#imagine if i encounter. One Minor Obstacle. like this when i have to sign up for school and doctor paperwork

[vs-redemption]

Hey! Can i request tamaki,mirio and nejire with a s/o who have a very powerfull quirk?

From Cindy: Thanks for requesting the big three! It was interesting trying to imagine them reacting to a powerful quirk. I had fun thinking of the quirks though. I hope this is what you were looking for anon!

Mirio

Mirio had no idea just how powerful your quirk was until he’d already been dating you for a few months.

You were a support course student at a college outside of Japan, and you had met Mirio when he’d come to your school to do a study abroad program after graduating from UA High School.

You both shared some general studies classes together and Mirio began to rely on you to help him whenever he struggled with homework because you were one of the only students on campus who spoke fluent Japanese.

It was easy for you to fall for a positive and passionate person like Mirio, and he went head over heels for your kindness, smarts, and accent just as quickly.

Your tutoring sessions turned into study dates, which turned into real dates, which ended with you eventually becoming an official item.

Mirio had inquired about your quick once or twice during your time together, but you often brushed off the questions.

“It’s an emitter type quirk that isn’t very useful.”

Your hero course boyfriend never even thought to push the subject any further, but he was very surprised when he found out you had signed up for the school recruitment event that was similar to the Sports Festivals held at UA.

“Don’t they hold this event for hero students to show off and find jobs with pro hero agencies?” Mirio asked you.

“Basically,” you answered with a shrug. “But support course students can use it as a chance to show off their products as well.”

Mirio was worried that it might be a little dangerous, but couldn’t bring himself to discourage you from doing something you wanted to do.

On the day of the recruitment, Mirio makes sure to come support and cheer for you whenever he has time between the events he was participating in.

He was happy to see you doing well in one of the obstacle races until you suddenly came up to a part of the course with thick giant walls blocking the way.

None of your support items seemed to be helpful with the roadblock and it looked like you might not be able to continue the event.

Imagine Mirio’s surprise when you sigh in annoyance before reeling back your fist and punching a giant hole straight through the cement slab and walking past it as if it were just a minor inconvenience.

He’s shocked, of course, but also super excited and proud of you.

“Babe! Why aren’t you in the hero course?! Your quirk is amazing!”

You explain that controlling the sheer force of your power was more trouble than it was worth, and that making support items for heroes had always been more fulfilling for you anyway.

Mirio respects your feelings, but now that he knows how strong you are, he can’t help but ask you to work out with him from then on.

It makes him happy that he can finally do something with you that he excels at since you’d been the one helping him since the beginning.

He will also add your strength to the list of things he brags about when talking about you with other people.

Amajiki

Amajiki already knew the basics of your quirk when he met you since it was on the resume you’d used to apply as a sidekick at his agency.

He had no idea what to expect though at first since your ability to steal other people’s “kinetic energy” was pretty unique.

“Whenever I touch something that’s in motion, I absorb the energy and use it for myself!”

You could literally steal energy from ANYTHING that was moving, be it a small empty can rolling back and forth on the sidewalk or a four thousand ton train racing along its tracks at full speed.

Amajiki learned during your first patrol together that it was even more incredible as it sounded.

“Ah! My bag!” A woman’s scream drew your attention to a man running down the street with a purse he’d just stolen clutched in his arms.

Before Amajiki can even react, you are already running after the man, high fiving people walking in the opposite direction and tapping the hoods of moving cars as you run by to use their energy to boost your own speed.

You catch up with the man in the blink of an eye and tackle him, using his own speed against him to fuel your quirk. You successfully restrain him and wrestle the purse out of his arms.

“You were so fast,” Amajiki says after the incident is resolved. He means it as praise, but he can’t help but feel embarrassed that he hadn’t helped at all. “How did you overpower him though? He was twice your size.”

“I can convert the kinetic energy I collect to do anything I want!” You say happily, “that includes increasing my speed, strength, jumping power, grip and more!”

You start to remind Amajiki of Mirio with the positive energy you give off and the incredible control you master over your quirk.

He is conflicted because he admires you so much, and knows you’re an asset to his team.

On the other hand, he feels like you deserve much more than to just be his sidekick. The poor boy worries that he is holding you back.

He casually brings up the topic of you starting your own agency one day, but is surprised to see how disappointed and sad you look at the very thought.

“Is this your way of politely asking me to leave because you know I have a crush on you?”

You start to apologize for possibly making him uncomfortable and try to explain that you’d tried to keep your feelings in check, but it was hard when he was such a cool hero and amazing friend.

Your words slowly turned him into a blushing, flustered mess.

YOU had a crush on HIM?!

“No, that’s not what I meant!” He begins to stutter about how amazing he thinks you are and how you deserve more recognition, not realizing that you were getting flustered too now.

Somehow, you both make it through the nerves and agree to continue working together at the agency.

Amajiki even finds the courage to ask you on a date.

Even after dating for a while, Amajiki still gets overwhelmed by your quirk sometimes, but you make sure to encourage him and boost his self-esteem whenever possible.

Nejire

Nejire knew about you and your quirk long before you even met her.

Her curiosity about you had been peeked the moment she saw you using your mutant ability to transform into some sort of half human, half jaguar badass warrior.

Nejire’s eyes went wide when your hands and feet grew into big spotted paws with razor sharp claws, giving you the ability to run on all fours at crazy speeds, darting around like a real jungle cat.

When the cameras zoomed in, she got a glimpse of your dangerously long fangs and adorable fluffy ears. The reporter on the tv explained that when your quirk was activated, your jaw pressure was double that of an actual tiger.

Nejire became obsessed. Not only was your quirk super strong, but you also looked super cute when you were using it!

She had so many questions!

The first time she has the chance to see you in person is at the tail end of a pretty scary villain encounter.

She’d been doing her best to hold off a couple of beefed up bad guys who’d been harassing some girls when you’d shot out of nowhere, pouncing on top of the biggest looking one and pinning him to the ground effortlessly.

Her breath had caught for a moment when she saw your glowing yellow cat eyes, but she quickly recovered so she could take care of capturing the second criminal.

Once the incident was resolved, she was quick to bounce over to you and thank you for helping her out.

“You seem totally awesome!” She tells you with a huge smile, “We should definitely be friends! Do you have time to grab a bite after your patrol?”

“Um… of course!” you laugh feeling awestruck to be invited to hang out by one of the famous big three heroes from UA.

Both of you head to the nearest diner, and Nejire spends most of the time interrogating you about yourself and your quirk.

“Does it hurt when the claws and fangs grow out?” She asks. She was so excited she was bouncing in her seat. “Are the jaguar features just physical or do you get any cat like instincts too?”

Her questions could sometimes get pretty personal, but you could tell her intentions were innocent. You didn’t mind sharing information about yourself, and hoped you’d get the chance to learn more about her too.

“Hey we should totally team up again real soon!” She tells you before it’s time to head back home.

“I’d be up for that!” you smile happily at her friendliness. “And maybe we could get dinner after?”

“Oh!” She spins around in delight. “Like a date?”

“Yeah,” you nod, feeling glad she was on the same page. “Like a date.”

You both are basically inseparable from that point onward. Nejire’s playful and bubbly behavior matched your own and you found yourself spending more and more time with her both in and outside of work.

The more she learned about you and your quirk, the more enamored she became. The same was true for you about her.

Gossip magazines were calling you two a power couple even before the relationship was official.

[nightingaletrash]

For you? Anything

AO3

“I will arrange an audience with the Blacksmith’s Association and we can clear up this tax dispute in no time. Two or three days of negotiation ought to settle it.”

Logan was struggling to keep his eyes open. Maybe it was because he’d spent four years as King trying to prepare Albion for war, and as such had dealt with such quibbling disputes with brute force. Or maybe five years of war prep had simply alienated him from the simple minutiae of day-to-day business and rendered it impossibly boring.

Peace, he had found, did not feel like peace. It felt more like anticipation. A breath between battles, and merely a pause before some new threat loomed on the horizon, ready to be fought. Once the illusion was shattered, nothing ever truly restored it, and anything that didn’t seem to contribute to a greater goal seemed pointless or wasteful.

He found himself understanding his mother a little better with every passing year.

At least he wasn’t the only one struggling. Lorna’s head had drooped no less than three times in the last five seconds and her dark eyes fluttered in an attempt to stay open. Truly, the most fearsome foe the two siblings had faced since the Darkness’ defeat was the unending drone of Hobson’s voice.

“Now, onto much more important matters: the hiring of a new head gardener. As you know, the rose bushes this year have suffered some minor discomfort due to the inclement weather and less than salubrious soil management. I’ve arranged an interview process that should take no more than eight weeks, starting tomorrow morning. It should make for a very stimulating two months.”

Logan glanced down at Lorna and jerked his head as if to say ‘I’ll catch you up on the details later.’ She gave him a grateful albeit weary smile and finally let her eyes slide shut as she slumped into the throne, letting her exhaustion overtake her. 

Logan forcefully straightened his back and reasserted his focus onto Hobson, who didn’t seem to notice her Majesty clocking out of the conversation, and he tried his best to hang onto the aide’s every word. It was perhaps the greatest obstacle he’d had to overcome as Royal Advisor.

The hours crawled by and the sun began to sink lower and lower in the sky. Servants stole their way into the throne room to replace candles that had burned too low, sparing glances at their dozing Queen, though they quickly hurried away after receiving a pointed look from Logan, who managed to remain awake, attentive, and on his feet which were beginning to ache.

And somehow, even as nightfall finally arrived, Hobson was still talking and working his way through that damned list of his.

“But lest we forget matters of state, we really ought to begin a more considered census of the population. Estimates of the number of citizens vary widely.” 

Something in Logan’s gut jerked and the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. Something - he wasn’t sure what - was very wrong. Suddenly listening to Hobson was no longer his focus. He scanned the room for any sign, any clue to support the sudden feeling of unease that had overcome him.

Nothing immediately jumped out. The most recent rotation of guards were all stood at attention, weapons ready at hand. The doors didn’t open, there was nothing to suggest any intrusion whatsoever… Until his gaze wandered upwards.

“I suggest each one come to the throne room and has a little chat with you while I count them-”

With a flick of his wrist, Logan drew his sword and deflected the blade away from the throne - away from Lorna. It flew across the room and bounced harmlessly across the carpet. Hobson yelped and dived for the cover of the throne as Lorna flinched awake, staring wildly around for the threat that Logan had already spotted.

A bald, scarred man dressed in dark leathers and with a sword sheathed on his back. He scowled at Logan, backed up and then leapt down to the ground, tucking and rolling across the floor. He drew his sword and rose to his feet in a readied stance. This was a man with experience and training. An assassin in every sense of the word.

“Is it too late for an audience, my Queen?” he spat, glaring at Lorna.

Logan moved to block her from sight, keeping his weapon trained on the assassin as the guards drew their rifles.

“Surrender now and you may live long enough to receive a trial,” he said coldly.

The assassin spat.

“I’ve come here to fulfill my destiny. To get revenge for everything you’ve done.”

Logan’s eyes narrowed.

“If you want revenge, I think you’ll find I’m the one you’re after,” he growled, gripping his sword tightly. “But you will leave my sister out of it.”

There was a pause, and then the assassin said, “no. I don’t think I will.”

He lunged faster than expected and swung hard, giving Logan barely a moment to parry the blow. Then he attacked again, jabbing and swinging with the sort of mastery that took years to perfect, and with all the anger one might expect from a vengeful madman.

But he was also outnumbered. Logan parried another blow and smashed the pomel of his sword into the assassin’s nose, sending him staggering backwards. He hung back a moment, giving the guards a chance to aim and fire. 

There was a deafening crack of multiple gunshots, but the assassin rolled back, skirting out of the path of the bullets before catching one of the guardsmen between the eyes with a throwing knife. The guard crumpled into a heap, and the assassin lunged for Logan once more.

Their blades locked, and the assassin stared pointedly over Logan’s shoulder.

“Did you think you were safe here, your Majesty?” he jeered. “Did you think that your guards could protect you?”

Logan forced him back, determined to put the assassin on the back foot.

“I know all about guards,” he continued regardless, dropping and rolling backwards, putting distance between himself and Logan. “They couldn’t keep me in the Keep, and they couldn’t keep me out of your castle!”

Another throwing knife aimed to catch a second guard in the throat, but it was knocked out of the air with a ringing gunshot. 

Logan knew better than to take his eyes off of his adversary, but he knew Lorna had been the one to shoot it down. Instead he lunged, knocking the assassin’s blade to one side and then making to run him through. But the assassin simply dropped his sword and rolled in the opposite direction, pulling out a switchblade. There was a piercing screech as the blade glanced over Logan’s chestplate.

“I am the voice of change!” the assassin declared. “I am the voice of a revolution!”

Another bullet skimmed past Logan and struck the assassin in the thigh. He yelled as his leg gave out under him in a burst of blood and gunpowder, and he scrambled to regain his balance. Logan didn’t let him.

Instead he kicked the switchblade from the assassin’s hand, pressed his foot hard on his wrist, and plunged his sword through his sternum. 

There was no deafening scream or wail of pain. It was like all the air had just gone out of him in a small gasp, his mouth forming a small ‘o’ as his eyes rolled back into his head. He floundered weakly on the floor, a hand grasping at the blade in a vain attempt to pull it out. 

Logan decided to save him the trouble.

With a swift twist, the blade came free and the assassin lay there, gasping for breath. And yet he still found the strength to lift his head. 

“You think you’re safe now? That your precious sister is safe?” he spluttered through a mouthful of blood, bubbles forming at his lips. “I am the first of many. We will kill you, both of you, in the end.”

He fell limp and Logan stepped over him. Lorna lowered her rifle, her face white with shock. Funny. After facing the Crawler, it was hard to imagine that anything could surprise her anymore-

A hand clamped on his ankle with a murderous desperation, and before he could react to stop it, a dagger sunk into the flesh of his hip. His eyes bulged as he stared down at the assassin, who grinned up at him through bloody teeth and a glare filled with malicious glee.

“And the end will be sooner than you think!”

A guard sprinted forward, shoving Logan aside before promptly drilling the assassin between the eyes. But the damage was already done. The blade came free, clattering to the ground as Logan stumbled and collapsed, pressing a hand to his wound.

It burned, by the Light it burned! He’d never been one to panic unnecessarily, but the pain did not dull and it only furthered the onset of fear blossoming in his chest. The pain only grew, spreading and burning until he was writhing on the ground, pleading for the agony to stop.

“-poisoned blade, your Majesty-”

“I know, Hobson! Fetch the healers-”

Lorna was at his side, Hobson at her shoulder. She was gripping his hip, putting pressure on his wound as the aide vanished from his swimming vision.

“-on, Logan, help’s-”

Sweat was already beading his forehead and he couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Was he dying? Light, please, he didn’t want to die. Not now. Not after all of this.

“-unidentified ship in the harbour-”

“-can wait until- -healer for my brother-”

“Understood. Have- -until her- -to receive-”

He couldn’t follow. His vision was blotted and his blood was on fire. A cool hand cradled his face and for a brief moment in his delirium, he thought it was his mother. But that wasn’t right because his mother was dead. Like Walter, his father. And tonight- Light, tonight they had tried to take his little sister too. Why did the Light want his family so badly? Why?

When he awoke days later, he was in his room with no recollection of sobbing in his sister’s arm as the poison’s agony wracked his body, but he could feel the after effects. He’d not felt so weak since his encounter with the Darkness. He could barely lift his head, barely even speak. His wound hurt with every movement, even the slightest shift of the sheets or coil of his muscles, causing a wave of pain to radiate out from his hip, and there was little the healers could do than continue to provide the necessary potions every few hours.

When he was finally able to speak without slurring into unintelligible nonsense, he asked for his sister. He was met with disappointment.

She had gone to Ravenscar, the healers told him. There was a situation involving some escapees, but they knew nothing else for the time being. Her Majesty would be back as soon as possible, but he would need to rest in the meantime. But rest assured, the watch had been tripled and the castle secured. He was safe now. 

Which was useless to him because Lorna wasn’t.

He had never told her about Ravenscar. He’d told himself that he would after the Crawler was defeated. But then he didn’t. Something new would come up and he decided to put it off a while longer. The subject of their mother’s rose bushes had taken priority over that damned island. And he knew why it hadn’t come up before now.

