#Must remake Roman's blog too

[chiropterx]

Kirk doesn't always smell the freshest. His habit of getting caught up in his research (and resulting depression after getting divorced with Francine) absolutely took a toll on his mental health and the formula only makes things worse, making him sweat profusely due to raising his body temperature. Kirk can shower but he'll soon start developing a certain 'musky', even animalistic aroma that is only more prominent as Man-Bat.

[siren1song]

Dating in Quarantine

Summary: The group is on video call, trying to decide the best dating strategy for quarantine.

Warnings: Quarantine, mildly suggestive language

Pairings: Anxceit, Logince, Intruality

Word Count: 878

Taglist: @acanvasofabillionsuns, @emo-disaster, @greenninjagal-blog, @jungle321jungle, @sleepy-sides, @gattonero17, @another-sandersidesblog, @strawberryjellystuff, @logic-with-a-pinch-of-deceit, @gr3ml1n-loser, @main-chive, @firey-alex, @spooky-scary-virgil, @yalltookmyurlideas, @sanderssidesweirdo, @stormypaint, @just-a-little-bit-gay-oops, @dying-is-a-hobby, @the-angry-ship, @rosesisupposes, @just-perhaps

Notes: I’m too tired to put my usual promotional stuff. Plus I gotta remake my commissions post to reflect new and updated information so just. Enjoy these dorks. Oh also I wrote this for @fandom-games!!

Ao3 Link!!

“You are not seriously suggesting that sending dick pics is a way to land a date in quarantine.”

“I am! And you’re too coward to admit it!”

Virgil sometimes wondered if Remus considered the words he said, or if he based every thought purely on how much it would annoy Roman.

“Uh… Remus, honey, explicit pictures are only good when they’re asked for by the person you wanna send them to,” Patton spoke up, his camera quality making him jump around the screen and his uncomfortable expression barely visible.

“See! Patton’s right. You can’t woo any man by sending pictures nobody wants to see!”

“Roman,” Logan interrupted, briefly turning on his own camera to give his boyfriend a look, despite the fact that Virgil could see Roman on his desktop in his background.

While Virgil watched them argue, he got a dm from his own boyfriend, who was technically downstairs but neither of them felt like bothering to move from their spots.

[Snake Boi] how long until they realize remus is basing his argument on experience?

Quickly muting himself, Virgil let out a loud snort. Patton narrowed his eyes at his screen (he thinks, the camera fuzz made it difficult to tell) and he typed a quick bullshit explanation of his allergies acting up or something.

[Bat-tle Axe] forever until patton admits he’s not as clueless as they all think

[Snake Boi] i still think we should coerce them into admitting their relationship to the others

[Bat-tle Axe] tricking patton into saying hes in love with remus isnt coercing snake bite

[Snake Boi] youre no fun

“Virgil? You’ve been muted for several minutes, are your allergies that bad?” Logan asked, making Virgil swear as he finally unmuted himself.

“Nah, I just forgot to unmute myself. What’s the verdict on dating in quarantine?” he asked, toying with the idea of turning on his camera before once again deciding against it.

He hasn’t done laundry in weeks, and was just in a hoodie and boxers, he’d rather not expose that to the world.

“Ya sure that’s all, kiddo?” Patton asked, his camera flickering into a rare moment of clarity to show Virgil his suspicious look.

[Bat-tle Axe] shit pat’s onto me

“Yeah, pops, I’m sure.”

Patton grinned at the fatherly nickname and his camera quality went right back down the shitter.

“Anyway, the verdict on dating in quarantine is none of you know how to make a man swoon,” Roman said, continuing the conversation and glaring at the screen.

Remus’ grin indicated that while Virgil was distracted, he’d said something to infuriate his brother.

“You don’t either, Roman,” Logan pointed out, though his voice was quieter and his account had left the call so Virgil was pretty sure he decided to do something productive.

Virgil let out another snort, covering his mouth with one hand even if his camera was off.

[Snake Boi] yOu DOnT eitHeR roMAn

[Snake Boi] logan stfu youre the one who didnt even realize roman was crushing on you for a whole year

A wheeze and a too fast rush to breathe later, Virgil was choking on air and pushing his laptop off his stomach so he could sit up and ease the coughing.

“You alright over there, Ursula?” Remus asked, and it took Virgil a moment but he eventually managed to send a thumbs up into the chat.

“Good! You must be over there choking on Jayjay’s d-”

“That’s enough, Remus!” Janus cut in, finally unmuting his mic in a frantic to not have his best friend bring the conversation to his sexual exploits.

Virgil tried to laugh again, but the scratchiness of his throat sent him into another coughing fit.

“If you guys kill Virgil, I’m killing you,” Roman said, crossing his arms and leaning against his desk to take his glare closer to the camera.

“I thought you had a rivalry with Virgil, dear,” Logan said, his voice louder.

Upon looking up, Virgil noticed he was hovering over Roman’s shoulder, looking at what was happening.

“Yes, but a rivalry means that if anyone is gonna ‘kill’ him, it’s gotta be me,” Roman explained, instinctively turning his head and pressing a kiss to Logan’s cheek, which in turned got a soft smile from Logan.

Gross.

“Nobody is killing anybody! Kiddo, you need to get some water,” Patton said, getting a ridiculously close to his own cam to show his concern.

“Way ahead of you,” Janus said, making Virgil yelp because the fucker was right in his room.

“Don’t-” he started, but was quickly interrupted by another round of coughing.

