#i wish we had several origin options next to our backgrounds that had this kind of narrative

[waffelteufel]

Thinking about them (My Dark Urge ending up so involved in the plot and having so much surprising content because of that awesome origin that I kinda can't go back to a regular Tav playhrough anymore) 🥰🥰

[melancholic-pigeon]

Too Short For Ao3 Fic #3? 4?

SO this is the extended edition of the bonus wip I did with Sally's birthday. The overall fic it belongs to is Extremely Smutty, so I went in and revised out the brief references and I'm posting the family-centric g-rated stuff for anyone who wants that but not the smut! Cough.

Also, I felt bad about missing WIP Wednesday again. Lolsob.

Percy rouses at around eleven PM to a sketch of himself on Jason's pillow. There's a note on the other side. 

I wanted to wake you up to say goodbye, but you looked so comfy I didn't have the heart to. your mom's presents are in the bag by my desk. say hi to everyone for me. I'll call tomorrow anyway.

love you to the moon and back.

-J. ❤

Complete with a little red heart. He doesn't even care that the doodle of him next to it, burritoed in a pile of blankets, includes a little spot of drool— he can tell by the rest of his cartoony, ballpoint features that Jason put it in because he thinks it's cute.

(And by the fact that he's said so, several times.)

Percy gathers up his junk. The cornflower blue sweatshirt he steals goes halfway down his fingers. He's come to accept that at six foot three and counting, Jason is the taller of them and always will be— barring some sort of horrible wood-chipper accident or curse from a grumpy deity. 

Fortunately, there's something about looking up to meet someone's eyes that Percy finds incredibly attractive. He has since Annabeth outgrew him for the first time in eighth grade. 

He heads out in his own jeans and the boxers he packed and the sweatshirt that smells like cinnamon. Once he boards the train, he stands with his arm around a pole and the other holding the bag against his chest, and tries to stay casual and keep the grin off his face.

It's almost midnight when he gets home. His mom, of course, is still awake, so he heads into the living room to greet her.

"My other half says hello."

There's a pile of presents on the coffee table. He puts the bag with the rest of them and sits down, kissing her cheek.

"He didn't have to get me anything." She closes her book and eyes the bag with a fond sigh. "How is he?" 

Percy's the same way she is, always happy to do favors and give gifts, but feeling pretty awkward about receiving them. Jason's even worse, the three of them in an ongoing and circular competition to never let any of it go reciprocated. 

"Working too hard, as always. Pulling As and winning games and barely sleeping to do it. His stepmother's up his ass and his father's a bully, so, you know, news at eleven." He leans his head onto her shoulder. "That's why he gives you stuff. He's trying to show you how much he appreciates you." 

She sighs, and Percy knows it's because she's just as frustrated by the whole thing as he is. 

"He knows I appreciate him too, I hope." 

"Without a doubt." Percy smiles at her, watching as she goes a little pink and smiles back. "You have a talent for making him feel appreciated." 

"He treats my baby like a prince," she says softly. "That's why I appreciate him so much in the first place. How could I do anything else?"

Percy turns his face into her shirt collar, another futile attempt to hide his goofy expression, 

"He really does, doesn't he?"

Holding doors, pulling out chairs, offering an arm on unsteady streets. Jason's never laid his coat over a puddle, but Percy's pretty sure he would, if the option presented itself. 

His mom starts playing with his hair, her fingers light and familiar.

"I'm just happy you're happy, sweetheart."

He knows that feeling too. 

Half asleep from the petting, Percy lets himself be a little babyish. It's after midnight now, which means it's her birthday, and he knows that sometimes she misses when he was Estelle's age and little enough to curl up in her lap. He's way too big for that now, obviously, but he can still slide down the couch and rest his head there. 

"You too, Mama." 

She looks at him, her eyes misty with emotion and almost green in the light.

She's smiling, too. 

She smiles a lot, these days.

—

In the morning, Paul makes coffee while Estelle helps unwrap the avalanche of presents. She's at the age where ripping paper makes her squeal with hysterical laughter, which worms its way into Percy's heart and melts it into pudding. 

Several of them are from Percy's friends, including a handbound book of original recipes from Leo, a lovely silver bracelet inset with mother-of-pearl that Beckendorf made himself, and a huge sheathed knife with a matching decorative handle from Clarisse. The last one makes his mom snort as she gets up to put it on the bookshelf, out of reach of curious toddler hands. 

"Decorative. Sure." 

"I bet she'd teach you how to use it if you asked." 

"I know how to use a bowie knife, dear. Your father and I used to catch and cook our own fish when we went camping."

"Which reminds me, he still hasn't taken me out," Paul cuts in, frowning. "I've been saving up dad jokes and embarrassing stories for four years."

"I'll bug him about it the next time we talk," Percy promises. "It's probably the ADHD." 

"Do you want me to bug you about bugging him?" 

"If you haven't set something up by blueback season, yeah." 

Percy and Paul went in on a pound of jasmine tea, which his mom reaches for next. She immediately asks for a cup— it's one of two days out of the entire year where she lets other people wait on her, for a change, and even that took a lot of cajoling. 

Paul makes the tea, since Percy usually scalds the leaves and it turns out tasting like grass. She probably wouldn't complain anyway, but it's her birthday, and she deserves to have the best tea that can be made in their kitchen. 

"Is the last bag from Jason?" Paul sets the mug on a coaster in the middle of the coffee table, and Percy scoops the baby into his lap so she doesn't try to grab it. She mashes her tiny hand against his cheek.

"And Thalia. I'm not sure if they went in on stuff or he just packed them both in one bag to make it easy." 

Either is a possibility. He watches as his mom reaches in and pulls out a large wrapped frame, Thalia's spiky handwriting answering the question. 

Whatever's inside, it makes her shut her eyes and exhale deeply through her nose. 

"Please pass on that I am absolutely furious."

She turns the frame around. An autographed vinyl EP of Sign O' the Times by Prince— one of the albums Percy grew up on, though she skipped a number of the songs when he was little. Thalia must have spent a fortune on it. 

"That woman is incredible," Paul breathes, lightly touching the glass. "How does she get this stuff?" 

"See!"

"She has friends in high places." Percy grins as Estelle reaches for the album, and holds her over the glass so she can touch it too. "She's also really good at barter chains."

His mother shakes her head, but he can tell how delighted she is— the two of them have spent hours animatedly talking about music, Thalia hanging on every word and groaning with jealousy over the concerts his mom went to in the eighties. 

"I know exactly where I'm going to put it." 

Thalia got her a turntable for her fortieth birthday last year, as well as a full set of replacements for every worn-out record in their collection— and had the originals framed too, since they had sentimental value. They're currently occupying the better part of two walls of his mom's study. 

There's a blank spot by her bookshelf, right underneath the first copy, that the autographed album will fit into perfectly. Percy grins. 

"I'll hang it up for you later."

She doesn't argue. There's only Jason's left, his careful print written out across the same paper Thalia used. The crinkling draws Estelle's attention, and she gleefully reaches over to help tear it off.

Their mom gasps at what's inside and puts a hand to her mouth, her eyes going bright.

It's a watercolor portrait of Percy and Estelle, laughing by the shoreline. She's dressed in a little bucket hat, a ruffled swimsuit patterned to look like a clownfish and the coolest shades in the world— sparkly blue frames shaped like seashells that he kind of wishes he could get in his size. He's in a wetsuit, having spent the morning surfing, and he's holding onto her hands so she can jump at the waves. In the distant background is the Montauk lighthouse.

It's beautifully done, like everything else Jason's ever put to paper, but Percy's never choked up like this over one of them.

"You remember that, Beluga? That was on my birthday, when you came and visited me and Jason at the beach."

"Beach?" she asks, expectant. Paul bursts into laughter, sounding as rough-voiced as Percy feels.

"You're your mother's daughter, sweet pea."

"Beach!" Estelle insists. Percy noses her pudgy cheek.

"It's too cold to swim, baby." His mom's eyes are sparkling, still a little teary. He can see Estelle in the smile on her face. "But we could go for a walk and visit." 

"Brunch first." Paul kisses her— Percy averts his eyes, wrinkling his nose at his sister to make her giggle again— and gets up, heading back into the kitchen. 

It's a lovely way to spend a late morning. Pale blue araucana eggs courtesy of Grover's new hens, a blueberry coffee cake from Nico by a fantastic hole in the wall in Hell's Kitchen, Paul's signature home fries made with blue potatoes and seasoned to perfection; all of it delicious.

Jason calls while Percy's doing the dishes. After his deep, resonant performance of the happy birthday song, the five of them chat on speakerphone for a little while, though he has to excuse himself pretty quickly to keep banging through his reading. 

"Maybe next year," Percy sighs. His mom puts her hand on his hip, then crouches down to help Estelle with her light-up sneakers. 

"He's always welcome for a rain check."

"He's always welcome, period," Paul adds. For the second time, Percy gets dangerously close to sniffling. 

Montauk is a little far for a day trip, so they head to Brighton Beach instead. Estelle's shrimpy legs get tuckered out more quickly than the grownups' do, so Percy ends up carrying her on his hip, snuggled into his jacket to block the chilly breeze. She points at seagulls, shouting triumphantly every time. 

"More bird!"

"That's right. A whole flock of 'em."

They watch for a while as the gulls fight over a discarded pizza crust. Then Percy feels an arm around his back and a head against his shoulder.

"I don't know how I got so lucky," his mother murmurs, barely audible over the rushing of the waves.

Percy's eyes sting. 

For most of his life, her birthdays had been spent without fanfare. He was rarely actually there for them anyway, and Gabe complained so much it was easier to just ignore the day and focus on survival instead. 

She'd been triaging like that since before she even met his dad, keeping herself afloat when nobody seemed to care if she drowned. It would have been easy to lie down and give up. Percy's pretty sure he would have, in her place. 

He turns to hug her with the obligatory proclamation of a Stella Sandwich. He catches Paul's eye over her shoulder, and gets a wide, sentimental grin in response. 

"Luck's got nothing to do with it," Percy tells her, leaning his cheek against the top of her head while his sister wriggles with delight between them. 

"Listen to our son," Paul adds. "He's very wise, as you raised him to be. This is all on you, honey." 

Within moments, she's surrounded by her whole family on all sides, and Percy has another arm around his back, and he's getting a little choked up over it all. 

When she first started dating Paul, back when Percy was still in middle school, she'd spent weeks all aflutter. It was the happiest he'd ever seen her at the time. They'd sit outside and work on her car together, and she'd slip into song like a grease-stained fairytale princess without even thinking about it. 

Seeing them interact is like cool water on a burn, Paul's devoted kindness soothing a lifetime of sitting back and watching people treat her like dirt. He worships her, just like she deserves and long overdue.

"I love you," she says, tearful and muffled in someone's shoulder. "All of you, more than anything." 

"Love Mama," Estelle replies, and that's it— Percy's blubbering.

It'll never undo the damage, but it's about time she got a chance to heal and thrive. 

-here in our bed, chapter 7, ~6200 words

[snkpolls]

SnK Episode 68 Poll Results (for Manga Readers)

The poll closed with 146 responses. Thank you to everyone who participated!

Please note that these are the results for the Manga Readers’ poll. If you wish to see the results for the Anime Only Watchers’ poll, click here.

---

RATE THE EPISODE 140 Responses

The anime continues its positive streak with just over 90% of respondents rating the episode a 4 or 5. MAPPA appears to be blowing this season out of the water for most of us!

Noice

Good!

I liked it

WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING MOMENTS WAS YOUR FAVORITE? 144 Responses

We got a pretty mixed pie chart this week. To be expected, given how many moments were in this episode. At a tie with the largest pieces of the pie were Hange’s eccentric attempt to greet the Marleyans and Eren’s gunshot figuratively hitting Sasha. Behind that two more options tied in each with 10.4% of the vote - EMA’s conversation at the shooting range and Sasha appreciating Nicolo’s cooking. This is followed closely by Eren’s mirror scene with 9.7% of the vote. Onyankopon explaining why he looks different when Sasha asks him about it took a solid 9% of the vote.

WHAT WAS THE MOST EMOTIONAL PART OF THE VISIT TO SASHA’S GRAVE? 144 Responses

This was almost too close to call, but Mikasa sitting alone managed to edge out just slightly over Connie’s “I’ve lost half of me” moment at Sasha’s grave. Trailing behind the two were Nicolo’s grief and the agreement between Papa Braus agreeing to a free meal from Nicolo.

AFTER SEVERAL TENSE AND ACTION PACKED EPISODES, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE TRANSITION TO SOMETHING MORE CALM? 138 Responses

The larger chunk of respondents are feeling relieved to get a break from the action for a few episodes. 21.7% prefer the action but don’t mind a break here and there, while 21% state that they enjoy the exposition more than the action anyway, so they are content. A small handful don’t care either way. 

We needed this for another build-up to more action

I like the action but it’s important to move the story along 

These just feel mandatory fillers to me.

I miss the warriors

I feel fine with it. I thought that was going to be some happy-go-me episode, but gladly it still had a serious tones.

This episode felt like a very welcome respite after the absolute shitshow that was spoilers week and....whatever the fuck chapter 137 was. 

Nice breather of sorts, I always like seeing characters from action-heavy series in their downtime.

WOULD YOU RATHER GET A SURPRISE GREETING FROM EREN & HANGE, OR ARMIN & LEVI? 141 Responses

The vast majority of respondents would prefer the slightly less lethal greeting given by Hange and Eren at the beginning of the episode. We’re not sure if the other 29.1% are masochists or just really love Levi and/or Armin that much more. Or perhaps they’re intrigued by the pig piss from the filthy island devils.

ON A SCALE OF 1-5, HOW HAPPY ARE YOU TO BE BACK ON PARADIS? 139 Responses

Overall, fans are happy to be back in familiar territory and put into the perspective of the Survey Corps again. Let’s get ready to rumble!

MAPPA HAS SPRINKLED IN ANIME-ONLY ADDITIONS THROUGHOUT THE EPISODE. AS A WHOLE, HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THEM? 139 Responses

Though subtle, MAPPA did include some anime filler (such as Eren’s, erm, mouth breathing). 51.1% enjoyed the noticeable additions, while 37.4% are completely confused by the question and didn’t realize there were any. A handful generally don’t prefer additions but enjoyed what little ones we had this episode. A small sliver didn’t care for them.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE SCENES FROM CHAPTER 107 THAT WERE PEPPERED IN BETWEEN THE MOMENTS FROM CHAPTER 106? 139 Responses

MAPPA is shuffling things around to pick up the pacing of this arc, and 48.2% of respondents are feeling very positively about it. 38.8% also feel that both the order of events in the original manga and the anime work out just fine regardless. A couple of smaller groups either felt that things were a bit off from the manga, or didn’t really care either way. 

I think it's great because it allows an episode to start and end on the same chapter if mappa ever wanted it, allowing the right twists or cliffhangers to be in the right episodes, all WITHOUT having to slow down, which I wholly appreciate.

I'm fine with the changes. Mappa is doing good job.

WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THE CHANGE OF GABI BITING HER NAIL AND ANGRILY SAYING EREN’S NAME IN HER JAIL CELL? 142 Responses

Nearly half of voters feel that both MAPPA’s take and Isayama’s original take work just fine for Gabi’s character. 28.9% prefer the anime’s take on Gabi’s reaction to all that happened, while 14.8% feel that her more defeated posture in the manga makes more sense for her character. 

I'm a mix of both? Her defeated posture implies that she's not happy with the way things worked out with them in jail and Zeke betraying them. On the other hand, her angry face is realistic to the scene too because it implies she really blames Eren for their current predicament.

She looks like some female version of young, angry Tarzan. This time Mappa should have kept the original postures, because the defeated Gabi feels to be more realistic, than the crazy anime one. 

I think they both work but the anime's take might be the anime team beating us over the head that she's just like Eren when he was young.

Makes it clear to the anime-onlies that she really is psychotic

Gabi sucks

HOW WELL DO YOU THINK MAPPA NAILED THE TRANSITION OF EREN SHOOTING THE GUN, TO SASHA TAKING THE HIT? 141 Responses

The response to MAPPA’s take on Eren’s shot inadvertently hitting Sasha was overwhelmingly positive, with only a few people saying that they could have done better with it. 

Eren shot linked to Sasha's death was awesome. Mappa is nailing it!

THE PART WHERE JEAN, SASHA AND CONNIE ARE TRYING TO GUESS WHAT A PORT IS WAS CUT OUT, WITH ARMIN’S NARRATION INSTEAD CUTTING INTO THE SCENE. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT IT? 140 Responses

Exactly 50% felt that while having that JSC characterization would have been very much welcome, they’re okay with that small detail missing from the manga (granted, it was at least acknowledged by one panel being animated). 25.7% have a more nonchalant response, stating that if it helps with the pacing, they’re fine with small cuts like this. 10.7% are just let down by JSC’s lack of characterization in the anime overall and didn’t appreciate even more being taken from their characterization in this episode. 

I was more so interested in our Paradis Peeps talking about newly discovered technology but I’m happy with what we got.

Not dissappointed since I understand you can't show everything but I love them so sad

Why was it animated then?! I’m so confused

Normally I don't like it when they cut corners like this, but I wasn't fond of that scene in the first place so it's okay.

If by "anime" you mean the entirety of it including the past 3 seasons, then option 3. I'm always going to be salty about how much they took out or changed for these three during the uprising arc. So far mappa has done okay with them, I guess. 

Would have been a funny JSC moment, but it was really absolutely pointless. In manga format it works as just background words on a panel. Animating it takes seconds of an episode that could be used elsewhere. So I'm fine with it being cut out.

