#in my defense it takes up way less space than buying all the seasons individually so it's practical

[stairset]

I'm quitting my job soon and getting an actual full time job that actually pays well which is good cause my habit of impulse buying expensive things is returning

[hawkinsschoolcounselor]

“Why do you lie?”: A look at a gay Mike Wheeler

This is a sort of a companion post to Will Byers and Growing Up Gay in the Pre-Internet Era, which I posted last year. I looked into what could have possibly been going on with Will as someone with a gay identity at a time when there was little support. Now I’d like to look at Mike, who would have his own unique challenges towards accepting a positive identity. This isn’t meant to be a post for why Mike is gay, as I (and several others) have already addressed that. Instead, I want to look at some of the psychological processes that may be at work in how Mike develops through the series. I will be treating Mike as if he were a real person, rather than a fictional character, and, so, I will attempt to ignore narrative devices (foreshadowing, parallels, etc.) as much as possible.

“Friends don’t lie” is one of the prevailing messages in Stranger Things. It more or less becomes El’s personal motto, so it ultimately became associated more with her than the person who taught it to her: Mike. Despite attempting to instill this value onto El, Mike himself is shown to have a lot of trouble living up to it. While Mike spends quite a lot of time in Season 3 lying to El, she is not the biggest victim of his lies. No, the one he lies to the most is himself, and he seems to have been doing that since Season 1.

According to the Cass Identity Model, a journey to a positive gay identity requires several steps: confusion, comparison, tolerance, acceptance, pride, and synthesis. This is not a perfect model, but it is one of the better attempts to create a general framework for how it worked for many gay individuals, at least in the time it was created (1979). A general way to look at it is that, at least at the time, individuals would work their way through this process as they engaged with the gay and lesbian community and started to see it as less of a bad thing and more as something to be proud of until it finally becomes just another part of who they are.

As I mentioned in my Will post, there is little opportunity for a kid in Hawkins to engage with the gay and lesbian community. There is no internet, nor is there any (known) place for local gays to gather in Hawkins. This results in the only real mention of homosexuality being the slurs thrown around by school bullies and people like Lonnie. A town like Hawkins would be a very difficult place for a young gay person to grow up. This makes it hard for even the initial stage, confusion, even occurring. Mike has deep feelings for Will, but the confusion stage requires that he acknowledge his feelings as homosexual in nature. Instead, I think Mike has been hiding from his own feelings, and it may not have been until the finale of Season 3 that he finally acknowledged them for the first time. So what comes before the first stage? 

Lies! Well, sort of. Defense mechanisms are how our minds protect us from the anxiety and social consequences of unwanted thoughts and desires. We all use them, unconsciously, to some extent. The next time you come home from a hard day at work and yell at a family member, ask yourself why you’re angry. Odds are it’s nothing the family member did. Getting angry at work can be a risk to your employment, so, instead, you unconsciously find a “safer” target. In this case it’s still bad, but getting forgiveness from a family member is easier than talking a boss into rehiring you. Mike has similar processes going on to protect him from his budding attraction to Will.

It’s impossible to tell when exactly Mike started thinking of Will as more than a friend, even if he doesn’t label the thoughts as such. He already shows an intense concern for Will in Season 1. When the boyish-looking El shows up and provides an opportunity to find Will, Mike risks his friendships to make use of her powers. He also goes over the top in disguising her as, well, a girl. It probably would have been easier to disguise her as a boy, but Mike decided to put a wig and dress on her, and then apply makeup to her. This could be a combination of displacement and reaction formation. Mike is redirecting his feelings for Will onto El, and also making her as obviously female as he can. 

Mike’s bond with El came very quickly, and even caused a rift within the Party. While Dustin and Lucas would come around and value El as a trusted friend, their process with her is more natural than Mike’s rushed, forced relationship with her. Dustin and Lucas had no weird feelings to hide from. Their search for Will contained no unwanted implications, they simply wanted their friend back safe and sound. Still, we would see Mike on the opposite end of this type of interaction in Season 2.

Max is the first “normal” girl to show interest in the Party. Mike reacts to her presence and attempts to join the party with hostility. There is little reason for this, as he was more than willing to allow El to be their friend. He doesn’t truly hate her, and in his own words he can’t hate her as he doesn’t even know her. He simply wants nothing to do with her. His only given reason is that the party is full as it is, which seems to fall flat. It could be that the presence of a girl reminds him of El, but we don’t see him acting hostile to girls in general. It seems, instead, to be his friends’ interest in her that gets Mike to dislike her. While the theory that he is jealous at Will’s interest in Max is intriguing, there isn’t much to go on aside from Will showing a curiosity about her and then letting Dustin and Lucas bring her along for Halloween. Instead, Mike may be projecting here. He shows incredulity that Dustin and Lucas could be so interested in Max despite never having talked to her, suggesting that he thinks getting to know someone is important in regards to being romantically interested. This runs counter to his interactions with El in Season 1. He resents his own behavior, but takes his anger out on his friends and Max instead when he sees them doing something similar.

Mike is very protective of Will throughout Season 2. He also spends a lot of time reaching out to El via his SuperComm, though he admits it’s likely a fruitless effort. His guilt over what has happened to the both of them is another sign of his mixed up feelings for Will and El. On Halloween, Mike and Will open up to each other about how crazy they feel, and they share a smile at the end of a conversation that is arguably a masked love confession. However, as Mike twice brought up El as a part of their conversation, it further reinforces the displacement of Mike’s feelings to her. However, soon after this, Mike finds himself caught up in another Will-related crisis, and El is out of his thoughts until her return at the end of the season.

Mike also shows a lot of willingness to allow himself to be vulnerable with Will in Season 2, something which isn’t seen in his interactions with anyone else. In these moments, Mike’s body language shifts. His tone becomes softer, his head dips slightly, and he peers at Will through his lashes. His aforementioned conversation on Halloween is just one example, but it is also seen when Will is asked if he remembers Mike, when Mike recounts meeting Will as they try to break through to him, when they’re at the movies, and when Will is packing at the end of Season 3. The moment in the shed is perhaps Mike’s most vulnerable moment. He shares a cherished memory, and unashamedly cries while doing so, perhaps even so lost in the moment that he forgets other people are in the room. His feelings, driven into overdrive by the fear of losing Will for good, are beginning to overwhelm him, but he still maintains his “Will behavior.”

This shows an uncharacteristic degree of trust and/or submission. In interactions with other characters, even El, Mike often displays assertive, or even aggressive, tones and stances. Mike doesn’t realize he does this, but we do see him sometimes use similar body language with El, further suggesting that he is redirecting his affections.

Perhaps the biggest moment we see him act this way around El is at the Snow Ball at the end of Season 2. Mike had been having a great time at the dance until Will had gone off to dance. This is strange considering Mike seemed to urge him to go with the girl in the first place. He appears shocked as the pair walks to the dance floor, his mouth agape, and wide eyes staring off into space. This isn’t the body language of someone expressing pride at a friend’s unexpected boldness, but rather it suggests a disturbing revelation. It is at this point that Mike could potentially have moved into the Confusion stage of the Cass model, as he sits on the sidelines (despite Dustin briefly there for company) watching Will dance. Any progress he may have made is instead halted when El arrives unexpectedly. This allows for him to continue using her as an outlet, and gives him a convenient escape from where his thoughts would likely take him.

Season 3 is the first time Mike had to deal with having both El and Will in his life at the same time, and it’s where his defense mechanisms begin to break down. In therapy, the goal is to shine light onto defense mechanisms in order to deconstruct them, so the patient can see and deal with what is actually going on. 

We find out Mike has been largely ignoring his friends and spending most of his time with El. He makes a big show of his relationship with El, including leaving early after Dustin had returned from camp under the false pretense of a curfew. The others don’t buy it, and Mike likely knew this. He wanted them to know he was going off to make out with El. When we actually see them alone, they do indeed make out, but, curiously, Mike twice takes steps to make it less intimate. He stops to sing along to the music, for example, despite El not enjoying it. He also removes El’s hands from her face, leaving them both simply leaning forward at each other without additional contact. There is a suggestion here that Mike is not enjoying what he is doing and limiting just how intimate they get. 

We continue to see his lack of a desire to be close to El. For her part, El shows behavior that could only be considered clingy. It is she who initiates nearly all of their physical contact, and, at one point, she even literally clings to Mike as Dustin is showing off his gadgets. A close inspection shows that Mike is standing with his arms crossed during this, making no active attempt to return the physical contact. None of this physical intimacy is for his own benefit. While being with El means he doesn’t have to worry about his feelings for Will, it does not really allow him to express those feelings to his satisfaction. This may be why he goes on movie “double dates” with Will, Lucas, and Max in between spending time with El. 

The occurrence we see at the movies is clearly not the first due to Steve’s frustrated reaction and their familiarity with his threat. They are late, so there are not enough seats, but there is no hesitation as Mike goes with Will to sit apart from Max and Lucas. Mike is so comfortable with reaching into Will’s bag for the snacks that it suggests it’s happened multiple times before. We also see that, despite his reclusive behavior with El, Mike still has Will on his mind when he asks if Will is ok. His tone again soft, head slightly dipped as he peers up through his lashes. He glances briefly down, possibly at Will’s lips, suggesting he needs to remind himself that it’s not El he’s with at this moment. He is otherwise very content to be “alone” with Will at the movie. 

Mike ultimately needs the relationship with El to protect himself against his feelings for Will, and it all comes to a head when they fight after Will’s attempt at a campaign. Mike’s continuous theatrics lead to not only Hopper forcing him to spend less time with El, but to him getting busted as he allows Lucas to lead him through a plan to get El an apology gift. We later see that he has no difficulties apologizing when he feels he should, so his grand gesture is another sign that his relationship with El is more of a show. He puts up no fight when El dumps him, acting annoyed and accusing Max and El of conspiring against him. He’s hiding from his own complicity in order to avoid acknowledging that it doesn’t really bother him as much as it should. He wants El to come back to him to continue his show, but he can’t do anything about it without confronting his feelings. El leaving didn’t hurt him; it just made him angry. This complicates things for him. It was easier for him to shift his feelings to El when he didn’t actually need to do anything about it.

Will loses it at Mike’s disinterest in his campaign, particularly his attempt to abruptly end it. Mike seems to be trying to be just another too-cool ladies man, and he is disallowing himself to enjoy the game. Still, he can’t bare to have hurt Will, and he chases after him when Will tries to leave. Mike struggles to maintain the lie while trying to placate Will. When Will accuses him of ruining everything to make out with “a stupid girl,” we see Mike lash out, saying it’s not his fault Will doesn’t like girls. While this hurt Will, it was likely another case of projection. Mike hates himself for spending all of his time with El because he doesn’t actually like girls. He can’t even stay angry at Will when he sees how hurt Will was with what he said. He tries to explain that this is just how it needs to be, and he appears sad as Will leaves. Unlike with El, Mike is hurt when he loses Will, and he chased after him to apologize. We don’t actually get to see him apologize, however, as the threat-of-the-season kicks into gear, resulting in Mike needing to get El.

Mike thus is able to bounce his feelings back to El. He maintains a physical proximity to Will, but also tries to avoid interacting with him. The apology he never gets to make to Will ends up clumsily being offered to El. Mike’s vulnerable, genuine behavior is absent as he goofily attempts to make nice with his ex-girlfriend. He awkwardly attempts to invoke previous conversations with Will, suggesting an increasing desperation to re-establish El as the safe target for his affections. Cracks had already been forming in his carefully constructed subconscious defense mechanisms as a result of the contrast in how El and Will dumping him made him feel. Mike is starting to see the truth, and he needs to fix it.

Ultimately, the Byers decide to move away. A few months pass between the end of the season and the epilogue where they actually move. Mike seems to be on good terms with both El and Will, but we don’t really know what happened in the interim to get him there. Mike has conversations with both El and Will. His demeanor in each again demonstrate that, despite what he wants others to think, it’s Will who Mike can’t bear to part with. With Will, Mike again shows his vulnerability when Will goes to give away his D&D books. Mike is clearly afraid at the implications, that Will will move on from him, but Will is able to allay his fears, assuring him it’s “not possible” for him to find a new party, and that he expects to just use Mike’s set when he returns. Mike shows no vulnerability with El. In fact, he seems quite at ease as he explains how they’ll talk all the time, so everything will be ok. El suddenly attempts to bring up his previous attempts to talk about feelings, and he feigns ignorance, seeming uncomfortable. There’s a suggestion that they never re-established a romantic relationship. She says she loves him, and he seems perturbed. She kisses him, and he stands there, unresponsive. As she leaves, Mike stands confused and disturbed. He was not expecting that, nor did he enjoy it. Previously, after such a vulnerable moment with Will, Mike would have jumped at the opportunity to shift his feelings to El. Now it seems that he is finally accepting the truth. Defense mechanisms, being elaborate unintentional lies, only work when the individual remains unaware of them. Insight results in the truth being revealed.

As the Byers leave, Mike stares longingly at the cars. His friends all bike away, but he hangs back momentarily, looking back at Will’s house one last time with a pensive look on his face. All his walls have come crumbling down, and he can’t deny it anymore. He can’t pretend it’s El that he loves. He rides home, walking into his home in a daze. We last see him seeking comfort in his mother’s arms, seeking that unconditional love he craves so much. Mike is now confused, consciously aware that he loves Will, dealing with not only losing him, but also the acknowledgement that he’s likely gay. He’s no longer lying to himself, though it remains to be see how he reacts to the truth.

From here it’s all speculation, as we have little to no knowledge of Season 4. Based on the Cass model, Mike needs to explore his gay identity by meeting other gay people. He needs to see that not only is he not alone, but that being gay isn’t a bad thing. This process isn’t easy, and he will need to deal with the social implications of what it means. He may well choose to attempt to maintain a straight image. El being away means he can claim her as his girlfriend without them needing to be intimate. On the other hand, with support, he could work his way through the model and learn to love himself as he is. 

Note: I tried hard to stick to a conceptualization of Mike, but this does not mean this is how the writers see him. 

[fernrisulfr]

Digimon ReArise Review

I realize I don’t post a lot of my reviews on tumblr, usually just to steam, but this is about Digimon, and I have opinions on Digimon. Especially after how terrible Digimon Links was. I’ll break this review into parts, making comments on the various activities and mechanics in the game, as well of course comments on the Digimon themselves. 

STORY: First off there’s the fact that there is an actual story, a massive improvement over Links which honestly had nothing, or at least so little it may as well have BEEN nothing. While the story itself isn’t anything as complex or indepth as FGO or Gran Blue, it is still quite enjoyable. It has a straight forward episodic nature, mixing cutscenes with blurbs/text bubbles that show up in the middle of actual combat. While the story itself may be simplistic, it’s suits the Digimon Franchise, and is in a lot of ways much like playing through an Episode of the various Television Series. While in truth the story may actually have been better suited TO the Television Series, and keeps the aspect of Episode Titles giving away when Story Relevant Digimon are going to Digivolve, it’s still good.  VORTEX: The Vortex’s are the main sources for farming materials uses for Awakenings, as well as Food Items to raise your Digimon’s Bond. They’re reminiscent of Dailies, while being on a much shorter timer. Though it seems like recently they lengthened the timer from 4 hours to 7. In general they’re fairly easy and after a point you can simply autobattle your way through them, but it does remove the strain of farming materials, as it makes it easier to multitask.  CLASH: Essentially these are Raid Battles designed to be beaten by Multiple Players. They come in multiple levels so it’s possible for even the lowest level player to reasonably participate. Only the Top 3 Damage Dealers and the Spotter (person who found/started the Clash) gain additional rewards, so it’s easy for weaker players to farm things out enmasse even if they don’t deal much damage. Along with dropping materials necessary for Digivolution, Clash Battles also drop a currency called Clash Medals, which can be spent in a shop. Clash Medals can be spent on Rare Plugins (Equipment) or on additional Digivolution Materials.  BATTLE PARK: The Battle Park is ReArise’s version of PvP. A single “season” lasts for 1 week before resetting. Battle Park Stamina is separate from regular stamina, so it’s only possible to compete in about 5 battles in a row before needing to wait and recharge. The Battle Park itself rewards both BP Medals which can be used to buy DigiEggs (and later Rare Plugins I’ve heard) as well as DigiRubies (Paid Gacha and Shop Currency.).The Battle Park itself is honestly insanely broken. It divides players into Ranks, and once you gain enough points you’re able to participate in a “Promotion Battle” allowing you to rise to the next rank. However once you’ve advanced in Rank, you cannot drop to a lower rank. This is a problem because it means it’s very easy for a Player to pass the Promotion Battle, and then find themselves in a Rank they’re not yet ready for, causing them to constantly lose. In addition, the Promotion Battle becomes Mandatory once you’ve gained enough points. You HAVE to do it, and you can’t ignore it without ignoring the Battle Park entirely. Adding to the problem is that “Season Rewards/Rank” are determined by how many points you gain in battle over the course of the week, however as you climb to higher ranks and begin to win less and lose more, it becomes next to impossible to obtain higher rewards without going out of your way to pay for more stamina and heavily grind at the Battle Park. As well, and this will be mentioned again quite soon, Status Effects are tremendously broken in PvP. Particularly Stun, Shock, Paralysis, Sleep, and Skill Lock. Each Status Condition states that it lasts for “2 turns” or a similarly short duration. However a “Turn” is so long that in this time that your Digimon is Immobilized, your own Team is likely to be decimated unless you have a significant level advantage over your opponent. They’re incredibly unbalanced and overpowered.  UNDERWORLD: The Underworld is interesting in concept. It’s a series of “floors” separate from the Main Story and Vortexes. Each floor can only be played once, and will give a variety of great rewards such as High Tier Plugins, DigiEggs, Gacha Currency, and Store Items. They’re intended to be Post-Game/After-Story Challenge Quests intended for High Level Players. Which is great. However in reality they only showcase the problem I mentioned with Status Effects all the more clearly. With the encounter itself set to Max Level, enemy party combinations are often set to spam Status Effects, particularly those that hit the entire party and are capable of immobilizing multiple members. Unless you have a Digimon that is immune to or heals the status effect your utterly screwed, and even if you DO, there’s a good chance you’re screwed anyway because in the case of a healer there’s a 50% chance they’ll be immobilized, preventing them from healing anyone/removing the status effect, and even if they do succeed there’s a good chance it’s just going to happen again. If you have Digimon that are Immune, it better be over half the party worth, or you’re likely to lose purely based on numbers. 

Now then, let’s take a step back and lok at the DigiTown as well as various other in-game mechanics.  The main screen for Digimon ReArise is the DigiTown, a customize-able space that you can decorate, and watch your Digimon run around in. From this area you can reach the various menus (of which there are a lot.), as well as feed your Digimon to raise their Bond. Which brings me to the Four things you must do in order to make a Digimon strong. BOND: A numerical representation of your Digimon’s happiness, trust, and faith in you. You can raise it either by bringing a Digimon with you into battle, assigning them as your Partner Digimon, or by feeding them Food Items in the DigiTown. Required to perform Awakenings and Digivolution. Honestly I like it in concept, but not strictly execution. It doesn’t have a huge overarching effect (though feeding Digimon also improves their Mood and allows them to make Critical Hits more easily), and ultimately it ends up just being another number we need to raise and grind for.  LEVEL: Sort of self-explanatory for the average player. Level is a representation of their over all power. The higher their level, the higher their stats. Can be raised by spending “bits”, the in-game currency gained from battles. A certain level is required both for Awakenings and Digivolution, both of which also happen to raise the level cap. WORK-OUT & AWAKENING: It is possible to “train” your Digimon using various Work-Out Chips obtained from Story Quests and Vortexes. Letting a Digimon Work-Out raises individual stats, and once all Work-Outs have been completed, and the additiional requirements of Level & Bond have been met, it’s possible to Awaken a Digimon. Awakening a Digimon further raises their stats (more significantly than the individual workouts), and raises the level cap. I compare it in some regards to Ascension in FGO, however it happens much more frequently, requiring more time and materials, as well as sharing the role with Digivoltion. Speaking of. DIGIVOLUTION: Requires the Digimon to be at a certain amount of Level and Bond. Allows the Digimon to reach the next, more powerful, stage. Raises their stats significantly, as well as boosting the power of their Main and Sub Skill. Naturally this also changes their appearance. A noteable thing is that while all Digimon can reach the stage of Ultimate, only SOME Digimon can get all the way to Mega, usually requiring you to roll in a paid Gacha, or get really lucky with a Digi-Egg.  Alongside the above, other ways to make a Digimon Stronger are to raise their skill level (to a maximum of 10) or Equip Plugins. To raise a Skill Level you simply need to combine them with a Digimon with the same Digivolution Tree. This means that they have to have the same Rookie, Champion, and Ultimate Stage, and that Mega Digimon can only be combined with Digimon that can also reach Mega. Plugins are Equipment that can be sorted into Offensive, Defensive, and Status Effect. At max level you can equip 2 of each, for a total of 6 Plugins. Plugins, simply enough, raise various stats. They can be obtained as drops in Story Quests and the Underworld, bought in various currency shops, or obtained in the Gacha (More on this latter.). Plugins can also be combined together to increase their stat bonuses.   Next we have the game’s “Social” aspects and a shameless plug from myself.

