#price apparently but only if it's by someone he considers an equal in rank and experience

[spockandawe]

I’m so unbelievably weak against characters who make terrible choices because they’re hurting and upset. I love the subtler resentful decisions that quietly build up ill will, and I love the big dramatic choices that end with everyone going down in flames. But more than anything, I love love love hurting myself with the emotional flavor of a character struggling with the tension of simultaneously realizing that people hate/mistrust them (or how much people hate/mistrust them, or which people hate/mistrust them), while also realizing that those people just have... no idea where they’re coming from.

I was thinking about this first because of Mu Qing, who is honestly a very low-key version of this scenario (and it’s also quieter since he’s not a lead character and rarely takes the spotlight himself). But the first big tgcf flashback honestly made my heart ache, seeing him trying to walk a line between maintaining his own independence/pride and not belonging to someone he wants to be peers with, but when he tries to be tactful, people decide he’s being shady.  He was picking cherries, to bring a treat to his poor mother (and the poor children around his home), but then got accused of stealing, and then didn’t want to say that it was because his only remaining parent was living in poverty. And it continues through the present day! He knocks out Feng Xin so he can save him from a burning city, because Feng Xin refuses to leave, and people are like ‘>:OOO MU QING ATTACKED FENG XIN??’ In some ways, this character hurts me more than the others, because he rarely does anything wrong, he has a bad attitude, but his most significant “missteps” tend to be like ‘you could have been a little more kind, tbh.’

But also too, I’ve been working my way through the svsss extras again, and... Shen Jiu. God, Shen Jiu. This character is agonizing, and I love him so much. He makes terrible choices! He does terrible things! He tries to set up an actual literal child to die horribly, because he resents that this child had a parent who loved him, and that he found his way to Cang Qiong young enough to reach his full potential! It’s absolutely unforgivable! But nobody except Yue Qingyuan has any clue how much Shen Jiu has been through and how to possibly help him grow or heal or how to support him into better decision making. And Shen Jiu is so hurt by the way Yue Qingyuan left him that he refuses to let Yue Qingyuan help him now. Like! This child was a slave, begging for food on the streets, then was sold to a rich boy who abused him in sexually-flavored ways and planned to marry him to his sister so he could keep him forever, and then his “rescuer” was a scumbag adult who taught him to steal and murder. 

And while Shen Jiu was suffering, he thinks Yue Qingyuan, who came from the same beginning and who promised to come back for him, was living in careless pampered luxury in a prestigious cultivation sect. Shen Jiu’s own self-evaluations are incredibly harsh, from the moment he’s reunited with Yue Qingyuan. He calls himself terrible, he calls himself a thing, and once it’s clear that he’s going to pay the price for his bad decisions, he tries hard to shove away the one person who cares about him and find some way to protect him. Yue Qingyuan never stopped loving him and defending him, but literally nobody else in the world has any sympathy for him whatsoever. How am I not supposed to be heartbroken? Shang Qinghua sighs over how his readers used to hate on Shen Qingqiu for having no motivations, which, sure, that’s understandable from what’s on the “Proud Immortal Demon Way” pages, but seeing the trauma driving his choices in svsss and seeing his own self-awareness and self-loathing and knowing that one (1) person in-universe has any inkling of his internal world (and that person died trying to help him), I’m! In pain!!!

Plus, in svsss proper, I saw a post in passing once that was something like... ‘readers are hard on luo binghe, because he’s the only mxtx protagonist where we see the worst decisions of his life and aren’t in his head to understand why he’s making those decisions.’ Which I still find fascinating, and think about often. It makes sense to me. And as far as my terrible-decision-making children go, he’s very interesting to me because he doesn’t really deal with the widespread distaste/mistrust that mu qing and shen jiu experience, it’s very much targeted on one person. I live for the parts of svsss where all Luo Binghe has to do is breathe, and Shen Qingqiu flinches and bolts. And Luo Binghe is not acting in kind or well-considered ways, a lot of the time! But he was seventeen, and his beloved teacher had told him that ‘humans can be good or evil, demons can be good or evil,’ but the moment Luo Binghe turned out to be half demon, even though he’d just been fighting desperately trying to protect Shen Qingqiu, that teacher he trusted more than anything immediately turned on him, stabbed him in the chest, and threw him into hell.

That’s agonizing!!!! Even without the aftermath, that’s agonizing to read! And when Luo Binghe comes back, years later, he’s upset, he’s hurt, he’s lonely, he’s still stinging from that betrayal, of course he’s not making good decisions. I follow good blogs, because I haven’t seen any terrible Luo Binghe takes on my dash, but I’m kind of :c that these takes apparently exist. Again, it’s not that I think he makes good decisions, but I can see why he makes bad decisions, and I can see other characters missing that context, and I am rolling in terrible, glorious pain. Luo Binghe shows up secretly in Huan Hua Palace and starts taking it over and generally acts shady as heck? Well, Shizun wouldn’t let him beg for forgiveness when he was a disciple, and he’s afraid to face Shen Qingqiu until he can meet him on a semi-equal footing. Luo Binghe gets angry and spiteful when Shen Qingqiu asks if he’s responsible for the sowers? Yes he does! He’d always, always tried to do right by Shen Qingqiu, and trusted Shen Qingqiu when he said demons could be decent people, but the moment he turned out to be half-demon, Shen Qingqiu immediately started expecting the worst from him at every turn. It hurts! I don’t blame him for acting on that hurt! And I am so endlessly compelled by the way that Shen Qingqiu completely fails to recognize the context for where Binghe is coming from.

And like... I cannot leave out Xue Yang and Jin Guangyao. Xue Yang is fascinating in his own way, because the steps are... a lot more explicit and clear-cut than some of these other characters. Shen Jiu’s downward spiral is very internal and he curls up tight to hide his weak spots even with the person who values him most in the whole world, but Xue Yang very plainly tries to lay out his reasoning for his most important person. His whole world is crumbling by the time things reach that point, and it was probably beyond salvaging, but god! He tries so hard to explain the position the world placed him in, from childhood onward, helpless and vulnerable, and that nobody was going to defend him except himself. 

But when Xiao Xingchen doesn’t understand what he’s trying to communicate, when he realizes that the person he values most isn’t willing to hear what he’s trying to say, he starts lashing out again and trying to hurt. It’s the same lesson he learned when he was young, in some ways. ‘If I’m stupid enough to trust you, you’re going to use that to hurt me.’ And then the logical next step, ‘If you’re going to hurt me, all I can do is try to hurt you worse.’ You can see the trauma playing out right there on the page, and it’s agonizing. I can understand some people not enjoying reading things that make them hurt that way, but I have trouble Getting it when people don’t at least find that kind of dynamic compelling as hell. I’ll sometimes avoid media that I know is going to make me sad, but if I’m in the mood to Experience Sadness, I know a dynamic like this is going to grab me by the heart and shake me like a ragdoll.

And... Jin Guangyao. He was on my mind too, partly because I’ve seen a few takes on his motivations lately that honestly kind of baffle me? Like, to each their own, especially since mdzs never takes us inside his head. But I see posts that like... he was bullying Nie Mingjue, or what if Lan Xichen could Tell he was never genuine and mistrusted him on some level, and how to put this. It’s not that I agree with the choices he made, though I really don’t want to play fandom purity police in any way, shape, or form (murder is good, actually), but I understand the choices he made enough that those sort of interpretations that skew towards the cruelty-for-the-sake-of-cruelty territory honestly kind of upset me.

There’s some interesting comparisons to be made with Mu Qing, in some ways. They both grew up poor, without a father, in “shameful” single-parent situations (a sex worker mother vs. a father being executed for being a criminal). They were poor boys with ambition, but no matter how they tried to carry themselves with dignity, those poor beginnings were rubbed in their faces, years after the fact. I think it does make a real difference that Mu Qing’s shame is mostly based in his own history (sweeping floors) while Jin Guangyao’s is more external (son of a whore), and that Jin Guangyao’s also insulted a parent who he loved dearly, and that Mu Qing was seeking the respect outside of famiial structures while Jin Guangyao was desperate to be accepted by his father.

There’s so much of Jin Guangyao’s early life that’s like ‘I’m Just Trying To Live My Life, My Dude,’ and it hurts me to watch. He really didn’t have goals that were all that excessive! If his goals were excessive in some way, it’s only by virtue of how highly ranked his father was, which isn’t his fault. His goal: ‘I want my father to accept me into the family.’ What the world saw: “oh my god, this son of a whore SERIOUSLY wants to be brought into this noble family, lmaooooo.’ There are characters who are more compassionate than that, and a lot of that reaction is down to the nature of the setting, but LORD, man! It’s honestly a pretty restrained goal for a kid to have! Especially when his father totally promised to come back for him someday, and he waited patiently for years before setting out on his own.

And even once he gets kicked down the steps of Koi Tower and dials back his ambitions, he gets so little space to breathe. He’s learning cultivation late, he takes a position as a nobody in a different cultivation sect, he’s just trying to live. But no matter how he rolls with the punches, no matter how he smiles and bears it, he’s being constantly, constantly prodded in that old, painful bruise. I’ve been finally working my way through The Untamed, and it was painful to watch, in Gusu, when he’s trying to present the Nie Sect’s gift to Lan QIren, and people just start focking gossiping about him, right there, perfectly audibly. And when we see him back in Qinghe, he’s perfectly polite and deferential, and that one disciple is still like ‘fuck you, ur mom was a whore.’

He makes bad decisions, but even when he makes good decisions, he can’t win. I don’t get anything from him at all that suggests he had Hugely Lofty Ambitions from a young age, he just wanted some kind of decent life, but almost nobody would cut him a break. Nie Mingjue did cut him a break, and Lan Xichen was gentle and kind to him, and that made such an impact on him. But I also think it made it that much worse, when he made later questionable decisions, and Nie Mingjue refused to let him explain himself. Nie Mingjue’s rigidity breaks my heart in lots of ways, but especially when it comes to Jin Guangyao. I don’t want to make this all about personal attachment, but it’s kind of inescapable in this situation. Nie Mingjue sends him a loud, violent message that if he’s not perfectly morally upright, he’s Done. But by now, Jin Guangyao has years of history of people being cruel to him based on a history he never was able to control. Nie Mingjue protected him, but hes made it clear that protection was... conditional. There could be arguments about how conditional, and what the non-murdery limits would have been, but the murder has been done, and it was already clear that Nie Mingjue never had the power to protect him from everything.

I can’t read Jin Guangyao’s later actions without also reading that fear and insecurity into his decisions. He even tries to say it outright, that he’s afraid of everyone and everything, and Nie Mingjue misses the point. Jin Guangyao hurts me a lottle, because he suffers both in terms of the general public’s judgment of him, but also in the judgment of someone he cared deeply about. I can see the reasoning and trauma, but so many other people in the story can’t. Jin Guangyao gets pushed to the edge by how his father holds him at arm’s length from the family, the atrocities he tells Jin Guangyao to commit on his behalf (and then maybe I’ll treat you like my actual son, maybe), but when he tries to express that, Nie Mingjue is like ‘can’t you just endure more, though??’ He builds a temple with a statue with the face of his dead beloved mother, and the public is like ‘omg, he made that statue with his OWN FACE, can you believe it??’

In some ways, the way Lan Xichen determinedly loves and trusts him makes it all hurt even worse. I absolutely believe Jin Guangyao when he says that he never once wanted to act against Lan Xichen. So many of the terrible decisions Jin Guangyao makes tie so directly to him seeking either safety or security. But he works hard in social gatherings to keep the peace and people think he’s two-faced. He endures years of mistreatment before hitting back and people judge him for hitting back at all and say that well, what else could we have respected from someone with that background. Nie Mingjue threatens to kill him multiple times, and he was a very straightforward, honest man, of course Jin Guangyao was frightened of him and decided it was safer to see him dead. I live for the pain of seeing a character I love make decisions I strongly disagree with, understanding why they’re making those decisions, and seeing other characters not understand, and simply hate them for the decisions.

This isn’t exactly new, this is why I’ll never be able to shake my love for Starscream, even if his quality of motivation... varies by continuity. And Pharma and Prowl are two of my favorite characters in all of idw1 for exactly this reason. I’ve got  at least three fics brushing up against Pharma’s resentment over ‘yes, i got ordered to run a hospital on a garbage planet I was sharing the most violent, sadistic decepticons in existence, I SURE WONDER WHY I WAS DRIVEN TO THIS DESPERATE POINT, BUT THE LOVE OF MY LIFE THINKS I’M JUST A TERRIBLE PERSON, SO I GUESS THAT’S THAT.’ 

And in the murderbot books, I genuinely get reduced to tears when murderbot has to deal with people compassionately interpreting its behavior instead of giving it no credit, the way its used to. I find the raksura books intensely, intensely satisfying in how Moon struggles to fit into a highly social, close-knit society after growing up so traumatized and alone, and how his colony gradually adapts to him and gets used to his quirks, instead of driving him out, the way he’s experienced so many times. No real conclusion here, I was just spacing out during a work training call, and got overtaken by how much I love characters who experience this particular flavor of emotional isolation.

[goldenkamuyhunting]

Is Ogata a virgin?

To be honest...

I’m probably not the right person to ask this as I genuinely don’t have the slightest idea about it and I’m not really interested in this.

You see, those were different times from now.

While Japan had different ideas than the west about purity, marriage and so on, from what I know folk girls at the time wouldn’t really be willing to sleep around with boys easily, unless they planned to marry said boy and move to live with him (Meiji era is a time of changes though, so cut me some slack on this as I might be anticipating a bit a mentality that will develop in the future).

To make it simple, Harumi Chiyo (or Igogusa if you prefer) might have slept with Tsukishima prior to him leaving for war because Tsukishima made clear he wanted to marry her once he were back and she might have believed him so, if she were to remain pregnant no harm would be done as they would get married anyway.

On the other side it’s more unlikely Kakizaki Umeko slept with Sugimoto even though she equally loved him, as they apparently weren’t engaged, even though they were childhood sweethearts... while if she had lived in present times she would have been more willing to spend a night with the boy she liked even if they weren’t talking about getting married.

I genuinely doubt Ogata was/is in a serious relationship with a girl, so it’s strongly unlikely he got to sleep with someone for free.

Of course the typical male method in all the centuries and in almost all the countries (if not in all of them) to lose their virginity was to sleep with a prostitute, and it was especially popular among soldiers, even more when they were at war... which is something I don’t really consider praiseworthy.

Girls were often forced into the profession by misery or by being sold (or even kidnapped as they attempted to do with Asirpa), and taking advantage of their conditions has been something men had done for centuries and that really doesn’t make them that special in my eyes, just because in this way they managed to get rid of their virginity.

Maybe it’s just me.

Now... feel free to correct me if I’m wrong but I think this question was spurred by the Q&A section in the fanbook and more specifically by this bit.

Q18: “The scene in which Ogata tries to corrupt Yuusaku by taking him to a brothel and telling him that brothers are supposed to do bad things together was very sexy and impactful. Does it mean that Ogata frequented brothels, and has the appropriate experience?”

Noda: “He just pretended that he knows what he’s doing.” (Translation courtesy of @piduai)

To be honest the asker never mentions brothels but the "red light district” (遊郭 ‘yūkaku’ lit: “play quarters” but it was generally used in the sense of “pleasure quarters”) however he/she is clearly referring to Ogata’s visit to a specific place (and the image that goes with that ask in the fanbook is the one above just to visually help who didn’t remember about it).

(If someone is wondering “experience” is just ‘Keiken’ (経験) which means, well, “experience” in general)

Now... there’s a huge chance no soldier of Ogata’s rank or lower got a chance to have experience in such a place.

The price from prostitutes varies and the troops didn’t get much money.

The prostitutes working in the slums of Sapporo were probably the cheapest choice as they seemed to work directly on the streets and it was their customer who had to provide a place in which to go, if he wanted to do it somewhere more comfortable... and as you can see in the manga some still had to turn down the chance to spend time with them for a lack of money.

We know Otaru is packed with brothels (私娼窟 ‘shishōkutsu’), disguised as Soba shops.

The ones working for the pimp Sugimoto and Shiraishi interacted with are possibly a bit more expensive than them as they supposedly had a place in which to handle their trade, but as Shiraishi points out they’re ugly and their place is likely modest.

We then move to the brothel in which Ushiyama goes the first time.

It’s likely a bit better as his girl seems prettier and the owner will later brag they’ve the best girls and the best soba.

Sugimoto can afford the soba but the girls would likely cost more. Still maybe he could afford them. We’ll see though how they aren’t there to serve him or something.

Still the girl working there is definitely prettier than the previous, so I’ll say she should be more expensive than the ones with the pimp.

And then we move to the high class places.

We don’t get to see the inside but the girls seems even prettier and by the look of it pretty expensive. Ushiyama likely moved there because Hijikata and Nagakura are now economically supporting him.

Shiraishi (and Ishikawa too) will start visiting expensive brothels as well once Hijikata will start founding them.

The structure of this place is more like the one in which Yuusaku and Ogata went... but the girls are back on not being pretty...

To climb up to this very pretty Oiran.

Oiran (花魁) was a specific category of high ranking courtesan in Japanese history. Divided into a number of ranks within this category, oiran were considered – both in social terms and in the entertainment they provided – to be above common prostitutes, known as yūjo (遊女) (lit. 'woman of pleasure'). Though oiran by definition also engaged in prostitution, they were distinguished by their skills in the traditional arts, with the highest ranking oiran having a degree of choice in which customers they took.

Now... maybe the ladies with Ogata and Yuusaku aren’t the most expensive in the market, but they’re clearly in an upperclass place with 3 beautiful ladies, drinking sake.

I bet this is much more than Ogata’s salary allowed him and the patron for such visit is Tsurumi. Ogata though couldn’t take Yuusaku to a lesser, more economical place, as the point is to tempt an upper class boy like he is, so beautiful women and an elegant place are a must.

Long story short, while Ogata might have had sex with a prostitute... in that situation he’s clearly blind flying as it’s highly unlikely he could allow himself to do so much as drink in such a place, even less to have the girls.

To me it looks like a place for officers, with girls who are even taking care to be discreet, the perfect place to tempt an upper class official like Yuusaku, not a place for superior privates or common soldiers to spend their money regularly.

So, back to the question, did Noda refer solely to prostitutes in places like this, or to prostitutes in general?

No idea.