Because if she knew, it was another problem she’d need to fix. If she knew, it was another reason to hate him. If she knew, she might decide he didn’t deserve to live after all.

Cowardly. So bloody cowardly. What would his mother think if she could see him like this, if she could see that she had raised a coward to be King? To see her first born reduced to a sobbing mess over every little thing he realised he’d gotten wrong.

He wasn’t sure if it was his brush with death or if it was some effect of the poison that was playing havoc with his emotional state, but he was trapped with his thoughts and no means of assuaging them. The only person he could bring himself to trust was Lorna, and Lorna wasn’t here. She was on Ravenscar, where people wanted her dead because of him, and that realisation wracked his still-healing body with a fresh wave of sobs.

It seemed like an eternity of living the same day over and over again. Wake up, be tended to, cry over everything, regain control for another check up, cry some more, then fall asleep when he exhausted himself from crying. Over and over again, with little to no variation.

Finally there was a knock at the door and it wasn’t a healer that stepped inside. 

“Logan.”

He stared for a long few seconds, then made to push himself up to greet his sister. His arms, however, seemed to have forgotten all of their strength, and at best he managed to accomplish an undignified flop.

Lorna had the good grace to let it go unmentioned, and instead sat down beside him on the bed. She brushed a hand through his hair, smoothing is back, and then glanced him over.

“You look terrible,” she laughed, a weak smile tugging at her lips. “But I’ll take that over the alternative.”

The unspoken word hovered in the air, but Logan had no interest in plucking it out of the air and putting it in his own mouth. Besides she wasn’t wrong. He felt terrible, so he had to look it too. Weak, unkempt, sick to his stomach. His body was healing, but the pace was a slow one.

“I feel it,” he mumbled. “Lorn… about Ravenscar-”

She cut him off with a shake of her head.

“We can talk about it when you’re feeling better,” she said gently. “Just rest, Logan. There’s no point in arguing about what’s already done.”

His eyes burned and he scraped together what little strength he’d recovered to raise his arms in an attempt to pull her into a hug. Luckily she got the idea and met him halfway. She gathered him up into her arms and held him gently as she buried a hand in his hair.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled thickly as the tears rolled down his cheeks. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she murmured back, her voice gentle but firm. “I’m here now.”

[theteej]

Lee-Jackson Day, yet again.

The feeling creeps in, like a slow fog in the morning.  A sense of helplessness, of grief, of powerless confusion.  It's a freezing feeling, and I feel everything grind a little slower inside me, like the gears of some fading automaton.  This feeling has snuck on me like clockwork these past three years, unwavering in its unpleasant reaction.

I feel it long before I realize why it's happening.  Here in California people make idle references to "the three day weekend."  But for four years, it was something a hell of a lot worse for me: Lee-Jackson weekend, and its accompanying violent fuckery. 

Nearly two decades after Confederate commander Robert E. Lee died the Commonwealth of Virginia commemorated his birthday (January 19) as a state holiday in 1889, adding the birthday of fellow Confederate soldier Stonewall Jackson in 1904 (January 21).  Lee-Jackson Day became a state holiday in third week of January, a tribute to the rehabilitation of Confederate rebellion and a chilling moment of celebrating in the face of terrorized black people the lamentable loss of the slave state.  Absurdly, the state simply slapped Martin Luther King onto the whole equation when MLK became a federal holiday; from 1983-2000, there was Lee-Jackson-King Day, truly a nonsensical mishmash that made a false equivalence between honouring white supremacist slaveholding and a civil rights leader.  From 2000 to 2020, the two were separate, creating a strange standoff on either side of the weekend, Lee-Jackson on the Friday, MLK on the Monday.

I of course knew none of this prior to 2014, when I flew out to Washington and Lee University on a job visit on Martin Luther King Day.  Faculty gave nervous glances at the queer, black candidate who'd arrived just after the weekend, but I still didn't understand until the next year, when they rolled into town.   The Confederates came by the dozens, setting up gigantic Confederate flags directly in front of my workplace, slapped up huge signs screaming that Lee was being disgraced by the "new" changes at the University (which had finally acquiesced in taking down Confederate flags in the central chapel on campus that they still made students of colour attend, under the watchful statue of a dead Lee, to partake in school activities), and they would yell at us, challenging us to see them in their unmelanated victimhood.

It fucking hurt every year.  It hurt every year to see the town I lived and worked in invaded by these entitled white men, women, and children, who spewed invective, who openly missed enslavement of people like me, and who loudly made their sense of disenchantment and complaint very known.

You know what hurt more? The fact that that it was absolutely a right response to the moral bankruptcy of Washington and Lee University, and the white administrators and my fellow colleagues rarely openly responded to it as such.  The entirety of Washington and Lee's largesse, its attractiveness, is its storied 'heritage.'  But that heritage is one of enslavement, of white supremacy, of violence.  And it has never, ever been repudiated.  Instead, it's a shitty compromise, where we hold all the slave-built buildings, the memorial chapel that worships Lee, and we think if we wish hard enough, it wouldn't be violently anti-black, and it wouldn't be a complete mockery to hold the institution as thus.

I needed a job after my PhD, and it was a good one, this job in Virginia.  I had enough funding to do research in South Africa, I had curious and thoughtful students, and for the most part I had thoughtful colleagues.  But the place is an open sewer with decorative bricks.  It is a pit of violence and hatred that is as papered over as the thin-lipped smiles I encountered from my white colleagues and the sorrowful shrugs they offered me without doing anything.  It was the dean who shook her head in commiseration but told me to head to another town (ironically, Charlottesville) the entire weekend rather than see the Confederates occupy my town, the stretch of street in front of my apartment, for four days. It still hurts.  It still bothers me.

Two years in, after KKK recruitment flyers were spread around the town, we formed an anti-racist group.  It was largely well intentioned white liberals, headed in particular by problematic professors who wanted to speak over people, but it was something.  And we decided to finally have an MLK parade.  And in a turn of pettiness, we petitioned to have the parade on Saturday, the day the Confederates usually marched.  And we beat them to the permit.  And all hell broke loose.

I and other people got doxxed online.  i got death threats in my email and my picture was circulated as one of the problems threatening Southern heritage.  My mother cried over the phone and worried if I'd die.

We marched on that parade day and it felt significant.  But I also had to deal with deeply disingenuous white townsfolk who made false equivalences. Stephanie Wilkinson, who would make headlines a year and a half later for finally drawing a line and refusing Sarah Huckabee Sanders service at her expensive restaurant, publicly equated Martin Luther King marchers and the Confederates as 'outside problems' and asked for a neutral free speech zone to accommodate both. I saw the hypocrisy of whiteness and accommodation long before the siege of the Capitol.

Working in Virginia from 2014-18 was a rewarding experience for my career, and yet it came at a cost.  It fucked me up badly.  I had to endure, politely, the daily mendacity of polite white society--of people who wanted to imagine that this was "a good town."  And when I wasn't being threatened personally by Confederates I was being gaslit by professors like Robin LeBlanc or Jim Casey who insisted that they were the good ones beyond reproach and that they were the arbiters of what racism was or wasn't.

I am grateful and acknowledge that I have a career because of Washington and Lee, but if I could do it over again, I don't think I would.

Sometimes I still wake up afraid.  My anxiety became a regular companion in those four lonely years.  I felt belittled and gaslit and frankly humiliated, no times more frequently than that interminable fucking weekend in January where in the freezing weather, I was forced to say out loud that it was absurd that I was being asked to accommodate--with kindness no less--the vicious false victimhood of shitty Confederate whites and worse still the well intentioned crocodile tears of my white liberal colleagues.

When the University of San Diego offered me a job I left what was fundamentally an abusive relationship.  But it never leaves you.

And every fucking year since I've been back, even in the counterintuitive summer warmth of these January weekends (it was 83F/28C today), the chill creeps in.  Part of me wants to unclench in the false calm of the California sun.  That we aren't in the middle of another moment of cruel perfidy, where the people with actual structural power perform their victimhood and demand once again that people like me die, or at the very least, be broken in the dust for the soothing of their petty, pointless pride.

And that's why, after the Jan 6 Capitol assault, another Lee-Jackson Day fucks me up.  Because despite the fact that the Commonwealth of Virginia finally, FUCKING FINALLY discontinued the holiday in the summer of 2020, they're back in Lexington today.  Celebrating once again, with huge flags. Taking up space.  And the university does nothing, just victimizes new black faculty trying to quietly write their way out of hell, and reminding the black people still living there that they are always to be seen as obstacles to be crushed. I can't.  It breaks me, still.  Perhaps because I've cruelly come to realize that this isn't over. I moved three thousand miles away and yet those vicious complainants who see people like me as a threat to their minor existence aren't just invading Lexington.

They're assaulting the Capitol. With precious few consequences. And I've few places to run.

[obviously-best-potions-master]

Together in the Woods

Chapter 36

Word count: 2132

 During the breakfast you and Professor Snape shared glances. You slightly smiled at each other, trying not to expose yourselves. It frequently happened before, but today it was a little different. When you realized that Snape had finished his breakfast, you got up from the table and left the Great Hall first. You walked slowly, hoping that he would want to talk to you. And he did. He quickly caught up with you in the corridor.

“Y/N!” He greeted you, slowing down his pace.

“Professor!” You smiled joyfully.

He frowned. “And how did I ask to call me?”

“Sorry, sir...” You hurried to correct yourself and rolled your eyes at your stupidity.

“I’m hopeless...” You smiled guiltily. “Severus...”

He gently smiled back.

“What are your plans for the weekend?” Snape went along with you, with his head held high, no emotions on his virile face. His black suit and long cape, waving slowly at his leisurely yet steady step, complemented his unapproachable and formidable image.

“No plans, just wanted to look through paragraphs on the subjects I missed during these two days... And thanks to you, I have something to read.” You answered cheerfully.

“I was going to gather Chelidonium, while the weather is still warm.” He mentioned in his usual measured tone.

“Chelidonium? That Chelidonium, which releases acrid juices at the stem damage?”

“Exactly.”

“You need to be very careful.”

“True.” Snape agreed. “But gloves easily solve this problem.” He turned his head to you and smiled at your concerned expression. “Another problem is Scramblers which inhabit the places of its growth.”

You fell silent, continuing walking slowly along the corridor.

“You made me know about your intention on purpose, didn’t you?” You looked up at him suspiciously.

“Perhaps.” He smiled slightly.

“So I can go with you?” You were excited with delight.

“I'll be glad, if you join me.” He admitted softly.

“You still had doubts?” You exclaimed. “When are we going?”

“As you wish, we can go today, or maybe tomorrow.”

“Today, let’s do it today!” You hopped childly, being impatient to hit the road.

Snape laughed.

“Well, then you just need to change into something more... suitable.” He was happy that you agreed to accompany him.

“I’ll be quick!” You were ready to take off.

“Don’t rush!” Snape chuckled. “Let’s meet at the gate in... Will half an hour be enough for you?”

“Sure!”

“So, I’ll wait for you there in half an hour.” He gave you that genuine smile you loved so much, that smile nobody presumed, he was capable of.

You quickly changed into black jeans and a warm dark-green pullover, put a walking coat on, and in 15 minutes you were already there, waiting for your Professor.

Snape came a few minutes later. Without his suit, he looked very unusual, also in black jeans, a black sweater and in the same walking coat as yours. He never betrayed his predilection to black color.

“You're so fast!” He complimented you. “It took me a little longer to prepare something, that we might need…” He pointed on a bag, which hung over his shoulder.

“Shouldn’t I take anything?” You suddenly realized your hands were empty.

“I took care of both of us.” He smiled protectively.

During your long journey, Snape explained you how to collect Chelidonium and what surprises you might have encountered in the mountains. Clearly, he wasn’t going to put you in danger. If something threatened your life or could even cause a minor injury, he would’ve never taken you with him. The deeper you went into the forest, the tougher was the path. There wasn’t any path, to be precise. You passed over snags and trunks of fallen trees, while meanwhile you had to climb up the mountain. Snape always gave you his hand and helped you overcome obstacles.

Finally, you reached the place, and found yourselves on a wide glade. When Snape helped you to get over the last huge stone, you noticed a Scrambler, staring right at you.

“Severus...” You pointed at the monster, which headed in your direction, swiftly approaching you.

Snape turned around and quickly pushed you behind his back, shielding you with his body. Fearing that the monster would attack your Professor first, you pulled your wand, and, shouting “Immobilus!”, made the Scrambler freeze.

“This spell is too weak for him, he’ll break it soon.” Snape examined the monster to make sure he wasn’t able to attack you. “Let’s get out of here!” He grabbed you by the hand and dragged you along with him.

You ran away, hiding behind the rocks. Now that you were safe, Severus stopped short of breath.

“Sorry, I shouldn't have... I messed up everything.” You apologized, blaming yourself.

“You did everything right, good job.” He was really pleased with your reaction. “Timorfortis works better on them.” He warily looked around to detect any sign of danger, but to his relief, this place turned out to be absolutely safe.

“Never heard of this spell. Is it yours?” You were fascinated by this man’s intellect.

“Yeah." He muttered carelessly, as if it was in the order of things.

“And how much time did you spend to figure this out? And most important… how many times did you put yourself in danger?” You looked deep into his eyes with that extremely concerned glance, which always touched his heart. “I'm afraid to imagine, how you’ve come up with many of your other spells...”

Severus laughed. “You’d better stay unaware!”

“Why won't you write a book? That would be useful...” You suggested. “What you do with potions, it’s just unbelievable! You’ll have to release a whole series of books...”

“I doubt that someone will appreciate it.”

“I would really appreciate it!” You looked at him with reproach.

“Then I’ll write exclusively for you!” He jokingly clasped your neck with his hand and pulled you close to himself, making you laugh.

“You promised!”

Snape was happy that there existed someone in his life, who accepted him for who he was, with his dark and light sides, with all his shades. Someone, who gave him freedom to be himself, without being forced to lie and pretend.

Once you asked him about dark magic, you knew about his past, after all. Everyone knew. You supported his interest on the Dark Arts. You believed that, possessing these knowledge, one could become a much more powerful wizard, which Snape proved himself. Dark magic could not only bear destruction, but also serve the good deeds. Severus has always been of this opinion, but his whole life he was confronted with misunderstanding. Until the moment, when he met you.

You reached a meadow, dotted with Chelidonium, and started collecting herbs. You watched Severus by work. He looked so peaceful and relaxed. You remembered the last events, when you almost lost him, and tears flowed down your cheeks. You felt an urge to hug him, but you didn’t dare. So you just wiped your face with your sleeve and continued picking scratchy leaves, rejoicing at these moments, that you were spending here together.

Having finished with Chelidonium, you headed back.

“Wait for me here, I'll check on the Scrambler.” Snape wanted to leave you in a safe place.

You grabbed his arm. “I'm going with you!”

“No, you’re staying here, until I make sure that nothing threatens you!” He snapped harshly.

But you didn't let go of his hand. He turned to you and patted your shoulder. He couldn’t be angry with you, your frightened eyes begged him to stay.

“What shall I do with you, huh?” He asked softly.

“Timofortis, I remembered. I can help.” You couldn’t allow something to happen to him. You felt the need to constantly be with him, to see him, to feel him, and (Merlin! what a pleasure!) to touch him. You realized that you would just die without this man.

He gave up and allowed you to join him. All the way, Snape conjured spells to protect you.

As you approached the place, you discovered that there were no less than ten monsters waiting for you. Snape stopped and stretched his hand to hold you. He could’ve dealt with them himself, but he didn’t want to risk you, so he pulled you back.

“We have no choice but to return the other way.” He sighed.

***

“I'm sorry I took you here.” He apologized, helping you to climb over the other thick trunk of a fallen tree.

“I’m very glad that you took me here!” You reassured him. “It’s so beautiful and calm here!” You made a deep breath. “And what a smell, do you feel it?”

Snape smiled. “Calm? I wouldn’t be so categorical about it, taking into account the reason, why we’re dragging through the thicket now.”

You laughed. “I still really like it here!”