GUILDS: DigiGuilds are in a lot of ways like a second Friends-list, giving you another list of people you can invite to raids, or call on for support in battle. Joining a Guild also gives you access to a second DigiEgg Incubator, allowing you to raise 2 DigiEggs at the same time, as well as request help from Guild Members to ease the burden of hatching and raising it. The Guild also provides additional rewards to reap. Once a day Players can enter their Guild Page, and by clicking “Support” (or Support All) will receive additional Stamina for each member of the guild, which can be great while farming. As well by “Checking In” the ENTIRE Guild will receive a Reward based on the number of Members who checked in during a 24 hour period. The more members, the better the Rewards.  Shameless Plug: Featured above is my own Guild “Menagerie” (Because “Phenomenal Menagerie Souffle” was too long.). If you play Digimon ReArise or this post convinces you to play Digimon ReArise, consider joining! If you do, please remember to Support and Check-in! FRIENDSLIST: The Friends-list like in most Mobile Games, is a list of other Players whom you’ve made (or accepted from) a friends request. Players on your Friendslist can be called for Support in regular battles, or send a help request for a Clash Battle. In addition they serve as a source of “Social Points” which can be earned by Greeting Players once a day (Button located in your Friendslist), by those players Greeting you, and by other players using your Digimon for Support in Battle. Social Points can be spent in a Shop to purchase new Decor items for the DigiTown, or Food. In addition they can be used in a Free Plugins Gacha.  Speaking of the Gacha!

That’s our next topic on this painfully long review.  GACHA: There are several types of Gacha in Digimon ReArise. The Limited Summon Gacha, the Step-up Summon Gacha, various Plugins Gacha, and the Social Points Plugins Gacha. Every Gacha besides the Social Points Plugins Gacha, costs DigiRubies, the Paid Gacha Currency of the game. There is no “free” Gacha for Digimon unfortunately, however I have found that DigiRubies (especially early on) are fairly easy to earn for free early on. So it’s not all bad. Additionally you can also gain new Digimon by hatching DigiEggs, which can be obtained in Shops, from Events, and from certain floors of the Underworld.  SUMMON GACHA: A pretty standard Gacha. Comes in x1 or x10 (+1). Put in DigiRubies and a Random Digimon pops out. The Summon Rate of higher-tier Digimon is better when you roll x10 as opposed to x1. STEP-UP SUMMON: A Step-Up Summon Gacha is a Gacha that comes in steps. Ones I’ve seen have been 3-5 steps. The Price of each step is set, so there’s no x1 or x10. You roll it or you don’t. The Price and number of summons increases with each Step of the Gacha, but so does the Summon Rate of the available Digimon (so the higher the step the better your odds.). Additionally with each step you gain a Reward. At the Final/Highest Step you’ll get 1 Guaranteed Mega-Capable (Can digivolve to Mega) Digimon. Usually a specific Digimon associated with the Step-Up Summon. The Summon Rate increase will cap at the final step, but it is possible to roll the Final Step multiple times (However the Guaranteed Mega will only occur the 1st time you roll the final step.). PAID PLUGINS GACHA: Kinda says what it is on the tin here. You pay DigiRubies to roll for Plugins more powerful than what is generally going to drop from quest nodes. Comes in various types associated with your Digimon’s Personality Type, a concept I still don’t understand.  SOCIAL POINTS PLUGINS GACHA: Again sort of what it says on the tin. A Plugins Gacha, only instead of DigiRubies you spend Social Points, so it’s essentially free. Again drops better Plugins than you’re likely to get from farming quest nodes. 

Next we’ll cover the all important aspects. The Digimon themselves and Combat. DIGIMON: Digimon’s stats are pretty straight forward, split into HP, an Offensive Stat (PWR or TEC depending on the Digimon.), DEF, and SPD. Each Digimon has 3 Skills. A Passive Skill, usually some sort of Buff or Immunity. A Main Skill, which is an offensive Skill Unique to the Digimon themself (such as WarGreymon’s “Terra Force” as seen above), and a Sub-Skill, another Offensive or sometimes Supportive Skill which can be found across several Digimon. As noted before, only some Digimon can Digivolve all the way to Mega, but all can reach Ultimate. I don’t strictly agree with that decision, but I at least understand the reasoning behind it.  BATTLE: Combat in Digimon ReRaise involves a Party of 1 to 5 Digimon Vs 1-3 Waves of Enemies (each Wave in a group of 1-5). Players can chose to activiate Skills Manually, or set Combat to Auto and let the AI decide when to use them. Fights in both Main and Vortex Quests is incredibly easy, and often better left to Auto. If a player is looking for a fight that involves some form of Strategy you’re better off going for a Clash Battle, the Battle Park, or the Underworld (despite my complaints about the latter two.). One glaring fault with the Combat is the inability to select your Target. Who get’s hit by your skills is randomized, which can be a problem both in high difficulty quests, or when special requirements require you to hit the “Boss” with a particular kind of attack. 

Lastly we have the DigiWalker, a magnificent callback to the olden days of the Digivice Toys we used to violently shake up and down instead of actually walking with. The DigiWalker requires a Phone with a Pedometer Function, and access to said Function, but otherwise doesn’t require the game to actually be on. After a certain number of steps your Digimon will find items. When you accept those items they’re gain Bond Points.  Digimon ReArise is not without flaws, the most glaring of which is an excessive number of loading screens, but over all it’s a game I greatly enjoy, and one you can play entirely for free. I’ve been playing a month and haven’t spent a single cent, but still have 6 different Mega Digimon. Thank you for reading this Review, and I hope it was informative. 

[nandalorian]

Since I posted my thoughts about how Roswell has adequately represented queer men on the show and completely shit the bed on their representation of most everything else, I need to address the epically fucked-up treatment of female queerness and the queer female gaze in the context of Isobel and Rosa. This has been bugging me for a few weeks, and the reveal of Noah as the fourth alien pretty much cemented my feelings on the matter. I know there are people who feel the way I do about it, but if there’s another post on the subject I just haven’t seen, please link me. And if you disagree completely about this too, that’s cool. Let’s discuss.

While in my last post I applauded the show on its treatment of Michael’s bisexuality, I still don’t feel great about the introduction of a Michael/Alex/Maria love triangle. It’s one thing for Carina to double down on her defense of love triangles and insist they are not an overused and biphobic trope in popular media--news flash, it is, and in this case it’s also potentially damaging to the one black woman on the show, who will almost certainly bear the brunt of fans’ ire for “stealing Michael away” if they go through with a Maria/Michael relationship. I’m sorry if I don’t take a random straight white woman’s insistence to the contrary as gospel. Saying your formative years were shaped by straight love triangles doesn’t change the fact that it’s an insulting trope to women and an outright damaging one to queers, not even taking into consideration how the two intersect, or further when you consider POC characters, etc. You can’t compare straight relationships with queer ones, in the same way you can’t compare white experiences with nonwhite ones. To insist otherwise denies a whole system of privilege that drastically shapes and influences people’s lived experiences. 

But that isn’t what I want to address, because it’s another thing altogether to come for female sexuality and queerness. If I was willing to maybe give Malex a pass on the good-intentions-written-badly front, this is a hill I’m ready to die on. Isobel’s arc in season 1 of RNM demonstrates a lack of understanding that these are identities equally vulnerable to attack, exploitation, and misrepresentation--maybe even more so--as male queerness. That the outrage about Malex drowns out this other but no less important conversation kind of reaffirms the point I’m trying to make.

More under the cut.

Female sexuality has always struggled to find positive representation in popular media, no matter the time period or culture. Compared to male sexuality, it is not taken seriously, always played against the male gaze, or disregarded altogether because it excludes men. Queer female desire challenges societal structures around male desire and sexuality because it just… doesn’t require men to function and in fact actively rejects them. This is obviously a problem because the patriarchy loves it when men are shown to be extraneous and irrelevant. 

A lot of us know what it is to be invalidated as queer women, socially and sexually. Put your hand up if you’re a woman (in which I include cis and trans women, of course) or nonbinary individual who desires women and has been told, oh, you just haven’t met the right man yet, or oh, you’re just putting on a show for male attention. We have all been there and experienced this kind of erasure to various degrees of aggressiveness. This refrain is especially loud for bisexual women, who suffer erasure and ridicule from queer and straight communities alike, but the fact is, women’s sexuality has always been portrayed as less than or dependent upon that of a man’s. That isn’t to say bisexual men don’t also experience bi erasure. They do, and this is as much a product of homophobia as it is the primacy of the queer male gaze even within queer spaces and contexts. But in this case I’m addressing that of female and nonbinary bi-erasure and biphobia.

Furthermore, the role of queer women in society and popular media has always been underrepresented compared to that of gay men, or seen as more harmless or less significant, groundbreaking, or offensive for a couple of reasons: namely that a lot of people have played down or played off the existence of female sexuality and desire because they doubt its validity to begin with, or it’s “allowed” because it’s desirable to the male gaze. In some ways this has worked in our favour because subversive or queer female behaviour and desire in media have been able to fly beneath the radar, but it’s still a symptom of a greater problem.

I include this preamble because the writers of Roswell New Mexico have stunningly managed to ignore or remain ignorant to this context. The straight women on the show are shown to express their sexuality in upfront or positive ways, even opening up conversations about kink and reversing gender roles, but often in problematic ways too. The show sometimes fails the Bechdel Test or reduces characters, especially WOC like Maria, to having no purpose but to desire male characters and be desired by them, or portrays them as unable to want sex without quickly falling in love the way Maria seemingly has done with Michael. They’ve known each other for over a decade, and yet Maria only catches feelings after they’ve had sex, a night that, supposedly, meant nothing to her but quickly is revealed not to be the case. Interesting.

But beyond even that, my beef is with the whole Isobel-might-be-bisexual-and-in-love-with-Rosa-Ortecho storyline. I was excited about it at first; I couldn’t believe our luck that we had not one, but two bisexual characters on the show, and one of them was a bisexual woman married to a really awesome and seemingly caring South Asian man. But it was not to be, and this to me is ridiculously tone deaf and offensive in light of the fact that she was possessed by a male alien the whole goddamn time.

This tells us two equally disturbing things about the writers’ take on the queer female gaze and queer female sexuality: a) according to them, in this context, it literally doesn’t exist, and b) it is wholly a product of and subject to the male gaze.

From the promo for 1x12 it looks like they are going to delve a little bit into the mindfuck around consent due to Noah effectively brainwashing/tricking Isobel into marrying him, but one aspect of this I’d be surprised if they acknowledge is how he has also robbed Isobel of agency over her own sexuality. Not only has she been in a nonconsensual relationship with Noah this whole time, but he’s stripped her of the ability to discern whether her desires are her own, including the possibility that she is bisexual. As a woman, how can Isobel take her own sexuality seriously/see it as valid when she’s been forced to reconcile with the fact that, until now, it hasn’t been?

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the fact that a man used a woman, against her will and without her knowledge, to kill another woman. All over the simple fact that Rosa didn’t desire him/Isobel by extension. This stupid-as-fuck storyline is literally about weaponizing queer female sexuality in order to do violence against women. 

Just think about that for a second.

To make matters worse, Noah is a South Asian man and represents a community that is already marginalized in white media and society. Brown men have, in white culture, been relegated to two-dimensional stereotypes, rejected as love interests, and often portrayed as villains, and instead of positively developing an Indian character in a multiracial relationship and using that representation for good, he’s been made to violate his wife and use her to kill another woman. My girl @insidious-intent has written a really fantastic post to that end and I’d encourage you to read it. According to Carina, hiring Karan Oberoi to play Noah was colourblind casting. But viewers aren’t naive enough to buy that it’s ever that simple, or it shouldn’t be. I don’t see how you can write a nonwhite character the same as you would a white one and not expect it to have deeper or more damaging implications.

So my point, or at least one of them, is this: the failure of Roswell New Mexico to its queer viewers isn’t just that they’ve desecrated a ship as sacred as Malex or, at best, totally failed to do it justice. Roswell has failed us by invalidating and retconning female sexuality, and if this isn’t something we should all be angry about, straight and queer viewers alike, I don’t know what to tell you. While people are justified in expressing their anger to Carina about Malex, I think it’s also important to acknowledge and protest JUST AS LOUDLY the queer female angle. When you are thinking about how to represent, express, and phrase your disappointment to the production team, remember this goes far deeper than Malex. She has let us all down in ways that have nothing to do with our ship potentially not becoming a reality by the end of this season. She’s let POC viewers down just as resoundingly hard, both distinctly and factoring in the intersectionality of their writing choices.

All writers make mistakes. I want to put that out there. And I also want to put it out there that the issues around queer and POC representation are serious and disappointing, but not insurmountable if the writing team shows a willingness to learn, improve, and listen if the show is greenlit for season 2. But that isn’t what they’re doing. Carina has taken a stand, via Twitter, that they’ve done nothing wrong, and that is a big red flag that the writing team isn’t as woke as it likes to pretend and definitely not interested in listening to criticisms about their politics or how they try to convey them. So are her efforts of trying to silence bisexual viewers with legitimate criticism, or POC viewers doing the same thing. She and the writers would rather praise themselves for their token representation than acknowledge, listen to, and learn from real people expressing real concerns and sharing lived experiences.

[forestwater87]

Secret Santa 2018 - Chapter 1

Hello! So I participated in @campcamp-secretsanta​ again this year . . . although I’m afraid that I did go a little overboard. My recipient, @pikablob​, asked for Gwenvid and Dadvid and was okay with both fluff and angst, and I’m playing with the idea a little bit, but in order to do that well, it’s looking like it’s going to turn into a 4-to-5-chapter fic (which has no name, as of yet. Suggestions are welcome). Because I know “Read More”s don’t always work, especially on mobile, and I don’t want to make people scroll past over 20 pages, I’m going to post the story in chapters -- two today, and ideally one each day through Christmas. (Once it’s all completed, it’ll go up on AO3.)

It’s not a Christmas-themed fic, but I hope you enjoy it anyway! Happy holidays!

He decides that this will be a healing year, a fixing and replacing and making-things-new kind of year.

They all need a little bit of that, he believes.

CHAPTER ONE: NURF

It starts when Gwen mentions that she doesn’t have anywhere to live after the summer, that she’ll have to move back in with her parents unless she finds something better.

(“And, like, anything better. This old guy in the park asked me if I wanted a sugar daddy and I was thinking about it.”)

When David suggests she stay at the camp year-round like he does, he fully expects she’ll turn him down. When she half-smiles and says that it’s better than any of her ideas, he thinks she’s kidding, chuckles numbly and looks back down at his phone.

When she doesn’t make any more plans to move out, he wonders if maybe she’d meant it.

When she starts peppering him with questions about the rest of the year, how he makes money and keeps himself busy and keeps the place from falling apart and keeps himself from freezing or starving to death, he realizes that she’s completely serious, that she’s serious about living here, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek raw to keep from grinning. Because when she says it’s better than nothing she means he’s better than nothing, that she prefers his company at the very least to that of her parents or of strangers and up until this moment he hadn’t ever considered that she might think he was better than literally anything.

So when she critiques his plans and makes her own, when she buys two rattling space heaters for the cabin and when she leaves for a whole weekend and returns with the rest of her life’s belongings in the back of the campmobile, David is quietly, glowingly happy.

(He is even more happy when she finally muscles past the mean little voices in her head and kisses him. They’re in the middle of Rowing Camp and they’re supposed to be watching the campers but they’re in a child-sized rowboat on the lake under blue sky and fluffy white clouds, and when she kisses him he almost forgets all of those things and nearly topples them both into the water.)

(He is even more happy when he realizes that kiss wasn’t a one-time fluke, but apparently a pattern, something to be repeated so many times he loses count.)

(And he’s the happiest he’s ever been -- quietly again, though, a warm gentle bubbling kind of happiness because he knows how defensive Gwen gets when she’s embarrassed -- when she finally admits that it’s not because she has no other options and it’s not because she’s bored, but because she just happens to like him better than either of them ever realized.)

So it begins.

The predictable doesn’t happen, and Max’s parents show up at the end of the summer to take him home. Both David and Gwen let out a sigh of relief, because the boy’s constant mutterings that they don’t care about him and wouldn’t bother to show up had been getting to them, and until he’s safely ensconced in the back of a ratty green two-door sedan they weren’t fully convinced Max wasn’t going to be left behind.

They spent so much time worrying about the predictable, however, that the unpredictable slips completely under their noses until the hours grow heavy and golden and damp, the threat of mosquitos looming as the air cools, and they look around and realize that something has gone wrong, and a camper has been left behind. It just isn’t the one they’d been prepared for.

Mr. Nurfington, an impatient female voice tells Gwen over the phone, hasn’t lived at this number for three weeks. He’s wanted for possession and resisting arrest -- what they might elevate to aggravated assault, the landlady adds, the coolness dropping from her tone as the conversation turns toward gossip, and Gwen should just hear what the police found in his trailer -- “but nobody’s heard a thing from him. His lease expires in two months and as soon as it does, I’m putting all his stuff on the lawn and the coons can have it.”

(Gwen sincerely hopes she means raccoons.) “Did he leave any contacts?”

Just his wife, who won’t be released for another sixteen months -- longer, if she keeps starting fights with the other inmates. There’s an uncle, Gwen knows, but a little digging reveals that he was sentenced to twenty years less than a decade ago, on charges that turn her stomach.

She sets down the phone and puts Nurf’s papers away, and tries to figure out how to explain all this to the two redheaded children sitting on the dock. Two very different versions, she decides, and calls David inside to give him something almost indistinguishable from the truth except that some of the more unsavory details are politely omitted, because at least one of them deserves to sleep that night and for some reason Gwen feels like David’s faith in the world ought to be protected.

Grimy and sweaty from the cabin’s closed-in air, she goes to the showers to wash away everything she’s just learned and leaves David to tell Nurf the version of the story they’ve agreed upon: that his father is gone, nobody is coming to pick him up, but it’s okay because they have a second bedroom in the cabin and this will surely be all better by tomorrow.

It isn’t, and only David is surprised.

It’s a good thing they have a bus, because the Sleepy Peak school transportation system won’t come pick Nurf up all the way at Camp Campbell. Of course, he flatly refuses to let QM drive him to school in a full-sized bus, which neither David or Gwen can really argue. Which leaves her with two options: either dropping Nurf off at school in the campmobile every morning before killing a half hour reading fanfiction on her phone before her job at Camp Corp begins, or driving the exhaust-belching, dangerously clanking bus to work and getting a few minutes of extra sleep.

She decides David is less likely to get himself killed with the bus than with Nurf, and resigns herself to a deeply uncomfortable morning commute.

The most surprising thing she learns on these quiet, sullen mornings is that Nurf is . . . a morning person. Not like David, of course -- no one is quite like David -- but he doesn’t drag his feet, is always sitting by the flagpole with his backpack (new, cheap like it’s made out of old tarp, all they could afford) between his feet when she staggers outside with a to-go cup of coffee and a fistful of David’s trail mix. Nurf doesn’t talk, but he’s attentive; he draws nonsense patterns in the dew on the Campmobile’s windows, and after a few weeks of this strange arrangement he’s comfortable enough to flip through the radio stations.

