#i was so happy that we got dr ratio for free so I could also get Ruan Mei

[mirokuna-hime]

I got so hyped over Aventurine today I forgot he arrives with 2.1 and not 2.0...

[aceandart]

Hey! I read your recent post and it read differently to a lot of posts under the destiel tag as of now. Personally, I’ve seen the first 5 seasons (watched it about 5 yrs ago), but haven’t been caught up to date on any of the recent stuff other than the Destiel apocalypse that’s happening right now. Could you explain the following?

“...mostly being this show is a misogynistic racist homophobic consent issue-ridden pile of bad writing “.

I was contemplating returning to the show and tuning in for the missing seasons, but what you said about it has now placed me on the fence. Could you elaborate and advise?

Thank you so much! I appreciate seeing an honest post that doesn’t sugar-coat or overlook bad writing/negative characteristics of a show!! :)

[re this]

Hi!

Well, I feel like the finale probably took care of any fence-sitting you were doing (and sorry I couldn't reply sooner), but actually my answer wasn't going to change even if the finale was okay (good, imo, was always a stretch): No, I personally would not recommend watching this show. and while my answer is mostly because of the things I am going to list to answer the rest of this question, I was also going to say - you dropped the show in s5 and that was five years ago? Whatever caused you to drop it in the first place, it probably got a lot worse. (It literally doesn't even matter what your major grievance was, they have since doubled, tripled down in terms of how bad it was.) Trying to marathon through ten seasons (20-23 episodes long each) is hard; trying to marathon through all of that to get something without a satisfactory ending is a lot of emotional labor for no payout. It's not just that this is a bad show (though it really, really is, on every level); it's that you have already tried it, you tried arguably the better seasons of it, and you still didn't want to stick to it. By the nature of how tumblr works, it can make anything look so much better than it is, just because in general the people you see hyping it up *like* the product, have decided to devote their fandom time to it, are highlighting the choicest parts of it. spn was always about the potential around the edges, the story fans made of it; the actual product was always secondary to the could have, should have beens, and this gets truer the later into the show you get. I'm not saying there weren't some great episodes, some great scenes, and even some great mini-arcs, but it was a drop in the bucket to everything else. and I'm positing this answer on the idea that you are asking because you want to watch the show, and not because you want to use the show as a supplemental for your fandom experience, but if it is the latter, I'll just say I'm currently heavily involved in reading fanfic for a fandom I've never actually watched a whole episode for, and while I'm probably missing some context I'm still highly enjoying it. fandom, honestly, so often becomes so much more than the bones we build it on. and if you want a little more, catch some "greatest hits" videos or catch up on just some of the “must-see” episodes and save yourself from having to watch all the moments in-between, because there are a lot more of them than the good parts. very few shows improve as they age out, and before the nov 5th resurgence if you weren't already following spn blogs, likely the main spn meme you were coming across was the annual 'salt and burn this dead horse' that went out after each season renewal. the tl;dr answer is really, it's not worth it. (to be honest, at the end of the day, despite the sheer amount of time, energy, and words I've put into this fandom over the years, and I put in a lot, I didn't actually like the majority of the show. so, you know, grain of salt on my opinion. then again, you left it seasons before I did.) That said, buckle up, cause now I'm gonna tell you why:

Literally, The Shitty Writing

I feel like the finale speaks for this point by itself, but before I get into all the "problematic" bad writing spn does, I want to talk about the fact that the writers are also just fundamentally bad at the craft of writing.

continuity errors. they’d change their lore/creature ability to fit their plot. (the reapers esp got the end of that bad stick.)  the characters will often forget (monster-slaying) solutions that worked before (holy wood, yarrow, christo, creative approaches like exorcisms on recording, spells to remove angels from their vessels, bullet with a devil’s trap, etc).  the writers forgot their own timeline more than once. the random retcons they'd do. sometimes it would also lead to plot holes.

which, speaking of, they had plenty of

there's also things that don't count as plot holes but are very large missed opportunities (ex: Dean spends a year in Purgatory and no one recognizes him? he doesn't bring up his daughter?)

I don't even know what this one would fall under, but if a character wasn't right in front of them, they would forget that character's existence. not just Adam (though that was a big one), but there were so many secondary characters that even in places it would make sense to mention them, much less bring them around, they didn't. or because they would not expand their main character list, characters who should have been around a lot more than they were (*cough* Cas, but that's an easy one, I'm also talking about characters like Kevin) would have these huge gaps between episodes that didn't make sense

they don't really have character development. this isn't to say the brothers don't change, they do, but at the same time the characters face the exact same (internal) arguments over and over again, never resolving or growing from them; they just have more examples when they think about them and it gets worse and more unhealthy because of the new weight added to it. the problem with their brothers only format, and the problem with their biphobia but more on that later, is that Dean wasn't actually allowed to grow out of his John Winchester's son role, to let himself be comfortable (and dare to be happy) with himself because that meant changing the story into something they didn't like and/or didn't know how to do. at the same time, allowing Sam to grow meant breaking the Brothers Only format, because as the show stated multiple times, Sam's happy ending did not involve hunting.

and with that, they sometimes flattened the characters so badly they became caricatures more than anything else.  hell there's a whole season where Dean goes evil, and people had a hard time realizing it, which was not because it was a subtle slow descent but because shitty pacing, uneven (and contradictory) episodes, previous actions that weren't written as being evil but were the the exact same thing as when he was evil that were supposed to be "signs", and how they chose to represent that evil meant it was really hard to figure out that was what they were doing and not just writing Dean as more of an asshole than they previously were.  (he's not evil, he's just a prick.) and I don't mean I had trouble telling, I mean fandom as a whole had major arguments about it, much less the general viewing public.

the series finale put a definite end to the idea they would follow through on even one of their main series themes (family don't end in blood, free will vs destiny, always keep fighting, etc), but this was something they would build up to addressing and then just anti-climatically let fizzle out in multiple seasons. character and relationship themes (not just destiel but the brothers co/counter-dependency, the importance of found family, Dean's growth from Daddy's Blunt Little Instrument and Sam's acceptance that he deserves better/agency in his own life, etc) would be built and broken down in an effort to drag the question out into another season. it wasn't two steps forward, one step back, it was a reboot.

their filler vs arc episode ratios: there's nothing wrong with the Monster of the Week format as a stylistic choice, but this show

a) would kill its own plot momentum to focus on MotW episodes. [part of this is the general spn problem they created of constantly trying to one-up their season's Big Bad, which I understand but also means one episode they are going against The Most Powerful Being in Existence (for the Fifth Time) and then rather than focus on that world-ending threat, they hunt vampires for like six episodes straight. they had a very bad balance where rather than continuously weave the larger arc into the season, or at least build characters and relationships, they'd jam it all around the season premiere, finale, and mid-season finale/premiere episodes, and then all the rest was just, bullshit cases where nothing got resolved or had a lesson stick around for the next episode, making them very skippable. also more on this under the homophobia section]

b) the filler episodes contradicted themselves and the main plot all the time.

c) sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent a-plot. also: sometimes they focused so much on making the b-plot a mirror they forgot to write a coherent b-plot. 

I cringed my way through more than one episode of dialogue

the recycled plots

more on this in the next sections, but either they didn't notice, actively didn't care, or purposefully chose to overtly and subtly imply or state a bunch of really fucked up things, and then never address them at all

speaking of never addressing anything, I realize this is a fandom vs canon battle in general, but so many things get swept under the rug as they move on to the next issue (ex: Dean put an angel in Sam's body to "heal him", violating his consent and exasperating his issue with telling what reality is - a huge issue from previous season - and once the Mark of Cain story really took over the subject gets dropped.) 

death is so cheap on this show. and I don't just mean that the revolving doorway of resurrections means it's hard to get worked up about a death because (as long as the character was a white man and especially the brothers) there was a high chance they'd be back, and I don't just mean that their Murder Is the First, Last, and Best Solution to Any Issue, Ever means the faceless and not so faceless hoards of villains, monsters, and humans who get caught up in it are just hand waved as one of those things (they have ways of saving vessels and the later into the show the less likely they are to even try), but that there was no point in investing in (esp non-white, male) secondary characters because chances were they'd be dead pretty fast.  I'm honestly shocked characters like Jody (who actually at one point was in the middle of being killed off on-screen and then we didn't see her for eight episodes, so we assumed she was dead) made it until the end.

(speaking of dead characters though, what was with the habit of bringing them back constantly? just don't kill them in the first place! create new ones and let those ones stick around instead!)

when they can't use death as their solution, the other answer the writers fall back on is Deus Ex Machina

buckleming were a writing duo who had their own bingo cards that included things like shitty pacing, OOC-ness, flat one-liners, etc, and the question wasn't if you'd get bingo, it was a question of how often you got it during their episodes. at some point throughout the show, it became hard to tell what was a buckleming episode and what was just another episode in the season.  aka the writing quality went WAY DOWN as a whole

you know the tv trope Idiot Ball? or Idiot Plot?  spn should have it's own page for both. 

they constantly break viewer's trust, which is the basic tenet of what not to do when it comes to telling a story. (again, not just destiel, though the queerbaiting is a major part of it because it happened all the time to avoid actually answering that question.) when a writer violates their character's or story's core identity for a 'twist', it needs to have been carefully built so that it's a surprise to the viewer, not a betrayal. (you may not have seen it coming, but when you look back you can see the groundwork.) these writers, every time, chose the "shocking" choice regardless of how much they need to break canon or character to do so. their twists are either obvious, and/or they don't make sense with the rest of their story/lore of the show, and the viewer is left feeling stupid for believing they have more respect for the audience/characters than they do.

I realize this is pretty subjective, but huge swaths of it are just boring. fandom made the experience of watching it interesting, not the show itself.

and yet, for all of that, the quality of writing (while painful to have to sit through) was not the worst thing about it.

(note for the following: I stopped watching after s11, but I'm sure some if not all of these are still relevant until the very end)

Misogyny and Consent Issues: Is There a Limit? Signs Point to No

there is honestly so much under this topic I don't even know where to start. i'm going to focus on patterns rather than specific incidences, because otherwise I'll be writing this for a week, but just know I can easily provide examples of all of these because this is literally what I spent years writing meta on.

female characters were more likely to die quicker/earlier (esp vs other other male characters with similar reoccurring roles/characterizations), stay dead, and die often at the hands of their loved ones and/or in Stranger Danger situations. they died for man!pain. they died for fodder. they died as a sacrifice. they were turned into love interests (whether that was their original role or not) and then killed. they were put in mortal danger and then not given resolution for several episodes (Schrödinger's death.) they died in ways we've seen male characters survive. their deaths - the violence enacted on them - was constantly, consistently sexualized, and the camera lingered.

when it came to villains the show would go out of its way to kill the female one first, or act like she's the more pressing issue so that the male character could hang around longer (and honestly by male character I often mean specifically Crowley and the season's female villain. not only that but they'd often break canon to kill off a female character, and break canon to save Crowley/a male character)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring female characters vs male characters who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, female characters were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared male character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development

they have more than once used the story line of underage girl seducing a grown man. (it was a whole season arc even.) this is esp galling when you find out about crew member Jim Michaels, who sexually harassed and assaulted (minor) fans

(btw, not the only crew/cast member to do so! and still be invited to cons!)

Dean Winchester (who is narratively treated as the moral judgement for the show) has blamed more than one rape victim for their assault/trauma. they often get abused (or outright killed) for stopping their abuser. 

Dean is ok with flirting with/leering at barely legal teenage girls. already sketchy when he's 26, really gross when he's in his mid/late thirties 

speaking of Dean. based on past personal experience I'm going to say up front people do not like me saying this, but that doesn't mean what I'm saying is wrong or even based on interpretations: Dean has more than one relationship that if it isn't rape, falls under extreme dubious consent.

there's actually a lot of rape (or "extreme dubious consent") and assault/molestation, both shown and mentioned: Cas and April, the cases were men take away free will and then have sex with the women (Ben Edlund was one of the better writers of series and even he did this a couple of times), Crowley orgy (and demon sex in general), random women in some episodes, Sam and meta!Gen, Becky and Sam, Sam and Lucifer, Dean and Alastair, several monsters (like the siren) and their victims, male characters secretly watching female characters undress/be naked, and so on. Dean was often attacked sexually by men, Sam by women. most of this is never addressed, never treated like what it is, and/or is made into a joke

and there's even more rape jokes beyond that, sub-sections: prison, vessels/demons, angel possession, sex work, childhood abuse, monster of the week, sexuality, etc.  huge chunks if not whole episodes were devoted to making what amounted to a rape joke. 

often ignored non-sexual consent (esp Dean’s actions, including a lot of mind-wiping and violations of body autonomy)

everything about Sam and body autonomy - he is frequently violated (multiple characters have possessed him; he is fed demon blood); how he feels unclean, how he feels disconnected from his own body, how he often is forced to act outside of his control and then blamed for those decisions

actually, Cas goes through that a lot too; he is trained, brainwashed, and forced to do things without his consent, and goes through major depressive episodes because of it

this show has a pattern of girls who are kidnapped, (sexually abused), raised in isolation, and expected to develop some perfect moral compass of acceptable behavior and were then killed off when they didn't. meanwhile, male characters get fourth, fifth chances.

female characters (and I'm talking about ones with speaking roles, who play an actual part in the plot, who are sometimes in multiple episodes) are more likely to be unnamed or given no last name

are you a Mother on spn (as in, that's your role)? you're either fridged for man!pain or abusive or both

it rarely could pass the bechdel test (including in s9 don't believe those fandom lies), and that's including episodes that focused on female characters. if the test included that the characters have to be named, that (small) number probably gets cut in half. if that test included both women are alive at the end...  

female monsters prove they deserve to live by killing off their family to prove they're the "good kind"  (this is not necessary for male monster characters)

female characters are not allowed to get vengeance

they took the Virgin vs Whore dynamic (and that that's all women are), and devoted a whole episode to it, but in general it underlines of ton of interactions, esp with regards to Dean and women.  {I actually never got around to writing it, but women tended to fall into four main classifications on this show, though overlap definitely allowed: Victim [sub-categories: Fodder, (Dean) Mirror, Mother], Love Interest, Sex Object, and Villain/Obstacle. very few female characters were either allowed to outgrow their category or didn't start in one.} 

we see the male characters assault female characters but it's okay because [insert supernatural reason here], ignoring that whatever explanations for why it's being allowed, we are still visually being shown this violence against women, and often from our "heroes"  (the women are then tossed away from the narrative after the violence and again, their aftermath gets regulated to off-screen who cares)

female characters were only allowed to be "so badass"; female hunters often fought female monsters or they lost/got regulated to the sidelines in battles. this gets even more contrasted as a male character/hunter will often do a nod about how "badass" she is, even as she is very easily beaten.

 the whorepobia of this show

had a tendency to strip female characters down to their underwear/make them nude before torturing them, and then adding sexualized torture on top of that

outside of actor injuries affecting this (like one of them broke his arm so he had a sling for a few episodes), female characters are often more likely to visually carry the bruises/violence of violent incidences much longer than male characters

gratuitous filming shots of breasts, asses

the use of the words: bitch, skank, whore, slut; the play on words they do so they can say "pussy"  

taking female myths/figures and reducing them to a cheap, sexist storyline (Amazons, Artemis, Lilith, Eve, witches - who are only allowed to live/be "good" if they're men, and are otherwise in league with demons/are evil and lose)

they often kept a character but switched out her actress; helps with the disposable feeling

how they treat women's ages (ex: Jody is not allowed to be a love interest to Sam because she's older than him/calling Dean 'kiddo'. ex: Rowena is played by a woman fifteen years younger than Crowley's actor. ex: Amara being one of the oldest things in existence but still having to age her way up.)

their treatment of teenage girls, ranging from how they sexualized them to expecting them to save themselves to treating them like they are grown adults and not children to the way they kept killing the ones who posted selfies to the fact the pr more than once used the tag "teenage girls - the scariest thing ever" for Claire's episodes 

actions and lasting legacies by female characters often got erased or passed on to male characters instead

it's a time honored tradition to treat certain monsters as metaphors for things. specifically for spn, they often use werewolves and vampires for sexual assault. (not the first to do so, not the last to do so.) however, that part of it gets textually glossed over, or treated as a joke, more often than not

and for all the patterns I talk about above, there's plenty of other one-off examples of misogyny/sexism or consent issues/rape culture this show did. like that time a grown man sniffed the bra of a dead teenage girl. not for any reason, just because it was there and that's what dudes do, apparently.

