-5BP4].

Id.

Brownmiller, supra note 12, at 24-25.

Betty Luther Hillman, “The Clothes I Wear Help Me to Know My Own Power”: The Politics of Gender Presentation in the Era of Women’s Liberation, 34 FRONTIERS: J. WOMEN STUD. 155, 158 (2013).

Id. at 160-62.

Janet Radcliffe Richards, The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry 282 (1994).

Id. at 283.

Dan Fletcher, The Fat-Acceptance Movement, TIME (July 31, 2009), http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1913858,00.html [https://perma.cc/TPA6-4B76].

Leslie Heywood & Jennifer Drake, Third Wave Agenda: Being Feminist, Doing Feminism (1997); see also Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards, Manifesta: Young Women, Feminism, and the Future (2000).

 Lauraine Leblanc, Pretty in Punk: Girls’ Gender Resistance in a Boys’ Subculture 13, 219 (1999).

Naomi Wolf, The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty are Used Against Women 53 (1991).

Alex Kuczynski, Beauty Junkies: Inside Our $15 Billion Obsession with Cosmetic Surgery 7 (2006); Gina Kolata, Health and Money Issues Arise Over Who Pays for Weight Loss, N.Y. TIMES, Sept. 30, 2004, at C4.

Francine Grodstein et al., Three Year Follow-up of Participants in a Commercial weight Loss Program: Can you Keep it off?, 156 ARCHIVE INTERNAL MED. 1302, 1305 (1996).

Deborah L. Rhode, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law 33-34 (2010).

Widespread Ignorance of Regulation and Labeling of Vitamins, Minerals, and Food Supplements, According to a National Harris Interactive Survey, Harris Interactive Health Care News (December 23, 2002), http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/widespread-ignorance-of-regulation-and-labeling-of-vitamins-minerals-and-food-supplements-according-to-a-national-harris-interactive-survey-77244857.html.

Jodie Sopher, Weight-Loss Advertising too Good to be True: Are Manufacturers or the Media to Blame? 22 CARDOZO ARTS & ENT. L.J. 933, 941-43, 963 (2005); Michael Specter, Miracle in a Bottle: Dietary supplements are unregulated, some are unsafe—and Americans can’t get enough of them, THE NEW YORKER, Feb. 2, 2004, at 68.

Paul Campos, The Obesity Myth: Why America’s Obsession with Weight is Hazardous to Your Health 32, 225, 234 (2004); Glenn A. Gaesser, Big Fat Lies: The Truth About Your Weight and Your Health 34, 155-6 (2004).

Patricia R. Owen & Erika Laurel-Seller, Weight and Shape Ideals: Thin Is Dangerously In, 30 J. APPLIED PSYCHOL. 979, 980 (2000).

CAMPOS, supra note 32, at 34-35; LAURA FRASER, LOSING IT: AMERICA’S OBSES- SION WITH WEIGHT AND THE INDUSTRY THAT FEEDS ON IT 253-54 (1997); Tara Parker-Pope, Better to be fat and fit than skinny and unfit, N.Y. TIMES, Aug. 19, 2008, at F5.

Thomas Pruzinsky, Psychopathology of Body Experience: Expanded Perspectives, in Body Images: Development, Deviance, and Change 183 (Thomas F. Cash & Thomas Pruzinsky eds.,1990); Rebecca M. Puh and Kelly D. Brownell, Confronting and Coping with Weight Stigma: An Investigation of Overweight and Obese Adults, 14 OBESITY 1802, 1802-03 (2006).

Marc Linder, Smart Women, Stupid Shoes, and Cynical Employers: The Unlawfulness and Adverse Health Consequences of Sexually Discriminatory Workplace Footwear Requirements for Female Employees, 22 J. CORP. L. 295, 296, 306-307, 309 (1997); Alyssa B. Dufour et al., Foot Pain: Is Current or Past Shoewear a Factor? 61 ARTHRITIS CARE RES. 1352, 1356-57 (2009).

Hillary Rodham Clinton, Living History 490 (2004).

Id. at 491.

Mohammed Y. Quereshi & Janet P. Kay, Physical Attractiveness, Age, and Sex as Determinants of Reactions to Resumes, 14 SOC. BEHAV. & PERSONALITY 103, 107 (1986); David Landy & Harold Sigall, Beauty is Talent: Task Evaluation as a Function of the Performer’s Physical Attractiveness, 29 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCHOL. 299, 302, 304 (1974).

Sondra Solovay, Tipping the Scales of Justice: Fighting Weight-Based Discrimination 101-05 (2000); Janna Fikkan & Esther Rothblum, Weight Bias in Employment, in Weight Bias: Nature, Consequences, and Remedies 15, 16-17 (Kelly D. Brownell et al. eds., 2005).

Daniel S. Hamermesh, Beauty Pays: Why Attractive People are More Successful, 80-81 (2011); Daniel S. Hamermesh & Amy Parker, Beauty in the Classroom: Instructors’ Pulchritude and Putative Pedagogical Productivity, 24 ECON. EDUC. REV. 369, 375 (2005).

Vicki Ritts et al., Expectations, Impressions, and Judgments of Physically Attractive Students: A Review, 62 Rev. Educ. Res. 413, 422 (1992).

Linda A. Jackson et al., Physical Attractiveness and Intellectual Competence: A Meta-Analytic Review, 58 SOC. PSYCHOL. Q. 108, 115 (1995).

Hamermesh, supra note 41, at 81; Megumi Hosoda et al., The Effects of Physical Attractiveness on Job-Related Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis of Experimental Studies, 56 PERSONNEL PSYCHOL. 431, 457-58 (2003); Markus M. Mobius & Tanya S. Rosenblat, Why Beauty Matters, 96 AM. ECON. REV. 222, 223 (2006).

Jeff E. Biddle & Daniel S. Hamermesh, Beauty, Productivity, and Discrimination: Lawyer’s Looks and Lucre, 16 J. LAB. ECON. 172, 197 (1998); Hamermesh, supra note 41, at 78-79.

Solovay, supra note 40, at 103.

Id. at 104.

Fiona Morgan, No Way to Treat a Lady: Was the New York Times Profile of Codoleezza Rice Sexist or Just Silly?, Salon (Dec. 19, 2000), http://www.salon.com/2000/12/19/rice_5/ [https://perma.cc/LJJ4-H3AY].

Deborah F. Atwater, African American Women’s Rhetoric: The Search for Dignity, Personhood, and Honor 3-4 (2010).

Joe Garofoli, Obama Apologizes to California’s Harris, SF GATE, Apr. 5, 2013, http://www.sfgate.com/politics/joegarofoli/article/Obama-apologizes-to-California-s-Harris-4413842.php [https://perma.cc/2HYY-Z99W].

Deborah L. Rhode, Speaking of Sex: The Denial of Gender Inequality 60 (1997); From the Women’s Desk—Why Does Larry King Think Hillary Clinton’s Hair, Legs, Smile and Figure Are ‘News’?, FAIR (June 14, 1999), http://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/from-the-womens-desk-why-does-larry-king-think-hillary-clintons-hair-legs-smile-and-figure-are-quotnewsquot/ [https://perma.cc/2UT9-8WM6].

Jonathan Alter, Hillary Clinton: Woman of the World, VANITY FAIR, June 2011, at 201.

Meghan Casserly, Yahoo’s Marissa Mayer is the ‘Hottest CEO Ever.’ And it’s Great For Business, FORBES (July 17, 2012), http://www.forbes.com/sites/meghancasserly/2012/07/17/yahoo-marissa-mayer-hottest-ceo-ever-great-for-business/#106f456751c7.

Deborah L. Rhode, Why Elena Kagan’s Looks Matter, The Daily Beast, June 26, 2010, http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/06/26/elena-kagans-looks-and-why-they-matter.html [https://perma.cc/BJ6G-FEAT].