It was getting dark, so Snape realized you had to stay overnight in the woods. Finally, you found a glade, protected from one side by the mountain, and from the other - by the edge of thick bushes.

“This place is suitable for lodging for the night, shall we stay here?” Suggested Snape.  

You were surprised that he was going to spend the night in the woods, but this news aroused a pleasant excitement in your soul.

Snape sat down, leaning on a boulder, took out some food from his bag and with a movement of his head invited you to sit down beside him. You noticed, that he brought what you liked, he did it for you. Your heart fluttered with tenderness, you were so grateful for his care.

Only having finished your meal, you realized how tired you were. You laid on a soft grass, looked at the night star-spangled sky, and talked. Snape saw, you were drowsy.

“Come here.” He stretched out his hand so that you could lie on his shoulder. You gladly moved closer and made yourself comfortable on his chest. He embraced you with his big hands, pressing you tightly.

“Are you cold?” He turned his head to you, leaning his cheek against your forehead.

“No.” You whispered and buried your face in his sweater. You felt his chest rise and fall when breathing and heard his heart beating. Enjoying his smell and the warmth of his body, you fell asleep soon.

Snape was overwhelmed with fondness and affection for you. He didn’t want this night to end. He dreamed of being so close to you, to touch you, to breathe you. You already slept and quietly snuffled him in the neck. He stayed awake for a long time, enjoying every moment of your closeness.

In the morning, you woke up first and found that you and Severus were lying on one side, covered with his cloak, him hugging you from behind, with his hand thrown over you, and his palm resting under your cheek. You felt so warm and comfortable. You kissed his hand, and pressed it to your chest.

Snape felt your touch in a dream, he pulled you closer, snuffled into your hair and rubbed his nose against the back of your neck, sending shivers down your spine. Your heart fluttered at this pleasant feeling, you’ve never experienced before. You closed your eyes and, having no desire to free yourself from his embrace, tried to fall asleep again.

You slept a few more hours before Severus opened his eyes.

“Y/N? Are you sleeping?” He asked in a whisper.

As there has been no response, he gently kissed your neck, which was in such a seductive closeness with his lips. Touching your tender skin and holding you so tightly, he felt primeval instincts taking over him. He shook off these thoughts, carefully raised on the elbow above you, freed his hand from your grip and gently removed hair from your face.

“Y/N...” He quietly called you.

You took a deep breath and opened your eyes. Turning onto your back, you looked at him and gave him the happiest smile. “Good morning, Severus!”

***

The road back to Hogwarts was long, but not difficult. When you returned, Snape insisted that you went to your dorm to change your clothes and have rest, although he didn’t want to let you go.

“Thank you for taking me with you!” Your eyes were shining with delight. “I really liked it.”

He smiled. “I'm glad to hear that. I didn’t want to spend the night in the woods, forgive me.” He still felt guilty.

“I liked that too!” You reassured him happily. “Will you take me again?”

“I will… Of course, I will!” Your heart melted at his warm and tender look.

You agreed to meet each other in the evening and have some tea. Such pastime has soon become your tradition and a favorite part of your daily routine.

@astridstark13 🍒 @kissing-the-earth @written-by-living-stars @longblackcape @emeraldwitchart @taschaschwarz @bloodyhollows  @fluffymadamina @diaryofafan17 @none-of-them-were-you–caskett @ellysiacat @shinykavendish @tickletrout @mybulletproofheart7 @sitkafay @thephenomenonalkingofthebrogues 🦇  @otaku4potato @magnificentbandittreedonkey @lokilover-39 @floraltheo @wretcheddiablo

[scarlettsabetlondongirl]

Do you know Scarlett's entire birth chart ?

The Sun represents vitality, a sense of individuality, and outward-shining creative energy.

The Sun is in Cancer 

Sun in Cancer natives have a strong survival instinct. They are protective of those they care about, and of themselves too. They are often quite reticent about sharing their inner selves to the rest of the world, and are often caught up in reminisce. Cancers have a reputation for moodiness, although this trait is most evident when the Moon is in Cancer. Cancer needs roots. They resist change to an extent, and concern themselves about being secure and safe in most everything they do. Cancers can be quite intrigued by objects with history attached to them – antiques, photos, souvenirs, and the like.

Cancer is a very sensitive sign, and they don’t always appreciate it when you are blunt with them. Their reactions to hurt will depend on how thick a shell they have developed. Most Cancers react by withdrawing or retreating. Some have developed an ability to manipulate others to get what they want. They avoid direct confrontations almost as a rule. Cancers are, in fact, quite yielding and soft when you have them in the right mood. They are one of the more hospitable signs of the zodiac. Sure, they can be touchy and indirect, but they are also very dependable, caring souls.

Short description:

She weighs words carefully and can be tenacious. A calm and discreet nature, tender, thoughtful, sensitive, and impressionable.

Possible issues: She is humble, timid, changeable, indecisive, lazy, or over-sensitive. Easily influenced by the family and sometimes manipulative.

Cancer with ascendant Sagittarius

Sun in VII: The Sun is in the seventh house

You take pride in your ability to negotiate, and to establish harmony in your relationships. It is important to you to have a partner, as you feel incomplete without one. You are motivated to become well-liked, and you are especially sensitive to rejection. One of the lessons in your life may be to avoid putting harmony and others’ opinions of you above your own needs. Use your social skills and seek out peaceful relations with others, but try not to over-identify with your partnerships and the way you are received by others. You may marry someone with a strong personality.

-383 Opposition between the Sun and Saturn

You faced a fair number of challenges in your life, especially in the first half of life, in which your attempts to express your will were often thwarted. There can be a persistent feeling that you don’t get what they want in comparison to others. You can feel unlucky at times. Attempts to control your environment, and sometimes others, may be frequent.

You want to be considered an accomplished and important person, and when you face obstacles, you don’t always see that you are your own worst enemy. You may long to be considered important in the eyes of the world, yet you harbor fear of success at the same time. You take failures and minor setbacks to heart, and may even practically beat yourself up over them. Self-awareness to the point of real self-consciousness is a possibility. The truth is, nobody holds a microscope over you, except for yourself. A little setback or a faux pas needn’t be analyzed to death. Fingers needn’t be pointed. No, you didn’t make a spectacle of yourself when you made a mistake. You need to stop worrying about always being right, or appearing suave and accomplished. When you ease the pressure you put on yourself, you find that you don’t face as many brick walls. It is very much about what you feel you deserve. Deep down inside, if you let yourself truly believe that you deserve happiness and peace of mind, you will find it.You may engage in a lot of self-censoring: “I shouldn’t..” is a common censoring mechanism with you. When you express egotism of any form, some part of you feels guilty. As the Sun rules our conscious mind, it does enough censoring on its own. It is the “adult” within us. Saturn, on the other hand, is more like the “parent” within us. We need parents to guide us when we are children, and to some degree as adults, but for the most part, we don’t need to be censored indefinitely–something that seems to be the case with Saturn-Sun hard aspects, except that the censoring and parenting is coming from within. Ideally, you eventually learn that the standards you set for yourself are too high, and that may be the reason you seem to hit brick walls. You have a sarcastic sense of humor, a keen intelligence, and the ability to apply caution and strategy. The vitality may suffer, and troubles with the bones, teeth, and circulation may surface, especially at times of stress in your life.

-63 Opposition between the Sun and Uranus

Your identity rides on your sense of personal freedom. It can be quite a challenge to get you to do what you don’t want to do, simply because you see any attempts by others to push you in a certain direction as threatening to your sense of freedom. You are a very dynamic person who questions tradition and authority, yet, paradoxically, you can be quite set in your ways! Although a humanitarian in many ways, you can be a little brusque when it comes to sentimentality or what you perceive to be excessive attachment to the past or to tradition. You can have a lot of nervous energy and defensiveness. It can be difficult to hold a 9 to 5 job or to develop steady routines. You work best when you can manage your own schedule, and you work in spurts. When you are hit with creative inspiration, you are capable of tremendous effort. However, you can be quite temperamental, and it is very hard for you to pour your hearts and souls into something that you don’t “feel” for at the moment. You don’t like superficiality or pretense, which is an admirable trait. However, your disdain for pretense can be problematic in a world where people are expected to perform whether they are inspired or not! You should try your best to channel your high levels of intuition, inventiveness, and spiritedness into creative endeavors or important causes. You might find that you encounter much less resistance in day-to-day life this way.

-209 Opposition between the Sun and Neptune

You have a desire to be something special or to experience something more than the ordinary. You are a day-dreamer and idealist. It is easy for you to trust others, even (and perhaps especially) people who might seem from the outside looking in as unsavory types. You are looking to identify with something beyond what is normally expected of people. You may have had a childhood that didn’t help you direct or define your life. Perhaps the early family life was lacking in supervision or clearly defined rules. A father figure may have been absent or distant and ineffective. You may have a glorified image of your father. Whether the image is very positive or very negative (or if it swings between these extremes), the image is not very clear or rational. Whatever the case may be, you struggle with defining who you are. You might gravitate towards the “wrong people”, or get in with the “wrong crowd” in an attempt to define who you are. You might be susceptible to being taken advantage of by others, especially by men or authority figures. You may be easily led astray by peculiar desires or self-destructive habits. In order to add a greater-than-ordinary dimension of experience to your life that helps you to feel special and important, you might be attracted to Neptune-ruled behaviors, such as secret affairs, drugs, or other escapist behaviors. In some way, you may feel a strong urge to glamorize your role in the world. There can be some confusion about the past (such as remembering childhood experiences in ways that are far removed from reality), and a tendency to daydream about being someone more “important” than you feel you are. You may struggle with early conditioning that made you feel tossed aside or neglected in some way, and certainly not directed or supported. You are very sensitive, especially with regards to any real or imagined blows to your ego. If the natal chart shows a strong sense of reality and a robust mind (Mercury and Saturn well-placed, for example), the negative interpretations of this aspect are less extreme. Still, you are likely to recognize at some point in your life that you have a tendency to engage in escapist and self-destructive fantasies and/or habits. It is useful to be able to connect these behaviors with their probable source, which is likely to be a weakly-defined ego and identity in childhood.

111 Trine between the Sun and Pluto

You have much sexual vitality and passion. It is easy and natural for you to find a passion and pursue it, and to focus on a goal. You are not much scared of anything. You enjoy and embrace growth, especially of the psychological kind. You love a good mystery, and you are adept at solving it.You readily assign meaning to what others might consider “ordinary” events. You look for symbols, and read between the lines in most any situation. The physical vitality is generally strong, and the body is usually able to heal quickly. You are not afraid to get your hands dirty, and you are usually quick to help others–not only with mundane tasks, but also on a spiritual or psychological level. Your insight is sharp and sometimes awe-inspiring. You are perceptive and not easily rattled or surprised in life. You are not a do-gooder nor are you a law-breaker. However, you are not afraid of the “dark side” of human nature, and you will bend the rules from time to time if you feel the need to do so. You take particular pleasure in growth and life’s lessons. You are not fond of superficiality, and are generally the first to spot pretense of any kind. You are passionate and can be intense. You have a hunger to experience more than just an “ordinary” life, and you can be quite ambitious. Some people with this aspect are perfectionists, demanding much from themselves and reasonable amounts of effort and honesty from others.

The Moon represents the emotional responses, unconscious pre-destination, and the self-image. The Moon represents the emotions, and the Moon sign shows how a person expresses themselves when at home, at ease, and comfortable.

The Moon is in Gemini

Lunar Geminis are usually pleasant, witty, and charming people. At home and with family, however, they can be moody and irritable at times. People with Moon in Gemini are always interesting people–they have a finger in every pie, are curious to a fault, and are generally well-informed. Nervousness and worry are common traits with this lunar position. An underlying restlessness is common, and many Lunar Geminis need more stimulation than others. They usually read a lot, talk a lot, and think a lot with this airy, mutable position of the Moon.

Their homes are often a perpetual work-in-progress. They generally dislike housework, but are big on home improvement. Re-organizing their homes in little–and sometimes big–ways seems to keep them happy, as Lunar Geminis are easily bored by both routine and constancy. Often, this is a reflection of their inner world–“the grass is always greener…” applies here. Inwardly, Lunar Geminis are often unsettled. Moon in Gemini parents are generally more adept at handling the intellectual needs of their children than emotional ones. Others’ complicated emotions, in general, can be difficult for Lunar Geminis to handle. In their families, Lunar Geminis often take on the role of organizing get-togethers. They are at their best when they have plenty of things to do beyond routine. Moon in Gemini people almost always have a way with words. They are clever and witty, and more often than not can be found chatting with others. They are sociable and friendly, and feel comfortable in crowds. Some pay too much attention to what everyone else is doing, and lose touch with what they really want to do. Generally, Lunar Geminis have a million and one projects going. They are impressionable folk, and their imagination is boundless.

Their openness to new ideas is admirable, although decisiveness and persistence take a blow as a result. Still, versatility and adaptability are some of the stronger traits of this position of the Moon. When irritable, they can easily become snappy. Their moodiness is complicated–this is not the same kind of moodiness you’ll find with water sign moons, for example. Usually, difficult behavior stems from inner restlessness. Lunar Geminis want to do it all, and have trouble sticking to any one project. When problems arise, the first instinct of Moon in Gemini natives is to talk things out. Their tendency to analyze can give them the appearance of emotional detachment. In fact, Lunar Geminis may be especially comfortable talking about their feelings, but feeling their own feelings doesn’t come as easily. Those that don’t take time out to really emote and understand their own needs may end up baffling others. Feeling misunderstood is common for Moon in Gemini natives. The only real solution to the problem is learning to get in touch with their own feelings.

Short description:

Sharp intellect. She likes literature, and will adapt to all situations and social groups. Work in contact with the public, literary occupations, travel.

Potential issues: lack of follow-up of ideas, indecision, may go back on decisions.

Moon in VII: The Moon is in the seventh house

Partnership can be very important for her, for better or for worse. She works well in business relationships, especially partnerships.

You are drawn to partnerships and prefer to have a companion for emotional support. You are not a person who would happily take in a movie by yourself, or dine alone, for example. A partner awakens feelings in you that you may never know you had, and you seem to need a partner to learn about your own needs and feelings. Emotional fulfillment is sought through relationships, but you may have many relationships one after another, each time believing that this is “the one”. Taking time between relationships is something that is hard for you to do, but quite necessary, as you tend to jump into relationships out of fear of being alone. You are very adaptable to others’ needs, and usually quite likeable as a result. Be careful that you don’t become overly dependent on a partner, or assume that a partner is going to treat you the same way as you do them.

922 Conjunction between the Moon and Mercury

You can be quite expressive and animated in your speech. You have an outstanding memory and tend to pick up a lot of information from your environment. You love to chat and to exchange ideas. Even if you are shy, once you’re friends, you love to talk about pretty much anything under the sun, and you enjoy sharing stories from your past! For the most part, you are focused on day-to-day activities in your communications rather than on grander philosophies. You are naturally curious and interested, and others find you very easy to talk to. You are accommodating and curious, but you are not as well equipped to handle heavy emotional demands. You thrive on change and variety. You might be a little addicted to gossip! More probably, however, you are simply very curious about others. There is a twinkle in your eyes, and you are never short on humor. You are playful and versatile–you make a fun companion and an interesting friend. You listen! Yes, you do talk and occasionally interrupt in your excitement, but you are a curious person who does want to hear what others have to say, and that is a real pleasure. In fact, you are more able than most people to get others talking, simply because you are very receptive and sympathetic. You pick up others’ feelings and body language readily.

She has good judgement, a good memory. She is intelligent, imaginative, vivacious, and develops, adapts, and grows throughout life. This adds a youthful, lively quality to the personality. She may have an aptitude for, or interest in, learning foreign languages.

298 Conjunction between the Moon and Jupiter

She is generally pleasantly composed, due to an inner sense of harmony and emotional balance. She is optimistic–and realistically so, most of the time–which contributes to her overall “luck.” She is able to get a real perspective on emotional matters that not only benefits her outlook, she is able to offer support to others when needed. Broad-mindedness is a wonderful characteristic. Quick to find humor in situations, she is generally warm and fun to be around. Deep down, she believes in the basic goodness of people and of life in general, and this basic and natural attitude helps her to attract positive circumstances and to make good connections. One of her best qualities is tolerance. Usually, she doesn’t take life too seriously in the sense that she believes in having a bit of fun, enjoying life. Her hunches are more often than not bang-on.

