#when i have the money for shipping and if Terry has any copies

[rhyperographer]

From volume 3 chapter 36 of Strangers in Paradise (1993-2007) by Terry Moore. His website is here and you should go buy his books.

[humbledragon669]

S1E2 – The Book Write Up P2 – 11 years ago and The Present Day/Thursday (2 days to the end of the World) (up to Aziraphale and Crowleys’ arrival in Tadfield)

Alright, let’s get dug straight in, shall we? There’s a lot of background narrative being covered in this section, including the introduction of quite a few new characters.

Let’s start with Anathema. I don’t have a lot to say about her intro scene, but I do have two questions:

Why THE HELL is her mother allowing her to draw in that book? It’s the only copy of a 350-year-old book that contains prophecies that have all proven to be correct. In reality that book would genuinely be priceless, and we will see later in the series that the book is still considered valuable to the family. I don’t like writing notes in my cheap paperback books, so the idea of a child drawing IN COLOURED PENCIL in this book chills me to the bone, yet her mother just lets her do it without so much as a blink of an eye. Mad woman.

We know that the book contains prophecies up until the end of the world. We also know that at least one of the prophecies contains an actual year (1980 – the one with the Apple). Furthermore, we know that Anathema is named specifically in one of the prophecies. Just how many Anathemas did this family have in the hopes that one of them would be the one to save the world? Logically, only children born after 1980 would be eligible but that still leaves at least one generation of descendants prior to the one we see in the show. I suppose there could be another prophecy that states what year “the” Anathema was to be born but I like to believe that somewhere there’s a little group of related women called Anathema all fighting over who gets to save the world.

Next up – Newton. Again, not an awful lot to say here, other than the camera crashing into his bedroom window makes me laugh every time I watch it. I don’t know why this specific moment was chosen to break the fourth wall just as much as I don’t know why I find it so funny.

Having worked in IT for more than ten years, I can say without a doubt that there really are people like poor Newt who are cursed with breaking anything computer-related just by looking at it. They’re exasperating because they usually think the whole thing is one big joke and hold their technology incompatibility up to be some sort of prize. At least Newt has the decency to look abashed by his strange “gift”.

Newton’s home location is confirmed to be Dorking in his first present day scene when we see his mother shipping him off to a new job. We don’t know the location of the United Worldwide Holdings (Holdings) office in which he attempts to establish a hold as a wages clerk, but I can say for certainty that the location of his introduction to Shadwell is central London. For those whose UK geography is worse than my own, it would take over an hour to get to central London from Dorking, regardless of the transport mode of choice. This has always struck me as rather odd – it’s clear that Newt has difficulty holding down a job. The home that he apparently shares with his mother looks pretty run down from the outside, suggesting that money isn’t exactly a commodity in their household. So why would you take a clerical job, that likely doesn’t pay much, in a place that’s over an hour away? Perhaps Neil and Terry just chose Dorking as Newt’s hometown because it has a slightly funny sounding name…

Side note: the chances that the Hot Dog van that Newt and Shadwell get their drinks from would be allowed to park there, right behind the Houses of Parliament and directly in front of Westminster Abbey, are null. I would even go so far as to suggest that Shadwell himself would likely be moved on pretty sharpish from his chosen pulpit. Makes a pretty impressive backdrop though, hey?

Let’s just take a moment to have a chortle at Shadwell’s ideas of what sort of activity would give the game away for any self-respecting witch:

Speaking as the last in the line of Welsh “wise women”, I can (pretty much categorically state) that none of my ancestors have done any of those things. Maybe apart from calling the cats funny names, though most of my maternal line had/have a strong dislike for animals of the feline variety. My cat is called Kishi, which is supposed to be Japanese for “love bound to Earth”. It’s a wholly inappropriate name for her, as she’s really just a massive prick, like every other cat there is.

Why does Newt stop to listen to Shadwell here? Why not just ignore the crazy man on the pedestal like every other person in London? Obviously that would cause a bit of a plot problem. Perhaps it’s his ancestral right driving him into the arms of the Witchfinder Army – there are certainly crazier things that happen in the GO universe! As it turns out, Newt’s recruitment is well-timed, what with there not being any soldiers of rank higher than sergeant, and only one of those at that.

Easter egg time!

This ridiculously quick shot of Shadwell’s newspaper gives us a veritable treasure trove of Easter eggs/nuggets of information for the keen eye:

Shadwell’s address is confirmed as located in Crouch End.

The reference numbers for the adverts begin with the letters “GO”.

There is an advert for a lost book, which we can just make out is one of Terry’s – “Colour of Magic”.

Save the best for last! The advert for a lost hat clearly describes Terry himself, and his signature hat and scarf. Not only that, but he apparently lost it in a book shop in Soho. I wonder which one that could be…

This fleeting glimpse of newspaper is a perfect representation for one of the main reasons I love this show so much. Most casual audience members will never see it. Some more interested parties will see it and think little of it. Others, like myself and likely anybody reading this waffle, will not only see it, but understand the references and then squeal with delight at the little present that was left for us to find. It makes me feel valued as a fan whilst at the same time as if I’m sharing in a secret that the creative team has left for me. This is great television making at its very best.

Quick Easter egg here in Jasmine Cottage: the image that Anathema has pinned on the wall to represent the Antichrist is the same as the one used on the playing cards from episode 1 (albeit in black and white):

When we find ourselves back with Crowley in his apartment, he’s clearly furious with himself about losing the Antichrist. We also learn that he discovered the joys of tending to houseplants in the early 1970s. I’d like to think he inserted them into his life after the event that takes place in 1967 between himself and Aziraphale (which we will see in the next episode) – perhaps he was looking for something that he could try to use as some sort of poor substitute for his true desires? The presence of the houseplants and the timeline for his discovering of them is included in the book, so in honesty I doubt this was the intention for their purpose, but I like the possibility nonetheless. The scene with the houseplants provides a little nugget of information that we can store for reference for later – Crowley’s houseplants actually shake when they’re frightened.

Once again, I don’t have much to say about the next scene: that of Newt’s arrival to the Witchfinder Army’s HQ. I will pause briefly to note the wording of the notice on Shadwell’s door:

This calls to mind the phrase used by Aziraphale to refer to Crowly in episode 1. I’m not sure there’s anything in this as “foul fiend” has often been used to refer to demonic or evil beings. That said, it’s difficult not to try and make some connection, given that the two uses of the phrase are so close together in the show. We will later find out that Shadwell is working for both Aziraphale and Crowley for the same purpose, so defying the “foul fiend” in this case becomes somewhat impossible.

Quick pause for a moment of appreciation for that strut that David pulls off in this next scene. Honestly, there are professional supermodels that couldn’t manage that sort of casual arrogance, even if somebody told them they could stay thin and eat whatever they wanted for the rest of their lives.

This is the first time we find out that Crowly has adopted a first name for himself. I’ll talk about it a little more in the write up(s) for episode 3, so for now this is another piece of information for us to store for later.

I quite enjoy just how awkward Aziraphale sounds leaving a message on the answerphone. Dealing with the unannounced arrival of two angels in his book shop he can handle, but having to leave a message instead of speaking to Crowley direct? Perish the thought. This seems to me a quite human attitude to have – when answerphones started to become commonplace, people (on the whole) hated leaving messages once they realised the person they wanted to speak to wasn’t going to pick up. What I find interesting about the conversation that they do have is that Aziraphale’s suggestion is actually incredibly obvious. In fact, it’s about the only possible scenario that would make any sense. Crowley’s disbelieving expression would suggest he doesn’t feel the same way:

Still, at least this conversation tells the audience that this pair haven’t given up on working together to try and stop Armageddon just yet (it would be a pretty short and disappointing show if they had, wouldn’t it?!).

At this point in the episode, we are introduced to Crowley’s driving style which could be described as suicidal dangerous. He seems pretty confident with it though, so it’s unlikely this is out of the ordinary for him, urgency of their mission notwithstanding. Aziraphale doesn’t actually seem that bothered by it initially, not until we hear the horns of other angry drivers, where it becomes apparent that he’s actually very uncomfortable indeed. We’ll see a fair amount of material on the theme of Crowley’s driving and its effects on Aziraphale in this episode, almost like we’re being set up for something…

Crowley is pretty insistent on the use of “we” in this scene, despite the fact that Aziraphale really didn’t have anything to do with losing the Antichrist (he just took Crowley’s lead on this one). The angel doesn’t really dispute it though, though perhaps he’s just too worried about being discorporated to argue.  What is pretty obvious is that Crowley does not appreciate being told how to drive, and it makes me wonder how many times they have had conversations exactly like this before.

I’m going to wrap this part up with a quick round-up of the “The Them” scenes in Tadfield, prior to the arrival Aziraphale and Crowley in the village. As with much of the other narrative-based scenes in this episode, I don’t have much to say about them, but I did make note of a couple of (potentially) interesting things:

Pepper’s middle name is Galadriel. For those people who have managed to live their lives without any sort of interaction with Lord of the Rings up to now, this is the name of an Elven queen in that universe. As much as it would be cool for there to be some sort of subtextual Clue hidden in her middle name, I think it’s more likely it was just picked because it was a fitting one for the daughter of a reformed hippy.

Anathema recites parts of an infamous speech from Shakespeare’s Macbeth here: Eye of newt and […] tongue of dog. What I find interesting about this is that there are two ingredients in the potion recipe that have been omitted (a frog’s toe and the wool of a bat), leaving only the two elements that can be found in the show – a Newt and a dog. Honestly, I’m not sure what to make of this, not least because I’m not even sure what relevance the rhyme has to what she’s doing at the time she recites it. Not to mention that she hasn’t actually met Newt at this point, so would have no knowledge of his name (to the best of our knowledge, he’s only referred to as “man” or “boy” in Agnes’s prophecies).

Wensleydale brings up the Spanish Inquisition when in the woods, which we know Crowley has claimed responsibility for (to his Hellish masters). I absolutely love the way that the religious reasoning for punishing people is so masterfully undermined by Brian’s earnest reasoning here. I should point out that in addition to being a hereditary Pagan, I am staunchly against organised religion (not faith; I consider that to be an entirely different concept and feel that it’s integral to the spiritual identity for pretty much everybody. I believe we should all have the right to follow our chosen faith without the overbearing interference of organised religion) so the satiric tones that people who were being executed would have been grateful for their persecution if they had understood the reasons behind it fully really strikes a chord with the religion-cynic in me.

There’s an interesting little set detail here in the Them’s den:

These look like old-school weighing scales to me. In the context of the conversation that the Them are having about torturing witches, these could be said to be a reference to the practice of weighing people accused of witchcraft against the weight of a bible to determine their guilt. Alternatively, it could be a reference to the scales we will see later in the series as the summoning object for Famine. Or it could be nothing. I doubt that last one though.

That brings us quite nicely to see Aziraphale and Crowley arriving in Tadfield, which feels to me like a good place to finish this part of the write up. I’m going to be tackling a couple of important moments in the next part (can we say “wall slam”?), which I’m aware have been discussed at length already, but I have things to say and I’m going to say them. They’ve probably all been said before, but they need to get out of my head and into a piece of writing so I’m going to say them anyway. Questions, comments and discussion on this part welcome as always!

[a-nice-and-interpretive-fanzine]

[ID: A cream-colored banner that says "A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: essays and art about the meanings we've found in Good Omens." There is a photo of a book page with a key on it behind the banner text. The photo source is rosy_photo on Pixabay. /end ID]

A Nice and Interpretive Fanzine: Information Masterpost

Welcome!

This is a zine for those of us who love the subtle, complex work that is Good Omens, and who’ve enjoyed the thoughtfulness of the fandom as people interpret how the many moving pieces of the story come together, creating a slightly different meaning for each of us.

To put it simply, it’s a book full of the fandom’s own analysis and commentary about the Good Omens TV show, enhanced with illustrations from our brilliant artists.

This zine is analytical in the sense that all the writers are expressing their own nonfiction thoughts and feelings about the show, rather than writing fanfic, but it is not meant to be heavily academic. Anybody who likes to pick apart the series and discuss it should be able to enjoy it.

The zine will contain essays by fans who are passionate about analyzing and interpreting different parts of Good Omens - the characters, the plot, the writing techniques for the book and script, the cinematography of the TV show, the popular content of the fandom itself. Accompanying these essays will be black and white illustrations from our artists.

How are you organizing this process?

May 1-May 15: Everyone submits their application to do writing or art through a Google form. Behind the scenes, I’ll be setting up a separate email and Discord.

May 16-20: Applicants will be screened during this time.

May 20: I’ll email everyone to let them know the outcomes of their applications. The final participants will get a link to the Discord server for the zine (totally optional, of course).

May 21: If there’s any clarification or solidifying of ideas that needs to happen, I’ll contact you and discuss with you by this point. This is also when artists will be matched up with essays.

