#to being an adult making ugly below average things

[mariacallous]

Last week, one of the stories that most caught my attention in the sort of random but uniquely fulfilling way one can get from browsing newspapers was an item from Italy that said, with more than 7 million of the country’s 60 million people over age 75, some are turning to small, cute-looking robots to attend to older adults. Looking forward to coming breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, some experts there are already predicting that this will produce a revolution in caring for this cohort.

“We all have to look for all the possible solutions, in this case technological,” Loredana Ligabue, the president of Not Only Elderly, an Italian advocacy group for family caregivers, told the New York Times.

Another story that seized my interest in this same unexpected manner a week or so before was the news out of the U.S. state of Arkansas that lawmakers there, as in a few other states, were rolling back child labor protections to make it easier to employ children under age 16.

Later, as I wondered what could connect such seemingly disparate topics—the one about a socially costly and hard-to-manage surfeit of older adults and the other, the urgent need felt by some to employ minors, even in dangerous industrial settings—an answer arrived in the name of a country that has been much in the news itself lately due to mass street demonstrations against changes in government policy toward people whose age places them between the extremes of young and old: France.

This European nation, which has long been admired as something of a lifestyle superpower, has been locked in an explosive social and political crisis over a modest adjustment to its retirement age, from 62 to 64—a figure still to the envy of many others, notably including Americans. For decades, the trend in France had moved in the other direction, meaning devoting less time to work, starting with the push decades ago by former President François Mitterrand to whittle away at the 40-hour workweek, which culminated with the voluntary adoption of a 35-hour workweek in 1988.

So what does France have to do with the desperate turn to robots in Italy or children in sweatshops in the United States? Like almost all wealthy Western countries (and not a few rich, non-Western ones, too), France is suddenly being forced to come to terms with brutal new demographic realities that are placing enormous stress on social security and retirement systems and calling into question basic assumptions about the comforts that a long period of prosperity once seemed to guarantee them.

Part of the problem in France is that its people are living longer and longer. This is a blessing shared by growing numbers of highly developed countries—but not the United States, where average life expectancy is experiencing a stark decline. In France, people can expect to live approximately 25 years after they retire, the most of any country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

For most people, living longer will mean needing to rely on the financial support of the state longer, and this creates steadily increasing fiscal pressures. This difficulty is compounded by another trend that has been unfolding alongside it: people wanting to have fewer and fewer children on average. In Italy, which ranks near the bottom of the scale in the European Union, only 1.29 children were born per woman in 2022. In France, close to the high end, that figure stood at 1.79. The bad news for people who have to plan state budgets and future outlays for national retirement and health care systems is that even that number is far below the average number of children per woman that can sustain a population without shrinkage, known as the population replacement rate, which is usually put at 2.1.

Having enough children to stave off population decline has nothing to do with bragging rights or old-fashioned nationalism. Rather, its importance lies in what demographers call population structure and, most specifically, making sure that there are always enough young people entering the workplace to sustain a social compact built around guaranteed support for older adults in retirement.

France’s ongoing showdown among street demonstrators, opposition parties, and President Emmanuel Macron can be looked at in countless ways, from the democratic deficiencies some have denounced in a constitution that concentrates excessive power in an almost monarchical presidency to the shocking violence employed by the police as they try to restore order in the streets and suppress the protests. However one looks at things, though, one unavoidable reality stands out: France simply needs more working-age people or to have people work longer in order to finance the kinds of benefits in retirement that its citizens have long come to regard as their birthright.

And although the surface manifestations and political and social tensions will play out differently in each rich Western society where fertility rates are in retreat and people are already living far longer than when today’s retirement systems were drawn up, here and there throughout this economically privileged part of the world, the basic problem—of needing more workers or for people to work more—is much the same.

Notwithstanding the statement of the Italian advocate quoted at the top of this column about everyone needing to search for possible solutions, in most of the rich countries that are starting to experience the gravity of their demographic conundrum, few are looking to the most obvious places for relief from the looming fiscal problems that drastic shifts in population structure will bring. Indeed, that is the common message one can distill from stories about care robots and 14-year-old factory workers: People in rich Western societies will go to almost any length to avoid the readiest and most humane solution available, which involves steady but substantial increases in immigration from parts of the world where young people are eager to learn and work, with decades of productive life ahead of them.

Immigration, in fact, kills two birds with one stone: Bringing billions of humans more deeply into the global economy, with the possibility of building economic security and uplift for themselves while also contributing to the financial stability and overall prosperity of the places they migrate to.

An ugly paradox comes into play here. The part of the world that offers the greatest reserves of such young, energetic, and ambitious labor—Africa—is the same part of the world that arouses the strongest aversion among the rich. The continent situated immediately to Europe’s south, and the source of over one-tenth of the U.S. population, has a median age of a mere 19.7 years, meaning that it is utterly dominated by precisely what the old rich world increasingly lacks: youth.

During a visit to Brussels last spring, though, a liberal Belgian intellectual told me: “I fear that the threat of immigration from Africa will drive people here to extremism. They will do anything and everything to avoid being inundated by Africans, and even though I oppose extremism, I completely understand them.”

But in a world where an overwhelmingly disproportionate number of young people are African, the question that will increasingly confront Europeans—and, indeed, all Westerners—is whether clinging to self-identities deeply bound up in race (or, to be more explicit, whiteness) is more important than economic growth; prosperity; competing with the obsession of the day, China; being able to retire with a pension; or, ultimately, maybe even economic survival? Scarcely polite today, sooner or later, questions like these will become unavoidable.

There is another way to frame them, though, that may be helpful. During the four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, mass commerce in people brought in chains from Africa had been justified on the basis that they were not fully human. In the United States, the era when people of African descent were legally treated as less than fully human is still well within living memory. Going forward, will rich Europeans and Americans be able to overcome their aversion toward Africans, who may hold the key to their economic salvation, and embrace them as their fully human equals? As I told my Belgian friend, their future will depend on it.

[theshedding]

What Haiti's past tells us about the meaning of Resistance & “Revolution”

One of the realities of American education (public or private) is that the already abbreviated history of Black people in the United States is completely non-intersectional and without recognition of the larger international African diaspora with respect to (1) Black liberation or (2) American and New-world European colonial history. For instance, it is not commonly recognized that proportionally-most Black people from Africa who arrived in the “New World” due to the Atlantic Slave Trade did not live in North America but in the Caribbean, South and Central America. That is to say, if you were enslaved (or newly freed) outside of Africa at any point from the 16th through late 19th century outside of Africa, you would’ve had a one in three (or four) chance of living in the United States. Ask your average Black person on the street about this and it’s news. Ask your average non-Black person on the street about this and it’s even more surprising news. And why wouldn’t it be? Due to highly racialized educational systems, steadfast commitment to Black marginalization, indifference and/or Black & indigenous marginalization, most Americans who don’t actively seek this information have very limited knowledge about critical historical events. The American Revolution and details are reduced to incoherent romanticized narratives about English tea and “tyranny”. The Civil War is also vague and obtuse in its descriptions of Southern animus and economics. “Reconstruction” is a word that, admittedly, I did not learn (or had forgotten about) until an adult...and as a young person I fancied myself more knowledgeable than most about Black History through extra-curricular history lessons, elders, activities and educated parents. Even I was unaware of the sequence of Black history, resistance and triumph on critical historical events in Black American history.

Fast forward to the 2016 Presidential Election, the word “Revolution” and phrase “We need a Revolution!” was flagrantly thrown around and abused in public discourse by young (and older) people who undoubtedly grew up with the same biased and negligent public educational system I had grown up with and (in many cases) profoundly less extra-curricular historical exposure and education. As a culture, we would then start to see real gains in the #BLM movement and the zeitgeist towards radical change and structural reforms from race to finance and public safety. I was quite happy to participate in the resurgence of a resistance movement, especially one centering itself around issues of Black liberation. It’s what I’ve been around most of my life. What I wasn’t comfortable with however, was the use of the term “revolution” to describe it. At least not by White people (there’s a reason for that) and/or by younger people (of any color/ethnicity) who also undoubtedly had been steeped in the vapid romanticism of ‘revolutionary’ history taught to us by our primary and secondary US educational indoctrinations. 

I have been in formal activism and education personally 30+ years now. Make no mistake, I absolutely support of “change” in our society, particularly towards social justice and Black liberation. And I have no wish to exclude White people or any other ethnicity from being enthusiastic activists or communicators of social/economic/political justice. That’s not my point. What my case is however, is that I’ve always been uncomfortable with the careless use of the term “revolution” in our national political conversations about race, justice, history and radical change. Particularly if that term is being appropriated for something other than racial equality of Black or indigenous people in this country. Historically, “revolution” has been inextricably tied to some aspect of Black resistance in the new world. To update the term in a way that erases or obfuscates deep racial inequities makes me uncomfortable in its lack of this historical context. Aside from that appropriative term however, the use of the sub-category or phraseology “radical change” in connection with “revolution” is problematic for its own reasons; ‘radical change’ and ‘radical ideas’ have become erroneously conflated terms in this way. Historically speaking, radical ideas have always endured much longer than the actual moment of revolution and change itself. In my lifetime there have been a number of “radical” changes; cigarette use and public smoking, seatbelts, recycling, eco fuels, Black people being on television and not talking “jive”, Gay/Bi and Trans people simply existing while not living a sad, diseased-ridden and isolated life, smoking weed and pre-existing conditions in health care are all things which were massive structural changes in society that took lifetimes to negotiate, deconstruct and implement. The idea came way before the actual change. And every one of those ideas were not radically “changed” in any one moment or by any one person. Instead those changes represented a patchwork of efforts by nameless, thankless individuals, organizations and multiple leaders whose work at times overlapped in various ways. Many of whom died or had to leave their advocacy before their desired change could be realized. Simply saying “radical change” and/or conflating change with charismatic leaders, “revolution” and politicians without acknowledging radical ideas, radical people (plural) and radical efforts over long stretches of time is a betrayal of history, the people working to change and correct it and those who have worked to correct it, for our sake.

On this day, January 1st, 2021, the 217th anniversary of the dissolution of Saint Domingue and the beginning of Haiti (Áyitì), the very first ever Black republic in the European/Western colonial world, named in honor of-and deference to-the indigenous Arawak/Taino “Indians” of the Caribbean, the process of what change really looks like is as profound as it ever was. Most of us have not studied this history in any appreciable detail-Black people included. Many might be surprised to know that Haitians came to Philadelphia, Charleston (S.C.) and New Orleans as a direct result of what happened in the late 18th and early 19th century and that there are Black and White Americans living there right now with traceable ancestry to this Caribbean island and the revolution that occurred there (until earlier this year I wouldn’t have known that either). Despite what Kanye West said, Black people did not ‘choose’ inferiority, slavery and colonial oppression. In fact, they resisted it and plotted revolution from the moment they boarded ships in West Africa. Especially in places like Haiti where many of the Africans arriving were literally soldiers, prisoners of wars and being replenished every 5-7 years because of the high death and production rates. There were hundreds of rebellions and revolts of enslaved Africans in the New world during the Atlantic Slave Trade; Haiti’s is just one of many. But Haiti’s is the largest, sustained revolt, with the most cultural, political and economic implications for its White, Black/African & African descended people -and- as people living in a “new” world trying to reconcile what it means to live together in a land post-slavery, post-European colonialism. To this day its people are a living testament to how difficult that work of Anti-Black resistance is in a global economy built around the presumption and instance of Black inferiority. The “project” of this revolution is yet unfinished.

Therefore in 2021, anyone studying, protesting, manifesting and politically agitating against our current socio-economic-political structures in America needs to study the Haitian Revolution in as much detail as possible. It is one of the biggest examples of how intricate, dynamic, long-suffering and difficult it is to actually perform “radical change”. During the pandemic I began (re) introducing myself to this subject by reading books, watching documentaries and listening to lectures outlining the layers of narrative involved in what would be come the Haitian Revolution; Macandal, the three “Commissions”, the Tricolor Commission, “Declaration of the Rights of Man”, the determinative links of the French Revolution, “Code Noir”, André Rigoud, British blockades, Spanish regiments, the “Coloureds”, returns to the plantations for Africans only, not “Blacks”(e.g. caste systems), trade embargos, Toussaint, Dessalines, etc....all confirming what was already apparent: change is hard, long and often takes generations.

If you are currently fighting for something, or against it, know that not one person or one act can or will likely “radically” change the reality. A “revolution” is a term not to be used lightly. When we de-romanticize it and “dig” into it we can begin to see more clearly how ugly and non-inevitable it’s results truly are. History tells us so-and we can learn from this history in a way that informs our present-day activism and fight towards justice of any kind, for any person, any ethnicity. Commit yourself and learn from those who have done it before you and recognize that the past will always be relevant to the present in resistance and change. 

Below are some great resources start to learning more on the Haitian Revolution👇🏿:

“Revolutions” (Apple Podcast, a immensely detailed lecture series!) https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/revolutions/id703889772?i=1000358493623 PBS, “The Black Messiah: Macandal” https://youtu.be/cHIEYx2_C9Q “Haiti and the Atlantic World Reborn (New York Historical Society)” https://youtu.be/dpbLMkAJFtE “Noam Chomsky, Modern-Historical Political Commentary” https://youtu.be/e1JWr03P9W8 “Haiti Journal, 100th Anniversary of US Occupation” https://youtu.be/pILrdFJ683M

Happy New Year, Happy Haitian Independence Day and most importantly, Happy learning!!! 🤩🥂

[antoine-roquentin]

These pixels of joy may not seem like much to the average person: According to a 2015 Pew Research survey, a quarter of all adults regard most video games as a waste of time. But for Guyton, gaming is a hobby like any other — an activity that values a momentary feeling of immersion above other forms of success. And despite living on the margins, Guyton remains eager to spend what little coin he has, sometimes waiting in long lines for a piece of the latest digital adventure. There’s no shame, he says, in “wasting time” seeking fun in gigabytes of alternative realities. For him, gaming is as priceless as peace.

It’s no accident that a greater percentage of lower income people consider themselves “gamers” (the same Pew survey found that across income groups, although those making less than $30,000 a year were the least likely to report they played games, with only 46 percent saying so, low-income respondents were still the most likely to actually describe themselves as “gamers”). Chris Arnade, a photographer and author of the recent book Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America, explains that gaming is “one of the few virtual communities open to a lot of lower-income people.” Arnade, who’s spent “a lot of time basically sleeping in cheap motels when I was on the road or in my van,” tells me that while looking for a good WiFi connection, he often came across people from families with Section 8 housing vouchers in search of prime gaming real estate “with their old, beat-up PC.”

Through his lens, Arnade has been clued into a more intimate, nuanced view of the low-income gaming community than most. As such, much of the discourse around gaming pisses him off. “This whole language of, ‘Young men should be doing something better with their time,’” he says. “Like what?”

But even within the gaming community, Arnade has noticed a discrepancy between how people judge rich gamers versus poor ones. “You have rich kids who game, but that’s not what I usually see people making fun of,” says Arnade, who believes that this sort of antagonism comes from the “idea that poor people shouldn’t be allowed to have fun.” “We celebrate consumption because our society is built on consumption,” he argues. “Yet when poor people consume, it seems ugly and crass.”

Pathetic and depressing sight. pic.twitter.com/GoeVrvV5kx

— Sohrab Ahmari (@SohrabAhmari) November 27, 2020

He uses the example of the way people look with disgust toward those who line up to get deals at GameStop on Black Friday because they don’t have a lot of money. “With something like the PS5, when there’s a new game launch or a new console launch, wealthy families like me, we pre-order well ahead of time and put a deposit down and put it on credit and that’s not really hard,” he says. “A lot of people can’t do that. I mean, they don’t even know they can do that. They don’t have the money to do that. They don’t have the cultural capital to know that you should do that.”...

According to K’ryzt (the online moniker of another gamer currently living in low-income housing), because gaming helps people create relationships with people outside of their own cultural bubble, “having affordable prices for consoles and gaming PCs is so important.” “Nowadays, voice chat is almost required in some respects for competitive games, from FPS [first person shooter] to raiding in MMOs [massively multiplayer online games],” he tells me. “When consoles are too expensive, they have a pretty steep barrier to entry for people who can’t afford them — and when the peripherals became more and more of a necessity to play games successfully, it’s important to make sure they’re priced in a way that it isn’t just gouging.”

Growing up, K’ryzt’s family was, he says, “fairly poor,” so he never had the next generation gaming system “until it was in its second-gen iteration.” “I got a PlayStation relatively shortly before the PS2 came out,” he says. His Gameboy Color was a hand-me-down from his then-church. “I worked summer jobs for my first PC, which wasn’t even a gaming PC — just some old stock Walmart Gateway [computer],” K’ryzt adds.

Echoing Arnade’s earlier point, K’ryzt tells me that what he’s found in gaming that he believes exists in few other places, is a level playing field. “Even in the case of pay-to-win loot boxes, you mostly have situations where skill trumps all,” he says. “So when you’re behind a computer screen and you’re playing a game with people from all over the world, they don’t know your economic or social status, what race or gender or orientation you are, or if you have a disability.”

In that way, K’ryzt says, gaming gives low-income people an opportunity to be on equal footing with their peers in a way that often isn’t true in real life. “When I log in to play Final Fantasy XIV, I’m a Male Miqo’te White Mage,” he says. “All that matters to the people around me is, ‘Does he heal well?’ And unless I reveal how I’m somehow different to them, I’m just another Warrior of Light.”

It helps, too, that apart from a few hundred dollars in start-up costs — which is steep, but can, according to Guyton, be “built up over time” — the thing about gaming is that unlike most real-world communities, be they professional or social, there isn’t an impenetrable barrier to entry. “Once you’re in, you’re in,” says Arnade. And though the language of gamers has long been the subject of controversy, in Guyton’s circle, it’s just “kind of bull-crapping around” and “just being weird to each other.” For him, that means sometimes doing “funny dances in the game and just acting out of context.”