SOME HAVE COMPLAINED THAT THE ENDING SCENE OF EREN REPEATING HIS MANTRA INTO THE MIRROR LACKED THE IMPACT IT HAD IN THE MANGA. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THAT? 138 Responses

43.5% were receptive of the anime only shots, but favor the way the scene was portrayed in the manga more. 34.1% felt that both versions were done well, with only 9.4% feeling that the impact was largely the same (if not better). Based on the write-ins, the main complaint seems to be the lighting/color scheme of the scene not quite meeting expectations, or that MAPPA made Eren’s back look weird. 

theyll make up for it when eren screeches at hange next ep

Impact was there, art just felt a bit wonky and toned down the scene overall. 9/11

This goes into my criticism of the color palette and shading style mappa uses, which is far more subdued. The contrast is lowered and the scene is very dark, and there is little rim lighting, so while the actual lineart has far more detail, the detail in the lighting is reduced. Damn I really am writing a wall text aren't I? I prefer Wit Studio's art style a lot but Mappa has honestly been doing great so I couldn't care less, manbun Eren is hot.

I prefer the manga version. I think the anime version have weirds shadows in eren's back. Plus the mirror don't have the same energy, less impactful

Cool scene in the anime, an unforgettable blow to the brains in the manga

Idk

Most of the time seeing things for the first time is what's really impactful. Feel this way towards Armin's transformation in the boat as well. It was definitely less impactful than when you first read it in the manga.

I understand the fandom because this moment was very popular when the chapter was out. I think that in the anime Eren lacks the anger he had in the manga. His voice was too calm while repeating his mantra. .

WHY DOES HIS BACK LOOK LIKE THAT

I didn't care for it in the anime, it was really underwhelming. 

I think most people are annoyed about the lighting than the impact. It’s a bit too dim and the lamp hides Eren’s new hair.

Didn't like the anime version at all

The animation wasn't good and they totally fucked his hair, face, and body up. Although the added shots were definitely welcome.

Eren could've been sexier/animated better, I hope they do better next ep 😭

WE WILL ASK YOU AGAIN. HOW WILL THE ANIME DEAL WITH MIKASA’S HIZURU TATTOO/SYMBOL? 135 Responses

With Mikasa meeting Kiyomi presumably being inevitable in episode 69, we wondered if any opinions had changed on this. 34.1% feel hopeful that the tattoo will be retconned into the anime and that we will see this scene faithful to the manga. 28.9% think that Mikasa will happen to have some kind of embroidery on hand already. 25.9% don’t want to make a call either way, and a small handful think Mikasa’s going to just pull out an embroidery kit and go with it, lol.

The embroidery will be on the inside of her bandage.

Japanese are very taboo about tattoos because of the Yazuka... it will 100% be the embroidery.

I don't know but I hope it gets retconned. Never liked the embroidery thing.

It won't be included

Let’s just... ignore it..

I really really hope MAPPA retcons Mikasa's tattoo next episode. This will be the one retcon I will absolutely celebrate. Plus, it's not really a retcon if they're just amending Wit's changes.

WE WILL ASK YOU AGAIN, AGAIN. WITH THE PACING CURRENTLY UTILIZED BY MAPPA, WHERE WILL EPISODE 16 END? 137 Responses

Uncertainty continues to loom over exactly how far MAPPA will get into this (first half of the?) season. Nearly 40% don’t want to make predictions one way or another, while 23.4% feel that it won’t make it quite to chapter 122. The rest believe it will make it to chapter 122, with 17.5% feeling there will only be minor cuts, if any, and the remaining 13.1% feeling that there will be major cuts to make the feat to chapter 122. 

116 (?) when the allied force attack paradis

122 with the amount of cuts being somewhere in between. They can cut a lot of the Gabi and Falco plotline and still have the story remain intact.

See, I'm not sure buy I'm also worried and curious about it all. It brings up the question of will the story continue in a possible second half of the season? With the manga ending very soon now, it makes sense to have the story wrap up in its anime medium as well. Fees like there's some kind of uncertainty surrounding this, it's unnerving tbh. 

119 with Eren's head being blown off.

gabi no scoping eren, ending creds is eren entering paths and we see ymir standing behind him, s4p2 starts w the ymir backstory

121

No idea and I don't think about it. I just enjoy the show. 

Your guess is as good as mine, I'm still fearing major cuts.

119

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT NICOLO’S PORTRAYAL? 138 Responses

With Nicolo now formally introduced in the anime, we were curious how you felt about his portrayal. Overall the reaction was positive, with 48.6% agreeing that he’s a “cutie pie chef”, and another 45.7% feeling that his design and seiyuu are absolutely great! A small handful were less happy with the voice, but happy with the design, and a sliver went in the opposite direction, preferring voice over animation.

HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT THE ADDED DETAIL OF THE FLOWER BOQUETS AND THEIR SYMBOLISM ON SASHA’S GRAVE? 140 Responses

Respondents vastly appreciated the flower symbolism from MAPPA with 82.9% of the pie. 12.9% aren’t really sure what symbolism there even was, and a small amount either don’t care or felt the effort could have been spent on something other than flowers for Sasha.

WHICH SCENE FROM THE PREVIEW ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 143 Responses

This pie chart wound up being almost eerily even. 42.7% are most looking forward to the 104th discussing Eren (hopeful for the train flashback?). 39.9% instead are looking more forward to Hange and Eren’s tense conversation at his jail cell. The remaining three preview moments were pretty evenly split as well.

DO YOU THINK WE’LL GET BLUSHING!104TH NEXT EPISODE? 130 Responses

71.5% feel that there is a chance we will get the train flashback of the 104th in this episode, but don’t want to say for absolutely certain. 18.5% feel that it is a guarantee based on what we saw in the preview. 10% feel it is instead guaranteed that we will NOT get the scene in 69.

WE WILL LIKELY SEE PREGNANT HISTORIA NEXT EPISODE. THOUGHTS? 140 Responses

The plotline that continues to be a frustrating mystery in the manga - Historia’s pregnancy. 34.3% aren’t particularly looking forward to seeing her in the rocking chair and aren’t very stoked about having to relive this plotline all over again. 33.6% mainly just care about seeing how the anime only fans react to the scene. 17.9% just miss Historia altogether and will take any scraps they can get. And a small handful, at 9.3%, are actually looking forward to seeing anime!Historia with a baby bump. 

Don't really care about historia

It's in MAPPA's hands now. I just hope they can add a little more of her screentime somehow.

I hope so. I want to see the design of her adult self. 

I honestly wouldn't mind if Historia's entire arc, which consists of equal parts pregnancy, irrelevance and uselessness, is just completely cut in the anime lol

not interest

I'm not interested 

I've hated this fucking plot line with all my being and what it's done to Historia since the leaks for this chapter were revealed years ago. So I'm not looking forward to anime-only people jumping in with their hot takes too. 🤮🤮

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE?

mikasa was shown in sasha's grave in the morning/afternoon and then she was shown again at dusk. SHE SPENT THE WHOLE DAY THERE. and annie... what a queen. and hisu's few scenes? so pretty.

Really glad the pacing was well done

nicosasha ship just flew in and took the spotlight

fantastic!! maybe it's just because this isn't my first time going through this arc anymore, but i feel like the anime feels chronologically less confusing than the manga—I remember being very confused my first time reading these chapters.

The lack of score by Hiroyuki Sawamo is negatively impacting my relationship with the anime. The depth of the emotion that could have been evoked was not present. I also did not get the sense that Nicolo and Sasha were in love, which was a major disappoinment. There were other aspects that weren't so bad, though; specifically, Levi's portrayal and Onyankopon's philosophy.

It felt a bit all over the place, but just seeing things from the manga being animated, I ain’t even mad.

I think that the scene between Sasha and Nicolo was made better in the anime. Isayama has problems with writing romantic moments, so in the manga the whole moment looked like it was taken from some light romance. Mappa made this scene more serene. I liked it. 

I think MAPPA is doing so great tbh! I just need them to hurry up and explain if there will be a part two to this final season or what?! I need to know if we get more anime or they'll diverge into movies or.... just tell us! Lol! 

How DAREEEE they not give Levi his black steed!!!! .....Although knowing what happens ummm yeah maybe his pony gets to live another day this way lol

Here comes the train wreck, choo choo!

I'm really sad I didn't get to hear Sasha call Jean a perv. I was really looking forward to that. LOL I love them. When EMA were at the shooting range, it looked too much like Mikasa wasn't wearing any pants. 

VERY solid. Not the biggest fan of the War for Paradis arc but I'm here for the ride.

WHERE DO YOU PRIMARILY DISCUSS THE SERIES? 128 Responses

Thanks again to everyone who participated!

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #6: Siegfried

Next on our quest to fully dndify all of Fate is Siegfried, the original saber spook. Siegy’s known for being really hard to kill, having questionably draconic origins, and summoning massive quantities of gacha salt. His build’s spreadsheet can be found here, with details below the cut.

Race and Background

There’s been fan theories about what Siegfried exactly is floating around, but we’re going to play it safe and call him a Variant Human, giving him +1 in Strength and Constitution. For his bonus feat, Siegfried’s going to be Resilient, giving him +1 to Strength and proficiency in strength saves. Despite technically being nobility, Siegfried’s personality better fits the Folk Hero background, giving proficiency in Animal Handling and Survival.

Stats

For stats, we’re using the standard array for numbers, but feel free to roll if you want. Start with Constitution. Your claim to fame is your invulnerability, after all. (Weirdly enough this doesn’t affect your AC in any way. Sorry about that.)

Put your second highest roll into Dexterity. You’re more known for your strength, but we need to actually work on your AC too.

After that is Charisma. You don’t show up that much in Apocrypha or FGO, but you’ve still stolen our hearts. And yours. Also, we need it for multiclassing.

Your Strength is a little low, but we’ll bump it up over time with ASI, sorry about the first couple levels.

Second to last is Intelligence. I don’t know how smart you really are, but we just needed those points elsewhere.

Finally, dump Wisdom. To be blunt, you were kind of a doormat your entire life, and being turned into a meme of yourself didn’t help that.

Class Levels

1. Sorcerer 1: Starting off as a sorcerer, you gain your Sorcerous Origin, a.k.a. being/bathing in a dragon. Your Draconic Ancestor, the black dragon Fafnir, lets you double your proficiency in charisma checks against dragons. You also have Draconic Resilience, giving you a slight increase to your HP and an unarmored AC of 13 + your Dex modifier. Right now, that equals 15. Those are rookie numbers.  You also get proficiency in Constitution and Charisma Saves, Insight, and Intimidation.

Finally, as a Sorceror, you gain some Spells and Cantrips. You gain Acid Splash, to give your fighting a little bit of Fafnir flavor, Light, because this was as close as I could get to your Noble Phantasm (sorry.), as well as Blade Ward, True Strike, Expedited Retreat, and Jump. You’re not really a mage, so the spells you do get will mostly focus on enhancing your physical abilities.

2. Fighter 1: Now that your sorcery is established, we’re going to take a shortcut so you can work up your muscles before diving back into magic. As a first level fighter, you get a fighting style, Great Weapon Fighting, letting you reroll 1s and 2s on damage rolls for two handed weapons, as well as your Second wind, letting you use a bonus action to regain some health during a fight. You’re invincible, but it’s the thought that counts.

3. Fighter 2: At second level, you gain an Action Surge, wherein you can make another action in a single turn, once per long rest.

4. Fighter 3: As a third level fighter you become a people’s Champion, granting you Improved Criticals when you roll a 19 or 20 on attacks.

5. Fighter 4: Grab that Ability Score Improvement and grab the Slasher feat to round out your Strength, and make Balmung a bit scarier to fight. Once per turn, you can reduce the speed of a creature you hit with slashing damage by 10′, and when you score a critical hit with a slashing weapon, the target has disadvantage on all attack rolls.

6. Fighter 5: You get an Extra Attack. Now you have doubled attacks to go with your doubled critical chance, go you.

7. Fighter 6: Put that Ability Score Improvement into Dexterity to improve your AC.

8. Sorcerer 2: Now that you have a hold in a class you’re good at, let’s head back to Sorcerer for some extra goodies. First up is your Font of Magic; now you get sorcery points that for the time being can only be burned to make more spell slots. You also get a new spell; grab Shield, because you’re clearly not unkillable enough yet.

9. Sorcerer 3: This level you get Metamagic options. Grab Extended Spell to boost the duration of your buffs and Quickened Spell so you can apply them in a pinch if you need to. Speaking of buffs, grab Enhance Ability so you can be pretty good at anything you do, like the unspecific protagonist you are.

10. Sorcerer 4: Another Ability Score Improvement, another 2 points to Strength. Now you’re getting somewhere with that sword! Just make sure nobody notices your big leaf-shaped weak point. To help with that, get Invisibility this level. You didn’t know you had an invisibility cloak? Check your biography sometime. Grab Booming Blade for the hell of it too.

11. Sorcerer 5: Not much happens this level, but you get Haste. It doubles your speed, adds 2 to your AC, grants advantage to dex saves, and gives you an extra action each turn. After it ends you  can’t move or take actions for a turn, but a minute is forever in three-attacks-per-turn time, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.

12. Sorcerer 6: This level you get an Elemental Affinity, letting you add your charisma modifier to any spell attack that deals acidic damage, as well as spend a sorcery point to gain resistance to acid damage for an hour. Not generally useful, but it will help against Fafnir when he shows up again. Also, grab Dispel Magic for your last spell. You may argue that Siegfried doesn’t have any anti-magic effects, and to that I say you’re wrong. His heart was keeping him alive and he ended that real quick.

13. Fighter 7: Back in fightland you become a Remarkable Athlete; now you can add half your proficiency bonus to any physical skill check, and running long jumps are boosted by your strength modifier.

14. Fighter 8: Speaking of your Dexterity modifier, give it a boost with this Ability Score Improvement. This brings your AC up to 17, as good or better than most forms of armor.

15. Fighter 9: You become Indomitable, letting you reroll a failed save once per long rest.

16. Fighter 10: You get another Fighting Style. You’ve already got your greatsword skills, so feel free to pick whatever one fits your current situation best.

17. Fighter 11: You get a second Extra Attack each turn, because it turns out dragon heads can really be stuck on there sometimes.

18. Fighter 12: Stick this Ability Score Improvement into Strength for even more damage per turn. We might as well round out Charisma while we’re here too, right? Sorry it’s so late.

19. Fighter 13: You gain a second use of Indomitable per day, making you even more of the solid steel saber you’re known for being.

20 Fighter 14: Use your last Ability Score Improvement to get the Tough feat, adding an extra 40 hp just to seal the deal.

Pros: You’re an absolute slab of beef, with solid damage each turn, high AC and HP, and ways to raise your AC even higher or give yourself resistances to several types of damage. You also have a lot of movement options to get the drop on those who underestimate you.

Cons: You have almost zero ranged or magical attacks, so several high-level enemies will give you trouble. You also have low Wisdom, so expect to get charmed a lot. Sorry. One thing I wish I could have added to this build was his sword beam, but that’s part of the sword itself, so we can count that off as a technicality. You’ll just have to get that as a magical item.

[bike42]

April 13-15, 2021 IAT Heading South

The funny thing about Spring in Wisconsin is it can be variable. After two weeks of amazing warm weather, we’re back up North in the cold. It’s actually “normal,” weather for April, but after what we’ve had recently, it’s kind of hard to go back. Actually, it was perfect weather for hiking, we just had to keep moving.

This time, we’re staying in the Holiday Inn Express in Antigo, WI (population 7780). I had a Waunakee Chamber Board meeting via Zoom early Tuesday morning, so Jeff and I drove up late Monday night so I’d be able to take that call before joining the gang.  The hotel experience is different than when we’re together in a cabin, but we can’t always have everything perfectly aligned.

Kent had shoulder replacement surgery about two weeks ago, so this hotel option worked out well for Kent and Lynn too.  He can’t hike “off road” for a bit (risk of falling), so he’ll hang out while Lynn hikes with us.  I will say it felt odd not having him along on the hike.  They arrived at the hotel early Tuesday morning, and Lynn rode with us to rendezvous at the start with Dan, Tam and Gary who had already left a car where we’d finish our Tuesday hike.

There were a few snow flurries in the air as we set off hiking just after 10am.  We all dressed in layers, but the 34 degrees with a high of 40 caught me a bit off guard and I had to get creative and layer in some clothes that I’d brought for hanging out in the evening!

Everyone started out in gaiters, which was good as it wasn’t long until we were detouring around or splashing through puddles.  In fact, as we were traversing around 4H Camp Susan, the road was completely submerged so we hacked our way into the woods, up a hill, and bushwhacked back down to the trail.

A little more than three miles, and we were crossing Hwy 45 – which marked the end of the Highland Lakes Segment and the start of the Summit Moraine Segment.

We came upon the Jack Lake ski trails area, and a nice little warming shelter with a porta-potty.  It had a stove and wood – we could have had a fire if we’d needed to warm up.  We were glad to have a picnic table and took an extended break there.  The terrain was like other cross-country ski areas we’d hiked before – nice wide-open trails, but hilly!

After a few easy miles, we came to a fancier warming shelter called the Spychalla Lodge.  We didn’t need another break, but we took one anyway.

From there, we continued on to Veteran’s Memorial Park. My folks had checked this out already, so I knew to expect cute little cabins and a nice campsite – I thought we were just a few weeks too early for camping, however – plus we needed Wi-Fi for a few conference calls.  Just outside the campground, we entered the Langlade County Arboretum, where all the trees were labeled – we found it to be quite educational.  The trail wound around several beautiful lakes:  Game, High, Low and Jack Lakes – said to be named by card-playing loggers that had previously inhabited this area.

Our guide book warned us of possible issues with floating bogs and beaver dams, but we had no issues.  We arrived at our end point for the day about 3PM – could have gone further, but Jeff and I had a Zoom call to be on at 6:30PM that evening so we’d planned for just over 11 miles today.

It was a windy day, but we were mostly protected in the trees – the sound of the wind in the high pines was awesome.  While it never got warm (although Gary was hiking in a t-shirt), it was a pleasant day.  The woodland flowers were just beginning to bloom, but they were advanced enough to use my “Picture This” app to help identify them.  The forest and lakes were alive with the sounds of birds including sandhill cranes, geese, several kinds of ducks and I really loved the sounds of the Ruffed Grouse as they were “drumming,” to attract females or ward off challenging males.

Back to the hotel, and we walked over to the Bowling Alley across the parking lot – always a fun experience and the place was hopping, and the food was ok.