Racism: All the Flavors(+ Bonus Sexism)

when you compare the treatment of reoccurring white characters vs characters of color who occupied either similar roles or characterizations, characters of color were often punished and/or treated poorly for the same attitude and/or actions of their compared white character, who often got not just a (free) pass, but more screen time, dialogue, and development. 

usually Black men but in general men of color: 

a) got humiliated (often using feminization or infantilization) before their death  

b) had a more violent death; had a death that visually echoed racism (lynching, shot in the back, etc)

c) often used (racialized) rhetoric that in the real world is used against them

d) often filmed in ways to highlight their physicality, to portray them animalistically, to dehumanize them

e) even when victims, will add context to make them partially responsible for their death

characters of color were the villains or antagonists, very rarely "good guys"

this was a very white show, and while I'm speaking about speaking roles, reoccurring characters, and characters who get their own arcs, I'm also talking about background characters

using lore from groups they should not have and/or turned creatures into racist caricatures

having white actors play characters they shouldn't have

heavily depended on stereotypes for their characters of color

the treatment (esp narrative empathy level) of white angels vs angels of color.  again, screen time and character development differences between the two

a summary of (East) Asian woman on this show: fetishized porn/sexualized, “tiger mom”, Yoko Ono/The Girlfriend, monster. they were often silent or had no dialogue. microaggressions (usually spoken by Dean) were leveled at them.

antisemitism (styne issue, erasure of the Judah Initiative, Lilith, the golem)

like the sexism, just had random racist lines or visuals throughout the show (and sometimes those came in the absence of who should be there); some groups literally did not have enough characters to make a pattern, which is why this section looks a lot shorter than it really is

like for ex, I'm trying to stick with patterns but seriously, they put a Black woman in a dog collar and said her white boyfriend was her master/that she belonged to him

the ignorance of how white privilege worked to make them palatable

the replacement and/or elevation of a white character over a character of color (Lisa over Cassie, Bobby over Missouri, Charlie over Kevin in terms of how they were treated under Found Family, etc) 

how they treated non-Christian Gods: easily killed, evil, weak. they often repackaged them into a Christian framework and made them lesser than.

Bi/Homophobia, Queerbaiting, and Using Fans

they butchered Charlie.  they killed her, they killed her in a way that involved leaving behind plot, characters, and logic to do so, they killed her and used the violence of it for "shock," they butchered her and stuck her in a bathtub.  the guy who wrote Charlie in every other episode (Robbie Thompson, one of the better writers of the show) didn't write her last episode (assumption: because he wouldn't) and then he arguably left the show over her death. at one of the cons (comic-con?) the cast literally turned their backs when a fan questioned Carver (the showrunner) about what he did because they wanted no part of it. there was a mass exodus of fandom after they killed her (and another portion actually hung around because they got destiel queerbaited to stick out the rest of the season, and then they left.) she was un-apologetically queer, she was found family, she was widely popular, and they killed her for no reason at all. they didn't just Bury The Gay (their only reoccurring one), they salted and burnt the ground

they spent over a decade queerbaiting Destiel. they built queerbaiting destiel into the structure of the show: season opening/first couple of episodes whetted the appetite, which they then backed away from (usually removing Cas from Dean's physical area) and around this time they'd usually have some kind of heterosexual love interest, then mid-season they'd have some room to be together and share feelings, Cas would again disappear but this time they'd have some bi!Dean thrown in to keep you going, a few episodes before the end they'd have a major connection moment (I need you, I love you), and then the season would end with something to keep destiel fans occupied with during summer. it was never a trajectory, it was a cycle; just enough for plausible deniability but more than enough for fans to believe in. they had whole seasons where the b-plot were mirrors for destiel. they tried to sell DVDs by promising destiel cut scenes. they'd remove Cas from huge chunks of episodes just because they didn't want destiel interacting in the same physical space. they filmed them (I'm talking camera angles, physical positioning, etc) romantically.  (and sometimes, someone on crew/the network would accidentally reveal how not-fucking-happening destiel would be, and then backtrack when they realized fandom’s uproar.) 

a) Dean was only allowed to care so much for Cas, the narrative would only give him so much room to mourn/miss him. (Sam too.) it's beyond my general complaint that the writers/bros lose all interest in a character if they are not right in front of them (if they even cared when they were), but specifically they will spend episodes talking about how Cas is family, how much they care, and then because Dean and Cas cannot share the screen they come up with asinine reasons to remove Cas, which means Dean/the bros do not help him on his issues, and he is cast adrift until they need him, a push/pull of show vs tell with contradictory answers but made a lot of Cas/Destiel fans argue Cas deserved better.  

b) they also devoted seasons to the (subtextual) love triangle of Dean/Cas/Crowley. (I wish I was fucking kidding)

c) "you construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men": the way they use violence to supplement affection (which is actually a larger pattern with Dean and his loved ones in general, but specifically the show is willing to show - multiple times - Dean and Cas being violent (often with an arguably sexualized filming to it) in conjunction with or as replacement for expressing their care.)  other side of this: hugging/physical affection outside of the shoulder/hand thing is reserved for escaping or coming back from death, if then (and it took seasons and a few deaths to even get that.) 

d) "buddy"  

that time Dean was allowed to be textually attracted to his mother and a literal dog (who was visually made to be very clearly a girl dog), but his attraction to men always stays subtextual and/or treated as a joke

they spent the whole show queerbaiting bi!Dean. aside comments, checking out other guys, getting flustered by men he finds attractive, metaphors, mirror characters, the heterosexual overcompensation [which is different from but comes from a similar place of the macho compensation to counteract how he gets sexualized/feminized], everything with Cas and how they play that relationship romantically and with sexual attraction, the character development that led to his relaxation of his macho compensation coinciding with increasing subtextual readings of his bisexuality (and domesticity), the inspiration for his name/character is bi, his relationship to Charlie and the pattern of fictive kinship, etc etc.  

why are angels straight???? why do they have gender???? (why are they interested in sex???)  minus the queerbaiting of destiel, they spent a lot of seasons pushing Cas into a heterosexual box. other angels were often pushed into heterosexual boxes too. (or left in subtext and then killed.) closest we got to playing with gender was Raphael and maybe Hannah, and at least with Raphael it was not without its issues. (also: both dead.)

random transphobic lines

homosexuality was often treated like a joke/punchline. queer characters/scenes were often treated like a joke/punchline.

outside of Charlie, queer characters were small, two-bit roles, extremely rare, and often killed

how they treated and showcased fandom space and esp queer fans in-show (much less how they treated them in real life), comes from a deeply sexist and homophobic place 

The Show Was 328 Episodes Long And the thing is, these are the four big categories, but it's not like this is it. The show flip-flops on calling John an abusive parent/that the bros are childhood abuse survivors. The show doesn't even really call out when Dean is being abusive to Sam, and the way they always, always go back to the Brothers Only format means they are often ignoring or straight-up forgetting the unhealthy aspects of their relationship. The show ignores how their trauma builds (and all the things that happen because of it), disconnecting the current issues with the ones that came before. The way they flip flop on monster morality and never address what the winchester bros do to people who happen to be monsters but aren't evil (or definitely aren't as evil as they are).  How violence is always the answer. How the "saving people'' part of hunting got dropped the later the show goes on, and red shirt vessels/hosts die in droves. Depending on how you view it, the way they treat alcoholism and addiction. The ableism. The line between the narrative's opinion on acceptable violence and not is inconsistent and dependent on how much they like the character doing the violence vs who the violence is being done to. Etc.

(The above lists are definitely missing stuff. I haven't done anything in this fandom in like four years, I've forgotten a lot.) I'm not saying people didn't enjoy this show. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy (parts of) this show. I'm saying whether you are basing it on things like writing craft or things like 'social justice issues', this show is bad. It is of poor quality. I really don't know how to explain the hold it has on people, how a show can be charismatic, how fandom was able to squeeze so much out of so little, but that's probably what's got you attracted into the idea of watching it again. If you're thinking of watching it because you want a coherent, well done story, look elsewhere. The finale was the literal last straw, not the only one. 

[heligooddeals]

THE POSITIVE & NEGATIVE: MUN & MUSE

Fill out and repost ♥ This meme definitely favors canons more, but I hope OCs still can make it somehow work with their own lore, and lil’ fandom of friends & mutuals. Multimuses pick the muse you are the most invested in at the moment.

TAGGED BY: @sweet-talkin-gladiator (thank you ♥) TAGGING: @elitaxne, @unknownsoldiers, @one-shall-fall, @one-shall-rise​, @eloquent-music​, @coldbloodedcopter​, @you

MY MUSE IS.   canon / oc / au / canon-divergent / fandomless

is your character popular in the fandom? YES / NO / N/A

is your character considered hot™ in the fandom? YES / NO / N/A

is your character considered strong in the fandom? YES / NO / N/A

are they underrated? YES / NO / N/A

were they relevant to the main story? YES / NO / N/A

were they relevant to the main character? YES / NO / THEY’RE THE ‘PROTAG' / N/A

are they widely known in their world? YES / NO / N/A

how’s their reputation? GOOD / BAD / NEUTRAL / N/A

HOW STRICTLY DO YOU FOLLOW CANON?

I’d say it’s a 50-50 mix, although that’s probably not an accurate ratio.

I treat canon like a foundation - meaning it’s where I will get started with my writing and my lore creation, but I will not strictly adhere to it (for one reason or another, depending on the canon itself and my thoughts on it). I really like using canon because it gives me a “safe” place to start from, but it does not rule over my creation process either. I will disregard canon or adjust it accordingly to suit my needs, wants, desires, and story-world view reflections.

SELL YOUR MUSE! (aka try to list everything, which makes your muse interesting in your opinion to make them spicy for your mutual.)

Ex-Decepticon; Didn’t abandon the faction out of shame, anger, or a change of heart, she just simply didn’t want to be there. She had been coerced to join the army (which was a fairly common tactic for the Decepticons) and fled from her post as soon as she could.

Broker; You want something? She’s got it.

Neutral and toeing the line; Unfortunately, business and life in the modern world means appealing to both sides of the great war. Navigating that fine line is tricky, and could wind up costing her one of these days.

Unintentional Mom Friend; She doesn’t mean to dote on or cluck at everyone, but she worries about her friends and always tries to take care of them - even if they’re fussing about it.

NOW THE OPPOSITE! (list everything why your muse could not be so interesting (even if you may not agree, what does the fandom perhaps think?)

Possibly a Mary Sue; Held and written at the level of “If Swindle can have any useful item as his disposal and for sale, then so can Blackguard.”

Inaccurate trauma writing; Research and genuine effort is put into the writing whenever possible, but it’s all based on my understanding and personal experience of things too so it’s very likely not accurate and bad.

“Everybody loves Blackguard”; It’s unintentional, but none the less most of my partners and their muses wind up liking Blackguard so there’s very little confrontation or conflict between her and others.

Ruining your OTP; @mightymegatron​ and I are shipping Megatron and Blackguard. That means that my OC is shagging up with the problematic antagonist of the series. Die mad about it.

WHAT INSPIRED YOU TO RP YOUR MUSE?

I wanted to take another shot at the RP community with my OC after a couple of canon blogs I had been running passed their peak and were falling into obscurity amongst the community and my partners. Her first rendition had been terrible too, so I wanted to give myself more positive memories and a sense of pride in the character rather than shame and embarrassment.

WHAT KEEPS YOUR INSPIRATION GOING?  

Although it doesn’t seem like it because I’m not roleplaying I’m Tumblr, I’m still technically roleplaying on Discord because I want to. I want to push Blackguard, knock her down, and make her face challenges she hasn’t face before and likely can’t win because so far everything has generally worked out for her. I want her to fail, I want her to be taken back down to rock bottom and struggle to crawl her way out of it. I don’t want her to stay down there, but I don’t want her getting out of it easily. I want her to be tested, and to persevere.

SOME MORE PERSONAL QUESTIONS, FOR THE MUN

do you think you give your character justice? YES / NO

do you frequently write head canons? YES / NO

do you sometimes write drabbles? YES / NO

do you think a lot about your muse during the day? YES / NO

are you confident in your portrayal? YES / NO

are you confident in your writing? YES / NO

are you a sensitive person? YES / NO

DO YOU ACCEPT CRITICISM WELL ABOUT YOUR PORTRAYAL?

I genuinely have never received a criticism about my muse. I have been criticized for how I handle memes (TL;DR I have a tendency to delete/ignore memes if I only get one prompt for them), but never my character. I welcome criticisms though, if anybody has any and are looking to give genuine feedback on my writing and my muse, and not just passive-aggressively bully me to make themselves feel better.

DO YOU LIKE QUESTIONS, WHICH HELP YOU EXPLORE YOUR CHARACTER?  

I would probably cry if I got questions like that. Happily, of course.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES TO A HEAD CANON OF YOURS, DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHY?  

Absolutely! I may not budge or change anything, depending on the head canon, but I still want to hear other people’s thoughts on the ideas I propose. I would love to hear another person’s perspective on a matter so that I could look at it from a different angle and either combine our views, completely change my own, or bear in mind that how I see things isn’t the way other people see it.

IF SOMEONE DISAGREES WITH YOUR PORTRAYAL, HOW WOULD YOU TAKE IT?