Janus raised an eyebrow and extended his hand with the glass of water.

“What happened, love bite?”

“Laughed too hard and spit went down the wrong pipe,” Virgil croaked, grabbing the water and drinking until half of it was gone.

While he shifted to put the glass of water on his desk, Janus got comfortable on Virgil’s bed and gestured for him to lay against his chest.

When he finally got his laptop back in his lap, Janus turned the camera on and they were met with a mixed chorus of delight and teasing.

“You all are aware that online dating apps exist, right?” Janus pointed out, and the conversation about dating in quarantine resumed.

[ilovemygaydad]

Friends in Dark Places [ch 16]

pairing: moxiety, logince, background eventual remile, background eventual remy/emile/deceit

WARNINGS: kissing, past fights, awkwardness, anxiety, shouting, arguments, guilt, swearing, possibly something else

tag list: @hufflepuffgirl01 @cocobearthe4th @cas-is-a-hunter@band-be-boss-blog @theunoriginaldaisy

a/n: jsyk, it’s totally okay to ask for a modified chapter if you need it or if i need to add tags! i get it, and it’s no problem for me to quick edit a chapter or whatever :) also, feel free to send requests or questions that you have!

first - previous - next - companions

consider buying me a coffee (please)

-

Logan didn’t want to pick Roman up, but he couldn’t just ditch him. He felt bad about leaving his friends yesterday, and he didn’t need that kind of guilt. The beat up car rolled to a halt in the Patrick’s driveway.

Roman was already standing outside, clicking away at his phone. He slipped into the front seat without looking up, only taking time to readjust his headphones. That’s fine; Logan actually enjoyed driving in silence.

---

Virgil and Patton immediately knew that something was off. It was completely silent in the car, which might have been fine if Roman had been absent, but he was not. Not only that, but Roman didn’t even look up from his phone to greet his friends like normal.

The whole car ride was painful; the weighted silence sat heavily on the two boys in the backseat. Just when they couldn’t take another second of it, Logan pulled into his parking spot. 

Thank god. Virgil sighed, slumping back slightly in his seat.

“Hey, guys—And they’re gone…” Patton called after Roman and Logan, but they had practically bolted from the car as soon as it was stopped. Okay? Maybe they were just having an off day! That’s fine; it happens to everyone.

Virgil shrugged the whole situation off, too, as soon as Patton grabbed his hand and lead him into school. They hadn’t officially announced that they were a thing yet, but it was pretty obvious. Word spread quickly without them needing to do much else but hold hands in the hallway and kiss each other on the cheek at their lockers. It was already old news by Monday afternoon.

Of course, nothing was ever really as simple as it was made out to be.

---

Lunch started off just as weird as the car ride to school. Logan had sat opposite of Roman, something they hadn’t done in… well, ever. That, in turn, forced Virgil to sit next to Logan and Patton next to Roman. It was disorienting to Virgil, and he already could feel his anxiety rise. He needed a distraction.

“Hey, Roman. How’s it going with the cast?” The musical. A perfect subject to talk about with his geek friends.

“Fantastic!” Roman said with an enthusiastic smile. “If everything keeps running as smoothly as it has, we’ll be off book by Friday.”

“Surprising that you numbskulls even know how to read,” Logan muttered, not even looking up from his book. An oppressive silence hung in the air between the four boys; although, Logan didn’t seem to notice. Patton threw a worried glance at Virgil. Okay, maybe it’s a bit more than an off day, but nothing a little time can’t fix. 

Right?

---

The car ride home was when everything truly hit the fan.

It had started just as the ride this morning, but Patton decided to break the silence and talk to Logan. “Hey, Lo. How’s it going?”

“Fine, Patton. Why are you asking me at the end of the day?” Logan gave him a quizzical look in the rear view mirror before turning his eyes back on the road.

“It’s never too late to ask a friend how they’re doing! You’re so smart that sometimes I worry you take on too much.” Patton’s voice was sincere, but he was mostly just trying to figure out what was going on between the two up front.

Roman muttered something under his breath, barely even audible, but it obviously hit a nerve in Logan. “Oh? Is there something you’d like to share with the class, Roman?”

“Sure,” Roman challenged. “I said that you were as dull as a pair of old scissors. You couldn’t cut your way out of a paper box.”

That’s really not good.

Patton quickly handed Virgil some headphones before the fighting got too out of hand and tried to interject, but the boys were already too heated to listen.

“You son of a bitch! I have never met someone as narcissistic as you. I can’t believe you’d say something like that.”

“Don’t you fucking call me narcissistic! Have you ever heard yourself speak? Your ego is so inflated you’re at risk of it popping.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Mr. Look-At-My-Twenty-Trophies. Didn’t realize that I couldn’t be happy about getting good grades!”

“I swear to god, Logan! You’re thicker than molasses.”

“Says you!”

“ENOUGH!” Patton yelled, finally reaching his limit. “I will not allow two of my best friends to have a screaming match in this tiny metal deathtrap! You’re half a second away from causing Virgil to have a panic attack. Think about that for a second. How awful must you have to be to completely disregard the well-being of one of your close friends just because you’re pissed off? I’m disappointed in you.”

Disappointed. Patton’s least favorite word, but he had to use it. Roman and Logan knew so much better, yet they still acted recklessly.

“I’m sorry, Patton,” Logan mumbled, moving to park the car on the side of the street. It was obvious they’d be having a “talk.”