She is frank, honest, optimistic and generous. She likes good cooking, creature comforts. Her friendships are sincere. She is smart and knows how to surround herself with the right people: She is appreciated at work, usually well-liked and comfortable.

31 Trine between the Moon and Lilith

This aspect favors romantic and sexual relationships, giving charm, intrigue, and intelligence. Emotions are big, dark, and mysterious, but she embraces these things, instinctively understanding and accepting the many sides and complications of her feelings.

-25 Opposition between the Moon and Ascendant

She can be unhappily influenced by the family or childhood, or otherwise feel rather insecure about new beginnings and new situations. She may be always looking for more love, appreciation, and feedback. She is susceptible, perhaps with some superficial sensitivity and can sometimes be irascible, changeable, inconstant, and moody. However, she is usually highly intelligent, observant, and adaptable, and is very often misunderstood, projecting the wrong image more often than is comfortable.

Mercury represents communication, Cartesian and logical spirit.

Mercury is in Gemini 

Mercury in Gemini people are generally quick-witted. They can come across as somewhat scattered, and this is mainly due to their eclectic interests. They seem to know a little about everything.

Turn to Mercury in Geminis for lots of facts and figures as well as broad knowledge. Their learning is a little superficial–they generally have too many interests to delve too deeply into any one. These people learn best in a stimulating environment. They get bored easily, but they are fast learners. Impressionable to a fault, Mercury in Gemini people pick up more from their environment than most, and they can process information at lightning speed! The restlessness of Gemini is especially obvious when Mercury is placed in the sign. There is a nervous energy here that is unmistakable.

Mercury in VII: Mercury is in the seventh house

May avoid at all costs being alone. She has lots of friends, enjoying discussions and similarly cultivating plenty of work friends. She loves to write.

You have a great love of debate, if only to get closer to your own thoughts and opinions. Bouncing ideas off others helps you to make a decision, although coming to definite conclusions can be painfully difficult for you. You see the other side of the coin. You might often play devil’s advocate. Communication with a partner is craved, and you also love an audience for your own thoughts and opinions, but preferably a one-person audience, as you come alive verbally when it’s one-on-one. You can be quite skilled at keeping a partnership animated and alive with interesting tidbits, new ideas, and stimulating conversation. You can easily become bored in partnership if the lines of communication go down, even temporarily. You might also love to talk about and analyze relationships and marriage.

467 Conjunction between Mercury - Jupiter

She is intelligent with big ideas: She is tolerant and has a strong sense of justice. She has good judgement, good sense and has her feet on the ground. She has the “gift of gab,” fully enjoys literature and learning. She is erudite and will usually be successful socially.

27 Trine between Mercury - Lilith

Can be provocative in speech or communications, persuasive, interesting conversationalist, quick to see the flaws of a situation.

-7 Opposition between Mercury - Ascendant

She may criticize and gossip, arguing frequently and often nervous. Without even realizing it, she might look for or instigate a verbal battle, and can be provoking.

Communication is very important to you, and your mind is sharper and more creative when you have a partner you can bounce your thoughts and ideas off of. You are an excellent conversationalist and can fascinate your partners with your sharp mind. You love to debate issues just for the mental exercise, even if you don’t feel strongly about the position you argue! You play devil’s advocate often, and your ideal partner understands that your debates are, in fact, mental exercises–certainly not attacks! You are also prone to exaggerate or stretch the truth when trying to make your point, especially when it comes to your own background or experience.

In your close relationships, your partner serves as a mirror, reflecting your thoughts and ideas back to you from a different perspective. You are rather independent and will not allow anyone to restrict your freedom, but you love to talk things out before arriving at a decision. Truth is, you won’t always take others’ advice! However, you do enjoy looking at problems from all sorts of different perspectives. You may choose partners who are considerably younger than you, or who are not as academically smart as you. Conversations with you are always stimulating and lively. The ability to share your thoughts with a partner is vital to your sense of fulfillment in a close personal relationship.

Venus represents an interest in emotions and values, exchange, and sharing with others.

Venus is in Leo

When Venus in Leo people are in love, they are proud, even boastful. This position of Venus can turn humble Virgo Suns or retiring Cancer Suns into somewhat demanding lovers. Venus in Leo loves to court and be courted, and they need to feel very special. They are warm, generous, and even grand. Though really quite loyal to their partners (remember that love is THE most important thing in Leo’s life), they thrive on attention from lovers or love interests. Be prepared for their displays: they will tell you about any advances made on them. Remember, they’re just showing off to you, and it’s likely harmless. It’s a different story if you do the same, however. That’s when you’ll hear the lion roar…and, no doubt, you’ll want to keep these cats purring. Venus in Leo wants to appear experienced in love, even if they have little or no experience whatsoever!

Venus in Leo people have high expectations, but once you know that these expectations revolve only around how much attention you are giving them, you’ll see that they are really quite big-hearted about most everything else. They are threatened by a relationship that appears to have settled too much, or one that’s lost its spark. They are also threatened by indifferent or impersonal behavior on your part. Although their needs for physical expression through sex are generally quite strong, their need for love is perhaps even stronger. It is hard for Venus in Leo people to separate love and sex, and even their most erotic fantasies are infused with love and affection. For this reason, few Venus in Leo folk would last long in a relationship that is mostly sexual. On the flip side, they may last longer in a love-only relationship in the absence of satisfying sex, but they are unlikely to feel very satisfied.

Pleasing Venus in Leo involves paying loads of attention to them. If you’re willing to make only one adjustment in your ways, it should be to remind Leo how wonderful they are. Respect and appreciate them, always. Put up with their childlike moments and their tall tales. They want to be seen as attractive by you, so avoid (at all costs!) putting them down in this area. They actually lose interest when they perceive the slightest loss of interest in their partner, and you can expect that any letdown will be acted out in a dramatic fashion. Remind them, in a gentle way, that your emotions count too. If you are feeling a little jealous, let them know. Remember, to Venus in Leo, your small jealousies are affirmations that you find them attractive and expect the rest of the world to as well. Let them decide where to go on a date, and let them pay too. When Venus in Leo feels loved and appreciated, they reward you with loyalty, a big sense of fun, and plenty of physical expressions of their love.

Short description:

Sincere, frank, and warm affections. She is full of tenderness. High hopes in love. She likes to live and satisfy her passions to the fullest. Can be possessive and might even seduce for the sake of seducing to prove to herself that she is attractive. Very proud in love, and warm-hearted and generous with loved ones.

Venus in VIII: Venus is in the eighth house

Not frightened by the unknown. Sometimes this position means she has a peaceful and happy or natural end of life. Possible inheritance.

Intensity is what you seek in your love relationships, so that casual encounters are not necessarily your game. You are easily bored with mechanical interactions between partners, and might prefer drama in your relationships to anything mundane or superficial. However, you also fear being vulnerable in love, and, in youth, you may control your emotions in love. Fears of being betrayed may be at the heart of your somewhat jealous and possessive nature in love. When you give yourself over to love, you love wholeheartedly and expect all-consuming, total devotion and attention in return. You find passion a healing force in your life. Your charm runs deep–just below the surface. You are attracted to all that is taboo, hidden, forbidden, and find beauty in the broken, disenchanted, obsessed, and passionate. In some cases, people with this position might make a business out of love, romance, and eroticism. There is an intensity about you that others pick up readily. Either they run or they are completely intrigued!

184 Conjunction between Venus - Mars

She is amorous, not a peaceful and calm lover but a passionate one with a strong temperament. She is demonstrative in love, and usually fully enjoys healthy pleasures and life to the full.

Mars represents the desire for action and physical energy.

Mars is in Leo 

This position of Mars gives a drive for significance. Mars in Leo individuals possess a strong need to create in some way–and they are determined that their lives have not only meaning, but significant meaning! This is a particularly vital position of Mars. Passions run high, and so does desire. There is a strong will that gives these natives much staying power. Though Mars in Leo people will enjoy the pleasures of risk-taking, they generally have a strong sense of reason at the end of the day. Mars in Leo people often have well-defined ambitions. Rarely will you find a person with Mars in this position who lives life without a true sense of a “calling”. They act with authority and power, and their personal magnetism generally endows them with the ability to get what they want.

This is one of the more sexual positions of Mars. While they are rather easy to arouse, their passion is long-standing. Mars in Leo natives enjoy sex more than most, as long as heavy doses of love and romance are part of the package. In partnership, they demand loyalty and admiration. Impatient with small-mindedness and disloyalty, Mars in Leo natives generally have a strong idealistic streak. They easily get fired up when they feel they’ve been humiliated, and they defend their high principles with ardor. Mars in Leo natives act with their heart. Their ego is tied up with their actions, so that most anything they do becomes a source of great pride. Though some are self-righteous and quarrelsome, the more sophisticated people with this position are kindly leaders.

Mars in VIII: Mars is in the eighth house

Sexually very powerful, she is also capable of tremendous focus and hard work. Sexually intense and deep. May be adept at professions requiring research, strategy, uncovering truths, and analysis. Arguments may occur over inheritance.

-52 Square between Mars - Pluto

You have a tendency to impose your will upon others, which can cause severe problems for yourself when they react in self-defense. You have a hair-trigger temper and may even resort to verbal or physical abuse when upset. Learning to react to unpleasant circumstances with your intellect rather than your emotions comes with maturity.

It is all too easy for you to find something negative about a situation. Avoid issuing ultimatums when you meet an obstacle. Instead, find a way to convince others to work with you of their own free will. Ordinary life often seems drab and uninteresting to you and you must have something that stirs your imagination, some vision or ideal or dream to motivate you. You have a strong urge to act out your fantasies or to live your dream, and you will DO things that others only talk about or dream about. Artistic creation, drama, or other areas in which you can express yourself imaginatively are excellent for you.

You do not easily tolerate a dominating attitude in others. You have a healthy respect for power and authority, but only if it is handled fairly.

This aspect gives you a somewhat Scorpionic attitude toward your lovers, and it can modify the traits associated with the sign of your Mars considerably. In other words, there is a distinct possessive and demanding streak in your sexual nature. Your approach to love and sex can be quite intense at times. Your sexual desire nature is a very strong one, and you may even use sex as a bargaining chip in your relationships in order to achieve your goals. More likely, however, is a very focused and intense sexual nature. This also adds a very magnetic quality to your appeal. When someone finds you attractive, it can transform into a near obsession! Your aura is strong and somewhat mysterious. You tend to come across as stronger than you intend. In fact, some people are intimidated by you, and you may not understand why this is so. When you want something (or someone!) you are very determined. For you, it can be “all or nothing”. When you are finished with something, you leave it behind you and there is no going back. You want a deep, soulful attachment on a sexual level. In your love life, you don’t always take rejection well. You fear betrayal and abandonment, and this can skew your perception of your lover. You may have a highly developed sex drive, but you may need to learn to rein in your aggressiveness in this area. Power struggles and control issues may surface often in your relationships. You perceive the cruel edge in people, and understand its source. Self-confidence develops out of self-control in your interaction with others.

30 Trine between Mars - Ascendant

She is energetic and direct.

Jupiter represents expansion and grace.

Jupiter is in Gemini

She attracts the most good fortune when she uses her wit and ingeniousness, as well as when she is versatile, sociable, curious, and puts others at ease with friendliness and sincere curiosity. She values the intellect and sees opportunities to grow and succeed through intellectual, verbal, and written channels. She believes that intelligence and knowledge is the key to solving problems.

Jupiter in VII: Jupiter is in the seventh house

She has a good marriage or partnership, with a useful partner who helps to bring success if only by their advice. Good legal outcomes. Traditionally, this placement has been associated with benefits through marriage or partnership.

2 Trine between Jupiter - Lilith

She could meet a partner much wealthier than herself. Good sexual understanding.

Saturn represents contraction and effort.

Saturn is in Capricorn

She can be scrupulous, honest, correct, worthy, and respectable.

Potential weaknesses: melancholy, sullenness, disappointment, and bitterness.

Saturn in I: Saturn is in the first house

She can be self-conscious in new situations, especially when young. Her manner is rather cautious and guarded. First reactions to new ideas or plans are reticent and somewhat negative, but these are only first reactions. Can be methodical, patient, a bit distrustful or initially reluctant, quite polite. She may speak little at first and does not waste energy unnecessarily. She has a good memory and strong sense of organization, preferring to do things well. She is never slapdash and has a strong sense of responsibility.

100 Conjunction between Saturn - Uranus

She knows how to be on top of the situation. She perseveres, is determined but ingenious and original. She is very practical. She proceeds slowly, but is always bound to achieve her objectives in the end.

347 Conjunction between Saturn - Neptune

Her plans are realized in a methodical fashion. She works hard to achieve success.

143 Sextile between Saturn - Pluto

She perseveres, achieving her projects through hard work.

-6 Square between Saturn - Lilith

She may live with an older or more mature person. Whereas this will seem quite amazing at the beginning of their life together, she may end up frustrated with this person over time.

Uranus represents individual liberty, egoistic liberty.

Uranus in Capricorn

Can have some problems accessing her intuition, since common sense often dominates. A great battler. She has so much power that one thinks nothing can defeat her. Her mission in society and in the world can mean everything to her. May question traditions and can be very open to redefining the meaning of success and to changing up traditional approaches to career and status.

Uranus in I: Uranus is in the first house

She is above all independent and original. Sometimes blunt and irritable. Never allows herself be influenced. She does not tolerate any sort of setback. She is ready for adventure, even if it’s a bit risky.

Uranus in the first house alters the way an individual projects personal energies onto others. You are likely to seek, may demand, freedom in the way you present yourself to the world. Dressing simply but quirkily, you will have no problems in asserting yourself. You are not shy in letting everyone know where you stand on issues. In fact you take pride in presenting your unique perspective. “I am a simple soul with few wants and needs,” is what you tell yourself. All you can feel is an altruistic desire to change the world! Friends and relatives probably find you a trifle erratic. They know you to be good-hearted and genuine about your feelings. Your passions rise fast and you lose interest at the same rate.

40 Conjunction between Uranus - Neptune

She can be wildly creative with an odd but happy sense of humor and perspective. She is an idealist, easily disappointed by those using power plays to advance.

Neptune represents transcendental liberty, non-egoistic liberty.

Neptune is in Capricorn

She is discerning, wise, and sensible.

Neptune in I

She is intuitive, sensitive. Not a fighter and can be indecisive. Usually projects an image of softness. May have some identity problems until she decides on a more spiritual or artistic path. May be psychic or simply strongly intuitive. Gentle and yielding. Changeable appearance or image, particularly if Neptune is close to the Ascendant.

64 Sextile between Neptune - Pluto

She is perceptive and able to see layers to a situation. She is naturally drawn to learning what makes herself and others tick.

-3 Square between Neptune - Lilith

Love can dominate her life. She could lose her head over someone to whom there’s an intense attraction, which can become troublesome if she loses all idea of reality. If she is not loved in return, so what - she will love for the two of them. With time, if the bond loses its spark, she can have difficulty disentangling herself and she can suffer enormously. It’s best to look to a trusted outside source for guidance in vulnerable times.

Pluto represents transformations, mutations, and elimination.

Pluto is in Scorpio

Fear of betrayal. Sensual and passionate.

Black Moon Lilith represents our darker, deeper natures that may be repressed or buried.

Lilith in Libra

She may have felt uncomfortable or wrong for needing companionship or seeking approval from others. Or, she may feel that dependency and compromise are weak and not “right,” and this can lead to periods of intense neediness followed by independence. Accepting that we all need to lean on others from time to time can help resolve problems with extreme behaviors in relationships.

North Node-South Node The South Node represents our overdeveloped character traits. We are talented here but if we overdo this area of life or hold onto these traits to feel secure, we may stagnate. 

The North Node points to the qualities that we need to work on and develop to achieve inner balance and fulfillment.

True North Node in Aquarius

Her path is to learn to be more impartial and less possessive in relationships and with creative projects. As she learns to let go of the need for a passionate chase, satisfaction will come to her naturally as she sees that she nevertheless gets what she needs. Relationships may suffer if she takes things too personally and expects others to follow a script that she has unconsciously written for them. She learns to moderate her desire for drama and attention, and then develops true friendships. Qualities to develop: detachment, impartiality, humility.