It would depend on what they’re disagreeing about, because there’s definitely elements of my character that I could see people not liking. However, if someone dislikes my character as a whole then there’s little that can be done. This is my creation. You’re free to move on if it’s not your cup of tea.

IF SOMEONE REALLY HATES YOUR CHARACTER, HOW DO YOU TAKE IT?

Admittedly I’m going to be upset because I genuinely don’t understand what there is to hate, but if you don’t like my character then there’s nothing we can do. I'm not going to radically change her just to make someone happy.

ARE YOU OKAY WITH PEOPLE POINTING OUT YOUR GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?  

As long as you’re not mean or condescending about it.

DO YOU THINK YOU ARE EASY GOING AS A MUN?  

I don’t know.

I don’t think I’m hard to approach, but I also do know that I’m genuinely not that out-going or very receptive at times. I’m shy, cautious, and maybe a little bit guarded towards new people. I always try to be friendly, but I don’t like acting overly familiar towards people I don’t genuinely know either. I use the term friend loosely to help people feel more at ease and comfortable with me, but I rarely feel that way towards my partners.

In other words - I’m not some horribly aggressive cunt, but I’m not going to act like we’re old friends nor am I good at making friendships happen overnight. Friendship is earned with me. I’m perfectly capable of writing and plotting with people who aren’t my friends, and I don’t want to experience anymore people who confuse this ability as genuine friendship and then hold me to unfair expectations of emotional support in every crisis they have.

[mobius-prime]

180. Sonic the Hedgehog #112

Welcome to a very special issue! Nearly every page is packed with really interesting and relevant information, dealing with the emotional issues of a few important characters, and also containing not one, not two, three, or four, but FIVE different character profiles! This is a really meaty one, so let's get busy!

Mistaken Identity Crisis!

Writer: Benny Lee Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Josh & Aimee Ray

So we got a little bit of a hint about it last issue, but ever since his free will has been restored, General D'Coolette and Antoine have been spending a lot of time together, making up for lost time as father and son. They're strolling through Knothole one day when out of nowhere, a dimensional portal begins to crackle above their heads, and Sonic, recognizing the look of the portal, rushes over just in time to catch Zonic as he falls from it.

Aww, don't feel bad, Antoine! Weirdly enough, for most of this issue, the artists seem to have forgotten that Zonic is supposed to be affected by sideways gravity, and so when Sonic rushes him off to the hospital he's just lying down in an ordinary bed without any problems. It's honestly not too big of a deal, but it is weird, especially given that later issues that go further into the concept of the No Zone actually incorporate this idea of sideways gravity into the story in some quite fascinating and unique ways. Dr. Quack begins looking after the injured Zonic, but until he wakes up from his stupor, they'll be unable to find out who attacked him, so for now Sonic heads back out of the hospital to go talk to Antoine and his father once again. The general is clearly very impressed at Sonic's heroism and valor, but while Sonic is initially happy to receive the praise, he notices Antoine is looking troubled behind his father's back, and, realizing that he's feeling unappreciated, decides to help him out.

I mean, while I disagree that Antoine isn't a hero, it's incredibly sweet of Sonic to go out of his way to ensure that Antoine can look good in front of his father. I would actually say that Antoine is the definition of brave, as bravery isn't just feeling unafraid in the face of danger, it's actually being afraid, but stepping up anyway, which is exactly what Antoine always does when he's faced with something terrifying. Sonic strolls away after explaining his plan, and Antoine goes back to his father feeling confident and excited about whatever Sonic might be cooking up, but as soon as Sonic is out of earshot he's called back to the hospital to speak to Zonic, who is waking up.

So one of Sonic's "worst enemies" is hanging around here, huh? Meanwhile, Antoine is giddily describing a somewhat-embellished fight between him and Robotnik to his father when none other than, who else, Evil Sonic shows up to ruin their day! Antoine is certain that this is in fact Sonic Prime, merely dressed up and putting on a performance to give Antoine the chance to show off by beating him up in front of his dad, and thus immediately karate chops him on the head, knocking him out. Sonic and Zonic exit the hospital and come racing up, pleased and amused to see Evil Sonic already out cold, and Sonic knowingly congratulates an oblivious Antoine on his victory…

See, Antoine? You're a courageous hero after all!

All right, now before we dive into the backup story for this issue, we've got a lot of character info to cover! Our first character to look at is Sonic himself. Since he's what I used to get my measurement ratios, his height and weight are the same as those from the games. He's 100 cm or 3'3" tall, and weighs 35 kg or 77 lbs. We already know he's sixteen, though by now I'd imagine he's a little closer to seventeen as it's been a while since he celebrated his last birthday. But when is his birthday, exactly? Well, it's actually not the same as his birthday in the games - in the Archieverse, his birthday is on June 11. Now, remember how I said several issues ago to keep in mind the date of Robotnik's death during Endgame? That date was June 13… and Endgame took place over the course of three days. Which means that, yes, the mission where Sally supposedly died took place on Sonic's birthday.

This changes goddamn everything. Can you imagine? Sonic isn't so bigheaded that he would expect all operations against Robotnik to cease just to celebrate his own birthday, so of course he wouldn't be too fazed over having to infiltrate Robotropolis on his big day. He probably expected a successful mission and a happy return to Knothole, where he and his friends would have a little celebration of both the mission and his birthday. Instead, he was abandoned at the city, and returned on his own to Knothole to the news that his childhood best friend was dead and he was suspect numero uno. What was supposed to be a day of celebration turned into his worst goddamn nightmare. Two days later, of course, everything was resolved and Robotnik was dead, but still, what a horrible thing to deal with while it was all still going on! I will also note that this gives a little more perspective to the amount of time he and Tails were away from Mobotropolis while in search of Naugus. They returned (and Elias was brought back from the Floating Island) on his sixteenth birthday, meaning that in between defeating Robotnik and returning to Mobotropolis after defeating Naugus, an entire year had passed. The comics are finally starting to really solidify the timeline of events and pay more attention to the passing of time, and we can see it all coming together by the inclusion of these dates.

Apart from all of that, the rest of the page doesn't tell us much that we don't already know. It hasn't been mentioned in a long time, but yes, Sonic's middle name is still officially Maurice. His real first name is listed as being "unknown," but luckily, I have the power of internet research on my side! He never got a chance to include it before he stopped working on the comic, but Kenders originally intended to eventually reveal that Sonic's birth name was in fact Ogilvie, which is a real-world surname that is Scottish in origin. Apparently, he was named after one of his grandfathers, but quickly picked up the nickname Sonic due to his running everywhere as a small child, and eventually legally changed it to such, because no one wants to be stuck with the first name Ogilvie. I mean, come on! Ogilvie Maurice Hedgehog? That's the worst name I've ever heard in my goddamn life! Actually no offense to Kenders on this one though, I'm not meaning to imply that I disagree with this idea on his part, as the entire point of it is obviously meant to be that Sonic was born with a horrendous name and was eager to change it to something better as soon as he grew old enough to choose for himself. With that context, it's downright hilarious.

But Sonic isn't our only character file to look at! Next up, we have Knuckles, who actually gets two whole pages to himself due to how much content there is within his own backstory. First, his measurements. He's 103 cm or 3'5" tall, which is a little bit shorter than his game counterpart, and he weighs 37.4 kg or 82.3 lbs. He's also sixteen, though with a birthday of September 8 he's a few months younger than Sonic, as we already know. His actual file, though it mostly again just covers info we have already received through past issues, gives us some more context for how his earliest years of life went. He was in fact taken out to the Floating Island for Guardian training at the age of only three years old, and his father essentially homeschooled him in basic things like math and science while also training him in his inherited duties. We also find out that in fact he was only ten years old when his father left for Haven through the wall of fire, which even given his accelerated development as a child is still quite young to be left with the impression that one has been abandoned by the only parent one has ever known. Over the five or so years before he met Sonic, Knuckles became quite sour and bitter in attitude, seeing as he knew nothing of why he was abandoned and why he was even here, and his only friend on the island was Catweazle, who as we know isn't exactly the kindest or most reliable of friends. Of course, once Sonic and Robotnik showed up, and he met the other members of the Chaotix, he began to lighten up more and enjoy life, as well as learn everything about his race's history and as his own personal destiny, but it's honestly quite sad just imagining this lonely, near-friendless ten year old Knuckles wandering the island, listlessly doing his duties because that's all he's ever known while believing himself to essentially be an orphan. Even in the games, Knuckles at the very least knows nothing of his own past, so there's nothing for him to feel sad about, no real sense of personal loss - he's just alone. I'd say it's worse for preboot Archie Knuckles, as he does have those memories of loving parents and a sense of purpose - he just doesn't have those things anymore. Again, he did eventually get back everything that could make him happy, but still, it's sad to think about.

Okay, onto the next one! This time we're looking at Miles "Tails" Prower. He's 80 cm or 2'7" tall, and weighs 30.6 kg or 67.3 lbs. His height is actually exactly the same as his game counterpart's, but he weighs significantly more - about 50% more, in fact. I'm going to attribute that to his older age, as in the games he's only eight, while in the comics he's currently eleven years old, with his birthday being on October 24. His original backstory explained that his father was roboticized the same day he was born, but we find out here too that at some point after Robotnik's coup, his mother mysteriously disappeared as well - not roboticized, mind you, as otherwise she and Tails would have reunited after the sword restored all the Robians' free will. For whatever reason, neither of his parents have shown up at all ever since their disappearances. Most of the rest of the info is, again, stuff we already know, but we actually run into a bit of a discrepancy with the reiteration that the Tails we've currently been following in the comics is actually a false duplicate, with the real Tails missing somewhere. The initial issue that revealed that he was a duplicate made it seem like he was replaced somehow when he was in transit with Athair from Knothole's public school to Knuckles' location, but this page claims that instead the switcheroo happened all the way back in freaking StH#56, which was the very first time he ever transformed into Turbo Tails. If this was true, then we wouldn't have seen the real Tails since very shortly after Robotnik was first defeated all the way back in Endgame! It would mean that the entire, nearly-year-long adventure with Sonic around the world in search of Naugus never happened with the real Tails, and that for all intents and purposes the real Tails would not even be aware of the renewed war against Eggman. This is definitely a mistake, as every other issue that acknowledges his replacement with the duplicate indicates that he was indeed replaced when Athair teleported him away, but it's still such a bizarre mistake to make given how much time has passed since the first Turbo Tails incident.

Okay, next up, we have Amy Rose! She's 92 cm tall or 3 feet exactly, and weighs 28.7 kg or 63.1 lbs, which is actually less than Tails despite being a good bit taller than him. As we know, she's a bit of a special case in terms of age - mentally she's ten years old, while the Ring of Acorns aged her physically to about the equivalent of a sixteen year old. Interestingly, her birthday is on July 5, which if you'll remember is also Sally's birthday! I kind of like that two characters share a birthday, honestly. Amy's page actually does give us quite a bit of background info on her that we've never heard before, unlike many of the others'. Apparently, she actually lived in Mercia her whole life, which is why she was merely Sonic's pen pal in StH#25 - she lived overseas. She was born to Mercian nobility, but her extremely rich parents became overwhelmed with sympathy after witnessing the plight of so many of those less fortunate during the two back-to-back wars, and decided to give up the entirety of their wealth to charity, officially making them the coolest rich people that have ever existed. However, unfortunately, soon afterward both of them were lost in the fighting against General D'Coolette and Robotnik's other agents in the area. She was taken in by Rob - who weirdly enough is described as her "father's brother" here despite every other source saying they're cousins - and once she had recovered somewhat from the loss, he sent her to live in Knothole with the hope that it would be safer for her there, apparently not being aware of the extremely close proximity the village had to the literal center of the war. From there, we basically know the rest, including her sudden age-up from wishing on the ring. Apparently she still has plans to marry Sonic someday, but unlike her game counterpart she keeps these intentions strictly hidden, understanding that Sonic isn't the mushy type and hoping to wait for the right chance to win his heart in the future. Man, it actually kind of seems like she understands exactly what I was talking about last issue about his lack of romantic attitude, huh?

Okay, last off we have a file for not a single character, but the entirety of the Brotherhood of Guardians! Unfortunately for this post, it really doesn't tell us anything new. We do get a look at a picture of every Guardian in their prime all lined up together, and a brief history of the formation of the organization, all the way from scientist Kayla-La's discovery of the incoming comet bearing down on their city, down to Knuckles today in the middle of his evolution into a living Chaos Emerald. Athair is included in the lineup, as even though he ultimately rejected his role as a Guardian, he still was part of the bloodline beginning with Edmund. Other than that, we really got nothing new from this, so it's time to finally end our journey through this issue's numerous profiles and move on to our backup story!

Forgiven

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Josh D. Ray

So we haven't actually heard anything about Lupe and her pack for some time, but with every Robian's free will restored, she and her family are back to normal, albeit still roboticized. They've been staying in Knothole for the past few days, but now everyone is throwing them a going-away party as they plan to head back to their own homeland once more. Sonic goes into Uncle Chuck's lab to invite him to the party, but Chuck, seeming uncomfortable, uses the excuse that he's too busy to go right now. Sonic leaves, but a few minutes later returns… having brought the party with him. He seems pleased by his own genius, obviously not having noticed Chuck's mood, and while Chuck tries to smile for his nephew's benefit he's actually torn up inside at seeing everyone so happy.

Lupe notices his mood and follows him, claiming that she's noticed that he's been avoiding her and her entire family ever since they regained their free will. At first he attempts to deny it, but it becomes apparent that he's actually wracked with horrible guilt over it being he who roboticized them in the first place.

It's honestly so sad to see Chuck like this. He's a genuinely good person and a great character whose past decisions inadvertently led to some of the worst tragedies this world has seen, and he clearly blames himself for all of it, despite having no way of knowing how things would have turned out. He quietly says that all he truly wants is to be forgiven by those he's wronged… but while he and Lupe were talking, everyone else in the party has come out as well and overheard his last statement. Sally says to him that they can't do that unless he's willing to forgive himself first, and Lupe, determined to show him that no one blames him, announces that the celebration is no longer just about her family, but about honoring Chuck as well. He becomes overwhelmed with emotion and embraces her, thanking her profusely, as everyone cheers. Hopefully, this encounter will allow him to finally put some of that guilt to rest, poor guy. He's suffered enough.

[ketoabsolute-blog]

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[gracieminabox]

I hope its okay to ask this since your mostly a fandom blog but I saw something today on facebook about something called CPC's and that they arent actually even clinics at all. Is this true and if it is how can I know the difference between one of these places and a real pregnancy clinic?

This is a phenomenal and extremely important question, Nonie, and I’m super glad you asked it.