Both boys in the front looked meek and ashamed, which was a strange sight. Virgil gently pulled out his headphones, noticing the silence blanketing the car. Roman and Logan turned back in their seats and gave him sorry smiles. He just furrowed his brows in return. He didn’t like this at all.

“What the hell is happening between you guys? Just two days ago you were, like, postcard best friends, and now you loathe each other with your entire existence? Is there something I’m missing here?” Virgil’s voice was becoming more rapid as he spoke, mirroring the rising anxiety he felt.

“It’s my fault!” Roman blurted. “I started it. It’s my fault.”

“What happened, Ro?” Patton coaxed softly.

“Yesterday at the park I… I snapped. I wasn’t angry at Logan, not really; I was more frustrated with myself because… because…” Roman buried his head in his hands. “Because I’m too afraid to tell Logan that I like him.”

Logan froze in his seat, staring wide-eyed. “Oh… I… Um, wow.”

“It’s stupid. I’m stupid. I just… Yeah. Forget it, Logan,” Roman mumbled. 

“No! I was just going to say that I... like you, too.”

“Awwwww!” Patton squealed, but he quickly clamped his hands across his mouth. The two in front exchanged a look before bursting out laughing. It was just so Patton.

“So are you guys gonna kiss or what?” Virgil asked lazily. Internally, he was cheering them on, but he didn’t want to push too hard. Pat jokingly hit him on arm.

“I mean, if you want to, Roman.” Logan’s cheeks were dusted light pink, and he hadn’t really recovered from Ro’s confession.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve wanted to kiss you for years! Come here, you nerd.” Roman reached out and tugged on Logan’s tie, pulling him closer until finally they met in a soft kiss. It took all Patton had in him to not squeal at the adorable scene in front of him. It was just! So! Cute!

Both Logan and Roman were bright pink when they pulled apart. Virgil probably would’ve laughed if he hadn’t worried about Roman murdering him.

---

After Logan dropped Virgil and Patton off, he began the ride to his and Roman’s neighborhood. It was… strange. Actually acquiring what he had yearned for that suddenly was such an odd occurrence. It was fantastic, of course. Just different.

“I’m sorry for everything I said to you.” Roman rubbed at the back of his neck nervously.

“I accept your apology. And I do see where you were coming from, regardless of how exaggerated your claims were. I can be extremely behind when it comes to feelings,” Logan waved him off. It was over and done. He didn’t really mind anymore.

“That doesn’t excuse that I said what I did. So, as repayment, I propose we go to the park and have a remake date. Tomorrow,” Roman suggested.

Logan nodded as he pulled into Roman’s driveway. “Satisfactory. Make sure Virgil and Patton know the plans.”

“Of course! Goodbye, my love!” Logan just rolled his eyes and watched Roman deeply bow.

“Bye, Roman.”

next

[wickymicky]

i got tagged by @chuukitten like a month ago lmao oops

rules: answer 21 questions and tag 21 people (im too lazy lol im sorry i just like to talk about myself so thats what im gonna do HAHA)

im gonna put this under a read more cause it got long

1. nickname: my bf calls me cube

2. zodiac: i dont do zodiac shit lol sorry

3. height: i dont actually know, im bad with remembering things like that

4. hogwarts house: the “fuck jk rowling” house (okay fine im hufflepuff)

5. last thing i googled: farmersonly… dont worry about it

6. favorite musicians: i mean yall know my kpop ones haha… loona, dreamcatcher, fromis 9, pentagon, exid, red velvet, twice, eyedi, weki meki, etc……. outside of kpop oh man where do i begin… its tough cause ive basically only listened to kpop in 2019 but okay so i’d say the band idles, death grips, grimes, streetlight manifesto, huh idk i have a lot that i like but i dont know who else i would consider my “favorites” at the moment

7. song stuck in my head: right now its pirate king by ateez

8. following: 1800 lol

9. followers: on this blog 264, but 724 on my main

10. do you get asks: occasionally

11. amount of sleep: i should sleep way, way more than i do

12. what are you wearing: pajamas

13. dream job: hmmm. i mean i dont dream of working, i dont have a dream “job”, but if the question is about my dream “thing i wanna do a lot of in my life” then i guess my answer is… idk… something where i can just engage in whatever is interesting to me at the moment. like in the vein of my tumblr blogs where i can just post and talk about stuff im interested in. idk if that means being a youtuber or journalist or just someone who does something else and engages in my interests as a hobby, but yeah. or something to do with linguistics of course. though like i dont wanna be a teacher and thats basically the only path lmao (that i would even consider, anyway)

14. dream trip: you know i dont actually have a lot of interest in travel. idk, it stresses me out. i cant think about going places without worrying about how i’ll get around, what i’ll be doing, what i’ll be able to eat since i have a lot of food anxieties… idk. if someone i love wanted to go on a trip with me i’d probably be down, but i dont really know on my own.