Wednesday morning, we awoke to snow on the cars, and the temperature was 33 degrees as we set out.  I was the navigator, but wasn’t paying attention as Gary, Lynn and I were in a deep conversation about Waunakee’s Community Study on race ... so we missed a turn and saw a bit more of Langlade County!

We did the car drop, and at the start, there was a moss-covered stump that I’d photographed Tuesday afternoon – what a contrast to now find it snow covered!!

We set out at a brisk pace, and quickly finished the last 3.5 miles of the Summit Moraine segment.  The terrain was mostly wide, grassy rolling roads, but then it turned and climbed along a ridge.  Someone had built steps out of large rocks – the first time I can recall seeing that. I imagine it was a lot of work to build that, but made the climb easier. We skirted several beautiful lakes, and saw a beautiful DCA site.

The trail paralleled Highway A for a stretch, where we got a few honks from cars going past.  We crossed the highway and began the Lumbercamp Segment.  The trail went through the Peters March State Wildlife Area, and I expected it to be wet, but aside from an occasional large puddle in the low spot on the trail, it wasn’t bad.  No one got wet feet today!

We walked along lumber roads, mostly grass covered thankfully. We only came upon a short stretch where there was active logging with equipment present but no one working today.  The roads there were muddier, but nothing like the mud soup that we’d experienced several weeks ago on the Highland Lakes Segment!  

I slowed my pace a bit and immersed in the peace of the surrounds – enjoying seeing the new growth of the trees and flowers, and listening to the cacophony of the birds.

After six miles, we searched out a place to stop for lunch. We’d been spoiled yesterday coming upon several shelters and areas with picnic tables!  We finally spotted a downed tree, and Jeff got out his saw and lopped off a few branches to make room for the seven of us.  It made us all think about the lunch we had sitting on a log atop a mountain in Slovenia a few years ago!

We continued trekking, on the lookout for the “Hillbilly Hilton” that we’d read about in our guidebook.  Its all that remains from the Norem Lumber Camp which operated from 1920 to 1938.  The camp originally had several log structures, but the only remnant is the root cellar, which has been renovated (?) into a respite for hikers.  There were several sleeping platforms, a table and shelves with various things that had left behind.  Unfortunately, there was a lot of trash both inside and outside.  In the event of severe weather, it’d be a good place to take shelter, but I’d have been more comfortable in a tent versus sleeping inside there!!

We had another snack, and the guys kicked into turbo mode, with Gary issuing a self-challenge to finish the hike by 3pm.  Tam, Lynn and I hiked a more moderate pace, stopping to check out the ramps (wild onion, or wild leek) – the forest was full of them, and I’d never seen them growing in Wisconsin before.  Made us wish we were cooking dinner tonight!  

The trail left the primitive road and headed up of high-relief hummocky topography.  Once again, we found ourselves stumbling over roots and rocks, which actually was a welcomed change from the monotony of the forest roads.  We came upon the beautiful Baker Lake, with a steep boat launch and a wooden slide to launch a canoe or kayak – would be a great secluded place to paddle!

From there, we climbed up a steep hill to Hwy-52 and the endpoint of our segment (and the guys patiently waiting).

We hiked over 16 miles today, in just under 7 hours. Great pace, but not too challenging. Feels great to be able to put in these longer distances.  Gary commented that we had “rain, snow, sun, and wind; everything but locusts!”  All in all, a great day.

We picked up the car at the start and got back to the hotel about 4:30pm, where Kent was waiting for us.  He walked around Antigo, but reported it was much colder and windier than what we’d experienced in the protection of the forest.  Since we had a Zoom call scheduled with Donovan of Embark Explorations (our Kilimanjaro guide company) at 7pm, we decided to head out to dinner right away.  Tam found the Fifth Avenue Restaurant in downtown Antigo that had a good-looking menu and great reviews, so we headed there.  Like most placed up north, they’re a bit casual with COVID restrictions and masks seemed to be optional and they had no problem with our group of 7 people sitting at one table.

We had a great dinner, lots of food, my favorite Leinenkugel Creamy Dark beer, and Jeff and I got pie to go from the Dixie Diner next door (same ownership – same family operating both places for 75 years).  

After dinner, we went back to our “suite” at the Holiday Inn Express and huddled around Jeff’s laptop for our call with Donovan (and George Sanchez, our BrightStar colleague from Austin TX who will be joining us in Africa).  Donovan and his wife have a pact to live somewhere else in the world every five years. They’d lived in Tanzania at the base of Kilimanjaro, and are now living in Guatemala so he was logged in from there. The call went well, but a storm was approaching there – we could see the lighting in his background window, and as he predicted, he lost power towards the end of the call.  We learned enough to get super excited for our September trek! I’m so thankful that Gary suggested this IAT adventure to help get us so comfortable with multi-day trekking and test out our cold weather gear in preparation for all the weather we’ll encounter on our 9 days on the mountain in Tanzania.

Thursday, we woke to clearer skies, but still cool – the sunshine makes all the difference, mentally as much as physically.  An easy car drop, we found ourselves at the start of Kettlebowl and hiking down into the bowl by 7:50AM.

The road opened up at the base of the Kettlebowl Ski Area, a nice little hill with some short, steep sections, served by several rope-tows, so that made me think of the nearby Paul Bunyan Ski Hill where I learned to ski!

Kettlebowl is a segment I’d read about as one where people had trouble getting lost so I was a bit nervous. It was rated a 4 / 4 so that got our attention as well.  In reality, it was mostly wide forest roads, with numerous intersections.  Perhaps in full leaf out, some of the signage is obscured, but we had no issues.  We did have over 1000 feet in elevation gain, but easier to do with wide grassy paths versus narrow rocky trails.

 Our group set off fast, which helped warm us up on the cold morning. After a mile, the layers started coming off.  After about 3 miles though, I backed off a bit to enjoy the hike a bit more.  Most of this area had been logged long ago, and has a successional forest of aspen and birch.  Without leaves, we could really see through the trees – lots of hills, kettles, large rocks.  We didn’t see wildlife, but I’m sure they saw us!

After about 5 miles we had a break – I went into the trees to find a large rock to sit on while I enjoyed the coffee I’d brought along with a fig bar.  I really enjoyed the tranquility of being “alone” in the forest, knowing Jeff and my friends were just over the ridge – not exactly out of ear shot, so I had my “adventure with security” moment.  I honestly cannot imagine doing these treks alone, but many people do.  Our group is so compatible too, its ok for some to head out fast and work on cardio, and for others to linger back and talk or just enjoy the solace of the hike.

We completed the nearly 10-mile trek well before noon.  We’d left two cars there, so Gary and Lynn headed back to Antigo to pick up Kent at the hotel, while Jeff and I drove Dan and Tam back to their car.  We all met up at the Dixie Diner in Antigo for a hearty lunch.  I was thinking cheeseburger of course, but their special today was a Pastie – either beef or chicken variety.  My love of dough led me to choose that option – it was good, but very different than what I was used to.  It had large chunks of beef and potatoes, while I’m used to more of finely diced version, more like a hash stuffed in a pastry.  

After lunch, we drove back to the cemetery where the Kettlebowl segment ended to begin what’ll be a 30-mile connecting route (CR) – through the end of the Guthook West portion and onto the Central portion of the app!  Since we had a great day and we were all feeling good, we decided to knock off 5 miles of the CR, and Kent walked with us – we felt complete as a group again!

I’d developed a small blister on my right heel yesterday, that was unusual.  This morning’s hike, even though I’d had a Band-Aid on it, expanded it to quarter size.  It didn’t prevent me from hiking; I hardly thought about it.  But I’ll need to work on route cause (probably will have to give up pedicures and my foot softening lotion and build up my calluses before September)!

We had a fast 5 miles back to the tiny village of Polar, then a shuttle back to the cars and we were all on our way home.  We’re still a 2.5-hour drive to our home – getting closer as the “crow flies,” but its still a remote location with small county roads to drive to get to our locations.  After our 4 days next month, we’ll be within two hours – still too far for day trips, but that will come this summer.

[thegospelaradia]

Crystal Matrix Basics

Hello my witches, baby witches, aspiring spell casters, students of the occult, and seasoned shamans alike! I'm coming at you today with a brand new entry in my special series on intermediate to advanced sorcery. I'll try to keep updating this blog on at least a weekly basis - if not more often. But, I'm only an interdimensional multifaceted galaxian xenine quantum manipulation nexus in a human body, after all!

Crystal matrices are a component of a much larger school of magic, and one that I always enjoy teaching: the art of WARDING!

To ward means to guard or protect. We do this in the most basic sense a lot of different ways. Someone making the sign of the cross, spitting upon seeing a bad omen, casting a circle of salt, amulets, talismans, gris gris bags, a chicken's foot, eleke beads, a pocket full of iron nails - these behaviors all have one thing in common: they're wards.

My Catholic mother rarely makes the sign outside of church, but when she does? It's a whole production. Spitting to her left and right as she crosses herself, raising her eyes to the sky, and muttering what I imagine is the Hail Mary. There's a rarity to it, because of the severity to it. My mom is in the habit of crossing fingers and knocking wood, and there's always a crucifix around her neck. That, combined with her morning and evening prayers, is typically enough to keep her feeling "warded" all day.

All cultures have their own warding rituals, and it's very likely there is a specific tradition (I find "superstition" racist and colonial) from your own family's culture. If there is? Use it. The magic of your ancestral lineage is always going to be more powerful than a spell you find online.

I've gotten a bit off track, but it's important to realize that all people, from all cultures, and from all walks of life perform some manner of warding magic.

Now, the working we'll be learning today is a bit more complex than the sign of the cross, but as a witch I believe we have more complicated needs when it comes to magickal protection.

Whenever we create sacred space in a traditional manner or cast a Wiccan circle, it's important to remember that these practices are fundamentally seperate from warding spells. A magic circle is a space in which to raise and contain energy in a cone of power. They are NOT circles of protection. No matter how deeply you are embraced by the magick, there is very little chance that a circle of salt is going to "protect" you. That's why we have banishing spells after our rituals.

Why is it important to have this in mind? In my practice, demons and spirits are what we make of them. All demonolators know that just as one might work with the Greek and/or Roman gods - for example - demons can also be part of your pantheon. Not even a very accomplished Magus could cast a warding spell to keep out Diana or Bacchus, and the same goes for demons. At best, a magical circle keeps out all the negative "vibes" that we're increasingly bombarded with.

I have a labyrinth of selenite as a permanent part of my altar - they're great at absorbing EMF and negative energy, and I keep them front and center for just that reason. But, back to demo

Demons are the gods that Christianity tried to eliminate. There's really not much to be afraid of where they are concerned. Working with demons is something best attempted by shadow magi (those who have integrated their shadow selves) but again - I'm not teaching wards that stop demons, angels, or gods. Do you really think Belial or Leviathan can be bothered to pay you personally a visit?

A fear of demons is a Christian concept. The word originally (the Greek Daimon) was a sort of guardian spirit everyone is born with. The Devil isn't the source of all evil (that's capitalism) and demons aren't in shadows waiting to ruin your life. Few things are.

Now, let's get to the magick!

With those disclaimers and background out of the way - let's talk crystal matrix warding!

For this enchantment, you will need:

Palo Santo, Agua Florida, Holy Water, Black Salt, Yerba Santa, or any other purification medicine. (Remember: white sage is over farmed and culturally specific.)

A magic broom / a bundle of tree leaves, esp. from the druid sacred trees.

Copal, sandalwood, cedar, francincense, myrrh, or your preferred incense.

4 quartz points*

A small table

Incense holder

Wand

Athame

Optional: an equal number stones of various types.

Optional: an orgone pyramid, a large piece of vanondanite, a meteor, or a large free-standing piece of selenite/himalayan pink salt

*as these are the only requisite stones, and will be doing the brunt of the work in the spell, choose 4 crystals that are at least 1.5 to 2 inches and well shaped for the task (jamming into the corners of your room).

Personally, I'm not a huge fan of spells that come with long lists like wedding registries. Brujería on a budget is my favorite kind of magic. That said, you should always have purification medicine (I can't ever remember NOT having a bottle of Agua Florida), at least one sacred incense (Nag Champa is a great substitute), and some kind of ritual tool (don't have a wand made of elk horn, emerald, and gold? Enchant a kitchen knife or paint brush. Consecrate a Sailor Moon wand replica. Go outside a stick, hold it up, and shout "this is my magic stick!". You really don't need to drop a lot of cash on this.

Oh, and a magic broom.

Seriously.

Your broom needs to be functional but sole-use. Using the same broom to sweep the kitchen and then your sacred space? It almost cancels out. A magic broom must have a single purpose - to sweep away negative energy.

Your magic broom doesn't have to be fancy. You need not buy a hundred dollar bundle of twigs from Etsy (you can though, if you want). In a pinch, buy a hand broom (not that comfortable) or a regulation size broom from a home goods store.

TBH? I just finished my masters degree so I've had to get very creative with my spell ingredients. Rather than go make an Ikea trip to find a nice witch broom, I gathered a few thin branches from a cedar tree. I've also - when they were blooming - used stems of my yerba santa and basil plants. These work best with holy water, but consecrating is a breeze. Find what you have on hand and use that - don't blow all your money on magic.

OK, now down to the actual spell! Let's go through it step by step.

First, cleanse and purify the room you want to ward. Using either a standard broom or a bundle of herbs dipped in holy water, sweep or swish from the center out - widdershins.

Light your incense in the center of the room. Sit in front of the censer and enter into a state of contemplation. Slow your thoughts. Follow your breath.

If you work with deities, divinities, demons, orishas, etc. - invoke their power.

With a clear mind, close your eyes and begin to meditate on safety - set your intention: "harmful forces: be this your bane. Go ye back from whence you came." Your intention is to block negative energy - not spirits. Most supernatural beings are indifferent to you.

Walking clockwise around your room, place into each corner a quartz point. Whisper into the stone your wish - that no negative energy will enter.

Once you've placed all four crystals, take your athame in hand. If you have a compass, locate the NE or E crystal. Check that the crystal is secure (I shoved mine in the wall cracks) and then touch it with the tip of your athame/tool.

Here you'll need to utilize your visualization skills. Using your athame/tool, draw a line of energy (gold, white, or blue are good choices to envision) from the first crystal to the next.

Repeat this process until you return to the first crystal. You will have a line of magical light running along the wall and around the bottom of your entire room.

Starting at the first crystal, raise a line of magick up to the ceiling. Repeat the previous process.

When you are done, (you should be going up, across, down, back up, across) you will be in a cube (or irregular polygon) of magical energy. Focus on the crystals as you move.

Sit for a moment in front of the censer and strengthen the visualization - you are sitting in an irregular polygon of energy.

With your wand, walk around clockwise from the first crystal. This is where your creative energy comes in - draw (like a light drawing) magickal and protective symbols as if on a wall that sits like skin atop the physical wall. Invent your own mantra to chant. "Ommmmmmm" works in a pinch.

Your room is now a cube or polygon of energy, covered on all sides with magical graffiti. These symbols will protect you. The crystals have become sentient guardians. Imagine, if you can, a spider web of runes and protective symbols stretching across it.

This is optional, and a bit labour intensive, but the next step would be to create a "generator" to "power" your warding. On a small table, lay out a cloth and place in the center a crystal pyramid, an orgone pyramid, or any other large power stone. Around it, either in an ordered or organic manner, place various small crystals.

Once you are confident with your "core," enter into as deep a meditative state as possible. Channel energy from above and below, push it into your core matrix, and then envision beams of the same magical energy from the central matrix to the other, larger one. In your mind's eye, see the energy swirling clockwise from the generator outwards. Your matrix is now powered by a crystal core.

For the next few days, meditate on your matrix and the core (if you built one) to reinforce the permanence of the ward.

It's easy to find crystal matrix cloths online - especially on Etsy. I use a Cube of Metatron crystal matrix cloth - because it's pretty. You can use anything, honestly. The energy and intent are what's important.

And that's pretty much it! Keep your matrix in mind as often as possible. Maintenance is importance so this spell isn't a one time deal. In addition to reinforcing the wards, it also will give you a good indication as to when the system needs to be recharged - from the core outward.

I know, I know; this is a lot. I just hope you haven't gotten too confused by what should have been "crystals in each corner and some more in the middle of the room."

Complicated and long as it may be, this spell has given me a peace I didn't know I could have. As someone with PTSD, feeling secure and safe anywhere is massive. And it isn't just me: everyone who comes into my space remarks on how safe and warm they feel in the matrix. As I said - forget demons and "evil" spirits. Once you're protected from the rampant negative energy radiating from your surroundings, you'll thank me.

And then there's my favorite protection charm - my Black Magic woman.

But that will have to wait until next time, my witches!

-Magus Aradia

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 50

The past week has been an abominably wild ride. I’m in the U.S, and we have had entirely too many shooting recently.  Add to that the fact that our election season is starting to ramp up, and the vitriol is spewing at work.  I’m a very opinionated person when it comes to politics and human rights (this really shouldn’t be a surprise if you’ve followed this far), and I try to keep the majority of it out of this story and off this blog.  That said, I’m down for some discourse if any of you want to message me.

Moving to the actual story: This chapter gives a bit of insight into where the story is going next, plus some of the background stuff I always have cluttering up my head.  It always gives me good material to show the different personalities and skill sets of the main and secondary characters.  Overall, I really like how this chapter turned out.

And don’t worry - that difficult conversation is coming very soon.

I managed to compose myself by the time the men came into my sister’s public room, but only just.  I hardly noticed the jostling on the couch as Tyche refused to move from my side and allow Maverick and Conor to sandwich me in between them like usual.  She elbowed me to get my attention, and only then did I realize that she was still sitting next to me. Maverick on my other side, with Conor on the floor leaning against mine and Maverick’s legs.

Antoine looked so amused at the situation, I thought he might explode. When I arched an eyebrow at him, he just shook his head and settled into the one perfectly empty chair.  “So, the festival?” he ventured.

Thank you for the safe ground, I thought before responding. “Overall, huge success.  I still have to debrief with Alistair tomorrow, but preliminary reports are pretty good.  There was a minor kerfluffle with a vendor before everything got set up, but we got that resolved pretty tidily.  I think so, at least.”