May 22 to August 14: This will be a period of just working on our essays and art. The Discord chat and Tumblr will be there for support and for exchanging ideas!

August 15: Participants need to email their full works to the zine’s email address by this date. No special formatting is needed; I’ll do that in InDesign.

August 15 to August 31: I’ll be putting the zine together in InDesign.

September 1: Preorders will open.

September 30: Preorders will close.

October 1: The zine order will be placed!

October 15: Assuming all goes well with printing and shipping, the zines will be shipped out in waves starting on this date. If the printing or shipping from the manufacturer is delayed, then shipping will just start ASAP.

Writer Application HERE Artist Application HERE Asked and Answered Questions on Tumblr The Fanzine's Page on Twitter

Read below for more detailed information about the zine in a Q and A format!

What are the specifications for the zine contributions?

For writers, I’m starting with 3k words or fewer per essay (approximately 10 pages at the size of this book). This depends heavily on how many participants we actually get, so it may change!

For artists, I’d be looking at black and white works, 300 DPI, 5.5 x 8.5 inches or smaller. If your art is supposed to fill up the entire page (i.e. no white space), please make it a total of 5.75 x 8.75 inches with nothing too important around the edges to account for bleed during the printing process.

Can I submit an essay to this zine if I’ve already posted it on Tumblr?

Not as you’ve already posted it. We don’t want to just copy/paste the exact thing that hundreds or perhaps even thousands of people have already read.

However, it IS fine and maybe even a good idea to take the same thought from your post and refine it, preserving your same thesis. For example, a lot of Tumblr posts are just us fans jotting down 5 or 6 paragraphs of random thoughts at 2 AM, but some of them are really cool thoughts! Expanding them and turning them into a bona-fide Essay would make those posts into excellent zine chapters. And you can copy small pieces of your own language as long as the whole thing isn’t just pasted word-for-word.

How long do essays have to be? Is there a limit?

With the number of writers we have, I've calculated that each person should ideally keep their essay to about 6000 words. There is wiggle room.

There’s no real minimum for your contribution; some analytical ideas are really good but can be expressed concisely, so it’s okay if your essays only come out to a few pages typed. For reference, with our book size, a page is about 300 words.

What happens if the zine sells a lot and you end up not only breaking even, but turning a profit?

It’ll go to charity. While I’ll ask the participants what they want to do for certain if we do make enough money, my suggestion will be donating it to Alzheimer’s Research UK in honor of Sir Terry Pratchett.

I’m not really comfortable calling this a “charity zine” up front since I simply don’t know if it will raise a significant amount. For the most part, I just want the thing to physically exist, which means breaking even, and don’t want to make it more expensive for buyers than it needs to be to afford the printing costs.

What kinds of essays are you talking about? What could be included?

In short, any analytical thoughts about the Good Omens TV show - and possibly even the fandom as it interacts with the show - are possible inclusions for the zine.

To expand a bit, think about the meta posts you see floating around Tumblr. Often these involve analyzing characters, or picking up on patterns in the plot. Sometimes fans use their own background knowledge to write posts about the significance of certain costume choices or the way music plays into each individual scene. Some posts examine the ways the series approaches gender, while others might discuss ways that the characters present as neurodivergent. That’s how diverse the pool of possibilities is for subjects in this zine.

How does art come into this?

Images will be black and white, to match the bookish mood of the project overall. Images can range in size from a half page to a full page.

I’m planning to talk to the artists and authors and loosely pair artists with essays that appeal to their personal interests.

I know how to illustrate a story, but how do I illustrate an essay?

There are infinite answers to this! I’ve seen some beautiful symbolic artwork in the fandom already (e.g. a number of takes on Aziraphale munching on an apple with Crowley in snake form curving around him), and there are tons of symbolic motifs to draw from, but these are not the only options. An artist illustrating an essay about cinematography, for example, could draw a well-known scene from an alternative angle. An essay about Heaven as a capitalist corporation could be illustrated with a cartoon of Gabriel giving some sort of excruciating PowerPoint presentation. A character analysis could be accompanied by a simple portrait. And on and on. I’m not interested in limiting the possibilities by trying to make a list, but just know that there are many and you don’t have to make it complicated if you don’t want to.

If the writers can reuse their essay ideas, can artists reuse their drawings?

Similarly to the writers, if you already have an interpretive drawing that you’re in love with, artists can use the same ideas and the same fundamental composition that is present in their own existing work. However, it has to be redone in some significant way. Whether it’s taking something you drew in 2019 and redrawing it using an updated style, taking a sketch and turning it into a lined and shaded piece, or redoing a full-color drawing so it presents more strikingly in black and white, it shouldn’t be identical to the thing you’ve already posted.

So how are you choosing participants here?

It’ll be based on what people are interested in writing about (or illustrating). I’ll be looking for people who are passionate about their essays, but I’ll also be looking for variety. It all depends on what people want to offer, so I won’t know for sure what it will look like put together until everyone’s application is in.

For artists, I’ll be trying to figure out whose style looks like it would adapt well to illustrations in black and white, and also who demonstrates an interest in the same subjects as the writers.

If we don’t get a lot of applicants, I’d love to simply include everyone, but I can’t commit to that without knowing for sure how many people are involved.

Do I have to use a formal writing style to participate?

No. You should use a style that makes your thoughts and ideas as clear as possible, but as long as it’s understandable, you can also get a little artistic with it. You can “write like you speak,” though perhaps in a more organized way. You definitely don’t need to worry about stylistic rules like not using the first person. This is not academia.

Is this zine going to center only on Crowley and Aziraphale?

That remains to be seen! It depends on what ideas show up in the applications. There will be a lot of the ineffable partners for sure, but whether the whole zine will center on them or whether there’s plentiful stuff about other characters will depend on what the participants suggest.

Do we have to agree with all your personal interpretations of Good Omens to be in the zine?

No! In fact, I’m assuming that a number of essays will contradict each other, too, and that’s perfectly okay. The zine is a sampler of fan interpretations meant to inspire, not instruct. It’s not “Here’s a fan-made guide on how to understand this TV show,” it’s “Look at all these moving parts and how many meanings we can find in them. What does it mean to you?”

However, there are some basic rules and assumptions by which I’m working here.

I don’t personally have the energy to include essays that are highly critical (“negative”) in this zine. It’s analytical but also meant to be fun.

I’m pretty focused on the TV adaptation. This isn’t “no book analysis allowed” but just that the essays will end up being weighted toward subjects that apply to either the TV show or both the book and the show.

Each writer should focus on making their own points over disproving other fan interpretations. If you’re writing in an expository style, it’s normal for the essay to contain rebuttals to opposing ideas, but these should be minor supporting points, not the heart and soul of your essay. For reference, I’d say the majority of meta I see floating around on tumblr would follow this rule just fine.

Essay ideas that seem to contain bigoted or exclusionary sentiments will not be accepted (no TERFy stuff, for example).

What kinds of editing will go into the zine? Are you going to argue with us about the contents of our writing?

While I might ask you to elaborate on certain points in your writing or clarify your thoughts about your subject, I’m absolutely not here to ask you to change the thesis, opinions, or headcanons on which your writing is based. If I really have a problem with your initial idea, I’ll tell you that up front and politely decline the contribution.

While formatting the zine, I’ll make minor edits if I think I see a typo or misspelling, something small and obviously unintentional. As with any other zine, your content won’t be changed without consulting you.

Is this a SFW zine?

Yes. If people want to discuss sexuality in a theoretical way, like erotic subtext, that would be allowed. There are canon references like Newt and Anathema’s moment under the bed that might come up, too. But there will be nothing explicit, and since these are essays instead of stories, there will be no “action” going on between characters. Let’s just say sex isn’t a forbidden topic, but it will be like discussing it in English class.

As for other topics that could make the zine NSFW, like gore or extreme language, I don’t think they will be an issue. Some dark topics, like abuse by Heaven and Hell, may be discussed, but they will be warned for, and these are not stories, so you aren’t going to see violent actions playing out.

Will there be any “extras” like charms or stickers?

I’m not sure yet. I’m most inclined to keep it simple, because of the nature of the zine, but would be open to including some bonus items if there’s an artist who’s really passionate about it.

With that said, I am pretty committed to making a hardcover edition of the book available, in addition to the standard softcover version.

You’re doing this with only one mod?!

Yes. I personally find it easiest. While I’ve worked on multi-mod projects in other domains and adore all of my co-mods, it’s a little bit different when it’s a project with this many moving pieces that includes real-life components like printing and shipping. Though there are a lot of individual things to be done, I am experienced with all of them, so it’s less overwhelming to just take on the whole project. That way, I know exactly what needs to be done and when, and there are no issues with assigning tasks.

What qualifies you to run this zine?

The résumé answer: in fandom, I successfully solo-modded a large not-for-profit zine in the past, the @soulmakazine2018, and while I can’t speak for the whole fandom, it definitely seemed to be well-received. <3 In real life, I’m a case manager and this involves coordinating and communicating with a lot of different people including my 100-person caseload, budgeting services, and filling out all kinds of paperwork on the fly, all skills that can be imported into zine work.

The practical answer: well, I’m the one who decided to start this project, so if you like the sound of it, you're stuck with me. I say with encouragement and enthusiasm that if you’d like to do a different take on a commentary zine, you should absolutely do it.

[camryndaytona]

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare is one of the most popular and successful young adult authors of today, however, a huge percentage of her fans have no idea of her past where she was know more for her bullying than her writing. I started this as a post on my “You Should Know” instagram, but eventually it got way too big and I had to create a post for it as well.

Terms to Know

Big Name Fan

Or “BNF” is an old term mostly used during the early 2000s, before ff.net or AO3.

They were the biggest names in fandom, producing the most popular art or fanfics.

Getting on the wrong side of a BNF could lock you out from the entire fandom, as you would be blocked from any forum they (or they friends) moderated.

The Inner Circle

In the early 2000s the Harry Potter fandom was essentially ruled by the Inner Circle. 

Although most of the Inner Circle changed constantly due to fandom drama and scandals, one member stayed for almost it’s entire duration: Cassie Claire

ff.net

Fanfiction.net

One of the early and most popular sites for hosting fanfiction.

The Draco Trilogy

Draco Dormiens

Author’s Summary: When an accident in Potions class turns Harry into Draco and Draco into Harry, each is trapped playing the part of the other. Romance, mistaken identities, Really Cunning Plans, evil bake sales, a love triangle, and snogs galore.

Draco Sinister

Author’s Summary: When Hermione is kidnapped, Harry and Draco must team up to rescue her from a thousand-year-old evil that threatens the entire wizarding world. Cursed demon swords, love potions, time travel, dementors, flying dragons, Draco wears leather, and everybody dies at least once. Except when they don’t.

It is notable for being the source of the Draco in Leather Pants trope as well as the catalyst for the Cassandra Claire plagiarism wank.

Draco Veritas

Author’s Summary: The sequel to Draco Sinister, featuring winter at Hogwarts, snogging, Quidditch, mysterious things and Rhysenn Malfoy.

Why was the Trilogy so popular?

As most people in fandom probably know, there’s usually two subsets of shippers: gay and straight (please note that, back in the early 2000s, there was still a lot of homophobia, and the heterosexual ships were undeniably more popular for that reason).

Since The Draco Trilogy had both Draco/Hermione and a lot of Harry/Draco subtext, fans of both ships flocked to the fic.

The Plagiarism 

Although she’d done it all along, it wasn’t until the second fanfic, Draco Sinister, that fans began to catch on. What was “it?”

Cassie including a lot of quotations from other work. And I mean a LOT. She lifted entire conversations and paragraphs from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Black Adder, Red Dwarf, and Terry Pratchett. At first she didn’t even mention this “inspiration,” so everyone assumed that this wit was all hers.

Once she was called out, she put a standard disclaimer at the top of her work, which was worded to imply that she might have borrowed a few, small quotes here and there, not that she was taking paragraphs and scenes. When she was called out for her continued plagiarism she switched to claiming that she “forgot” what her sources were.

Finally a former fan called Avocado got tired of it and reported her to ff.net. Within a day her works were taken down.

Predictably the fandom melted down over this and accusations began to fly. Cassie used her status as a BNF to ban anyone mildly critical of her from any message board or mailing list. A friend of Cassie’s claimed to be a real life lawyer and harrassed young fans with seemingly legal threats. There are even threats of people calling the police in an early form of “swatting.” Cassie tried to get a “hater” kicked out of university for “hacking” her and a REAL lawyer had to be involved before Cassie admitting to making it all up.

After all that began to die down, as she was working on the third installment of the trilogy, Cassie began accusing her friend and fellow BNF, Aja, of plagiarizing her. When that failed to incite the anger she wanted against Aja, Cassie began to claim that Aja was posting leaked spoilers for the Draco Trilogy. This infighting between the two lead to the collapse of The Inner Circle.