15. instruments: i wish i could do music lol

16. languages: are amazing and i love them. okay fine lol i only speak english, but i took german in middle and high school, i took latin in high school as well, then took latin and ancient greek in college, and then after college i did a lot of looking into hungarian, vietnamese, a little bit of indonesian, turkish, and polish, and then recently i’ve been pretty focused on korean for obvious reasons. i speak none of those languages tho, lol. if i heard someone speaking some of those i could get the gist of what types of things theyre talking about most likely, but honestly my whole thing with languages is that im more interested in learning about the intricacies of how languages work and especially how they change over time than i am in actually learning the language. i’d love if my dumb adhd brain allowed me to focus hard enough and really commit to becoming fluent in a second language because so far i’ve only steadily approached being barely conversational, i’ve never actually reached even that point yet lol. and being only fluent in english makes me feel like a stupid american lol. i pick up bits of language really easily, but the rigor of learning ALL the vocab and ALL the little details you need to become actually fluent is where i fall off. 

like whenever i go through an anime phase, i pick up lots and lots of japanese. like if they keep using a word i’ll see it in the subtitles and figure that it must mean that, and then i’ll pay attention to the endings they use and how they inflect it and i’ll make little inferences about what those signify, so then when i hear a word that i dont recognize but it has a grammatical ending that i know, i can infer the meaning of the word from context, and im going through this same learning process with korean now and it’s super super fun and i’m loving how much progress ive made (though i could have been making progress like three times as fast if i was actually taking a korean class)… but the actual work of learning common phrases, learning the sheer volume of vocab, all that stuff… yeah that’s where i fall off. so idk how fluent i’ll get in korean, but i’m down to find out, lol. maybe this is the one i’ll really try to focus on and achieve it with!

17. 10 favorite songs as of now: of all time????? um okay i cant possibly do that without spending a looong time thinking about it, so i’ll just do the first ten songs that come to my mind when i think of songs that i adore more than most others

keep the streets empty for me by fever ray

colossus by idles

watch it crash by streetlight manifesto

lucky girl by fazerdaze

realiti (demo) by grimes

egoist by loona (olivia hye)

picky picky by weki meki

mother by idles

peekaboo by red velvet

hi high by loona

18. if you were an animal: red panda maybe haha

19. favorite food: pizza cause im a garbage trash person

20. random fact: idk... if yall couldnt tell and didnt already know this, i’m a linguist haha. i went to school for linguistics, i majored in linguistics and classics (latin, ancient greek, etc) though honestly i was only into the languages, roman and greek history is cool and all but not really what i’m most into. majoring in classics was a mistake lol but oh well. i didnt end up graduating though because of unrelated reasons.... adhd, depression, just a general sense that the way the whole system works just wasnt made for me and it didnt click with me and ive never been good at forcing myself to be good at school... and like i was tired of hearing from professors that i have “a very organized mind when it comes to linguistics stuff” (something a greek professor said that meant a lot to me) or that i “understand how language works better than most other students my age” and that im a natural and that its impressive how nuanced my understanding of these concepts is.... while also failing or almost failing all of the classes whose professors said that about me. like basically all those statements were followed by a “, but” or a “, so if you just-”.... sigh. so i guess i’m not “actually” a linguist. whatever “actually” means there. 

so other random fact i guess, which is still related but anyway... i have a conlang! that’s a constructed language. ive been working on a language for like 6 or 7 years. its at a state right now where it’s not really something i can just like... speak? it was at one point, maybe. but basically what i like to do is try out various ideas i have about language and phonology and morphology, so my language is kind of like a sandbox lol. if youre a scientist you conduct experiments, if youre a linguist i think you should try making a conlang. its not a common hobby but its something i spend an unconscionable amount of time thinking about lol. like basically 24/7. i’m almost always thinking about my word for x thing im seeing or thinking about, or like some sound change i heard that some language had, and how that would sound if applied to the words in my language... 

like the reason my language isnt at a point right now where i can speak it is because getting into korean has made me think about massively reconfiguring how the grammar works. its always been kinda like latin and german, cause those are what i was taking when i started, and then it got kinda like ancient greek, so the grammar has/had a lot of complicated conjugations that are just honestly so superfluous... its such a mess lol... i have a much better understanding of how those systems come about in language now, so even if i remake my language to have verb conjugations like latin or greek, it’d be a much more coherent and natural system than the one thats existed in my language for years... but after learning about hungarian and korean in particular, i really wanna try making it a lot more logical like those languages are. but my big thing is phonology (speech sounds), so i just get hung up on sound changes and cool new consonants and vowels to add, so i keep putting off actually fixing my language lol. also ive become attached to my awful, amateurish words haha. im so bad at this... a real conlanger like tolkien or the dude who made the languages for game of thrones would look at mine and scoff haha. most of my words are just straight up stolen from words in latin, german, many others, but predominantly... english. i just mangle english words and call it my own lol, and ive been trying to replace those words with original ones that i made up arbitrarily... like my word for nose is just “nass” and my word for dog is “handir” which is just based on english “hound” and german “Hund” and stuff lol. i wanna change those

21. my aesthetic: if you actually read this long ass post, you know that my aesthetic is just “too much information” but not in a sexy way or even an interesting way

[goasiadaytrip]

Sapa tips – how we behave when visiting local house

One of the most expecting experiences of many tourists when visiting Sapa is to stay with locals, spending one day with them and join them in daily activities. As a common saying, when in Rome, do as the Romans do, learning some basic information before entering local house will help us act properly and fulfill our trip. Check out the article on Sapa tips for visiting local house. Enjoy your trip!

1. When entering the village – Sapa tips: What to notice when visiting local’s house:

Before coming to an ethnic house, we need to enter their village right? Read on some Sapa tips when entering the ethnic village to behave properly.

On the way entering Ha Nhi’s house, if you see a temporary gate hanging with wooden knives, swords, chicken wings, etc. that is when the villagers are holding a ceremony to drive away evil spirits.

