#i think about this too often. Why did Scott take his elimination so well

[i-wanna-show-you-off]

tdroti except when Scott gets eliminated he does not take it well. He doesn’t go “oh haha Zoey good job” no. He breaks down in front of Chris when he gets to the catapult (bc he sees fang or whatever) and begs him to let him stay

he’s like “PLEA SE DONT MAKE ME GO HOME” and Chris is like “wtf” and chef just looks mildly uncomfortable

chef’s like “I kind of feel bad even though he’s awful” and Chris is like “I have to send him home I have to get my revenge”

the other contestants hear him bawling from the campfire or whatever and they all just sit there in silence

then lightning nervously smiles and goes “do you think maybe he’s a little sad”

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Moriarty 5 - 7 | HypMic 10 - 11

Moriarty 5

Saito’s Moriarty and Gentaro voices are quite similar, now that I compare them.

“…he’s a good egg at heart.” – LOL, never thought I’d be reading subtitles that said that.

Oh, so that was Frida on the bridge?

I wonder, is Moriarty like Bon and nursing a weak leg with that cane? Or is the cane just a symbol of nobility?

Moriarty 6

The Titanic? Wasn’t there a Black Butler arc based on it?

LOL, these people in the foreground are CGI.

…is that the grapefruit guy? (Beats me, I haven’t watched this in weeks and am only returning to it because Scott keeps mentioning spoilers. The only thing I’m keeping up with properly is HypMic and my Kanon watch with #AniTwitWatches…and soon I’ll add the final episodes of Sailor Moon to it.)

Found him! Sherlock Holmes! I sort of triangulated from buzz around me that he appears in this episode.

What’s with the skull ring Holmes wears?

…ah, the golden ratio!

…Oh, this is gonna get interesting! You can tell this Holmes is adept in fighting due to his build, but…how did Moriarty figure out Holmes played the violin? Calluses on his hands?

Is this Holmes a womaniser…? I thought the guy was often characterised as an asexual, or at the very least aromantic. That’s part of what makes the guy so intriguing to me - because he still has Irene.

A colliery is a coal mine. It’s been a while since I heard that word.

Moriarty 7

The anime’s sense of colour is probably one of the most striking parts of this. Not just red, but blue and green where it counts too.

Not a fan of the 1st person cam…

That knife came out pretty clean for something so blood-stained.

I wanted to say “’Right,’ said Fred”…but Fred didn’t talk, so I can’t do that. (Dangit!)

I somehow found it slightly funny that France was ahead of Britain (America?) in forensic pathology, although I dunno what made it funny exactly.

I squealed (…just a little bit) when the iconic quote came up: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” I have it memorised from my Detective Conan days still, see?

Next time: A Study in S (according to stuff I read, the S stands for Sherlock this time).

HypMic 10

…I can’t believe it’s almost over already. I’ve basically been in a dream this entire season…but then what happens once the anime is over…? Waiting for the 2nd DRB to happen, I guess.

I didn’t even realise, but Jiro’s varsity jacket has an owl on the bottom of the logo.

…”[H]it the head”? Wassat mean? *checks up* Oh, so it means to go to the bathroom…Right. It’s US slang, which might explain a thing.

Notice Ramuda uses “Jakurai” and not “jijii” or something like that during his time with Ichijiku. Also, there’s a lot of his deep voice going around…

You can see MTR on the poster behind Ramuda at one point.

*anguished noises* Ramuda!!! Please don’t do this!!!

LOL, Sadamezuka and Kazuha.

Is “bum-rush” even an appropriate word for this situation…? US slang is weird…

…Doppo’s performance almost seems like a Rosho foreshadowing. Also, I love how Doppo’s screens disappear with his motivation.

…I saw a spoiler today on Twitter regarding Dice and meat…now I get it.

“detarame” – I know this word means “nonsense”, but for some reason I memorised it as meaning “s***” at one point due to the context of Scenario Liar. I find it interesting Hifumi used a word from Scenario Liar in the first place, even though it’s not necessarily meant to be taken in that context.

“the King of Normies” – For some reason, that made me laugh pretty hard. That is an accurate translation of “riajyuu no ousama” though.

Gentaro’s smile puts a smile on my face as well.

“colours you’ve dyed” – Note Shibuya is constantly referred to by colours, including how PCCS (in the Shibuya 1st DRB team song) apparently means “practical colour coordinate system”.

I find it interesting that Saburo was the one who mentioned holding hands as a sign of camaraderie first in the anime and then the Funi translation makes Ramuda use the same symbolism here. It may have been unintentional, though.

…the subbers keep using “OMG” and I’m like ????. Is OMG outdated slang in 2020?

…wow, that holy imagery…they really went all-in on Jakurai’s godliness there.

…even when knocked down, Jakurai’s hair is still 100% gorgeous.

I noticed one of the lyrics the translators cut out of Doppo’s rap was “borderline”.

Ahhhhhhhhhh! This anime just kicked me where it hurts! (<- As in, it used the trope I love so much – where the underdog causes a sudden turn-around in the battle and they’re not even aware of it!) This is why I love you, Doppo!

LOL, FP spent their countdown gossiping. That’s such a FP thing to do.

Hifumi seems to carry the beat in MTR’s Kizuna. Jakurai gets drowned out quite a bit, although Riou (who has a similar voice) was less drowned out.

“No pain, no gain.” – That’s a good saying.

HypMic 11

2 episodes until the end! (Yikes!)

I still take some issue with subbing the laughing. Well, then again I’ve been half-deaf lately with my ears being clogged (accidentally clogged my ear up again…), so I guess I shouldn’t complain.

If I’m hearing it right, Ramuda goes “nee-san” and not particularly anything to do with “Beauties” or “Beasts”, which seems to be exclusive to the subs.

Stone guardian? I guess this has to do with jizo in Japanese. Hifumi does go “namu” (short for “namu amida butsu”) towards Doppo at the end there.

That bed is…why is it so empty if it’s meant to be the room someone’s staying in?

Is Jyuto’s hair black or brown? I’ve been colouring it a deep brown because I think that looks nice, but it might actually be black…

I have a newfound respect for Komada ever since I found out his birthday is [secret censored – maybe if you follow the hints I leave behind, you might find out what I mean].

LOL, I spotted the fire extinguisher in one corner and was immediately reminded of how someone once translated “fire extinguisher” to “hand grenade”.

…how does Jakurai’s hair work from the back? There’s this coil of hair that seems to go places it shouldn’t be…

For some reason, the subbers keep translating “sensei” as “the good doctor”…or is that the first and only time it happened?

I think it’s appropriate they discuss bonds on the day Kizuna (the ED) goes out on streaming.

…*thinks about 2nd DRB, where BB vs. DH is going to happen next month* …Yeah, you better pay attention or your daddy’s gonna come spank you boys.

Jakurai summoning his mic is always freakin’ cool. Aspire to be like this elegant man.

The wolf hand sign again.

There’s a pun between kizukizu (wounds) and kizuna (bonds). Update: The phrase is actually gisugisusa (stiffness, unsociability, coldness [of atmosphere] etc.), but...there’s the same rhyming scheme, so it’s not wrong.

Doppo’s bit about Jakurai(-sensei) being a kasugai (hemostat) is, surprisingly, quite faithful, as you can tell from how those words rhyme. Hifumi’s verse mentions a monkey wrench, though.

…kasumitai ore ga yoi… - that translates to “…[Jakurai is] better than us, who are like scum…” It’s a very Doppo sort of line, noting that kasu literally means “residue”.

I didn’t realise this until now, but Riou has a piercing in one ear (his right). It’s just in an unconventional place in the upper curve, so I never spotted it.

Samatoki’s death aesthetic really contrasts against Jakurai’s healing one. I can see why people really liked the MTC vs. MTR fight now.

It seems the strategy to win in this series is to keep spamming your attacks. It seems hugely suitable for my pseudo-Pokemon AU, which emphasises attack over defence.

Oh! I never noticed the blue gem on Jakurai’s mic!

Note how Samatoki said “lightning rod” – Jakurai’s name means “lonely thunder”. It’s one reason why I fell head over heels for the guy – his stupidly awesome name.

“horse/rabbit/bush warbler” – These refer to MTC. Samatoki, Jyuto, Riou. On that note, ARB currently has an event where Ramuda hangs out with MTC and he calls Jyuto “usa-chan” as a pun. I find that so darn cute!

“And the winner is…Matenro!” - *cue the song, The Champion*

Notice how they put BB and FP before MTC and MTR in the ED…it’s foreshadowing!

[seriouslyblacklikemysoul]

An Ephemeral Eternity in Seven Parts - Steve Rogers x Reader.

MASTERLIST Warnings: My English, Gifs aren’t mine. Word Count~3.4k Part I Part II Part III Part IV Part V

PART VI

A soft red color was painting the deep blue sky as the sun run its course and went back to sleep, an omen for the upcoming day. The air was chilly and clouds were gathering, threatening the very delicate, almost feeble peace that had been bestowed upon them. Being constantly on the move was not easy, especially since they were always followed. Not a single moment was private, yet somehow they managed to escape, not for long but those stolen minutes or hours were exactly what kept them sane. Well, sane enough.  "Did you manage to get any sleep?" Natasha asked her, not looking better herself as she walked into her room. She rolled her eyes to the now blond woman and simply raised an eyebrow. "Did you?" she asked back, receiving the exact same reaction. Natasha sat down, next to her, handing her a cup of coffee, which was very much appreciated. Her life had change; she would try to sleep at some point during the day and she would run and hide all night long or better yet trying to stay away from the people looking for her. Well, all of them, since they were criminals as people have told them, but she had an extra target on her back - and maybe even more dangerous than all the government's satellites. Not only Tony wanted her alive and found but she felt the threat vibrating through her veins. She knew that Tony didn't want his name ruined and/or associated with a criminal and that was why she would never let him find her - it wasn't just so they could talk, no, his reasons were always a bit egocentric. At least, so she thought. "Once Sam and Steve are back, we have to be on our way" Natasha told her, snapping her out of her mind.  "If we find Wanda and Vision, that is" she commented as she downed her coffee in hopes of some kind of an energy kick. The blond woman raised an eyebrow, disapproving the recklessness in that relationship. Vision had to report their situation but instead he went incognito for the last couple of days.  "Speaking of... you and Steve seem distant lately. What happened?" she wanted to know. That was the issue though. Nobody knew... at some point, their talks stopped happening so often, their time together became shorter, their kisses almost disappeared, leaving her to question what had happened. She shrugged as if it didn't bother her. Natasha knew better but didn't push it. "Alright, I'm just saying. Don't give up just yet" Nat advised her, while she packed the few things left out. She got up to help but not a moment later, a furious Sam and a slightly aggravated Steve walking in on them. "They are in trouble" Steve announced, already getting ready to fight. "Because they didn't do as told" Sam sassed but no one could blame them. They all prepared for the worst. And everyone already knew their places. She had chose not to be active because she had made a realization that wasn't so pleasing. Her powers drew from her - so every time she used her powers, came with a cost. She was the stand-by pilot of the Quinjet, observing and if needed intervening while the other three were handling the fists. She was mostly using her powers to hide them from the radars and it took a toll on her. Not long after that, they were all in the Jet, heading to Wanda and Vision. No one talked, no one looked each other. She felt estranged. "We're here" she informed shortly after. Steve simply nodded and she grew even more angry and worried. "We'll be right up" Natasha soothed, as she opened the doors of the Jet. Once she was alone again, she let the anger go but her mind was travelling to dark places. It wasn't anger, it was desperation and agony. A painful scream was about to escape her lips when they came back with the two lovers.  "I thought we had a deal. Stay close, check in. Don't take any chances" Natasha reprimanded Wanda, while Steve glanced over to her, leaving her with all the more questions.  "I am sorry. We just wanted time" Wanda said with tears in her eyes.  "Sam, you're on. I am going to try to help Vis, but I can't promise you anything" she finally came to her senses, leaving Sam to pilot them away, as she sat next to Wanda. "Be careful" Steve told her, almost too airy. She didn't turn when she replied that she wasn't gonna hurt Vision. He stopped in front of her, and before answering to Sam, he answered to her. "I was talking about you". That made her head swing. He tore his eyes from hers to give directions to Sam. Natasha gave a small smile, a sad one, because she knew how hard it was to love in the midst of a war.  "Where to, Cap?" he asked again. He took a deep breath. "Home". What was that? She couldn't remember. Focusing on Vision, her eyes turned lilac again - soon after her lessons from Strange, she was able to channel her power through every single cell of her body, thus affecting them, both in a good and in a bad way. She had never exactly understood what was triggering her powers to resurface whenever she needed them. But in that moment she knew exactly how to help him and so she did. She didn't notice anything other than the ordinary but everyone else did. The lights went off inside the Jet, a small purple lightning appeared in the sky and her powers were suddenly all over Vision like a cocoon. Moments later, everything was back to normal and Vision had regained his form but he wasn't in his original shape, which made her furrow her eyebrows, puzzled at her capabilities.  "Don't wear yourself out; I am better and we are arriving. Thank you" Vision reasoned with her thoughts. She raised an eyebrow - she didn't like it when he did that, but she knew he was right. Steve hadn't taken his eyes off of her the whole time. He was concerned about her. He was terrified when she went full on purple but not for his sake. He was worried about the side-effects. He was also a tad proud about her; and just a bit guilty about his behavior towards her. He had asked her to run with them, asked to be a fugitive, to stand against Tony again and she had devoted herself and her powers towards that mission - and he was being a jerk. And she hadn't given up on him still. He owed her more than an apology. "Maybe stand behind us, so no matter what Tony won't find out that you're here" Natasha offered her and she was thankful for her quick thinking. Her veins were purple, Steve noticed. They locked eyes. Trouble was on its way. 

"So... So we gotta assume they're coming back, right?" Natasha stated the obvious. Everyone was nervous, some of them terrified even.

"And they can clearly find us" Wanda added as her sole focus was on Vision. "We need all hands on deck. Where's Clint?" Bruce added, being the first to know the enemy. "After the whole Accords situation, he and Scott took a deal. It was too tough on their families, they're on house arrest" Natasha explained to him while they were examining each other. Steve was looking at her, worried. "Okay, look… Thanos has the biggest army in the universe. And he is not gonna stop until he... he gets... Vision's Stone". For a scientist, he wasn't exactly helpful at that moment. She wasn't talking, not sure if she had to say something. But sure enough that if Thanos could get ahold of all the infinity stones, no one could stop him - if she was powerful without all of their powers, he would be death itself. She turned her back on them, thinking about every possibility. "Well then, we have to protect it" Nat had to be optimistic, while in fact knowing extremely well that wasn't the case. "No, we have to destroy it. I've been giving a good deal of thought to this entity in my head, about its nature. But also, its composition. I think if it were exposed to a sufficiently powerful energy source, something, very similar to its own signature, perhaps… its molecular integrity could fail" Vision addressed Wanda as he neared her. She was clearly not having it. "And you, with it. We're not having this conversation". Her head was spinning, thoughts overflowing with images of catastrophe. "Eliminating the stone is the only way to be certain that Thanos can't get it". She wasn't sure about that and it scared her more than anything. "That's too high a price". And she agreed with Wanda. If that was Steve, she would likely be a bit too fierce. "Thanos threatens half the Universe. One life cannot stand in the way of defeating him". It wasn't the time for heroism, she thought. It was already overwhelming her. "But it should, we don't trade lives, Vision" Steve boldly said, making her turn and finally looked at him with all the desperation of the world. "Captain, 70 years ago, you laid down your life to save how many millions of people. Tell me, why is this any different?". It felt too much for her. The last hour it has been about the end of the world and honestly, she felt angry and trapped. Without even realizing it, a jolt of purple energy was sent directly to Vision. She gasped and before she could actually harm somebody, she whispered an apology and run out of the room. If Thanos was coming, she was as good as dead.

The night unfolding in front of her was gloomy, dark and ominous with storm clouds. A starless night, without a single ray of hope to shine through and ease her mind. She had yet to come to terms with her very essence. She had been confident about her powers, herself and so, naturally, the more it hurt once she was proven wrong. Which was slowly making her reluctant to trust anything- even her own gut feelings. Because when she had been so sure of something and it didn't happen the way she thought it would, it felt like she was betrayed by herself. These expectations and the hope that she had given herself- she did that, she gave herself all this hope when she shouldn’t have, and then she got hurt. So subconsciously she won’t let herself have that much hope the next time. That was how getting hurt was slowly destroying her. She got less and less optimistic and hopeful. She felt that deep inside her bones; she would never come completely back.  She was so deep in her head, she didn't even hear him opening and closing the door. She was a skeleton made out of flowers, seeds lodged themselves in her bones, tangled roots spread across her frame, a delicate network of nerves and veins; she was a garden on a cemetery floor, beauty born of compost and worms, watered by rain and shallow tears, sinking into rich earth...hoping to rise again. He softly touched her shoulder making her slightly jump. It was strange for him to watch her so lost in her mind.  "Is Vision okay?" she asked him, seemingly worried but he knew her better than that. She knew he was fine, she just needed one more reason to hate herself. He stood near her, not quite sure what to do. "Of course he is. Are you?" he found the courage to ask her. It was difficult looking at her and knowing she was not alright but not being able to help her. Maybe he was the positive fucking little unicorn and even though the past months had been cruel to all of them and he had grown different, he still wanted to help - mostly her.  "Nope, definitely no" she truthfully told him, as she turned to look at his blue ocean eyes. She took a deep breath, trying to pull herself together. He was about to tell her something about positivity but she didn't want to hear any of it and cut him off. "No, Steve, don't tell me that things will be better, that I will be able to control those freacking powers- the same ones that Thanos wants to obtain. Don't tell me that there is hope, cause I have none. I can't look you directly in the eye and tell that I'll be able to help. I guessing that I will be able to destroy. Don't ask me what. And no, I don't want to hear to whatever advice you have. I am sorry but it's all happening so fast, so many things are going on and I can't even breathe. And you what? On top of everything, I still think about you. Are we just friends if it’s your breath on my neck late at night or if it’s our laced fingers beneath your covers? How tightly do we need to be pressed against each other before you admit that you aren’t doing this for warmth? How many times does your thumb need to brush my lips before we realize that we’ve gone too far?" she let on, giving him absolutely no warnings that she would burst like that. She caught him by surprise and she saw that, so she chuckled sadly and waved her hands to dismiss every words she said. She always did that - demining her own thoughts and problems when she was overwhelming towards another. But he wasn't going to let her. For a reason he did not know, he was growing angry. That was a lie, he knew exactly why. He cared about her way too much to let her ruin herself. "Hey - no, hey, I'm talking to you. Don't you DARE walk away now. You don't get to tell me this just to erase it after a moment" he almost yelled at her the minute she tried to leave. She was taken aback. This was new. She had never seen him mad at her. Not that it scared her but it was different and gained her attention.  "Fuck this! No, it's not gonna be okay. There is a war upon us and it's scary as fuck because we have to go against someone so deprived of any common sense who craves your fucking powers. And your powers scare the hell out of us but you didn't want them- he does. I don't believe you for a second. I know you can master them, so stop being a fucking coward and learn how to, work on that. Control what has been given to you - it doesn't matter if you suffered or not. You have those god-damn powers. And you're stronger than anyone I know. Not because you have them. Because it's who you are. And no. We are not friends. We never were" and with that he grabbed her by her waist and slammed her against his body, lips desperately craving hers. 

"Eyes up. Stay sharp". By the time he informed as such, she was already making her way towards him, only to witness the Mad Titan sent him flying with the same purple jolt of power she possessed without having struck a single punch. T'Challa was grabbed by his throat and punched to the ground while Sam's wings became rubbery and unable to sustain flight. She kneeled down next to Steve to make sure he was still alive - she would probably loose it if he wasn't. When he opened his eyes, she finally breathed again, leaving him with a silent promise. All bloody and bruised, they needed to survive this. She heard Vision and Wanda and her heart broke. The least she could was give them time. "It shouldn't be you, but it is. It's all right. You could never hurt me. I just... feel you" Vision tried to soothe her pain as she extended a trembling hand, beaming her energy at the Mind Stone. She glanced at them, trying to focus all her power into stopping Thanos. She was running towards him when Steve slid under one blow and came up swinging his deployed arm-shields, punching Thanos in the gut and chin. He grabbed the gauntlet, keeping Thanos' fingers un-clenched. Thanos looked very briefly impressed at Steve’s efforts as he screamed before slamming a fist into his head and rendering him insensible. She let out a scream when Wanda looked over her shoulders. Purple jolts and beams of power hit the Mad Titan as she was determent to keep him away from the couple. If that was their goodbye, she was going to give them as much time as she could. Impressed by her ability to make him step back couple of meters, he tried to use his powers but Wanda joined her in a last effort. The two women looked at each other, understanding the pain Wanda felt as she nodded. "It's alright... It's alright. I love you". She struck again and again but her worst fear was coming true; her powers weren't enough. Taking a deep breath, she made a run for it, grabbed him by his massive hand and pushed his other out of her way with her powers, while she tried to get off of him the gauntlet. It took a great amount of power for him to knock her down and almost dead, something he informed her of. "You did better than most". She barely saw what happened, almost too weak to breathe. But when Wanda screamed in pain, she found the strength to pull it together, no matter how she felt and stood up, just when Thor arrived in the scene and the Stormbreaker slammed right into Thanos chest. She looked with eyes wide open when he didn't slow down. Steve was up again, and Bucky came rushing through. Both of them were looking tired, beaten and lost. One last effort before everything went to hell. Thor took hold of the back of Thanos' head, forcing the Stormbreaker deeper into his chest and she blasted that spot with all of her power, making him cry in pain. He looked at her slightly aggravated. "You should have gone for the head!" he yelled as he raised his gauntlet and snapped his fingers. 