“People seek status in different ways,” says Arnade. “[Low-income gamers] are never going to obtain status signifiers that rich people want, like a house,” he says. “That’s just too distant.” Instead, Arnade tells me, you seek the status you can obtain. And getting a new PS5 or, in Guyton’s case, a copy of Cyberpunk 2077 — which Guyton’s heard is “going to be really good” — is a piece of status that feels realistically within reach.

[angelfishofthelord]

sea of blue or aztec gold

(a fic for 12x16 where Claire got bitten by a werewolf except for Cas is there)

+

The three of them stand in the left corner of the motel room like some kind of conclave of the grown-ups. Claire picks at the chipped gray polish on her fingernails and stares at them between the sweaty strands of hair falling into her eyes. The British guy--was his name Miles or something--keeps twisting his feet around like he wants to leave. Sam and Dean’s voices rise and fall and she strains an ear to hear a few snatches.  

“--maybe Cas--heal her--” comes from Sam and Claire shakes her head. No one sees it, of course, because nobody's even asking her. At twenty years old she’s seen more dead bodies than the average middle-aged adult but sometimes--like right now--she still feels like a kid. Like some wayward youngster who ruined the cake at a party and now everyone is trying to figure out how to fix it without causing a scene.

“--in the area--looking for Kelly--call him--” Dean rejoins.

She bites back a sigh. It looks like a decision has been made already, without the options ever reaching her. Closing her eyes she leans her head down into the crook of her arm and tries not to think about that blessed half second before the werewolf’s fangs sank into her skin. The split moment before her life disappeared and was replaced by the kind of nightmare she’s killed without a second thought

“Hey.” Sam puts his hand on her shoulder and she forces herself to look up. “How are you doing?”

“Fine,” she shrugs. “You didn’t call Jody yet,” she adds, more as a hope than a question.

“Not yet. Cas is gonna come by and see if he can heal you. He should be here in under an hour.”

Her nose wrinkles and she hikes up the blanket around her shoulders, sliding deeper into the armchair. Castiel isn’t her parent, but he’s going to fuss over her and make that same face where the brow gets all twisted up in concern. Except for he has an additional look of a million or so years of sadness in his eyes, and she doesn’t really have the energy to pretend not to care about him right now.  

“Let him know I said hi,” she murmurs, shutting her eyes again. Pretending to fall asleep is still the surest way to get grown-ups to back off.

She knows when Castiel arrives even before he speaks. His heavy, deliberate footsteps come echoing from across the room. They pause a few paces away and Castiel exchanges hushed words with Sam and Dean before moving closer and putting a hand on the armrest of the chair.

“Claire,” he says and for half a second she swears he sounds just like her dad. Not that she really remembers what her dad sounds like anymore; those memories have been too saturated with blood and confusion, too deeply buried to ever retain the clarity they once had. But there's so much gentle worry coiled around the sound of her name that she almost wants to launch herself into his arms and have him tell her a story that’ll make the bad dream disappear.

Instead she opens one eye and grunts wordlessly at him.

“May I?” he asks and waits until she nods before pressing two fingers to her forehead.

The buzz of grace streaking through her feels like downing a shot of migraine. When she flinches away he immediately pulls back. “I’m sorry,” he says, first to her and then to Sam and Dean who are standing next to him expectantly. “I can’t…the cells are already mutating. It’s beyond my power to-”

“Okay,” Dean cuts him off, tersely. Terrified. “So what now?”

What happens next is a Russian roulette of options. Dean tries to sell her on his plan of being a vegetarian werewolf who eats rabbit heart salads on the daily. Sam explains the details of a risky cure where the sole test subject died. The British guy sputters objections for both ideas, all the while looking more and more unnerved by the whole situation.

Castiel is the only one who says nothing. He sits there on the edge of the bed across from her, hands on his knees as he listens to everything being discussed. “It’s up to Claire,” he says tepidly when Dean presses him for an opinion. She wonders if he’s afraid to interfere in her life again. He still doesn’t say anything when she finally chooses to try the cure. The look on his face, on the other hand, is absolutely rife with sorrow.

In fact all four of them are staring at her with such piteous expressions that it makes her feel nauseous.

She blocks them out by pulling the blanket up and over her head as they discuss who’s going to go get blood from the werewolf who attacked her and who’s going to stay with her. Dean suggests him and Castiel for the hunting team, but Castiel disagrees.

“She could already be changing, we have no idea how fast this will happen. If something…” his voice drops, making the words even sharper to her ears, “…I should be here. I can heal.”

Claire decides that this is the point where she needs to muster up enough strength to protest. But the second she tries to stand up fireworks of pain go off through her body. She clamps down on her tongue to keep from crying out and works slowly, putting one foot down on the linoleum floor and then the other. The blanket drags behind her as she finally staggers to her full height, only to see there’s no one left in the room except for the British guy--Mick-- and Castiel. They’re standing an awkward distance apart, staring each other down with equal parts suspicion and contempt.

“Well,” Mick begins tentatively. “Someone should make sure the rooms beside us stay vacant so we are undisturbed during the…process. Perhaps we should also have some words with the manager, to keep her from being alarmed by anything she might hear.”

“Yes,” Castiel answers and then moves to position himself in front of Claire. The message is clear: he doesn’t trust Mick to be left alone in the room with her.

“I’ll do it,” Mick says hurriedly before turning and leaving the room.

Claire pokes Castiel in the shoulder after the door closes. “Scary,” she teases him.

Castiel turns around, the coldness in his eyes instantly replaced by soft strokes of concern. He reaches out to give her a hand as she sways in place. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah.” She latches onto his arm because her joints are on fire right now and it’s less humiliating to need support than collapsing and him having to carry her. “Just peachy.” The bed suddenly seems very far away. She concentrates on the ugly checkered bed sheet ahead of her like it’s the only thing in existence and pushes her body forward one half step at a time.

Finally her fingertips brush against fabric and she heaves her body over the bed with a groan. Every pore of her skin feels like a miniature furnace. She doesn’t have the strength to scream. She wishes she could, wishes she had a set of lungs that could strip the glass from the windows with a long, curling howl.

Cool petals of water brush against her forehead and she realizes that Castiel has put a wet towel on her forehead. It doesn’t do much to actually dim the fire raging through her veins, but the familiarity of the action is comforting.

“I’m sorry,” he says. The mattress creaks from the corner where he’s taken a seat. “I know how hard this is. You are an incredibly brave young woman.”

“Doubt that angel can get turned into werewolves,” she mutters.

“No, but--” he stops, prompting her to peer up at him from the corner of the towel.

“What?”

He’s sitting there with his hands in his lap again. “Well, I have been poisoned or infected by...things before. It may not be the same but... I know how hard it is to stay in control of both body and mind. What you’re doing, even now, is a testament to your great strength of will.”

“Wait.” Claire tries to push herself up on one elbow but only manages to lift her head a few inches. “When were you infected with what?”

“You should get some rest,” is his response as he leans over and fits a pillow under her head, then moves around to tuck the blanket around her chin. His fingers graze the side of her cheek; they feel like a bouquet of icicles. She leans into the touch desperately and his eyes cloud with sympathy.  

“Your cells are in chaos right now. Your body, your immune system is trying to fight off the mutation,” he explains. “Is there anything else I can do for you? Do you want to call--”

“No,” she says, loudly and quickly. If she allows herself to think about calling Jody--and hearing her voice--she’s going to dissolve on the spot. “Just--talk to me. Tell me about what happened when you were infected. What, was it like an angelic version of the zombie virus?”

Castiel sits down on the bed, still half on the edge like he’s unsure of how much space he’s been invited to take up. “No, there were several different--the first time was years ago.” He stalls, eyes growing distance even as they fixate on the floor below him. “I was full of souls from Purgatory. I…needed them to defeat Raphael. But then the power of those souls changed me. I thought I was God,” he finishes in an embarrassed mumble.

There's a lot to absorb from those few lines but above all the idea of this mild, awkward angel pretending to be the Almighty is what stands out to her. “You?” she laughs faintly. “What did Sam and Dean think of that?”

continue reading on ao3

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans are Space Orcs, “Cage Canary.”

Was a bit rushed this morning. Sorry in advance. Also I updated the master post yesterday, finally.... sorry about that lol :) 

Adam leaned his head against the bars. His stomach growled horribly and his head ached. It was almost like having a really bad hangover accept without the memories of having fun or doing stupid shit the night before. Instead he was suspended in a cage high in the air, watching as the ugly ass prodigum galumphed around the room preparing it for his next ‘guests’.

He would have used a more normal word to describe how the creature moved, except for this thing was nasty Jaba the Hutt level ugly.. Sort of made him feel like Han Solo though he supposed that was supposed to make Sunny princess Leia. The only problem is they didn’t have a Luke Skywalker or an R2D2 to come and rescue them.

He sighed as his stomach groaned.

He glanced over at the other cages making a face at the bleached white skeleton which hung in one, and at the two humans sitting in the other.

They looked horrific.

His stomach growled again.

“Don’t worry.” His cage neighbor said, ‘You get used to it after a while.” “What.”

“The hunger.:

“Do they not feed you?”

The other human shook their head, “No, that’s how it works here. They put us in these cages and then use us for entertainment while we slowly starve to death, and then, once we are dead, they feed on our decomposing corpses..”

The commander made a face, “Shit, that is really, really disgusting.”

She shrugged, “You don’t seem so worried.”

He held up his hands, “I can start crying if that would make you more convinced, but otherwise I don’t see much use in freaking out.”

“I suppose that is a good way to do things. Who knows, the clients might actually like you, and they might bother to feed you longer.”

“How do you make the clients like you?”

She waved a hand, “ignore what the prodigum said, they know a good singer when they hear one.” She patted her throat, “That’s why I’m not going to last long.”

“Tone def?”

“No, I’m actually a voice coach, but due to extenuating circumstances, I’m not supposed to be singing for my own health.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He groaned and leaned back against the cage, “I’m gone in that case.”

She leaned up against the cage, “Why, you tone def too?”

He snorted, “not hardly. I can carry a tune, but I’m not a solo act. I’m sort of just average.”

“For fear of sounding too much like a voice coach. Most people are only average because they weren’t trained to be good. It’s all about breath control, than anyone can be pretty good.”

“Well then I'll just have to-”

He was cut off in that moment as the  lights over his head began to flash. He looked towards the door and watched as the doors were thrown open. The prodigum opened his huge, ugly arms wide as his guests entered the room.

Adam stood inside his cage to get a better look displeased when he watched more of the prodigum, burg and a couple of Tesraki. He thought he even saw an Iotin or two somewhere in there, or was that a Gromm. They filtered into the room as the ‘slaves’ were dragged onto the floor.

He pressed up against the bars as he saw sunny being dragged onto the floor. 

Both sets of her hands, her feet and her neck had all been chained together. She could barely move, though she was still being forced to carry a tray of drinks.

“Welcome my friends, welcome please come in, we have something new for you today and-” His voice was mostly drowned out by the intervening voices.

He tried leaning closer to hear, and was only able to tell what was going on when the prodigum turned towards him and held out a hand, “Behold, the long reaching arm of my empire.”

There was a sudden muttering around the room as so many impressed clients recognized Adam.

He made a point of flipping them all the bird and spitting out the bars towards one of the burg, who leaped away with a hiss. He laughed, “And there’s more where that came from assholes.”

The prodigum gurgled in amusement the little breathing tubes on the side of its neck opening and closing with a wet sort of slapping noise. The commander grimaced, “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, commander. He motioned with one hand towards Sunny, and at that moment he watched as a group of others moved forward grabbing her by the chains and throwing her to the floor.

She choked against the chain around her neck.

“SUNNY!”

“This really is simple, Commander. Behave or she dies. These are the rules. You sing, and when we want the song changed we will throw something at you. Don’t do what we want and your friend here gets it.”

He grinned his floppy bulbous cheeks dangling down towards the ground as the little face tentacles wriggled about in the air, “Now, get to work.”

He glanced over at sunny his first instinct to tell the guy to screw off, but when he looked over at Sunny, and saw her pinned against the ground. Well, he knew he couldn’t do anything. He licke dhis dry lips and took a deep breath.

Perhaps his first song shouldn’t have been an adlipped ditty that began with the line.

Suck a dick 

Sung with great gusto and feeling, and definitely shouldn't have been followed up with the line 

You big ugly cock sucker

He was stopped a moment later when some random object was launched at his head.

He fell back against the cage, suddenly alerted by sunny’s cries of pain.

He turned over to see the prodigum pressing his hand spike into her back.

He grimaced, “Alright, alright! Stop, just let me think of a song ok.”

Off in the other cage, the two other humans were chuckling to themselves, “Nice On that last line. I really enjoyed the use of vibrato, you know especially on the cocksucker part. Try to get a deeper breath next time though”

“You gonna teach me to sing before we all die.”

The crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the bars, “I’m going to try and keep you alive for as long as I can. For your sake and for your friend down there. I am also hoping, that since you are the commander, you have some sort of panic transponder on you, and that helping you will help me survive long enough to get out of here.”

“Fair.”

“Hurry up human! I don’t have all day.” 

Close to panic he began to sing the only thing he could think of in the moment.

The ABC song.

Yeah sure it wasn’t one of his greatest moments, but he was under pressure.

That didn’t go over so well, and he had to duck out of the way as a can came soaring up towards his head.

The party was almost in full swing now.

At a time like this, he had to go back to his roots. When he was a kid, his mother had always been a fan of music from the late 20th and early 21st centuries. He had carried her love onto his adult life, so that’s all he could think of on such short notice.

He went for a little Journey to start off with though he knew he wasn’t nearly good enough to do any of the songs justice. Unfortunately he did not have a nine octave range to work with.

He honestly couldn't help throwing in a few songs with lines like.

I hate everything about you assuming that the context would be enough that he wouldn’t get something chucked at his head, but apparently he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Across from him, the Vocal coach was leaning against her bars prompting him with comments when she could be heard over the conversation from below.

Wake Me Up 

Numb

Creep

Iris 

It’s Not My Time

“Shoulders back, try breathing from your belly and not your chest, make it deeper, Open your mouth a little more. Try using an O and not an A on that line next time.”

They were somewhere in between  Sweet Dreams and Boulevard of Broken Dreams When his voice began to falter. The coach insisted that he needed to breathe better to last longer.

But he was so tired.

His voice was beginning to crack and he was growing light headed.

Below him on the floor he caught eyes with Sunny who was being dragged behind the prodigum.

Unwell 

You and Me

Drops of Jupiter

He was dying. Did he even remember what songs were? He was pretty sure he didn’t even listen to some of these, but songs he heard when he was a kid were mostly sustaining him. Most of the songs he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull off.

Kryptonite 

One Last breath 

My Immortal

 He was ninety percent sure if any of these long dead artists could hear him singing from rock n’ roll heaven whey were getting to rock and roll him straight into hell for his egregious sins.

The sound of Silence.

He broke into a coughing fit.

Something hit him through the bars and he tried to control his breathing as he choked back into life.

What now?

Disney songs.

Um hold on? Which ones?

He was going to die here singing Let It Go in the voice impression of a dying toad, and that would be his legacy.

heaven  or hell, whichever, was going to be awkward.

He barely noticed when the doors were opened again and people began to trickle out. He only noticed when the vocal coach yelled his name, and he looked up from his state of misery finally allowed to break into a horrendous coughing fit.

“That was pretty good for someone who doesn't sing, but I think we can work on your breathing and your technique, otherwise you are going to destroy yourself. Plus if you keep singing rock songs we are going to have to teach you how to use distortion properly.” 

He groaned, falling onto his side one hand clutched onto one of the bars as the cage gently swayed back and forth.

Beneath him, sunny looked up with an expression of worry, though she was dragged away and out of the room before he could do or say anything. He held his hand out, but she vanished out the door.

This was a really shit day.

Krill had been right when he had complained that the commander needed a panic button.

Honestly he hadn’t thought he would be kidnapped again, but it turns out he was pretty wrong about that .

He wondered where the rest of the crew was, and what they were thinking.

Where did they assume he and sunny had gone. Did they even know something was off.

He was so thirsty.

He was definitely expecting to die here. 

Because he had no good plans this time.

“You know why they like humans singing so much right?” He groggily turned his head to the side where the vocal coach was sitting her hands clasped in her lap before her. 

He shook his head.

“It can affect the emotion of the Prodigum. I know it sounds weird , but I have been watching. The better the singing is, the better it works. Happy songs make them happy angry songs piss them off etc. etc. Even more so than humans.”

“And?”

She shrugged, “I don’t know, just an interesting thought.”

He rested his head back on the cage floor.

Sure, being a siren was kind of cool, but being a  siren in a cage very much was not cool. 

[mangamushi]

Thoughts on Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa

FUKUMOTO Nobuyuki, 11 volumes, published from 2003 to 2006 in Big Comic Original (Seinen)

Saikyou Densetsu Kurosawa (Legend of the strongest man Kurosawa) follows the story of 44 years old construction worker Kurosawa as he realizes he spent most of his life without any meaningful connections with anyone nor any special achievements. He decides to change his life so that he can become proud of his own accomplishments and efforts, and earn respect and appreciation from the people around him.

(spoiler warning)

So I’m currently binging Fukumoto manga, after having them on my “plan to read” list for several years…I started with Kaiji, but initially the first manga of his that caught my interest was Kurosawa. The themes of it are right up my alley, and I like main characters that are not teenagers or young adults.

Kurosawa has a sequel, Shin Kurosawa: Saikyou Densetsu, which is a direct continuation. I’ll mostly be focusing on the first part here. 

The art is typical Fukumoto style. Odd at first, definitely not the prettiest nor the most impressive out there, but it does the job and I really grew to like it. He doesn’t hesitate to give exaggerated features to his characters, and I actually find the deliberate ugliness of the character designs refreshing. It certainly fits the story of Kurosawa, makes the characters very expressive and works well with the often comedic tone. 

Although the art looks simple, Fukumoto can deliver very intense pages when he needs to. 

His forte is in his use of narration combined with the picture, rather than in the drawings alone. He is a master at using a narrator’s comments or the character’s thoughts to raise tension and make the manga flow better.

 Kurosawa is definitely written with a lot of heart. Both the manga itself and the titular character, feel very genuine. Kurosawa is very flawed and very human. He is rough but powerful, his desires are simple, and he is straightforward in his reactions, to the point that his impulsive nature and lack of social restraints put him in trouble, especially when it comes to women...

There are a few instances however where he comes close to harassing women, which is played for laugh, which I disliked. Those scenes made me less sympathetic towards him as he actually deserved the repercussions of his actions here.

But besides those chapters, Kurosawa is overall a likeable character, easy to sympathize with and to root for as we see him at a low point of his life.

He is clumsy in his interactions with his coworkers, which, coupled with his hot-temper, often leads to misunderstandings and prevents him from getting closer to them despite his best efforts. I actually found Kurosawa’s failed attempts at achieving popularity reminiscent of Watamote. The beginning of both series, in which a pathetic main character fails repetitively at gaining the appreciation of their peers through outlandish strategies, elicits the same mixture of pity, second-hand embarrassment, and amusement.

Kurosawa also gets into a fair number of fights. While those fight-focused chapters were not bad, I was personally less into them.

Drawing literal fist-fights in not what Fukumoto’s best at. His character’s postures are somewhat stiff, which he compensates for with heavy use of speed-lines. It is okay-ish, but I want read a fight scene, there’s plenty of fighting manga out there that can do a better job. 

 I like Fukumoto more when he writes more psychological battles, like in his gambling mangas. Of course, psychological elements and strategies where not totally absent from the fights, but it was nowhere as much as in his gambling manga. Sometimes I think Kurosawa was a bit too lucky in the fights, as he is not a very athletic person nor someone with a lot of experience in fighting. It did not feel very convincing to me.

Besides, it is through these battles that Kurosawa gathers allies, a reputation and respect. But most of his opponents are teenagers, even middle-schoolers ! Granted they are very scary teenagers, but I still fail to see how a 44 years old man throwing hands with teenagers is such a praise worthy thing...

 I think I prefer to see Kurosawa fight and struggle to improve his life in a less literal way that actual physical fighting.

I haven’t read that many of Fukumoto’s works yet, but I feel like an important theme in them is perseverance/resilience. He puts his characters through a lot, but they tend to have some form of resistance that shines through as admirable. Kurosawa’s will to fight and to push back against adversity is sometimes the only thing he has left, and it is extremely important.

However, that is not an innate ability that comes to him easily -at times Kurosawa hides, flees, cowers. He hesitates, and he needs to think things through before he actually decides to fight.

Fukumoto: You know how protagonists in shonen manga do things like jump in to stop their classmate from being bullied without thinking about how they might get beaten up themselves? I always felt that wasn’t real. So with Kurosawa, I wanted to make a manga that shows hesitation, and how it actually isn’t so easy to defend people like that.

(Excerpt from this interview)

I like this kind of manga where characters reflect about what is the right decision to take and on how they should be living their life. And how the reader has access to their inner turmoil and thoughts. 

 His strength is often born from sheer desperation and desire to survive. It is when he is cornered that he can manage to act and fight even when the odds are against him. He has to make do with the very few tools and options he has, which leads him to elaborate unconventional tactics to win over his opponents. 

Having cornered underdogs characters winning over more powerful, but less desperate, opponents seems like a running theme in Fukumoto’s manga (cf. the made-up E-card Game from Kaiji, in which The Slave is the only card that can win against The Emperor, precisely because it is so low that it has nothing to lose anymore).

In a way, one could argue Kurosawa follows a formula reminiscent of classic shounen manga: a character who is below average at first rises to a heroic status through willpower, effort and after fighting a string of opponents. However, there are major differences that set Kurosawa apart, besides the older characters and more adult setting (Kurosawa’s worries are grounded in reality: growing old alone, financial problems...) Kurosawa does not provide escapism and dreams. The story begins with Kurosawa as a single old man, and ends with him an even older still single man. He does not become an amazing fighter through power boost and magic training like a shounen character might.

He does want to dream big, but all things considered, his achievements are fairly modest. He is not saving the world or becoming hokage.  At most he is just helping some other marginalized people from his neighborhood.  

Even if he puts his life on the line to fight, what he accomplished will fade into oblivion at some point.

But, even so, his efforts and struggle are still admirable.

Besides, Kurosawa is not about friendship, at least not the kind of friendship you find in shounen manga.

In Fukumoto’s manga, people may stick together for survival, they can share intense emotions when put through the same ordeals, but it’ll rarely turn into true companionship. Kurosawa is alone from the start, and while he does connect with other people throughout the story, in the sequel those relationships are left behind as he leaves on his own to start a new life. 

Fukumoto: My protagonists, on the other hand, are always alone – not only do they not have followers, they don’t even have friends. (laugh) [...]  I can’t do manga where the characters readily make friends that they risk their lives for. I started out by drawing short human drama pieces, but even then – partially because I wasn’t doing long-term series, but – they weren’t generally stories about friends.

I was kind of expecting Asai, one of Kurosawa’s coworker, to have a bigger role, but that didn’t happen. (I liked the part where he tried to comfort Kurosawa after he got humiliated so I was hoping for more!)

The story isn’t very cohesive or straighforward, it just follows Kurosawa’s life, who wants to change but lacks a clearly defined goal or road to follow. There isn’t one big coherent plot, instead the story goes in different directions, shifting from one genre to another from chapter to chapter. Kurosawa even admits it himself !

The quality of the chapters and different arcs is in my opinion rather uneven. 

 There are some really powerful scenes, notably the very end of the manga which is very touching. Kurosawa successfully leads a group of homeless men to defend themselves against some delinquents who were threatening them, but as a result of his injuries, he is implied to die. (The sequel manga reveals he actually just goes into coma for 8 years). It is bittersweet ending as he finally achieved something and is surrounded by human warmth.

                  Shin Kurosawa, the sequel, is similar to the first part, though slightly more light-hearted and focused on humor (even though Kurosawa’s situation technically worsens!). It seems to be less liked than the first part for those same reasons, but I personally enjoy Fukumoto’s humor and his more slice of life-y mangas. It has many genuinely funny moments. Once in a while there are still some chapters that feel deeper/more thought provoking, as Fukumoto likes to reflect about society, life, and humanity in his stories.

For anyone looking for other manga with similar themes, I can recommend Furuya Minoru’s excellent Wanitokagegisu . Both feature very lonely adult men who wish to turn their life around, and oscillate between humor and psychological drama.

[sifeng]

China’s Mary Sue

Growing up in America, I always saw Mary Sues as these perfect, destined type of heroine. So you can imagine my surprise when I went on Chinese social media and found people calling Jiang Xiaoguo, a character from Twenty Your Life On, who is plain in looks, of average talent and who comes from a less than stellar background, a Mary Sue. So, I did some digging and found that apparently in China, besides also meaning perfect angels, Mary Sue can also describe plain, simple girls who are ordinary in every aspect. Nothing sounds wrong with that right? Except, these simple Mary Sues attract the attention of a male lead that is far from ordinary in any aspect (think Meteor Garden or Scarlet Heart). A rant below:

(Remember when I said Yingluo is definitely not a Mary Sue? Well this new type of Mary Sue kind of includes her too! It just goes to show how Chinese netizens are willing to literally hate on any kind of female lead! No matter how different from the norm + unproblematic they are!)

This is an interesting character. There’s nothing wrong with the basic characteristics, as the matter of fact, their basic storyline (minus the romance) makes complete sense. It’s just your average person growing up to become a successful adult. I really don’t see anything wrong with that. I also don’t see anything wrong with their character - after all, isn’t 80% of the world the exact same? The only thing that is annoying with this character is the fact that they attract guys that are far beyond their league. Why? Most people don’t like this because it’s unrealistic, which is definitely true and you can dislike it for that reason, but, I have to ask who is watching a drama to see a realistic relationship? Cdramas (especially romantic ones) thrive off of clichés, and yet those exact people who enjoy them are also the ones who yell “ew a Mary Sue!” 

In America (or the Western World), we dislike Mary Sues because they are annoying, they (when they appear in young adult fiction stories) often act as bad role models for the young people reading them, they can be subconsciously sexist as people who read those stories develop the idea that the “other girls” are so boring or silly or evil and I must be like this bad-ass lady who tears down everyone else. But we do people dislike Mary Sues in China? Because her love stories are unrealistic, because exceptional people like an unexceptional girl. So there’s nothing wrong with her, there is just a lot of hate towards her romance storyline.

A poster for Twenty Your Life On: (from left to right) Duan Jiabao (段家宝), Jiang Xiaoguo (姜小果), Liang Shuang (梁爽), Luo Yan (罗艳)

So yes, I suppose Jiang Xiaoguo is a Mary Sue (she is simple, and two rather exceptional guys like her), but I still don’t really understand whats wrong with this type of Mary Sue. Besides being an overly common trait, I really can’t find anything innately wrong with this setup besides the fact that it will anger thousands of Chinese netizens who feel jealous that though they might be more talented, or better looking, or more pleasant than these Mary Sues, they don’t get the handsome guys like she does. Yes, I suppose Jiang Xiaoguo’s actions and their consequences are a little unrealistic, but she really will put in a lot of effort to get jobs or do good in her job. Perhaps the actions themselves might be impractical but at least the attitude she holds towards life is respectable and young people ought to learn to be courageous and hard working like her. She has more than just “everyone loves her” as a personality trait! 

Pictures from Twenty Your Life On: (from top to bottom), Guan Xiaotong (关晓彤) as Liang Shuang (梁爽), Bu Guanjin (卜冠今) as Jiang Xiaoguo (姜小果), Li Gengxi (李庚希) as Luo Yan (罗艳), Dong Siyi (董思怡) as Duan Jiabao (段家宝)

Everyone seems to hate Jiang Xiaoguo because two guys like her, but they love Liang Shuang (also from Twenty Your Life On)! Liang Shuang is another one of the main characters, and she’s actually a really cool character. She’s super confident (to a kind of amazing level really), and really selfish. I think it’s really interesting that a female lead has this type of personality, and I actually quite like her, but that doesn’t make her a better person than Jiang Xiaoguo. Liang Shuang has some really big problems (not to say Xiaoguo doesn’t - because she does - but they aren’t really huge problems that could hurt the people around her). When she and Luo Yan (another main character) are on the bus together, Luo Yan is harassed, and Liang Shuang steps in and records the entire thing on her phone (because she had been taking selfies before). She then posts the video on social media because she wants to raise awareness, however, in the video Luo Yan pushes her. It is revealed that Luo Yan only pushed her because the creepy guy tried to attack Liang Shuang, but of course that’s not in the video. So the other two friends (Xiaoguo and Duan Jiabao) try to convince Liang Shuang to take the video offline because Luo Yan is getting majorly cyberbullies for something that is definitely not her fault. Liang Shuang refuses because her video has gone viral and she’s getting a lot of followers. Also, once when faced with a product she was offered to advertise, but that could be harmful to the skin, she tricked other girls in the dormitory to use it and watched the results. And why? Because she’s way too pretty to possibly get harmed by this mask, but everyone else can suffer because they're ugly ducklings in comparison. So people like this character because she’s different, and they are totally willing to forgive her for all of these (rather cruel) actions. But when faced with Jiang Xiaoguo, a Mary Sue, they will hate on her for breathing. She can help Liang Shuang deal with a cheating boyfriend, and support her friends when they are down, and yet - she’s the annoying one?

Besides, I feel like, if these male leads have a reason to like her (a valid reason not some stupid one like - oh she’s not like the other girls). Then I don’t have a problem at all! I just want well-written romance storylines that aren’t toxic, I really don’t require this completely new and innovative relationship. Besides, realistic relationships are way too boring to be shown on television, for example, in Twenty Your Life On, Luo Yan’s main pairing is her friend who studies for graduate school with her. He is really nice, but just kind of boring. I don’t really feel interested in watching their romance develop because 1. there isn’t that much chemistry and 2. it’s just so boring. (Nothing against either or them, since I love Teresa Li and I quite liked the guy in My Huckleberry Friends). I am even more annoyed that people are really hating on the actress because Jiang Xiaoguo takes up screen time. I tried to watch an iQiyi sneak peek and literally half (if not three-fourths) of the comments were just hating on her and her actress. It’s absolutely disgusting, especially given that this show has just started and has only gone one-fourth of the way through. 

This was just a rant about how annoying Chinese netizens can be towards female characters, even when it’s unwarranted. If they were complaining about how she has too much screen time, perhaps I could agree, but they are just insulting her solely because two talented and handsome guys like her. That is just so wrong on so many levels. (Now this is solely a theory and it’s most likely wrong but... could it be that people are actually jealous? I see so many comments literally hating on Xiaoguo’s appearance, her actress’s voice, even her actress’s acting ability - which is actually really good - and yet no one hates on anyone else in this show. I really don’t understand. I really like her character actually, especially in the first episode).

I’m actually kind of sad. This show is so good, it deals with some very interesting topics and features conversations that are quite meaningful. And yet, all the fans care about are who gets the most screen time or oh my god this girl is so annoying because guys like her. They're missing the main point!

[littlemixnet]

Little Mix's Jesy Nelson on surviving the trolls: 'People were saying horrific things' Eight years after she shot to fame on The X Factor, Nelson describes how she navigated the trauma of being relentlessly bullied on social media. When Jesy Nelson was 19 and working behind the bar at a pub in Dagenham, Essex, she remembers watching The X Factor on TV, and thinking: “I know I could win that.” In 2011, she did just that, as part of the girl group Little Mix – and thought: “This is the worst day of my life.” Competing in Simon Cowell’s singing contest unleashed ceaseless criticism of her appearance and weight (although rarely her voice). “All I cared about was what people were saying about me,” she says now. Winning offered no respite. When Little Mix were crowned, the first Facebook message she saw was from a stranger. It read: “You are the ugliest thing I have ever seen in my life. You do not deserve to be in this girl band, you deserve to die.” “I should have been on cloud nine,” she says. “I had Leigh-Anne [Pinnock, also of Little Mix] in my room being like: ‘This is the best!’ and I was like: ‘No, this isn’t.’” Little Mix went on to become the biggest British girl group since the Spice Girls, but Nelson was consumed by the trolling and abuse on social media. Within two years of the finale, she had depression and an eating disorder and had attempted suicide. The downward spiral and her eventual, slow recovery are the focus of an intensely personal BBC One documentary, Jesy Nelson: Odd One Out. Before shooting it, she says, she had never spoken publicly about her struggles in the spotlight. When we meet in a corner of BBC Broadcasting House in central London, Nelson, now 28, is friendly and glamorous, dressed in a double-breasted tangerine suit. It is the eighth anniversary of her X Factor debut and #8YearsofLittleMix has been trending on Twitter all morning, thanks to their fans, the “Mixers”. Within minutes of sitting down, she says that, had she known the consequences of appearing on The X Factor, she wouldn’t have done it: “I don’t think anything is worth your happiness, and it was a lot of my life that I won’t get back.” As a child growing up in Romford, Essex, Nelson was intent on becoming a performer, be it singing, dancing or acting. “I didn’t really have any reason to not be confident,” she says. In mid-2011, she auditioned for The X Factor as a solo entrant, and was eventually placed in a group with three others: Pinnock, Perrie Edwards and Jade Thirlwall, all aged between 18 and 20. Back then, social media was not as inextricably linked with reality TV as it is now. In fact, that eighth series was the first where applicants could upload their audition videos to YouTube; Nelson didn’t even know what YouTube was. She remembers being wowed when all the contestants were given new Samsung phones and told to get on Twitter to build their fanbase. On the first live show 12 weeks in, Little Mix (then Rhythmix – the name was changed later) performed Nicki Minaj’s Super Bass to gushing praise from judges Louis Walsh, Gary Barlow and their mentor Tulisa Contostavlos. It was “the best feeling in the world,” said Nelson through happy tears on stage. That night, off-camera, the contestants gathered to watch themselves on YouTube. Someone pointed out the comment section. “I was very naive,” says Nelson. “I thought it would be people giving their opinion on our performance. But nearly every comment was about the way I looked: ‘She’s a fat ugly rat’; ‘How has she got in this girl group?’; ‘How is the fat one in this?’” She remembers the air being thick with tension – “because no one knew what to do or how to react. “I felt a rush of anxiety, because I’d never experienced anything like that in my life. People were saying my face was deformed – just the most horrific things. I felt like I was heartbroken. I remember ringing my mum and saying: ‘Mum, I want to go home, I don’t want to do it.’” At about 1am, a member of The X Factor team found Nelson crying alone and asked why she was so upset. A couple of days later, she was asked to explain again – on camera. She didn’t want to do it. “They told me it wasn’t recorded, and it was.” A few weeks later, the clip of Nelson in tears over “a few nasty comments” was broadcast before Little Mix’s performance, the reality TV playbook of “sad piano” switching to upbeat pop music when Thirlwall comforts her: an uplifting moment of girl power. From then on, that was Nelson’s public narrative. She does not hold that clip, or the producers, responsible: “I think it would have always happened – that just added fuel to the fire.” From the start, relatability had been billed as a central tenet of Little Mix’s appeal. Contostavlos introduced them as “the girl group to represent ladies in this country”; she framed Nelson’s tears as evidence of Little Mix having “the same insecurities as every other girl”. Nelson, however, was the only member even remotely close to the average UK woman at size 16. Although the four bandmates have always been friends – “that’s why we’re still together” – she felt singled out. “I was with three other girls to be compared to. I don’t think it would have been as bad if I’d been on my own.” After the clip presented her as Little Mix’s weakest link, the abuse snowballed. “It was like as soon as people knew that it was really affecting me, they wanted to do it more.” Nelson had been bullied at school, to the point of stress-induced alopecia – “but this wasn’t playground stuff”. She was shocked by the cruelty from adults – some clearly parents. “Obviously everyone sits in their living room and will see someone on TV and make a comment. But to actually pick up your phone and go: ‘I’m going to make sure this girl sees it’ – even if they didn’t think I was going to see it – you have no idea the effect that one comment will have.” Nelson became “obsessed” with reading criticism. The praise didn’t register. “It only got worse when I got Twitter. And that led to the Daily Mail, and reading the [below the line] comments – the worst you can read about yourself. It was like I purposely wanted to hurt myself.” “I had a routine of waking up, going on Twitter, searching for the worst things I could about myself. I’d type in the search bar: ‘Jesy fat’, or ‘Jesy ugly’, and see what would come up. Sometimes I didn’t even need to do that, I’d just write ‘Jesy’ and then I’d see all the horrible things. Everyone told me to ignore it – but it was like an addiction.” At one event, Nicola Roberts of Girls Aloud – who had seen the clip of her crying – took Nelson aside. “She said: ‘Can I just give you one bit of advice? Please don’t read stuff about you. It’s the worst thing you could do.’” Nelson rolls her eyes self-mockingly. “But did I listen? No.” Contestants had been told help was available if they were struggling, but Nelson had learned that talking only made the problem worse. “I don’t think any of the team really knew how upset it was making me – it’s just go-go-go, from the car into hair and makeup, then rehearsals.” It was also a popularity contest. “We just wanted to make everyone happy, and we wanted everyone to like us.” In December 2011, Little Mix became the first group to win The X Factor. Their debut single entered the charts at No 1 seven months later; DNA, their first album, was released in November 2012. Scrutiny of Nelson only increased amid the pressure to maintain momentum. Although she tried not to discuss it, she feels the abuse came to define her public image. “I’d become a bit of a joke. People would make memes, chopping my head off in a group photo and putting a monster or ET on there. I’d be in live Q&As and these things would pop up and I’d have to just sit there.” Interviewers asked her how she dealt with it; fans said they looked up to her. She was depressed and in denial: she refused antidepressants, and therapy didn’t help. “Our schedule was so gruelling. I was going to see a therapist at six o’clock in the morning, crying, and then going to a photoshoot.” Meanwhile, in public, she was “giving speeches about being confident”. Little Mix, as the guardians of girl power, were not only supposed to represent every woman, but defend every woman. “I felt I had to be this person who was like …” Nelson juts her jaw, sashays from side to side, a facsimile of her sassy music-video persona: “‘I don’t care what people are saying about me, I’m this strong woman.’ That was the role I had to take on in the group, when really I was an absolute mess.” In the lead-up to TV performances or video shoots: “I’d starve myself … I’d drink Diet Coke for a solid four days and then, when I felt a bit dizzy, I’d eat a pack of ham because I knew it had no calories. Then I’d binge eat, then hate myself.” Yet she did not see herself as having an eating disorder. “I could see that I was losing weight and sometimes I’d see a few good comments and that spiralled me to be like: ‘This is how I need to stay.’ No one cares whether your performance was good, or if you sounded great.” Nelson started skipping events where she knew she would be photographed. On one magazine shoot, the wrong size clothes were provided. “I had a meltdown. I cried so much, I had to wear sunglasses. I did one photo, then left.” She hid her misery well, she says now. “I think people just thought I was a miserable bitch.” Her lowest point was in the lead-up to Little Mix’s second album, Salute, in 2013. Her mum, Janice, increasingly desperate, told her she had to quit the band. Yet Nelson worried that leaving – or even taking a break – would draw more attention to herself. “Everyone’s going to ask why.” In November 2013, Little Mix returned to The X Factor to perform their new single, Nelson notably slimmed down. Coverage centred on one tweet from Katie Hopkins: “Packet Mix have still got a chubber in their ranks. Less Little Mix. More Pick n Mix.” Increasingly, Nelson felt trapped. “I felt that I physically couldn’t tolerate the pain any more.” She attempted suicide. Nelson’s family, her management and the rest of the group knew – but “once it was spoken about, it wasn’t ever spoken about again,” she says. She was offered time off, but once more was too frightened of drawing attention to herself to take it. The turning point came in February 2014, when Little Mix spent six weeks travelling across North America, opening for Demi Lovato. One day, on the bus, the dancers pulled her aside and told her she had to quit Twitter, likening it to a book filled with “loads of nasty things” that Nelson always had her nose in. She finally deleted her account. “It was a long, hard process, because I didn’t want to help myself. But it wasn’t until I deleted Twitter that everything changed for me and I slowly started to feel normal again.” Through more regular therapy and talking to friends and family, eventually she was able to stop reading articles about herself, and distance herself from her public image even as Little Mix’s star continued to climb. In 2016, Glory Days became their first No 1 album in the UK. Since February, Nelson has been dating the 2017 Love Island contestant Chris Hughes, who has defended her publicly from online trolling and who she says is a positive influence on her feelings about fame: “It’s nice to be around someone who doesn’t give a shit about all that stuff.” Making the documentary also contributed; she lights up while talking about meeting a body-image specialist, Liz Ritchie, to help her understand her relationship with social media and the “mask” that she had developed to withstand the spotlight. Part of this involved going over footage from The X Factor, which was a difficult experience, but ultimately empowering. “Don’t get me wrong, I still have days when I feel shit in myself but instead of beating myself up about it and being miserable, I think: ‘OK, I’m going to have my moment of being sad, and I’ll be over it.’ Before, I didn’t let myself be sad.” Talking to other young people who have experienced online abuse made her feel less alone. “A lot of people think ‘stop moaning’, but until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to understand – and it doesn’t just happen to people in the limelight. There’s so many people struggling with social media and online trolling. People need to know about the effects it has.” The turnaround in five years, she agrees, is remarkable: now, as Little Mix work on their sixth album, Nelson is less conscious of her weight, her appearance, what she’s eating – even what is being said about her. To shoot the documentary, she returned to Twitter, and discovered some new slurs. “I didn’t even know some people said that about me, but it’s because I don’t look for it – and also, I. Don’t. Care,” she says, leaning forward in her chair. “Now I’m mentally a lot happier, I just think people are always going to have an opinion. But I only care about mine.” She flashes a smile from beneath all her hair, happy but defiant – and for a moment she looks exactly like the girl in the music videos.

[thoughtsofhem-blog]

(This is for the people who love reading, who is philosophical, who is a deep thinker and people who loves me😊)

• I bet you, you are going to enjoy this article in a beautiful way.

• Definitely, you will get positive vision about something that is unknown.

• I knew there are plethoras of grammatical errors if you’re going to judge me on the basis of a perfect writer which I’m not😊.

• My purpose is always expressing my thoughts through the magical words and convey a right message to right audience.

• Keep patience and read it fully

My New Article on:

Spirituality Vs Religion:

I know its a sensitive topic to be discussed or write about, but being a writer too, I always have advantages for using ‘freedom of speech’ . Still, I personally don’t want to hurt anyones sentiments related to this topic but I still want to express my perspectives on this topic.

I born in a Hindu family, and now I am following spirituality, which is helping me to perceive something deep & raw information about the Holy Spirit or god or infinite energy who runs this entire universe. Therefore, I want to say that I born as a Hindu, Currently, I am not following any religion. Its like; Either, I don’t follow any particular religion or I follow all the religions equally. Following a religion or being religious is not a wrong thing but it has many consequences like religion can mislead people from true realisation about god, Religion create categorisation among humans and it spread hate more than love and tranquility. If I talk logical, religions created for believing in god with different concepts of different religious views, We all should beautifully respect & accept those differences instead of fighting who is the best among all of them. None of religion teach us to spread hate or create any negative chaos or superiority ! for example many people stupidly believe that they are following most superior & best religion else are fool whose following another religion. Without any true knowledge and any deep research about such existence people blindly follow all these false perceptions about god in the name of religion and spread hate.

Firstly, god never set any kind of rules & regulations to follow him, its all human made perspectives, myths & rules which they had added on such holy books and smartly, they created a kind of fear in others mind to strictly follow those concepts in the name of religion.

On this earth, many Holy Spirit born as a great spiritual leader to spread brotherhood, love, peace among humans and saving them from all the evil deeds, healing them with their pure energies and inspiring them to follow a right path. You must concentrate on my words, `I said, ‘spiritual leaders’ None of them are god but still part of god, a shred of his pure & infinite divine energy for example ShriRama,Krishna,Jesus,buddha,mahaveer,gurunanaka,Saibaba,J. Krishna murti, Swami Vivekananda,Osho,alike more great souls.

A human never can be a god, God is an infinite energy which is so divine and pure who hasn’t any shape,colour,size or gender. God is a light. This pure energy exist everywhere, ‘whereas we impure humans never can met him unless we get enlightened. Such holy spirits never wrote any books to fix any rules to achieve god. If you research you will find that they all had similar purpose to take birth through this human body and given similar messages to us. Even an average human can be like them by working on his/her own mind & soul for years by deep levels of meditations,yoga,self control,balancing three levels of minds(conscious, subconscious,unconscious)by knowing self existence & self-realisation.

It doesn’t matter what kind of person you have been yesterday, It was a past and its already gone, when you start to work on your own energies it will change your entire existence. Everything here is in a form of energy if you will deeply analysis it.I won’t go so deep because few people only get what I’m trying to say, other will take it for granted or misunderstood me because their thought process are so limited & they can’t accept beyond their limited thoughts. Truth is we’re not only a part of our physical body, we all are souls, which is existing as a form of energy and this human body is just a temporary outfit for us to do our Karma’s in this birth. This physical Body, this world is an illusion, there is an another world which known as a molecular world, that is our real world where all energies have to return from this illusionary world to molecular world. People get mad if I start to go deeply into this. I’m very grateful that I’m working on something exceptional which people realise in their last phase of life,sometimes not even in this birth, sometimes they realise truth after several births and then start to work on it. When we get true knowledge which is existing in ourselves, we just need to realise it but we spent our life on superficial things which never help us to grow spiritually and mentally.

Being religious has one beautiful benefit !that is, it helps you to concentrate on that divine energy by consciously imagining & focusing on that particular image through pray method. Pray is a technique which heal our soul and it helps our subconscious mind to work in favour of our great desires. If anyone think that by following some myths & rules blindly and worshiping god all the time you will get god or peace I mean 'Moksha’ It will never going to happen. Usually, You connect to god with your own good karma’s, we all can fool each other but not that great father, he sees everything, he hears everything, he knows everything, infront of him we all are nude, we human fake ourselves too much infront of another human to get any kind of validation, neither we are perfect nor another human.So there is no need of impressing another human, let people judge you, spread rumours about you, let them hate you, let them do whatever they want to but you do not contaminate your own soul with such negative energies, any bitter experiences or people.

If anyone has desire to discover how to find themselves, endless joy, peace then I can give few suggestions here which I had acquired through my inner strength and self-realisation. In my opinion, no one is bad, I really pray for such souls who is damaged, in pain, in jealous, in guilt, in hate, in anger , in regret or in any kind of negativities. If I talk personally about my experiences then I would like to say as a human I was never been perfect, not even now and not in the future. I never can be perfect because a human never can be perfect one but still I can minimise my negative sides by consciously working on it. I am very expressing individual and I love to do it for those who follows me as their inspiration or who seeks anything through me, who doesn’t like me they definitely can ignore anything related to me, there is no hard feelings for anyone. For example : as I said I was not perfect and not even in present & not in the future but I worked a lot on my soul which has changed my life. In the past, I also made wrong choices, worse experiences, judgments, being revengeful, went through traumas & depression, drastically manipulated byhaters,heartbreaks,beingbetrayed,humiliated,isolated, bullied by others for my outer appearance like my dusky complexion, body shape or my English ascent, specially when I was a teenager. If I talk about study, I always have been an average student sometimes below than average 😂, people who can relate this, I want to tell you for your own motivation that research, history and google 😂are the evidences of datas of most successful people in this world most of them are school drop outs, whether they’re an eminent scientist, a successful business icon, or a great player or a worlds top writer, brilliant actors, a great politicians. Intelligence is nothing related to profound in particular language, getting good ranks or scores,many certificates. Intelligence is beautiful weapon which we can transform in any field and getting enormously successful in that field. It doesn’t mean education is not important.

We often get bullied by our peer groups or by our relatives or teachers or sometimes from our own parents for not getting fit into their expectations. That is perfectly fine. I strongly say, never follow crowd, never copy anyone, your uniqueness make you exceptionally beautiful and it does separate you from the crowd to create your own history. But still people can’t be so insensitive, they never understand by cornering a growing adult how much it can affect them psychologically. Not everyone enough brave to mould their life in a positive manner after experiencing all these mental traumas. To be honest, I also got affected by all these things and became a frustrated, extremely aggressive and a bitter person with low confidence whereas I was completely turned into a negative person. I’m sharing all this because may be it will help someone like me to change their life by having a true example. I always been courageous and after experiencing hell I took a decision to live for myself, working on me, I never had a quitting attitude in my life. it was not about working on outer appearance only, Honestly, your outer appearance never matters, it only judged by sick people with narrow mindsets. Everyone is beautiful in their own way, because god never creates anything ugly, its we human who sets parameters for everything even about religions. You have to be your own hero in this journey, being honest to yourself help you to evolve spiritually. Accept the way you’re, you don’t need to change for another human, you only need to change for yourself. Appreciate who is better than you and motivate who is lesser than you. With this attitude and acceptance you never develop any kind of jealousy or an egotistical competition inside you.Never compare your self with another people or with their life, if you do you are insulting yourself. Whatever made you hurt or bitter in the past let it go, forgive yourself and forgive other people who were the reasons for your pain, you need to be healed and moved on in life, in this healing process you need to pray, you need to be positive, be with more good people who will help you to evolve. Embrace nature. Be grateful for all little things you have. Learn to appreciate good things. Replace all your negative thoughts by your positive one’s with the better intentions.Be your own motivation. Read good inspiring books 📚. Work on your hobbies. Meet new & positive people. Ignore & eliminate people from your life who is not good for your soul & mental health. Never indulge yourself with negative gossiping. Leave people behind, who is not good for your growth, people who take you for granted, avoid people who take your advantages. Stop having evil thoughts for others. If we focus on right and positive things in our life, our life miraculously get changes. And just ignore whole world if they giving you any kind of negativity or demotivation. I can give you a simple formula to never get affected by others judgement on you, that formula is 'whoever judging you is another imperfect & fool human like you’ and their opinion about you or your life never ever matters. Make your aura so strong that you will not get affected by any negative energies. So it need a lot of work, patience and compassion within yourself for yourself.Be kind to yourself in the processing of healing.

Now come to the point, here I would give one more suggestion in order to make it easier for people about spirituality. Although,Humans are extremely greedy that after deeply working on their mind & spirit, having powerful concepts about spirituality, meditation and god or any kind of deep intelligent knowledge, They use to play and fool other people through marketing it by taking advantages of people’s weaknesses instead of healing them. They knew that its all mind games and how to take benefits from people by giving them false beliefs for their insecurities. I must say, a genuine spiritual leader or guide never pretend themselves as a god and make it a business to earn money or boosting their ego by pretending themselves as a god, or enjoying adoring themselves by huge number of followers. for example I can see many advertisements even on social media’s like - contact for healing from the past experiences, for psychic remedies,how to get back your ex😂, how to make love failure work, how to improve infertility,how to keep in-laws in your favour, vashikaran,for getting succeed in career, your dream partner, marriage/love solutions, or any kind of solutions bla,bla,bla😂... never fallen into their trap for your solutions its all mind games they’re playing in the name of religion or spirituality or magic or whatever. There are two things with such marketing,either its fake or has a power acquired through negative energies like black magic or something like that and I aware you all ..you guys believe it or not but everything has its opponents. By jumping into such shortcuts it will make your life worse. We all have to face our own karma in this same life so let it be like that. Never play with nature and its pace. Thus, never go for them. Another thing is, I’m on my spiritual journey and I don’t follow any particular organisations or guru related to spirituality for example I grasp good or knowledgeable things from everyone but I don’t follow anyone blindly. Anything that is related to god, about spirituality never can be paid or for personal benefits. We humans are blessed with lots of talents for earning money to spent a better life, but for money we don’t need to be so greedy to harm another beings or chose a wrong path to earn it because such money never give you peace ✌🏽. When we are so talented, hardworking, educated and smart enough to achieve anything then why we tend to believe that its ok to do anything for money even if you know that is wrong. So never follow anything blindly, awake your own intelligence & conscious, use your brain and keep faith in yourself. To recapitulate it, I would say for getting god you really don’t need to be aggressively religious or walking into a tough spiritual path with all the sacrifices, its a choice not anything forcefully to follow or do with. Never indulge in anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. Being in your domestic lifestyle you can achieve it through your good karma’s,honesty, pure soul, empathy,compassion, justice for truth,good intentions. for example whatever you’re doing suppose you’re an employee just do your work honestly, you will get god. You’re a spouse or a parent just take care of your family with all the honesty, you will get god, whatever you do, do it with pure heart, loyalty and good intentions you will get god. By,Writer Hema .P

[hollandroos]

Run To Me; Part Twelve

Summary: Dad!Mob!Tom. Sequel to BAK but you don’t have to read that one first. If you wish too, the link is in my bio masterlist!!

Run To Me: Series Masterlist!

Words: 3952

Read on Wattpad! + Playlist!

The car rode along the highway, dark as it was you could still make out the features that grew more familiar the closer you got to his house; From the fence that lined the main road that signified you were at least ten minutes away, to the bumps in the road that grew less frequent and the odd cow that spotted in the distance thanks to the near blinding headlights.

You’d had a few experiences where you’d sat and stared out of the window on drives just like this one, down the same highway, eyes taking in the trip and while some of those times weren’t the best (staring teary-eyed at the scenery so you didn’t have to stare or pay any attention to Tom) some of those were spent playing games of I spy and taking in every little detail until the scene was permanently engraved in your mind.

So now, driving back to the place you once called your home with radio silence, you were filled with all kinds of nostalgia and a heavy amount of fear but your grief- while it was there was hidden beneath so many other unexpressed emotions. You had to wonder if he still owned the same ugly, navy blue couch in the library- or even the same books kept untouched. Whether or not he had the same staff was a mystery to you and you only hoped he kept the same chef?

“Is she asleep?”

You’re snapped out of your thoughts by Tom, who keeps his eyes trained on the road and you blink a few times to adjust to the light, craning your neck to see your daughter fast asleep with curls thrown over her eyes, a blanket over her chest and legs and stuffed toy on the ground below her feet. Rosie's’ mouth was open slightly, droll escaping as she snored softly. She looked utterly carefree.

In the boot, you could see your bags piled on top of one another.

“She’s fast asleep.” You tell him, covering your mouth with your hand as you yawn gently, mind taunting you with the thought of sleep for a single moment. “I’m glad, usually she’d get carsick on a ride this long.” You sit in silence for a moment before you speak up, eyes falling to Tom who looked fairly concentrated. “You know I’m not trying to hide you- who you are from Rosie, I don’t want this to be a secret forever.”

He nods. “I get it. This is a new thing for all of us, we’re adapting. As much as I’d love for her to know, it’s just best that we take things slow- for our sake as well.” Tom turns a bend before asking a question that was plaguing his mind since you’d left earlier that night. “How do you feel?”

You shrug, “Tired, I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

“That’s not what I meant.” Tom drags his gaze off of the road for a few seconds, looking at you before looking back to the road. “How do you feel about your dad- about his death?”

Truthfully you felt like your chest was threatening to concave- that your eyes were dams near close to exploding and your throat was only demanding that you let go but you were an expert at pretending everything was okay when it wasn’t.

“I’m fine.” Your voice reaches a new pitch.

“Y/N-”

“I’m fine.” You grit your teeth, heart pounding in your chest and it was the only thing you could hear in the confined vehicle. “We weren’t that close anyway.”

Lies. Your weekends sometimes consisted of spending hours at his- your old house, discussing your weeks over a cup of tea and a packet of malt biscuits. Your weekdays sometimes included keeping Rosie out of daycare and going to old cafes with him in tow and Christmas every since Rosie was born was spent at his place, opening gifts under the tree you’d had since you were her age. Every year it shrunk but wasn’t, was your little girl who seemed to be growing with every passing day.

You pick at a loose string on your sweater, curling it around one finger before resting your arm on the space between the passenger seat and the driver's seat just as Tom removes one hand from the wheel- resting it only inches away from yours until his fingers ghost beside your own and you tense. He bought a sudden warmth; having him so close bought a slight comfort that you’d admit you’d been craving.

It reminded you of the time in the hospital just after Harrison's death. The last time he was ever comforting was in that hospital bed as you shook and cried- that was something you did very often since that event.

The two of you stayed like that until you arrived at the house; with his hand merely grazing yours and in a whole other universe they’d be linked together.

-

Rosie padded around the large house, the skirt she’d picked out earlier slipping down every few moments and she desperately grasped at the elastic of the emerald green item, tugging it tightly around her waist. Her fingers played with the buttons that ran up the front and desperately tried to pick them off as she explored the longer then average halls.

She’d played hide and seek before but this was the ultimate game and she swore that for once she was going to win. Rosie had never played in such a large house before and especially not a house with so many rooms, every door and hallway extending into another part of the house that she never would’ve guessed existed. 

The girl stared wide-eyed and mouth agape as she passed the library, wondering for a moment if Tom had Clifford the big red dog or the little mermaid. She almost screamed when she saw the kitchen and the sweets that lined the bench.

Her room didn’t feel like her own yet and she still didn’t understand why they’d left the room she was used too, the one that held her posters and drawings and many of the stuffies that she owned.  She already missed her large selection of play dough and the bright pink blanket she usually cuddled under and it’d only been one night at the new house. Her new room was greyer, a bed a little too large for her and her mommy had put pillows on either side to prevent her from falling but she felt like a princess laying in it, surrounded by pillows and an adults duvet. Still, she felt lonely last night and allowed her mom to sleep beside her.

You didn’t complain, despite being gifted your own room.

The room Rosie had was already kindly decorated with toys that she had been able to bring and the vanity that reminded her of a princess vanity, a gentle white with lights around it contained her hairbrush and other hair accessories that made her groan and wince as she had her hair done. Peter sat on the bedside table with an alarm clock that at the moment read nine thirty-seven and she’d even carefully placed each of her clothes in their rightful draws, leaving the bag in the corner of the room.

Somehow the girl had done all of this with only one arm and it baffled you just how quickly she was adapting, only having the odd cry when she knocked it or couldn’t do something she so desperately wanted too. There was also the moment she had given up trying to eat her spaghetti with a fork and just used her hand, getting pasta sauce down her chin and staining one of her shirts. It was an ungodly sight that made you groan and chuck the shirt straight in the bin, refusing to look twice at the tomato paste down the front.

Rosie pushed two large doors open, having to jump to reach the door handle she knocks it open subtly, one of the doors creaking as she does and carefully, she steps into the room, looking around to make sure her mommy wasn’t coming down the hall before moving in and closes the door with a gentle ‘thud.’

The room was large, walls lined with photographs that were too complex for her little mind to comprehend and a large desk sat near the back, a computer much like the ones’ they had at daycare that she wasn’t allowed to touch or the one at the library that she went on once or twice when they’d go to look at books. Papers were scattered around it, highlighted with yellow and blue that caught her eye.

Rosie tucks herself under the desk with small grunts, pulling her knees into her chest and waits for a few moments, listening out for footsteps but when nothing happens, she stirs- a piercing ringing sound makes her jump and almost hit her head on to the wood, crawling out from her place as her curious mind pulls her towards the phone. But to get it, she had to climb up on the large leather chair and push herself towards the wooden desk with only one hand, cussing in her head using a word she’d heard her mother use once before as she inches closer. The ringing of the phone was tempting.

Without hesitating, she picks it up coughing professionally before pressing the phone to her ear. “Hello?”

The man on the other end pulls the phone away for a second, wondering if he’d called the wrong number. The girl sounded much too young to be the man in his late twenties that he’d been wanting to speak to.

“Hello? Who’s this?”

“Rosie. Who are you?” Rosie sits on the desk, the curls attaching the phone to the little box tickling the side of her face.

“Oh- Oh!” The man put two and two together, a sick smirk crossing his face as he realised who it was that he was speaking too. “Rosie, was it?”

The little girl nods her head, eyeing the paperwork as she gets distracted for a moment as she tries to make out the words on the paper. But she didn’t understand any of it. The words were far too small and way too long.  “That’s me.” She nods.

“It’s funny you picked up, I’ve been wanting to talk to you.” The man says, voice gruff as he speaks. On the other end of the phone, he taps his fingers against a cold mug of tea, the stench of cigarette smoke wafting around him teasingly and he took a drag from the one between his fingertips.

“Who is this?” She mumbles, brows furrowing together. She looks around the room, still dead silent and speaks to the stranger. Something her mother always told her not to do.

The man shook his head, “Don’t worry about it- It’s just finally nice to talk to my granddaughter.”

“What?” Rosie’s eyes widen and she perks up, her entire mood shifting from excitement to uncomfortableness. Any thoughts about the current game of hide and seek had dispersed. Rosie only knew one grandad and this didn’t sound like him. But then again, he could’ve easily been sick.

On the other end of the phone, the man sat in his living room. Alone apart from the Labrador dog he’d gotten for company and the fire that flickered away in the corner of the room.

“You tell your mother I said hi, okay?” He replies to the much smaller girl who was still riddled with confusion.

“Okay.” She unfurrows her brows and heard the line go dead straight after, placing the phone back onto the hook, eyes tracing the keyboard and with great will, she begins to tap the keys making the screen come to life.

Photos flashed before her eyes, ones’ of three boys sitting out the front on the lawn that she’d seen when arriving at the giant house last night before flashing to one of a small dog laying on a rug with a toy between its teeth. She smiles, thinking that it must be Tessa who she was still to meet before it flashes to another photo. This one makes her jolt back slightly, nearly slipping off of the table as she recognises both of the people on the screen.

“Mamma?” She says to herself just below her breath before the photo changes.

It was her mom on the screen, with Tom's arm around her waist. They were dressed nicely- her mommy in a princess dress and Tom in a black and white suit that she’d seen the people on TV wear only they looked a little younger. Gentle lines didn’t trace her mom's forehead when she smiled and her hair was slightly darker then what it was now. And Tom looked happy as he pulled the girl into his chest, lips extending upwards.

She gaped, never having seen photos of her mom in her younger years before that weren’t the photos she’d kept from her pregnancy. But even at four and a half, she could see the features that Rosie had stolen such as the smile that she wore daily.

“What are you doing in here?”

Rosie jerks her head towards the door, seeing Tom standing there with one hand around the knob as he stares at the little girl. For a moment she was afraid, heart accelerating before seeing Tom’s face soften as he began to walk towards her. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt afraid.

Rosie brings a finger to her lips as if telling Tom to shush and just loud enough for Tom hear, she says;  “Hide and seek.”

Tom already knew about the game, stepping towards the desk where the small girl sat on top of some of the work that had been discarded and placed himself in the leather chair. “Oh really? Your mommy’s getting worried because she can’t find you.”

“Good, that means I win.” She mumbles, little fingers going to scratch at her cast- more so her hand that was covered with the cast and before she can, Tom takes her hand. “I never win, mamma knows all my hiding places.”

“Yeah? And where’s that?” He asks.

Rosie clambers over the desk and looks down at the ground, realising she could never get there without hurting herself she sends Tom a glance who in turn, puts his arms around her and puts her on his lap. She sat comfortably and as she looks up, the little girl feels even smaller realising that even on Tom's lap the desk still sat at around her chin. 

Photos continued to flash on the screen and she watched a picture of an older man come up on the screen before it disappeared once more.

“Under my bed, in the kitchen cupboard and… uhh…” She stops for a moment to think, placing a hand on her chin. “In the bathtub!”

“The bathtub aye?” Tom chuckles to himself as he pictures Rosie trying to clamber into a bathtub and lay there completely still until you came to get her.

Rosie nods before inching around so she could see Tom. “I saw mommy.”

Tom ignores the question for a moment, looking at the little girl that was perched on his lap in an emerald green skirt and her hair thrown around- every other time he’d seen her it had been in ponytails or something similar. She was a gem- the sun and every one of its’ stars and he could only thank whoever was listening above that he got to be in her life now, as she was still learning and adapting to the world that was nothing but cruel and harsh- the same one that would try and break her down but Tom would be damned if it succeeded..

“Yeah, she was in the kitchen making your food last I checked.” He retorts. ,

“No.” She shakes her head, screwing her face up and turns to point at the computer. “On the screen, I saw her and you.”

“Huh?” Tom asks- before it clicks. He remembered the photo she was talking about, one taken at an event a long time ago when everything was okay, you two were decently happy and there was a large possibility that you were even pregnant with Rosie at that point. It was that small amount of time he liked to call the grey area.“We were friends for a while.”

Friends was an understatement. You were once lovers and after seeing you at that cafe Tom would sometimes admit that you still were. He was itching to know if his hand still fit in yours like two pieces of a puzzle, or if you could still fall asleep to fingers running through your hair. The mobster wanted to one day soon find out if your desire to wear his clothing was bigger then the desire to wear your own. It was fair to say that he was carefully trying to worm his way back into his heart but then again, it was like he’d never left in the first place.

He gets pulled back to earth by Rosie as she taps his hand gently, repeating her words. “Tommy? Did you play board games together?”

Tom laughs and shakes his head, completely forgetting about the work that he came into his office to complete urgently. But he had five years of catching up to do and wasn’t going to miss any opportunities.

“We didn’t play board games.” He tells her. “Your mommy use to be very mean.”  Tom wanted to tell himself that he was joking because you were never mean- just, thick-skinned and able to stand up for yourself.

Rosie gasps. “She was?!”

Tom nods eagerly and remembers both times. “She used to be able to beat a guy up within seconds- she probably still could.”

“Woah,” Rosie says, trying to imagine her mom fighting off bad guys but fails. It was something that seemed too insane, almost too unbelievable. Her mom was soft, didn’t like loud noises and kept to herself. What if she was a ninja?

You creep down the hallway, hearing two voices coming from one of the end rooms and stay to listen for a moment but it was too muffled so instead, you just push the door open and step in- immediately catching the attention of Rosie who giggles as she sees you and Tom who smiled. They looked so alike- clearly father and daughter and you realised that if you hadn’t of left, then Rosie probably would have been an absolute daddy’s girl; Choosing to Spend her afternoons out in the garden playing football with him instead of baking with you.

You shake your head at the two of them, guilty looks crossing their features. “Don’t put those thoughts into her head!”

Tom puts his hands up in defence. “I was just telling her the truth!”

You roll your eyes, stepping further into the room to see it was much different then the office you remembered- thankfully. It wasn’t only cleaner and less cluttered, but so far held no bad memories.

For a moment everything was fine- it was more than fine. You were carefree and laughing about god knows what. Your eyes were occupied by the two of them discussing how you used to be- used to, before you were sucked into pools of anxiety and consumed by fears that prickled and struck you like knives and tore you apart layer by layer on the very worst of nights.

PTSD- Post-traumatic stress disorder, was hard to explain, you thought as you leaned against the wall, arms folded securely and mind anywhere other then Earth. It was the fears that hid away in the deepest, darkest corners of your mind but were somehow always there, always visible and taunting. It was three am nightmares and crying and the flashbacks and guilt that came in indescribable waves, then two days of feeling safe before you worried that every step you took would create chaos around you like it had back then.

It was things you didn’t talk about but when you did you either A. Didn’t want to stop or B. Never wanted to bring it up again. It was the man that fought for his country and watched those around him die as he trudged on the muddy ground surrounded by useless ammunition, or the girl on that ship that sunk with everything she’d ever known and loved on board. Yours was the sound of gunshots, head hitting the wall hard enough for reality to shift as it breaks the plaster and hands tied to a wooden chair you’d once sat in as you told him that you loved him.

You coughed, hoping that if you coughed loud enough the wicked memories that flashed around your brain would cease and thankfully for the moment, they did.

“Mommy!” Rosie giggles as Tom tickles her, leaning back in his seat. The girl seemed content perched there. “Grandad told me to say hi.” She begins, kicking her foot back. “And Tom said that you can beat people-”

You blink, looking to Tom who looked just as confused as you before stopping Rosie who was prepared to ramble on. His eyebrows were knitted together attractively, large fingers curled around her waist to keep her from falling-

“Roo…” You stop, wetting your lips and pull the smaller girl into your lap. She fits like a puzzle piece, legs hanging over your knees.  “Grandad’s not here anymore-”

She nods, full of unexplained energy for nearly ten am. “I know, he called me earlier.”

“No, he passed.” You tell her. “He died sweetheart.” The room was awkwardly silent as Tom coughs gently, running a hand through his hair that no longer held in the curls. “Like grandma, remember? And- and Uncle Haz.”

Tom freezes at the mention of his old best friend, tensing as the name brings back memories he’d been trying to push to the very back of his mind. It showed that you hadn’t tried to hide everything from Rosie, but told her bits and pieces of what had happened and even mentioned the blue-eyed, blonde haired boy. He wondered if she knew about your abuse and injuries sustained- mentally and physically.

Rosie- who knew about your mother and Harrison after many stories you’d told, tilts her head and looks to Tom. “No he’s not, he called before on the phone. Gran and Haz don’t talk to us but Grandad can!” She blasts.

Knowing your daughter was very adamant and once she got an idea into her head, there were very little chances of it disappearing, you nod and give up for now and sigh- picking your daughter up out of Toms' arms and he would’ve complained if he knew that her breakfast wasn’t waiting downstairs for her.

“Right, okay.” You mutter. “C’mon gotta eat your eggs on toast before It gets cold.”

She wiggles around, almost unable to stay still- talk about ants in your pants.

“Uncle Harrison?” Tom asks.

“Uhh, yeah. She knows about him.” You tell him, voice quiet. “Are you coming in for some breakfast? I made you some too.”

His heart rate increases at the kind gesture, smiling tugging at his lips. “I’ll be down in a moment.”

As you walk out, Tom drops the pen and remains in his seat, fingers tapping against the desk as he stares at the telephone next to his computer that lay to the side, only just sitting off of the hook. It taunted him, something telling him to look into it more and he picks the device up, bringing it to his ear. All Tom hears is the flat line, gripping the device before smacking it back down on the hook.

Something wasn’t right.  

-

Pt.13

Leave comments or asks, reblog if you wish!! let’s talk about this chapter

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[focusas]

IHTBY :D

High school sucked. Or at least, that what most people though. Well… university can suck too…

Sokka was alone in unknown city. Away from all his friends from his small town. Big city life wasn’t his thing. So, he spent most of his time holed up in his dorm room playing online games when there weren’t lectures that he needed to attend. Also, while in his small town high school he was one of the best and smartest people, here he was below average in his skills and had to pay bigger attention and study more to keep up with everyone. That being said he had no social life! Sokka’s life would have totally sucked if not for one thing. His online game buddy was still by his side and that online game they played was sure way to deal with all things adult he was supposed to do now that had had to live on his own in unknown city.

Then one day Sokka had a crazy idea to know where his play buddy nicknamed Gilded fire was living. They never talked about any personal things until Sokka accidentally said something stupid like that. It has passed as if never happened and nothing has changed for several days until Gilded fire started to talk about it and then one thing followed another and they both learned that they are in same city then after some more chatting they both decided that it would be interesting to meet up. Gilded fire was reluctant to agree to such proposal and told him that she needs time to think things through. Entire week passed as if nothing has happened and Sokka almost forgot about his crazy proposal. Then when one day when he logged in into his favorite MMO he found a message from Gilded fire that told him that she accepts his proposal and that they should meet in one of many plaza’s the city has under the shadow of statue and that each of them would recognize each other they both should wear scarfs: blue for him, while she would be wearing a red one. Sokka was overjoyed by such news and replied that he accepts her idea and next day he was eagerly waiting for his friend in their defined place.

Sokka came to the place and walks around while looking for his online friend when a hand grabbed him and he came face to face with a girl, Azula. Sokka was a little bit scared because he knows her, it’s the student council president. Azula was the one that run things in the university and the rector. She was known to have icy dominating aura around herself that made everyone cover in fear and do anything to please her just to get away from her presence as fast as possible. She was also smart and beautiful and lots of brave students tried to get on her nice side because there could be lots of benefits if someone succeed to melt her icy heart, but she would reject every attempt in one way or another and sometimes when she felt that she don’t want to play she would reject the unlucky fools in such way that they would never rise from their ashes of shame and humiliation. Like all students, Sokka had to deal with her at one time or another, when he lost his student id and need to get new one. That time he had to endure long lecture on how stupid and irresponsible he was, before he was issued a new one.

“BoomerAwesome I presume?” Azula asks him while staring him right into the eyes.

“Hmm… yes.” Sokka gulps and after several seconds later after he notice red scarf, he asks his own question:

“Gilded fire?” but instead of answer he gets something else since Azula grabs his blue scarf and starts to drag him as an encouragement to follow her.

“This is not the place to talk. Too many people!” Azula answers him while still maintaining her grip on his scarf and dragging him beside her. Sokka manage to look around and note, that while the place is quite open if you don’t count the place, he was standing just several seconds earlier, there were only a few people walking or standing and enjoying nice weather. Maybe Azula was concerned about her reputation as student council president mingling with common people.

Several minutes later at the coffee shop at corner table in far edge away from prying eyes.

Sokka and Azula sit in silence and didn’t know what to do.

“Hmm… Sorry… I would like to apologize for my harsh behavior. I don’t know how to talk with people without instilling fear and domination.” Azula looks shy while looking at Sokka sitting on the opposite side of table.

“Hmm… its ok…” Sokka reply shyly. The gilded fire girl he knew from their online games was sweet girl that could deliver sick burns and sarcasm. He is surprised by such sudden Azula’s change of attitude because he knows that… She is known to be scary and dominating girl with icy persona.

“This is awkward…” Azula fidget with her fingers. “You turned way better than I expected…”

“I could say same. I was expecting some old dude and not stunning looking girl, knowing how everyone lie about who they are on the internet.” Sokka starts fidget with his fingers too.

“Believe me the feeling is mutual. After all what chances are that we not only live in same city, but also go to same university.” Azula sip her coffee slowly as a way to get over this awkward situation.

“Astronomically low.” Sokka can’t find any words to reply. “So, what will happen next?” He asks shyly.

“Why do you ask? This changes nothing! We can still play together… BUT never call me by my user name when we meet next time in uni or some other public place because no one can know that we know each other, OR I WILL MAKE YOUR LIFE HELL!” Azula look straight into Sokka’s soul and he could feel dreadful aura radiating from her that surrounded him and make him want to shrink in size and disappear, but his legs don’t listen him. Right that’s the dreaded Azula he knows so good.

“Ok…” Sokka reply after recovering from shock and ask her: “Are you ok?”

“Sorry. I will be fine if you don’t do anything stupid, but I am I intent to keep my promise if you do something stupid. Let’s keep real life and game separate that should be best for both of us.”

“Ok.” Sokka nods shyly. They sit in silence for several minutes and drink their coffee.

“Well … it was nice meeting you, Sokka, but I have to go now. Thanks for not turning into some ugly, creepy old man. Good bye.” Azula stand up after several seconds and leave.

“Good bye, Azula.” Sokka replies to her and leave the place after several second too.

o0o0o0o

Life goes on as usual. Sokka and Azula continue to play together like nothing has happened or until one day during their play session Azula says that she isn’t in the mood to play anymore and instead ask if he would like to meet up her in same coffee shop they previously met. Sokka is surprised by it, but accepts her offer.

“Hi… is everything ok?” Sokka welcomes Azula and sits nearby. He notices that Azula looks moody.

“I just wanted to get out of house.” Azula reply. They both order a cup of coffee and some cupcakes.

“I may not be good at this stuff, mostly because I spent most of my time in my dorm room playing games, but if there is something you want tell me …” Sokka looks at Azula and Azula looks at Sokka and then at her surroundings.

“There are too much people here.” Azula reply to Sokka after glancing around at her surroundings. The coffee shop looks extra busy today.

“So how do you like your new robe?” Sokka ask Azula after several minutes of silence to break some ice.

“It’s great. Just what I needed. Thanks for helping me to get it” Azula reply after finishing her coffee. “Let’s go somewhere else.” Azula state after several minutes of odd silence. They pay their bill and leave.

Sokka silently follows Azula and they go to park.

“I was wondering here, why …” Sokka started to speak but was interrupted by Azula.

“Why I asked if I wanted to see you?”

“Yes. Surely such pretty and popular girl must have lots of friends to hang out.” Sokka once again started to talk and once again was interrupted by Azula, but instead of words it was her laugh that sent shivers down his spine. Luckily there were no one else around or the thing would have turned real awkward real fast.

“It’s very simple because I am not allowed to have any.” Azula turned to Sokka and looked at him with stone cold face.

“You are … what?!” Sokka was shocked by such revelation.

“My father is the mayor of this city and he want to stay that way. He even considers to try his luck and get into parliament next year. We have to think about his reputation especially after the fiasco that Zuzu did and continue to do.” Azula explained her mind.

“Not even one?” Sokka was unsure of what to say or do.

“I have to be the perfect daughter and the role model of my family and because of that my life is controlled by my family so that I wouldn’t turn like Zuzu. We look like perfect family on the outskirt, but inside we are all rotten. Mon is cheating on father with some local artist and father knows about it, but because the elections will be next year, he pretends to not see it if he can. Mom hide it too. My brother is the disgrace of the family since he whores himself around bunch of girls and is plain stupid. In fact, he is so stupid that he managed to slip in kitchen, hit his head on the counter and then fall onto frying pad. That’s how he got half of his face burned. But even that didn’t stop him to fuck around girls. He was caught many while fucking some random girl that we don’t even count now. And then there is my stoner uncle who do drugs. He calls them tea, but I know better. So, it’s no surprise that I am forced to be what I am to be, after all someone needs to be ‘normal’ in this crazy family.” Azula was rambling nonstop and didn’t know why she was doing it or at least until Sokka grabbed her hand and squeezed it lightly.

“Hmm… I am here if you ever need me…. If your family is controlling your life so strictly… wouldn’t they miss you?” Sokka looked at Azula and hold both her hands before her. ”Wouldn’t there be problem for you?”

“Nah, they are too preoccupied. Mom and dad fight in the kitchen so laud that everyone in the house can hear it and then there is Zuzu in his room fucking someone named Jin or was it June I couldn’t get it right because of all that noise. It’s like it’s a contest of who could be loader: mom and dad or Zuzu and his girl. The house is currently hell and so no one noticed that I slipped away. Thanks for staying with me Sokka. I appreciate it.” There were no more words needed when Sokka embraced Azula who felt like huge stone has fallen from her chest.

“We may be only online friends, but you can count of me, Azula.”

“Thanks, Sokka!”

“I was wondering …” Sokka asked Azula after they sit on the bench.

“Why the video games?” Azula looked at Sokka.

“Yeah, if your family is so controlling wouldn’t they be afraid of you talking with people online?” Sokka asked what was on his mind.

“The way they see it the more time I spend at home the less chance there is that I would screw up and bring disgrace to the family and the less time they need to spend to control where I go and what i do outside. So, they just ignore me if I stay all time at my room when I don’t have lectures or student council duties to attend to. You could say that video games are my way of coping up with all shit i have to face while living with them.” They sat in silence for several minutes while gazing at each other.

“You must think I totally lost it to spill the beans so sudden to the stranger like you, don’t you?” Azula asked unsure of what to do when the realization of has happened finally hit her.

“Nah, you needed someone to help you and I am glad to help you. We play online now for more than couple year and know each other so we aren’t total strangers.” Sokka ensured Azula.

“Good, but if you tell anyone about it, me and my family will make your life hell, mostly my father.” Azula stated the fact.

“I wouldn’t tell anyone. You can count on me.” Sokka held Azula’s hands. It was strange. They weren’t strangers, but they weren’t friends too. They only knew each other for couple years during their games online, but now they were sitting nearby like real persons. They decided that they liked it, but to be safe they should keep it secret.

Sokka and Azula sat on the bench and enjoyed the park. It was so quiet and peaceful and looked like it could last forever.

“Thanks for staying with me Sokka.” Azula thanked Sokka and then left. If she was gone for too long and the fighting and fucking ended someone may notice that she was missing and then there will be some explanations to do. Sokka and Azula continue to play online together and when staying holed up at home become unbearable, Azula would secretly slip away to meet up with Sokka to spend some time.

Next year Azula, being student council president, organized for her and Sokka to get invitation to study aboard in same university, in student exchange program, so that she could get away from her dysfunctioning family and so that she and Sokka could spend more time together. But that’s another story!

[theedgeofhipsterstan]

My response to the Government of Ontario’s proposed Cormorant cull

This is what I submitted as a response to the Ontario government’s proposal for a cull of double-crested cormorants in the province.  I am proud of what I’ve done here, and maybe this can open some eyes to the prejudice levelled at these magnificent animals, and the gross unfairness of it.

I’ve been in love with these birds since I got the rare and exceptional honour to hold a young one during a banding expedition a few years ago. We’d ventured to an island in Lake Huron, just a few rocks, some grass and a spindly bush poked above the waterline.  And on this island a small colony of Cormorants, maybe 50 or 60 pairs, nested beside and even smaller colony of great blue herons.  I left that day feeling like my first child had been born ... admittedly, a grey down-covered one.

The proposal can be found here: https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/013-4124

My response is below the fold.  Please enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Biases

I believe it is important to state my biases before stating my position, so you know where I’m coming from.  I am not affiliated with any organization, though I have read a number of responses to this proposal.  I am not a hunter, though I do not have a problem with hunting as long as the hunter seeks to use as much of the animal hunted as he or she is able.  I am not an animal rights activist, but I believe in conservation, ecology and evolution.  I am not a birder, though I do enjoy birding when I get the chance to do it every couple of years.  I am not a scientist, but I am a fan of science.

Reasons for the Proposal

The MNRF proposal points out that cormorant populations “declined significantly in the Great Lakes from the 1950s to the 1970s primarily due to environmental contaminants affecting reproduction,” (ERO) and that cormorant populations have rebounded since, and have achieved what appears to be a stable population.  That has to be one of the great conservation success stories, isn’t it?  So, what’s the problem?

The MNRF proposal also states concerns from “some groups (commercial fishing industry, property owners) and individuals” (ERO) about the impact of cormorant populations on fish and other species populations, island forest habitats, and aesthetics.

Other respondents (Kroc, others in Further Reading) have pointed out that there is no scientific evidence of cormorants impacting fish populations.  In fact, since cormorants are a native species, their relationship with their native prey species is balanced by natural ecological processes.  In fact, cormorants, being opportunistic with regards to their prey, makes them an important part of any strategy to manage invasive fish species.

So, without knowing what the “other species” are, that leaves the island forest habitats and aesthetics reasons, which are really the same thing, aren’t they?  What happens to the trees in arboreal cormorant colonies doesn’t look good.  The trees are killed by the nesting birds, leaving guano covered skeletons.  But, this happens locally.  Normally, the cormorants that nest in a given location return to that location, year after year.  If a colony is successful, then new trees next to the old ones might get killed as new nests are established.  But in a stable colony, the number of dead trees will not change from year to year.  It’s important to point out that this is a natural, native process, and part of the evolutionary processes that act on the trees as well as the cormorants.  Labelling a natural process as ugly is grossly anthropocentric.

Method of the Cull

The MNRF proposes to utilize the small game hunters of Ontario to engage in what is ostensibly an open, unrestricted hunt of cormorants.  The proposed March to December season is broader than the birds are present in the province.  The 50 birds a day limit (with no hold limit) is practically an invitation to shoot as many birds as the hunter wants.  This is reckless enough to allow Ontario hunters to easily wipe out all cormorants in Ontario in a single season.  For example, if the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters 100,000 members (OFAH) shot an average of 2 ½ birds each, they could wipe out the approximately 250,000 cormorants in Ontario (Kroc).  Even if the proposal is amended to restrict the hunt to times outside when cormorants are reproducing (i.e., early spring and fall, as the OFAH proposes), the potential to wipe out the adult population of cormorants in Ontario in a single season with any kind of hunter-based cull remains.

Despite the dire potential of this plan, I believe that an ethically self-interested hunter, when presented with the reality of the relative inedibility of cormorant flesh, won’t bother to spend the cost of a shell and the effort required to set out to shoot and kill even one bird.  This would be fine if all the hunters in Ontario are ethically self-interested, which I doubt, considering the OFAH’s largely supportive response to the proposal.

The OFAH, in their response to this proposal, compares cormorant populations to that of snow geese, and by doing that suggests that the proposed daily limits on cormorants is reasonable compared to the 20/day limit on snow geese (50/day in the Hudson/James Bay area) (OFAH), stating that the daily limits on snow geese have yet to have any real impact on the populations of snow geese.  This is misleading.  The North American population of lesser snow geese is estimated to be 15 million individuals (DU).  This dwarfs the population of cormorants.  Which seems to beg the question, is a quarter million individuals really an indication of an out-of-control population?

Anecdotal Cautionary Tale

In 2015, the US Army Corps of Engineers began a campaign to control the population of cormorants that nested on East Sand Island at the mouth of the Columbia River near Astoria, OR.  This colony was home to more than 16,000 cormorants, the largest in North America at the time, and represented approximately 40% of the cormorant population west of the Rockies.  The Corps oiled the eggs in 6 thousand nests and shot more than 5 thousand birds over the following year.  In mid-May of 2016, the colony experienced a complete collapse; 16,000 cormorants abandoned their nests and the eggs in them in a single day.  Only a few hundred birds returned to the island in 2017.  The rest, it is assumed, spread up-river and established new colonies (CBD).

This case illustrates one, probably unintended, consequence if this, or even an amended cull, is enacted: colony abandonment.  Without the cull, cormorants will return to the colonies they went to the previous year.  With a stable population of cormorants in Ontario, these colonies will not change, nor will new colonies likely be established.  However, if even one colony is abandoned, new colonies will be established to replace it the following year.  So, if aesthetics is really a valid reason (perhaps the only potentially valid, if morally questionable, reason left after the other ones have been demonstrated scientifically to be invalid), instigating the proposed cull will very likely result in more colonies being established.

The Real Reason?

The East Sand Island colony of cormorants used to be the largest in North America.  Now that honour belongs to the colony in Tommy Thompson Park.  That number of cormorants positioned next door to millions of people must look like cormorant populations are completely out-of-control.  It’s natural for humans to look at a thing and assume that all other things like it are the same.  In this case, however, humans would be wrong.  The colony in Tommy Thompson Park is big, bigger than the East Sand Island colony ever was.  The damage to the forest of the park is easily visible from various yacht clubs, Cherry Beach and the Toronto Islands.  Rather than being celebrated for the amazing feat of nature that the colony represents, people complain about the dead, unsightly trees.

I’m certain the OFAH would also back down from its position, once they can be shown that cormorants not only do not affect fish stock levels, but are a part of the natural life-cycle of those fish, increasing the evolutionary viability of those species.  A cormorant colony should be a welcome sight to an angler, since its presence indicates a thriving fish population, for without the fish, there wouldn’t be a colony.

An Alternative Proposal

The scapegoating of native species is an old world, imperial, father-knows-best practice.  There is no scientific evidence to support the cull, or the reasons given for it.  Yet, the stereotype of cormorants as fish guzzling monsters persists.  Which is strange, since there are many different piscivorous bird species in Ontario.  Is the prejudice because cormorants are black?  Is it because of their unsightly tree nesting colonies?  Regardless, it is unfairly bestowed.

I suggest, as an alternative to the proposed cull, an education program aimed at the individuals and groups that believe that cormorants are pests.  Present them with the research on the lack of impact of cormorant populations on fish stock levels.  Talk about evolutionary and ecological processes and the web of predation that sustains the dynamic populations of native species, stabilizing their populations over time.  And, especially, make sure they realize the conservation miracle that allowed cormorant populations to recover after DDT ceased to be used.  And maybe statements about how cormorant populations have exploded since the 1970s will said only in celebration of how humans saved cormorants from the brink of extinction.

Cited Sources

ERO: Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, “Proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario”, https://ero.ontario.ca/notice/013-4124, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Kroc: Edward Kroc, “The Government of Ontario proposes a Double-crested Cormorant hunt that could easily eradicate the species from the Great Lakes in a single year”, https://ekroc.weebly.com/blog/the-government-of-ontario-proposes-a-double-crested-cormorant-hunt-that-could-easily-eradicate-the-species-from-the-great-lakes-in-a-single-year, downloaded 2019-01-03.

OFAH: Lauren Tonelli, “ERO Number 013-4124: Proposal to establish a hunting season for double-crested cormorants in Ontario”, Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters, https://www.ofah.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/ERO-013-4124-cormorants-002.pdf, downloaded 2019-01-03.

DU: Dale D. Humburg, “Light Goose Dilemma: Despite increased harvests, populations of these Arctic-nesting geese continue to grow”, Ducks Unlimited, http://www.ducks.org/conservation/national/light-goose-dilemma, downloaded 2019-01-03.

CBD: “Video Highlights Federal Agencies' Relentless Slaughter of Oregon Cormorants”, https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2018/oregon-cormorants-04-05-2018.php, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Further Reading

G. Fraiser, “Proposed cormorant hunt Dec 2018”, http://gsfraser.blog.yorku.ca/research/conservation/proposed-cormorant-hunt-dec-2018/, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Natalie Nanowski, “Not many people like cormorants, but should hunters be allowed to kill 50 birds per day?”, CBC, https://www.cbc.ca/amp/1.4933928, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Christian Paas-Lang, “Ontario government proposes hunting season for cormorants”, Globe and Mail, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/politics/article-ontario-government-proposes-hunting-season-for-cormorants/, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Kate Harries, “Tories’ plan for cormorants is unethical”, Toronto Star, https://www.thestar.com/opinion/letters_to_the_editors/2018/12/12/tories-plan-for-cormorants-is-unethical.html, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Mark McNeil, “Nature not bullets should control cormorants, McMaster biologist says”, Hamilton Spectator, https://www.thespec.com/news-story/9059210-nature-not-bullets-should-control-cormorants-mcmaster-biologist-says/?fbclid=iwar2j2jjoa0fnoj2yfiovidsng417mob7rh6ixlbpdeea7am2__4aqpksvxy&utm_source=foca+elert+december+2018&utm_campaign=elert+dec5+2018&utm_medium=email, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Bird Studies Canada response, “Response to Proposed Hunting Season for Cormorants in Ontario”, https://www.birdscanada.org/news/response-to-proposed-hunting-season-for-cormorants-in-ontario, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Angela Brooks, “Re: MNRF Proposal to Allow Open Season Hunting on Double-crested Cormorants”, Toronto Ornithological Club, https://toc.wildapricot.org/resources/Documents/DCCO%20Letter%20to%20MNRF.pdf, downloaded 2019-01-03.

Ontario Field Ornithologists (OFO) Response to ERO 013-4124.  Document emailed as PDF.

[fyrapartnersearch]

rEEE writers inbound

hey there! i’m rhys. i am 22, live in the ct, and love ooc chatter! my ooc is pretty lax, but i promise my writing is a helluva lot more formal. i write in third person, past/present tense, and paragraph form. im not a rapid-fire writer, and won’t be able to constantly get replies in every day (i can get responses in anywhere between every couple of days to a week or two). however, i will ALWAYS put tlc into all of my posts and characters! i write anywhere between 300-900 words. it’s definitely alright if you don’t feel up to that amount at any given point, but i do appreciate keeping it somewhere in this range. im very wordy, and can spew out a novel if im excited enough lmao

  my limits are pretty general; i will not do beastiality, pedophilia, vore, or scat. i can indulge in a variety of kinks, but if it’s a little much for any average person, i’m less likely to write it out (i.e extreme ddlg or adult babies, furries, extreme pet play, etc.) but i can be persuaded to lightly touch on certain kinks as long as they’re not 10000% filth lmao i cannot, and will not, do seme/uke or top/bottom dynamics. absolutely not. queer relationships shouldn’t be defined by whose taking the D. i dont want to interact with squeamish little femboys, or awful macho men with downright rapey tendencies. versatility is key, and power struggles are what i live for! i will, however, indulge in BDSM dynamics with certain plots— although, domination isn’t always about penetration, you know?

  give me characters with aspirations, hopes and dreams, and crushing past experiences that flesh them out into who they are. no one is perfect, and we all have things that rear their ugly heads in the dark. problematic characters, male or female or anything in between, are everything. i love lgbtq+ characters, as i am part of the community myself, and will almost always be more inclined in writing queer characters. not to say i won’t write for strictly straight pairings, m/f, but usually i am iffy when approached with it if i am just meeting you.

  i write for all genders, ethnicity, and orientations! you can find a few writings examples of mine here. i am pretty welcoming of most things. smut, of course. some kink a little out there that you want to suggest? let's do it, dude. i am super OOC friendly and i am pretty much a garbled mess when i get to know you!  i’m a social person— i feel like a burden if you’re not into chatting with me, so please, if you’re not looking to be both a writing partner as well as a friend, i might not be the gal for you. i am open to crooked relationships, ones that don't function right, dark/morally corrupt characters, unconditional love, etc. my interests fluctuate! i am down, 24/7, guys! i only roleplay over email, but will ooc chat over discord or hangouts! here's a list of fandoms and pairings below that i am looking to write for atm. i do have many more, but these are just the ones off the top of my head!

_________

  Borderlands

Handsome Jack/Rhys

Handsome Jack/Rhys/Nisha

  Life is Strange

Max Caulfield/Chloe Price

Max Caulfield/Kate Marsh/Victoria Chase

Nathan Prescott/Warren Graham

Rachel Amber/Chloe Price

Frank Bowers/Damon Merrick

  DC

Dick Grayson/Jason Todd

Dick Grayson/Slade Wilson

Dick Grayson/Wally West

Harley Quinn/Pamela Isley

  Batman: Telltale Series

Bruce Wayne/John Doe

Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle

Bruce Wayne/Harvey Dent/Selina Kyle

  Marvel

Stephen Strange/Tony Stark

Bucky Barnes/Sam Wilson

Thor/Bruce Banner

Peter Parker/Harry Osborn

Peter Parker/Wade Wilson

Wade Wilson/Vanessa Carlysle

Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker/Harry Osborn

Peter Parker/Wade Wilson/Vanessa Carlysle

  Uncharted

Nathan Drake/Samuel Drake

Nathan Drake/Harry Flynn

Chloe Frazer/Nadine Ross

  TTGOT

Asher Forrester/Gwyn Whitehill

Rodrik Forrester/Arthur Glenmore

Mira Forrester/Margaery Tyrell

Gryff Whitehill/Elaena Glenmore

Gared Tuttle/Finn

Gared Tuttle/Josera Snow

  The Walking Dead

Rick Grimes/Negan

  TWDG

Javier Garcia/David Garcia

Clementine/Gabriel Garcia

Clementine/Louis

Clementine/Violet

Marlon/Louis

Javier Garcia/Paul “Jesus” Rovia

  Far Cry (3-5)

Jason Brody/Vaas Montenegro

Jason Brody/Bambi “Buck” Hughes

Ajay Ghale/Pagan Min

Ajay Ghale/Sabal

Ajay Ghale/Sabal/Amita

Rook/Joseph Seed

Rook/John Seed

Rook/Faith Seed

  Punisher

Frank Castle/David Lieberman

Frank Castle/Billy Russo

  Mass Effect: Andromeda

Scott Ryder/Reyes Vidal

Scott Ryder/Gil Brodie

Scott Ryder/Peebee

Sara Ryder/Peebee

Sara Ryder/Vetra Nyx

  Kill Your Darlings

Lucien Carr/Allen Ginsberg

  ____________

Onto original plots!

——————

  Office romances/BDSM/Friends with benefits-turned-lovers

okay, so, i had this type of roleplay with someone a while back. maybe more than two or three years back that i fell out of contact with and i could never really get it out of my head because it was probably one of the best character-building stories i’ve ever taken part of. :’) i don’t remember their name, but i do hope they’ll contact me again if they ever see this. while some of this may seem specific, none of it is concrete and i promise i am very easy to get along with and very accomodating! the plot i remember had three different relationships— completely different people, with different lives and different worlds, with only one common thing between them being that they work in the same building. we can do all three, or we can do a few, or even  one! i dont mind.

  **pairing A; M/F preferred (lol i know broke my own rule, but i adore femdoms! extra: please come with an open mind. this is not a 50 shades AU, and i do not want it to be.) this one is between a CEO and an intern in their senior year of college. The CEO is a femdom, and freshly out of divorce, takes a liking to the clumsy intern who’d spilled coffee on her more than once. The intern has never been in a relationship with an older woman, let alone one running a multi-million dollar company, but hey, isn’t that the dream for some broke twenty-something down on his luck? She introduces him to BDSM, and while he’s hesitant, the idea is as exciting as it is frightening. He accepts her offer— while it’s difficult at times, he begins to learn more about her. Her ex-spouse, her young child, and her unwillingness to develop a sincere relationship with him. She’s had subs before, and while she tells him he isn’t disposable, he begins to feel it was the truth. He grows to have feelings for her, and while she isn’t too keen on admitting it, the feeling is mutual. I’d love to explore their dynamic in and out of sex, and the conflict between the intern and her ex-spouse. I love age gaps, and think it would be awesome to see them develop over time to find common ground to establish a personal relationship and trying to even out their power imbalances. I don’t mind playing either the CEO or the intern, but I am leaning more towards the CEO. :V**

  **pairing B; M/M preferred (this one is waaay more gritty and more dub-con than anything so please beware!) this one is between two higher-ups who have been butting heads for years— and occasionally, sexual tension neither have acted on. A is a snarky, openly gay man, and probably what some would consider shallow and noncommittal. B is a brooding, closeted ‘by the book’ type well into his thirties, and refuses to engage in anything sexual with men despite his obvious attraction; B has younger siblings he takes care of as well as his mother, and being the oldest son and only provider, hasn’t done a thing for himself in twenty years. A lives completely alone, complete with a bachelor pad and, the influx of flings that went nowhere past sex, and has risen to the top with his own sheer will. they have conflicting motives, and while both of them have an intense hatred for each other, they’ve never engaged in physical altercations in fear of losing their jobs. one day, A jabs a little below the belt, and finally, B starts swinging. this fight turns into something way more heavy in the company parking lot. what happens between them in the long run is something desperate, needy, and longing for real affection. it began as a mindless need for sex, angry and mean and formal, with B being especially unwilling to ‘give up’ his masculinity and ever be on the receiving end in fear of losing the control he needs to keep this up. i’d love to see them begin to see each other in a different light, and changing each other for the better. i’d also love to see A showing B that sex doesn’t have to be meaningless, and that he doesn’t need to fear letting A be in control. And B showing A that commitment isn’t as terrifying as it may be, with them gradually going from rivals, to friends with benefits, and eventually lovers. i, again, don’t mind writing for either! **

  **pairing C; F/F preferred. (aaa this pairing is way more fluffy and sweet, with hurt/comfort as a stable of their dynamic.) this one is between two small-office employees in the company. A is fairly tame at work in order to support her sibling(s), of which she has adopted from her father’s custody years ago. she is fairly confident with her sexuality, and while not being the type to frequent clubs, is dragged along by a few friends and there, meets B. B is a young woman who just recently got out of a relationship with an abusive ex fiance— B has only ever been with that man, and was never confident in exploring her sexuality due to a religious upbringing and parents who were dead set on traditional values. she’s never strayed from her ex, and while he wasn’t faithful or remotely good to her in return, she was heartbroken with their split. months after, he returns to the city and B’s close friends decide to take her out on a girls’ night to make her feel better— B coincidently sees her ex, and feeling childish and unattractive, heads off to the bar to get a drink. she’s nowhere near a drinker, and just before she does drown her sorrows, is hit on by A. while initially shocked, B is flustered and finds herself immediately attracted to A. they have a one-night stand, and while B believes that A would just leave in the morning, A instead lays with her until she wakes up, and leaves her number. B is too anxious to text her. they bump into each other at the elevator that Monday. they agree to be just friends, until B knows what she wants. A is willing to wait. B might have a crush, and A is intent on building B up to love herself and her body. i would overall prefer to write for A, but if you’re dead set, no prob!**

  Serial killer/1960’s/Small town sheriff

no preferred pairing! would love, love, love to see something between a serial killer and a small town sheriff in the mid-to-late sixties. we could make up a new little town, or find one to our liking! A is the sheriff who had been born and raised in this town with a good home life, loving parents, and a steady moral compass, albeit trapped in a loveless marriage. they know everyone, and every nook and cranny of the place like the back of their hand. this is the type of place where people don’t have to lock their doors at night, or constantly watch their kids when they’re out in the yard playing. that is, until people start going missing and horrifyingly mutilated bodies began to pop up around town. B is a well-liked baker in town; known to be genuinely friendly and kind, B has a very corrupt past. both of their parents were heinously abusive, and as a child, B developed sociopathic tendencies. B was inherently spiteful of the town and the people in it, for leaving them to rot in hell for eighteen years, and for never reaching out. B formed a god complex, his intentions to ‘purify the corrupt’. they keep tabs on almost everyone in town, and the victims they do take are put in the soundproof basement of his home to be ‘baptized’; tortured, beaten, and mutilated beyond recognition. A and B are friendly with each other as A comes to the bakery every morning, with B’s motives completely unbeknownst. one night, A, frustrated and pissed from the dead ends of the case of the decade, decides to head to the bar and relax. B is the one face A didn’t mind seeing that night, and one thing lead to another, with A and B in a dark alley getting each other off— i definitely see this as B grooming A to be a complicit pet, and when A gets closer and closer to figuring out who the killer is, he forms a deep connection with B. B develops a possessiveness over A, along with that sense of ownership he’d established between them. B manipulates A, coerces him into a false sense of security, and eventually— A finds out, and while B initially thinks to kill A, A is corrupted by B and forms some kind of stockholm syndrome for B. it’s up to A on whether or not they turn B in, or cover the killer’s tracks. B, despite his very sick and repulsive nature, develops a true infatuation for A, as close to love as they were ever going to get, and A is desperate enough to please B that they’ll do anything to not disappoint them.

  Post apocalypse/decades later/immunity

no pairing preferred! the plot I had in mind is loosely based off of a video game called "The Last of Us", which i am sure most of you have a general knowledge of! (definitely check it out if you don’t :O it’s a great game!!) the prompt i was shooting for goes something like this; in a post-apocalyptic world where a pandemic has killed off most living species, character A is a lone wolf with little to do with other people that don't benefit him, except for a select few. A is especially rough around the edges, as he's lived through some sick shit and lived to tell the tale. A had once been part of a group dedicated to finding a cure, but things went south, and a lot of people died. A had a close bond with the leader of said group, and coincidentally they were the only survivors. their past together, having been deeply demented and twisted, caused them to fall out. said leader has rebuilt a new group in the ten years since the last time they'd seen A. character B is the only known immune person alive, and has dedicated their life to being a resource to finding a cure. A and his (current) contact/partner in crime have something taken from them, and are determined to get it back. they do some searching, and are confronted with this group-- they have what they need, but are only willing to give it to them for a favor in return. no one can outrun their past forever. so, this plot isn't concrete. things can be changed, we can do whatever we want, and i am happy to comply to any revisions or suggestions! i'd really enjoy taking on A, if that's alright!

  TREASURE HUNTERS/ANCIENT CURSES/LOVE-HATE DYNAMICS/MODERN

treasure hunters!!!! yES!! think Uncharted or Tomb Raider. an architect/treasure hunter is being funded an expedition to find a lost treasure and they are forced to bring along a reporter in order to receive the funds. the reporter and architect certainly dont get along in the beginning— they bicker, and clash on most fronts. the expedition wasnt meant to be dangerous. what was initially thought to be a simple job turned into something treacherous; bandits, a team of hired hitmen and their leader looking to take the treasure for themselves, and some rather supernatural elements that they both couldnt quite put a finger on. the treasure hunter and the reporter have to work together to get out of this alive, and get to the artifact before someone else does. (the “treasure” is definitely up for debate!! we can chose a real life lost treasure, or just make one up!! it can be anywhere around the world, and everything is at our disposal).

  DEMON/INHERITANCE/HUNTERS/MODERN

character A has an awful time living in the city— alone, and without mom's guidance, completely lost. one day they receive a call about a deceased relative, one they'd never heard of, one that apparently left their estate and everything in it in their will to A. with nothing but the clothes on their back, A took a shot in the dark and drove out to this presumed "estate" come early summer, only to find that it's a mansion in a tiny little town with an eerie vibe and populated by the typical small town churchgoers and farm folk. living in this town was a hell of a challenge; everyone was nice, too nice, and people started to go missing. character B is an exceptionally charismatic, charming person and the only mechanic/handyman in town. A and B become friends, partially, when A needs to fix up the piping in their estate. A stumbles upon the attic one day, and for once, they start to get why this whole town reeked to the roots in weird shit-- their deceased relative was tracking something here in this town, having to do with all of the MIA townsfolk. DR has a board of possible suspects, and at the center? B. A shrugs it off as their relative having been paranoid, but the longer A stays in this town, the more apparent it becomes that DR wasnt crazy. B is, in fact, not the murderer, instead a supernatural being (open for debate! im on the fence with demons, vampires, etc.) on a mission to track down the monster, same as DR. i am so down for internal struggles, sweet gestures, and overall, two people just trying to make it work! i could also see A being hella paranoid that B is the monster, and maybe tries to throw cloves of garlic at them only to realize thats not exactly how this monster hunter business works lmao

  DEPRESSED WRITER/YOUNG MUSE/between 1920’s-1960’s/sex, drugs, & the american dream

m/m preferred! A is a severely depressed middle-aged man believing his life has been wasted. his wife left him with their child at her hip, his career was in a rut, and he had nothing left to live for. opting for suicide, he goes out one evening to purchase a bottle of gin to down with a handful of prescription sleeping pills when he returned to his apartment. instead of going directly home, he’s swept in by the music in an underground club for queers. there he meets B; all encompassing, angel faced, and the only person A didn’t know how to look away from. B is a former US Navy Seal, aspiring musician, and avid indulger of the human body— A stays a little too long, owlish and red, and after the show, B approaches him with a cattish smile. they spark a friendship, and A is thrown down the rabbit hole when B introduces him to his social circle, filled to the brim with drag queens, junkies, queers, and the overall unusual— he integrates into this community, his contemplation of suicide only a distant memory, and begins to find himself extremely attracted to B. he lights a fire in A, something dangerous and unquenchable, and A finds himself drawn in by the unpredictability. A embarks with B on a journey of self exploration, passion, and inevitable love in a world that scorned the oddities of human attraction and anyone who dared to be free.

  thanks for your time! if you've read through, please contact me at dotiscat@gmail.com on email or rhys#3615 on discord and mention kiwi somewhere in your initial message. n_n

  Rhys xoxo

[miscellaneousfanfictionslut]

Harry Potter Appearances 1 // By The Book

By The Book // Harry Potter Appearances 1

          I’m in a book club and we started talking about the problems of the Harry Potter movies and one of the main issues we all had was some of the appearances of the characters. Which gave me the idea to do this little thing called “By The Book” where I talk about how I envisioned characters based off of their book appearances. Marauders included.