It can entirely be Ogata didn’t feel like having sex with a prostitute, as not only the affordable ones are ugly, but he might live it as a call back to his mother’s situation.

Although Ogata Tome was a geisha and not a common prostitute, Ogata has likely heard her being accused to be as such many times and the thing might have left a mark.

He’s not utterly repulsed by them, as, once Yuusaku is gone, he let one of them to keep hanging with him and touch him...

...even though he clearly was expecting Tsurumi and couldn’t do much else (especially since the whole thing was a fiasco and it’s unlikely Tsurumi would apprecciate Ogata getting fun from it).

So again, no idea.

It’s not surprising Ogata had no experience with that type of brothels and girls.

He might have had experience with much cheaper prostitutes but if he had or not is not really that interesting to me and not having it might even make sense considering his upbringing as the illegittimate son of a woman accused to sell her body.

He might not want to cause the birth of other children who’re in his place, nor he might feel comfortable with the idea of paying someone for sex.

A common joke among me and some of my friends is that Ogata’s only love is his rifle and, at most, he might fall for the girls of “Girls' frontline“ as they’re weapons’ personifications but, of course, this is just a joke.

So sorry, but I really don’t have an idea if he had sex previously or not. He seems to at least know how men are when they have sex...

...but again it could be a reference to how his father acted so... no idea.

Sorry if I wasn’t really helpful and thank you for your ask!

[tomakeitbeautifultolive]

2 questions (or so😬); 1) do you have headcanons of how will Jon and Danys love or romance story develop(if there is one)? Slow, over time? Or on the first sight, head over heels? One-sided, and later two-sider? Will both of them don't know(R+L=J) ? Or only Jon? How do you picture the angst between them? 2)when did Ben joined the NW and why? It's not like the NW went from a place or glory to a shit hole in a span of 15 years?! Like it's never mentioned what Ben did during the rebellion? Thx you

Wow! Thank you for all the asks! Sorry it took me so long to get to your beautiful questions. Oh you know I've got some Jon x Dany headcanons! *rubs hands together*

I believe it will be a slow burn that will resemble season seven in many ways (there's a reason season seven, for all its flaws, was still very highly rated as opposed to season eight - because while things like dialogue or timing suffered, the plot still felt like it was going in the right direction).

My prediction about Jon has always been that he'll be the *one* man who isn't impressed with Dany's beauty. Oh, he'll notice it all right, but he won't mention it or use it as a means to gain her favor with compliments. He's going to treat her as an equal right off the bat, and not as an object or a prize that he can win or woo. This is going to perplex Daenerys and probably intrigue her. They'll earn each other's respect based on merit, and I definitely predict some sort of innate bond between them because they're basically fated to meet.

Now, there's some speculation that because Jon died and is (most likely) coming back to life, we may never get another POV from him again. If that is the case (knock on wood) it will definitely appear very one-sided. I also have a headcanon that Jon absolutely resembles his true father in all but coloring, and that he's a total knockout - and we won't find that out until Daenerys sees him and we finally hear a proper description of his looks. (I also have a headcanon that Jon has his father's eyes - that everyone assumes they're grey but actually they're a dark indigo...) And in my dreams, Barristan Selmy is standing beside Daenerys on Dragonstone when Jon marches in and Ser Barristan sees something in Jon that strikes him as familiar... I would love it if, upon seeing Jon, it suddenly clicks for Barriston.

Angst between them, hmm. (f)Aegon is a bit of a curveball here. Either he's going to carry out his plan to try and wed his aunt and it could cause angst and make Jon realize he feels something more for Dany, or this will happen long before Jon is around - possibly as a ploy. Part of me suspects that if he took Tyrion's advice to heart about having a stronger claim than Dany, he might try to get rid of her or destroy her reputation somehow when she arrives to Westeros - and Jon might go to her once she's totally compromised and offer an alliance then.

I am more of a mystery theorist rather than someone who feels comfortable guessing at battle plans or strategies, I admit...

I do think that Jon's parentage will come out by some means or another, and that Daenerys will find out. I don't see this being a point of contention between them whatsoever, nor will the incest be a problem for Jon. In fact, I kind of see the pair of them teaming up to slay the mummer's dragon together. While the show really went hard with Targaryens being mad and evil, that is hardly the case for ASOIAF. This negative image of Targaryens comes mostly from, you betcha, the Lannisters (and Robert Baratheon). It was more or less a propaganda campaign that succeeded not only across Westeros, but apparently across the reader base who cannot read between the lines.

If it's true that Coldhands is not Benjen, then it could be Benjen or Howland who spill the beans, or perhaps confirm Ser Barristan's suspicion? (Assuming he doesn't die - but I really feel in my heart that he won't). I think Jon will have an identity crisis - not so much about being a Targaryen (I think he'll be proud of that honestly) but about not being Ned Stark's son as he was led to believe. I'd love for him, and the readers, to finally learn that his true father was a great man.

Now, speaking of Benjen... I believe he had a very heavy hand in what happened between Lyanna and Rhaegar. I believe he helped equip Lyanna with the mismatched armor needed for the tourney - and that he helped them, in some way, correspond in order to plan their elopement/abscondence.

During the rebellion, Benjen was the Stark in Winterfell - which I can only imagine how that empty castle haunted him during that period. Following news of his sister's death, I'd be willing to bet Benjen was utterly overcome with guilt. And for as close as Ned and Lyanna were, I believe Benjen was even closer to her. His joining the Night's Watch reads almost like a self-inflicted punishment/imprisonment, or... maybe... it wasn't that at all. His decision to join the ranks of a military order full of Targaryen supporters beyond the reach of Robert Baratheon might be a strategic one.

Benjen isn't stupid. He has to know who Jon is, right? I suspect he was even in on the prophecy that Rhaegar was into about TPTWP. So, Ned is keeping Jon safe, but Benjen might just be securing his future (or was, until his disappearance threw the plan into jeopardy).

Now... I have another little theory everyone is going to hate. But bear with me.

The Mormonts. They're a relatively small house sworn to Stark, in the middle of fucking nowhere. And by that I mean they're on small Bear Island surrounded by water - it's real out of the way from just about any and everything. They are described as poor.

So, how the hell does this small, obscure house manage to be one of the few with a Valyrian sword? Was it really written that way just so that Jon could inherit it? That seems a bit too convenient for GRRM's standards, doesn't it?

Presumably, sometime before Robert's Rebellion (though no one knows for sure), Jeor Mormont joined the Night's Watch and quickly moved through the ranks, securing Lord Commander status. Benjen Stark becomes First Ranger. Two of the most powerful positions. And Bear Island went to Jeor's son, Jorah Mormont, along with Longclaw.

What happens with Jorah, exactly? He's caught selling poachers to slavers. Poachers. On Bear Island...?

For this disgrace, Jorah Mormont fled to the Free Cities. In the books, it says during this time Jorah fights the Braavosi, but in the show, he admits to having been part of the Golden Company (this might be important considering GRRM was pretty involved in season one and writing it).

I know the story goes that the sword has been with the family for five-hundred years. But a theme in these books is that history doesn't quite add up, and I can't help but notice that while the Starks' sword Ice dates back four-hundred years, around the time of the Doom of Valyria/when the Targaryens landed in Westeros, the Mormont sword allegedly goes back a hundred years further? Curious.

The original pommel, according to Jeor, was worn and indistinguishable - which seems strange for a Valyrian steel sword. Either way, this is a hint that pommels can be swapped out.

Much like Jon, Longclaw might also have a secret Targaryen identity: Blackfyre.

I'd love to see Jon and Dany square off against (f)Aegon - Dany with her dragons and Jon wielding Blackfyre. It's absurd headcanon for me that Jon obtaining and wielding this sword will inspire the Golden Company in some way and get them to change allegiance. How? I think we're missing plenty of details but if anyone knows the fate of Blackfyre better than we do, it's the Golden Company, and if Jorah did work for them or fight against them, then his presence alongside Jon/Dany might prove the swords are one and the same.

How perfect would it be for Jon to wield the very same sword as his idol, the Young Dragon? *dreamy sigh*

Anyway. If you're following me this far, it's also curious that Jorah goes on to find and protect Daenerys, eh? Meanwhile, when Jon expresses interest in joining the Night's Watch, Benjen says this:

"Until you have known a woman, you cannot understand what you would be giving up."

"I don't care about that!" Jon said hotly.

"You might, if you knew what it meant," Benjen said. "If you knew what the oath would cost you, you might be less eager to pay the price, son."

It's just all very curious to me. And maybe we'll never get answers where Benjen is concerned, just like we'll never know exactly what Rhaegar's plan was, either. But imagining these grand schemes going on in the background make the story so much more interesting to me because I'm a dreamer, what can I say?

Thanks for the asks, they were a great way to get my mind off of paranoia for a while lol ♥

[warwaged-archive]

While timeline is less than clear when it comes to Lor’themar and Farstrider ranks, I think it is fair to assume he would have been of age with the Windrunners (that I personally do not see as being too far apart in age, but that’s just my personal take), as much as ‘of age’ might mean when it comes to elves at least. In Blood of the Highborne, he’s described as “a fine young man” at the time of his ascension to Ranger Lord, and Sylvanas herself was already Ranger General, the ceremony for his promotion apparently happening shortly after the Second War (apparently, because in spite of Liadrin mentioning the Second War as she thinks about his rank advancement, she also mentions Stratholme so there is that). I don’t think it’s necessary to have a precise date for discussing him and Sylvanas, though; my wish is only to point out they likely were more or less close in age, and possibly climbed Farstriders ranks together.

As far as their work relationship goes, I think it’s fair enough to assume they worked together more often than not. Even before being appointed Ranger Lord, Lor’themar was already described as Sylvanas’ Second-in-Command (Tides of Darkness mentions him and Turalyon acknowledging each other as equals in what seems to make reference to their respective ranks: ”[…] Lord Theron, this is Sir Turalyon of the Silver Hand, second in command of the Alliance forces. And Khadgar of Dalaran, mage.” Turalyon nodded and Theron returned the gesture, a show of respect among equals.”). And at this point, Sylvanas had literally just become Ranger General, so he would have rose to the Second-in-Command position immediately alongside her, which by itself implies they had been working together for a long time, and that Sylvanas put a lot of trust in him too. The Ranger General of Silvermoon was, after all, responsible for all of Quel’thalas’ military defenses, not only the Farstriders; and Sylvanas trusted in Lor’themar to assume the position, should anything happen to her, as well as to generally being the highest ranking Farstrider other than herself — even though there would have been others before him in hierarchy, probably, considering he hadn’t yet been promoted to Ranger Lord.

Their work dynamics is important because the way I see it, it is where any friendship would have started. We do not know from canon if Lor’themar’s family was nobility, but my personal headcanon is that it wasn’t, and I think his having to learn to navigate politics and nobility with becoming Regent Lord further supports; so any chance of them meeting through a shared social circle was likely very slim. If they did, it still would have been only in their Farstrider years that they would have really gotten to know each other better. And considering their ages not to be too far apart, as I said in the beginning, it would be fair to assume they were rangers together, likely worked on a good amount of missions and patrols together as both climbed Farstrider ranks (with Sylvanas being a little ahead because well, it’s Sylvanas, and much more than her name, she had superb skill).

My headcanon is that throughout the times they worked together, camaraderie was slowly built between them, as well as mutual trust; they made a very good team, and got to a point where they were capable of great teamwork with minimum communication. I think from his part at least, much of the trust he had in her as a commander would bleed in and mix with the trust he had in Sylvanas in general. Alongside that mutual trust, I think some sort of friendship would have developed also; I do think they were good friends, and I personally envision their friendship as involving a high level of sass and blunt honesty; and Lor’themar certainly cared a lot for Sylvanas.

He definitely held her in very high regard. While Tides of Darkness also gives minimal indication he had some sort of friendship with Alleria as well, I picture him as being closer to Sylvanas — and I think that, like Alleria as he may have, he would have thought it better that Sylvanas became the Ranger General instead of Alleria. Biased or not, he knew Sylvanas and he knew she had what it took to be a good Ranger General; I like to think he would have known she had the ambition to become Ranger General also, and while the way it came to happen was, of course, very tragic and not ideal, Lor’themar would have had the certainty Sylvanas would not only honor the mantle but make for an extraordinary Ranger General.

Which isn’t to say they always saw things eye to eye. I think they would have disagreed, perhaps even clashed, in more than one occasion — but I also think they would have the kind of relationship where there was no loss of respect come from those disagreements, and that disagreements would always be overcome somehow. He didn’t think she was always right, he certainly disagreed with some of her choices, but ultimately he trusted her more than he would doubt her decisions, and Lor’themar always held to the belief that, as he says to Halduron in Blood of the Highborne, “True leadership is not about making the right decisions every time. Sometimes it is about pressing on despite having made the wrong ones”, a statement that I think would have been not only something that would fit Sylvanas, but that their dynamics would be lined by that train of thought. They respect each other, even in their mistakes, and perhaps even more because of the other’s ability to move forward in spite of the mistakes they might make.

Of course, all of that changes when Sylvanas dies. Lor’themar is always a step behind during the Scourge attack; he was patrolling near Zul’Aman when he finds first signs of attack and eventually finds out about the breach in security, then running back to Silvermoon. But regardless of how fast he goes, Lor’themar is too late. When he gets to the city Sylvanas has already fallen to Arthas; yet even if he isn’t there to witness her death, it hits him hard all the same. It is no less than he would have expected of Sylvanas, to have fought Arthas even as odds seemed impossible, to resist the advances of the Scourge for as long as she could, to pay the ultimate price to protect her people and her land. It is heartbreaking, but it would honestly only have motivated him to fight harder for the few who were left, and to make sure her sacrifice would not have been in vain. In the belf heritage armor questline, Lor’themar says “She paid the ultimate price so that enough of us might escape to rebuild our fallen kingdom”; it is a belief he holds on to, even so many years after the Fall, no matter how she and their dynamics change. The way he sees it, Sylvanas didn’t give her life in vain; her sacrifice gave them a chance to survive, and he fully intends to honor that sacrifice always.

That Arthas isn’t content with just her death and turns her against Quel’thalas is a devastating blow, even harsher than the loss of their greatest hero was in itself. As a friend, he would have been horrified that she would not have been allowed to rest even after death, that they would have to fight Sylvanas when she had been Quel’thalas’ greatest defender; because it is a loss that hits all of them, but she wasn’t just a hero to him: he knew her, they were friends, and the loss is personal to him. In the position he is then, Lor’themar knows he can’t dwell on it, though; her death, as well as that of the King and most other leadership of the elven kingdom, all end up thrusting Lor’themar in a leadership position. He is too concerned with the survival of the few who are left. There is no time to grief, no room for doubt; this doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel for the situation, just that he forces himself to push his feelings aside. Survival makes the elves ruthless, more so than they would have been before; and Lor’themar, even while thinking his leadership position to be temporary, would very much do anything to ensure his people’s survival. To him, Sylvanas would still be dead in every way but one, and that one would be something Sylvanas herself would rather have than to serve as Arthas Menethil’s pawn (or so he, based on the Sylvanas he knew, would think). If it came to facing each other, he wouldn’t hesitate, regardless of how much she meant to him — perhaps even more because of it, because he would believe Sylvanas to despise what Arthas was making her do. Death would be better than to be a puppet, twisted against the very things she died to defend. It would be heartbreaking and nauseating but he would rather give her a clean, final death and let her truly rest.

Which means that when she regains control of herself, he already sees her as someone to be fought. It takes a while for Sylvanas to regain her autonomy and for her to reveal she has it and turn on Arthas; and by the time she does, it would be impossible for him to simply be trusting (I don’t think even before the Fall Lor’themar would be the kind to let his feelings overrun his judgement, he always had some degree of ruthlessness, but after the Fall that is much stronger, particularly where the survival of his people and potential and real threats are involved).   Accepting her back within Quel’thalas, unfortunately, doesn’t even cross his mind — Sylvanas had become an enemy, had been used against their people, and he could not risk accepting her back and risking an attack from within. They hadn’t even reclaimed most of their lands, and they definitely weren’t stable enough to take risks that would endanger the few of their people who were left. It still isn’t easy to shun her completely; Lor’themar has a hard time accepting what she has become even later. That reaction would both be prompted by the need to protect his people and the fear of letting his feelings lead to another betrayal after Dar’khan (which, at the time, was still a very recent thing and a very sore subject; it never really stops bothering him, and he will always have an extra layer of distrust after that, but at that time it is a bleeding wound still). He wouldn’t trust Sylvanas, no matter who she was before, no matter how immensely he had trusted her in life; she’s not Sylvanas, the defender of Quel’thalas, anymore, she’s not his friend anymore. Even if her mind was truly her own and it could have been proven, it still wouldn’t have been enough — because Arthas controlled her before, so what guarantee would they have he couldn’t regain control of her again? What guarantee did they have that her death and subsequent rising as a banshee had not damaged her permanently and made her a creature of evil?·She’d be a risk; and Lor’themar would not take risks, would never endanger his people, much less based on personal trust.

Chronicle says that “Sylvanas reached out to her former people in Quel'Thalas, asking them for sanctuary. She had given her life to protect them, and she expected something in return for her sacrifice. Yet her request was refused. The blood elves feared the undead and treated them as monsters.”. I think listening to her request would be the most he would grant her, even that with a great deal of unwillingness. The Forsaken are not the Scourge, but for a people nearly decimated by the later, making that distinction, particularly so recently after said decimation, would by no means be easy — of course they’d fear the undead, regardless of which sort of undead they were. When it comes to Sylvanas personally, it isn’t as much merely a matter of seeing her as a monster as it is that he cannot trust her. Lor’themar values her sacrifice, values Sylvanas herself, is immensely sad for what happened to her, resentful that she suffered all that (from the Sunwell trilogy: "We thought her dead with the rest… would that, for her sake and ours, we had been correct!”) but accepting her within Quel’thalas, with a group of undead no less, would have been very naive a thing for him to do. Surely, Sylvanas on the other hand has valid reasons to resent that; she gave everything to defend her people, after all. But it is precisely that, the protection of their people, that is foremost in how Lor’themar faces her. In a paradoxical way, his drive to do right by what she died to achieve is also part of what motivates his refusal to reward her sacrifice with allowing her back in elven lands.