Michael Savage, Comments during Savage Nation, the savage nation (Apr. 9, 2010)

Paul Ernsberger, Does Social Class Explain the Connection Between Weight and Health?, in The Fat Studies Reader 26, 32 (Esther Rothblum and Sondra Solovay eds., 2009).

Elizabeth A. Baker et al., The Role of Race and Poverty in Access to Foods that Enable Individuals to Adhere to Dietary Guidelines, 3 Preventing Chronic Disease 7 (2006).

Jeffrey Kluger, How America’s Children Packed on the Pounds, TIME, Jun. 12, 2008, at 66, 69; Penny Gordon-Larsen et. al., Inequality in the Built Environment Underlies Key Health Disparities in Physical Activity and Obesity, Pediatrics, 2006, at 417, 421.

April E. Fallon, Culture in the Mirror: Sociocultural Determinants of Body Image, in Body Images, at 97-98; Imani Perry, Buying White Beauty, 12 CARDOZO J.L. GENDER 579, 587-88, 590, 606 (2006).

Fallon, supra note 59, at 80-81.

Solovay, supra note 40, at 105; Fikkan & Rothblum, supra note 40, at 16-18; Kate Sablosky, Probative “Weight”: Rethinking Evidentiary Standards in Title VII Sex Discrimination Cases, 30 N.Y.U. REV. L. & SOC. CHANGE 325, 330-334 (2006).

Quick Facts: Highlights of the ASAPS 2012 Statistics on Cosmetic Surgery, AM. SOC’Y AESTHETIC PLASTIC SURGERY (2012), http://www.surgery.org/sites/default/files/2012-quickfacts.pdf [https://perma.cc/K87A-XL4H].

63. Caryl Rivers, Mockery of Katherine Harris Shows Double Standard, WOMEN’S ENEWS, (Nov. 29, 2000), http://womensenews.org/2000/11/mockery-katherine-harris-shows-double-standard/ [https://perma.cc/J8TM-UYQF].

Id.

See Katha Pollitt, Learning to Drive: And Other Life Stories 187-207 (2007); Wendy Chapkis, Beauty Secrets: Women and the Politics of Appearance 2 (1999).

Myra Dinnerstein & Rose Weitz, Jane Fonda, Barbara Bush, and Other Aging Bodies: Femininity and the Limits of Resistance, in FEMINIST ISSUES, Fall 1994, at 3, 13.

Id.

Chapkis, supra note 65, at 2.

Eve Ensler, The Good Body 5-6 (2005).

Decca Aitkenhead, Most british women now expect to have cosmetic surgery in their lifetime. How did the ultimate feminist taboo just become another lifestyle choice?, THE GUARDIAN (Sept. 13, 2005), https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/sep/14/gender.deccaaitkenhead [https://perma.cc/3DB9-6R9D].

Jan Breslauer, Stacked Like Me, PLAYBOY, Jul. 1997, at 64, 66-67.

Id.

Debra L. Gimlin, Body Work; Beauty and Self-Image in American Culture 100 (2002).

Deborah L. Rhode, The Beauty Bias: The Injustice of Appearance in Life and Law 78 (2010).

Kirsten Dellinger & Christine L. Williams, Makeup at Work: Negotiating Appearance Rules in the Workplace, 11 GENDER & SOC’Y 151, 165-66 (1997).

Anne Kreamer, The War Over Going Gray, Time (Aug. 31, 2007), http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1658058,00.html [https://perma.cc/BU5Q-GUTZ].

Brownmiller, supra note 12, at 167.

Carolyn G. Heilbrun, Coming of Age, N. Y. WOMAN, Feb., 1991, at 56, 58.

Id.

Id.

Ensler, supra note 69, at xv.

Kathy Davis, Reshaping the Female Body: The Dilemma of Cosmetic Surgery 170 (1994).

Dellinger & Williams, supra note 75, at 156.

Id.

Davis, supra note 82, at 162.

Pollitt, supra note 65, at 202.

Gimlin, supra note 73, at 107.

Id.

Katharine Viner, The New Plastic Feminism, THE GUARDIAN, Jul. 21, 1997, at T4.

Id.

Breslauer, supra note 71, at 66.

Brownmiller, supra note 12, at 156.

Patricia J. Williams, Have Pantsuit, Will Travel, THE NATION (Aug. 27, 2008), https://www.thenation.com/article/have-pantsuit-will-travel/ [https://perma.cc/A6UL- 4QYQ].

Lehman, supra note 74, at 9.

Id.

See Hillman, supra note 19, at 158-59. 97. See id. at 161.

See id. at 161-162.

See id.

Susan Bordo, Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture, and the Body 38, 40-41 (1993).

Id. at 17.

Id. a 20, 27.

Id. at 16.

Pollitt, supra note 65, at 192.

Id.

Women Now Empowered by Everything a Woman Does, THE ONION (Feb. 19, 2003), http://www.theonion.com/article/women-now-empowered-by-everything-a-woman-does-1398 [https://perma.cc/WV3E-G3GY].

Id.

Id.

Pollitt, supra note 65, at 204.

Noam Shpancer, What Do Women Really Want?, PSYCHOL. TODAY (Aug. 22, 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201308/what-do-women-really-want [https://perma.cc/5T5V-9FM7].

See, e.g., Breslauer, supra note 71, at 64, 66-67.

See Aitkenhead, supra note 53.

See, e.g., Brownmiller, supra note 12, at 160-62.

Lisa De Moraes, Greta? Is That You? Analyst Moves from CNN to, Uh, Fox,  WASH. POST, Feb. 2, 2002, at C1; Kim Ode, The Heart Has Reasons: It’s Easy to Understand Why Van Susteren Chose the Eye Tuck: It May Even Be Tempting, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Feb. 12, 2002, at E12.

Lynn S. Chancer, Reconcilable Differences: Confronting Beauty, Pornography, and the Future of Feminism 96 (1998).

Rhode, supra note 29, at 154.

Trump asked about Carly Fiorina, “Look at that face. Would anyone vote for that?” Nicholas Kristoff, Clinton, Trump, and Sexism, N. Y. TIMES Jan. 24, 2016 (quoting Trump). For Trump’s demeaning comments about his accusers, see Donald Trump Mocks Accusers, Calls Them Unattractive and Liars, Fortune, Oct. 15, 2016, http://fortune.com/ 2016/10/15/donald-trump.

See generally Susie Orbach, Fat is a Feminist Issue: The Anti-Diet Guide for Women (1997).

[vegetacide]

Cloak and Dagger

Cloak and Dagger

Chapter 2: Nothing Ventured

Vegetable Notes: I spewed out another chapter.  Thanks for @gumnut-logic for letting me chew on her ear some- she rocks!  

Soundtrack for this chapter - Thornley, Tea Party,  Jeff Martin and Never Ending White Lights. 

Previous chapter can be found here

Enjoy!

8-8-8

Pulling the door closed, Kayo turned and ran smack into a familiar blue, twill weave. Scott grunted at the sudden impact, his hands coming to brace her at the near miss with the floor  “Kay,  whoa!”  

Righting herself,  Kayo took a step back.  “Sorry, about that. I…”  

“No, it was my fault.”

“Let’s agree to disagree then.”  

Putting some distance between them Kayo watched as Scott forced himself into a casual posture,  hands  into his pant pockets, shoulders down and seemingly relaxed.  To anyone else the pose would look just what it was expected to look like.  To her, it screamed the opposite. The fine lines of tension around his eyes and the muscles working along his strong jaw as he clenched and unclenched his jaw told her another story completely.

Rocking back on his heels,  his eyes strayed from her to the door and back again as if he was expecting someone else to come through the thing.

“He’s already up and about.”  She took mercy on him, knowing he was struggling with his need to mother-hen.  Pulling her loose hair up and off her neck she quickly twirled it into a bun and fasten it into place with the a black hair band that was every present at her wrist.  

Scott watched her well practiced movements a moment and she registered exactly when her words sunk in.  Virgil was by no means a morning person. It was barely past 7 am and the man  was renowned for his love of sleep.    