“CPC” stands for “crisis pregnancy center.” These are anti-abortion, usually religiously-affiliated organizations with a business model that is constructed on using whatever means possible to dissuade someone from having an abortion. CPC staff (many times just volunteers) perform limited ultrasounds - which are frequently inaccurate; I have stories, which I’ll detail below - and “counseling” which includes propaganda on various “dangers” of abortion. (In reality, the safety profile of abortion is exceptionally high - you run a 10-15x greater chance of complication with childbirth.) Many times these CPCs offer material assistance, e.g. diapers, if the pregnant person agrees to continue the pregnancy; rarely if ever do they actually come through. There is virtually never an actual physician on site. CPCs are also central participants in many abortion protests; many of the regular protesters outside our clinic are affiliated with a CPC in our area.

(Worse, in many states, CPCs are taxpayer-funded, and in most states, CPCs are not legally required to inform people that they do not provide abortions at their facility, further confusing the public.)

NOTE: There is exactly one exception in the country that I know of that is an exception to the rule of CPCs being absolute shitbags, and that is All Options Pregnancy Resource Center in Indiana. They are explicitly pro-choice and do actually provide unbiased counseling on pregnancy options, material assistance to people continuing their pregnancies, and financial assistance to those terminating. They are wonderful and do not deserve to be lumped in with the rest of these organizations.

How do you tell the difference between a CPC and a legit medical provider? Well, it’s hard as hell for a layperson to do, but I do have some tips.

-Look at the name. Obviously, if it explicitly says “crisis pregnancy center” in the name, run. Another frequently cited term is “pregnancy resource center.” Also, does the name sound religious? Is there a reference to god, life, or “heart” in it? It is almost certainly a CPC. (Also, “hope” is a frequently used word in naming a CPC - however, I know of one very wonderful small chain of clinics that use the term “hope” in their name, so that’s a guideline more than anything else.)

-What are the politics of your state? The redder you are, the more CPCs you have. In Texas, the CPC to legit abortion provider ratio is nearly nine to one. CPCs are crafty; they set up business where they know people are most vulnerable. Legit providers are more likely to be in urban areas. If your county is reasonably small, it is unlikely there is a provider in your county - approximately 88% of counties in the United States have no abortion providers at all - but it’s completely possible that you have a CPC in your county.

-Check the National Abortion Federation’s Find A Provider tool or abortion.com’s state by state directory of abortion providers. If they appear on there, they’re legit for sure. (Note: These directories do not include every single abortion provider in the country, so even if they’re not on here, it does not necessarily mean they’re not legit - this is more a “be reassured if they’re there, do more research if they’re not” tool.)

-Kick it old school and look in the yellow pages. CPCs will be listed under “Abortion Alternatives.” Legitimate medical providers will be listed under “Abortion Providers” or “Abortion Services.”

-If you’re looking at Planned Parenthood specifically, know that PP is always going to brand itself as such; it will never go by a different name.

-Check the website of the center. This is the website of a legitimate abortion provider. This is the website of a CPC. Note the difference in terminology; the use of the (medically inaccurate) term “unborn baby” is a huge red flag. Note, too, the discussion of “serious side effects and risks” - without context, without any discussion of the profound rarity of serious complications, and designed to scare the person reading it.

-Worst case scenario? Message me and ask; I’d be happy to look into it.

What kind of bullshit can CPCs pull? Allow me to elaborate.

-I had a prenatal patient who was a rape survivor who initially wanted abortion but was scared out of it by a CPC that promised to offer her material assistance if she continued the pregnancy. She did so, and after she gave birth, returned to the CPC asking for their help. They gave here a six-pack of diapers in a size her child could not even use plus a onesie that said “My Mommy Chose Life” on it. That was it. When she returned asking for additional assistance, she was refused.

-I was doing a pre-abortion ultrasound on a patient. After I assured her we were fine to proceed with her abortion, she asked me, “so, it’s a boy, right?” She was only six weeks pregnant; the absolute earliest I’ve been able to identify fetal sex on an ultrasound is about fourteen weeks. I told her it was far too early for that to be determined, that embryos don’t even have external genitalia at where she was in the pregnancy; she told me she’d gone to a CPC where they flipped the screen around and showed her the ultrasound and told her “that’s your son.”

-I was doing a pre-abortion ultrasound on a (different) patient. She requested to see the image, so after I got the measurements I needed, I turned the screen so she could see. She immediately panicked: “Where are its arms and legs?!” I explained that, at nine weeks, limb development is only rudimentary; arms and legs are rarely, if ever, identifiable on ultrasound. She told me she went to a CPC and was shown an image of a fetus with formed long bones that was moving on-screen - based on her description, it sounded like a 12+ week fetus.

-I mentioned above that a CPC is backing many of the protesters that stand outside our clinic every day and hurl abuse at my patients. They have a “mobile pregnancy van” that they park on the curb outside the clinic to try to lure patients inside. I am told that, inside, there is an ultrasound machine and a Catholic priest. At least four of my patients have been late to their appointments because they were confused by the presence of the van, went inside, and then were not allowed to leave, to the point of someone physically barricading the doors. (Which I think meets the legal definition of kidnapping, but none of my patients wanted to call the police - understandably so.)

-A CPC once learned where I lived (when I lived elsewhere) and I had literature about going to hell and blood on my hands and “we can help you escape!” (from working in abortion care) in my mailbox and on my car every goddamn day for two months until I involved law enforcement.

-A recent patient of mine went to a CPC. She had STI screening while she was there, which came back positive for chlamydia. The CPC refused to actually treat her. (I guess they thought it was just desserts for having sex…?) We had to treat her ourselves before her abortion.

-I have seen three patients told by a CPC they were pregnant when they were not. I have seen two patients told by a CPC that they had normal pregnancies, including an embryo/fetus with cardiac activity on ultrasound, who in reality had had, or were actively having, miscarriages. I have seen one patient told by a CPC that she had a normal pregnancy including an embryo with cardiac activity on ultrasound whose pregnancy was actually ectopic, requiring emergency surgery to save the patient’s life.

-There is also this excerpt from the phenomenal This Common Secret, a book written by Susan Wicklund, a now-retired abortion provider:

I had a patient in the clinic who really did not want an abortion but who had no resources to cover the costs of prenatal care or childbirth. She was single and without insurance coverage but made just enough money to be ineligible for state assistance. She already had outstanding bills at the hospital and with the local ob-gyn practice. No doctor would see her without payment up front.

We were willing to do the abortion for a reduced rate or for free if necessary. But she really didn’t want an abortion. Once I understood her situation, I went to the phone and called the local ‘crisis pregnancy center.’

“Hello, this is Dr. Wicklund.”

Dead silence. I might as well have said I was Satan.

“Hello?” I said again. “This is Dr. Wicklund.”

“Hello,” very tentatively, followed by another long silence.

“I need help with a patient,” I said. She came to me for an abortion, but really doesn’t want one. What she really needs is someone to do her prenatal care and birth for free.“

“What do you expect us to do?”

I let that hang for a minute.

Kinda says it all, doesn’t it?

Tl;dr - crisis pregnancy centers are fucking terrible businesses that are founded in their entirety on lying to people for the benefit of their own agenda. They do not provide legitimate medical care, they do not provide abortions, they do not provide prenatal care, they do not facilitate legal adoptions, they do not provide contraception, they do not do jack shit, other than shaming and lying to people. Under no circumstances should anyone ever be forced to encounter a CPC, but it can be very tricky to tell whether or not you’re dealing with one. I hope this helps clarify how you might try.

By all means, if you have other questions, please ask them. I will talk about this subject until I’m blue in the face.

[stunudo]

Green Thumb

A Criminal Minds Fan-fiction

Featuring: Spencer Reid x Male Reader              Setting: Season 10

A/N: Trying something new. Send me feedback as gently as possible. xoxo Stu

Your name: submit What is this?

There wasn’t much you wouldn’t do for your grandmother. So when she asked you to help clear the garden before the first frost set in, you promised you would. That was almost a month ago, now home from a long drawn out case with your team at the elite FBI branch, the BAU, you called Nana and confirmed you would be over this weekend to get the job done.

“Yes, Nana. I will bring gloves.” You smiled at her list of reminders.

“Are you going to bring that tall one with you?” Nana’s voice teasing over the blaring Price Is Right in the background.

“Nana, I’m sure Spencer has plans this weekend.” You mumbled into the phone, blushing.

“What was that, dear?”

“He’s probably busy, Nana.”

“That’s too bad. Maybe next time? I love watching you fall over yourself.”

“Nana, you stop it!” You laughed, the horror and amusement battling on your cheeks. “I love you, see you Saturday.”

“Bright and early, Y/N.”

“Yes, Nana.”

“That’s my boy. Bye now.”

You shook your head and tucked your phone back into your pocket. Your grandmother had a knack for picking up on emotions, especially those one tried to hide. Maybe that was genetic, maybe that helped you be such a great profiler. Either way you loved her and she loved to see you happy. Unfortunately, happy was fleeting, when your long time crush was also your co-worker. The renowned scholar, Dr. Spencer Reid.

The BAU team had become a second family to you since you were promoted from the Internal Affairs Branch. That had been an intense two years ago, time where you met and bonded with the families of your teammates. Early your first year when Spencer started secretly dating Maeve, you were the first one to notice the change in his mood. Only because you were always hyper-focused on him. That was a particularly rough time for you, not only was the object of your affections in love with someone else, but all too soon he was devastated by her death.

Watching your love grieve was torture, but you kept quiet, letting him work through the loss alone. You chalked up your feelings to typical gay guy falls for a straight friend, and you became determined to get over him. Then one day, it just happened. Casual conversation while on a case and suddenly you were given the impression that Spencer had had feelings for men in the past. That dangerous spark of hope had reignited.

“Mrs. Y/L/N? Hi sweetie!” Garcia’s chipper voice squealed into the phone. Spencer was surprised to hear Y/N’s grandmother calling Garcia and not Y/N directly.

“Help? Sure, doll, what do you need?” Garcia continued. “Are you sure? I’m pretty sure Morgan would be more than willing to help Y/N with any yard work.”

Garcia put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone, “Hey Reid, are you busy this weekend? Little old Mrs. Y/L/N is having Y/N do some things around her yard and she was hoping you would come over and help him.”

“Me?” Spencer was speculative, picking at his lunch on the break room table. “Are you sure?”

“Yep, she asked for the tall, pretty one.” Garcia grinned through her giggles.

Now Spencer was really confused, “What time should I be there?” Garcia turned back to the call. “Oh, and should I bring anything along? Like tools.”

Garcia rolled her eyes, “I’m sure you just show up, Reid.”

You had a long day ahead of you, you tossed in your earbuds and got to hauling all the dead branches and vines from your Nana’s vegetable patch first. After about an hour, you realized that Nana had gone back inside. You shrugged it off, she needed more rest than your youthful body did. Then suddenly he appeared, you wiped the sweat from your forehead with your wrist and stood up.

“What are you doing here, Reid?” You asked, slightly out of breathe. He stood there, uncertainly shifting on the grass. His hands were in the pockets of a pair of jeans. Never had you seen him wear jeans, not even on a night out with the team. They hung low on his narrow hips, you forced your eyes back to his twisted lips.

Removing the earbuds, you could finally hear him clearly. “Your grandmother called Garcia and asked that I help out? I’m not really sure what to do, but she seemed pretty insistent that she wanted me to come. And not, you know, Morgan or somebody?”

You laughed at the implications. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry Reid. That’s my wacky Nana, she thinks she is funny. I’m good, man. If you have somewhere you need to be. I totally get it. This really isn’t your thing.”

He glanced around the yard for a bit before answering. “I’m here already, why don’t I just give you a hand?”

You were impressed, Spencer wasn’t one to get dirty. You took in now that he wore a long sleeved tee shirt, faded words along the front, something about “mathlete”. He was adorable in his nerdiness. You gave in, let your Nana win, for now.

“Alright, grab some gloves, these vines are brutal.” And so you began explaining what to pull, what to leave allowing the morning to pass quickly. Spencer was known for his awkwardness, but he seemed to be struggling more than usual. With the unseasonable weather, you removed your sweat drenched shirt before Nana came waddling out beckoning you both inside for lunch.

Spencer had not been so physically exhausted since Morgan tricked he and Garcia into training for physical assessments. No wonder Y/N’s arms were so defined, he spent nearly every free weekend helping his grandmother with one thing or another. Spencer’s long hair clung to his face, walking into the decorative kitchen he paused at the sink to clean up before lunch.

“Y/N, I’ve got some spare shirts in the guest room. Don’t come to my table naked, young man.”

Y/N’s signature grin flashed at the old woman, “Yes, Nana.” And he strolled into the recesses of the old farm house.

“He’s quite handsome, isn’t he?” Mrs. Y/L/N asked Spencer, lingering for an answer.

“Yes, I suppose so. His facial proportions are indicative of the golden ratio.” The older woman’s politely nodding head told Spencer she didn’t understand. He improvised. “How long have you been gardening, Mrs. Y/L/N?” Spencer tried to change the subject from Y/N’s appearance, especially since it had been running through his mind all morning.

“My whole life, I was a toddler snatching tomatoes from my parents’ farm nearly eighty years ago.” She smiled with the nostalgia. “Times change, I’m just lucky that I have been around long enough for people to feel safe being honest about who they are.” Her words were heavy, she eyed Spencer slyly. She sat down plates around the square Formica table.

“Ay, Nana, it smells amazing!” Y/N was back, with a dark flannel button down, it brought out the color of his eyes nicely, Spencer noticed. Mrs. Y/L/N caught the faint blush on the doctor’s defined cheeks. She didn’t hide the smug look throughout the rest of the meal.

“Do you mind giving me a ride home?” Spencer’s voice caught you off guard, he appeared suddenly beside you next to the burn pile. You jumped back, barely catching yourself on Spencer’s arm before falling. His large hand caught your back, breaking your fall entirely. The look of surprise on his face, mirrored on your own. Spencer Reid had caught you, then the moment was over and you both fell. Luckily it was away from the smoldering pile of mulch and branches.

You rolled over, unable to contain the laughter any longer. Spencer looked devastated, it muffled your guffaw instantly. “Hey, are you okay?”

“What? Yeah, I’m fine.” He sat up, resting his forearms on his peaked knees.

“Reid? Those were some pretty slick reflexes.” You tried to be sweet, sensing his insecurity.

“Yeah right, Y/L/N. You, we, still fell.”

You shrugged it off, standing once more. You held out your hand to the brooding genius. His dark eyes were relaxing, he took your offered help. When he stood, he didn’t let go, he looked you square in the eyes and blinked.

Spencer was flustered, the whole scene replaying in his mind as he locked onto Y/N’s bright, caring eyes. His palm was warm to the touch, both men still sweaty from effort. He didn’t know why he held Y/N to him until their lips were crashing together. Y/N’s arms encasing Spencer’s shoulders as he deepened the kiss. The cracking of the fire and the far off birds the only accompaniment to their gasps and heartbeats.