Tyche shook her head. “I don’t recall any vendor issues.”

“Exactly,” I pointed out. “Originally, there was going to be a location that specialized in a certain pork product, and Alistair caught it when the vendor wanted to be stationed where the Jainist cuisine ended up being.”

“But that was between….” Maverick trailed off, horrified. Conor’s shoulders shook with laughter, resulting in getting a swat on both shoulders – one from the pilot, one from my sister.  “Dude, it’s not funny!  That’s just deliberately being rude.  You don’t put pork between two groups who have religious prohibitions against it!”

Conor held his hands up in surrender. “I’m laughing at the tongue-lashing our Sophie probably gave the poor sod, I swear!”

“Actually, I didn’t.” Four heads turned to stare at me in disbelief. “Seriously. It was so much worse than you’re thinking, but I managed not to chew anyone out… much.  Remember all the gourmet bacon that was everywhere at the festival?  That was the guy.  For whatever reason, the vendor and Simon thought there was nothing wrong with having a bacon-themed stall.”

“At the same event that was intended to help everyone recover from the attack on the ship by a certain terrorist group?” Antoine asked quietly, in a tone that I had learned meant he was boiling mad.

“Yep,” I popped the last consonant in emphasis.  “I called him, pointed out how tasteless it was, and we decided instead to let the other alcoves feature the wares. To his credit, it never even crossed his mind that it was a bad idea. He was focused on the flavor list, and the vendor was focused on showing off like everyone else was.”

He nodded thoughtfully as my sister spoke. “So, the bacon gets out there, in the best possible way, without anyone being distracted by the connotation.”

“Pretty much. And, honestly? I think that particular vendor got better coverage than anyone else at the event… that stuff was everywhere.  Maple and bacon donuts, chocolates with candied bacon, on burgers, wrapped around seafood, you name it.”

“And that was the only vendor issue?” she asked.

I nodded, before switching gears. “Now, I want to hear about the low-stim portion of the event.  I have the official reports from everyone, and Alistair is going to give the highlights tomorrow, but I want to get an idea from you three how it plays against the regular session.”  Automatically, I started playing with Conor’s hair, just because it was by my hand. I had no idea how many times I had done that in the past, but I was very conscious of it right now.

Maverick spoke up, snapping me out of my distracted thoughts. “Well, it was a lot calmer, better lit, pretty much as intended.  With a very few exceptions, the vendors were much more relaxed during the low-stimulus session, too. I think that had a positive impact on the attendees, since they felt less like a bother.”

“There was definitely less resistance from the vendors in regards to food preferences in the earlier portion,” Antoine added.  “In the first session, when presented with a list of foods that were not an option, they largely cooperated. However, when we went back, this dropped by an estimated thirty percent.”

“That’s disappointing,” I muttered.

Maverick reached over to squeeze my hand gently. “Hey, on the plus side, the Japanese vendor kept the natto covered the entire time.”

“That was surprisingly popular,” my sister pointed out.  “Probably the novelty, from what you two told me about it. We may need to be on the lookout for natto-eating challenges in the near future.”

I shook with revulsion before composing myself. “To be fair, there are people who do actually like it, and it’s supposed to be very nutritious.  Don’t let our bias stop you from trying it. Just… please don’t do it when either of us is around?”

Conor took that chance to jump into the conversation. “Any of the typical disturbances you would see from a big event like that? Fights, drunk and disorderlies, that kind of thing?”

“I haven’t heard anything,” I responded cautiously. “And the alcohol was limited to two drinks per attendee, non-transferable.  Even at The Undine, the drinks were low or no content after each person had their allotment.  Xiomara will have the exact data, though.”

“Oh!” Tyche grabbed my arm for attention. “The quiet rooms? Huge success. I ducked in several of them both times I was there, and even toward the end of the festival, people were really respectful of them. Any groups were small, and they kept their voices at a whisper or a very low – “ She waved her hand at the word she was looking for. “Mutter. Not mutter. The other one. But that, yeah.”

Antoine chuckled at her excitement. “Yes, the attendees were keeping the noise to a minimum, as she says. It felt very much like walking into a library. You may receive some requests to keep the rooms in place, Sophia.”

Regretfully, I shook my head.  “I wish we could, but the majority of the space we used for the festival was only loaned to us by people who actually live there.  If those people want to keep the rooms as they are, they are more than welcome to the free re-decorating, but those are still private residences.  In fact, most of the people have already moved back in.” A collective groan came from everyone in the room, Conor going so far as to bury his face in my knee out of disappointment. “The best I can do is offer the design plans freely to everyone on the Ark, and I can talk to the Council about the demand for spaces like that. Maybe we can set up a few small libraries or botanical gardens throughout the ship, if Miys is okay with it.”

“I think the botanical gardens will go over well,” Conor offered, glancing up. “Noah is fond of air-cleaning plants, it turns out.  Calls them little trooplings.”  When Maverick furrowed his brows so hard it looked like it hurt, our resident pseudo-botanist clarified. “Hujylsogox are mycogenetic, which means they evolved from fungus-like lifeforms.  Mushrooms grow in colonies, clusters, and troops.  The word’s probably not the same, but the closest the translators can get to the concept of a baby Hujylsogox is ‘troopling’.”

“But why would Miys compare plants to baby-thems?” Maverick asked, glancing around for explanation.  Tyche, Antoine, and I just stared at Conor, waiting for an explanation.

With a sigh, he continued. “Noah – or Miys – absorbs nutrients and sustenance from the air, constantly.  It has to be supplemented with rations, sure, but it’s a function they can’t control.  Miys jokes about not having a sense of smell, but they can definitely tell how clean the air is, and they’re sensitive to caustic fumes.”

“Just like the plants,” Tyche ventured.

He nodded. “It’s really similar. The plants are a bit less sensitive to things like fumes from spicy foods, though.”  Tyche and I flushed at the reminder of the time we ran Miys out of my quarters while making dinner.  Antoine smiled, but Conor roared with laughter and told the story to Maverick.

When he finished, Tyche jumped in. “In our defense, we didn’t know the smell of the chili sauce reducing would give Noah actual burns.  The fumes or vapor, or whatever you want to call it, had run a couple people off, but Noah told us before that they don’t have noses, so it never occurred to us that it would be a problem.”

“Nothing in what you just said argues against the fact that you two were deliberately cooking and eating something so spicy that people ran away and one needed treatment for burns,” Maverick pointed out.

“Miys pointed that out, too,” I admitted. “Okay, new topic, before I die of embarrassment. Festival is out of the way, so the gravity adjustment is scheduled for two days from now.”

Antoine leaned forward with laser-focus. “We need to expect increased anxiety and paranoia, along with some fatigue.”

Tyche and I nodded, while Maverick made a noise of agreement. Conor glanced around at all of us. “Okay, superbrains, tell the dumb lug what I’m not understanding here.”

I rolled my eyes at the self-assigned appellation - he had just given us a  small lecture on the similarities between Miys biology and that of a potted plant -  and gestured for Antoine, following the evening’s convention of deferring to the people with the most expertise. He nodded and explained, “The increase in gravity will only be five-percent of Earth gravity, putting the entire ship at 1.1. It is not enough for anyone to really notice, beyond some minor discomfort, as everyone has already adjusted to the initial increase to 1.05. However, our brains know something is ‘not right’ for lack of a better term.  Not necessarily wrong or dangerous, but not the same and not what we have grown to consider normal, similar to if everything was moved two centimeters to the left – just because you cannot tell exactly what changed, it does not mean you cannot tell something has changed.  This results in increased anxiety and sometimes paranoia.”

Conor nodded as it started to make sense to him. “Even knowing ahead of time that the gravity will be adjusting, it can still happen?”

I snorted violently. “Never expect people to read all their mail.”

“Good point,” he conceded.  “How many total adjustments to gravity are we going to have?”

“Ten, total,” Tyche answered as she flicked open her data pad, shrugging apologetically. “I know, I know. Family rule: no data pads on dinner nights. But I don’t have all the information memorized, and this is a good discussion.”  Scrolling through the information, she stopped and mimed tapping a screen. “Kepler 442b has half-again as much gravity as Earth, which is more than our scientists Before had initially estimated.  Its star is slightly bluer than Sol, but not quite as bright. It isn’t tidally locked, but just barely.  A year there is about three Terran months, with the days half that long. It’s also colder than Earth, due to its star being smaller, but not by much once you compensate for Terran global warming and Kepler 442b having a denser atmosphere.” She scowled up at me. “We need to name our new home, you know. I thought you were going to work on that.”

“I’ve had a lot on my plate,” I objected before sighing and slouching against the back of her couch. “But you’re right. We need to get on that. I want to do an Ark-wide poll, but I need to set the criteria and have it approved by the Council, first. Nobody actually wants to name our second chance ‘Colony McPlanetface’, and I would like to weed out the multitudinous variations of home or dirt.”

“Have people submitting ideas include a justification,” Maverick pointed out. “That will weed out a lot of people who aren’t serious, if they have to include an essay.”

I grinned widely at him, squeezing his arm in affection. “That’s a great idea, actually.  Granted, I don’t look forward to reading all those essays – even if a single-digit percent of people submit, that’s still hundreds – but at least it will limit the submissions that are intended as a joke.”  I thought for a moment. “And… if we include the criteria that the name cannot be certain words or versions of certain words, Zach can probably write a program to weed those out, as well.”  I turned to my sister and Antoine, nudging Conor gently.

“Start thinking of names we don’t want to see.  I’ll send a message to the Council tomorrow asking for their input and running the idea by them tentatively.  And whoever is keeping track, add Goldilocks to that list.  It was unoriginal to start with, and now it just feels cursed.”

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[speakingformyself101-blog]

The Death of a Friend

‘Death waits for no man’- Markus Zusak

You can never prepare yourself for death. He doesn’t wait until you’re ready, he could care less about your last goodbyes. It doesn’t matter if your good or bad, young or old, death is indiscriminate by nature. Death waits for no man, and he certainly didn’t wait for my friend Joe, who died before he could truly live.

I first met Joe after packing my bags and flying to China with dreams of becoming a teacher. Having arrived at the school a day before me, Joe and I became fast friends; both from England, freshly graduated, and severely out of our element, we found comfort in the familiarity of each other. Genuine and uncomplicated, the friendship blossomed over our shared endeavour to navigate the unknown. Eventually more friends were added on, and we established our own little squad, unbreakable and ready to take on whatever China could throw at us. We laughed together, celebrated each other’s achievements, and provided a shoulder to cry on.

Grief had always been an ambiguous concept to me; never having lost someone I was close to before, my experience and understanding of it derived primarily from TV. This ultimately made it difficult for me to empathise with others, and aside from the customary “I’m sorry for your loss”, my thoughts didn’t venture much further than that. That’s not to say I was some sort of emotionless psychopath, of course I sympathised for those going though such tragedy; believe me when I tell you I was a blubbering wreck for the full 2 hours of P.S. I Love You. But my emotions always had a shallowness to them, which eventually shifted to scepticism. Too often when I witnessed grief on TV it seemed exaggerated to me; the heartache taken and twisted into a caricature-esque illustration of its original self. I looked at it as an over-saturation of real-life, reserved for the big screen to justify drawn-out movie sequences where the main character screams and rages of the injustice of it all while melancholic piano plays softly in the background

It was only after experiencing grief personally that I realised wherein my derision lied. Oftentimes movies and TV shows will portray a character in denial or anger, but fail to show the mental journey that has taken place within the character’s mind to lead them there. Subsequently, to someone ignorant of the psychological proceedings that occurs internally when processing the death of a loved one, it can seem as if these reactions simply manifest out of thin air, with no rhyme or reason to them. Though I can only speak for myself, this failing stripped the emotions of its sincerity, making it harder to empathise with.

 ‘We begin to live again, but we cannot do so until we have given grief its time.’- Kubler Ross’s ‘The 5 Stages of Grief’ (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance)

In Kubler Ross’s ‘The 5 Stages of Grief’ (Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance) he discusses the mental dealings behind the core emotions we feel while grieving, including its reason, importance to the grieving process, and how we move past it.  He emphasises that ‘there is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss. Our grief is as individual as our lives’. My experience with grief was similar to others in many ways, yet personal disposition, circumstances, and the nature of our friendship meant that my understanding and relationship with grief was wholly my own.

‘This first stage of grieving helps us to survive the loss’

When I first heard the news from a friend over the phone, I was in another country at the time. My denial didn’t manifest in the form of ‘I can’t believe this has happened’ but rather ‘I don’t believe this has happened’. What I mean by this is that, it’s not that I couldn’t accept the truth, but that I actively choose not to. It created a divide in my head, deep down I was aware that I was only lying to myself, but I did it anyway because there was no other option for me at that point. I did whatever I could to strengthen this pipe dream; I told myself that my friend sounded too composed over the phone (he was in shock), that it was just some sick prank they were playing, that motorcycle accidents don’t happen to 21-year-old’s who haven’t even been given the chance to live yet. Me and Joe worked together, and I remember checking the work chat every day thinking that until they make an announcement, there’s still a chance it’s all fake. The physical distance between me and Joe made it so much easier to create a mental distance between myself and the truth. It became a case of seeing is believing, and until someone could provide me with physical evidence of his death, I would carry on this ruse.

During my young teens, I was a sucker for the so-called ‘Girl Power’ storyline. Movies that pitted the strong-willed wall-flower against the sheltered and bird-brained female antagonist was my bread and butter. I had always envisioned myself as that strong-willed wallflower, a survivor at the core who could face whatever life throws at her head on, as if anything less would be a weakness. I grew to realise how utterly delusional of a mind-set that was, and appreciate the importance of allowing yourself to be emotionally vulnerable. However with all that said, it still makes me feel awkward to this day when I look back on my reaction to first hearing the news and think about how delusional I must have appeared to others. Eventually you just have to accept that, as Kubler- Ross states: ‘There is a grace in denial’, it is not a weakness one has to overcome, but rather a coping mechanism that allows us to handle only what we can.

‘Anger is the emotion we are most used to managing’

When I returned home, I could no longer deny what was right in front of me any longer; I could see my friend’s absence, and so I was forced to believe it. It was at this point when the beginnings of anger started to kick in. There was no clean-cut shift from denial to anger, one emotional state didn’t suddenly swoop in and knock the other off its pedestal. In his essay, Kubler emphasises that there is no ‘linear timeline in grief’. In my case, anger was born from my denial, it stemmed from no longer being able to keep denying what was now undisputable. I started to project this anger onto other people, getting annoyed when they openly discussed the details of what happened at work. What is there to talk about? He's gone, where was everyone constantly shoving the fact down my throat? To this day I still don’t know the full story of the accident because I was so against discussing it. All I wanted to do was bury my head in the sand, and it seemed like no one was going to let me do it in peace.

My anger started to turn ugly, I remember seeing a post someone made about how much Joe meant to them and thinking: why would you post this? You weren’t even that close to him? It felt disingenuous, like suddenly people were popping up out of the woodworks to add their two cents and make it all about them. I saw this attitude reflected in others around me, the occasional sly comment, a judgemental pause of silence, as if because you were closer to Joe it allowed you to police how others grieve and to what degree.

*Dusts off psychology A-level certificate*

Building any kind of relationship as a foreigner in China is a social experiment in its own right. Unable to communicate with the locals, unfamiliar of the cultural norms, and oftentimes going days without seeing an foreigner you haven’t already met, you begin to heavily rely upon the few friends you do make in China. Add on to this a 6-hour time differences and the Great VPN Firewall of China restricting accessibility to family and friends back home, you find yourself living in a social bubble. This same isolationism can be seen in reality shows like Love Island and Big Brother, which force their contestants into environments with little to no outside communication. The resulting effects is that relationships, both romantic and platonic, develop at an abnormally fast rate; it made the few months that I knew Joe much more potent than was normal. In such a short space of time Joe had carved a space for himself in my life: he was a colleague, friend, and brother all rolled into one. If I was stressed over something I came to him, if I was proud of something I came to him. But this still didn’t change the fact that, in the grand scheme of things, we were only a chapter in each-others stories, and so when it came to mourning his death, an overwhelming sense of inadequacy and guilt began to emerge.

In the same way that I judged others, I was judging myself. I began to question the validity of my own feelings, whether the short time I knew him justified such strong heartache or if I, like so many of the movies I watched before, simply up-playing a role I thought was appropriate. Did I deserve to feel so sad over someone I barely knew? Who was I to have enjoyed his last few months on earth while his family and lifelong friends couldn’t. When I was sat next to his family at the funeral, I felt like an imposter.

‘Acceptance is often confused with the notion of being “all right” or “OK” with what has happened’-Kübler-Ross & David Kessler

I wish someone had told me beforehand that acceptance does not always equal peace, sometimes it just leads to more heartache and depression. The comforting warmth of denial and distracting heat of anger had been rudely ripped away and what am I left with now? The cold hard truth, what a scam.

Accepting that my friend was gone didn’t suddenly make it easier to digest, if anything it made me question everything. Though it seems obvious, it wasn’t his death that was the hardest to grasp, it was the idea that he no longer existed, or at least not in the way he once did.

Kubler describes this stage as ‘accepting the reality that our loved one is physically gone and recognizing that this new reality is the permanent reality’. In the end, no matter what you believe, notions about an afterlife are all well and good, but it doesn’t change the fact that those passed are no longer in the here and now. How can a walking, talking person, with their own thoughts and dreams for the future, now simply be food for worms? How can someone who was previously physical only now exist in the memories of others? I didn’t want the responsibility of keeping someone alive through only my mind and a few pictures.

‘‘There is not a typical response to loss as there is no typical loss. Our grief is as individual as our lives’

If there is one thing I took away from this experience, it’s the understanding that grieving is a fiercely personal act, idiosyncratic to the individual. I witnessed friends who cried for weeks on end after hearing the news, while others did so only once. I saw friends find comfort in the company of others, and those who found peace through solitude. Some gained a stronger relationship with God, whereas some started to question everything that they once believed.  I realised that the cause behind my judgement of all these tv shows was the same thing that made me condemn those who posted their feelings on social media: I am a very private person, and so these open displays of emotion didn’t relate to me. That’s not to say that I didn’t feel the exact same emotions as everyone else did, but when it comes to my emotions, I’m an introvert at heart. I don’t post my feelings on social media, I rarely cry in front of others, and big public displays of affection only make me cringe. If given the option, I will always choose to implode than explode. This ultimately lead me to my third and final revelation: Everyone grieves in their own way, there is no right, cookie-cutter, one size fits all way to grieve. In the end, it doesn’t matter how you grieve or how long for, it’s about allowing yourself to experience the emotion and working through it to one day achieve some form of equilibrium to this new reality.  It’s a journey we all must walk, and one we can only do ourselves.