"What'd you do? WHAT'D YOU DO?!" Thor was asking angrily. But he used the space stone and left.   "Where'd he go? Thor... where'd he go?" Steve stumbled into the clearing, holding his left side. She was almost too overwhelmed, she couldn't feel. "Steve?" Bucky suddenly stumbled over, and looked at her before he collapsed into ashes, much to Steve's shock; he walked over and touched the ground where Bucky's ashes evaporated disbelievingly. Shock washed over her, her entire body was trembling. "What is this? What the hell is happening?" Rhodes asked mere moments later, as Natasha appeared too, but to her … it felt like an eternity. She was literally vibrating with purple jolts of energy forming in her fingers. "Oh, God". Her body was going into shock; or maybe survival mode; or it was just too much. With a scream that echoed in the entire country, she fell down on her knees and as her hands touched the earth every single drop of power was released along with her previously so well hidden tears. It wasn't only purple. It was blue and red and yellow. She was in pain and never even noticed. She was suffocating. She wanted to smash his head open, make him pay for everything he had done, make him suffer before she finally killed him. Once her rage subsided, she opened up her eyes, facing the pain stained faces of the people that remained. He saw him, devastated, tragically alone again, looking at her with nothing but pain and questions. It wasn't him who helped her up and supported her weight. And it would never be Bucky again. Right before she passed out, she saw Thor's distressed face. He too had lost everything. "I got you".

_______

Taglist: @coffee-with-orion @accio-rogers @stydia-4-ever @smilexcaptainx @elliee1497

[master-sass-blast]

Price Well Worth Paying.

THIS IS IT, FOLKS!!! IT’S WEDDING TIME!!!! THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!! I REPEAT, THIS IS NOT A DRILL!!!!!

Summary: Before he can marry you, Piotr must undergo a vykup nevesty to prove his worthiness. Will he be up to the task?

(The answer is yes.)

Rating: G for MAXIMUM FLUFF!!!

Pairing(s): Piotr Rasputin x Reader.

Set after “Of House and Home.”

This fic was inspired by @nebulous-leo‘s own Piotr x Reader vykup nevesty fic, “Ransom”!!! Y’all should absolutely check it out, in addition to her blog @leo-writer where she posts all her OC related content (which is absolutely delightful and wonderful and is the best thing on earth) and her Ao3 account, where she posts all the major works for said OC content; she currently has several works for Kurt from the Ant-Man movies and her OC, Jenna, on there; I can’t recommend reading them enough!!!

(Also, many thanks to @leo-writer for proofing this fic to make sure it wasn’t too matchy-matchy to her own fic!)

Taglist: @marvel-is-perfection, @chromecutie, @super-darkcloudstudent, @girl-obsessed-with-things, @nebulous-leo

Piotr doesn’t often find himself nervous.

Some might doubt it, but it’s true. As rigid as he seems –and, admittedly, is—about some things, he seldom gets nervous. Frustrated, maybe, or tense, perhaps, but rarely downright, outright nervous.

He supposes, though, that the sensation coursing through him right now isn’t nervousness, precisely. Giddiness would be a better way to describe the butterflies thrumming in his stomach, how he has to keep himself from smiling nonstop so his cheeks don’t start hurting, and the way delighted, slightly nervous giggles keep bubbling up in his throat.

He’s getting married. Today. He’s getting married to you today, after so many obstacles and setbacks and arguments and makeups and planning and scheduling—

It’s here. It’s time.

Save for one last thing, which Piotr had wanted and then his family had borderline insisted –as much as they insisted on things—on doing: a vykup nevesty.

A vykup nevesty, as Piotr’s father had described it to him when he was very young, was for the family’s entertainment at its core. The groom would provide a payment for the bride –money or jewelry were traditional—and then the family would bring out a different man or a woman dressed as the bride to try and trick the groom. Once the groom realized that the person in question wasn’t his beloved, he would ask for his bride again and provide a higher payment for his spouse-to-be before he was finally bequeathed his bride, thus allowing the ceremony to start. Over time, the process had expanded to include various riddles, dares, and other shenanigans in the ransom process, and generally amounted to a great deal of fun.

He knows you helped write questions and answers for a “trivia” portion of the vykup nevesty. He also knows that he’ll have to deal with Mikhail’s dramatics –which normally would be nothing short of headache inducing, but between his elation over the fact that it’s his wedding day and the generous wad of cash tucked in his pocket, Piotr’s feeling borderline unstoppable.

He gives himself one final glance over in the mirror –he’d spent the night at the house your two’s friends and family had chipped in on—to make sure that his suit and tie are in good order –Nikolai had ushered everyone out at his son’s request so he could have a moment to himself just to think and process—before heading downstairs and out the front door—

And nearly walks smack into Mikhail and Ellie.

“Good morning, baby brother!” Mikhail chirps in Russian, grinning broadly. “Are you ready for the challenge of a lifetime?”

“I grew up with you; I doubt this will be worse than that,” Piotr fires back, feeling a twinge of misgiving at the slight grimace that creases his older brother’s face. Switching to English, he says, “I take it you two are here for vykup nevesty.”

“Yep,” Ellie confirms, popping the ‘p.’ “There’s gonna be three stages to this. You ready?”

He rolls his shoulders, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. “I am ready.”

“Excellent. Before we get started—” Mikhail produces an empty plastic coffee grounds container –which, upon closer inspection, has a label taped to it that says ‘motorcycle repair fund’—and wiggles it expectantly. “A little donation, if you please.”

Piotr refrains from rolling his eyes as he extracts his wallet from his inner jacket pocket, then drops about forty dollars in the container.

“Alright, first question,” Ellie says, casting a glance at her phone screen before looking back up at her mentor. “What is the most commonly recurring, non-serious argument in your relationship?”

Piotr blinks, borderline shocked. “What?”

“What do you guys play-argue about the most?”

“I understood that, just… she put that down as question?”

“She told you she was making these hard, right?”

“She did, she did,” Piotr says, grinning to himself as he rubs thoughtfully at his chin. “I just thought there might be progression of difficulty.”

“Eh, they’re all about this difficult.”

“Bozhe moi.” He quirks his mouth to the side as he thinks; you’re particularly cantankerous on your best of days –some might even say your best days, period—and while he’s learned to just go with some of it, there’s also so much the two of you playfully banter about…

“Tick, tick, tick, tick,” Mikhail says after about half a minute of silence, grinning like the cat that got the canary.

Piotr casts a dull glare at him. “Quiet. I am thinking.”

“Time is off the essence, baby brother! You would not want some dashing rogue to swoop in and sweep your bride away, no?”

Piotr ignores his brother’s dramatics –though he does roll his eyes—and gets down to thinking. Okay. Play fight means it is not serious enough to cause problems, but still something we are different on… “Food,” he says finally. “We argue about what foods should be eaten and not.”

“Correct,” Ellie says, scrolling further down on her phone. “Okay, next question—”

“Least favorite bad habit,” Mikhail says, reading over Ellie’s shoulder.

“Which bad habit of yours is Y/N’s least favorite,” Ellie clarifies.

Piotr snorts and shakes his head. “O, chudesno. Ah…” His voice trails off as his mind works, running through a mental list of various possible habits of his that probably drive you up a wall.

‘Being controlling’ hits him first, but something feels off about it; while, in all likelihood, it’s the most accurate, he doesn’t think you’d pull out something that had been a contributor to so many bad fights the two of you have had on such a special day –or wave that in front of Mikhail’s nose as possible teasing material, either.

‘Rules happy’ also fits that category, along with ‘too serious’…

Habit, Piotr, he tells himself when Mikhail starts mimicking a clock again. Not character flaw. Habit. Think smaller. “Workaholic. Or having to put everything away between tasks.”

“You have to pick one,” Ellie says while Mikhail starts ‘tick-tock-ing” louder.

Piotr mulls it over, then eliminates ‘workaholic’ since it fits closer to a character flaw –for him, at least—than it does a bad habit. “Having to put everything away between tasks.”

“Correct,” Ellie says. “Next question: mutual favorite nighttime activity.”

Mikhail lets out a raucous whistle and waggles his eyebrows at Piotr. “Damn, baby brother, are you into nasty shit I didn’t even know about? What, do you—”

“I do speak Russian; please stop,” Ellie says, completely monotone, while staring at her phone screen.

Mikhail cuts himself off with a grimace and a muttered “sorry.”

Piotr lets out a heavy sigh and rubs at his eyes; he suspects you slid that question in there just for that kind of reaction.

He’ll just have to pay you back for it later.

The thought makes him smile a little, but he quickly pushes it down and gets to thinking before Mikhail can start making clock noise again –or, worse, ask why he’s smiling. Mutual favorite nighttime activity…

Sex is an entirely feasible answer. Plausible, even. The two of you both enjoy sex, and he doesn’t doubt for a moment that you’d put that answer in there just to embarrass him a little…

Except it seems just a hair off. While you’d definitely take the opportunity to rib him a little, he knows you wouldn’t put Ellie in such an awkward position –or whoever else wound up reading the questions out.

“Snuggling,” he decides, which gets an annoyed groan from Mikhail. “Each night, we try to take time to just snuggle and talk about our days.”

“Correct.”

Mikhail rolls his eyes. “That is stupidly vanilla.”

“No one asked you,” Piotr mutters, letting some of his annoyance show through.

“Next question,” Ellie interjects before an argument can break out between the two brothers. “What is Y/N’s biggest pet peeve?”

“Scott Summers,” Piotr fires off automatically.

Ellie snorts and claps a hand over her mouth. “Okay, that’s technically wrong, but I’m counting it because she’ll like that you answered that.”

“I think I am missing something,” Mikhail says, glancing between Piotr and Ellie.

“He’s a douche and Y/N doesn’t like him,” Ellie supplies quickly. “Also I’m pretty sure he’s cheating on his girlfriend.”

“No!”

“Yeah. And she’s a telepath.”

Mikhail smirks. “So, he is idiot, too.”

“Basically.”

“Be nice, NTW,” Piotr admonishes his trainee, even though the corner of his mouth is turning up in a smile. “What did Y/N have for original answer?”

“Slow walkers,” Ellie says—

Which makes him snort because of course.

“Alright, last question: who is Y/N closest to in her family?”

A contemplative frown tugs at his lips as he flips through his mental rolodex of who you consider family.

Wade and Nate immediately spring to the top of the list. You connected with Wade first, but you view Nate as a father –and, granted, you’re close to Russell and Ellie and Yukio and Neena and countless other members of the Institute, but Wade and Nate are definitely closest to you. They know more of your darkest secrets, at least.

He mentally derails when he remembers your uncle and factors him in, and then it becomes a game of mental shuffles as he switches from Wade to Nate to your uncle and then back through again, over and over, until Ellie starts pointedly looking at the time display on her phone and Mikhail starts acting like he’s falling asleep on his feet. “Nate. She’s closest to Nate.”

“Wrong answer,” Ellie says. “You have to pay up for that one.”

Piotr frowns while he fishes a few bills out of his wallet and drops them in Mikhail’s plastic container. “What was right answer?”

“You. She said she’s closest to you.”

He blinks –and then smiles, because of course the two of you are family. You’ve been family to each other for a long time, and after today you’ll legally be family as husband and wife.

“Alright,” Ellie says. “That’s it for round one. Ready for round two?”

“Absolutely,” Piotr says, completely confident. He’s never been more ready for anything in his life.

***

 They take the path that connects your two’s new home to the rest of Xavier’s property and stroll across the back lawn to where everything’s been set up –well, Piotr and Ellie stroll. Mikhail insists on teleporting himself every few feet because “walking is for fools.”

Once the chairs and the guests and the wedding party and all the decorations come into view, Piotr’s pulse skyrockets and his splits into a massive grin. Seeing everything and everyone there, even though the rehearsal had been last night and he’d helped set everything up, makes it all more real.

And then he sees a woman in a white dress and veil standing adjacent to Charles at the altar, and it takes all his willpower not to sprint the remaining distance between him and the ceremony site.

Mikhail stops him before they reach the little tent where Charles and the wedding party and the woman in white are set up and waggles the “motorcycle repair fund” jar in his face once more. “I’m afraid there’s a toll to pay before you can enter, baby brother.”

Piotr shells out a few more twenty dollar bills –then mouths a silent “thank you” over Mikhail’s head when their mother prevents the eldest Rasputin from asking for more via making a stern, mildly disapproving noise in the back of her throat.

“Alright!” Mikhail says, gesturing grandly towards the altar. “Toll has been paid! Piotr, you may have your bride!”

He steps under the cover of the tent –and has to stop to remind himself that this is likely a trick, if the rules of the vykup nevesty are anything to go by.

Correction: it’s definitely a trick. First, the height and size of the woman are all wrong. Second, she’s clearly wearing a purple colored dress underneath the white dress –which, on closer inspection, isn’t a wedding dress but some white bedsheets sewn together. Third, the “veil” over her face is a deconstructed pillowcase with lace hot-glued to the edge. Fourth, the “bride” is laughing, as are several members of the wedding party and the crowd of guests.

“This is not Y/N,” Piotr says, turning back to face Mikhail and Ellie.

“What? How can you not recognize your own beloved!” Mikhail exclaims –overly dramatic, which further reinforces that the woman standing in front of him is not his bride. “Have you been drinking, Piotr? Are you drunk?”

“This is not Y/N,” Piotr repeats as a few more chuckles go up in the crowd. He quickly scans the guests and wedding party, and manages to deduce who’s under the veil based on who’s missing and the relative height and size of the white-clad woman. “Kitty, thank you very much for coming, but I would like to marry Y/N today.”

“Damn!” Kitty laughs and whips off her “veil,” tossing aside while everyone else chuckles and claps. “That was fast!”

Piotr shrugs. “Not hard to tell when you are missing from crowd.”

“Touché.” Kitty phases out from under her makeshift white dress, then smooths out the purple cocktail dress she’d worn underneath before offering Piotr a fist bump. “Congratulations, dude.”

He fist bumps her back, corner of his mouth turning up in a smile—

Then is immediately accosted by Wade as Kitty goes to sit down in the crowd.

“Alright, Google Chrome’s Russian Cousin, how’re you feeling?” Wade asks, microphone in hand –who thought that was good idea?—and clad in a dress that matches the bridesmaids but has been tailored for a man’s body and genuinely looks flattering on him. “Ready for the last part of your however you say it?”

“Very ready,” Piotr says enthusiastically. “I have been ready for long time.”

“Aw, that’s so adorable. Unfortunately, before we can start the final phase, I think your broski over there needs some more dough for his repair fund.”

Piotr shells out the last of the money he’d set aside for the vykup nevesty –it’s not like he’ll be needing it for later, at this point—and drops into Mikhail’s container, then turns back to Wade. “Alright, what is last phase?”

“Well, as the older brother in every way but biological to your future wifey,” Wade says with theatrical seriousness. “I do need to make sure that you’re of suitable marriage material before the ceremony starts. Can’t have my little sis shacking up with a slouch.”

Piotr rolls his eyes good naturedly. “You have known me for several years. And you have been around entire time Y/N and I were dating.”

“Hush, metal grasshopper, this is my moment,” Wade says as he pulls a piece of paper out of the bust portion of his dress. “So, just to make sure that you meet the mark, I’ve drummed up a few eensy-teensy questions to ask.”

Piotr grins and shakes his head; he’s not getting out of this, so there’s no point in being upset about anything. “Very well. Ask your questions.”

“Thank you. Question one: what makes you think you’re worthy to marry my sister?”

Piotr chokes, more out of shock than anything. “What kind of question is that?”

“The one I’m asking, Chrome Dome. Which means you have to answer it. Start talking, we’ve got a list to get through,” Wade says, angling his microphone at Piotr.

Piotr nudges Wade’s hand back so the microphone isn’t right in his face, then considers the question for a few second before answering. “Because she chose me. Marriage is many things, but at core it is choice to commit to living life with partner and work through whatever hardships and challenges arise as team. It is choice to keep loving and communicating. I could be exactly who I am, but if Y/N did not choose me, I would not be worthy. But she did choose me, which is what makes me worthy.”

“Ooh, going from the consent angle! Wade like-y!” Wade says a few guests nod, impressed.

Off to the side, Nikolai beams like the proud papa he is and Alex shoots her youngest son a thumbs up.

“Alright, you pass the first question. Second question: if three mini-lion robots broke into your house and formed into a super-lion robot, what would you do to protect your lady from any and all harm?”

“Anything I had to,” Piotr answers automatically.

Wade mimics a buzzer noise. “Lame answer. Cop out.”

“It is truth,” Piotr insists. “No one ever really knows what they would do in moment until they are there. I will not commit to idea I may not follow through on in moment because my instincts might wind up being different. What I do know, however, is that I will do whatever I have to in order to keep Y/N safe, and that will not change regardless of what moment faces me.”

Wade studies him for a moment, then nods slowly. “Alright. I’ll take that. Next question!”

“How many questions are there?” Piotr asks, trying to catch a glimpse of the paper.

“As many as I need,” Wade says angling the paper away from Piotr’s line of sight. “Okay, big question here: what do you love most about my sister?”

“Everything,” Piotr says earnestly, tone dreamy and lovestruck. “She… she is everything to me. She helps me step back and appreciate day to day. She makes me laugh and smile –and over things I never thought I would, which has been… interesting.” He chuckles along with everyone else. “She has helped me grow so much as person, and challenges me on how I think and act and do things… She is beautiful, and kind, and smart, and funny, and I am so lucky that I get to marry her.”

Several “awws” go up in the crowd, and more than a few people dab at their eyes with tissues or hankies.

Wade, however, lets out a dramatic sob and blows his nose noisily into a lace edged handkerchief. “I promised myself I wouldn’t cry!”

Piotr merely smiles and shakes his head.

“Alright, big guy. Now that you’ve made everyone here cry, you ready to get married?”

“Yes,” Piotr says eagerly, excitement coiling in his stomach once more. “More than.” He feels someone tap on his shoulder, and he turns, expecting to see Mikhail holding out the “repair fund” container in a last ditch attempt to get more money—

Except you’re standing behind him, dressed in your wedding gown and holding onto Nathan’s arm and beaming up at him like he’s the most important thing in the world. “Hey.”

“Hi.” Tears of joy well up in his eyes, and he presses his hand against his mouth to try and contain himself. “You look so beautiful.”

“You look very handsome yourself.” Your eyes sparkle as you gaze up at him. “Ready to do this thing?”

“Very ready,” Piotr says with an excited giggle.

Nathan hugs you and presses a fatherly kiss to your forehead before handing you off. “Take good care of her.”

“Always,” Piotr promises as he makes to help you over to your side of the altar.

You have other ideas, though, going in for a hug first.

Piotr wraps his arms around you and kisses the top of your head –careful not to mess up your hair—while the guests and wedding party make noises of delight and appreciation and Aiden and his team snap pictures.

Once the hug ends, he helps you get over to your side of the altar, then Wade takes your bouquet for you and helps you straighten out the skirt of your dress—

And then everything’s genuinely a blur. Charles makes a speech about the relationship as he’s witnessed it and the healthy love the two of you model for the students –which has both of you tearing up—before talking about the value of commitment and communication, you two exchange your vows and the rings, and then Charles pronounces the two of you as husband and wife, and then Piotr’s kissing you and you’re kissing him and—

It’s everything, as it always has been.

[imagineseclipse]

Your Character Development Imagine

Season 1 Part 3 

School was average for you, over the course of a few days you started to feel very different, Not like the moody different, but different as in you felt like something was brewing inside of you. 

You didn’t know what it was and it frightened you a little. Recently you had developed a never- ending headache, it had occured one night when you were laying on your bed in your room. Numerous times you had passed out, not waking up until the next morning.