Laptop Gate

Although the third part of the Trilogy wasn’t as popular as the first two, due to the plagiarism scandal, it still racked up a ton of views when she began posting it. So when there was a potential threat to the continuation of the saga, readers were horrified.

This potential threat was a break in and the loss of Cassie’s computer.

Almost immediately after the robbery was announced Cassie’s lawyer friend (who was also her roommate) popped up again. This time, they were raising money to replace the laptops of Cassie and her roommates that had been stolen in the break in. Any extra money from the fundraiser would go to some vaguely mentioned charity.

Divisive comments poured in.

Some people expressed frustration that more “meaningful” fundraisers (like someone who had lost everything in a fire) didn’t get anywhere near as much attention and support.

Fans were even less happy when no proof was provided of either the break in or the charitable donation of excess funds (which was reported to be over $10,000).

When called out they changed the subject and posted links to another fan that was also fundraising (although they never posted any charity before or after, even when asked to do so the lawyer friend claimed to be “too busy” to share a link).

Published Works

After enjoying her celebrity as the Queen of Fanfiction, it’s no surprise that Cassie decided to venture into actual, original published works.

Except they weren’t that original, because it’s Cassie and she really, really seems to like “borrowing” from herself and others.

Let’s start with some name changes

Cassie

Cassandra Claire (with an i) is her fanfiction name

Cassandra Clare (without an i) is her published name

You may be surprised by how well this name change suited her. For a long time, before exposes began to be posted, you could google her published name without finding out about her history in fandom. Additionally, some of her victims from her fanfic days read her published books without realizing who the author actually was (until they started to recognize the quotes and paragraphs that she’d lifted straight from her fanfiction)

Her Writing

“Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s Ginny/Ron incest romance fanfiction.

“The Mortal Instruments” is Cassie’s published work, about two fake siblings who fall in love with each other.

Similarities to Harry Potter

Now I haven’t read Mortal Instruments or The Mortal Instruments so I’ll let someone who has read them both do some explaining:

When I opened the book, I knew that Clary was Ginny. Alec was Harry. Isabelle was Clare’s version of Blaise (who back then was not officially male or female, and could therefore be interpreted by fandom either way). Valentine was a strange mixture of Lucius and Voldemort. And Jace, of course, was undeniably Draco.

Jace is so Draco, in fact, that it’s impossible to see him as his own character. The way Clare characterizes Jace is the exact same way she characterized her Draco. They share lines (the ones she didn’t steal from Buffy, of course), they share nervous tics, they share appearances, and they even share memories. The second I read the scene in which Jace tells Clary the story about the boy and the falcon, I felt an unpleasant jolt of recognition: that story is one Draco tells in one of the Draco Trilogy installments. I couldn’t remember which one. I couldn’t even remember who Draco told it to (Harry? Ginny? Hermione?). But I knew it was if not word for word taken from her fanfiction, it was very, very close.

Yikes. That’s a lot of similarities.

The same person I quoted about went on to say that the fanfiction was still much better than her published work, and that she’d rather re-read the fanfic than the non-fanfic.

Sherrilyn Kenyon and Dark Hunters

Almost immediately after The Mortal Instruments (the non-fanfic one) became popular, Sherrilyn Kenyon slapped it with a lawsuit for copying her urban fantasy series, Dark Hunters.

Kenyon fans attacked Claire fans, Cassie’s history was brought to light, and Cassie got to pull out her favorite argument “you hate me because I’m Jewish.” Which is interesting, because I’ve been working on this for two weeks, and I only just learned that she’s Jewish when I read about her accusing others of anti-Semitism.

Now as Cassie apologists will tell you, Kenyon did ultimately lose that suit, but it’s really, really starting to get repetitive over here.

I’ll borrow a quote from Ryan Givens, “If you meet an asshole in the morning, you met an asshole. If you meet assholes all day, you’re the asshole.” Or in this case, maybe you’re the plagiarist.

Common Questions

Has Cassie apologized for this?

She did occasionally

Has Cassie changed?

My opinion is no. She’s not.

Let’s see, as the “Queen of YA Literature” she has:

used Copy Right strikes to prevent people from calling out problematic passages in her books

sent her fans after critics

posted a hilariously ironic blog about cyber bullying

attacked her OWN FANS because they didn’t like the ending of a book

currently complains about people posting her real name (which is Judith Rumelt, in case you wanted to know) despite her own history of publishing people’s actual phone numbers online

Calls critics anti-Semetic while having this quote in her book

Claims that she was threatened when someone called her friend an “ignorant duck” 

Loves Token Minorities

Wrote a questionable almost rape

My Thoughts

I don’t like Cassie.

I really don’t.

And look, I’m not saying that Cassie is a narcissist, but here’s a fun little saying called The Narcissist’s Prayer:

That didn’t happen. And if it did, it wasn’t that bad. And if it was, that’s not a big deal. And if it is, that’s not my fault. And if it was, I didn’t mean it. And if I did… You deserved it.

Does any of that sound familiar, because it should. It’s basically Cassie’s text book responce of “avoid admitting fault until there’s too much proof, say I didn’t do it on purpose, blame someone else, claim to be the victim, find another person to accuse of drama.”

Now I’m going to again quote from ProblematicYA because I absolutely love their writing. In this quote, they’re talking about how all of Cassie’s books, even those set in different times or cities, follow the same pattern. Non-Shadowhunter meets Shadowhunter (who is basically Draco).

So what’s really my problem? My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is a marginally talented writer who has one story and one cast of characters up her sleeve, and yet somehow she’s sold millions and millions of books based on this. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series was partially copied from her fanfiction trilogy, which copied a plethora of other authors, not even including J.K. Rowling, who provided her with the characters, premise, and setting for her beloved trilogy. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is in the authorly equivalent of a time loop, and has come full circle. My problem is the fact that Cassandra Clare is, in essence, writing fanfiction of her own work, and it is getting published and she is getting paid bank for it, when other far more original and talented authors are getting absolutely nothing for their hard work. I may despise Stephenie Meyer and the world she’s created, but at least Twilight and its accompanying works are her own original product; at least she deserves to reap the benefits of the crazy fandom she’s inspired.

Look. I don’t believe in dredging up ancient history just to hurt people. Shit we did when we were teens shouldn’t be held against us as adults. People grow and change a lot from what they were as teens.

But bitch, you actually have to GROW AND CHANGE. And Cassie hasn’t.

Also, try actually apologizing for what you’ve done instead of silencing critics.

Sources and More Information

As always, I love, love, love fanlore and I linked to many of their articles throughout this post.

A user on the HobbyDrama subreddit made a great write up called The Cassandra Cla(i)re Saga.

ProblematicYA wrote several amazing articles on the subject:

Why I Have A Problem With Cassandra Clare and Why You Should Too

anti-bullying ya queen cassandra clare is a massive bully. water also wet.

They also have an entire tag dedicated to Cassie

Alli6 wrote Things you should Know

Cassandra Clare, Rape Culture, and the Oft-Forgotten Metaphor by The Book Lantern.

SnarkTheater also has pages of things tagged as Cassie Claire, including chapter by chapter break downs of the books.

source http://camryndaytona.com/2020/06/cassandra-clare?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=cassandra-clare

[mattkenzie]

My Highlights of 2019

So with 2019 coming to a close (and I have to say that the year has come and gone... but I strangely had times that slowed down). This year I recently started to use hashtags so that is a learning experience and maybe get myself noticed for a while.

Ships of 2019 ❤️

Beau and Jester (Critical Role Season 2)

Catra and Adora (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Movies 🎥 🍿

This year my local cinema was closed for refurnishment so I never got to watch much movies this year. I used to like going to the movies but there is this unwritten rule where ‘you can’t go into a cinema on my own’ and ‘going to a U-Rated (Universal) as an adult without a child is frowned upon.’ So I think you know what? I’ll get the movie physically so I can watch it twice as it pays for my cinema ticket. Maybe in the new year I’ll hunt down the MCU Boxsets.

Avengers: Endgame 🥇

🍿 Captain Marvel 🥈

Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse 🥉

Sonic the Hedgehog (So glad Sonic got an update!)

Avengers: Infinity War

Spider-Man: Far From Home

🍿 Steven Universe: The Movie

🍿 Black Panther

Doctor Strange

Frozen 2 (My principle still stands that I detest Frozen)

How to Train Your Dragon

💿 Lord of the Rings

💿 Thor Ragnarok

Guardians of the Galaxy

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker

Spider-Man: Homecoming

🍿 Toy Story 4

The Hobbit (ONLY the first 2 films!)

Spirited Away

Movie Characters

Live Action TV 📺

Animated TV 📺

TV Characters

Music Groups 🎤🎸🥁

Musicals 🎭

Just the one musical that I’ve enjoyed this year and that is...

Beetlejuice (Beetlejuice, being young and naive doesn’t mean that I’m an easy mark.)

Books 📚

This year I have promised myself that I’d read a new book once a month back in 2018 and it came back with a vengeance in 2019 and I have been enjoying reading more that I prefer fantasy and built such a small library. Yes, this year I’ve been spending less time watching television and giving my imagination a creativity an exercise. I think in 2020, I’ll try to give YA novels a chance... yet I noticed the YA protagonists are female. I want to try Leigh Bardugo’s Trilogy, The Throne of Glass, The Mortal Instrumentals and more of Rick Riordan. I do kind of feel bad for not reading The Simarrillion (as I never got into books as a child/teenager).

Harry Potter series 🥇

Percy Jackson and the Olympians 🥉

A Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

Discworld

Good Omens

Authors and Poets 📚✒️

Video Games 🎮

So I’ve been spending less money on video games this year it feels like it’s a good thing but sometimes we have to be adult about things in this day and age because responsibility demands sacrifice. I do find life difficult at times but I know that I can pop in a CD and find enjoyment in the games that I want to play. So what about the video games that aren’t on the Tumblr fandom list? Well to abridge my list... Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2: Enhanced Edition and Planescape Torment & Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition, King of Fighters 2000, King of Fighters ‘97, Fatal Fury Special and Garou: Mark of the Wolves. I was ecstatic to hear Terry Bogard being in Smash. But what about those games that are no Tumblr but not on mine? It’s simple, I’m not interested in them.

Overwatch 🥇

Minecraft 🥈

🎮 Fire Emblem: Three Houses 🥉

Undertale

🎮 Pokémon Sword and Shield

🎮 The Sims 4

🎮 Persona 5 (I can’t wait for Royal)

Deltarune

🎮 Danganrompa

🎮 Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Can’t wait for the sequel)

Stardew Valley

🎮 Borderlands 3

🎮 Kingdom Hearts III

Detroit: Become Human

🎮 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

🎮 Ace Attorney (Still salty about not having Miles Edgeworth Investigations and The Great Ace Attorney though)

Taletale: The Walking Dead

🎮 Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

🎮 Animal Crossing: New Leaf

Cyberpunk 2077

Dragon Age Inquisition

🎮 Fallout 4

Minecraft ⛏

I’ve stopped watching Minecraft videos for about 2 years now (as I loved the Yogscast), but I somehow do miss playing it on my phone or on a console, I think in 2020 I will get a copy on the Switch because one of my friends have been playing Minecraft on the Switch.

Mobile Games/Apps 📱

To be honest, I don’t do any form of mobile gaming (I’m mostly against the idea of ‘micro transactions’ just the sake of pay to win). Like when it comes to video games on computers and consoles I will gladly get the DLC to give my games more depth and longer replay value.

Video Game Characters

Raphael (Fire Emblem: Three Houses)

Pokémon

So with Pokémon Sword and Shield being released, I was having some mixed feelings about it. Did I like the Thanos snap? I can live with it. Did I like the new pokémon? Some of them are a hit and miss (I liked the starters, I chose Scorbunny at first but when I was spoiled with Grooky’s final evolution... I jumped ship). Do I like the Dynamax/Gigantamax system? To be honest I was hoping for Armoured Evolutions.

Brand New World

Grooky Gang

Anime & Manga

Web Celebrities

Web Series

So with me losing interest in television comes a rise in watching my shows online. I normally do enjoy watching Critical Role on Monday (as I need some sleep on Friday at silly o’clock in the morning) but I have enjoyed discovering Sander’s Side (YouTube’s version of Pixar’s Inside Out) and listening to The Adventure Zone that I bought the comics (I can’t wait for Volume 3) and Dimension 20’s Fantasy High.

Critical Role 🥇

RWBY 🥈

Sander’s Sides 🥉

The Adventure Zone

Camp Camp

Hazbin Hotel

gen:LOCK

Dimension 20

Memes

I will never understand memes (so please don’t ask)

OK, Boomer!

Raiding Area 51

Thicc is the new Phat

Tumblr Communities

So I stated that this year that I would be reading a book once a month and I have started to appreciate them more than I do with Television and Video Games so I’ve been blogging what books that I have read and eventhough I don’t know what is getting released (like I do with video games and movies). I have been enjoying starting out with bookblr.