North Node in II: North Node in the Second House

Her path relates to earning her own way and making firm executive decisions. Although she readily falls back on supportive relationships, and she is good at handling others’ resources and encouraging them to be the best they can be, she needs to learn to depend on herself and to apply these same lessons to her own life so that intimate relationships and health improve many times over. She should remember that drama does not equal love. She should not allow intense emotions and relationships to disrupt her practical life. Learning when not to share can be rewarding, too! Qualities to develop: simplicity, patience, self-reliance, self-sufficiency.

The Houses

House I is the area of self identity. The ascendant is a symbol of how one acts in life. It is the image of the personality as seen by others, and the attitude that one has towards life.

Cancer with ascendant Sagittarius

Ascendant is Sagittarius

The world is filled with adventure, new things to experience, and, most of all, hope, with this Ascendant. There is an unmistakable faith and enthusiasm with Sagittarius rising people. Grand schemes, big promises, and a willingness to explore and experiment are themes, although follow-through is not a strong characteristic of Sagittarius. These individuals are somewhat restless and often active people. They always seem to be looking for something that is just out of grasp – and many do this their entire lives. They can be quite direct at times, yet they are likable enough to forgive for their faux-pas. Most have a lot to say and offer. Their insights and opinions are usually interesting and exciting, although sometimes lacking in details.

Sagittarius rising people have opinions about everything, and they just love telling others exactly what they are. Not all people with this position are outgoing folk, but they all have a way of moving about that at least exudes a certain level of confidence. Some might even call them naive or overly optimistic. Even the quiet ones don’t shrink from life and from experience. One of the most obvious and endearing traits of Sagittarius rising is their willingness to keep up a sense of humor. Even when they’re feeling low, they manage to find humor in life and have fun with whatever they do have. The placement of Sagittarius’ ruling planet, Jupiter, will give more clues to how they go about expressing themselves. Jupiter in Capricorn, for example, might give a more sarcastic approach, but underneath there lies an unmistakable hope and spirit for living.

House II - the second house - is the area of material security and values. It rules money and personal finances, sense of self-worth and basic values, personal possessions.

Capricorn on House II

A cautious approach to money and personal finances, possessions. Financial success may be slow but steady. A hard worker. Savings are important. Patience with accumulating. Money situation improves with maturity.

House III - the third house - is the area of social and intellectual learning.

Pisces on House III

Ideas are somewhat changeable, and her humor as well. Travel, sea voyages or work connected with the sea.

House IV - the fourth house - is the area of home, family, roots, and deep emotions/sense of self-worth.

Aries on House IV

Lots of authority within the family. She knows how to take the destiny of the family in hand, to take charge. She is very energetic, very strong, knowing how to cope with life’s setbacks.

House V - the fifth house - is the area of creative self-expression, romance, entertainment, children, and gambling.

Taurus on House V

A pleasant home, a charming partner, loving and sweet children, nice little meals, pleasant evenings with the loved one – the good life.

House VI - the sixth house - is the area of learning by material transaction.

Taurus on House VI

Completely trusted at work. She knows how to keep a secret and can be of irreproachable honesty. Weak point: the throat.

House VII - the seventh house - is the area of one-to-one relationships such as marriage and partnership, and of social and intellectual action.

Gemini on House VII

Can marry or partner quite young. A second partnership may have less passion but a lot of friendship. Can be frightened of living alone in old age. She may prefer others do the talking much of the time.

House VIII - the eighth house - is the area of emotional security and of security of the soul.

Cancer on House VIII

Small inheritances possible. She usually plans well for old age.

House IX - the ninth house - is the area of learning that shapes the identity.

Virgo on House IX

She is devoted to all causes that bring comfort or help to people in difficulty.

House X - the tenth house - is the area of material action. The Midheaven represents the work one will do in one’s life, the place one will take in the world of society. It becomes more important as one grows older.

Libra on House X

Contacts of all kinds will lead to social success, professional, through marriage, etc. She likes society life, friendships that could help professionally. Sometimes jobs connected with justice, but frequently involved with important and influential people.

House XI - the eleventh house - is the area of search for social and intellectual security.

Scorpio on House XI

She likes to debate endlessly with friends who don’t share her ideas. The discussion can lead to words or even verbal sparring.

House XII - the twelfth house - is the area of education and of emotion. This is where we meet our karma, deal with endings, and sometimes where we bury things.

Scorpio on House XII

Investigative work or inclination. She likes investigating other people’s private lives.

Birth Chart: here  

Using London, England, I don’t know where she was born.

Thanks for the ASK!

[dailynewswebsite]

How even a casual brush with the law can permanently mar a young man’s life – especially if he’s Black

Even a minor arrest and no conviction might be devastating. Doug Berry/Photodisc through Getty Photos

George Floyd’s dying highlighted how even a minor alleged infraction – in his case, over a faux $20 invoice – can result in a deadly interplay with legislation enforcement.

In consequence, a coalition of advocacy organizations, felony justice reform advocates and on a regular basis residents have known as for cities to take a variety of actions to scale back the ability and authority of native police departments.

However lack of life isn’t the one potential consequence of a brush with the legislation. Even a single arrest, with out conviction, might be devastating to the remainder of a younger man’s life – particularly if he’s Black – notably by way of employment and earnings. And African American males are more likely to get arrested than their white counterparts.

My very own latest analysis has been exploring what employers can do to assist overcome the obstacles related to arrests and the stigma of incarceration.

Devastating penalties

One in three Individuals has been arrested by the age of 23, however the stats get loads worse in case you are a Black man.

A younger African American is seven instances extra more likely to get arrested than a white peer. By the point they’re 23, Black males are at a 49% threat of getting arrested and 6 instances extra more likely to be incarcerated than white males. As of 2010, one-third of African American grownup males had a felony conviction on their information, in contrast with 8% of all U.S. adults.

Whereas the info on the system’s disproportionate influence on Black males are dangerous sufficient, it doesn’t finish there. Any interplay with the justice system, even for a misdemeanor or arrest with out conviction, can have devastating penalties for the person.

Greater than 60% of previously incarcerated people stay unemployed one 12 months after being launched, and those that do discover jobs make 40% much less in pay yearly.

Analysis reveals {that a} felony file of any type – together with arrest with out conviction – decreased the chance of a job provide by virtually 50%. The influence is considerably bigger for Black job candidates.

And whereas Black males are affected most by these issues, it’s a nationwide downside that impacts many younger women and men throughout the US. Greater than 10 million younger adults age 16-24 had been neither working nor at school in June. Whereas it’s unclear what number of of them are “disconnected” on account of an arrest file – the pandemic has definitely put lots of them out of labor – analysis suggests an arrest is a key issue.

The impact on the U.S. economic system as an entire is important, with the underemployment of previously incarcerated people resulting in a lack of US$78 billion to $87 billion in gross home product in 2014.

Discovering options

Native and state businesses have handed laws designed to stop hiring practices that discriminate towards people with felony information.

These efforts embrace “ban the field,” which removes the query asking a couple of felony file from job purposes, and different “honest likelihood” hiring insurance policies geared toward stopping employers from explicitly asking about an applicant’s felony historical past.

Nonetheless, analysis has proven that these insurance policies aren’t a panacea and may even result in extra discriminatory and racist hiring practices as some employers switched to creating sure assumptions primarily based on racially distinctive names.

My staff of researchers has been working with LeadersUp, a nonprofit that targets excessive youth unemployment in America, to establish extra inclusive hiring practices for younger adults who’ve interacted with the felony justice system, together with every little thing from a singular arrest to incarceration for felony offenses.

Our findings recommend that whereas there’s robust help for the idea of honest likelihood hiring amongst employers, practices that will result in extra of those individuals being employed haven’t but been broadly adopted.

In response to a soon-to-be-published survey of 39 employers to date, virtually half reported making an attempt to tell apart between an applicant’s arrest and an precise conviction, whereas 44% provided candidates a chance to clarify a conviction.

One downside we encountered was that regardless of robust curiosity in proposing modifications, human sources workers didn’t at all times really feel they’ve sufficient authority to implement new initiatives concerning honest likelihood hiring. Moreover, when background checks are required, the burden usually falls on the job applicant to take the initiative to overview these checks for accuracy or to report employers who not are abiding by native hiring legal guidelines.

[Deep knowledge, daily. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter.]

Hiring alternatives for younger individuals who have an encounter with the justice system are additional restricted by compounding points similar to stigma, talent matching and an absence of schooling about what it means.

Employers play an essential function in increasing inclusive hiring practices for people who’ve had involvement with the felony justice system. However I imagine a key first step towards extra equitable hiring practices ought to be to expunge the felony information of younger adults who’ve been arrested however not convicted or have dedicated misdemeanor crimes. That can give extra of them a clear slate to construct their lives.

Gary Painter receives funding from the Workforce Accelerator Fund (WAF 7.0) for the analysis referenced on this piece

from Growth News https://growthnews.in/how-even-a-casual-brush-with-the-law-can-permanently-mar-a-young-mans-life-especially-if-hes-black/ via https://growthnews.in

[thechroniclesofdaraliss]

The Ten DM Commandments

For those of us that want to get into Role Playing Games (RPGs), but aren’t quite sure how, tabletops tend to be the best place to start. Worlds like Dungeons & Dragons, Mutants & Masterminds, and Shadowrun have inspired and captivated gamers for decades, and show no sign of letting up. In its contents, some of the most celebrated mediums of entertainment have been put to paper and given life to form new stories. Dungeons & Dragons was translated from Lord of the Rings, Mutants & Masterminds was born from the world of comic books, and Shadowrun was built on the foundation of science fiction. Regardless of type, DMing (or Dungeon Mastering) is a great way to build friendships and rediscover old passions. But of course, there’s a few things that need to be known prior to staring, as not every rulebook can teach you what you need to know in those first few days. Sometimes, experience is the best teacher. So I will impart my personal knowledge of what the craft, and hopefully it helps as you develop your own story.

1) THE IDEA: First off, be very aware of the world and scenario you are building. This acts as the core for how the campaign will run, and what can be expected on all sides, both DM (Dungeon Master) and PC (Player Character). Make the world as big and detailed as possible, but keep the focus tight and on the party as they explore the environment you’ve designed. This makes for a massive world that is always changing, and has plenty of variables to play with. Don’t be disappointed if the party doesn’t get to it all. The best campaigns always have something more to explore at the end of each session. • What is the current geopolitical climate? Who is in power in which nations, and how for do their borders go? How for does their influence go? • Which races have been imbued with the power of magic, or possess superhuman abilities? Is it common to have these powers, or are they an anomaly? • What is the recent history of the world? What is the history of the distant past? Does it have a large bearing on what is happening in campaign now? Why or why not?

2) TECHNICALITIES: If you’re having trouble with technical aspects of the game, SRD is a wonderful and free online resource that can help clarify a lot of trouble spots for characters and gameplay (look specifically for the type of game system you’re playing. SRD exists for several platforms: Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, Dungeons & Dragons 5e, Mutants & Masterminds, etc.). While it’s important to keep the idea in focus, it’s also essential that the rules be understood. Part of the fun arises from knowing what your limitations are, and finding ways to prevail despite them. • http://www.d20srd.org/ • http://www.d20herosrd.com/ 

3) THE PLAYERS: Meet with your PCs before the game starts. This gets a lot of questions out of the way, and gives you a chance for all to learn from experience. Be prepared to answer questions about your world, your scenario, and expectations for campaign. This sets the tone for your time as a group, and helps the rest of the game run more smoothly. You can form character stats, backstories, and even complex histories in pre-campaign meetings. Always respect each other’s ideas and ready for slight changes in your overall plans. The story is after all, about the Players (PCs), not about the DM (Dungeon Master). You may have crafted the world, but the PCs are the ones who will live in it. • A party of 3-6 is the safest number • Having a healthy diversity of classes and races helps go a long way • Specializing your skillset helps cover weaknesses, and encourages cooperation among players 

4) THE STRUCTURE: As the PCs begin exploring your brave new world, it’s important to realize that limitations can go a long way in establishing an interesting campaign. In addition to focusing on the party’s grand quest, have a handful of side quests and tertiary quests in your back pocket. This helps avoid railroading, helps pacing, and makes for a more diverse set of choices for your PCs, and PCs LOVE Choices. Furthermore, the main action of the story should be contained to a location, and maps and visuals help immensely. Having an ocean to the east can establish limits, and may also set up a plot boundary, saying that all of the action and excitement can be found on dry land (or perhaps a few islands, if they’re feeling particularly daring). • The party is trying to repel an invasion of their home nation, but they must possess six artifacts to make the resistance possible. And these artifacts are scattered across the world. • As a result of the king’s rulings, many fiefdoms and provinces have fallen under slavery. It is not the primary focus of campaign, but it can win you some allies, or help find a way to get past an obstacle. • There are several families that have lost their sons the war, and need some help running the family business. Farmers, apothecaries, and even minor nobles are asking for help wherever it may come from. It may not connect to campaign, or even be a side quest, but it can win you some small rewards such as a place to stay for the night, some coin for your journey, or the unveiling of a secret.

5) FAILINGS: As part of Role Playing Games (RPGs), you can do all the preparation in the world, and still come up short as a result of rolling a Nat 1 (Natural 1), or rolling low in general. It’s all part of the fun of playing a game that balances imagination, chance, and strategy. However, one should not roll for perfection or try to become all-powerful. Having a character that can fly to the antagonist’s castle and kill him instantly makes for a very dry campaign and also robs the party of the chance to explore the world as well as themselves. So when you encounter a low stat, or roll low in a fight, don’t think of it as a failure. In RPGs, there’s no such thing as failures, just experience. Think of it as an opportunity. Lower stats make more chances for role-playing, and low rolls in combat can lead to memorable and even hilarious results. And every DM will agree that a pack of misfits at mid-level are more interesting than all-powerful gods taking down dark villains without effort. • Having low strength means you’ll have to be quick on your feet, or quick of tongue. Was this a result of your background, and how does it affect the party? • Just because you weren’t handed everything growing up, does that rob your character of the chance to live a good life? Does this perhaps force them to struggle and fight to get where they are, and does this help them now? • Your character may not be the most approachable figure, but does the vicious barbarian or booking wizard have a card being kept close to the chest? Despite their proficiency, they may be keeping a detail of their past hidden. As a party, can you handle it, and does it make your bond stronger?

6) ROLE PLAYING: As your characters develop their dynamic, you’ll start to see that they’ll find patterns they’re accustomed to. The Fighter may swing their sword, the Wizard may use a handful of spells, or the Rogue may try to steal every object. It’s common for first-time or relatively new players to play a concept, instead of a character. As DM, encourage your PCs to step out of their comfort zones and play their character as a character, not a concept. Some players like to play a figure who is like them in many respects, and then they get to see how they interact in a world not their own. Or in some cases, a player may use a character different from them in every way. The only way they can find out by playing their character. Extended dialogue between players or NPCs (Non-player characters) is a great way to enhance the overall experience and can lead to surprising results. DMs can also reward their PCs by paying them in experience, in-game friendships and allies, or with information. • The shy Rogue must talk himself out of trouble when his shenanigans go too far. • The stoic Ranger who never misses a shot suddenly encounters a Golem, and her weapon of choice is of no use. Will she rely on her party for aid, or adopt a new strategy to save them all? • An NPC was found stealing food from the party. Is he a heartless thief, does he have a starving sister just upriver, or is he being manipulated? The only way to know is to ask. 

