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scotianostra · 3 years

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Happy 34th Birthday Andy Murray born in Glasgow on May 15, 1987, to Judy and William Murray.

Andrew Barron Murray grew up in Dunblane and began playing tennis at age 3. A former competitive tennis player, Judy coached Andy and his older brother, Jamie, in their early years.

In March 1996, while 8-year-old Murray was sitting in his classroom at Dunblane Primary School, an armed man entered the building, and shot and killed 17 people—16 students and one teacher—before committing suicide by turning the gun on himself. During the horrible event, Murray ran and hid in his headmaster’s office. It still surprises me today that some people are unaware of this tumultuous thing happened in Andy’s life and he picked himself up and achieved so much

Andy scored a major youth championship when he won Florida’s Orange Bowl in his age group in 1999. In 2004, he became the world’s No. 1 junior after winning the U.S. Open junior title. Later that year, he was named the BBC’s “Young Sports Personality of the Year.”

Shortly after becoming the youngest British player to compete in the Davis Cup, Murray made his professional debut in April 2005. In 2006, with new coach Brad Gilbert, Murray beat top-ranked Roger Federer in Round 2 of the Cincinnati Masters tournament. Also that year, he defeated Andy Roddick en route to winning the SAP Open for his first ATP title. A year later Murray claimed a second straight SAP Open and also won the St. Petersburg Open to break into the Top 10 rankings

Murray emerged in the tennis spotlight when he defeated Spanish sensation Rafael Nadal to reach the final of the 2008 U.S. Open, before losing to Federer. He ascended to No. 2 in the world in 2009, and finished runner-up at the Australian Open in both 2010 and 2011.

In 2012, Murray made it to the Wimbledon final for the first time with his semifinal win over Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the first home grown player to reach the final since 1938. However, Murray lost in the final to Federer, who claimed his seventh Wimbledon win.

Murray avenged his Wimbledon loss at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games, held in London, where he beat Federer to take his first Olympic gold medal. That September, he continued to burn up the courts with an impressive run through the U.S. Open field. Murray scored an impressive victory over Novak Djokovic in a tough five sets to clinch his first Grand Slam title. becoming the first player from the British Isles since 1977—and the first British man since 1936—to win a Grand Slam singles tournament.

After losing to Djokovic at the 2013 Australian Open, Murray made history that summer by defeating the Serbian player to claim the Wimbledon men’s singles championship. He was the first British male to win the tournament in 77 years and the second Scottish-born player to win Wimbledon since Harold Mahony in 1896 a gap of 117 years.

Murray underwent back surgery in September 2013 following his loss in the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open. His performance was uneven for much of the 2014 season, though he made news by hiring former women’s champion Amelie Mauresmo to be his coach.

Andy seemingly was back on track when he reached his fourth Australian Open final in early 2015. That March, he scored career victory No. 500 while competing at the Miami Open.

Murray followed with an impressive run at the 2015 French Open, battling back from a two-set deficit in the semifinals before succumbing to Djokovic. A few weeks later, he reached the semifinals of Wimbledon, but his hopes of advancing were cut short by the ageless Federer. Murray’s subsequent fourth-round loss at the U.S. Open not only thwarted his last chance for a major title in 2015, it snapped his streak of 18 consecutive appearances in a Grand Slam quarterfinal.

Andy Murray began the 2016 season on a strong note, advancing to the Australian Open final before suffering another loss to his nemesis, Djokovic. However, he gained some revenge by defeating Djokovic to claim the Italian Open in May, and then sustained his high level of play through the French Open. With his semifinal win over defending champion Stan Wawrinka, Murray became the first British player to reach the French Open final since 1937. However, his bid to add another Slam title fell short when he wound up on the losing end of a blistering Djokovic onslaught once again.

In July 2016, Murray advanced to the semifinals at Wimbledon after defeating Jo Wilfried-Tsonga. In the final, he upended Milos Raonic, the first Canadian man to make it to the Wimbledon final, 6-4, 7-6, 7-6. The victory was Murray’s third Grand Slam title.

The following month, Murray continued his sterling play by defeating Argentina’s Juan Martin del Potro at the Rio Games, making him the first male tennis player to successfully defend his Olympic singles title.

Despite concerns over a lingering hip injury, Murray returned to Wimbledon in 2017 as the defending champion and progressed to the third round with straight set wins against Alexander Bublik and Dustin Brown.He dropped his first set of the tournament to Fabio Fognini but proceeded to the fourth round in four sets. Murray continued to the quarter final with a straight set victory against Benoit Paire. However, he was defeated in the quarter-final by Sam Querrey in five sets. Since then he has lost his world number one ranking and undergone surgery.

In March 2018 Murray lost his British number one ranking to Kyle Edmund for the first time since 2006.

In January 2019 a very emotional Murray announced at a press conference that his career was possibly over due to struggling physically for a “long time”, particularly with his hip injury. He said that he had been suffering with hip pain on a daily basis, and that it caused him to struggle with tasks like putting his shoes and socks on. He spoke of the possibility of a second hip surgery, but expressed doubt this would be a viable option to prolong his career, merely allowing him to “have a better quality of life, and be out of pain”

He said he hoped to play on until at least Wimbledon but that the upcoming Australian Open could well be his last tournament, he later went out in the second round. Andy admitted “I’m not sure I can play through the pain for another four or five months”

The top American doubles player Bob Bryan urged Andy to have the Birmingham Hip Resurfacing Operation that helped him return to top flight tennis. Informing him that the BHR would improve his quality of life and may help him return to the professional tennis tour. The orthopedic surgeon who pioneered the treatment said in an interview he could forecast a return to the sport “in the high 90 per cent” Andy had the surgery that Februar and on 7 March, Murray stated in an interview that he was now free of pain in his hip as a result of the surgery and may therefore return to playing competitive tennis, but that any potential Wimbledon return would be dependent on how his hip felt, and that he would not rush his comeback and may test his condition by playing doubles.

Andy has since played a number of doubles matches, the most anticipated was the dream pairing with Serena Williams at Wimbledon last year, they lost in the third round to the top seeds. He continued playing the doubles circuit till late that year before returning to singles, losing his first few matches was no surprise, this was about getting back to match fitness and he dropped down to the second tier “Challenger circuit” to regain his match fitness, winning his first match since January.

At the end of November 2019, a television documentary, Andy Murray: Resurfacing, was released on Amazon Prime, detailing Murray’s various attempts to overcome his hip injury over a two-year period from his defeat at Wimbledon in 2017 to his doubles victory at Queen’s Club in 2019. December saw him withdraw from the the Australian Open and the inaugural ATP Cup with a pelvic injury.

Andy continues to try and gain match fitness and was recently in action in Rome as he prepares for the French Open which starts on May 30th, he has also been handed an invitation to the Queens Club competition on the run up to Wimbledon. Andy has fallen to 123rd in the world rankings. He missed out on the Australian Open due to quarantine protocols after contracting the coronavirus and has not had much competitive action since.

The three-time Grand Slam winner is now stepping up his preparations for a potential singles comeback in either Geneva or Lyon next week.

In his personal life April 2015 saw Andy Murray marry longtime girlfriend Kim Sears at Dunblane Cathedral in his hometown. They had met at the U.S. Open in 2005, they have four bairns, Sophia, Edie, Teddy, and a new boy born in March, which I can’t find the name of online!

#scotland #scottish #Tennis #sportsman #grand slam winner #champion #birthday

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hlupdate · 4 years

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In a never-before-published 2012 interview, Harry Styles and Niall Horan talk about their childhoods, the future of One Direction, and much more

In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, an 18-year-old Harry Styles and 16-year-old Niall Horan sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

It was late morning, and they had both just rolled out of bed. Styles wore a hotel bathrobe; Horan, with braces still on his teeth, was in sweatpants, a T-shirt, and a Dallas Mavericks hat a fan had given him during a recent trip to Texas. The conversation was casual, full of laughs, and focused on their formative years.

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

In 12 hours, you have to do Saturday Night Live. Are you ready? Harry: Yeah, I think so. I think it’s going to be a fun day. It’s just really exciting, obviously. The show is so huge. For us to get the opportunity to be on it at all was just amazing, and to us, to be performing and just be involved with the show is amazing.

Have you seen whole episodes of it? Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing? Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was…I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever…in the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, so you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in…you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school, I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

You were onstage as a kid and were like, “This is what I like”? Harry: I knew it was fun, I had a lot of fun doing it, and I stopped when I started high school, and then I didn’t really do anything, I just sang at home, in the shower, in your bedroom, that type of thing. I guess it started again when my friends were in a band and they wanted to do this battle of the bands competition that was at school, and they needed a singer, and one of my friends asked me.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

How about you, Niall? Niall: I always knew I wanted to sing. I was academic…I was one of those people that if I’m not interested in something, I don’t really care. If I’m not interested in school, I would have never trained or done my homework or anything, I’d have just gone outside and played football or whatever.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Niall: So I always wanted to sing. I was singing here and there, not gigs or anything, but I always sang around the house or whatever, and I played Oliver in a school play. And then I just did that, and people told me I should do something…I was only 10, what could I do at 10? I just did a couple of gigs, and when I got to high school, they told me that I should just try out for The X-Factor.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

What did that entail? What were the steps from being a kid in high school to getting on the show? Niall: It was the final of The X-Factor the year before, and at the end credits of the final, it says, “If you want to apply for 2010, go online,” so a couple of weeks later, I said, “Right, I’m going to do it,” and I filled in the form online, we were sending emails back and forth, going to this place at this time. The first one is at a big stadium, then if you get through that, you come back the next day. Is that the way they did it with you?

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Niall: I was there at five a.m., I got seen at 12, and I was out of there by quarter past 12, and the next day I came back at 10 in the morning. You get through the first round, then they do a round where they don’t tell you if you got through after that.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: The producer and someone from the label. They film it and show it to whoever. Then if you got through that, it takes about two or three weeks until you find out. I was in Spain. Then you just go through the audition.

Harry, how did you wind up on X-Factor? Harry: I basically said, the same as Niall, I was watching the year before, and I remember looking at the young guys on there, and I was kind of like, “I’d love to have a go at it just to see what happens,” and that was kind of it. My mum actually did the application, and then three weeks later, I walked upstairs and she said, “Oh, you’ve got your X-Factor audition Sunday,” and I was like, “OK.”

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Harry: Yeah. 160 quid, between all four of us. 40 quid each…we said we’d do it, and then we found out it was the weekend coming up, and we hadn’t done anything for it, so we asked the bride what kind of stuff she wanted, and she said she didn’t mind, but she wanted some Bob Marley songs. Literally in three days, not even three, probably two days, we learned like 25 songs. We might have known like three of them before. I was 16, maybe 15, singing these Bob Marley songs. There was a girl a couple of years below us, and it was her mum, she said she wanted us to play.

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

Did you think the band could be something? Harry: A bit. My friend’s mum was a radio presenter, and she did a radio show for a bit, so she was trying to sort us out a little bit of studio time, we were going to go in and record.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA. My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs] “Now you go to bed.”

Were you happy as kids? Did you have adolescent angst and stuff? Did you go through depressed periods? Harry: Not really. I think at one point, I started acting like I was…I had a phase of listening to really heavy music.

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Were you pretty happy go-lucky? Niall: Yeah, I was always happy. I think me and Harry were lucky. Our parents got divorced quite early, didn’t they, when we were really young. I was four, I didn’t know much, so I was always a happy kid, always up for a laugh, very carefree, and I’m a bit like that now.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

Niall: I went between both, my mum moved to the country and I didn’t have any interest in it. I always felt like the country is for when you’re older. I was with my mom for a while but got bored, all my friends were in town, I went to school in town and all that stuff. It was more like that.

Harry: I lived with both parents, and then moved with my mum, and we owned a pub for like five years. I remember the first night, it was like a night where a band was playing, and I just thought, “How am I going to get to sleep?” I was three stories up, I was like, “How am I going to get to sleep with this noise?” I was next to a road in Sussex in the middle of nowhere, and by the end, I could fall asleep next to the band, I was so used to the noise.

Was it imprinting your brain? Harry: Maybe. One of the guys who used to play every so often, he used to be in Deep Purple or something… He started teaching me guitar when I was like 10, I think 10, maybe nine. I loved it. I was 10, 11, all of the regulars, I got on with them. I’d walk behind the bar and my head would barely go over the bar. It’s still going now. We sold it to my best friend, we go in all the time still.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

Harry: I don’t know, maybe. I moved when I was seven or eight from Cheshire, and it was still Cheshire, but half an hour away, but in terms of not driving and stuff, all my friends lived near my school, so that was a bit further out. One of my friends there was my sister’s age, he was 16 when I was 10. It was so tiny, they were the only teenage boys…we’d ride our bikes and go to the driving range and stuff. It was good, it was fun.

You both wanted to entertain �� if it hadn’t worked out, would you have been really unhappy? Harry: Yeah, I think it would be kind of like…one of the reasons you go for X-Factor in the first place is that you want to do this, and it kind of helps you get out of the life that you were doing before. I worked in a bakery for two years. Obviously, I didn’t want to do that for ages!

If you’d asked people at school, would they have said, “Yeah, they’re probably going to be famous,” or would they never have guessed that? Niall: My aunt, I was in the back of her car. We used to go across Ireland to go to the beach for a couple of weeks, and I remember we were in the car, I was singing, and she thought I was the radio, and she told me, I never forgot it, that she thought I was going to be famous since I was six, seven. She was the only person who told me that, so I always remembered that.

Harry: My dad said it. I used to listen to a lot of the music he was playing, he’d play Elvis Presley to death, the Stones, I’d sing along to that and he’d say, “You’re going to be famous,” or whatever. He came on tour with us for a few days out here, he came to the Radio City show. He just said, for him, it was so educational. Obviously, he hears about what happens when I call him, but to see it and see it actually happen and how everything works was so good for him, he really enjoyed it. So that was nice.