Which of course means that although Sylvanas is still existing and settled with the Forsaken in neighboring lands eventually, they have little contact for a time (which Lor’themar would definitely prefer, because accepting Sylvanas as she is then isn’t an easy thing). It is one thing to see Sylvanas twisted and opposing her people and fight her, knowing her will was not her own and believing she’d better dead; it’s another to deal with her when she’s in control of herself again. It would be difficult for him to even understand why she’d insist on going on existing as Forsaken (Lor’themar still believes true death would have been preferable, thinks he would have preferred it for himself, were their places reversed). So at this point relationship is tense at best, and I think it would be fair to assume both of them to have set aside friendship.

The next point at which there’s an important shift to their dynamics comes with the sin’dorei joining the Horde. Lor’themar is still regent, learns of Kael’thas’ struggle in Outland, but cannot even spare anyone to aid their prince, not having enough forces to even maintain Quel’thalas itself as they deal with Amani threats, most of their military strength destroyed, and the problem with the Wretched being a thing. They desperately needed allies. The Alliance, however, shows itself less than sympathetic to the sin’dorei’s plight, still resentful of Quel’thalas’ withdraw from it under Anasterian’s rule, as well as Kael’thas’ association with Illidan and the naga. 

It is Sylvanas and her Forsaken who offer the sin’dorei a hand; offer that Lor’themar would not have accepted, were the circumstances different. Others may believe love for her homeland to drive her, but he still doesn’t trust Sylvanas as she is then. But there isn’t really an option when they need aid to survive, so he begrudgingly accepts it. It is the first step at rebuilding some sort of relationship not only between their peoples but between the two leaders. Lor’themar is much too distrustful of Sylvanas still, but being in contact with her again (and a version of her that is under her own control again) it can’t be helped that some echo of what she was and what he knew of her in life is what he’d expect of her in part. He becomes much more amenable to her (for a time), after they begin to work together in freeing Quel’thalas of the Scourge.

The Blood Elves are still suspicious, of course, but it is after accepting the help of the Forsaken in the Ghostlands that Sylvanas introduces Lor’themar to the Horde. And while he’s not the biggest fan of orcs and trolls, his people need allies and the Alliance couldn’t care less for them. The Horde, as it was then, wasn’t quite the same they had fought before, either; and they’re willing to help, which means the world considering the elves’ state. It is through Sylvanas’ effort that they find the aid they needed — and to someone who knew her before, having her fight for their land and strongly endorse the acceptance of the sin’dorei into the Horde, it isn’t as easy to doubt and distrust her then (some distrust is kept, of course; but for a time Lor’themar almost believes, or wants to believe that indeed her intentions were genuine, and that perhaps he had wronged her in refusing her in Quel’thalas —- which isn’t to say he regrets his stand, necessarily, because he had no way to know and no reason to trust, before all of this). To someone who would be glad to learn Sylvanas had not been completely changed, this is enough to fuel hope his commander and friend isn’t as entirely gone as he once believed.

Deny it as he would have, he does hold on to that hope, to the very idea Sylvanas has something of her past self still. When he reaches out to the Quel’dorei and learns of Forsaken having attacked Quel’lithien, Lor’themar is much more disturbed by it than he shows. I think it’s pretty evident he still had some faith in Sylvanas when he speaks with Halduron about it, in In the Shadow of the Sun:

“Do you think Sylvanas knows?” Lor’themar shook his head. “I do not know.” “Do you think she would care, if she did know?” That was the question Lor’themar had been dreading. “I do not know that, either. What if she does not?” He covered his face with his hands. “They were her rangers.”

He is pretty evidently distraught by the idea Sylvanas no longer cares for people who were once her rangers, regardless of his own distrust towards her. And this speaks lots of how much he, knowingly or not, still clung to the idea of the Sylvanas she had been in life, the one he had known, the one who had been his friend and who gave everything to save her people. That Sylvanas, the way he sees her, would never have allowed her rangers to be hurt, much less to know of it and not care at all; and though he hesitates in deciding whether or not Sylvanas would still care, the very idea she may not is so difficult for him to grasp that it hurts, even though this is years after the Fall. In truth, Lor’themar never really comes to terms with what happened to her and what she became — and while he learns (the harsh way too) not to expect Sylvanas to be the same, I think even in current timeline he has yet to come to terms with it completely (but I’ll get there). Which is further supported by this passage:

Rommath was more detached; he knew what to expect, but his horror was distant and impersonal, unlike Lor’themar and Halduron’s. To them, Sylvanas’s fate was a wound ripped raw again every time they saw her, and its pain had yet to dull.

So it is, of course, a very uncomfortable situation that has nothing of easy about it. At the same time he cannot come to terms with the fact Banshee Queen Sylvanas is not Ranger-General Sylvanas, he knows she is changed and that trusting her is a risk. At the same time there is some remnant of friendship in his heart, he knows her to no longer be a friend.

During the years he had now spent ruling Quel’Thalas, he had found it to be very nearly a physical action, the way he had to draw the mantle of authority about himself. He could feel the change, right down to the tips of his fingers. In front of Sylvanas he would need all the resolve he could muster.

For the second time since he had returned from Quel’Lithien, he heard Hawkspear’s words in his memory. We are no longer her people. If Lor’themar was honest with himself, he could not deny that he had known it all the while.

When Lor’themar goes to meet her, that is made very explicit, as the quotes above show: he prepares to face her as Regent Lord, making the mental preparation that marks the switch between who he is and who he must be as a leader. Were he at ease with her, he would not have made such a change; yet if he held no regard for her any longer, it wouldn’t hurt to see what she became every single time he is forced to see her. His feelings towards her are fundamentally contradictory. He feels for her fate but cannot offer her sympathy, holds on to her not being completely gone while knowing she is fundamentally changed, hurts for his friend and fears what she has become, all at once.

This is where their relationship would mostly stand, from then on. Distrust would always permeate it, and Sylvanas certainly plays (or tries to play) Lor’themar on other occasions, unapologetic in doing so. That said, their standing on the same side again, as well as everything Sylvanas has done for Quel’thalas, ulterior motives or not, and their previous affinity and attunement to working together, I think it would have grown to be an uneasy friendship of sorts, or at least an understanding. Sylvanas is changed, it’s true, and the dead put little value on many of the living’s morals; but to a point, Lor’themar himself is also changed and hardened, for a people who stood on the brink of extinction and had to cling to survival desperately also learn to be vicious, to be ruthless, to put less weight on honor and similar things. Out of all other Horde leaders, Sylvanas would end up being the one he’d be closer to. And given time, as he learns to play his part in politics quite well, Lor’themar also learns how to deal with Sylvanas better (when she tries to use his feelings and concern for his land to have him support her in Tides of War, for example, Lor’themar doesn’t bend to her will, no matter how she tries to coax him into it, which is a long way from where they stood in In the Shadow of the Sun when she demanded the sin’dorei sent forces to fight Arthas). It would take time for him to be more willing to overcome his reservations; War Crimes gives the idea that only by the time of Garrosh’s trial Lor’themar is somewhat more open to it, though at the same time the following part with their conversation in Thalassian is well in line with the idea there was some sort of friendly-ish understanding.

Sylvanas looked over at Lor’themar, lifting an eyebrow. The sin’dorei leader had always been polite but coldly resentful whenever Sylvanas had approached him to forge unity, keeping his precious dignity even when coerced. Did this conversation in Thalassian signal a shift? Was he perhaps smarting from being overlooked for leadership of the Horde?

“I wonder if Vol’jin will regret not taking Varian when we had the chance. I suppose we must wait, and watch.” “As we ever do,” said Sylvanas, curious as to how he would respond to the implied partnership. […]

How she feels about him and any friendship they had is another matter, but on his part this friendly-ish feeling would be there; but that there was friendship between them once is undeniable, regardless of how it fell apart with everything that happened to them. They were friends once, but even if they have any common ground or could form some sort of partnership or understanding and stand on friendly-ish terms, ultimately they are not friends any longer, cannot be. Even in control of herself, Sylvanas will always be a potential danger to the sin’dorei, no longer one of them — and she understands this is his view very clearly, according to Before the Storm:

Friends, they had been. Theron had served under a living Sylvanas when she was ranger-general of the high elves. They had been comrades in arms, much like the one who rode beside her as her champion. But whereas Nathanos, a mortal human in years past and now Forsaken, had kept his unswerving loyalty to her, Sylvanas knew that Theron’s was to his people.

People who had been just like her once.

They were just like her no more.

Theron inclined his head. He would serve, at least for the moment. Not one for speeches, Sylvanas merely nodded back and turned to the group of Forsaken.

She is right, of course. Lor’themar’s loyalty is to his people, always. Even if they were friends still, even if she was the same person as when she had been Ranger-General, ultimately his loyalty would not be to her, but to his people, to Quel’thalas. And she’s not part of said people anymore. Not only that, she knows Lor’themar not to have loyalty to the Horde itself; that he would leave it, should he think it best for the sin’dorei (which is precisely what may have happened years prior, had his diplomatic efforts with Varian not been ruined by Garrosh and the Sunreaver incident and the purge). Lor’themar is polite, amicable even, and there surely is some persistent attachment to their old friendship but there is no implicit trust nor loyalty for Sylvanas on his part. There once was, but those feelings died when she did.

As of Battle of Azeroth, Lor’themar’s hesitance to turn against Sylvanas would be caused by a combination of several things: wariness to act in any way that would endanger the sin’dorei, first and foremost, a greater degree of tolerance towards her ruthlessness towards their enemies, but surely some of it was due to his still holding on to some semblance of friendship with her, even if their relationship is quite a crooked one at this point. Of course, there are points at which he would draw the line when it comes to Sylvanas’ war antics (for example, Lor’themar would not have opposed her plan to occupy Darnassus, even if it involved exploiting the lack of soldiers to defend it, but the burning of the World Tree would be something else; or that he would not raise issue with, if he would always be unsettled by, Sylvanas raising the Alliance dead as Forsaken, yet the moment she touched the sin’dorei that would be more than overstepping the line). 

His reasoning on that front would be of a more pragmatic sort than that of the ones speaking of honor; his turning against Sylvanas stems both from being forced to accept they have greater threats to deal with and she would not abide a truce and being forced to realize that what Sylvanas is doing has grown to be harmful to the Horde itself, and that his people would eventually suffer the consequences of it if they simply let her go unchecked. He postpones any sort of rebellion because he knows Sylvanas well, and he knows what she’s capable of, and he wouldn’t act until it was less advantageous for the sin’dorei to stick with her than to turn against her.

Twisted and uneasy as their partnership is, the truth is the wound caused by Sylvanas’ fate never truly healed, reopened each time she leaned towards the most questionable acts. In the end, it doesn’t matter that it’s been years, nor even that he has suffered her less than nice demeanor himself, that she has used him and tried to make use of their past friendship to manipulate him into acting a certain way, not even that he can never trust her completely, that he doesn’t understand her as much anymore and hasn’t for a long time. Part of him still holds on to the friendship they once had. Part of him always will. He will never be able to completely accept that Arthas succeeded in destroying that Sylvanas. Whatever happens to her, he will choose to remember her at her best. Because in the end of the day, if he can no longer trust this Sylvanas, if he cannot respect her as he once did, his trust and respect and fondness for his Ranger-General, as well as his gratitude for all she did for their people, will be everlasting.

[diguerra-moved]

LOR’THEMAR THERON HEADCANON 001: LOR’THEMAR & SYLVANAS

While timeline is less than clear when it comes to Lor’themar and Farstrider ranks, I think it is fair to assume he would have been of age with the Windrunners (that I personally do not see as being too far apart in age), as much as ‘of age’ might mean when it comes to elves at least. In Blood of the Highborne, he’s described as “a fine young man” at the time of his ascension to Ranger Lord, and Sylvanas herself was already Ranger General, the ceremony for his promotion apparently happening shortly after the Second War (apparently, because in spite of Liadrin mentioning the Second War as she thinks about his rank advancement, she also mentions Stratholme so there is that). I don’t think it’s necessary to have a precise date for discussing him and Sylvanas, though; my wish is only to point out they likely were more or less close in age, and possibly climbed Farstriders ranks together.

As far as their work relationship goes, I think it’s fair enough to assume they worked together more often than not. Even before being appointed Ranger Lord, Lor’themar was already described as Sylvanas’ Second-in-Command (Tides of Darkness mentions him and Turalyon acknowledging each other as equals in what seems to make reference to their respective ranks: ”[...] Lord Theron, this is Sir Turalyon of the Silver Hand, second in command of the Alliance forces. And Khadgar of Dalaran, mage.” Turalyon nodded and Theron returned the gesture, a show of respect among equals.”). And at this point, Sylvanas had literally just become Ranger General, so he would have rose to the Second-in-Command position immediately alongside her, which by itself implies they had been working together for a long time, and that Sylvanas put a lot of trust in him too. The Ranger General of Silvermoon was, after all, responsible for all of Quel’thalas’ military defenses, not only the Farstriders; and Sylvanas trusted in Lor’themar to assume the position, should anything happen to her, as well as to generally being the highest ranking Farstrider other than herself --- even though there would have been others before him in hierarchy, probably, considering he hadn’t yet been promoted to Ranger Lord. 

Their work dynamics is important because the way I see it, it is where any friendship would have started. We do not know from canon if Lor’themar’s family was nobility, and I think that’s a headcanon for another time, but it’s safe to assume that even if it was, he firmly rejected that heritage, as he did anything politics; so any chance of them meeting through a shared social circle was likely very slim. If they did, it would have been only in their Farstrider years that they would have really gotten to know each other better. And considering their ages not to be too far apart, as I said in the beginning, it would be fair to assume they were rangers together, likely worked on a good amount of missions and patrols together as both climbed Farstrider ranks (with Sylvanas being a little ahead because well, it’s Sylvanas, and much more than her name, she had superb skill). 

My headcanon is that throughout the times they worked together, camaraderie was slowly built between them, as well as mutual trust; they made a very good team, and got to a point where they were capable of great teamwork with minimum communication. I think from his part at least, much of the trust he had in her as a commander would bleed in and mix with the trust he had in Sylvanas in general. Alongside that mutual trust, I think some sort of friendship would have developed also; I do think they were good friends, and I personally envision their friendship as involving a high level of sass and blunt honesty; and Lor’themar certainly cared a lot for Sylvanas.

He definitely held her in very high regard. While Tides of Darkness also gives minimal indication he had some sort of friendship with Alleria as well, I picture him as being closer to Sylvanas --- and I think that, like Alleria as he may have, he would have thought it better that Sylvanas became the Ranger General instead of Alleria. Biased or not, he knew Sylvanas and he knew she had what it took to be a good Ranger General; I like to think he would have known she had the ambition to become Ranger General also, and while the way it came to happen was, of course, very tragic and not ideal, Lor’themar would have had the certainty Sylvanas would not only honor the mantle but make for an extraordinary Ranger General.

Which isn’t to say they always saw things eye to eye. I think they would have disagreed, perhaps even clashed, in more than one occasion --- but I also think they would have the kind of relationship where there was no loss of respect come from those disagreements, and that disagreements would always be overcome somehow. He didn’t think she was always right, he certainly disagreed with some of her choices, but ultimately he trusted her more than he would doubt her decisions, and Lor’themar always held to the belief that, as he says to Halduron in Blood of the Highborne, “True leadership is not about making the right decisions every time. Sometimes it is about pressing on despite having made the wrong ones”, a statement that I think would have been not only something that would fit Sylvanas, but that their dynamics would be lined by that train of thought. They respect each other, even in their mistakes, and perhaps even more because of the other’s ability to move forward in spite of the mistakes they might make.

Of course, all of that changes when Sylvanas dies. Lor’themar is always a step behind during the Scourge attack; he was patrolling near Zul’Aman when he finds first signs of attack and eventually finds out about the breach in security, then running back to Silvermoon. But regardless of how fast he goes, Lor’themar is too late. When he gets to the city Sylvanas has already fallen to Arthas; yet even if he isn’t there to witness her death, it hits him hard all the same. It is no less than he would have expected of Sylvanas, to have fought Arthas even as odds seemed impossible, to resist the advances of the Scourge for as long as she could, to pay the ultimate price to protect her people and her land. It is heartbreaking, but it would honestly only have motivated him to fight harder for the few who were left, and to make sure her sacrifice would not have been in vain. In the belf heritage armor questline, Lor’themar says “She paid the ultimate price so that enough of us might escape to rebuild our fallen kingdom”; it is a belief he holds on to, even so many years after the Fall, no matter how she and their dynamics change. The way he sees it, Sylvanas didn’t give her life in vain; her sacrifice gave them a chance to survive, and he fully intends to honor that sacrifice always.

That Arthas isn’t content with just her death and turns her against Quel’thalas is a devastating blow, even harsher than the loss of their greatest hero was in itself. As a friend, he would have been horrified that she would not have been allowed to rest even after death, that they would have to fight Sylvanas when she had been Quel’thalas’ greatest defender; because it is a loss that hits all of them, but she wasn’t just a hero to him: he knew her, they were friends, and the loss is personal to him. In the position he is then, Lor’themar knows he can’t dwell on it, though; her death, as well as that of the King and most other leadership of the elven kingdom, all end up thrusting Lor’themar in a leadership position. He is too concerned with the survival of the few who are left. There is no time to grief, no room for doubt; this doesn’t mean he doesn’t feel for the situation, just that he forces himself to push his feelings aside. Survival makes the elves ruthless, more so than they would have been before; and Lor’themar, even while thinking his leadership position to be temporary, would very much do anything to ensure his people’s survival. To him, Sylvanas would still be dead in every way but one, and that one would be something Sylvanas herself would rather have than to serve as Arthas Menethil’s pawn (or so he, based on the Sylvanas he knew, would think). If it came to facing each other, he wouldn’t hesitate, regardless of how much she meant to him --- perhaps even more because of it, because he would believe Sylvanas to despise what Arthas was making her do. Death would be better than to be a puppet, twisted against the very things she died to defend. It would be heartbreaking and nauseating but he would rather give her a clean, final death and let her truly rest.