You had been avoiding Scott and Stiles like always. The only thing that had changed was the fact that Lydia had a new friend to play with. Her name? Allison Argent. And of course Scott Mccall had taken an interest in her.

“It’s y/n right?”A voice snapped you out of your thoughts, you looked up from your locker to see the new girl Allison standing next to you. She tucked her hair behind her ear offering you a friendly smile.

She was pretty, there was no denying it.

“Yeah, that’s me”you replied.

“I’ve noticed ed that you hang out with Scott and Stiles”she nodded.

“I don’t hang out with them, i tolerate them”you corrected her.

“I just wanted to introduce myself, I’m Allison”

“Well, nice name”you shrugged, not really knowing what to say next.

Allison shuffled from one foot to the other, playing with the bracelets on her wrist.

“Uhh i also wanted to invite you to Lydia’s party on Friday”she added.

“Oh- 

At this point you started to laugh a little.

-Oh you’re not kidding, thanks but no thanks”you sent her a small smile before disappearing down the hall.

The bell had rang already so people made their way to their classes, you’d now be attending english class and the door seemed to be blocked by two figures.

You recognised one to be Scott Mccall and the other to be Jackson Whittemore. Lydia’s boyfriend who was equally stuck up and annoying.

"Good morning”Scott chirped.

“All right little man. How about you tell me where you’re getting your juice”

“What?”Scott replied innocently as you approached the two.

“Where are you getting your juice?”Jackson growled.

“My mom does all the grocery shopping”Scott replies as if it was obvious. You snorted to yourself quietly.

“Now listen, Mccall- You’re gonna tell me exactly what it is and who you’re buying it from, because there’s no way in hell you’re out there kicking ass on the field like that without some sort of chemical boost”Jackson accused him.

“Oh you mean steroids. Are you on steroids?”Scott asked concerned.

You took this as your chance.

“He probably is, Jackson get off him what is wrong with you”you frowned as you pushed Jackson away from Scott.

“What the hell is going on with me?! What about you Mccall?”Jackson raised his eyebrows.

“You really wanna know? Well, so would i! Because i can see, hear and smell things that i shouldn’t be able to. I do things that should be impossible, I’m sleepwalking three miles into the middle of the woods, and i’m pretty much convinced that i’m totally out of my freaking  mind!”Scott exploded and for a second you felt sorry for Scott, knowing exactly what he was going through because you had been experiencing those things yourself.

Except for the sleepwalking. You would have weird dreams instead. You would often wake up in a cold sweat.

“You think you’re funny- Don’t you, Mccall? I know you’re hiding something, i’m gonna find out what it is. I don’t care how long it takes”Jackson threatened.

“Get out of here you dick, you obviously have nothing better to do”you interrupted the jock.

Jackson looked down at you and smirked.

“Y/n, you still go to this school, i thought you had left ages ago after the changing room incident?”he mocked. You let out a small growl before scowling at the spoilt boy. Everybody knew about the changing room incident in freshman year. It’s the whole reason why you put a ban on having friends. 

“Fuck you Whittemore, go choke on a lacrosse ball. In fact shove that lacrosse ball so far up your a-

“Just leave Jackson”Scott finished your sentence before it got too heated.

After Jackson had left Scott turned to you, a look of surprise on his face as he wasn’t expecting you to stand up for him like that.

You recognised the expression on his face.

“I didn’t do that to help you by the way, you guys were blocking the entrance to my class”you pointed towards the door behind Scott.

A look of disappointment flashed across Scott’s face before he disappeared down the corridor. Your class had been shorter than you expected, probably because of the trial Lacrosse game.

You slung your bag over your shoulder, packing up your belongings and headed for the exit. However your attempts to leave were cut short because you were pulled to the side by Stiles Stilinski.

“And here i was thinking that you had finally left me alone, i thought i was able to live a peaceful life”you grumbled sarcastically.

Stiles ignored your comment as he grabbed another student by the collar, pulling them in to stand next to you. Stiles glanced at you, then looked away his eyes switching back to you almost instantly as he inspected your eyes.

You were starting to feel uncomfortable with all of the staring.

“Seriously y/n are you messing with us are they eye contacts because they are getting brighter”Stiles asked.

“Are you kidding m- You began to get annoyed with Stiles’ unnecessary comments. But before you could cuss Stiles out you noticed Scott’s movements out of the corner of your eye.

He was bouncing around impatiently.

“Stiles i’m playing the first elimination- man can it wait?”Scott asked.

“For once i agree with mr.canine over here, can’t this wait?”you repeated.

“Just hold on okay? I overheard my dad on the phone. The fiber analysis came back from the lab in L.A. They found animal hairs on the body from the woods” Stiles explained looking in between the both of you waiting for a reaction.

You and Scott both stood with no expression on either of your faces.

“Stiles, i gotta go”Scott protested.

“I don’t have to go but i want to”you retorted.

“Wait y/n, no Scott! You’re not gonna believe what the animal was! It was a wolf”Stiles flared his arms up in the air.

His explanation had fallen on deaf ears because you had already left and Scott was making his way to the field.

Apparently he’d made first line, you weren’t physically there but social media had told you everything.

This confused you because Scott wasn’t really that good at lacrosse, you weren’t even close friends with him but it was obvious. Meanwhile you were dealing with your own problems, you had been suffering with an indescribable back pain for days along with your headache. To top it off you had been having visions aswell.

Visions of the Nemeton, and visions of a place much different to Beacon Hills. During your dreams you would have the same headache you had been experiencing that was until you reached the magical place.

You were surrounded by nature,  and animals. Magic filled the air and you felt as though you were at peace. You hadn’t felt like that in a very long time.

The headache that you had been enduring was at it’s worst, your mind was clouded and you lay on your bed in agony. Your room was dark and gloomy, that’s how you liked it but that was before the attack. Now something about the dark wallpaper made you feel unsettled.

Your ringtone echoed around your room making you jump slightly. You groaned before snatching up your mobile from your night stand.

Unknown number. This was out of the blue because you never gave out your phone number. Ever. You swiped across and held the phone to your ear, not saying a word.

“Y/n?”A voice squeaked.

You didn’t know whether you were sighing with relief or if you were sighing out of frustration.

“Stiles, so first you found out my address and now suddenly you have my number. I’m starting to think that you are stalking me”you rolled your eyes.

“Dad’s a cop”Stiles muttered quickly before moving on.

“Haven’t you seen the school website?”he asked briskly.

You had to give him credit, he didn’t give up easily.

“What about it?”you yawned.

“We’re lab partners”he answered, you could practically feel the grin he was sporting on the other end of the phone.

“What a coincidence” you replied a hint of sarcasm in your voice, you pressed the loud speaker button instantly regretting it as Stiles’ voice echoed throughout your room. 

“Are you implying that i did this y/n”Stiles hummed.

“I wouldn’t be surprised”you shot back.

“And how would i pull this off, i don’t work at the school”Stiles argued, digging himself a deeper hole.

“Dad’s a cop”you mimicked his voice.

“Anyway do you know what this means y/n?”Stiles continued, ignoring your last comment.

“This means that i can poison you during class and i can make it look like an accident”you plotted smugly.

“Are you sure you aren’t responsible for the body in the woods”Stiles joked, laughing at himself quietly.

“Okay moving on, we need to start studying as soon as possible”Stiles demanded after coughing his joke away awkwardly.

“I would love to”you lied.

“But unfortunately i’m kinda busy”you lied again.

“Great, i’ll text you my address. Be here in the next ten minutes”he ordered before hanging up.

You stared blankly at the ceiling.

“What the hell just happened”you asked yourself.

You must have been possessed of something because you found yourself actually slipping on your beaten down converse, you found yourself actually driving over to the Stilinski household.

You hesitated before knocking on the door, finally deciding to turn back on your heel and drive back home. However before you could even make it back to your car Stiles’ front door opened and you were dragged inside.

You smacked Stilinski’s hand away.

“If you keep touching me like that i will cut off your hands one by one”you growled.

“I’m going to take you to my room y/n”Stiles nodded.

Your eyes narrowed and you scrunched up your nose in disgust.

“Never say that again”you warned.

“Well i was just telling you before you think i’m kidnap-

“Just go up the stairs loser”you let out a long breath before following Stiles up to his bedroom. His room was exactly how you thought it would be.

-Not that you had imagined it or anything, but the walls were blue, newspaper scattered the floor. It was a mess, just like Stiles. However something about it made you feel welcome.

“You have one hour Stilinski, then I’m leaving”you informed him.

He avoided eye contact for a moment before forcing a grin onto his face.

“We’re not actually studying are we?”you pinched the top of you nose debating on whether to strangle him or hang him out of the window by his feet.

“There’s something I want you to see”Stiles jumped over to the seat at his desk.

“Are we even lab partners?!”

“Yes we are actually! Look you can’t knock a guy down for trying I saw my opportunity and I took it”

“Bye Stiles”you said, before making your way over to his bedroom door, swinging it open to see a confused Scott McCall.

“Of course you would turn up”you muttered to yourself. Scott sent you a genuine smile before ushering you back into the room.

“Please just listen to what he has to say, then I promise he will leave you alone”Scott whispered, although somehow you heard it clearly. Like he was talking normally.

“Fine”you grumbled.

Stiles grinned at you both, before clumsily sprinting over to his door shutting it behind you.

“Both if you get in here,you gotta see this thing. I’ve been up all night reading- websites, books all this information”he exclaimed excitedly.

“How much adderall have you had today?”Scott asked as he sat down on Stiles’ bed.

Stiles twitched a little before smiling.

“A lot, doesn’t matter. Okay, just listen”

You smirked, slightly entertained by this on edge version of Stiles.

“Do you want some more?”you asked teasingly.

Scott’s eyes widened as he shook his head with disapproval.

“Oh, is this about the body? Did they find out who did it?”Scott questioned. Your interest in the conversation was never really there in the beginning so your eyes started to wander around Stiles’ room looking at the small details.

“No, they're still questioning people, even Derek Hale”Stiles replied, his own eyes landing on you as you walked over to his wall tracing your fingers over his posters.

“Oh, the guy in the woods that we saw the other day”Scott remembered.

“Yeah! Yes. But that's not it, okay?”

“What, then?”you shrugged, involving yourself in the conversation again.

“Remember the joke from the other day? Not a joke anymore. The wolf - the bite in the woods. I started doing all this reading. Do you even know why a wolf howls?”Stilinski began to ramble on.

“Should we?”Scott’s pupils flickered over to you.

“It's a signal, okay? When a wolf's alone, it howls to signal its location to the rest of the pack. So if you heard a wolf howling, that means others could have been nearby. Maybe even a whole pack of 'em”Stiles pointed towards the computer screen, proudly showing off the research he had done.

“A whole pack of wolves?”you raised your eyebrows at the teen.

“No - Werewolves”Stiles corrected you.

“Are you seriously wasting my time with this? You know I'm picking up Allison in an hour”Scott became frustrated.

“I saw you on the field today, Scott. Okay, what you did wasn't just amazing, all right? It was impossible”

“Why am I starting to wish that I was there”you interrupted, talking to yourself.

“Yeah, so I made a good shot”Scott shot back as if it wasn’t a big deal.

You could feel the tension rising between the two best friends. Normally you would live for this kind of drama but it just didn’t seem right this time.

“No, you made an incredible shot, I mean - The way you moved, your speed, your reflexes. Y'know, People can't just suddenly do that overnight. And there's the vision and the senses, and don't even think I don't notice that you don't need your inhaler anymore”Stiles’ voice grew louder.

“Where do I fit into this, if you really think I’m a werewolf then think again, I can’t run to save my life even after the attack”you announced.

Stiles eyes sparkled as he made his way over to you, guiding you over to the bed next to Scott.

“Don’t touch m-

“Okay sorry! Sorry!”Stiles apologised before raising his hands.

“See this is the brilliant part y/n, you were only scratched”Stiles clapped.

“How is that brilliant?”you enquired, glaring at the living meme.

“Because, it wasn’t deep enough to turn you into a werewolf like the bite which is what Scott received but it was deep enough to trigger something else inside of you”Stiles almost threw his notes at you.

You narrowed your eyes at him, picking up the notes that he had made from the floor.

As your eyes scanned over them, your heartbeat rapidly increased.

Scott paused to glance at you, he could hear and feel your heart racing.

You didn’t want to admit it but a lot of what Stiles had written was making sense. The control you had over the animals, the sparkling dust, the visions, your eyes and your change of skin colour.

He’d even found an explanation for your aching back.

“This is ridiculous”you choked out as you read that you were going to develop wings.

“I’m not a freaking magical Pixie, something is seriously wrong with you”you angrily pushed the notes back towards Stiles.

You didn’t want to believe it, but it was all adding up. When you’d previously researched the Nemeton Tree a lot of supernatural theories had come up. But that’s all you thought they were. Theories.

Scott could see that you were growing worried about your changing body.

McCall stood up.

“Okay! Dude, I can't think about this now. We'll talk tomorrow”

“Tomorrow?! What? No! The full moon's tonight. Don't you get it?”Stiles rushed around his room, gathering the paper.

You stayed where you were, your mind was racing so you wasn’t really tuned in to this part of the conversation. Were you really growing wings, could you actually do magic?

“What are you trying to do? I just made first line. I got a date with a girl who I can't believe wants to go out with me, and everything in my life is somehow perfect. Why are you trying to ruin it?”Scott yelled, snapping you out of your trance.

“I'm trying to help. You're both cursed, Scott. You know, and it's not just the moon will cause you to physically change”

It was your turn to stand up and address Stiles this time.

“So, if I was a pixie, fairy or whatever- what’s going to happen to me on the full moon?”you bit your nails.

“From what I’ve read, nothing happens to you on a full moon. However I’m pretty sure that there are certain days of the week in which your magic is strongest for example on Wednesday I saw you unintentionally turn on the Bunsen burner by yourself”Stiles exposed you.

“You saw that?”your cheeks flushed red for the first time and you immediately shook it off, returning back to your annoyed self.

“You’re not actually buying this are you y/n?”Scott’s mouth dropped open. He didn’t expect you of all people to be easily persuaded.

“Of course not, it’s just intriguing to see how invested he is”

It was Stiles’ turn to roll his eyes at you. He finally thought he was getting through to you.

Stiles looked at his best-friend once more a pleading with him mentally.

“Look, tonight’s the night when your bloodlust will be at its peak”Stilinski begged.

“Bloodlust?”Scott folded his arms.

“Yeah, your urge to kill”

“I'm already starting to feel an urge to kill, Stiles”Scott was now fuming. You’d never seen him so angry, but deep down you knew that it wasn’t him.

“I can finally relate to Scott for once”you dipped back into the conversation once more, picking up Stiles’ items inspecting them and placing them back down again.

Stiles raised his finger, telling you to wait.

“You gotta hear this. "The change can be caused by anger or anything that raises your pulse." All right? I haven't seen anyone raise your pulse like Allison does. You gotta cancel this date. I'm gonna call her right now”

Stiles reached forwards to snatch Scott’s phone out of his hands. You watched the altercation with a lump in your throat.

You wasn’t usually this sensitive.

“What are you doing?”Scott became more irritated by the second.

“I'm canceling the date”Stiles started to scroll through Scott’s phone. Scott must’ve seen red suddenly because he grabbed Stiles after throwing his seat across the room. Throwing him up against the wall.

“Scott you idiot what are you thinking?!”you called out startled.

You immediately leaped towards the two boys, shoving Scott away from Stiles. You stood in front of Stiles protectively. Stiles’ eyes were fixated on you, his breathing erratic.

He couldn’t believe what you had just done, he was sure that you were going to leave him to get torn apart by the Lacrosse player. Deep down a part of you believed Stiles through all of his madness.

The team captain took a second to realise what he had actually done. His lips were slightly parted.

A look of regret formed on his face as he grabbed his jacket from Stiles’ bed.

“I'm sorry. I - I gotta go get ready for that party. I'm sorry”Scott choked out before fleeing into the night.

You and Stiles stood opposite each-other in silence for what seemed like forever, both trying to process what had just happened.

“Y/n, I-

“I don’t want to hear it”you voice trembled as you lifted your finger, putting him on pause.

For the first time Stiles didn’t see you as a teenager with serious anger issues. He saw that you were vulnerable and that you were just incredibly misunderstood and you were going through something at the moment. He could see you were struggling to find yourself.

“Thank you”he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck.

Something caught your eye.

“Stiles, your crazy ass is gonna wanna see this”you strode over to his desk chair, ignoring his thank you as you picked the spinning seat up off the ground.

Three claw marks were now engraved into the leather.

“Okay, I’m not going to give you the satisfaction yet, but if I did believe you. If what your saying is true then how do we change back”you tilted your head to the side.

A mischievous smile spread across Stiles’ face.

“Just stick with me, we’ll figure this out”Stiles promised.

“This doesn’t make us friends”you reminded him sternly.

He nodded his head as if he was mocking you.

“What about Scott? I mean if the full moon really does affect him no one’s gonna be there to stop him isn’t that your job as his bestfriend?”you thought aloud.

Stiles had gotten lost in his own thoughts for a second, he finally looked up at you.

“Get your jacket, we’ve got a party to go to”Stiles declared.

“No chance, the keyword in that was ‘your’ not me”you stayed.

“There is no way in hell I am going to Lydia Martin’s party I’d rather die”you added folding your arms, adamant that you weren’t leaving.

[myflowerfriends]

Blog 1: Preventing the Increase of Entropy in the Biosphere

I am often torn between wanting to cut myself almost completely out of society to live an off-the-grid, nearly zero-emissions lifestyle, or, to continue on in society to make a career out of enabling those whose zero-emissions lifestyles are not by choice but by a matter of situational consequences that lead to the status of poverty or immobility, or even simply to do as the scientists, who “have a moral obligation to clearly warn humanity of any catastrophic threat” (2).

I suppose that because I am in school, it’s obvious that up until this point at least, I have chosen the second path. Still, I find myself very much overwhelmed by the state of the planet. Reading things like “much of this damage is irreversible on a scale of centuries, or permanent” can make one feel hopeless (3).  My heart goes out to the affected plants and animals by humankind’s wrongdoings.

Before getting into the chapter of Miller’s textbook Living in the Environment, I read his “About the Authors” and “From the Authors” excerpts. He found his passion—and while I certainly am interested in environmental studies as a whole, how to discover my passion remains a pressing question of mine, which I’m sure I will come back to in future blog posts.

And at least in this first chapter, he along with Scott E. Spoolman did an excellent job combining the various connections that weave together to form what is environmental studies. The connection between poverty and climate crisis is clear. If taking steps to reduce the impact of the climate crisis would greatly help impoverished countries, while choosing to ignore the crisis will only let the wealthiest get wealthier, then why is the entire world not taking more action?

I recognize that the true answer to that lies in greed, and also, a fear of change. It was in my biology course last semester that I memorized the laws of thermodynamics, with the second one being, put simply: entropy increases. That is, the measure of chaos in a system will increase gradually unless acted upon.

In a personal view: your bedroom will grow messier unless order is actively sought after through deliberate means to keep it tidy, or to clean it after it has gotten out of hand.

To relate to the study of the environment: it is the most comfortable option for humans to remain stagnant in their ways, and the human way for centuries now has been to promote the best interest of oneself, through technological advances produced by economic means. The proper laws have yet to be put in place to attempt at reversing the damages humans have created to planet Earth. It will take lots of energy on behalf of humans to enact these boundaries.

The “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency” emphasizes the gravity of the situation, and is reiterated also in the article “1992 World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity” which was written by the late Henry Kendall, former chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists board of directors and was issued by thousands of renowned scientists. Because of its brevity, I had lots of questions and concerns in my notes, with the resounding point being: how much of this is just words, and how much will actually be done? The fourth of the five “What we must do” points is: “we must reduce and eventually eliminate poverty.” (2). I want a direct answer to that, a clear-cut list of rules that can be taken to make this possible—this article was first published nearly thirty years ago, so there must be a quick formula, or some kind of vaccine, that can be used to eradicate poverty by now, yes?

Not quite. There is lots of discussion on different paths that can be taken and woven together to structure the elimination of poverty, though. A discussion in grandeur of the macro-level steps that must be taken can be found in Ripple et. al’s “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency”, and various opinions can be found throughout newsletters published by major journals and news outlets. One look at a country’s ecological footprint analysis (as can be done in Living in the Environment, page 30) shows the range of ecological credits and deficits associated with a country, with correlations made between the economic state of that country.