For anyone who is currently dealing with death for the first time, here are a few websites where you can find support:

https://www.supportline.org.uk/problems/bereavement/

https://www.cruse.org.uk/get-help/helpline

https://www.itv.com/thismorning/bereavement-helplines

[trenchkoat]

transgender name & gender mark change resource post.

So now that everything is said and done, I want to talk about my experience about working to get my legal name and gender marker changed. I live in Florida, so prices and locations will obviously differ. Brevard County, Melbourne thankfully as all of their legal offices together in one section, so it’s easier to travel back and forth. This is in hopes that helps people to get it done as quickly as possible, as the information I found on an official Transgender Equality site was grossly outdated. I did these at the same time after my name my hearing was complete and all I was asked for at the SSA and DMV were for the court order and the affidavit. That’s literally it. It was done in 15 minutes once we were up.

DISCLAIMER: This may not be relative to all counties, states, etc. However, this is not a controversial case and your agents under no circumstances are legally obligated to give their opinion or refuse you because you are transgender. This is an every-day thing for them. If you ever wind up with a clearly troubled agent that refuses your name changed based on your gender orientation, file a complaint, I don’t know the process, but do something, holy hell.

IMPORTANT: If you are changing your female or male name to another that is for the opposite gender (say, Debra to Michael or vice versa), you will be asked to provide an affidavit from your physician, therapist, or - if you’d had top surgery in my case, from the acting surgeon who performed this surgery. I was given it after I was checked out as a patient, I imagine others do this as well. DO NOT LOSE THESE DOCUMENTS. The affidavit will also be used as proof for your gender change.

I. Filing for the name change.

I made the unfortunate error of looking to the internet for this information instead of asking those who created it in the first place. Of course, like me, you might be turned around as well and not be aware of the many branches of the government and who takes care of what.

First of all, the Court of Clerk is responsible for all of this, and there is no charge to go or do anything, especially if it’s to ask questions! Once I was at the desk, I explained that I actually had no idea what I was doing, but this (outdated) packet told me that this is where it all began. You have to go to the one in your county that you are currently residing in and be able to provide an address of that residency.

Everything begins with the Legal Petition for Name Change, or Petition for Legal Name Change, however it may be worded. You’re allowed to ask for a copy of this and I imagine, if it’s not free, a copy of the entire thing and everything document you’ll need to fill out (you may need to ask for more information on certain points like me) would be like... two bucks? Even certified copies of documents are inexpensive.

1. You will need to visit your local sheriff department and request your prints are taken for background check. This was about $20. You don’t have to tell them what it’s for other than a background check and legal name change.

A note: At any time you can have the file actually, well... filed. It ranges from county to county, state to state, but comes to somewhere around $250 to $401. I know this sounds expensive and yes it is, but I imagine this is so their time isn’t wasted for people filing for their name to be changed to “Batman V. Superman”. This is a serious legal matter.

2. This is usually the suggested first step as the background check can take from a week to a month, maybe more. I imagine it depends on the location and what their work looks like. This will be sent electronically as a sealed document to your Pro Se agent you will have submitted and filed everything with - this agent is still at the Court of Clerk and you will be directed to them. Once this is all there, along with everything else in the document filled out, your case will be listed “complete” and ready to proceed to the next step.

Another note: Everything in the packet is pretty basic, your name and history of work, asking if you’ve ever been bankrupt, etc. You will have to (at least I did) list as many residences you’ve lived at since you were born so this is something I went to the parents for. If you do not have this access, I imagine you can ask them if you can put the last one you remember. For example, I had some missing and I said neither my mother nor myself knew where it had been; this didn’t affect anything at all for us.

II. The hearing itself.

Once everything is uploaded to your case number, including the background check which again may take longer than expected so it’s advised to get it done ASAP and file along with it, no waiting game. You will be assigned a judge, a case number, and be asked to call the judge’s secretary (not sure of the actual job title, I’m sorry, Theresa) to arrange a court date.

I was told that you will not be able to choose your day or time.

Now, as I mentioned before, in Brevard all our legal branches are in one district, rather right across from one another or on a different floor. For me, on the date of my hearing, it was on the third floor of the same building as the Court of Clerk. I signed in, waited until I was called, and went in.

They might ask you to fill out the Final Disposition form as best to your knowledge (of course not signing for the judge, that would be stupid), I forgot to because I was in a rush but that’s alright, Theresa helped me out with that.

NO THIS WILL NOT TAKE PLACE IN THE OPEN COURTROOM YOU SEE IN SHOWS AND MOVIES. Or, God, I hope it doesn’t for any of you. That would be insane. It was simply in the honor’s chambers. She came out and sat down and welcomed me. The process consisted of handing her my information and affidavit. She read everything, it all looked good, and she asked me the usual questions after I swore that I would tell the whole truth, etc. I am doing this to escape bankrupty or any legal trouble? Things like that.

When asked to give a reason, you merely have to say that you are transitioning and looking to change your name to your now preferred. If they ask for any proof regarding your “trans-ness” (and I can’t imagine that is in the least bit professional) you are not obligated as far as I know? Because that’s most likely a breach of your own privacy and overall... shitty???

Once it was all squared away, she signed and wished me a good day! Theresa made me official copies to keep, and others were e-copied to my official files.

It was done.

II. The judge isn’t responsible for the gender marker.

This comes down to the SSA (Social Security Administration), and I had been turned around by this. It apparently isn’t a “legal” matter in terms of the judge needing to be convinced, as far as my research has led me. All they require is that affidavit, as well as your court order for name change if you’re doing them at the same time and... yeah, it was easier.

Again, no questions other than if I’m doing this to avoid yadda-yadda or have malicious intent. It took about... five minutes of my agent typing before going “okay, it’s done” and handing me a paper declaring that I had this done on said date. It didn’t cost anything.

She said it would be an “overnight refresh” for the system to log this actual change to be used for the DMV, but as far as I was concerned, it was official! And very, very shocking how smoothly and just... unbiased the interaction was. 24 to 48 hours is the suggested waiting period before going to the next part...

III. The DMV, getting that license/ID.

Okay, so the DMV can be horrible sometimes but not always and in regards to this, those agents still aren’t allowed to refuse your service based on you being transgender because you literally have legal documents and the SSA to prove them wrong.

All you have to say is you’re looking to update your name and gender marker on the license, you’ll be asked to provide the infamous documents we’re all learning to love to carry back and forth everywhere and it should be set. They might ask several times to check everything to make sure there are no mistakes.

If you’re updating your address from an old one, they’ll need two kinds of proof of this address, I don’t think it matters if your older name is on there, I remember that being stated. I literally did not have anything so she offered to, no joke, give me a basic level fishing license that would have my name and the address I wanted on it. This counts as an official document they can use.

So now I can properly go off-shore fishing, I guess.

I think for my initial ID it cost $20 to print but this time it was around $37, so obviously be prepared to pay for the new one. It’s nice and shiny and please look nice when you go because oh god, I had to ask politely if I could retake. My hair was a cowlick mess.

BEFORE I FORGET: Since they’ll clip your previous card to mark it’s no longer valid, it doesn’t hurt to ask if you should hang onto it in case you need to provide further proof of your “previous identity”.

IV. Other things you will need to update ASAP.

Obviously, you should have your birth certificate “amended” but I have not reached out to do this yet as I can file for it through the mail. And you should be able to anywhere, just look up where your closes Department of Vital Statistics is, what they’re called, visit their site to see if you can do it only, through mail, or go there for an appointment if that’s easier.

Note: I went through the process of filing for the name change but it didn’t give me the option of the gender marker change there so it’s probably best, if you go through mail or in person if you get the same as me on your branch’s site.

You’ll need all your lovely files packed up and ready to go, further proof of identification (SSN, I imagine, original certificate) and that’s why I would think going in person is better. Having those very vital documents being handled and wondering if it will end up in the wrong hands... yeah. I don’t know how long this process takes and I’m not really headed for it ASAP so okay maybe this one isn’t an emergency. As far as I know, the only thing a birth certificate is used for, or the reason you would need it amended, is to update your passport with new name, gender, etc. And yeah, oh, duh, put your passport on the list if you’ve got one.

I literally have no idea if everyone just has one or only needs one for if they’ve traveled out of the country before. My father is from England so we did a lot of bouncing back and forth.

NEXT!

Okay, this one actually is very important and should be done same-day or as soon as you can. PLEASE UPDATE YOUR NAME ON YOUR BANK ACCOUNT(S). I CAN’T IMAGINE WHAT THE HELL WOULD HAPPEN IF SUDDENLY YOU WEREN’T ABLE TO ACCESS IT. You will have to show everything to your bank branch to get it updated for your account, again it’s a very unbiased and easy action. I was even given an enthusiastic congratulations from the clerk, it was very nice. There was no charge, I was given temporary checks as a back-up if anyone needed proof of who owned the account.

They did not cancel my current card but a new one will be mailed to you at the address provided with it. That didn’t change for me so updating that is beyond me. I imagine it’s the same as the rest.

Less immediate things that come to mind are things like... subscriptions to delivered goods, Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, sites like that. Obviously your paypal but the name change request is pretty easy through this process since you can now just fill out the form. I haven’t done it to its entirety yet but I assume they’ll ask for the scan of your new ID.

IV. Other notes and general advice.

> If you post your exciting news online anywhere with a photo of your new license, I recommend censoring out your DOB, current address if it’s on the front, obviously, and at least most of your ID’s number. Seems small but it’s still information that strangers who past the photo can use.

> This may take longer than it did for me, but that doesn’t make it any less exhausting. I couldn’t sleep sometimes, I barely had an appetite as the days crept closer and the anxiety was pretty normal. It lingered once I got home with everything done... but it faded. What came next was PURE, UNADULTERATED EXHAUSTION. Please take whatever time off you need to recover or just regroup and let yourself breathe. I’m still waking up having no idea if the process was real or not and I am suffering from this weird disconnect of it all??

> Go crazy, celebrate! You did it!  I treated myself with ice cream and a nine-hour nap. For some this might be a mid-step or their last. I am a trans man who has yet to be on testosterone to for me, that feels like my “last” step in transitioning. There aren’t real milestones in transitioning, however, everyone goes at their own pace and does what feels comfortable to them. 

Wherever you are in your journey, I’m very proud of you.

If you see information that may be confusing, please don’t hesitate to message me personally asking for clarification and I’ll try to get back to or ask someone who may know.

If you want to include fees and locations and advice regarding your own county and state, please, please do. As I said, this was only for Brevard County in Melbourne, FL. I can’t imagine it doesn’t differ here and there.

Good luck, everyone.

[webusinesstrainingworksblr-blog]

Emotional Intelligence Training

All About Emotional Intelligence Training

Over the previous sixteen years, I've stored my eye on any studies that relate to Emotional Intelligence coaching outcomes. Usually, the outcomes are very constructive. Individuals have experienced improved skills in managing emotional reactiveness, elevated private productivity, improved teamwork, reduced stress and more. As I examined the research design, I discovered several components that led to these disappointing results.

The following background gives some insight into the research design. During the six-month interval of this system the variety of volunteer participants dwindled to only lower than half of the original quantity. In a work/life balance survey, roughly ninety% of the volunteer nurse managers reported the bodily problems they felt emotional intelligence workshop had been due, in some half, to overwork. An Emotional Intelligence assessment was used to measure the nurse managers' pre and submit-research Emotional Intelligence. This particular EI assessment presents pictures of individuals's faces to the participants and asks them to pick the feelings expressed from a list of selections.

This system's actions included informational meetings on a month-to-month basis and peer teaching classes weekly. For the peer teaching periods, the individuals have been requested to observe pointers that inspired "pondering out loud," listening (paying shut attention) and reflecting on what the teaching companion was expressing. At the beginning of this system, members identified a couple of emotional abilities they wished to enhance on account of participating in the study.

Results had been inconclusive at the end of the six month interval. Whereas the nurse supervisor contributors felt they had been better managers with improved Emotional Intelligence expertise, the EI evaluation scores were decrease and a better proportion (ninety five%) of the group reported physical issues, together with hypertension, incapability to concentrate, psychological restlessness and complications.

Given the numerous studies indicating very positive outcomes for packages aimed at growing Emotional Intelligence expertise, these disparate outcomes point out the necessity for additional Here is our Blog examination of the make-up of this system. The following supplies insight into the cause of the program's destructive outcomes and options for improving the end result.

As we study the examine's design, there appears to be a few implied assumptions. The first is that an individual's potential to identify the emotions depicted in an image will enhance if you happen to pair people up in a weekly teaching discussion and the pair talk about whatever involves mind. (Let's not even contact upon the assumption of the test itself you can measure EI expertise by having folks accurately determine expressions in pictures.) The second implied assumption is that the group informational periods and weekly peer coaching sessions will reduce physical symptoms.

The place to begin is to take a look at the EI competencies. While there are a selection of models, I concentrate on a model that features five EI competencies, a few of which are intra-personal (inside the particular person) and others that are inter-private (between people). To build EI skill, Social Network Here one must first develop power within the intra-private competencies corresponding to Emotional Self-Awareness, Self-Administration and Self-Motivation. With a strong foundation in these competencies, one can then develop the inter-private competencies of Empathy and Nurturing Relationships.

In different words, with stable abilities in the intra-private competencies comparable to managing one's own feelings, one can extra easily manage inter-personal situations. Because it pertains to the study, the main target appears to have been on the inter-personal ability of Empathy, a part of which is recognizing feelings in others, listening for the that means in phrases and conversations and not judging.

From a training perspective, following sound design practices would increase the probability of positive results. The first step is to determine what the coaching will help individuals have the ability to do higher. These turns into the learning aims. For instance, it's Wikipedia Here your decision participants to be able to have a look at an image and determine the emotions an individual is expressing, or name the emotions he/she is experiencing in any given moment, or have the ability to change unfavourable emotions into positive feelings.

As soon as learning goals are established, you possibly can develop coaching where participants learn info, techniques or processes that help them accomplish the training objectives. Members ought to then have the opportunity to use what was learned through guided follow which includes feedback. Then acceptable analysis needs to be used to find out training effectiveness.

Now when we have a look at the Nurse Manager examine, we don't see any proof that the individuals realized any methods or processes to help them "acknowledge other individuals's emotions from facial expressions in footage" in the course of the informational classes. If indeed they did not obtain this type of training, then the decline within the EI assessment scores shouldn't be a shock. Maybe a extra necessary point is that the EI evaluation itself just isn't very close to real life: the context for the facial features provides additional information enabling people to raised gauge the emotion.

As well as there was no indication that the peer coaching sessions provided any training to help the nurse managers establish emotions in others. Scores might need improved if this sort of https://businesstrainingworks.com/onsite-courses/emotional-intelligence-training-course/ coaching had been included throughout these periods. Nevertheless, the study did not indicate that this kind of coaching was offered for either the teaching or informational classes.

Peer coaching classes might be helpful if a guided process is used. Participants needs to be encouraged to identify and share use of the EI methods they learned, what made their use profitable/unsuccessful, solutions for enchancment, and so forth. The examine itself supported this idea in that the nurse managers indicated that a more structured peer teaching course of would have been useful.

I can't highlight enough that constructing stable inter-private EI competencies requires that an individual first develops sound intra-private competencies. To recognize different's feelings, one must first be capable to acknowledge and manage his or her own feelings. The examine does not indicate that such an method was followed. When this kind of method has been followed, members have skilled very constructive results each personally and professionally, together with improvements of bodily issues related to overwork comparable to reduction in stress, reduced sleeplessness, fewer complications, reduced hypertension, and more.

As of late, business houses have began to value emotional intelligence and so they are opting for professional emotional intelligence training for their workforce. So, a lot of firms and organizations have began to offer emotional intelligence training to working professionals. Nonetheless, assessing ability ranges isn't all such training is supposed for.

To make sure improvement within the staff and for particular person improvement there are numerous issues to be taken into consideration earlier than permitting a corporation to supply their training services. The effectiveness of the coaching must be measured to ensure that it is going to educate properly and evaluate the outcomes correctly in order to carry nice returns on investments on a complete, in the long run.

A typical intelligence coaching will employ not one but a wide range of methods to find out a person's abilities and learn the way his/her expertise will be put to good use within the company's business. The outcomes are decided based on the classroom performance of the participants and how they reply to the coaching. The main focus of emotional Emotional Intelligence Training intelligence coaching should stay on using job techniques and its influence on the business. Any EI ability constructing training ought to begin by setting correct goals for the intervention. The targets can embody each particular person and organizational pursuits. The targets set the benchmark towards which the outcomes are evaluated.

The next step goes in emotional intelligence assessment surveys. These will be accompanied by other assessment surveys like organizational surveys or change effectiveness surveys. Moreover, there must be different inside measures like healthcare claims, customer satisfaction scores, employee to employee/employer relationship, absenteeism and so forth. These are some measures that are discovered very worthwhile in figuring out the success of emotional intelligence coaching program based mostly on the chosen goals of the group. A typical coaching program normally lasts for a few weeks, after which interviews must be performed to check the influence of this system on the participants.

[sippin-on-red-wine]

High Tide | Chapter 7: Please

Title: High Tide, Chapter 7 | Please Author: @sippin-on-red-wine Rating: NO SMUTS IN THIS CHAPTER SORRRYYYYY Characters: Ed Sheeran x Kendra (original female character) Word Count:  3,225 Author’s Note: Sorry in advance again?

I refused to cry, blinking back the hot tears as the taxi pulled away from the curb. I knew I shouldn't, but I looked back at Ed, standing there on the sidewalk, looking broken.