“Oh…”  Kayo blinked, not the reaction she had expected. Scott was off his game this morning but by the looks of him, he hadn’t faired much better than Virgil had last night. She’d seen the same look on Virgil’s face this morning as he had stumbled about in the pre-dawn light - as graceless as ever before his coffee fix.

She could read the brothers like a book and Scott was no different.  For all his military training and commanding attitude the worry for his sibling was obvious.   “He mumbled something about running diagnostics, post flight checks and cataloguing inventory losses but you know what he is like before caffeine.”

“Damn…” An expletive from Scott this early in the day didn’t bode well. “The call out was a bad one and the mission debrief didn’t go so well.”

“I assumed it hadn’t,” She’d observed quite a bit since she’d returned, “Considering everyone has either run for the mainland, ghosted the island like it might explode, turned into uber professionals  or has just up and disappeared.

“Disappeared…?”

“When did you see Brain’s last?”  She countered, not expecting a reply and carried on as if she hadn’t been interrupted. Brow raised,  her green stare scanning with little remorse over Scott. “Oh, and you and Virgil look like shit.”

“Gee, thanks”  Kayo shrugged with nonchalance.

“I call it like I see it”

“Love you too”  There, an uptick close to a smile flashing into existence. It was the reaction she was looking for from the straight backed, slightly too contained shell he was putting on.  She could work with this now.

Stepping away from the entry to Virgil’s sanctum sanctorum, Kayo put a hand on Scott’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze in support.  “Go talk to him.  I’ll be in the coms room when your ready.”    

8-8-8

Scott stepped out of the elevator onto the catwalk overlooking Two and sighed at the music that greeted his ears. Rock blasted with the heavy beat of drums through the massive space.  Ricocheting down off the ceiling and reverberating in the grating beneath his feet.  

Dropping his head, he rubbed at his stiff neck.  Audible proof that things were in the shitter with Virgil via Thornley, circa 2002.  His brother’s music choice was usually a good barometer to his mood and Scott was about to walk in on it.  

“Have fun with that.” Scott, looked over at Gordon as he limped up the stairs..  

“Thanks.”  

“He’s in a real mood today if he’s broken out the oldies. You may be taking your life in your own hands if you go in there. “

“Noted, “  Scott looked down to the open blast door some 200 ft down that separated the main hanger from the module storage bay and subsequently where Virgil could be found in his workshop.  

“I’m off,” Gordon turned, looking with appreciation and longing at his craft floating in its aquatic launch.  “I promised Alan I would call him and distract him from the boredom of shopping with Grandma.”

“No physio this morning?”  Scott asked with a look of concern as his brother rolled and re-rolled his left shoulder

“Nah,  taking a break today.”  Gordon looked abashed at this and failed to meet Scott’s eyes.  “I may or may not have over done it yesterday...a bit…”

Scott look skyward and prayed for strength, this family was going to make him fully grey in no time. “And you’re worried about me going down there?”  He pointed down below and snorted. “If Virgil or for that matter, Lady P finds out you know what will happen, right?”  

The shudder that went through Gordon said he was well aware of it. “Please don’t.  The images I have in my head about what Kayo is going to do to me is disturbing enough. Don’t add to it.”

“Kayo knows?”

“Busted me last night.”

“Sucks to be you.” Scott winced in sympathy

“No shit”

Shaking his head,  Scott ruffled the fish’s hair as he passed by.  The scowl that was returned for his efforts ignored as he set off down the stairs.  

“If you don’t make it back,  I’ll make sure to ask John to erase your browser history.  Can’t have Grandma finding out about your disturbing extracurriculars and your hamster fetish…”  Scott stopped in his tracks at that but Gordon was already safely stowed away in the lift on his way back up to the main house.  

“Brat..”

Hands tucked in his pockets, Scott strolled across the hanger and made his way around the massive supports of Two.  The great, hulking beast was up on her struts. One of her nesting modules parked below on the heavy tracks built specifically for trundling the huge cargo crates across the expanse of chemical resistant substrate topped flooring.  

Stepping across the embedded components of the pod conveyor system and through the reinforced bay door into the orderly storage area beyond, Scott marveled at the deceptiveness of the place their home was built around.  To say the hanger was big was one thing but add in the hidden 1300 foot length of the storage area and the place was massive.

The area, though only the width of about  500 ft at its widest, housed all of the modules,  pods,  grappling lines, fire suppression gear  and spare parts needed for the large, green ‘bird.  All of it stored away in specific, tidy, very well maintained numbered bays and lockers.  

It was a running gag between the Brothers that if you moved anything a millimeter in any one direction that Virgil would know instantly and without thought; like some OCD zombie, move said item back into its rightful space.  Gordon had even tried it a few times for shits and giggles with varying degrees of success.  

The aquanaut had learned quickly not to do this though when he found himself locked in his owner bathroom, covered in biodegradable glitter and spray cheese… how and when Virgil had rigged the shower, was anyone’s guess..  Gordon though hadn’t tried to ‘adjusted’ the placement of anything down in storage since.  Never mess with an engineer.  

To this day, Scott knew that Gordon was still finding flecks of glitter stuck to his person or in random other places. Scott was pretty sure though that Virgil was the culprit there with those instances, placing little, glimmering pieces here and there around the island where he knew his younger sibling would find it.  A little subconscious reminder for good measure.

Mentally slapping himself with a silent curse Scott closed his eyes.  He was procrastinating.  Letting his mind wonder about as his body did so he didn’t have to confront the disagreement from the night before.  This was the epitome of going  against the grain of his character.

Sucking it up, he peered around module 2.  The door to the crate was down, the light from within casting shadows on the alcove that clever mechanic had claimed as his space.

Virgil was sitting at one of the work stations. The chair was tipped back on its hind legs, his steel toed clad feet up on the utility bench, teetering the wooden chair back and forth.  In his lap, Scott could make out the pale blue glow of a computer interface his brother was flicking through. Adjusting levels and tweaking air intake ratios with the expertise of a conducted with an orchestra.   The music,  though not something Scott considered enjoyable, played through the large concussion fire suppression system and from this distance the interference caused by the echo of the hanger was negligible.  The module padding and design itself helping to insulate the reverb caused by the massive speakers.  

Max was wheeling about in the limited confines of the module, seeming to dance along with the music. Mechanized arms pin wheeling around as if he was directing the course of the notes.

“Max,  switch tracks please.”   Polite as ever,  even to an automaton.  The song quickly flipped over to another tune and the melody shifted to something with a bit more pep.  “Ugh.. next”

“I think this would be classified as a misappropriation of resources.”  His brother barely glanced up at that,  dark brows dropping down as some readings flashed across the interface that he didn’t like.  

“The sound system I originally installed in here is distorting the lower octaves at higher volume. The sub woofer needs to be upgraded.”  An off hand remark, “So I improvised.. Dual purpose, I can check the frequency output at the same time."

Scott plucked the display from his brother’s lap, looking over the present data on thrust to air intake ratios.  “Multitasking I see”  

“Passes the time. ”

They sat in relative silence for a while,  neither one willing to break the stalemate they seemed to have found themselves in. As one song ended and another started up, Scott bit the bullet.  

“How are the ribs?”

“Sore”

Scott  looked his brother over,  he’d pulled his overall down and looped the arms around his waist, the thin muscle shirt underneath dampened with sweat in a few places but relatively clean.  “Adhesive bindings?” Scott questioned as he noticed the medical tape under the thin material up his left side.

Virgil shrugged, “The discomfort is more manageable this way.”  At Scott’s sigh he quickly added,  “Not tight enough to restrict respiration. I know what I’m doing, so leave it alone, Scott”  

“OK, OK,”  Scott put his hands up in surrender. His brother did not want to be coddled.  Scott resisted the urge to say more on it.  Last thing they needed with Gordon being out of action still was Virgil being bed ridden with a chest infection.