7) UNPACKING: As you explore the world of campaign, you will find the PCs will be asking numerous questions. As part of your responsibilities as DM, you’ll have to be prepared to answer all questions (although there’s no shame in not knowing if you’re put on the spot). They may ask the identity of NPCs, the significance of an ancient statue, or the history of a town. While it may seem like nitpicking at times, it’s a great opportunity to introduce a memorable character, introduce a new concept, or to show off some of the lore you’ve spun. Every time you encounter something new, be prepared to share succinct and relevant information as you unpack it. Also, don’t forget how experiences have affected characters, or how history can have an effect on current circumstances. In any scenario, never miss out on an opportunity to unpack what’s already there. It saves you time as DM to expand upon what’s there instead of making something entirely new, and it adds dimensions to the story like nothing else will. • You discover that the lone man on the road is a legendary swordsman. What is his name, what exploit made him famous, and who would want to help or harm him if he stays with the party? • You encounter an ancient statue that has been ravaged by pillagers, the elements, and time. Does the statue hold significance for your party members? Is the statue being guarded by an unseen force? Or is walking on this land considered punishable by death among the local residents? • The party comes upon a grand fishing village with a wealthy status that befits a large city. Is it the result of shady business practices? Who’s in charge, and how long has this town known such luxury?

8) EXPERIENCE OVER RULES: With so many rules running through each system, it’s easy to lose sight of what’s really important in the game. New players especially will refer to the rules to ensure everything is sound. But when it comes to DMing, it’s a delicate balance of upholding the rules and finding ways to make your vibrant world come through in a rigid set of rules. The best way to strike a compromise between the two is to build your world first, then apply the rules. With so many written rules for combat, interaction, and difficulty of dice rolling, even professionals and people who wrote the canonized rules can have trouble finding ways to apply them by virtue of how many there are. As DM, your job isn’t to be all-knowing, your job is to be aware of your world, and to apply the rules as needed. • You encounter a troll, and he is about to strike you down. You manage to fall just short of your roll (but his injuries also cause him to lose significant points). • You are being chased by a battalion of knights, and they search relentlessly for you. You hide yourself well among the brush, save for one member of the party, and three knights dismount looking for you. Two of the party succeed (but the one knight fails his search check and the remaining party member goes undetected). • You fight tooth and nail against a vicious creature from another world. It succeeds in dealing you terrible damage, but it is fangs get caught in the thick rock just behind you. (You can take this chance to deal it severe damage with your dagger while he’s vulnerable).

9) CONTRIBUTE & COMPROMISE: After the first few sessions, you’ll realize that players have an enormous amount of influence in how the story plays out. So as DM, you’re not writing the story like an author. An author writes based on their experience and desire alone. But a DM builds a structure, and the PCs alter it according to their interactions. Therefore, it becomes important for the DM to make suggestions, and for the PCs to ask questions. Amid these exchanges, you may have to add new scenarios or make room for interpretation. You will have to compromise. The best way to keep the dynamic healthy is to ensure that everyone’s voice is heard, and that everyone’s opinion is valued. If the PCs want to take up a side quest, respect that. If the PCs want to come at a situation in a new way, but supportive. Part of the fun for you as DM is that you don’t know exactly what’s going to happen. You give as much as you get as DM and PC, so give a lot and compromise a lot on both fronts. • As the PCs travel into a market, they hear rumors about the enemy seeking them out. Therefore, they take up an offer from the Thief Guild to be hidden until the heat dies down (Side Quest). • The party wants to see a dragon. You elect to follow up on some rumors where a dragon egg is on display. You either take up an errand for the nobility in exchange for the egg, or steal it of your own volition. The dragon is then met, but it remains on a power level equal or below the party. • The party ambushed amid a forest. The Ranger is out of arrows, and the Wizard is out of spells. The Fighter still has an axe, and wants to cut down trees to gain the upper hand.

10) RESPECT: There’s a culture of “crushing the PCs” in many Role Playing Games. While it can be fun to put your characters in hot water, or in near-death scenarios, ensure that it’s all in good taste and isn’t done for the sake of cruelty. This can be difficult. Abusing your omnipotence as DM can throw off a healthy dynamic among players, and can color someone’s opinion of the game. It’s rarely out of a sense of maliciousness that these issues arise. In some scenarios, it’s just a joke that’s gone too far. As DM, be very aware of who is getting the most attention, who is the most engaged the most, and who is more resistant to contribute. If needed, ask what is going on directly. If it’s an issue among the party, mention it after the session is over. This makes the time in campaign about campaign, and illustrates respect for your players. Sometimes a joke goes too far, and the player in question is too nervous to bring it up. If you confront this as DM, and do so in a courteous manner, it produces an atmosphere of trust. Without respect or trust, there is no party. Campaign should be, above all else, a safe place to play and have fun. If this isn’t the case, then something needs to change. So whether it’s a joke, overstepping a boundary, or a recurring problem, be sure to address it as soon as possible. Following this rule is paramount, and if it is done in combination with all the other rules above, you’re sure to have a campaign you’ll remember for years to come. • Joke around, but do so with respect • If the DM or a PC is having trouble with the rules, be understanding and patient • Give respect and trust, and you will receive it in return

With these ten guidelines, I hope that you’ve learned a great deal and will find joy in applying them to the games you play. Of course, this is only my interpretation of how to DM, and there is much you can learn from watching others, or doing it on your own. RPGs mean something different for everyone. If you ask 100 DMs what the game means to them, you’re likely to get 100 different answers. But in the end, it all comes down to what you give to it. In time, you will discover what DMing means to you, and even after years of practice, it can still surprise you. So without further ado, break out the soda and snacks, and let’s start DMing!

[thewebofslime]

“We’ll have enough time for the interview,” the writer and journalist Frédéric Martel assures me. “Let’s go to a movie.” Friday evening. I’d arrived here two hours earlier in order to interview Martel about his new book, “In the Closet of the Vatican: Power, Homosexuality, Hypocrisy” (Bloomsbury, translated by Shaun Whiteside). The whole world is talking about it. For my part, I am flattered that a star author in Europe, and in the West in general, is devoting quality time to me amid the chaos he’s caught up in. His phone doesn’t stop ringing. Indeed, Martel had just returned to Paris from a two-day promotional tour in Spain and has been invited to appear on just about every possible television program. Martel’s book was published simultaneously in a number of languages and is set to appear in dozens more. Four days after its February 20 release it already topped the best-seller lists in France, Portugal, Quebec, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Spain, Holland and England. The Times of London has just published a long, complimentary review by a professor of religious studies from Oxford. Want to read more articles? Email*Sign up I'd like to receive emails on offers, appeals and commercial info Haaretz Weekly Ep. 21Haaretz Despite the time pressure, Martel, 51, insists that as background for my interview it’s important that we see Francois Ozon’s new film, “By the Grace of God.” It tells the true story of a group of men from the city of Lyon, where a pleasant-looking priest who led their Catholic youth movement abused them when they were young and left them scarred for life, physically and mentally. An entire generation of boys endured that abuse, with the knowledge of the parents and of the cardinal of Lyon. Finally, a few of them mustered the courage to expose the priest and the duplicitous cardinal who covered up for him in the diocese. When we arrive, the movie theater at the Les Halles commercial center is absolutely packed. The reason, Martel explains, is that the newspapers and newscasts that day dwelt at length on the conviction – for covering up decades of sexual abuse by the priest – that finally forced the cardinal to go to Rome and submit his resignation to the pope, who rejected it. Martel’s book deals with a similar subject, although from a different angle. “In the Closet of the Vatican” (whose French title is, literally, “Sodom: An Investigation Inside the Vatican”) is the result of the author’s last four-year stay in Vatican City, in the middle of the current decade, where he operated as a self-styled secret agent. It all started when the producers of his regular program on French state radio sent him to Rome to do a story on the waves of refugees from Syria and Africa. It was there that Martel encountered for the first time a network of young migrants who were working as male prostitutes around Rome’s main train station. They told him about an extensive system of gay relationships that they maintained with junior clerics and senior figures alike in the Vatican. Martel decided to dig further. Frédéric Martel. “I didn’t arouse suspicion because I looked like a harmless curiosity.” YOAN VALAT / EPA-EFE Via the French embassy in the Vatican he submitted a request to write a book about the Church’s city-state. The request was approved, and from that moment the gates of a world that he never imagined existed were opened to him. He spoke to hundreds of priests and acolytes and dozens of high-level figures, was invited into cardinals’ intimate quarters, met young male prostitutes, talked to members of the Pontifical Swiss Guard and more. He carefully cross-checked testimonies and verified rumors with the help of information he received from the Italian police. Over that period, Martel came and went in the Vatican, recorded his impressions, honed his insights. There’s a passage in his book in which he relates how he came upon an umbrella in the colors of the LGBT rainbow at the entrance to the Vatican’s official guest house, and wondered who it belonged to and what it was doing in this holy of holies. In a way, Martel is that umbrella: something whose presence people became accustomed to, to the point where they even stopped asking what he was actually plotting to write. He was thus able to compile valuable information about criminal immorality at the highest ranks of the Catholic Church. About sex parties and drugs inside the papal residence, about the prostitutes, the sexual harassment and also of course about the pedophilia. His findings are harrowing, fascinating, at times amusing – and worthy of being made into a film. Of course Martel, whose book is exciting, intriguing and superbly written, is not the first person to deal with the Catholic Church in this context. In recent years we have witnessed a growing stream of films, books and journalistic revelations, in the same vein. But unlike many of those works, Martel's 600 fact-packed pages pull no punches about what, in the author’s view, is a central reason for the immense catastrophe that has befallen the Catholic hierarchy in the past generation. In Martel’s opinion, the direct responsibility lies with none other than the veiled and repressed homosexuality of the clergy, which forces them to live a chronic lie. In other words, to long for the company of men while preaching to their flocks against any such attraction and cravings of the flesh as such. The gist of what Martel says is that there is a very high proportion of closeted gays among the Church’s leadership who cannot under any circumstances admit their sexual proclivity. On the contrary: They deny it in self-defense, protect each another’s sexual licentiousness, collaborate with reactionary regimes around the world, persecute homosexuals and incessantly preach against what’s considered sexual permissiveness – including total rejection of the use of contraceptives and vigorous antagonism to abortion. Book on gays in Vatican makes link to sex abuse - דלג How did all this come about? Was there a similar situation in the Church during the Middle Ages, for example? And if so, what’s new in Martel’s book? Martel: “On the face of it, we all know, or at least can conjecture, that the Catholic Church, and in particular those in the senior positions of its hierarchy, is a paradise for gays, for the simple reason that priests are commanded to be chaste and are forbidden to take wives. And there is nothing more suitable for a young man who wants to hide his sexual inclination toward men than to devote himself to the priesthood. In the book I explain how this illusory paradise deteriorated into a true hell, into a sinful, wicked Sodom, whose inhabitants found themselves imprisoned within it for all time with no hope of breaking out of the circle of denial and hypocrisy that have seemingly become second nature to them. “I identify the cause of the catastrophe in the sexual-liberation revolution, which made the Church even more homosexual and at the same time even more homophobic and even more in denial of its own naked truth. I believe that now, with the exposure of so many cases of sexual abuse, pedophilia and sexual corruption within the Church, that it has reached a point of no return. Something has to change drastically. But it’s not clear to me how anything can be changed there.” This isn’t the first time that Martel, a self-aware person who came out of the closet at a young age, has confronted a similar morally corrupt phenomenon as a writer-journalist. “In the Closet of the Vatican” is actually a continuation, perhaps at a more sophisticated level both in terms of detail and style writing, of his first book, “The Pink and the Black, Homosexuals in France Since 1968,” which caused a storm on its publication in France in 1996. In it Martel deals with the rise of the gay liberation movement in the West and accuses the LGBT community in France of being in denial of the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s. The gay hangouts in Paris were highly profitable businesses at the time; moreover, it was convenient for people to seize on the foolish idea that AIDS was a lie being spread by American conservatives. Thoughts I already had were confirmed when I read “The Pink and the Black,” and were subsequently included in my 1999 Hebrew-language novel “Ziffer and His Kind”: namely, that gays are not more “sensitive” or more “affable” or more “peace loving” or more “art loving” or more “nattily dressed” than others. And, like any minority that feels persecuted, their feeling of being persecuted, and their zealousness to preserve their separate identity, can have a positive effect, but also a very destructive one. “In the Closet of the Vatican” reinforces the thesis of “The Pink and the Black.” But if the new book also, by its nature, foments scandal, this time it made Martel an overnight star. St. Peters Square. VATICAN MEDIA/Reuters Benedict XVI’s despair That success is not self-evident from the author’s perspective. Frédéric Martel was born into a farming family from a small, unemployment-plagued village adjacent to the Forest of Avignon. As such, he belongs to a breed of people who seem not to have been born to succeed. Only those who are acquainted with “deep France” know how many obstacles stand in the way of a young person who was born in the ostensibly colorful French periphery, and wants to extricate himself from it and bask in the sweet smell of success. The odds are against him, because in order to be counted among France’s intellectual elite, you must graduate from one of Paris’ prestigious high schools, where most of the students are from distinguished families, get through two more years of grueling studies, before being hand-picked to go on to the leading institutions of higher learning, such as the École Normale Supérieur, from where the road is paved to a tenured position in the civil service. Martel had no chance of entering that respected and predictable track. But, unlike many people of his generation and background, neither did he yield to the stifling provincial life into which he was born. He worked hard to obtain a doctorate in social sciences, followed by a part-time job in state radio, a journalistic position on the online magazine Slate, and a lecturer’s appointment at Zurich University of the Arts, to which he travels back and forth each week. For a time he was France’s cultural attaché in Bucharest, afterward in Boston. I met him 22 years ago, shortly after the publication of “The Pink and the Black.” He’d come to Tel Aviv as a freelance journalist in order to write a series of articles about the life of gays in Israel. Betwixt and between he wrote books, some of which shook up France, among them “Culture in America” (2006), in which he spoke about America’s great advantage over French culture in terms of originality and creativity. He attributed the languidness of French culture to its dependence on government budgets and the absence of competition for them. That the French readership didn’t like hearing this goes without saying. Nor are many in the Catholic Church pleased by what Martel has written about the Vatican. I ask him why people opened doors to him without suspicion, and remind him that he told me that some leaders of the Church in France have been spreading a rumor that the book was commissioned by the present pope, Francis, in order to besmirch his opponents in the Church hierarchy. He dismisses such accusations vehemently: “Nonsense. I succeeded in penetrating the Vatican because I am French. If I were an Italian journalist, they would never have shared their secrets with me. I didn’t arouse their suspicion because I looked like a harmless curiosity.” Pope Francis calls for action at Catholic summit on sex abuse - דלג During the years when he was virtually one of the family in Vatican City, relates Martel, he was a target of lustful glances and erotic strokes wherever he went. One senior religious figure he wanted to speak with scheduled their meeting for the evening and emphasized that this was exactly the time he took his shower. Another one grabbed his penis. I ask Martel whether the trigger for writing the book was related to his undergoing himself, as a young person, experiences similar to those we heard about in Ozon’s film. He assures me that this is not the case, even though he attended a Catholic school until the age of 13. He remembers vividly the charismatic village priest in his town and writes about him with unabashed fondness in the epilogue. His name was Louis. Afterward Martel learned that Louis was gay and also that he died of AIDS. Similarly, the book paints a positive picture of Pope Francis. After all, he’s trying with all his might to eradicate pedophilia among priests and to expunge as much as possible the hypocrisy that has become ingrained among the clergy, particularly in regard to homosexuality. But not all of Francis’ predecessors receive the same treatment. Martel aims his criticism especially at two popes who, in his view, caused the Church colossal damage and are in large measure responsible for its moral deterioration, hypocrisy and tendencies toward prevarication: the German pope Joseph Ratzinger, who was Pope Benedict XVI (2005-2013), and Pope Paul VI (1963-1978). Francis. Trying to eradicate pedophilia. Giuseppe Lami/AP Martel: “When Ratzinger grasped that Europe was no longer buying the Church’s conservative and homophobic views, and that the enlightened West as a whole was moving toward permitting gay marriages, he made a mistake and befriended the worst of the dictatorships, including conservative Muslim countries that persecute gays. That was also Church policy during the era of Pope Paul VI.” But the steel walls of conservatism were only a façade. Behind them, inside the Vatican, he says, a Sodom existed amid activities “including chemsex parties [gay sex and hard drugs] that took place within the papal residence itself. In my book I write about this episode, which occurred during the period of Benedict XVI and was uncovered in the time of the present pope – about parties that were large group orgies in which sex and hard drugs sometimes mixed into a dangerous cocktail and the guests wore provocative clothing. All that information exploded in the Italian press back in the summer of 2017. It transpired that Msgr. Luigi Capozzi, the private secretary to Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio for about 10 years, had been arrested by the Vatican gendarmerie on suspicion of organizing sex-and-drug parties in his private apartment in the Vatican. “Capozzi, whom the pope greatly esteemed, lived in a wing of the papal residence itself,” Martel continues. “I know the building well, because I dined there many times. One of its entrances opens onto sovereign Italian territory; the other into the Vatican. Capozzi’s wing was thus ideally situated for organizing parties of this kind. On the one hand, the Italian police didn’t have authorization to search it – the same was true with respect to his diplomatic vehicle – because he was situated within the Vatican. But on the other hand, he could leave his apartment without passing by the Pontifical Guard, because one door exited directly to an area of Italian state jurisdiction. Since then it’s all been exposed in the media. Capozzi was hospitalized in the Pius XI clinic and has not been seen in public again. Well, a trial for the use and dissemination of hard drugs hasn’t yet been held, so he is still presumed innocent.” This is not the only affair that Martel mentions from the period of Benedict XVI. He devotes a special chapter to the pope’s visit to Cuba in 2012. The visit, which was supposed to be a historic event in one of the last bastions of communism, devastated the pope. Backed by testimonies of high-level figures in the Vatican who accompanied the pope on the journey, and offering a vivid, concrete description, the chapter captures the despair that seized the pope when he grasped the scale of the homosexual prostitution and the pedophilia within the ranks of the Church there. What was flagrantly monstrous in the Cuban case was that the Castro regime knew what was going on within the Church and turned a blind eye, in return for the full cooperation of the Havana archbishopric with the regime. All this led to the Benedict’s resignation in 2013, Martel suggests. A resignation, he writes, that was exceptional though not unique in the history of the Church. The formal reason was the pope’s poor health, but in the author’s view, he stepped down in the wake of the total despair caused by the Cuba visit. Martel goes a step farther. He hints – at first, gently – at the possibility that the tormented conscience of the pope Joseph Ratzinger in the homosexual realm were also part of a “personal drama.” Benedict XVI. Gripped by despair. Tony Gentile / Reuters ‘Two worlds of misery’ The chapter that follows expands on the story. Martel recalls Ratzinger’s eccentric attire, which perplexed even the most innocent of believers. For example, the raucous pink costume he wore on a visit to an Italian prison, or his extravagant Ray-Ban sunglasses, the red shoes that peeked out from beneath the papal robe and generated rumors, and other accessories that didn’t clearly didn’t conform with the Church’s demand for modesty among its believers. And there was also, he writes, the handsome young priest Georg Ganswein, Ratzinger’s personal aide and lover. Though in this case Martel is not the first to make his claim. He draws on a previous scandalous German-language book about Ratzinger, “The Holy Sham,” from 2010, by a young Bavarian theologian, David Berger. Martel also devotes a long chapter to the man who, in his view, was the most abhorrent pope of all – Paul VI, one of the strictest and most conservative leaders of the Catholic Church. In the face of the sexual revolution, in the 1960s, this pope toughened the Church’s stance: against the pill, against masturbation, against homosexuality. But as in many cases in which it turned out afterward that the most ardent combatants against sexual permissiveness were also the prime suspects, Martel elaborates on the rumors and gossip that were rife in the Italian press about a romantic relationship between the pontiff and a theater and TV actor named Palo Carlini, the vigorous denials and the ultimate dismissal of suspicions by none other than Ratzinger himself, who signed the decree that led to the title “Venerable,” and later sainthood, being conferred on Paul. Pope Paul VI. Vatican City But forbidden affairs in the Vatican itself are not the hard core of Martel’s book. Far more shocking, though also amusing, is the chapter about how male escorts and prostitutes (Arab Muslims preferred) are procured – from the area of the Termini, Rome’s main railway station – by the Vatican. Here the information is first-hand, Martel having done the fieldwork himself. He explains the method to me: “In order to investigate the sexual ties between Muslim male prostitutes from around Rome’s central train station and Catholic priests in the Vatican, I interviewed in the course of three years about 60 Rome prostitutes, in most cases with the aid of an interpreter.” From which language to which language? “In order to familiarize yourself with the world of male prostitutes around Rome’s central station, you need to be multilingual and speak Romanian, Arabic, Portuguese and Spanish. I was helped a great deal in learning about these goings-on by a young man named Mohammed, who in return for a drink or a meal gave me information about what was happening in the neighborhood. Mohammed is a Tunisian who works with two friends, Billal and Sami, as prostitutes in Rome. I had another collaborator, Gabi, a young Romanian sex worker from Bucharest. He told me that from his point of view, the busiest days for work are Fridays, when the priests leave the Vatican in civilian attire, and Sunday afternoon, when the boredom in the Vatican drives them outside. He can identify them by the crucifix around their neck when they disrobe, but also without that – by the stress they’re under. Sometimes the priest takes him in to the Vatican. If the priest is a bigwig, they tell me, he will get paid generously, sometimes 100 or 200 euros instead of the usual 50 to 60. Some of them showed me proudly the phone numbers of the priests they visit regularly. “I know of four cardinals who took their prestigious prostitutes to mansions or luxury apartments outside the Vatican and sometimes even to the papal summer residence at Castel Gandolfo. Outwardly, all four are totally homophobic, and they also somehow arrange not to pay with their own money for the expensive sexual services – about 2,000 euros per evening.” Sounds like a well-oiled business venture. “Let’s say that in general, the prostitutes’ daily schedule amazingly matched the priests’ schedule. Early in the morning, and during the day, I met with priests, bishops and cardinals for interviews. They weren’t willing to meet for professional discussions after 6 P.M. In the evenings. by contrast, I interviewed the male prostitutes, who didn’t start work until 7 o’clock. In other words, the priests were free to talk to me when their hustlers were sound asleep, and my interviews with the hustlers took place when the clergymen were already tired from their daily labors. I needed to understand that these two worlds of sexual misery were mutually coordinated.” Let’s talk about the Pontifical Swiss Guards. In your book you tell about a guard named Nathanael who opens his heart to you. “I met secretly with Nathanael – which is of course a fictitious name – about a dozen times. He told me what truly bothers him about his service in the Vatican: the insistent and sometimes aggressive courtship of a number of cardinals. Nathanael is not gay and also not what’s known as gay-friendly. He told me he was outraged by the courtship and even told me the names of the cardinals. He, who vowed to be ready to lay down his life for the pope, was disgusted at what he saw.” Were there other members of the Swiss Guard who complained? “Yes. After I left the Vatican I met with a former member of the Swiss Guard. Like his colleague, he said he had been sexually harassed dozens of times by senior Vatican figures. One method, he said, is to summon a guard to the bedroom on some pretext. Another is to leave a gift with a calling card on a guard’s bed. This guard told me that he realized there was no way he could complain about the sexual harassment, because they get threatened that if they talk they will not be able to find work, but also vice versa: If they don’t talk, the Church will help them find a job when they return to their civilian life in Switzerland.” A member of the Swiss Guard stands at the Bronze Door (Portone Di Bronzo) at the Vatican, February 24, 2019. REMO CASILLI/Reuters You write about the Church’s war on masturbation. Can you explain to me the cause of this obsession to intrude so flagrantly on others’ privacy? “I interviewed quite a few graduates of seminaries. In my estimation, 75 percent of those who attend the seminaries are gay. All of them told me that in our day, masturbation, which in the past was a subject not mentioned in public, has become, at the Vatican’s instructions, a central issue in the training of priests. The reason is no longer the biblical injunction against spilling your seed in vain, but the need to exercise totalitarian supervision over the young man who is cut off from his family and from his body: It’s the negation of personality in the service of the collective. The Church’s opposition to masturbation became an idée fixe, utterly insane, with the result that those who masturbate necessarily live in a kind of ‘closet’ within a closet – a kind of doubly locked homosexual identity. What a shame for the Church, which is fighting masturbation more than it is fighting pedophilia. That says it all.” Aren’t you afraid of libel suits? “I have full documentation and irrefutable proof for every claim I make in my book. On top of which every detail was scrutinized by my lawyer, William Bourdon. In some cases he did ask me to tone down overly piquant details.” I met the energetic lawyer over a dinner that I cooked in Martel’s apartment on Saturday evening. So far, Bourdon said, sighing with relief, no libel suits have been filed by clergymen. During the table talk, which revolved also, of course, around the upcoming election in Israel, I learned that the unusual expertise that Bourdon displayed about Israeli politics stemmed from the fact that his brother, Jerome, is a professor of communications at Tel Aviv University. The Israeli connection There’s an Israeli angle in Martel’s book. In fact, it can be said to be a very significant angle, without which the book might never have been written. Martel was in Israel a few years ago to write a series of articles about how the use of high-tech in agriculture. During his trip, he incidentally took an interest in whether there were archaeological remains from the biblical Sodom and where it was located: in Israel or Jordan. All the experts told him that attempts to corroborate Bible stories by means of archaeology will never produce an unequivocal answer. His personal quest for the biblical Sodom is a lovely chapter – but in the end it didn’t make it into the Vatican book for reasons of length. On the Jordanian side of the Dead Sea, says Martel, he met archaeologists who associated the ancient Sodom with Tall el-Hammam, northeast of the Dead Sea, where they were excavating. Some time later, he visited the Israeli side. Biblical Sodom, on this side, is a distant concept that has nothing in common with the accelerated development underway in the area. He says he was amazed by the moshavim, the kibbutzim, the grand hotels. With Aviad, a local kibbutznik, Martel visited Lot’s Cave and climbed Mount Sodom. And he learned that Sodom wasn’t destroyed because its inhabitants were gay; that’s what the Church teaches, but not what the Bible says. Nevertheless, he decided to title the original French edition of his book about the Vatican “Sodoma.” Because, just as in the original Sodom, the prime sin was not homosexuality but a general corruption of moral standards that could not be remedied other than by the place being destroyed down to its very foundations – so, too, perhaps, his outlook on the Vatican: a place rife with homosexual activity but where homosexuality itself is not the core of the problem. That problem, rather, is the general destruction of moral virtues, of which homosexuality is just one element, although it’s not clear whether it’s the cause or the outcome of the situation. Unlike the fate of the biblical Sodom, Martel foresees, with appropriate caution, the possibility of repair under the rule of the present pope, Francis, who for the first time has refused to surrender to the Church’s traditional homophobic approach. Instead of rebuking gays, he uttered the very consoling rhetorical question, “Who am I to judge you?” Frédéric, I think your book should be the basis for a grandiose film that will allow people to see with their own eyes all the unbelievable things that you experienced during your four-year investigation. “I’ve thought of that. I already have six proposals from American producers to make a film out of it. The problem is that no one will say to the camera what they told me. And certainly they won’t open the hidden doors of the Vatican for me, as they did before.”