I'm the one that should look broken.

“Where to, miss?”

Shit. I don't know, Mr. Taxi Driver, can't you tell I've just been burned by my international superstar boyfriend and I'm in a country that's not my own and I have nowhere and no one to run to?

“Do you have any hotel recommendations?”

“Sure, plenty. Are you looking for something reasonable, or ritzy?”

“Ritzy, please.”

“Right away then, miss.”

My brain kicked into logistical-detail mode.

Okay, first step, check into a hotel. I have literally nothing with me apart from my little purse which thankfully has my wallet. No fucking way am I going back to Ed’s just to get a suitcase of clothing. I'll just buy some things to tide me over….. tide me over til when? Should I fly home?

The thought of leaving London like this made me shudder. The last few days had been crazy wonderful. How did it all fall to pieces so quickly? Stop.

My phone was vibrating in my little purse. I flipped it over to check -- Lauren was calling. I hit ignore. She called again - ignore. After rejecting her third call, I felt a bit guilty, she probably was worried. I tapped out a quick response:

*Lo, I'm OK, I just need some space. Please.

My phone immediately started buzzing again, and I just got pissed and turned the damn thing off.

I pushed all the worries and questions down, focusing on getting a room somewhere and checking in.

The driver pulled up to a large high-rise building and I handed him a bank note from my purse before spilling out in front of the hotel's main entrance.

I approached the reception desk, suddenly very aware that my dress was probably too tight and short for a place like this.

“Hello, how may I assist you?” The man was young, and dressed in a black suit.

“Do you have any rooms available tonight, please?”

“Sure ma’am. Will one bed suffice?”

I nodded my head. He went to work, clicking and typing in the hotel’s computer system.

“Ahh, we've got a lovely King-sized room with a view of the city. Would you like to reserve it?”

“Yes, please.” City view sounds nice. I mean, I'm in London for the first time, may as well wallow in my self pity in style -- “Wait. Do you have anything larger….. like a suite?”

It turns out, he did. Several options, actually. He pulled out a brochure that included a few photos and highlighted the amenities of each. Oh, and the price per night, which made my eyes bulge out of my head a bit.

I handed over my AmEx card, silently glossing over the dollar figure he had given me for the week’s stay. It didn't matter, really, but it was much more than I was used to paying. Fuck it.

And so he handed me a key card, and I walked unsteadily in my heels over to the Elevator, where they had an actual attendant stationed. He was dressed in a full bell-hop type uniform, an older gentleman with kind eyes.

“Hello, what floor, please?” He asked, ushering me into the lift.

“Penthouse, please.”

I handed him the special key I had gotten at reception, the attendant inserted it in the wall panel and I watched as the “P” button lit up, and we were on our way.

“My name is Thomas, I'm happy to assist you with any needs you may have during your stay.”

His laugh lines were deep-set in his face. I found myself picturing him at home, smiling and adoring his family, maybe bouncing a grandchild on his lap.

I felt my eyes welling up again. Lock it up, K.

“Is there anything I can help you with, miss?”

“Um… actually, yes? Maybe? I wasn't really anticipating my stay, and so I don't have any of my things… is there, by chance, someone who could run out and pick up a few necessities for me?”

“Oh, yes, miss. We've got a concierge service who can handle just about any request you could throw their way. Just give the front desk a ring and they will be happy to assist.”

I sighed a breath of relief. I desperately wanted some leggings and a soft t-shirt, and hadn't been looking forward to going out shopping, bright and early tomorrow morning, dressed in my club clothes.

“Thomas, thank you so much.”

The elevator Ping!'d and Thomas turned the key once more before removing and returning it to me.

“My pleasure, miss. Please do not hesitate to ask, should you be needing anything else. Have a lovely evening.”

I walked out of the elevator into the foyer of my new suite. It was… stunning. Opulent. Beautiful. I was at a loss for words.

It was a large and sprawling suite, with a full kitchen, living room, a balcony, and at least two bedrooms. There was a beautiful wrought iron spiral staircase over in the corner of the lounge area. I kicked off my stupid shoes and dropped my purse on the dining room table, below an ornate glass chandelier. My toes sunk into the cream colored carpeting as I wandered around the suite, peeking in doors. The master bedroom was grand, all done up in beiges and golds and rich accent colors. There was a desk in the master, with a phone that I used to ring the concierge as Thomas had suggested.

I requested a pair of black leggings, a black tee shirt, white sneakers, and a long trench-style lined coat, as well as a toothbrush and a charger cable for my cell phone. The nice lady on the phone assured me they could get all that to me very soon, and that the charges would just be added to my room. I thanked her and almost said goodbye before deciding to order three bottles of champagne, too.

I sighed as I placed the phone back into it's little receiver cradle. Now what.

I strode over to the En Suite, finding a rather plush bathrobe hung on the wall for the taking. I shucked out of my ensemble and slipped into the rich navy blue robe, feeling a bit more at ease. I washed the makeup from my face, wishing I had a hair tie handy. Should make a list of things to pick up tomorrow.

Or maybe you should just go home tomorrow.

The elevator rung out, alerting me that someone was arriving. The doors opened and a younger-looking girl stepped out with a shiny silver cart, with a large ice bucket holding the booze I had requested. I thanked her and she was gone just as quickly as she had came.

Need alcohol. I cut the foil and popped the cork on one of the bottles, plucking one of the flutes from the tray, the second glass staying put. 

I crept over to the large brocade sofa and plunked down right in the center reaching for the television remote. It was official, I was out of things to do. Which is precisely when my brain thought it would be a good idea to re-live the past couple of hours.

My eyes were hot and stinging with tears, but I pushed them back. I am not going to cry. I am fine. I am a grown ass woman. I'll be okay.

But goddamnit, why? I had found my station in life, content with being alone as long as that meant I would never be deceived by a loved one. And then, him.

I should have known. He had only recently broken up with her when he turned up next door. I thought back to the day that I had driven his friends to the airport, going over to Ed's the next afternoon to find him drinking and chain-smoking himself into oblivion. He was broken. And it wasn't your job to fix him so why did you even try?

Just then, I remembered that I had turned my phone off. I was sure there were texts or voicemails waiting for me, and so I gulped down the rest of my champagne and retrieved my cell from my little purse, powering it on.

The messages came in one after the next after the next. A whole slew of texts and missed calls from Lauren popped up:

- Missed Call

*Kendra, where are you??

- Missed Call - Missed Call - Missed Call

*Please answer

- Missed Call Voice Message (1:03) - Missed Call

*Ed is having a fit, Kenn, please, just hear him out

- Missed Call - Voice Message (1:16)

*Okay, I get it. Will you please call me tomorrow? I'm worried about you xx

I clicked on the first voice message, setting it to speakerphone. It was Lauren, rambling about what a “fucking idiot” Ed was and how “bloody worried” she was and offering her guest bed up for me and “PLEASE pick up, Kendra.” It was loud in the background, like she was still at the club, or standing right outside of it, the bass thumping through the phone.

The next voicemail had less chaos going on in the background. “Kendra -- please,” Lauren's voice was pleading on the other end. And then, the sound of Ed’s voice “Lauren, let me --” garble garble garble.

“Kenny, I fucked up, I’m so--”

His voice rang out through the speaker like a shot straight to my heart. I quickly ended the message, not wanting to hear him anymore. Hearing that silly nickname that was just for him and no one else, it was.. unbearable.

Just then my phone rang yet again - a number I didn’t have stored this time. I turned off the t.v., shut off my cell, and went and climbed in the huge bed, feeling utterly alone, and waited for sleep to take me.

Ed…….

I watched her, in the back of the cab, drive away. It was almost like an out-of-body experience. Every nerve, every CELL in my being told me to run after her, to scream, to fight, to not take ‘No’ for an answer. But I was just… stuck. Frozen. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

I kept my eyes trained on the taillights of that cab until it was impossible to see anymore. I heard my name, over and over again, but it sounded distant - like I was underwater and they were shouting from up on the diving board.

Lauren. It was Lauren. She was shaking my shoulders, trying to get me to snap to it. “Ed! Come ON, we have to get you back inside! Paps…”

Whothefuckcares--

But she gave me one good yank and I followed her back inside the club, all the blood rushing back to my head.

“Christ, Ed, why didn’t you tell her Poppy was going to be here?”

“Call her.” It wasn't a question.

“What?”

“Call her!” I was practically shouting. I winced, realizing how I sounded. “Please, Lauren. Call her. I don't know where she's gone.”

Lauren pulled out her phone and scrolled through her contacts, til she found her name. She set it to speaker, we could barely hear over all the commotion in the club but when it went to voicemail, I wasn't surprised that she didn't answer.

Lauren tapped away furiously at her phone screen, texting her.

“Jesus fuck, Ed, what happened?”

“I fucked up, Lauren. Can you please ring her again?”

Lauren called her three more times. I kept willing her to pick up on the other end, but she didn't.

“She texted--” Lauren threw her phone to me and I quickly scrambled to open the message.

*Lo, I'm OK, I just need some space. Please.

The tears were back, hot and spilling out from my eyelids despite my valiant effort to keep them in. I clicked into the text, bringing up her Contact info and with it, a silly picture of her and Lauren from the day Kendra had taken us out whale watching. It had been the very end of Summer, then. Her skin was tanned, her face sprinkled with freckles. She was wearing a white linen top, and my aviators -- I offered them to her when her shades had fallen and been stepped on. That had been one of the best days I had had in weeks, months maybe.

Seeing her face in the photo, silly, with her tongue sticking out and a peace symbol thrown up next to her head -- it absolutely gutted me.

What have you done?

I clicked the little telephone icon, ringing her again. Straight to voicemail this time.

My stomach was hot and sour as I raced to type out a message to her: Please answer.

“Ed, she said she's okay. Why don't I take you home, c’mon, there's nothing you can do from here.” I couldn't meet her eyes, but I nodded and handed the phone back to her.

Lauren grabbed me by the hand and dragged me back through the club, toward the back exit where Kendra and I had come in. She pushed the doors open and the cool night air flooded my lungs.

I felt numb. My mind racing, where is she? Will she come back? Is she safe?

I thought back to the night when she had told me about her past, how she had just up & left everything, not even saying goodbye. Will she do that again?

I braced myself on the stone exterior wall of the club, both hands out as I retched onto the ground between my feet.

“Christ, Ed.” Lauren was there, patting my back as I emptied the contents of my stomach, which was mostly booze.

A few moments passed while I collected myself, and Lauren pulled me into the car that was waiting there for me.

The ride home felt like an eternity. Lauren sat in silence beside me, her hand resting lightly on my knee. The lamplights blurred together, the whir of London at night dulled by the knot in my chest.

“Ed,” she spoke softly. “You gotta clue me in here, what the hell happened?”

“I… she didn't know Poppy was going to be there.”

“And?” She pushed.

“I was stupid, I wanted to look… good, in front of her.”

“Okay, well that seems pretty normal?”

“I… didn't tell her that Poppy would likely be at the party. And I… kind of, got a little handsy with Kendra after I noticed she had gotten there. And her fucking dress, I pushed that dress on her even though she didn't seem comfortable in it, it just looked so goddamn good on her and…”

“Oh, Ed.”

“I came out of the bathroom and I just saw her from the back, stalking down the stairs like a bat out of hell. Did Poppy say something to her? Did you see?”

“No, no, I don't think so. I had just gotten there and your lovely Ex was staring daggers at Kendra, and I, um, mentioned her…. She was definitely taken aback.”

“She's going to hate me.”

“Ed, I'm sure it will be OK.”

“You didn't hear the things she said to me outside. I used her, Lauren, I'm fucking selfish and childish and I fucked it up.”

“Hey. Take a breath. We’ll get her, alright?”

“Will you call her again?”

She granted my request, though we both knew it was hopeless at this point. Her voicemail message rang out of the speaker phone as Lauren inhaled, mentally preparing some new desperate plea designed to get Kendra to pick up the phone.

Kendra -- please,” She started, but I just couldn't listen to her ask, no, beg, on my behalf again.

“Lauren, let me --” I reached out for the phone, pulling it up to my face. “Kenny, I fucked up, I’m so sorry. I don't deserve it but please, please, just call me. I can't.. I didn't..” I struggled for the right words. “This is real, US, everything - it's all real, it's not… you must think… fuck, just, PLEASE, answer? I need to know you're okay.”

Kendra……

I woke the next day, feeling surprised that I had slept so soundly. I wouldn't say well.

I hadn't had any actual dreams, per se, but I just had this haunting feeling like I had re-lived the previous night over and over, unable to wake, stuck in that reality.

I yawned and stretched out in the massive bed, safe under the cover of the fluffy white comforter.

But the safety of the comforter couldn't protect against my own thoughts.

Alright, Kendra. Time to get up and figure out what you're doing.

I threw the covers back and got up out of bed, re-tying the knot in my robe. That reminds me….

I walked out into the main living space of my Penthouse Fucking Suite and saw a neat little stack of packages near the door. It felt a little… odd, picturing a young concierge clerk running out to the shops and choosing the things from my list. But I was more than appreciative to not have to get back in my dress and heels.

I grabbed up the boxes and bags, setting them on the chic metal & glass dining table, extracting all the things I had asked for. I unraveled the cord of the cell phone charger and plugged my phone in to charge up. I pulled the tags off of the few basic clothing items, then dressed myself in the tight black leggings and v-neck tee.

I powered up my cellphone and watched another slew of missed calls register on the screen, the last one had been a little past 4AM, from the number I didn't have saved in my contacts.

And a single text from that same number.

*K, you deserve so much better than me. But I can't let you go. Please x

And suddenly, those tears I had been battling all broke loose, rushing fast and hot down the front of my cheeks.

Did I overreact? Okay, so he wanted to make his ex jealous, I'd be lying if I said I'd never tried especially hard to look good in front of an Ex.

I shrugged off the bathrobe and tugged on the tight black leggings. They were the size I asked for, but European sizes must be a bit less… generous, because man those suckers were tight. I struggled to pull them up over my ass… which only reminded me of Ed being grabby the night before. He was very affectionate, but this had been different. And now that I knew his Ex had been sat there, ten feet away and facing right toward us, all you could see was the smug smile on his face which I had, at the time, interpreted to be happiness or horniness or tipsiness. But now I knew, it wasn’t any of those. It was Look What I Got.

The tears dried up and I buckled down on my resolve. Be honest with yourself. This, plus him wanting to sell his gorgeous fucking house, because it reminds him of her?

He's not over her.

It was time to go home.

Thank you for reading !!!!!!! And not killing me !!!!!!!!!

[updatingthedragon]

Q&A from Summer 1975

TLDR: 

- In moments of dramatic tension or in the case of duels, initiative can be rerolled each round of combat to make it more cinematic. Advantage on this reroll can be given based on combat performance.

- If you have a war or combat-focused campaign, giving your players (and your monsters) advantage when attacking from the rear can help encourage better tactical positioning. 

- If "intelligent" monsters hit a casualty threshold, they should have a check for morale. If they fail their check, they should break and run. This can also be applied to NPC followers.

- In Original D&D, gold and magic items gave experience as well as defeating monsters. This has been somewhat subsumed into "Milestone Leveling."

- If you want to give XP for magic items/finding gold, adapt "Milestone Leveling" into "Milestone XP."

- Original D&D's magic system rested on the idea a magic-user memorized a spell and then immediately forgot how to do it after casting it.

Coming from the Summer 1975 issue of The Strategic Review, we get answers to what, I suppose, were the most commonly asked questions about D&D rules. It's an article from a bygone era- they got letters with questions, and had to respond with a magazine article. This compared to today, when questions about D&D on Twitter are answered by the chief rules designer within days, sometimes within hours. I also love how they say they are going to add a loose sheet of paper with corrections to future printings of the rule booklets (yes, booklets, not manuals yet), and that if you don't have that correction, you can send for it and get it for free.

Anyway, what does this article tell us about the game as it was played in 1975, and what can we bring to the game in 2020?

First, there are questions on combat rules. D&D at this time was heavily reliant on the rules for Chainmail, a miniature wargame that D&D emerged from. Unfortunately, this created some confusion with regards to combat rules. As I do not have a background of being a wargamer in the 1970s, a lot of the "clarifications" read Greek to me. There is also the fun fact that weapons did not do different damage. So a sword did the same as an ax did the same as a bow. This would change in Supplement I, Greyhawk. Strange to think that this took so long to switch out. Maybe because of the heritage from wargaming, where it's on a larger scale?

But! There are still some interesting statements we can pull from to spice up our Fifth Edition games. First, according to this article, initiative is checked every turn. Of course, initiative in this game is rolling a d6 and adding a modifier if you have high dexterity (or subtracting, if you have a low dexterity). While I understand the reasons for not rerolling initiative every turn, since that can take a long time and breaks up the flow of combat, I still like it as an option role (or roll, haha) for moments of dramatic tension. 

Say you are a paladin, and you are in a duel with the Death Knight Zerakuul. Zerakuul was responsible for the deaths of your brothers and the destruction of your order. Rolling initiative each round can add a new element of intensity, and make it much more cinematic for everyone involved. The DM could even add modifiers to the rolls, based on the outcome from the previous round of combat; if Zerakuul hit you hard with her sword, and you missed, she'll get a advantage on her roll.

The combat example given in The Strategic Review is also interesting. 10 Orcs gang up on one lost Hero and rush him. It's VERY unfair, but doesn't seem too far from a scenario one could encounter in old Dungeons and Dragons.  We have rules presented here about attacking from behind, which isn't a thing in 5e. Attacking from behind gives the Orcs a +2 to their hit dice, or I suppose in our modern terms "advantage." Granting advantage to flanking maneuvers in 5e can encourage more tactical combat, but it can also bog things down… which I guess is a recurring theme when bringing mechanical aspects of old D&D to 5e. 5e is very streamlined, especially compared to the multitudinous tables of Original D&D. Still, I think if you have a campaign with an especial focus on combat, having flanking rules could help "sell" to your players the need to use advantageous positioning and protect their rear.

We also get a mention of a balrog as a monster. This is before the Tolkein Estate got wind of TSR's usage of J.R.R.'s terminology. The balrog survived to present day D&D in a very bad disguise. Look up the 5e Balor, and you'll see it's essentially a balrog with the numbers filed off.