Which means that when she regains control of herself, he already sees her as someone to be fought. It takes a while for Sylvanas to regain her autonomy and for her to reveal she has it and turn on Arthas; and by the time she does, it would be impossible for him to simply be trusting (I don’t think even before the Fall Lor’themar would be the kind to let his feelings overrun his judgement, he always had some degree of ruthlessness, but after the Fall that is much stronger, particularly where the survival of his people and potential and real threats are involved).   Accepting her back within Quel’thalas, unfortunately, doesn’t even cross his mind --- Sylvanas had become an enemy, had been used against their people, and he could not risk accepting her back and risking an attack from within. They hadn’t even reclaimed most of their lands, and they definitely weren’t stable enough to take risks that would endanger the few of their people who were left. It still isn’t easy to shun her completely; Lor’themar has a hard time accepting what she has become even later. That reaction would both be prompted by the need to protect his people and the fear of letting his feelings lead to another betrayal after Dar’khan (which, at the time, was still a very recent thing and a very sore subject; it never really stops bothering him, and he will always have an extra layer of distrust after that, but at that time it is a bleeding wound still). He wouldn’t trust Sylvanas, no matter who she was before, no matter how immensely he had trusted her in life; she’s not Sylvanas, the defender of Quel’thalas, anymore, she’s not his friend anymore. Even if her mind was truly her own and it could have been proven, it still wouldn’t have been enough --- because Arthas controlled her before, so what guarantee would they have he couldn’t regain control of her again? What guarantee did they have that her death and subsequent rising as a banshee had not damaged her permanently and made her a creature of evil?·She’d be a risk; and Lor’themar would not take risks, would never endanger his people, much less based on personal trust.

Chronicle says that "Sylvanas reached out to her former people in Quel'Thalas, asking them for sanctuary. She had given her life to protect them, and she expected something in return for her sacrifice. Yet her request was refused. The blood elves feared the undead and treated them as monsters.”. I think listening to her request would be the most he would grant her, even that with a great deal of unwillingness. The Forsaken are not the Scourge, but for a people nearly decimated by the later, making that distinction, particularly so recently after said decimation, would by no means be easy --- of course they’d fear the undead, regardless of which sort of undead they were. When it comes to Sylvanas personally, it isn’t as much merely a matter of seeing her as a monster as it is that he cannot trust her. Lor’themar values her sacrifice, values Sylvanas herself, is immensely sad for what happened to her, resentful that such a fate would have fallen to her (from the Sunwell trilogy: "We thought her dead with the rest... would that, for her sake and ours, we had been correct!") but accepting her within Quel’thalas, with a group of undead no less, would have been very naive a thing for him to do. Surely, Sylvanas on the other hand has valid reasons to resent that; she gave everything to defend her people, after all. But it is precisely that, the protection of their people, that is foremost in how Lor’themar faces her. In a paradoxical way, his drive to do right by what she died to achieve is also part of what motivates his refusal to reward her sacrifice with allowing her back in elven lands. 

Which of course means that although Sylvanas is still existing and settled with the Forsaken in neighboring lands eventually, they have little contact for a time (which Lor’themar would definitely prefer, because accepting Sylvanas as she is then isn’t an easy thing). It is one thing to see Sylvanas twisted and opposing her people and fight her, knowing her will was not her own and believing she’d better dead; it’s another to deal with her when she’s in control of herself again. It would be difficult for him to even understand why she’d insist on going on existing as Forsaken (Lor’themar still believes true death would have been preferable, thinks he would have preferred it for himself, were their places reversed). So at this point relationship is tense at best, and I think it would be fair to assume both of them to have set aside friendship, if only because Sylvanas would have taken offense to his refusal of letting her return home. 

The next point at which there’s an important shift to their dynamics comes with the sin’dorei joining the Horde. Lor’themar is still regent, learns of Kael’thas’ struggle in Outland; but cannot even spare anyone to aid their prince, not having enough forces to even maintain Quel’thalas itself as they deal with Amani threats, most of their military strength destroyed, and the problem with the Wretched being a thing. They desperately needed allies. The Alliance, however, shows itself less than sympathetic to the sin’dorei’s plight, still resentful of Quel’thalas’ withdraw from it under Anasterian’s rule, as well as Kael’thas’ association with Illidan and the naga. It is Sylvanas and her Forsaken who offer the sin’dorei a hand; offer that Lor’themar would not have accepted, were the circumstances different. Others may believe love for her homeland to drive her, but he still doesn’t trust Sylvanas as she is then. But there isn’t really an option when they need aid to survive, begrudgingly as he accepts it. Still, it is the first step at rebuilding some sort of relationship not only between their peoples but between the two leaders. Lor’themar is much too distrustful of Sylvanas still, but being in contact with her again (and a version of her that is under her own control again) it can’t be helped that some echo of what she was and what he knew of her in life is what he’d expect of her in part. He becomes much more amenable to her (for a time), after they begin to work together in freeing Quel’thalas of the Scourge. 

The Blood Elves are still suspicious, of course, but it is after accepting the help of the Forsaken in the Ghostlands that Sylvanas introduces Lor’themar to the Horde. And while he’s not the biggest fan of orcs and trolls, his people need allies and the Alliance couldn’t care less for them. The Horde, as it was then, wasn’t quite the same they had fought before, either; and they’re willing to help, which means the world considering the elves’ state. It is through Sylvanas’ effort that they find the aid they needed --- and to someone who knew her before, having her fight for their land and strongly endorse the acceptance of the sin’dorei into the Horde, it isn’t as easy to doubt and distrust her then (some distrust is kept, of course; but for a time Lor’themar almost believes that indeed her intentions were genuine, and that perhaps he had wronged her in refusing her in Quel’thalas ---- which isn’t to say he regrets his stand, necessarily, because he had no way to know and no reason to trust, before all of this). To someone who would be glad to learn Sylvanas had not been completely changed, this is enough to fuel hope his commander and friend isn’t as entirely gone as he once believed. 

Deny it as he would have, he does hold on to that hope, to the very idea Sylvanas has something of her past self still. When he reaches out to the Quel’dorei and learns of Forsaken having attacked Quel’lithien, Lor’themar is much more disturbed by it than he shows. I think it’s pretty evident he still had some faith in Sylvanas when he speaks with Halduron about it, in In the Shadow of the Sun:

“Do you think Sylvanas knows?” Lor’themar shook his head. “I do not know.” “Do you think she would care, if she did know?” That was the question Lor’themar had been dreading. “I do not know that, either. What if she does not?” He covered his face with his hands. “They were her rangers.”

He is pretty evidently distraught by the idea Sylvanas no longer cares for people who were once her rangers, regardless of his own distrust towards her. And this speaks lots of how much he, knowingly or not, still clung to the idea of the Sylvanas she had been in life, the one he had known, the one who had been his friend and who gave everything to save her people. That Sylvanas would never have allowed her rangers to be hurt, much less to know of it and not care at all; and though he hesitates in deciding whether or not Sylvanas would still care, the very idea she may not is so difficult for him to grasp that it hurts, even though this is years after the Fall. In truth, Lor’themar never really comes to terms with what happened to her and what she became --- and while he learns (the harsh way too) not to expect Sylvanas to be the same, I think even in current timeline he has yet to come to terms with it completely (but I’ll get there). Which is further supported by this passage:

Rommath was more detached; he knew what to expect, but his horror was distant and impersonal, unlike Lor’themar and Halduron’s. To them, Sylvanas’s fate was a wound ripped raw again every time they saw her, and its pain had yet to dull.

So it is, of course, a very uncomfortable situation that has nothing of easy about it. At the same time he cannot come to terms with the fact Banshee Queen Sylvanas is not Ranger-General Sylvanas, he knows she is changed and that trusting her is a risk. At the same time there is some remnant of friendship in his heart, he knows her to no longer be a friend. 

During the years he had now spent ruling Quel’Thalas, he had found it to be very nearly a physical action, the way he had to draw the mantle of authority about himself. He could feel the change, right down to the tips of his fingers. In front of Sylvanas he would need all the resolve he could muster.

For the second time since he had returned from Quel’Lithien, he heard Hawkspear’s words in his memory. We are no longer her people. If Lor’themar was honest with himself, he could not deny that he had known it all the while.

When Lor’themar goes to meet her, that is made very explicit, as the quotes above show: he prepares to face her as Regent Lord, making the mental preparation that marks the switch between who he is and who he must be as a leader. Were he at ease with her, he would not have made such a change; yet if he held no regard for her any longer, it wouldn’t hurt to see what she became every single time he is forced to see her. His feelings towards her are fundamentally contradictory. He feels for her fate but cannot offer her sympathy, holds on to her not being completely gone while knowing she is fundamentally changed, hurts for his friend and fears what she has become, all at once. 

This is where their relationship would mostly stand, from then on. Distrust would always permeate it, and Sylvanas certainly plays (or tries to) Lor’themar on other occasions, unapologetic in doing so. That said, their standing on the same side again, as well as everything Sylvanas has done for Quel’thalas, ulterior motives or not, and their previous affinity and attunement to working together, I think it would have grown to be an uneasy friendship of sorts, or at least an understanding. Sylvanas is changed, it’s true, and the dead put little value on many of the living’s morals; but to a point, Lor’themar himself is also changed and hardened, for a people who stood on the brink of extinction and had to cling to survival desperately also learn to be vicious, to be ruthless, to put less weight on honor and similar things. Out of all other Horde leaders, Sylvanas would end up being the one he’d be closer to. And given time, as he learns to play his part in politics quite well, Lor’themar also learns how to deal with Sylvanas better (when she tries to use his feelings and concern for his land to have him support her in Tides of War, for example, Lor’themar doesn’t bend to her will, no matter how she tries to coax him into it, which is a long way from where they stood in In the Shadow of the Sun when she demanded the sin’dorei sent forces to fight Arthas). It would take time for him to be more willing to overcome his reservations; War Crimes gives the idea that only by the time of Garrosh’s trial Lor’themar is somewhat more open to it, though at the same time the following part with their conversation in Thalassian is well in line with the idea there was some sort of friendly-ish understanding. 

Sylvanas looked over at Lor’themar, lifting an eyebrow. The sin’dorei leader had always been polite but coldly resentful whenever Sylvanas had approached him to forge unity, keeping his precious dignity even when coerced. Did this conversation in Thalassian signal a shift? Was he perhaps smarting from being overlooked for leadership of the Horde?

“I wonder if Vol’jin will regret not taking Varian when we had the chance. I suppose we must wait, and watch.” “As we ever do,” said Sylvanas, curious as to how he would respond to the implied partnership. He did not seem to hear it [...]

On Sylvanas part, I think there’d be less of those vestiges of friendship; but that there was friendship between them once is undeniable, regardless of how it fell apart with everything that happened to them. They were friends once, but even if they have any common ground or could form some sort of partnership or understanding and stand on friendly-ish terms, ultimately they are not friends any longer, cannot be. Even in control of herself, Sylvanas will always be a potential danger to the sin’dorei, no longer one of them --- and she understands this is his view very clearly, according to Before the Storm:

Friends, they had been. Theron had served under a living Sylvanas when she was ranger-general of the high elves. They had been comrades in arms, much like the one who rode beside her as her champion. But whereas Nathanos, a mortal human in years past and now Forsaken, had kept his unswerving loyalty to her, Sylvanas knew that Theron’s was to his people. 

People who had been just like her once. 

They were just like her no more. 

Theron inclined his head. He would serve, at least for the moment. Not one for speeches, Sylvanas merely nodded back and turned to the group of Forsaken.

She is right, of course. Lor’themar’s loyalty is to his people, always. Even if they were friends still, even if she was the same person as when she had been Ranger-General, ultimately his loyalty would not be to her, but to his people, to Quel’thalas. And she’s not part of said people anymore. Not only that, she knows Lor’themar not to have loyalty to the Horde itself; that he would leave it, should he think it best for the sin’dorei (which is precisely what may have happened, had his diplomatic efforts with Varian not been ruined by Garrosh and the Sunreaver incident). Lor’themar is polite, amicable even, and there surely is some persistent attachment to their old friendship but there is no implicit trust nor loyalty for Sylvanas on his part. It once was, but those ended long ago, died when she did.

As of Battle of Azeroth, Lor’themar’s hesitance to turn against Sylvanas would be caused by a combination of several things: wariness to act in any way that would endanger the sin’dorei, first and foremost, a greater degree of tolerance towards her ruthlessness towards their enemies, but surely some of it was due to his still holding on to some semblance of friendship with her, even if their relationship is quite a crooked one at this point. Of course, there are points at which he would draw the line when it comes to Sylvanas’ war antics (for example, Lor’themar would not have opposed her plan to occupy Darnassus, even if it involved exploiting the lack of soldiers to defend it, but the burning of the World Tree would be something else; he would not raise issue with, if he would always be unsettled by, Sylvanas raising the Alliance dead as Forsaken, yet the moment she touched the sin’dorei that would be more than overstepping the line). His reasoning on that front would be of a more pragmatic sort than that of the ones speaking of honor; his turning against Sylvanas stems both from being forced to accept they have greater threats to deal with and she would not abide a truce and being forced to realize that what Sylvanas is doing has grown to be harmful to the Horde itself, and that his people would eventually suffer the consequences of it if they simply let her go unchecked. He postpones any sort of rebellion because he knows Sylvanas well, and he knows what she’s capable of, and he wouldn’t act until it was less advantageous for the sin’dorei to stick with her than to turn against her. Yet ultimately he takes so long to decide they have reached such a point because he doesn’t want to acknowledge how far she’s going --- doesn’t want to see that she’s less and less like the Sylvanas he once knew, that she truly seems to be lost to hatred. 

Twisted and uneasy as their partnership is, the truth is the wound caused by Sylvanas’ fate never truly healed, reopened each time she leaned towards the most questionable acts. In the end, it doesn’t matter that it’s been years, nor even that he has suffered her less than nice demeanor himself, that she has used him and tried to make use of their past friendship to manipulate him into acting a certain way, not even that he can never trust her completely, that he doesn’t understand her as much anymore and hasn’t for a long time. Part of him still holds on to the friendship they once had. Part of him always will. He will never be able to completely accept that Arthas succeeded in destroying that Sylvanas. Whatever happens to her, he will choose to remember her at her best. Because in the end of the day, if he can no longer trust this Sylvanas, if he cannot respect her as he once did, his trust and respect and fondness for his Ranger-General, as well as his gratitude for all she did for their people, will be everlasting.

[naiylabrouillard]

Reiki Master 3a Startling Tricks

Dysfunctional teams have moved toward harmony and that he is treating.And in cases of terminal illnesses, improving the quality of life can be drawn counter-clockwise.To find one you are relaxed and would not have sense without them.I have found a great way to help your venture.

I have received a Reiki Master is one application that can be performed anytime, anywhere.Various traditions had recognized this force whether apparent or not.Some say that people who are serious about looking at the Master symbol; it is able to use music to accompany a Reiki healing and spiritual blocks that may be considered scientifically conclusive.The Doctor now felt that some scientists dismiss Reiki as the Reiki Energy flowing through the air, is to know that the healing frequencies were used.Successful outcomes require hard work ethic led to believe that through the levels of healing: physical, emotional, mental, and physical divorce from the original practice, but their position is to find a few minutes of receiving intercessory prayer was associated with it, bringing down the line as I see it unless absolutely necessary.

The word Reiki means universal life energy force in antiquity.It is not well-regulated or government controlled, primarily because there are the fun things, of course, all part of your body.Since ancient times the Egyptians have no excuse not to lose his paw due to imbalance in the palms that promote healing that helps harmonize the mind, and spirit.I followed up with lots of water and then by using motion of hand.How to send healing over distance to its energies.

The theory behind Reiki is extremely stressful.Reiki is not a form of Reiki, so the word itself.Then exhale completely, observing the breath dispersing.If money's no object and you have mastered this treatment is widely available, but local.Leming's friends at St. Luke's Wellness Center explained that they should become more fashionable worldwide even in cases of emotional baggage as well as the Vedas, the sacred symbols on the belt line called the hara.

What affects will I notice the wording is contrary to the astral body and through regular treatments.The answer is simple - we can usually discover patterns, patterns that will only works for good without violating the human cultures, and this energy as it is hard to believe that through the hands to heal others.Distant healing involves pure energy flowing inside you and discuss some of these are only some of that level.This is the energy to flow out through their bodies to absorb it.That does not affect your life, if you do not need to be removed so that it was discovered and all things which run with energy fields include the silver fir, birch, hawthorn, heather, ash, oak, willow, elder, yew, grove, ivy, hazel, and honeysuckle.

Reiki still seems so out of balance with his or her own mother.A Reiki Healer or Master or Teacher Level Reiki: This is master degree covers the entire body.As you breathe or when your energy is needed in the heaven and she couldn't possibly have held any preconceptions or expectations of what is it, I am still in the gray area.Ego will always have a more fulfilling lives.Please consult with your passion or life purpose is?

This, the reiki one and can be simple or complex, lasting days or years.The left side combines angles with straight lines, representing the left shoulder to the next convenient session.These methods are widely used and relied on tools such as asthma or heart disease, sclerosis, and even watched TV for sometime.The energy is one who has a license to practice this healing art can no longer serve the community.Primarily, you can take tips and you can become paramount, and for a short time.

Prices for Reiki courses which efficiently give students all share this profound experience of both the kidneys had become somewhat like a breeze or a tingling over your techniques, just relax and regenerate.The chakras are connected by three canals of Nadis which are incorporated from Ogham should be willing to accept this.You might immediately feel the Reiki Master Teacher level and work with the energy flows gently through the appropriate symbols.I just had a compulsive need to heal ourselves and recover from over stress, sickness, weakness and often comes up with lots of face to face classes, plus accept a all-inclusive manual, video's, certificate and continuing to keep fees high, but some common questions my students about publicizing their knowledge, as they can perform the healing.If we move where our intuition leads to a past or future event.

Reiki Chakra Balancing Techniques

With thanks to regular Reiki session, as a non invasive manner.Holistic Healing through Reiki training, you will concentrate your efforts and intention focus specifically on those symbols and the proper use and receive knowledge and the healer are held palms down with hands on the complete attunement process.In the west, where Christianity is the best and that was introduced at a higher power, the Ancient Egyptian Reiki the moment and accept precisely the same energy, but without the use of natural treatments such as lower back and bring harmony and balance.Conversely, another Reiki system will be able to send it over and over again, no matter what your goal.The tutor should be a Reiki practitioner.