Virgil dropped his feet to the floor, the heavy soles thunking on the raised metal sheeting that covered this section of the work space. Grimacing he got up and straightened his spine by sheer will power alone against the obvious physical ache. Once accomplished he stalked over to a tool chest “What do you want, Scott?”

“Nothing, just checking in.”  

A roughly opened drawer was equally thrust closed again.  Small blister pack of pills in hand,  Vigil broke the seal on two of the tablets and dry swallowed the lot.  “Bullshit.”

Anger simmering, Scott resisted raising to the bait and took a calming breath.  Maybe coming down here wasn’t such a wise idea.

‘Fine,  I came  to apologize for yesterday. I was out of line and I shouldn’t have taken it out on you or the useless forestry service supervisors.”  

“Apology accepted, now if you will excuse me..”

“Come on, V. You were almost killed yesterday.  I was and still am worried about you.”

“I’m fine, Scott.”  Virgil tossed the blister pack on the bench and grabbed a socket wrench. “Ribs will heal, this is nothing. I have had worse.”

“I’m not talking about your ribs and you know it.” Facing off with his brother when he was in this sort of head space was never a good plan.  

Virgil was known as the calm and collected one in the house and due to such was usually the sounding board the others went to when needed. But under the calm surface and rock steady nature was a man that felt deeply, more so than any of them could ascertain.  And Scott as close as he was to his stalwart sibling, could see that the impact of yesterday was sending ripples out ever widening circles of self doubt and blame.  

Scott counted on his brother and he wanted to provide that same support back. Their almost preternatural bond forged by a tragic, shared history had solidified them into what they were today and Scott would do whatever he could to protect it.

“I said ‘I’m fine.’ ”  The slight hitch said otherside as the wrench was slammed down on the work  surface.”  Head down between tight shoulder,  arms braced.  “Just leave it, Scott.”

The pleading in Virgil’s voice had Scott backing off.   “It wasn’t your fault, Virgil.”  

“Scott,  please..”  

Coming up behind the second eldest Scott placed a hand on the back of his neck, “OK, I hear you 5 by 5, little brother.” And gave the tight muscles a reassuring squeeze, instincts screaming at him. He knew though that pushing would get him nowhere.  

“When your ready to talk, come find me.”

8-8-8

Kayo hit the volume controls on the holo-vid and crossed her arms as the Kat Cavanaugh's sat up primly with the introduction to her segment.  

"Thank you, Albany." Kat nodded in gratitude, her voice confident. Cavanaugh had upped her game since her rescue out by the Gran Roca Ranch.  Her show having gained much popularity with her first hand account. The world at large was crazed for any information on the clandestine organization and she had quickly shot up in the reporting ranks.

So much so that the international community at large was now listening.  With an added co-anchor, Albany Crenshaw the sphere of her world had changed from basic rag gossip to world wide events. Set changes,  advertising, content and even personal appearance had been buffed to a high sheen. Success in every angle.

Her once,  rather laid back appearance giving way to a well groomed, professionalism.   A slick bob set off the features of her face adding a maturity that the barrettes of the past had lacked. Dressed up in a wool jacket and a fine print, split-neck blouse she radiated respectability all topped off with a dusting of make-up in neutral tones.  Nothing out of place, everything poised and polished.   A far cry from her previous casualness.

Angling herself just right in the studio lighting, her lips turned up in a competent smile. “Good evening, I'm Kat Cavanaugh. Tensions in Kazakhstan are on the rise tonight amidst continued civil unrest as protests and riots break out across the country."

Since October’s Military back coup by Socialist party leader, Mikhalev Lukyan Grigorievich there has been an outcry to the world nations for his removal.  

Grigorievich, who took control from interim leaders after the sudden death of President Alexandra Danilovna, seized power in an overnight raid in the country’s capital of Nur-Sultan.”

In recent years the country has fallen on civil and economic hardships with the depletion of its hydrocarbon production and the forced closure of the counties mineral mines due to civil rights violations. International amnesty groups have reported that this along with the abysmal work conditions and the country’s strict policies against assembly are major contributors to the continued upheaval.

Additionally,  unsubstantiated reports of clashes between the Kazakh Renewal and Reformation Coalition and military personnel has lead to a media blackout in Almaty. Rumours supplied by asylum seekers at the Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan borders speak of an increased Military presence within the city limits and a steep escalation of violence.  

The GDF and the World Union has been surprisingly quiet on the topic. Issuing only that the area has been declared a ‘No Fly’ zone and that all non-Kazakhstan citizens should avoid the area or head to the nearest embassy for evacuation.”

Several notes of interest followed relating to food shortages and power interruptions but the gist of the news coverage was that the region was in complete chaos and it was not likely to end amicably any time soon.  The big question,  Kayo pondered as she adjusted the volume to a near whisper with Scotts arrival, was the GDF going to do anything about the situation?  Could they even do anything about it without crossing into territory that could divide the world at large.  And if so, did they even have a right to?   She found the lack of an easy and clean cut response disturbing.  

International incidents were avoided these days with great effort but something told her in this case something was going to have to give to bring this conflict to a head.  It was either that or watch a country with a population of some 23 million people either starve to death or completely self destruct.   The stability in that part of the world would be shattered in the power vacuum.

Nodding her head towards the moving 3D holographic image above the table, Kayo uncrossed her arms and walked over to the desk where Scott had just parked with a grunt. “This is going to get messy before it gets any better.”  

He made a vocal note of assent and took a sip of the coffee he’d brought in.  Smelt like Virgil’s Sumatran blend she noticed offhandedly.  “Looks like it,  been playing on repeat all morning.  With the GDF evacuation in effect more and more information is leaking out across the borders.  I am expecting the GDF will make a formal request of us eventually but as of yet, they have been quiet on that front”

“Formal request?” Kayo cocked a brow,  “You think they are going to bar us access to the area if there is a call?”  

Scott shrugged, setting his cup down on the report ridden desk. “I have no idea,  Aunt Val hasn’t said anything yet but she’s been a bit tied up.”  He waved his hand towards the holo cast, encompassing  everything going on in that area of the world.  

“For the time being we will just have to play it by ear.”  Rubbing at his eyes,  he changed his focus and glanced at the time. “Lady P is supposed to be calling in shortly, if you don’t mind the wait.”  

Kayo shook her head and leaned against the end of the desk.  The morning sun was starting to heat things up again outside, and it was threatening to be a record setting high.

“How is he?”  Came the inevitable question.

Kayo glanced back over her shoulder, assessing.  It was unsettling for the brothers to be at odds.  “You went and saw him,  what do you think?”

“Fuck.”

“That sounds accurate.” Last night had been rough and Kayo wasn’t known for sugar coating.  One of the reasons her and Scott worked well together for the most part.  He appreciated her blunt and direct nature. Softening as she saw the matched set to the bags under Virgil’s eyes on Scotts face she tact on, “Give him time. He need to process things on his own. You know as well as I do that forcing things with him before he is ready isn’t a viable options.  He’ll be fine given enough space and when he is ready he will come to you.”  

“Ya, I guess you’re right.  I’m just …”  His words were cut off as a signal from their London agent come through. Mouthing an apology to Kayo, Scott opened the channel.  “Lady Penelope,  right on time.”

“Scott, darling.  You look dreadful.”  

Lips drawing into his trademark Scott Tracy one-sided smirk, he tilted his head to the side. “Good to see you too.”

8-8-8

Head still down, Virgil stayed silent at his brother’s parting words.  The gently supportive squeeze a physical reminder that no matter what there was someone there for him if and when he wanted it.  

After a moment he gave his head a shake. Enough of this crap.  Time to get back to work.   He had system analyses running on Two that needed to be monitored and an intake manifold for the rear, right VTOL had to be tweaked as the mixture ratio was off somehow - he suspected carbon deposits from back washing exhaust through a main intake to be the cause but he couldn’t be sure without removing the cowling and several other components. Hours of work ahead.  