Bookblr

Art Styles

Beauty & Fashion Brands 👕👖🥾

Sadly, I gained a lot of weight this year that I now have to get size 46 waist jeans and chinos so I buy clothing from Bad Rhino (I am not proud of myself for that), but the good news is that my brushing/flossing have been improving and I have stopped biting my nails ever since I bought myself nail clippers.

Astrology ♒️

I don’t really follow astrology but I like to look at the Aquarius posts for fits and gigs so apparently Aquarius is in 3rd place in the trending.

Aquarius ♒️🥉

Tumblr and Social Impact

LGBTQIA+

[byobossworld]

The Japanese Model of Success Written & brought to you by Ken Crause – Business Transformation Coach. The war in Japan had ended in chaos and destruction. Nothing could look bleaker for the Japanese. Their country had recently been bombed with an atomic bomb and life in Japan had become one of survival. How does one take a country in such ruin and turn it into the economic giant it has become? It has little land base – it’s a small island country. It has minimal resources in terms of material things and was broke after spending so much on the war which ended in disaster. Their pride caused them to make the stupid mistake of trying to take on the giant America and they paid dearly for it. What did they have left? Well the only real resource they had left was people. As manufacturing began to revive slowly because of lack of capital, products they produced soon earned the reputation of “Jap crap”. Things made in Japan were inferior in quality to American or European made. How would they survive and thrive? It is often in the place of desperation that we give up our notion of grandeur and pride. It is often at this place that we realize we don’t know it all and need help. This is where the Japanese found themselves. But what of America? Well the bombing of Hiroshima and decisive end to the war caused Americans everywhere to be proud, believing they knew it all and needed nobody to make them better – they were the best. This same foolish attitude has shown up throughout history in many countries and empires – all of which ultimately lead to their demise. The same attitude has caused many great companies such as IBM to fall from their once place of leadership in their industry. There was at that time an American by the name of Dr. W Edwards Deming. In 1950 Deming was a renowned quality control expert who General McArthur had commissioned to go to Japan to help improve things there since America itself was having trouble doing what it needed to do in the country they had just defeated. Nobody really gave Dr. Deming any serious consideration but the Japanese who were willing to learn now, did. Dr. Deming devised 14 “Principles” of success which he faithfully taught the business owners and government in Japan and soon from practicing these principles, the rise of Japan became meteoric and they soon became the country to be reckoned with in trade. This lesson is not designed to cover the extent of what he taught them, but I would like to point two of those principles I consider vital to success. “PRINCIPLES ARE THE RUDDERS THAT GUIDE OUR SHIPS THROUGH CALM AND STORMY SEAS, METHODS ARE SECONDARY. “ It is for this reason I am passionate about and teach fundamental principles of success and without being prideful in any way, I believe every business person would do well to seek to learn and implement success principles – many of which I teach. One of the key principles Deming taught. I call it “SID. So what is SID? It’s an acronym for “Small Improvements Daily”. What Deming taught the Japanese to do is simply this. 1. Find a product or service that interests you. 2. See who is making the best product or offering the best service in the world in that area – 3. Work daily on finding ways to improve on it. The Japanese soon became criticized for “copying” the American, British and German manufacturers, but that did not last long. Once they were able to duplicate them, they went about applying SID which they in fact called “Kaizen”, and a revolution soon took hold in Japan. Instead of greedily focusing on how to cut costs and make more profit, the Japanese focused on how to produce the best product and services in the world... period. Years ago I had started a greeting card company and when I went to print my cards I learned something very interesting. Most printers in North America do a 10% over-run which is to cover off any mistakes or poor product – it happens in all manufacturing in North America. They then pass it on to us and we have to sort out the bad from the good. The Japanese however do not do this. They sort the quality and do not permit anything inferior to leave their plant to a buyer. Their commitment to quality and improvement to this day still sets them apart from many. However, today successful companies around the globe are finally implementing this very basic yet profound principle. So where are you at today with your business? Are you in as bad a shape as Japan was? Do you have as little resources at your disposal as they had? Zimbabwe, where I was born and raised currently has a 90% unemployment rate. They lack resources as badly as Japan did excepting one – people. This country can become a powerhouse just as easily as Japan did, if the government were to wake up there and bring in business teachers to teach these principles of success to their people instead of greedily bleeding every last penny they can for themselves and their friends. In fact many countries in Africa today suffer from the same ailment. But what about you? Why not commit yourself today to make “SID” a way of life for your business. Why not teach this to your staff and hold them accountable to look for ways they can improve what they do in your business daily. A plant in nature does not grow overnight. It takes time, water and sun. By feeding your mind and the minds of your staff daily with positive and exciting stuff, you will cause yourself to grow and along with it you will grow your business – one small thing every day. The Bible says, “Do not despise the day of small beginnings” It’s usually the small things done consistently that either make or break a great business. HOW DO YOU EAT AN ELEPHANT? – ONE MOUTHFUL AT A TIME. Sometimes we become so overwhelmed at the huge job ahead of us. The goal seems so far away and so far out of reach. But if you will learn the lesson the Japanese did, making small improvements Daily (SID), in time you will find that you have risen to greatness and will remain a leader in the years to come. Make a difference and learn what the Japanese learned – commit to excellence through Small Improvements Daily. Focus on one thing at a time (each day) and consider how you might improve it - today. The second principle Dr. Deming taught is equally as important. – “Perfection is NOT optional” For years I have observed what I always considered to be a very strange behaviour in education. That behaviour is how arbitrarily, passing marks are set for considering someone to pass a test or exam. Of particular concern to me is the fact that a doctor only has to get 70% right on his or her exams to pass. Would you really want to be treated by someone who could be wrong 30% of the time? When I took my training as a commercial helicopter pilot I was subjected to the same passing percentage. Yet, what it meant is that 30% of my knowledge or ability as a pilot could be wrong. Would you seriously want to fly with someone who could make a mistake as a pilot 30% of the time? Okay I got 81% so I could be wrong only 19% of the time. PEOPLE WILL RISE TO WHATEVER STANDARD IS EXPECTED OF THEM When South Africa changed to a black government, one of the things that they did was immediately lower the passing grade in all professions to allow more black people to pass and qualify as professionals. They did not even believe in themselves or that they could do as well or better than the whites did. Pretty sad isn’t it? From what I have learned they are not the only ones who have done this. LOWERING STANDARDS OR “GOOD ENOUGH” IS A SURE PATH TO FAILURE AND DISASTER Deming was a quality control expert and as such had taught manufacturers and other business people that if they wanted to succeed it was critical that they adopted immediately the attitude that the only acceptable standard is “perfect”; No defects whatsoever, no short cuts, no “good enough”. Today a new phrase has taken root to motivate people to a higher standard. This started with the publication of a book entitled “Pursuit of Excellence” by Terry Orlick, a sports phsycologist. There is a saying, “the devil is in the details”. Over the years I have observed that the difference between mediocre and excellence is the attention to details. The difference between the person who finishes first and the one who comes second is in the details. This is why SID – Small Improvements Daily is fundamental to attaining perfection and why without the application of both these principles you will simply never rise to greatness or success. Walt Disney was a classical example of this. He paid so much attention to every detail of his productions that he was the best in all key elements of his productions – music, volume, color, speed transitions, story, characters, lesson etc. etc. In order to pursue perfection it is a matter of attention to the details. So what is “good enough” for you? When you buy a product are you okay with less than perfect? The truth is we all want the perfect “whatever” but we are not prepared ourselves to make the perfect “whatever”. The focus of many business failures has been money or profit rather than a commitment to make the best or do the best. I wonder how much better a standard we could achieve – especially in areas like professions where a mistake could spell death or injury to someone else. What would happen if our schools or universities raised the bar or standard for passing? Is our goal to pass as many people as possible or is it to train the best to be the best? I challenge everyone reading this to raise the bar or standards in your personal life and especially in your business. Your staff will rise to the level you expect of them. There have been teachers who have gone into schools where kids were failing miserably, raised the standard and inspired the students and seen their classes filled with 100% grade “A” students. It’s all a matter of what we accept as “good enough” and how committed we are to perfection. Failure as we grow does happen, but we should never quit, only strive to do better next time. PERFECTION IS NOT AN EXCUSE TO NOT TRY, IT IS THE GOALPOST WHICH WE STRIVE TO REACH. Failure is only our aid to show us we need to improve. It is not an indicator that you are by nature useless or a failure. On the contrary the most successful people in life have usually failed more than anyone else. Failure means you are striving to be better and have successfully learned what does not work, so by all means embrace failure as a friend on your path to perfection. Ken Crause – Business Transformation Coach Email: kenc@crauseco.com

[muchmorethanmachines]

Fun & otherwise interesting facts about Francesca Wolshop (and to some extent, Martin). (And Terrence. And Hilda.)

Uhm, so - most of this would not be common knowledge - and a lot of it would be difficult to access so... Like, maybe talk to me before bringing it up in a thread? 

@gcdmode bc I said I would. (also bc we discussed it, I’m pretty happy w/ Elijah having dug this shit up).

Under a cut bc... Long. And potential trigger warnings?

Francesca’s birth certificate lists her mother as Evelyn Howard. She is most conspicuous in her absence from her daughter's life. In her early infancy, Martin dropped out of university, took his daughter and moved clear across the country. There is no evidence Evelyn has ever attempted to contact or gain custody of Francesca. Evelyn Howard is a real person, who attended the same university as Martin, going to on to graduate and is still alive. 

Terrence and Martin met shortly after the move through coincidence. Martin was a low paid member of staff and Terrence had been shipped in from the UK in an attempt to save a floundering company. His peers, however, we disinclined to take his advice - in fact, they seemed disinclined to accept advice from anyone. Martin made some excellent suggestions which were dismissed - but Terry spotted them for what they were. When the company crumbled the two remained friends - eventually becoming business partners.

Their company was founded as a joint venture - with all the financial backing coming from Terrence. He insisted on an equal split of the assets - claiming Martin’s mind was worth much more than his money alone.

Francesca has a relatively unremarkable childhood - described as intelligent and inquisitive by her teachers there were some limited concerns about her social skills and interactions - these, however, were dismissed as simply what happened with only children. 

Her teenage years, however, were immediately difficult. She began to rebel and act out - garnering some attention from the police. The peak of her delinquency was in 2026. A few weeks into the start of the school year - she got into a fight with two other students. Although it was teachers that peeled them off her, the other two students and a handful of witnesses claimed Francesca was the main aggressor. 

Following this, multiple teachers expressed concern for her - and her mental stability - siting a change in her behaviour since the beginning of the school year. Most concerning was the work she was producing in her English and Media classes - her physical education teacher caught her practising archery, using the picture of one of the students from the altercation as a bullseye - and an increasingly aggressive and morbid attitude.

An incredibly rapid cascade of incidents unfolded - Martin was called in for a meeting with the concerned staff, pretty much in line with the released of the H.I.L.D.A model, where it was suggested that Francesca was taken ‘to see someone’. Francesca launched a brutal assault on the H.I.L.D.A model in her own home - and ran away shortly after. Martin sought the assistance from the police - going so far as to report her for criminal damage, eventually dropping the charges when she returned home - from Terrence’s with a police escort. She did not return to school following the Christmas holidays, Martin registering her for home education instead.

The criminal activity petered out over the next two years - with only one count of public intoxication in 2031 to mark it since. 

The years following her late adolescence settled down - and she did well in her exams and at university. 

In 2037 - she was in a car accident - a driver under the influence drove into the side of her vehicle, hitting her on the driverside. She was hospitalised for an extended period following this and appeared to be getting better before swelling of her brain caused seizures that put her into a coma. Doctors recommended withdrawing care, giving her extremely low odds of successful recovery. Against recommendations from the same doctors, Martin had her moved. 

Miraculously* - later that year - she recovered. Not entirely unscathed (lingering amnesia and physical trauma still affect her over a full year later). Unfortunately - Martin’s joy would be short-lived - as he passed away in early 2038 a few months after getting his daughter back. 

IRIS had been struggling for some time - and not one to go down with a sinking ship - Terrence used this period of instability and vulnerability - to pressure Frankie into agreeing to a generous offer from Fancourt Enterprises to buy them out.

Martin had a penchant for programming his androids in unique ways (read: he code freaky) - and a distaste for documenting his processes - and what Fancourt Enterprises inherited was, therefore, fundamentally unusable. Given time, they could have worked it out, but what was meant to be an easy acquisition (and the lawsuit they attempted to launch against Francesca and Terrence) crippled them and before year end they had collapsed. 

And honestly, if u read all the God bless u. I am taking questions on the shady things if anyone has any / cares??? 

*Not that miraculous - Martin made an android copy of his kid and then exhausted himself to death.