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

What have you learned about life from the last few years, what didn’t you know? What advice would you give yourself? Niall: How much more independent we actually are – me, anyway. Your mum attends to your every need and does your food and washing and gives you somewhere to live. Then you go into the real world, as you’re told as a kid…

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Niall: We do our own washing, we make our own food, we rent places, we’re out on our own now. You mature so quick, you’re dealing with big businessmen every day, you’re not dealing with school, people your own age. It’s a bit different.

Harry: You seem to learn so many life lessons, but in such a short space of time. If I speak to my friends and they’re having problems with girls, whatever it is, now I seem to just have the answer. I don’t know, it’s just different. Or I think I have the answer. In terms of…one of my friends was trying to decide what to do with school, stuff like that, and I would have had no idea what to say to him before.

The last two years must feel like 10. Harry: Yeah, but at the same time, it feels like six months, it’s weird. X-Factor was two years ago, but it seems like five years ago, but at the same time, it’s gone so quick. It’s a really strange dynamic of how it feels.

Do you have a sense of how this is going to go? Does it matter if it’s two years, five years or forever? Harry: I think how much we all enjoy it, because we love what we do – if you have to call it a job, it’s an incredible job to have, and we love it. We’ll all want to do it for as long as possible. If we have the opportunity to have a Take That kind of career, I don’t see any reason why we wouldn’t want to do that. If we don’t, I don’t know…we’ve done some amazing things already, but we don’t want to stop there, we want to keep going. I guess if we didn’t, I think we’d probably want to still be involved in…I’d just write, I guess.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Harry: [laughs] We’ll all do swing albums. We’re just so focused on this, we all feel so lucky just to be part of this opportunity that we’ve all been given, it’s incredible, we’re just loving it. It’s sick.

People make a lot of assumptions about people in your position. They think you’re puppets and do what you’re told. What do you do when people make those assumptions? Harry: When you look from the outside, especially if you’re a skeptic of groups made through TV shows, which is fair enough, people don’t see what we do on a daily basis, people don’t see…I think from the outside, it looks so glamorous, they see us do TV performances every now and again, see us doing an interview every now and again, but they don’t know that we work seven days a week.

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

Niall: You’ve got to remember that you’ve got people on your team that have been doing this for many years and have been through the mill. You have all that experience around you, even from our tour manager, who’s been doing this for 20 years, they know what’s right, but at the same time, we want to have creative control, because at the end of the day, it’s us stepping out onto the stage of SNL tonight and have to sing these songs. We want to be singing what we enjoy, as we said last night. The music we all listen to is what we try and blend together to make this One Direction sound.

Harry: We obviously want to make it authentic and have our say without going, “People say we don’t control it, so we need to take control.” We’re not…we haven’t been writing songs for 20 years, we’re not producers. We’ve got an incredible team around us. Luckily, we’ve been given a lot of freedom, so we don’t go, “OK, we just need more and more control,” because we have a lot of control already. I think we find a really good balance in the way we work with our record label and our management, and it’s just how we work together, I think.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

I interviewed some fans downstairs, and asked if they knew who you were six months ago, and they all said yes, and a year ago…They were all early adopters, heard you from the Internet, watched X Factor on YouTube… Harry: It’s the internet. People have friends over here that might tell their friends and look on YouTube and show their friends. It’s insane how it’s blown up. We’ve had the opportunity to come over to America and do shows, and release our music over here, which is amazing. Through the power of social media, we already had a bit of a following before we’d ever been over here, we hadn’t done any shows. We had some fans out here, which was amazing, but weird, really strange. I don’t know, it’s gone crazy. We don’t really see loads of it. We do the shows, then we’re in hotels, then we fly somewhere else. We don’t see massive amounts of it, we just go with it. This whole thing has gone on, and it’s sick.

Do you ever feel anxious through all this? Harry: Yeah, I think, obviously, just naturally, you think about what’s going to happen in the future. We’re 18, 19, 20 years old, we’re young. I wouldn’t say anxious, we’re just excited most of the time, and having so much fun, that if stuff were to finish and you were to look back on your time and all you did the whole time throughout this amazing stuff was shitting yourself about what’s going to happen next, then it would just be…I think you have to enjoy it while it’s going on. I think you should be wary about the future, but not worrying about it all the time. We still enjoy it and have fun, but obviously, you do think, “What am I going to be doing in 20 years, 30 year?” I’ll have kids by then.

Harry, I saw a tabloid with pictures of everyone smiling, and you were looking thoughtful. Do you get down sometimes? While everyone else is having fun, do you start drifting off? Harry: No, I think I’m naturally…not everyone is happy all of the time. I think you always have times when…like when you’ve just landed off a really long flight or miss home or something. They got a picture of me where I wasn’t smiling. I usually smile, but they got one where I wasn’t smiling and used that, and then said I wasn’t happy. They did that for a few days, that’s when we were in L.A. last time. It goes with the morbid voice.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Niall: I think that’s what’s good about it, people see us as individuals as well as a band, we all have our own personality, and we all give something to a band. Previous bands, they go around and can never explain themselves, they can explain the band, but as individuals, what we bring to the band and stuff…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

#harry styles #niall horan #one direction #230720 #1d ten

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royalhouseofcarrington · 3 years

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Questions and Answers From Your OC!

From the perspective of your OC (if you want). Do this as many times are you would like to and answer as many as you would like!

I was tagged by the ever so lovely @officalroyalsofpierreland and @trentonsimblr (So sorry that I’m just now getting to this) and I’m going to tag anyone who wants to do it!

I’m very fond of Douxie right now, and he’s still of a box full of questions, so I’ll do him!

1) What is your favorite sport?

I’m not very much into sports actually. If I have the time, I do enjoy going down to the pool and swimming laps.

2) What is your favorite color?

To be quite honest, I’m not sure. I’m very fond of green and light blue for reasons I’m not quite sure I understand, but I do tend to wear black more than anything.

3) What is your favorite movie?

Growing up my favorite movie was The Sleeping Princess (old, but one of my mothers’s favorites) but as of right now... I’m not quite sure to be honest. I think the last movie I watched was at a premiere for work.

4) Taken? Single?

Taken. Very much taken by Ana. You could say that I’m... taken for life?

5) What would be your perfect day?

No work. No filming. No press events. No press tours. A breakfast at the local cafe that I’ve been dying to go to. Take Annie out. Go for a walk together. See a movie. Take her to a fancy restaurant for dinner. Grab some ice cream. Very simple, I feel.

6) Are you a night owl or an early bird?

Oh, how I would love to be a night owl. Unfortunately, my schedule at the moment doesn’t allow for me to be a night owl, so I am an early bird.

7) Do you think you're smart?

Heavens no. I barely managed to graduate high school on time. My mothers think I am, but they’re the ones who had to watch me struggle through nearly 13 years of math class.

10) How do you like to be comforted when you are sad?

Chocolates help. And hugs. Great big hugs never hurt.

11) Where do you want to be in 5 years time?

Standing at the end of the aisle at the very least. At the most? I personally wouldn’t be opposed to some tiny little ones running around.

12) Do you have any regrets?

Not meeting Annie again sooner.

13) Who are/is your best friend(s)?

My dearest friend is Cody. We’ve known each other for ages and talk quite often. Our schedules are often very contradictory so we don’t see each other face to face very often, but we have a very good time when we do.

14) What was your dream last night?

A very good one.

15) Who in your family are you closest to?

My mothers, without question. They’ve seen me through highs and lows and I honestly don’t know what I would do without them.

16) What is one thing people don't know about you?

There’s actually a third tattoo..., it’s just hidden out of sight. It has a very important meaning to me though, which is why I got it.

17) Best present ever given to you?

I’m not sure. Annie did get me a signed copy of my favorite book last Winterfest (Watcher knows how she managed to do that, the author’s been with the Reaper for at least 30 years now), so that’s one of them I’d have to say.

18) What is your favorite food?

Any food made by my Maman. She’s an excellent chef and anytime I’m home for dinner, is completely and utterly worth it.

19) Earliest childhood memory?

My cousin being a complete bully to me.

20) Do you have a crush?

I always have a crush on Annie.

21) If you could live in a different period, which one would it be?

I’m rather content in this time period. The fashion of the 17th century is nice, but I’d rather stay here. Those coats look hot.

22) Any nicknames?

Douxie. Doux’. One of my little cousins once called me Hisi while trying to get my attention and that’s certainly a nickname I am not fond of.

23) Introvert or Extrovert?

A combination really. Some days I’m an introvert, some days I’m an extrovert. It depends on what’s happening.

24) Favourite book?

The End of the Beginning by Sarah Laurite. It’s my favourite book series.

25) Hobby?

Playing guitar, mostly. I haven’t been able to find the time for it, but perhaps one of these days I’ll surprise Ana with a guitar song. Perhaps.

26) Beach or pool?

I haven’t gone to the beach in ages! I’m not a fan of sand, but I do enjoy going down to the pool when I can.

27) First kiss?

Yes. For privacy’s sake, I won’t share who it was, but I was 12? Maybe 11?

28) Favourite subject

Art was always my favorite subject in school. That or theatre classes when I got to high school.

29) Age

26.

30) Full name

Hisirdoux Michael Caspersen.

31) Pets?

One black cat who’s fond of roasted salmon who goes by the name of Archie.

32) Age (if they have one)?

Arch is almost 9 years old!

33) Fave song?

I don’t believe that I have one.

34) Where do you live?

Carrington. For privacy’s sake, I won’t say anything more than that.

35) What/who do you miss?

I do desperately miss my late grandmother. She passed away when I was fairly young and I would have loved the opportunity to spend more time with her.

36) Which school(s) do/did you go to?

On set-school mostly, in conjuction with the Nimben School of the Arts in downtown Bilchester. Growing up I went to Hartford Primary before I was cast.

37) Favorite food?

Still anything made by my Maman, but also Ana’s baked sweets.

38) Tattoo?

Yes. 3. And more planned.

39) Done anything illegal?

Heavens no.

40) Fav TV show?

CABN’s Texelin Street. Haven’t missed an episode yet.

41) Do you know any celebrities?

Yes, my girlfriend. Other than her? Also yes.

42) Dreams/wishes?

To be able to retire from acting and Simwood and not have to worry about life on set or the tabloid magazines for 5 minutes.

43) Are you very competitive?

Only when I’m pushed to be competitive.

44) Greatest gift (could be a physical gift or a spiritual gift)?

Being adopted by my mothers and being able to have such a loving family and girlfriend.

45) Greatest accomplishment?

Getting cast in my first movie, I suppose.

46) If you were stuck on a desert island, who would you be stuck with?

Can I pick two? Annie and Cody. My girlfriend and best friend and my best friend.

47) Zodiac sign

Scorpio

48) Where were you born?

My birth certificate says that I was born at the Exeter General Hospital.

49) Sexuality?

Straight.

50) What color are your eyes?

I’ve been informed by several sources that they are green.

51) What color is your hair?

Black.

52) Do you want/ have kids?

Yes. I would love to have several children one day, hopefully in the near future.

53) when is your birthday?

November 18th.

54) Current mood?

Relaxed. Happy. Nervous. Excited.

55) Do you send goodnight or good morning texts to people?

Depends on who it is.

56) What do you want to be when you grow up/ what is your occupation?

I’m an actor right now. In the future I want to take a step towards the director and producers chairs though.

57) How long do you sleep for?

However long my schedule will allow.

58) How long does it take you to get up in the morning?

Usually right away, but when I have the time... 20 minutes?

59) How long does it take you to get ready?

5 minutes.

60) Meyer Briggs personality type?

ISFP

#non-story #This was fun #I want to do this with more of my characters #Maybe JIm?#Or Ana?#Both?#I'm gonna make some google docs brb

7 notes · View notes

ripjaws · 3 years

Text

Ben 10 Survey Results!

Huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response, it was really fun looking through them all and I was genuinely surprised by the results of some of the questions.

Hopefully this will work under a read more because it's quite long and I don't want people to have to scroll a hundred years to get past it.

If anyone has any questions or anything please feel free to ask! :)

Thanks again!

General

Q1. How would you describe your gender?

36% - Female 25.3% - Male 24% - Non-binary 8% - Prefer not to say 4% - Agender 2.7% - Genderfluid

Q2. How would you describe your sexuality?

32% - Bisexual 20% - Heterosexual 20 % - Asexual 8% - Lesbian 6.7% - Prefer not to say 5.4% - Pansexual 4% - Gay 1.3% - Demisexual 1.3% - Questioning 1.3% - Polysexual

Q3. Current age

48% - 20-24 39% - 15-19 13.3% - 25-30 1.3% - Older than 30 1.3% - Younger than 15

Q4. Age when you first became interested in Ben 10

86.7% - Younger than 15 9.3% - 15-19 2.7% - 20-24 1.3% - 25-30

Episodes and season

Q1. Which series did you watch first?

88% - Original Series 9.3% - Alien Force 1.3% - Omniverse 1.3% - Reboot

Q2. Rank the series in order of preference

[IMAGE ID: Five separate groups of five vertical bar charts. The individual columns for each group are coloured in the same order and corresponds to what ranking they recieved on that question of the survey. According to the key at the top of the image the order is; blue = 1, red = 2, orange = 3, green = 4 & purple = 5. The Y axis of the graph goes from zero to thirty in intervals of ten.

The first group is labelled ‘Original Series’ and shows that it got twenty votes in blue, seventeen votes in red, sixteen votes in orange, ten votes in green & twelve votes in purple.

The second group is labelled ‘Alien Force’ and shows that it got nine votes in blue, eighteen votes in red, twenty-one votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & five votes in purple.

The third group is labelled ‘Ultimate Alien’ and shows that it got thirteen votes in blue, ten votes in red, fourteen votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & sixteen votes in purple.