This could of course all be done automatically but Virgil like to be hands on with maintenance,  tweaking and adjusting where needed to get the most of of his craft.  He knew his ‘bird intimately,having crawling over and under every part of it.   He enjoyed losing himself in the work,  seeing what he accomplished at the end of the day like rebuilding an engine,  overhauling a control panel or relay.  It was good,  honest work that left him feeling satisfied.

Yes, there were some days that things didn’t work out as planned.  Some frustration caused by an answer eluding him,  the challenge presented keeping him up sometime well into the early hours.  But when the solution finally presented itself, the sense of achievement was phenomenal.

And finally,  there was the pod drive sprockets.  

He needed to know how he’d missed the damage.  Their procedures dictated that visual scans be conducted after every mission so that any broken or damaged parts could either be repaired or outright replaced.   In addition to that,  during the decontamination and cleansing process, scanners in the washer bays would look for possible stress points. Virgil had looked over all of those scans personally as he did every time and he hadn’t seen anything.

He’d looked over the scans again this morning and still there was nothing there. So what had he missed?  He’d thought that maybe complacency had come to the fore.  Having done the process so many times, human errors could easily account for it but one thing Virgil prided himself on was his attention to detail. It’s what made him a good engineer.  

Looking at the interface, he let his brain zone out with the hopes that the answer would jump out at him.  If the procedure wasn’t the issue,  maybe there was another angle he wasn’t seeing.  

They could micro-scan the metallurgy, test for stress points and density but they had too much equipment for that. It would take weeks of fine tooth comb’ing it to go over all of it,  There had to be another option available to them.

Turning, he took in all that was parked, stored and at the ready for whenever they got a call out again.  Clean, orderly and poised for use at the drop of a hat.   Geared up to be shunted into modules with a couple flicks of a finger and off into the air in a matter of minutes but what the hell was he missing..

A thought came to mind that had Virgil toggling his coms.  “Hey, Brains?”  

“Virgil, w-what can I do for you?”  The genus’s 3D holographic image suspended above the receiver built into work desk flared to life.   Brains was the other side of the hanger by One but it was just easier to call then haul his ass all the way over there and back.  

“The wash-bay scanners been calibrated lately?”

Framed glasses slipped down a narrow nose as the relevant information was pulled up. “Uh,  three w-weeks ago.  Why?  Is th-there something wrong with them?”

“Just a hunch.  Can you run it again and do a system analysis?”  

“That will t-take some time. I have the bulk of the island servers dedicated t-to the zero-x build.”

Virgil dragged a hand down his face.  He didn’t have any other options right now.  “Do what you have to and let me know if anything comes up.”

Brains’ image nodded. “R.A.D”

Virgil only rolled his eyes a little as he closed down the connection.  

TBC

NEXT CHAPTER

[wilhelmjfink]

The Great Divide - Chapter 2

Summary: Daryl had told Riley a hundred times: people are not to be trusted and one day she’d run into the wrong person and learn pretty quickly that her confidence in strangers would get her into a lot of trouble. They both knew he was right. He was just trying to teach her before it was too late for her to learn.

Warnings: probably some swearing

A/N: so i’ve decided to post 2x a week bc i’m not sought after enough to have any sort of demand for the next chapter of this series LOL SO HERE’S CHAPTER TWO feat. really angry daryl (we can deny it all we want but we loooooooooove it)

Previous Chapter • Next Chapter

“Aaron!” Tara hissed. “There’s someone outside!”

The pair ducked under the small rectangular windows that laid ground level with the hotel, the quilted glass dusty and cracked with misuse, but useful enough for Tara to spot movement as she climbed the shelving along the basement storage room walls.

“Shit,” he whispered it more to himself than to Tara as three other strangers joined the unfamiliar man outside, emerging from the tree line. “There’s more.”

They held their breath, observing the group of strangers slowly approach the hotel before luckily seeming disinterested and moving on. The each exhaled the breath of anxiety neither one of them even noticed they were holding.

“I hope Riley’s hiding,” Tara muttered under her breath, almost absent-mindedly, so focused on the potential threat.

The air was still while they waited, silent and still, hoping that the visitors would just pass without incident. It was hard to hear them from a distance, but as they moved closer to the hotel, Tara could pick out a few words: ‘first and foremost’ and ‘finally’ and ‘divided’. They would eventually move on. Wordlessly, they exchanged nervous glances. If they could just remain quiet enough...

The sound of a car engine turning over immediately followed by deafening revving diverted both of their attentions back to the outside. It was loud, but they still couldn’t see it, and it only worried the more as the seconds ticked by and the sound refused to die out into the distance.

“Come on.” Aaron suddenly pulled Tara away from the window and they entered the dark stairwell, blindly climbing until they reached the top, peering carefully around the corner into the lobby, both relieved to see it still empty.

The large bay windows were of course boarded up, but were inconsistent enough to leave small slivers of light that allowed them to peer outside.

Their blue Chevy remained unbothered on the sidewalk, but they could see at the end of the stretch a herd of black vehicles that surrounded a big utility truck or van. There were at least ten people outside, leaning up against the black Dodge Chargers, all armed to the teeth.

“Holy hell,” Tara whispered. “Are they all wearing masks? Where do you think they came from?”

“I have no idea,” Aaron was just as shocked as she was; it was written on both of their faces. “Let’s go find Ri and we’ll just lay low until they leave.”

“What if they don’t leave?” Tara asked anxiously. The worst case scenarios had already played in her head, arriving the second that she’d realized somebody was outside. “What if they sweep the area? They’re gonna notice we cut the chain on the front doors eventually.”

“Don’t worry about that right now.” Aaron nodded pointedly towards the stairwell, trying to remain as calm and rational as he could for both of them. “Come on.”

Tara followed him after hesitantly turning away from the sight of the crew outside.

The men were raucous, laughing loudly and obnoxiously, seemingly unaware of the danger and unwanted attention the noise would attract. Tara wasn’t surprised, though — judging from their appearances they were not only well-off if not thriving, but they looked tough, and they looked mean. Each vehicle had the same symbol painted on its door or window — some foreign design that was unfamiliar to both Tara and Aaron. A different language, maybe. Or perhaps some sort of cult or twisted religion.

Aaron lead the way up the stairs blindly, trusting his gut and fumbling through the darkness before his foot kicked and caused him to stumble over an object that lay in his path. He caught himself on the wall adjacent to him and found then he was close enough to the emergency exit door so he pushed the metal open just enough to let a ray of sunlight leak in and light it up.

“Oh, my fuck,” Tara gasped louder than she’d intended to. “That’s Riley’s bag!”

Aaron wanted desperately to be able to argue with her. He couldn’t. It was Riley’s “Shit!”

“We have to go after her.” Tara was already turning back around toward the lobby, retrieving her rifle where it hung on her back in preparation to fight, like a soldier marching confidently into the front lines. Aaron could see the wild look in her eyes and he quickly darted after her.

“Hey, hey, hey! Wait!” He had a hold on her sleeve and Tara halted in her tracks but didn’t turn around. “We can’t just run out there, Tara — there could be even more of them. You saw them all -- their armor and their firepower! They could be seriously dangerous ...”

“They could have Riley!” She spat back, spinning on her heels to face him. “That’s her backpack. Why would she just ditch it?”

“Just relax, okay?” Aaron ran a hand through his hair, already breaking a sweat from the stress and the humidity of the day as the sun rose higher in the sky. He wanted to ask why they wouldn’t take it, but deep down, he felt it would just lead to more worry as they played out potential scenarios in their heads. “Just, hold on...”

“Aaron, come on. What’s there to think about? We’re gonna go find her.”

There was a faint sound of crickets off in the distance somewhere as the sun lowered and painted the town a deep orange. It let in an eerie glow into the room Aaron and Tara found themselves in. Amongst the upturned papers and belongings they’d managed to scatter all over the floors and beds were the discarded room keys they’d thrown after searching each floor thoroughly with not one sign of Riley.