He likes classical music. David will tell her that he once asked to turn up the Farmer’s Almanac.

(Gwen confesses to David one night that she’s halfway convinced he’ll become a serial killer or something. It’s one of the few serious fights they’ve had, though less a fight than her sitting in shock-stone silence while he gets splutteringly, hand-wringingly angry at her. Tells her that she can’t ever say anything like that ever again -- can’t even think it -- that they’re counselors year-round now and that means never, ever giving up on their campers -- that if -- that as a child -- that he knows what it’s like to be a lost cause and Nurf will never feel like that as long as he’s at Camp Campbell, and that he needs her to be on board because this is hard and scary and he can’t do it alone. Even if their campers weren’t . . . such unique individuals, he would need her, and she can’t ever -- ever -- )

(He’s red-faced and shaking when he runs out of breath or out of words, she can’t tell which, and she tugs him half into her lap and kisses his temple and tells him that of course Nurf will be fine, they’ll all be fine, and she didn’t mean it and it’s okay. And she listens to his breathing even out and, not for the first time, she hates David’s father with every ounce of her being.)

So she trusts Nurf, for David’s sake. And she tries to understand him, for all of theirs.

The seasons will change one more time before she finds herself truly liking him, but she thinks maybe that’s just because neither of them are as good at trusting or understanding as David is.

The fall settles into a pattern of quiet cars and loud buses, of Summer Camp Extended -- which is how David likes to think of it, maybe needs to think of it, because the alternative is that he’s become a father of an aggressive boy the rest of the world forgot about -- where the activities are school for Nurf and work for himself, where the afternoons are spent trying to remember seventh-grade math, buying groceries, waiting for Gwen to come home from a job that demands much longer hours than it offers pay. Sometimes there are regular camp activities, too, when he can cajole Nurf into going for a hike or learning how to fish (though they can’t eat anything they catch in Lake Lilac; the fish there have been declared dangerously mutated).

He spends his mornings as a bouncer at Muffin Tops -- Bonquisha got him the job, and he knows that he looks wiry and weedy and not all that intimidating but the crowd is much calmer during the day than it will get as the evening rolls around, and he believes he can take care of himself if he needs to. (And he has to admit, he enjoys the funny looks his school bus gets when people cross the parking lot.) The customers are polite, if not especially chatty, his coworkers are friendly, the job is mostly standing outside and enjoying the fresh air. It suits him -- strange, unexpected, but surprisingly well-fitting.

David isn’t nearly as adept at metaphors as Gwen, but he thinks quite a few things in his new life could be described that way.

This is the first time he’s able to take just one part-time job, and let the rest of his hours go toward fixing up the camp, and so every patched-up set piece and wobbly table leg repaired he considers a gift from Gwen, who is answering phones and fetching coffee so that he can make Camp Campbell his own, not just legally but in spirit.

He decides that this will be a healing year, a fixing and replacing and making-things-new kind of year.

They all need a little bit of that, he believes.

David isn’t used to devoting this much attention to a single camper. (Not even Max, who has always been a special case.) It’s surprisingly difficult, this one-on-one closeness; he finds he much prefers the scatterbrained chaos of a room full of children. It suits the way he thinks, bouncing frenetic energy, instead of this careful plodding observation and cautious trial-and-error.

It would probably be different with almost any other camper, he has to admit. Nikki, for example -- she constantly needs to be moving, and he would be running to keep up. Harrison would probably be causing trouble, fires he would literally have to put out. Nerris, who can talk for hours at a time about the things that interest her. Preston swanning around the empty Mess Hall, always trying to find an audience.

Nurf, however, isn’t like the children who are sparkling firecrackers that dance and blaze until they get tired and fizzle out. Nor is he like the quieter campers, who still get bored and act out in ways they undoubtedly think are random but really are more like predictable bursts. But Nurf doesn’t seem to have much energy; he goes from school to homework to whatever little activity David can talk him into to bed without seeming depressed or bored. Gwen suggests that maybe Nurf would act out and bully the other campers because he was overwhelmed by the constant noise and activity, and after a week or two of helpless observation, he decides she must be right and leaves the kid to his own devices. Maybe he just really is quiet; it occurs to David that he only ever really noticed Nurf when he was causing problems, and it pains him that this realization comes just as he makes the decision to step back.

“Of course you ignored the well-behaved ones,” Gwen tells him one evening, curled up against his side with her cheek on his shoulder. “What are we supposed to do, let the Problem Trio destroy the camp while we try to get Ered to drop the ‘too cool to talk to anyone’ act?”

He knows she’s right, but it doesn’t make him feel any better about withdrawing. He throws himself further into camp rehabilitation instead, letting Nurf do homework and play on his phone (finally relinquished to him at the end of the summer) and do whatever else fills his afternoons, and tries to ignore the prickling panic that lingers at the back of his mind and tells him this is not okay, this is not how a Camp Campbell counselor should act.

The problem is, of course, that up until this fall it’s exactly how he’s always acted.

The other problem is that he and Gwen were wrong about the kind of person Nurf is; he isn’t a firecracker, no, and he’s not a Max-like schemer and instigator, a controlled burst of dynamite. But just because the tension bubbles under the surface doesn’t mean it’s not there, and eventually it has to boil over.

The tipping point appears to be David asking over the dinner table how his homework is going. He’s deemed it a nice, neutral topic of conversation, one that isn’t likely to veer into uncomfortable directions about his home life or the bizarre situation they’ve all found themselves in or what’s going to happen next. It’s safe and familiar ground, and whenever he’s grasping for something to talk about he returns to it gratefully, knowing it’ll never trigger a landmine.

Until it does.

“Sure, let’s just talk about homework,” he snaps, the hint of his slight damp lisp becoming more pronounced with irritation -- not that anyone would dare point it out to him. “That’s all you care about, isn’t it? Is my homework done? Do I need help with my homework? How was school, and what kind of homework did you get?” He slams his hands down on the table, making the dishes (and Gwen and David) jump. “Do you even consider the psychological ramifications of making an impressionable child feel like they are nothing but the sum of their academic achievements? And I am impressionable!” he adds, shoving his chair back and standing up; David notices for the first time that he’s grown a bit over the summer, enough to almost loom over them while they’re still seated. “I’m still just a kid, you know!”

He swallows, trying to find the right words (and keeping a careful eye on their silverware). “Well, of course you are, Nurf,” he begins carefully, with the distinct impression that he’s feeling his way through waist-deep water in the dark. “But it’s our job to make sure that you’re . . .”

How does he finish that sentence? ‘Okay?’ ‘Happy?’ ‘Safe?’ He’s not sure Nurf is any of those things, and the thought of being responsible for them makes his stomach coil and his fingers shake.

“That you’re engaging in an activity,” Gwen cuts in smoothly, placing her hand over David’s underneath the table. Her touch and the last-minute rescue both hit him like a lifeline. “Since camp isn’t in session, school is kinda your activity.”

Something flickers in Nurf’s expression, doubt cutting through the increasing red-faced belligerence, and David thanks whatever higher power might be out there for Gwen. She’s always understood the more difficult campers better than he does; it must be the Psychology degr --

Clouds roll in dark and heavy behind his eyes. “Why does everybody sign me up for activities I don’t want?” He picks up a napkin and began shredding it -- David wonders if he picked it up from Gwen, or if he’s always had that nervous habit. “I never asked to go to school, you know! My mom never went to school, and she’s only suffering from a lifetime of consequences made from bad decisions that she didn’t have the education or emotional framework to prevent!” He tosses the shreds of napkin to the table, the three of them watching in silence as the uneven confetti flutters over their food. “Everyone does that!”

“Well, that’s not . . .” David glances at Gwen, who shrugs. He felt less helpless when Nurf was throwing knives at him. “You have to,” he finishes weakly. “It’s good for you. And I thought you liked . . .” He wracks his brain desperately for scraps of what limited conversation they’ve had on their afternoon drives home from school, “history?”

“Ugh!” Nurf whirls around and pulls back his arm, then launches his water glass into the wall. It doesn’t break -- David bought shatterproof dishes for the camp long before any of his current campers started coming here -- but the sound is massive in the silent room. We should’ve had him sign up for Baseball Camp, David thinks wearily, watching the watch drop down the uneven wood surface. “Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to not have the vocabulary sophisticated enough to express what you’re feeling?!”

David rarely considers himself helpless, but as Nurf reaches for his mostly-uneaten plate, face still dark with bottled-up impotent fury, he feels like he’s been attacked by Daniel again, limbs as weak and useless as if they were tied to his chair. “I . . . think you have a great vocabulary,” he begins, taking the first steps into this sentence without having any idea where the end of it is. But his instinct is always for positivity, and it’s true that Nurf’s intelligence impresses him; he may have taken for granted, in some ways, that this is the one camper who he can always rely on to be direct, his words and his fists both brutally honest. “Usually I just say I’m mad.”

“I AM mad!” he shouts, but he drops the plate to the table instead of throwing it. His voice is loud enough to blow Gwen and David’s hair back like a strong wind, and they’re both too surprised to even wipe off the bits of potato that flew up into their faces from the plate’s hard landing. “I’m mad because you don’t know what to do with me, and the state doesn’t know what to do with me, and it’s the end of summer but I’m still at camp because nobody knows what they’re supposed to do with me, which is the exact reason why I ended up in Boot Camp in the first place, and all I can do is do homework until someone decides what’s going to happen to me and I don’t know why everything is this hard!”

His arms drop to his sides and his shoulders slump, eyes widening and staring blankly into a spot above their heads.

“Wow,” he says after a moment. “That’s a lot of dark stuff for a twelve-year-old.”

The Quartermaster pokes his head into the Mess Hall. “Anyone died out here?”

“No, QM,” Gwen says, giving David a sideways glance before grabbing the butter, reaching over Nurf’s plate like it wasn’t sitting in a mess of food in the middle of the table, “we’re good out here.”

The Quartermaster grunts and disappears back into the kitchen, where an unsettling grinding noise David can’t quite place begins.

Nurf picks up his plate and sets it back in its place, stealing David’s napkin and settling it over the spilled food left behind. “I should, uh, clean up everything, shouldn’t I?”

“After dinner,” David replies, keeping his voice as calm and unaffected as possible. “You should finish eating before it gets cold.” As he sits back down and reaches for his fork, he continues, “If I help you get the Mess Hall back in shape, Nurf, do you think you’d be able to give me a hand with the canoes? I’m trying to get them ready for one last trip before the lake freezes.”

“Is this a punishment because I threw things?”

“Absolutely not.” David feels like he’s walking on a very narrow bridge, with horrible drops to either side but something warm and potentially wonderful on the other end. “You don’t have to say yes.”

Gwen, still keeping her gaze on buttering her roll, mutters, “You could always do homework instead.”

David freezes, giving her a look because what on earth does she think she’s doing? But then Nurf lets out a small, barking huff of laughter, and the evening settles back on its axis almost tangibly, a kind of metaphysical thump that he thinks they all feel, because in an instant the air is lighter than it's been since the end of the summer.

“For what it’s worth,” Gwen says after a few minutes, “even if it’s hard, I think you’re better at handling your feelings than you think you are.” Her eyes flick over to the empty glass and the water stain on the wall. “But maybe we should also buy you a punching bag over the weekend.”

“He needs a shrink,” Gwen declares later that night, then flops back onto the bed, covering her eyes with her arms. “We can’t afford a shrink.”

David is quiet for a moment. “I could . . . get another job,” he offers finally, the waves of reluctance rolling off of him, and she flaps her hand in his direction dismissively.

“No, shut up. This is your dream. Stop being stupid.”

He catches her arm, fingers closing gently around her wrist, and kisses her knuckles. “Thank you,” he says, not even pretending to argue. “I love you.”

She rolls onto her side to face him, feeling her face heat up. “Yeah, yeah,” she mutters. “I know.”

(She’s not sure why being told she’s loved embarrasses her. She’s even less sure why it’s so difficult to say it back. Her degree could not be any more useless.)

David bundles her up in his long arms, pulling her to his chest and rolling onto his back so she’s sprawled on top of him. He kisses her nose, beaming. “It’s okay, Gwen.”

She buries her face in his chest and lets him pet her hair, lets herself be loved.

(By the time she finally gets the courage to tell him that of course she loves him -- has, in fact, been in love with him since before he offered to let her live at the camp year-round -- almost all the leaves have fallen and the air is ice-breath freezing and he laughs, not at her but with the kind of giddy joy that can’t be contained in a smile. He kisses her and wraps her in his coat and it gets dark and Nurf yells that it’s time for dinner before they’re willing to pull away enough to escape the bitter chill.)

He gets therapy, eventually. Mr. Campbell still has all that money tucked away, and when the Millers hear that he wants to put it toward bettering himself and learning from his mistakes, they’re more than willing to unfreeze his bank accounts, just this once. So when David takes Nurf to the small white-bricked building where his own infrequent therapy sessions are held, he brings Mr. Campbell along for the ride. It settles his nerves about lying, because it isn’t technically a lie; Mr. Campbell is going to counseling, he’s just not using it.

When Mr. Campbell came forward one evening and offered the idea, David was shocked by the generosity, and a little suspicious. As soon as he smoothly suggested that they kill time at, say, The Only Bar or Muffin Tops while the little tyke was in there getting his head straightened out, things became a lot clearer.

(He didn’t spend long thinking it over, though. At the end of the day, an hour a week in a darkly-lit bar or strip club isn’t much of a sacrifice.)

On non-therapy days, David continues fixing up the camp, making sure to go out of his way to ask Nurf if he wants to help.

And to his surprise he . . . does, more often than not. Even more surprising is the fact that he’s rather good at this kind of hands-on work. He’s a tinkerer, like David is, and understanding blooms warm in his chest as the camper-who-isn’t-really-a-camper-anymore settles himself among the detritus of the camp unprompted, sorting through broken and disorganized supplies with a touch that’s strangely delicate, like he’s used to accidentally -- or not-so-accidentally -- breaking things.

Nothing gets broken that autumn, though. And no dishes hit the wall, either.

(When he mentions all this to Gwen, she shrugs and says, “Sure, makes sense. He liked to help Preston and Dolph out with their theater shit sometimes, right?” and again he feels like a terrible counselor.)

It’s largely David’s responsibility to take care of Nurf, which he expected and doesn’t mind. She works full-time, after all, and Gwen has always been a bit hands-off around the campers; she’s . . . not exactly maternal, and the unusualness of their new situation makes her far more uncomfortable than him. Her support largely comes in the form of common sense, observations he’d completely miss and ideas that never occur to him. Though she has a wonderful heart, Gwen is all brain. It works well -- David isn’t all that brainy, but he’s better at throwing his heart utterly into something.

So he does, with the kind of squared-jaw hopeful determination that leaves him exhausted and unable to sleep each night, his brain running over and over with thoughts and hopes and fears and ideas, above all ideas that multiply and branch until they’re full-scale plans. Plans full of holes, plans perhaps doomed to fail, but that’s what Gwen is for, when he’s finally ready to share his plans. When the heart has hung up activities and topics of conversation and a thousand ways to get Nurf to open up, scaffolded with lunatic, reckless optimism, she listens and writes in her journal and shores up the weak spots, tugs down his excitement so that his hopes don’t rise so tall they’ll collapse in on themselves.

She’s the rope around his ankles that makes sure he won’t build something he can’t get down from, so he doesn’t have to worry about anything except building.

And what does building look like with Nurf?

Quiet, at first. For someone who can so eloquently describe his issues, he isn’t really very chatty, and most of the time they work on their respective projects in silence. (One of David’s plans, tentatively titled Get Nurf to Share More About His Day, gradually deflates under the realization that he just doesn’t like talking about his day, and pushing him to share about classes or friends is more likely than not to result in him shutting down -- or throwing something. He puts it aside for now.)

Other plans are more successful. Teach Valuable Real-Life Skills is one; he picks up on things like carpentry and plumbing with an adeptness that exceeds even David’s most extravagant hopes, and soon he’s scrambling to find more things that tap into that well of enthusiasm. Sports, Violent Video Game Nights (which Gwen largely participates in because David is a bit squeamish about such things), Hiking and Mountaineering that is so much easier with only one or two people to corral instead of a dozen, and he’s already making plans for winter: skiing and snowshoeing and maybe even snowball fights, if he can teach Nurf how to do so without getting anyone hurt.

Learn Nurf’s Languages is a trickier plan, constantly ongoing. The slight slump of his shoulders that means something went badly in school, and the way he either does or doesn’t want to talk about it based on how fidgety he is. The jutted-out jaw and sullen silence that means he’s stumped and doesn’t want to admit it, the habit of clenching and unclenching his fists when he’s trying not to get angry. The little questions and observations that seem to come out of nowhere -- “Is there enough wood for the winter?” “I think the draft is coming from QM’s store; there’s a hole near the foundation” “When will you find out who’s coming back this summer?” -- that all add up to the same thing: a kid who’s trying to figure out what their future is going to look like, and if he’ll be in it.

Whenever he’s particularly helpful, uncharacteristically so, David takes a few extra hours that day to do something fun. He doesn’t know how long any of this is going to hold together, but he wants Nurf to know in no uncertain terms that for as long as it’s his and Gwen’s decision, that answer is going to be yes.

[thecoroutfitters]

Written by Wild Bill on The Prepper Journal.

As the snow falls and the drifts get higher, we are all familiar with the approaching seasonal end-game – even Punxsutawney Phil has stated the “melt” is less than five (5) weeks away. While celebrated as a part of the right of Spring, while searching for those first green shoots to push their way out of the still cold and damp ground, we all know what comes next from the Mississippi Valley to Gulf States and points north, south, east and west. Mother Natures gift to us all which in some cases can be overwhelming. The potential for floods even without the storms that brought them to us last year. An article submitted by Scott Huntington with a preppers twist.

Whether you live in a flood-prone place or there’s merely the possibility of a rising water line in your area, preparation is everything when it comes to flooding. Every household and workplace is different, but if you’re wondering about some common essential steps to take while preparing for a flood, here are five (5) good places to start.

Build a Preparedness Kit

One of the first things you should do if you want to be prepared for a flood is also the most straightforward. No matter where you live or who you share your life with, it’s worth taking the time to gather the things you’ll need in the event of a disaster. From there, think about where you can place them so you can easily grab them in a hurry.

You can find lots of tips at the DHS’s Ready.gov page, but here are the highlights for what you should have ready:

Any special-needs supplies, especially for children, seniors and pets

Three (3) days’ worth of food (non-perishable)

One (1) gallon of water per day for each person

Multiple flashlights

Emergency Radio with a hand-crank as well as batteries and a solar recharger built in

Well-stocked first aid kit, and the knowledge to use all its contents correctly

A survival whistle for each person, and some practiced signals

The cell/mobile phone just in case its infrastructure magically survives, a method to charge it off grid

A ham radio because the bullet above is sketchy at best

Fires tarter – weatherproof container with matches

Again, for a full list from the government, consult some of the DHS pages about emergency preparedness.

And, as a prepper don’t forget the other essentials:

A dependable knife, and a backup in a pack as these can be lost

A weapon that you are safe, familiar and accurate with in times of need

A plan as to where you are going

After you’ve gathered these supplies, consider how and where you’ll stage them. Place a few “go bags” in a known, public spot in your house. You should always have one in your automobiles and one at your place of work if you commute there via public transportation.

Make a Plan for Communication and Regrouping

Flash floods are proof enough that anybody, nearly anywhere, can be caught flat-footed by mother nature. However, even the most unpredictable flood is no excuse for not having a plan in place. Unless you live by yourself, you owe it to your family to put your heads together and come up with plans for all of the eventualities you can think of where your ability to rejoin or communicate with each other is compromised in any way.

As you put together your household plan — or a plan for your workplace, for that matter — everybody under your roof should be confident answering the following questions:

If a flood happens, will I have the means to receive official warnings and alerts?

Where will I seek shelter?

What is the safest, least flood-prone route I can take to my destination?

How will I get in touch with my family?

The people in our lives are our network and safety net, but that safety net will have big holes in it if you don’t spend time spelling out the details and making sure everybody has the same expectations should you become separated. Suppose you end up separated from your cell phone — do you have all of the relevant phone numbers memorized, recorded and with your supplies?