The fourth group is labelled ‘Omniverse’ and shows that it got eighteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seventeen votes in orange, fifteen votes in green & ten votes in purple.

The fifth and final group is labelled ‘Reboot’ and shows that it got fifteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seven votes in orange, six votes in green & thirty-two votes in purple. END IMAGE ID]

Q3. Favourite season (Original Series)

40% - Season 1 18.7% - Season 2 18.7% - Season 3 17.3% - Season 4 5.3% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Ken 10 (S4E10) & Kevin 11 (S1E7)

Q4. Favourite season (Alien Force)

52% - Season 2 28% - Season 1 16% - Season 3 4% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Alone Together (S2E2) & Save the Last Dance (S2E4)

Q5. Favourite Season (Ultimate Alien)

36% - Season 1 25.3% - Season 3 20% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Forge of Creation (S1E16) & Duped (S1E2)

Q6. Favourite Season (Omniverse)

18.7% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2 16% - Season 5 12% - Season 6 10.7% - Season 1 9.3% - Season 8 8% - Season 4 5.3% - Season 3 1.3% - Season 7

Most popular episodes were And Then There Were None (S6E1) & And Then There Was Ben (S6S2)

Q7. Favourite Season (Reboot)

60% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 17.3% - Season 4 10.7% - Season 3 6.7% - Season 1 5.3% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Omni-tricked (S1E37) & Innervasion (S2E36)

Q8. Which live action movie did you prefer?

40% - Alien Swarm 22.7% - Race Against time 22.7% - Didn’t like either 14.7% - Haven’t watched either

Characters and aliens

Q1. Favourite main character

45.3% - Ben Tennyson 28% - Kevin Levin 17.3% - Rook Blonko 9.3% - Gwen Tennyson

Some ‘Why’ responses:

Ben -

I know it's a really basic pick but I enjoy Ben alot as a character. Even though I feel like he took an extremely sharp turn into immaturity in the final season of Alien Force onward (from what I've heard it was due to ratings), it still fit well after a bit of time of adjustment. Him being rash and selfish at times while still having a good heart feels...very human. I'm a huge fan of flawed protagonists and Ben is a prime example of such, imo! Plus I hradcanon that he has autism and it's a big comfort for me :)

I love his potential as a character and the way he hands having such power and responsibility thrust upon him. Ben has done so much for the people in his life and the universe, and I absolutely adore him.

I think of him like a kind person who tries his best to the right thing, he's pretty chill and optimist and in my mind he's a chaotic bi and i can relate to that

Kevin -

I like that he's always been an antihero in the original series. And in the reboot I really like the direction the showrunners are taking his character. He has a different backstory, motivations and I'm really enjoying his character development. It's a fresh take on his story and they're treating it with care, which I really appreciate. His Antitrix aliens also have some really incredible designs.

Cool powers, uncommon character in children's media, especially as a primary character often cast in a good light (ex con, high school dropout, masculine, not emotionally mature). His character development is some of the best in the series.

Gods, we could be here forever... Okay, short version- 1) I can relate to him on a mental health level, especially in the OG series we seemed to have similar issues and to handle them in similar ways 2) there's a lot of depth and variance to his character, he's angry and aggressive and dangerous but also a dork, a sweetheart, and very affectionate once he lets his walls down, he loves cars and supernatural romance, violence and magical girls, he'll rescue an aggressive dog for no reason other than it needed help but also he might consider how much he could get for selling you, he's a complex character and he's allowed to be in a way the Tennysons can't because of how firmly they sit in the Hero seat 3) for all of this, we never really know all that much about him and his experiences, at least in comparison to what we know is there- we never learn about his time traveling the galaxy, we haven't heard anything about his time stuck in time, it's only in the reboot we're getting trustworthy information about his background and even then it's rare tidbits- he's ripe for exploring in fic, headcanon, and so-on 4) his powers in the OG series, his status as mutant or alien or both who knows anymore leaves a lot of doors open to play and to look at the world through different angles 5) dude has turned into six different monstrous chimera forms over the course of the franchise and honestly you have to support that sort've shit in media otherwise they might stop

Rook -

Alien catboy with a glorious voice and have you seen those arms??? And he's so polite while also being hilarious when he gets a little rude/snarky and his character development is amazing!!

While I would normally say Ben himself, Rook is his only friend that hasn't tried to kill him. Additionally, he provides Ben with guidance as well as support the Gwen and Kevin are fickle about.

Having an actual alien joining the cast and serving at Ben's foil worked well to me.

Gwen -

Smart, talented, funny, snarky, confident, and super cute. Jock-prep-nerd energy all in one. Deserves the world. Criminally ignored by the majority of the fandom. Knows karate and judo?? College at 16?? Icon.

Angel, can do no wrong, was capable of so much more than the show let her do, potential to be the most powerful member of the team if they'd just let her go a lil feral sometimes :/

She was a good voice of reason most of the time. Her powers were really interesting and overall I think she had a lot of wasted potential having to be sidelined since the series was about Ben ultimately

Q2. Favourite minor characters

40 votes - Paradox

22 votes - Max Tennyson

18 votes - Tetrax

17 votes - Argit

16 votes - Julie Yamamoto

15 votes - Azmuth

12 votes - Ester

10 votes - Looma Red Wind

9 votes - Glitch

9 votes - Kai Green

7 votes - Alan Albright

6 votes - Jimmy Jones

4 votes - Cooper Daniels

3 votes - Eunice

3 votes - Helen Wheels

2 votes - Elena Validus

2 votes - Manny Armstrong

1 vote - Cash Murray

1 vote - Driba

Other votes went to Penny Bennyson, Kenny Tennyson/Spanner, Lucy Mann, Rook Shar, Eddie Grandsmith, Myaxx and Pakmar.

Q3. Ship or Zed

64% - Ship 36% - Zed

Q4. Favourite main antagonist

20% - Albedo 13.3% - Kevin 11 12% - Vilgax 10.7% - Charmcaster 10.7% - Zs’Skayr 9.3% - Malware 5.3% - Forever Knights 5.3% - Eon 4% - Highbreed & DNAliens 4% - Aggregor 1.3% - Servantis & Rooters 1.3% - Khyber 1.3% - Dagon & the Esoterica

Some ‘Why’ responses for top 3:

Albedo -

When I first saw him during the airing of Good Copy, Bad Copy, I was scared that Albedo might be a one-and-done evil clone that doesn't get much development. These fears went away, and I was pleased to find out about his backstory and motives, just a sour soul in an unpleasant situation. Even in Ultimate Alien with his reappearance episode, he tries to work on his own to cope in a horrid human world. He isn't necessarily malicious until Ben gets in his way, he just wants to return to his own body and leave, even stating that he wasn't going to fight Ben anymore while he had temporarily returned to his Galvan form. I know DJW stated in some interview that Albedo could never be redeemed, but I believe there's some hope if he gets help. And I'm a sucker for those redemption arcs :)

Tragic frog man that could have been helped but nobody helped him and he doubled down on his hatred which led to him getting stuck in a cycle of revenge and punishment and it's the tragedy of how much better things could have been for him if someone just helped him that I love so much!!

Kevin 11 -

He’s very dangerous and has a terrifying power to absorb electricity and living DNA to have the same powers of who he absorbed it from and even turn himself into a mutant with all those powers combined leading to destructive power

Kevin was a good antagonist and a good protagonist, although i feel the transition was rushed. Anti-hero kevin in the reboot is great!

Vilgax -

He was always the endgame villian for Ben, despite how many battles they've had, despite countless losses, he always tried to stay one step ahead, and plan everything.

"Speak with care, Psyphon. Your counsel is valuable...not irreplaceable."

Q5. Favourite minor villains

38 votes - Animo 20 votes - Hex 18 votes - Michael Morningstar/Darkstar 14 votes - SixSix 13 votes - Zombozo 9 votes - Vreedle family 9 votes - Vulkanus 8 votes - Rojo 5 votes - Inspector 13 5 votes - Billy Billions 5 votes - Will Harangue 4 votes - Fistrick 4 votes - Nyancy Chan 3 votes - Lord Decibel 3 votes - Simian 3 votes - Subdora 3 votes - Viktor 2 votes - Addwaitya 2 votes - Fistina 2 votes - Kraab 2 votes - Psyphon 2 votes - Steam Smythe 2 votes - Sunder 1 vote - Liam 1 vote - Ssserpent

Other votes went to Maurice & Sydney, Bugg Brothers, Alternate evil Bens, and the Mummy.

Q6. Favourite canon relationship

66.7% - Gwen & Kevin 13.3% - Max Tennyson & Verdona 5.3% - Ben & Kai 4% - Rook & Rayona 1.3% - Julie & Herve 1.3% - Max & Xylene

Q7. Favourite non-canon ship

36% - I don’t have one 30.7% - Ben & Rook 6.7% - Ben & Kevin 4% - Ben & Julie

Other responses included Ben & Rex, Kai & Julie, Looma & Attea, Alan & Cooper, Ben & Looma, Kevin & Manny, Gwen & Cooper, Ben & Ester, Max & Phil, Azmuth & Paradox, Cooper & Elena, Kai & Ester, Ben & Zak Saturday, Ben & Eddie, Ben & Albedo, Ben & Kevin & Gwen, Kenny & Devlin, OC & canon, and Ben & a therapist.

Q8. Favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

18.7% - XLR8 17.3% - Upgrade 13.3% - Ghostfreak 10.7% - Diamondhead 9.3% - Heatblast 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Snare-oh 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Four Arms

Q9. Least favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

22.7% - Eye Guy 18.7% - Spitter 8% - Articguana 8% - Frankenstrike 6.7% - Upchuck 6.7% - Stinkfly 5.3% - Buzzshock 5.3% - Snare-oh 4% - Four Arms 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Wildmutt 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Diamondhead 1.3% - Ghostfreak

Q10. Favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

46.7% - Big Chill 17.3% - Rath 8% - Goop 6.7% - Lodestar 5.3% - Swampfire 4% - Chromastone 4% - Spidermonkey 2.7% - Alien X 2.7% - Echo Echo 1.3% - Humungousaur 1.3% - Jetray

Q11. Least favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

18.7% - Lodestar 17.3% - Brainstorm 13.3% - Alien X 10.7% - Humungousaur 10.7% - Spidermonkey 8% - Jetray 8% - Chromastone 5.3% - Goop 5.3% - Echo Echo 2.7% - Rath

Q12. Favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

18.7% - Juryrigg 16% - AmpFibian 14.7% - Clockwork 12% - NRG 8% - Armodrillo 8% - Shocksquatch 8% - Terraspin 8% - Water Hazard 2.7% - Chamalien 2.7% - Fasttrack 1.3% - Eatle

Q13. Least favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

30.7% - Fasttrack 18.7% - Eatle 13.3% - Juryrigg 9.3% - Chamalien 8% - Shocksquatch 6.7% - Terraspin 5.3% - Water Hazard 4% - Clockwork 1.3% - AmpFibian 1.3% - Armodrillo 1.3% - NRG

Q14. Favourite Ultimate Form

38.7% - Echo Echo 24% - Big Chill 10.7% - Swampfire 9.3% - Way Big 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Spidermonkey 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Humungousaur

Q15. Favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

29.3% - Feedback 13.3% - Pesky Dust 12% - Gravattack 9.3% - Ball Weevil 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Whampire 5.3% - Bloxx 4% - Atomix 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Gutrot 1.3% - Crashhopper 1.3% - Kickin Hawk 1.3% - Toepick 1.3% - The Worst

Q16. Least favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

24% - The Worst 14.7% - Bloxx 12% - Mole-Stache 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Astrodactyl 6.7% - Kickin Hawk 5.3% - Atomix 5.3% - Gutrot 4% - Crashhopper 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Toepick 1.3% - Ball Weevil

Q17. Favourite alternate Ben timeline

29.3% - No watch Ben 24% - Gwen 10 17.3% - Ben 10,000 8% - Mad Ben 6.7% - Dimension 23 6.7% - Eon 4% - Nega Ben 2.7% - Benzarro 1.3% - Bad Ben

Misc.

Q1. Favourite watch design

37.3% - Original Series 29.3% - Omniverse 17.3% - Alien Force 9.3% - Ultimatrix 6.7% - Reboot

Q2. Favourite alternate watch design

29.3% - Biomnitrix 20% - Gwen 10 18.7% - Negatrix 17.3% - Antitrix 8% - Power Watch 6.7% - Hero Watch

Q3. Favourite planet visited

32% - Anur Transyl 20% - Revonnah 13.3% - Mykdl’dy 10.7% - Galvan Prime 9.3% - Vilgaxia 6.7% - Piscciss 5.3% - Petropia 2.7% - Khoros

Q4. Favourite locations

34 votes - Undertown 23 votes - Ledgerdomain 23 votes - Null Void 22 votes - Bellwood 19 votes - Friedkin University 18 votes - Mr. Smoothy 16 votes - Forge of Creation 15 votes - Los Soledad 7 votes - Burger Shack 7 votes - Plumber Headquarters 4 votes - Incarcecon 2 votes - Mt. Rushmore Plumber base 2 votes - The Perplexahedron 1 vote - Plumber Academy

Q5. Favourite Vehicle

33.3% - Kevin’s car (Original) 25.3% - Rustbucket 18.7% - Proto-TRUK 13.3% - DX Mark 10 5.3% - Kevin’s car (Omniverse) 4% - Glitch

Q6. Favourite Kevin mutation

40% - Original series 20% - Ken 10 future 12% - Ultimate Alien 8% - Omniverse 8% - Alien Force 6.7% - Omniverse flashback 5.3% - Reboot

Q7. Favourite Omniverse redesign

66.7% - Ben 26.6% - Kevin 6.7% - Gwen

Q8. Least favourite Omniverse redesign

76% - Gwen 18.7% - Kevin 5.3% - Ben

Thoughts

(Putting every single response here would make this insanely long so I’ve just put the most detailed/most echoed responses & include all sides of opinions when possible.)

Q1. Thoughts on the Osmosians retcon?

Okay, first up, do you know how much work I had already put into building shit surrounding those fuckers by the time of the retcons? I had been working on this crap since AF season 2! But no, they gotta go ruin that in one fell swoop, thank you, much appreciated. Second up, I wibble on it? Like, working with mutants is fun and interesting and I've done plenty of shit with them as well, but in the end I'm always going to be a pro-Ossys person. Mostly the retcons left more questions than they gave answers (how, if Osmosians never existed, did everybody and their mother know Kevin was an Osmosian? why, if Osmosians never existed, did none of the people not-involved in this whole disaster with Servantis's mindfuckery look at Aggregor being reported as an Osmosian and go 'wtf that's not a thing'? do they really mean to tell me that not only did Kevin never bother to look into his heritage, but neither did research-happy Gwen? or am I expected to believe the Rooters made enough fake information and put it out publicly that they fooled literally everyone? and if they did then why? when it would've done the same thing with less effort if they'd just, let Kevin be a mutant with a Plumber father who died) and I feel like they didn't really give enough to justify them. One of those cases of 'making your work less interesting to make it more 'accurate''. Personally, I forever keep working on Osmosians (where's the line where it just starts becoming your shit, I think I may be heading there) and I love on mutants and I flip between or combine the two as needed for whatever story I want to tell.

While the fake memories plot isn't great I think it's for the best because the original series meant for Kevin to be a mutant while UAF changed it to alien. I like him better as a mutant human. Too much alien connections in UAF.

I could scream for hours. Easily one of the worst decisions they ever made. Omniverse picks and chooses what canon to follow from AFUA + the original run and throws it in without care or concern to what it means for the timeline. Retconning something and keeping the effect it had is just bad writing. Kevin coming to terms with not being human and that’s okay was important to me when I was a kid. Knowing that he’s just been on an unending series of brainwashed nonsense all his life deprives him of his agency. I hate this decision more than several dozen essays could ever convey.

I wasn't mad about it. Mainly because I liked the idea of Kevin being a mutant than an alien. Alien Force really was pushing that aspect even with Gwen. To the point where she called her powers 'not spells' because of her heritage. Stupid that the rooters and fake memories were a thing, but necessary.

I was never a big fan of the Rooters Arc, but this doesn't bother me too much. It makes UA a little weird with Aggragor, but again, it doesn't really bother me, as most of Omniverse didn't explore Kevin (While UA Did), and was mostly about Ben.

Osmosians were such a cool idea, and it would've allowed for more exploration into what Mike Morningstar was as well, but just writing them off as mutates is so boring. As well as it makes Aggregors whole part not really make sense, like who is he then.

While well executed, it was unnecessary. You could have had the same story line where Kevin was used to mutate other kids and still had him an Alien. You could have had it where it was another alien species that used Osmosians to morph other species to theirs; a call back to the DNAliens if you want.

Q2. Thoughts on how the Ultimate Kevin situation was dealt with in UA?

Terrible. They wanted to go far. They wanted to go dark. But they didn't think their viewership could handle it so they dialed it back. I will always be curious to know what they would have written if they didn't have those constraints. Because the final product was a mess of contrasting tone and unsure footing about how far to go with questioning our hero's moral compass. They wanted to push Ben to see what he would do and apparently, we got that he would kill Kevin and maybe Gwen if she got in the way of saving the universe.... but not really because he didn't. And then the gang is happy all back together like none of it ever happened. They wanted to explore dark themes but have it leave no consequences on the characters. Also... it was so ableist and awful and Kevin deserved better than how Ben and Max (and the writers) treated him.

If they did everything the same but the argument was 'we need to capture him and lock him away' instead of 'we need to kill him'? I would be fine. It's the fact that they slipped so quickly into murder, into murder by his 16-yo bestfriend, that gets me. Like, there's apparently no space between 'recklessly risk our safety trying to talk him down' and 'Ol' Yeller his ass' and that just does not sit right with me.

Ben should have looked for alternate solutions before jumping on the "Let's kill Kevin" train. I understand why he did (this took place immediately post-Aggregor so Ben was still traumatized about having lost so many people and because he failed and "let" Kevin get turned into Ultimate Kevin, he felt as though every person Kevin hurt would be on him) but I wish he hadn't.

Pretty good actually. I like Gwen's emotions becoming a hindrance to the job, I like Ben putting on his big boy pants and I like Kevin going up to Aggregor and saying "y'know, I was a big boy villain once and I'm tried of just getting kicked around" (obviously paraphrasing)

Other than the scenario being overplayed, I think Ben was right. Kevin was eventually going to end up killing Gwen and he'd already put others in the hospital. He needed to be stopped.

Ben jumping straight to murder, yikes. Kevin dismissing Gwen to hang out with Ben almost as soon as he turned back to normal, yikes. Otherwise, it was an interesting plotline.

Really bad. Really shows how awful max and the plumbers really are. I mean , the guy saved the universe and now he clearly needs help but all they wanted to do was kill him.

it really felt like Ben just wanted to murder Kevin because he saved the universe that one time and Ben couldn't stand someone else being the hero for once

The worst, Max straight away wanting to put him down makes u wonder how long he's been waiting for that kind of opportunity.

I'm fine with it, maybe they could have spent some time dealing with the consequences of Kevin's actions, possibly even the ramifications it had on Ben and Kevin's friendship, but overall I'm ok with it.

Q3. Thoughts on the Plumbers

Plumbers ain't shit. Individuals can be acceptable or not but the organization as a whole has too much power, not enough oversight, utilizes child labor, uses a deathtrap of a hellscape dimension as a penal colony, has been shown onscreen sentencing people to imprisonment in said dimension without a trial, and I'm sorry the fact that a Plumber official could walk into a base with his team, assault several members of staff, attempt to kidnap a boy, admit to having and planning to continue to run illegal experiments on him and others, admit to having altered the memories of other Plumber officials, all in front of the entire base, and nothing was done until he tried to kill the golden child Ben 10 and failed, got his ass kicked by one of his victims, and in a place where presumably there were security cameras? And that the response was, again, to sentence him and his team without trial, take all the evidence, and peace out without so much as looking at nonetheless apologizing to his victims? Yeah, that don't fly. Doesn't sound like an organization that has it's shit together. Either the Plumbers don't have their shit together or the higher ups were in on it until it became something that could actually damage their reputation, and either way I Do Not Approve.

They're pretty cool. I know everyone's talking about how Plumbers are space cops and therefore absolutely corrupt and bad but this is a fictional universe in which corruption in organized forces isn't a necessity. Plumbers don't function the same way real cops do, they don't follow they same chain of command, they don't have the same motivations and they definitely don't have the same biases. Plumbers perform an essential function in the Ben 10 universe, which is to capture and contain aliens who aim to hurt anyone (or those who Ben defeats).

My knowledge of the Plumbers' unfortunately doesn't go beyond UA. They're not my favorite thing ever. Some of my least favorite episodes were the ones where the Plumbers or Plumbers' kids are involved, except for the episode "Everybody Talks About the Weather". The way Alan is introduced is really cool and very X Files-esque, and it ties into the DNAlien plot very well. But throughout the series I stopped caring about the Plumbers in general and I think that concept was given too much attention.

They don't do what they're meant to. They act like heros yet I don't think I've ever seen them do anything heroic. The DNAliens situation, the aggregor situation, dagon etc etc. Where were they??? Why did they leave the fate of the universe in the hands of a 16 year-old boy? Ben has the omnitrix sure , but he's still just one guy, how much can he fight? They showed up every once in a while but that's it. They were useless.

Of course the Plumbers have their problems, but looking at most characters we've met that were plumbers seem to be pretty good people. Max, Patelliday and Rook (and even Kevin, technically) are great examples of Plumbers, Servantis being a bad example of one.

Honestly liked it when it was disbanded. It’s cool they introduced Rook but like there’s so much wrong with how they run most things. My favorite version of the plumbers was tbh the first live action movie. Where it was just a bunch of old people watching out for Ben cause they actually cared about the people they protected (in this case Ben).

Q4. Thoughts on Grandpa Max

(The responses to this one were way more divided than I thought they would be omg)

He said Kevin was a mad dog that needed to put down. He's terrible. Military. Secretive. Kept his kids out of the loop and probably told the grandkids not to tell them about a huge and extremely dangerous part of their lives. Thus creating a gap between them and their parents that didn't need to be there. Child endangerment. Other than that....? He's important to Ben and Gwen so I tolerate him and he had some good life lessons to share. Also legendary adult figure in a kids cartoon who had relationships with multiple aliens.

He’s incredible, he worked in the Air Force, was going to be one of the first people on the moon (But he refused because he joined the Plumbers) had children with an Energy Being, he has a few grandchildren, and not to mention knows how to still kick butt despite him being in his 60s and was there to help Ben grow

He’s a complicated old man. Love him to bits in the original run and I love him in AF! He’s a utilitarian doing what needs to be done and suffering the consequences when need be. He does what he thinks is going to lead to the best possible outcome for the most people in any situation.

Needs to get knocked off his pedestal more often, both in and out of canon. He's got good traits, they're very nice, but there's other shit that gets glossed over, ignored, brushed aside, too easily forgiven, and just. They really needed a character who served double duty being a counterforce to him. Somebody to go 'wtf is wrong with you?' or 'yeah, no'. Ideally this would've been Patilidae, but no. We couldn't be so lucky.

Conflicted. Was he grooming Ben for plumber work, or just trying to support him in a situation he knew would be dangerous? It’s not made very clear...

I think he's got some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. I just can't forgive him for making Ben carry the burden of the Omnitrix at the age of 10 without ever explaining anything, and for not letting Ben and Gwen know he was alive after the Null Void grenade incident in AF. He clearly could have, if Helen could reach Gwen so easily. I think he views Ben more as an asset than a grandson at this point and that's really sad.

I love him! The progression from family hero to questionable old man felt kinda natural, like learning about a family member as you grow older and realizing they aren't perfect

He's awesome. He was a good role model for Ben and he was very supportive to both his grandkids. I hate that they made him mute in Omniverse and changed his design so drastically. I loved Max in every season from the original till Ultimate Alien. After that, he was pretty much just a prop.

Q5. And finally, give me your most controversial Ben 10 opinion!

It seems to be the worst thing to say that Ben isn't perfect and that Kai isn't demonic. And it's pretty standard for the women of color characters in every fandom to get the most hate so to me all the hate towards Kai when her personality is so close to Ben's AND she's also more hated than the ex-villain and the actual villains that tried to kill Ben multiple times just seems- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. But really, and really I've needed to say this for a long time but I'm afraid of being strangled. Some fans will denounce incest/pedo shippers and people that interact with them and then reblog from a proud Bwen shipper with no self-awareness. Please I have the tags blacklisted are you safe to interact with and you just don't know? Or you're just saying you hate Bwen shippers to give yourself an out for reblogging their content????? Or are you all closeted incest shippers trying to maintain a public image???? I'm at my limit.

I do not think the reboot should have existed tbh :,D I know that it has a ton of fans and all due respect to them, but from what I've seen of it I don't think it was worth tossing away four interconnected series' worth of development and starting from scratch to end up with what we have now. I would be fine with it existing if we got an Omniverse continuation alongside it, but CN screwed OV over by the decisions they made near the end of it's run. So it's probably impossible it would return, even moreso because of the reboot already airing, and it would probably confuse younger audiences that don't know about Omniverse if two Ben 10's were running separately. I just really miss Omniverse, it had more potential and the reboot placed the final nail in for it to ever return.

The Ben 10 reboot is fun and meant more for kids rather than the ones watching for nostalgia. I didn’t like how Gwevin were sidelined and downplayed to make Ben look better. Sometimes it felt like Gwen was a bit naggy towards the two of them. I didn’t like how the fact that she was the only female lead how she had sometimes act like a parent or that they put Gwen and Kevin together just because. Their relationship felt forced and awkward a lot of the time. Omniverse’s designs while controversial were fun and unique but I didn’t like what they did with Gwevin, especially Gwen.

Kevin is totally smart enough to figure out an Omnitrix with the blueprints in front of him, we see him do amazing shit with technology- including the Omnitrix- in the OG series, people just don't notice he's as brilliant as Gwen because the show never made it as big a point that he and Ben were so very smart like it did with her before the reboot, so now they're being forced to acknowledge that Kevin might have two braincells to rub together and they're pushing against the supposed 'change'.

idk if it's controversial but there should've been way more episodes of just gwen & kevin & rook without ben or ben having a very minor role in the episode. just more time for those three to shine and show off how capable they are without ben always having to come in to save the day at the end

Gwen and Kevin aren't good friends to Ben. I mean they were initially, but once he got famous and they didn't, they stopped putting more than a half-assed effort to help him. They also don't really consider his feelings nor really care about the toll heroing takes on him.

The Reboot has the best jokes in the entire franchise and I don't why people give it so much crap.

Kai Green is an abuser and I refuse to find anything redeemable about her character. "Worthy to wield Excalibur," my entire ass. And Ben and Julie's breakup was good for them both, as people, and just as much her fault as it was his.

Ben 10 is an incredibly flawed show and people need to stop getting butt hurt when the blatant misogyny, and copoganda in the show get pointed out or when any even minority critiques Ben's character.

Ben is the worst character in Ben 10 and the whole franchise would be better off without him.

Azmuth is fine for the most part and malware was not exactly the most understanding person

I think Ben should've stayed single. Every episode where romance (or the girl Ben was dating) was the focus of the episode was pretty boring to me, personally.

Ben's parents were right to try to stop him from being a hero, so were Gwen's.

Ultimate alien force season 2 and 3 were amazing.( not comparing the OS since obviously that's the best, or omniverse since I haven't watched all the episodes of that)

Pierce deserved to die for being a boring character. I just wish his death had actual consequences.

The reboot is a genuine improvement over the original continuity in MANY ways!

Oh geez, um, Kai was a good character, just her and ben were obviously toxic. Not everyone needs to like Ben and she isn't an abuser, they just don't get along and that's fine but by God, why did the writers have to force them in a relationship? That's all I could really think of on the spot. Oh! And that the first two season of AF were a watered down version of Ben and the plot focused more on Gwen and Kevin than it did Ben. He felt like a side character and I'm not mad about that, but I don't understand why people praise that characterization of ben when I remember more about gwen and Kevin then Ben. Dude, I've been watching the show for the past week and I can name more about kevin and gwen because they're memorable.

Azmuth's hot af, but y'all aren't ready for that conversation...

----

If you’ve made it this far then thank you!

Again huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response and if you have any questions/comments please feel free to leave them in the replies/send me an ask/dm/whatever ^^

#ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #b10 #gwen tennyson #kevin levin #rook blonko #WE DID IT LADS #looking back there were SO many questions i couldve added like more directly fandom related ones but ehhhhh live and learn i guess #it was fun to do anyway :3

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drethanramslay · 4 years

Text

A funny thing called Fate- Prologue

Pairing: Bryce X MC (Aisha Khurrana)

Word Count: 2.8K words

Series Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Warning: None really, just a little cursing

Author’s note: I had been listening to Strawberries and Cigarettes by Troye Sivan and that is actually the primary spark which led me to come up with this series. Shout out to @mvalentine and @anotherbeingsworld fo letting me bounce my crazy ideas <3

AHHH so it is finally here!! This is my first time writing Bryce so I hope I can do justice to this beautiful man. This starts with Aisha’s (MC) POV and like I said, there will be a time jump. It would be first person when I’m writing in the past and then it will shift to third person when I’m writing the present. I think i should stop my rambling and let’s go!!

Terms you need to know-

-Bhaiya: Brother in hindi

-Beta: Technically it means ‘son’ but in most Indian families its used like a term of endearment too

- AIIMS, Delhi: Stands for All India Institute of Medical Sciences. This is one of the best medical schools in the country and Only 100 people out of 200,000(or more) get in. So it is very cut throat.

10 years ago- Aisha's PoV

(Age: 16)

I am done.

Done with all the drama, done with all the lies, done with all the manipulations and done with all the heartache.

And most of all, I was done with him- the infamous Bryce Lahela.

The boy with the stupid long hair, the stupid signature smirk and the stupid charm. Those amber eyes which reminded you of the sand and sea and those lips on which an everlasting smile played used to be like a breath of fresh air. I always thought that he was so unique, but boy was I wrong.

All boys are the same.

I really thought that jocks like him would be different huh? Can someone just hand me my clown shoes?

But luckily, I don't have to see his face ever again because for once, instead of making a mockery of my existence, life decided to give me something that I really wanted badly.

A chance to leave all of this in my past. A chance to start over again.

My dad had a better business opportunity back in Mumbai. I am an Indian and we lived in Delhi since the time I was born but we shifted to Mauii when I was in the ninth grade because of how demanding dad's job was getting

Bhaiya chose to stay back in Delhi because his engineering college was there and he enjoyed the hostel life way too much. And he had finally managed to get out of our toxic household so I really could not blame him.

So yeah.. that is how I ended up in Maui in the first place.

It was okay in ninth grade. I kept to myself and blended in with the shadows (because hello social anxiety!). But... Tenth grade changed everything.

It was one of the best and worst year of my life and I often wonder if I could ever get over this.

I am definitely sounding like one of those over-dramatic Indian soap operas my mom watches every night.

"Aisha? Are you ready? The car is here beta."

"Yes, Mama. I am coming!! Just packing up some stuff."

Breaking out of my reverie, I stuffed in my phone and other essentials into my carry bag. As I was zipping up my luggage, I yanked open my closet door to see if I left anything behind my eyes landed on the shoebox I had stuffed in the back of my closet.

I gulped and I felt tears well up in my eyes again. A part of me wanted to take it for it had all the trinkets of the good things in my relationship with Bryce but, another part of me knew that if I took it with me, I would never be able to move on and that would completely defeat the purpose of this fresh start I have been looking forward to.

So with a heavy heart, I looked away and shut the door of the closet, picked up my luggage and left.

As the Uber pulled out of the curb I stared out of the window, to look at the beaches I had come to love and hate.

I liked Maui, I really did but all that it was reduced was a place where I was humiliated and belittled.

And it was all his fault.

PRESENT

(Age: 27)

"Oh my god. I'm gonna late!!" Aisha screeched as she saw the time on her phone. She shoved the duvet off her and jumped out of bed. She tried running to the bathroom in her small closet-sized apartment but it just ended up with her stubbing her toe against the coffee table.

"Ow ow ow." She cursed as she hobbled into the washroom and got on with her daily chores. Her hand-eye coordination was already awful and add that she was sleep deprived just made the entire thing worse. Stumbling, tripping, cursing she managed to brush her teeth and hop into the shower. The burst of cold water managed to wake her up as she furiously washed.

Why did I have to move into a room under a busy staircase?! This is why bhaiya says- Do your research. She angrily thought to herself as she wiped herself rigorously and zipped open her suitcase, searching for her semi-formal clothes.

Grabbing a granola bar and her trusty thermos of coffee, she was on her way to Edenbrook.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

As she entered the atrium, she was in complete awe. It looked big and majestic on the outside, with a clever mix of brick walls and the glass facade, making it look welcoming. Sunshine poured through the atrium as the various doctors and nurses worked around her, not giving mind to the clueless intern gawking.

"Hi, I'm Dr Ines Delarosa, a senior resident!! You look lost. Let me guess... the first day of residency?" A short woman in a doctor's coat walked up to her breaking Aisha from her awe, her aura full of happiness, rainbows and unicorns which made Aisha a little vary.

Is it normal to be this happy and energetic?

Aisha nodded hesitantly and the resident smiled a hundred-watt smile. "Great. You are gonna need a photo ID. Follow me, I will get you all set up." Wordlessly Aisha followed Ines, slinging her messenger bag over her shoulder, nervously playing with the strap.

It is going to be fine... Aisha breathed out as she entered a room with a white background and a camera before it. "Just step over here, in front of the camera and smile."

And waste my energy? No thanks.

She schooled her features to be as professional as she could and the flash of the camera went off. Aisha walked over the tangled wires and peeked at the screen. A serious face stared back at her, the lighting doing good to her brown skin. Her nose piercing caught light and her dark mahogany hair was tied up in a neat ponytail.

"Is it okay? Or do I need to retake the photo?"

"No, it is great! I like it. Thank you."

"Well I will just stick this on your ID.... and you are good to go!! I wish I looked that good in my ID." She said and cheerfully and once her eyes fell on the title a smile made its way on her face,

Dr Aisha Khurrana... It is real and it is true.

"My first day as a real doctor." she whistled lowly shaking her head as if she didn't believe it.

"I was in your shoes last year. Believe me, med school was nothing compared to this. Your three years of residency will be the toughest, most amazing year of your life!! But the first year as an intern will be the craziest of all."

As soon as the smile had graced her features, it slipped away and she nodded seriously. "I think I am ready for it. I have been dreaming and slogging my ass so that I could work in Edenbrook. Ever since I learnt that Ethan Ramsey worked here. His research basically pushed me to apply for med school."

Also, the fact that my parents can like shut up about me being worthless.

"That is great. I will just walk you to the locker room so that you can change into scrubs." Ines offered and Aisha gave her a small smile.

"So... Any advice?"

"Make friends..."

And I am out. She thought to herself. She always struggled with making friends and that is partly the reason why she would keep to herself all the time. Sure she did make a few gem of a friends in med school but if she had to choose between mingling with strangers and drowning, you know what she would choose.

"... with your interns, year senior residents, even your patients! Friends will get you through anything. And, uh, try to not annoy the Attendings! You do not want to get on your boss's bad side."

"Noted."

After changing she was just passing through the waiting room so that she could get to the orientation when she heard gasps from the seating area. A woman had collapsed on her seat and the people were crowding around her.

Her instincts kicked in and she ordered. "Give her space. Everybody step back! I'm a doctor."

She hurried over to the woman just as another doctor rushes in. He kneeled at her side and checked her pulse. "Pulse is weak. She's unresponsive." He looked up and his eyes landed on her.

"You Rookie. Get here."

"Right away doctor. Coming!" Aisha hurried over as the doctor lifted the fainted woman on to the nearby gurney.

"What was she coming in for? Did she fill out a form yet?"

"No, she'd just walked in."

The doctor's piercing blue eyes landed on her which made her straighten her back. "If we don't figure out what's wrong with her fast, she's going to die on this table. Rookie, check B.P."

Wrapping the blood pressure cuff around the unconscious woman's arm and she pumped the bulb, peering at the numbers.

"It's plummeting. She's hypotensive. We've gotta get fluids in her."

Aisha's eyes wandered over the woman's form, trying to search for more clues. Her eyes landed on the rapidly forming bruise on her elbow.

"Doctor... Look at this bruise. I think it's a sign that she is a haemophiliac."

The doctor replied in a gruff voice. "You think or you know?"

"I know."

"Good. Also can you see the way her fingertips are turning blue? It is a sign of low oxygen saturation in the blood. Take a closer listen to her lungs. Hurry."

She nodded assertively and slipped the resonator of the stethoscope over the ribs, straining to hear the diminishing whooshing of the lungs which made Aisha gulp in fear.

"Can't hear anything on the left side and the right side is struggling. She is going to suffocate at this rate." She spoke up , her voice struggling to stay calm but as she glanced at the older doctor, he seemed to be as cool as a cucumber.

"Nurse we have got a code blue." His authoritative voice boomed over as the nurses bustled around the gurney.

Taking the bag mask from the nurse, he secured it around the patient's mouth and gently pump air into her lungs.

"What do we do, Doctor? What's happening to her?" She asked as she noticed the reducing breath rate.

He looked up. "Consider all the clues. It's all there. You know this, Rookie."

Aisha closed her eyes and took a deep breath, realigning her focus, delving deep into her mind, analyzing the clues.

Hemophilia... low blood oxygen... no lung expansion on one side...

Her brown eyes snapped open as it struck her. "It's a haemothorax!"

A twinkle of approval flickered in the ocean eyes, which vanished as soon as it came. "Precisely. A blood vessel ruptured and is filling her pleural cavity..."

"... Blocking her lungs from expanding! That's why she can't breathe." Aisha completed the sentence.

Fuck.

"But we can't repair the blood vessel over here."

The older doctor's jaw clenched. "Then we will have to do a emergency thoracotomy to drain the cavity instead. Nurse!"

The nurse hustles around handing her a scalpel and a chest tube, her eyes widening in shock.

She gulped, her nervousness spiking as she sees the doctor lift the shirt of the patient, exposing the side of her rib cage.

"We need a local anaesthetic-"

The doctor interrupted her. "We're out of time and she is already unconscious. Do it now, or the woman's life is on you!!"

She gritted her teeth with determination. I am not loosing a patient on my first day.

She took a deep breath in an attempt to calm herself. It is just like anatomy class only... this isn't a cadaver but a real person.

But that statement, instead of calming her, it just caused the scalpel to shake in her hand.

The doctor reaches and encompasses her hand. "Hey... You can do this."

Aisha nods stabilizing herself and focusing solely on the older doctor's voice, before she looked down.

"There you go... Nice and easy."

Incision at the fifth intercostal space... anterior.. to the mid axillary line...

And when she was confident enough, she made the perfect incision, a trickle of red following the path of the scalpel.

"Now the tube."

She took and pushed it into the incision and with a spurt, blood started draining out of the chest cavity resulting in the patient to take a deep breath.

Holy shit I did that. I freaking did that.

In the daze of endorphins, she heard the doctor order her surgery, the nurses wheeling the gurney and the onlookers applauding.

She turned towards the attending, excitement pouring out of her in waves. "Doctor.. that was absolutely amazing!!"

It's was as if a switch flipped and the grumpier and sarcastic facade took place. "You're right. It is pretty amazing you didn't get her killed."

Aisha's jaw dropped.

"Wait, what?"

The doctor rambled off, pointing out her mistakes. "Your examination was slow and superficial. Your scalpel technique, amateur at best."

It took all her might to not scoff.

Excuse me I graduated from AIIMS Delhi, thank you very much.

Swallowing the dying need to go off she spoke in a professional tone. "Amateur? I'm sorry, doctor but it is my first day."

"Well, that is not an excuse you can use because if that patient would have died, the blood would have been on your hands..." He lifted the badge attached to her breast pocket scrutinizing on the surname.

"... Khurrana."

He tossed the id back to her, turned on his heels and walked away, leaving a steaming Aisha in her place.

"What a dick." She muttered under her breath.

"Yeah and I'm totally in love with him." A nurse appeared magically out of thin air near her, causing her to jump in surprise.

The kind eyed nurse just rolled his eyes and placed a hand on her shoulder which had Aisha bristling. "Don't worry about it, Dr Ramsey is like that to everybody."

Aisha's jaw dropped for the second time. "Wait... Dr. Ramsey as in Dr. Ethan Ramsey?!"

Shooting a knowing glance, he spoke up. "I take it, you're a fan?"

"He's only my medical hero and greatest inspiration. I've read all his research!" Aisha rushed off, horror and excitement rushing through her.

Oh my god I managed to piss of my one medical hero.. I'm such a dumbass.

Noticing the horror of her expression he gave a gentle smile. "On the bright side, you'll get plenty more chances to impress him."