Spencer’s hands cupped Y/N’s face, while Y/N’s hand found Spencer’s long hair. The fingertips gently massaging through the tangles, it was so soothing. Y/N bit Spencer’s lip ever so slightly before pulling back from the kiss.

“I have thought about doing that for so long…” Y/N trailed off, shaking his head. Spencer brought Y/N’s chin up to look in his eyes once more.

“What stopped you?” Spencer asked, always curious.

“Would you like an itemized list?” Y/N grinned, slipping in little pecks between banter. Spencer enjoyed the feeling of Y/N’s forceful kisses, his hands roaming over Spencer’s lean frame.

“Wait, Y/N?” Spencer’s voice caught in his throat. Y/N pulled back, eyes hooded in concern. “How long? Um, how long have you felt this way?” His right thumb gently stroking Y/N’s jaw, while his left hand felt the thumping of his heart through his flannel-clad chest. Spencer was oddly comfortable being the submissive, yet taller kissee.

“Don’t freak out on me, Reid.” Y/N grinned, but his face relaxed into a confession. “Since the second case I worked with the team. Listening to you explain navigational programming fine print… I went to sleep dreaming of your voice.” His words just above a whisper, Spencer remembered the case well. He also remember thinking Y/N was a bit quiet. His face burned with the shame of the unknown, the time lost in his obliviousness.

“Hey now, did I say something wrong?” Y/N’s words were strained.

Spencer, for once didn’t answer, he just kissed Y/N again.

An hour later Spencer and you had arrived at his place, exhausted and filthy from the hours of labor and the slight roll around in the dirt. Nana had sent you home with a plateful of brownies and a know-it-all grin. That woman was amazing, annoying as a Yorkie, but amazing all the same. You had spent enough time with Spencer to know the lay out of his place.

You made yourself comfortable while Spencer showered and changed into his traditional absent-minded professor chic. This time he found a delicate purple button up to go with his navy sweater. His damp hair just starting to curl dry. His eyes sparkled when he saw you, your breath caught in your chest. You were in trouble.

The twenty minute drive to your place was filled with awkward silence, Spencer interjecting facts and then trailing off uncharacteristically mid-sentence. His soap filled the air along the ride, reminding you of his freshly cleaned body. The images burning through your mind as you shifted in your seat to accommodate the unasked for desire building within you.

Spencer carried in the tray of dessert while you fumbled with the keys in the rusted old lock of your loft. By the time you had both taken off your jackets and set Nana’s brownies on the counter,  your lips had reattached to Spencer’s neck. He hummed in pleasure as his fingers scraped up your back. There was something serenely poetic about the moans that Spencer made as your searching hand found his growing arousal.

“Look whose packing,” You tease gently in his ear. “Dr. Spencer Reid, impressive in all arenas.” He kissed you fiercely, his pink lips leaving yours in the dust, trying to keep up with the assault. He nearly clawed off your borrowed shirt, the beading sweat reminding you of your unclean body.

“Spencer, I should, probably, , shower.” You tried convincing him and yourself. Somehow he was backing you into the bathroom, without so much as a flutter of those intoxicating eyelids. His hand held you between the shoulder blades as the other futzed with the bathroom doorknob. You felt yourself melting into him.

This wasn’t like him, Spencer didn’t know what possessed him to overtake the make out session. But the compliments fed his ego in a way he hadn’t felt outside of profiling or academia. Y/N’s bathroom was tiny, barely any standing space between the shower, the sink and the toilet. Reality settled in, Spencer pulled back, leaving Y/N and he heaving for breath.

“The Greeks were the first to utilize showers, though Roman baths are arguably more well known.” Spencer spit out, like usual a relevant, yet unnecessary fact.

“Are you asking to shower with me, Re-Spencer?” Y/N’s eyebrows perched in anticipation.

“Uh, no, unfortunately I don’t think I can manage about in the limited space, you have.” Spencer fumbled for words. “I mean, in the shower, as it is only a stall.” His face burned.

Y/N’s eyes danced in amusement, he leaned in and kissed Spencer gently. His rough palm, caressing the flush of Spencer’s cheek. “We’ll manage just fine.” Spencer’s mind running from the images of Y/N’s nakedness, attempting to stave his thoughts for the duration of the ritual. “Give me ten minutes, make yourself at home.” He grinned, stepping back to close the door in Spencer’s overwhelmed face.

613 seconds later…

Y/N sauntered out of the shower with a waist high towel cinched in his fist, Spencer gulped. In the time apart, he had dissected their entire professional and personal relationship. In the years working together Spencer had been distracted from the obvious affections of this generous man. The idea that Y/N and he were embarking on something much bigger than a weekend fling was apparent in Y/N’s gentle whispers as well as his adoring hands.

The give and take, the intense efforts after the day of labor, baring their devotion to each other. Spencer sighed as Y/N’s head fell on to his chest. The five o’clock shadow barely a tickle on his pale flesh. Spencer peeked down at the shining eyes of his lover and colleague, his face nearly comical with focus.

“Today was… amazing, Y/N.” Spencer confided.

“Yeah, well, Nana always had a way of spoiling me.” Y/N laughed, trailing kisses up to Spencer’s amused mouth.

@gubl-oser @starbucksreid @dontshootmespence @imagicana

[prorevenge]

Collectibles scammer now collects bad reviews.

This may get long but I will do my best to reign my ramble-y self in. (tl;dr at the end)

Names faces and some details have been changed to protect the innocent and prevent more harassment.

My little brother(in-law...known from here out as LB) told me about a decent sized FB group devoted to a type of collectible we are both into. I join the group and he tells me about this great deal he took part in. The group has sponsored vendors a.k.a. people who throw a few bucks at the group's mod and they get a shiny star saying everyone should trust them...keyword should.

That stated, LB tells me about a particular vendor who was running this deal..read scam. Another bit of pertinent info. These collectibles, there are common ones and rare ones. The rare ones are worth many times more than the commons and are generally available to the public. The company puts out the rares at a set ratio like 1 in 20 on the shelves will be a rare but for the same retail price as the commons. Although some store will grab it and jack the price up to make up for the price of the commons which don't sell as quickly. That all being said this vendor was offering a type of gamble, they would show a picture of a dozen or more of the collectible but with many more of the rares than would normally exist with that many commons. All you have to do is pay a price that is higher than the retail for the commons and you have way better odds at getting a rare one. My LB thought he was slick and got around 3-4 from the person playing the odds that he should get at least one rare for less than the book value/ebay cost. Immediately my bullshit meter goes off. Quick math says when all his merch sells (which they stated needs to happen before they ship anything out...odd)it goes for way under book value in a group of nothing but people marking things up to make an immediate profit. As in some of these collectibles come out and after costing around $15-20$ they get a day 1 book value of 200+...so there is some real profit to be made...but not this guy. Also, he is selling these deals to minors.

So, I go look up the post and the vendor, no exaggeration, sells out his stock in just under 30 mins of posting almost $2k worth of inventory. Seeing that I almost reconsider that I might have jumped to the wrong conclusion, thinking that a scammer would get called out really quickly in a community like this. So I posted a very polite question asking what proof we get that they ship out the rares and not just commons. Immediately they start giving me shit saying I am ruining the "good times" everyone is having with his "sale". Also, they have done this repeatedly and have sent out tons of rares I just have to search all the happy customers posting pics in the group. I'm now thinking shit I messed up. Off I go to look at all these pictures. Magically, there is only 1 pic of all the dozens of rares they claim to have sent out and wouldn't you just know it was the cheapest rare available at the moment. So now I know something's up and I'm pissed they took my LB's $$ for what will be effectively over priced commons when they sell for way under retail from multiple large sources.

Overnight things blow up on FB the vendor gets a buddy or two to start messaging me teling me the commons they got are great(wut?) and I need to fuck off and stop ruining the fun and good times for everyone...wtf? They kept using that as the main attack on me...apparently asking for what is promised is no fun for anyone. Asshole start then asking me to take down the questions I asked and then offers me a rare just to shut up and go away. I decline the offer then he tells me I need to take it down or the cops will be called and I will be removed form the group...that pushed me over the edge.

Now I was on a mission. So I start googling the company. First thing I find is a negative review that is buried by replies from the owner and his friends and partner. Slamming this kid for complaining about them charging a 30% re-shelfing fee for shipping him a damaged item in an undamaged box. Unluckily for the owner of this company I'm a stay-at-home Dad with odd hours of free time. I basically became a semi-pro reviewer in my free time. I have some special crap with Amazon because my reviews have been liked so often? They also sent me some kind of offer with Amazon Next Generation? So my reviews seem to hold some weight with them, Google too. I got in the beta of Google Guides. The service where you review anything and everything and get points, last time I checked I was lvl 7+ due to a couple bored slightly buzzed nights out and about leading to some stupid but popular reviews. Now that you all believe I am a big man of the interwebs.../s let me show you how I put those finger muscles to use.

Basically I just searched for everywhere you could review his company and didn't leave a negative review(1 star of course) but one with screen shots asking Hmm is this legt, what do you think? The majority of them blew up. Also contacted Amazon with the same screenshots asking if they were interested in knowing a vendor was self reviewing their own business w/o listing they are an owner (big no no on Amazon) and are running gambling offers to minors (another big no no in their particular state). Now I have the top half dozen posts when you Google this person's company, with almost daily replies of more and more people coming out of the woodwork calling this company out. Seventy-two hours later they are no longer on Amazon. Thier business had started out with a 4.75 start rating average, now it's 2... They did get me kicked from the group, but an alt account magically got the word and reviews out to the rest of the group, who's numbers have dropped post this. Wonder why. I am quite okay with not being in a scammer supported FB group TY.

Also I will update this later on today, as LB is suppose to be recieving his stuff, wonder what it will be....ha ha ha.

TL;DR - asshole tries to rip-off kids with a gambling scam, gets left a ton of bad reviews gets kicked off Amazon.

(source) (story by StendhalSyndrome)

[defunctblogtobedeleted]

8/28/19 8:09pm - Meanwhile, In Real Time (basically all of aug ‘19)

So today I only have one patient for the first time in like half a year. I guess it makes sense since it’s the end of august and insurance policies are starting to roll over. After so many busy weeks of work it’s really exciting though.

And it couldn’t have happened at a better time. For one I’m pretty excited to get writing and catching up on this past year. But for TWO, World of Warcraft Classic just launched this week. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like it. Yknow I never played it before because I was worried how it would eat my life like Runescape did. But Spencer and a bunch of NC Melee peeps wanted me to play so I’m in there. Looks like my obsessions really have cycled in order.

[continued at 11:04pm after putting pts to bed]  Pokemon (first grade), Magic (third grade), Runescape (fourth grade), Halo/Gears (7th-9th), Guitar Hero (8th-10th), Quiz Bowl (11th&12th) , Ultimate Frisbee (12th-soph), League of Legends (soph-senior), Melee (senior-last year). I have a kind of filthy habit of playing so much that it’s debilitating and then finally breaking out of it only to move on to doing the same thing with something else.

Since quitting melee I’ve gotten obsessed with Pokemon and Magic, so it looks like getting into WoW was inevitable. 

Just kidding, an unscheduled 2nd patient showed up and it turns out he’s actually supposed to be here so I’m not QUITE so free as all that, but it’s still not 3 patients, 2 is totally easy for me now.

Lol I took this screenshot when I got in to the office 

as of now I’m all caught up with work and I’ve still got 133 minutes to go, so looks like I have plenty of time to write for a second.

So what do I have to catch up on? well my days have been looking like weds-thurs-fri are always work, saturday I’ll stay up all day doing something, sunday I’m usually sleeping in, Monday I’m usually either playing DnD or chilling playing games, and Tuesday is a chill day until karaoke. 

The past two weekends have been kind of crazy though, so I just wanted to write about them for a minute before I got too far gone. 

Actually, let’s go back to 3 weekends ago. I visited Dars because I needed to, it’s been too long. I meant to write a lot more than I did, but instead I stayed up late into the night watching Andi draw shit on twitch. I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately, mostly trying to collect all my thoughts on what I want to write about, but I definitely miss her and hope she’s doing okay. I ‘accidentally’ responded to a question she asked when she was talking to herself on stream, I hadn’t meant to talk to her at all I just wanted to see her do her thing and reflect on her a little.  Really I wanted to watch her play breath of the wild. I miss us playing that together. Watching her enjoy something I enjoyed so much really made me happy. Anyway, I only bring that up because I tried to tune in again to actually watch her play BotW and found out she blocked me from her channel. I could still watch, which was nice, but I couldn’t say anything. Probably for the best. After watching her for a few hours I unfollowed her channel so I wouldn’t even try anymore.

Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.

I did that song at karaoke last night. I practiced in the bathroom and the car beforehand and was nailing it I thought. But I got up on stage and I was thinking of you and I bombed it. I haven’t bombed a song so hard since the time I tried to sing you I Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing when I was in drunk-screaming mode, or the first time I tried to do MakeDamnSure. And those were when I was drunk. This I like just tried to get to the high notes and on stage I just couldn’t. My voice kind of broke. I cleared the crowd. It was humiliating, to be honest. I don’t know if I was tired from playing 12 hours of WoW with spencer yesterday (amazing, btw. I had a ton of fun), or if I was thinking of you too much, or if I was actually just floundering from making the first mistake (which doesn’t quite make sense because I’ve made mistakes and then fixed them easily in plenty of songs before). But it was awful.  I got to hang out with some friends for a bit, sang The Hand That Feeds and did excellently at it, got some good cheers and shit, but I still felt like ass. Went home and played some melee and some more WoW and stayed up until 6am and slept 12 hours lmao.

So I had an avocado for dinner and now here I am. I’ve been doing more fasting days lately where I eat really light. They’re not true fasting days because usually I eat a bunch of nuts or something. But I don’t eat a big meal like I normally do once a day. Also I wanted to go back to Darlin’s because we watched zoolander, and at one point he says “bulimia is a great way to lose pounds before a shoot” and I was like “oh yeah, true.” lol so now if someone makes me eat a bunch of ice cream with them (darlin and jill), then I’ll do it and throw it up after -_-. Not the healthiest but I’ve only done it on like two or three occasions. I’m mostly being good. Only exercising once a week lately though, WoW kinda blew up everything this week and I’ve been hella busy lol. 