Once you’ve hammered out a plan, commit it to paper and practice it with your family, including the routes you’d take to make it to safety — either together or apart.

Have a Getaway Vehicle

When push comes to shove, one of the best things you can do for yourself and the ones who depend on you, if you live someplace where floods are common or a possibility, is to own a getaway vehicle. That almost always means a boat. Every person living from South Central Texas to Miami and up to the Jersey Shore now knows the value of a boat of some type.

Knowing how your boat will be powered, and that you’ll have access to extra fuel or power, is essential. Your choices come down to battery-powered or gas-powered, both of which have their ups and downs, or self-powered. Some boat batteries are rated for up to 15 days of operation with a full charge, something to know before you buy.

With a boat it is recommended that you avoid soft-bottom boats so displaced wreckage doesn’t puncture it. Apart from that, remember to choose a model that provides all the storage space you’ll need and all the seating required to accommodate your entire family. It should also be highly maneuverable and lightweight, in case you ever need to carry it to dry land.

Following the mantra of “any port in a storm” there are some less expensive options, with small footprints. More for the individual.

Know How to Prepare — And Upgrade — Your Property

For one reason or another, it’s not always possible to live outside a flood plain. After all, some of these regions might only see significant flooding events once in a blue moon or every few years.

No matter the frequency or likelihood of flooding in your area, you can take some measures around your home and property to ensure it’s prepared to withstand oncoming waters, whether it’s from heavy rains or a bonafide flood. Some examples include the following:

Consider elevating your water heater, furnace and other appliances so they’re out of harm’s way.

Have a professional look over your plumbing system and install check valves. These ensure water can’t enter your home if the water flow is reversed in your pipes.

Take a look yourself, or have a landscaping professional help you, and appraise areas on your property that could benefit from retaining walls and other barriers. Even the wise deployment of sandbags could save some of your property from harm.

Seal any cracks and imperfections in your foundation and basement walls. Choose a waterproofing compound and apply it according to the directions to provide another defense against water intrusion.

If your home has a sump pump, ensure it has a backup power source. If it doesn’t have one, you should seriously consider installing one.

Your property is probably your biggest investment, so take the time required to make sure it’s as prepared as you can make it.

Look After Your Home and Body Systems

Here’s another obvious — keep yourself and your family vaccinated. There’s no excuse not to. In the event of a flood or another type of natural disaster, there’s no telling the debris and other materials you might come into contact with. Ensuring your loved ones are protected against tetanus and other threats is an easy thing to do.

After the flood watch has been declared, you can take several precautions to prepare your home’s systems, too, now that your body’s systems are as ready as you can make them. It’s essential that you shut off your electricity and your gas in the event a flood becomes imminent, and assuming you have warning enough to do so. A flood can be bad enough, but losing your home to a preventable gas leak and resulting explosion is almost certainly the worst-case scenario.

You will find further preparation tips specific to your circumstances and your family’s needs. As you do, ensure you spend time addressing them before severe weather rolls around. There might be some scrambling required today — and maybe tomorrow — before you feel confident you’ve planned adequately. But if you do it right, it means a lot less worrying on the day the flood comes.

The post The Spring Thaw and How to Prepare for a Flood appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

from The Prepper Journal Don't forget to visit the store and pick up some gear at The COR Outfitters. How prepared are you for emergencies? #SurvivalFirestarter #SurvivalBugOutBackpack #PrepperSurvivalPack #SHTFGear #SHTFBag

[incarnateirony]

I hope I'm not asking a stupid question, I really don't know anything about your field. How many people do you estimate watch the show? Including illegal streams, Netflix, other methods, etc...

Not a stupid question at all! People generally don’t think about this and there’s a reason why I constantly re-state that the ratings we see are just the tip of the iceberg and why most of our audience *is* online.

It’s impossible to put a dead set number on this but I’ll clarify as much as we can with what we have released.

SPN currently runs a 0.55~ with roughly 1.687M~ viewers in season 13. However, as my digital call release information sits in season 12 still, we’re going to use S12 numbers: 0.6 and 1.675M~. You may notice that despite the demo going down in S13, raw viewers went up. This is why raw viewers are unreliable as a tracking source for advertisers (which in the end is what ratings are all about.) A lower number of people may be watching TV across the nation, ergo, it takes less people to make a higher percentage and our landscape is always changing. More people, in raw numbers, watched S13 than people watched S12, but S12’s demo looks higher.

However for the sake of cohesion, we’re going to go with demos, as they’re what matter most anyway. S12 had a 0.6 demo. It pulled an average of +0.4 on +3 views and generally only accumulated another +0.1 on +7. Between +3/7, they generally panned at a +0.5~ over the 0.6, or with Live+SD+3+7, SPN’s demo hits about 1.1. In viewers, that leaves us in the area of 3.3-3.4M depending on the year’s general flux, with classic TV and DVR, in the US exclusively.

This does not, however, touch on methods Nielsen fails to track in those ratings, such as Streaming Video On Demand (SVOD) services. Things like the CW app, hulu, amazon, and anywhere else you can “purchase” the right to watch online do not report to these numbers. In season 12, SPN hit the #16 (I thought it was #18 but doublechecked, it’s 16) most popular show online (this is the first time we ever hit the top 20, marking our continued growth), with an average demand expression per capita of 3.59, or efficiently, the equivalent of an online global demo report of 3.59. These views still subject viewers to ads of misc sorts and in result, do pull them money the same way classic TV ratings work.

While I can’t break down country by country in the digital, what we can gather from that, and the estimated 3.2 billion people online, is that there were 891,364,902~  digital calls for SPN during S12. Presuming, with reasonable margin of error, that these were divided across 23 episodes, that leaves 38,754,995 digital calls. And, even culling it for rewatch, under a fairly bold and likely inaccurate assumption that there’s an average rewatch value of 2x per episode (such as across other device or rewatching with friends), we’re left with a number of about 19,377,497 global digital individuals, which we’ll even be conservative and round down to a flat 19 Million global watchers on the digital side of things.

I admit I haven’t collected all the other country’s independent ratings results for their live airings, but what I can say is:

Roughly 3.4 million americans on classic TV+DVRAt least 19 million people internationally on digital venues (SVOD).

We’re looking at no less than 22 million viewers, and that’s not minding other countries I haven’t pulled reports on where some people may still watch it exclusively on their TV. Sometime ages ago I reblogged a map of the hottest viewing locations around the world and some do, per capita, compete with the US. I couldn’t tell you those with good conscience off the top of my head but minding several large countries with dedicated demographics, it’s safe to air on the side of 25 million viewers globally and easily possible to reach towards 30 million+, depending on how much vector overlap we want to assume classic TV and digital viewing have.Assuming most countries maintained a similar demo, with enough to drag 0.6 down to a 0.5 and 0.4 DVR due to people having snuck early watches through backdoor means, it’s fair to give SPN a global classic+digital demo of 4.49~ with reasonable margin of error as, without more thorough release or, frankly, me treading through finding the L+SD+3/7 demos of literally every country it aired in, some of this is negotiating what’s simply realistic.

Keep in mind, while I try to speculate at “viewers,” repeat watches can continue to earn ad credits and will make them money, regardless of rewatch, though depending on the platform or service, it may be less, or they may not be getting direct ad revenue as much as a purchased episode without commercials depending on the surface, in which case a one time buy (usually at about 1.99) goes to the office. These one-time purchases generally don’t re-count towards digital calls, however, so they wouldn’t be turning up as duplicates in our viewer approximations anyway. Those who purchase under these methods are actually giving space for the “x2″ assumption to fill x3+ watches on people who do use recurring methods like the CW app. 

Without direct access to CW’s reports on SPN, I can’t give you an on-the-nose number, but it’s completely realistic to assume it’s in the realm of 30 million global viewers, and possibly higher.

Some math just for fun: with that digital demand call, assuming even only 25 cents of ad or purchase profit reaches the CW, after working things out with the SVOD vendors and whatever wanting their chunk of the buck, and minimizing rewatch values of adverts, etc, CW would still be pulling $222,841,225 on season 12′s digital release alone. With a last known release of a 3 million per episode production cost, or roughly 69 (we’ll say 70) million per 23 episode season, the CW are making out like bandits and there’s a reason Pedowitz is willing to beat this pony until it stops farting rainbows and gold dust. And again, that’s my narrowing the margins down ridiculously. TVD ran #15 on the same list and the Flash runs at #5 with almost twice the digital value. You may notice these are the three shows CW treats like their Hope Diamonds while acting like they DGAF about anything else. What the audience considers dismissive of Pedowitz in his decisions is more like terrified sentry defenses lest they somehow ding that global reception based on what *he* thinks could harm it. 

(Though Wayward is not so simple, as he also was receiving pressure from CBS as one of their parent networks to try another Charmed reboot, and had the Plec dev contract among other things, hence the “contractual breakdown”. Plec would run cheaper while TVD hangs in the same digital region as SPN. With Charmed already eating out dev budget with no real promise of potential, he has to consider banking on respective losses.)

[sol1056]

hrm, I have several asks that all imply a similar premise in their questions, so I’m answering that particular part of those asks, all in one, here. 

and the premise is that I hated S6; but truthfully,I’d be reluctant to say that. Instead, I’d say I found its flaws even more glaring thanks to contrast with parts that I did like, but that what goes in the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ columns depends on the hat I’m wearing when I’m asked. 

See, if I were to break out the various levels in which I consume any story, in any media, it’d be something like this: as a writer, as a student of visual media, as an anthropologist, as a technologist, as a philosopher... and that’s not counting the various other things I love that -- if reflected well in a story -- will make me happy: engineering, mechanics, architecture, intercultural communications.

behind the cut: an example in how those parts of my brain react, and a quick rundown of the real issue of the season: failure to be inspired evenly across the character spectrum. 

Take a scene like the one where the castle is hijacked. I don’t know for sure, since @ptw30​ is too kind to smack the shit out of me, but I had to have sounded like a chaotic jumble in reactions when Pidge realizes there’s a virus, tries to barricade it in, discovers it’s got a counter-attack tailored to defeat her defenses, and then must use her stored shutdown systems as final defense. 

writer brain: okay, the series of events is kinda cliched but it’s handled solidly, moving at a good clip, aaaand yep there’s the backlash, aaaaand yep, the final pivot, dialogue is jargon-heavy which reduces tension slightly but that emotional reaction beat at the end, good job there

visual brain: not bad, kinda predictable angle, oh, that’s a nice shot, good grief hate that cliche, glasses do not go full reflective like that, ohh that’s a different angle, lovely contrast with the character’s words, not earth-shattering but solid composition

technology brain: FKN STOP IT THAT IS NOT HOW IT WORKS NO OMFG JUST STOP WTF OF COURSE THERE’S DEFENSES WTF WERE YOU BORN YESTERDAY FKN FIND THE VULNERABILITY NO THAT’S NOT HOW THIS WORKS THAT’S NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WORKS NO WONDER PPL NEVER GET WHAT WE DO GADAMMMIT ANKERLNSDFOIXCVUDX OMFG

mechanics brain: uhm, does this castle have no isolated systems? did no one in all this time ever look at the castle and say, gee, all of this is connected by a single computer system and boy maybe we should, like, isolate this shit, where are my physical real-world levers and a big red button that will physically break connections in a case like this wtf

architecture brain: my HOUSE has a shut-off valve so I can turn off all water to outside spigots when there’s a chance of freezing, without putting interior water pipes at risk, what genius built this castle and never thought to do the same for all their crucial and vulnerable systems?

philosophy brain: is this meant to shut the castle down, or an act intended to make the castle explode, how to draw a clear conclusion as to the moral reaction to such an act, ramping up danger gives impression that purpose is simply shut-down, as opposed to going for the jugular by taking out life-support vs turning castle into bomb, (technology brain interrupts to say FKN CASCADE FAILURE DAMMIT) and reaction is good but lacking something (writer brain pops in to say but emotional beat! we have emotional beat!) bc still not enough to leap from here to seeing friend as enemy, where is the ethical decision point to justify murder in self-defense

...you can see there’s a lot going on in any one scene, in my brain. 

But that also means I can analyze anything -- from an entire story down to a single dialogue exchange or image -- from one perspective and find it satisfying. And there’s no real contradiction imo to turn around and in the very next analysis put on a different hat and be frothing at the mouth over all the failures and numerous flaws. 

No work is perfect, just as no audience is a monolith and neither are any of the individual members of that audience. Every single one of us has experiences across many areas and will bring all of them to bear on our enjoyment of a story. Up to and including sometimes willfully shutting down parts when they get too noisy -- like the way I have to grit my teeth through stories showing tech stuff because visual media pretty much never gets it right. 

Here’s the bottom line, though, and the one thing that will overrule every other complaint (not neutralize those complaints, mind you, only backburner them in comparison): 

do I give a damn about the characters?

As long as the answer is yes, I’ll be riveted, regardless of the goings-on. And that’s where S6 was a fascinating object lesson in how my reactions to some characters have changed, thanks to events in S3/S4/S5. 

I honestly skipped every scene with Coran fixing the castle. I don’t hate him; I just didn’t find him half as compelling as the other plot threads. 

I tuned out roughly half of what Pidge had to say, because her descent into amorality (and the lack of ever being called on it) has turned her from one of my favorites into one who doesn’t deserve my time. 

I only gave Allura half my attention, b/c her deus ex machina in S5 is too OP and that takes away a huge amount of risk. She’s a walking powerhouse now which means a lot less at stake, and what could’ve been a truly dramatic moment (Lance’s near-death) had no drama for me b/c of course Allura can make it all better. (Plus the compressed pacing in that episode meant the story ran roughshod over that reaction beat.)

I skipped Lance’s scenes once I figured out they’d amount to him pining away (but not actually doing anything about it) -- once again, everyone else is working hard and Lance is wrapped up in himself, and I’m tired of it. Get over it, act on it, move on, I don’t care, just shut up. 

I paid attention to Lotor until he went over the edge. I’ve heard enough descent-into-madness speeches from fictional sociopaths, and he didn’t even present a good enough motivation to make his actions riveting. 

Uh, did Hunk have anything to say? Other than doing engineering stuff in the first episode... frankly, a chunk of which I skipped ‘cause I’d seen that four-minute teaser. Too long, enough I had no interest in sitting through it again. 

If Keith, Krolia, or Shiro was on the screen, I was on it. If it was the clone, though, I kinda half-listened. I wanted that one storyline resolved already, so I could decide whether to stop caring for any of these three, too. 

I paid attention to the generals... until Axca revealed she’d been working with Lotor all along, and then I realized the story had been lying to me. I do not forgive that. When Zethrid and Ezor shrugged over previous betrayals (Narti) and agreed to work with Lotor, I stopped paying attention to them, too. I’m here for characters, not plot devices. 

Also, Romelle was left-field unforeshadowed swerve exposition fairy with an accent almost as annoying as no-name-father’s attempt at, uh, idk what that accent was (but goddammit it hurt to listen to, so I just muted him when I saw his mouth move). Maybe we’ll get lucky and they’ll drop Romelle off at the nearest mall so she can go buy herself a reason to be in the story. 

And lastly, wtf was that about the castle’s destruction, whhhhyyyyy did we get a larger reaction space for AN EMPTY SHIP than we did for, oh, say, LOSING THE CLONE who’d been part of the team for how many months? wtf was that. 

If you look up at my list of reactions to the castle-virus point, you’ll notice that there aren’t any mentions of personal stakes or characters. At no point was I thinking, oh no will everyone be okay (or even oh no not the poor castle) -- because any remaining connection with the core cast was tenuous by that point, at best. I had minimal to no emotional reaction to Pidge’s final emotional beat, because I’ve lost all respect for her as a character, so I don’t care anymore whether she cares or not. 

Which means that there will be things -- depending on the hat -- that I either have found, or may be shown (via other peoples’ analyses, usually) are worth my time and/or have a reason to be there and/or make me reconsider. But without that connection to the characters, at least half the story is just going to go by at arms-length for me, now, and that’s a lot harder to come back from, all things being equal. 

[flusteredkeith]

[Voltron]: homecoming

Title: homecoming

Read it on [AO3] Words: 2,608 Pairing: Sheith Summary: The mission is more important than the individual.

But not Shiro. Never Shiro.

Oh man. So I wrote this fic as a way to help process my feelings about S4 because I just can't get over the fact that every time Keith realizes Shiro (and the team, but mostly Shiro) is in trouble, he drops everything at once to rush in and save him, every single season. It's just so touching, no matter what you see their relationship as, and I'm just so emo from the S4 finale and what that instinct of Keith's led into.

So here's a little thing, also inspired by my friend @breeeliss's tumblr post here where Shiro and Keith webcam and catch up while they're apart. Hope y'all enjoy!

special thanks to @ashinan @keith-shiro and @kcgane :D

Also on AO3.

They're letting him go. Keith knows it's for the best.

But just know that we’re here for you whenever you need us.

He pulls away from the hug, content with the way their differences worked themselves out. They want the best for him and he couldn’t be more thankful.

As he heads towards the exit, he looks back at them. Hunk, Coran, and Pidge are tearful but accepting. Shiro, Allura, and Lance are full of hope. They're all smiling at him with pride in their eyes, the kind of pride one would expect from family, the kind Keith's never experienced before meeting Shiro.

His eyes make a final sweep over his team and linger on Shiro. The understanding in his expression is the same one Keith fell for all those years ago: the silent gaze that’s always made Keith feel known. Seeing it now, Keith knows with certainty that Shiro has never needed any further explanations. And after everything he’s gone through to get Shiro back, it’s now Keith’s turn to leave.

I know you are. And I can’t tell you how much that means to me.

He's glad for it. The Blade is important to him — it's where he’s meant to be. Just like Shiro was meant to be in the Black Lion. To be a leader.

They will accept this. They have to.

And even if they don't, Keith doesn't plan on giving them a choice.

So with a smile and one last look, he departs from his newfound home in pursuit of another.

—*—

Although Voltron consists of five different lions coming together to form one whole, Keith is also starting to appreciate the more multifaceted ways of the Blade. Instead of five big parts, the Blade is a vast board of smaller pieces, each individual working together to complete a larger puzzle. It’s more complex, more intellectually stimulating.

But also much less intimate.

“How many times do I have to tell you not to engage?”

Kolivan’s voice is even, firm, but Keith knows a scolding when he hears one.

“We got what we needed and made it out in one piece,” Keith says defensively. “I’m thinking about the larger mission. You know I am.”

Kolivan turns his head away from Keith and faces the front of the ship.

“Set a course for the Blade headquarters,” he commands. It’s a clear sign that the conversation is over.

Leaving his hood and mask up, he walks away from Kolivan. The other members aboard the ship nod at him as he passes by but Keith pays no attention to them. It’s his favorite thing about the design of the Marmora masks. Concealment and hiding. It’s what the Blade are best at and the one aspect Keith needs the least training in.

Taking a seat in the back corner of the ship, his mind wanders over to the castle. They’re getting on fine without him, he’s sure of it. It’s what he meant for to happen. Shiro’s the rightful leader. They need him. More than they’ll ever need Keith. More than Shiro himself has ever needed Keith.

It’s the Blade that needs him more now.

And yet, as much as Keith tells himself he can do without praise or affirmation, the memory of Shiro’s arms wrapped tightly around him causes a small pang to erupt inside his chest, throbbing with each beat of his heart as he sits alone in the dark corner of the ship.

He belongs here, he tells himself. It’s where he was born to be.

—*—

“The Blade training has been going well.”

“That’s good to hear,” Shiro smiles on the screen. “I’m not surprised. Considering your sharp instincts and quick response times, you’re a perfect fit for this kind of thing. Always have been.”

“Thanks, Shiro,” Keith says, smiling back. “That means a lot to hear.”

It’s bright outside on Shiro’s end; they’re probably at Olkarion where the sun is just about to rise. His screen is the only brightness in the dim lighting of the Marmora’s comms room. It’s always dark here — the ships, the headquarters, everything. And it makes sense; there’s not really another fitting way for the Blade to operate.

“So aside from all the side missions you’ve told me about, what else has been going on?” Shiro asks.

“Uh, not much, I guess.” Keith leans back in his seat and tries to think. “Just training sessions with Kolivan and getting more in tune with the Blade. We’ve been working a lot with the rebel fighters and things are going fine. What about you guys?”