Routes can also be taken at the micro-level. Individual actions can enact change. The FootprintCalculator.org self-assessment on an individual’s ecological footprint shows how greatly one’s lifestyle can affect the environment. Figure 1 shows my results as of last night (1). I remember having taken the test years ago as well and wish I still had my results, as I’m sure my numbers would vary greatly, as I have made many adjustments to reduce my footprint: I compost now, shop mainly at second-hand stores, eat mainly vegetarian, and I’m moving my skincare products to being more sustainable as well. I am one of those who will encourage anyone and everyone who will listen to me to take similar actions.

As I’m sure I will continue to discover through this course, there is countless opinions on how to aid in the climate crisis. It is a dizzying amount; as stated in Living in the Environment, “one of the reasons why environmental problems persist is that people differ over the nature and seriousness of all the world’s environmental problems, as well as how to solve them” (3). Another side I have not yet touched on is that of the deniers—those who turn up their noses to the thousands of scholarly articles and published bits of research on the effects of the climate crisis and how much harm it is doing, and simply choose not to listen. Nestled with these are the nihilists: those who recognize that irreversible damage is being done but are too comfortable in their positions of privilege to want to do anything.

Over winter break I had the delight of speaking with old friends that fit into the categories of deniers and nihilists. In these discussions I made sure to pull up as many graphs from NASA and articles from news sources that I deemed trustworthy in an attempt to persuade them. I wasn’t sure what question I wanted to set as this first one, but I think if I can answer this then the other questions I have may also fall into place.

So, for today:  how can someone convince others to support scientists in resolving the climate crisis? Is it a matter of instilling this importance into humans when they are young, as my biologist mother did to me? Before even deciding what path to take to decrease the entropy, the disorder in our society that is affecting the planet, how to we get people on board to help work with us?

Word Count: 1124

Works Cited

1. “How Many Planets Does It Take to Sustain Your Lifestyle?” Ecological Footprint Calculator. Accessed January 23, 2020. https://www.footprintcalculator.org/.

2. Kendall, Henry. “1992 World Scientists' Warning to Humanity.” Union of Concerned Scientists, July 16, 1992. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/1992-world-scientists-warning-humanity.

3. Miller, G. Tyler, and Scott E. Spoolman. Living in the Environment. 19th ed. Boston, MA: Engage Learning, 2020.

4. Ripple, William J, Christopher Wolf, Thomas M Newsome, Phoebe Barnard, and William R Moomaw. “World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency.” BioScience, November 5, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biz088.

[lacrossepapi]

Trials and Tribulations

This was supposed to be @mysenia prompt but it somehow turned into accidental child acquisition and mys’ maze prompt so here we are lol. I hope you still enjoy it and maybe someone else will go about the maze in the way you intended!  Ao3:Link                            Chapters: 1/1           Words: 5113

“Don’t touch him.” Stiles’ voice cut through the various sounds of demons and wolves clashing.

This demon lord had been in town for three days and Stiles was sick of the fear, of the blood, of the lonely nights filled with nightmares. The bastard had kidnapped Isaac, declaring that the wolf would be his mate and rule his kingdom in hell by his side. Personally, Stiles didn’t think that sounded too bad. They were all going to hell anyways, so why not get an early ride in exchange for being a king? He could fuck a not that bad looking demon lord for eternity in exchange for not being tortured. Nobody else saw it that way though.

The demon hummed, a thrilled, intrigued sound as his red eyes turned to Stiles.

“This one has power. You smell divine little mage.” The demon lord unceremoniously dropped Isaac from his clawed hands and gave Stiles his full attention.

All Stiles had to do was distract him long enough for Scott to get Isaac and Derek to round up the rest of the puppies, he could definitely do that.

“So you’ve finally figured it out? Yes, I am a mage. What does a mage have that a demon lord would want?” Stiles did not flinch when a clawed hand reached out to him, to caress or maim.

When his dark tipped fingers brushed an invisible wall the demon lord’s eyes widened with surprise and a bit of awe, a smile stretching across his inhuman face.

“Interesting. You’re stronger than you appear if your shield does not wither under my touch. You would be an excellent king, my love.” Several angry growls rose from behind Stiles making the man grin, a wicked thing full of teeth and malice.

“Best to watch yourself, my pack does not take those threats lightly.” The demon grinned back, the thrill of a chase seen clearly on his features before Stiles spoke again, “Now I am done with your flattery and your slaughter.”

He rose slightly off the ground, black veins bulging from under pale skin and silver eyes bright in the night, “Leave now, Abraxas, before I turn your demon horde to ash and your bones to dust.”

Stiles’ voice echoed through the clearing leaving no question as to if he could indeed burn a demon horde to the ground and take their lord with them.

The demon lord Abraxas watching Stiles for a moment longer before nodding, “I will remember you Stiles Stilinski and when you are killed I will claim your soul for eternity.”

“Well then if I die I’ll see you then. Now get out of my town.”

Where once there was fifty demons slobbering and drenched in blood there now only stood their lord, who gave one final wink before disappearing himself.

Stiles turned back to his pack, acutely aware that Kira had been gravely injured in the fight and did not heal as fast as the wolves. As he reached for her, hands glowing with healing light he took note of the rest of the pack. Erica and Boyd were huddled around Isaac, all three bleeding but fine. Scott and Derek were debating how to clean up the mess, while Allison and Lydia were watching Stiles with a look in their eyes he wasn’t ready to address. Cora and Malia were arguing about who took down the most demons, like the bad asses they were. Peter was leaning against a nearby tree trying to hide the fact that his arm was hanging half off his body, never one to admit to an injury. Stiles found himself chuckling despite the screaming girl beneath him, his pack would never change and he would always be here to take care of them.

Magical healing was never pretty nor relaxing, often being excruciatingly painful and all around a horrible experience. Stiles tried to only make them suffer through enough to keep them alive while their own healing kicked in, but with the less sturdy pack members he had to finish the job despite their screams and thrashing bodies. He hated it.

Stiles let Peter hide his injury until he could get the older wolf alone, knowing he’d never let the Scott or Derek see him so weak.

“Alright Zombiewolf let me see your arm.” Stiles demanded as he walked beside the older man at the end of the pack.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re talking about, dear Stiles.”

“Oh really?” he knew it was a shitty thing to do, but if Peter was going to be difficult then so would Stiles.

He lifted his hand and grinned at Peter, “Give me a high five.”

“No thank you.”

“Alright, how about a low five?”

“How juvenile. I expected more from you.”

Stiles rolled his eyes before stepping in front of Peter, making the older man come to a stop, “Peter, let me help.”

The werewolf sighed before offering his injured arm to Stiles.

“I put a silence charm around us so feel free to scream, cause this is going to hurt.”

-

Weeks passed with no missing citizens, no dead bodies, and thankfully no new monsters. The city of Beacon Hills was finally peaceful, and Stiles was bored. No fighting meant that Stiles was forced to face how broken and unhappy he truly was.

The end of the school year meant the pack was graduating and Stiles would have to say goodbye to the only people who’d ever really known him. He’d begun dreading the date as it slowly crept up on him.

A tan bear with a pink nose was spotted multiple times in one week, but since there was no dead bodies or missing persons it took awhile for Stiles to hear about the sightings. He quickly started interviewing the witnesses trying to understand why such an animal would be in Beacon Hills. He’d finally gathered enough information to definitely say a Canadian spirit bear was in Beacon Hills and most likely was a shifter, and brought his conclusions to the pack.

“What do you mean it’s a shifter?”

“How could you possibly know its a spirit bear?”

“What if it’s just a sick brown bear?”

“How do you know it’s a shifter?”

“Did you actually see it?”

Stiles’ frustration was rapidly increasing by the second until he finally snapped, “I know it’s a spirit bear because I used the process of elimination. I know it’s a shifter because when anyone tries to get a picture of it the eyes shine so bright it ruins the picture. And also the whole, spirit bears only live in the Canadian rainforest.”

Someone, most likely Peter, chuckled at his irritation.

“Okay. I believe you. Derek and I will go meet the shifter and see why they’re here.” Scott said with a grin, as if that would soothe the hurt of having to over explain himself just for the pack’s trust.

“I want to go. I love spirit bears and I’m pretty sure this one is a child.”

“It’s not safe for you to meet an unknown shifter. If it’s a child the parents could be coming at any moment.” Derek’s words made Stiles spin around to face the other alpha.

“Neither one of you knows jack shit about children and none of you know how to approach a bear without angering or spooking it.” Stiles demanded.

“I have a younger sister, Stiles.”

“How do you know how to approach a bear?”

Stiles sighed, dejected and aware he’d lost the fight regardless of what he said.

“Whatever. Just go and help the poor thing.”

The alphas nodded and took their leave, the loft suddenly becoming uncomfortably quiet.

“I remember taking hunter’s safety with you. The lesson on dangerous wildlife was always the best part wasn’t it?” Erica’s voice reminded Stiles he couldn’t dissolve into an angst puddle because the rest of the pack was still around him.

“And I remember you getting off the bus at the daycare every afternoon despite the fact that you were too old to be there.” Boyd offered, placing a hand on Stiles’ shoulder.

Stiles smiled at them, “Thanks guys. It’ll be fine.”

A quiet moment of tension before he shrugged, “Probably.”

-

The two alphas weren’t able to speak to the bear or get it to shift back, which won Stiles twenty bucks from Isaac. They decided to try again the next day, but Stiles couldn’t let the little thing spend another night alone in an unknown forest. After his father left for work Stiles stepped outside and started up the grill. He grilled salmon so the smell of fish would permeate the air around his house and played a recording of a black bear he’d found on the National Geographic website.

Stiles’ thought that he could lure the cub to his back yard was proven right when he heard the distinct sound of heavy paws approaching, his wards telling him a shifter was entering his yard. A pink nose pushed its way through the bushes, followed by a large blonde head with yellow eyes. The rest of the bear cub was larger than Stiles had been expecting, but still small enough he knew the poor thing was still growing.

Stiles averted his eyes and spoke clearly, “Hello. My name is Stiles, this is my house and you are safe here.”

He tossed a salmon to the bear, watching the cub quickly devour it. Stiles had feared the cub was straying near town because of a lack of food in the preserve, and his fears seemed justified as the cub quickly devoured a second one. Stiles started tossing the salmon closer and closer to his spot on the porch, coercing the cub to come closer. When the bear was close enough to touch Stiles slowly sat down and turn his head so that his eyes were down cast and his neck bared. A cold nose was shoved against his neck after a moment of silent tension. Another moment of crucial silence passed as Stiles kept his heart rate as slow as possible with a bear’s snout against his throat.

“Mama!” the voice suddenly crying out in Stiles’ ear made him jump, but didn’t surprise enough to stunt his reflexes as he quickly caught the toddler.

Stiles hushed him and rocked them both side to side as the little boy cried. They stayed like that for a long time, until finally the child stopped crying and seemed to have fallen asleep.

Stiles carried the little boy up to his room and held him close through the night.

-

The next day Stiles woke to a child snuffling against his neck.

“Good morning, little cub. Did you sleep okay?”

“I  miss mama.” the cub whined pathetically before nuzzling under Stiles’ chin.

“Do you know where she is?”

“Big, big bear tried to get us but mama said I had to run so fast and I did!” He smiled at Stiles.

“Yes you did little guy. I’m so proud of you. Have you seen your mama since?”

“No. She said to run until I found papa, but he was mean and didn’t like me, so i just kept on going.”

Stiles’ brow furrowed for a moment as he tried to connect the pieces. Did he just run away from a fight or did his father actually not want him?

“How did you know papa didn’t like you, buddy?”

“He told me I was never ‘posed to let my fingies and toesies come out. He talked real bad about mama too.” Stiles hugged the little boy closer.

Stiles held him tight until the little boy wormed his way out of his arms and asked, “Can I have more fish?”

“Yes you can! What’s your name little cub?”

“Jesse!”

After eating a real breakfast, which included more salmon, Stiles told Jesse all about each pack member and how nice and amazing they all were so the little boy wouldn’t be scared of them.

“You have to come here because I don’t have a carseat. How am I supposed to get a toddler to the loft in my Jeep without a carseat?”

“No she’s not a deathtrap, thank you very much.”

“Just hurry up and get here. He wants to meet you guys.”

Stiles sighed heavily.

Jesse hopped up into his lap, content to play with his hoodie strings until the pack arrived.

-

Scott was the last to arrive, already grinning as he took his helmet off.

“I told you we could totally get the cub safely!” Scott cheered, his hand high waiting for Stiles to slap it.

“Yeah man. We did it.” The high five that followed was weak.

Lydia crossed her legs and tossed her hair back before speaking, “Really Scott? Stiles is the one that helped Jesse. Not ‘we’. Him.”

Stiles shot her a grateful look as he scooped Jesse off of his leg.

“Okay guys so this is Jesse. He’s a spirit bear shifter and he’s been traveling alone for a long time. He’d got nowhere else to go and he’s going to be staying with me from now on.”

He hadn’t been consciously aware of the decision until he had spoken the words, but Jesse absolutely was going to stay with Stiles and his father. He’d seen the look on his father’s face when he’d introduced them that morning.

Scott spluttered “You can’t just adopt him like it’s nothing.”

“He’s a shifter Stiles. He need more than you can give.” Derek demanded.

“Well I raised your pack pretty well on my own.”

Derek glared, while the other snickered.

“What about when his parents come looking?” Peter inquired, one eyebrow raised in curiosity.

“I’ll tell you why they won’t when he lays down for his nap in a bit.”

“No nap!”

“Yes nap.” Stiles said plainly, lightly pinching the boy’s cheek.

“No! Nap!”

“You want to go nap right now?”

“No.” This time the words were more subdued.

“Anyways, Jessop Stilinski will be officially adopted by the end of the day. And I don’t care about any of your opinions.”

He’d expected to see angry faces ready to argue, but was greeted by the sight of his friend’s grinning faces.

“You’re such a dad. How did we not see it?” Malia laughed.

“I thought it was a good idea from the start. He shouldn’t be out there alone.” Cora said, reminding everyone that she’d once been in Jesse position.

“I can’t wait to see you in a fanny pack, darling.” Peter leered, reminding Stiles he needed to finish his pop culture and fashion lessons with Peter.

“Stiles. No. You aren’t strong enough to protect him.” Derek pleaded.

“Seriously man, he’s not safe here.” Scott added approaching Stiles as if to take Jesse from him.

Jesse whimpered and ducked his head into Stiles chest, no doubt feeling Stiles’ rage through their fledgling pack bond.The sound of his cub being scared and unsure broke something in Stiles and suddenly the two alphas were on the ground, struggling under the pressure of Stiles’ magic. He ignored the defensive wolves at his back, scared and threatened by the sight of their alphas on the ground but in control enough to not interfere.

Stiles felt his feet rise from the ground and the ends of his hair lift from his scalp as wind tore through the house, swirling quickly around Stiles and Jesse. He knew his eyes had changed to the silver that came with his magic and that his veins had once again turned black, he did not like what he looked like when he let his magic course through him this strongly, but he would not let them take his child from him.

“I am the strongest member of this pack.” The words filled the living room as if they to were made of magic.

The wolves behind him whimpered and submitted, but he did not care about them.

“Okay! We were wrong! Stiles stop this!” Scott shouted, still being crushed into the ground.

“Stiles!” Derek cried after a long moment of Stiles’ continued silence.

Stiles sighed, releasing his magic back into the ground and freeing the wolves he’d trapped.

Both rose quickly, angry and embarrassed.

“Do not ever do that again.” Derek spit the words, Stiles would undoubtedly be pushed against a wall if he hadn’t been holding a laughing toddler.

“I can’t believe you man.” Scott muttered before following Derek out the door.

Stiles didn’t move as the rest of the pack filed out after their alphas, a few saying goodbye to him and Jesse.

“That was fun!”Jesse cheered pulling on Stiles’ hoodie strings excitedly.

“Yeah, and now I’m ready to take a nap. How about you buddy?”

“No nap!”

-

Stiles didn’t answer the pack’s messages or attend any pack meetings for a month. A month of taking care of Jesse and picking a college close enough to help if anything happened, but still a good criminal justice school. It was a month full of frustration and fighting with a four year old.

Eventually Scott texted and demanded what they could do to show that they value him and need him in the pack, which sparked an idea in Stiles’ head that ran rampant over the next few days.

He replied, “Prove it.” and sent his location to the pack group message.

He was currently sitting in the exact middle of the preserve surrounded by eleven doors, most of which he knew would never open. He didn’t realistically expect any of them to open.

He had transformed the preserve into a giant maze with eleven entrances, each one spelled to only allow one person to enter, and many chambers filled with tricks, traps, monsters, and riddles. He was sick of the pack pretending to value him, it was time to see who actually did.

Stiles practiced the alphabet and counting to ten with Jesse while he waited, the four year old would be starting school in the fall and needed to catch up to the kids that hadn’t been a bear for over a year.

The first one into the maze was Malia though she was not the first to lose, that honor went predictably to Isaac. The first chamber had two tunnels, one tunnel had Scott’s name over it, the other had Derek’s, but both were correct. Both wolves were caring alphas who had their own faults, neither was the better alpha. Isaac could not pick which alpha he was more loyal to in his heart, the ground opening up from underneath him for hesitating too long.

Stiles snickered as Jesse loudly counted his fingers and Isaac fell to the bottom of a pit.

Malia turned out to be the second to go, charging straight past the riddles and warnings Stiles had spent forever thinking of and falling straight into the moss covered pitfall, joining a grumpy Isaac. Stiles smiled at her roar of fury but couldn't help feeling disappointed that she hadn't even though to read the engraved signs he'd placed in easy eye level.

Stiles smiled in delight as everyone was approaching halfway, he had not expected most to make it very far at all. The pitfall warnings we're closer to riddles and he thought he'd made them difficult to understand.

Poor Allison lost in the chamber Stiles had spelled to show them a lost loved one. Crying for the mother her memories had conjured up, a cold woman who despite her coarse words had genuinely loved her daughter. It was a nasty trick, but Stiles constantly had his mother’s death thrown in his face every time a bad guy smelled his magic. He’d thought that chamber would get Derek or Cora since they’d lost more than anyone, but both were hardened by their grief and were able to smell the magic on the mirages, which was not something he'd anticipated and quickly rectified for one specific chamber.

Cora dropped in the chamber Stiles had placed a singular joystick, she did not know the song of time despite Stiles setting it as his ringtone and the motions as his password to everything. He couldn’t really fault her for that though, but this maze wasn’t about picking favorites or feeling guilty it was about the pack proving which of them genuinely knew Stiles and proving that while alone they could only go as far as their individual weaknesses allowed. Hopefully they'd understand why he'd targeted their weaknesses by the last chamber, that is if anyone actually reached it.

Scott and Derek were breezing through, but Stiles had something saved for them towards the end so he turned his attention to Erica and Boyd.

Erica lost in the chamber of wendigos, swarmed by the realistic illusions before finally dropping into the pit that held her pack mates. Stiles had fought a coven of wendigos last summer on his own and no one had realized how close he'd actually came to dying. Now they'd understand.  Boyd continued passed to the chamber with four levers and four Hogwarts houses, pull the right lever and he’d pass. Unfortunately Boyd pulled Gryffindor, and into the pit he fell. Boyd had had a tendency to put Stiles in a heroistic light ever since sophomore year when he'd dragged Erica and Boyd out of that basement with his bare hands, unable to much with his magic at that point and scared that he'd get them all killed if he'd tried.

Lydia was fearless as she screamed wendigos into oblivion and narrowly avoided picking the wrong house, but as she'd moved to pull the wrong lever she seemed to realize it didn't matter what she thought of him this was about what he thought of himself. She did not make it passed the mirrored chamber, sadly.  Surrounded on all sides by mirrors and a singular sign that read “How do you know you’re you?” she crumpled shouting, “You’ll never need someone else to tell you who you are Stiles!”, unable to solve the riddle from Stiles’ perspective before the pit opened up beneath her.

Kira had shouted, “In a dream you have extra fingers!” before charging through the closest mirror, confident in her answer. The next chamber took Kira down unfortunately. All she had to do was keep control of her shift while six golem approached slow and menacingly. She couldn’t keep her kitsune in, her aura exploding out around her and she shouted, “Stay back!”

Derek and Scott had both just arrived to the second to last chamber. Inside was the illusion of a human woman, this time spelled to smell only human. She asked for their help, tears streaming down her face as she approached and a knife dripping in kanima venom. She took Scott down while he asked her what had happened. Derek faired better, incapacitating her quickly and without real harm.

Jesse gasped beside Stiles drawing his attention away from the monitors he used to watch each pack member. Standing before them covered in blood was a very exhausted Peter Hale.

“Really Stiles? Mirages and illusions the whole way, but the last chamber has a real creature?” the werewolf inquired as he approached a shocked Stiles.

“I gotta keep ya on your toes Creeperwolf.” Stiles grinned, expecting Peter to lightly cuff his head.