The common ceremonies for worshiping the village gods, expelling evil spirits of the Tay, Thai, Giay, Lao, Bo y and Xa Pho, etc. are usually held annually in February or June and July of the lunar calendar.

Keep on reading this article on Ethnic groups in Sapa to learn more about them.

When worshipping, villagers put taboo signs that forbid strangers from entering the village like hanging green bunches of leaves at the high pillars on the road to their village or hanging bones of pig, buffalo and cow on fox’s eye shaped plates. No villagers go to work, nor allow strangers to enter their village.

If strangers unintentionally carry things, wear hats, use umbrellas, wear backpacks, etc. they will be punished by submitting a full number of offerings to remake the worshipping ceremony. In case of an emergency, if visitors want to enter the village immediately, they have to remove their hats, backpacks, shoulder bags and all belongings must be carried by hands.

Let’s apply all those tips for this Sapa tour from Hanoi to Cat Cat Village.

There are forbidden forests in each ethnic village for worshipping supernatural forces. The worship place may be in a big tree or a big stone in the forest. The forbidden forest is the shared forest of the whole village. Villagers voluntarily protect the forest. No one is free to cut, defecate there. Boys and girls are not allowed to go there for chitchatting.

2. Daily life – Sapa tips: What to notice when visiting local’s house:

If you meet any ethnic people on the way coming to their house, you should actively greet them with sincere attitudes, honest smiles and slightly nod your head. That will help erase the language barrier. When leaving, guests can shake hands, do not need to say goodbye but always smile. Do not rub your hands on the head of the Hmong’s and Dao’s children, because according to them, the souls reside in the head, when strangers touch the children’s head, the fearful souls will flee, making the children sick.

Besides, you need to avoid calling vulgar words like Cat, Man. You should call them with Mong, Dao. Do not speak too loudly with harsh, non-controversial gestures with the elderly, women and children.

When eating and drinking:

Each ethnic group has different opinions about the sitting position, so it should be noted not to sit in some special positions such as: in the row of chairs near the altar (in the Giay and Dao areas ) which is set aside for the oldest and the most valuable guest.

In Hmong community, when their parents die, the place at head of the table (near the altar) always leaves as vacant with the idea that the place is for their parents’ souls.

Thai, Tay and Muong people place two bowls next to the house-owner’s window with the intention of giving the ancestors their reception so that guests do not sit in that position. Moreover, be careful not to sit side by side with the most elderly in the house (if the host does not invite you), do not sit in front and turn your back on the altar, do not pick up the chicken head, the chicken feet, the chicken liver before the host asks and avoid talking to loudly when eating.

Before eating, you need to listen to the host to conduct the rituals to invite the ancestors, to bless the good things. Guests do not pour the wine first, do not pick up the food first, when finishing eating, absolutely do not put the cup, bow down the tray.

Follow this Top Sapa food to have more ideas about what we should eat when in Sapa.

When sleeping:

Do not lie down along the roof of the house (only the dead can lie like that way). Do not use white mosquito net, don’t get up too late, don’t sleep under the altar.

Each house of ethnic minority people in Lao Cai has separate sleeping places for guests, so it is necessary to follow the arrangement of the owner, not to lay your feet on the altar. In some areas, the Mong, Dao, Thai, La Ha and Khang abstain from white curtains in the house.

You may feel a bit confused with these notices when visiting the ethnic house. Don’t worry, you can gradually get used to it when staying in homestay with locals.

To read the full article, follow this link to Sapa tips – what we should notice when visiting local house on GoAsiaDayTrip’s blog. Enjoy reading!

[rjhamster]

The Good Work of Turning Around

You renew; God transforms. To “be transformed” means that something outside of you is doing the transforming. —