Shiro stares at him intently, ignoring the last question. Judging by the way his eyebrows are furrowed, Keith can already tell what Shiro’s about to say next.

“Well, that’s all fine and good,” Shiro says, his eyes trained on Keith. “But what I meant was, how are you doing?”

Keith looks down at his fingers fidgeting in his lap. He’s not sure that a good answer can be put into words.

“Um, great,” he says, keeping his eyes low. “I feel like I’m doing what I was meant to do. With the people I was meant to grow up with. I get to explore a whole half of my heritage I’d never known about, which is cool. So, yeah. I’m doing great.”

Keith looks up and smiles. Anything to clear the worried look off Shiro’s face.

“Are you sure?” Shiro frowns.

“Yeah, I’m sure,” Keith insists. “I haven’t said anything that wasn’t the truth.”

Though he also hasn’t said everything.

Keith is sure Shiro doesn’t fully buy it but as usual, he knows better than to pry, and a tick later, he manages to smile back.

“I’m happy for you, Keith,” Shiro says. “I know how much not knowing the full story about your past has troubled you, even way back when we first met. So now that we’re out here, I’m glad you get the chance to do this.”

“Yeah. It’s for the best,” Keith replies.

Shiro’s looking at him again with that familiar gaze, softened tenfold by the golden glow of the sun. Keith feels a sense of peace he hasn’t felt in a long time settle somewhere inside his chest, but with it, the dull ache of sudden longing to be on the other side of the screen.

He continues to rub his thumb against his index finger in his lap. Keith opens his mouth, then shuts it again. His throat feels constricted, a multitude of unspoken words welling up and threatening to break forth in a torrent of emotions. He has to contain them. If he doesn’t, they would crash over his tongue like waves in high tide.

I miss you.

“Shiro,” Keith tries again, looking up. “I—”

“Is that Keith?” comes an excited voice from the side of the screen. A tick later, Hunk’s face appears behind Shiro, followed shortly by Lance and Allura. “O-M-G it totally is. Hi, Keith!”

“Hey buddy!” Lance says as they all wave at him. “How’s it going?”

“Good, great,” Keith replies. The grin comes easy to his face as the rest of his teammates congregate around the screen. “Everything’s going fine. What about you guys?”

As Lance continues to talk, telling Keith everything from Coran’s crazy ideas to the execution of them and to Allura learning the truth about milkshakes, Keith can’t help but feel a rush of relief wash over him. He laughs at Lance’s bad sound effects, at Hunk’s eyeroll and Allura’s groans. With the team’s arrival, he and Shiro fall back into a comfortable step, shaking their heads at the silliness of the others.

There was nothing to be gained in telling Shiro everything. Each of them are right where they need to be.

After all, it’s for the best.

—*—

“I’ve got the intel,” Keith says as his mask wears away. He hands the block of data over to Kolivan, who takes it from him. As far as these missions have gone, it’s the first one Keith’s been in that went a hundred percent smoothly from start to finish.

For a brief moment, Kolivan surveys the harddrive and then looks back to Keith.

“Well done,” he says with a curt nod before turning away to give navigational commands for the ship. Within those two words, Keith understands: You’ve made it. Your training has paid off. You are a member of the Blade of Marmora.

But if there’s supposed to be a magical moment where he finally feels something special upon finding his rightful home, he doesn’t feel it.

And as he feels the ghostly sensation of his fellow paladins’ arms wrapped around him, warm and cozy in contrast to the steely coldness of the ship, Keith doesn’t know if he ever will.

—*—

Whenever Lance or Hunk speak of home, Keith wonders what it’s supposed to feel like. For years he’s been unsure. Having grown up without a solid one, Keith can only piece together from what he knows the things that bring him closest to it. His fingerless gloves. Flying off cliffs. Shiro’s hand on his shoulder. The mingling of everyone’s laughter when the Voltron team is hanging out in the lounge. His blade. Hurtling through space with his hood wrapped around his head.

Home.

Perhaps it’s a medley of all of the above. He wonders whether there’s even a straightforward answer.

“Do you ever miss the Garrison?” Keith asks. He leans his head against his elbow, propped up on the table below the screen, looking down at the control panel.

“If I think too hard about it, a little,” Shiro says. “Why? Do you?”

“Not really. Just wondered,” Keith shrugs. “I think I’m making a lot of headway in my Marmora training.”

“Does Kolivan give you a hard time?” Shiro asks with a chuckle. “I’m sure he’s a much better sparring partner than I ever was.”

Keith’s chest tightens at the thought of their sessions back at the Garrison training room. It feels like lifetimes ago.

“He’s not a better partner than you,” Keith says. “Just more merciless.”

Shiro laughs. Keith’s stomach flutters at the sight of it.

“You were always pretty merciless yourself,” Shiro grins. “It all makes sense now. You were a true Blade of Marmora member all along."

“Yeah, I — I guess so.” His eyes shift back down to the control panel in front of him. “Funny how that all turned out, huh?”

He looks up at Shiro in time to see a worried look flash across his face. Recomposing his expression, Keith switches tracks at once. “So how’s the coalition coming along?”

“It’s fine,” Shiro says. “I think Coran has been taking it just a little bit too seriously but other than that, can’t complain about the results. We’re gaining allies fast.”

If Keith needed any further confirmation that Shiro was the true Black Paladin, this would be it. Of course fans would flock to them if Shiro was a main face of the coalition. It’s like Pidge said: Keith’s the loner. And as much as he’s come to care about this team, his traits and skills are better suited elsewhere.

“Sounds great,” Keith nods. “Seems like everything’s falling into place. You really are the leader that Voltron needs.”

“Thanks but,” Shiro’s eyebrows furrow. “The team’s not the same without you, you know.”

Keith, I want to stop Lotor just as badly as you, but Shiro has a point —

Yeah, I’m with Shiro on this one —

As am I —

Me too —

Yeah, man.

If home is about belonging, Keith’s not sure if he has one at all.

The corners of his mouth twitch. Staring Shiro straight in the eye, he manages a wry smile.

“Yeah. I know.”

—*—

With Zarkon’s troops out looking for Lotor, a new mission arises. One in which Voltron and the Blade have the chance to work together.

It’s strange to jump in with his old teammates from another angle but Keith does what he needs to do. Once the plan is set in motion, they get to work. After destroying the targeted Galra cruiser, Keith contacts Coran for any other targets that need support.

Only to hear the news that a Galra cruiser has stopped in front of Naxzela.

“Perhaps the Galra decided it’s too well-fortified to attack.”

But even as Kolivan says it, the statement rings false in Keith’s ears.

“‘Victory or death’ is the Galra way. They never stop attacking,” Keith points out. And with Voltron on Naxzela, the only reason they wouldn’t attack would be—

Dread fills his stomach like ice. “Voltron.”

“Shiro! Can you hear me?” Keith yells over the comms. “Shiro!”

Something’s wrong.

It’s second nature by now. Shiro is in trouble, and so Keith runs. Hopping aboard the first available Galra pod he sees, he flies off into the atmosphere as fast as he can.

“I can’t explain why, but I know we need to attack that fleet,” he explains to Matt. “We’re afraid it has something to do with Voltron.”

Keith knows he is nothing like Shiro. He isn’t as strategic, as likeable, as inspiring. But in this moment as his sharp instincts kick in, his head is clear and he knows exactly what to do and where to place each moving piece on the board: Coran, Matt, the rebel fighters — all in position, prepared to deal with the worst.

He needs to save his friends. He needs to save Shiro.

“Keith, can you hear me?” Shiro’s screen pops up in front of him.

“Shiro! Where are you? Is everything okay?”

Shiro explains their predicament. Although Keith has done what he can to prepare for anything, there isn’t enough time. The universe is at stake. The cruiser has been firing nonstop at them but they need to take down that shp.

“We’ll never penetrate those shields!” Matt yells as they continue to evade and shoot at the cruiser.

Keith stops. Their shooters are too weak. Even before he realizes what he’s thinking, he knows what he must do.

The mission is more important than the individual.

But not Shiro. Never Shiro.

And if the mission is to save the world, then his path is clear.

His hands tighten around the controls; his fingers have never been more steady. Everything suddenly clicks.

“Maybe not with our weapons.”

Keith flies forward before he can think twice.

How many times are you going to have to save me before this is over?

He's vaguely aware of Matt yelling at him through the comms but Keith can't hear it over the loud pounding of his heart. It beats as fast as he flies, pumping blood throughout his entire body as though determined to squeeze out every last bit of life in full force before the end.

Time keeps ticking. The bomb will blow. But not if Keith gets there first.

No one is ever ready for this. But after everything he’s been through with all of his friends out here in space, Keith knows this makes the most sense.

Perhaps he really does belong to both Voltron and the Blade. Perhaps there’s never been a reason for the two to be mutually exclusive. And despite being an integral part of the two most important groups he’s ever known, only one man comes to mind as he continues to fly towards that shield.

As many times as it takes.

The air inside his pod seems to thicken around him. Sweat rolls down his face and his bangs stick to his forehead.

Saving the world, saving Shiro… perhaps this is right where he belongs.

And with one final glance at his target ahead, he shuts his eyes tight.

It feels like coming home.

[greatandawesome]

The Comfort Of Organic Cotton Infant Clothing - The Best and also Most Terrific

This kind of sale may do best when you sell numerous different items as a "great deal" auction rather than marketing individual pieces. Decor items for your baby's nursery can be standard items like lights and carpets or more details baby-themed pieces like mobiles and wall surface hangings. Or invest some loan on a great present (for example, a gift certificate to a restaurant, medspa, or resort), and ask that guests bring a specific product (diapers, particular baby food) in exchange for a sweep ticket. Looking for something particular? Seeking Free Infant Things? Our brands have actually remained in the industry for 2 decades and also we are always wanting to expand our item offering with charming designs on our most prominent products, while additionally establishing totally new items that make your life less complicated. These sales are generally held at the end of the year due to the fact that the stores need to clear their old supply and need to make room for the fresh supply. Offering due to the fact that my 6 month old just likes to sleep on me! Marketing this high chair in excellent made use of problem require it gone as no more use it. Marketing because of not played with any longer! Discover our handy devices and also guides such as our Due Date Calculator, Baby Labels Finder, Enjoyable Birthday Truths Calculator, or our Pregnancy Week-by-Week as well as Your Child This Week overviews. The first week house with a brand-new infant, particularly for a brand-new mommy, can be intimidating. Obtained an Infant, Baby-on-the-way, or know someone who does? This method would certainly not only obtain you well connected, you'll also have the ability to obtain valuable recommendations and tips from individuals who have been in the market far longer than you. Remain in the loop with our latest parenting information, helpfull tips as well as time or quantitily minimal giveaway's. It's time to go on an economical buying spree and also load up on Free Baby Stuff! Continue reading to find the most effective summary of complimentary child things. Lamps function best with low-wattage bulbs unless it's the only source of light in the area. Speaking as somebody that likes websites, and suches as techy points I discover Magento fairly a struggle getting everything to interact. It's because when you click on some sites, they automatically download tracking programs as well as malware onto your tough drive so they can check your web task, and after that pound you with spam as well as popups. Absolutely free baby books, click right here for a terrific Dr. Seuss offer! Right here are just a couple of means you can discover to cut down on your grocery costs. Baby Growth Charts-- Free themes to track your child's development in 12 different methods (includes Word file, Excel spreadsheet and also PDF). Maternity Stubborn Belly Badges-- You can track your pregnancy weekly or month-to-month. The financial institution will after that use your money to fund a bank card account that another client opens, and also he or she will pay 18% passion on any kind of balance carried over to their following month-to-month costs. I am surprised when I go to the supermarket the number of times individuals are investing a lot even more cash than myself as well as obtaining half the amount of things I have within my cart. The heavyweight brand name business will certainly usually times send out full dimension samples in stages, as your youngster grows.

free baby stuff 2019

Similac Solution & & More-- Free examples of Similac child formula, plus great deals of other fun things. It's perfect for holding your free sample of Gerber baby formula, free child bib, and also more. Can be walked around whilst child sleeps, guests do not need to keep holding infant as padding can simply be relocated whilst baby sleeps! The love and also pleasure of providing birth and holding our kids differs from anything really felt previously. He admits that his "world is crazy ", and also that his love interest is the someone that can make it bearable. In truth they will certainly be a fantastic selection for parents that are attempting to make their youngsters look cute and also distinct. I choose Pampers Pure as a wipe option. In any case, this Pampers advert adhered to the advert concerned. She maintained me talking for roughly 10 minutes throughout which time she referred me to this specific TV advert an additional 4 times, as well as each time I assured her I had not seen it since I don't enjoy television. Tv helps us relax - or does it? It likewise helps that many are also reversible. We wish our shop aids bring simpleness to your life throughout this roller-coaster time. It would use up every one of your time as well as you are accountable for the life of an additional human being. Even some medical facilities provide baby diaper nags as well as baby bottles so that the new mommy can have a relief for the minute just after releasing from the healthcare facility with the baby in her life. I can give you the guarantee from my individual experience that such products boost the satisfaction by offering a lot more relief. As I have personal experience with the precision of offered graphes that may be discovered all over the Web, I am supplying this information here, instead than linking to a graph online. While parenting is such an expensive experience for the majority of us, why not enjoy something that comes completely free. Why not make a little added as well as give them as presents? The styles of transforming tables range from types with open shelving to ones with drawers and also closet area, ideal for keeping extra baby diapers, child wipes, bed linens and various other requirements. Cushion pads These pads provide an added layer of defense to your infant's bed linen. When it comes time to convert, you'll need to only perhaps purchase guardrails or full-size rails, as well as possibly a bigger bed mattress. I do not want to waist my time going from site to site just for one tiny complimentary sample. Enfamil Present Pack-- Take this certification to the medical facility with you to obtain your cost-free sample of newborn formula and more. This post shares just how to get free child things, consisting of the most effective resources for baby and newborn stuff, as well as totally free stuff for babies of any ages! Nearly all of the larger chain shops as well as shopping center shops consist of a generously proportioned range of infant apparel with little blossoms and rabbits for the ladies, and little footballs and cars for the boys. What one ought to remember is that a baby is a lot a lot more precious than any kind of cost and also such trendy clothes can only be acquired at huge brand name called stores. For the infant gift basket, some concepts they suggest is to produce your very own baby present basket or go for the classic apparel baby gift basket where you can never ever fail.

Assume outside the box, it's just the baby that is tiny, your gift options are infinite. A lot of moms and dads understand that there are simply so several things that they would require to get for their baby. Expecting mommies, and also even Fathers-to-be, should be wise in preparing on just how they can get the very best for their babies without spending way too much. A specialized infant altering table and location for nappy changes is a need to when intending your nursery space. Create a baby room space suitable for your baby to sleep so, they'll have the ability to get all the rest they need to help stimulate their development as well as reclaim their energy. Tale books are optimal too, enabling moms and dads to get even more bonded with their child while attempting to make their kid sleep. As your baby obtains a little older as well as starts checking out, ready your home as well as make it baby-proof with our choice of residence security products, safety and security gates and also playpens which are easy to arrangement and also store away. Arrangement an infant screen to offer you assurance while your child is taking a snooze when you are not in the exact same room. This is the factor for which you should remember about different variables before having any development with the nursery. Aid the brand-new parents promote their baby's mind by offering instructional playthings, that are designed to assist develop the infant's mind. Some of them feature a strong colored sheet as well as a sheet with styles on it while some of them are the very same shade or style. These can be paired to match your infant's sheets or be a totally various color or style. Our choice of soft playthings, musical toys as well as rattles means that you can conveniently locate something for your little one to love that's also engaging. You will like the wide range of design and colors - all in fashionable child clothes sizes. Whether you're preparing to welcome a newborn into the world as well as looking for nursery products or surfing for child toys, pregnancy garments and accessories and other baby room items we have an excellent option of child essentials. At the really least you can find infant diaper examples, however a majority of retailers supply welcome infant bundles for their customers, if they feel in one's bones where to join. This suggests, that in order for you to benefit from free examples, after that you have to actively find new offers prior to they are retired by the item producer. Excellent problem, very tidy and in complete functioning order. They also make use of such advertising tool in order to increase the sales of toys, for instance, throughout off peak seasons. You are the one to profit from their sales undertakings. One of things that we did was have a look in the resource coding. To aid you choose the appropriate safety seat or booster for you kid by taking a look at our child's automobile seat overview. For days out and also concerning in the vehicle, a baby safety seat is a vital. In some cases, also, all weve obtained out of it was a day away from residence.

So weve got torsion as a difficulty. From huge purchases like nursery furnishings and bottle-feeding tools to smaller sized products like diapers and also burp towels, you can locate everything you require for your new infant at Daily Low Cost at Walmart. The cash you invest on diapers is outrageous and also you can expect to be shelling it out for fairly a long time. Oh, hi there, when do you think the brand-new Individuals publication will come out? If you're anticipating a child, then you have actually absolutely concerned the appropriate location! When it comes to getting ready for the arrival of a new baby, there's a lot to think about to get your residence ready for a newborn. Free product is not simply limited for your new arrival you can additionally get points for on your own, your other youngsters, your partner and even for your house. Great for brand-new parents, grandparents, even good friends of the household to send out to alert others of the new kid on the block! Baby Cards-- Free cards that you can print as well as send to loved ones to welcome them to your baby shower or introduce your baby's arrival. Rating a deal on your own, or store the ideal Free Baby Shower present with these Child Freebies for New Moms! There's something ideal for all stages of your child's advancement from items for heating bottles to food blender or food processors ideal to make food for weaning. The baby shower is the ideal time to get your pal infant needs and stuff she might not have had time to buy yet. It is difficult to locate a trustworthy wholesale dropship child garments supplier as it might appears in the beginning glance. However, you may have an obstacle in defining which dimension fits your child specifically. Nonetheless, also though these reviews are being offered totally free, you are still ensured of checking out substantial entries. I've directly provided so several of these things as presents to brand-new moms, and also they LIKE them! Milk supplements are additionally provided even to lactating mothers. Save precious time when it involves prepping milk for evening time feeds or child food with infant feeding devices. Making your very own child food is basic, hassle-free, and can save you money. So do not set up web pages, hang around and money getting them great Public Relations and afterwards, while revamping your site, get rid of those web pages. Good condition. Tidy. From a non smoking and no pet home. Complete functioning condition. Pet dog and also smoke complimentary residence. Made use of yet in extremely excellent condition From a smoke and animal free home This is a well loved and also taken care of stroller system and also I am unfortunate to see this go. Want to avoid best to the excellent things? There are 2,546 baby things suppliers, mostly situated in Asia. In a similar way, if the entire site is only a big advertisement for the digital book the webmaster has created, you are not really mosting likely to start a Net business, however just get a book. You're going to ENJOY these! Theyre not cysts but Im mosting likely to discuss them; uterus fibroids or uterine myomas, and also pelvic kidneys.