[ancient-trees]

Reading Meme

(Sorry for taking forever on these, guys...!  I got tagged for a lot of memes at once, and this one is long. I apparently have a lot of things to say about books... who knew?) 

Tagged by @theticklishpear​. Thank you again!

(Tag-ees, btw, don’t feel obligated to read my long rambly answers if you just want to copy/paste the questions.)

1. Which book has been on your shelves the longest?

I have a picture book of St George and the Dragon whose illustrations are BEAUTIFUL (it’s this one). Technically hasn’t been on MY shelves longest - a while ago I found it in our shelves of books from when my brother and I were kids and repossessed it because I love the art so much.

2. What is your current read, your last read and the book you’ll read next?

Currently in the middle of Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire. Also in the pile are The Edge of the Sea by Rachel Carson (whom I love) and Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter by Thomas Cahill (which is ...okay, but more of a slightly-more-opinionated refresher on what I learned in college than anything new). I’m also most of the way through a reread of Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (one of my favorite books). 

Last thing I finished was Shadowheart, the last book in Tad Williams’s Shadowmarch series. (It’s not without its problems, but overall I really enjoyed that series. It’s got the ensemble-cast-and-unlikely-heroes thing going on.)

I’m not sure what’s next. Fiction might be American Gods by Neil Gaiman or Aftermath by Chuck Wendig... or I might need to keep going with the series and track down the second October Daye book. We’ll see when I get there.  Nonfiction - been meaning to start The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt by Toby Wilkinson or Writings from Ancient Egypt (translations from original sources, by the same). But I also have a book about pirates off the coast of Virginia my mom got on a recent trip to Jamestown... and a book about the Silk Road I happened upon in Barnes and Noble the other week, which MIGHT have edged its way to the top of the list... (this is why I’m all for brick-and-mortar bookstores. Search algorithms are great, but they don’t accomplish quite the same thing as wandering the shelves.)

3. Which book does everyone like and you hated?

Ehh, I’m not sure what “everyone” likes, but a lot of the series my high school friends loved I could never get into. I remember really liking the first Wheel of Time book, but got bored of the series pretty quickly after the first one. Same with Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth. I tried to like Dragonriders of Pern, but didn’t get far with that one either. And I hear the series gets better after the overenthusiastic-Tolkien-fanboying of the first book, but I really didn’t enjoy The Sword of Shannara.

Oh.. and I never read any Discworld JUST because in high school I knew a guy who EXTOLLED ITS VIRTUES TO THE HEAVENS. Constantly. Now that I’ve learned more about the series and the author I will definitely have to read some someday, though.

(I’m not a big fan of most “~Literature~” either, Pear.)

4. Which book do you keep telling yourself you’ll read, but you probably won’t?

I don’t know. My TBR list is pretty ridiculous, and anything’s possible, so I hate to relegate anything to “probably won’t read” status. Finishing A Song of Ice and Fire might be close. I received the whole series as a birthday gift from a friend (long before the TV show existed), read the first two back-to-back at a time when I really wasn’t in a great place, and got burned out on the grimdark rocksfalleveryonedies of it all. I did enjoy the books, and I’ll probably dive back into it someday, but it’s not really high on my Fun Things to Read list right now.

I also come home with an armload of unexpected finds every time the local college has a charity used book fair... most of which end up sitting on my shelves for a long time, still unread...

5. Which book are you saving for “retirement?”

Nothing really, but I’ve got a big stack of novels from Japan that I’ve been saving for “once I’ve brushed up on my kanji” - since reading is excruciatingly slow when I have to look up every other word. I’m being optimistic and not putting them under the “probably won’t read” heading, though.

6. Last page: read it first or wait till the end?

noo, wait till the end! I will confess that sometimes I’ll flip ahead if I’m at a really slow point, or I know I don’t have time for another chapter but can’t quite bring myself to put the book down yet... but I’m trying to get better about it. I always regret it when I accidentally spoil the book for myself.

7. Acknowledgements: waste of ink and paper or interesting aside?

There should ABSOLUTELY be acknowledgements. The ones that involve stories or interesting background info are cool, but even the ones that are just lists of names 110% should be there - they’re for those people, not the reader, and after all the sweat and tears that go into putting a book together they deserve that place of honor.

8. Which book character would you switch places with?

When I was a kid this question would always trip me up - it would be so cool to be a character in the books I read and have awesome adventures... but at the same time, being in a book-world would mean giving up all the other book-worlds... unless you had access to an interdimensional library and spare time for reading while you weren’t busy saving the world...

If I’m being honest, though, I’d probably end up being Ged from A Wizard of Earthsea. I can relate pretty intensely to a lot of his journey.

9. Do you have a book that reminds you of something specific in your life (a person, a place, a time)?

Quite a few books remind me of a certain school librarian who was always ready with a recommendation and frequently asked the student library aides what books the library should add to their shelves. She was really cool.

10. Name a book you acquired in some interesting way.

My copy of the first Harry Potter book was given to me (right after it was first published in the US) by a good friend whose last name happened to be Potter.. along with a message that said “Wow, Harry Potter has such a cool name! I wish I had a cool name like that! OH WAIT...!”

I also seem to inherit a lot of manga from friends who want to free up shelf space.

11. Have you ever given away a book for a special reason to a special person?

I give books as presents a lot, so nothing specific really stands out. For some reason I keep losing copies of The Silmarillion to people I lend it to who never return it...

Come to think of it, I gave a copy of Howl’s Moving Castle to one of my students in Japan before I left - since she’d been doing extra English language work just for fun, and she was a fan of the Ghibli movie.

12. Which book has been with you to the most places?

I don’t know, offhand. This might be more a Question #9 story, but I remember reading Shadowmarch during downtime between classes in the teachers’ room of my schools in Japan. The other teachers kept exclaiming over how HUGE the book was (~800 pages in mass-market paperback). In Japan novels are pocket-sized - words in Japanese take up less space to print than English, they use thinner paper, and they separate books into Part 1/Part 2 etc if they’re too long.

13. Any “required reading” you hated in high school that wasn’t so bad ten years later?

The Hobbit, actually. I’d read it probably in middle school/jr high or so and thought it was kind of silly and childish. Then when it was assigned representing the fantasy genre in high school lit class, I was annoyed enough that I didn’t bother rereading it - just skimmed it well enough to answer test questions. Once I’d read The Lord of the Rings and gotten into the Tolkien mythos I could appreciate The Hobbit a lot more.

14. What is the strangest item you’ve ever found in a book?

In used books and library books I’ve found bookmarks, old receipts, the usual stuff... I think I found a pressed flower once or twice. A friend of mine used to hide money in her books (to be found as a surprise for herself later, after she’d forgotten about it), so once in a while I’d borrow one and find a random $10 bill or so in it. (I left them there, of course!)

15. Used or brand new?

Either one. New is good for supporting authors, but my town has a really good used book store that I’ll check for older series.

And Book Off (huge Japanese used book chain) is a thing of beauty. So much manga is published so quickly over there that people don’t tend to hang onto their tankobon copies once they’ve finished reading them (they don’t have the space to keep them all), so you can get a ton of books for really cheap. I spent way more shipping them home than I did buying the actual books.

16. Stephen King: Literary genius or opiate of the masses?

I haven’t read much Stephen King, apart from The Gunslinger (which I wasn’t really a fan of at the time) and his On Writing.  I admire his work ethic, at any rate.

17. Have you ever seen a movie you liked better than the book?

I think there have been a few, but I can’t think of them now. I grew up with the Neverending Story movie, so I was a little thrown off when the second half of the book continued in such a different direction, but I liked them both. The book doesn’t have quite the same place in my heart that the movie does, though. And I enjoyed the Shannara Chronicles TV show a lot more than the first book in the series (see #3 above), but I haven’t read the specific books the show was based on, so I can’t really say there. (Though “Elessedil” still makes me cringe every time I hear it...)

18. Conversely, which book should NEVER have been introduced to celluloid?

oh god. The Scifi Channel Earthsea miniseries had me laughing-slash-crying within the first five minutes, it was such a garbage fire and breathtaking masterpiece of missing the point. I remember having a similar reaction to Disney’s version of The Black Cauldron, though that was a much longer time ago, and that was less bewildered rage and more a disappointed “what did you do to my Prydain?? And what is this talking schnauzer?”

19. Have you ever read a book that’s made you hungry, cookbooks being excluded from this question?

Not that I can recall. For some reason reading about Tom Bombadil’s always makes me want bread and honey, though.

20. Who is the person whose book advice you’ll always take?

Hah, I don’t know. The friend who gave me the Harry Potter book was a huge influence on what I read as a kid, but I lost touch with her a long time ago, so I don’t know what she’s reading these days.

Tagging: @possiblyelven, @taskitron, @whitherling, @arionwind, @december-soulstice, @byjillianmaria, @eggletine if you guys want to do it!

[mygangtome]

Where They've Been, Where They Are Now - Jonas Armstrong

He was the man in the hood with the bow, with a cheeky grin and stirring speeches.  Now it’s time to find out what Jonas Armstrong has been doing since Robin Hood ended. 

This is a long post! 

Book of Blood (2009) – Simon McNeal

Summary: A paranormal expert discovers a house that is at the intersection of so-called “highways” transporting souls in the afterlife.

Character Bio: Simon declares he is a clairvoyant, though the reluctantly agrees to work with Mary and her partner Reg to investigate the paranormal events leading to the violent death of teen girl.  He winds up further tangled in the events and the supernatural powers at work than he could have ever thought.

Fan comments: This was one of the first projects that came out after RHBBC ended, and I had been really eager to see it. However, despite being touted as a physiological thriller, it was a more violent, bloody and intense than I expected.  I haven’t rewatched it since, but it was certainly a change of pace to seen Jonas in this role after Robin Hood.  

The Street (2009) – Nick Calshaw

Nick Calshaw returns from fighting in Afghanistan, wounded and disfigured due to the blast of a suicide bomb.  He struggled to adjust to normal life again, as his family and girlfriend try to help and balance their own horror at what happened.

Character Bio: Nick is an ordinary guy who has to deal with the stress and trauma of coming back to war, with the added pain of having been wounded and disfigured.  He lashes out, is depressed, and tries and fails to be ordinary but can’t figure out how to get past his disfigurement and reactions of those around him.  

Fan comments: This was difficult watch, as it is obviously a very loaded and emotional topic. Jonas does an extraordinary job handling the roller coaster of emotions that Nick struggles with.  The script is sometimes a bit obvious and a little on the nose, but the characters hold it together.  And this is the second time post RH that he had to deal with and act with some intense prosthetics and make up, and he does it well.  

Agatha Christie’s Marple: The Secret of Chimneys (2010) – Cade

A lavish weekend party sees Miss Marple accompany Lady Virginia Revel to her family home of Chimneys - a house which was once prized for its diplomatic gatherings until a rare diamond was stolen from the premises over twenty years ago. The tenacious career politician, George Lomax, has persuaded Virginia’s father, Lord Caterham, to host an evening for an important Austrian Count, Ludwig Von Stainach. Virginia, the daughter of Miss Marple’s late cousin, must decide by the end of the weekend whether to accept a marriage proposal from George Lomax or to follow her heart and the courtship of another more adventurous suitor, Anthony Cade. Dismayed by the odd array of guests, including socialist spinster Miss Blenkinsopp, Caterham’s formidable eldest daughter Bundle and the quietly inscrutable maidservant Treadwell, Lomax castigates his affable assistant Bill Eversleigh, who also has a soft spot for Virginia. It becomes apparent that Count Ludwig has taken a personal interest in Chimneys …

Character Bio: Suitor of Virginia. 

Fan comments: I have not seen this, and the information about it is rather sparse, hence the lack of character bio. The only information I could find was that Cade was the adventurous sort (and that his character was rather pared down compared to the character in the book.)

The Field of Blood (2011) – Terry Hewitt (2 episodes)  

Set in Glasgow in 1982, Paddy Meehan is a young girl in a world of men; a feisty copy boy in the sexist, hard-boozing, cutthroat world of journalism. Paddy dreams of being an investigative reporter, and she grabs the opportunity when a young boy, Brian Wilcox, is kidnapped and found murdered. Paddy sees connections to a year-old crime that nobody else sees and she is determined to make it her story. But when Paddy crosses the line, she becomes outcast from her devoutly Catholic family and puts the lives of her colleagues, as well as her own, at risk. The closer she gets to the murderer, the closer she gets to murder; and the price of achieving her dream will prove greater than she can ever imagine.

Character bio: Terry is bright, resourceful and together. What he needs is the story that will make his name. After an initial misstep he becomes one of the few people in the newsroom who believes in Paddy. Terry is prepared to back Paddy’s instincts as they break the rules to prove that the police are wrong about a recent child murder. (bio from BBC One).

Fan comments: This was one I started watching, but then lost the ability to do so, and never tracked it down again, so I cannot offer much insight.  