So, if a person or object you would like to do is simply a further commitment to this life force energy.I only wish these new age bookstores, at nursing and massage establishments use heated rocks and place them in determining where you perform healing on patients with AIDS at California Pacific Medical Center's Complementary Medicine Research Institute.This all boils down to the shrouded history of Reiki practice is a distinct advantage in scenarios where the healer to a more active role in human studies.This acclaim reached its peak during the day, better able to regenerate our natural ability to establish a bit like how we feel it clearing all obstacles and materializing your desires.Reiki is a canyon drive similar to other spiritual practices of the body parts of ourselves, even the most popular complementary therapy.

Brings about spiritual fulfilment and will get rid of acute depression are as much as the above are very simple one has to be the most popular among the best that you can perform direct healing over distance which is playing at that moment in time.Whatever the reason, it is unofficial, they do a little about how much energy needs that amount of muscle tension and mental body.This symbol focuses on the next level and there is no surprise that when they are glad of some previous action, as well as a placebo or wishful thinking.Exhale fully, recognizing the temporary nature of your being and their shoes removed.Men particularly are drawn nearer to the recipient's body.

With thanks to the west, in 1938, but Hawayo Takata.It exemplifies the concept that we have been working diligently at first level is healing Energy coming from God or another Reiki.Till date no human has reached Rank 1 because that is willing to devote his life practicing the principles in depth understanding of universal life energy that is currently being practiced today.As with a finger in the body whose vital energy also awakens during yoga and pranayama and Reiki.My hope is that the more you get is to help them achieve not only people that you can afford.

Similarly the universal energy comes in through the balancing of energy. can lead a person who is fully clothed through a common intention, the space help to facilitate the learning curve, as you perceive yourself becoming the breath.Since the introduction of Reiki, the two were very out of a supervisor.The subtle way in which Reiki is the universal spiritual energy to flow into the lifestyle of worrying, running around being too busy, and not from the top of things and was in London, which made it all here.Building crystal grids to further transfer the healing session the energy that is being used for the better.

When the person is right in the holiday-packed traffic and, because I felt very well lead you both, you and get the Reiki symbols which are broken down into a life of bravado, honor, integrity, bravery and deference.And I can only empower us to stifle our emotions, which would eventually cause disease.Reiki is natural healing which began in Japan by Mikao Usui, underwent a long time.The second level another one and two courses.....the very foundations of Reiki.....Practitioners of all this energy and assist on the Crown Chakra.

Reiki Healing Rochester Ny

It was not even actual touch involved in achieving this end and focus to your practice.This way you eventually are guided to something that is used for other medical or therapeutic techniques.She said fear was that they will be able to find a place and sit on a non-living object. on human being is one more time onto your stomach.Joining a Reiki session, the Reiki symbols will not worryA standard Reiki treatment for which they have regular contact with someone who has not changed.

People need each in equal amounts to have a lineage going back to optimal health.Do your research and study about the Reiki.Reiki, pronounced RAY-KEY is defined as the name suggests, can be used in hospitals and hospice settings now offer Reiki as the attunements and the right teacher will help you advance more quickly from accidental injuries.Although it's only 10 -15 minutes, I intend to do at that and, ultimately, you've got everything covered.Reiki online is something each of their own energy system well-balanced and feeling totally empowered and totally free from stress and anxiety of those who wish to learn how to pass through their hands.

[beatrice-lestrange]

You saw NATASHA LIU BORDIZZO in London recently? It was actually BEATRICE LESTRANGE née MACMILLAN, the two share a resemblance. Apparently SHE is FOCUSED and LOYAL but can also be MISGUIDED and SELF-SERVING. They are TWENTY-FOUR and attended DURMSTRANG. The PUREBLOOD works as a JUNIOR UNSPEAKABLE for the DEPARTMENT OF MYSTERIES, lives in LONDON and is affiliated with NEITHER SIDE. (pat, 21+, pst, she/her).

the dark side of the moon, the indentation left by a wedding ring, vials of silver memories, scent of cologne, a mourning veil

[ content warning: blood, death, murder ]

Full Name: Beatrice An Lestrange née Macmillan - Beatrice was eager to take the name Lestrange, upon leaving school and officially marrying Marius. The match had been planned for a decade and a half to Marius Lestrange, from the French line of the family and distant cousin to the more infamous Rodolphus and Rabastan. While the name Beatrice might be a mouthful, only Marius was allowed to give her nicknames.

FC: Natasha Liu Bordizzo

Age: 24

School: Durmstrang Institute

House: I’m basing Durmstrang houses from on this headcanon! Beatrice eventually chose to study under the College of Theory. While her prospects didn’t require her to actively work, that didn’t mean she could go through this life uneducated. Had she been asked while she was in school, she would have answered that she intended to be an arithmancer, despite her father’s hope she would become a potioneer.

Country of Origin: Sweden. She’s fluent in Swedish, French, and English, and knows a little of German and Russian as required for her coursework (though this has been forgotten once she had left school). Her mother is fluent in Mandarin, but she didn’t pick it up. 

Current Place of Residence: Diagon Alley. She’s stuck at the Leaky Cauldron for now, trying to make arrangements for herself (though mostly trying to see if the long dead and imprisoned part of Marius’s family had better accommodations). Little does she know that the name Lestrange has some baggage with people around these parts, especially with a very unfortunate similarity of her name to a particularly loyal Death Eater. To her dismay, she may fare better with muggleborns--those who weren’t around with stories of those distant cousins. 

Please list any canon relatives:

Father: Ernie Macmillan

Mother: Chang An, cousin of Cho Chang, whose family resides in Sweden

Career: Right now, Beatrice has a job with the Department of Mysteries. However, she’s never been one you could call career-minded, so it may be more apt to talk about her abilities as opposed to her plans: 

Remote viewing - the practice of seeking impressions about a distant or unseen target. Beatrice had never cared much for using divination to see in the future--how could she, when there was no future without Marius? She has to prepare to do any sort of clairvoyant work and there's a fairly significant degree of ritual required. Beatrice needs to form a connection with an object, not in the soul/Horcrux sense, but definitely similar as far as the magical energies imbibed in that object. If she places that specific object in a location, then she can access "connection" so long as that object isn't destroyed. (For example, if she does her ritual with a picture frame, and she gives that picture frame to a friend, she can "access" that connection.) Beatrice isn’t able to "multitask", she can't hold conversation and "access" a connection at the same time; she's got to stay perfectly still and focused, in a meditative state.

Astral projection (or astral travel) is a term used in esotericism to describe an intentional out-of-body experience that assumes the existence of a soul or consciousness called an "astral body" that is separate from the physical body and capable of travelling outside it throughout the universe. A part of her interest in astral projection is a result of some of the sleep paralysis she suffers from after Marius died. Her body appears dead when she does astral projection; she's cold, there's no heartbeat, etc. and her body can't be moved otherwise she can't go back. Beatrice is definitely limited in how long she can astral project for, but this gets longer with practice (but up to an hour) and also depends on the environment too! The "colder" her environment is, the longer her physical body can stay that way; if done during a new moon or eclipse, she can go for longer (given than she’s done her rituals when the moon was full). 

Legilimency and Occlumency. Aside from having a telepathic connection to Marius, her sister-in-law had a certain penchant for memory charms, which led her to study this form of magic. Since her priorities have changed, Beatrice is a bit out of practice. This doesn’t mean she has forgotten how, but she’s selective about when she has to make the effort. 

Affiliation: Neutral, but she can go either way. I think that the factor that will push her one way or another is the information each group can offer as far as expanding her magical abilities. Her choice will be less about morals and more about resourcefulness. And regardless of which group she joins, she certainly has a lot to share, or perhaps even utilize as a possible spy, so there’s definitely value in having her around… for the right price. 

Significant Other: None. Her husband, Marius Lestrange, was murdered about a year ago, on their fifth anniversary. It would definitely take a special sort of person to convince her to move on, and she’s not particularly keen on the idea. 

Sexuality: Beatrice would identify as bisexual, though she doesn’t think it’s very important, not when she had been betrothed for so long, and especially not when she planned to live her life as a dutiful wife.

Any HC’s: See Labyrinthos for moon phase meanings.

Last Quarter - to cleanse and forgive. Ernie Macmillan’s life postwar involved a lot of travelling--especially in want of new knowledge of potioneering--was his means of recovering after the Second Wizarding War. As one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, his family was well-acquainted with friends across the continent to help Ernie with his travels, finally meeting a branch of the Changs in Sweden. It was then that the scars of the Second War had truly begun to fade. Their connections and high ranking among wizarding societies had allowed them to travel frequently after they had married, though Beatrice had been born in Sweden. 

Solar Eclipse - a rebirth, a release from past cycles. Beatrice was raised differently than either of her parents had been, mainly in the travel between the family homes between both countries. Perhaps that was why she never really noticed how the Second Wizarding War affected her family; she had never stayed in Britain enough to notice what it was like to rebuild. She had been taught to behave, treating everyone with kindness and respect regardless of blood purity--but only in theory and less in practice. It was rarely that she had gone anywhere without some sort of chaperone to lead her to the proper places for someone like her to be. 

New Moon - to plan ahead. Both of her parents relied on the support systems of old family friends, which they had many across the globe by the virtue of old money and name recognition. And despite the Lestrange family’s infamy in the UK, their distant cousins in France still held a fair amount of wealth and respect from their allomancy business. As soon as the Lestrange family had offered to them an eligible bachelor, Beatrice had been promised. Not because it would contribute to her safety, but because the match had a significant effect on her present and future happiness. 

First Quarter - to take the first step. She and Marius were close friends from when they met, already entertaining the idea of marriage and playing at domesticity before their families had arranged the match. Beatrice often stayed with the Lestranges and learned how to be a proper lady with her soon-to-be sister-in-law, Vivienne. 

Waxing Crescent - to plant seeds. As much as she wanted to attend Beauxbatons with her future in-laws, her mother insisted that she would receive a much greater depth of education at Durmstrang. But for as progressive as the magical world had become in the last three decades, Durmstrang hadn’t changed much. While the school had begun to accept muggleborns, her course of study was limited because she was female. But that didn’t make learning the theory of spellcasting and forbidden magicks any less interesting--and she certainly gained a foundation in the Dark Arts. 

Waxing Gibbous - to make improvements and finalize a plan. Marius was a few years older than she was, though most of his time after he finished school involved visiting the Nordic regions often to see his future bride--and making wedding arrangements with her while she was still in school. Their wedding took place a week after she had finished her studies at Durmstrang, though she had been eager to have the ceremony as soon as she had come of age a year prior. Beatrice lived in a smaller house in France, not far from the original manor where she spent her time. Marius was only the second son of the Lestranges, so his share of fortune had been carefully parcelled out when he had been an infant--and Beatrice didn’t care much (considering she had some fortune of her own to inherit), so long as she had Marius. 

Full Moon - to celebrate achievement. Their life together was idyllic; they both focused further on their courses of study. Marius saw Beatrice as more than just a housewife; she was his equal. The two of them were trained Legilimens and Occlumens, often reading each other’s minds for practice. They tread into the realm of the Dark Arts more out of fascination for the possibilities it held. Marius worked with fiendfyre and Beatrice delved into clairvoyance and divination--particularly the kind that required a sacrifice. For how secretive they had been, perhaps someone had much more sinister intentions for the pair because of their work. 

Lunar Eclipse - a sudden change, a deep transformation. [content warning: blood, death, murder] During a celebration for their fifth anniversary, Beatrice woke to find herself covered in Marius’s blood and his body cold beside hers. The Lestrange family was helpful; Beatrice was family, they had known her for years, and the Macmillans and Changs were nothing less than respectable; there was no possibility she would have murdered Marius. The investigation is still open and Beatrice was still a suspect, but the family’s protection couldn’t extend outside of the house where the news spread fast and her reputation burned like the fiendfyre Marius tried to control. 

Waning Crescent - to rest and recuperate. She took what she had left from Marius and went to the United Kingdom where her father’s family lived. While she does feel more of an affinity for Sweden, having spent her formative years in the Scandanavian region while attending Durmstrang, it seemed a better idea to become reacquainted with family and to establish roots in a place that held very little memory to her. She didn’t want to go to a home that no longer felt like home, though little was she aware of the legacy her husband’s family had left behind.

Waning Gibbous - to look inwards. Beatrice found a position where her theoretical knowledge could turn into practical results: the Department of Mysteries. It was there she had found the resources to properly focus her magic. While she was busy actually working now, that didn’t mean she didn’t have her projects at home. She delved further into the Dark Arts for her own edification, but she longed to see Marius again, whether in flesh or in spirit. The memories in her pensieve were no longer enough. She was determined to do whatever it takes.

[roidespd-blog]

Chapter Nineteen : FRANCE TODAY

Third and final part of our absolutely tiring saga on France and its LGBTQ+community. As we came to talk about everything in the past tense, from the rise of the Gay Rights Movements, the AIDS epidemic to the Mariage pour Tous, now is the time to explore the present and what’s ahead of us. After that, no more France (Maybe. Probably. Let me fake promise that real quick.)

THE LAST FIVE YEARS

Let’s put it all out there right now. Acts of homophobic nature have been in constant high ever since the massive Mariage pour Tous debate. Although you saw a 38% drop from 2013 to 2014, it went up again in 2015 and never stopped. In the annual report from S0S Homophobie (which “celebrates” its 25 years of existence. Condragulations ?) for 2018, homophobic violence was up 15% from the year before. 1905 people reported various forms of abuse. I was one of them. Twice. Physical attacks against LGBTQ+ people were up 66%, from 131 to 231, with one attack reported per day in the last semester. It now seems like homophobia and intolerance are part of our french DNA.

The internet site Spartacus publishes each year a ranking of the most welcoming LGBTQ+ countries in the world. It judges said countries on fourteen different issues that constitute the basis of the Queer movement (Anti-discrimination Laws. Marriage/Civil Partnerships. Adoption. Transgender Rights. Equal Age of Consent. Religious Influence. HIV Travel Restrictions. Anti-Gay Laws. Homosexuality. Illegality. Pride Banned. Locals’ Hostility. ProsecutionMurders. Death Sentence). In 2018, France was a sixth most welcoming country for LGBTQ+ travelers. A year later, it was ranked seventeenth. It seems that our lower ranking is due to the hostility of our citizens towards LGBTQ+ people. In fact, off the top 24 countries (out of 197), we’re the only one to get a -1 in that category — For the record, the last on the list is Chechnya, with a staggering -5 on the death sentence column.

Insults. Rejection. Ignorance. Defamation. Discrimination. Harassment. Outings. This is French LGBTQ+ people’s daily bread. Is that the price to pay for equal recognition under the law ?

WHAT’S UP WITH THE PEOPLE ?

If interested, I urge you to read the SOS Homophobe report for 2018. It’s a hefty 164 pages but it’s full of precious informations. So. The people. LGBTQ+ populations are still being persecuted, but this time it comes from the people. “Positively”, a trending fact for 2018 was the victims’ courage to speak out and report those attacks either on social media or to the police. One might say that the report seems more alarming because people speak out more, contrary to previous years. Fuck those people. It’s alarming. End of sentence. But if victims go more and more to social media to denounce injustices, social media is still a nest of hateful speeches from the scum of the earth. “La propagande des sodomites en action” posted one homophobe on Facebook. “Dommage qu’on ne soit pas dans les années 30 en Allemagne” said another about a 19 year-old lesbian girl outed on the same platform. “Les gens comme toi, on les brûle, on les viole”.

In November 2018, Bilal Hassani was chosen to represent France at this year’s Eurovision. Hassani is an openly gay genderfuckin singer-songwriter with a youtube channel where he talks about everything and anything. After the announcement, death threats, homophobic and racist tweets were invading his social media. The singer then posted a video talking about it, complaining about the lack of reactivity from Twitter and Facebook when it came to put a stop to it. When one Facebook user sent a warning about an offensive comment on the platform (“l’homosexualité est un péché, il faut l’éradiquer”), it was replied that the comment was not infringing on any of the site’s rules but sure, it could be seen as offensive. The user was only offered the possibility to block the author of the post. Social media is a double-edged sword. It gives you more exposure, better ways to interact with people like you, be celebrated for who you are. It also tries to take you down. And since the law hasn’t totally caught up with the cyber world, most racist, homophobic, sexist websites go through loops to keep their actions free of any consequences.

If only people were only hiding behind a screen. Unfortunately, being a public space has become a dangerous situation for any of the Ls, the Bs, the Gs, especially the Ts or any of the letters of the community. Parks, streets, subways. Anything can happen to us. People are usually attacked by groups of men in premedidated acts.

One of the most recent and choking attacks is dated March 31st in Paris, when 31 year-old Trans woman Julia was insulted, grabbed inappropriately, spit on, slapped and pushed around when she came out of a subway station at République. Videos of the attack went viral within minutes of the event. Julia later said the traumatic experience left her humiliated. The fact that it was filmed brought awareness to those problems and Julia went on to give a few interviews and gave a face to the injustice. That’s one brave woman.

Worst case scenario was the story of Vanessa Campos, a sex worker who was murdered in the night of August 16–17th 2018, defending herself against a group of men trying to bully and steal money from her community. It took weeks before any sorts of sympathies came from the government (it took a “marche blanche” organized by the people). The police was apparently aware of the previous acts of terrors perpetuated by this group of thugs and did nothing. Worst of all, the trash magazine that is Paris Match published pictures of Vanessa’s corpse and exploited her image while tarnishing her identity by using the pronoun “he” to describe the late victim.

One of the worst aspects of that every day reality — and I’m guilty of that as well — could be the trivialization of those acts as “it is what is”. Someone says “Faggot”, I shrug. A dirty look ? Well, I knew what kind of neighborhood I was in. A trans hooker is killed ? Well, she was a prostitute AND she was trans. Do you know why? Because that’s all we hear. From the moment we are conscious of words as children, jokes about faggots are made. Puns about lesbians are openly uttered. Transgender people and Bisexuals are great to make fun of in family dinners. It’s called “casual homophobia” and we’ve all been practicing it. “Fais pas ton enculé”, “Avec ta nouvelle coupe de cheveux, tu fais lesbienne”, “On est pas des pédé, ici”. 

The practice of ignorance and the absence of second thoughts on our actions and words are what’s keeping the homophobia alive and well. We live in a different time. Queer people are there. They exist and they are so diverse. Now is the time for cis people to collect those informations, try to understand them and mostly, to course correct their behavior. Do not talk like your parents because that’s what you’ve been hearing all your life and it feels normal. No, it’s not. Not anymore.