[fitnesswomenshealth-blog]

Paid period leave policy in Australia stirs world debate

New Post has been published on https://cialiscom.org/paid-period-leave-policy-in-australia-stirs-world-debate.html

Paid period leave policy in Australia stirs world debate

The menstrual go away plan was released immediately after the group launched a huge investigation job identified as The Waratah Challenge, discovering how gals collectively feel about menstruation and menopause, Crooks stated.

That study, which concerned an on the internet survey of far more than 3,000 girls and 22 in-individual dialogue groups, could be launched in the following 6 months, Crooks explained.

“In that context of accomplishing that operate, we recognized as a women’s group, that we had no menstrual coverage,” she mentioned. “So the progress of the menstrual plan was just an automatic reaction of, if we want to change attitudes and behaviors, we have to get started ideal right here in our personal office.”

The coverage that was adopted, she explained, supplies girls the choice of working from dwelling when they experience distress in the course of their durations, or they may perhaps access up to 12 days of compensated depart a calendar year.

“If you are suffering from discomfort with a period but you are at function and you want to continue to be at do the job, then you can definitely truly feel free of charge to move to somewhere in the business — possibly extend out on a couch — but keep your laptop and keep performing your work,” Crooks reported.

But period of time leave policies arrive with controversy.

Some groups, these kinds of as the Victorian Women’s Have confidence in, argue that providing females paid days off for agonizing periods can be beneficial to women’s overall health treatment. But some other men and women view these kinds of insurance policies as a hindrance that could possibly exclude women from the office.

“The conversation generally goes in a single of two directions. On a single aspect, frequently a journalist or a colleague will say a little something like, ‘Well, I don’t consider it is quite feminist to medicalize women’s bodies,’ assuming that indications all over the onset of menses are someway completely culturally constructed,” said Tory Eisenlohr-Moul, a clinical psychologist, assistant professor of psychiatry and affiliate director of translational analysis in the Women’s Mental Well being Investigate Application at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

On the other aspect, day-to-day women who have critical menstrual cycle modifications in their physical or psychological signs or symptoms may possibly argue that there is a want for leave and that there really should be a lot more consciousness about significant cyclical indications, stated Eisenlohr-Moul, who is also a member of the clinical advisory board for the Intercontinental Association for Premenstrual Issues.

“Sometimes, I truly feel like the synthesis of those two positions will get missing,” she stated.

“Most females do not experience from crucial changes in emotional and bodily wellbeing throughout the cycle, but there is a minority that do and ought to have prognosis, remedy and possibly accommodations at get the job done,” she reported. “So it really is a matter of acknowledging person dissimilarities.”

The places in which period leave exists

Victorian Women’s Rely on isn’t really the first organization to introduce a office coverage allowing for allotted compensated depart for women’s menstrual cycles.

Across quite a few Asian nations around the world, menstrual depart is made available to functioning women, mentioned Danielle Keiser, founder of a world women’s well being firm named the Menstrual Well being Hub.

Documents from the MH Hub point out that there are menstrual depart procedures in Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam, South Korea, Taiwan and China.

Considering the fact that 1947, women of all ages in Japan have been granted menstrual go away.

In South Korea, woman staff have been entitled to a day off each individual thirty day period considering the fact that 2001, but handful of staff members in male-dominated workplaces are keen to workout that correct, in accordance to the Korea Instances.

In 2014, Taiwan moved to grant women menstrual leave. In 2016, China’s Anhui province introduced a new rule making it possible for ladies who undergo extreme menstrual soreness to acquire one to two times off every single thirty day period, following presenting a doctor’s be aware.

In some others parts of the globe, menstrual depart insurance policies have emerged far more on a firm-by-corporation foundation.

For instance, Coexist, a team based in the United Kingdom that hosts neighborhood areas, released a interval plan last calendar year. The coverage enables workers who decide into it to choose time off, work from home or take into account other selections, these types of as altering their doing the job hours through their periods.

The Victorian Women’s Believe in in Australia hopes to make a “contact to motion” in its forthcoming investigate paper for the state to undertake some sort of nationwide menstrual go away policy — “and to uncover techniques for providers to be incentivized to do that, to be encouraged to do it,” Crooks stated.

‘They were not reporting their intervals because they desired to fly’

“On the deal with of it, the alternative of ‘menstrual leave’ looks like a good thought. No one particular who faces cramps and ache ought to be predicted to function and ought to be in a position to consider the working day off,” explained Inga Winkler, a lecturer in human rights and director of the Functioning Group on Menstrual Health and fitness and Gender Justice at Columbia College in New York.

“The purpose the concept of ‘menstrual leave’ is controversial is the broader context of the culture we stay in — a society characterised by substantial gender inequalities, where by females earn significantly less, are perceived as much less capable and, in individual when menstruating, are found as ‘hysterical,’ not trusted and unfit for selection-producing,” Winkler said.

“So though these procedures might be well-intentioned, they hazard actively playing appropriate into stereotypes of labeling women as needing additional protection and excess time off, which in turn may well reinforce biases in choosing, promotion and compensation,” she explained. “What we definitely need to work on is challenging these prejudices, but we shouldn’t count on the females who are assured adequate to consider menstrual go away to obstacle these perceptions on their personal.”

In excess of the many years, there has been a change in imagining about women’s menstrual cycles and the perform power, mentioned Sharra Vostral, an affiliate professor of background at Purdue University in Indiana and creator of the e book “Beneath Wraps: A Background of Menstrual Cleanliness Engineering.”

Women of all ages who operated planes through Entire world War II as section of the Women’s Auxiliary Ferrying Squadron, or WAFS, ended up forbidden from doing the job throughout their menstrual cycles, Vostral said, particularly “from one particular day right before the starting of the menstrual period of time right up until two times following it.”