The Body Farm (2011) – Nick Warner (1 episode)

A British police procedural, which follows the team from a forensic pathology facility that conducts scientific research to help solve crimes.

Character Bio: Nick Warner is the son of the episode’s victim.

Fan comments: Again, another one that I never have seen, so no comments available.

Rage of the Yeti (2011) – Bill

A quest for riches becomes a fight for survival after treasure hunters find snow monsters on a mountain in the Arctic.

Character Bio: Bill is part of the rescue team that goes in to help the treasure hunters deal with the yeti, and he may also be a turn coat.

Fan comments: Also have not seen this one, but have heard it is basically a terrible B movie that is nearly unwatchable. Unless you want to make fun of bad movies, then apparently, it is good for that.

Prisoner’s Wives (2012) – Steve (6 episodes)

Gemma’s perfect life comes crashing down when her husband is arrested for murder. As Gemma learns to navigate the prison system, she starts to think the unthinkable of her husband.

Character bio: Steve is serving time after being arrested for murder. He declares his complete innocence to his wife, Gemma, but he is not being entirely truthful.

Fan comments: Another one that I started to watch but never finished, so I don’t have many impressions to pass along. (There is a distinct connection between my ability / time to find places to watch these BBC productions and my senior year in college and then graduation.)

Hit and Miss (2012) – Ben (6 episodes)

Follows the life of transgender contract killer Mia, who travels to West Yorkshire to seek out her ex girlfriend.

Character bio: Ben is a romantic interest of Mia, who struggles to figure out his feelings and their relationship when she comes out to him.

Fan comment: Have not seen this one, but the premise sounds very intriguing, but possibly too violent.  

Twenty8k – (2012) – Clint O’Connor

A teenage boy is gunned down outside a nightclub and a young girl dies in a hit and run in two seemingly unrelated deaths. Deeva Jani, returns home to clear her brother Vipon of the shooting and soon discovers a much deeper conspiracy.

Character bio: Clint is a former gangster who became a youth counselor, who helps Deeva work to prove her brother’s innocence.

Fan comments: I have not seen, but from reviews it says the cast is strong, but the writing is not, and is rather predictable.

Walking With The Enemy – (2013) – Elek Cohen

A young man, separated from his family in WWII, disguises himself as a Nazi SS Officer and uncovers more than just his family whereabouts.

Character bio: Elek starts out as a typical college guy, flirting with girls and getting into fights.  However, as Nazi occupation sweeps across Europe, he and his family and friends find that lives are forever changed along with the millions of other Jewish people who faced genocide.  In efforts to save his family and friends, he gets his hands on an SS uniform, and begins a crusade to help as much as he can, as the uniform and confidence does a lot to keep his identity hidden.

Fan comments: I saw this one!  I managed to catch it in theaters at the tail end of its run, and now cannot find it on DVD for love or money.  Which is a pity because I did enjoy it, though there are times you can tell that the production was a bit low.  There are a lot of moments that just made me think “Oh, this is a WWII RH AU!” - there is a connection between Robin Hood and Elek’s work to save people.  Not robbing the rich to feed the poor, but lying to Nazis to save people.  Also, there is a scene where he and some of the other men in his resistance circle were unloading sacks of flour, and his mannerisms and cadence just screamed Robin. If anyone has any info on finding this to stream or on DVD, let me know!

The Whale (2013) – Owen Chase

A whaling ship called called the Essex becomes shipwrecked and those on board struggle for survival.

Character Bio: First mate on the Essex.

Fan comments: Have not seen this one, either, but it has Jonas and John Boyega in it, so I might have to track it down.

Edge of Tomorrow (2014) – Skinner

A soldier fighting aliens gets to relive the same day over and over again, the day restarting every time he dies.

Character bio: Skinner is a member of J-Squad, and is confrontational with the main character Cage (played by Tom Cruise).  However, his fighting ability means he plays an integral part of the main battle in this action movie.

Fan comments: One that I missed again, partly due to the fact that I would have had to sit through a movie with Tom Cruise, and I am not the biggest fan.  By all accounts, the movie is a pretty standard summer type action film.

The Dove Keepers (2015) – Yoav

Based in Alice Hoffman’s historical novel about the Siege of Masada, the miniseries focuses on four extraordinary women whose lives intersect in a fight for survival at the siege of Masada.

Character Bio: Yoav is a scholarly young man who develops a romantic relationship with one of the female leads of the story.  He is also tasked with a grim duty at the end of the siege of Masada.

Fan comments: By all accounts, this adaptation of the book was terrible.  I never heard much about this and am reluctant to watch it, because of the terrible reviews and tragic story line.

Line of Duty (2016) – Joe Nash (3 episodes)

DS Steve Arnott is transferred to the police anti-corruption unit after the death of a man in a mistaken shooting during a counter-terrorist operation.

Character bio: Joe is a former resident of a boy’s home, where he suffered sexual abuse.  He works with the police force to bring the perpetrators to justice.

Fan comment: Jonas lands a spot in three episodes in this series, and it obviously sounds like an intense storyline.  Have not seen.

Dark Angel (2016) – Joe Nattrass

A two-part drama about the Victorian serial killer Mary Ann Cotton.

Character bio: Joe one of Mary Ann Cotton’s lovers, who had the misfortune of dating a serial killer.

Fan comments: Hey, Jonas and Joanne Froggatt meet again!  And by all accounts, it didn’t end much better than it did for Robin and Kate… I might track this one down, because of the two for one RH cast reunion, and because I’d never heard of Mary Ann Cotton, and would be intrigued to supplement my own research on her with this mini series.  

Ripper Street (2016) – Nathaniel (12 episodes)

The streets of Whitechapel are the haunt of Detective Inspector Edmund Reid and his team of officers, who aim to maintain law and order in a place once terrorized by Jack the Ripper.

Character bio: Assistant to Abel Croker, and Augustus Dove’s long-lost brother. Known as the ‘Whitechapel Golem’.

Fan comments: Jonas does not play a good guy, though it must be a slow reveal as he is credited in 12 episodes of seasons 4 and 5.

Now, I have a long list of shows and movies I should maybe catch up, and I can’t wait to see what else Jonas goes onto do with his career!

[mirrorstone]

I’ve been reading a lot of new books lately, because I have a fairly long bus commute, but I feel like they’re all just things I’m reading to pass the time. They don’t stick in my head after I’m done, and I’m not driven to pursue the rest of the series. It’s not that they’re bad, because I’ve mostly gotten good at just dropping a book when I’m not enjoying it. They’re entertaining enough, even fun, I like the characters, but I’m not engaged. I’m not finding any new favorite series.

Maybe I’m sample-biasing myself because most of the books I’m reading are free, either set that way by the author or through prime reading which I think the author still has to approve, which means the author had a reason for making them that way. And quite a number of the books I’m reading are firsts in the series with very obvious sequel hooks, so it’s pretty clear that the author was hoping I’d get a bite and come back to pay for more. But most of it leaves me feeling “That was fun for a free read, but I’m glad I didn’t spend any money on it.” I’ve been only leaving reviews for the ones I liked, because it feels like a dick move to complain about something I got for free, especially when they’re a self-published author. I’ve also been trying to read more independent authors lately, since I think a lot more people lately are using the easier accessibility of e-publishing to present innovative and not traditionally “publishable” works, so you get more of the things I like, such as queer content, writing styles that obviously come from a fan background, and general deviation from the beaten path of “what sells.” But no publishing houses doing gatekeeping also means plenty of meh stuff is out there.

My problem is I read pretty fast, so I can find a series I like but once I inevitably run out of books in it, I’m flapping in the wind, and kind of reluctant to spend money sampling the works of a new author I only might like. Reviews can be helpful but 1. There may be people like me avoiding leaving negative reviews and 2. Literary taste is so subjective. I once bought a book that I was going back and forth on because of the reviews and the one that sold me was a negative review citing “spends too much describing the various breads she makes out of seaweed” and I immediately went “yep, that’s my jam.” (IMO, not enough time spent describing making the seaweed bread either.)

A lot of the books I’ve been reading are romance novels because it’s easy to find free ones, and I’m starting to come to the reluctant conclusion that maybe I just don’t like romance novels? Which is stupid, because I like romance! I’m ride or die for my favorite ships, and I ship like it’s an olympic sport. (I ship like a fucking homestuck which should tell you enough.) I love a 20k word slow burn fanfic. I like a good romantic subplot in my other genres. And honestly, I want to root for romance novels because they’re a female read and written dominated genre that gets shit on a lot for being unapologetic wish fulfillment for women. I think people should proudly and unapologetically read whatever they want, without having to justify their tastes for anyone. I don’t look down on anyone who reads and enjoys or romance novels, just because apparently the wishes they’re fulfilling are apparently none of mine.

But at the same time, I have never read a romance novel where I thought “wow that was a really well written book.” Good book, fun dialogue, sure, but never anything I’d put on my “great books to read again and again” shelf. (Well, metaphorically. The shelf is real but more of the romance novels I’ve been reading are ebooks so I can’t actually put them on a shelf.) And, I mean, I don’t think that bar is super high. The aforementioned shelf contains the collected works of Terry Pratchett, Shakespeare, and every physical copy of Ursula Vernon’s work that I own, sure, but it also contains: Every single book in not one but two series I will not publicly admit to reading, both books in The Rehumanization of Jade Darcy, an unexpectedly delightful sci-fi series as old as I am, which I really need to yell about one of these days, and almost the complete works of Mercedes Lackey which I love deeply but am not trying to tout as great literature so much as deeply satisfying literature that happens to be a lot of my wish fulfillment. (My wish fulfillment is apparently lots of details about falconry and making bread out of seaweed.) I love books, I have read a ton of books, and I care about entertainment value more than literary pedigree, but this particular genre has continued not to impress me, when I want to be impressed.

[fragments-of-a-hologram-dystopia]

2016 in books: a recap

Read it in Italian here

Since it’s January I have decided to do a recap of what I’ve read in 2016. Then I’ll tell you about five of the most interesting reads of the year (always hard to pick). This year I’ve managed to read 37 books (including nonfiction), 12 of which were not sci-fi. I was hoping to reach 40, but considering how I was still doing my University Master during the first half of the year, I’m still more than satisfied. In 2015 I had managed to read 17 books, so I can happily say I’ve made progresses. I do not consider this a challenge against anyone except myself, I’m glad keeping up with the saturday reviews has “forced” me to read more because I’ve read some amazing stuff. And no, not all of it is sci-fi…

In no particular order, here’s some interesting books I’ve read in 2016:

The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler Genre: detective story, hard-boiled My University Master also had a writing class, and we were supposed to transform a soap opera dialogue into a hard boiled movie dialogue, so I watched a couple of noir movies. I then realized I had never read anything by Chandler before, ever if it was in my to-read list since I knew it inspired the origins of cyberpunk. So I decided it was the right time to do it. Of all the Chandler novels I’ve read, this is the one that struck me most. Wonderful plot, wonderful characters, wonderful dialogues… such an intriguing novel! This time Philip Marlowe meets a drunk named Terry Lennox, and the two become friends soon enough. One day Terry comes and asks for his help. Marlowe helps him flee the country, only to find out that Lennox’s beautiful wife has been found dead…

The Traitor Baru Cormorant, Seth Dickinson Genre: fantasy I had not read fantasy for a while, and yet, as soon as I read SF Reviews’ piece on the Traitor I knew I had to get it. I rarely buy books before reading them (or at least being very sure I’m going to like them), and yet I got The Traitor immediately, keeping it for my summer holidays. I loved every page of it, it was exactly my kind of fantasy book: less dragons/magic/elves and more political bickering and backstabbing. This is what GoT is trying to do, only done much, much better. When the Empire of Masks conquers the island on which she’s born through money and commerce, Baru Cormorant is too little to understand the consequences. But when one of her fathers is killed by the Masquerade (they prefer “traditional” families), Baru leaves her mother and her other father and joins the Empire’s schools, acting with a burning desire to change things from the inside. She aces her exams and is sent to become Imperial Accountant to the north, to Aurdwynn, where she has to prove her value to the Empire… I’m not kidding when I say that this is a book I would love to have written myself, so I’d love to translate it into italian.

The Day of the Triffids, John Wyndham (full review here) Genre: sci-fi, apocalyptic I don’t ever remember why I decided to try Wyndham as an author, but I boy am I glad I did it! The Day of the Triffids tells us of a world in which humans have started exploiting some weird plants - plants that walk, and have a stinger that can kill a person - for their oil. They call them triffids. The main character is a triffid expert, and he is forced to face what one of his colleagues told him once: the only advantage humans have over triffids is their eyesight. So of course something weird happens, a strange green meteor shower that he cannot see, having his eyes covered in bandages. When he wakes up the next day he finds out the meteor shower has made everyone blind… A chilling apocalypse, worse than any zombie apocalypse you could imagine - and yet copied in many zombie-based media. A must read if you like survival and apocalyptic adventures.