Okay so week after Darlin’s, I made some new friends at karaoke that my buddy Skyler introduced me to there. I drove up to Virginia on Saturday to do Quarry Fest that tessa and her boyfriend had planned out on his property. It was fucking phenomenal. Spent the day day drinking and swimming, it was gorgeous out, beautiful people in swimsuits everywhere, made a whole bunch of new friends who loved me because they already loved tessa, saw a handful of old high school friends. I really got strong attraction vibes from my friend Emily, but she was there with a new boyfriend so ah well such a shame for her lmao. Stayed up until like 4 in the morning talking with people around a big bonfire, it was just like a fun old rappahannock field party where everyone knew everyone at least by a removal factor of one. Such a beautiful time. I fucking drunkenly danced my ass off all night while these live musicians and djs were on. Just phish style sway jammed out in the sand, made my legs fucking exhausted lol. Moving in sand is so fucking hard! I’d get a drink, chug it down, spin around drunkenly jam around for a bit, sober up, get a new drink, rinse and repeat lmao. The Diet Dr Pepper and white rum idea later in the night was miserable though. FUCK diet drinks they’re not adequate mixers. holy blegh. plus the rum was hot as balls I need to find a new kind of liquor to keep in my trunk. The best idea I’ve heard from people so far is sake. I loved Tessa’s boyfriend’s family too. The one little brother had the same supreme cheetah print that I had on except he had the boxers, we really hit it off actually. After sleeping in my car for the night I woke up and went skinny dipping for like an hour or so, I spent a lot of the next morning talking to him and his girlfriend, mostly entertaining her with the weird stories that I tell on here. She said I was probably the craziest person she’d ever met, and wished that I lived closer so that she could hook me up with her sister. She said she needed to try someone fun like me out LMAO. Then their family made a huge breakfast at their house and I got to pig out on some lox and chit chat with tessa about shit before heading back to Raleigh.

That’s right, I went there and came back for just a day because I needed to be back the next night for Emo Karaoke LOL. There’s no way I was gonna miss it, it’s only once a month. 

It was the craziest thing though. My friends caitlin and gretchen came to emo karaoke but it hadn’t started yet because of an open mic poetry night, so they split to go to Ruby’s annual No Pants Party and told me to meet up with them if I wanted to. I was the first person to sing, I did The Used and it went fantastically. I met this guy morgan and his girlfriend elizabeth I think, and she emailed me a video of it lol I love it. I also sang backup vocals for him on MakeDamnSure, I was so happy that he asked me, I’ve literally practiced doing the backup singing just in case someone ever did hahaha. But after my song this girl walks up to me and says “did you go to chapel hill? Do you remember who I am?” I look at her and it’s none other than fucking LEXI. Like huge crush in college Lexi. Like written about her at least a handful of times at LEAST Lexi. Like I named my fucking CAR after you Lexi. So I was like “HOLY SHIT YES” oh my god and caught up with her and I’m 90% sure she was there with another guy, but I got to meet her friends and chit chat and I screamed my fucking throat out that night. My voice was already toasty from singing in the car all the way up and back from virginia but after that it was torched lmao. I also did The Used+MCR’s Under Pressure with my friend from there Kenny, got some chick’s number, and the list was full so I dipped after that.

Went to the no pants party and it wasn’t super crazy, but I got some beautiful pics lol. Caitlin helped me tie up my shirt super cute, I wore it as a blouse and as an ascot hahaha. But hanging with them at the no pants party mostly got me to this afterparty at a friend’s place downtown.  I had rum and bought some coke that we threw in the freezer, but instead of mixing the coke and rum me and Jacob had this great idea to mix the rum with freezie pops to see if it was any good. Did like 3 shots testing it out to see if the ratio could work. Mostly it tasted like a bad slushie lol. Went to the porch to smoke a cig and people started passing some coke around so I did a little of that, and started having this long ass conversation with this girl MJ. We hit it off for like literally an hour on the porch at 4 in the morning. We talked about pokemon and tons of nerdy video game shit, and it turns out she had been at karaoke that week, I had already listened to her singing! I got her number and have since tried to hit her up a few times to hang out. She’s always responded to all of my texts IMMEDIATELY. like within the minute fast. It’s weird. But unfortunately either because she’s not actually interested or because she’s truly been too busy, I haven’t been able to meet up with her to do anything. I guess we’ll see if that ever develops, but I think she was really cool. I really hope I at least get to make a pass at her.  After that I brought gretchen back to my place to hang out. Didn’t try to hook up with her or anything, but we just wanted to chill and do some blow that I had leftover and wanted to get rid of. Did some talking about some fucked up shit going on with some of her friends dying, but it was mostly in the context of her wanting to go back to the party to try to find an adderall on the ground when we ran out of shit. At like 8 in the morning we drove around to pick up some shit, but nobody was awake, she gave me half an adderall to try to help me stay up but after I popped it I still took a nap in the car while we waited so I was like yeah nah I’m tapping out. After driving to virginia and back and having two late party nights I was fucking spent and didn’t want to miss my appointment to drop my car off for repairs. Honestly though, I have no fucking idea what Brandon saw in her that made him so coocoo for her. She seems like your typical party hardy everything-sucks kind of girl. I don’t think I’ve heard her say a positive thing about...anything. She’s always shit talking or talking down about life or saying she wants to go somewhere else that’s cooler, or that older parties were more fun or some shit. Meh. Luckily I’m not the one tryna bang her, and Caitlin totally balances her out with how smiley and happy she is when I hang out with them. Her and Jacob are cute as fuck too. 

But I DID end up making it to my appointment. My car is almost done being fixed!!

Then I had a board game night that monday, me and Trent and Steven played some of this train game called snowdonia and I narrowly lost. Steven almost always beats me, that fucker lol. I really respect how smart he is about magic and game theory in general tbh.

Last week there was karaoke and work. At karaoke I found out this really cute smiley girl Hannah (a friend/coworker of my lesbian couple friends) is getting a divorce from her husband (she’s like 24), and so thattt’s pretty interesting. I don’t wanna make moves because she’s wonderful and I don’t want to be a douche, but she’s like... still the happiest person I’ve ever met even in the midst of changing her entire life. I kinda wish I could go on a date with her just to find out more about her lol. Saturday I didn’t sleep so that I could go to my friend Helena’s place for her to dye and cut my hair. I really followed through on wanting it to look like Brad Pitt from Once Upon A Time In Hollywood like I decided when we saw it darlin’s lol. I really wanted to change my hair, I’m kind of sick of having bangs in my face and need to symbolically move on to doing something new. Then saturday afternoon/evening I got drunk as fuckkkk with broscious and irene for their housewarming party. First time getting really drunk with them it was so much fun! We played a drinking game while watching a glassblowing show where we drank every time they said glass or blew, so it was pretttty good hahaha. I probably overdid it with the threesome and trap jokes later with their friends when we got to the bar lol, but they seemed so innocent I had to fuck with them a little hahaha. Fell asleep on the floor of their living room at like 3 in the morning because someone else had dibs on the couch. Woke up at like 7am blegh, found out I lost my house key lol, went back to sleep at my place til noon, then went to play board games with steven trent and reyad again.  After that I went to boxcar to meet up with Maya, and she had brought a bunch of her coworkers and Rianne as usual, so it was a great time. We bounced from boxcar to Rianne’s place, got to drink with Ollie and played this weird frog golf game and we discussed whether Blonde or Channel Orange was the better Frank Ocean album. They ALL were fighting me that Channel Orange was just better in every way, but I still think Blonde is incredible. I offered to take Jill home to her place since she lives nearby, we got some mcdonalds and watched some american dad and had some great sex. and again the next morning, and again in the afternoon. So luckily that’s still working out, I thought it had fallen apart, but I’ll explain more on that later on when I finish playing catchup. I took her back to her car and we got some good ass ramen downtown.

We made tentative plans to hang out again the next day and maybe go thrifting and I spent the rest of monday playing Melee for a couple hours. But I woke up at 9am and started playing WoW with spencer, so when she hit me up that she was getting off work at like 3pm I was in the middle of a 6 hour bingefest playing WoW for the first time in my life. He told me I should keep playing with him so I didn’t fall behind and so I thought about it... and then I did lmao. I said that I was nerding out with my roommate and asked if she wanted to hang out after karaoke. She said yeah definitely but she might go to bed earlier than normal (~3) because she had to work a double. I hit her up at midnight to leave karaoke early after that embarrassment of a performance, but she never responded. I think she said she wanted to hang out so that she could blow me off too, tbh. But jokes on her, I got to play more melee until I could get through the login queue for WoW and got to play for another 3 hours. Perfect.

Though more sex would’ve been nice, for sure. 

Anyway, things are going wonderfully. I’m going to a big concert in raleigh in two weeks. Probably just nerding out this weekend since I mixed up my weekends and didn’t make plans. Helena dyed my hair with highlights to look like brad pitt, but I’m changing it to be totally blonde like Maya and Rianne want instead. They miss my old yellow hair lol and Oliver and everyone I’ve asked did too so I’m gonna try it out again. 

Definitely ready to move forward and try some new things. 

I’ve been thinking about Andi way too much the past two weeks. It sucks. I really want to talk to her. And give her her chair back. So I want to see her. But I know I’m feeling good with everything so really things are better off just moving on I guess. Maybe once I finally write my catchup posts about her I can stop thinking about her. But it’s made me procrastinate a lot, I’m like literally doing anything I can to not write these last handful of catchup posts...

But I promise I will soon. I need to do it. Maybe that’s what I’ll do saturday while I wait for the queue for WoW to thin out lmao. It’s currently 12:06 and I still have an estimated time of 13 minutes after trying to log in at 7:45 lol.

Also tryna cop some supreme clothes tomorrow. Wish me luck, I Really hope I can get this tiger print jacket and hat. Boutta drop a mint lol. Clothes are kinda fun. It’s nice not dressing like a hobo all the time, I guess. Mostly because it’s hot. Once it’s the right temperature to wear pajama pants again you better believvvve I’m gonna just get fancy sweatpants lmfao.

Anyway, queue’s finally done! holy shit yeah it’s only 12:15 Kappa. Gonna go play some WoW love you guys bye <3

[aboutearn]