“She’s not here, Aaron.” Tara’s panic was rising, her voice escalating with every word she spoke. She swore, double and triple and quadruple checking in her head: they’d looked in every single room on the top three floors. Two of them were locked, but there was no response from the other side of door, and when they’d noticed the dust on the lock mechanism, they’d decided it’d been untouched. And the only sign they’d found of Riley’s presence was a few of those abandoned hotel room keys — but that only increased their anxiety as opposed to giving them any reassurance nor did it get them any closer to their friend.

Aaron had been watching the group of strangers outside from the fifth story window of the suite they’d entered, eagerly waiting for them to leave or at least show any sign that they did in fact have Riley. They hadn’t done either, and his shoulders slumped in a combination of disappointment, but also some bitter relief, when they’d all piled back into their vehicles and prepared to leave.

“Well, they’re about to head out,” he informed Tara, trying desperately no to lose hope for himself and for her, though he couldn’t help but feel like his words had been much heavier than he’d intended them to be. “We can go search outside now — see if she was hiding out there and waiting for them to leave.”

“And if she’s not?”

Aaron glanced over his shoulder at Tara, slightly taken back by her tone of voice when she snapped those words at him. Though he knew deep down that she was probably right: something had happened to Riley. He could feel it in his gut; in his bones. She was smart and she was sly, and she would remain undetected if she wanted to. That only meant that she had gone out after somebody or something, and had yet to return. She could be lying injured somewhere or, if they were lucky, just lurking in the shadows patiently waiting for the intimidating group of strangers to leave the area.

He watched as the final vehicle drove out of sight. “Let’s go.”

Building to building, sometimes twice, they searched, with no hint nor sign of Riley. Any sign of entry they investigated. Any hint of activity or movement; no stone went unturned, no footprint unfollowed.

A corpse with similar armor lay dead on the edge of the treeline, shot in the head, stiff and dry as it’d laid there for some time. He had a small keychain on his belt with few oxidizing keys hanging from them. That was it. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

It was dark by the time the pair had decided to start their journey back to Alexandria, having exhausted all of their options and available resources in search of their friends. They’d come up empty handed, much to their disappointment, having thoroughly swept the area in its entirety for any sign of her at all. They were devastated. Hopeless, almost, but guilty, because why would they be so quick to give up?

The ring held five keys, each labeled accordingly on masking tape in black marker: pit, quarters, trains, hole, and slaves. It didn’t give them much insight, but only worried them more, the names on the keys painting a gruesome picture in both of their minds. It only dug the hole they’d both been sitting in deeper; pulling them lower into the fear.

It had to have been shortly before the sun was about to rise when they pulled back up to the entrance, their stomachs knotted with anxiety as the gate slid open in front if them.

The two didn’t even make it through the entrance before they spotted them: Rick leaning against the streetlight pole to their right and Daryl beside him, pacing in circles like an infuriated, caged animal.

At the sight, Aaron and Tara glanced at each other apprehensively before shutting the truck off and hopping out of their respective sides.

Daryl stormed up to them, visibly upset, and Rick trailed behind him with more confusion than anger on his face. His expression was almost hard to read, like it so often was, and neither one could distinguish exactly how he was feeling. But if they knew him well enough, hopefully he would be more level headed and rational than Daryl usually was, as he’d proven time and time again, and they hoped that would be the case again and he would be able to calm him down...

“The hell took ya so long?” He barked at them before he’d even made it up to the truck, and they watched his face drop the second he realized that they were missing someone.

But before he could lash out, Aaron interjected, trying to diffuse the situation before it spiraled out of control. “Riley took off.”

As Rick approached they could see his face clearer with the dome light shining from behind them. He looked confused and threw a fleeting glance at Daryl, who looked nothing short of outraged, and managed to speak up first while his friend still seemed to be trying to register what he was just told.

“What do you mean ‘took off’?”

“She took off?” Daryl suddenly roared, his voice growing dangerously loud for the quiet community in the middle of the night. Rick’s attempt to deter him did little to help. “Riley don’t just take off. Where is she?”

There was a fleeting second where he softened upon registering the marred expression on Tara’s face, but as the sadness usually did with him, it turned back into a fiery rage. He took a threatening step toward Aaron. “Hey! I’m talkin’ to ya!”

“She ditched her backpack,” Tara answered flatly for Aaron, dropping the bag at the archer’s feet. And he looked down at it for a moment, trying to configure a reason inside of his head as to why the fuck she might’ve done that, but he knew his girl. She wouldn’t leave her backpack behind without the intention of coming back to get it. She wouldn’t have just left without any sort of hint or anything where she was going. She wouldn’t just leave.

“Nah, that don’t make any sense,” Daryl shook his head in denial, refusing to believe she’d just abandoned them. “She wouldn’t jus’ leave.”

“Did you see anybody else?” Rick asked them as Aaron ran a hand through his hair, growing increasingly more distraught by the second. “Was anybody else around?”

“There were these guys,” Aaron answered. “Like, ten of them. Maybe more. But they didn’t notice us. They were far down the street, and — “

Before could finish his thought Daryl lunged forward, throwing himself at his friend as he simply tried to explain everything he knew and pinned him up against the brick wall of the home behind them. He was panting heavily as he stared the terrified man in his hands down, his eyes wild and Aaron briefly worried that Daryl might actually kill him. 

“And ya just fuckin’ left her there?” Daryl yelled.

Aaron shook his head frantically. “No, Daryl, we — “

“I trusted you with ‘er!”

Aaron realized then that Daryl wasn’t angry, not at him nor at all, but he was hurt; he felt betrayed by his friends, but Aaron and Tara were confident that they’d done all they could.

“Daryl, you didn’t see those guys,” Tara stepped toward them and put a hand gently on his arm, hoping to simmer him down at least a little bit before he ended up doing some he’d regret. “They were mean. And they had a lot of firepower.”

“They coulda had Riley!”

"Hey guys, let’s all jus’ calm down.” This time it was Rick who stepped up. “They couldn’t have stayed out there forever, Daryl. I’m sure they looked for her -- ”

“Did ya even try to find her?” Daryl wouldn’t tear his eyes away from Aaron who, despite his fear, knew the archer well enough and still trusted him not to try and hurt him... or so he hoped.

“We tried, man — we looked everywhere. We came back for you guys... we need more numbers before we can just run after them. Those guys, they were... they were bad people. And if they do have her, I don’t think they’re going to hand her over nicely.”

With a sigh Daryl dropped him suddenly, feeling overwhelmed with guilt and sadness and fear and pressure and too many other fucking things. He looked to Rick for answers and, upon realizing his best friend and leader had nothing to offer, turned on his heels and stormed off. 

“Alright then, les’ go.”

“Daryl, we — “

“Save it! There ain’t time to bullshit about it! If those guys are as bad as y’all say, then I ain’t gonna hang around here and wait for ‘em to drop her off on our doorstep. Let’s go.”

When he disappeared, the silence that followed was soon interrupted by a motorcycle engine and even though they’d known Daryl was one to play around, they didn’t expect him to react the way that he did. 

Rick turned back to his friends wearily. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, fine.” Aaron ribbed the spot on his collar bone that Daryl’s fists has dug into. “But he’s right. If those guys did take her, then we can’t afford to waste any time.”

Rick tried his best to keep up the voice of reason. “We need to regroup; think of a plan....”

But Tara started after Daryl instead, strutting backwards to holler at the two guys that stayed by the truck. “Let me know what Daryl thinks of that,” she shouted before turning back around toward the motorcycle that was pulling up. She waved him over. “I’m going with him. You guys can catch up later.”