[velmaadamrast]

The Comfort Of Organic Cotton Infant Garments - The Very Best as well as Most Excellent

This kind of sale may do best when you offer a number of various things as a "whole lot" auction rather than offering private items. Style items for your infant's nursery can be fundamental items like lights and carpets or more specific baby-themed items like mobiles as well as wall danglings. Or spend some loan on a nice present (as an example, a gift certification to a restaurant, health club, or resort), and ask that visitors bring a details item (baby diapers, particular baby food) for a drawing ticket. Seeking something specific? Trying To Find Free Baby Things? Our brands have actually remained in the market for 20 years and also we are constantly looking to increase our product offering with adorable designs on our most preferred products, while likewise creating completely brand-new products that make your life less complicated. These sales are usually held at the end of the year since the stores need to clear their old supply and also have to include the fresh stock. Marketing since my 6 month old just likes to rest on me! Selling this high chair in good utilized condition require it gone as no more use it. Marketing due to not had fun with any longer! Discover our practical devices and also guides such as our Due Date Calculator, Infant Labels Finder, Fun Birthday Facts Calculator, or our Maternity Week-by-Week as well as Your Baby Today overviews. The first week house with a new baby, specifically for a brand-new mommy, can be intimidating. Obtained a Baby, Baby-on-the-way, or recognize a person who does? This practice would certainly not just get you well connected, you'll additionally have the ability to obtain useful guidance and ideas from people who have been in the industry much much longer than you. Stay in the loophole with our most current parenting information, helpfull ideas as well as time or quantitily minimal giveaway's. It's time to go on a frugal buying spree and tons up on Free Baby Things! Read on to find the finest roundup of totally free child things. Lamps work best with low-wattage light bulbs unless it's the only light in the space. Chatting as somebody who likes sites, and likes techy things I locate Magento rather a struggle getting everything to collaborate. It's because when you click some internet sites, they automatically download and install monitoring programs as well as malware onto your difficult drive so they can monitor your internet activity, as well as after that bombard you with spam and also popups. Free of charge baby books, click on this link for a terrific Dr. Seuss offer! Below are simply a few ways you can learn to reduce back on your grocery expense. Infant Development Charts-- Free design templates to track your child's growth in 12 different methods (includes Word record, Excel spread sheet and PDF). Maternity Stubborn Belly Badges-- You can track your pregnancy regular or monthly. The financial institution will then utilize your loan to fund a credit rating card account that an additional customer opens, and also she or he will pay 18% passion on any type of equilibrium lugged over to their next monthly bill. I am surprised when I most likely to the food store exactly how many times individuals are investing a lot more loan than myself and getting half the amount of stuff I have within my cart. The big name brand name firms will certainly typically times send complete size examples in stages, as your kid grows.

free baby stuff 2019

Similac Formula & & More-- Free examples of Similac baby formula, plus great deals of other fun things. It's ideal for holding your totally free example of Gerber baby formula, totally free infant bib, and extra. Can be walked around whilst baby rests, guests do not require to maintain holding baby as pillow can just be relocated whilst baby sleeps! The love and pleasure of offering birth and also holding our little ones is unlike anything really felt before. He confesses that his "world is insane ", which his love rate of interest is the a single person that can make it manageable. Actually they will certainly be a great choice for parents that are trying to make their kids look charming as well as unique. I prefer Pampers Pure as a clean choice. In any case, this Pampers advert adhered to the advert in concern. She maintained me talking for around 10 mins throughout which time she referred me to this specific TV advert an additional 4 times, as well as each time I assured her I had not seen it since I do not watch television. Television assists us unwind - or does it? It additionally aids that many are additionally relatively easy to fix. We hope our shop helps bring simplicity to your life during this roller-coaster time. It would certainly use up all of your time and also you are accountable for the life of an additional human. Even some healthcare facilities give diaper nags and also baby bottles to ensure that the brand-new mother can have a relief for the moment after discharging from the health center with the baby in her life. I can provide you the assurance from my individual experience that such products improve the enjoyment by offering much more relief. As I have individual experience with the accuracy of available graphes that might be discovered throughout the Net, I am supplying this information here, instead of connecting to a graph online. While parenting is such an expensive experience for the majority of us, why not delight in something that comes absolutely free. Why not make a little added and give them as gifts? The styles of altering tables vary from types with open shelving to ones with drawers as well as cabinet space, perfect for saving additional diapers, infant wipes, bed linens and other necessities. Cushion pads These pads use an extra layer of defense to your baby's bedding. When it comes time to transform, you'll need to just possibly purchase guardrails or full-size rails, and also maybe a bigger cushion. I do not wish to waist my time going from website to site simply for one tiny cost-free example. Enfamil Present Load-- Take this certification to the healthcare facility with you to get your cost-free sample of newborn child formula and also even more. This article shares just how to obtain complimentary baby things, consisting of the very best sources for infant and newborn stuff, and free stuff for infants of every ages! Almost all of the bigger chain shops and shopping center shops include a generously proportioned series of baby apparel with little blossoms and rabbits for the ladies, as well as little footballs and also cars for the children. What one must keep in mind is that a baby is far more priceless than any type of price and also such classy garments can only be acquired at big trademark name shops. For the child present basket, some suggestions they recommend is to create your very own baby gift basket or go with the classical clothing child gift basket where you can never fail.

Think outside the box, it's only the baby that is little, your present alternatives are unlimited. Most moms and dads know that there are so lots of stuff that they would need to get for their child. Anticipating mothers, as well as even Fathers-to-be, need to be wise in intending on just how they can obtain the most effective for their children without spending way too much. A specialized infant transforming table and also area for nappy changes is a should when preparing your nursery area. Develop a nursery room ideal for your child to sleep so, they'll have the ability to get all the rest they require to assist stimulate their development and reclaim their power. Tale publications are ideal as well, allowing parents to obtain even more bonded with their youngster while attempting to make their kid go to sleep. As your infant gets a little older and also begins exploring, all set your residence and make it baby-proof with our choice of home safety and security items, safety gateways and playpens which are very easy to arrangement and also store away. Configuration a child monitor to offer you tranquility of mind while your infant is taking a snooze when you are not in the exact same space. This is the factor for which you must maintain in mind concerning various factors prior to having any development with the baby room. Assist the new moms and dads stimulate their baby's mind by supplying instructional toys, that are made to assist develop the infant's mind. A few of them include a strong colored sheet and a sheet with styles on it while a few of them coincide color or style. These can be paired to match your baby's sheets or be a totally different color or style. Our option of soft toys, music toys and also rattles means that you can conveniently locate something for your kid to enjoy that's likewise involving. You will love the wide range of shades and styles - all in trendy infant clothes sizes. Whether you're preparing to welcome a newborn right into the globe as well as seeking baby room items or surfing for baby playthings, pregnancy garments as well as devices and also various other nursery products we have a terrific selection of child basics. At the minimum you can discover baby diaper samples, but a bulk of retailers supply welcome baby bundles for their customers, if they simply recognize where to register. This implies, that in order for you to benefit from complimentary examples, after that you need to proactively discover brand-new deals before they are retired by the item maker. Superb condition, exceptionally tidy and in full functioning order. They likewise make use of such promotional tool in order to enhance the sales of playthings, for instance, during off peak seasons. You are the one to gain from their sales endeavors. One of the important things that we did was look in the source coding. To assist you choose the right vehicle seat or booster for you child by taking a look at our kid's child seat overview. For days out and also regarding in the vehicle, an infant child seat is a necessary. Sometimes, as well, all weve obtained out of it was a day away from house.

So weve got torsion as an issue. From large acquisitions like nursery furniture as well as bottle-feeding equipment to smaller things like baby diapers and also burp cloths, you can discover whatever you require for your brand-new child at Each day Reduced Rates at Walmart. The cash you invest on diapers is horrendous as well as you can expect to be shelling it out for quite time. Oh, hello, when do you believe the brand-new People magazine will appear? If you're anticipating an infant, then you've definitely pertained to the appropriate area! When it comes to getting ready for the arrival of a new child, there's a whole lot to think concerning to obtain your residence prepared for a newborn. Free goods is not just restricted for your new kid on the block you can additionally get things for yourself, your other children, your husband and also even for your house. Great for brand-new parents, grandparents, even close friends of the family to send to alert others of the new kid on the block! Printable Child Cards-- Free cards that you can publish and send to loved ones to invite them to your infant shower or introduce your infant's arrival. Score an offer on your own, or stash away the best Free Child Shower gift with these Baby Freebies for New Moms! There's something appropriate for all phases of your kid's development from products for warming up containers to food mixers perfect to make food for discouraging. The child shower is the ideal time to get your good friend infant needs and also stuff she may not have actually had time to acquire yet. It is hard to locate a reliable wholesale dropship child clothing supplier as it may seems initially glance. Nonetheless, you may have a difficulty in defining which size fits your infant precisely. Nevertheless, although these articles are being offered absolutely free, you are still ensured of checking out substantial entries. I have actually directly given so many of these items as presents to new mamas, as well as they ENJOY them! Milk supplements are likewise provided even to lactating moms. Save priceless time when it concerns prepping milk for evening time feeds or child food with infant feeding devices. Making your own infant food is basic, hassle-free, and also can conserve you money. So do not place up web pages, hang out and cash getting them good Public Relations and also then, while redesigning your site, get rid of those pages. Excellent condition. Clean. From a non smoking cigarettes and also no pet dog home. Complete functioning condition. Animal and smoke free house. Made use of however in great condition From a smoke and also animal free home This is a well loved and looked after stroller system and also I am depressing to see this go. Want to avoid appropriate to the good things? There are 2,546 infant things suppliers, mainly located in Asia. In a similar way, if the entire site is nothing however a gigantic advertisement for the book the web designer has actually composed, you are not actually going to begin an Internet business, yet simply get a book. You're going to LIKE these! Theyre not cysts however Im going to discuss them; uterus fibroids or uterine myomas, and also pelvic kidneys.

[yesbothways]

Dear ‘Supergirl’, I love you! Also, are we breaking up?!?

I’m one of those folks who is currently in a passion love-hate or else hate-love relationship with the show Supergirl depending on the day.  I wanted to write this long post for folks who are also processing this currently.  I had been thinking for a long time that aside from the single thread of the Mon-El storyline, Supergirl still had a solid, core identity as a show.  The show’s appeal to its audience rested on four foundations in my mind:  1) the incredible likability and reliability of their dynamic lead with her awesome combination of classic hero problems and recognizable lady problems 2) a charismatic and deep sisterhood that formed the central love relationship and unified the dramatic arcs of the show and also let it pass the Bechdel test every episode quite easily 3) positive representations of both women and the men who are also outsiders that they share love bonds with, and 4) general lightheartedness and positivity, so even when it went dark, it was just not all THAT dark.  At its worst, the show was fluffy or annoying. 

With the trust I had established through s1, I thought that what they were trying to do with Mon-El was to depict a narcissistic, sexist guy who turns into one of the good guys.  I thought, well, they think that’s a positive message.  They’ve depicted him an “outsider” or misfit, because he’s among all these high-functioning outsiders acting like an incompetent norm.  And I thought, well, this was a terrible idea.  When you write a subversive story, and then you subvert your subversion, you get normative crap that’s even more generic than the original crap.  It’s a parody that’s hard to watch.  But it’s all well intentioned.  And it will be over soon.  It’s not the show.  This won’t kick the foundations out from under the show.  

I am honestly no longer confident that this was well-intentioned or that it won’t topple the show.  I am holding onto a strong, final thread of trust in this show.  But this feels now more like backlash within this show against its own core identity and values.  The way they have written Mon-El feels like a gender panic and also a heteronormative panic to me.  And it is absolutely NOT the actor.  He’s clearly fine.  He even seems like he’s probably really sweet in real life while acting like a complete jerk on tv, kind of like when Orlando Bloom tries to play a villain, and it’s like, yeah, no, you buy teddy bears for your girlfriend and one for yourself to match when you do, don’t try to play me here, babe.  It’s the character, the caricature they have written.  When they could have written ANYONE - a thousand other men instead of this one.  So why this one?  

They wrote a self-consciously narcissistic, anti-social, sexist guy into this show and then legitimately shipped him with the lead.  I would have bet a hundred dollars easy that they would never do that.  From the interview I just read that explains the concept behind this character and also the feel of the show, he’s not going anywhere anytime soon.  He’s living in Kara’s house and apparently working in the control room at the DEO, both of which are inexplicable.  A lot of folks have meticulously catalogued 1) the shadiness of Kara’s expression of consent in this relationship including her saying no several times before saying yes and being told by Alex out of nowhere that she likes him and not agreeing and 2) the continued disrespect for Kara that Mon-El has shown, which only increased after he started admitting to liking her and continued after they got together, and 3) the sheer unbelievability and plugged-in feeling quality of Mon-El’s character in the show.  

At this point, I don’t see any good intentions gone wrong.  From everything that I can see, Mon-El’s storyline is merely sexist backlash.  Mon-El’s entire job in the narrative has been to salvage the intrinsic worth of men who would have no superior status in the previously established value system of this show.  He’s there to show that all of this women-centric and “soft-man” backchat against normative stories is not a threat to the fragile egos of sexist men.  Kara still wants this man.  She wants him no matter what he does.  There’s no cost to who he is.  The princeling has not been dethroned.  Don’t worry, folks.  He’ll still be okay and come out on top.

At one point trying to understand all of this, I started to think for a second that Mon-El might be some superhero they’re trying to establish in order to launch a spin-off.  But I honestly cannot fathom anyone investing in Mon-El’s stand alone show.  He’s as derivative of Superman as Supergirl, and he’s far, far less likable.  He satisfies no unique or unrepresented niche in the world of heroes.  I simply don’t think he could stand on his own the hero of a show.  No, he’s there in Supergirl’s world specifically to be mediocre and weak on his own.  He’s there to prove that even the most “undervalued” guy, which in this particular world is a self-centered, privileged, immature guy, still has what it takes to get with Kara and live up to her as a hero.  And I don’t get it honestly.  We have a whole executive branch of our government currently dedicated to preaching that lie.  

Yes, there’s an active demographic that affirms Mon-El’s storyline constantly.  And I trust that many of them still believe in the worth of the sexist prat turned boyfriend hero storyline and believe that somehow Kara is getting something valuable from this relationship.  Many fans will jump at other fans to defend Mon-El’s worthiness and desirability, whether in defense of the actor, the show, a perplexing defense of Kara, or in defense of the intrinsic and untouchable worth of the fragile white privileged masculinity that Mon-El represents, I do not know.  It’s complicated, of course.  But unless my ability to Google is just plain broken, Mon-El’s storyline is tanking the ratings and reviews of the show.  The more someone genuinely likes the core tenants of this show, the more they dislike what Mon-El’s storylines does in this show.  

Given that capitalism itself is saying NO to this, I have to think that the creators will change their minds and let Mon-El go (hopefully not to the dark side or to an early grave, but to space and an unseen hero quest away from us all).  And yet, there’s a powerful emotional drive behind this character.  You can see it displayed in any social media thread.  So my emotional brain is stuck thinking, the decision-makers might let this franchise crash and burn before they let this go.  The presence of Mon-El asserting dominance over Kara by lying to her and stepping over her boundaries without consequence, sustaining his desirability to Kara through their sexual relationship, and displaying his legitimacy in standing up to her as a hero that so far remains rhetorical and will no doubt rise symbolically in the coming episodes may be the price that we have to pay to have a woman superhero occupy any space in the mainstream.  

I hope that my imagination is not strong enough to see the “twist” that’s coming that will redeem what I can only call an enormous waste of screen time and this actor’s charisma both.  Because, otherwise, I am braced for more backlash within this show against its own values.  AndI have two specific anxieties forming around two characters that I know many people share:  James Olsen and Lena Luthor.  

In regards to James, does anybody like the new, weak rivalry between Kara and James in place of the rich solidarity they had before through s1?  I keep wondering how far James will drop in the value placed on characters in the show. I keep wondering, will he be gone soon or, far worse, dead?  His exclusion from the Valentine’s Day episode and his third wheel status with Winn and Lyra at the bar recently made me worry.  His little speech about playing it cool and acting like you don’t like your own girlfriend made me real nervous.

My worry over Lena is far worse.  She entered marked VILLAIN, and she has risen into a heroic ally and a great friend.  I’d say nearly everyone loves the subversion of the old Super / Luthor rivalry depicted in this character.  That fits perfectly with the core identity of this show by individuating this show from Superman and affirming the themes of individuated identity, ignoring stereotypes and prejudices, and being a hero no matter how you were raised.  One of the best moments this season was Kara rescuing Lena after she was pushed off her balcony.  That iconic image of Superman carrying Lois became Kara carrying Lena -- not only two women, but two rivals made allies, and a character marked as evil written as her own woman.  They’ve banked a lot of positive emotions and themes regarding this relationship so far. 

Will they have a sudden backlash against their own story here, as well?  Their only excuse for Mon-El and Kara’s relationship seems to be that it was inevitable and yet somehow also unexpected, because Kara clearly does not like him.  So will this become inevitable and also unexpected, because Kara clearly does like Lena?  I’d like to say no, no way, not on this show.  But I don’t know anymore.  They spent an entire episode affirming Kara’s hero status through her faith in Lena when everyone else would have forsaken Lena outright.  So I hope they know that Kara’s status will take another brutal blow if they turn Lena evil now.  However, they seem to have written Kara a whole “love” story without considering her at all.  So I would not be able to feel genuinely surprised at this point.  

[paulbenedictblog]

%news%

New Post has been published on %http://paulbenedictsgeneralstore.com%

Fox news NFL 2010s All-Decade Team: Ranking every player from 1 to 52 - NFL.com

Fox news

The NFL and Professional Soccer Hall of Popularity absorb published the 2010s All-Decade Group to honor the league's most efficient in some unspecified time in the future of the last 10 years. We're talking High Gun -- the most efficient of the most efficient. But who used to be the most efficient of the most efficient of the most efficient? I space out to answer to this very no longer going rapid under, ranking all 52 gamers who had been named to the prestigious roster.

My rankings criteria spirited accounting for the principle accolades the All-Decade Group individuals earned from 2010 to '19 -- All-Professionals, Professional Bowls, MVPs, Offensive and Defensive Player of the one year awards, and plenty of others. -- combined with their respective impact on the sport, one thing I admit is a ways less arrangement and more sturdy to measure.

Undercover agent, all of these guys are out of the ordinary. Do not overlook that while you occur to commence lampooning me on social media because your popular player is no longer as excessive on this listing as it is seemingly you'll presumably perchance perchance cherish.

Repeat: Avid gamers are listed with the teams they played for from 2010 to '19 only.

San Francisco 49ers (2010-19)

Staley, chosen 28th total by the 49ers in the 2007 NFL Draft, in actuality hit his shuffle in 2011, when he began a stretch of 5 straight Professional Bowl picks and three consecutive 2d-team All-Professional honors.

New England Patriots (2010-19)

All people remembers Adam Vinatieri making loads of take grasp of kicks to rating New England Inspiring Bowls in the 2000s, nevertheless Gostkowski replaced the lengthy streak Hall of Famer with aplomb, constructing a extremely decorated profession of his possess.

San Francisco 49ers (2010-14), Indianapolis Colts (2015-17), Miami Dolphins (2018), Buffalo Bills (2019)

Gore's Hall of Popularity-caliber profession dates the total arrangement motivate to 2005, and the RB used to be quiet finding methods to make a contribution in 2019 at age 36. Even when his manufacturing tailed off in direction of the conclude of the last decade, he did space as much as top 1,000 yards speeding 5 times and assign three Professional Bowl nods for the period of the period.

Cleveland Browns (2010-15), Atlanta Falcons (2016-19)

Mack continuously graded out as a top-10 player at his space, per Professional Soccer Focal point, including a top-ranked enact among centers for the 2016 season. He made six Professional Bowls and earned 2d-team All-Professional 3 times, starting up all 16 video games in 9 of his 10 campaigns for the period of the last decade.

Philadelphia Eagles (2010-19)

Right here's the loopy part about Peters: He's assign together a 16-one year profession that's incorporated 9 Professional Bowls (six for the period of the 2010s), two first-team All-Professional picks (each and each in the 2010s) and a Inspiring Bowl title after going undrafted in 2004. Peters is this form of depraved man that he earned the 2d of his two All-Professionals in 2013 -- one one year after he ruptured his Achilles twice internal a two-month period. The rock-solid salvage used to be PFF's 2d-absolute top graded player at his space (93.6) for the period of the last decade.

Arizona Cardinals (2010-16), Jacksonville Jaguars (2017-19)

He's a 5-time Professional Bowler and a Walter Payton NFL Man of the one year winner who made waves when he joined the Jacksonville Jaguars as a free agent in 2017. He earned his first-ever All-Professional more than just a few and used to be the Professional Soccer Writers of The US's Defensive Player of the one year that season.

Kansas Metropolis Chiefs (2016-19)

While Hill has developed into one of the most game's elite receivers, he earned his space on the roster for his work on special teams. He has the most punt return yards (1,009) in the NFL since getting into the league, whereas boasting the 2d-absolute top yards-per-punt-return tag of the last decade (11.9 yards, min. 50 returns), in the motivate of only Devin Hester.

Arizona Cardinals (2010-19)

Fitzgerald has been one of the most NFL's most efficient receivers for almost 20 years. He had three seasons with after all 100 catches and 1,000 yards from 2015 to '17, including a league-excessive 107 receptions in 2016 -- the same one year he used to be named the Walter Payton NFL Man of the one year. Fitz would harmful worthy better if this had been an All-Millennium Group.