Maul, Tricia Sullivan (full review here) Genre: sci-fi, dystopia This year I attended Stranimondi (a sci-fi books themed-con) and I had the luck of attending a couple of panels in which Tricia Sullivan spoke. Her personal life and hardships made me curious, and I’m always on board for some unapologetically feminist sci-fi, so I bought her novel Maul in the italian edition published by Zona 42. I wanted to read something new, and I definitely found it. Divided in two main narratives, it’s described as a story of sex, shopping and deadly viruses, and it’s exactly what it says on the tin. Follow the adventures of a teenager in a typical afternoon of shopping and gunfighting, and of an autistic man injected with a virus and kept as a lab rat… you’ll have fun with this. Sullivan’s style is mature and amazing, and her characters are very well built (and so are her action scenes).

Ancillary Justice, Ann Leckie (full review here) Genre:sci-fi, space Months ago I asked my followers if they had read anything interesting recently, and Ancillary Justice was suggested by more than one. I don’t follow literary prizes so blindly, but reading how many prizes AJ had gained definitely made me interested. I considered reading the italian translation but reliable sources told me it was best to avoid it (I got the free sample on Amazon and I can confirm that). So i got the english ebook and gave it a try. My favorite sci-fi doesn’t usually involve spaceships and planets, and yet I enjoyed AJ very much. A story in which, due to linguistic reasons, everyone is referred to with female pronouns, a story in which the main character is an AI who used to control a ship and many “ancillaries” (bodies) who is now limited to one single ancillary body, heading up for revenge in a galaxy controlled by the tea-drinking, gloves-wearing, dark skinned Radchaai. A must read.

What were the most interesting books you read in 2016?

[biofunmy]

CRISPR Mice From China Could Help Save This Toddler From A Rare Genetic Form Of Epilepsy

When Amber Freed first told doctors her baby boy wasn’t able to move his hands, they said that wasn’t possible.

Freed had given birth to twins in March 2017. While her baby girl, Riley, squirmed and babbled and crawled through the first year of her life, her fraternal twin, Maxwell, was different. He didn’t crawl or babble like Riley did. “I would fill out their baby books each month, and Riley had met all of these milestones. Maxwell didn’t reach one,” she said. Most alarmingly, however, Freed noticed that he never moved his hands.

She knew the news was going to be bad when they sent her to the “sad room” at the hospital, a featureless conference space filled with grim-faced doctors, to hear the diagnosis.

“You take your baby to the doctor and you say, ‘He can’t move his hands.’ And they look at you and they say, ‘Of course he can,’” said Freed.

“Then they look for themselves, and you can see from the look on their faces that they have never seen anything like this.”

On June 14, 2018, at the Children’s Hospital Colorado in Denver, Maxwell was diagnosed with a genetic disease called SLC6A1. The diagnosis explained why the infant hadn’t moved his hands or learned how to speak for the first year of his life, while Riley was thriving. But it didn’t explain much else: All the doctors who diagnosed Maxwell knew about the genetic disease came from a single five-page study published in 2014, the year of its discovery. It was too rare to even have a name, she was told, so the doctors just called it by the name of the affected gene: SLC6A1.

Now her 2½-year-old son is at the center of a multimillion-dollar race against time, one that’s come to include genetics researchers whom Freed personally recruited, paid for by $1 million that Freed and her husband, Mark, have raised themselves. At the center of their research will be specially crafted mutant mice that Freed paid scientists in China to genetically alter to have the same disease as Maxwell. The four mice are scheduled to arrive stateside next week, but Freed said she’s prepared to smuggle them into the US disguised as pets if there are any problems.

In total, Amber and Mark will need to raise as much as $7 million to test a genetic treatment for their child. And unless they can find — and fund — a cure, SLC6A1 will condemn Maxwell to severe epileptic seizures, most likely starting before he turns 3. The seizures may trigger developmental disabilities for a lifetime, often accompanied by aggressive behavior, hand flapping, and difficulty speaking.

And the Freeds will have to do it largely alone — there are only an estimated 100 other people diagnosed with SLC6A1 in the world. “This is the rarest of the rare diseases,” pediatric geneticist Austin Larson of the Children’s Hospital Colorado told BuzzFeed News.

SLC6A1 is just one of thousands of untreatable rare diseases, and the perilous path it has set up for Freed, half science quarterback and half research fundraiser, is one that few parents can follow. “My dream is to create a playbook of how I did this for those that come after me,” said Freed. “I never want there to be another family that has suffered like this.”

“You can think of SLC6A1 as a vacuum cleaner in the brain,” genetic counselor Katherine Helbig of the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told BuzzFeed News. Helbig will speak at the first conference on the gene at the American Epilepsy Society meeting in Baltimore on Dec. 5, an effort organized by Freed.

The protein made by the gene acts as a stop sign to message-carrying chemicals in the brain, halting them by vacuuming them up once they reach their destination brain cell, Helbig explained.

When one of the two copies of the SLC6A1 gene in every brain cell is damaged, like in Maxwell’s case, too little of its protein is available to perform its vacuuming duties, leading to miscommunication between cells, developmental disorders, autism-like symptoms, and, often, severe epileptic seizures.

Maxwell is about the age when epileptic seizures typically start in kids with the genetic disease, said Helbig, adding, “There probably are many more children out there who have it, but they just haven’t had the right test to find it.” At least 100 similar genetic defects cause similar kinds of epilepsy, afflicting about 1 in 2,000 kids, she said.

“I was the one who presented this diagnosis to Amber,” said Larson of the Children’s Hospital Colorado. There was no medicine or diet or any other treatment for SLC6A1. It wasn’t an easy conversation. “Most of the time when we present a diagnosis for a genetic condition, there is not a specific treatment available.”

“At that moment, it was just vividly clear that the only option was for me to create our own miracle,” said Freed. “Nobody else was going to help.”

Half the battle with a rare genetic disease is getting researchers interested, said Helbig.

“At that moment, it was just vividly clear that the only option was for me to create our own miracle. Nobody else was going to help.”

So that is what Freed set out to do. She quit her job as a financial analyst and started making phone calls to scientists, calling 300 labs in the first three months. For those who didn’t respond, she sent them snacks via Uber Eats.

Her search, and a rapid-fire education on genetic diseases, led her to conclude the best hope for helping Maxwell was an experimental technique called gene therapy.

All the roads zeroed in on one scientist: Steven Gray of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. In 2018, a team headed by Gray reported the first human experiments of gene transfer by spinal injection, conducted in 5 to 10 children with mutations in a gene called GAN that causes swelling in brain cells.

The GAN gene transfer in that experiment, first tested in mice, attached a corrected version of the damaged gene to a harmless virus. Viruses reproduce by infecting cells and hijacking their DNA machinery to reproduce their own genes, making more viruses. The gene therapy virus in turn leaves behind a corrected gene in the DNA of cells they infect. Injected into the spinal cord, Gray’s virus can travel straight to the brain, leaving behind the corrected gene after the virus has run its course.

“I gave him my 30-second equity analyst pitch. I told him why Maxwell was a good patient, that we would raise $4 million to $7 million, and quarterback every step of the research,” she said. “And it worked. He agreed to make it a priority — if we could raise the money.”

Amber Freed

The SLC6A1 researchers with the Freeds at a science meeting. From left: Terry Jo Bichell, Frances Shaffo, Amber Freed, Katty Kang, and Mark Freed.

Less than a month after meeting Gray, Freed contacted a lab at Tongji University in Shanghai that was also researching SLC6A1. The lab agreed to develop a mouse with Maxwell’s specific mutation for less than $50,000, using a gene modification technology called CRISPR that has revolutionized genetic engineering in the lab. “CRISPR mice are much more expensive in the US, and this lab had experience with the gene,” said Freed.

By July of this year, an experiment with a gene therapy virus that corrects SLC6A1 was tested on normal lab mice, which showed no sign of a toxic response, an encouraging sign. And by September, a line of CRISPR mice with Maxwell’s exact genetic mutation had been created at Tongji University.

“It is the literal mouse version of him,” said Freed. “Testing a therapy in this mouse is as close as science can get to testing in my son directly.”

To pay for all this, Maxwell’s family started fundraising last November and organized the first medical symposium on SLC6A1 in New Orleans that same month. They opened a GoFundMe account, which has raised $600,000, and held 35 fundraisers, which raised an additional $400,000 by October. In one charity competition, Larson from the Colorado Children’s Hospital, who diagnosed Maxwell, personally helped her raise $75,000.

“It is the literal mouse version of him. Testing a therapy in this mouse is as close as science can get to testing in my son directly.”

That money is helping to pay for the next step — getting the CRISPR mice to Gray’s lab to test the SLC6A1-correcting virus on them. But it’s not as simple as putting the mice in a box and shipping them by mail. The mice will be transferred through a lab at Vanderbilt University headed by Katty Kang, an expert on the neurotransmitter disrupted by Maxwell’s mutation.

“Amber is helping us to advance science, and everyone is making this a priority because of the young lives at stake — not just Maxwell, but other children this could help,” Kang told BuzzFeed News.

Once the four mice arrive, they will spend several weeks in quarantine, be tested to make sure they have Maxwell’s specific “point” mutation in the SLC6A1 gene, and breed with normal lab mice to produce generations of mixed-inheritance mice to serve as controls in future experiments. The mutant mice will be closely monitored before they head to UT Southwestern to make sure that they demonstrate the same problems and genetics as human patients with SLC6A1 and can therefore be used in any future clinical trials of gene therapy.

Right now at UT Southwestern, results from a safety test of the gene therapy virus — conducted by Gray’s lab on young, normal lab mice — is awaiting publication. If that works out, once the Chinese mice are sent over, they will also receive the gene-correcting virus. His team will see if their symptoms improve and to what extent their brain cells accept the corrected gene.

Courtesy Amber Freed

Maxwell’s brain cells seen through a microscope (left), and a sample of his cells in a petri dish.

And then, Freed just needs another $5.5 million. Half a million dollars will go to test the virus in a second SLC6A1 animal model, likely a rat, as another safety step. Two million dollars will go toward creating more of the gene-correcting virus for a human safety study if that proves to be safe. And finally, if all that works out, $3 million will be needed to conduct the experiment on Maxwell and other children next year, following the path of the GAN clinical trial led by Gray.

“It’s a really horrible realization that the only thing standing in the way of a cure for your 2-year-old is money,” said Freed.

Freed acknowledges that she has only been able to pursue a cure for Maxwell because her family has the resources to do so — which she would never have had growing up in small towns in Texas, Montana, and Colorado in a poor family affected by alcoholism. “I grew up visiting my parents in rehab and knew what to say to put a family member on a 72-hour psychiatric hold by age 12,” she said. She dug herself out to build a career in finance, and hoped her kids would never have to experience the struggles she did growing up.

Even so, the fight hasn’t been easy on them — or on Maxwell’s sister, Riley.

Freed worries her daughter is growing up in doctors’ waiting rooms, waiting on treatments for her brother to end. Maxwell’s disease has progressed, causing him to constantly clench his fingers, and sometimes pull his sister’s hair. His 3-year-old sister will gently remind him, “Soft hands, Maxie.”

Families like the Freeds are at the forefront of efforts to turn diagnoses of rare genetic ailments, which often used to be the stopping point for medicine, into treatments. A similar case saw the family of a 3-year-old girl, Mila Makovec, raise $3 million for gene therapy to cure her Batten disease, a deadly genetic brain disease that affects 2 to 4 of every 100,000 children born in the US.

In a New England Journal of Medicine editorial on that case published in October, FDA officials questioned how high the agency should set the safety bar for such treatments, meant for severe diseases affecting so few people. In these cases, parents are often collaborators in developing treatments, and might not want to stop efforts that come with high risks. “Even in rapidly progressing, fatal illnesses, precipitating severe complications or death is not acceptable, so what is the minimum assurance of safety that is needed?” wrote senior FDA officials Janet Woodcock and Peter Marks.

“This is way beyond what anyone expects of families.”

Finally, Woodcock and Marks wrote, “finding sustainable funding for such interventions may prove challenging, because the cost of production can be quite substantial, particularly for gene therapies.”

In our era of financial inequality, the specter of wealthy parents buying custom genetic treatments for their children’s ailments — while other parents desperately resort to GoFundMe accounts, or else do nothing — looms as a possibility.

“This is way beyond what anyone expects of families,” said Larson. The pathway has been opened up by the brave new world of improved genetic diagnoses, and the coming of age of rapid genetic engineering tools like CRISPR.

But only 20 years ago, an experimental gene therapy that relied on a “harmless” virus killed an 18-year-old volunteer, Jesse Gelsinger, in a research misconduct case that brought gene therapy to a standstill. Now more than 2,500 gene therapy clinical trials have been conducted, and more than 370 are underway. The human genome was not sequenced until 2000; today, mapping an entire human gene map costs around $700. In this new era, customized treatments for rare genetic diseases like Maxwell’s are suddenly possible.