:o gasp

i think i’m going to post a one shot tomorrow too.... maybe if i feel like u guys want it bad enough............ lmao

ask if you want to be added to my lil tag list :)

@crossbowking @jodiereedus22@apossiblegentleman@mtngirlforever @sourwolf-sterek32@winchester-angel @qrangr @cole-winchester @the-bottom-of-the-abyss @twdeadfanfic@crazyaboutnorman @deliciousassafrasssandwich@bunnymother93 @96ssi @fireeyes-on-teller-dixon-grimes @ima-mther-fckn-starboy @thatsoragan@lonewolf471

[trayvonfleary-blog]

General Assembly Software Engineering Immersive

Hello All, instead of posting my normal content relating to cars and/or trucks, I will be taking a deeper dive into my daily life, particularly regarding the software engineering immersive program that I am currently undergoing, which is a technology bootcamp. For a couple of months, I am going to sway away from discussing different sectors within the automotive industry while I focus strictly on technology, but automotive is not going anywhere so stay tuned for big announcements following;)

What Is It?

Currently I’m completing General Assembly’s Software Development Immersive, which is a “12 week award-winning program that has expert instructors and career coaches, and connect graduates with 19k+ hiring partners to get them jobs at A-list companies.” It is slated as your best course for career transformation. The company boats 9,000+ hires, as it states that they are the leader in placing their grads into high-growth, and high-pay tech jobs. Yes, this is all accomplished within 12 weeks. I’m sure you’re asking, “Are these jobs guaranteed?” Of course not, but the company is quite confident. Continue reading as to “why?” after this quick infographic below illustrating what you can expect from this program.

Im currently entering into my 5th week of this program. On our first day, a General Assembly employee bursts in our classroom, after getting another graduate hired, and asked, “Did you guys here about our last cohort?”, which had ended a couple of months prior. We had no clue what she was referring to but then she claims that their last cohort had a 93%+ hire rate. Impressive right. Thats a way to bring some motivation if you had any doubts before. Who knows if this was the truth, but they were all very excited and I have personally heard from some earlier attendees about the jobs that they received after the course and some even during the last week or 2 of the course ending. Before this starts sounding like a fantasy world where you can spend the 3 months and someone else can spend 4-5 years getting a computer science degree and you both end up with the same job (very possible), I’m going to break things down a bit.

Tuition Options?

First, starting with cost, I feel that the tuition share agreement is the best payment option and allows many people who can’t afford it to have a chance at something that can be life changing. It is not yet available in all states, but it’s a great option if you are not trying to pay $14k(approximate tuition cost) out of pocket and upfront(or in a few payments).  Focusing on the $0 upfront income share agreement, it is structured very fair in my opinion. You are only required to pay an upfront $250 deposit until you land a software engineering job (ex: web development, full stack, etc) and depending on your location, entry level is probably hovering around $60k and above.

So if you don’t land a job, you are not at the hands of a huge loan that you cannot afford and most importantly, you’re not out of $14k+ that many pay to take the program. If you have additional experience in UX/UI design, and/or other skills for that matter, your pay can be a lot higher.

Income Share Agreement?

As far as General Assembly not offering the income share agreement not being offered in all states, specifically New York at the moment, I believe that it has to do with the amount of jobs being offered and the amount that are vacant. Here in the Greater Atlanta Area, the tech scene is taking on massive growth along with an abundant amount tech jobs that have yet to be filled. Whether it’s startups, fintech companies, or larger corporations, there is a massive demand for tech jobs in many industries here. I’m not sure of the availability in other cities and states in respective to the amount of tech workers seeking employment.

Adding to the tuition share agreement option, applicants are also subject to a more strict batch of pre course work, along with an evaluation to see if you are prepared and can be successful at this program. My pre course work (estimated to take 40 hours if you have prior knowledge) took me at least 60+ hours, and thats literally. Going through the pre course work, I decided to take notes and continue to reference them even when the program started so that I could truly retain the information, just as I would with another language until I could demonstrate it effortlessly.

Negatives?

The only negative to this income share agreement is that the total amount paid for the course increases to approximately $20,000, instead of the $14,000 that you could sign up for up front after getting accepted. Although this $20,000 will be paid for over a multiple of years (small monthly payments ranging from $300-$800 per month), depending on how much income you are making per year with the lower end being around the $50k end and the upper being $100k+ end.

That is where the trade off comes in, as you decide whether you would want to pay $14k up front or $20k over a multiple of 3-5 years. Simply put, both options come with what some will see as a hefty price but when compared to the average college tuition for 3-5 years, it is significantly less. So is it worth it?  My simple answer: Yes, but its not for everyone and also depends on how much time you willing to dedicate!

What does it take?

Personally, as I’m approaching week 5 in the 12 week program, I would say that it is well worth it. This may not be the same for everyone else. There are so many factors that go into this decision and realizing if it is worth it for you or not. First off, the program is 12 weeks long and runs on a very strict schedule, from Monday – Friday (9am-5pm). All of my cohort(class) had to quit their jobs, and/or whatever else they were doing including school, etc. This IS NOT just a 9-5 job for three months. Ample time is required outside of class for this program to be worth it. You get what you give. Currently, it is very normal for me and my “codemates” to spend another 20-40+hours outside of class per week, on top of our current 9-5 days.

Being Prepared?

Handling this amount of work in such a short period of time is life changing mentally, physically, socially, and financially of course. Savings is required as it’s almost impossible to take on a full time job during this time. Knowing how to handle stress and pressure is also very important, as there will be a lot of ups and downs during the course. Another importance is your family and support. Your time will be very limited during this time, so just be prepared to be a bit disconnected during this time.

For me, personally, I had no real coding experience before starting the pre work for this program, but doing a lot of studying in the year prior to signing up for the program certainly helped with knowing different technologies and frameworks, and what they were used for. Regardless, free time gets pretty scarce during this time of development. It is extremely tough to stay consistent with a certain level of focus each and every day in this program, as it’s basically like learning a new language. So, being prepared is very critical.

The Daily Grind?

Each and every day has a structured schedule that we are given at the beginning of the cohort. The days normally start with lecture, or a quick meeting if it’s project week. Throughout the day, we go through enormous amounts of material, but it’s never just a lecture. Practice, practice, and more practice! Daily learning on how to structure, develop, and implement responsive webpages and applications from the ground up. This is where General Assembly separates itself from just trying to read and learn to code online, or even while pursuing a 4 year computer science degree while spending meaningless time on classes and material that you don’t need or ever use again.

As the saying goes, if you want to learn Chinese, the fastest way is to get dropped directly into the middle of China! This is the exact same. You’re being thrown right into the programming fire everyday, but in a good way. All of the new information learned is always directly followed by practice, as you jump right into the CLI(command line interface) and your IDE(integrated development environment). HTML, and CSS fly by within the first couple of days and then you will be jumping directly into Javascript. After that, you are off and running, and thats when the real challenge starts and the bulk of the course begins.

Is It Really Worth It?

All in all, I think it is definitely worth it if you have a passion to work in tech, whether to create your dream company or to work for another. This is the case, but this immersive program is not something that you spend a little time on and make it into a small side gig. If that’s what you’re looking for, then programming may not be ideal for you. It takes intense focus and dedication to be successful in the field. One mistake can crash an entire program, or maybe even delete an entire database and cause the company to crash. What if someone deleted the entire database of Uber drivers because they told the computer an incorrect command? Of course this would not happen, as their infrastructure has too much sophistication for that to happen, but the company would literally be out of operations for who knows how long and this would cause the end of one of the biggest companies that the world has ever seen.

If you’re not passionate about it, and that goes for anything in life, then you shouldn’t waste your time and/or money. It is also only worth it if you have time. This point needs to be emphasized. For example: If you have a family and can’t afford to quit your full time job, this is not a good idea. I’ve found that many who go through these programs don’t have many responsibilities at the moment, or they have wonderful supporters around them who help them throughout the duration. The immersive is very time consuming, and some may find it easier than others, but the amount of time that has to be put in is undeniable.