New Orleans Saints (2011-19)

Obviously, while you occur to recall to mind the Saints, you at once take into myth their massive offense. But Jordan has been quietly dominant on the defensive side of the football for years, as evidenced by his 5 double-digit sack seasons for the period of the last decade.

San Diego Chargers (2010), New Orleans Saints (2011-13), Philadelphia Eagles (2014-19)

Regarded as one of the most game's elite returners and one of the crucial versatile offensive gamers of the closing 15 years, Sproles is now honest the fourth player in NFL history to be named to an All-Decade Group at extra than one positions (punt returner and flex).

Chicago Bears (2010-13), Atlanta Falcons (2014-15), Baltimore Ravens/Seattle Seahawks (2016)

This one is de facto worthy. Hester is obviously a Hall of Famer and would rating my vote for the most efficient returner of all time. But basically basically based only on the 2010s? Sadly, I honest can't pass him up any better ... as worthy as I'd in actuality like to.

Philadelphia Eagles (2012-19)

A majestic power in the heart for the Eagles for the period of the last decade, he went to 5 Professional Bowls and used to be a indispensable-team All-Professional in 2018. But most importantly, Cox helped lead the Eagles to their first Inspiring Bowl title in franchise history.

New England Patriots (2012-15), Arizona Cardinals (2016-19)

Won a Inspiring Bowl with the Patriots, then used to be shipped to the Cardinals at honest 26 years weak. Jones did not omit a beat a ways from Bill Belichick, even though, posting four consecutive double-digit sack seasons in the wasteland, including 19 closing one year and a league-leading 17 in 2017.

Cincinnati Bengals (2010-19)

You know, the Bengals had some moderately accurate teams for the period of the heart of the last decade, after they earned 5 consecutive playoff berths. And Atkins, an eight-time Professional bowler, used to be a large cause.

Dallas Cowboys (2011-19)

The Cowboys' offensive line has been the gold common for loads of of the last decade, and the 2-time All-Professional and seven-time Professional Bowler used to be the principle portion to suit into space, because the ninth total buy in the 2011 NFL Draft.

St.Louis/Los Angeles Rams (2012-19)

Undercover agent, Hekker would've had my (imaginary) vote for Inspiring Bowl MVP if the Rams had managed to beat the Patriots in Inspiring Bowl LIII, when Hekker punted 9 times at 46.3 yards per punt. As an more than just a few he'll should resolve for the most efficient punter in the league (and on these rankings).

Minnesota Vikings (2013-16), Oakland Raiders (2017), New England Patriots (2018), Chicago Bears (2019)

Looks irregular to absorb Patterson better on this listing than Hester, nevertheless CP used to be good for the period of the last decade. In spite of getting a late commence, he ranked first in kick return yards (6,101), TDs (seven) and moderate (29.9 yards, min. 20 returns) for the period of the 10-one year period.

Kansas Metropolis Chiefs (2013-19)

After overcoming a late commence as much as his profession, Kelce is now arguably the most efficient tight conclude in the sport (reckoning on how you are feeling about George Kittle). He had 200 combined receptions previously two years and four consecutive 1,000-yard seasons to trip alongside with his 5 straight Professional Bowl nods.

San Diego Chargers (2010-15), Baltimore Ravens (2016-18), Los Angeles Rams (2019)

A 2d-spherical buy by the Chargers in 2007, Weddle did not in actuality establish himself as one of the most NFL's most efficient safeties till 2011, when he tied for the league lead in picks (seven) and notched the principle of two first-team All-Professional honors. The recently retired defender earned his recognition for being a relied on leader and playmaker.

Pittsburgh Steelers (2010-19)

The premier center for the period of the last decade. Even as you occur to recall to mind the Steelers' excessive-octane offenses from the 2010s, your fantasy-centric brain seemingly goes at once to the Killer Bs ( Gigantic Ben, Le'Veon Bell and Antonio Brown). But don't neglect about the eight-time Professional Bowler up front who's been the linchpin to a top-conclude O-line. There might well be a cause so many operating backs absorb had success in Pittsburgh in some unspecified time in the future of the last 10 years.

Arizona Cardinals (2011-19)

Peterson has been one of the most conclude (and few closing) shutdown cornerbacks in the league for years. And no longer only used to be he extremely talented, nevertheless he did not omit a single game attributable to damage from 2011 to '19 (including 128 consecutive starts).

Buffalo Bills (2010), Seattle Seahawks (2010-15, '19), Oakland Raiders (2017-18)

Beast Mode used to be as bruising, balanced and interesting a operating motivate as now we absorb ever viewed. He reminded us of that, week in and week out, for the period of the principle half of of the last decade, when he led the league in speeding touchdowns (2013 and '14) and seemed in two Inspiring Bowls (worthwhile one). Or no longer you will should shock what his already impressive legacy might well presumably perchance perchance be if, you respect, he had gotten the call from the 1-yard line.

New Orleans Saints (2010-16), Inexperienced Bay Packers (2017)

Evans used to be a dominant lineman for loads of years in New Orleans. And whereas his Inspiring Bowl rating did not reach for the period of the 2010s, three of his four consecutive first-team All-Professional nods did (2009-2012).

Philadelphia Eagles (2010-14), Buffalo Bills (2015-18), Kansas Metropolis Chiefs (2019)

The dual-risk operating motivate led the NFL in speeding yards (1,607) in 2013 and speeding touchdowns (17) in 2011. But the part that made him so harmful for so worthy of the last decade used to be his receiving ability out of the backfield; he's recorded 40-plus receptions in a season seven times over his profession (six in the 2010s).

Kansas Metropolis Chiefs (2010-18)

Berry used to be the fifth total buy in the 2010 NFL Draft and swiftly grew to transform one of the most conclude gamers at his space. An All-Professional in 2013, Berry used to be compelled to in the reduction of his 2014 season short after he used to be identified with Hodgkin's lymphoma. He recovered and returned the next one year to assign All-Professional honors once extra, nabbing the NFL Comeback Player of the one year award.

New York Jets (2010-12, '15-16), Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2013), New England Patriots (2014), Kansas Metropolis Chiefs (2017)

Revis Island used to be one of the most loneliest locations on the football field for years. And there might well be no longer a query Revis used to be one of the crucial efficient to ever originate it. But the lockdown nook of his generation will get knocked here because three of his extremely productive seasons (including an All-Professional one year) came about for the period of the 2000s.

San Francisco 49ers (2010-14)

Willis might well presumably perchance quiet had been chosen to the Hall of Popularity in 2020. I thought he used to be one of the most locks. Even supposing he retired in 2014 and played honest 5 seasons in the 2010s, he used to be as dominant for the period of that stretch (three All-Professionals, four Professional Bowls) as almost any one on this listing. I'm baffled as to why he did not rating into Canton this one year.

Detroit Lions (2010-15)

Relish Patrick Willis, Megatron is a Hall of Famer for sure no topic his short(ish) profession. He posted after all 1,000 receiving yards in every of his six seasons for the period of the last decade, including his NFL-document 1,964 yards in 2012. He also averaged 100-plus yards receiving per game 3 times, earning All-Professional honors in every of these campaigns. Johnson used to be an absolute nightmare to defend and an absolute shock to gaze.

Seattle Seahawks (2011-17), San Francisco 49ers (2018-19)

Sherman used to be a transformed receiver at Stanford and a fifth-spherical buy of the Seahawks. The unheralded nook then worked (and trash-talked) his arrangement into changing into one of the most vocal leaders of the Legion of Enhance and a Inspiring Bowl champion. The last decade's leader in INTs (35) tore his Achilles in 2017, and you needed to shock if he would ever be the same. He used to be. And in 2019, Revis made his third Inspiring Bowl look of the 2010s.

Seattle Seahawks (2010-18), Baltimore Ravens (2019)

When Pete Carroll took over the Seahawks in 2010, his first ever draft buy for the franchise used to be Thomas, with the 14th total more than just a few -- Carroll even disregarded his possess man, Taylor Mays, who had played for him at USC, to decide Thomas. Thomas rewarded Carroll's faith by changing real into a key member of the Legion of Enhance. Thomas would garner six Professional Bowl picks and three consecutive first-team All-Professional nods (tied for loads of by a security in the last decade) whereas helping the Seahawks to their first ever Inspiring Bowl rating, then used to be named to a seventh Professional Bowl in his first season with the Ravens in 2019.

Baltimore Ravens (2012-19)

I know loads of folk will seemingly be rotten that a kicker has landed this excessive in the rankings. No. 1: I'm a Bears fan, so that you just're lucky he's no longer first total; and a pair of) Let's be shapely about this and acknowledge Tucker as one of only eight unanimous picks to this team. There in actuality shouldn't be some other kicker in the sport who is as constant or reliable. So, if one thing else, I will also very well be underrating his value a miniature bit bit.

Baltimore Ravens (2010-19)

Speaking of Ravens unanimously chosen to this team, here comes the recently retired Yanda. In fact, former classic supervisor Ozzie Newsome is by no arrangement given ample credit rating for how well he constructed this Ravens franchise. Yanda, a Third-spherical buy of Iowa, made eight Professional Bowls for the period of the 2010s, including motivate-to-motivate nods at ages 34 and 35, and helped pronounce one other Lombardi Trophy motivate to Baltimore. Drained of hearing me wax poetic about an internal O-lineman? Maybe it is seemingly you'll presumably perchance decide to hear several of his All-Decade Group compatriots thunder his praises.

Dallas Cowboys (2014-19)

I used to be at Radio Metropolis Song Hall when the Cowboys chosen Martin 16th total. The crowd used to be ready to pop so laborious for Jerry Jones and Co. to buy Johnny Manziel in that space, cherish it used to be the 2014 Royal Rumble. But then Dallas took Martin, and what a buy it used to be. As massive as Marshal Yanda used to be, I'd've sided with the four-time All-Professional Martin because the unanimous more than just a few of the 2. I'd cherish to fulfill the person that did not vote for him.

Atlanta Falcons (2011-19)

Julio is superior. I could well presumably perchance perchance possibly honest conclude honest there, nevertheless then it is seemingly you'll presumably perchance fail to tag all these juicy stats the NFL be taught team compiled: He ranks first in receiving yards (12,125) and third in receptions (797) for the period of the last decade, is the single player in NFL history with 5 straight seasons with after all 1,400 receiving yards and owns the most efficient profession yards per game tag (96.2). The one knock against him is that his touchdown totals might well presumably perchance very well be better. But I blame the Falcons coaching workers for that bigger than I originate Julio.

Oakland Raiders (2014-17), Chicago Bears (2018-19)

This Chicago Bears massive might well presumably perchance quiet possibly be first on this listing. I know, I know. But being arrangement here, Mack has been a continuing nuisance to quarterbacks for the reason that Raiders chosen him out of Buffalo with the fifth total buy in 2014. He received the NFL Defensive Player of the one year in 2016 and is the single defender with 60-plus sacks, 20-plus compelled fumbles and two-plus INTs since 2014, per NFL Media be taught. His alternate to the Bears sent waves for the period of the league in 2018. And whereas that would not in actuality absorb one thing else to originate with his space on this listing, I cherish recognizing that deal as this kind of uncommon occurrences the assign each and each teams can legitimately feel tickled with the final end result, with the Raiders touchdown four picks, including two first-rounders.

Seattle Seahawks (2012-19)

Wagner is rarely any doubt one of the crucial efficient center linebackers I've ever viewed play. This should be what it used to be cherish for my dad to gaze Mike Singletary all of these years previously. Obviously, we know the arrangement accurate the Seahawks protection has been. But it undoubtedly's quiet a miniature bit unbiased to examine Wagner's profession resume and tag 5 first-team All-Professional picks (four consecutive) and a 2d-team more than just a few, to boot. If one thing else, I'd no longer be giving him ample respect here.

Pittsburgh Steelers (2010-18), New England Patriots (2019)

I've said this sooner than, nevertheless AB is the most efficient receiver of the closing 20 years. He's the single player in NFL history with six consecutive 100-spend seasons and ranks 2d in the last decade in receiving yards (11,263), receptions (841) and receiving first downs (549). Brown has had his shapely fragment of concerns off the sphere over the closing 18 months. But his manufacturing from 2010 thru '18 speaks for itself.

New England Patriots (2010-18)

Gronkowski is the supreme tight conclude in NFL history. He scored 79 profession receiving touchdowns, including a league-excessive 17 in 2011. The three-time Inspiring Bowl champ had double-digit rankings in 5 of his 9 seasons. As unbelievable as he used to be as a receiver (and think me, he used to be), dude used to be even better as a blocker and used to be a large portion of the Patriots' speeding assault.

Minnesota Vikings (2010-16), New Orleans Saints/Arizona Cardinals (2017), Washington Redskins (2018-19)

While it be refined for a operating motivate to decide a excessive stage of success for a total decade, Peterson came moderately shut; he averaged after all 4.2 yards per lift in every of the seven seasons since 2010 in which he had after all 200 carries. He led the NFL in speeding twice, including in 2012, when he ran for 2,097 yards and grew to transform only the third non-QB to rating MVP in the closing 20 seasons. That the person they call All Day is quiet productive at age 35 is each and each grisly and fully inevitable.

Inexperienced Bay Packers (2010-19)

Rodgers used to be good for the period of the early portion of the last decade, when he received MVP twice (2011, 2014). He also guided the Packers to a title in Inspiring Bowl XLV and used to be chosen because the sport's MVP. His ball security and total effectivity for a ways of that span (he completed the last decade with a sick 305: 63 TD-to-INT ratio) is nearly unmatched, whereas his 103.6 passer ranking ranks No. 1 among passers with after all 1,500 attempts. Even as you occur to're questioning why he's no longer a splash better, it be for the reason that bane of every Bears fan has viewed his manufacturing and precision decline over the closing three years.

Cleveland Browns (2010-17)

One other unanimous more than just a few on the team, and for accurate cause. The Browns chosen Thomas with the third total buy in 2007, and he did not omit a single snap till 2017. We're talking bigger than 10,000 snaps, of us. On the Browns. Assume that. Thomas used to be an All-Professional more than just a few in six of the eight seasons he played in the 2010s (including his 2d-team nod in 2012), used to be the supreme-graded salvage by PFF (93.8) and, simply assign, one of the crucial efficient linemen of all time.

Carolina Panthers (2012-19)

Kuechly retired in January, and I chanced on it fun of us had been debating his Hall of Popularity worthiness. He's getting in. Dude adopted up his 2012 Defensive Rookie of the one year marketing campaign by worthwhile the 2013 NFL Defensive Player of the one year award and used to be chosen to seven All-Professional teams (including 5 first-team bids). In an generation with some moderately rattling accurate linebackers, Kuechly used to be as versatile and loyal as they reach -- a particular tackler who might well presumably perchance perchance topple motivate in protection and elope the passer when wished. He used to be one of the crucial efficient of his generation, this generation.

Houston Texans (2011-19)

Watt has battled thru some injuries over the closing four years, so while you're necessary of him ranking this excessive or being one of the most unanimous picks, then recency bias might well presumably perchance very well be clouding your judgement a miniature. Allow me the more than just a few to remind you of honest how extra special Watt used to be for the period of this decade. He used to be a three-time NFL Defensive Player of the one year winner and a 5-time first-team All-Professional. He posted 20.5 sacks in two separate seasons, ending the last decade tied for 2d-most in the NFL (96), whereas ranking first in QB hits (265) and tackles for loss (158). And he used to be also a large dude, worthwhile the Walter Payton NFL Man of the one year in 2017.

St. Louis/Los Angeles Rams (2014-19)

There are going to be of us that will negate Donald is the most efficient player in the NFL honest now. Which he very might well presumably perchance presumably be. But this ranking measures what a man did for a total decade, so ... he used to be named 2014 Defensive Rookie of the one year ... earned 5 straight first-team All-Professionals ... received two NFL Defensive Player of the one year awards ... used to be the 2018 sack leader (as an internal lineman) ... You are honest, he might well presumably perchance very well be the most efficient player in the league honest now. Getting the Rams to the Inspiring Bowl used to be also unbelievable, nevertheless he's quiet honest top three for me.

Denver Broncos (2011-19)

I fully accept that this might well possibly presumably perchance very well be an unpopular notion ( I imply, that is what I originate, after all), especially because most of us would seemingly resolve on Donald and his two DPOYs over Miller's zero. But the Broncos' edge rusher completed the last decade with seven All-Professional picks (three first-team honors), a league-leading 106 sacks and a Defensive Rookie of the one year award. Most importantly, even though, he received a Inspiring Bowl MVP award (in Inspiring Bowl 50). Donald might well presumably perchance need gotten this kind of, too, had the Rams beaten the Pats a pair of years motivate. But he did not. Miller did. And if quarterbacks rating judged on Inspiring Bowls, it be only shapely to present credit rating to a man who once in a whereas willed Peyton Manning and the Broncos to a title.

New England Patriots (2010-19)

Or no longer it is a chalk buy, I know. Brady has by no arrangement been in a location to put up the passing numbers that many of his contemporaries assign up for the period of the last decade, even though I'd cherish to indicate that no longer only did he proceed the league in passing touchdowns in 2010 and 2015, nevertheless he used to be first-team All-Professional and the league leader in passing yards in 2017 -- at 40 years weak. And whereas he and Aaron Rodgers had been the single two gamers for the period of the last decade to rating two MVPs, Brady has 32 extra wins in the last decade than the Packers' QB (138 to 106, including playoffs). But over again, it comes the total formula down to titles. Brady had the Patriots in the AFC Championship Sport eight times in 10 years, worthwhile 5 convention titles and three Inspiring Bowls (plus two Inspiring Bowl MVPs).

There might well be not any sense throwing extra stats or accolades at you, because it would all be in the provider of honest telling you one thing you respect: Brady used to be the most efficient player of the last decade.

Apply Adam Defective on Twitter @adamrank.

[torentialtribute]

Inside Ajax: How Tottenham’s Champions League opponents were built in legend John Cruyff’s image

If you want to know an Ajax team with the resources of a Championship side have reached the Champions League semi-finals, you have to go back to a meeting hero in a house in Amsterdam in December 2010.

Sitting around the table were Frank Rijkaard, Marco van Basten, Dennis Bergkamp and other Ajax legends.

Whatever their status, they would accept a place lower in Dutch football's pantheon than another man in attendance – Johan Cruyff, who would eventually be 'knifed in the back' at his lowest moment.

This exciting modern Ajax side was built in the image of club icon Johan Cruyff

This vibrant and creative Ajax side will meet Tottenham in the Champions League semi-final

But it was when Cruyff called a crisis meeting with icons like Dennis Bergkamp back in 2010

First, the highs. Cruyff had written a column claiming Ajax wasn't Ajax anymore after years of disarray. That anger was the starting point of a path that has led to the development of stars like Matthijs De Ligt and Donny van de Beek.

It is the story of how Ajax revitalized itself and, if they beat Spurs, how They are on the cusp or doing something finances would suggest is impossible.

Then again, as Cruyff said: "I've never seen a bag of money win a football game."

Along with Cruyff and those icons, two coaches were sitting in the room – Ruben Jongkind and Wim Jonk. They were acolytes of Cruyff and already employed at Ajax.

Jongkind tells Sportsmail : "We were invited there. I was not a former player so I'm at this secret meeting with these guys and it was like "woah, s ***".

'The former players did analysis but they didn't have solutions.

'Wim Jonk and myself had written down a plan, a way you should reorganize the academy and some other ways to improve the club.

' Johan joked: “I don't have my glasses with me, I can't read it … but it looks good. ”'

Wim Jonk (left) helped formulate a plan to help lift the dormant giants back to greatness

There were four core tenets to the Cruyff Plan:

Play attractive Cruyff-style football, because you play football for the fans.

The first team should have 50 per cent home grown players – and they had nine out of 10 players.

Targeted scouting – only buying a player if he was better than the youth equivalent.

A performance culture – being open to feedback from all levels, meaning an U12's coach could comment on the first team.

Cruyff would present the plan to the Ajax hierarchy in early 2011 before returning to the board of advisors in June of that year.

Then the work behind the scenes ground . Jonk became head of academy while Jongkind was the head of talent development.