In 1943, the WAFS and Women’s Flying Schooling Detachment merged into the Girls Airforce Provider Pilots, or WASP. Following that happened, women of all ages even now experienced to report their intervals, even though a document known as the ” ‘Medical Issues of WASPS’ determined that menstruation was ‘not a handicap to flying and there was no relationship to incidents,’ ” Vostral claimed.

“Some of the experiences from the doctor arrived back, tongue-in-cheek, indicating this was the most fascinating group of ladies he’d ever encountered mainly because they were not possessing their durations,” she claimed. “They weren’t reporting their intervals because they needed to fly.”

Crooks stated she sees modern-day-day menstrual go away insurance policies as a stage forward and not a stage back again.

“In an era of competitiveness and making an attempt to hold and keep competent and gifted persons, most businesses are heading to want to create workplaces that do the job for men and women,” she stated.

“The base line is that productiveness and loyalty and regard in a office is heading to appear from both of those staff and businesses attempting to do the correct detail by one another,” she stated. “I don’t take the premise that this is a backwards action for ladies. I you should not settle for the premise that it will mitigate negatively against females.”

Dysmenorrhea, or ache involved with menstruation, is the most commonly claimed menstrual disorder, and extra than fifty percent of ladies who menstruate have some ache for one or two times each individual month, according to The American Faculty of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

‘You are not able to categorize all ladies as the same’

Women in Indonesia are given a monthly two-day menstruation leave by legislation, but workers not often take up this supply, in accordance to research.

A examine posted in the Indonesian Journals of Obstetrics and Gynecology in January located that amid 150 doing the job females, menstrual issues were being claimed to have a delicate effect on do the job and did not interfere with action for 49% of them.

Nevertheless, 47% of the ladies claimed feeling a moderate effects but continued to function despite becoming disturbed, and 4% documented a significant function disturbance, according to the review.

The review, executed past year at Dr. Cipto Mangunkusumo Nationwide Standard Medical center in Jakarta, was based mostly on questionnaires and diary sorts completed by the girls.

That compact share of women of all ages in the analyze who noted serious disturbances may represent a group impacted by what’s named premenstrual dysphoric problem, or PMDD.

“On the 1 hand, most gals have no important improvements in their temper or functioning throughout the cycle. That is been demonstrated once again and all over again,” Eisenlohr-Moul stated.

On the other hand, about 5% of women of childbearing age expertise recurring psychological and physical signs extreme more than enough to meet requirements for PMDD, she claimed.

The problem, which follows a related sample to premenstrual syndrome or PMS, has been identified to induce much more extreme emotional indications, like severe irritability, despair and nervousness.

“PMDD is characterized by the cyclical recurrence of psychological and physical signs or symptoms in the 14 times ahead of the onset of menstrual circulation, and in these individuals, the signs or symptoms are intense more than enough to bring about impairment at function, at residence, in associations, and they actually have to have remedy,” reported Eisenlohr-Moul, who led the improvement of a standardized protocol for diagnosing PMDD, printed in the American Journal of Psychiatry in 2016.

“The primary point is that which is only about 5% of gals that have this problem that is extreme ample to actually warrant analysis, treatment method, and, I would say, probably even time off work,” she stated.

In general, it can be significant to focus on personal variances and not paint all women of all ages as having uniform ordeals, Vostral mentioned.

“The matter is, females experience their periods extremely in a different way. Some girls do have debilitating cramps and are laid out for times, and other folks barely even know they have their time period,” she claimed. “So you are not able to categorize all gals as the identical.”

In addition, discussions about these types of variances and menstrual go away guidelines can open up the doorway for discussions all over menstruation stigmas and societal improve, Winkler explained.

“I assume having the discussion might be extra vital than having the actual policies. Proposals on menstrual leave garner awareness, and they drive us to have a broader dialogue about menstruation, to speak more overtly about our periods,” she reported.

“I also hope that the dialogue on menstrual leave can guide to broader transform all-around social norms and gender stereotypes in the office — that affect absolutely everyone, not only menstruating women.”

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[flowermandalas]

Balancer: Build Your Resilience in 6 Steps

Build Your Resilience in 6 Steps

  In recent posts, I’ve talked mostly about ReBalancer, the force that kicks in when our default stabilizer, Balancer, gets thrown out of whack by the UnBalancer. ReBalancer handles out-of-the ordinary stresses, but ReBalancer alone can’t keep us on an even keel. For that, we need Balancer to be healthy and strong.

Balancer doesn’t ask us for much. Much like our immune systems, it chugs along on autopilot, making minor course corrections when needed. Only when it encounters something it can’t handle does it call on ReBalancer to provide assistance.

This Balancer/ReBalancer tag team works very well most of the time. But if Balancer is weakened through too much stress for too long, or was never very robust to begin with, we become much more vulnerable to UnBalancer. Then if Balancer gets overwhelmed by a sudden stressor (an accident, a death, a financial crisis, etc.), it may crash before ReBalancer can take over. Recovery from such crashes can take a long time, and if the crash is sufficiently severe, the damage can be permanent.

It’s always helpful to teach ReBalancer new tricks, such as Mini Self-Care, The Experiment, and other techniques described in earlier posts. But it’s equally important to deliberately strengthen Balancer itself. Just as we can help our immune systems to better handle assaults to our bodies, we can better equip Balancer for handling whatever UnBalancer throws our way.

To do that, we need to build Resilience.

Resilience is the ability to bounce back. In a physical object, it is elasticity, the tendency of an object to return to its original shape after it’s been deformed. In an ecosystem, it is the environment’s capacity to rebuild itself. In a person, it’s the ability to recover from shocks to our systems. Without sufficient resilience, we are overcome by obstacles in our path. With it, nothing can keep us down.

Resilience in materials is intrinsic, but in people it’s a dynamic quality. Like a muscle, resilience can be damaged by too much stress or can atrophy if neglected. But it also gets stronger with exercise.

Human resilience has two aspects: physical and psychological. Both are partly determined by nature, partly by nurture. Just as some people are born with greater resistance to disease, some of us show signs of greater psychological resilience even at very early ages. But the larger share of resilience is the product of our own efforts to build and maintain it.

In the Balancer/ReBalancer/UnBalancer framework, resilience is the property of Balancer that allows it to spontaneously recover from the negative effects of UnBalancer. Rather than calling in the troops for reinforcement, a resilient Balancer takes a momentary hit, adjusts to the impact, and bounces back, carrying us along with it.

When I was young, I was fascinated by the properties of natural and man-made materials. I still remember experimenting with the bounciness – the resilience – of round objects. I studied tennis balls, rubber balls, badminton balls, golf balls, glass marbles, ball bearings, always looking for something that could bounce higher than the last thing I tried. I ended this quest when I found, in the toy section of our local pharmacy, the Super Ball.

Super Balls, invented in 1964 by chemist Norman Stingly, are made from an amazingly elastic synthetic rubber called Zectron. When dropped, a Super Ball bounces nearly to the height from which it fell. When thrown down hard, it can easily bounce over a house.

In my therapy practice, I see many people whose resilience has been beaten down or in whom it was never sufficiently developed. They’re like worn-out tennis balls.

After we deal with the problems that brought them into therapy, much of our work together involves creating a more resilient approach to life, so they can transition from worn-out tennis ball to Super Ball.

These are the six main factors I’ve found that can build psychological resilience and keep Balancer on track:

Creating a resilience-friendly environment

Adopting a growth-oriented viewpoint

Bolstering support from individuals and systems

Increasing emotional adaptability

Practicing balance-enhancing activities

Monitoring for signs of imbalance

1. Create a Resilience-Friendly Environment.

Stress is one of the most insidious challenges to building resilience. It can be a constant strain on Balancer, gradually wearing down its efficacy and slowing its response time.

Basic ways to reduce stress often recommended by therapists include changing your emotional relationship to the stressor and practicing stress reduction techniques such as meditation or coloring. But the most effective method is often to remove or change the stressor itself.

Begin resilience-building by evaluating your environment – your home, your car, your job, your relationships. Focus specifically on ways to reduce unnecessary stress. Jobs, schedules, or aspects of your home, neighborhood, relationships, or weekly routines that interfere with living a peaceful life are all candidates for stress-reducing changes.

Removable stressors can range from simple things, such as sharpening dull kitchen knives, creating a system so you don’t misplace your keys, or replacing a cell phone that keeps losing its charge, to more challenging ones like ending a toxic relationship or transitioning from the wrong job. Regardless of the source, though, the first question to ask yourself is, “Can this change?” and if the answer is “yes,” change it!

I encountered a striking example of the efficiency and effectiveness of removing the stressor several years ago. I was working with a bright, affable 12-year-old boy who, despite an obvious interest in learning, was always getting suspended from school. When I asked him about the events that led to his suspensions, I noticed that he always smiled when he talked about getting his teachers angry. I visited his home and discovered that he had an angry and imposing stepfather. Provoking his teachers was my young client’s way of dealing with his resentment toward his stepfather – he could provoke his teachers and they wouldn’t hit him, but his stepfather might.

A typical intervention in cases like this is family therapy, so with the family’s permission I returned a week later. My client lived in a house adjacent to his mother’s business, and there was a constant interchange between the two locations, affecting all members of the family in some way. During the session, I asked each family member to imagine what their lives would be like if they woke up the next day and all their problems were solved. The first thing each one said – even the five-year-old – was that they’d be living somewhere else. A month later, they moved, and very soon afterward, my 12-year-old client stopped acting out in school.

A related aspect of creating a safe, resilience-friendly environment involves “cat hairs.” When you find yourself overreacting to a comment, a tone of voice, or a situation, or you inexplicably feel sad, angry, jealous, or some other difficult emotion, you might have a problem with cat hairs.

Of course I don’t mean literal cat hairs.

The term “cat hair,” in this context, comes from an experiment with lab rats. Researchers wanted to see if rats are genetically programmed to fear cats. They placed several rat pups who had been exposed only to people and other rats – never to a cat – in a cage and monitored their playfulness for several days. The rats played together freely until the researchers took the smallest cat stimulus they could think of, a single cat hair, and dropped it into the center of the cage. Soon, the pups stopped playing and ran to the edges of the cage, trembling with fear.

After 24 hours, the researchers removed the cat hair. They continued monitoring the rat pups, but days later, the rats had not returned to their baseline playfulness. Where there had been a cat hair, the pups seemed to feel, there might still be a cat.

Fear and trauma can leave an indelible imprint on us, too. Our automatic fear-handling mechanism makes us prone to reacting to our “cat hairs” with fight/flight/freeze responses. Such triggered reactions can negatively affect our jobs, relationships, and many other aspects of our lives, cheating us out of a more full version of ourselves. Fortunately, we have more options than rats do for dealing with our “cat hairs.”

Reminders of traumatic experiences that trigger strong emotions can often be removed. Sometimes these are physical objects, but more often they are habitual actions. For example, if a certain phrase or tone spoken by a friend, relative, or romantic partner reminds you of a bad relationship or a difficult childhood, you can ask him or her to change it. Most people will comply with a request like this when it’s presented in context.

When cat hairs can’t be removed, we can learn to see them merely as hairs. If your emotional response seems stronger than the situation merits, ask yourself what triggered it. Did the triggering object, words, tone, or action really mean what you felt it did, or did it just stir something inside? Over time, triggers that we understand to be only triggers – not cats but merely cat hairs – they gradually become less threatening. Then we can use our fight/flight/freeze mechanism as designed, to protect ourselves from actual threats rather than reacting to cat hairs.

What to do:

Notice what is causing increased stress or a triggered response. Simply paying attention to the feeling and looking at what caused it often provides some relief.

Remove the stressor, when possible.

Change your relationship to stressors that can’t be removed. For most of us, our attitudes toward stressors and the emotional responses they generate are more than half of the stress. Even triggered responses can be detoxified by changing our relationship to them.

Accompany the stress or triggered response. Feelings that are pushed aside tend to stay stuck, frozen within us like an ant in amber. Feelings that are fully experienced soon become different feelings. Sadness can turn into acceptance. Anger can turn into understanding. Envy can become motivation.

Develop self-soothing skills. When we are able to self-soothe, sometimes even the cat becomes just a kitten, purring on our laps. (More on self-soothing in Step 5.)

COMING NEXT: How to Adopt a Growth-Oriented Attitude (and more!)

Related Posts: The Under Toad and the UnBalancer The Balancer/ReBalancer Tag Team A Mini-Lesson on Mini Self-Care Gyroscopes and Personal Flywheels Hanging in the Balance Balancing the Books The Experiment How to Design an Experiment Build Your Resilience in 6 Steps

Books: From Paths to Wholeness: Fifty-Two Flower Mandalas “Maybe our attempt to ‘change the world’ didn’t die with the ’60s after all. Maybe it is alive, in its own form, in the generation that succeeded us. Maybe what we planted still grows and we shall all, one day, reap its harvest.” – “Change” Print: Amazon  –  BookBaby  –  B&N  – Books-a-Million eBook: Kindle  – Nook  – iTunes  – Kobo

Also available: 52 (more) Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief 52 Flower Mandalas: An Adult Coloring Book for Inspiration and Stress Relief Paths to Wholeness: Selections (free eBook)

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from Balancer: Build Your Resilience in 6 Steps

[baby-advice]

What I will be when I grow up

The child always dreams of becoming someone. Last month - an astronaut, yesterday - the doctor, and today dreams of glory of the writer. You can offer him to try on all these roles. So it is better to sort out in their own interests and at the same time a lot of fun to hold time.

Playing for the future writer

You know what to aspiring writers the most? Of course, good imagination. And there's a great way to train her. Try it with your child beginning to turn stories into complete stories:

- To you in the house knocked on the king ...

- Journalist found something sensational ...

- Once in the cafe you waste ordered another cup of coffee, and when you come back, you see a note on the table:

- In the past, many people have done differently ...

- One morning, he decided to go in search of adventure. Sobral backpack and set off ...

And, you can write a well-known tale of minor character faces. It turns out very interesting!

A game for future scientist

If your child has a potential scientist, he will fall to the liking of any experiments. For example, this - quite simple:

1. leaned against the wall so that the surface of one hand tightly against her.

2. Within 30-60 seconds hand is pressed with force into the wall, if you want to take the hand side.

✔ What is Your Future?

3. Close your eyes.

4. Move away from the wall.

Hand magically rise itself!

Be sure to explain to your child why this is so: "when you squash a hand on the wall, your muscles are compressed (reduced) - just as they are compressed, if you just raise your hand up. When you waste away from the wall, your muscles relax, and then automatically reduced again. And without encountering obstacles such as walls, muscles raise your hand up. "

Another interesting experiment:

Playing for the future of the artist

✔ How Tall Will You Be When You Grow Up?

Your child likes to paint flowers, men and houses? What about unconventional ideas? Let him draw:

- Van Gogh's Ear

- Air castle

- Charlie Chaplin

- Pig in a poke

- Stalagmite and stalactite

- Mirage

- Time Machine

- Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

- shooting star

- Zombie

If the child does not know what a stalactite - try to explain or show pictures. And then - let dreams on paper.

Playing for the future of the gardener

Here are a few entertainment that will appeal to innate agronomist:

- You can with the child sit on a pumpkin cottage. And to see how from small seeds grow larger fruits.

- In the city next to the house to plant flowers.

- And in an apartment on the windowsill - onions and greens.

- Still it is possible to collect and dry under pressure flowers and grass. If you stick them in an album, you get a real herbarium.

- Try to find all the colors of the rainbow colors.

Assemble a collection of leaves. Or different spikes.

Playing for the future inventor

Make a unique robot of ordinary cardboard boxes (large enough so that your child can wear it on yourself). Schedule marker slits for the eyes. Cut holes. Experience the surveillance system. If necessary, the old seal and cut a new hole in the other place.

Make a hole for the reception and delivery. You can make as many holes for receiving and dispensing as you want. The size and shape of the openings depend on the purpose. You can also add flap, slanted chute and the tray.

Provide robot display so everyone knew what he was doing at that moment. The display should show the robot mode. Think about what signs may need your robot to interact with the outside world.