In a quick rundown, within 5 weeks, I have learned HTML, CSS, Javascript/jQuery, started creating our own servers, learning node, express, mongoDB, certain data structures and science, and so much more underlying information. This is not everything, and has taken massive work outside of class along with in class work and lecture. Just 5 weeks ago, I wouldn’t even know where to start.

Why Would You Put Yourself Through Such a Daunting Task?

For me, taking this leap was about being creative and bringing my ideas to life, as I push to provide immense value to this world for decades to come. My friends have always told me that I have all of the ideas, but to me they meant nothing if I could never bring them to life. I avoided obtaining these skills for the simple reason of believing that they were too time consuming, or that it was too old to start now, or simply because of me believing that I didn’t belong in that time of environment (the common imposture syndrome). Whether you’re a cook, waitress, sales associate, truck driver, garbage truck operator or whatever it may be, you can be successful not only in this program, but in this career field as a whole.

All of these technologies are fairly new, relative to our society, and if you spend 10+ hours a day on something while someone else maybe spends a hour every few days, you will be amazed at how far you can go. If you are thinking of a career change, or simply love the tech field and need this sort of structure to learn, I will highly advise taking General Assembly’s Software Engineering Immersive if time and your situation persists. You will also hear the phrases “Web Developer”, “Full Stack Developer”, etc associated with software engineering as a lot of the knowledge intertwines.

Youtube Series Update?

Last but NOT LEAST, stay tuned as this will be just an intro to these blog and content posts regarding my Software Development journey. I aim to produce this content for the remaining 7-8 weeks in the course, while also producing content beyond the program as I work on different projects and aim to connect with like minded people in the industry. In the upcoming posts, I will link a youtube video that goes into depth about my particular General Assembly Immersive location, in the Greater Atlanta Area. Stay tuned, and be blessed!

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Just with the electrician Islington and make sure that the electrician you call for help has experience fixing varied points inside this subject, as it will be certain that you will get several points fastened without delay. When connecting the wiring of the panels, guantee that they're wired collectively instead of wiring them in groups or collection. So, when purchasing for one, make certain to seek out tools which might be made from durable materials. As with all profession, having the right tools for the trade is important to your success. A few of the tools are screwdrivers, pliers, knives, drills, saws and conduit benders. Unfortunately, faulty memory can only be replaced; they're unserviceable by the user. Even in the event you prefer to do it yourself, the help of a professional can Electrician Islington go a long way. Repairing any malfunctioning gadget or wiring is also within the capacity of this skilled. The mixed efforts in both environments will assist you to greatly when taking the electricians exam down the highway. With all the most recent technology thats on the market now, it has turn into easier for electricians to knock out all of the upgrades that you want accomplished to your house or business, plus many times the corporate will move along the savings.

In choosing to take the required electrician programs throughout your apprenticeship you will truly be incomes cash immediately, as a substitute of waiting in a classroom. These advanced systems require an electrician to get them put into place properly. Not only are these programs complicated, however they can also pose a hazard when improperly dealt with. He is licensed by the state but and might perform installations of equipment however cannot design a mission. For enterprise establishments that would benefit from aesthetically lovely outdoor settings within the evening modern photo voltaic panorama lighting may be a giant boon. Electricians will be exposed to asbestos in considered one of two ways. All electricians listed and permitted to display the mark are registered with an electrical Competent Person Scheme Operator, and have been authorised by Government to self-certify that their work is compliant with Building Regulations. So, whereas Electricians Public Liability Insurance isn’t legally compulsory, it’s widely thought-about essential within the industry. It’s no wonder these people earn a hefty pay.

Once more, electricity running by components that you're poking with a screwdriver isn’t a great combo. It is all the time good to maintain it in writing in order that no mistakes are made. Additionally, the particular person needs to be ready to resolve issues and have an excellent sense of colour. In the event that they do not have the required academic qualifications, but they'll cross the preliminary aptitude test, they need to still be allowed to prepare. We've a vacancy for a Marine Electrician in our Electronics Department. Regardless of work's sort, it's going to frequently be advantageous to understand earlier than getting his providers when the certified electrician may do a specific career. Sure Providers. It is additionally essential to see services' kind the electrician could do. Do not attempt to make use of energy from inside the affected area except deemed safe by a certified electrician. They work with the protected manipulation of excessive voltages everyday so that residents, employees, and operators can enjoy the fruits of their harmful labor.

With a lot of use these can put on and become sloppy inflicting your machine to short out at the most inconvenient of moments. This will quickly turn out to be a problem if the house is just not outfitted with the right surge protection. A very powerful factor to look for in an out of doors switch is a watertight seal or different applicable protection across the digital or mechanical display. An necessary thing for any electrician to do is to ensure that an space is getting its electricity correctly. Getting the journeyman certification is essential because it improves your wages rather a lot, plus it unlocks numerous prospects for you on high of that. We are new to rated individuals but we're very skilled. The bottom line is to rent a office cleaning firm in Kansas City that does greater than floor cleansing. This course has been created particularly to deliver all the important thing electrical courses together to provde the skills, information, skills and competency required to grow to be a Domestic Installer. Use our homeowner guidelines for extra tips on choosing a tradesperson.

You might have a look at looking for the perfect 1 on the web and by referrals. You want some extent to point breakdown and also you need to evaluate also if there may be any features of their service providing that you do not need. Does your restaurant want refrigeration? The drum permits the clothes to tumble around inside of it whereas they dry. Into the twentieth century electrical engineering broke into many fields in analysis and know-how like electrical engineering or digital engineering. And it's so because, just like the that means of language is communication, artwork can be communication. There can also be a cutoff area with which to sever the wire completely. There isnt too much risk while you deal with paint or wallpaper. In the early years there weren't but many security options, so electrocution and fires were not uncommon. Lots of them wouldn't ask for a written copy of their license or insurance.

Finding the Perfect Builder for Your Project With properly installed landscape lighting, it is possible to greatly customize the look and atmosphere of your respective outdoor spaces. This is a great way to raise the safety, function and appear of your entire yard. Many people tend to commence with one flowerbed, tree or outdoor living space. Regardless of the size of your lighting project, there are many options and lighting packages available. While it could be tempting to get it done all yourself with a DIY lighting kit, choose getting your landscape lighting professionally installed by a licensed electrician. Professionally installed landscape lighting often looks better and lasts more than its DIY counterparts.

You can buy different brands of this product in every shop. It is even available in shops and some larger grocery stores. The price to get a standard-sized bucket, which holds enough material not less than a dozen appliances, do range from dollar to four or five dollar for the specialised product, for example granite-safe putty. Every home should have a package of this product among its home maintenance supplies in the event that a leak appears. Since it's very low-priced and lasts for many years, it is possible to store it within your basement, workroom, or under the drain until you're ready utilize it. Just make sure you continue the container firmly closed after each use therefore the clay isn't getting subjected to mid-air to much time. Although it will stay soft and pliable for the very long time, it could normally dry out should you leave the package open for any very long time. Another common basis for replacing an electrical outlet is a lot more common than you could think. Electricians frequently see poorly made connections whenever they are inspecting home electrical outlets. Because electrical code allows for connections to get made two ways, either held tight using a blade (not the recommended method), as well as to contain the wires wrapped around all the screws and tightened. Because the first strategy is cheaper and takes less time, many electricians will perform this as a way to finish fast. This produces a less secure, connection, however, that may loosen over time. A poor connection can result in hidden dangers, as the connections are completely hidden by the wall. It is not only the drains in the home that could get clogged. The plumbing lines through the home hook up with larger sewer lines that run within the home. Very often, wrinkles get clogged that roots of trees. As the roots expanding, they are able to block the drain and cause the sewage to back in to the home with the floor drains. This could cause flooding for the lower a higher level your home resulting in extensive damage and expensive repairs. DIY doesn't always work- Even the cleverest among us continues to be stumped by the repair problem. Compounding this regarding plumbing is the fact that true, high-quality plumbing repairs involve high-tech equipment that perhaps the sophisticated DIY-er will not have entry to, for example snakes and video line inspection units.