Peter smiled at him before placing a gentle, loving kiss on Stiles’ stunned lips. The werewolf promptly passed out after, collapsing at Stiles’ feet.

Stiles looked up just in time to see the pit open up into the last chamber where Derek was fighting the hydra. The pack leapt out of the pit together and took down the hydra quickly. They entered the sitting room Stiles and Jesse had inhabited for the passed couple hours and looked at Stiles expectantly.

“Did we pass then?” Isaac sneered.

“Yes. But only in the end. I was just trying to show you guys that alone we are weak but together, using everyone’s strength we are a pack and as a pack we can overcome anything.”

Stiles winced.

“You’re also a vindictive little monster.” Malia huffed.

“That too.” Stiles shrugged.

“And Peter?” Derek asked, pointing to the collapsed form of his uncle.

“I had not counted for Peter’s unwillingness to work together or lose.” Stiles grinned.

He had not accounted for Peter, that was for sure. He touched his lips for a moment in thought.

“Dinner time yet, ‘Tiles?” Jesse whined more than asked.

Stiles nodded and snapped his fingers, the room and the maze around them disappeared in an instant, the nine hydras returning to their stomping grounds in Greece.

-

“Peter stop eavesdropping. I know you're awake.” Stiles had been monitoring Peter’s heart rate and healing factor since the moment he’d passed out and knew that for the last ten minutes the older man had been listening to the pack yell at Stiles.

“Guilty.” Peter replied with a smirk as he sat up.

Stiles turned back to his angry friends and motioned for them to continue.

“How could you make Allison face her mother’s ghost?”

“How was anyone supposed to know there would be a giant hole in the middle of the pathway?”

“You know I’m scared of wendigos, Stiles!”

Peter finally joined the pack in the kitchen, but chose to stand by Stiles and face the pack, “No one was supposed to win. Stop being angry that he knew your weaknesses when you also know his. Pack is about catching others when they stumble, and not only have you all been stopping him from lifting you up, you’ve been ignoring his own pitfalls.”

The pack sat in silence for a moment as they thought about how they did actually know Stiles’ short comings and weaknesses and how he’d used theirs to show them that a pack is a unit not a group of individuals working towards their own goals.

“Well the test was subjective which means it cannot be used as an adequate grading system.” Lydia huffed.

“Someone did win. You did, Uncle.” Derek reminded them.

“That’s because I have no weaknesses.” Peter replied with a smirk.

“Or he forgot about you.” Scott mumbled.

“Or, I forgot how ruthless Peter is when he’s not being a dick and using it against us.” Stiles shrugged.

The mage’s eyes lit up for a moment before he turned to Peter completely, “How did you defeat the Hydra alone?”

“You mean you weren’t watching?” Cora asked, the Hale family eyebrow look morphing her features.

“Jesse was trying to count to twenty and Scott was being stabbed by a crazy woman, so no I wasn’t watching.” Stiles sniffed, crossing his arms defensively.

Peter turned his body towards Stiles too, as if they were speaking only to each other and the rest of the pack was no longer in the room, “I simply set it on fire.”

“I didn’t know you could kill them with fire. Peter, you’re a burn victim.” Stiles said in awe.

“Two times over. I’m aware of my weakness and do not let it stop me.”

“If you’d tried to fight it the pack would have came to your aid.”

“Would they have?”

Stiles glanced at his friends guilty faces before stepping closer to Peter.

“I wouldn’t have let you die.”

“I will never die again, darling.”

“No. You won’t.” Were Stiles final words on the subject.

He turned back to his friends and smiled, “So who’s ready for dinner?”

“Me!” shouted Jesse, Malia, and Erica.

-

Stiles was glad to see the pack working as a unit more in the aftermath of the maze. Derek stopped patrolling alone, Stiles and Deaton had started working with Kira on her control, Peter started teaching Erica how to fight Wendigos specifically, and over night almost as if my magic the fireplace in the loft had disappeared and the stove had changed from gas to electric. They’d started training together more, often times training separately but still together.

Jesse was acclimating to pack life easily, romping around training sessions and tackling his alphas in literal bear hugs. He still clung to Stiles when the betas growled or nipped at each other, tempers flaring easily between teenagers, but on the whole he was adjusting well. He was especially fond of the Hales, most likely due to the fact that they too were born shifters and were more intune with their wolves. The Hales were also fun to hang on and crawl all over if Jesse’s shrieks of glee as he ran and leaped onto Peter’s back were anything to go by.

“Stiles.”

He hummed, looking up from his latin notes and into Peter’s amused, yet exasperated face.

“You’ve been sunbathing long enough, your skin burns too easily, love.”

Stiles nodded silently, his mind still running through phrases and definitions.

“Up you get.” Peter spoke quietly, lifting Stiles off the blanket he was sprawled across in the grass.

“Don’t forget my books, Peter. I need to figure the summoning ritual out. Gotta reverse engineer it.” Stiles mumbled, his body and mind made soft by his time focusing in the warm sun.

“I won’t forget them. Let me get you to bed and I will come back for them.” Peter reassured him.

“‘Tiles! Papa is taking me to the park!” Jesse yelled, racing down the stairs and almost colliding with the very wombly mage.

“That’s amazing, sweetie. Remember that Papa isn’t as strong as you and the wolves so you gotta be gentle with him okay?”

Jesse huffed, his little foot stomping the ground, “I know how to play with Papa, ‘Tiles! I’m not a baby!”

“You know he didn’t mean it like that, cub. Don’t be mean.” Peter spoke calmly, but even Stiles could feel the reprimand in the man’s aura.

Jesse crossed his arms, his eyes turning away from Peter and Stiles as he mumbled, “Sorry Pe-ya. Sorry ‘Tiles.”

“I’m sorry too, cub. Have fun with Papa today.” Stiles tried to smile at his adopted son, but his face felt so heavy it was more of a flash of a grin than a genuine smile.

He ruffled Jesse’s hair as he passed the four year old and headed for the stairs.

“Hey Peter?” Stiles asked as he laid back onto his bed, immediately burrowing into the blankets.

“Yes, love?”

“Why do you only call me ‘Love’ now?”

“Because I love you, Stiles.”

Stiles was well on his way to being asleep, but his heart lurched at the admission.

“I love you too, Peter. But you should still call me the other pet names too. I like them.” His last words were mumbled into Peter’s chest as the older man joined him in his bed.

Peter ran his hand down Stiles’ back and whispered, “Anything for you, darling boy.”

[lifejustgotawkward]

365 Day Movie Challenge (2017) - #348: Blade Runner 2049 (2017) - dir. Denis Villeneuve

As the end credits rolled on Blade Runner 2049 last Sunday night at the Regal Union Square multiplex, I turned to my friend and asked her my usual question, “So, what did you think?” She groaned out, “that was really boring,” and the wave of relief I felt at her response was the perfect summation of my feelings.

How did Blade Runner 2049 disappoint me? Let me count the ways.

I watched Ridley Scott’s original Blade Runner (1982) back in September. I was impressed, though not bowled over, by the theatrical cut, but I still wanted to give the final cut a chance. When I got around to watching that “definitive” version, I found that I actually missed Harrison Ford’s gruff, noiresque narration from the earlier edit of the film, but overall my appreciation for Blade Runner had grown and the second viewing allowed me to focus less on the plot and to better appreciate both the acting and the technical aspects of the production.

My expectations for Blade Runner 2049 were fairly high. I was eager to see how Denis Villeneuve built on Scott’s (and, of course, writer Philip K. Dick’s) visions of dystopian Los Angeles by pushing the narrative thirty years further into the future from the first Blade Runner’s setting in 2019. Although I missed the chance to see this new installment in IMAX - hey, those tickets are expensive when you don’t have spare cash to throw around! - I knew I still had to take the time to watch the film on the big screen. No TV could possibly do justice to an epic sci-fi tale of the Blade Runner variety, at least not for an introductory experience.

Bear with me, now, when I say that Blade Runner 2049 was a massive letdown. Yes, Roger Deakins’ stunning cinematography is practically guaranteed to earn him an Oscar nomination. And yes, the art direction, production design and set decoration further supports Denis Villeneuve‘s strengths regarding compelling visuals. I would also be totally fine with Renée April getting an Oscar nomination for costume design since the coat that Officer K (Ryan Gosling) wears throughout the film is incredible. Unfortunately, for the third year in a row (after Sicario and Arrival) my hopes for Villeneuve’s work have been dashed. For three years running he has fallen short of his ambitious ideas, whether attempting to concentrate on an idealistic DEA agent (Emily Blunt in Sicario), a linguist simultaneously mourning the death of her daughter and trying to make contact with aliens (Amy Adams in Arrival) or a Replicant Blade Runner (Ryan Gosling in Blade Runner 2049) who unravels a mystery about a female Replicant who was able to bear a child. All of these protagonists should be worthy of my undivided attention. Instead, Gosling - like one of Nexus’s new edition of Replicants - is just another in a continuing line of failed leads.

Part of the issue is Ryan Gosling’s own fault. In interviews I find him absolutely delightful, a funny and self-deprecating guy with a nicely offbeat sense of humor; in movies he is unremittingly bland. Whether we’re talking about The Notebook or Crazy, Stupid, Love or The Big Short, he never seems to have any discernible personality on film. It makes sense, then, that he would be chosen to play an android in Blade Runner 2049. But what does it say that he didn’t even play Officer K well? Replicants can be portrayed with emotion, if you recall Rutger Hauer, Sean Young, Daryl Hannah, Brion James and Joanna Cassidy in the original Blade Runner. Each actor breathed life into their characters in unique styles. So why couldn’t Villeneuve and screenwriters Hampton Fancher and Michael Green find a way to inject some flavor into their film’s characters?

The posters for Blade Runner 2049 imply that Harrison Ford and Jared Leto play important roles in the film, but in actuality, Leto’s “antagonist,” Niander Wallace, barely has any screen time and Ford’s returning antihero, Rick Deckard, doesn’t show up until the last third of the film. I enjoyed every moment he was onscreen, spitting his dialogue out with the same jaded sarcasm he had in the first film, but I wish the character had had more time to develop in the film. Wallace bears an undistinguished aura of evil, but what was supposed to be so special about him? Given the spotlight often put on his sightless eyes during “creepy” closeups, was his blindness really intended to be read as part of what defined him as bad (in which case, uh, what is that saying about disabilities)?

Next we have to take a look at the women of Blade Runner 2049. There are six notable female characters: Joi (Ana de Armas), a hologram who is a product created by Niander Wallace and who functions solely as K’s live-in girlfriend; Luv (Sylvia Hoeks), a Replicant who acts as Niander Wallace’s right-hand woman; Lieutenant Joshi (Robin Wright), K’s supervisor on the police force; Mariette (Mackenzie Davis), a "pleasure model” Replicant; Dr. Ana Stelline (Carla Juri), who works for the Wallace corporation in a capacity that I shouldn’t spoil for those who have not seen the film; and Freysa (Hiam Abbass), who plays a role that I similarly should not divulge. Of these six, Joi and Ana Stelline are the most sympathetic characters, but regardless of how these women’s actions are meant to be interpreted, the designs of these ladies are problematic.

Joi is an immediately likeable character, but since she is a product (and one who does not initially have a corporeal form), she does not have autonomy. With the push of a button, K can turn her off any time he wants, which I’m sure is an option a lot of dudes wish they had available for their girlfriends. Joi exists only to serve K, telling him how wonderful he is when he gets home from a long work day and providing whatever eye candy he desires (she can shapeshift to alter her clothing, hair and makeup). Should I ignore the fact that Joi has zero character development and applaud Blade Runner 2049 anyway for highlighting the ickiness of a future society where Joi-models are prevalent (thus eliminating the need for actual human women)? Maybe, but the film doesn’t bother to make a statement about this element of social interaction, other than the fact that it exists.

K is finally able to experience physical contact with Joi when she “syncs” with Mariette, a prostitute, to combine their bodies for a sexual encounter with K, resulting in my favorite shot in the film: an unsettling image of Joi and Mariette’s four blurry hands wrapping around the back of K’s head and caressing his hair. While this interlude incorporates an interesting degree of romantic intrigue - to what extent do K, Joi and Mariette understand what love is? - there is something a little too weird in the film’s dependence on the Madonna and Whore tropes, suggesting an either/or dichotomy where the only time a woman can possess both attributes is when she finds another person (technically a Replicant) who can temporarily provide the missing skills.

Luv is probably the best-developed female character, although since she is Niander Wallace’s servant, it is impossible to say where her allegiance to him ends and her own taste for violent retribution begins. Luv seems to genuinely savor hurting people, but I suppose that attitude was programmed into her by Wallace, which somewhat minimizes the cool factor in her badass fight scenes. It’s kind of odd, though, that she manages to outshine the film’s other resident tough gal, Lt. Joshi (I didn’t think anyone could outdo Robin Wright in this department, especially after Wonder Woman). Villeneuve and his writers couldn’t settle on how best to represent Joshi, so the character fluctuates between a generically butch stereotype and a leering boss who drinks too much and flirts with K. Again, not that women have to be only one thing, but I like consistency in characters rather than mixed messages. I wonder how much of Blade Runner 2049′s muddled and archaic depictions of women are thanks to Hampton Fancher, who also co-wrote the original Blade Runner’s screenplay, which was full of troublesome approaches to womanhood, sexuality and sexual consent.

In the end, the difference between Blade Runner and Blade Runner 2049 is like the distinction between a human being and a Replicant. 2049 tries to live up to the originality of that which inspired it, but it lacks the soul of its predecessor. It really says something that the most heartfelt moments in Blade Runner 2049 are two references to Ridley Scott’s film: a pivotal scene in Wallace’s lair that conjures up the memory of Rachael (Sean Young) from the film, and a moment in the penultimate scene that reuses a key piece of music from Vangelis’s original Blade Runner score. I recognize that many viewers see Blade Runner 2049 as a masterpiece, and I have tried many times in the past week to understand why, but I’m hard-pressed to comprehend why I should have spent close to three hours sitting through such an unsatisfying project, other than being able to say I bravely weathered this particular storm.

P.S. (because I couldn’t figure out where else to write this): I don’t know how many viewers will know where I’m coming from, but for the cult classic freaks out there, let me propose this theory: Blade Runner 2049 is trying to be like Paul Morrissey’s notoriously wild horror-satire Flesh for Frankenstein (1973). Check it out: a really bizarre and wealthy man (Udo Kier/Jared Leto) and his devoted assistant (Arno Juerging/Sylvia Hoeks) endeavor to construct a set of superhumans (FfF) or humanoid robots (B42049), entities that will give birth to a new generation of superbeings that will take the place of their inferior progenitors and obediently do their master’s (Kier/Leto) bidding. In fact, there are two specific scenes that reminded me of Flesh for Frankenstein while watching Blade Runner 2049: when Niander Wallace kills the naked, infertile Replicant woman (ugh, what a terrible scene), it mirrors a moment in Flesh when Arno Juerging, the loyal assistant, tries to commence sex with Baron Frankenstein’s female zombie-monster by punching her in the stomach and fatally damaging her internal organs, resulting in a grotesque display of violence similar to what we see in Blade Runner 2049.

Secondly, when Luv battles K at the sea wall and she kisses him, she is mimicking an action that Niander Wallace carried out when he killed the Replicant woman; this is also reminiscent of Flesh for Frankenstein since the Arno Juerging character often does horrible, perverse things - like conflating his lust for the female zombie with a disturbingly compulsion for violence - because he is following his master’s patterns. Take all that analysis for what it’s worth, Blade Runner fans!

P.P.S. I am also convinced that Blade Runner 2049′s Las Vegas wasteland scene was either an homage to or a ripoff of Nastassja Kinski’s desert dream sequence from another of 1982′s finest cult offerings, Cat People. Even in the slightly faded YouTube upload of the clip, the orangeness cannot be overlooked.

[wildlyhardphilosopher-blog]

puppy training treats | how to train your puppy

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puppy training treats | how to train your puppy

Biting people R This guide has taken me many weeks to put together so I’m hoping it will prove useful to people. DONATE NOW Is Your Dog Afraid of Thunderstorms? TV Contests & Events find a store Dog Training 101 Format: Kindle Edition|Verified Purchase Pet insurance policies are underwritten by Markel American Insurance Company. Protect your pet. The times you take them to their bathroom spot AquaTop We’re all in the electronic age surrounded by smart phones and i-Pads, but this is simply too much hassle and will likely lead to you not bothering if you have to power up a device and so on to make an entry. Guardian Gear (1) KOMO Cams Spay/Neuter Clinic Flyball Why do dogs go into the bathroom to drink? The first night Do wait with him there until he has done a wee Smit/Shutterstock Is he pooping in his crate or other places too? Simple Solution® Dog Pads As the proud guardian of both a brand new Aussie puppy and a “sudden urge” Greyhound senior, I am grateful for my dog door. My dogs go in and out at will, never needing to call on me to use my opposable thumb to turn the handle to open that door. At my house, there’s no need to find the attendant to get the restroom key; the bathroom door is always unlocked. My dogs go out, my dogs come in. There’s nary a potty accident or worry. Purina Farms Top Puppy Food #1 Vet-referred for a reason. All of our head trainers are CPDT-KA “Certified Professional Dog Trainers.” We offer private lessons, classes and themed workshops. Purina Dog Chow – Click for voluntary (or accidental) movements toward your goal. You may coax or lure the animal into a movement or position, but don’t push, pull, or hold it. Let the animal discover how to do the behavior on its own. If you need a leash for safety’s sake, put the handle over your wrist or tie it to your belt. Wow! What an outline! Bravo for clearing up so many questions I had. No other website really elaborated like you have on a lot of the unknowns when house training a puppy – specifically when your dog gets to have some free time. Thank you!! Your outline & instructions worked out so well. I am following the confinement and crating methods inside and using a 4 foot tether outside to control/encourage the peeps & poops. We are on day two and she’s getting the message!!! After her love and rewards Charly enjoys her supervised free time in the house and her free runs in the back yard. Puppies need time to developed a “den” instinct to cause them to want to ‘hold it’ and not soil the den, i.e., your entire house. In their litter, puppies just go whenever and wherever they happen to be! Successful house training depends upon your diligent supervision so you can be there to show your pup where to eliminate. Working in Australia Dog Products Bunny Dating Services If he goes to the bathroom outside, have a party! The “party” may include treats, affection, praise, play—whatever your dog likes. Make sure that you reinforce the heck out the behavior you like. If you provide a consequence that is reinforcing to your dog, the behavior will be offered more frequently. And, if you click when he finishes eliminating, you can eventually put the elimination behavior on cue! 2.0 out of 5 starsCute little tricks Find an Animal ER Instructors Recalls Leash Training Your Dog Next ► 63599 What to do if you catch your puppy in the act of a potty training “mistake”… Queens, New York Dog Coat ID Quiz: Can You ID These Breeds The last thing you want is to teach your puppy that during the night is a time for play or food treats! Out and about 3.99 Early neurological stimulation. CL Battaglia – 2007 Scott’s Weather Blog Cleanup & Odor Control PRIVATE TRAINING 10 Festive Fall Activities for You and Your Pet This is the biggest mistake and biggest ‘punishment’ that you can do to your puppy. If you want to think about this situation from a human point of view, think about a child; it would be wrong not to teach our kids anything until they are old enough for school, right? In fact training your puppy basics like potty training, housebreaking or house rules are steps that are necessary for normal function for both you and your new companion. Slideshow Things That Can Hurt Your Joints Bought some small but highly tasty training treats to use as a reward? Since potty training is an ongoing process I’ve split this article up into two week segments. The first week is where the potty training magic happens, and the second week is where the consistency of week one starts to pay off. Updated: December 15, 2017 How to Crate Train Your Dog Today on Vetstreet BOTHELL, Wash. (KOMO) – A Bothell dog training school is under investigation after a video sparked outrage on Facebook. WholeHearted Crating and Alone Training Breed Match Weight Loss Clinic How can you teach your puppy not to bite? Hosico Focuses While Strolling If your puppy only gets that beloved thing when she’s in her crate, the crate will take on value very quickly.