Hayley Morgan

The Good Work of Turning Around

by Hayley Morgan, from

Preach to Yourself

Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow- creatures, and with itself… Each of us at each moment is progressing to one state or the other. ~ C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity My oldest son Noah called to me from the shower. He had forgotten to bring a towel into the bathroom, and now he was dripping wet, freezing, and perched on the edge of the tub. I pulled myself out from under the cozy covers and padded down the hall to the linen closet, crossing my fingers that we had clean towels. It was the end of a harried week for our family, and I’d been finding that most things in our house were dirty. Of course, there were no clean towels in the closet, so I marched to the bathroom door and scolded Noah for getting into the shower without having a towel handy. I was already thinking, I can’t do this, with regard to the entirety of the day ahead if this is the way it was starting. At that same moment, I heard Asher, who is my most independent child, rummaging through a high cabinet in the kitchen. There was next to no reason for him to be in the cabinet, and as I made my way downstairs and into the kitchen, I saw him standing on his tiptoes on the counter, reaching for a mixing bowl. “We’re out of cereal bowls,” he said with the sweetest, most apologetic look. I felt like I’d failed him, and it was about enough to put me over the edge and back into bed for the morning. I headed back upstairs to get some consolation from my husband, Mike, and I was greeted by a panicked look that told me he was out of either socks or underwear. Today it was very possibly both. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. I can’t do this. The pitter-patter of false belief paced through my mind. It wasn’t that anything terribly awful had happened, but I didn’t get to start my morning before already feeling horribly behind. The mornings in our house are my domain, and it’s my job to make sure everyone has what they need to get a good start to the day. And today I had failed. Once I got the kids on the bus, I realized I didn’t have enough gas to make it to the office and didn’t have enough time to stop to fill up. I can’t do this. I spilled my coffee on my lap, necessitating a rapid-fire outfit change. I cannot do this. I can’t do it today. Before I even got into the office, I had expended great amounts of mental energy telling myself I couldn’t do something that was clearly already in motion. My false belief was that I couldn’t do it, but the reality of the situation was that I could and I was — even if it didn’t feel like it was going great. Have you ever had one of those days when you just can’t turn it around? Every little thing that can go wrong does, and you have a sour attitude to match? On days that like, I can feel the weird little tickle of aggression sneak up on me. It’s almost like I need to go run a mile just to get that offensive energy out. Once a day like that gets going, it’s incredibly hard for me to change directions. Instead of just choosing correctly and making a change, I normally have to totally stop in my tracks. I have to do something to shift the momentum of the situation. I have to pull to a complete stop — throw on my brakes, perform the whole rollback. I have to keep my energy from moving forward in an unhealthy direction. This is difficult to do. Newton’s first law of motion tells us that once an object is in motion, it will keep moving unless it is acted on by another force. If we allow our minds to keep chattering false beliefs to us, we’re likely to continue to believe them. It takes work and energy to stop the false beliefs in their tracks. Remember how your brain works? You have billions of neurons that each fire every time you have a thought. Your neurons make connections with each other and form bonds and patterns over time. You’ve gotten into a rut with the patterns of your thoughts to this point. Your brain has a small, seahorse-shaped part called the hippocampus. Hippocampus means “seahorse” in Latin, which seems like an elementary classifying system when we speak of such a complex organ. Alas, this tiny, seahorse-shaped region of your brain is responsible for your emotions and, in part, for your motivation. The hippocampus is chock-full of granule cells, which are one of the few neurons that the brain can generate more of. When a new neuron is formed, this is called neurogenesis. Neuroplasticity is the way these neurons connect with each other to form new pathways. There’s a lot going on in this little seahorse! In January 2017, scientists at the University of Alabama at Birmingham found that it was possible for the brain to create brand-new neurons that wove themselves into existing neural circuits, allowing the synaptic connections to grow stronger and heartier. The old neurons would die off when the new, stronger connections were formed.1 You can’t just count on time to break down the connections in your brain; you need to actively retrain your mind to make new connections. Otherwise, you’ll simply be reinforcing the old neural pathways. And here we find great hope. In order to move forward in something new and different, we need to renew our minds. To do that, our minds need a new connection. Repentance can feel like a heavy word. Maybe it’s a new word altogether for you. But repentance is the way God uses to change us. Let me show you what I mean. When we recognize our bad news, it is a watershed moment. Hopefully you’ve been digging deep and asking God to reveal what is playing on repeat. It may take days or weeks, but I hope a pattern emerges to you. I hope you’re able to write down those thoughts or tell them to a friend, so you’ll be more apt to snatch them out of space when you think them. When you realized the junk you were preaching to yourself, I hope you took your heavy heart to God in sorrow and asked Him to change your mind — which is what repentance is about. We really can do that! It may feel foreign to do, but we pray for physical healing from things like cancer or injuries we’ve suffered in an accident. We clearly believe that God can work at a cellular level. When we feel frustrated or stuck in our ruts of false belief, we can pray that God will change the very neural pathways in our brain. We can ask Him to rewire the innermost parts of our minds on a biological level. He created us. He knit us together in our mothers’ bellies. I believe that He can change the way my brain tangles together and makes connections. Do you believe that too? Let’s practice together. We can pray this prayer when we’re feeling the effects of our false beliefs: Lord, You are mighty in me. You made me. You put every cell together and came up with me. You are the Lord of my life, and You are the Lord of my mind. Lord, I have believed things that are not true, and I’m sorry for that. Please forgive me. Lord, because You are good, would You let the ways I used to think die off and then would You blaze a new trail in my mind? Would You stop connections in my brain that are tied to my old way of thinking and form new neural pathways with Your good truth? Thank You, Lord, for Your forgiveness and for the miraculous way You made me. Please remake my mind to be more like Yours. That is a beautiful moment of repentance — of receiving His grace that comes after we go to Him, humble, needy, unable to heal ourselves. That is one moment of repentance — repentance for years of being a false preacher in your own head, repentance for overlooking His good news and still preferring the bad news. This is the kind of repenting that happens a thousand times a day. When you go about your day and all is well, you thank God for keeping you on the narrow path. When you catch a bad news loop gearing up, you shush it, preach to yourself, and then get back to the good news. You pray, “Forgive me, God. I want to believe; please help me overcome my unbelief.” This is the kind of repentance where you skin your knees and get back up. This is the kind of repentance that you commit to, knowing that God is urging you on to good works. His Spirit is mighty in you, and you are renewing your mind! Don’t get stuck in guilt and shame. The work of turning around is the work of honesty and wholeness. There is a peaceful kind of power that comes when you go God’s way, however imperfectly it might be. In Romans 12:2, the apostle Paul writes, Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. You renew; God transforms. To “be transformed” means that something outside of you is doing the transforming. You must be faithful to take the thoughts captive, but ultimately, God is the only one who can change our minds. 1. Christopher Bergland, “How Do Neuroplasticity and Neurogenesis Rewire Your Brain,” Psychology Today, February 6, 2017, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/201702/how-do -neuroplasticity-and-neurogenesis-rewire-your-brain. Excerpted with permission from Preach to Yourself by Hayley Morgan, copyright Hayley Morgan.