They nabbed the manager of the kitchen from the Dutch Olympic training center to improve nutrition. A school was built on site to help double the amount of hours players could train. The medical department was rebuilt, as were office spaces, all to show would be operating at a Champions League level.

Cruyff wanted his sides to be homegrown, with a lot more emphasis placed on individuals

Jonk became head of academy while Ruben Jongkind (L) was the head of talent development

AJAX IN NUMBERS

Revenue : £ 81 Champions League last 16 clubs

Wage bill : £ 47m – less than Aston Villa, Cardiff, Middlesbrough and Wolves during the 2017-18 Championship season

Six – the number of players who started against Juventus in Turin that played for Ajax's academic sides

22 – years since Ajax last reached the semi-finals of the Champions League

At academy level, they got used to looking at results and each age group team to the individual. Cruyff said: "I've never seen a team make its debut."

Jongkind, now running football institute Cruyff Football with Jonk, adds: "In football, we have a strange environment. Every year you have a new coach. Every year you have to get a step better.

"That is not how human development works. It is chaotic. It is non-linear. "

Decisions were made that were the detriment of teams but the long-term benefit of players. Take Matthijs De Ligt – he wouldn't be £ 69million defender coveted by Barcelona without what is now known as Cruyff's "velvet revolution."

"Matthijs was biologically mature at the age of 14," Jongkind says. "Normally the U15 coach would use him in every match. If you want to stop the strikers from scoring, Matthijs would be in your defense.

"But that's not good for Matthijs. We had to move him up two years to give him the right stimuli.

"When he was in the U15s he played for the U17s. When he was in the U16s he played for the U19s.

"He would be a center back in the future but he needed to be challenged about his speed of action. If you play a youth match and you are the best but you play center back, you play too slowly.

"We put him in midfield. He needed to play with 360 degrees around him and find solutions in small spaces. We knew when he played center back later he would get into these situations.

"Despite the fact he was very young his movement skills were not up to the level. He didn't run well. His agility, stability and mobility also had to improve. We worked hard on a specialized plan. '

Jongkind recalls that Matthijs de Ligt was recognized as a future star when he was 14

Bergkamp, ​​meanwhile, spotted that Donny van de Beek was a natural phenomenon at 10

Ajax were so committed to their strategy th he almost went to court against the Dutch FA to stop him from playing two Under 17 internationals rather than two Under 19 games for them.

He was not the only standout. The other goalscorer at Juventus, Donny van de Beek, was tipped for success by a great and then pushed towards it.

Jongkind says: 'Bergkamp, ​​he was the one who said when Donny was 10,' This is going to be a great player. He said Donny needed extra individual attention.

"His problem was played too much to the back." We put him under a system of pretty rigorous physical training. He needed that.

"He was benefiting from the performance department a lot. We've got people from American Football, from Judo, from pole vault. People ask, “Why pole vault?” And I always say “Because they raise the bar!”

'He worked with them and then he started to excel at U19 when he was U16 because they were playing fantastic football

But individual talents came to the detriment of the team and Cruyff's vision was abandoned

Cruyff and Co went to court about an attempt to hire Louis can Gaal as CEO "class =" blkBorder img-share "/>

Cruyff and Co went to court over an attempt to hire Louis can Gaal as CEO "class =" blkBorder img-share "/>

[1 9459009]

Cruyff and Co went to court about an attempt to hire Louis can Gaal as CEO

In 2012, Edwin van der Sar became marketing director and Marc Overmars director of football

The fruits of Cruyff's plan were not obvious at first and there were always issues. An attempt to hire Louis van Gaal as CEO in 2013 led to a courtroom battle which Cruyff and his supporters at the club won.

Edwin van der Sar had joined as marketing director in 2012 while Marc Overmars became director of football that year. They were initially Cruyffian members of the set up.

Cruyff stayed until 2015. Ajax tried to fire Jonk and as the plan was abandoned, Cruyff quit and said: 'The core of my vision within Ajax has not been leg followed up. I increasingly got the feeling that this has been done deliberately, and I do not play games. "

" There were a lot of people in the club who loved Johan but there were as many that hated him, "Jongkind

"Eventually when he got the cancer (in October 2015), the people who hated him saw their chance and put a knife in his back.

" I expected everybody who owed their position to leave, including Van der Sar and Overmars, but they stayed. He was really hurt by the last stages of his life. '

Cruyff eventually left in 2015, saddened that he couldn't reap the rewards of his revolution

While the likes of Overmars and Van der Sar appear to have benefitted from Cruyff's exit

Cruyff would pass away just months after the betrayal. Those running the club, including Van der Sar and Overmars, are now reaping the rewards of the Cruyff Plan.

Ajax may reach the final, they may win the competition or they may not. But few would have predicted this as closely as Cruyff did.

During his time back at Ajax they put posters around the training ground claiming "We make Champions League winners" – their mission statement. "Overmars and Van der Sar didn't believe it," Jongkind adds.

"Everywhere Johan went, five or 10 years later they were a success. Ajax as a player, Barcelona as a player, Feyenoord as a player. Ajax as a technical director in the 80s, they reaped the rewards with the team in the 90s.

"Barcelona with Rijkaard and Guardiola. Then he came back to Ajax and you see now. But there was always a lot of jealousy and egocentrism. They didn't like the power. "

Would he be proud of the fruits of his last labor? "I don't think pride. I think he would first also look at the things that have been done better.

"But he would also say this is what we thought would happen."

But put all the building blocks in place to make this team so successful were laid by Cruyff

THE TALE OF ABDELHAK NOURI

It is, in Ruben Jongkind's eyes, impossible to tell the tale of this Ajax side without mentioning Abdelhak Nouri.

Nouri was nine games into his senior Ajax career when he collapsed during a friendly match against Werder Bremen in summer 2017 due to card iac arrhythmia.

He suffered severe and permanent brain damage and while he can now recognize and communicate with members of his family by moving his mouth and eyebrows, he will never be able to play football again.

Jonkgind says: 'People never remember the biggest talent we have in Ajax – Appie Nouri. He was considerably better, potentially, and at that moment than (Frenkie) De Jong and (Matthijs) De Ligt.

"He was an incredible talent. Suppose he had still been playing…. Ho ho!

"He played in the last days in senior football. He was playing in the Europa League campaign a little bit. He was still very small and needed to mature a little bit, but now at 21 he would be a great player with fantastic skills and fantastic creativity.

"Appie could have been world class. It is such a shame. "

Abdelhak Nouri collapsed during a friendly match against Werder Bremen in 2017" class = "blkBorder img-share" />

Abdelhak Nouri collapsed during a friendly match against Werder Bremen in 2017

Source link

[w44]

Football Fan and Charitable Man

At 8:00 PM on a Tuesday night, the light blue Skype app flickers to life. This app is the 850-mile link between me and a man in Seattle. The video call rings. A face appears. I smile and say hello, but I quickly realize he can’t hear or see me. I watch his eyes intently dart from one side of the screen to the other. His face tenses as he scours for a solution to this problem. I notice he sits in an office laced with Seahawks memorabilia. A football helmet riddled with autographs, a framed picture of former quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, and mounted triumphantly in the middle of the office, just above his head, is the front page of the Seattle Times after the Seahawk’s 2014 Super Bowl win. Each piece represents an era of the Seattle Seahawks football legacy. It’s here that he spends hours immersed in his love for the sports franchise. I direct my attention back to him and watch his eyes squint as he maneuvers his mouse like a commander at a battle station. Suddenly, the white glow of the working Skype app illuminates his face, confirming that he’s solved the problem and we can communicate. He eases back into his chair and smiles softly, waiting for me to take the reigns on the conversation. I’ve earned time that this man doesn’t seem to have, and I’m not going to waste it. This man is Brian Nemhauser. Brian appears to live a life like any other middle aged man in the Seattle area. He resides in Bellevue, the less hectic version of Seattle. He supports his wife and two kids as Director of Product Management at Adobe where he’s been employed since he graduated from American University in 1997. At Adobe, Brian “started in tech support and moved onto quality engineering … and then product management.” Brian appears like a completely regular person when he’s buying groceries or taking his kids to school. However, the difference between Brian and everyone else comes to life in the office he sits in during the interview. In that office, Brian spends hours pouring over statistics, studying NFL game film, and producing passion filled articles. Brian is the author, editor, and producer of hawkblogger.com, a sports blog covering the Seattle Seahawks since 2007. When his thirst for knowledge relating to the Seahawks wasn’t quenched by the local media, he began producing content himself. He writes articles about anything Seahawks related, including specific games, players, or even holistic evaluations about the front office. He says he writes “to extract the thoughts in my head into some sensible written form that people can read and discuss.” His audience started from a mere two people; a man in Alaska and a local mom. Over the past nine years, those two readers expanded into thousands. Then, tens of thousands. Now, hundreds of thousands and growing. He’s a staple guest on a local radio show on KJR 950 with well-known local broadcaster Dave “Softy” Mahler. He has his own collection of sources for articles from the likes of Seahawks players, coaches, and personnel. Local journalists are the ones citing his work, so anyone reading the Seattle newspapers have no choice but to recognize the name “Hawk Blogger.” As his site gained popularity, so did the opportunity to monetize it. Companies saw the high page views hawkblogger.com, and offered to buy advertising space on his site. Brian faced his own moral dilemma. He explained how he didn’t like the idea of having his “passion project” be full of ads, and he “felt a little dirty getting paid to write about the Seahawks” when he made a good living at this day job. In 2012, Brian realized that he could sell ad space on the blog and donate the earnings to charity instead of keeping it. John Schneider, General Manager of the Seahawks, launched a charity that coincided perfectly with Brian’s realization. The charity Ben’s Fund provides financial assistance for families that need help with autism treatment. Brian explains that he has a son with special needs, “and when Ben’s Fund got announced, it just seemed like the perfect symmetrical way for me to keep the purpose of the blog in harmony.” Since then, his blog isn’t just a passion project, it has a purpose. Brian didn’t create the blog as an idea to make a change. It evolved into one. He impacts people by writing articles that people spend time reading. Ads are shown on the blog and when someone views a page, and that turns into money donated to Ben’s Fund. Through this, the time he spends researching and writing in his office late at night eases the stress of another family. Brian focuses his articles on quality content, and living a busy life, he claims to never proofread his articles. Proofreading takes time he already doesn’t have. He claims his purpose isn’t to create a refined piece, but to incite conversation. I asked him how he balances a full time job while spending time with his family and updating his blog. He pauses for a second, then delivers an analogy akin to those he writes about the Seahawks. “Ultimately, it comes down to priorities and knowing what your rocks in the river are” he explains like he’s contemplated this question for years. “In other words, what are the parts of your life that everything else has to flow around?” He pauses, waiting for an answer, but not expecting one. “For me, it’s 1. Family and Friends, 2. Job, 3. Blog, 4. Health, 5. Everything else.” Simple. Clean. Straightforward. He doesn’t shy away from acknowledging that his dedication to the blog means sacrificing things like working out or cleaning up the house. He embraces it. Brian’s extreme dedication to his blog has led Seahawks players to take note of his in-depth analysis. Through maintaining his active Twitter account, @hawkblogger, he routinely calls out players by their Twitter handles after games to praise them. Brian has cultivated unique relationships with current Seahawks players, which has separated himself from the completely objective analysis of the blog. Knowing that the players are reading his work “is gratifying” and he “never, ever, expected this level of interaction with players, coaches and front office members.” Brian “cherishes [his] player relationships above all others” and claims that he does his “best to respect that trust while also holding them accountable on the blog.” Brian Nemhauser, the person, will always be more involved than Hawk Blogger, the alias. He started the blog as an overly dedicated fan, not a writer attempting to abide by any sort of journalistic integrity. Object newspaper reporters may not be able to foster friendships with players because of potential bias, and maybe Hawk Blogger can’t either. But Brian Nemhauser can. The peak of Brian’s blog and Seahawks fandom was the 2013-2014 NFL season. The Seahawks were rated #1 in the league, thanks to a suffocating defense and a quarterback with pinpoint accuracy. “The team was executing at an absurd level and they felt different than teams of the past” Brian explains, “I was enthralled along with my readship.” Every victory brought more people swarming to HawkBlogger.com as people tried to learn more about a team that felt “different.” The Seahawks stormed into the playoffs, trouncing opponent after opponent and eventually earning the opportunity to play in Super Bowl XLVIII in New Jersey. Ticket prices for the game coupled with the airfare for flying across the country limited the chance for Seahawks fans to experience the action in person. Luckily, one dedicated fan had an idea. If fans couldn’t go as on their own, they could all pitch in to fund one deserving individual. There was only one fan that other fans could rally behind. Hawk Blogger. The man who’d written countless enthralling articles all season deserved to see the team in the biggest game of the year. Hawk Blogger readers were sick with Super Bowl fever and raised an astounding $1661 to help cover his expenses. I donated $25 myself because I, like others, recognized Brian as someone to live vicariously through. Brian was taken aback seeing the amount of money raised from people that only know of him through the blog. He explained, “I never imagined I’d feel such strong of a connection to my readers. I wish they all could’ve been there. They deserved to be.” February 2, 2014. Super Bowl XLVIII. Seahawks vs. Broncos. The game began with a Broncos mishap, allowing the Seahawks to take the early lead. Brian recounts, “Twelve seconds into the game the momentum was set. You could feel the energy start from the players and reverberate into the stands.” In a game characterized by complete and utter domination, the Seahawks breezed to a 43-8 victory. The win was even sweeter knowing that Seahawks supporters helped send mega-fan Brian Nemhauser to New Jersey to be there for the franchise’s historic moment. This was someone who wrote about the Seahawks in the years when they struggled to reach mediocrity, and now he was experiencing the greatest moment in the team’s history. Brian portrayed his feelings about the game by prefacing, “not including anything related to my family, watching the seconds tick off the clock in Super Bowl 48 was the happiest moment of my life.” After capturing the essence of the game on the blog, Brian returned home. He continues to grow his readership writing informed and entertaining articles about the Seahawks. After nine years of writing on the blog, the Seahawks aren’t just a hobby for Brian. They’re part of him.

[stlhealthandwellness-blog]

3 Things Nearly Everyone Can Do To Improve Their Allergies

http://tinyurl.com/qyoehwe Do you suffer from seasonal allergies like me (tree, grass, or weed pollen)? Then take notes on what we are about to cover and by all means ask me questions. What I will share with you took me over 20 years and a very expensive education to learn. I suppose ?Good things come to those who wait.? I began my battle with seasonal allergies at a young age like most sufferers. I?m sure you know what I am saying: constant sneezing, itchy watery eyes and scratchy or hoarse throat due to all the MUCOUS! This lasted a few months out of the year. As much as I enjoyed The Midwest?s Spring and Fall seasons it was dreadful at the same time to struggle for each breath because you are clogged with mucous. Thankfully by the end of this short story you will see what I realized would finally bring me REAL RELIEF. To combat the symptoms I did exactly what most people, and likely even you yourself, did. I began sucking down over-the-counter Benadryls. They worked well for a few hours, but often made me more tired. True ... I may have been able to breathe a little better but I would nearly fall asleep during classes in school and could just barely make it through the bad days. The next ?logical? step I took was to see my physician. What did the doctor do? Well you know ... what medical doctors most often do ... treat the symptoms related to your condition, not the root cause, by writing prescriptions. Allergy treatment is a prime example of this! You can spend a mint finding out the specific items you are allergic to and then instead of being taught how to change your allergic condition and eliminate your allergy you are given a drug to suppress symptoms. Do you think this allows you to get better or slowly get worse while you are enjoying mild to moderate relief? It?s a ?Bait & Switch? tactic that makes fat pockets for med/pharma and we just accept their ?recommendations? instead of taking a minute to consider if it makes sense. But don?t give up on me yet ... thankfully solutions were in my future! So ... back to our story. Of course, following information distributed by the pharmaceutical company ... my doctor prescribed the advertising darling of the time ... Dimetapp. It didn?t work for me. At all. Next prescription: Claritin. It worked better than Dimetapp, but not well enough to make me very happy about sucking down the drug each day. Back to the doctor for the next ?something better.? I went through the ?appropriate medical regimen? over these years moving on to the latest greatest drugs of Allegra and Zyrtec all sounding super promising and high-tech (best marketing money can buy)! Even though I didn?t like that I was taking drugs every day Zyrtec worked for me about as well as Benadryl but for a longer and with less tiredness. Since it worked decently for the few months of the year I needed it I stuck with that one for quite a few years. Then at age 22 I moved to Missouri and was told by my doctor ?Good luck because Missouri is awful for allergies!? I felt almost as if I never had taken allergy medicine. I mean what had I been doing for all these years. What had all this time, thought and money produced? All my symptoms were back. Red, itchy eyes, itchy skin, constant sneezing and runny nose. I am certain of 2 explanations for this: 1) The whole popular philosophy on treating allergies is designed only to sell and keep you buying products not teach you how to understand and reduce allergies. 2) When you use the drug method you are flooding your body with just enough chemicals to override your body?s processes. Simply put then a doctors only choice is more and more of the same as your body adapts to having the chemical present and it loses its effectiveness. You can imagine my frustration when I decided the evidence was just too great that I was going in circles ... caught in the run-around. I sat down to think this through and realized something. It seemed so unbelievably simple that it gave me that tight excited feeling in my chest. Some of you careful readers may already have figured out what I understood at that moment because I have already mentioned it in this article! The real way to handle allergies

What happens when you injure your ankle?

How about when you get cut, scraped or get bit by a bug?

What happens if we come into contact with a harmful chemical?

One common process our body uses in all these scenarios is your first line of defense ... INFLAMMATION. We will use the image with blue liquid in a glass to demonstrate what I figured out was my problem. Let?s say that the blue fluid represents your specific individual seasonal or otherwise inconsistent allergens that cause you grief. See your body is like the glass ... When it gets too much outside irritation poured into it you can be sure it overflows with symptoms (imagine pouring 10 glasses of water into one.) These symptoms have the job of notifying you there is too much foreign irritants in your body. So if you are like the glass on the left you still have a large capacity available to your body to handle additional sources of inflammation and ... no symptoms. However if you are already starting with the glass half-full, like the glass on the right, and then pour in the blue water you have a significantly smaller capacity for allergens and ... viola are more likely to get allergy symptoms before the next person. Doesn?t it make sense that when your body is overflowing with inflammation you would REMOVE something rather than add more drugs? Now admittedly there are a number of reasons I find people have chronic inflammation. Although, I don?t have the space to discuss all details here, I will give you some main ideas plus access to further resources on the Internet. The basic point is you have to clean your body out and get rid of the everyday irritation and inflammation so your body can handle the seasonal or otherwise inconsistent allergens with less misery! Ridding yourself of chronic inflammation

One of the top ways to rid yourself of excess toxins which breed inflammation is by a detoxifying cleanse (there are many types and they do not all do the same thing. http://deltaspinalcare.com/detoxify.html) See our bodies accumulate preservatives, pesticides and other synthetic toxic substances in small quantities so we don?t notice it day to day. But when we have accumulated enough ... watch out.

Another major culprit in this scenario is when your body?s fluid becomes chronically acidic. This causes non-stop inflammation. This problem is created by what we choose to eat and drink and such things as smoking and medications.

The third most common reason for chronic inflammation is poor sugar handling in a person?s body. Sugar once ingested can create mild to moderate inflammation for up to 72 hours. It can be very confusing when you feel bad 1-2 days after ?something you ate.? Reduce or eliminate your sugar and you will reduce your inflammation.

In consultations I hear from patients that the onset of symptoms is confusing because ?I didn?t do anything different. It just happened.? Well that?s exactly the problem because finally the consistency of eating the same toxic food, using the same toxic products at home or work and living or working around unhealthy environments catches up with us and one day we all of a sudden get sick because we can?t accumulate any more! The number of products on the market that contribute to our inflammation and allergies are numerous as are the wide array of choices for reversing them. By all means try to remove as many offending items from your daily life on your own. Just remember often the chemical mess our bodies are left in could use a helping hand. For more information or to fill out our online Allergy Symptom Questionnaire go to http://deltaspinalcare.com/allergies.html. Delta Spinal Care Holistic Health and Wellness Center 314-725-3358 www.deltaspinalcare.com