Gryffindors

Harry Potter:

“ Harry had always been small and skinny for his age. … Harry had a thin face, knobbly knees, black hair, and bright green eyes. He wore round glasses held together with a lot of Scotch tape... The only thing Harry liked about his own appearance was a very thin scar on his forehead that was shaped like a bolt of lightning. “

I imagined Harry (in the first book) to be extremely small, almost as if he was a first grader and being very petite. His hair in my head would be like, three times the size of his head, and would be curly, jet black, and messy. His eyes were described as almost once so I thought of them like that and of course, bright green.

Further in the book, however, I imagined him a bit different. He kept his messy, wild, jet black curly hair but his wieght and height had changed. I think this is because characters is further books described him as “tall” so I imagined him as taller and more strong looking. Probably around 5′6 during his fifth year.

Ronald Weasley:

“ tall, thin and gangling, with freckles, big hands and feet, and a long nose. firey red hair “

A lot of people say that Ron isn’t attractive, which with how people draw him I can see why. However, I always imagined him to be much more handsome than Harry. I imagined him very tall and lanky, small, and very boyish looking. His hands and feet were very large and freckles covered everything on his body. My favorite part of him was always his hair, because I took “firey red hair” literally and thus led me to think his hair was fire engine red.

His appearance never really changed much for me, he just got taller and his hands and feet just got bigger over the years.

Hermione Granger:

“ She had a bossy sort of voice, lots of bushy brown hair, and rather large front teeth. “

I think Hermione appearance was a major let down for me, as it was constantly said that she had bushy hair and large front teeth. If anybody is wonder why she didn’t have large front teeth it is because Emma could not talk well with them in, I imagine that was like having dracula vangs in.

Though back to the point, I imagined Hermione to have large, frizzy, bushy brown hair that was, like Harry, three times the size of her head. Her teeth I imagined weren’t very big actually, I don’t know why but I considered them normal, which now thinking about it was probably because my two front teeth are bucked. We don’t get much about her body size unlike the boys (tall, small, skinny, lanky, etc.) but I always seen her as more tall but on the heavier size.

When she was older in book four, I imagined her to not had grown much and her to be skinner than before.

Fred & George Weasley:

“ shorter and stockier than Percy and Ron, who were both long and lanky fiery red hair, freckles “

I kind of ignored the book with their appearance and imagined them more like how they were casted. Taller and lanky like Ron, and they had the trademark freckles along with the feiry red hair I loved.

Something noticable that I changed and outcasted them from the Weasley family was their eyes, I imagined everyone in the Weasley family to have blue eyes except Fred and George.

Ginny Weasley:

“ a long mane of red hair and when her jaw sets her resemblance to Fred and George is striking “

I somewhat ignored the description we’re given. I imagined her to look much more girly, a very soft jaw with large light blue eyes. Less freckles than Fred, George, or Ron that just set over her nose. I still saw her with long, firey, silky red hair, however.

When she got older I imagined her to be very petite, I had an image set in my mind of her Quidditch gear being too big on her and falling off at times.

Lavender Brown:

We never really got a description.

Lavender had more personality than physiology. Over the time I read about her I did get an imagine in my mind as I obsess over details. I imagined her with a heart shaped face that had a very stuck out chin, long wavy ginger hair, big and round blue eyes, a small button nose, big lips, and tan skin. I don’t know where I got it but here were some of my reasons as a child (which is when I first read the books)

Lavender talked a lot so a big mouth went with the phrase “Lavender Brown has a big mouth.”

She often begged or got upset so puppy like eyes made sense.

I liked long hair, and I liked gingers.

Seamus Finnigan:

I could not find his description, if he had one it was most likely small.

I kind envisioned him to look like the dumb blond type and I for some odd reason always seen him as ugly. I might of thought that because I didn’t like his character though.

Neville Longbottom:

“ round faced short and plump and blond “

Neville wasn’t a character that stuck out to me until I reread the books as an adult. When I was a child I imagined him as like Dudley but more handsome. He had short blond hair, was short but taller than Harry, and plump. I saw him with freckles but when I reread the books I never imagined him like that.

When he was older I imagined him very tall, almost like Ron, his blond hair was longer and the freckles were gone.

Adult Gryffindors/ Marauders:

James Potter:

He was my first crush of the book series. I imagined him like Harry but always saw him as cuter. He was very tall and muscular looking, much like Harry was when he grew up. I saw him with a strong jaw and ocean blue eyes and of course, jet black messy curly hair.

I think a good way to describe his hair would be like young Tom Riddle (another crush of young me).

I would like to mention his Animagi form, I imagined him as a very large deer with horns the size of trash cans (sort of like Hagrids’ hands).

Sirius Black:

His appearance obvious changes a lot from his young self to Prisoner Of Azkaban self. So let us start with young Sirius, I imagined him to have long hair for what a guy would typically be considered. Probably to his shoulder and very black but not jet black like James. His eyes were almond shaped and light grey with playfulness in them. I imagined him to be one inch shorter than James, standing at 5′9 while James is 6ft.

Also, I had this strange fascination with him dressing in romantic goth styled clothing, I don’t know why but he gave me that vibe when he was young.

“ He had a gaunt, sunken face, waxy skin, yellow teeth, and long, matted hair. “

When we first see him I imagined him to be as he was described, very skinny with sunken face that brought out his high cheekbones (find the positives, Bella) his skin being waxy and looking tired. His teeth yellow and crooked from them being ground against and his once long, silky hair being to his waist and matted. I had this vision of him having scratch marks and scars all over his body, almost as if he was self harming.

Remus Lupin:

My favorite Marauder! I related to him the most out of the Marauders due to his mature and nerdy nature but onward to the appearance. Young Remus, I imagined him to be tall and lanky like Ron, I think he was the tallest. He has a thin face and a soft jar making him appear less manly than James and Sirius but more boyish like Peter. His hair would be a chestnut brown, soft and shaggy, with curls in it ending a little below his jaw. I always made his eyes chestnut brown with a hazel like ring around them. Also, his scars would be on his cheek, across his eye and through his eyebrow, and then another one starting at his chin and ending at his neck.

“ The stranger was wearing an extremely shabby set of wizard's robes that had been darned in several places. He looked ill and exhausted. Though quite young, his light brown hair was flecked with grey. “

I imagined him a lot like how he was described. Wearing shaggy robes that were a leather like brown and had patches sewn into it, all of them being different colors and patterns. He loss that boyish look and looked much older than he was, probably due to me visioning him to have wrinkled or aged skin and bags under his eyes. His chestnut hair did have grey hairs scattered throughout and he had grew scruff that also had grew in it.

Peter Pettigrew:

People tend to make Peter ugly, which as his character is described (physically and personality-wise) but I always thought of the Marauders all being handsome or even a little pretty. While I envisioned him being the least attractive I never saw him as ugly. I pictured him, when he was young, being the shortest maybe even shorter than Harry. His eyes would be smaller than average but a pretty light green. His nose was pointed but long and his lips were small and thin. His teeth were much like Hermiones’ being bucked.

Lily Evans:

I always thought Lily to be the second prettiest girl in the Harry Potter franchise (my first being a certain looney Ravenclaw). I imagined her to be very petite but taller than Peter and shorter than Sirius. Her hair was medium and thick, it was auburn but had streaks of firey ginger highlights. Her eyes were almond shaped and bright green like Harrys, her skin was milky and clear.

When she got older I imagined her to be taller but the three boys still taller than her. Her auburn hair would be longer and often kept in a ponytail due to baby hair pulling on it, her green eyes still seeming perfect and full of life despite the bad circumstances. She would grow out of her petite form and have a curvier more woman like body.

Molly Wobbles Weasley:

“ short, plump, and kindly-looking woman sabor-tooth tiger when mad “

Molly was one of my favourite characters because of her nature, she reminded me a lot of my mother. I always pictured her as a short, plump, woman who had curly short firey red hair. Her eyes being a light, kind looking shade of blue with periwinkle specs. I always liked to picture her smile because I felt like she would have plump lips and nice white teeth and a kind smile.

“ June and August of 1995 she lost a good deal of weight and appeared paler, though she seemed to get a healthier look back by the next year “

After her wieght loss I still pictured her as plump looking woman but I did change some of her features that stayed the same. I pictured her with her hair much shorter almost to the end of her jaw and still curling up, I gave her straight bangs that were side swept onto both sides and gave her an age spot from the sun.

Authur Weasley:

“ Arthur had bright red hair, though he was balding by the early 1990s. He wore glasses and had blue eyes, and also possessed the tall, thin build inherited by his sons “

For some reason I made every son of his taller than him, I wanted him to be the same height of Molly. I made his eyes around light blue shade, his hair the same fiery red but thin and balding. I imagined his glasses to be thick and round.

In the later books I gave him a hunch back but kept his other features the same.

Did you not see a character you wanted to? Please know that this is just the first ‘By The Book’ I am sorting by houses as it is easier, I’ll eventually get to Professors, and more secondary characters. I will likely be doing Slytherin or Ravenclaw next so keep an eye out for that.

[achievetherafit]

How to Increase Testosterone Naturally- In depth detail

Introduction

The purpose of this article is to give you clear understanding about the role of testosterone and how to optimise it in your life to achieve better health, immune system, vitality and strength. After you finish reading this article to end, you will have clear understanding on how you can naturally increase testosterone by using food, diet, exercise and helpful healthy habits. Testosterone is often associated with anger and other nonsense that gives it a bad rep. Misconception like these are still hoovering in people's mind! But it is not true. It is only when people abuse artificially created synthetic testosterone hormone which causes all the harmful side effects like anger issues, growth of breasts, depression, shrinking of testicles to name a few. Having optimum level of testosterone will help you gain muscle, recover from hard workouts and lose body fat. It not only make you feel strong but also keeps you calm and focused. Have you ever noticed people from the past always looked like real man compared to today's modern man? If we think about the past we don't really see the stagnant life we currently are in. Today's society is overcrowded with technologies and systematic food production which has increased our quality of life but also destroyed it at the same time. Testosterone is one of the main hormone responsible for the proper developoment of manly features in male. It gives us men the traits such as deep voice, facial hair, bigger bone mass and bigger muscles compared to our female counterpart. Modern men are more than ever deficient on testosterone due to several factors. The main factors are unhealthy diet, low level of bodily acitvity and high reliance on technologies. Hence we see and experience low sexual desire and performance due these factors. Middle age and old age is often asscoiated with "dad bod" and "grumpy men". It does not have to be this way. We can easily maintain and age gracefully by following proper diet and exercise.

What is the sign of low testosterone?

Having low testosterone affects your body and your mental well being. - Reduced energy levels- You will feel ups and downs through out the day where you feel extremely fatigued. - Low mood- You might feel mood swings out of nowhere and feel irritated with things and people around you. - Loss of Libido and having erectile dysfunction- The sex drive will disappear over the period of time when affected by low testosterone. Getting it up also becomes very hard which leads to taking pills and other B.S supplements. P.S (Generally getting daily erection is a good sign optimal testosterone levels.) - Loss of Muscle Mass- T is required for the development of muslce in the body. Low testosterone is directly linked with reduced muscle mass. These are few of the symptoms. If you have all of them and for a long period of time, then I suggest you take a testosterone level check from the doctor or homekit online services.

Why is Testosterone important?

Testosterone is part of man's life journey. It affects everything to do with bodily function such as development of adult male from a child. It is more apparent in young teenager who is going through lot of changes within the body. Just after the fetus is conceived, testosterone begins its role. After some week of conception the boy testicles forms and marks the beginning of the male traits such as formation of males genitals. androgen syndrome When the male reach puberty, the brain tells the testicles to start producing more testosterone. It causes the body to start growth of body and genital hair, enlongation of bone mass, increased muscle mass and height growth. Also growth of penis and scrotum. The level of T starts to decline naturally as we age and become older. But sudden decline of testosterone might abrupt and cause problem in your life.

Benefits of testosterone hormone

There are many benefits of having good levels of T in your body. I will list the important ones below - Burns fat thus decreasing waist line. - Makes you feel active and energetic. - Increased libido. - More muscle mass and stamina. - Faster recovery. - Improved mood and calmness. And lets not forget the confidence that you get from within.

Lose body fat to increase testosterone

Having excess body fat will greatly impact your T levels so getting into a exercise regime or even starting a good diet will get you back on track to a heatlhy level. Sugar, salt and fats are the main ingredients of today's diet. It is found in mostly everything packaged commercially. Always read the label to find out the ingredients and be mindful of high content of things that make our body unhealthy. Opting for fresh produce is a simple way of getting important nutrients. Things to drink in moderation or limit - Soda with high sugar content - Processed fruit juice. - Any other drink high in sugar. (Even healthy fruit smoothie can have high sugar content)

Intermittent Fasting

Non-obese men who followed the fasting regime for a short period showed an overall 180% increase in testosterone. (1) This just shows the power of what fasting can do. Fasting has been shown to greatly help the body. Benefits of intermittent fasting - Cell repair is accelerated and excretion of waste at cellular level. (2) - Human growth hormone increases up to 5 times which build muscle and burn fat. (3) - Reduce oxidative stress and inflammation within your body. Inflammation is a major cause of many diseases. (4)

Testosterone boosting foods

Below are the foods that will greatly help to enhance your health and performance including T. - Tuna and Salmon- These fish are high in vitamin D and omega oils which are the key catalyst for Testosterone production. They are also great source of protein. - Eggs- It is considered one of the best super food for overall health and well being. Cholesterol and Vit D in eggs are needed by your body to improve T levels. Always make sure to get organic or free range eggs. Local farmers are the great source of quality eggs. - Almonds, Walnuts,Brazilian nuts and pumpkin seeds- These are some of the best source of important minerals. Zinc, magnesium and selenium are one of the main minerals to boost Testosterone. - Garlic- It is one of the best flavour enhancer of our food. Ma Study done on mice shows that it dramatically boost T level significantly after garlic supplementation. (7)

Herbs that you can supplement

There are recorded number of herbs that has been shown to boost the T level when consumed. The recommend dosage and length of time to be taken should always be consulted. Herbs not only help with raising testosterone level but also overall well being and improve mental sharpness. Below are the list of her that you can take that has been studied and found to improve testosterone level in your body. - Ginseng is the root of the plant which has been consumed for hundreds of years mainly to improve sexual funtion and physical endruance. The correct dosage can not only improve your erection but also fix and improve your T level. The general dosage of 400-600mg is recommended for average individual. Ginseng can be supplement with either capsule, powder or tea form. Always look for the best quality ginseng. Korean red ginseng is one of the best for improving overall health and boosting T level. - Horney Goat Weed is as the name suggest. There is a story of a shepard when his goats consumed the plant, they started showing more than usual mating behavior. It is used for improving erectile dysfuntion in men. - Ashwangandha has been a popular choice for many people for stress and anxiety relief. Studies shows that the herb can also boost T levels and strength (increased muscle mass) by taking it regularly. (5) - Tribulus Terrestris is another herb used for overall health. It is mainly used for increasing libido and energy.

Two Best exercise to boost testosterone level

You don't need to do 20 exercises a week to get the results. Focusing on proven exercises on increasing T levels is the best way. Below is the 2 most powerful arsenal you can use. Weight lifting is the best form of exercise to increase your T level. Dead lift and squat are the best exercise to be done if you want strong legs and core. These two exercise is known to increase muscle mass and optimise testosterone production. High Intensity Interval Training also called HIIT workout is another great tool. Short burst of high intensity sprint or movement is linked to increase T levels in the body.

Rest for more Testosterone!

Rest plays a vital role in recovery and getting strong. Research shows that repeated exercise without inadequate rest will hamper your body chemistry and lower testosterone. Always follow a routine when sleeping and try to get as much rest as possible. There is no certain number of hours for sleep. But always get at least more than 5 hours of quality sleep. You should wake up feeling refreshed, energized and strong. One study shows that lack of sleep or restricted sleep lowers T. (6) Less than 5 hours of sleep in a long run tested less testosterone level in the body. Try to make your room dark and reduce any noise. Always make sure you are sleeping in a comfortable mattress and pillow. If you wake up with stiff back or neck in the morning, It might be due to the wrong pillow or mattress. You can also accelerate your testosterone with the help of supplements. Below are some of the best testosterone boosting supplement available. - Testogen Review- The Ugly truth about Testogen! - Testoprime Review: Is it The Best Way To Boost Your Testosterone Levels? - Testo Max Review- Is it all hype or the real deal? Read the full article

[pagemichelle1992]

Increase Height Healthline Surprising Useful Ideas

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Grow Taller After Puberty

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