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Your Turn

Have you preaching to yourself, “I can’t” today? Turn around! Be transformed by the renewing of your mind in Chris Jesus. Let’s repent today and ask the Lord to help us in our unbelief. He will! Come share your thoughts with us on our blog. We want to hear from you! ~ Devotionals Daily

[jillmckenzie1]

Twelve Notes – Local Movie Reviewer Explores the New Remake “A Star is Born”

One of the old Hollywood legends is about the genesis of 1937’s A Star Is Born. Allegedly, it was not-so-secretly about the relationship between Barbara Stanwyck and Frank Fay. While Fay was a success on Broadway, his film career fizzled. Stanwyck became a massive film star, and Fay worked out his resentment of her through alcoholism and physical abuse. For a while, that was the template for these remakes, that of the meteoric rise of the ingènue and the corresponding fall of the has-been.

That tells us that, at the end of the day, there aren’t that many stories. In Christopher Booker’s book The Seven Basic Plots, he posits that there are — you guessed it — seven kinds of stories that we tell. They are:

Overcoming the Monster

Rags to Riches

The Quest

Voyage and Return

Comedy

Tragedy

Rebirth

The important aspect isn’t what the story is, but how the story is told. The filter provided by the artist gives us perspective, and that perspective makes the story unique – or not.

For example, Hollywood has provided a whopping five iterations of the same story, one of the vast pitfalls of fame. The first was What Price Hollywood? released way back in 1932. 1937 brought us the Fredric March-starring remake entitled A Star Is Born. Folks liked that title because it came back around in 1954 with the doomed Judy Garland. In 1976, it turned out folks really liked that title, and this time Barbra Streisand was the headliner.

Unsurprisingly, another remake struggled to get off the ground. For a minute there, it looked like Clint Eastwood was going to direct Beyoncé, but like pitiless Roman emperors, the Hollywood gods gave a thumbs down, consigning it to development hell. Then Bradley Cooper came along. He had a take on the material that was timely. More importantly, he had Lady Gaga. The end result is the 2018 version of A Star Is Born, which is both a machine engineered to win awards and a genuinely good film.

We’re introduced to rocker Jackson Mane (Bradley Cooper) performing at a sold-out concert. The crowd loves him, loves his barroom-rock and country ballads. How much does he actually love it? We get the sense that his passion for music is fading, as evidenced by the bottle of booze he slams down in his limo after the show. This is not the first time he’s self-medicated with hooch. It won’t be the last.

Clearly, Jackson needs…something. At a drag bar, he finds what he’s looking for. Ally (Lady Gaga) works by day as a server in a hoity-toity restaurant. On Friday nights, the queens at the drag bar generously let her take the stage. She’s a hell of a singer. The regulars love her. Her father Lorenzo (Andrew Dice Clay) thinks she could be huge but thinks the size of her nose will hold her back.*

Jackson stumbles into the bar, orders the first of what one presumes to be several drinks, and waits for something to happen. Ally emerges onto the stage and proceeds to absolutely decimate the crowd with her version of La Vie En Rose. Watch Cooper play this scene because as the song goes on, we see his facial expressions shift from admiration to shock at the scope of her talent to infatuation.

They fall in love, but their romance is nurtured by their mutual respect for their talent. He encourages her to write her own songs. He tells her, “Music is essentially twelve notes between any octave. Twelve notes and the octave repeats. It’s the same story told over and over. All any artist can offer the world is how they see those twelve notes.” As Ally begins to rocket into the heavens, Jackson starts to fall.

As someone with more talent than he’s sometimes given credit for, Bradley Cooper knows a thing or two about the machinery of stardom. Consider that, for a while there, he was viewed as the freakishly good-looking guy from The Hangover. He paid attention to the craft of filmmaking in acting showcases directed by Clint Eastwood and David O. Russell, and as the voice of the trash-talking Rocket Raccoon in Guardians of the Galaxy.

Cooper applied that knowledge here with his directorial debut. As debuts go, it’s pretty damned good. It’s common that, when actors step up to the director’s chair, they have a knack of coaxing out strong performances. Cooper is no different, and his film is overstuffed with outstanding acting. He also knows that one of the main reasons folks are showing up for this film is the music. Wisely, he always takes a moment to let us appreciate the songs, ones that we hear more than once in different contexts. Is his direction perfect? Not always, and I wasn’t crazy about the frequent occurrence of shakycam shots and an overreliance on close-ups. The first hour is the most energetic; there’s a good amount of bloat in the second act. Still, he’s offering strong and steady filmmaking that must be applauded.

This project was a labor of love for Cooper, and he worked on the script alongside Will Fetters and Eric Roth. They get an awful lot right, with an ear for natural dialogue that’s never too clever for its own good. I also appreciated how this iteration of the old tale sidesteps the resentment aspect and portrays alcoholism as a genuine disease that requires treatment. Yet the script has a couple issues as well. It seems to agree with Jackson’s take that pop music is totally disposable. A little bit more of an issue is that Ally is written somewhat inconsistently. She tells Jackson early on she won’t tolerate his drinking, then she constantly tolerates it. It doesn’t feel like her character is struggling. Instead, it feels like the script isn’t clearly showing us her struggle.

If you’re seeing this movie, and you should, it should be seen on the biggest and loudest screen possible to luxuriate in the performances. As Jackson’s older brother, Sam Elliott shows up to offer a masterclass in film acting. Most of us think of Elliott as the impressively mustachioed cowpoke in Tombstone, but here he’s mournful, restrained, and astonishing. Also, in words I thought I’d never write, Andrew Dice Clay is sweet and charming as Ally’s goofball father.