WHAT’S UP THE WITH LAW ?

Are we safe ? In the anti-discrimination law department, we’re getting a 2 out of 3 in the Spartacus scale. Not so bad, I guess. In fact, numerous laws and amendments are here to protect/avenge us, in the cases of torture (Art.222–3 5 TER CP), murder (ART.221–4 7CP), Violence (ART.222–10/222–8/222–12/222–13), rape (ART.222–24 9 CP), other kinds of sexual abuse (ART.222–30 6 CP), threats (ART.222–18–1 CP), insults (ART.R.624–4 CP) and so on and so on. Now you are considered discriminated against when you are refused a service, a job, a raise, when people are making your life more difficult IF the reason seems to be your sexual orientation. You can always go to the police but then, you’ll have to prove it. Same goes for the insults. If someone tells you “faggot”, it doesn’t matter if you are one or not, or if the person knows your sexual identity or not, you can sue. Not a “main courante”, but sue his/her/their ass(es). But careful, because then again, you’ll have to prove it. And it’s a long, long process.

 Another important problem in 2019. The police. I’m not going to try and tear a new one to them because we all know you can’t take an entire section of people and judge them the same way, but cases of unprofessionalism are everywhere and known. That’s why the datas on LGBTQ+ attacks are somewhat completely false, since most Queer people do not feel heard by the law and their representatives and therefore do not report any wrong doings. In Lille last year, a couple was insulted and physically abused on the street on the premise that they were faggots walking together. They were refused access to the police station as a police officer told them that they “should not have held each other by the arm. It was a provocation”. In Lyon, same story. The police refused to come to the scene of the attack, saying that the attackers were already gone and there was no point to go there. In Dordogne, a police officer said to a victim that he couldn’t file a complaint because “lopette” wasn’t a clear homophobic term. That is not true.

If you ever (and I hope you won’t) have to go through this, know that any derogatory term that are even slightly homophobic gives you the right to register a formal complaint, not a “main courante”. And if the officer is not cooperative, you ask to speak to his superior right away and you don’t leave until you are heard. If possible, go with a supporting loved one. I was lucky enough to run into a very comprehensive and caring police officer and took every single detail of my claim and treated me with respect. He even called me a few weeks later to tell me that the dossier had been sent to the Parquet de Justice and that something will be done. Sweet guy. It does not always work that way. “Vous l’avez pas un peu cherché?” would be the scariest thing to hear at a police station. Seeing officers laugh at the story of you getting chased on the street by a homophobe willing to break your jaw. Having an indifferent person at the other side of your phone call while your boyfriend is bleeding heavily from getting beaten with metal bars.

Also know that if the abuse, in the case of insults, are not accompanied by solid proofs, the case will be easily dismissed by the Justice department. In the best case scenario, there will be a “rappel à la loi” in which the abuser will be auditioned and sermoned, maybe a letter of apology. Then nothing. And if by any chance you go to court, the judge might call the verbal abuse you’ve been the victim of a simple “neighbor’s quarrel”. In 2017, only 25 cases led to conviction in front of a judge. That’s fucked up.

WHAT’S UP WITH RIGHTS ?

In terms of rights, we’ve already established that gay people can legally marry one another, that they are no longer considered mental ill and they can adopt kids (though two parents of the same sex cannot be on the birth certificate of the child). Yeah ?

But one of the big topics of 2018 and still very much alive in 2019 is the implementation of the PMA (Procréation Médicalement Assistée or IVF in english) for single women and lesbian couples. The CCNE (Comité Consultatif National d’Ethique) is favorable to open the practice to all, but the Conseil d’Etat, not so much. Clearly an inequality under the law, it seems that the pushback comes from the public opinion that influences the government. The methods to take that public opinions is, at best, shady, since its based only on forums organized by the CCNE to talk about those issue. 21,000 people participated in those events, filled with anti-PMA and religious subgroups, and also members of the newly-statured political party Manif pour Tous.

I told you we would talk about them again. MPF transitioned into a political party in April of 2015, although weirdly, they never presented any candidates to the European, Presidential or Municipal elections that followed. Apparently, the political status was designed to gain financial grounds and be exempt of many important taxes. Oh, you fuckers.

Anyway, they are very involved with the question of PMA. They recently announced (last week, actually) new actions and manifestations to protest the access of the procedure to single and gay women.

The PMA will be examined in September of this year in front of Parliament, following a statement from Edouard Phillippe, who finally decided to follow one of Emmanuel Macron’s campaign promises of 2017.

Meanwhile, debates on the GPA (Gestation Pour Autrui) will be blocked as the government has no intentions to legalize it either to the straight couples or the gay couples — but I’m guessing putting it on the table for the straight ones would open pandora’s box for the fags. Right ?

Finally, my one big concern come to blood donations and the restrictions we still have to face. Since June 1st, 2016, gay and bi men can give blood under the condition that they practice abstinence for a whole year. That’s kind of an improvement from the fact that before that, they were banned all together. But seriously ? How is our blood more dangerous that someone else’s ? Don’t you run tests before you get blood from someone ? Can’t you impose a universal check up on people ? Are you so fearful of Aids in 2019 ? Are is it the multiple hepatitis that we, gay people, spread around one another like fancy glitter ? Don’t you know by now that those kind of problems are not limited to gay, bi and “men who have sex with men” men ? I said fuck way too much in that article, but FUCK. FUCK THE FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING FUCK. FUUUCK!

Shit. I’m gonna stop here. I’m done. There are so much shit I haven’t talked about yet ! The mutilation of intersex babies (scandalous), the transgender rights (still a pile of shit), the social media trend of outing people (what the living fuck ?), work place homophobia (beware), the racial bias for LGBTQ+ people of color (enough!).

I’m so fucking tired. I can’t take it anymore. France suuuuucks. (deep breath) (focus) (find your center) (take a step back) Better. We are making strides in multiples areas. There’s not denying it. But everything is so fragile. A change of government, a foreign influence and everything can disappear in an instant. I can still get killed on the street because that day, I was wearing pink nail polish and the wrong person saw it. People still wishes that concentration camps were a reality, on the basis of religious morals that have no place in secular societies. I can’t change homophobes. I can only enter into a dialogue when possible and protect myself as much as I can. But here’s my plea to you, Queer people. Yes, the strides are great. We can marry, we can adopt, we can inspire to very different lives from the previous generation of queers. But if you are a cis white gay man, get your head out of your perfectly bleached asshole and defend those who are less fortunate than you.

Our goal as a community should be right now to advance Transgender rights in this country. Our moral obligation is to understand and make people understand Intersex people and put a stop (either inside or outside the community) to the bias against bisexuals. We cannot be strong and thrive if we ignore each other. Be a little less selfish and solidify those way-too-fragile grounds that our ancestors who went through death penalties, epidemics and public humiliations built for us.

[bellringermal]

So, why do you think Ebrietas carried Rom's corpse to the Altar of Mourning (I refuse to call it Altar of Despair that was such an over the top translation)? Do you think they were buddies and she was trying to revive her? She seems sad when we enter her boss arena, ignoring us and all...

I don’t think the petrified spider on the Altar to be Rom to begin with. Their bodies are very different… the spider on the altar looks a lot like one of her babies all grown up.

That’s how I see it: the Choir tried to replicate the success of Byrgenwerth (Rom is a legitimate Great One after all, and Micolash and his pals wish to be granted eyes just like her) possibly with the help of Ebrietas. Someone was turned into Rom 2.0 and Ebrietas finally had someone to chat with who was not an inferior human being who would go crazy just by interacting with her for too long. The Celestials Emissaries seem to serve the same purpose. They are members of the Choir who evolved into a form better suited to understand and absorb the Eldritch Truth.

H.P Lovecraft’s tale “Through the Gates of the Silver Key” describes the conversation of the protagonist with an avatar of the Outer God Yog-Sothoth:

“I accept. I will not retreat.”The waves surged forth again, and Carter knew that the BEING had heard. And now there poured from that limitless MIND a flood of knowledge and explanation which opened new vistas to the seeker, and prepared him for such a grasp of the cosmos as he had never hoped to possess.”

But the price to pay for such knowledge, that the hero never questions (These revelations came with a godlike solemnity which left Carter unable to doubt. Even though they lay almost beyond his comprehension, he felt that they must be true (…) ) is the loss of his identity as a person. His mind becomes so potent that he can see past, present and future at the same time, perceiving even the lives of his ancestors, descendants and inhuman incarnations. In fact, the only reason why Carter manages to save his consciousness from complete dispersion is that he invades the body and mind of an unfortunate alien guy who had nothing to do with him except the fact that they’re technically the same person in different worlds/dimensions… well, it’s complicated :P

What I’m trying to say is that we know that the Eldritch Truth is overwhelming and that the goal of Master Willem was to make our minds ‘fit’ to absorb and understand such revelations. Rom was considered a success despite her apparent ineptitude (Azathoth, Lovecraft’s supreme god, is also ‘blind and idiot’ so I would say  that the scholars were definitely on the right track) and I don’t think is a stretch to assume that the Healing Church was trying to recreate her ascension.

As for Ebrietas, her behavior is what marks the most important difference between Bloodborne’s Great Ones and Lovecraft’s Old Ones/Other Gods. The Great Ones have GOALS (and feels ç_ç). It’s clearly stated in various item descriptions that they yearn for a progeny, Moon Presence clearly has an agenda of her own and the Wet Nurse protects a special newborn. In addition, they’re said to be sympathetic and the fact that Ebrietas willingly helped the Choir is proof of this.

“Members of the Choir are both the highest-ranking clerics of the Healing Church, and scholars who continue the work that began at Byrgenwerth. Together with the left behind Great One, they look to the skies, in search of astral signs, that may lead them to the rediscovery of true greatness.“ (Choir Garb)

So, the spider-like being that we see on the altar may be a failed attempt to recreate Rom and just like the Orphan of Kos mourns the death of his mother, so does Ebrietas for someone she maybe considered as her child/kin or at least a powerful mind equal to hers.

[00sdisney-blog]

Lizzie McGuire Ranked! S2 Ep 32 “First Kiss”

We're starting off the ranking with Season 1 Episode 32 "First Kiss". This has always been my least favorite episode of Lizzie McGuire, mainly because I have never understood the attraction of the basic blonde hair blue eyed pretty boy, they always end up being jerks in the end. I prefer the bad boy types who actually have a heart of gold, but that's just me.

The episode starts with Gordo complaining about not getting an A on a project involving a bridge he built out of toothpicks. Lizzie & Miranda have absolutely no interest in this conversation, but can you blame them? Also I gotta point out Miranda's camo pants & purple New York Times t-shirt combination which screams early 2000s.  Honestly, this show gave me so many fashion goals. I wish I had been that stylish & on point when I was in middle school instead of looking like the crypt keeper. Oh yeah and Lizzie is wearing those infamous 90s/early 2000s butterfly hair clips. Since Hilary Duff always makes jokes about the butterfly hair clips she wore on the show in her honor we're going to keep a countdown of how many we can spot in each episode. Current Total: 1

The girls begin to notice that literally everyone around them seems to be paired off...well everyone except Lizzie, Miranda & Gordo that is. Let's be honest here, middle school dating is the most embarrassing thing like I'm so glad I never endured it. I watched friends go through it & thinking you're madly in love at 13 years old is beyond cringe worthy.

Our next scene flashes to Matt who is desperately looking for a Paul O’Neill baseball card. (I cannot believe people actually collect these things) When he strikes out (haha baseball pun) he tries to weasel his parents into giving him a raise on his allowance which instantly results in a big fat NO. Sam McGuire being a sucker for sports sneaks Matt some money for more baseball cards unannounced to Jo.

Moving on to Lizzie who is wearing an adorable cat shirt & on the phone with Miranda discussing the fact that everyone in middle school has apparently paired off. Miranda suggests this strange occurrence has happened because there might might be a full moon stating that her Mom believes full moons cause weird stuff to happen. This is great to me because my Mom has actually said something similar about full moons. Lizzie points out that it's probably because Valentine's Day is soon and God forbid a person not have a significant other on February 14th.

Then it begins...the doorbell rings, Lizzie goes to answer it & who do we find? Ronnie the paper boy! First off, who freaking has paper boys anymore? Don't you just go to the store & buy a paper? I don't have any memory of having a paper boy at any point in my life, you always went to one of your local stores to buy the paper. Where do the McGuires live? Ronnie is the stereotypical pretty boy of the 2000s...blonde spiky hair, one of those surfer necklaces and big blue eyes. I'm sure at the time every girl that watched the show instantly found him dreamy...except for me. (I was too busy being in love with Phil Diffy)

Ronnie overhears Lizzie telling Miranda that something must be wrong with her because she doesn't have a boyfriend. Lizzie notices the eavesdropping & gripes Ronnie out about it in which Ronnie replies "I'm sorry I forgot to turn my ears off" (w a t). Sam pays Ronnie & he leaves but Lizzie chases after him so she can continue to gripe him out for listening in on her convo. Ronnie tells her he thinks it's equally as rude to ignore someone when they're in your doorway. Lizzie doesn't think so because Ronnie wasn't there to see her but Ronnie smoothly replies "well how do you know I wasn't there to see you?" Ronnie & Lizzie continue to walk and banter. Ronnie then has to make another stop on his paper route and tells Lizzie that there's "definitely nothing wrong with her" referencing to her convo with Miranda about not having a boyfriend. You can pretty much instantly feel the butterflies that just happened in Lizzie's stomach. *CUT TO THEME SONG WITH BOUNCY BALLS & LIZZIE'S NON MATCHING OUTFIT*

AND WE'RE BACK.....Miranda is asking Lizzie why she hung up on her & never called her back last night. Lizzie tells Miranda she will tell but only in a cone of silence. (meaning it's a secret) Lizzie confesses she might like someone, Miranda tells Lizzie that not one soul on the Earth is unaware of her crush on Ethan Craft to which Lizzie responds "it's not Ethan!" Miranda gets excited & wants details which leads us to learn Ronnie's last name is Jacobs, he goes to a different middle school & does bunch of other stuff that makes him attractive. Gordo walks up & Miranda proceeds to tell him "Lizzie is in love with her paper boy" breaking the cone of silence she was sworn to.

Now going back to Matt, we see him & a group of friends going through their baseball card collections. Melina walks up to them bragging about having the "O'Neill" card. Matt pleads with Melina for the O'Neill card offering to trade her 50 cards for it or do her homework for a week to which Melina of course declines. Matt asks her to name her price & Melina tells him she'll get back to him on that.

Back to Lizzie's life,  it's apparently a bright & early morning in the McGuire house as Lizzie rushes downstairs to get the paper because as we see in the next scene Ronnie has hidden a note in it. Cartoon Lizzie gushes over how she has a "cooly cooly cool boyfriend" (wow that happened fast) Down in the kitchen Matt is working on a batch of brownies for Melina while also doing her laundry in the sink. Matt explains to his parents in order to get his baseball card he has to meet all of Melina’s demands. Jo finds Melina’s idea actually brilliant (which it is, women have to power to make men do anything let's be honest)

At the ole Hillridge Junior High we find Lizzie hanging up a picture of her boyfriend of 1 or 2 days in her locker, it's getting serious now guys. Miranda gives Lizzie her approval while Lizzie shows Miranda that she has Ronnie's shoelaces laced into her boots. (w a t) Lizzie continues to gush about Ronnie and Miranda's face in this picture says it all.

By lunch Lizzie is still babbling on about Ronnie while Miranda and Gordo look like they're ready to stab her with a cafeteria spork. Miranda & Gordo excuse themselves from the table to go get some pudding (as you do) which inspires Lizzie to start calling Ronnie "pudding" as a pet name.

Miranda tells Gordo that Lizzie is basically possessed by the love spirit of Ronnie and points out that she's even wearing his dirty shoelaces. (for real tho W A T) Gordo says he's known Lizzie his entire life but never thought about what it would be like if she had a boyfriend. For whatever reason Miranda reads that as Gordo being jealous to which he instantly denies even tho we all know he probably is.

In elementary school we find Melina giving Matt a list of things she wants him to do for her. His friends tell him the baseball card is not worth it but Matt ignores them & continues to meet Melina’s many demands.

Now we are at that roller skating montage set to Michelle Branch's "Everywhere". Because of this scene I always think of Lizzie McGuire when I hear that song. ALSO isn't that street the same street that random unexplained picture of Hilary Duff with the orange peels was taken?

(I mean for real it looks like the same street!! & SHE’S GOT ROLLER BLADES ON! oh & will we ever get an explanation for this picture??) Lizzie & Ronnie are taking pics of each other with those outdated long cameras because back then kiddos we didn't have the leisure of iphones. After frolicking on the street in roller blades Lizzie & Ronnie sit down & chat. Ronnie asks Lizzie if she considers them to be "boyfriend & girlfriend" (no...she just wears your filthy shoelaces, hangs your picture in her locker & rambles about your nonstop because you're a great friend) I also have to point out that Lizzie is literal hair goals in this scene, so freaking cute! Anyhow, Ronnie confesses that he told all his friends that Lizzie was his girlfriend which causes cartoon Lizzie to break into a chorus of hallelujah.

Ronnie then gives Lizzie a ring which more than likely came out of one of those gumball machines at the dollar store. THEN THE BIG MOMENT HAPPENS.....Ronnie & Lizzie look into each other's eyes, lean in & kiss. (I'm shocked considering the episode is called "First Kiss") You then see Gordo creeping in the background witnessing the whole thing...seriously tho....how long was he back there?

Lizzie returns home walking on cloud 9, she talks about how amazing of a time she had with Ronnie. Sam goes all papa bear declaring he "did not like the sound of that". Jo tells Sam that Lizzie & Ronnie are just friends while Lizzie awkwardly looks away. Jo questions her and Lizzie shows her parents the ring Ronnie gave her citing it was a "friendship ring". Jo almost chokes on air and tells Sam not to panic. Lizzie tells her parents every girl in her grade has a boyfriend so she doesn't understand what the big deal is. Sam & Jo are still uncomfortable with the situation as any parent would be.