Next, we get a discussion on morale. The article says that morale isn't a real concern for players, since they "have their own personal morale in reality." So, your character in game has your same level of morale; they can't be forced to retreat due to broken morale. It also states that unintelligent monsters fight until they die. The really interesting part, however, is when it talks about morale checks for "troops serving with a party… or the morale of intelligent monsters." While stating that it is up to the "referee," the text says that it may occasionally be "necessary." The system for determining morale is entirely left up to the "referee." 

Let us discuss how we can implement morale into D&D 5e. Intelligent monsters are just that- intelligent. They are smart enough to realize that things are going against them, and so shouldn't just sit there and get cut down one by one. In the adventure I presented in the previous post, if goblins suffer 50% casualties, a d20 is rolled and if the number is within a certain range, they flee. This is, incidentally, similar to the Chainmail wargame morale system recommended by the text. If intelligent monsters hit a certain casualty threshold, why shouldn't they think about running? I may finagle this and try to come up with a table… if I do wind up with something good, I'll post it.

The article then moves on to discuss "experience." It seems as if acquiring magical items gave you experience in the game at this point. On further search, it also seems gold gave you experience. This explains why the article clarifies that magical items have a low value of experience, because they help you get more treasure, and therefore more experience. I completely understand why this has vanished from the game- D&D is now more high fantasy than sword and sorcery, so "killing monsters and collecting gold" is less of a drive.

Then there is a weird thing about experience- XP is reduced for high-level characters when fighting low-level monsters, unless "the circumstances of the combat were such as to seriously challenge… and actually jeopardize [the players'] life." Well… I can kind of see that, but at the same time, I feel CR and XP tied to that has helped even this out a bit. In fact, this is what I feel this correction is trying to do, since they state that certain monsters are "wroth" certain level factors… interesting. Additionally, the rise of Milestone leveling entirely counteracts this. I prefer to run my games using Milestone, something that would be completely alien to players back in 1975.

If you wished to adapt some of that "gold gives XP" or "magic items give XP" to 5e, I would suggest adapting Milestone leveling into Milestone XP. Finding a hidden magic item, for example, might be worth some bonus XP at the end of the session. 

Finally, there is a statement about spells that is intriguing. Magic in Original Dungeons and Dragons worked "in-universe" like this:

A magic-user memorized a spell at night, so that she could use it the next day. As soon as she cast that spell, she forgot how to do it. That is the justification for a magic-user not being able to repeatedly use spells over and over again. Spells inscribed on scrolls worked a similar way; as soon as they were read from the scroll, they disappeared, so that they couldn't be used again. 

It also states here that a magic-user could only "use a given spell but once during any given day, even if he is carrying his books with him." However, it goes on to clarify that a magic-user can "equip himself with a multiplicity of the same spell." So you would have to prepare three sleep spells, as the example goes, in order to use the sleep spell three times.

Spellbooks, as always, are key to a magic-user's abilities. This has been inherited by the wizard in 5e.  "If he had no books with him," the article says, "there would be no renewal of spells on the next day." 

All in all, this article demonstrates that, even this early in the game, there were questions regarding the rules as written. We can also see several concepts that have survived to this day, while also several (such as gold giving XP) that have fallen by the wayside. D&D has always been evolving, and will likely continue to evolve with time. 

[mattsagervo]

Interview: Tal M. Klein, Author of 'The Punch Escrow'

The Punch Escrow has been a huge critical and commercial success, author Tal M. Klein's debut novel has garnered praise from everyone from NPR to Felicia Day, and with good reason. Set in the year 2147, Escrow combines a compelling story and cast of characters with masterful world-building - transporting the reader to an all-too believable future, constructed from a mix of imaginative fiction, and speculative extensions of real-world science and sociological trends. 

It has garnered many favorable comparisons to Ready Player One, which does it a bit of a disservice, since it's a work of breathtaking originality. The only similarities I note are that it successfully integrates, and updates, some beloved science fiction ideas, and that it has been fast tracked to the big screen; a film adaptation is already in development at Lionsgate.

I had the opportunity to interview Klein about the book's origins and influences, what to expect from him in the future, and how he masterfully constructed the world of 2147 - from science, to music and more. 

Matt Sager: Like a lot of great science fiction, The Punch Escrow has several themes, and is clearly about a lot more than a future of human replication and teleportation. How would you describe the book's plot and overall themes - or more bluntly, "what is your book about?"   Tal M. Klein: I like to say it’s a hard sci-fi technothriller with a love story at its core. Joel Byram, an everyday guy in 2147 New York is duplicated en route to Costa Rica as a result of a teleportation mishap, the company that runs teleportation wants to “fix the bug” by killing one of the duplicates, religious zealots want to use his circumstance as propaganda, and his wife is kidnapped by a rogue scientist. Now Joel is fighting to save his life and in his wife in a world that has two of him. The core elements of the story are rooted in identity: Are we who society says we are? Or who we think we are? Or who those who we love believe us to be?  

MS: You’ve attained huge success with The Punch Escrow - you’ve attained massive critical and commercial success, the book has been optioned by Lions Gate, and as of this writing it’s number 1 on Amazon’s Hard Science Fiction charts. Did you envision this level of attention and success for your debut novel?  TMK: I set out to tell the best version of my story. That was my criteria for a “job well done.” I’m thrilled people are digging it. The credit for its success is equally shared by my wife, my editorial team of Robert Kroese, Matt Harry, and Adam Gomolin, and Howie Sanders at United Talent Agency.  

MS: I’ve been told that the concept for the book came about over an argument over the plausibility of Star Trek transporters - can you elaborate on how that led to a book about teleportation and cloning? TMK: What you’ve been told is true! Back in 2012, I was complaining to a co-worker about J.J. Abrams’ over the top use of lens flare in the Star Trek reboot, when suddenly, our CEO interrupted our conversation by shouting “It’s bullshit!” It turned out he wasn’t talking about the lens flare, but Star Trek’s transporters. He was an expert in quantum physics and went on to explain that nobody in the right mind would ever step into a transporter if they knew how it worked. It was then that I realized that there wasn’t a good origin story for the commercialization of teleportation. The fact is, I initially set out the write The Punch Escrow as a textbook from the future, with scribbles in the margins by a smartass named Joel Byram. That was the first draft. By the time the final draft was done, Joel’s story became the focus on the book, and the “textbook” was relegated to liner notes, explaining the world Joel lived in.  

MS: I’m very aware that you're not a fan of J.J. Abrams' lens flare. Cinematography aside, are you a fan of the new Star Trek franchise? Other than the transporter argument, has it had any influence on your writing? TMK: Hah, well, discounting for his penchant for lens flare, I’m a huge J.J. Abrams fan, the first movie of the Trek reboot was great. I didn’t really care for the second or third. MS:  J.J. Abrams aside, I know that you’re a huge fan of Star Trek - which is your favorite franchise, and how has it influenced you as a writer? TMK: I’d qualify that by saying I love Star Trek, but I’m not a Trekkie. I say that because I learned my lesson at San Diego Comic Con. If you tell a Trekkie that you’re a Trekkie, they expect you to have an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire Trek cannon, which I do not possess. So, yes, I am a Star Trek fan. My favorite franchise was DS9, but my favorite season of all time was TNG Season 6. MS: Which other science fiction television shows, films, books and writers would you cite as your biggest influences?   TMK: Larry Niven, Scott Meyer, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and, because The Martian undeniably catalyzed me to write my book, Andy Weir. As for television shows, I think it’s fair to credit modern detective shows like Psych and Monk for helping me wrap my mind around Rube Goldberg plot devices. Most influential was my favorite show of all time, the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen. I think they really nailed the technogeek persona. Influential movies run the gamut from The Princess Bride to Donnie Darko and everything in between, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention District 9, Looper, and Gattaca. MS: The Punch Escrow strikes me as a book that's in equal parts hopeful and fearful for the future. There are themes of utopian technology corrupted by corporate interference. How much of that - the good and the ill - do you see unfolding in the present? Is your fictional vision of 2147 similar to your actual view of the future? TMK: To borrow a phrase from The Jester, There's an unequal amount of good and bad in most things. The trick is to figure out the ratio and act accordingly. I don’t think future is dystopian or utopian, it’s just us progressing along our evolutionary path. MS: Music plays a major role in the book. I understand that we have a music industry background in common. What was your career in music like, and how did it contribute to the Joel's soundtrack, and the new genre of redistro? TMK: I never think of anything I do artistically as a “career” — music and writing are my hobbies. I’m very serious about my hobbies, but I pursue them for the sake of pure joy rather than income. MS: One of the most original ideas in The Punch Escrow is the brilliant, if gross, race of genetically engineered mosquitoes. What was your inspiration for these bugs that eat lighting and crap thunder, so to speak? TMK: Everyone loves the mosquitoes! The near-scandal is that I cut the mosquitoes in the third draft of the book because I learned about bacteria that eat methane and excreted oxygen, but my beta readers freaked out on me, so I put the skeeters back. The reason the mosquitoes are there is because I wanted to solve for air pollution but in a very messy, human way. Humans tend to to opt for quick fixes and shortcuts, I think it’s because we are a breed largely driven by the pursuit of instant gratification. MS: Hard science fiction like The Punch Escrow seems to grow more relevant by the day as AI and robots are, to varying degrees, infiltrating the workforce and performing tasks that were once the sole domain of humans. Do you see this as a growing issue, and if so, need it be a threat? Is AI really capable of supplanting people, and is that really what corporations as a whole want?  TMK: Will apps and robots take the place of people? Absolutely. But if we look at what happened in the Industrial Age, people were prophesizing similar doom and gloom scenarios, and that’s not how the future turned out. There will be plenty of human jobs after AI, it’s just that those jobs will be different than many of the jobs we have today. MS: How did you come up with the idea of a machine language - that is, a language by machines, for machines, cars talking to one another, etc? How surprised were you when Facebook had to shut down it’s AI because it had created a secret language for itself? TMK: If you’ve ever played with AI, it makes sense that two pieces of semi-intelligent code might form a more optimal method of communicating than our cumbersome language. I was a bit taken aback by what happened at Facebook, yes. But it wasn’t shocking. I also understand why they pulled the chord, but I kind of wish they hadn’t.   MS: What do you think machines are saying about us, and if AI continues to advance, do you think that they are going to develop an opinion of us? Do you think it will be favorable, and/or within our ability to influence?    TMK: Code will likely always be subservient to its programmer. As such, I think we need to add ethics to the list of engineering core competencies. If engineers exclusively focus on successful code execution without regard for anthropological outcomes in the age of AI, we may very well end up with evil robots.   MS: Are there sequels in the works? What’s next for the Punch Escrow universe, and for you as a writer? TMK: I’m contractually obligated to deliver two more books that take place in the world of The Punch Escrow. One of them will likely be a sequel of sorts in that we’ll get into matters unresolved in The Punch Escrow, but the other is shaping up to be a standalone novel with a narrative that is ancillary to that of The Punch Escrow. But who knows, both are at the very early formative stages.

[entergamingxp]

Bravely Default 2 Shines as One of My Most Anticipated RPGs of 2020

February 7, 2020 1:00 PM EST

While 2020 will see the release of several huge RPGs, the next entry in Square’s Bravely Default series has my undivided attention.

The Video Game Awards 2019 will be remembered by most as our first look at the Xbox Series X. However, for myself, it will be the year that one of my game dreams came true with the announcement of Bravely Default 2.

As an avid fan of RPGs, particularly the turn-based Japanese variety, I quickly fell in love with the first Bravely Default in 2014. It created a fresh world with exciting new legends, mechanics, and lore. The sequel that followed a few years later only solidified this new series as one of my favorites in Square’s library. Three and a half long years I waited; each Nintendo Direct caused me to hope for the announcement of the next game. Bravely Second left us with quite the cliffhanger, and each passing year it felt as though we kept being teased: Twitter images with Edea, a mobile release in Japan, more tweets. The teases just wouldn’t cease. It was like we were stuck in that damn loop from the first game again! So when the trailer began at The Game Awards, to say that I was on the edge of my seat would be a gross understatement.

Seeing the hand-drawn backgrounds in full HD, no longer hindered by the resolution of the 3DS handheld, were breathtaking. The narration in the trailer still gives me shivers when I re-watch it.  We’ve gotten a quick look at our new band of adventurers and left with only speculation. We know that this game will be separate from Bravely Default and Bravely Second: it’s going to be a whole new world with its own set of legends, cities, and conflicts.

What I’m most interested to find out about in Bravely Default 2 is what fun new classes will be included. The previous two titles have one of the most well-implemented and customizable job systems in all of Square’s library. The series has always included staple Square jobs like White Mage, Black Mage, and Monk while also mixing in additional silly jobs like the Catmancer, Patissier, and Vampire. The first game came with 24 jobs, each with 14 abilities, with Bravely Second upping the job count to 30, with 11 abilities each. While I’m not worried that we won’t still have oddball jobs in Bravely Default 2, I do worry some that perhaps the depth and options will be cut down somewhat. In my perfect world, we will get 40 jobs each with 14 abilities. This would allow every job to come back from the previous games, in addition to a few new ones.

Another defining aspect of these mainline games is the battle system. The original game’s title is directly tied to it. By utilizing the new Brave and Default options, it added a welcome complexity to the stagnating turn-based formula. This system of allowing players to decide if they wanted to stock up on turns for later on, or burn them in advance (leaving yourself open to attack), gave an added depth to the game that I adored.

“When the trailer [for Bravely Default 2] began at The Game Awards, to say that I was on the edge of my seat would be a gross understatement.”

The 3DS titles feature a range of quality-of-life options that should make the jump to the Switch too. While nowadays the speed-up feature for battles in RPGs is more common, in 2014 it was unheard of. I honestly can’t think of another turn-based RPG that had this option. This combined with the option to have your party reenact the previous turn’s commands greatly allowed you to grind out levels. And if you didn’t want to level up your characters–just your jobs–you could easily toggle the sliders in the options to turn off experience, money, or job points, or even how often you found yourself in encounters. When I think the Bravely series, these options are in the forefront of my mind, and I think are a must for Bravely Default 2.

When it comes to my expectations of the story in Bravely Default 2, I have full confidence that they will take the criticisms from the previous games and improve on it. With the series having a strongly established notion of multiple timelines and dimensions, I’m hoping that BD2 will simply be one of those. As mentioned earlier, there were some big plot reveals in the post-credits movie of Bravely Second. I’m perfectly fine with the new game being largely unconnected from the others, but I’ll be disappointed if any of those reveals are ignored in the story of Bravely Default 2. With Team Asano (the group behind the first Bravely Default and Octopath Traveler), I have faith that they will craft a story to be remembered.

Outside of the quick trailer we got at The Game Awards, Bravely Default 2 is very much still shrouded in shadows, composed of the ethereal hopes and wish list dreams of fans.  As it was revealed at such a widely-viewed event, I think it is safe to assume that Nintendo and Square are looking at this new game as a heavy hitter this year for the system. The RPG genre has been very kind to the Switch, with hits like Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Octopath Traveler doing surprisingly well. I’m thrilled that a whole new audience will get to experience the Bravely series with this new entry. And now if they would just reveal new information about it already! Mrgrgrgr!

Bravely Default 2 will release sometime this year exclusively for Nintendo Switch.

February 7, 2020 1:00 PM EST

from EnterGamingXP https://entergamingxp.com/2020/02/bravely-default-2-shines-as-one-of-my-most-anticipated-rpgs-of-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=bravely-default-2-shines-as-one-of-my-most-anticipated-rpgs-of-2020

[lodelss]

Danielle A. Jackson | Longreads | September 2019 | 16 minutes (4,184 words)

The late summer night Tupac died, I listened to All Eyez on Me at a record store in an East Memphis strip mall. The evening felt eerie and laden with meaning. It was early in the school year, 1996, and through the end of the decade, Adrienne, Jessica, Karida and I were a crew of girlfriends at our high school. We spent that night, and many weekend nights, at Adrienne’s house.

Our public school had been all white until a trickle of black students enrolled during the 1966–67 school year. That was 12 years after Brown v. Board of Education and six years after the local NAACP sued the school board for maintaining dual systems in spite of the ruling. In 1972, a federal district court ordered busing; more than 40,000 white students abandoned the school system by 1980. The board created specialized and accelerated courses in some of its schools, an “optional program,” in response. Students could enter the programs regardless of district lines if they met certain academic requirements. This kind of competition helped retain some white students, but also created two separate tracks within those institutions — a tenuous, half-won integration. It meant for me, two decades later, a “high-performing school” with a world of resources I knew to be grateful for, but at a cost. There were few black teachers. Black students in the accelerated program were scattered about, small groups of “onlies” in all their classes. Black students who weren’t in the accelerated program got rougher treatment from teachers and administrators. An acrid grimness hung in the air. It felt like being tolerated rather than embraced. 

My friends and I did share a lunch period. At our table, we traded CDs we’d gotten in the mail: Digable Planets’s Blowout Comb, D’Angelo’s Brown Sugar, the Fugees’ The Score. An era of highly visible black innovation was happening alongside a growing awareness of my own social position. I didn’t have those words then, but I had my enthusiasms. At Maxwell’s concert one sweaty night on the Mississippi, we saw how ecstasy, freedom, and black music commingle and coalesce into a balm. We watched the films of the ’90s wave together, and while most had constraining gender politics, Love Jones, the Theodore Witcher–directed feature about a group of brainy young artists in Chicago, made us wish for a utopic city that could make room for all we would become. 