Reportedly, Lady Gaga encouraged Cooper to sing all of their numbers live. Wise Lady! Her suggestion brings an energy to the music that would have been lacking if they’d lip-synced. As the self-destructive Jackson, Cooper gives a controlled performance. He’s showing us character beats during each song, and watch how during each musical number, he quietly gets just a little sloppier, mirroring his character’s mental state.

Big surprise that Lady Gaga is the star of the show. If there’s one thing she isn’t lacking, it’s self-confidence. Initially, the idea of Gaga playing a woman who needs The Right Man to encourage her to share her talent with the world was laughable. She pulls it off, and as Ally, she’s absolutely fearless. Initially, she’s a little shy, unsure about her talent but quite sure that her chance has passed her by. We see her first number with Jackson in front of a massive crowd and her reaction of Holy s–t, I can’t believe this is happening. Gaga is a force of nature who confidently shows us the evolution of her character. The woman in the last five minutes of the film is a very different person than the woman we first meet. That’s how you portray a three-dimensional character.

We’ve seen this movie before, but you know what? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. A Star Is Born is okay with being a 21st-century melodrama. It’s perfectly comfortable cranking up its emotions and firing them directly into your face. That comfort with genuine emotion is important, especially now. It’s the kind of thing we should be thankful for. I certainly am.

  *Seriously, the size of Gaga’s nose is a recurring plot point. I found this very weird.

from Blog https://ondenver.com/twelve-notes-local-movie-reviewer-explores-the-new-remake-a-star-is-born/

[placetobenation]

Welcome to the Wednesday Walk Around the Web, where we weave & wind through weblinks weekly. Hopefully you will find the links on offer amusing, interesting, or, occasionally, profound. Views expressed in the Wednesday Walk do not necessarily reflect those of anyone but the writer.

You’ve heard of breakfast for dinner — now try breakfast for fine art.

Much ballyhoo is made about the way the effects from Jurassic Park still stand up…but most people don’t realize the true potential of putting the dinosaurs from Dinosaurs right in there..

Independent artists in St. Petersburg, Florida are painting three-buttcheeked butts on buildings all over the city. A three-cheeked ass…that’s what they had in the Total Recall remake instead of the three-breasted lady, right?

The long, long life of Roman concrete has long been a bit of a mystery. In some cases, it seems to have been due to a reaction between seawater and ingredients in the concrete, allowing it to flex a little rather than shattering.

Watching a parent slowly die is the most distinctly terrifying thing that’s happened in my life. Going through that experience as a family member or especially as the person dying without insurance is even more hideous. I absolutely think that more people need to be more aware of, think seriously about, and plan for end-of-life care, but no human being deserves to have it rubbed in their face so blatantly and cruelly.

The Walk has mentioned John Deere’s tractor DRM a couple times; now GM is insisting on similar copyright control over cars.

Can I get my office desk moved to the quietest place on the planet? Oh, they need that for calibrating electronic equipment, and besides I’d quickly be driven mad by the suddenly-audible sound of blood moving through my veins and my eyes sloshing around in their native goop? Oh. Oh, well then.

Evolutionary psychology has always seemed a little suspect, not least because it feels a little too easy to jump from learned behavior to evolutionary adaptation.

This Week in Disaster Preparedness: A well-prepared child is a safe child.

I used to be a lot more concerned about other people’s grammar than I am these days. (In my younger and more foolish years I spent far too much time arguing in the comments of a Word of the Day blog every time they featured a phrase rather than a word. I know.) This post sums up pretty much how I transitioned out of that mindset.

Dudes taking up space in office lactation rooms is quintessentially depressing and stereotypical.

It’s amazing to consider that Uganda, home of the obscene Kill the Gays bill, was driven to that point by an influx of radical Christians from the US.

This Week in Responsible Gun Owners: Jordan Duncan brings word of a very unfortunate turn of events for Florida Man.

There’s a lot of wisdom in 17th-century dream interpretation. Have you dreamed of a new girdle recently?

It might not come as a surprise that you can’t actually use a “get out of jail free card” in real life.

The Cranberries’ “Zombie” has inspired people affected by sectarian conflict all over the world.

As part of its paid service, Tinder will show you everyone who swiped right on you. Personally, I’m happy to have gotten out of the dating scene before Tinder’s popularity exploded; the last dating/”dating” app I used seems to have done the job pretty well.

McMansion Hell, recently featured on the ol’ Walk, was also recently accosted by Zillow and threatened with lawsuits and such for using photos of houses. Thanks to help from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Zillow backed down and MMH goes on.

Skulls found at ancient monuments are always attributed to skull cults and the like as opposed to, say, ancient decorators’ particular tastes in decor.

This Week in Prestige Podcasts: LeVar Burton started a podcast dedicated to reading short stories; I’d wager that we could all use a little bit of LeVar Burton’s voice in our day.

Arizona seems to be melting. I mean, that’s how I feel whenever the temperature goes over 70, but it’s fairly alarming for physical objects to do it too, and doubly alarming when you think about how the homeless population must fare in weather like this. (You could say that plastic mailboxes and fences and such are asking for something like this, but highway signs are supposedly made to last.)

Yoga in a kilt may be one of the best kinds.

Flyting is a practice, going back to the 5th century CE, of trading insults in verse. It’s recorded in Norse, Celtic, and other cultures’ literature…and is known today as the rap battle.