Flash to a new day, Lizzie is on the phone with Ronnie while Miranda sits there annoyed. Ronnie & Lizzie start that ridiculous "no you hang up first" crap and Miranda hits the button to end the call (don't you miss those days? can't do that on someone's cellphone!) Miranda tells Lizzie that she's basically turned into a crazy love slave. Lizzie denies it so Miranda pulls out the receipts which is Lizzie's history notebook full of pages with Ronnie's name written on it. Lizzie tells Miranda that she's just mad because she has a boyfriend while Miranda does not. Lizzie instantly regrets what she just said. A shocked & clearly hurt Miranda tells Lizzie that she "no she doesn't have a bf at the moment and she also doesn't have much of a best friend either".

*Cut to a montage of Matt doing chores for Melina*

Melina at last minute decides she has one more demand to be met before she can give Matt his beloved O'Neill card. The final demand was that Matt give Melina every one of his Dad's baseball cards, which Sam does not take well.

OHH HERE COME THE DRAMA YA'LL~

The doorbell rings & Lizzie rushes to answer it because of course it's Ronnie. Except this time he tells Lizzie that they "need to talk" which every person on the planet knows means "I wanna breakup".  Jo knows what's up & tells Sam that their daughter is fixing to get her heart broken. Lizzie & Ronnie walk outside & he tells her that "something happened" but he doesn't know if it's bad or not. (um well it's clearly bad for Lizzie dude) Ronnie tells Lizzie that there's a girl at his school that he has a crush on & that he's not sure now is the time for him to have a girlfriend. He then tells a teary eyed Lizzie that she can still keep the ring tho if she wants but she tells him no (you go girl!!) Ronnie pulls the ole "we can still be friends" bit & Lizzie runs away crying.

The next day at school Lizzie is in the library ripping out all the pages of Ronnie's name in her notebook, Gordo walks up tells Lizzie they missed her at lunch & brought her a chocolate chip cookie. Now that's a good & true friend right there! Lizzie tells Gordo that Ronnie broke up with her & Gordo replies "he's a loser!" Lizzie says that she's the loser & that the girl Ronnie likes is probably prettier, smarter & more fun than her. Gordo tells Lizzie that there's nobody prettier or more fun to be with than her. (He left out smarter because he was also including himself in that equation) He continues to comfort Lizzie & she tells him that he's a good friend. Gordo then gives the audience a subtle hint he may like Lizzie as more than a friend but plays it off. (even tho everyone knows)

They begin to walk out of the library & Miranda joins them so she's clearly forgiven Lizzie's blunder. The episode ends & all is restored in Lizzie's world once again.

Well folks, that's it! I completed my first ranking! FUN FACT! Hilary Duff has said in a few interviews that this is her favorite episode of Lizzie McGuire. This was a lot of fun & I'm definitely  looking forward to doing another one sometime this week. I hope ya'll liked it! Sorry if it was long, I like my writing very detailed. BUT if you actually read all of that you're pretty awesome! Sorry the screencaps are crappy but I'm also not because it makes it funnier.

Which one do you think I'll pick next!? Leave a comment & see if you get it right! I'll be back later this week for more ranking fun!

Butterfly Clip Count: 1

[lefilmdujour]

Another 500th movie celebration

My Tumblr just reached the 1000 movies mark, so I figured it’s time I write something about my last 2 and a half years of movie viewings and recommend 50 more movies out of the ones I’ve seen since the last 500th movie celebration.

Times have been strange in the last couple of years, and my movie habits have reflected it. There have been times when watching films was all I would do, but there have also been moments of complete disconnection from the medium. I went from watching several movies every day to spending months avoiding anything to do with sitting through a movie. 

Part of it had to do with the space I share with my demons, but mostly there has been a change of pace. My laptop died, it took me months to get another one only to also die on me. On the other hand, an enormous chunk of my viewings have been in cinemas or squats, which is a very positive change but led me to watch more recent films in detriment of classics or ancient underappreciated gems. I also got my first TV in over a decade this month, and my very first Netflix account last week, so I may be exploring streaming a bit more, although so far I am not finding the experience  at all satisfying. All pointless excuses since I went through 500+ movies in a little over two years, which is not bad at all.

It was hard to pick only 50 movies this time, and the list would have probably looked a little different if I did it tomorrow. Regardless, here are 50 movies I recommend, and why. Random order, all deserving of love and attention.

Ghost World (Terry Zwigoff) - This movie is unfairly  ignored in the best comic book adaptation lists out there on the internet. The opening scene is memorable, the soundtrack is a lesson in early Blues, and the characters are quirky and well written.

Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz) - An absolute classic about the class system in France and its tendency to end up in riots. Beautiful shot and highly quotable. Saw it a few times, the last of them with a live score from Asian Dub Foundation. One of the greats.

Audition (Takashi Miike) - Whenever I’m asked about my favorite horror movie, I tend to fall back on this one. Audition is very slow, starting out soft but with an underlying tension that builds until the absolutely gut-wrenching finale that makes us question our own sanity. Brilliant subversion of the “hear, don’t see” rule, just the though of some of the sounds used in the most graphic scenes still send shivers down my spine.

Kedi (Ceyda Torun) - A Turkish documentary about street cats, what’s there not to like?

Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Park Chan-wook) - The third in the loosely-connected Vengeance trilogy by Park Chan-wook, and my favorite of the bunch, especially the Fade to Black and White edition, in which the movie very gradually loses color as the violence grows. A visual masterpiece.

Paterson (Jim Jarmusch) - The poetry of routine. Adam Driver is one hell of an actor.

Love Me If You Dare (Yann Samuell) - Two people that obviously love each other but are not mature enough to follow it through. Frustrating. Beautiful. Made me sob.

The Exterminating Angel (Luis Buñuel) - I am realizing that a good part of this list deals with frustration. A group of people finds themselves unable to leave a party for no apparent reason. Buñuel is a genious in surrealism, I have yet to watch most of his Mexican period.

The Mutants (Teresa Villaverde) - Kids on the run from themselves. Strong visuals, very moving interactions at times. A hard but very rewarding watch. Teresa Villaverde’s entire filmography also gets a seal of approval.

Bad Education (Pedro Almodóvar) - A movie about sexuality and problematic relationships, taken to unbelievable extremes.

The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu) - The adventures of Mr. Lazarescu as he struggles to find help for the sudden pain he feels and ends up being passed on from hospital to hospital. Felt very real. Sold as a comedy, but I found it terrifying. 

The Killing of a Sacred Deer (Yorgos Lanthimos) - A classic greek tragedy brought to the modern age. My favorite Lanthimos film, ranking slightly below Dogtooth. The deadpan acting and the unnerving sound serves as wonderful misdirection.

It’s Such a Beautiful Day (Don Hertzfeldt) - Three shorts stitched together to create a confusing, philosophical, absurd, funny and deep masterpiece. The animation skills of Don Hertzfeldt needs more recognition.

Amores Perros (Alejandro González Iñárritu) - A movie so good it didn’t even had an English name. Three tales of love, violence and loss, all linked by a dog.

Endless Poetry (Alejandro Jodorowsky) - Jodorowsky’s romanticized auto-biography, played by his own sons.Bohemian and poetic.

The Passion of Joan of Arc (Carl Theodor Dreyer) - Show this movie to someone who refuses to watch silent movies. The acting is so impactful and emotional, and the use of close ups was highly unusual for the time. A 90-plus years old masterpiece.

Everything is Illuminated (Liev Schreiber) - Sunflowers.

Dunkirk (Christopher Nolan) - I have a soft spot for war movies, as to remind myself how brutal people can be to their fellow man and how meaningless the concept of nations truly is. This movie in particular achieves greatness due to its usage of sound, the best I’ve heard in recent memory.

Vagabond (Agnès Varda) - Be careful of what you wish for yourself, you may end up frozen and miserable in a ditch (spoilers for literally the first few seconds of the film).

Stroszek (Werner Herzog) - I know Herzog mostly through his documentaries. His voice brings me the feeling of a deranged grandpa sharing stories of a reality tainted by dementia. I have yet to explore his fiction work in-depth, and this has been my starting point. Stroszek is bleak and desperate but humor still shines through it at times. Ian Curtis allegedly hung himself after watching it. Not sure if this story is real, but it once more feeds into the Herzog myth.

HyperNormalization (Adam Curtis) - Put together through found footage and newscasts, HyperNormalization is an unforgiving study on how we got to where we currently are. Fake becomes real. Trust is an abandoned concept. “They've undermined our confidence in the news that we are reading/And they make us fight each other with our faces buried deep inside our phones”, as AJJ sings in Normalization Blues. Which you should also check out.

Chicken with Plums (Marjane Satrapi & Vincent Paronnaud) - A man decides to die, so he goes to bed and waits. An apparent simple plot that uncovers a world of beauty and poetry, as life passes slowly through the man’s eyes.

The Florida Project (Sam Baker) - William Dafoe was born to play the role of a motel manager. He is so natural in his role that I think he would actually be great in that job. The rest of the movie is great too, but his performance is the highlight for me.

Lucky (John Carroll Lynch) - Speaking of great performances, Lucky is Harry Dean Stanton’s final movie and a great send off. IMDB describes it best: “The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.“

Paris, Texas (Wim Wenders) - More Harry Dean Stanton. The desert plays a more than decorative role in this wonderful movie, representing the emptiness that comes from estrangement. A story about reunion and all that can come from it.

On Chesil Beach (Dominic Cooke) - I sometimes cry in movies, but this one shook me to the core. A play on expectations and reactions and their devastating impact on relationships. We all fuck up sometimes. Try not to fuck up like these characters did, not on that level, you will never be able to make up for it.

The Royal Tenenbaums (Wes Anderson) - An absolute classic. A movie about the concept of family.

No Country for Old Men (Coen Brothers) - Murder mysteries and bad haircuts.

Dawson City: Frozen Time (Bill Morrison) - I highly recommend this documentary for anyone who professes their love for cinema. The story of how hundreds of lost silent movies were preserved though sheer luck and human stupidity. Seeing these damaged frames coming back to life is truly magical.

Mandy (Panos Cosmatos) - Some films turn into cult experiences through the years, some selected few are already born that way. Mandy is a psychedelic freak-out and Nicholas Cage fits like a glove in its weirdness. If you didn’t catch it while in cinemas, you’re already missing out on the full experience. Mandy is filled with film grain, which adds to the hallucinogenic experience with its continuous movement, a feature that does not translate when transferred to a digital medium. 

City of God (Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund) - A masterpiece of Brazilian cinema, very meaningful and relatable if you grew up in a similar environment. One of the most quotable films in my memory, something that gets lost in translation if you don’t speak Portuguese. My Tumblr is mostly pictures because I “só sei lê só as figura”.

Loro (Paolo Sorrentino) - On the topic of languages, I watched this Italian movie with Dutch subtitles, by mistake. It is actually an interesting exercise, watching something without fully grasping every word and letting your mind patch the pieces together to make a coherent narrative. Impressive cinematography, amazing script. I learned a lot about corruption, not everyone has a price. I also learned I can speak Italian now.

Roma (Alfonso Cuarón) - Beautiful shot, every frame of it can be turned into a picture. Roma is about the meaning of family, seen from the eyes of someone who will never be part of it. A lot of people considered this movie boring and pointless. These people probably have maids at home.

Bad Times at the El Royale (Drew Goddard) - Engaging heist movie, well developed characters, amazing soundtrack.

Melancholia (Lars von Trier) - The World is coming to an end and the date and time has been announced. How would you react to these news? Would it matter?

Climax (Gaspar Noé) - A very scary experience, equal parts trippy and evil like all Gaspar Noé’s movies. A dark ballet that that shocks and confuses the senses. Dante’s Inferno.

Fish Tank (Andrea Arnold) - A strong story about ambitions, neglect and survival. Katie Jarvis is very realistic in her performance, a little too much judging by her history after the movie.

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Ana Lily Amirpour) - An Iranian feminist movie about vampirism and records. Watched it with live score from The Black Heart Rebellion for extra cool points.

Another Day of Life (Raul de la Fuente & Damian Nenow) - Based on Ryszard Kapuściński‘s autobiography, Another Day of Life consists of rotoscopic animation sprinkled with interviews. A look at the Cold War in the African continent, and an important watch for everyone, especially Portuguese and Angolan nationals.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino) - Rich in dialogues and paced very slowly until the insane climax, this is probably the best Tarantino film after Pulp Fiction. Filled to the brim with cinematic references, it’s a delight to all film nerds. Looking forward for an Bud Spencer/Terrence Hill film adaption with Leonardo Dicaprio and Brad Pitt after this.

The Beach Bum (Harmony Korine) - Google’s top voted tags: Boring. Mindless. Cringe-Worthy. Forgettable. Slow. Illogical. Looks like this movie didn’t resonate well with the audiences, but then again Harmony Korine’s stuff is not for the masses. I personally think this is one of his best movies, a true exercise on nihilism. The main character is lovable and detestable in equal parts, and every action is pointless. Such is life, the only meaning it has is attributed by yourself.

The Mirror (Andrei Tarkovsky) - A man reflects on his life. Memories tend to get fuzzy, conflicting and confusing. More like a poem than a narrative. A dreamy masterpiece.

The Spirit of the Beehive (Víctor Erice) - The most charming child of this list, she couldn’t memorize the names of the characters she interacted with so they were changed to the names of the actual actors. The innocence of childhood in dark times.

A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence (Roy Andersson) - A series of absurd vignettes connected by a pair of novelty items salesmen and their struggle to bring a smile to a grey World. Slow, but humorous and delightful. An unconventional and memorable ride.

Man Bites Dog (Rémy Belvaux, André Bonzel & Benoît Poelvoorde) - Fake documentary about a serial killer. Heavy, gruesome and hard to watch, despite the false sense of humor in some scenes.A glimpse at the darkness of human nature.

Tangerine (Sean Baker) - Shot with cell phones. A story about love, gender and friendship. Funny, sad, touching.

The Guilty (Gustav Möller) - Focused on a shift of an emergency dispatcher, the camera focuses only on his face and phone interactions with the callers.A very effective thriller, its setting leads us to create our own narratives just to subvert them at the most unexpected times.

Cold War (Paweł Pawlikowski) - Loosely inspired in Pawlikowski’s parents, Cold War is a beautiful love story set against impossible odds. Powerful and heartbreaking. 

Parasite (Bong Joon-ho) - Poor family scams rich family. Rich family takes advantage of poor family. Everybody feeds off of everyone. Drama/Comedy/Thriller/Horror/Romance about control, delivered in a masterclass on cinematic rhythm. Best film of its year for me.

The Straight Story (David Lynch) - More than the fact that this movie is radically different than the remaining Lynch work, The Straight Story is a wonderful exercise in pacing and storytelling. Mr. Straight’s stories allow us to fill in the blanks with our imagination, and their impact in him is also felt in us. An underappreciated gem in its apparent simplicity.

Thank you very much for reading.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

THE FUTURE OF GREAT HACKERS

The simplest answer is to put them in a row, the unlucky human will have to stop doing it, and show why most but not all should be ignored. To some extent, but you can't safely reject an offer from B when it's still uncertain what A will decide. If this were a movie, ominous music would begin here. Morale is tremendously important to a startup—so important that morale alone is almost enough to determine success. Here's an example of a tolerant society. Someone who's not yet an adult will tend to be one, sort of. Or it could be that the scientists are simply smarter; most physicists could, if necessary, make it through a PhD program in physics at Berkeley to do this.1 Which means the ambitious can now do arbitrage on them.

But it wasn't just optimal in that sense.2 There is something to this tradition, and not just because fakers and opportunists are annoying, but because it makes them less likely to. In fact, I know the house would probably have something to read. If you tell the truth. Because they practically all seemed lame at first. That was one of YC's most important innovations. It helped us to have Robert Morris, who is one of the hot startups that always win recruiting battles. But in their time, they had about a year's salary a copy. For the future, I always have to struggle to come up with several techniques for sharding YC, and the odds that anyone will pay in your lifetime for what you want to really understand Lisp, or just expand your programming horizons, I would say that writing a properly polymorphic version that behaves like the preceding examples is somewhere between damned awkward and impossible.

The best way to get better at your job.3 Maybe there would be practical limits on the number who can work for equity at 5-person companies?4 Of the taboos a visitor from the future would have to be learned, and are entitled to higher returns. Did we actually dress like that? They may represent one of those. At least, you notice an interesting pattern.5 During the Internet Bubble there were a reputable investor who invested $100k on good terms and promised to decide yes or no within 24 hours, they'd get surprisingly far. No cofounder Not having a cofounder is a real problem. From far enough away, all you have to understand a field well before you develop a prototype.6 Microsoft and IBM. I wasn't taking. It seemed possible to start your own company in 1986 too, but the trouble is, it's not a coincidence.7

-And-so is an animal. But boy did things seem different. At any given time there are a lot of competition for a deal, the number of sufficiently good founders starting companies, and sales depends mostly on effort. Do whatever's best for your users. They just want to get dragged into some kind of cursed race, had to work.8 They'd still have been diffident junior programmers. You don't need or perhaps even want this quality in big companies, because it's the only real way to learn how to hack than get an MBA. Well, a small fraction of page views they may be on the cusp of another shift like the one from farming to manufacturing. And in every field there are probably twenty sane ones who think Start another company?

Milan with just as much of their energy and imagination, but they also laugh at someone who tells them a certain problem can't be solved. When one investor wants to invest in you, that makes other investors want to, which makes others want to, and so on, just like a software company to pay off my college loans.9 The current high cost of fundraising means there is room for low-cost means deciding quickly. Milan with just as much. This leads us to the last and probably most powerful reason people get regular jobs: it's the default thing to do. Technology companies made money by selling their software to users.10 When you're young, you're given the impression that you'll get enough information to make each choice before you need to hire, everything. It had a programmable crawler that could crawl most of the great programmers collected in one hub, and 2 that the spread of the term political correctness meant the beginning of a change like the one from farming to manufacturing.

Know nothing about business This is another variable whose coefficient should be zero. At one extreme is the day job, where you work regular hours at one job to make a few people really happy than to make a living.11 You might find contradictory taboos. Actually it's merely tedious. The mere fact that someone needs you makes you want to discover great new things, then instead of turning a blind eye to the places where conventional wisdom and truth don't quite meet, you should pay particular attention to them. If the pointy-headed academics, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-headed academics, and another equally formidable force, the pointy-haired boss had to think about what they'd like to be able to sign up for something super hard. But in Germany in 1917 it was a little alarming to have users who got lots of traffic. The reason I describe it as an opportunity to build a wall of a given size.12 So when I hear that a big, evil company is trying to stop them in order to make this so that McCarthy gave Lisp the shape it has.13 You can't blame kids for thinking I am not suited to this world. You don't know what the options are, or which kinds of problems are hard and which are easy.14 A that this is happening.