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We also loved to read the glossies — what ’90s girl didn’t? We especially salivated over every cover of Vibe. Adrienne and I were fledgling writers who experimented a lot and adored English class. In the ’90s, the canon was freshly expanding: We read T.S. Eliot alongside Kate Chopin and Chinua Achebe. Something similar was happening in magazines. Vibe’s mastheads and ad pages were full of black and brown people living, working, and loving together and out front — a multicultural ideal hip-hop had made possible. Its “new black aesthetic” meant articles were fresh and insightful but also hyper-literary art historical objects in their own rights. Writers were fluent in Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison as well as Biggie Smalls. By the time Tupac died, Kevin Powell had spent years contextualizing his life within the global struggle for black freedom. “There is a direct line from Tupac in a straitjacket [on the popular February 1994 cover] to ‘It’s Obama Time’ [the September 2007 cover, one of the then senator’s earliest],” former editor Rob Kenner told Billboard in a Vibe oral history. He’s saying Vibe helped create Obama’s “coalition of the ascendent” — the black, Latinx, and young white voters who gave the Hawaii native two terms. For me, the pages reclaimed and retold the American story with fewer redactions than my history books. They created a vision of what a multiethnic nation could be.

* * *

“There was a time when journalism was flush,” Danyel Smith told me on a phone call from a summer retreat in Massachusetts. She became music editor at Vibe in 1994, and was editor in chief during the late ’90s and again from 2006 to 2008. The magazine, founded by Quincy Jones and Time, Inc. executives in 1992, was the “first true home of the culture we inhabit today,” according to Billboard. During Smith’s first stint as editor in chief, its circulation more than doubled. She wrote the story revealing R. Kelly’s marriage to then 15-year-old Aaliyah, as well as cover features on Janet Jackson, Wesley Snipes, and Whitney Houston. Smith was at the helm when the magazine debuted its Obama covers in 2007 — Vibe was the first major publication to endorse the freshman senator. When she described journalism as “flush,” Smith was talking about the late ’80s, when she started out in the San Francisco Bay. “Large cities could support with advertising two, sometimes three, alternative news weeklies and dailies,” she said.

‘There is a direct line from Tupac in a straitjacket [on the popular February 1994 cover] to ‘It’s Obama Time’ [the September 2007 cover, one of the then senator’s earliest].’

The industry has collapsed and remade itself many times since then. Pew reports that between 2008 and 2018, journalism jobs declined 25 percent, a net loss of about 28,000 positions. Business Insider reports losses at 3,200 jobs this year alone. Most reductions have been in newspapers. A swell in digital journalism has not offset the losses in print, and it’s also been volatile, with layoffs several times over the past few years, as outlets “pivot to video” or fail to sustain venture-backed growth. Many remaining outlets have contracted, converting staff positions into precarious freelance or “permalance” roles. In a May piece for The New Republic, Jacob Silverman wrote about the “yawning earnings gap between the top and bottom echelons” of journalism reflected in the stops and starts of his own career. After a decade of prestigious headlines and publishing a book, Silverman called his private education a “sunken cost” because he hadn’t yet won a coveted staff role. If he couldn’t make it with his advantageous beginnings, he seemed to say, the industry must be truly troubled. The prospect of “selling out” — of taking a corporate job or work in branded content — seemed more concerning to him than a loss of the ability to survive at all. For the freelance collective Study Hall, Kaila Philo wrote how the instability in journalism has made it particularly difficult for black women to break into the industry, or to continue working and developing if they do. The overall unemployment rate for African Americans has been twice that of whites since at least 1972, when the government started collecting the data by race. According to Pew, newsroom employees are more likely to be white and male than U.S. workers overall. Philo’s report mentions the Women’s Media Center’s 2018 survey on women of color in U.S. news, which states that just 2.62 percent of all journalists are black women. In a write-up of the data, the WMC noted that fewer than half of newspapers and online-only newsrooms had even responded to the original questionnaire. 

* * *

According to the WMC, about 2.16 percent of newsroom leaders are black women. If writers are instrumental in cultivating our collective conceptions of history, editors are arguably more so. Their sensibilities influence which stories are accepted and produced. They shape and nurture the voices and careers of writers they work with. It means who isn’t there is noteworthy. “I think it’s part of the reason why journalism is dying,” Smith said. “It’s not serving the actual communities that exist.” In a July piece for The New Republic, Clio Chang called the push for organized labor among freelancers and staff writers at digital outlets like Vox and Buzzfeed, as well as at legacy print publications like The New Yorker, a sign of hope for the industry.  “In the most basic sense, that’s the first norm that organizing shatters — the isolation of workers from one another,” Chang wrote. Notably, Vox’s union negotiated a diversity initiative in their bargaining agreement, mandating 40 to 50 percent of applicants interviewed come from underrepresented backgrounds.

“Journalism is very busy trying to serve a monolithic imaginary white audience. And that just doesn’t exist anymore,” Smith told me. U.S. audiences haven’t ever been truly homogeneous. But the media institutions that serve us, like most facets of American life, have been deliberately segregated and reluctant to change. In this reality, alternatives sprouted. Before Vibe’s launch, Time, Inc. executives wondered whether a magazine focused on black and brown youth culture would have any audience at all. Greg Sandow, an editor at Entertainment Weekly at the time, told Billboard, “I’m summoned to this meeting on the 34th floor [at the Time, Inc. executive offices]. And here came some serious concerns. This dapper guy in a suit and beautifully polished shoes says, ‘We’re publishing this. Does that mean we have to put black people on the cover?’” Throughout the next two decades, many publications serving nonwhite audiences thrived. Vibe spun off, creating Vibe Vixen in 2004. The circulations of Ebony, JET, and Essence, legacy institutions founded in 1945, 1951, and 1970, remained robust — the New York Times reported in 2000 that the number of Essence subscribers “sits just below Vogue magazine’s 1.1 million and well above the 750,000 of Harper’s Bazaar.” One World and Giant Robot launched in 1994, Latina and TRACE in 1996. Honey’s preview issue, with Lauryn Hill on the cover, hit newsstands in 1999. Essence spun off to create Suede, a fashion and culture magazine aimed at a “polyglot audience,” in 2004. A Magazine ran from 1989 to 2001; Hyphen launched with two young reporters at the helm the following year. In a piece for Columbia Journalism Review, Camille Bromley called Hyphen a celebration of “Asian culture without cheerleading” invested in humor, complication, and complexity, destroying the model minority myth. Between 1956 and 2008, the Chicago Defender, founded in 1905 and a noted, major catalyst for the Great Migration, published a daily print edition. During its flush years, the Baltimore Afro-American, founded in 1892, published separate editions in Philadelphia, Richmond, and Newark.

Before Vibe’s launch, Time, Inc. executives wondered whether a magazine focused on black and brown youth culture would have any audience at all.

The recent instability in journalism has been devastating for the black press. The Chicago Defender discontinued its print editions in July. Johnson Publications, Ebony and JET’s parent company, filed bankruptcy earlier this year after selling the magazines to a private equity firm in 2016. Then it put up for sale its photo archive — more than 4 million prints and negatives. Its record of black life throughout the 20th century includes images of Emmett Till’s funeral, in which the 14-year-old’s mutilated body lay in state, and Moneta Sleet Jr.’s Pulitzer Prize–winning image of Coretta Scott King mourning with her daughter, Bernice King. It includes casually elegant images of black celebrities at home and shots of everyday street scenes and citizens — the dentists and mid-level diplomats who made up the rank and file of the ascendant. John H. Johnson based Ebony and JET on LIFE, a large glossy heavy on photojournalism with a white, Norman Rockwell aesthetic and occasional dehumanizing renderings of black people. Johnson’s publications, like the elegantly attired stars of Motown, were meant as proof of black dignity and humanity. In late July, four large foundations formed an historic collective to buy the archive, shepherd its preservation, and make it available for public access.

The publications’ written stories are also important. Celebrity profiles offered candid, intimate views of famous, influential black figures and detailed accounts of everyday black accomplishment. Scores of skilled professionals ushered these pieces into being: Era Bell Thompson started out at the Chicago Defender and spent most of her career in Ebony’s editorial leadership. Tennessee native Lynn Norment worked for three decades as a writer and editor at the publication. André Leon Talley and Elaine Welteroth passed through Ebony for other jobs in the industry. Taken together, their labor was a massive scholarly project, a written history of a people deemed outside of it.

Black, Latinx, and Asian American media are not included in the counts on race and gender WMC reports. They get their data from the American Society of News Editors (ASNE), and Cristal Williams Chancellor, WMC’s director of communications, told me she hopes news organizations will be more “aggressive” in helping them “accurately indicate where women are in the newsroom.” While men dominate leadership roles in mainstream newsrooms, news wires, TV, and audio journalism, publications targeting multicultural audiences have also had a reputation for gender trouble, with a preponderance of male cover subjects, editorial leaders, and features writers. Kim Osorio, the first woman editor in chief at The Source, was fired from the magazine after filing a complaint about sexual harassment. Osorio won a settlement for wrongful termination in 2006 and went on to help launch BET.com and write a memoir before returning to The Source in 2012. Since then, she’s made a career writing for TV.  

* * *

This past June, Nieman Lab published an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor in chief of The Atlantic since 2016, and Adrienne LaFrance, the magazine’s executive editor. The venerable American magazine was founded in Boston in 1857. Among its early supporters were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. It sought to promote an “American ideal,” a unified yet pluralistic theory of American aesthetics and politics. After more than a century and a half of existence, women writers are not yet published in proportion to women’s share of the country’s population. The Nieman piece focused on progress the magazine has made in recent years toward equitable hiring and promoting: “In 2016, women made up just 17 percent of editorial leadership at The Atlantic. Today, women account for 63 percent of newsroom leaders.” A few days after the piece’s publication, a Twitter user screen-capped a portion of the interview where Goldberg was candid about areas in which the magazine continues to struggle:

  GOLDBERG: We continue to have a problem with the print magazine cover stories — with the gender and race issues when it comes to cover story writing. [Of the 15 print issues The Atlantic has published since January 2018, 11 had cover stories written by men. — Ed.]

 It’s really, really hard to write a 10,000-word cover story. There are not a lot of journalists in America who can do it. The journalists in America who do it are almost exclusively white males. What I have to do — and I haven’t done this enough yet — is again about experience versus potential. You can look at people and be like, well, your experience is writing 1,200-word pieces for the web and you’re great at it, so good going!

That’s one way to approach it, but the other way to approach it is, huh, you’re really good at this and you have a lot of potential and you’re 33 and you’re burning with ambition, and that’s great, so let us put you on a deliberate pathway toward writing 10,000-word cover stories. It might not work. It often doesn’t. But we have to be very deliberate and efficient about creating the space for more women to develop that particular journalistic muscle.

My Twitter feed of writers, editors, and book publicists erupted, mostly at the excerpt’s thinly veiled statement on ability. Women in my timeline responded with lists of writers of longform — books, articles, and chapters — who happened to be women, or people of color, or some intersection therein. Goldberg initially said he’d been misquoted. When Laura Hazard Owen, the deputy editor at Nieman who’d conducted the interview, offered proof that Goldberg’s statements had been delivered as printed, he claimed he had misspoken. Hazard Owen told the L.A. Times she believes that The Atlantic is, overall, “doing good work in diversifying the staff there.”

Taken together, their labor was a massive scholarly project, a written history of a people deemed outside of it.

Still, it’s a difficult statement for a woman writer of color to hear. “You literally are looking at me and all my colleagues, all my women colleagues and all my black colleagues, all my colleagues of color and saying, ‘You’re not really worthy of what we do over here.’ It’s mortifying,” Smith told me. Goldberg’s admission may have been a misstatement, but it mirrors the continued whiteness of mainstream mastheads. It checks out with the Women’s Media Center’s reports and the revealing fact of how much data is missing from even those important studies. It echoes the stories of black women who work or worked in journalism, who have difficulty finding mentors, or who burn out from the weight of wanting to serve the chronically underserved. It reflects my own experiences, in which I have been told multiple times in a single year that I am the only black woman editor that a writer has ever had. But it doesn’t corroborate my long experience as a reader. What happened to the writers and editors and multihyphenates from the era of the multicultural magazine, that brief flash in the 90’s and early aughts when storytellers seemed to reflect just how much people of color lead in creating American culture? Who should have formed a pipeline of leaders for mainstream publications when the industry began to contract?

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In addition to her stints at Vibe, Smith also edited for Billboard, Time, Inc. publications, and published two novels. She was culture editor for ESPN’s digital magazine The Undefeated before going on book leave. Akiba Solomon is an author, editor of two books, and is currently senior editorial director at Colorlines, a digital news daily published by Race Forward. She started an internship at YSB in 1995 before going on to write and edit for Jane, Glamour, Essence, Vibe Vixen, and The Source. She told me that even at magazines without predominantly black staff, she’d worked with other black people, though not often directly. At black magazines, she was frequently edited by black women. “I’ve been edited by Robin Stone, Vanessa DeLuca [formerly editor-in-chief of Essence, currently running the Medium vertical ZORA], Ayana Byrd, Kierna Mayo, Cori Murray, and Michaela Angela Davis.” Solomon’s last magazine byline was last year, an Essence story on black women activists who organize in culturally relevant ways to fight and prevent sexual assault.

Solomon writes infrequently for publications now, worn down by conditions in journalism she believes are untenable. At the hip-hop magazines, the sexism was a deterrent, and later, “I was seeing a turn in who was getting the jobs writing about black music” when it became mainstream. “Once folks could divorce black music from black culture it was a wrap,” she said. At women’s magazines, Solomon felt stifled by “extremely narrow” storytelling. Publishing, in general, Solomon believes, places unsustainable demands on its workers. 

When we talk about the death of print, it is infrequent that we also talk about the conditions that make it ripe for obsolescence. The reluctant slowness with which mainstream media has integrated its mastheads (or kept them integrated) has meant the industry’s content has suffered. And the work environments have placed exorbitant burdens on the people of color who do break through. In Smith’s words:

You feel that you want to serve these people with good and quality content, with good and quality graphics, with good and quality leadership. And as a black person, as a black woman, regardless of whether you’re serving a mainstream audience, which I have at a Billboard and at Time, Inc., or a multicultural audience, which I have at Vibe, it is difficult. And it’s actually taken me a long time to admit that to myself. It does wear you down. And I ask myself why have I always, always stayed in a job two and a half to three years, especially when I’m editing? It’s because I’m tired by that time.

In a July story for Politico, black journalists from The New York Times and the Associated Press talked about how a sophisticated understanding of race is critical to ethically and thoroughly covering the current political moment. After the August 3 massacre in El Paso, Lulu Garcia-Navarro wrote how the absence of Latinx journalists in newsrooms has created a vacuum that allows hateful words from the president to ring unchallenged. Lacking the necessary capacity, many organizations cover race related topics, often matters of life and death, without context or depth. As outlets miss the mark, journalists of color may take on the added work of acting as the “the black public editor of our newsrooms,” Astead Herndon from the Times said on a Buzzfeed panel. Elaine Welteroth wrote about the physical exhaustion she experienced during her tenure as editor in chief at Teen Vogue in her memoir More Than Enough. She was the second African American editor in chief in parent company Condé Nast’s 110 year history:

I was too busy to sleep, too frazzled to eat, and TMI: I had developed a bizarre condition where I felt the urge to pee — all the time. It was so disruptive that I went to see a doctor, thinking it may have been a bladder infection.

Instead, I found myself standing on a scale in my doctor’s office being chastised for accidentally dropping nine more pounds. These were precious pounds that my naturally thin frame could not afford to lose without leaving me with the kind of bony body only fashion people complimented.

Condé Nast shuttered Teen Vogue’s print edition in 2017, despite record-breaking circulation, increased political coverage, and an expanded presence on the internet during Welteroth’s tenure. Welteroth left the company to write her book and pursue other ventures.

Mitzi Miller was editor in chief of JET when it ran the 2012 cover story on Jordan Davis, a Florida teenager shot and killed by a white vigilante over his loud music. “At the time, very few news outlets were covering the story because it occurred over a holiday weekend,” she said. To write the story, Miller hired Denene Millner, an author of more than 20 books. With interviews from Jordan’s parents, Ron Davis and Lucy McBath, the piece went viral and was one of many stories that galvanized the contemporary American movement against police brutality.

Miller started working in magazines in 2000, and came up through Honey and Jane before taking the helm at JET then Ebony in 2014. She edits for the black website theGrio when she can and writes an occasional piece for a print magazine roughly once a year. Shrinking wages have made it increasingly difficult to make a life in journalism, she told me. After working at a number of dream publications, Miller moved on to film and TV development. 

Both Miller and Solomon noted how print publications have been slow to evolve. “It’s hard to imagine now, particularly to digital native folks, but print was all about a particular format. It was about putting the same ideas into slightly different buckets,” Solomon said. On the podcast Hear to Slay, Vanessa DeLuca spoke about how reluctant evolution may have imperiled black media. “Black media have not always … looked forward in terms of how to build a brand across multiple platforms.” Some at legacy print institutions still seem to hold internet writing in lower esteem (“You can look at people and be like, well, your experience is writing 1,200-word pieces for the web and you’re great at it, so good going!” were Goldberg’s words to Nieman Lab). Often, pay structures reflect this hierarchy. Certainly, the internet’s speed and accessibility have lowered barriers to entry and made it such that rigor is not always a requirement for publication. But it’s also changed information consumption patterns and exploded the possibilities of storytelling.

Michael Gonzales, a frequent contributor to this site and a writer I’ve worked with as an editor, started in magazines in the 1980s as a freelancer. He wrote for The Source and Vibe during a time that overlapped with Smith’s and Solomon’s tenures, the years now called “the golden era of rap writing.” The years correspond to those moments I spent reading magazines with my high school friends. At black publications, he worked with black women editors all the time, but “with the exception of the Village Voice, none of the mainstream magazines employed black editors.” Despite the upheaval of the past several years (“the money is less than back in the day,” he said), Gonzales seems pleased with where his career has landed, “I’ve transformed from music critic/journalist to an essayist.” He went on to talk about how now, with the proliferation of digital magazines:

I feel like we’re living in an interesting writer time where there are a number of quality sites looking for quality writing, especially in essay form. There are a few that sometimes get too self-indulgent, but for the most part, especially in the cultural space (books, movies, theater, music, etc.), there is a lot of wonderful writing happening. Unfortunately you are the only black woman editor I have, although a few years back I did work with Kierna Mayo at Ebony.

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Danielle A. Jackson is a contributing editor at Longreads.

Editor: Sari Botton

Fact checker: Steven Cohen

Copy editor: Jacob Z. Gross