It's worthwhile to examine Google's definition of Google AdSense and Click Fraud , before delving deeper into “AdSense Fraud” .  Google AdSense fraud is one of the diseases that plague the Ad Words advertisers. The AdSense program essentially allows website publishers/owners to sign up with Google, enabling them to display Google Ads on their sites. These publishers essentially act as “Google Partners”. The ads chosen by the Google bot for display are contextual and the ads are related to the contents of the publisher's website, more specifically that particular web page. The intent for Google is to capitalize on the traffic to these (in practice) niche sites and provide highly direct targeted traffic to the advertiser. A subset of the users of the Google Partner website, click on those ads and Google charges the advertiser per click. Google shares the booty with the website publisher but the revenue sharing ratio falls under Google's “undisclosed “criteria. While the exact amount can be reverse engineered, the take home lesson is that the final amount is proportional to Google's income from that click.  In theory it's a match made in heaven. The advertiser gets good ROI through targeted traffic, the publisher gets to monetize the traffic on their website and the web browser gets to buy that classic CD that he couldn't live without. Not to mention that Google gets a wad of cash. The gods of lucre smile beneficently on all.  Unfortunately, this happy façade hides blemishes. Severe ones. For all Google AdSense Publishers are not created equal. While (we daresay) many advertisers have a genuine website, providing a valuable or interesting service to the world wide community, there is a significant number of unscrupulous operators who are out there to prey on the advertisers. These creatures of the night (and we will explain later why we use that term), make websites for the express purpose of milking AdSense revenue.  This category of fraudsters deserves a taxonomy of its own, which we have developed (the other categories, click fraud and impression fraud are even bigger problems in some industries). In the interest of not being gender biased, we have alternated between genders. We hope that our lighthearted tone does not mask the revulsion that we feel towards these cheats.  Regressive Fraudster ( aka ClickMonkey ):  This guy is at the bottom of the food chain. Inspired by the riches of his neighbor Ms. Jones, who has been making more than ten grand a month in AdSense revenue, he plans a course of action. He “invests” in a clickbot software( a simple google search reveals many) and gets a list of anonymous proxy addresses. He then goes to register a few domains and hires someone off of elance to create a “network of sites”and “ click bot ” . He hopes that the interlinked sites will provide each some “link popularity” and increase his page rank. If only it were that simple! He then proceeds to use the 30 dollar clickbot to start clicking on the sites. Or he could click on them himself manually using the proxies. We don't call him click monkey for nothing. He clicks and clicks all the way to see his account getting banned. No banana for this monkey! His calls of despair to google fall on deaf ears. This person is likely to quit, but sometimes retries to get up the food chain, the Wanna -Be-Fraudster.  Wanna -Be Fraudster ( aka BOZO):  This girl searches for high paying keywords like “home loan equity” (current ad words rate: 45 dollar), or “web hosting” (ad words costing 20 dollar). She correctly guesses that the AdSense payout is proportional to what Google earns and therefore homes in on such words. Her strategy is to make a page with contents that are appropriate for the targeted high payout keyword. She moves ahead by clicking on the link multiple times and recruits friends and family to give them a click. Or ten!  Little does she know that Google has a 45 day inspection period before she get her nubby little fingers on that cash. With little to no knowledge of Click through Ratio , her greed couples with her ignorance. Seeing her ill-gotten paper wealth multiplying in her AdSense interface, she increases the clicks. Google however inspects the CTR and throws a fit when they see a CTR exceeding 20%. Furthermore, Google notices clicks mostly originating from a few IP addresses and that essentially seals her fate (or rather docks her earnings). That virtual cash is now just some deleted bytes on a hard disk on Google's servers. She moans, nay she rail against the cruelty of Google's policy. Some of these people wisely cease and desist such activities, perhaps philosophizing about the NFL (no free lunch) theorem. Others however see it as ground school for the next stage of nefarious behavior. The Almost-There Fraudster.  Almost-There Fraudster ( aka SmartAlec ):  The archetypical ATF is supremely confident in his ability to fool Google. Like the BOZO, he looks for high paying keywords and makes appropriate website(s). Let's assume that he is in a third world country, just to make the case more interesting. The case described here is 1 year old news. He has read this article and taken the learnt the subsequent lesson . He knows that that the clicks from the IP Addresses of USA, UK & Canada are worth much more than the clicks from the IP Addresses from the third world countries. He therefore seeks to befriend people from such IP addresses by logging onto messenger services.  This way, he gets the unique, unrelated IP clicks and (he hopes) that Google is fooled. Remember “creature of the night”. Well, these people typically are more than a few time zone removed from the US or Canada and therefore are up at odd hours whenever they feel that their targets are most likely to be active. Plus they sometimes have to deal with “inconveniences” like a day job.  AT fraud thinks that the clicks he obtained by trolling on these sites is a job well done. He has got clicks from the IP address of his choice .. An interesting factoid is that for AdSense, state also matters. Clicks from Washington and New York State have the highest payout for AdSense Fraud.  He has just one problem. His tragic flaw. While he worked so hard to get the unique IP and high earnings, he is not able to maintain a good CTR. He is likely to cross the limit of 30-40% of daily CTR and 10-20% of overall CTR. He ends up in the same purgatory as the BOZO. The account is banned, and he gets the abominated email. Yes, the “AdSense account closure”. Almost-There is never good enough in this nether world of AdSense gaming. Although it is possible that he would have made a few thousand dollars before the punishment catches up to his crime. Crime doesn't quite pay, now does it? Well, gentle reader, unfortunately crime _is_ paying to the next category. Fraudster Maestro ( aka Satan's Spawn).  Fraudster Maestro ( aka Satan's Spawn):  This category of fraudsters is the most sophisticated and rarely gets caught by google . She has researched the high paying keywords as well as the CTR issues well. She has the smoothest lines in the business of soliciting clicks. She can flirt online, and ask to click the “link” for her picture. Or she may claim that clicking the link causes the hungry child to be fed in Ethiopia . Let's follow a typical “simple” chat session:  US User : hello FM Fraud: what are your coordinates, handsome? US User : NY , NY FM Fraud: Oh! Wish I could be there. Can you help out a damsel in distress? US User : sure AT Fraud: I have made a site and want to see if all the links on this page are working or not. Can you please click on the links and see if the other page loads? US User: Sure. Link? FM Fraud:https://ift.tt/2DwoU6F US User : wait! Yes I checked all the links and they are working fine. FM Fraud: Thanks US User : so can we talk about you now? ( Message Not Delivered as the fraudster has blocked the User and is busy looking for a new victim) And she has lots of tricks up her repertoire besides chatting up strangers. She knows about opt in lists, usenet and blogs where she can snare the victims. Technically savvy and able to empathize with her victims she doesn't let arrogance get in her way to success. Since she is very mindful of the CTR issues she has a secret weapon. She has optimized her site for some low paying keywords which are really not competitive. She organically gets lots of traffic (but for things unrelated to those competitive high paying keywords). In her website, she may be giving away free greeting cards Or free screensavers. End result is a fabulous impression count. The second step for her is to makes unrelated pages on the same site and these pages pertain to the high paying keywords. These keywords are used to attract the victims of chat sessions. The process of getting the clicks is different but the results due to CTR are very lucrative.  So, how does all this geek talk affect the PPC advertiser? It's a 5 billion dollar+ dollar market(for exact projections onto the future, please check out our FAQ, and with a 20% + fraud rate, we are talking about a 1 BILLION dollars fraud per year. Even Dr. Evil may be impressed by such a number. It's greater than the cumulative GNP of a few banana republics. And a fair chunk is ending up in the coffers of these fraudsters. We know from anecdotal evidence, how people are clearing up to 20 grand a month. All, courtesy of the hapless PPC advertiser.  We want to emphasize that there are lots of authentic sites serving genuine content. But unfortunately the existence of these people (as discussed above) reduces the ROI of many advertisers to the extent that they rethink their interest in PPC. In the word of one of our organic SEO customers, with PPC “you always get a little less back than you put in”. It needn't be that way, if you watch carefully where your ad words traffic is coming from and take some steps (such as traffic analysis or at the very least a log file analysis) to protect arm yourself. Look for patterns, some of which are obvious(such as large traffic spikes from India). Unfortunately other patterns may require a doctorate in artificial intelligence. Still the keyword is to stay nimble. Convincing search engines to refund money is a lot tougher and a lot more work than proactively watching for problem visitors and taking steps that you deem appropriate. Before the situation goes out of hand. Remember, an ounce of prevention… We want to emphasize that there are lots of authentic sites serving genuine content. But unfortunately the existence of these people (as discussed above) reduces the ROI of many advertisers to the extent that they rethink their interest in PPC. In the word of one of our organic SEO customers, with PPC “you always get a little less back than you put in”. It needn't be that way, if you stay nimble. Convincing search engines to refund money is a lot tougher and a lot more work than proactively watching for problem visitors and taking steps that you deem appropriate.  Some things you can do to stay ahead of the game. This is by NO means an exhaustive list, but it's a start. It's sorted by the level of protection in ascending that you may need.  1> Let your visitors know that you are tracking them and know quite a bit about them. For instance, if you visit www.sofizar.com , you will see information about yourself. You can display this information to all your visitors, or only to some of them. It can be in-your-face or subtle, but it will remind at least some of the fraudsters that they are being watched. Sofizar provides free sample code and connection  to its database allowing you to display “premium” information(like City, ISP, ISP contact number).  2> Invest in a serious visitor tracking software. Set alarms based on the number of times a person clicks on your site in a certain time period(hourly, weekly, monthly). Display the same information to someone who is definitely PPCing your budget to death, as a custom message box. Something harsh, if the pattern keeps  up.  “We are logging the usage, and we are noticing that you keep clicking on our site through PPC. If you don't cease, we would be forced to call your local ISP at +91-23-344-5678”(if you see the information that we can glean about visitors, you will know we can get even more specific). This will weed some of the casual fraudsters.  3> Start checking for things that we have discussed earlier, by investing in an industrial strength data collection package. Based on your data collection, one strategy is to score each visitor, deducting(or adding points), based on the following (non exhaustive) list.  a. Visitor conversion/past conversion history.  b. Visit Depth Analysis.  c. Visit Time Analysis(time spent on each page, and time of day the visit happens).  d. Cookies/Javascript/”Unknown OS”  e. Keyword Cost analysis.  f. Anonymous Proxy Server  g. Is part of “Fraudster list”.  h. Country/Localization analysis(are you really targeting people in Sao Paolo , Brazil for your French Restaurant in New York ?).  4> Do pattern matching. See what your top 20% of your customers do as part of a “macro pattern” and match the visitor against that pattern.  Keep in  mind that you will get a few “false positives” and vice versa. A few innocent people may get tagged unfairly as “fraudsters” while a few “fraudsters” may well give you the slip. It's not an exact science, but over a period of time you can get fairly close. If you decide to take up your case with Google, you have to make a very convincing case. All based on meticulous data, instead of (what may be considered by them as) paranoia.  Over the long term, as the threat evolves and the  fraudsters improve, you have to keep adapting your strategy using your friends, diligent data collection, statistics and pattern matching.  If you have any further question, comments or want  us to give you a free evaluation if your PPC campaign  is a likely magnet for fraudsters, please email to: art@sofizar.com .  For more information about adsense fraud visit: https://ift.tt/2RO2MaL

[byolsen]

I used to count calories. It was part of my training as a dietitian – one of our homework assignments. It seemed everyone in my class was really good at it, like they had memorized the calorie content of a bunch of foods. I treated the project as more of an experiment. I mean, if this is what we’re supposed to have our patients do, I should be able to do it. The funny thing is, the more I counted calories, the less I was paying attention to the food in front of me. It was like looking at a spreadsheet on a plate. All you see is numbers. I’d choose the less tasty entree because it was lower in calories, even if it didn’t sound appealing. If I got hungry after the meal, I’d second guess myself. “But I ate 700 calories!? That should be enough!” It was like a battle between the calculator and my stomach. The calculations said I needed a certain amount of calories per day. If I went over, it was a “bad” day. If I went under, it was an excuse to eat junk food. I’d think to myself, “Well, these chocolates are only 90 calories…” I’ll admit, I failed miserably at counting calories and gave up within a few weeks. I never really enjoyed it and I felt restricted, like I was going to develop disordered eating. I questioned the accuracy of all the calculations. There are a number of formulas to choose from and they all give you different answers. I couldn’t memorize the nutrition facts like my classmates, and frankly, I got tired of feeling like I belonged in the remedial nutrition class. Now, I actively encourage my clients to stop counting calories and here’s why. 6 Reasons to Stop Counting Calories 1) Labels can lie. Seriously. Labeling laws allow a 20% margin of error on the nutrition facts panel. That means your 100-calorie snack pack could be 119 calories. Or that 500 calorie TV dinner could be nearly 600 calories. Legally. Ooops. “[T]he ratio between the amount obtained by laboratory analysis and the amount declared on the product label in the Nutrition Facts panel must be 120% or less, i.e., the label is considered to be out of compliance if the nutrient content of a composite of the product is greater than 20% above the value declared on the label.”  (FDA Guidance for Industry: Nutrition Labeling Manual) 2) Nutrients vary by season, variety, ripeness, etc. While it’s nice to have the nutrient analysis of foods, there is no way food companies or the USDA could analyze every variety of tomato from every region from every season from different growing conditions (i.e organic vs. conventional) and every other variable for nutrients, including calories. That super sweet summer tomato likely has more calories (and valuable nutrients) than that tasteless, pink one from the dead of winter. Which one would you rather eat? 3) “More calories equals weight gain” is not an exact science. If calorie counting worked long term, America would be the thinnest country in the world. We are a nation of compulsive dieters and you wouldn’t know it looking at us. Turns out the composition of what you’re eating is crucial to how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. The quality of the calories going in can affect the number of calories being burned off. – Dr. Ludwig, obesity researcher In a study comparing 3 diets: low-fat, low-glycemic, and low-carb, the people on the low carb diet burned 350 calories more than the low-fat diet. (JAMA, 2012) And yet, our nutrition guidelines recommend a low-calorie, low-fat diet.  Trouble is, when you focus on calories, you’re likely to eat less fat (since fat is more calorie-dense than carbohydrate and protein). And when you eat less fat, you’re likely to eat more carbohydrates. See the problem? If you’re happy eating tasteless, low-fat food, going hungry and not losing weight, by all means, count calories and cut fat out of your diet. 4) We don’t absorb all calories. It’s true! A study on almond consumption in humans found that up to 20% of the calories were not absorbed. (J Agric Food Chem, 2008) The exact reason is unknown, but possibly due to the “cellular structure” of nuts and the way our bodies digest food. I would speculate that we absorb a lot more calories from highly processed foods. Maybe that’s just me. Or maybe not. In summary, a calorie is not necessarily a calorie: given the functional differences between edible plants, interfamily and even interspecies differences must be considered when making comparisons between food processing techniques.  (Proc Natl Acad Sci, 2012) There’s also good evidence that our gut health (and gut bacteria) plays a role in how many calories we absorb from our food. (Amer J Clin Nutr, 2011) 5) Focusing on calories often means we restrict healthy foods. This especially happens when it comes to fat. We often omit higher fat foods simply because they are higher in calories without taking into consideration what benefits we might get from them, such as staying fuller for longer (hangry much?), absorbing antioxidants from vegetables, and getting necessary nutrients, like fat-soluble vitamins. (This is crucially important for pregnant women who may become deficient in key brain-building nutrients if they restrict fat.) I choose to fully ignore calorie labels, especially on real foods that are naturally high in fat such as meat, fish, eggs, cheese, butter, avocados, olives, nuts, and seeds. My body likes these foods, there are benefits to eating them, and I don’t need a calorie count to tell me otherwise. 6) Too much math. Honestly, I don’t have time or energy to calculate everything that goes into my mouth. That probably sounds odd, since my life’s work is helping people improve their health by eating better, but I firmly believe this can be done and is best done without counting. (And I have satisfied clients to prove it.) Counting calories is especially fruitless when you know #1-5. So now you might be wondering: If I think calorie counting is a such waste of time, what do I do instead? How do I prevent myself from eating too much? How do I stay at the same weight, year after year? (and help my clients do the same) My answer is simple. 11 things I do instead of counting calories: I listen to my body. I always eat when I’m hungry. (Here’s how to know if you’re truly hungry.) I eat foods that I’m actually in the mood to eat. I put my full attention on the meal in front of me. I notice the sensations in my body before, during, and after eating. I sit down when I eat. I chew every bite before taking another. I savor the flavors, texture, mouth feel, sounds, richness, crunchiness or softness, saltiness or sweetness. I make an effort to eat healthy foods and make an equal effort to eat the healthy foods that taste good to me. I sometimes choose to eat foods purely for the pleasure of eating them, even when they are not “healthy”. I sometimes choose to eat more food than is comfortable, either because the food tastes really good or because I know I wont have time to eat again for a while (such as during a busy work day). If this sounds like a breath of fresh air, I’m with you. Just putting this down on paper (or rather, in html) feels like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. I stopped feeling like a disobedient dietitian when I let go if this whole counting obsession. There’s a certain sense of freedom that comes from eating in the way we are meant to eat. It’s sustainable and enjoyable. It frees up so much time and energy to spend on things that actually matter to you. And in the process, your body will naturally find a healthy weight. It’s empowering to know that your body knows best. It validates all of those signals your body sends you moment to moment, even the urge to eat a little something extra at the end of a meal.

[frenchkisst]

“I am the absolute happiest I have ever been. Ever.”

For as long as Candace can remember, she struggled with her weight.

Prior to trying keto and finding Diet Doctor, Candace couldn’t lose “a single pound,” even when following the advice of medical professionals. Even worse, both her doctors and family members accused her of not being honest about what she was eating.

Fortunately for Candace, who lives in in Loveland, Colorado, her low-carb lifestyle helped her to realize that it wasn’t her who needed fixing, but rather, it was the foods she was eating.

Here, Candace shares her whole inspiring story — and explains how living low carb has made her the “happiest she’s ever been. Ever.” This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Candace’s story

I had always been obese. I began gaining large amounts of weight starting when I was just 9 years old. My doctors said I had Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS), and from then on, I was told to eat 1,200 calories a day to lose weight.

I consumed just four apples a day and drank only water. As crazy as it sounds, I never lost a single pound.

And so, when I was just 9, I went on an “apple diet.” I consumed just four apples a day and drank only water. As crazy as it sounds, I never lost a single pound.

Over the years, I tried almost every known diet, but nothing worked. In college, I hit almost 315 pounds (143 kilos). Even though I was severely obese, I was not an individual who stuffed myself with food. However, the “experts” I went to year after year labeled me as a closet eater.

One doctor, who I’d told about my apple diet, even went so far as to compare me to a patient of his, who would stop at five fast-food restaurants in a day — only to then tell him that all she ate were apples and crackers with peanut butter, he explained.

I was embarrassed and hurt. I left the doctor’s office feeling defeated and felt viewed as a liar.

My family always said it was impossible to be as large as I was without consuming copious amounts of food. I would later learn it was not the amount of food, but the types of food I was eating.

The truth is, most people viewed me as a liar and closet eater. My family always said it was impossible to be as large as I was without consuming copious amounts of food. I would later learn it was not the amount of food, but the types of food I was eating.

At 24, I found out I was pregnant. By this time, I was married and on my own, so it was joyous news. During my pregnancy, I lost almost 40 pounds (18 kilos) and after my son was born, I weighed 278 pounds (126 kilos).

This was a turning point. I will never forget how great I felt to be under 300 pounds (136 kilos) again. I wanted to keep losing weight and, at the time (15 years ago), the Atkins diet was popular. I stayed in “phase 1″of Atkins, which is the ketosis phase, until I got to about 180 pounds (82 kilos).

I had “cheat days” after I hit 180 pounds (82 kilos), but was happy with my weight. At least I wasn’t 315 pounds (143 kilos)!

My ex-husband hated the fact that I lost weight. He wanted me to be 315 pounds (143 kilos) or larger. He wasn’t supportive at all. He would bring home foods that would tempt me and make rude comments. I chose to stay true to myself and to prioritize my health — and ultimately decided to divorce him.