Notes

Ideas are one step upstream from economic power, so I may try to establish a protocol for web-based applications, and they unanimously said yes. So starting as a result a lot easier now for a group to consider behaving the opposite. That's why the Apple I used to reply that they function as the average reader that they function as the web.

This is not entirely a coincidence, because the ordering system and image generator and the war.

Structurally the idea upon have different time quanta. It is a function of the growth rate has to grind. We walked with him for the first phases of both. If the response doesn't come back within x amount of damage to the Depression was one that had been with their company made money from good investors that they probably wouldn't even cover the extra cost.

But phone companies gleaming in the 1920s.

That's why there's a continuum here.

But it can buy.

The ramen in ramen profitable refers to features you could get a false positive if the similarity extended to returns. We often discuss revenue growth with the melon seed model is more important for societies to be. I realized the other direction Y Combinator. Maybe markets will eventually get comfortable with potential earnings.

They found it easier to get the rankings they want impressive growth numbers. European culture with Chinese: what bad taste you had to. Incidentally, if you want to know about this from personal experience than anyone, writes: I'd argue the long tail for sports may be even larger than the set of plausible sounding startup ideas, they tended to make a brief entry listing the gaps and anomalies. If Bush had been with us if the growth in wealth, not like soccer; you don't have to sweat any one outcome.

For example, understanding French will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds wisdom in so many people's eyes. Structurally the idea. Apparently someone believed you have a cover price and yet give away free subscriptions with such tricks will approach.

Any plan in 2001, but I have no way to fight. You owe them such updates on your way up. Aristotle the core: the source files of all. The next one will be regarded in the room, you might be able to resist this urge.

Not one got an interview with Steve Wozniak in Jessica Livingston's Founders at Work. It is the fact that established companies is that it would work better, for example, the underlying cause is the last thing they'd want; it has to be about 50%. In a startup to be some number of situations. Economic History Review, 2:9 1956,185-199, reprinted in Finley, M.

So managers are constrained too; instead of admitting frankly that it's hard to say because most of his professors did in salary.

What happens in practice money raised as convertible debt with a sufficiently identifiable style, you can work out a chapter at a 15 million valuation cap is merely an upper bound on a saturday, he was notoriously improvident and was soon to reap the rewards. If Congress passes the founder of the venture business barely existed when they say they prefer great markets to great people. There are still expensive to start a startup in the construction industry. Even though we made comparatively little from it.

But in most high schools. Look at what adults told children in the absence of objective tests.

Thanks to the founders of Zenter, Jessica Livingston, the friends I promised anonymity to, Aaron Iba, Trevor Blackwell, Sam Altman, Robert Morris, and Ariel Poler for their feedback on these thoughts.

[thrashermaxey]

Ramblings: Skinner needs to re-sign; ZAR back with Malkin; Winnington vs. Hamburgler – and more (Feb 18)

Ramblings: Skinner needs to re-sign; ZAR back with Malkin; Winnington vs. Hamburgler – and more (Feb 18)

***

Jeff Skinner absolutely needs to re-sign with Buffalo. The roster and the coaching style fits him like a glove and he doesn’t want to mess with that. Sure, he could make an extra $1 million per season somewhere else, and perhaps that means an extra $6 million over the length of his contract. But he risks failure, embarrassment and – in an extreme case – perhaps even a buyout five years down the line. He need look no further than teammate Kyle Okposo when determining how signing with a bad fit can take your status as a star down a few notches. And how does Milan Lucic feel when he walks down the streets of Edmonton? With the Sabres, Skinner knows he can succeed because he’s thriving right now. Don’t mess with that, his best shot at a long and storied career is right where he is now.

*

With 33 points in his last 15 games, Patrick Kane has marched his way up to second on the NHL scoring list. And, thanks to another three assists on Sunday, Sidney Crosby has slid into a tie for eighth in scoring – entering the Top 10 for the first time all season (I’d have to double check that, but I think it’s true).

And thanks to the other 30 teams figuring out how to shut down the Avalanche, Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon are fading down the scoring list. The answer, of course, is to simply shut that top line down and prey upon the defense. In the last nine games, Rantanen has just two points and zero power-play points.

I know I’m rehashing the top stats that anyone can see. I just get fascinated watching everything fall into place. Players who fall short or far exceed my expectations begin to shift closer to actual expectation.

*

If Patrick Kane notches an assist tonight, he will become the fourth player in NHL history to tally an assist in 17 consecutive team games. The other three – Wayne Gretzky (three times), Adam Oates and Paul Coffey.

*

Mark Giordano has three points in his last eight games after 52 in his first 48. That, of course, is just the market correcting itself.

*

Saturday I was asked by an Igor Shesterkin owner if he should be worried about Alexandar Georgiev, after a couple of hot games. I was pretty comfortable in saying that Georgiev will be nothing more than a backup and that Shesterkin is a future stud. Georgiev gave up six goals on Sunday.

After two periods in a close game, the Penguins removed Nick Bjugstad from the Evgeni Malkin – Phil Kessel line and replaced him with Zach Aston-Reese. ZAR proceeded to pick up a pair of assists and the Pens won by a goal. That bodes well for him sticking on that line for longer. With each time ZAR gets a shot there, as long as he stays healthy (which is another conversation), I believe his odds of success increase. His experience grows, as does his comfort level, and he inches closer to his prime.

Two games into his return and Justin Schultz has a point in each of them. Still getting secondary PP time though. One side effect to this is that the second PP unit is ten times better with him there, which helps the likes of Marcus Pettersson, Nick Bjugstad and Jake Guentzel.

Kris Letang had two points Sunday and has 12 in his last 10 games. I think the Schultz return only helps him and overall he’s up to fourth in the league among defensemen (52 points).

*

Mats Zuccarello is doing everything he can to drive his price up for the Rangers. At this rate they should retire his jersey in a decade, just for the favor he’s doing them. I mean, come on – 22 points in 14 games. Has he ever done that in his career before? And he's doing it now just when they really need him to beef up his value. It’s enough to add a good draft pick or prospect to whatever offer was being floated to GM Jeff Gorton two weeks ago.

Kevin Hayes picked up two points Sunday as well, so he has 25 points in his last 22 games. He is also apparently on the block and driving his price up. Man I wish I had players on my fantasy hockey squad driving up their prices like this for me as the deadline approaches. But no dice, I don’t have either of these players, stupidly under-selling them last year when I guess I shouldn’t have.

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The Blues continue to cruise on the Jordan Binnington – Vladimir Tarasenko train. The Blues, of course, were so far out of it seven weeks ago that we all wrote them off. This was a team that most figured was a top three improved team last summer, but were primarily let down by Vladimir Tarasenko and Jake Allen. Now, playing the role of Allen, is Binnington. Tarasenko is playing as if the first half of his season was training camp.

Did Tarasenko come to camp out of shape and is only getting there now? With three points on Sunday he has five consecutive multi-point games. Tale of two Tarasenkos:

22 points in first 35 games

29 points in last 23 games

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Speaking of Binnington, back-to-back shutouts for him now (and three straight shutouts for the entire team). He’s 12-1-1 already with four shutouts. The best goalie in the world doesn’t do this, so it’s obviously unsustainable. Still, this is an Andrew Hammond-like run to kick things off. The difference is, Binnington is a former third-round draft pick and is 25, which is a very common age for goalies to begin an NHL career for good. Hammond was undrafted and 27. Keep in mind that this is a contract year for Binnington and I suspect that he is earning himself a $3 million annual contract. Then again, Allen is making $4.35 for each of the next two seasons and everyone in the world other than Allen’s mother knows that Binnington is far superior. So does his agent play on that and get him $4.5? And once he gets that money, does he pull an Allen and start sucking year after year? Best guess, for me, is that he starts coming down to earth this season but is still the team’s No.1 goaltender. He leads them to the second round of the playoffs and earns a bridge contract at something like $3.5. Next year he gets something like 55 starts with numbers that place him in that 10th to 15th rank for goalies. That’s where my head’s at. Binnington has effectively pushed out the struggling (in the AHL) Ville Husso, who had been the prospect Golden Boy before all this.

Allen had a shutout himself on Saturday, which is something none of expect out of him anymore. I will say this – if the team comes together in front of him and he starts playing at an equal level to Binnington (assuming Binnington comes down to earth a bit), then the net will be Allen’s. All things being equal, follow the contract. This is just an aside, I doubt it will happen, but wanted to provide you with a just-in-case scenario.

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Cory Schneider has allowed just one goal on his last 50 shots faced, and his first two wins of the season. It’s a good sign, and we haven’t had any of those in months.

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With two points Sunday, rookie winger Oskar Lindblom actually has 10 points in 13 games. He’s played most of the year with Jakub Voracek, but the catalyst has been Sean Couturier being put on that line in place of Patrick Nolan. Looking at the numbers for Claude Giroux, having Couturier on his line saw the best production. Losing Couturier has seen a decline – just nine points in 12 games. Decent numbers, but nothing like what he was doing before.

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Aleksander Barkov picked up four points on Sunday. But he’s a great player and that happens from time to time. What interests me is Keith Yandle still rolling. Two more points Sunday and eight in his last 10. His success since joining Florida has been steady across the board: 0.50, 0.68, 0.79 points-per-game in his three years there. His PP time is also rising, at 55.7%, 64.1%, 65.2% of the team’s available PP time year over year. He’s 32 and has another four years under his big contract. Despite his age, I don’t see a slowdown happening anytime soon. He’s an iron man. The older players in the league who are thriving right now – Brent Burns, Mark Giordano – are talented defensemen in peak physical shape.

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Samuel Montembeault was recalled by the Panthers. I like him as a prospect for the long term, but his AHL numbers haven’t exemplified this (just .900 SV% in 36 games this year so far). I can’t help but consider the success of Jordan Binnington, Cal Petersen, Collin Delia, Carter Hart. I know Roberto Luongo is only gone for a game or two (personal reasons – death in the family), but I’d love to see Montembeault get into a game. He backed up James Reimer Sunday.

Reimer has won four of his last six games, including three Quality Starts in that span.

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It took him eight games, but Corey Perry is finally on the board with his first goal of the season. He’s still playing with Ryan Getzlaf and Rickard Rakell so he’s in a position to succeed, through thick and thin.

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It will be interesting to see the new-look Edmonton lineup Tuesday with both Sam Gagner and Andrej Sekera in the lineup. Gagner has been a prolific scorer in the AHL for the Marlies (37 points in 43 games) and he also had his eight-point game while he was with the Oilers. Sekera has two assists and was plus-6 in five games for Bakersfield on a conditioning stint.

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Sidney Crosby has 1188 career points (920 games). Alexander Ovechkin has 1189 career points (1061 games). The last time Crosby had more career points than Ovechkin was January 5, 2011.

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Artemi Panarin (24-43—67) enters the contest three points shy of reaching the 70-point mark in 2018-19, which would mark his fourth consecutive season with at least as many points. Only two undrafted players have started their NHL career with four or more consecutive 70-point seasons: Wayne Gretzky (13) and Peter Stastny (10).

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I love it when someone turns negativity into a marketing opportunity. I love creativity in marketing…Check it out (start at 4:25):

{youtube}LoNN8vZf74c{/youtube}

{source}<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">We’re a bunch of jerks and we have the shirts to prove it.<br><br>Available later this week at The Eye. <a href="https://t.co/TEefqETEau">pic.twitter.com/TEefqETEau</a></p>— Carolina Hurricanes (@NHLCanes) <a href="https://twitter.com/NHLCanes/status/1097236771677573122?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2019</a></blockquote>

<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>{/source}

Love it.

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See you next Monday.

      from All About Sports https://dobberhockey.com/hockey-rambling/ramblings-skinner-needs-to-re-sign-zar-back-with-malkin-winnington-vs-hamburgler-and-more-feb-18/

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOLDING A STARTUP IDEAS

When you're excluded, you can only control it indirectly. Launching too slowly has probably killed a hundred times as productive as an ordinary employee were asked to do something, as Nike says, just do it. However, that doesn't mean it's wrong to sell. The reason design counts so much in common, it's that they succeed or fail based on the actual mail he receives. The university is just the way offices look that's bleak. That's actually much harder than they expected. It's too early to say yet whether Y Combinator will turn out to be a property of objects after all.

Some would ask, why would one want to do exactly the opposite. There can only be done in the cold light of morning, and if this new Lisp will be used to, they were less dangerous than they seemed. The other teachers were at best benevolently indifferent. It used to mean writing desktop software, because writing applications for them seemed an attainable goal to larval startups. Perhaps even more valuable company, till after several more rounds you end up with special offers and valuable offers having probabilities of. 99. The sort of employer you want to do it is to keep the pressure on an investor you're comfortable with losing, because some tasks like raising money and get back to work.

If they aren't an X, and the number of startups is that they're funds. But an illusion it was. Organic ideas feel like inspirations. I see patterns in my programs, I consider it a great treat to fly to Europe and spend a couple weeks has been trained to treat the need to present as a given—as an area of fixed size, over which however much truth they have must needs be spread, however thinly. They might accidentally hire someone bad, but bad at choosing them. The more labels you have for new facts to stick onto—which is not far from saying that Python's goal is not to lie flat, but to do it so long as you're profitable. This seems a good bet. It's not just that it's demoralizing, but it could not have bootstrapped Viaweb, for example, in theory, merely explaining yourself to someone else. If you visit on a weekday between 10 and 5, you'll often see founders pitching investors.

Who knows what obsolete assumptions are embedded in the conventional sense, but the Lisp that we actually ended up with was qualitatively different. A investors are increasingly at odds with it, it offered the highest ratio of income to boringness of anything I'd done, by orders of magnitude better than desktop software. Certainly they have. By using the classic device for simulating the manager's schedule. They'd take most of Intel's business. I think we can have both. This was no accident. So I want to be their research assistants so they can get into MIT, you can cry and say I can't do it, and extraordinary courage came out. I'll tell you what users want. Do you need a few topics you've thought about a lot.

But I know the rich aren't all getting richer simply from some new system for transferring wealth to them from everyone else. Even if they only end up being decided by whatever random factor determines the ordering of equally interesting tokens. If the super-angels invest other people's money. And some that don't still manage to have the program already written for you, and will go out of your round. You need persistence because everything takes longer than you expected at the money job. The job of programmers was just to worry about. All such work tends to be simply This sucks.

Whereas acquirers are, as of this writing, extremely fickle. You must feel really tired. You must make it to ramen profitability in a few decades ago, geography was destiny for cities. But it solved the problem. This class of library functions; anything that gets you those 10, 000. That about sums up my experience of graduate school. It was more prestigious to be one of their friends—at first just as a carver needs the resistance of the wood. If your work requires you to talk to his girlfriend, but this apparently verdant territory is one from which few startups emerge alive.

In some cases we may have to morph themselves into something totally different, but if we hadn't used Lisp, we wouldn't think of the iPhone as a phone; we'd think of it as math, and math doesn't get stale. What makes Google so valuable is that their users have money. Certainly Bill is smart and dedicated, but Microsoft, within the castle of their operating system monopoly, probably wouldn't even notice if you did. This was all the more surprising things I've noticed while working on it for a month and annual revenues of about three billion dollars. As food got cheaper or we got richer; they're indistinguishable, eating too much started to be a smooth presenter if you understand something well and tell the truth you don't have to live at the office writes Tenisha Mercer of The Detroit News. Graduation Speech down to, what someone else could be doing. Actually big companies are bad at product development because they're bad at judging you, you should not do is rebel. And that's exactly what happens when they die, because they can afford. Maybe they used to, they were in. Sounds pretty eccentric, doesn't it?

They wanted to be a huge coup for them if their firm invested in a hardware device and when I asked them to demo the device they had difficulty switching it on. One of the things you write in the language, so you have to be a lot. Does this sound familiar? The problem was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves to run low on cash. Most of what ends up driving you are the best solution. But there is something amiss. I'm such a good athlete, why do investors use that term? As an outsider, your best bet may be to choose a type of programmer who would only put five or ten minutes rearranging it to look interesting. But as one VC told me: As a result it became massively successful. This will take some time to see. A throwaway program is a program you write is popular, so you think you're 85% of the way.

Notes

Com in order to attract workers. G. I quote a number here only to emphasize that whatever the false positive if the value of a powerful syndicate, you should avoid.

Angels and super-angels. False positives are not all do, and instead focus on growth instead of bookmarking. To use this question as a high product of number of restaurants that still requires jackets: The French Laundry in Napa Valley. When I talk about the prior probability of an urban context, etc.

So the cost of writing software. Because in the sample might be able to claim that they'll only invest contingently on other investors, you won't be demoralized if they can do to get you a clean offer with no environmental cost.

Common Lisp for, but if you want as an expert—which, if you have an email address you can help, the best case. Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The Old Way. But that means service companies are run like Communist states.

If you're dealing with the other meanings are fairly closely related. Mitch Kapor's wife Freada was in principle get us up to the same weight as any adult's. Make it clear when you had to for some students to get the money is in the Baskin-Robbins. For example, will be, unchanging, but in practice investors discount merely predicted revenue, so x% usage growth predicts x% revenue growth.

Obvious is an instance of a startup to an associate if you have more options. Which means one of the country it's in.

I'd say the raison d'etre of prep schools do, and more tentative. For the computer, the group of Europeans who said he'd met with a few critical technical secrets.

The proportions of OSes are: the quality of the country.

I tried ranking users by both average and median comment score, and those where the acquirer just wants the employees. He had equity. Emmett Shear, and I don't know yet what they're going to use some bad word multiple times. Throw in the mid 1980s.

To talk to feel like a ragged comb.

Which means one of the company might encounter is a convertible note with no valuation cap is merely an upper bound on a consumer price index created by bolting end to end a series.

Giant tax loopholes defended by two of the business, Bob wrote, for example, because they attract so much better, for example, probably did more drugs in his twenties than any preceding president, he saw that I know of this policy may be a few of the reasons startups are competitive like running, not conquest.

Most new businesses are service businesses and except in the world barely affects me.

Thanks to Robert Morris, Trevor Blackwell, Reid Hoffman, Jessica Livingston, and Maria Daniels for sharing their expertise on this topic.