She sighed and looked down to see that her scrubs were stained with blood.

First impression is last impression beta, always remember that. Her father's voice resonated in her mind.

"Dammit, I'm here for five minutes and I'm already a mess. I can't show up to orientation like this!"

"Don't sweat it. There are extras in the locker room. Come I will show you the way..."

She walked into the locker room, looking for her assigned locker. There was a crowd of half naked interns and after mumbling a couple of 'excuse me's', and rubbing shoulders (literally) she made it the end of the room.

As she turned she knocked into another woman in nothing but her undergarments.

"Uh...um.. okay then." Aisha stuttered as she felt the back of her neck heating up.

Thanks to my brown skin no one can see me getting flustered.

"What? See something you like?" She asked cheekily in an Indian accent which eased Aisha up a bit.

"Ha, you wish."

"Aren't you cute?" The woman snickered as she reached for her pants.

"That's what people say, so it must be true."

She reached for her full sleeve shirt before looking Aisha's way. "Desi?"

Aisha snorted. "Obviously. And I'm guessing you too."

"Of course. And I'm guessing that you are definitely not wearing those scrubs."

"What? Didn't you hear? Bloody clothes are like the new trend around here."

There was a moment of silence before both of them started laughing.

"It's good to meet someone from home." Aisha spoke as she pulled her scrub shirt off.

"Woah, woah, woah. Don't count on that yet. I need to see if you are gonna get in my way in this competition."

Aisha smirked as she shut her locker. "Can't say I'm surprised. Can't be desi if the sense of competition isn't ingrained in your DNA."

"Oh my god never thought that I would see Jackie's twin." A familiar manly voice wafted over to them.

Wait a second...

"Shut up scalpel jockey, this is our kind of bonding."

"Oh please, don't scare the newbie aw- oh."

Oh.

She was standing right in front of him. Face to face. The playful amber eyes, with flecks of brown hadn't changed. The long shoulder length hair had been cut and styled to be short and messy.

There was no trace of the surfer boy she met in Maui. He was a man through and through but still, the youth in his eyes poured out in waves, reminding her of the sandy beaches.

But right now those amber eyes were wide with shock.

It's not everyday that you meet your ex of ten years in the locker room of your new job.

"Aisha?"

".... Bryce?!"

HEHEHEH AWKWAARRDDD

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coleyholts · 3 years

Photo

Here it is. The Medication Post.

Note: I’m going to start off by saying that this is highly personal and any judgement (although I don’t really care, but we’ll explore that) will not be tolerated and it will make you a bad person. This is a detailed account of my medication history and I am putting it out there in hopes that someone out there will benefit from what I know. Okay. Glad to have that out of the way.

When I was in high school (maybe 16-ish??), I went to my doctor and told him that I was having trouble shaking the feeling of constantly being rushed and that people are looking at me like I’m less than they are. These feelings were always present and made my life so much harder than it needed to be.

I was completely open to medication, having known many adults and a few of my peers that had benefited greatly from their qualities. I started Paxil, and at first, I was so relieved. As a few months rolled by, I noticed that while I wasn’t terribly sad or anxious, I was not experiencing any positive emotions either. I had become completely numb to everything I was supposed to be enjoying as a high school Junior with a bright future full of mysteries.

After six months, doc and I had a check-in. I told him how I felt, so I was switched to Effexor. I felt like this medication made no difference whatsoever. I felt like I was served this ultimatum by life that made me choose between being shaky and nervous and having no emotions whatsoever. I DO NOT RECOMMEND THIS, but I weaned myself off and didn’t look back...until recently.

During my complicated pregnancy filled with hurdles like spine surgery, physical therapy, pain management with the best medications to not harm my baby, gestational diabetes, excessive swelling, knee injections (the list really never ends), I found myself feeling sorry for myself. I shouldn’t have to go through so much pain in order to bring life into this world like most other women. I talked to my OB/GYN about this, and he said starting Zoloft would not hurt Natasha, and that a lot of at-risk women begin taking it in the third trimester in preparation for Post-Partum Depression. I decided to tough out my pregnancy without medication, as I was already out of work at this point for blood pressure.

At your first check-up (usually two weeks after delivery), you are asked to fill out a survey containing questions that indicate exactly where you’re at emotionally. I felt weird checking boxes of the symptoms I had been experiencing, asking myself if these feelings were real. My biggest issue was that I was crying WAY too much. Looking back, I think this was caused by feelings of guilt surrounding the fact that I could not care for my baby as much as I wanted to, being almost 300 lb. And recently being cut in half for a cesarean. I started Zoloft that day.

For me personally, timing considered, Zoloft completely changed my life. Although I was dealing with some nerve pain complications, I was able to “get it together” most of the time. I was so happy that I put my faith in Dr. Aron, as I held my head high and enjoyed my baby and husband while I healed with steroids, muscle relaxers, injections and physical therapy.

Everything was getting better and better medically. I had reached complete relief with my back pain, while working almost all of the way through my PPD. I got my ADHD diagnosis, got properly medicated, and everything made sense. I switched all of my medications to my primary care physician, and was just about to come off Zoloft completely. I felt so accomplished.

Then, the accident happened.

When we were discharged after Natasha’s surgery, I called my doctor’s office on the way home. I sobbed knowing I had to do the exact opposite of what my goal had been and increase my Zoloft. I left a message with a nurse (they know me from all the bs I dealt with during my pregnancy), and after telling her what happened, I got the notification that my prescription had been filled. It helped in less than three days, and I was hopeful.

When the episodes (anxiety, tears, shaky, nausea) started, that’s ultimately when I knew that I had to utilize something else. I was given Klonopin, which would also help with my restless legs. We also decided to raise my Zoloft for a second time, considering I was starting therapy for PTSD and he thought it would be beneficial to help my chemicals all balance back out.

I still have the goal of completely coming off antidepressants completely; not because of any kind of judgement or stigma, but because I dream of the day when I can be happy again without any help. I want to be able to walk outside on a fall day and see Daniel and Natasha playing in leaves in the yard without my irrational thoughts, giving me reasons why I don’t deserve this because of what happened. I want to enjoy being at social events, and not feel like everyone has a reason not to want me there or like they’re thinking how much of an idiot I am for letting my baby roll off my bed. I’m working on this in therapy, and am making great progress. I have very supportive doctors that help my work towards my goals that I get to set.

So, to close this post, do not be afraid to utilize medication. Life does not have to be so painful. You do not walk around with a neon sign floating above your head that says MY BRAIN IS BROKE AND NEEDS MEDS, and there is no need to be embarrassed. Get the help you need to be the very best you, and give that truly authentic version of yourself to the people you love.

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dailytomlinson · 4 years

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In the spring of 2012, I spent a few entertaining days hanging out with the five young members of a British boy band who were just breaking big in the United States. The guys from One Direction were unjaded, unguarded, totally charming, and a puppy pile of optimism and energy. On April 8th, in a New York City hotel room, Harry Styles and Niall Horan, both 18, sat down with me for a joint interview, published here for the first time. (The reporting was intended for a Rolling Stone cover story that never ran.)

What did you do at the gym last night? Harry: One of our security guys, his friend’s over, he’s a personal trainer, so I was working with him, and he ripped me to shreds.

Have you seen whole episodes of it?

Harry: I’ve watched a lot of clips on YouTube. They don’t show it in the U.K.

Growing up, when did you realize you could sing or that you wanted to sing?Harry: I sang in primary school, like the school productions, plays and stuff.

What was your first one? Harry: The first one was … I was five, and there was a story about a mouse who lived in a church, and I was Barney, the mouse. I had to wear my sister’s tights, and a headband with ears on it, and I had to sing a song all by myself. I remember it was just like, whatever.… In the second, I was Buzz Lightyear in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. So you know when they run and hide in the toy shop? Buzz Lightyear was in the toy shop, so they just created my character. The last one, I was in … you know Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat? I was the pharaoh, but I was an Elvis pharaoh.

Did you have a sense that this is what you wanted to do in your life? Harry: I think in school I was OK, I wasn’t a bad student. I think I just knew I wanted to entertain people and stuff. I was a bit of an attention-seeker at school.

Niall: Me, too. I just talked too much, sang too much.

What did you sing? Harry: We sang “Are You Gonna Be My Girl” by Jet, and “Summer of ’69.” We did it more towards the Bowling For Soup version.

Harry: [helpfully translating] Soccer.

Who told you? Niall: My French teacher. We used to do talent shows and stuff at school, she was like, “You should do it,” so I did it.

Harry: I had to wait a little bit, I think.

Harry: They film it.

Niall: In England, it’s the biggest thing ever. It took a while to build.

Harry: The two or three years were steady, and third or fourth, it just blew up.

Niall: It works that one in three people in the UK watch it. There’s 60 million people in the UK, and 21 million people watched the final the year we were in it.

Harry, your band also played at least one wedding right? Harry: Yeah. We actually said that we’d do the wedding gig, and…

Niall: You get paid for it?

Niall: Can you imagine you’re at a wedding and you have 16-year-old kids up on the stage?

Maybe you were really good! Harry: Yeah, the drummer is one of my best friends from school, he’s a sick drummer, he’s so good.

What do your parents do? Harry: My mum is a PA. My dad is a financial adviser.

How about you? Niall: My dad works at a supermarket, he’s the head manager, general manager of an area, not just one, and my mum is unemployed now, so I try to help them out whenever I can.

You probably can. That must be nice. Niall: Yeah, it’s nice, it’s good.

Plus, now you can tell them what to do. Harry: [laughs] “Now you go to bed.”

Niall: I never went through that.

Harry: Not stupid heavy, but a bit… just because I thought it was cool.

Like what? Harry: Like Nirvana T-shirts, wore black all the time, pretty much.

Did you both grow up in your moms’ houses? Harry: Yeah.

People say you come off as more mature than your age, you come off wiser. Did hanging around all those people as a kid help you mature?

You both wanted to entertain – if it hadn’t worked out, would you have been really unhappy? Harry: Yeah, I think it would be kind of like…one of the reasons you go for X-Factor in the first place is that you want to do this, and it kind of helps you get out of the life that you were doing before. I worked in a bakery for two years. Obviously, I didn’t want to do that for ages!

So you grew up on Elvis and the Stones? Harry: Yeah, pretty much. My dad was a massive Stones fan, so it was pretty much Beatles and Stones in terms of what my dad played.

People say you kind of look like Mick.

Niall: He gets that a lot.

Harry: I get it more here, probably, than I do at home. It’s because of the British thing.

Harry: We’re living on our own now.

Niall: We just started living on our own in the last six months, really.

Harry: I’m moving when I get back.

Do you want to act? It feels like you could have your own TV show. Harry: I think it would be more of a documentary, because obviously, we’re not actors.

People must want you to try. Niall: Watch tonight, tell us what you think. Watch SNL.

Will you all make solo albums? Is that inevitable? Harry: No, I don’t think so.

Niall: Let’s do a swing album!

Niall: If there was eight days, we’d fit it in.

Harry: It’s not as completely glamorous all the time, of course it’s not, it would be stupid to think that it would be, but it’s hard work.

In any case, it’s probably better than the bakery. Harry: Yeah. But I don’t get a nice bun on my break anymore, that’s the thing.

Did you wear an apron? Harry: Oh yeah, I wore a white polo shirt and a maroon apron with white stripes. “What would you like? 78 pence, thank you very much.”

Were you behind the counter? Harry: Yeah, I was behind the counter. It was good. It was Saturday morning, I started at five and finished at four in the afternoon and got like 30 quid, it was a joke.

Niall, did you have a job? Niall: No, never.

So this is your first job. Niall: Yeah, not bad at all. I was chilling, I was being a kid.

Harry: I had a paper route before that. It gave me a bad back, bad posture. It was a heavy bag.

Ringo would say, “It’s just me face.” Niall: “Who’s that little old man?” [quoting Hard Day’s Night]

Harry: “That’s Paul’s grandfather. He’s very clean.”

Sometimes you can drift off, that’s just your thing. Harry: [laughs] I’m just soulful, man, I try.

Harry, do you mind when you’re singled out for attention? Harry: I don’t know. I don’t really…I don’t know. We’re a band. Everything we do is together. I don’t take much notice of it.

So you’re not the Justin. Harry: No.

Niall: J.C. was popular, too, wasn’t he?

It’s not like that for you guys. Harry: Not at all.

There was an imbalance in that group. Harry: I think we find it important that people get to know all of our individual personalities, because…

Harry: We all know that we all have our roles, and we all know that without one of us, it wouldn’t work.

#brian hiatt #rolling stone #harry styles #niall horan #press #230720 #10years1d

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beneaththetangles · 3 years

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Reader’s Corner: Last Dungeon, Talentless Nana, and Oregairu

The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat, Vol. 1

When a proficient assassin gets “taken care of” after he is no longer needed, a goddess gives him the opportunity to be reincarnated in another world, but with a task to complete. The hero who will defeat the Demon King who is projected to go crazy with power and destroy the world himself, and he needs to be killed once his job is done. To that end, the newly-reincarnated Lugh is born into a noble house that secretly conducts assassinations to eliminate problematic nobles in the country. From here, this is pretty standard isekai fare: Lugh makes use of powerful skills and knowledge of his previous life as he meets girls, invents items from Earth, and prepares for his eventual encounter with the hero. A few things help this novel out, though: For one thing, as far as the romance/harem aspects go, things are not dragged out much at all. Lugh is explicitly in love with one of the girls, and is made well aware how other girls feel about him, so overall the romance aspect is more pleasant than frustrating. There’s also a running theme of Lugh wanting to live for himself instead of blindly following orders from those above him like he did in his past life, and how that affects both his current assassin life and his greater mission. This leads to the possibility of keeping the hero (who we do not yet meet in this volume) from being corrupted without killing him, which definitely has potential. Overall, though, this is still a fairly “standard” isekai that is mainly for established fans of the genre, who are okay with something that is entertaining even if it isn’t particularly groundbreaking or amazing. ~ stardf29

The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat, Vol. 1 is available from Yen Press, who provided a review copy for this article.

My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected, Vol. 10.5

After an increasingly seriousness tone, compounded for the last several volumes, 10.5 features the fluff of a date chapter involving Irohasu and Hikki and the special treat a chapter devoted to Zaimokuza. These initial stories, the earlier adapted into an OVA, reflect much of what makes the series special: outstanding and unique voices, the hilariously self-deprecating thoughts from Hikki, and the interplay between the characters. That last component is especially uproarious in the dating chapter, one of the rare instances in which the Oregairu anime doesn’t nearly do justice to the written volume. To be sure, this entire light is a special treat for Irohasu fans, with Watari himself stating in the afterword, “With Iroha on the cover, it’s been like, this volume has been all Irohasu! Irohasu 100 perfect!” But as expected of the author, even for a “.5 novel,” there’s more here than just romantic moments and humor. The third and most lengthy chapter reminds readers that the characters are all growing as they each, in their own ways, reach for that “something genuine.” So while volume 10.5 may be a respite from those coming immediately before, it’s not a throwaway, but rather a worthy addition to this popular and engaging series. ~ Twwk

My Youth Romantic Comedy is Wrong, As I Expected Vol. 10.5 is available from Yen Press.

Talentless Nana, Vol. 1

Let’s take a group of high school kids with super powers and place them in a separate high school where they learn to defeat enemies of humanity. Sound familiar? It sure feels very similar, after all, to the premise of My Hero Academia. Yet by the end of the first chapter, Talentless Nana has sets itself apart. The students of the series have super powers called talents, and are separated and trained to supposedly use their powers against the “enemies of humanity.” But that’s not the whole story. The first chapter ends with the titular Nana murdering one of the students in the name of protecting the world from these same “enemies of humanity.” According to her and the people who brought her to the school, the true enemies are the talented humans. She has a cell phone telling her predictions on how many deaths each student will cause from their misuse of powers. It’s a psychological manga that makes you question every character and their motives continuously, and also a fascinating tale of paranoia and misinformation. ~ MDMRN

Talentless Nana is currently simulpublished by Crunchyroll.

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, Vol. 1

This light novel has an anime adaptation airing this season, and since I enjoyed the first couple episodes, I became curious to check out the source material. I’m sorry to say, of that I’m not a fan. Lloyd moves from a strange village on the edge of civilization, where everyone is so OP that Lloyd is considered weak, and comes to a more normal municipality, where everyone but him can see that he’s totally OP; comical adventures ensue. On the bright side, this story is quite funny and has some interesting characters. Unfortunately, I had other issues with it. An extended scene near the beginning of the tale features the villagers heaping ridicule on Lloyd and describing all the ways he is “weak.” It’s supposed to be funny, but frankly, their criticism is so unreasonable and hurtful to Lloyd that it qualifies as abuse. Besides knowing the truth yet not dealing with this situation, the village chief, Alka, is also petty, cruel, capricious, deceitful, needlessly destructive, and OH YEAH SHE’S AN OVERPOWERED AUTHORITY FIGURE WHO’S MORE THAN 100 YEARS OLD AND SHE’S GROOMING A KID (Lloyd) SO SHE CAN GET IN BED WITH HIM. Sorry, but being a sexual predator just isn’t funny. It’s a pity that she keeps showing up to ruin scene after scene. I won’t be continuing with this series. ~ jeskaiangel

Suppose a Kid from the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town, vol. 1 is published by Yen Press.

Skip Beat, Vol. 16

The boys take center stage in volume 16 as Reino’s actions bring a surprisingly physical reaction from Sho, while the fallout of his insertion once again in Kyoko’s life has implications for Ren. So while this volume remains as interesting as the rest, that has less to do with the intricacies of the idol (and now acting) world and more so with its introspective look at Ren and Sho. The latter continues to be humanized as the series forces us to consider the question, Has he changed? It certainly seems as much, though readers’ feelings may turn based not only on his repentant treatment of Kyoko, but also the seriousness with which he approaches his craft, focused on for the first time in these chapters. Meanwhile, Ren is an absolute mess, with his worry about and desire for Kyoko finally bubbling to the surface in the form of…a stomachache? An unexpected side of Ren, for sure, but one that adds additional layers to his characterization. ~ Twwk

Skip Beat Vol. 16 is available through Viz, who provided a review copy for this article.

Shadows of Spawn: Collected Edition

Shadows of Spawn was a manga adaptation of the American comic of the same name…kind of. Instead of Al Simmons, though, a Japanese-American street thug named Ken Kurosawa dies and goes to Hell. He is then brought back to life years later as a hell-spawn after making a deal with a devil named Malebolgia. So, same general concept, but instead of a former government assassin, Shadows features a common criminal / martial arts expert as the main character. Kurosawa sells his soul for the primary purpose of returning to Earth to protect his sister, and spends the remainder of the three-volume series trying to do just that from the shadows while battling and befriending fill-in characters that represent similar ones from the mainline Spawn comic series. The thing about Shadows of Spawn is that the plot starts slowly, but the cast grows quickly as it tries very rapidly to build an ensemble cast for a new (manga reading) audience while staying inside the existing foundation of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn universe. The saddest part of all is that by the time the series really hit its stride with storytelling (volume 3), the series was cancelled. It’s a shame, as concept definitely had potential. ~ MDMRN

Shadows of Spawn: Collected Edition was published by Image Comics, but is currently out of print.

#Manga #Light Novels #The World’s Finest Assassin Gets Reincarnated in Another World as an Aristocrat #Sekai Saikou no Ansatsusha Isekai Kizoku ni Tensei Suru #Yahari Ore no Seishun Love Comedy wa Machigatteiru.#My Teen Romantic Comedy SNAFU #My Youth Romantic Comedy Is Wrong As I Expected #Oregairu #Talentless Nana #Munou na Nana #Suppose a Kid From the Last Dungeon Boonies Moved to a Starter Town #Tatoeba Last Dungeon Mae no Mura no Shounen ga Joban no Machi de Kurasu Youna Monogatari #Skip Beat!#Shadows of Spawn #Otaku Reader's Corner #Author: stardf29 #Author: TWWK #Author: MDMRN #Author: Jeskai Angel

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xfulldreamerx · 4 years

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About SKAM PERÚ: Peru’s school system

The word “school” is used in a lot of places around the world to refer both to actual school and then college. Here, we just use it for actual school, as college is very different and we kind of separate the experiences.

School, in Spanish, is COLEGIO. We sometimes shorten it to “cole”.

College, in Spanish, is UNIVERSIDAD. We shorten it to “U”, that is just the first letter of the word, really. It’s like a slang.

Skam Perú will take place in the first year of college of the characters. I think this decision was made because we mostly enter college at 17, which is a year earlier than in a lot of places. That means the characters are still teenagers. Skam OG took place when the squads entered high school at 15, which here wouldn’t work because we start Secondary School a lot earlier. Plus, being a newbie at college serves the purpose of no friends to Eva, and I think they will play it this way: the Eva, Jonas, Isak, Ingrid and Sara characters went all to the same Secondary School and then chose to go to the same college, following their best interests. Same as the OG, just different stages of life.

By the way, there’s a slang word here used for new students, “cachimbo”, which means newbie at college. This slang is said by older students and people in general, sometimes in a despective way. It applies to all students fresh out of school, or that are in their first year in their career.

How does it work?

Officially, school starts when you’re 3 years old, and it’s obligatory until you’ve finished Secondary School. There are three stages in the obligatory school system of Peru:

Inicial (Kindergarten, preschool): From age 3 to 6

Age 3-4: Beginners

Age 4-5: Pre-kinder

Age 5-6: Kinder

Primaria (Primary School): From age 6 to 12

Age 6-7: First grade

Age 7-8: Second grade

Age 8-9: Third grade

Age 9-10: Fourth grade

Age 10-11: Fifth grade

Age 11-12: Sixth grade

Secundaria (Secondary School): From age 12 to 17

Age 12-13: First year (Seventh grade)

Age 13-14: Second year (Eighth grade)

Age 14-15: Third year (Ninth grade)

Age 15-16: Fourth year (Tenth grade)

Age 16-17: Fifth year (Eleventh grade)

Then we have, of course, college. La universidad. College lasts five years here, for most careers, at least. Majors are just that, careers. Minors don’t exist, just specializations. Sometimes, careers will last six or seven years (like Psychology or Human Medicine, respectively).

Due to centralization (around one particular city), all good colleges are considered to be located in Lima, the capital city of Peru. This statement is actually - and sadly - true. Let me make a comparison with the US: it’s true that there are some remarkable colleges there (the Ivy League ones, for example), but you don’t have to study in one of them in order to get proper and good education, an education who will be recognized and accepted everywhere in the world. However, centralization in Peru has made all the good colleges take a place in Lima, with some other venues in other cities that are also considered important. These other venues are very few, and colleges in small cities are mostly public ones.

Is there a difference between public and private schools?

Yes, there is, and a huge one.

The public school system straight-up sucks. Peru is one of the worst countries regarding education in all Latin America. We are one of the countries that invests the least in education, period. Public schools are old, have horrible infrastructure, few teachers and are generally bad managed - the little budget they have access to has all to do with it. For that reason, public schools are always the last options for families to put their children into. Just families who can’t afford to pay for private schools are the ones who send their children to public schools. An exception is perhaps when one of the parents went to a good public school (there are very few), and want to send their children there as well despite not knowing the current situation of said school.

Now, private schools here are for the middle and high classes. Informally, you could say that there are two types of private schools:

First, the ones almost everyone in the middle-class spectrum can afford, which go from school chains to religious schools or independent schools.

Second, the exclusive ones, super expensive and elitist, afforded just by rich families. These private schools have an international level, but they mostly serve the high class. That is, almost any of the population access to them, because we’re mostly middle class or downright poor.

Private schools are the goal of every family for their children. There are lots of them, owned by huge companies or churches or some investor who sees in a school a good income.

The only good public schools in the country are the COARs, Colegios de Alto Rendimiento. High-Performance Schools, where only students with the best grades and low incomes can get into.

All that I just wrote applies to college. Public colleges have a little more of status, because of their history, but private colleges are a huge thing and usually more valued. If you get into a public college, you might be taken in a good account, if the college itself is prestigious. For example, here in Peru, we have Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. National University of San Marcos (Saint Mark). It is the most ancient university in all the continent of America (yes, including the US). This college is so prestigious that a lot of people want to get in it, so it’s very hard to do so, and you are very well considered once you make it there. The side effect is that San Marcos, as a public college, has often hiatuses in the middle of terms because of protests and inner conflicts due to bad managing and the teacher’s low salary.

A private college that is considered one the bests here is Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. Pontifical Catholic University of Peru. If you manage to enter there, you are praised, because, again, it’s really difficult and very prestigious. The difference is in the quality of the education, the benefits you obtain as a student (in this college, a lot), and that, well, La Católica doesn’t really interrupt its classes all of a sudden. This college is known for its efficiency and is preferred over the public ones. Actually, a lot of private colleges are preferred over public ones. For example, just people who can’t afford a good private college would try to enter San Marcos, despite San Marcos being so renowned. Oh, and of course there are some very bad private colleges, as there also are very bad private schools.

Side note: San Marcos has some careers, like Philosophy and Literature, that only La Católica has as well. If you can afford to go to La Católica, you will probably go there instead of San Marcos, because, again, getting into San Marcos is hard, despite those careers being well-taught there.

What is considered a school year in Peru?

First, this: Seasons in South America are different.

Summer: From December to March

Fall: From March to June

Winter: From June to September

Spring: From September to December

Based on that, a school and college year is also different. Here, classes start in March, which is near the end of the summer and the beginning of fall. Likewise, classes end no later than in December (unless there’s some extraordinary reason to drag them until January). This way, we have summer to enjoy, like all around the world.

School is divided into terms that depend on the schools themselves: they could use bimesters or trimesters. A lot of schools use bimesters now because they stick better to the national curriculum. These bimesters would be:

March-May

May-July

August-October

October-December

They don’t have to strictly last two months, just close to it. The reason the third bimester starts in August is because there’s an obligatory holiday period of two weeks at the end of July that, of course, finishes in August.

Colleges use “ciclos”, which literally means “cycles”, in English - they are translated better just to the word “terms”, which encapsulates a time period that goes from three months and a half to five. First term starts in March and ends in June/July. Second term starts in July/August and ends in December (this is really subjected to the college itself). Each term is divided into halves:

The first half ends with mid-term exams, which in Spanish are “parciales”.

Second half ends with finals, which in Spanish are “finales”.

IMPORTANT: Not all midterms and finals are actual exams - some of them are projects that depend on the subject.

The school year begins and ends within the same actual year, so we are already free for Christmas and New Year.

There’s a law that dictates what age you have to be to enter a grade/year. It gives you until March of the current year to reach that age, or you will have to enter the grade/year before the one you “should” be. For example, if I wanted to enter preschool, I would have to be already 3 years old by the time classes start in March, and if I’m not 3 yet, I have to be within that same month. If my birth day is in April or in a month past March, then I can’t enter preschool until the next year. Same aplies to Primary and Secondary School. That’s the reason you will find someone in, I don’t know, third year who enters with 14 years of age, but that finish that year with 15, because their birthday is on November. That’s also why a lot of sutdents finish fifth year with 17 and not 16 - you start with an age, and finish with another. People whose birthday are on summer don’t have this problem.

How are the schedules?

Here, I’ll just talk about Primary and Secondary School, because both have the same schedule inside the school entity you belong to.

Classes begin no later than 8am. Gates open at seven, and you have to be in your classroom before the bell rings, which usually between 7:30am and 7:45am. If a student arrives at school after the bell rang, it is considered “late”, and you get admonished.

Classes end in the afternoon - usually, between 2pm and 4pm. Most of schools end in the range from 2:30pm to 3pm. This is really inconsistent, as all schools have different rules.

IMPORTANT: Public schools begin and end at the same all around the country (There are special cases). It’s private schools who vary from one another.

Colleges’ schedules are the same as all over the world. Classes are dictated through the day, and you have to craft your schedule following your best interests. That said, some colleges make the schedules themselves, and students have to follow them. A special case in some colleges is when they give the new students the schedule for the first term they will have there, but then the students are responsible for their schedules for the rest of the other terms.

What’s the big difference between school and college?

In the US and some European countries, obligatory school time includes high school. High schools are crafted like colleges. Yes, everyone goes to school at the same time, but you choose the classes you are into (according to your interests and possible future career), and you share each one of them with different people, besides the fact that every class takes place in a different classroom. Colleges have almost the same system.

In Peru, it’s not that way. Secondary School is done in five years, as stated previously in this post. Those five years, it is like this:

1. Everyone in your year takes the same classes.

In private schools, the subjects vary: some of them can have just seven subjects, and some of them up to fourteen.

In public schools, the subjects are the same in all the country (unless there are exceptions).

2. One year can be divided into sections, which depend on the maximum capacity per classroom. For example, if the capacity per classroom in a school is 30 students, and the Fifth Year has 58 students, the first 30 make a section, and the other 28, another one. Sections are often named by the letters of the alphabet, starting by the A. Public schools tend to have a lot of sections, meaning they are very crowded.

3. Classes happen all in the same classroom. Said class is your year and your section put together. For example, if you are a fifth year of section B, your class is 5to “B” (5th B). This is the only class and classroom you belong to, alongside all the classmates who are in the same year and section as you. All your classes will be dictated in said classroom.

4. Of course, this means the schedule is the same for everyone in your classroom, as you all share the same classes.

5. There are different teachers for each subject (there are cases where a teacher can dictate more than one class, though). Teachers enter and leave the classroom according to the schedule of the class they dictate.

6. Your classmates are always the same. This is a bit duh. You reach Prom with them and share space and experiences with them every single day, which creates, involuntarily, a stronger bond. That said, not all classmates are friends. You have your group of friends, but you also know everyone else and will interact with them at some point while you’re in school.

7. Your class has a tutor. This role is performed by a teacher, who is specialized in a subject, and who will probably also teach you said subject. The tutor’s responsibility is to assure you’re doing good, that there is a good environment, and to guide you through it all by helping you when necessary. The tutor changes every year, though sometimes a class might keep its tutor if the school allows it. A tutor can become the worst nightmare of the class, or the most beloved teacher they’ll ever have.

8. You’re obligated to have one notebook per subject (sometimes this changes to a folder). When the teacher writes on the board, you have to write it in said notebook as well. Taking notes about what they say is optional, but all they write has to be in your notebook, and the same goes for everything they tell you to write apart from the stuff that is on the board.

All that I just explained applies from the third grade of Primary School and so on. First and second grade is almost the same, the difference being that just one teacher (usually a woman) teaches you all the subjects (and that you’re not allowed to write with a pen, just with a pencil).

Colleges follow the “liberal path”, you could say. School obligates you to use uniforms, both public and private ones. College allows you to use normal clothes. I already explained that the schedule is mostly up to the student.

Now, campuses are another thing. Almost none of the colleges in Lima have huge campuses that include shops and cafés and apartment buildings. Here, college campuses are in the middle of the city, and just have classrooms and other facilities that benefit the students. For example, I go to Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC, Peruvian University of Applied Sciences). This college is located in a principal avenue in San Miguel district, in Lima. It consists of four buildings and some outdoor spaces, and is next to a market and an electro domestics store. The property is limited to the buildings and the outdoor spaces, nothing more. Some colleges are bigger, of course, but very few of them have property attached to them that is not strictly for study or related purposes.

Also, college might have more than one campus in the same city, Lima. Each campus might hold different faculties, or the same ones if their sole purpose is to be near more students. Retaking my college example, UPC has four campuses in Lima, in different districts. My career is dictated in the four of them, but this is not always the case, like with Education, which is dictated in just one of the campuses.

I will share more details about college life in a post dedicated to it, if you want me to. I’ve focused more in actual school because it will probably be a huge part of the background, mentioned a lot, and being so different from the rest of the world might make difficult to understand references and the characters adapting to it, which, as you’ve read, is a whole new world.

If you have doubts or you didn’t get something, tell me, and I’ll do my best to help!

#skam #skam remakes #skam peru #wtfock #skam france #roche pe

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britesparc · 3 years

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Weekend Top Ten #482

Top Ten Sega Games

So I read somewhere on the internet that in June it’s the thirtieth birthday of Sonic the Hedgehog (making him only a couple of months younger than my brother, which is weird). This is due to his debut game, the appropriately-titled Sonic the Hedgehog, being first released on June 23rd. As such – and because I do love a good Tenuous Link – I’ve decided to dedicate this week’s list to Sega (also there was that Sonic livestream and announcement of new games, so I remain shockingly relevant).

I’ve got a funny relationship with Sega, largely because I’ve got a funny relationship with last century’s consoles in general. As I’ve said before, I never had a console growing up, and never really felt the need for one; I came from a computing background, playing on other people’s Spectrums and Commodores before getting my own Amiga and, later, a PC. And I stuck with it, and that was fine. But it does mean that, generally speaking, I have next to zero nostalgia for any game that came out on a Nintendo or Sega console (or Sony, for that matter). I could chew your ear off about Dizzy, or point-and-click adventure games, or Team 17, or Sensible Software, or RTS games, or FPS games, or whatever; but all these weird-looking Japanese platform games, or strange, unfamiliar RPGs? No idea. In fact, I remember learning what “Metroidvania” meant about five years ago, and literally saying out loud, “oh, so it’s like Flashback, then,” because I’d never played a (2D) Metroid or Castlevania game. Turns out they meant games that were, using the old Amiga Action terminology, “Arcade Adventures”. Now it makes sense.

Despite all this, I did actually play a fair few Sega games, as my cousins had a Mega Drive. So I’d get to have a bash at a fair few of them after school or whatever. This meant that, for a while, I was actually more of a Sega fan than a Nintendo one, a situation that’s broadly flipped since Sega stopped making hardware and Nintendo continued its gaming dominance. What all of this means, when strung together, is that I have a good deal of affection for some of the classics of Sega’s 16-bit heyday, but I don’t have the breadth or depth of knowledge you’d see from someone who, well, actually owned a console before the original Xbox. Yeah, sure, there are lots of games I liked back then; and probably quite a few that I still have warm nostalgic feelings for, even if they’re maybe not actually very good (Altered Beast, for instance, which I’m reliably informed was – to coin a very early-nineties phrase – “pants”, despite my being fond of it at the time). Therefore this list is probably going to be quite eccentric when compared to other “Best of Sega” lists. Especially because in the last couple of decades Sega has become a publisher for a number of development studios all around the world, giving support and distribution to the makers of diverse (and historically non-console) franchises as Total War and Football Manager. These might not be the fast-moving blue sky games one associates with Sega, but as far as I’m concerned they’re a vital part of the company’s history as it moved away from its hardware failures (and the increasingly lacklustre Sonic franchise) and into new waters. And just as important, of course, are their arcade releases, back in the days when people actually went to arcades (you know, I have multi-format games magazines at my parents’ house that are so old they actually review arcade games. Yes, I know!).

So, happy birthday, Sonic, you big blue bugger, you. Sorry your company pooed itself on the home console front. Sorry a lot of your games over the past twenty years have been a bit disappointing. But in a funny way you helped define the nineties, something that I personally don’t feel Mario quite did. And your film is better than his, too.

Crazy Taxi (Arcade, 1999): a simple concept – drive customers to their destination in the time limit – combined with a beautiful, sunny, blue skied rendition of San Francisco, giving you a gorgeous cityscape (back when driving round an open city was a new thrill), filled with hills to bounce over and traffic to dodge. A real looker twenty years ago, but its stylised, simple graphics haven’t really dated, feeling fittingly retro rather than old-fashioned or clunky. One of those games that’s fiendishly difficult to master, but its central hook is so compelling you keep coming back for more.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 (Mega Drive, 1992): games have rarely felt faster, and even if the original Sonic’s opening stages are more iconic, overall I prefer the sequel. Sonic himself was one of those very-nineties characters who focused on a gentle, child-friendly form of “attitude”, and it bursts off the screen, his frown and impatient foot-tapping really selling it. the gameplay is sublime, the graphics still really pop, and the more complex stages contrast nicely with the pastoral opening. Plus it gave us Tails, the game industry’s own Jar Jar Binks, who I’ll always love because my cousin made me play as him all the time.

Medieval II: Total War (PC, 2006): I’ll be honest with you, this game is really the number one, I just feel weird listing “Best Sega Games” and then putting a fifteen-year-old PC strategy game at the top of the pile. But what can I say? I like turn-based PC strategy games, especially ones that let you go deep on genealogy and inter-familial relationships in medieval Europe. everyone knows the real-time 3D battles are cool – they made a whole TV show about them – but for me it’s the slow conquering of Europe that’s the highlight. Marrying off princesses, assassinating rivals, even going on ethically-dubious religious crusades… I just love it. I’ve not played many of the subsequent games in the franchise, but to be honest I like this setting so much I really just want them to make a third Medieval game.

Sega Rally Championship (Arcade, 1994): what, four games in and we’re back to racing? Well, Sega make good racing games I guess. And Sega Rally is just a really good racing game. Another one of those that was a graphical marvel on its release, it has a loose and freewheeling sense of fun and accessibility. Plus it was one of those games that revelled in its open blue skies, from an era when racing games in the arcades loved to dazzle you with spectacle – like when a helicopter swoops low over the tracks. I had a demo of this on PC, too, and I used to race that one course over and over again.

After Burner (Arcade, 1987): there are a lot of arcade games in this list, but when they’re as cool as After Burner, what can you do? This was a technological masterpiece back in the day: a huge cockpit that enveloped you as you sat in the pilot’s seat, joystick in hand. The whole rig moved as you flew the plane, and the graphics (gorgeous for their time) wowed you with their speed and the way the horizon shifted. I was, of course, utterly crap at it, and I seem to remember it was more expensive than most games, so my dad hated me going on it. But it was the kind of thrilling experience that seems harder to replicate nowadays.

Virtua Cop (Arcade, 1994): I used to love lightgun games in the nineties. This despite being utterly, ridiculously crap at them. I can’t aim; ask anyone. But they felt really cool and futuristic, and also you could wave a big gun around like you were RoboCop or something. Virtua Cop added to the fun with its cool 3D graphics. Whilst I’d argue Time Crisis was better, with a little paddle that let you take cover, Cop again leveraged those bright Sega colours to give us a beautiful primary-coloured depiction of excessive ultra-violence and mass death.

Two Point Hospital (PC, 2018): back once again to the point-and-clickers, with another PC game only nominally Sega. But I can’t ignore it. Taking what was best about Theme Hospital and updating it for the 21st Century, TPH is a darkly funny but enjoyably deep management sim, with cute chunky graphics and an easy-to-use interface (Daughter #1 is very fond of it). The console adaptations are good, too. I’d love to see where Two Point go next. Maybe to a theme park…?

Jet Set Radio Future (Xbox, 2002): I never had a Dreamcast. But I remember seeing the original Jet Set Radio – maybe on TV, maybe running on a demo pod in Toys ‘R’ Us or something – and being blown away. It was the first time I’d ever seen cel shading, and it was a revelation; just a beautiful technique that I didn’t think was possible, that made the game look like a living cartoon. Finally being able to play the sequel on my new Xbox was terrific, because the gameplay was excellent too: a fast-paced game of chaining together jumps and glides, in a city that was popping with colour and bursting with energy. Felt like playing a game made entirely of Skittles and Red Bull.

The Typing of the Dead (PC, 2000): The House of the Dead games were descendants of Virtua Cop’s lightgun blasting, but with zombies. Yeah, cool; I liked playing them at the arcades down at Teesside Park, in the Hollywood Bowl or the Showcase cinema. But playing this PC adaptation of the quirky typing-based spin-off was something else. A game where you defeat zombies by correctly typing “cow” or “bottle” or whatever as quickly as possible? A game that was simultaneously an educational typing instructor and also a zombie murder simulator? The fact that the characters are wearing Ghostbusters-style backpacks made of Dreamcast consoles and keyboards is just a seriously crazy detail, and the way the typing was integrated into the gameplay – harder enemies had longer words, for instance – was very well done. A bonkers mini-masterpiece.

Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 (Switch, 2019): the very fact that erstwhile cultural enemies Mario and Sonic would ever share a game at all is the stuff of addled mid-nineties fever dreams; like Downey’s Tony Stark sharing the screen with Bale’s Batman (or Affleck’s Batman, who the hell cares at this point). The main thing is, it’s still crazy to think about it, even if it’s just entirely ordinary for my kids, sitting their unaware of the Great Console Wars of the 1990s. Anyway, divorced of all that pan-universal gladhanding, the games are good fun, adapting the various Olympic sports with charm, making them easy-to-understand party games, often with motion control for the benefit of the youngs and the olds. I don’t remember playing earlier games extensively, but the soft-RPG trappings of the latest iteration are enjoyable, especially the retro-themed events and graphics. Earns a spot in my Top Ten for its historic nature, but it’s also thoroughly enjoyable in its own right.

Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if all those crazy internet rumours were actually true, and Microsoft did announce it was buying Sega this E3? This really would feel like a very timely and in some ways prescient list.

#top ten #games #sega #sonic #sonic 30th #sonic rangers #crazy taxi #total war #mario #virtua

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