Years past, life moved on, and I had remarried. When I was 37, my current husband and I wanted children together. He had older kids from a previous relationship and I had my child, who was now a teenager. I got pregnant back to back and had two beautiful baby girls by age 39. I was now at 278 pounds (126 kilos) again.

However, this time around, I looked online for a support group or website and found Diet Doctor.

At this point, I knew keto and low carb worked for my body. And so, I immediately went back to this lifestyle after having my girls. However, this time around, I looked online for a support group or website and found Diet Doctor.

How Diet Doctor helped Candace

By reading the success stories of other Diet Doctor members, and through watching helpful online lectures and videos about low carb, I realized that I was someone who should not introduce sugar into my body.

Before, I would have “cheat days,” where I would eat a high-carb, high-sugar meal or treat. Every time I had a cheat day, it was a miserable uphill battle to get back on low carb — and my weight stalled at 180 pounds (82 kilos) while living with those “cheat days.”

I could not do the high-carb, sugar rollercoaster again — and ultimately, I knew one day my sugar cravings would win if I continued this battle of wills with sugar and my low-carb lifestyle.

Even though I was miserable for years getting on and off the sugar train, it was still extremely hard for me to make the decision to go “food sober” (aka, no more refined carbohydrates or sugar).

Even though I was miserable for years getting on and off the sugar train, it was still extremely hard for me to make the decision to go “food sober” (aka, no more refined carbohydrates or sugar).

It was a huge mental shift knowing that I would have to give up my favorite foods. However, after years of fighting the sugar beast, I knew I had to go food sober.

Candace’s newfound freedom

Now, I am the absolute happiest I have ever been. Ever. And not having sugar or refined carbohydrates in my life has been amazing, to say the least.

I don’t have any cravings or hunger issues. I don’t focus on food nonstop. I don’t worry about when to eat, what I will eat, and if I’m going to be hungry. I simply live my life.

Now that I’m living my best low-carb life, it is like a cloud has lifted. My skin is clear, I look younger, I am happier. The support I receive from the Diet Doctor website, as well as from other low-carb Facebook groups, has helped tremendously.

How Candace maintains her low-carb lifestyle

If I’m ever tempted to go back to my old ways of fighting off the sugar demon, support groups keep me in line.

When I first went low carb, I wish I would have known how much low-carb and keto individuals need support. Life is full of temptations, naysayers, and friends or family members, who will try to persuade you to go off course. “Just-this-time” people and “it-won’t-hurt-you” people are EVERYWHERE.

Support groups and websites like Diet Doctor are a major key to my success.

Hearing tips, reading success stories, and seeing before and after pictures revive my “willpower bucket.” Refilling my willpower bucket daily or weekly keeps me excited about this lifestyle.

We are our own little community and being a part of this community is special. Support groups and websites, like Diet Doctor, are a major key to my success.

Additionally, I have been a fitness instructor, personal trainer, and health coach for years. Recently, I changed the focus of my health coaching business to hone in on low-carb and keto. And, I just joined Instagram (@KetoCandace.WeightedSolutions) to help share my story with others.

We are worth being healthy and happy. I hope my story helps others.

When trying to succeed at living low-carb, it’s important to find your “whys” and stay dedicated to you and your life. We are worth being healthy and happy. I hope my story helps others.

More with Candace

Candace’s Instagram: KetoCandace.WeightedSolutions

Comment

Congrats on you success, Candace! And thanks for being proactive and using your knowledge and experience to help others. Hopefully you will help many others transform their lives as you did.

Best, / Dr. Bret Scher

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[aboutearn]

It's worthwhile to examine Google's definition of Google AdSense and Click Fraud , before delving deeper into “AdSense Fraud” .  Google AdSense fraud is one of the diseases that plague the Ad Words advertisers. The AdSense program essentially allows website publishers/owners to sign up with Google, enabling them to display Google Ads on their sites. These publishers essentially act as “Google Partners”. The ads chosen by the Google bot for display are contextual and the ads are related to the contents of the publisher's website, more specifically that particular web page. The intent for Google is to capitalize on the traffic to these (in practice) niche sites and provide highly direct targeted traffic to the advertiser. A subset of the users of the Google Partner website, click on those ads and Google charges the advertiser per click. Google shares the booty with the website publisher but the revenue sharing ratio falls under Google's “undisclosed “criteria. While the exact amount can be reverse engineered, the take home lesson is that the final amount is proportional to Google's income from that click.  In theory it's a match made in heaven. The advertiser gets good ROI through targeted traffic, the publisher gets to monetize the traffic on their website and the web browser gets to buy that classic CD that he couldn't live without. Not to mention that Google gets a wad of cash. The gods of lucre smile beneficently on all.  Unfortunately, this happy façade hides blemishes. Severe ones. For all Google AdSense Publishers are not created equal. While (we daresay) many advertisers have a genuine website, providing a valuable or interesting service to the world wide community, there is a significant number of unscrupulous operators who are out there to prey on the advertisers. These creatures of the night (and we will explain later why we use that term), make websites for the express purpose of milking AdSense revenue.  This category of fraudsters deserves a taxonomy of its own, which we have developed (the other categories, click fraud and impression fraud are even bigger problems in some industries). In the interest of not being gender biased, we have alternated between genders. We hope that our lighthearted tone does not mask the revulsion that we feel towards these cheats.  Regressive Fraudster ( aka ClickMonkey ):  This guy is at the bottom of the food chain. Inspired by the riches of his neighbor Ms. Jones, who has been making more than ten grand a month in AdSense revenue, he plans a course of action. He “invests” in a clickbot software( a simple google search reveals many) and gets a list of anonymous proxy addresses. He then goes to register a few domains and hires someone off of elance to create a “network of sites”and “ click bot ” . He hopes that the interlinked sites will provide each some “link popularity” and increase his page rank. If only it were that simple! He then proceeds to use the 30 dollar clickbot to start clicking on the sites. Or he could click on them himself manually using the proxies. We don't call him click monkey for nothing. He clicks and clicks all the way to see his account getting banned. No banana for this monkey! His calls of despair to google fall on deaf ears. This person is likely to quit, but sometimes retries to get up the food chain, the Wanna -Be-Fraudster.  Wanna -Be Fraudster ( aka BOZO):  This girl searches for high paying keywords like “home loan equity” (current ad words rate: 45 dollar), or “web hosting” (ad words costing 20 dollar). She correctly guesses that the AdSense payout is proportional to what Google earns and therefore homes in on such words. Her strategy is to make a page with contents that are appropriate for the targeted high payout keyword. She moves ahead by clicking on the link multiple times and recruits friends and family to give them a click. Or ten!  Little does she know that Google has a 45 day inspection period before she get her nubby little fingers on that cash. With little to no knowledge of Click through Ratio , her greed couples with her ignorance. Seeing her ill-gotten paper wealth multiplying in her AdSense interface, she increases the clicks. Google however inspects the CTR and throws a fit when they see a CTR exceeding 20%. Furthermore, Google notices clicks mostly originating from a few IP addresses and that essentially seals her fate (or rather docks her earnings). That virtual cash is now just some deleted bytes on a hard disk on Google's servers. She moans, nay she rail against the cruelty of Google's policy. Some of these people wisely cease and desist such activities, perhaps philosophizing about the NFL (no free lunch) theorem. Others however see it as ground school for the next stage of nefarious behavior. The Almost-There Fraudster.  Almost-There Fraudster ( aka SmartAlec ):  The archetypical ATF is supremely confident in his ability to fool Google. Like the BOZO, he looks for high paying keywords and makes appropriate website(s). Let's assume that he is in a third world country, just to make the case more interesting. The case described here is 1 year old news. He has read this article and taken the learnt the subsequent lesson . He knows that that the clicks from the IP Addresses of USA, UK & Canada are worth much more than the clicks from the IP Addresses from the third world countries. He therefore seeks to befriend people from such IP addresses by logging onto messenger services.  This way, he gets the unique, unrelated IP clicks and (he hopes) that Google is fooled. Remember “creature of the night”. Well, these people typically are more than a few time zone removed from the US or Canada and therefore are up at odd hours whenever they feel that their targets are most likely to be active. Plus they sometimes have to deal with “inconveniences” like a day job.  AT fraud thinks that the clicks he obtained by trolling on these sites is a job well done. He has got clicks from the IP address of his choice .. An interesting factoid is that for AdSense, state also matters. Clicks from Washington and New York State have the highest payout for AdSense Fraud.  He has just one problem. His tragic flaw. While he worked so hard to get the unique IP and high earnings, he is not able to maintain a good CTR. He is likely to cross the limit of 30-40% of daily CTR and 10-20% of overall CTR. He ends up in the same purgatory as the BOZO. The account is banned, and he gets the abominated email. Yes, the “AdSense account closure”. Almost-There is never good enough in this nether world of AdSense gaming. Although it is possible that he would have made a few thousand dollars before the punishment catches up to his crime. Crime doesn't quite pay, now does it? Well, gentle reader, unfortunately crime _is_ paying to the next category. Fraudster Maestro ( aka Satan's Spawn).  Fraudster Maestro ( aka Satan's Spawn):  This category of fraudsters is the most sophisticated and rarely gets caught by google . She has researched the high paying keywords as well as the CTR issues well. She has the smoothest lines in the business of soliciting clicks. She can flirt online, and ask to click the “link” for her picture. Or she may claim that clicking the link causes the hungry child to be fed in Ethiopia . Let's follow a typical “simple” chat session:  US User : hello FM Fraud: what are your coordinates, handsome? US User : NY , NY FM Fraud: Oh! Wish I could be there. Can you help out a damsel in distress? US User : sure AT Fraud: I have made a site and want to see if all the links on this page are working or not. Can you please click on the links and see if the other page loads? US User: Sure. Link? FM Fraud:https://ift.tt/2DwoU6F US User : wait! Yes I checked all the links and they are working fine. FM Fraud: Thanks US User : so can we talk about you now? ( Message Not Delivered as the fraudster has blocked the User and is busy looking for a new victim) And she has lots of tricks up her repertoire besides chatting up strangers. She knows about opt in lists, usenet and blogs where she can snare the victims. Technically savvy and able to empathize with her victims she doesn't let arrogance get in her way to success. Since she is very mindful of the CTR issues she has a secret weapon. She has optimized her site for some low paying keywords which are really not competitive. She organically gets lots of traffic (but for things unrelated to those competitive high paying keywords). In her website, she may be giving away free greeting cards Or free screensavers. End result is a fabulous impression count. The second step for her is to makes unrelated pages on the same site and these pages pertain to the high paying keywords. These keywords are used to attract the victims of chat sessions. The process of getting the clicks is different but the results due to CTR are very lucrative.  So, how does all this geek talk affect the PPC advertiser? It's a 5 billion dollar+ dollar market(for exact projections onto the future, please check out our FAQ, and with a 20% + fraud rate, we are talking about a 1 BILLION dollars fraud per year. Even Dr. Evil may be impressed by such a number. It's greater than the cumulative GNP of a few banana republics. And a fair chunk is ending up in the coffers of these fraudsters. We know from anecdotal evidence, how people are clearing up to 20 grand a month. All, courtesy of the hapless PPC advertiser.  We want to emphasize that there are lots of authentic sites serving genuine content. But unfortunately the existence of these people (as discussed above) reduces the ROI of many advertisers to the extent that they rethink their interest in PPC. In the word of one of our organic SEO customers, with PPC “you always get a little less back than you put in”. It needn't be that way, if you watch carefully where your ad words traffic is coming from and take some steps (such as traffic analysis or at the very least a log file analysis) to protect arm yourself. Look for patterns, some of which are obvious(such as large traffic spikes from India). Unfortunately other patterns may require a doctorate in artificial intelligence. Still the keyword is to stay nimble. Convincing search engines to refund money is a lot tougher and a lot more work than proactively watching for problem visitors and taking steps that you deem appropriate. Before the situation goes out of hand. Remember, an ounce of prevention… We want to emphasize that there are lots of authentic sites serving genuine content. But unfortunately the existence of these people (as discussed above) reduces the ROI of many advertisers to the extent that they rethink their interest in PPC. In the word of one of our organic SEO customers, with PPC “you always get a little less back than you put in”. It needn't be that way, if you stay nimble. Convincing search engines to refund money is a lot tougher and a lot more work than proactively watching for problem visitors and taking steps that you deem appropriate.  Some things you can do to stay ahead of the game. This is by NO means an exhaustive list, but it's a start. It's sorted by the level of protection in ascending that you may need.  1> Let your visitors know that you are tracking them and know quite a bit about them. For instance, if you visit www.sofizar.com , you will see information about yourself. You can display this information to all your visitors, or only to some of them. It can be in-your-face or subtle, but it will remind at least some of the fraudsters that they are being watched. Sofizar provides free sample code and connection  to its database allowing you to display “premium” information(like City, ISP, ISP contact number).  2> Invest in a serious visitor tracking software. Set alarms based on the number of times a person clicks on your site in a certain time period(hourly, weekly, monthly). Display the same information to someone who is definitely PPCing your budget to death, as a custom message box. Something harsh, if the pattern keeps  up.  “We are logging the usage, and we are noticing that you keep clicking on our site through PPC. If you don't cease, we would be forced to call your local ISP at +91-23-344-5678”(if you see the information that we can glean about visitors, you will know we can get even more specific). This will weed some of the casual fraudsters.  3> Start checking for things that we have discussed earlier, by investing in an industrial strength data collection package. Based on your data collection, one strategy is to score each visitor, deducting(or adding points), based on the following (non exhaustive) list.  a. Visitor conversion/past conversion history.  b. Visit Depth Analysis.  c. Visit Time Analysis(time spent on each page, and time of day the visit happens).  d. Cookies/Javascript/”Unknown OS”  e. Keyword Cost analysis.  f. Anonymous Proxy Server  g. Is part of “Fraudster list”.  h. Country/Localization analysis(are you really targeting people in Sao Paolo , Brazil for your French Restaurant in New York ?).  4> Do pattern matching. See what your top 20% of your customers do as part of a “macro pattern” and match the visitor against that pattern.  Keep in  mind that you will get a few “false positives” and vice versa. A few innocent people may get tagged unfairly as “fraudsters” while a few “fraudsters” may well give you the slip. It's not an exact science, but over a period of time you can get fairly close. If you decide to take up your case with Google, you have to make a very convincing case. All based on meticulous data, instead of (what may be considered by them as) paranoia.  Over the long term, as the threat evolves and the  fraudsters improve, you have to keep adapting your strategy using your friends, diligent data collection, statistics and pattern matching.  If you have any further question, comments or want  us to give you a free evaluation if your PPC campaign  is a likely magnet for fraudsters, please email to: art@sofizar.com .  For more information about adsense fraud visit: https://ift.tt/2RO2MaL

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