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fbq('track', 'ViewContent', content_ids: 'dogtraining.dknol', ); FAQs Karen July 25, 2018 at 5:09 am Select Page Latest Pet Videos Female Dogs in Season Nov 02, 2015 | 7 Minutes Leave your puppy in the crate for longer amounts of time. GMO-Free Products Live in the moment A special training class for puppies between 4-11 months Housetraining a new puppy can be tricky but is a crucial part of living with your dog. Get the best advice on how to toilet train your puppy from Purina. Read more FOLLOW US! Politics Gluten Free (8) CANWI How to Potty Train a Dog to go on Your Balcony or Patio Potty training Stage 1 – establish the toilet area If medical issues are ruled out, contact a trainer or behaviorist for advice. More articles we recommend:  2.0 out of 5 starsCute little tricks Multipet Over Indulgence On the other hand, a submissive dog will try to make himself appear small and act like a puppy. This is because an adult dog will “tell off” a puppy but not attack him. Submission will take the form of a sideways crouch near to the ground, his tail held low but wagging away. He may also try to lick the face of the dominant dog or human. He may even roll on his back. Account login If your dog is scared of new people, politely ask strangers not to approach or touch your dog. Learn wherever there is internet access Alex March 19, 2018 at 9:30 pm Solvit Hong Kong 4. Shower him with praise when he does a good job. Change the mat often, but leave a little spot of dried urine there. The scent of the urine will help your dog remember that the mat is the place to go to the bathroom. Remove feces right away, but leave a sheet of newspaper or a small bit of padding with urine on the clean mat so your dog will naturally know where to go. Our 4&3/4 year old (as she says) granddaughter loves Greta and had her sit and heel today.  We thought they both did very well, and thought we would share it with you.  South Africa ZA 1 (800) 419-8748 Kitten Advice You should always accompany your puppy outside for potty breaks. You’re there not only to ensure that he actually goes, you’re also there to reward your puppy with a treat for going in the proper spot. Wait until your puppy finishes eliminating and immediately give him a tasty reward for a job well done. If you wait until you get back in the house, your puppy won’t make the connection between his elimination and the reward. training your puppy | potty train puppy training your puppy | potty training a dog training your puppy | how to potty train your dog Legal | Sitemap

[oumakokichi]

We know he would never do it out of free will but do you think Ouma would be able to get away with murder in the game? Also, actually would he have been able to get away with murder by claiming credit for Miu's murder?

I have absolutely no doubts that if Ouma had really wantedto, he could’ve committed any sort of murder he wanted and gotten away with itscott-free. The fact that he’s a liar, an expert liar, means that if he’d trulyhad bad intentions or wanted to hurt others, he could’ve deceived them andtricked them any number of ways.

He’s intelligent. Extremely intelligent. I’ve talked atlength about how I suspect that he has some kind of SHSL Analysis talenthimself, and I still stand by it: there just aren’t many other explanations forhow he could write a script of roughly 300 pages or so in a span of less thantwo hours. His ability to predict and analyze the behavior and responses of hisclassmates means that if he were honestly evil, he could do so much damage.

But well, Junko is living proof of that. Junko and Ouma doshare certain similarities, even though they also have several key differences.Take away Ouma’s love for silly, childish pranks and his genuine compassion forhuman life, and he would essentially be the same person as Junko. It’s hissilly side and his compassionate nature that differentiate him from an antagonistlike Junko, not his genius. I have an ask in my inbox about the similaritiesbetween Junko and Ouma that I’m probably going to answer next so I’ll hold offon going into more detail about this point, but it’s really fun to compare andcontrast them.

My point is, Ouma had more than enough means to kill any ofhis classmates. And he was smart enough that he could’ve gotten away with it withoutany consequences at all. When you’re a liar with the intention to hurt people,you lie to make them trust you, to rely on you. Backstabbing and betrayal hurtsmuch more when they thought you were a genuine friend and a part of the groupfirst—see Tsumugi later on, in Chapter 6, after all the comments she made about“working together with everyone” and “getting out of the school together.”

But instead, Ouma spends all his time warning everyone notto trust him. He keeps them on their guard, tells them point-blank that he’s aliar and untrustworthy, tells them they should be doubting other people intheir midst as well. He wants to keep them alive at any cost, and in order todo so, he tries on several occasions to get them to stop relying so much onblind optimism and naïve faith.

It would have been so easy for him to kill any of the groupthat he wanted to. He had so many plans going on in secret which absolutely noone in the group was aware of. He went snooping around and investigating everysquare inch of the school, left hints for the others to find, set his façade perfectlyin place to pretend to be the ringleader—and most impressively, he did it allwhile keeping Tsumugi perfectly unaware of what he was doing for the longesttime. She genuinely thought up until Chapter 5 that he was enjoying the killinggame, not trying to end it, and that took an incredible amount of caution andexpert acting on Ouma’s part in order to make that charade believable.

He had so many inventions at his disposal, things he haddrawn up himself and recruited Miu to make. The electric hammers and electricbombs were just the tip of the iceberg; the remote control she made him thatcould control electronic devices would’ve been more than enough to let Oumakill pretty much anyone and everyone, if he had really wanted to. That remotecould control the Exisals directly, something Tsumugi never accounted for. Itcould unlock them, open them up, move them around—and it definitely couldcontrol the guns equipped to them as well.

Unlike previous killing games, the ndrv3 killing game has noexplicit limit on the amount of people one culprit can kill. This is somethingOuma lampshades and then bluffs his ass off about in Chapter 5. He shows upwith one of his electric bombs, pretending that it’s a real bomb, and asks who’swilling to team up with him. The killing game will end the moment only twopeople are left, so it’s technically not a rule violation at all for one personto kill everyone else, leaving only themselves and one other person alive.

He proposed that plan in the hopes of smoking out theringleader, thinking that whoever would volunteer to team up with him of coursewould have to be heartless and not care about the group at all. But it was aviable plan, and if Ouma had been even a fraction as heartless and ruthless ashe pretended to be, he could actually have carried it out. After all, he had full control over all of the Exisals. He could’ve just gunned down everyone until he was the last person standing.

It’s not evennecessarily a plan that an evil character would carry out—Munakata would havecarried this sort of plan out in a heartbeat if it meant ending the killinggame, no matter how many sacrifices it required. But Ouma was someone who could only bluff about being ableto really go through with those cold, hard sacrifices. Actually carrying themout was another thing entirely. Going through with one of his plans and makingsacrifices in Chapter 4 alone was enough to almost destroy his motivation tokeep going entirely; he hated havingto pretend to be so uncaring.

As for whether he could’ve gotten away with Miu’s murder byclaiming credit for it—the circumstances would have to have been a littledifferent for it to work. The main reason why he couldn’t actually claim creditfor it even though he certainly did most of the planning was because Gontacarried it all out of his own free will. Contrary to what people thought due tomisinformation when the game first came out, Gonta’s avatar wasn’t “hacked” andhe wasn’t “brainwashed” or “mind controlled” into killing Miu. He did it allwillingly within the VR world, then forgot about it when he logged out becausehe had mixed the cables up on his helmet.

All we really know about murders in which one person plansthe crime and another person carries it out comes from sdr2 Chapter 2, whereMonokuma agrees that if the person planning it uses a “tool” to carry it out,then that would make them the one still responsible for the murder. The reasonwhy Peko gets held accountable in Chapter 2 is because Kuzuryuu refuses tothink of her as a tool or call her one when it’s something his family has beendoing all her life—and Peko went and decided to kill Mahiru on her own, afterall, not on Kuzuryuu’s orders. However, sdr2 Chapter 2 does seem to imply thatif Kuzuryuu had been heartless enough to call Peko a “tool” and used her as aweapon to eliminate Mahiru because of the grudge he had, that would’ve made itpossible for him to be executed as the culprit instead.

Ndrv3’s killing game often features different rules than theprevious games, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the same sort of logic applied.Had Gonta’s avatar actually been hacked or had he been “brainwashed” in anyway, that would mean he had no free will in Miu’s murder at all. He would’vebeen little more than a tool or an object himself, and that would’ve made Ouma100% responsible for both the planning and the execution (moreso if he had beenphysically controlling Gonta’s avatar, which most people in the western fandom seemedto mistakenly think he was).

If that had been how the murder had occurred, and had Oumaactually been heartless and a villain, it would’ve been extremely easy for himto misguide everyone about Miu’s murder, yes. He could’ve tricked them all intothinking it was any other number of people, including Momota, who Miu herselfhad tried to set up, or Gonta, and then only waited until after the vote toreveal that he was the one responsible for everything. It would’ve beenextremely easy for him to trick everyone too, considering he could so easilyhave played the victim once the rest of the group knew that Miu had been tryingto murder him. Had he wanted their sympathy, he had more than enough charm andcharisma to put on a “poor, pitiful me” act and make them feel sorry for him.

However, since that’s not how the murder actually occurred,he probably couldn’t actually claim credit for Miu’s murder in canon. Gonta dideverything of his own accord; his free will was completely intact and he wasabsolutely conscious and in control of himself when he carried out the crime.Because of that, he couldn’t actually be regarded as an “object” or a “tool,”and therefore Ouma couldn’t claim complete responsibility for the crime, eventhough he was the one who planned it and asked Gonta to help carry it out.

It seems very telling to me, however, that while he couldn’tbe held accountable as the sole culprit, Monokuma didn’t seem to care one wayor the other when Ouma asked to be executed together with Gonta. The onlyreason that it didn’t happen is because Gonta himself asked Ouma not to, tellinghim not to blame himself and asking him to “be friends with everyone.” So itdoesn’t seem like Monokuma had any problems with Ouma being held partiallyaccountable—perhaps he just thought that an execution involving two culpritswould be more exciting for the killing game. But this is all speculation, of course.

Anyway, these are just my thoughts on the subject. Knowinghow incredibly easy it would’ve been for Ouma to win the game by killingeveryone sheds a lot of light on just how empathetic he actually was, in my opinion.He was neither a sadistic villain who killed for fun, nor a ruthless,calculating strategist who was willing to sacrifice anyone if it meantaccomplishing his goals—he merely pretended to be both of these things atdifferent points in time, lying to himself that he could really become eitherif that was what it took. But in the end, Ouma was a kid. A very intelligentkid, near genius really, but a kid nonetheless. He could never fully discardhis empathy and his love for human life, and that’s exactly why he played thegame according much more arbitrary rules, rather than hurting or killing asmany people as possible in order to end it more quickly.

Thank you so much for giving me a chance to talk a littlebit about this sort of question. I’m so glad more people have been realizingjust how much Ouma was against killing, since it’s such a central theme to hischaracter. Thanks for stopping by, anon!

[simplemlmsponsoring]

New Post has been published on http://simplemlmsponsoring.com/attraction-marketing-formula/social-media-marketing/21-of-the-best-business-books-for-entrepreneurs/

21 of the Best Business Books for Entrepreneurs

I’ve always been an avid reader. Since I can remember, grabbing a book, hunkering down on the couch, and falling into a bestseller has been my favorite pastime. As an entrepreneur, that habit stuck.

But over the last couple of years, with business booming, a heavy travel schedule, and normal everyday life, I found my time spent reading was falling off.

Oh sure, I’m a podcastaholic and news junkie, but it’s not the same as reading a book cover to cover. So I made a commitment for the new year. I’d read a book a week. Problem was, I had a bookshelf in overload and a calendar I needed to hack. Why couldn’t I find an extra hour in each day? And that’s when it hit me.

As a cyclist, I ride 5-6 mornings per week. What if I switched from physical books to audio books? I wondered how many books I could get through if I used that hour as my personal learning time. Turns out, that was a game changer.

That one decision made a complete shift in how I start my day. Instead of running into it, allowing the day to control me, I hacked my own life and habits.

With audio books as my new riding companion, I was able to “read” 61 books this year. That number amazed me!

Now some of the books listed below are new, some are oldies but goodies, but all are the best (and my personal favorite) books for entrepreneurs.

No matter what stage of business you’re in, there’s something to learn from these books. Oh and one important note: none are filled with fluff, theory, or high-level mumbo jumbo. Nope.

To become a great business book, my definition is this:

Actionable Tangible Relatable Doable

But with thousands of books written and published every year, sorting through business books for entrepreneurs can be daunting. After all, who has time to waste on a less than stellar book?

That’s why I’ve put together a list of the 21 best books for entrepreneurs and an Infographic at the end – don’t forget to grab that too.

Enjoy!

21 of the Best Business Books for Entrepreneurs

For those with a limited attention span, here’s the TL;DR version. Below is a quick review and why I’ve added each book to the list.

The 5 Second Rule: Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins

Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

Finish: Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff

Atomic Habits: An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink

Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

The Lean Startup:How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses

Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson

The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy

Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brene Brown

The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

The Obstacle Is the Way: The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins

Smarter Faster Better: The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life by Mark Manson

The Alchemist Paulo Coelho

The E-Myth Revisited:Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It

Go Put Your Strengths to Work: 6 Powerful Steps to Achieve Outstanding Performance by Marcus Buckingham

The Art of Social Media: Power Tips for Power Users by Guy Kawasaki and Peg Fitzpatrick

Book Review for the Top 21 Books Every Entrepreneur Should Read  

1. The 5 Second Rule

Transform your Life, Work, and Confidence with Everyday Courage by Mel Robbins

Seth Godin says he reads for a specific amount of time before he gets the gist. The gist of the 5 Second Rule is simple and one.

Use the 5 second rule to get out of your own way and get stuff done.

Now while I don’t have much of an issue with self-motivation,  this book connected with me on a very deep level. No matter the habit or fear holding you back, the beauty of this book is in its simplicity to push you through it. As Mel explains,

“The moment you feel a desire to act on a goal or a commitment, use the Rule.”

When you feel yourself hesitate before doing something that you know you should do, count 5-4-3-2-1-GO and move towards action. – The 5 Second Rule @melrobbins Click To Tweet

  2. Radical Candor

Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity by Kim Scott

I first became aware of Kim Scott after reading her article on First Round, “The Surprising Secret to Being a Good Boss,” (and subsequent video) After her book came out, it became a staple among our team.

It changed our culture, communication, and mindset.

The results of how it impacted our team were mind-blowing. I wrote about it here if you want additional context.

As Kim explains, the idea behind Radical Candor is this:

“We believe that the relationships you have with your team are at the center of being a great boss, helping the people on your team achieve their fullest potential, and drive results collaboratively.” 

At the heart of team relationships is Radical Candor, the ability to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly. – Radical Candor @kimballscott Click To Tweet

  3. Finish

Give Yourself the Gift of Done by Jon Acuff

Every once in a while, a book comes along at the exact right moment. There I was, working on a new project and finding everything difficult. The ideation, development, and content writing felt heavy and overwhelming.

Even though I’d been through this process many times before, I was dragging my feet and couldn’t figure out why. Then along came Jon with the words I needed to hear and the formula to get it done and to the “Finish” line.

“The world is littered with half-finished books, almost started businesses and nearly done diets. Who knew the secret was to have more fun, kill the hidden rules you live by and embrace imperfection? Jon Acuff did, and you’re about to as well.” – Steven Pressfield, author of The War of Art

Perfectionism makes things harder. Finishers make things easier and simpler. The next time you work on a goal, ask during the middle of the project: Could things be easier? Could things be simpler? – Finish @JonAcuff Click To Tweet

  4. Atomic Habits

An Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits & Break Bad Ones by James Clear

I’m a big fan of Charles Duhigg and, “The Power of Habit.” So when James Clear came along with a book complementary to Charles, I gobbled it up.

What he’s provided is an easy to follow approach to incorporating positive habits and eliminating those that don’t serve us. Too often I find myself laying the shame on thick when I can’t overcome a bad habit that’s cropped up. 

James Clear says no to that. He offers very practical steps to let go of the guilt and instead embrace your own habit-building system.

If you’re struggling to change habits, the problem isn’t you, it’s your system. Bad habits repeat themselves not because you don’t want to change, but because you have the wrong system for change. – Atomic Habits @JamesClear Click To Tweet

  5. When

The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Daniel Pink

This was one of my favorite reads of the year. We make critical decisions every day, within our lives and businesses.

But what if those decisions require more than careful consideration? What if when we decide impacts how we decide?

Science and Daniel Pinks research says it does. If you enjoy data and the science behind why we do what we do, this book is for you!

I used to believe that timing is everything. Now I believe that everything is timing. – When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing @DanielPink Click To Tweet

  6. Deep Work

Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

As someone that works in the online world, distraction is easy to come by. Guarding our time and our minds is essential to getting things done.

In his book, “Deep Work,” Cal explains that getting into a deep work zone isn’t as hard as many would have you believe. It’s a skill anyone can develop and one that’s critical to your success.

It impacts how you work, the results you produce, and how quickly you can move from one task to the next.

Deep Work is the professional activities performed in a state of distraction-free concentration that push cognitive capabilities to their limit. It creates new value, improves skill, and are hard to replicate. – Deep Work, Cal Newport Click To Tweet

  7. Lean Startup

How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses by Eric Ries 

According to a Harvard Business School study by Shikhar Ghosh, the failure rate of all U.S. companies after five years is over 50%, and skyrockets to 70% at 10 years.

I’ve read all or portions of this book a dozen times over the years and with good reason. There’s gold in every chapter that shares how to avoid failure.

The Lean Startup will radically change how you run your business, work with your team, innovate, and how to smartly navigate your market. this is a methodology and a movement your business needs to implement.

The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a sustainable business around the vision. – The Lean Startup @ericries Click To Tweet

  8. Crucial Conversations

Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High by Kerry Patterson

Crucial conversations are all around us. But are we really prepared when they come along? Think about your last crucial conversation where:

Opinions varied Stakes were high Parties involved had strong emotions

How did the conversation go? Was it heated, argumentative, and left all parties feeling frustrated or angry? You can avoid that by staying in conversation (promoting positive dialogue) to get the results you want.

At the core of every successful conversation lies the free flow of relevant information. – Crucial Conversations, Kerry Patterson Click To Tweet

  9. The Compound Effect

Jumpstart Your Income, Your Life, Your Success by Darren Hardy

Are you an entrepreneur or creative that gets excited about a project, partnership or “big idea” only to lose steam in a short amount of time? This book will get you out of that cycle, giving you step-by-step actions to multiply your success.

The concept of, “The Compound Effect,” is simple, reap rewards when you take small, consistent action. It has far bigger rewards than taking big steps over a short period of time.

You will never change your life until you change something you do daily. The secret of your success is found in your daily routine. – The Compund Effect @DarrenHardy Click To Tweet

  10. Dare to Lead 

Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts by Brene Brown

After barely getting through Dare Greatly, Rise Strong, and Brave the Wilderness, I hesitated to purchase this book. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of Brene and her work, but her books aren’t my typical style.

I immediately found myself identifying and relating on a very deep level to this book. Brene’s easy style, sense of humor, and incredible storytelling, you’ll learn what it takes (and what the data says) about being a braver, more daring leader.

“One of the most important findings of my career is that daring leadership is a collection of 4 skill sets that are 100% teachable, observable, and measurable. It’s learning and unlearning that requires brave work, tough conversations, and showing up with your whole heart. Easy? No.” 

Choosing courage over comfort is not always our default. Worth it? Always. We want to be brave with our lives and our work. It’s why we’re here. – Dare to Lead @BreneBrown Click To Tweet

  11. The Hard Thing About Hard Things

Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers by Ben Horowitz

Ben Horowitz is a technology engineer and the cofounder/general partner at the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. If you think this might only be for startups, specifically SaaS based, you’d be wrong.

This book applies to anyone building a business and eager to circumvent the biggest challenges any business owner or leader faces. From hiring to pricing, communication and company culture, it sheds light on topics (the hard things) other books don’t.

Life is struggle.” I believe that within that quote lies the most important lesson in entrepreneurship: Embrace the struggle. – The Hard Thing About Hard Things @bhorowitz Click To Tweet

  2. The Obstacle Is the Way

The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph by Ryan Holiday

No matter the struggle or personal tragedy, we all have mishaps, unfortunate events, and roadblocks that come up within our business and life. Too often though, we allow those obstacles to derail us instead of learning how to turn that obstacle into an advantage.

As Ryan explains, flipping an obstacle on its head isn’t the solution. Pushing through that obstacle is where greatness is born. The obstacle standing in your way can (and will) become your way.

Wherever we are, whatever we’re doing and wherever we are going, we owe it to ourselves, to our art, to the world to do it well. – The Obstacle is the Way @RyanHoliday Click To Tweet

  13. Good to Great

Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t by Jim Collins

What does it take to make anything great and what separates the good from the great? As another classic on my list of business books, “Good to Great” focuses on what it takes to create explosive results in your business.

If you’re looking for a baseline and want to better understand what makes great companies truly great, start with, “Good to Great.”

Through data, interviews, and analysis, you’ll learn the 7 key principles successful companies adhere to without fail.

Greatness is not a function of circumstance. Greatness, it turns out, is largely a matter of conscious choice, and discipline. – Good to Great @level5leaders Click To Tweet

  14. Smarter Faster Better

The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business by Charles Duhigg

As I mentioned above, I’m a big fan of Duhigg. Any time I can build a better mousetrap and increase productivity, I’m all in.

The trick to motivating ourselves and improving productivity? It turns out it’s as simple as believing that we have authority over our actions. As humans, we crave control and understanding how that motivates us, changes everything.

When people believe they are in control, they tend to work harder and push themselves more. They are, on average, more confident and overcome setbacks faster. – Smarter Faster Better @cduhigg

Read more: rebekahradice.com

[nothisis-ridiculous]

Proxy Cosmos

(An alternate reality where Alec Ryder lived, and both twins were awake during the events of Andromeda.)

Chapter Five:

"So Vetra, about that offer to find me sp-" "Already ahead of you, Ryder," The Turian rumbled, swiveling the chair around, "I found a group back on the Nexus that will grow whatever you need. Apparently, your spice collection means a few more plant species brought to Andromeda from the Milky way." Elsee beamed, "I knew leaving behind my stuffed animal collection was a good idea." The Turian snorted, "you could get all the stuffed animals you wanted from even a pinch of saffron." "Anymore than that would ruin a dish anyway." "That does mean giving up some of your collection." The Tempest lurched nothing like being thrown from their feet but enough of a lull forward to break the monotony of a usually smooth ride. Vetra and Elsee's attention turned to their Omni-tools for a diagnosis of the problem. When nothing came, Vetra pushed out of her seat, and Elsee started for the door. "Another impromptu upgrade from Gil?" "Not enough screaming is coming from the flight deck for that," Vetra murmured, following her lead, "and you Dad reamed Gil the last time that happened." "He's so friendly."

"Better than your old man getting you kicked off of your home world." "Fine, you barely win this round," she teased the Turian.

Vetra's soft chuckling drew the attention of everyone, the somber mood turning sour. Bright green lights flooded the cockpit, six eyes that dwarfed the Tempest threatening to devour them at any moment. While the smaller t-shaped ships loomed in a blockade, curving around the ship so that it could not maneuver around them. Elsee didn't need to see what was behind them to know they were trapped. "They are scanning us, Pathfinder." Alec's face contorted, and Elsee rose on her tiptoes to try and see more. Liam's bulkier figure protecting her from the full view. Mostly obscuring the figure that projected onto the video screen, only able to seem some of the cream-colored bone that made up the crest. Kett. "Where is the one who activated the Remnant?" The slightly mechanic voice demanded, "their DNA signature is there. Answer me." Alec was not at all pleased, his voice barring none of his irritation, "You're the one in my way. Who are you?" Elsee attempted to push passed Liam, earning a gentle shoulder grab to stall her attention, "El," shaking his head, a corner of his lip raised. He did not like this; she had activated both pieces of Remnant technology, whatever he wanted was not good for her survival. The ship moved as if it had been yanked from a box by a grabby child. Luckily the ship, in this case, had caught against something and resisted the first initial pull. "They've locked navigation!" "We're being steered into their ship!" Alec slammed his fists into the console, "Just tell me what you want!" "I am not interested in your-- Ah." Alec pivoted to the familiar presence of his daughter, her face curiously going between the screen and him. Whatever this Kett wanted obviously focusing on her, instead of anything else they could offer. He would never get it. The Pathfinder's arm stuck out in front of Elsee so that she could not move any closer. "What do you want?" Elsee's bold question answered with a harsh glare from her Father. The Kett seemed a little more willing to share his thoughts, "I won't explain what you can't understand." "I actually know a lot about the Remnant," her pluckiness just intensified the glare, but damn if it wasn't the few more seconds SAM needed, "we should compare notes." "Enough!" it was interesting on how that struck a note with the alien, he must have been some high ranking member to hate the idea of collaboration, "your defiance is naive and reckless. This day marks the beginning of your greatness." Elsee grinned wide, that was her favorite compliment. Usually mentioning that to her made it a challenge to try and defy previous expectations of naive and reckless. So much that the thought made her chuckle in the face of the enemy that could very easily eliminate them at any given moment. The lights began to turn on around them, screens returning to their normal messages. With the Kett no longer looming above them, the crew relaxed a little. Suvi and Kallo sending each other glances to confirm that the ship was back under their control. "SAM," Alec questioned. "I have plotted a potential course through the Scourge." "Do it!" The Tempest took a tight turn that left everyone with little time to hold on. Alec pressed Elsee into the round bars, before gripping to the central portion himself, "Report!" "Enemy destroyed. Damage to aft sensors!" At least a positive came from Suvi's mouth. "Scourge got it?" Suvi affirmed. "It will be tight," SAM warned, as the scourge seemed to press in closer around the ship. Taking out something with each little bump that sent the crew swaying. But Kallo was adept at flying through these dangerous clouds, exclaiming loudly as they reached open space, "Yes!" "Nice work, kid," sincerely breathed Alec, "but who the hell was that guy?" "A major dick," huffed Liam. "Pathfinder, we've got trouble down here! You need to find us a port, now!" Gil interrupted over the comms. "Great," Alec's eyes rolled, "where did we end up?" Suvi attempted to corral the computers into giving her a better response, but it wasn't happening, "Sensors are damaged, but I think we are at the vault's co-ordinates." "You think?" it wasn't good enough for him, but it was likely all he would get, "Gil, give it what you can. We're settling down." The planet from first look did not seem promising. Rivers of lava carved into what looked like cooled lava didn't appear to be the place to land a burning ship. But where there was one fire, another always seemed to crop up. "We're being contacted." Six ships pinged on the sensors, forming around them as the ship broke the atmosphere. "We need to land," Alec's fingers drummed against the metal, "open a comm." "Tove jajalesh do!" shouted a voice. This was the perfect time to meet a new alien race, while every minute resulted in another error message. "Tove jajalesh do," did he imagine that it sounded more irritated? Elsee looked over Suvi's typing, a wide grin starting to form on her face. Her eyes only glancing to her father after he failed to respond to the alien voice. "We're visitors from another galaxy. Our intentions are peaceful," Alec didn't convince his daughter, earning the same sideways look Ellen used to give him all the time when he was about to be an ass. It wasn't a secret he was uncomfortable around new people and had a difficult time around the ones he knew. "Paav, nele set do," the voice replied as another ping uploaded to the Tempest. "They've sent us a nav point," Kallo reminded, stirring the crew's attention from their individual thoughts. Alec nodded, diverting his attention to the patch of green amid the black and yellow background surrounding it. An oasis in the desert. "It's beautiful," Elsee murmured, straining on her toes as if it would let her see more of the green landscape before them. "Team, suit up, we need to be careful," Alec ordered, most the of the crew already heading for their gear. "Suit up?" Elsee questioned his command, "really?" His head titled at her curiously, the team gossips that they were remained to hear this out, "and why not?" "They already didn't shoot at us, unlike the Kett, so point one these guys, and," Elsee formulated her words, "we're the ones running to them in a burning ship. I don't think showing up fully plated and loaded is a smart idea. We need this to go right." "I'm the Pathfinder- first contact is on me," he corrected, his face returned to a scowl, "and if that means getting shot at I'm doing it on even ground." "Spoken like a hardened N7," Elsee muttered, arms folding across her chest, "not someone known for making friends." Alec huffed, bringing in air to puff out his chest, "no gear, no leaving the ship. Got it, soldier?" ====== Elsee's first mistake had been in confronting him in front of the crew. Alec was already wired from running into the Kett, his temper already at a dangerous low from being stuck in the med clinic while his daughter got to traverse around Eos. Now the frustration multiplied as the packed bay grew stale and awkward, each member taking turns with giving him a look. Scott was oblivious to particular circumstances as he was caught in engineering with Gil during the encounter, but he read the room well. The absence of his sister another telling sign of the events he missed. "If anyone would like to object, you may stay behind, and we can drop you off at the Nexus at our earliest convenience," Alec snapped at the group after Cora lingered for too long in his space. Vetra's mandibles wavered, Cora and Scott remained silent and still. Liam looked through the glass window that revealed the hallway. He looked close to saying something or running, but for now, his emotions remained in check. His finger tapped on the gun, debating with it inwardly cheeks puffing in and out as he avoided anything other than ignoring the Pathfinder. The boy shared much in common with his daughter, and the two were often found together, a fact that had not escaped his notice. He didn't know which one of them was the worst influence on the other. For now, Liam remaining obedient to the loose ranking system was enough. Alec rolled his head from side to side, fingers following the grooves of the Paladin pistol- the chosen weapon for this encounter. Glancing at the others in turn in the last check to ensure that they were ready for this. A twist of anxiety with a twinge of excitement brewed in his gut, mixing with the restlessness that always inhabited him. The door opened into a brighter world, the rushing of waterfalls filling the air around him. The fresh smell of air filtered by an abundance of plants- something none of them had naturally experienced since leaving their homes. The large plants reminding him of a tropical ecosystem, but that was something his daughter would know more about. The creatures coming at him with guns and armed to the point of covering their heads. The helmets looked similar in design to his own, but the wide neck covering was strikingly different. They also had broader and meatier chest, leaving the rest of the body to continue out without any other major flares or dips. This amount of observation only coming after his gun aimed back at the aliens. The ground team following the Pathfinder's lead. In combat, he found, it was either very loud or silent. This was the latter of the two. The strange species sights set on them, their separated index finger hovering just above the trigger. The team behind him collectively hold their breaths, waiting to see who would move first, them or the strangers. They moved first, a blue light attached to something like an Omni-tool scanning over the Pathfinder, but at a safe distance. Alec felt this was enough to lower his weapon, not take it out of his hand, but to lower the pistol. The four behind him followed as the species began to call back and forth to each other. A stray alien unmasked to reveal flaps of skin making a sort of mane around their heads, ran for the rest with a long gun held tightly in his hands. The rest didn't notice him, as they continued the chattered between them. They continued to ignore him, even as his scope focused on the strangers at their port. The shot missed. Elsee yelped from behind him, pulling his attention to the smoldering metal. He couldn't bring himself to quite yet face his disobedient child, his hesitation granting her time to move. The block preventing his temper from rising disintegrated with the misfire that was an infinite time more insulting than a shot taken at him. If these -people- fired at an unarmed civilian they could never work in peace. His pistol pulling from his hip, much more rapidly than lining up the shot to hit the zig-zagging alien. With another breath, the trigger released. His mind pictured the grey-blue streak of alien falling to the ground in a pool of his blood, but what manifested were muted brown eyes and a streak of identically colored hair. Armored in nothing but a layer of cotton and other blended materials, she took the full impact. Or rather her right shoulder shattered. Sending her tumbling to the feet of the aliens, so paralyzed by the pain to realize the predicament she was tossed into. The alien previously holding the scanner shouted something, and the entire squad moved away from the writhing human. Gil, Suvi, and SAM screaming in his ear ignored for his instinct to pull his offspring out of trouble.

[djindigoz]

Here, have a glimpse into my new novel

He's all alone. It's quiet, and the lights begin to flicker.

"Dammit! I told them to bring me a new bulb before they left!" He glanced up at the light, which suddenly gave up. Blackness enveloped him, broken only around the emergency light. The lab was too small to have more lights. It only had the two. One bulb had already been out in the ceiling light for a few weeks now. He just never had the time to change it. Sighing, he realized he had to make time, now. He stepped out of the room carefully, sliding off his gloves and tossing them into the trash bin by the door. "This is what I get for working late, huh?" He skidded to a stop, remembering it's more sanitary to leave the lab coat in the room. He stepped back inside, sliding free from it. The nameplate reading "Gabe Hostas, Forensics" flickered in the light and shadow as he hung it up. "Nobody else wanted to stay late. I had nothing to do, though. I volunteered. I took one for the team, man!" Gabe hustled over to that floor's supply closet, flicking on the light and digging through boxes, some labelled poorly, some lacking labels, until he found a new bulb. He grabbed two while he was at it, carrying both back to the lab. Of course, his hands were full with the large bulbs, and he couldn't also bring the ladder.

Once in the lab, he clambered on top of the side of the counter he wasn't using. He removed the panel and replaced the bulbs, then returned to work. Analyzing was what most of his job was. Tests, running things through the system. Sometimes, he got to go out into the field when a body was found, and arrived with the detectives. Usually his senior did, but lately the woman has been letting Gabe do it. She had just had a child, and seemed to prefer finally sitting all alone in the quiet and getting to work. Gabe wouldn't complain. It meant more time with an old friend of his. Scott Marshalls had been his roommate for three years. They both were crime-solvers, though Scott became a detective. He'd been his best man at Scott's wedding just last month. Needless to say, they are close, and have always kept in touch.

Gabe finally locked up the lab and headed home sometime around one in the morning. He figured that'd be a good place to call it quits, as he still had work tomorrow morning.

He didn't live anywhere extravagant. He never had. Gabe wasn't on good terms with his parents, and never really knew most of his family. They weren't there for him at all through school, so Gabe fronted the bill for everything. His apartment was good, but nothing great. It was horribly small, too. No room for a roommate, pet, or anything but Gabe, really. And even then, he tried not to be there often, as there wasn't much room. He mostly came by to sleep. Sometimes, he'd sit around and read on days off. Or he'd watch the news, maybe some cool online video tutorials about computers and technology. Tonight, he'd go straight to sleep, though.

Awoken from a dreamless slumber by his radio, as it sounded so much better than a blaring alarm, Gabe rolled out of bed. He let the music play as he headed into his bathroom to shower and clean up. Pale skin, dusty blonde hair, and hazel eyes faced him in the mirror. He could tell how tired he still was after a measly four hours of sleep. He fluffed up his hair. He kept it shorter than he liked, wanting to look professional at work. Gabe was three years younger than Scott. He had graduated high school early. He was one of the youngest people employeed in his building. His short stature and youthful appearance didn't help him earn any respect. Those who knew him and his work gave him proper credit, but new fresh meat never paid him any mind and often underestimated him.

Following getting dressed, he had time to make some coffee and a quick breakfast and lunch to bring to work. He locked up his room and headed out.

Gabe always walked to work, never having a car, though he had a license. It was money he didn't have, and the city was constantly controlled by traffic., anyway, so he avoided ever buying a car. Sometimes, Scott would pick him up, but that meant getting up even earlier, and Gabe knew he needed the extra minutes of sleep.

He walked in to be greeted by those he knew and those who knew of him, saying hello back to everyone he could. However, he was stopped by Scott and his own boss, Lilla. Poor woman looked like she didn't get anymore sleep than Gabe. Hell, maybe even less. She had said before that her daughter seemed to have colic and couldn't usually sleep through the night too well.

"Hm? What's up?" Gabe sipped at his coffee. Lack of sleep or no, he didn't have bags under his eyes like Lilla did. By comparison, he seemed like he regularly got ten hours. Ha. He didn't get that much rest unless it was a day off.

"Put your stuff away, Hostas. You're going out into the field first thing. New body got reported. Might be tied to the last." Lilla set her cup down, pulling her dark hair into a ponytail. Gabe nodded and looked at Scott.

"Ew, with you? Do I have to?" He smirked and Scott grinned, rolling his eyes.

"And you wonder why people undershoot your age. Hurry up. I won't wait long." Scott shook his head. Despite what he said, he walked with Gabe, giving him any info he had found out, making sure Gabe was caught up. Shutting his food in the fridge, he paused and removed his breakfast.

"I'm eating on the way." Gabe threw the bag and his thermos into his locker, slammed it, then followed Scott out.

"You and Rachel enjoying the whole newlywed lifestyle?" Gabe asked to make small talk once they were on their way.

"It honestly doesn't feel any different. We'd been dating for four years, and living together for two and a half. If it wasn't for the ring, I'd probably forget that we're married." Scott laughed and Gabe just smiled. Gabe wasn't into dating. He just never really cared to have a relationship. That didn't mean he wasn't happy for his friend. Scott was constantly proud of his wife, and so happy whenever he talked about her or she was brought up. And Scott didn't rub it in Gabe's face. He didn't ask Gabe if he was ever seeing anyone, and the blonde appreciated the brunette's understanding. Besides, he knew that Scott was considerably handsome. He had stubble, a tan, and blue eyes. That's what women liked, right? Maybe some men did, too. Scott was also super sweet and good with kids. He and Lilla got along well, as he'd always try to babysit for her when she needed it. Gabe never really knew what to do with children. They were all always so different, and you couldn't treat them all the same. It was confusing and troublesome, so he avoided Lilla when he knew she needed a sitter, instead throwing Scott's name into the conversation, suggesting she check with him.

They pulled up to the scene. There wasn't much activity there, yet. Just the usual caution tape and officers keeping the public away. The crowd was small. It must not have even hit the news or anything, yet. Gabe sighed in relief. He knew it was more trouble when more people tried to get a look. Or when the news crews came by. They likely would soon, so they quickly got to work.

It didn't take Gabe long to confirm that the body was poisoned the same way the last was. However, while the past victims were found in their homes, this guy was outside in an alleyway. Scott let Gabe look over the body, along with the coroner. The older man instead checked around the scene, ensuring there wasn't any obvious evidence. Gabe got up to report to Scott anything he and the coroner noticed.

"Poison, likely the exact same kind as last time. I took a sample from his blood so I can make sure when we get back. The symptoms are identical. No external injuries, didn't seem to put up a fight. Everything except the location is the same as before, as far as we can tell." Gabe flipped his notebook closed, slipping it and the blood sample into his bag. He glanced around, tilting his head. He noted that a window across the street was open. Something gleamed in the sunlight. But, wasn't that building abandoned last year? Did someone buy it? The gleam kept his attention, and he suddenly realized what it might be. His eyes widened, and he shouted for everyone to get down. He shoved Scott, as the man reacted by drawing his gun and looking for whatever Gabe saw instead of listening to his command.

The shooter must've known he was seen, because the shot hit Gabe directly. An attempt to eliminate him first. Gabe felt it, felt himself stumble and fall. Everything went out of focus, but there was a lot of noise. He could still think straight. He covered the wound with a hand, applying pressure. The officers were shouting at the people to move. Scott shouted for an officer to watch Gabe and call an ambulance. He heard him call for backup. Knowing his friend well, Gabe assumed Scott's eyes never left the building. He'd be waiting and watching, knowing he can't go off on his own.

Gabe returned to himself when the pain pulsed through. It took a moment, but now it hurt. Bad. It was in his chest. Did it hit anything vital? Swaying, Gabe tried to look for the exact location of the wound. Blood covered his shirt. He quickly put the hand back, pushing as hard as he could, willing it to stop bleeding. The paramedics could worry about the location, whenever they get here.

Sirens? Were they here, or was the back-up? Both? Gabe moved his eyes to check, and everything spun and darkened. Breathing hurt. Sitting hurt. It felt like his brain couldn't breathe. Then everything was swallowed up.

Noise. He could still hear. Scott was yelling at Gabe. Why? What did he do wrong? It was all just chance. Gabe happened to see what was happening. If it had been Scott, wouldn't he have done the same? Sounds became muffled. Open your eyes, he thought. Make sure everyone is okay. Make sure you're okay. Then the sound went, too.

�

[newheather-blog]

Could you rate Duncney, Gwent, and Gwuncan (and maybe even Scourtney) because of the Love Triangle™

( rate the character/ship. )

hoo boy.

Now we’re getting into the bigger ships, huh. So! This one’s gonna get long and I’ll put the majority of my thoughts under a readmore. I will preface this by saying I definitely see the merits to each ship, especially the first three as they relate to s1, and my feelings on all of them are about as complicated as my own opinions on the main three related to it! And, honestly, especially when most ships are concerned in this series I’m definitely always open to hearing fans’ opinion of it and pointing out where maybe I’ve got the wrong idea. I’m definitely not the expert on any of these five characters that are getting brought up.

also, I’ve missed about ten years of debate to all of these ships, and I’ve only skimmed defenses because I don’t find myself in the tags that often. I’m definitely open to discussing all of them because I’m bound to either be misremembering or misinterpreting something!

well then. let’s jump in!

I’ll go in order asked, I think. Originally I was going to list them from fave to least fave but order asked may end up being neater. So:

Dun.cn.ey:Overall: 6-8, depending on the season.

Definitely not my favorite flagship, uh, ship, but I was very surprised to see that they did have a lot more of a rapport and chemistry than I remembered from watching years ago. Actually, I completely forgot it happened in s1, and it wasn’t all s2 onwards that had it starting. I actually really enjoy how Courtney and Duncan bounce off each other normally, even outside of a ship context. They’re fun to watch! And I definitely have a soft spot for the TDDDI special. They make a great dynamic duo, and in a way they’re the predecessors for… I wouldn’t go so far to say the “villain duo” because I maintain that neither of them are really, truly villains but that sort of dynamic that we’ll see shades of with other, more driven and snarky characters teaming up. They’re a great time to watch!

…Aaaaand Action and sliding into World Tour…. and then to All-Stars… ouch. Action! Courtney continues to puzzle me, as where I like her subplot in theory and understand where they were coming from, there’s just… parts that rub me the wrong way that I feel are less story beats to do with Duncan and more something on the writing level I’d need to rewatch Action much more closely to properly parse. They definitely break up, and hard, and go out of their way to be cruel to each other in a way that… well, I wouldn’t say doesn’t make sense for their age or characters, but it does hurt a little to see, as someone who was reasonably surprised by how engaging they were to begin with and someone whom is sad to see how far they end up falling. I liked them at least being friends, and personally it’s a little uncomfortable sitting through how nasty they end up becoming towards one another. It makes me a teensy bit sad, complicated feelings or not. That’s life, I guess. And I guess the real rating should be more like… 8 to 6, where they start out okay and then just become something hard to stomach.

This ship bums me out as someone who has had not so great breakups in real life. Could’ve had it all, I guess.

Gw.en.tOverall: 6.5-6.9.

I remember really liking this ship when I was younger, actually. For as poor as my memory ended up being, I remember having a soft spot for their interactions, even as I struggled to remember a single thing about poor Trent. Knowing what happens in Action does kind of color how I saw their interactions in s1 re-watching, though, so I guess in that respect I’m much more inclined to be a little less enthused about it.

But, fair shakes and all. They also have a really good place to start from, a good rapport, even though Heather reading the diary aloud should… maybe have been more of a plot point than it ended up being. C’mon, that was a brilliant power move on her part and it’s never brought up again! I get the feeling it’s kind of supposed to be one of those popular/unpopular ships in s1, but honestly it felt more like two loners jiving than anything else. Not a bad thing, just an observation.

I do think they ultimately work better as just close friends, though. And it’s a shame we never really see them properly reconcile, because Gwen gets bounced immediately into another ship fiasco before she’s even had properly time to breathe– well, okay, we’ve got a year between s2 and s3, but the audience doesn’t see the reconcile/attempt at reconciliation at all, and I don’t even think they talk but once in World Tour after Gwen is eliminated, which is really kind of bizarre.

Can’t help but feel a little uncomfortable with Gwen in Action, and the breakup with Trent is a part of it. Action is kind of all over the place in the first half, though, so for what it is worth they aren’t the only mess there.

I wish they could’ve been friends again. Like, really wish that had happened.

Gw.un.canOverall: 4.5-5.

Honestly, I knew it was only a matter of time before I’d have to bring this one up, and I feel semi-bad, because this seems to have a very sweet following– but this ship has just never done anything for me. I don’t hate it, but I’ve always just been indifferent to their interactions romantically.

I don’t understand where their chemistry was in s1. I don’t know why it suddenly was apparently so obvious in s2. I know Gwen and Duncan talked a little in s1, but was it that much to where it was decided that’s the direction they should go? It’s easily one of the most baffling decisions in the entire series to me because I cannot for the life of me find any romantic chemistry between the two of them. In some ways, I do understand why they’d be attracted to each other in theory. But their relationship has always read as just friends to me up until World Tour went and made it a big subplot, and honestly that just makes the both of them look even worse? If the writers wanted to make them a couple to root for in some way, World Tour was not the way to go about it. Again, I just end up feeling sorrier and sorrier for Courtney instead of excited these two actually got together.

They do have good friendship potential, though! Clearly they would be friends outside of a competition setting, and they do have a lot in common. I just find their switch to suddenly into one another to be abrupt and really clumsily written and even in All-Stars when they do break up I don’t have really any reaction at all. This ship certainly happened, and I’m sure there’s some potential there, as it definitely captivated enough people, but I’ve just never seen it.

Sc.ourt.neyOverall: 6-7.

Honestly, this is definitely a ship I gave an unfair shake to the first time I rewatched All-Stars. For some context, I’ve seen the entire season three times in full: once right after Revenge, once after World Tour, and again recently in order to take some notes on Heather. For some reason or other, this has ended up being the season I know way more about than I’ve wanted to.

It probably isn’t fair to judge this ship entirely on what All-Stars gives us, either, because Scott and Courtney are just… so nerfed in it that it isn’t fair to either. I think with a full season they could have ended up with a rapport that’s at least a lot more interesting than what we actually have to work with. In theory, I understand them falling for each other, too, and actually I find their rather blunt interactions kind of hilarious the more I go back and engage with them.

In theory, this could have worked. Or, at least, it wouldn’t have felt as out of nowhere and out of place as it does in the All-Stars we actually got. I think if Courtney wanted an ally, Scott is the perfect choice on the Vultures! And had he been back to his usual antics but outsmarted by her, I think their foundation would’ve been a lot stronger. I also think this ship as-is suffers from just not enough time in the episodes to really develop mutually, both because there’s only 13 episodes and because Courtney is also constantly pulled into the remaining fragments of World Tour drama.

So, yes. In theory I see how it could’ve been really fun, but in the source material I’m less than enthused, much like how I feel about gw.ourt.ney. But, hey, that’s what fanworks are for, right? I could see a rewrite of AS running them very effectively in much the same way.

Not my favorite ship for either character, though, sadly.

[newstfionline]

Can famine be checked as Africa faces its worst crisis since the 1980s?

Peter Ford, Scott Peterson, Ryan Lenora Brown, CS Monitor, JULY 30, 2017

SIHANAMARO, MADAGASCAR--For as long as she can remember, Vaha Saajinuru, a wiry middle-aged woman with an expressive face, spent much of each day in exhausting drudgery, fetching water. Living on the parched, drought-stricken south coast of Madagascar, she had to make the journey four or five times a day: out of her village, down a cactus-lined dirt road, and across thorny grassland to a muddy water pit more than a mile from her home.

Then she’d walk back again, slowly, so that the water did not spill, a plastic bucket balanced on her head, a jerrycan in one hand and a granddaughter clinging to the other. Sometimes, when things were really bad, she and her family would drink what they call “chocolate water”--whatever they could scoop from potholes in the rust red clay roadway.

“We knew it wasn’t good for our health but we had no choice,” says Ms. Saajinuru.

Now she and her neighbors in Sihanamaro do have a choice as they gird themselves, like millions of others in Africa’s arid zones, to cope better with drought and the threat of famine. With help from UNICEF, they have installed seven community faucets around the village, each set in a cement trough and protected by a picket fence, to provide clean water pumped from a nearby well. “This has changed our lives,” Saajinuru says.

Madagascar’s brush with widespread starvation last year drew little attention from the rest of the world. But over the past 50 years other African countries have come to epitomize the dangers of drought and the tragedy of famine. Today, battered by global warming and civil wars, wide swaths of the continent again face an unprecedented crisis: In Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia, and across the Red Sea in Yemen, 20 million people face starvation, “barely surviving in the space between malnutrition and death,” in the words of UN Secretary-General António Guterres.

Yet the threat many of these people face today may be less grave than it would have been for their parents and grandparents. Over the past two decades, African nations have learned valuable lessons about how to predict, if not prevent, droughts, and how to ward off famine by strengthening the defenses of the most vulnerable.

From Madagascar to Ethiopia to Somalia and beyond, governments, international aid agencies, and the villagers they help are building up “community resilience.” That’s the new buzzword in humanitarian circles: It is seen as key to ensuring that farmers and herders have something to hold onto when drought strikes, rather than cycling endlessly in and out of disaster.

Resilience is a big concept that works in little ways. It could be a water project such as Sihanamaro’s, ensuring that already malnourished children do not get sicker by drinking polluted water. It could be a public works venture in Ethiopia that pays villagers cash or gives them food to build roads or dig wells. Or it could be an experimental farm in Somaliland encouraging goatherds to diversify into growing food crops.

These initiatives won’t prevent drought, nor will they eliminate famine overnight. But by helping people withstand sudden shocks and contributing to longer-term development goals, they are saving lives.

In the meantime, there is a life in urgent need of saving at an emergency health center in Hargeisa, the capital of Somaliland, a self-governing breakaway region of Somalia in the Horn of Africa. Nabhan Ismail, his eyes sunken and a feeding tube taped to his cheek, turns restlessly on his bed as family members take turns stroking his tiny body. The family made the journey to this center, run by UNICEF and the Somaliland Red Crescent, after waiting seven days to find a ride from their remote area 100 miles away.

“I am thinking about Nabhan’s health and praying to God that he will get better,” says Ismail Ibrahim, the boy’s teary-eyed young father. “I have never heard of a drought that claimed the lives of the livestock and the lives of people.”

He says “countless” children have died recently of hunger and disease in his remote home district 100 miles away. His herd of 100 sheep and goats has been reduced to just six animals.

Mr. Ibrahim is by no means alone. The United Nations warned recently that 6.7 million people are in urgent need of assistance in Somalia; 6 million people are in the same predicament in South Sudan; in Yemen, 7 million people are on the brink of famine.

“We stand at a critical point in history,” UN humanitarian affairs chief Stephen O’Brien told the UN Security Council in March. “Already at the beginning of the year we are facing the largest humanitarian crisis since the creation of the United Nations.” Four months later, the outlook is no less grim.

The crises in South Sudan and Yemen are almost entirely human-caused. They are the result of civil wars in which all sides destroy crops or steal livestock in punitive raids, forcibly confiscate food aid for soldiers’ use, and make it too dangerous for humanitarian workers to go to many areas.

But Ethiopia, Somalia, and Madagascar face a different problem: They are at the sharp end of climate change, which is disrupting rainfall and other weather patterns. The current drought in southeastern Ethiopia follows a dry period in the north, which in turn struck only a few years after the 2011 drought in the Horn of Africa that brought famine to Somalia. It’s a succession of extreme weather events that would have been unthinkable just a generation ago.

“No rain, no water, no pasture, no milk, no food,” laments Halima Gawsole, a thin and muscular herder with hard eyes, listing the chain of misfortunes she has endured since the rains stopped coming in southern Ethiopia a year ago.

Now she and 30 members of her extended family are on the move, trudging down the road through a parched landscape, their last remaining possessions piled on the back of their sole surviving animal, a weary donkey. They had heard the government was handing out water and sacks of grain nearby and had come to see if it was true. “We have lost everything now,” says Ms. Gawsole.

Next door, Somalia is living through a drought that, residents say, is even worse than the one that killed 250,000 in 2011. It has forced hundreds of thousands of people from their grazing lands into makeshift camps with no sanitation, such as one on the outskirts of Burco, a desert town 110 miles east of Hargeisa.

A straggly collection of sticks and rags, the settlement--which residents ironically call “prosperity camp”--offers little protection from the oppressive heat and wind-whipped sand. The only relief is brought by a water truck that comes daily.

“Water is life, but what about food and something to cook it with?” asks Farah Robleh, whose veins stand out on his forehead above his gaunt, gray-stubbled cheeks. He once herded 200 goats and sheep and 20 camels. He has just 20 goats left. “I don’t think anyone can live here anymore,” he sighs. “We have no options. We are only waiting for help.”

In Madagascar, the large island off the southeast coast of Africa, the situation is less grim, but droughts that used to come in cycles are now semipermanent. In 2016 El Niño made the rains even more irregular, “and last year was the worst that I’ve experienced,” says Audin Rabemiandriso, the doctor who runs the health clinic in the dusty, ramshackle coastal town of Ambovombe.

Desperate to buy food, locals first sold their goats. Then they sold their prized humpback cattle. Finally, they sold their kitchen pots. There was nothing to cook, anyway, besides leaves and bitter cactus fruit.

Droughts are inevitable, and likely to strike more often and more harshly because of global warming. But famines are avoidable. It’s a question of doing the right thing. And, critically, of doing the right thing at the right time.

That’s why the UN and aid groups are increasingly unleashing a new weapon in their quest to prevent famine--warning the world early and often. In 2011, when a quarter of a million Somalis died of starvation, half of them had already perished by the time famine was officially declared. It was that tragedy that prompted the UN to sound the alarm in advance, last February, about the current impending disasters.

It worked, sort of. International donors stepped up quickly, and the famine that had been declared in two districts of South Sudan has been beaten back. Elsewhere in the country, though, the situation is worsening and a million more people need immediate aid now than in February.

In Madagascar the world reacted quickly to the creeping food crisis last year because international aid workers had long been present in the country, one of the poorest and least developed places in the world. UNICEF saw that food was growing alarmingly scarce as early as 2015, when government doctors and nutritionists carrying out routine health checks began reporting skyrocketing levels of child malnutrition.

Quickly, the agency expanded its nutrition programs to all 193 town and village health centers in the south, screening every child under age 5 and making sure the most malnourished were given high-nutrition peanut-based food supplements. By and large, they succeeded; few children died.

International agencies “were here, ready to go,” says Elke Wisch, UNICEF director in Madagascar, “and we switched gears into emergency mode in a timely fashion.”

To cope with hunger, aid groups are increasingly trying a novel tactic--handing out cash instead of food. In Yirowe, a drought-stricken village in Somaliland, cash transfers have been instrumental in giving locals the ability to hold out.

The goal is to keep people from leaving their homes and joining the flood of 740,000 internally displaced people who are straining international relief efforts. And it’s working. Not only have all of Yirowe’s 655 families stayed put, but they have welcomed 150 families from the nearby countryside.

Concern Worldwide, an Irish nongovernmental aid group, gave the village’s poorest families $65 a month for three months and double that in April. Cash handouts are an increasingly common way of giving aid in many parts of the world. “Cash allows the flexibility for beneficiaries to make empowered choices about what they need most,” says Erin Wolgamuth, Concern���s regional manager in Somaliland.

“Without this help ... we would not even be at a basic level,” notes Abdirizak Ayah Awad, the head of the village committee that chose the recipient families.

Patricia Soavenira has benefited from cash payments, too. She lives in a cramped, low-roofed thatched hut in Ankilimanara, a tiny village on Madagascar’s parched south coast. Ms. Soavenira is one of 55,000 mothers whose malnourished children make them eligible for a $10 monthly handout from a local nongovernmental organization.

Before the payments, Soavenira had sold everything her family owned except one pot and a spoon. Now she has bought five more spoons and another saucepan. She takes weekly trips to a market an hour’s walk away, where she buys rice, corn, and beans.

“Without the cash, we’d just be eating cassava leaves and wild cactus like last year,” she says.

In some cases, local villagers are appealing directly to individuals. Jamal Abdi Sarman, a senior UNICEF staffer in Hargeisa, is a member of a private WhatsApp group using mobile phones to spirit aid money to hungry Somalis.

“From Australia, from South Africa, from Istanbul and California the money goes into the same [bank] account in Burco,” a town in the heart of drought country, where it is used to buy food for the neediest families, Mr. Sarman says.

A handful of herders first sent out an SOS six months ago when their livestock began to die off. Since then, their WhatsApp group--christened Daryeel, which means “caring”--has gathered $255,000 from fellow clan members and other donors on five continents. It has paid for water trucks and packages of rice, dates, sugar, milk, and oil for nearly 1,000 families in 39 villages. But the benefits have spread much further.

Ununley is a tiny desert community of corrugated tin-roofed homes and rustic stick-frame shelters covered with sheets and blankets in Somalia. A handful of modest shops cling to the paved road that bisects the settlement and disappears into the unforgiving Somali moonscape. Ten families here received a share of the bounty that came in and have, in turn, shared it with their neighbors.

“Almost 100 families did not move because of the help for 10 families,” says Safiya Hassan Ibrahim, who distributes the aid with no-nonsense efficiency.

“The assistance came when we most needed it,” adds one recipient, Mohamed Farah. “It changed our lives--we would have died without it, just like our livestock.”

As much as these initiatives help, relief experts say that more “sustained resilience” programs are needed to prevent people from drifting into despair to begin with. Such efforts can take different forms. In Andahive, a village in southern Madagascar, resilience comes in the shape of a new sweet potato.

Prinu Rakutunirina, a leather-faced local farmer, has always grown sweet potatoes, but the traditional local variety was not ideal: It grew poorly in drought and the tubers went bad within weeks of harvest.

Last year he planted a new, more drought-resistant strain, introduced by agronomists with the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). But it was no match for the dry weather: Starved of water, the plants withered, twice.

Maybe it was faith or maybe it was desperation, but Mr. Rakutunirina stuck with his experimental variety: He finally brought in a harvest last February.

And what a harvest it was. Yields were double what they used to be, he says, and the new sweet potatoes last for nearly a year. That means he can decide when he wants to sell them. He can also carry his family through the lean season, between harvests, when there is normally nothing to eat.

Rakutunirina was part of a pilot group using the new variety. “Now everyone wants to plant this type,” he says, though it will be a year until the 100,000 farmers using the improved shoots will have harvested enough to spread the variety across the dry south.

“If there is no rain for three months it does not matter how many high-yield seeds you plant,” cautions Jean-Etienne Blanc, an FAO fieldworker. “You’ll get a poor harvest. But farmers are learning about good-quality seeds and how to use them, and next year they will be seeking them out.”

Rural residents across northeastern Africa are also learning how better to conserve water. Consider the case of Mohamed Abdi Madar, a camel herder who roams the scrubland west of Hargeisa. He doesn’t live near a well, but he does now have access to an underground water tank that catches and stores rainwater. It was dug by locals and paid for by Concern.

“Leaving aside the livestock, even the people would start to die without this water,” says Mr. Madar as he pulls up a full bucket to give his two camels.

The concrete-lined tank, 40 feet long by 20 feet across and 10 feet deep, gathers rainwater channeled to it from higher ground and stores it under a sheet of corrugated iron to slow evaporation.

Without the tank, protected from animals by a thick ring of thorn bushes, herders would have been forced to head to a riverbed six miles away. “But we would have gone there only with hope,” says Madar: The riverbed is dry and “we do not have the power or the resources to dig out the water.”

Dependent on the supplies in the tank, Madar and his fellow herders are turning away from their ancestral nomadic lifestyle and taking up agriculture as a new source of sustenance. “It’s not optional, it’s mandatory,” says Mohamed Abdi Yusuf, an elder at another water catchment tank nearby. “Whenever people lose their livestock they start farming.”

Mr. Yusuf has identified a deeper shift that may have to occur if Somalis are to survive recurring droughts--a cultural one. Once upon a time, the camel was “as vital to life as the tendons in one’s back,” as an ancient Somali poet put it, “a living boulder placed by God in the wilderness.”

Today nomadism “is no longer tenable,” says Saad Ali Shire, Somaliland’s foreign minister. Since the 1950s his country’s population has risen sixfold and livestock numbers fourfold, burdening the land beyond what it can bear even when the rains come.

“If we want to keep camels and sheep and goats, then we must change the way we raise them,” Mr. Shire says.

That will mean staying in one place and growing animal feed alongside other crops, such as the vegetables that trainees are about to harvest at the Free Farmer School, 40 miles outside Hargeisa. Young citrus trees, sunflowers, onion, and garlic wave in the breeze. Local elders offer corn and watermelons as gifts to a visitor and emblems of their desire to learn a new lifestyle.

“We gave them seeds and tools to increase their resilience,” says Khaled Taib, a water expert with Concern, which set up the farm. “Now they need some knowledge.”

Modernization and development can help stem starvation as well. This has certainly been the case in Ethiopia, once a poster child for catastrophic famines such as the one that killed more than 400,000 people in 1984. Today, thanks to more than a decade of breathless economic growth, the country’s image is closer to matching that of its capital, Addis Ababa--gleaming, cosmopolitan, and boldly aspirational.

Indeed, Ethiopia has become a regional model for early famine warning and nimble response. This year the country has been plagued by the same drought as next-door South Sudan and Somalia but is experiencing nowhere near the suffering.

The 2015-16 drought in the north of the country “was at least as bad” as the 1984 drought, says Stein Holden, an Ethiopia expert at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in As, Norway. “But because the country is economically much stronger and more stable now, it has been able to provide a lot of the aid itself, without outside intervention.”

Contributing to Ethiopia’s success: a natural disaster management office that amasses stacks of early warning weather data, and a public works program in the lean season that pays poor Ethiopians in cash or food to build the kind of infrastructure that the country needs--water storage tanks, paved roads, and health posts.

“The system Ethiopia has is spectacular,” says Kelly Johnson, a World Bank social protection expert advising Addis Ababa. “It is beginning to serve as a model for other programs in Africa and around the world.”

Ethiopia’s success story is not a simple one. The country’s one-party government has instituted and maintains a firm grip on journalists and political opponents. Foreign aid workers are careful not to offend their hosts by speaking too openly of problems they find.

But, significantly, drought no longer necessarily means death in Ethiopia.

For other parts of Africa, that is, unfortunately, not the case. Despite the lessons learned about alleviating famine over the past quarter century, droughts still occur. For every relief effort that works, another falls short. Hunger still stalks villages.

But aid workers and local residents are getting better at blunting the effects of drought, saving lives as they do. Amid all the hardship, there are individual moments of triumph, too. Back in the emergency health center in Hargeisa, staffers have been working assiduously to save little Nabhan, the infant with the feeding tube. A week after being admitted to the center, nurses say he is on his way to recovery.

“We think he will survive,” says his joyful grandmother, Ardo Mohamoud. “We are so happy!”