“What I hope is that we are paving the way for other parents to help their children,” said Freed.

Families of children with rare genetic diseases are also working together to make treatments like the one Freed is spearheading possible, said Larson.

“They support each other and work together,” he said. The best example might be the families of children with cystic fibrosis, who — through the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and the discovery of the gene responsible for the disease in 1989 — have pushed for the discovery of new drug treatments. In October, the FDA approved a “breakthrough” pharmaceutical that could treat 90% of cases.

“It is easier working with FDA on this kind of approach rather than starting from scratch,” Gray told BuzzFeed News by email. After all, he said, “it’s easier to follow a path that you’ve already walked down.”

Similarly, Freed hopes the SLC6A1 Connect advocacy group she started can lead to similar treatments for other children with genetic epilepsies caused by the gene.

“I don’t think any parent should be expected to single-handedly cure his or her child’s rare disease,” said Helbig. “Amber is a very tenacious and persistent person, and she will fight tooth and nail for her kids. But a lot of people don’t have the resources — and they shouldn’t have to.”

Helbig says that “cautious optimism” is appropriate on the chances of research yielding a genetic therapy for children like Maxwell. “For SLC6A1, it’s really too early to say whether this is going to work.”

But if it works, it might lead many more parents to get genetic tests for children that will reveal undiagnosed problems, she said. Many doctors discourage extensive genetic tests, thinking they won’t find anything helpful. In the absence of known treatments, insurers are also reluctant to pay for such tests, discouraging all but the most fortunate and resourceful parents. Even for them, there are no guarantees.

“The other tough reality is the possibility this treatment won’t be completed in time to help Maxwell,” said Freed. “I love him with every ounce of my being, and I want him to know that I did everything humanly possible to change his outcome.” ●

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Auditors Quotes

Official Website: Auditors Quotes

• A good Dianetic auditor can take a broken-down, sorrow-drenched lady of thirty-eight and knock out her past periods of physical and mental pain and have on his hands somebody who appears to be twenty-five-and a bright, cheerful twenty-five at that. – L. Ron Hubbard

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Auditor', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_auditor').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_auditor img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • A good person is one who follows the Ten Commandments and the golden rule. There is plenty of precedent in history to guide us and we probably evolved to be sensitive to Bible-Golden Rule situations. But the dilemmas faced by a worker – a journalist, an architect, an auditor – or by a citizen (what position to take on stem cell research, whether to run for office, what is the proper balance between taxation and social nets) – are not questions that can be answered by traditional texts or precedents. – Howard Gardner • A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why. – Percy Bysshe Shelley • According to government auditors, the stimulus money is being held up because there aren’t enough government workers to oversee the spending. So follow me, in other words, government workers who aren’t there are needed to spend money we don’t have to create jobs that don’t exist. – Jay Leno • Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth. – William Rees-Mogg • I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance – Alfred de Vigny • I think my mother was like a small company which, because things are not ship-shape, keeps two sets of books, one for the auditors and then there’s the other one. – Michael Lindsay-Hogg • I was talking about no nukes, the farm crisis. People said that wasn’t stuff that a state auditor was supposed to be talking about. Maybe they were right. – Paul Wellstone • Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making average incomes for doing average jobs- bank vice presidents, insurance salesmen, auditors, secretaries of defense- and you’ll realie they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins in the Sears menswear department dress. Now look at the real successes, the people who make a lot more money than you- Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They all dress funny- and they all succeed. – Dave Barry • Mandatory auditor rotation is designed to address a potential conflict of interest between a public company and its auditor. Because an auditor is hired and paid by the public company it audits, the auditor’s desire to maintain a good relationship with its client could conflict with its duty to rigorously question the client’s financial statements. – Robert Pozen • Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors. – Thomas B. Macaulay • Most of us are visual learners. Some of us are auditor learners – we learn by hearing. Many of us are kinesthetic learners. We learn by doing, touching, feeling. I have found … that we need an educational model that is current, that meets the need of our students. America must understand that she needs Muslims. – Andre Carson • Obviously the more transparency we have as auditors, the more we can get, but the main goal is to understand important characteristics about a black box algorithm without necessarily having to understand every single granular detail of the algorithm. – Cathy O’Neil • Of all the ills of man which can be successfully processed by Scientology, arthritis ranks near the top. In skilled hands, this ailment, though misunderstood and dreaded in the past, already has begun to become history. Twenty-five hours of Scientology by an auditor who fairly understands how to process arthritis can be said to produce an invariable alleviation of the condition. Some cases, even severe ones, have responded in as little as two hours of processing, according to reports from auditors in the field. – L. Ron Hubbard • People attack Scientology, I never forget it, always even the score. People attack auditors, or staff, or organisations, or me. I never forget until the slate is clear. – L. Ron Hubbard • Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,–that they shall hear worse orators than themselves. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Suppose that throughout your childhood you were good with numbers. Other kids used to copy your homework. You figured store discounts faster than your parents. People came to you for help with such things. So you took accounting and eventually became a tax auditor for the IRS. What an embarrassing job, right? You feel you should be writing poetry or doing aviation mechanics or whatever. But then you realize that tax collecting can be a calling too. – James Hillman • The Auditor-General has been complaining year in and year out that the municipalities have not paid auditing fees. It is not because they are reluctant but they don’t have the money to pay the Auditor. So, you can’t say that you are throwing money at somebody who doesn’t have money. Lots of the things that the municipalities can’t do are because resources are not there. – Thabo Mbeki • The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work how who was to blame. – Terry Pratchett • Theta clearing is about as practical and simple as repairing a shoe lace. It is nothing to do with hypnotism, voodooism, charalatanism, monkeyism or theosophy. Done, the thetan can do anything a stage magician can do in the way of moving objects around. But this isn’t attained by holding one’s breath or thinking right thoughts or voting Republican or any other superstitous or mystic practice. So for the reason I brought up, rule out, auditor, any mumbo jumbo or mysticism, spiritualism, or religion. – L. Ron Hubbard • Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters. – Norman Ralph Augustine • When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths. – Philibert Joseph Roux • Wherefore in all great works are Clerks so much desired? Wherefore are Auditors so well-fed? What causeth Geometricians so highly to be enhaunsed? Why are Astronomers so greatly advanced? Because that by number such things they find, which else would farre excell mans minde. – Robert Recorde • Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves. – Aldous Huxley • You can get a much better fee – I tell you as auditors quite frankly – it’s much easier to get a great deal of money out of somebody who’s on a down spiral into becoming MEST than it is to get money out of somebody who is going on an up spiral toward becoming theta. – L. Ron Hubbard • You’re here so you’re a Scientologist. Now we’re going to make you into an expert auditor no matter what happens. We’d rather have you dead than incapable. – L. Ron Hubbard

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

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Auditors Quotes

Official Website: Auditors Quotes

• A good Dianetic auditor can take a broken-down, sorrow-drenched lady of thirty-eight and knock out her past periods of physical and mental pain and have on his hands somebody who appears to be twenty-five-and a bright, cheerful twenty-five at that. – L. Ron Hubbard

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Auditor', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_auditor').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_auditor img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • A good person is one who follows the Ten Commandments and the golden rule. There is plenty of precedent in history to guide us and we probably evolved to be sensitive to Bible-Golden Rule situations. But the dilemmas faced by a worker – a journalist, an architect, an auditor – or by a citizen (what position to take on stem cell research, whether to run for office, what is the proper balance between taxation and social nets) – are not questions that can be answered by traditional texts or precedents. – Howard Gardner • A poet is a nightingale, who sits in darkness and sings to cheer its own solitude with sweet sounds; his auditors are as men entranced by the melody of an unseen musician, who feel that they are moved and softened, yet know not whence or why. – Percy Bysshe Shelley • According to government auditors, the stimulus money is being held up because there aren’t enough government workers to oversee the spending. So follow me, in other words, government workers who aren’t there are needed to spend money we don’t have to create jobs that don’t exist. – Jay Leno • Governments lie; bankers lie; even auditors sometimes lie: gold tells the truth. – William Rees-Mogg • I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance – Alfred de Vigny • I think my mother was like a small company which, because things are not ship-shape, keeps two sets of books, one for the auditors and then there’s the other one. – Michael Lindsay-Hogg • I was talking about no nukes, the farm crisis. People said that wasn’t stuff that a state auditor was supposed to be talking about. Maybe they were right. – Paul Wellstone • Look, in particular, at the people who, like you, are making average incomes for doing average jobs- bank vice presidents, insurance salesmen, auditors, secretaries of defense- and you’ll realie they all dress the same way, essentially the way the mannequins in the Sears menswear department dress. Now look at the real successes, the people who make a lot more money than you- Elton John, Captain Kangaroo, anybody from Saudi Arabia, Big Bird, and so on. They all dress funny- and they all succeed. – Dave Barry • Mandatory auditor rotation is designed to address a potential conflict of interest between a public company and its auditor. Because an auditor is hired and paid by the public company it audits, the auditor’s desire to maintain a good relationship with its client could conflict with its duty to rigorously question the client’s financial statements. – Robert Pozen • Men of great conversational powers almost universally practise a sort of lively sophistry and exaggeration which deceives for the moment both themselves and their auditors. – Thomas B. Macaulay • Most of us are visual learners. Some of us are auditor learners – we learn by hearing. Many of us are kinesthetic learners. We learn by doing, touching, feeling. I have found … that we need an educational model that is current, that meets the need of our students. America must understand that she needs Muslims. – Andre Carson • Obviously the more transparency we have as auditors, the more we can get, but the main goal is to understand important characteristics about a black box algorithm without necessarily having to understand every single granular detail of the algorithm. – Cathy O’Neil • Of all the ills of man which can be successfully processed by Scientology, arthritis ranks near the top. In skilled hands, this ailment, though misunderstood and dreaded in the past, already has begun to become history. Twenty-five hours of Scientology by an auditor who fairly understands how to process arthritis can be said to produce an invariable alleviation of the condition. Some cases, even severe ones, have responded in as little as two hours of processing, according to reports from auditors in the field. – L. Ron Hubbard • People attack Scientology, I never forget it, always even the score. People attack auditors, or staff, or organisations, or me. I never forget until the slate is clear. – L. Ron Hubbard • Plato says that the punishment which the wise suffer who refuse to take part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse men; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the penalty of abstaining to speak,–that they shall hear worse orators than themselves. – Ralph Waldo Emerson • Suppose that throughout your childhood you were good with numbers. Other kids used to copy your homework. You figured store discounts faster than your parents. People came to you for help with such things. So you took accounting and eventually became a tax auditor for the IRS. What an embarrassing job, right? You feel you should be writing poetry or doing aviation mechanics or whatever. But then you realize that tax collecting can be a calling too. – James Hillman • The Auditor-General has been complaining year in and year out that the municipalities have not paid auditing fees. It is not because they are reluctant but they don’t have the money to pay the Auditor. So, you can’t say that you are throwing money at somebody who doesn’t have money. Lots of the things that the municipalities can’t do are because resources are not there. – Thabo Mbeki • The Auditors fluttered anxiously. And, as always happens in their species when something goes radically wrong and needs fixing instantly, they settled down to try to work how who was to blame. – Terry Pratchett • Theta clearing is about as practical and simple as repairing a shoe lace. It is nothing to do with hypnotism, voodooism, charalatanism, monkeyism or theosophy. Done, the thetan can do anything a stage magician can do in the way of moving objects around. But this isn’t attained by holding one’s breath or thinking right thoughts or voting Republican or any other superstitous or mystic practice. So for the reason I brought up, rule out, auditor, any mumbo jumbo or mysticism, spiritualism, or religion. – L. Ron Hubbard • Two-thirds of the Earth’s surface is covered with water. The other third is covered with auditors from headquarters. – Norman Ralph Augustine • When orators and auditors have the same prejudices, those prejudices run a great risk of being made to stand for incontestable truths. – Philibert Joseph Roux • Wherefore in all great works are Clerks so much desired? Wherefore are Auditors so well-fed? What causeth Geometricians so highly to be enhaunsed? Why are Astronomers so greatly advanced? Because that by number such things they find, which else would farre excell mans minde. – Robert Recorde • Writers write to influence their readers, their preachers, their auditors, but always, at bottom, to be more themselves. – Aldous Huxley • You can get a much better fee – I tell you as auditors quite frankly – it’s much easier to get a great deal of money out of somebody who’s on a down spiral into becoming MEST than it is to get money out of somebody who is going on an up spiral toward becoming theta. – L. Ron Hubbard • You’re here so you’re a Scientologist. Now we’re going to make you into an expert auditor no matter what happens. We’d rather have you dead than incapable. – L. Ron Hubbard

  jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );