#while i know he was not the only writer he chose to very publically document the process and promise a good adaptation

[invest-yourlife]

i feel legitimately angry about the pjo tv show. rick makes a huge show of how book accurate it’s going to be and then gives us that? he exploited the trust his fans had in him and our love for this series and we got something that only vaguely resembles the story we know. sure, it was never going to be a verbatim retelling, but you’re telling me the series we got is “book accurate”? i just don’t understand what happened between the huge campaign that happened to get disney to develop a good adaptation of the story to now.

[gingerale2017]

Morning Haze

Fluff without a plot Words: 2k Pairing: Cinder Linh x Kai Fandom: The Lunar Chronicles Setting: A couple years after Stars Above Warnings: None Ao3 Link <3

Cinder was having trouble keeping her eyes open. The more she read about the new regulations on Public Hover Transportation, the more her eyelids felt inclined to close and never open up again. But she read on and barely managed to understand the basic changes the company made. Each blink became tortuous enough that she threw her port across the bed and chose to read the article in her mind, eyes closed.

It wasn’t much better. She realized that it wasn’t her eyes protesting the absence of sleep, but it was her brain refusing to think.

‘This is important’ Torin had said when he sent a the article to her and Kai earlier, ‘PHT hasn’t changed their rules since it was made back when Kai’s grandfather ruled. They have made many changes unofficially since then but now they needed to make an official document on how they would behave toward those who don’t follow their protocal. Recent technology, I believe, is their stated cause. Along with security purposes.”

‘So it contains their responce to people who don’t use the Bio-Lock?” Kai asked, though he knew the answer.

“Yes, but it’s mostly focused on Lunars. They are worried about one of the unlocked Lunars manipulating and hijacking a public hover.”

Of course it’s about Lunars, Cinder remembered thinking. Ever since Garan’s invention came out into the world, every major company changed something about themselves. As Queen, she had to read each article since it regarded her subjects (and each one always gave her a headache).

She thought she’d seen the last of those papers when her reign ended but they keep popping up again. Most of them had already changed their rules when the Bio-Lock was first introduced, except for a few like PHT, but they were minor companies and she didn’t need to read them.

The articles she read before were all the same and easier to understand. But this article had her reading and re-reading each sentence so it made sense. It might be the lack of sleep and how this day would never end, but she just couldn’t read this paper.

“Are you awake, love?” Cinder's eyes flew open immediately.

Kai had been inspecting her face for who knows how long. His fingers lingered on her elbow and she wondered if she was tracing her arms. He had a habit of tracing her figure while she slept and sometimes she’d wake up to it (she usually enjoyed it).

He smiled, a question on his lips, and brought her port up to her face, “Might I ask why your port is on the ground?”

His hair was wet from his recent shower, smelling like soap. It was something about this state that she liked very much and--stars, how she loved it. He was so close to her face she could barely focus.

Cinder smiled back, “I didn’t mean to throw it that far.”

He leaned in closer very slowly. Everything is always slow with him. It both excited and irritated her. “Then why was it thrown?”

“I got tired of reading on a screen so I read in my mind.” Her voice got lower the closer he came, “But the writers of that paper are so repetitive and boring.”

Kai lowered the port on her lap and gradually dragged his fingers across her stomach to rest on her waist. His other hand moved up from her elbow, up her arm, shoulder, collarbone, cheek, then dropped parallel to his other hand. All the while he kept coming closer and closer until he was teasing her with his lips.

Cinder’s heart did circus acts in her chest. Her tiredness miraculously vanished and her eyes could only focus on his perfect, beautiful lips. Lips that have tasted hers more times than her cyborg brain could count. Lips that could sway crowds and speak sweet nothings in her ears. Lips that she has met with her own almost every day. Lips that she would rather drink sewage water than live without.

Kai crept on top of her, taking his time while pretending to not notice the way he was driving her crazy. Cinder wanted to grab and kiss him but she (miraculously) forced herself to be patient.

“What were you reading?” he murmured softly, heading towards her neck.

“You know. The PHT article.” She said, careful to not let her words tremble.

“What part?”

“Uh,” she summoned the article back, “Note 37.”

“Mmm,” Kai’s nose grazed her cheek, then jaw, “The part about Lunars?”

“All of them are about Lunars. But yes.”

She could feel his smile on her skin, “Would you mind reading it to me?”

She sighed, “Note 37: Lunar citizens who do not observe the laws on-,” he finally kissed her neck, “using new technology, specifically the” another kiss, “Bioelectricity Lock-” kiss, “will be asked” kiss, “to leave the public hover-” kiss, “and to not” kiss, “access public transportation-” kiss going upwards, “until they install-” kiss on her jaw, “the lock and show-” kiss on her cheek, “proven records” kiss on the corner of her lips, “of the necessary procedure.”

“Force will be used if someone refuses to leave the public hover, then the hover will trigger an alarm that will notify the nearest Police Station,” he added just as he reached her lips. Still smiling, he tried to pull away but Cinder grabbed his shirt and kissed him.

She kissed him hurriedly, unlike his careful, cautious touches. She was impatient and hasty, digging her fingers in his hair.

They kissed until Kai pulled away with a large grin on his face. Then, he rolled off of her but still held her waist, and dug his face in her neck. He didn’t do anything, just rested there while they caught their breath.

He pulled Cinder closer until she was facing him and pecked her cheek and went up to her lips then her temple. Just like magic, her drowsiness returned and she huddled closer, feeling safe and relaxed in his arms. Not too long after, she fell into a much needed sleep.

~

Kai watched his wife’s body rise and fall. Cinder slept peacefully and deeply. She usually woke up before him (probably due to her internal alarm) and never slept enough.

Recently, Kai had been making sure she had. He would drag himself to bed earlier than usual and drag Cinder along with him.

Proven just last night, this method works.

In the mornings, he would do anything possible to keep her from waking up. If she woke up, he would convince her to not get out of bed yet via whispers in her ear. That either relaxed her or tensed her. It was a 50/50 shot.

This morning, there was no need for whispers or hugs. She slept for such a long time that it was bordering on ‘oversleeping’.

Now, Kai had to wake her up before someone would come looking for them.

He started to stroke her hair, smoothing the fly-aways and curling strands on his finger. Cinder slept facing Kai, her lips upturned just a tiny bit as if she were having a good dream. He wished she was.

He loved her hair, he loved touching it, he loved combing it, he loved pulling it, he loved styling it, he loved everything about it. More he loved her skin, face, lips, eyes, hands, legs, feet, nose, etc. He loved everything about her.

Cinder began to wake, her face twitching slightly. She opened her beautiful brown eyes, covered in a morning haze. She smiled when she saw Kai staring at her. Her lips were touched by magic. She looked ethereal in this sun, absolutely wonderful. He couldn’t believe that she was his, forever tied together, even now after their marriage. Though, it didn’t feel like it would go away in an instant anymore. Now, they could their time loving each other,

“Good morning, my love.” He murmured, kissing her forehead.

Still smiling, she stretched her arms out and looped them around his neck, “Good morning.” She yawned and shut her eyes again.

Kai pulled her closer so her head could rest on his chest. She sighed deeply and stilled for so long that he began to wonder if she fell asleep again.

Instead, she spoke, “I slept a full six hours. My system is telling me to keep it up to be healthy,” he could feel her face scrunch up, “I can’t remember the last time I did that.”

“How was it?”

“Very nice.��� Her fingers slowly traced the length of the back of his neck, occasionally curling around strands of his hair, “I dreamt.”

“Oh really?” he asked.

“Yes. About us,” she smiled then with her eyes still closed.

“A good dream I hope,” it was more of a question. Sometimes, more often at the start of their relationship, she would whimper and twitch in her sleep. Sometimes she woke up in sweat and sobs. It hurt Kai to see her get hurt even by her own mind. He would hold her and kiss and remind her that he was here. That he would take care of her and love her until he can no longer breathe. His deepest confessions of love for her were admitted while she was unconscious and hurting. He’s revealed many of them since their wedding though.

“Yes. A very good dream.” She whispered.

“About...?”

Cinder opened her eyes, “Spending our day together. But we weren’t rulers of a country. We were normal and maybe the only people in the world,” she paused, frowning, “I don’t remember anyone else.”

“What did we do?”

“Mmh, kiss, talk, eat, talk, kiss, kiss, and more kissing,” she leaned in as if she was going to kiss his neck. Stars, he hoped so, “I liked that part.”

“I’m sure you did. I’m a good kisser, even in your dreams,” he smirked.

“How would you know? You’re not in them.”

“Intuition, my love.”

She humphed, “You’re just cocky.”

“If I’m ‘just cocky’, then why do you like it so much?” If only she could blush.

Her fingers froze in his hair. She pulled slightly back so she could see him and made a failed attempt at an annoyed face. It was very endearing.

“Because you’re my husband. I don’t think we would be married if I didn’t like it.”

“So you married me for my kissing skills?”

She rolled her eyes, “Yes, Kai.”

“Wowwww Cinder, I didn’t know I married someone so superficial,” he teased.

“Pay more attention.”

“I didn't know you only liked my kisses!” he exaggerated as she slowly pulled him closer, hands still in his hair.

“Among other things,” Cinder muttered while slightly biting her lip. He couldn’t help but stare at the nibble wanting to do that himself. This habit of hers was something he loved since the very day he met her. More often than not she didn’t realize she was doing it but when she did notice she would use it to tease him. And it drove him crazy every single time.

He wondered if she was doing it on purpose right now, in fact.

He pondered just grabbing her and kissing her or playing the waiting game. Meanwhile, her fingers, her beautiful miracle-working fingers, provoked something inside him. The need to kiss her (anywhere, everywhere) grew with the twist or pull of his hair, and when they swirled around his bare neck.

He stared at her as she reached his chest and then up his shirt. She leaned towards him, her hand in his hair tightening and digging itself deeper. Her mouth touched his neck.

Cinder kissed him gently, while he held her waist and brought her as close as he possibly could. He sighed pleasantly.

This was one of Kai’s favorite parts of married life. Waking up holding her every morning, kissing her temple, watching her sleep (if he was lucky enough to wake up before her). He loved it. It was peaceful and relaxing. Full of admiration and coziness. He felt like they were regular people here, waking up in the same bed as regular couples do. Like her dream. He never thought of meetings or the upcoming events of that day in these moments. Only Cinder. But she was the one who always brought it up.

As if on cue, she pulled away from him, her brow furrowed.

“What’s up?” he asked in a lazy tone.

She sighed, “Ugh. We have a meeting on the PHT article today and I can’t remember anything.” Sadly, she pulled her hand away from his chest. What a drag. He liked the feeling.

“Neither can I. But it seems you have the advantage, my love.” He twirled a lock of her hair, “Unlike our unremarkable brains that have to memorize, you get to pull it up on will.”

Cinder rolled her eyes, “Stop complaining."

"What? I was simply noting how awesome my wife's brain is."

"You're so corny." She pushed him off of her and rolled off the bed.

"Yes, but you secretly love it." He sat up, "Admit it."

She walked over to the foot of the bed, "It wouldn't be much of a secret if I did." Then she disappeared inside their giant bathroom to get ready for the day.

Kai plumped back down with a large smile on his face. Good stars, how did he end up here, with her? How did he land someone so perfect? Yes, they had their arguments. Yes, they annoyed each other sometimes. But their relationship felt like a gift from the universe itself. In a different reality, he would have been married to Levana, or some other girl from a good family without even ever meeting Cinder. He could have died without ever knowing her. But he did meet her at the stall that day and he did fall in love with her. She fell in love back. The situation was and is perfect.

As the morning haze painted his features, he contemplated his life and future with Cinder. He was excited about more mornings and late afternoons with her. To convince her to go to sleep and to wake her up. To kiss her every day to their heart's content. They had time, plenty of time, and he planned to not waste any of it.

If only this morning haze lasted forever.

A/N: I'm backkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk (no promises)

Tagging: @just2bubbly @cinderswrench @cindersassasin @greenalmond @the-wee-woo-royal @deprivedmusicaljunkie @crescentchat @notjacinclay @wheresmymom-imlost @salt-warrior @rapunzelfromthemoon @briggycat @impossiblesuitcase @kaider-is-my-otp (these are for my kaider ONLY fics so please ask if you want to be tagged or removed <;3)

[chiseler]

The Bankruptcy Barrel: A Historical Debate

In recent years I’ve been keeping an unofficial list of once-commonplace iconic images and tropes that seem to have vanished completely from the culture. A man on stilts, for instance, who was usually dressed like Uncle Sam. I can’t remember the last time I saw a man on stilts, or even heard a reference to stilts. Quicksand is another. Time was you couldn’t see a jungle adventure or a wacky comedy that didn’t at some point include a scene in which someone gets stuck in quicksand. For one reason or another, they’re no longer part of our collective consciousness.

Most recently I’ve become a little obsessed with barrel suits (also known as barrel cloaks, barrel shirts, or bankruptcy barrels). You know what I mean—an image of a destitute and naked man, a man who has quite literally and figuratively lost his shirt, who for lack of any other form of clothing has been  forced to wear a wooden barrel held up by a pair of attached suspenders. If the subject in question was once very wealthy (i.e. someone who lost everything in the Crash), he might also be seen wearing a top hat.  It used to be an inescapable representation of bankruptcy, appearing in countless animated shorts, political cartoons, and comedies.

It seems like such a ridiculous idea if you think about it. There are easier ways to keep oneself covered. A burlap sack, say. A potato sack would be so much easier to craft into a wearable form, and would be more comfortable and practical to boot.  With a barrel you need to knock out the bottom, find a way to attach the suspenders, and even after all that’s done it remains impossible to sit down or move very fast while wearing it. There is absolutely nothing practical about a barrel suit. Yet it was the man in the barrel suit who came to immediately signal poverty.

The origins of the image are today a little mirky and the subject of some debate. While most people simply shrug their shoulders as to the origins of the barrel suit, a few intriguing educated guesses have been put forward.

Some trace it back to the 4th century B.C., when Diogenes, founder of the school of Cynical Philosophy,  made a virtue of poverty and among his countless other pranks, chose to live  in a barrel in the marketplace. It’s a tenuous connection, but perhaps the first historical example of a connection being drawn between poverty, barrels, and cynicism.

Certain European fairy tales from the 16th century include scenes in which, as punishment, drunkards and gamblers are placed naked into barrels and dragged through the streets behind a horse. Some other sources, apparently inspired by the fairy tales, claim the origin of the barrel suits exclusively the domain of unlucky gamblers. Having lost everything in a game of chance and with nothing left to bet, the other gamblers would place the unlucky man in a barrel and roll him into the street as a form of humiliation. The image of the man wearing a barrel eventually came to represent someone who had, again, lost his shirt while gambling. This notion, however, is mostly the result of armchair speculation.

More readily documented is the fact that in the 18th and 19th centuries, public drunkenness in England and Germany was occasionally punished by forcing the inebriate in question to wear a barrel in the town square, a form of degrading spectacle akin to the more sophisticated stocks.

The barrel as humiliating punishment seems to have made the leap across the Atlantic by the mid-19th century, as revealed in Miles O. Sherrill’s account of being a Union soldier held in a North Carolina prison during the Civil War.

“While we were standing in the snow, hearing the abuse of Major Beal, some poor ragged Confederate prisoners were marched by with what was designated as barrel shirts, with the word "thief” written in large letters pasted on the back of each barrel, and a squad of little drummer boys following beating the drums. The mode of wearing the barrel shirts was to take an ordinary flour barrel, cut a hole through the bottom large enough for the head to go through, with arm-holes on the right and left, through which the arms were to be placed. This was put on the poor fellow, resting on his shoulders, his head and arms coming through as indicated above; thus they were made to march around for so many hours and so many days.“

And while the connection remains a little fuzzy,  that, perhaps, might lead to the next and final jump. The origins of the barrel suit as a symbol of poverty are today generally traced back to Will B. Johnstone. In the 1920s and ‘30s, along with being a successful song lyricist (best known for “How Dry I Am”) and a writer for the Marx Brothers, Johnstone was also a popular political cartoonist for the New York World-Telegram. Among the regular cast of symbolic characters who appeared in his panel was The Taxpayer (the date of his debut is unknown), a naked man wearing a barrel to illustrate his penniless state. With the Great Depression, it’s not hard to see how The Taxpayer may have come more generally to represent the millions who had lost everything.

But even if that answers the question of where the symbol as we know it first appeared, there is another angle to this whole debate. Several, actually.  Some who’ve written on the subject claim the barrels being used as clothing for the poor were almost exclusively pickle barrels, whereas beer and whiskey barrels were used to punish drunks and, as noted above, confederate thieves were made to don flour barrels. And if in fact pickle barrels were reserved for the destitute, it might be read that someone in dire straits has found himself, yes, in a pickle.

Of course there is an easier and less product-specific answer to the question of why barrels were chosen as the adopted mode of dress. Today it’s become cliche to think of the homeless living in cardboard boxes. The reason is simple—cardboard boxes are plentiful and easy to come by. By the same token in the early part of the 20th century everything was shipped in barrels making them just as readily available as cardboard boxes are today. Maybe it only makes sense that something of that size and shape that was at the same time so ubiquitous and cheap might come to be seen as a potential clothing substitute when nothing else was available.

Still, though, why dress the downtrodden in barrels instead of the much more logical and functional burlap sack? From a cartoonist’s perspective, it’s an even simpler answer. Keeping in mind that during the Depression the nation’s poor did not actually dress in barrels save for comedies and cartoons, barrels were easier to draw, they were more immediately recognizable in a cartoon panel than a burlap sack would have been, and most important of all, they were funnier.

by Jim Knipfel

[cytarabi]

Hey! I've become a huge fan of your fics on ao3. I wanted to know how do you push out so many beautiful chapters so quickly? What's your writing process like? I'm working on a big JB fic, which I'm trying to finish timely, but high quality. Always like to see how other writers do their thang! Thank you!

Hi! I remember your name!! <3 Thank YOU for the question and praise, that’s so sweet!!

I love seeing how other writers do their thang, too! And I’ve found it can be very, very different for each author.

TLDR I write a lot of my fic ahead of time. I outline the entire fic, chapter by chapter before I start writing. I use several tools to speed the process and/or to make it more artsy fartsy.

I’ve found that I’m a “plotter” and not a “pantser” (two main ways of writing, unless you hate being labeled lol.)

Plotter means that I prefer plotting out most of the story before I write the details. Here’s been my process for my multichapter fics:

1) I come up with an idea and let it brew! I think about key scenes or dialogue I love and I jot them down in my phone on Google notes. Write down your ideas, you’ll probably forget them.

2) During this brewing time, (for As Black As Thunder and my next fic) I take the time to read, read, read. I read works and jot more notes! I have an entire Google doc for Rebecca by Daphne de Maurier where I wrote down her tone usage, figurative language and summary of each chapter. I can’t tell you how much this has helped get me in the write TONE for the work. Tone is SO important. Readers reading a thriller will expect thriller beats! Deep Fried Drinks was a rom com, so the verbs, adjectives etc are very different from creepy Gothic. When I started As Black As Thunder (ABAT), wow, it was hard to nail the tone at first. But by the second half of the fic, I’m fully immersed in it and it’s much easier to create the tone naturally. Without using inspiration, I don’t think it would have turned out as well. For ABAT, I think I took two weeks of no writing, when I’m used to writing every day. It was hard not to write, but wow, was I ready when I started!

3) When I’m ready to outline, I do! I open a google doc for the fic and start throwing everything I can think of in there. My ABAT doc was only like three lines for 6 months... lol! I’ve only just started looking into story structure, so my older fics are all wonky. BUT for ABAT and Deep Fried Drinks, I tried to follow story structure for plots. First act, second act, third act, character arcs, etc. My longest fic, Time Stops, dropped a bunch of readers in the middle and I think it’s because my middle SAGGED majorly. I didn’t try to follow a structure, just sort of plotted it out how I wanted to, and it was probably very repetitive and boring. For ABAT, I plotted a mid point turn to spice things up, chose things to make the character more proactive, etc. I highly recommend Ellen Brock on Youtube for any plotting advice. She’s an editor, and I’ve learned so much!

4) Organize plot into chapters, write key notes for chapters and fill out background info. The first two are self explanatory, but the third is my favorite! One thing that speeds my writing (I have no idea if people do this or not) but I have lists. So many lists! For ABAT, I have lists of common outfits for characters (I usually hate writing about outfits but I’m glad I wrote more for this work). I also write the character arc for each main character. For ABAT, I have the following for Brienne:

Brienne 

Symbols: white crocus flower (purity, youthfulness, sensitive to rain), White begonia, Small birch saplings struggling for light

Goal: serve public, be idealistic, honorable

Lie: (hidden for spoilers)

Truth: (hidden for spoilers)

Flaw: stubborn, idealistic, watched her father get fame and respect for his engineering, wants to do the same thing and do it perfectly, doesn’t understand systemic racism 

Motivation: serve people, be accepted by the public, belonging, abandonment

Stakes: public rejection, Tarth name on the line, mockery, insanity, failure

So when I think about a curve ball for Brienne at any point of the story, this character section helps me stay true to character. I have a section for Brienne, Jaime, Cersei and Missandei. Cersei has a larger section because she’s a villain... ;)

In addition to this section, I also write down their personalities and strengths. You know, like if they went to an interview lol. For example, I have Missandei have the following strengths: 

Missandei

Adaptability: able to adapt

Intellection: introspective and appreciate intellectual discussions

Consistency: all people should be treated the same

Futuristic: fascinated by future

Learner: loves to learn

I ALSO have an emotion worksheet and this is SO USEFUL. They say in writing: show that the character is angry, not tell the reader. WELL, IDK about you but I can’t keep track of all the little quirks characters do and yet, I want them to be consistent. If while writing a scene, I sometimes think, “Hmm what is Jaime doing if he’s in awe right now?” I search for “awe” at the top of my fic, and bam, I have options, more or less. For a lot of emotions, I brainstormed ideas based on character traits, arcs, Gothic tone etc. I fill all of this out before I write the first chapter. 

Here’s an example of some emotions I have for ABAT:

Emotion List (remember to have introspection, unique perspective) 

Awe:

B: wrinkle deepened between brows, parted lips, fixed gaze, stands still

J: arched brow, open mouth, stare, goes closer

C: lowering chin or raising chin, goes closer

M: adaptable, quick to react

Deceptive:

B: looking away, walking away

J: scratching ear

C: smiling, neatly placed hands

M: long blink

Thoughtfulness:

B: staring off, quiet, daydreaming

J: staring at object important to him, twisting pencil or object in his hand, squeezing his hand

C: squeezing hand, staring at object she wants to get rid of or improve

M: daydreaming, staring off at her own outfit—it’s foreign

5) Now the fun part: writing! I used to write with scene structure outline, but I think I’ve grown off the training wheels. But it really helped me in Deep Fried Drinks to plot out the chapter scenes ahead of time, and I used Ellen Brock’s proactive and reactive videos to help me out with that. I throw on some music to get me in the mood of the story and I write during my kid’s nap, about two hours every day. Sometimes I’ll write at night, but lately I’ve been too tired to do that. My tip for this part is to try and figure out what you want to improve. What are you good at, and what could you improve as a writer? My first fics had like zero figurative language. Awkward. This takes a level of awareness that’s hard to reach but watching or researching creative writing technique really helps me. For example, I used to NEED to write all five senses out for each chapter ahead of time. Now it comes naturally to me! I would say now my main issue is phrasing? Pacing? And I need to tone down the melodrama for my next work....... lol! I write, write, write--and usually, I write 60-90% of the fic before I start editing!

6) Editing. Fun fun fun. I don’t mind editing, I just don’t think I’m that GOOD at it. I try to read through my chapter twice and edit as I go. I look for things I want to take out or add, look for show vs tell, formatting, etc--do things make sense? Did I miss anything? In ABAT, I’ll write something in chap 20 that I need to start in chap 18, so I’ll go back and make a quick note to “add part about document somewhere in this chapter” so I don’t confuse readers. When I edit chap 18, I’ll add that line or paragraph in. It’s all an intricate web! I also have a list of vague words I try to eliminate or replace with stronger words (I have more words if you want them). I found that I have certain words or phrases that echo a lot, like “while”, “turned around”, “turned” or “did not”--now I search for these phrases/words and try to change them:

Get rid of vague words, fix by explaining more:

Some 

While

Thing

Stuff

Very

Really

Big/small

Good/bad

Simple verbs: had, was, went

Got/get

Few

Several

What

Do/Did

It

Like with all writing “rules”, they can be broken, but it helps to know why they are rules. I steered away from adverbs, and I think it improves my writing. Other writers have different prose and adverbs work so well--it all depends on your style! If I find these vague words in dialogue, for example, I almost never change them because dialogue is usually freaking vague lol!

7) Beta reader(s)! I honestly think this work is better than my other stuff because I have a newer beta reader, theunpaidcritic!!! *I bow* She’s literally an expert so it’s SO helpful for me in every way--I can’t fangirl about her enough. If you’re struggling to get a beta reader, I recommend joining a JB discord (transformative werk is my favorite discord, and there is a beta read request thread) or post a request on reddit!

8) Post! Once you’ve edited and gone over beta reader notes, it’s time to post! Congrats!!!!!!!!!!

For time reference, I started this process around mid-May for ABAT, and I will be done by early September. Maybe I’m just a fast writer? Compared to angel-deux, ha, I look slow. Everyone is different! Please let me know if you have any other questions, I am ALL about helping out! :) <3 <3 <3

[uncultureddirt]

Waiting (3/3) - Mark Lee fic

~REQUESTED~

“I have to do something about this.”

PART ONE ||| PART TWO

He thumbed through the book recklessly, quickly passing over the dog-eared pages and sighing helplessly. Mark told himself that he didn’t know why he felt so frantic to get this project done. It was Friday night; he knew he had the entire weekend. He really wasn’t worried about finishing it. No, his mind was whirling for another reason. Subconsciously, he was denying how he felt and attempted to avoid confronting his emotions again. He tried to direct his energy into something productive to distract himself, which ended up being his English project.

But as he held the book in his hands and stared at the words before him, his distraction began to fail. He was reading the words, but not understanding them. All the letters and blobs of ink seemed to collide, come together at the edges, bounce off each other, and nothing registered in his head. 

And then his plan collapsed altogether, because his mind replayed the concluding moments of class that day anyways. 

After a long class of writer’s block something finally came to him; an idea had finally danced across his brain. He began writing frantically as the fear of this thought escaping him had presented itself and there wasn’t much time left before the dismissal bell would ring. But mid-sentence he was stopped, the thought was gone. He forgot it altogether. It wasn’t because he had a poor memory; he was just easily distracted, and something more important had taken hold of his attention. 

Mark felt your eyes on the side of his face. He felt your stare. He noticed you stopped writing and out of the corner of his eye became aware of your gaze shifting to him. He fought with himself to ignore it, and act like he didn’t notice. But, truthfully, he enjoyed being the center of your thoughts for a while; he wanted to prolong that experience. The downfall of that wonderful feeling was that he couldn’t focus. He imagined you looking at him, thought about what you were thinking, and played over hypothetical situations in his head where he would turn to you and apologize, telling you what he was truly thinking. His mind was swimming far from the once relevant sentences on his page; he had drifted too far from the land and was lost completely at sea. Lost completely in the thought of you. It was funny; he appeared not to care, or not to notice, when the reality was entirely different. 

He shook his head, bringing himself back to the present, back to his room with Romeo and Juliet held tightly in his grasp. 

~

You walked into Darten’s class on Monday morning silently and wondered if Mark finished his section of the presentation. 

You were a bit of a control freak when it came to group projects, always making sure everything is beyond perfect, but this time you did not have the slightest clue what Mark prepared. Maybe he didn’t prepare anything at all. 

You saw him walk in and sit down, fumbling through a stack of index cards. You saw his mouth moving as he flipped through them. You could tell he was nervous. 

‘I guess he did prepare something.’ 

You sat back and watched as the presentation before you commenced. You couldn’t recall what Luke and Jamie had talked about. For all you knew, the whole thing could have been in French. You spent the time somewhere else. Your mind drifted to laying on the back of your car. You swore you could feel the breeze dragging over your skin, and as you stared up you were met with a clear sky, the sun bathing what felt like the whole universe. You turned to your left to see his face, Mark’s face, and he was smiling. He was happy. He placed a hand on your cheek and looked to your mouth. You felt your stomach swirl. A light feeling had consumed you and held you hostage. You wanted to stay there. Remain in your hazy daydream. You wanted it to be real. But as Mark began to bring his face to yours, you were brought back to the classroom.  

The sound of clapping filled your ears. You looked around, seeing your classmates begin to applaud as Luke and Jamie took their seats. You were confused for a moment, then utterly disappointed. You looked across at Mark, hunched over his cards.

That’s all it ever was. A daydream.

“Y/n, Mark.” Mr. Darten called out. 

You looked across the room and met eyes with Mark.  

Smiling softly, you nodded. ‘Maybe that would chill him out.’

You and Mark made your way to the front of the room. You stood in front of Mr. Darten’s computer and began typing, searching through his shared documents to find your presentation. 

‘Sorry if this is basic Darten’

‘Found it,’ you said internally. You had named the document, and you thought it was a national treasure, ‘Wow I’m funny.’

“Y/n stop laughing at yourself and start presenting please,” Mr. Darten said, teasing you from the back of the room. He had his feet on the desk in front of him and his signature mug held tightly in his hand. 

You moved next to the board, opposite of Mark. He looked flushed as he bent the index cards in his hand, trying to outlet his nerves. You noticed. 

You were first to talk, so you began, “Hello guys, today we will be talking about probably the most recognized Shakespeare work, Romeo and Juliet. Our goal was not to bore you with the plot, nor revisit ideas you’ve heard every time the names Romeo and Juliet exited your mouth,” you made eye contact with Darten and raised your eyebrows as if to say, ‘told you so’. 

You tapped the title slide to bring you the actual presentation. You weren’t the best public speaker, but you felt good this time. Confidence had washed over you and you spoke neatly, with clear inflection and perfect articulation. You began delivering your findings passionately, walking through thematic elements and symbols in a way you hoped was different and appealing to listeners. 

You reached your last slide and stumbled on your words slightly as you remembered the boy standing next to you. He would be speaking in a few short seconds. Your content was running out, and it was time for you to pass over the stage. You clicked the next slide; it turned into a photo of a girl sitting in front of a window. There were no words, just the picture. You turned your head slightly. You had no idea what he prepared. 

He glanced at the white cards in his hands, and then he tucked them into his pocket. “I chose to look at characters, and uh, how their external actions, remarks, even physical appearances correlated to what they were, uh, feeling on the inside.”

He began speaking about the photo on the screen and did so for the next seven pictures. He analyzed each photo gently, touching upon the subject’s face and aligning it with their internal thoughts and emotions. Each picture was to represent a character in the story, and it all matched elegantly. The words flowing from his mouth were colorful and potent; they filled the room in a way you’ve never experienced. Who was this boy? Since when was he so knowledgeable? Since when did he understand feelings so well?

He tapped the screen once more and two photos came up, side by side. It was a boy laying in a field, his face touched by the sun. He seemed calm and relaxed. Peace was flowing within him. Next to the first image was the same photo, but it was dark. The sky was cloudless, but absent of stars. The boy lay beneath the blank sky, and he no longer looked tranquil. Without sound or expression, a coldness was conveyed through the picture; a sadness stained the screen. 

You looked at Mark as he spoke. You no longer felt like you were a part of this project, you were an observer, a member in the crowd. 

“Romeo’s a very interesting character to me. Upon my initial reading I um, I was confused why he was so dramatic. He seemed fragile and conflicted. In Shakespeare’s time, men were never traditionally portrayed as weak, let alone their cause of weakness being inflicted by a woman. It was very different, and I couldn’t understand why he was so, uh, soft I guess?” Everyone laughed quietly at Mark’s word choice, and you did too. He started again, “Romeo was experiencing love and heartbreak, two things that can’t really be seen, but can be strongly felt. The only way to properly express this was to completely defy the norm and break the toxic male archetype. By showing a male acting this way, Shakespeare properly depicts the power love has on an individual.”

You weren’t sure if you were dreaming. You couldn’t tell if your brain had drifted helplessly back into your hazy daydream. Mark, who couldn’t say ‘hi’ to you now, was standing before a group of people and describing the depths of love? You shifted your weight, moving back and forth as you listened to him speak. His words were entering your ear softly, and then a string of words, so familiar to you, exited his lips. 

 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”

Your eyes widened and you stared at the floor in front of you. It all was coming back, the day at Sunbelt’s. Your conversation in the parking lot, the way he laughed nervously when he talked, and how the wind pushed his messy hair back. Every detail about that day came back with those words. 

“Your thoughts can switch very easily. You can move from a place that feels warm and inviting, to one that feels familiar, but changed and cold, like these photos. The boy isn’t changing his location, it’s simply the time of day; the passing of time can transform a place and transform feelings. A confident boy like Romeo, faced with love and heartbreak, acts strange. He fumbles his words, he spends his days thinking of her, he can’t seem to focus because she, uh, Juliet, is uh all he sees,” he paused for a moment and you looked over, noticing his face grow red. Slowly you realized it wasn’t the book he was talking about. After recollecting his thoughts, he concluded the presentation and smiled softly. 

 “I mean love does make you act all strange.”

His words replayed themselves once again. 

You looked back at Darten who nodded approvingly. You knew you guys killed it, but you had no clue how. Your dialogue was limited for weeks, but you guessed that Mark’s mind wasn’t as absent as it appeared. He must have been thinking about it a lot, and it showed. You were happy for him. You wanted to tell him, but you didn’t know how. 

‘Holy shit, Mark. What in the hell just happened?’ you thought to yourself as you went to sit down. You sat at your desk antsy to talk to him, to ask him questions, to say sorry for being so short with him. You wanted to say so much, but you didn’t know where to start. 

~

“Hey!” you shouted at Mark. You were walking to your car after class and you noticed him quite a bit ahead of you. You didn’t mean to yell, it just escaped you, impulsively. 

He turned around, confused at first, but once seeing you he looked slightly surprised. 

“Hey!” he called back. 

You furrowed your brows as he stood frozen, “I don’t like yelling, can you come here?” Your voice grew louder as a car passed by you, concealing your words. 

“What?” he shouted back.

“Mark come here!” you yelled. 

He mouthed an ‘oh’ before lightly jogging towards you. 

Once you two stood face to face, it became too real. All the words you had inside vanished. You felt your heartbeat quicken as you stared at his face, your ears swirling with the words from his presentation. You didn’t know why, but you were slightly out of breath, “Um, where did all that come from? Like all that you said?” 

He pulled the index cards he was flipping through before and handed them to you. 

You felt frustrated, “No like where in your head did all that come-?”

He interrupted, “Go to the one that says ‘last’.”

You flipped through the cards, confused as to whether he really understood what you were asking. Your eyes gazed over his messy, boyish handwriting until you saw the card he was talking about. Every card preceding it was packed with markings and covered in highlighter, but this one was almost empty. Your eyes scanned over the words slowly.

‘Talk about your feelings.’

You looked up at him. His face was serious, maybe even partially embarrassed. Mark kept his eyes fixed on the gravel. His heart was racing, you just had no idea. You opened your mouth to say something, but his voice beat your words. 

“It’s what I wanted to say to you. I guess it was harder to say to your face than to the class,” he stopped and looked at you, "because uh, they think I’m talking about something fictional written on a page by some old guy, something I don’t feel for them. It’s hard when you’re looking at me. I guess I was waiting for the right time, and then the right time became an excuse because I was scared. I started to forget what I was even waiting for.”

You felt your heart burning a hole through your chest. He was only confusing to you because he was confused with himself. He was wrapped up in a feeling he didn’t know how to feel, nor how to express. 

You felt words exiting your mouth; you weren’t sure who was controlling them, your brain suddenly worked separately from your body. “Your presentation was perfect. I secretly hoped it wasn’t about the book,” he laughed and looked down, “and it’s all okay. I like you Mark, even when we didn’t talk. I still liked you.” 

He bit the inside of his mouth to stop from smiling, “I like you too.” 

The air was still after he said it, but not in an awkward way. You both were basking in the words that still sat in the air. Words that you both waited for so long to hear. There existed some sort of comfort within all the silence, within the faded sounds of cars leaving the parking lot, within the cloudy voices of kids walking out of the school, within the small space between you and Mark.

The End.  

[swifty-fox]

dude! more history rants, that was great!! I honestly probably learned more in that than I ever have in a history class

dude! Learning about history is SO much better when the person you’re listening to has a genuine passion for it! My Russian prof used to take his shoes off and bang on the table to prove his point, he would imitate historical figures down to the Russian accent (with great skill he lived in the USSR through the entire nineties which if you know anything about nineties Russia that is a FEAT. His wife to be at the time ((now a german history prof at my college)) was offered a ride in a helicopter by the Russian mob. She declined) 

Russian history is also just such a rich and dramatic and WILD history. Theres so many things to focus on like an entire semester was spent JUST studying the revolution and that was only an introductory course

Anyways since I’m here and can rant lets talk about two fun things! Lenins  name and his family as well as Vasily Grossmans greatest and most controversial works!

So Vladimir Lenin is a pretty iconic name. A pretty cool name in fact! Really rolls off the tongue and strikes FEAR into enemies hearts.

Did ya know it’s not his fuckin name? Nope! the guy straight up chose a new last name for himself! This former law student (oh yeah he wasn't even a politician no wonder the fucko didn't know how to run a country) was actually born Vladimir Ulyanov! 

but why the name change? Ulyanov is still pretty easy to say, still pretty memorable. Rolls of the tongue so on and so forth.

this, ladies, gentlemen, and everything in between and beyond, is because of Lenins older brother Aleksandr Ulyanov! 

(this guy has better hair than i could ever hope to, thanks diluted slav genes) 

now sweet Aleks here was also four years Vladimirs Senior and was also a revolutionary! (seems like it ran in the family) 

Not only was he a revolutionary but he was a MASSIVELY FAMOUS ONE and kinda helped set the ENTIRE downfall of the soviet union in motion long before the revolution was even a whisper of a thought. 

How you ask? well uh.

he tried to kill Tsar Nikolas II’s dad. 

yes, that Tsar Nikolas who later was overthrown and was executed by firing squad. Sorry the Romanovs are all very very dead we found all their bodies the animated movie was very wrong. 

Anyways, sweet kolya’s father was Tsar Alexander III and he was known throughout the land as the Peacemaker! 

(also yes they're both called Aleksandr. Russians only have like. Ten names to choose from)

wow sounds like he must be a great guy with a nickname like that huh? Why would anyone wanna kill him! Sadly, the nickname is only because Russia entered no wars under his rule. He was in fact, a huge bastard. Outside of being physically and emotionally abusive to his family (he would often berate Nikolai for being weak which definitely led to some of his issues with his authority and pride being questioned later on...) he was incredibly reactionary and heavy handed when it came to ruling. he opposed ANY movement that might minimize his authority as emperor. He was famous for executing a LOT of anti-imperialist terrorists.

he also looked like this

not to insult bulldogs but this guy sure looks like one. 

Anyways, Aleksandr Ulyanov helps devise a plot wherein he and a bunch of other revolutionaries will ride by Tsar Alek’s carriage and chuck a bomb through his window and then boom no more emperor. basically, it was the 1887 version of a drive by shooting. 

Naturally, it failed, otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about this! Anyways, All the conspirators were captured and sentenced to death. (5 were later pardoned none of which were Lenins brother.) They were all hanged.

Although Lenin was involved in politics before this to some degree, this action really radicalized him and really got the ball rolling for the eventual Soviet Union. Talk about butterfly effect. 

Alright time for history lesson part TWO!! Lets talk about Vasily Grossman and his work In The Town of Berdichev! Though more technically I will be talking more about the film adaptation titled Commissar(1967). 

quick background time! Vasily Grossman was born to a Jewish family and due to prosecution (of both Jewish people and Ukrainians) at the time was forced to conceal his heritage. He actually studied to be a chemist at first and was quite successful until he transitioned later in life to being a writer and reporter! His accounts of the Ukrainian famine are the some of the most detailed accounts as well as the most controversial (to the Russian state) he also was a war reporter for WWII and intensively documented the ethnic cleansing going on. Understandably.

he was strongly supported by Maksim Gorky! (yes that Maksim Gorky, famous writer, and the man who helped develop the entire soviet education system that kinda was just brainwashing and propaganda. Reportedly later in life he considered that to be one of his greatest regrets((he was also a massive homophobe too because same sex relationships were actually legal for a while there in russia!))

Long story short, Vasya believed strongly in several things. he believed in the human spirit, he believed in supporting his Jewish brethren, he believed strongly in mother Russia and the communist party. But more than that he believed that those who do not learn from our mistakes are doomed to repeat them. 

Thus came about his work. I’ll post a quick plot summary here from Wikipedia of the movie. it’s a really good film honestly I highly recommend it. 

“During the Russian Civil War (1918–1922), a female commissar of the Red Army cavalry Klavdia Vavilova (Nonna Mordyukova) finds herself pregnant. Until her child is born, she is forced to stay with the family of a poor Jewish blacksmith Yefim Magazannik (Rolan Bykov), his wife, mother-in-law, and six children. At first, both the Magazannik family and "Madame Vavilova", as they call her, are not enthusiastic about living under one roof, but soon they share their rationed food, make her civilian clothes, and help her with the delivery of her newborn son. Vavilova seemingly embraces motherhood, civilian life, and new friends.Meanwhile, the frontline advances closer to the town and the Jews expect a pogrom by the White Army as the Red Army retreats. Vavilova attempts to console them with a Communist dream: "One day people will work in peace and harmony", but the dream is interrupted with a vision of the fate of the Jews in the coming world war. She rushes to the front to rejoin her army regiment, leaving her newborn behind.“

- White army was the anti-soviet army during the revolution. Red Army was the soviets. Pogroms were targeted areas of ethnic cleansing against Jewish peoples, namely they were villages or towns that were wiped out. 

this film was banned for something like forty years for anti-soviet sentiment. But why? it seems pretty damn pro-soviet doesn't it? 

Well firstly lets talk about how oppressive the soviet regime was by this point! In 1967 Russia was in the dying throes of Stalins regime. Yes he had died a little over a decade earlier but the government was still very much being run by his ideals. All independent newspapers were banned. EVERYTHING every single piece of art, literature, news, commercial, WHATEVER, had to be state approved. And by god was it hard to get things approved. Grossman routinely wrote of his frustrations and struggles of getting anything published because if a Russain character was portrayed as anything but a happy go lucky communist then it would be censored. Grossman first ran into this issue when he was reporting on the iron and coal mines in siberia. the conditions were terrible but Grossman had to lie and say everything was fine. It let to a real crisis of ideals for him.

The first red mark against this movie is that well, it focuses on a woman. It’s an incredibly feminist movie, with the idea of motherhood and duty and the strength of a woman being just as much if not more than a man. (for reference a Commissar is like an army Officer) 

Secondly, she abandons her post! to have a child! In communist Russia NOTHING comes before your duty to the motherland. But again she eventually realizes that the call of her country is stronger than the call of this simple maternal life and she does go on to fight so why is this a problem?

Well ultimately, it boils down to the final scene. 

"One day people will work in peace and harmony" she says. An entirely pro-soviet message. But then it is instantly contradicted by footage of the holocaust. This is a visual representation fo Grossman saying that although the communist ideal is strong in the soviet union that they are being blinded by false enemies, prejudices and will find themselves committing such atrocities (of course they already are but again he DID still support the Soviet State) Basically it was a warning to the Soviet Party! Learn from the mistakes that were made and gentle themselves!

And this, this was a criticism of the Soviet party! And thus, it was shelved for nearly twenty years.

It finally was shown again in the late 80′s  

Grossman, after attempting to publish his magnum opus, Life and Fate, had his flat raided by the KGB and all his notes, manuscripts, letters, books, publications, and pretty much his life's work were confiscated. Grossman died in the mid 1960′s of stomach cancer not knowing if any of his writings or best works would ever be seen or published again. 

Thankfully they were found and published and his massively important legacy lives on in the people who know about him. But his story is a very bittersweet one indeed. 

you can watch the full movie here with English captions! 

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(tw: imagery of holocaust, some anti-semitism (if i recall) some children without any clothes bathing if i recall (its not weird but I know it was shocking for me to see at first))

(maybe I’ll talk about the TRUE story of Rasputin another time...) 

[searchingwardrobes]

My Problems with Once and Adoption/Foster Care

Ya’ll know I love this show, and I love the character of Emma Swan. BUT . . . their portrayal of adoption and foster care - particularly the adults who care for these children - leaves much to be desired. The thing that especially saddens me are those in the fandom who buy into their portrayal without question. I recently started another fic that throws adoption agencies under the bus. I don’t fully fault writer’s. After all, the source material is flawed, and we all want to write Emma in character. However, I just hope I can give you another perspective.

Why in the world am I qualified to talk about this? Well, let’s see . . .

* My cousin fostered to adopt all three of her children, two of them brothers.

* My sister pursued adoption for several years before deciding to embrace being, as she puts it, “the best aunt ever” instead.

* My best friend waited ten years to adopt her precious daughter. She went through the heartbreak of caring for her first child - a son - until his birth mother changed her mind at the last minute before the adoption was final. 

* We have a close family friend who is like an “extra grandma” to my kids and her adult daughter was adopted at birth. 

* My sister in law and her brother are adopted.

* My husband’s youngest brother and sister were officially adopted by his dad after he married their mom.

* Another close friend of mine adopted her twelve year old daughter from The Philippines two years ago. She was born with her mouth fused shut, no feet, and no hands. I tutored this little girl for a year, and I love her to death! 

* A friend of mine who is now in her sixties put her daughter up for adoption when she became pregnant at fourteen. The girl found her as an adult, and they have now forged a relationship.

* Another friend of mine is fostering her niece while her sister is in rehab. Right now, it looks like it may become permanent.

This isn’t even an exhaustive list of all the people I know who have fostered and adopted. These all span multiple locations as well.  I know it’s not the same as going through it myself, but all of the above people are dear to me and it hurts me deeply to see their way of life misrepresented. 

So here are just a few things that I want to point out concerning the plot on Once:

1. Domestic infant adoption in the US varies state to state, but it basically goes like this:

* If a birth mother decides to pursue an adoption while she is still pregnant, it is HER decision who gets her baby. If she goes through an agency (most common), she will get to look through profiles of potential adoptive parents. This is important to remember, PLEASE! The birth mother chooses the parents, not the other way around. If it’s a private adoption, she usually finds out about the parents through friends, family, or acquaintances, but the choice is still hers. Therefore, if Emma had decided to put Henry up for adoption before he was born, as the show implies, she would have been the one to pick Regina out as his adoptive mom. 

* The birth mother can decide to meet the birth parents or never meet them. The birth mother has the right to ask for financial assistance for everything from maternity clothes to counseling after she gives the baby up. The only thing illegal is the mother can’t “sell” her baby. In other words, she can’t make a profit off the adoption.

* The birth mother also gets to decide if it is a closed adoption, semi open, or completely open. Even in a closed adoption, the child has the right to the birth parent’s medical records when they come of age. Open adoptions are on a scale. Some birth mothers attend birthday parties and have regular visitation. Others let the child decide on contact when they reach a certain age. Sometimes they send letters each year on the child’s birthday. There are dozens of arrangements the birth mother can come to with the birth parents, and it all gets spelled out in a legal document.

* The only time an infant is placed in foster care is if the birth mother decides after birth that she doesn’t want the child. This is always temporary. Infants are either returned to the birth parents or are adopted. THERE IS NO GROWING UP FROM INFANCY IN FOSTER CARE! Now, a child can be taken away from their birth home at a later date due to neglect, drug abuse, etc. But no kid is born into foster care. There are thousands of parents in the US waiting for an infant to adopt, more than there are babies to adopt. That’s why it took my best friend TEN YEARS to find her daughter. That’s why when a baby was abandoned at the Atlanta airport a few years back, hundreds of parents called family services wanting the child. The boy had a home (which became permanent) within 48 hours. There is no way a healthy, beautiful baby girl like Emma would have been put in that group home like we saw in season two. At worst, she would have been placed with foster parents temporarily until the waiting period was over. (See below)

* After the infant is given over to the birth parents, there is a waiting period. During that time, the birth mother can change her mind. This varies wildly from state to state. Here in Georgia, it’s two weeks. In Pennsylvania, where my best friend lives, it is an entire month. On day 30, my best friend had to give her son back to his birth mother. I can not convey to you the pain she endured. Having said that, I’m glad birth mothers have the freedom to change their minds. I would never want to go back to the 1950s when babies were ripped from the arms of their devastated mothers who were given no say in the matter. On a side note, some adoptive parents opt to let the baby go to a temporary foster home until the waiting period is over so they don’t go through heartbreak if the birth mother changes her mind. My next door neighbors chose that route when they adopted their daughter, but remember in Georgia, that’s only two weeks. With my best friend, she felt a month was too long and she was willing to love on that child even if it was only for a month. 

* Even after the waiting period is over, the adoption is not official until the parents stand before a judge. Legally speaking, this is more binding than birthing a biological child. In other words, there is no going back. No returning the child. No exchanges. No refunds. Which brings me to . . . 

THE SWANS GIVING EMMA BACK: If Emma was legally adopted, this would be impossible. She states that she was three when it happened, making it even less credible to me. The only way this would make sense is if they were foster parents who never legally adopted her. It is true that foster parents sometimes decide to stop fostering when they have biological children, but adoption? Nope. (Not to mention the show later claimed that Emma chose the last name Swan herself when she was 9 or 10, so .  . . )

2. The cost of adoption:

* I don’t know where the idea comes from that it’s expensive for a birth mother to give her baby up for adoption. The adoptive parents pay for everything, as I stated above, or at the very least, they pay the medical bills. This doesn’t mean it’s EASY for a mother to give up her baby. Props to Jen for portraying Emma’s agony so well in season three! However, just because something is difficult doesn’t mean it isn’t the best decision for the CHILD. Obviously, my friend who is now in her sixties was unable to care for a child at 14, when she was a child herself! She was thrilled to hear her birth daughter tell her about the happy home she was raised in. Like Emma tells Henry, birth mother’s give their children up “to give them their best chance.” It is a selfless decision.

* It IS expensive to adopt - for the adoptive parents. There are legal fees, fees for home inspections (which expire and have to be redone yearly), travel fees, medical fees (not only maternity for the birth mother, but physicals for them, their children, and even their pets), and then additional fees if they are paying an agency. This is a simplified list, honestly. A friend of mine had a blog when she was adopting her sons from Ethiopia, and her list of paperwork that had to be filed was mind-boggling. 

RUMPLE ARRANGING HENRY’S ADOPTION: Considering all of the above, it had to be an illegal, black market adoption. That does exist  -however, it’s usually foreign, not domestic. Nine times out of ten, however, they just swindle couples who are desperate to adopt. But you know, Once writers . . .  

3. The reasons parents adopt or foster:

* Inability to conceive - this has to be number one. It’s the reason my best friend adopted, and it’s the reason my sister pursued it for so long. One sad thing? The most common reason for infertility is a disease called polycystic ovarian syndrome. One of the symptoms is weight gain, regardless of diet or exercise. Yet guess what many countries require for you to adopt? A “healthy” BMI. Meaning women with PCOS have an even harder time adopting.

* Compassion for orphans - This is why my friends adopted their daughter from the Philippines. They have two biological children, but when they thought about the millions of orphans in the world, they felt led to share their home and family with a child who did not have one. I know several people who foster for the same reason. They aren’t doing it for a “check from the government.” (And fyi, the government gives them most of that “money” in the form of food stamps and other public benefits that often only covers the bare minimum.)

* A need in their family - My friend who took in her niece had just come upon her “empty nest years,” but she couldn’t look the other way when a three year old little girl was being neglected because of her mother’s addictions. She and her husband were then back to pull ups (the mother hadn’t even attempted potty training), preschool cartoons, and teaching the ABCs. Their niece also had spent so much time in an exersaucer that her legs were crippled and she still couldn’t walk. They had to pay for braces on her legs and physical therapy. But how could they turn away their own flesh and blood? (By the way, she is now five years old and thriving!)

REASONS TO ADOPT ACCORDING TO ONCE: To fulfill your own needs and soothe your own loneliness. I’m not saying there aren’t awful, selfish people out there who adopt for that reason, but I ask you: How many people would be willing to go through ALL the difficulties I described above for selfish reasons? It just doesn’t make sense. And frankly, it is insulting to the many adoptive and foster parents that I know and love. 

4. Regardless of all of the above, adopted kids DO struggle at times.

* Mary Margaret tells Emma in season one that Henry has the same question that all adopted kids do: “why did my real parents give me up?” (I’m paraphrasing, but you remember this scene, I’m sure). This is actually true. Pretty much every family I know who has adopted, their kids have gone through this at some point. No matter how loving a home they are raised in, this question inevitably comes up. Some kids (or adults) meet their birth parents and find peace : they really weren’t able to take care of me, they really did want what was best for me, they did it because they loved me. For others, meeting their birth parents is painful. Yet none of that means the adoption wasn’t the best choice or that the adoptive parents were awful to the child (like Regina).

* Is the foster care system in the US flawed? Yes. There are too many cases and not enough social workers. Children fall through the cracks, some of them have tragically died. However, if you actually look into the facts in such cases, children are most often injured or killed not by foster parents, but by their birth parents. Usually it is the system’s failure to remove children from dangerous homes that is the problem, not cruel foster parents. There are also not enough foster parents for children who need homes, with older children being the hardest ones to place. Many of these kids are suffering from severe trauma and caring for them isn’t easy. Typically, the reason kids are bounced around in the system is because their parents keep regaining custody, loosing it again, regaining it again, etc, etc. By the time the parents either get their shit together or relinquish custody, the kid’s a preteen or teen. So my question for Once is:

WHY DID EMMA GET BOUNCED AROUND? She was put back in the system at three, but we don’t see her again until she’s eight or so at the movie theater. Do you really expect me to believe they couldn’t find a home for adorable, sweet, smart little three year old Emma? My sister would have adopted a little girl like that in a heartbeat! She wouldn’t have cared that she was three. We’re told that Emma kept running away, but at three? 

No way little Emma was incapable of being adopted. I just don’t buy it. Since adopted kids have issues even in loving homes, why couldn’t that have been the writer’s narrative? Couldn’t Emma’s adoptive parents simply died at some point? In my opinion, the whole thing was just lazy writing.

[hybridfiction]

On Roswell, Research, and Reliability, or the Importance, of Research

No matter what the form or purpose of writing—whether a novel, blog, etc.—research is not only practical but also necessary. In fact, solid research grounds any form of writing. Since you aren’t simply stating an opinion off the top of your head, your words will hold truth. And truth is powerful. Even in the various fiction genres, including sci-fi and fantasy, it’s the true bits that add color to the story and make it compelling.

Moreover, research fills in knowledge gaps, rids your writing of unhealthy absolutes, and strengthens your critical thinking processes, which in turn affects how and what you write. Learning how to perform research, then, is crucial to developing as a writer.

Research is not something we instinctively know how to perform, and like most things worth knowing, it takes time to develop the necessary discernment between what’s good information and what’s not. Thanks to the pervasive nature of the internet, all of us have a basic grasp of how to perform an online search, but there’s a vast difference between googling “travel tips for safaris” and researching to learn something well enough to write on it convincingly. It’s the difference between wanting to know more about Roswell UFO sightings because I’m a little interested in aliens and deciding to write a novel set in Roswell during 1947 or writing a scholarly piece on the sociological role Roswell has played in the belief of the existence of UFOs in the United States.

While the first definitely encourages the latter two, it will not offer enough credible or reliable information to write anything that is not based on rumor and speculation. The difference between a reliable source and an unreliable source is the difference between truth and make-believe. Unreliable sources are filled with skewed data, unchecked “facts,” and leaps of reality. Alternately, reliable sources generally maintain high standards of scholarship and factuality.

Once you begin to research your topic—be it Batman or Einstein—you’ll soon be able to compare and contrast the differences in the nature and quality of information. However, the best way to begin judging facts versus opinion is to (1) examine the author’s background in the field, (2) note whether the author is making unsupported assertions or wild leaps in logic (ex. “So-and-so spoke fondly of this person, so they obviously had an affair,” or, “Since we can’t see gravity, it doesn’t exist”), and (3) question the source: does it come from a reliable source?

To begin researching, then, you’ll first need to narrow down your search terms. Let’s go back to Roswell for a moment and say I’m going to go ahead and write that novel. “Roswell” alone is too broad a search term. I will need to outline specifics of what I want and need to know (which, of course, depends on what I want to write). For example, I might need to know about life in 1947, the Air Force, the investigation, etc. I’d also need to decide who my main character will be and fill in background information on him or her or them. Will he or she be a journalist, police officer, alien, or bobbysoxer? What were each of these people like, what were their mindsets, how did they speak, what would their daily activities be?

If I chose to write the scholarly piece, however, I’d not only need to know the history of supposed UFO crashes and sightings but also how Roswell became known as a UFO crash site. What projected the incident in Roswell from a small-town event at the back of the public consciousness to a full-blown “government conspiracy,” and so on? Since my study would be from a sociological standpoint, I’d need to find confirmed reports and interviews of persons affected by the phenomenon, including well-documented case studies and research.

Once you’ve narrowed down your key terms, it’s time to perform multiple searches in research databases, library catalogs, and on the internet. Sift through the search results by titles, abstracts, and summaries/blurbs before actually reading anything. Since right now you’re only compiling data, it helps to create a desktop folder to save whatever you want to further investigate. Also, don’t stop looking after the second page of results. What may be most useful to you may not be in the top ten or twenty search results.

Once that’s done, it’s time to start sorting through the articles. Glance through the first few paragraphs to categorize them according to their merit, such as “Useless” (which you trash), “Possibilities” (which may contribute to your research), and “Important” (self-explanatory).

Once sorted, begin to read and highlight/underline and take notes. Note-taking helps you to process all that data and to assimilate ideas so as to generate your own perspective on the topic.

On the whole, research is necessary and can be a very rewarding learning experience.

Tips

Read everything with a grain of salt. People are imperfect—which is wonderful—but that means we make mistakes, draw wrong conclusions, and sometimes decide our opinions are gospel truth.

Visit your local university or college libraries to access their research databases and locate peer-reviewed, reliable sources.

When researching, be wary of getting lost “down the rabbit hole.” Gathering a lot of sources is good, but there’s such a thing as too much. Know when to stop—generally when you know what an author will say before he or she says it—and don’t let researching stop you from writing. Begin drafting what you can with the intent of returning later to flesh out what you don’t currently know.

We’re excited to announce that every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, we are offering our insight on different techniques needed to make good creative projects. These projects include stories (long and short form), comics, movies, TV shows, and art. Also, we love listening, so please share your insights in return!

[swingopen27-blog]

The 24-year-old V God's open life: from the talented teen who developed games to the founder of Ethereum having a net really worth of hundreds of billions

To understand electronic foreign currency and blockchain, in addition to Bitcoin, we have to mention Ethereum, which is the second largest in marketplace value. 10 years back, the emergence of Bitcoin allowed people to acknowledge the everyday living of blockchain technologies, and began to yearn for and discover the decentralized planet; 5 years ago, the emergence of Ethereum permitted people to witness the huge possible and infinite behind the blockchain may. From some data, we can see the huge effect of Ethereum within the currency circle in those days: In 2017, the price of ETH increased almost 90 situations from the reduced stage; the ICO initiated by Ethereum became the most popular approach to fundraising. The global amount elevated through ICOs exceeded 4 billion U.S. bucks; the total marketplace value of global digital currencies furthermore soared from 18 billion U.S. dollars at the beginning of the entire year to 560 billion U.S. dollars in 2017. If Satoshi Nakamoto is the creator of Bitcoin and blockchain, after that Vitalik born within the 90s has created a new era of smart contracts and brought great prosperity to the global cryptocurrency marketplace. He had been 19 years old when he founded Ethereum, and he was named "V God" within the circle. Nowadays, let's become familiar with the 24-year-old V The almighty again, and pay attention to his life story, how he went from a talented teenager with super intelligence to the creator of Ethereum having a net worth of a huge selection of billions. Regarded as a kid prodigy since he had been a child, he developed little games at age 10 V God was born in Russia in 1994 and immigrated to Canada with his father when he was 5 yrs . old. He is a Russian Canadian. He has already been "extraordinarily gifted" since he was a child and has extraordinary abilities. In the 3rd grade of primary school, The almighty V showed amazing talent. When most people hadn't memorized the multiplication table of nine to nine, Our god V could already perform three-digit mental arithmetic at twice the quickness of his peers, so he Naturally, I inserted the school's "Genius Youth Class" specially create for talented college students.

By the 5th and sixth marks, everyone thought he has been a math genius. He also realized he was better than ordinary individuals, and was even a tiny bit distressed, "Why can't I carry out at an average of 75 factors like everyone else." There's also rumors that when he has been 7 yrs . old, V God created a name called " The complex document of "Bunny Encyclopedia" is a small world made up of rabbits, that is filled with mathematics, graphs and calculations. https://cvplab.org/central-bank-of-canada-the-potential-impact-of-central-bank-digital-money-on-bank-deposits/ in the world strictly stick to the formula. Lord V recalled he first encountered a computer when he had been 10 years aged. 10 years aged is the age group when children are addicted to online games. God V is no exception, and he is furthermore an "Web addicted teen." Most kids are using toys or chasing and using their close friends, but V God chooses to utilize computer programming to create small games. The initial program he wrote was a game where the golf ball bounced to shoot. V God later laughed and known as this sport "Vitalik's version of Area Invaders." Furthermore, he also produced some strategy games based on medieval legends as a child. V God cute photos while i was young At the age of 13, V Our god became dependent on playing "Wow", often near the computer all day, playing Warcraft each day. Until afterwards, in a new version update, a casino game company terminated a must-kill ability for his dearest game character "Warlock". This video game character V Lord has reached degree 80. V Our god is distraught and contains repeatedly published I emailed and approached the engineers of the game company in the state forum and questioned them to revive this skill, but the response had been "The business did this away from consideration for online game balance and cannot be restored." Afterwards, V God chose to give up playing Warcraft. This might also pave just how for V God's later thinking: In the world of Internet games, players are usually fragile as individuals, and game designers are the manage center of the overall game. One of the biggest drawbacks of the centralized service is that everything is The developer gets the final say, gamers can only choose to passively acknowledge or quit the overall game. In no way dismissive of Bitcoin To state when The almighty V begun to become connected with Bitcoin, it's important to talk about his dad Dmitry Buterin, who was enlightened by his dad to know Bitcoin. In those days, V God has been 17 years old. His father experienced his own corporation, Wild Apricot, as soon as introduced the concept of Bitcoin to V Lord. In those days, Bitcoin was born less than 2 years ago. V Our god first heard about Bitcoin & most of that time period. People have exactly the same reaction, dismissive, thinking that Bitcoin has no real value and can not need long-term growth. Selfie picture of V Our god and father Afterwards, V God's father sold his firm and became the co-founder of BlockGeeks, a blockchain incubator. V God once again learned about the idea of Bitcoin from his dad and learned that it was based on a decentralization This time he was fascinated by the cryptocurrency of blockchain technologies. He made a decision to study Bitcoin. This analysis was unable to extricate himself. In March 2011, Lord V begun to write some articles about Bitcoin by himself. He fulfilled a pal who wished to take up a Bitcoin blog for the Bitcoin chat community forum. God V contributed articles to the web site and obtained 5 Bitcoins for every article. (It had been worth $3.5 at that time) until the website went bankrupt. At exactly the same time, he wrote for a magazine called "Bitcoin Weekly". At that time, V God should have saved a lot of Bitcoin. More importantly, during the time of writing, Lord V has accumulated a lot of knowledge and first-hand information about Bitcoin, and has also made several friends that are also thinking about Bitcoin. And blockchain technology also has a deeper knowing. In Sept 2011, a pal called Mihai Alisie approached V God and invited him to become the chief writer of the newly founded "Bitcoin Mag" (Bitcoin Mag). V The almighty also grew to become the co-founder, in 2014 Continue steadily to write and give food to before the center of the year. (The magazine was obtained in 2015 and changed to the web version, that is the extranet we frequently browse at this point.) Actual physical publication of Bitcoin Magazine Later, when V Lord was 18 or 9 years old, he was admitted to the University of Waterloo in Canada (ranked 18th in the world for computer science) to review computer science. But he lowered out of college 8 months after entering college. Because he found that he was filled with bitcoins, he couldn't perform both research, writing, and studies in bitcoin at school. After dropping from school, V Our god visited Amsterdam, SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA, Israel along with other cities to review, visited the Bitcoin developer community, and approached some cryptocurrency tasks. Along the way, he gradually discovered the restrictions of Bitcoin, so he wanted to discover Bitcoin in Program opportunities beyond cryptocurrency. While in Israel, God V discovered that many residents were doing Bitcoin propaganda work, but the Bitcoin concept they popularized has been very complicated. God V was considering whether there is any way to easily simplify these complex methods and how exactly to highlight the features of the blockchain. We know that for security reasons, Satoshi Nakamoto just used a complex scripting language to create the Bitcoin process. However, this language intentionally limited the difficulty of transactions and triggered Bitcoin never to incubate. More programs. Vshen believes that when we can develop a platform that everyone may use, so that developers can freely construct their very own blockchain applications on it, it might be great. Started Ethereum and had been called V God At the end of 2013, V Shenyou returned to Toronto after learning, and immediately wrote down his ideas and wrote a white paper. In the white-colored paper, he launched the "Ethereum" project for the first time. He suggested to develop a new platform using a more prevalent scripting language. To carry the development of applications, such as for example social networking, trading, game applications, etc., this is actually the later "Ethereum Wise Contract". At that time, V God sent the white paper to 15 close friends, and these 15 individuals sent it with their close friends one after another. The white-colored paper spread rapidly in the Bitcoin local community and obtained unanimous praise from everyone. Confident V Lord convened several partners to start out the deployment of Ethereum at the beginning of 2014. He committed to the $100,000 scholarship or grant he received at that time (Paypal founder and Facebook's very first external investor Peter Thiel for Scholarships granted to encourage young people under the age of 20 to start out a business) to the project. In addition, V God also designed a fresh cryptocurrency foreign currency for Ethereum-Ether (ETH), and made a decision to raise money through ICO like additional cryptocurrencies. In July 2014, the crowdfunding of ETH has been officially released, and customers can pre-purchase ETH with Bitcoin. The trade ratio is 1 Bitcoin to 2000 Ether. Based on the cost of 600 USD per Bitcoin at that time, the initial worth of 1 Ether is approximately 0.3 USD. To everyone's surprise, the crowdfunding was a huge achievement from the beginning. A lot more than 3,500 bitcoins were elevated within 12 hours. After 42 times of crowdfunding, a complete of 31,529 bitcoins were raised, that was worth 18.4 million at that time. Dollar. As one of the bright spots and trump cards of Ethereum, clever contracts are favored by developers because of their versatility and flexibility. Soon, Ethereum had been recognized by a lot of people and became synonymous with the second generation of blockchain technologies. The Ether released by it quickly became the world's 2nd largest digital foreign currency after Bitcoin. At the same time, V-God brought the team to establish a nonprofit organization, the Ethereum Basis, in Switzerland, and Vtalik has since been called "V-God". Experiencing storms and crises Smart contracts have got significant advantages in terms of versatility and versatility, but there's also some security risks. In May 2016, The DAO (Discentralized Autonomous Business), the decentralized firm of Ethereum, finished a $150 million crowdfunding and prepared to invest in some start-up tasks in Ethereum through wise contracts. Who would have thought that this large sum of funds attracted hackers. In June 2016, hackers used the program code loopholes in The DAO smart contract to strike and stole 50 million U.S. dollars really worth of ether. This is the well-known " The DAO occurrence" is also the biggest digital currency theft. In those days, following the DAO has been hacked, everyone questioned the protection of smart agreements, and many investors fell into panic. Ether fell from US$20 to US$10, as well as the global market worth evaporated by US$500 million over night. After discussing with the group, the 22-year-old God V made a bold decision-to retrieve all of the lost ether through a hard fork, and the stolen funds will be rolled back again to the smart contract to recover User loss. This process is actually contrary to the decentralized and immutable nature from the blockchain, but V God considered more traders' losses at that time. So this decision led to a hard fork of Ethereum. One faction has been Etherum Classic, and they chose to continue steadily to maintain the unique Ethereum; another faction has been Ethereum led by The almighty V, plus they updated the Ethereum A lot of security vulnerabilities continue to operate on the new chain. In the past two years, the technologies of Ethereum provides matured and developed, and the position of Ethereum has been recognized by the marketplace. From March to June 2017, the price tag on ETH begun to skyrocket, and the marketplace value of Ethereum once reached more than 80% of Bitcoin. However, bitcoin price flattened, and something wave started once again. In June 2017, another rumor that "the founder of Ethereum died in a car accident" broke out on the Internet, and it was distribute wildly by domestic and foreign media, causing the cost of Ether to plummet by 30% and the marketplace value of vast sums of bucks evaporated. Later, Our god V submitted a hash worth of the 3930000th prevent on his Twitter to prove he was still alive, angering the absurd rumor having a connotative photo. Gengzhi Boy wants to change the world through Ethereum V God's personality has always been fairly straightforward. CVPLab - BLOCKCHAIN x CONSTRUCTION as mentioned that "Ao Ben Satoshi" is really a "madman", he as soon as caused EOS founder BM, and Sunlight Justin stated that "TRON is definitely rubbish." As a strong rival of Ethereum in those days, EOS used the DPoS system. V Our god bombarded the development of the blockchain platform with this mechanism. The two have repeatedly fought on Tweets over the problem of "POS or POW that is more decentralized". But in the eyes of BM, he and Lord V are in fact "disharmonious in technique but the same way". Although each took its own path, the best goal would be to try to reduce social problem and maximize social freedom. V God, who has been a genius since childhood, also believes that he has a objective that is different from ordinary people, especially after getting into the blockchain field, he really wants to do something that may really change the planet through Ethereum. V God often expresses his thoughts on Twitter, not wanting Ethereum to become a bubble of speculation and prosperity, but really can bring some true impact to the planet. For instance, in 2017, Ethereum is at a stable and rapid growth stage, and the price of ETH also skilled various rounds of skyrocketing. V God warned all Ethereum users on Twitter to treat Ethereum maturely, otherwise they will withdraw from Ethereum. God V does not want Ethereum to become bubble beneath the carnival, but to permeate all sectors and decentralize the world's economic climate, society, and lifestyle. Before year or two, V God provides been to several countries to take part in conferences and lectures, to market the technology of Ethereum and other related knowledge, and help people form the correct knowledge of Ethereum. Today, ETH ranks second within the global digital foreign currency ranking with market worth of 150 billion RMB. A lot more than 90% of the top 100 digital cryptocurrencies are designed on the Ethereum platform; a lot more than 70% from the blockchain applications may also be built for the Ethereum Over the Fang platform. Although Ethereum may have been quite successful inside our eyes, it could still be quite a distance from what he wants to achieve in the heart of Our god V.

[fayewonglibrary]

Faye Wong: Once a goddess, now a "neurotic female" (2010)

Faye Wong, who reappeared on the concert stage after a hiatus of five years, is still untalkative. But behind the stage, she has come closer to people through a Weibo account called "veggieg". Faye Wong used a variety of popular online slang and cute expressions to let people see her true self that she's not used to showing in front of the public.

"The next stop is Wukesong. If you are going to see the Heavenly Queen Faye Wong's concert, please get off at Wukesong Station."

The subway announcement was broadcast and a crowd of people floated out onto the platform like a cloud. When the clouds gathered from all sides, the pressure was over Wukesong Stadium in Beijing. And as night fell, Faye Wong's concert officially began.

It was still the same Faye Wong, dressed in white, emerging from a cold silver forest and directly opening the concert with her voice. She was still untalktaive, singing one song after another, and even hesitated to greet the audience. It seems that five years passed, but it feels like yesterday.

This is the Faye Wong that people are familiar with. Just a mass of fans sitting around the stage sharing a "little secret" with her. People watched her every little movement unconsciously and then contacted her while hidden behind a mobile phone or computer. The immortal face suddenly became real.

"Friends in the air, how are you?"

On the evening of November 5th, Faye Wong's fourth concert after her comeback was in full swing, she still didn't say a word to the fans and after singing for almost an hour, she stepped down and re-touched her makeup. However, in just 30 seconds, she did not forget to take out her iPhone and quickly posted on Weibo, murmuring anxiously while posting: "Why won't it post? Why?"  She chose this way to greet her fans.

"Whether it's the loquacious one on Weibo, or the ruthless one in reality, it's all the real Faye Wong. She is that kind of person. Lively before friends, shy before strangers, no packaging, no filter. This has been the case for more than 20 years." Faye and Li Yapeng's mutual friend Song Ke said.

"Dare to greet me with nasty words here and act like nothing when we meet. Hey~ doesn’t your backache while talking?”

Maybe as Faye Wong said, she was a goddess before and a "neurotic female" after.

Unsociable goddess

Faye Wong's personality lies in her alienation from the crowd and her communication skills are not good.

In 1994, Faye Wong stood in the Hong Kong Coliseum for the first time and she broke two records: the newcomer to hold the most number of concerts (18 times); and the least number of costume changes in concert (4 times). In addition, she also designed the costumes. All the clothes had one thing in common - long sleeves. Because she can't dance, she didn't know what to do with her hands when singing, so she simply covered her hands.

In 2004, she said at her supposed farewell concert in Shanghai: "If one day I stop singing, I will stop all publicity activities. I don’t want anyone to remember me, I want everyone to forget me." In the end, she bowed deeply and left, the background music was "Leave Nothing". She did what she said.

Today, Faye Wong has debuted for 20 years and has held countless concerts. She still does not know what to do with her body on stage. At the first "Reborn" concert on October 29th, the host Li Chen watched Faye Wong shuffle the microphone from her left hand to her right hand while facing the shouting audience, she just stood on stage and chuckled . "Maybe many people think this is stylish, but these small movements actually mean that she is very nervous, and those of us who have been on stage can feel it." Li Chen said.

Despite being the goddess in the hearts of many people, Faye Wong still does not know how to deal with strangers.

In the second year of her debut, a reporter from Hong Kong's Ming Pao Weekly went to interview her. Because she was a newcomer, the article was not very long. But when the reporter thought about this girl with the big eyes, she thought she would become the second Brigitte Lin in the future. The first time they met, Faye had long hair and had no experience in talking with reporters. She was young and shy. When she didn't speak, her tight lips revealed the girl's stubborn temperament.

Unexpectedly, her personality at that time has not changed much to this day. Wong Kar Wai asked her to star in "Chungking Express" and "2046", the former which also won Sweden’s Stockholm Film Award for her. It was a step for her to move closer to Brigitte Lin. But she still refused to take the role. "Why would I act? I don't like acting. It’s embarrassing. My dad said that I don’t have acting cells. Wong Kar Wai came to me for some reason to act. In fact, it was very hard work.”

Faye Wong said that Hong Kong people date according to conditions. She found a Beijing man, Dou Wei, and explained the difference between the two: "A man from the Mainland will fall in love with you because he falls in love with you."

She once compared her personality with Dou Wei, claiming that both of them belong to the very quiet kind, "If you are not familiar with one another, you rarely speak."

She seldom accepts interviews. After becoming famous, she always kept a low profile and doesn't like seeing strangers or meetings. When she returned to Beijing one year, she and several friends hid in a small private dining room in a restaurant. There were several prestigious people in the same restaurant. When they heard Faye was there, they invited her to come join them. She refused to go out or let people in. Not because of arrogance, but because she didn't know how to deal with the situation. She felt embarrassed. 

When she went to a Beijing TV station to film, she was guilty of smoking addiction and ran to the garden promenade to smoke where people were walking. She didn't mind and was at ease there.

"She is not good at greeting. She does not ignore people, but she really does not know what to say." Li Chen said.

The "neurotic female"

On December 21, 1987, three months after her 18th birthday, Beijing girl Faye Wong came to the Hong Kong Immigration Department, handed over her  documents, and responded to several routine questions smoothly and entered a completely strange place.

She couldn't find a sense of belonging in Hong Kong. She asked for directions and bought things. She always heard a series of Cantonese words and couldn't understand the full sentence. Her father's friends took care of her but there were no peers around her. She was very lonely and missed the big city of Beijing. That year, she was counting the days every day when she could go back.

Later, Faye Wong successfully obtained a Hong Kong ID card. But ten years later, when she and Lin Yanni, a Hong Kong writer, were sitting together in the lobby of the Shangri-La Hotel drinking coffee, Yanni asked her: "Ah Fei, do you think you are a Hong Kong girl or Beijing girl?"

"Beijing girl!" she answered without hesitation.

In 1989, Faye Wong officially entered the Hong Kong music industry. The record company thought her Beijing name was too mainland and changed her stage name to Wong Jing Man according to popular trends. But when others called her name, she didn't always react. After changing back to her real name Faye Wong, she truly started the peak of her singing career. In the following ten years, she has been seen by the public as a goddess.

If there is no such microblog named "veggieg" registered on April 4, 2010, Faye Wong is still Faye Wong - cold, serious and straightforward. However, it is through Weibo, a communication method where she can accept love, that more people see the other side of her.

Faye Wong is witty on Weibo. When fans express love for her, her reply is "没事，在这儿多肉都不嫌麻，��敞开儿的." This is the same Faye Wong who was overwhelmed by fans excessive fanaticism at her 1994 concert and rebuked some for being "crazy."

Although she couldn't reply to such enthusiasm in person, she has learned to communicate with the world with her virtual self.

She is familiar with popular online slang, such as "神马", "淡定" , etc. Before her  concert, she laughed at her nervousness: "定定地淡着，其实张得紧紧的~~", and she didn't forget to appease the fans: "I express nervousness, our slogan is: no expectation, no fear, no disappointment."

Such humor is actually hidden in Faye Wong's response to reporters many times. The Taiwanese media once asked her: "You and Dou Wei are both public figures. Who is more jealous?"

This question didn't bother her at all. She immediately replied: "Dou Wei loves rice vinegar and I love mature vinegar." [cù = vinegar / jealousy]

In the eyes of many friends, Faye Wong has always been that carefree Beijing chick who has never changed. Her communication is poor, but she is very loyal and there is a boyish character in her personality. Faye Wong, who always feels at a loss in front of the public, easily reveals her real civilian side on Weibo.

She once posted: "I'm very happy that everyone has turned over (liked) my side, people are sometimes shy, sometimes crazy."

“In 20 years, there will be only one Faye Wong. Talent, character, voice and songs make up the unique Faye Wong."  Watching Faye Wong's performance today, Song Ke was a little moved. He regarded himself as a fan of Faye Wong for many years and also watched her previous concerts.  "She was not the same as she is now. Faye Wong's music is getting richer and richer. Her life experience over the years has all been integrated into her voice. I like her more and more ."

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SOURCE: SINA // TRANSLATED BY: FAYE WONG FUZAO

[willowlovestheology]

Why Evangelicals still support Donald Trump as U.S. president

Important: Personally I am not in any way supportive of Donald Trump in any capacity whatsoever. However, as someone who spent much of my young adult years as a conservative-leaning libertarian and a self-identified member of the “Christian Right,” I can see where their reasoning is. Consider this to be my “devil’s advocate” piece.

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis and social disruption, once again America exposes its deep-seated cultural polarization. Some Evangelicals and Christian fundamentalists (these are not interchangeable terms, as one can be Evangelical without being fundamentalist, and true fundamentalists consider most Evangelicals to be heretics) see the governmental edicts of social distancing as a direct attack on their freedom of religion.

Even as the U.S. president fumbles and fails in his response to COVID-19, the polls are fairly consistent in the Republican support of Donald Trump, many of whom consider themselves to be Evangelical Christians. 

Many progressive people of faith and politically middle-of-the-road Mainline Protestants continue to scratch their heads and wonder how a self-proclaimed “Bible Believers” can vote for a pathological liar, thrice-divorced womanizer who has been accused of sexual misconducts, whose documented ties to Christian Church is tenuous and questionable at best.

The key to understand the Evangelical thinking is this: “God uses imperfect and broken vessels” to do “His will.” 

In the Gospels, Jesus chose those who were widely considered immoral and despised by the established religious norms of his day. Tax-collectors (who were known to be highly corrupt under the Roman Empire) were in, the Pharisees were out (the Pharisees were the predecessor to what we know today as the Rabbinic Judaism). None of the 12 apostles were particularly considered “holy,” devout, or religious by their cultural norms. Rather, much of the early Jesus movement spread through its populist and iconoclastic message that were anti-establishment and anti-clerical.

One of the popular analogies used by the Trump-loving Christians is that Donald Trump is the modern-day King Cyrus the Great (559–530 B.C.E.). Cyrus was the emperor of Persia and he was the only gentile in the Hebrew Scriptures to hold the title of the “messiah” (Isaiah 45:1) -- the title reserved for the kings of Judah. Needless to say, as a Persian emperor he did not observe the Torah. Very likely he worshipped the Persian deities according to his traditions (something the Hebrew Scriptures would otherwise consider as a grave sin worthy of death). He might not even live up to the biblical sexual morality. As it turns out, Cyrus allowed the exiled Israelites to return to their homeland, thus permitting their temple worship to be resumed (note at the time, the Israelites’ worship was inextricably tied to the temple). Since Cyrus, even though being an idolatrer and a heathen, used his sovereign power to help restore the Israelites’ freedom to worship Yahweh, he was called the messiah. 

This also reminds me of a newsletter I received back in the early 1990s from a missionary organization, which had an article giving thanks to God for Chairman Mao Zedong(!). Yes, it is that Chairman Mao who was responsible for atrocities of the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, under whom millions -- including many, many Christians who refused to worship the idol of Communism -- perished. The writer of the article claimed: God used Mao Zedong to build highways across China, even to the remotest part of the country, so that missionaries could later reach the hinterlands of China; God used Mao Zedong to invent the simplified Chinese characters to eradicate illiteracy, so that Chinese people could read the Word of God. The absurdity of this argument, especially in light of Mao’s concerted efforts to destroy Christianity and freedom of religion in general, aside, it kind of illustrates the (sometimes cynically opportunistic!) mindset of some Christians, who believe that “all things work together for good” (Romans 8:28) according to the divine providence even when it seems inexplicable by human reasoning. Or, to put it more crudely, “enemy of my enemy is my friend” and since Donald Trump is an enemy of the secular humanist left, he is their “friend.”

For many Evangelicals, Trump was the antidote to what they saw as Obama’s overreaching attempt at restricting their freedom of religion. Many conservatives were alarmed by Barack Obama’s subtle transformation of “freedom of religion” into “freedom of worship” -- the latter being merely a freedom to worship in private, without the implicit rights to live out their faiths and religious values in public arena. With the U.S. Supreme Court ruling to legalize same-sex marriages nationwide and the Obama executive edict on transgender, the Evangelical collective anxiety rose to the new level. They saw with horror how overzealous governmental bodies began issuing fines and shutting down businesses for speaking out against homosexuality. That fear drove the Evangelical Christians to anything that could stop this trend. Donald Trump was the proverbial straws the desperate Evangelicals grasped. Yes, under any other context, it was very unlikely that Donald Trump has gotten this far with the Evangelicals.

And this same fear is at play again as Americans vote for the next president this year. The Democrats are once again seen as the enemies of religion eager to shut down churches, calling them “non-essential.” If the Democratic (and some Republican) politicians have an audacity to dare call the exercise of religion as “non-essential,” while Donald Trump seems eager to “reopen America” (and initially, hoping for Easter services to be held) then the Evangelicals will continue to donate to the Trump campaign and vote for him in November. Very little else matters to them. 

Sidenote: It has been claimed by some Donald Trump supporters that the president was “saved” and “born again,” and therefore is a Christian. Since salvation is by faith and grace alone, and not by work, as they may argue, this would make Trump “holy” in the eyes of God. Needless to say, the same people were very eager to pile on Pete Buttigieg, as if faith and grace aren’t sufficient if someone is gay. 

[unluckyadept]

Character Journal Entry

{Thursday, November 16th, TUMBLR 2017}

But ah, onto happier thoughts and memories.

It will be good to see the other Grand Masters again. We held council at the summer solstice; I was the one who actually called it together.

-=-=-=-=-=-

[The Narrator was actually in the city hall, with the other Grand Masters present.

They were all dressed as they had been the night before, except they were not currently wearing their masks—save for the Narrator, that is.

There was Prox’s greatest blacksmith, who was turning over some bar of metal in his hands. He personally forged a good deal of armor and weaponry, with his understudies largely involved with maintaining and supporting at the forge. The lesser tiers of his craft handled maintaining the tools that the rest of the village used, as that is where the need largely fell.

Beside him sat the Grand Master Tailor, who was sorting through fabric scraps. Her skill had brought her to the honorable and demanding position of maintaining the quality of all of the ceremonial wear: not just for the dancers and their costumes, but also the formal and informal garb of many of the other Grand Masters. It was a rather prestigious position, for it afforded the use of resources one otherwise might not have; this, in turn, allowed her to wear nothing but the best, exactly as she envisioned it. While others may have had her level of skill in the craft, she was the best teacher among them.

This, too, was the case of the stern, almost angry-looking woman beyond her. The Grand Master Ranger was—despite being of a higher title in a slightly different tier—largely involved of teaching the ways of the hunt. She coordinated the hunts around Prox and further south to prevent overhunting of large game. She had raised two generations of Hunters behind her. Almost everyone studied under her before they were chosen for anything else, and her position as a teacher meant daily, constant work.

Weyard’s beastmaster sat with a great wolf of a hound next to him. He was officially in charge of Prox’s work animals: reindeer, horses, sled dogs, and falcons. In practice, he served as the village veterinarian. He was one of the few Grand Masters who was not involved in maintaining Proxan culture—and this did allow him more of a personal life than anyone else there.

The Grand Master of Dance sat with his eyes closed, weary. He was older, now—older than any of the others there, save for the Elder himself. He oversaw the physical training of the soldiers and taught the performance arts. Beyond that, he served as a local medical examiner. Years of studying and working with the body had enabled him to see how a particular injury might have happened, in cases (both living and dead) of foul play. He was tired, but could not fully retire from his duties until the day came where he did not have the strength for the dance.

The Narrator was sitting at the table with a pile of scrolls nearby—her (very excited) understudies were taking down exact notes of the meeting in shorthand, while she recorded incoherent thoughts as she got ideas for her work. She was a Grand Master Scholar who had excelled in oration. She knew all the stories of the Clan’s teachings and history from the beginning of the world—the most famous part of her job was that she recited these each day for the children and those seeking contemplation.

However, there was more to it than that; she was also well trained in the personal histories as recorded in the documentations of trials and disputes under law. Her keen memory had allowed her to obtain her position while only in her late thirties, but she oversaw the work of the Scholars and Scribes. Her days were constantly filled with analysis of Proxan literature and historical records, and being ever ready to recite any given tale for children and adults.

This connection with civil law made her a direct advisor to the mayor, Puelle. She did not do any teaching herself—she did not teach literature, history, or law, no. She was instead involved in maintaining it.

The actual teaching of literacy was part of the task of the Great Healer—the only southerner present besides Felix himself. He served as the doctor for injuries and complications that required help, as was his mission: this was the mission of all such emmissaries who traveled even to the most desolate or “barbaric” places in the world. He had lived in Prox a very long time. Most of his subordinates were acolytes who held specific roles in facilitating Prox’s spiritual life—particularly in the ceremonies, such as this one.]

[And then there was Felix himself.

He was the center of attention for the moment in the matter at hand—though he did not seem ill at ease, and knew he had only himself to blame.]

Ranger: {You’re late.}

Felix: {I’m aware of that.}

Ranger: {Where were you, the last five years?}

[There was no formal beginning to the session. And while the title of Warrior was slightly more prestigious than all the rest, everyone present had positions of authority—enough to be brutally blunt to one another, if they so chose. That was part of the nature of holding such office: you couldn’t be too sensitive to the criticism of others.

Felix found he cared less than he was worried he would. The familiarity of the ceremony last night had done a great deal to calm his nerves.]

Felix: {I wandered the wilds until I came to live in a forest next to some plains. The weather is harsh, there—}

Tailor: {I can see it. You’ve kept your ceremonial gear well—have you not even been wearing it? Your cloak could stand to be replaced.}

Blacksmith: {I heard a rumor that you’ve been studying under a craftsman in Osenia. Some part of me is more insulted than relieved.}

Narrator: { “Relieved”?}

Blacksmith: {He could support himself better as a family man—in the south—if he had such a useful trade.}

Beastmaster: {Such arrogance you two both have. He was living in hiding, you know. It’s hardly wise to proudly show in garb so bold that one is a Warrior of Prox.}

Dancer: -In a voice strained with age- {Be grateful he has returned and given you presence. There are other things to discuss in the matter at hand.}

Ranger: {You say that, when he has not taken over duties that you have had to carry the last five years? Really?} : |

Felix: {…Sorry?} -Confused- ({Why would he…?})

Narrator: {Felix, the master of Dance is involved in exercises with the soldiers. But the Warriors are the ones tasked with other training relating combat.}

[Felix frowned at this, looking a little weary. The Healer stroked his beard and seemed to prepare something to say, but Felix used Psynergy to create visible hands for gesture while remaining unmoving himself. Such a gesture was used now to ask him to wait.]

Felix: {I’m afraid there is a great deal for me to discuss. I have been gone a very long time, and much was lost after the fall of Saturos and Mendari.}

[He shook his head slightly.]

Felix: {Saturos was teaching me effective leadership and decision making, but our lessons were never given proper formal structure and narrative. He led by example more than anything else. I think this is one reason why he spent so long putting off being a teacher. Some people just are better at that, while others are better at just going on with what they do.}

Narrator: {The records that he left behind do support this speaking. He never had the chance to fully learn all the duties or how to fulfill them. He was too far lost in mind and heart after he returned from Mars Lighthouse.}

Felix: {Need we bring up that again…}

[A pause as he brooded momentarily, before his brief sulk cleared.]

Felix: {I left years before I came of age. We traveled long with no one but myself to rely on as a guide. I have learned within the context of the world, and there, the world kept it—I would have returned sooner if I had not been driven into exile.}

Tailor: {You could have come to Prox.}

[The beastmaster leaned forward, holding his hands out in front of him with a slight grin.]

Beastmaster: {Boy, did you leave a proper mess in the state of affairs behind. You have more property than I bet you’ll know what to do with.}

Narrator: {You did inherit all that Saturos left behind, as well as the estate your parents were granted when you first came here. That includes two houses, fully furnished, and all the property included therein.}

Beastmaster: {If nothing else, you’re going to have to name a legal heir. Though I think we all know the real solution—}

Felix: {We’re not here to talk about my personal life.} : |

[The beastmaster laughed at this, and the Tailor put a hand to her face, amused.]

Tailor: {You really expect us to ignore that business*? It’s—}

((*Keep in mind, she’d be making the clothes for a wedding ceremony and ceremonial wear for any smol babs in his children))

Puelle: {As interesting and desired as this is, if we continue to do nothing but gossip, then we’ll not have time for anything else today. There should at least be some façade of order to this.} -Looks over at the Scribes- {It IS being recorded.}

[Felix gave a frowning glance, but the Narrator merely returned a dragon-like grin.]

Narrator: {You’d be surprised how many records there are like these in early Proxan history.}

Felix: -Thinking of the Writers- {Somehow, I doubt that.}

Dancer: {Enough on that now, then, all you young people. Felix, you called this assembly. What would you say to have it called to order?}

[There was silence, letting him think. He spoke up after a while, the Psynergy hands gesturing or shifting into symbols every so often.]

Felix: {…There are many duties, public and private, that I must attend to. And yes… one of them is to make a choice, and to choose an heir. I must seek counsel with the Narrator and the Elder regarding specifics of other aspects, and how to carry them out. You will accept my absence—I could not have effectively served as a leader over the last few years, as the madness of suffering and bitterness had taken hold in my heart. The years passed by without me even able to truly keep track of time—I even slept through much of them.}

[The Elder kept any others from responding to that, and Felix relaxed after a little while.]

Felix: {I have said so before, and I will say it again. I do plan to return in full when the time is right—but that will still be after the harvest, at the earliest.}

[He turned to look at the Ranger—the one who had given him his last training in full.]

Felix: {I will need more time than we have today and tonight to be able to resume my role in the community. You know this.}

[He looked over his shoulder at the blacksmith.]

Felix: {For what it’s worth—I studied under Sunshine because the last great craftsman of Ankhol turned me down. And it wasn’t—isn’t—a formal thing. I’ll talk more to you about that later.}

[He returned his attention to the master of Dance.]

Felix: {Master, I apologize that you have been forced to maintain duties that rightfully belong to me. I must ask that these are maintained for a while longer, until I am qualified to carry them.}

[He shook his head.]

Felix: {Yes, I am a Warrior. But even then, there are levels in all such things. I never gained so high a status as that of a teacher.}

Narrator: {True. You were recognized as one who only nature had tasks left from which you could learn. Let all recall that this mastery is not the same as being a teaching expert.}

Felix: {Exactly. I have not had much chance to teach except in one-on-one sessions.}

[He frowned in disappointment.]

Felix: {But… have none of the other acolytes made it to full recognition, in all this time?} : \  {There is no one else to oversee the drills?}

Puelle: -Shakes his head with a slight sigh- {The situation is… in stasis. There are those who can conduct the drill exercises, but it is mere repetition for them. The do not have a sense of tactics. They will be able to help you manage large numbers, but they do not have the capacity to lead them.}

Blacksmith: {I can see your aura shows you are disappointed in this.}

Felix: {Yes, that is part of it. Admittedly, I am dismayed at the amount of work ahead. It is going to be difficult to maintain all of my duties, since I am the only Warrior that Prox currently has. Even when I left, such duties were divided among four people. Even that was a stretch.}

Narrator: {Time will not make the workload any less. It will eventually make it greater, now that the beacon is lit.}

Felix: {I called this meeting because there is a chance that you all have seen someone who shows promise: enough that—in theory, mind—I could start working with one-on-one right away. I have been gone for a very long time, after all. Eleven years…}

[There was some silence at this. The Narrator then spoke again.]

Narrator: {All who would be placed in the succession for the Warrior candidacy must first train in combat. There were no new candidates for many years, as the light of the jewels held by the dragon proved that the Warriors who were gone lived even still.}

[Felix raised an eyebrow at this.

He wasn’t sure if this feature was something he never knew, or had just forgotten from before.]

Narrator: {The light of these stars faded from life when Karst and Agatio succumbed to the bitter cold. The Mars Clan lost its Clan status without any Warriors who survived.}

[His aura turned ruefully sober at this.]

Narrator: {The Clan lives again, when you were truly recognized. But without a Warrior to lead for over ten years—and no war to bring out such a thing out of need when the time is dire—there has been little chance for the development of such things.}

Felix: {There are truly none who serve as a true leader?}

Ranger: {That is not so.} -Turns to look at the Beastmaster- {You may recall that he did not hold this title when you had last arrived.}

[The Beastmaster grinned.]

Tailor: {What are you smirking at?}

Beastmaster: {You are all so caught up in the way things should be that you don’t understand where the plain truth hides.}

Blacksmith: {Oh, and you do?}

Beastmaster: {You’re actually letting me speak now? That may be something you regret within moments, you realize—}

Felix: {Please, stay on topic for at least these next few minutes.}

Beastmaster: {There are natural leaders within the community, and people of talent besides.}

[He turned to look at the Narrator.]

Beastmaster: {I don’t want to go on a tangent on those who train under several* Grand Masters, but suffice to say—in the times long past, weren’t there some Rangers who were recognized?}

((*For example—he himself got Ranger training, but showed proficiency in working with animals and thus was permitted to learn from the previous highest-ranking Grand Master Tamer (the official title).

Who is still a Master Tamer, incidentally—just that this guy now holds the rank of Grand Master since he’s younger and more able to handle all the responsibilities. Working with horses and dogs (who are like wolves) with fantasy-era medicine is a very dangerous job, and commonly results in inevitable injury.))

Narrator: {Yes. It was unusual in times of crisis, and the wording used is different in the ancient tongue, but such a thing has precedence. That is one reason why Felix was able to be nominated for the candidacy, despite never being recognized as a Soldier.}

Beastmaster: {I personally think that the few Rangers who have been realized are fair leaders in their own right.}

[He turns back to Felix.]

Beastmaster: {But they are leaders within their personal circle, or to their trade’s apprentices—and that is not the same as being the leader of those who live for battle.}

[He put his hands behind his head, leaning back in his chair.]

Beastmaster: {Face it, Felix—and everyone else, for that matter. None of the Soldiers named as successor have the capacity, on their own, to be Warrior-level leaders. Neither of the Rangers who have been realized truly want the responsibilities they would have—and besides, there is the matter of legitimacy. Everyone’s been looking to you to do this; anyone else just won’t do as substitute.}

[Felix gave an exasperated sigh.]

Felix: {I suppose I never really truly expected it would be any different. That would make it too easy.}

[He turned to look at Puelle.]

Felix: {I do recall one of the other candidates seeming like she showed promise.}

[The others all seemed more alert at this.]

Felix: {Her words remain clear to me; she vowed to train even harder, having taken heart. She had a specific goal of being strong like Mendari and Karst. Out of anyone, I should think that there is the most promise in her.}

Puelle: {She has not shown the leadership of tactics, however…}

Felix: {Nevertheless, I will be in need of all their help over time. If she has continued in earnest all these years, then she will be able to handle much of the combat training drills. That is very important—}

[The Beastmaster clawed briefly at the table, coming to a sudden realization—]

Beastmaster: {Ah…! Of course, we all take that for granted.}

Tailor: Mmm?

Beastmaster: {We’re so used to having subordinates to carry out lesser tasks, so that we can devote ourselves to the high end of the craft.}

Ranger: {I should not call such an important duty a “lesser task”!}

Beastmaster: -Flops a hand down, shaking his head- {As long as Felix is by himself, he just simply will not have time to handle everything alone. If he is to focus on teaching leadership skills, then perhaps he should be allowed to do exactly that—there are not enough Warriors for them to lead such exercises anymore. We only have one. And we have to respect that he has other duties—duties to his own Clan.}

[He clawed at the table again, leaning forward.]

Beastmaster: {If we don’t permit him to grow in that life, then we are leaving the fate and ruling of the entire Venus Clan in the hands of Isaac.}

[The mood in the room immediately darkened at this.]

Beastmaster: {And I don’t know about you, but I think the world would be far better off if such a Clan were to return under the guidance of Felix.}

[The Elder stood up, and all turned to face him at the sound.]

Elder: {He does speak to the heart of the matter. We all need more time… and thing will have to proceed differently, until there are enough Warriors who are truly recognized. Felix… you have the right to choose how you will train your successors you bring forth to the candidacy. I get the feeling you will be drawn more to the scholars than to the strong… so I just ask you to be aware of the matter.}

Felix: {That is fair. And thank you… I appreciate it.}

-=-=-=-=-=-

Perhaps the winter meeting can proceed with a bit more focus in the matter on things other than my personal life. I do look forward to hearing about how trade is doing, and whether or not any of the old land has been reclaimed.

—Felix

[mohayrixblog-blog]

MOHAY’S BLOG THE BEGINNING

Well since I am studying blogging and teaching the new style to others as I advance in my studies, it only makes sense that I create a regular blog myself. What I have learned is;

 My goal is to share my thoughts and get feedback from you. Your opinions are appreciated, valued, and solicited. If there is something you would like to challenge me with concerning writing don’t be shy. Jump in here and make suggestions. Also, I wish to gain a following of like-minded people (or aliens from Zekaphor). I want readers who truly enjoy what the Lord has blessed me with.

 I spend a lot of time writing since I decided to stop being disabled due to my broken down body and would like to know if it is being read. It is no easy task and this is a whole new style for me. I usually write detailed, over researched academic non-fiction. I did take two years of university journalism classes and started this new career based on that. Ever hear of the starving writer's fund? Is this my EGO talking? Of course, I think not, but it would nice to know that I may be a decent writer, with the ability to engage others on a long term basis. I too have a lot to say from the mundane to the extremely important (at least to myself) and wonder if I can earn enough to afford to eat from the talents given me. Perhaps I really fooled myself and I really cannot write anything that isn’t odiferous. I know I use big fancy college words and if you take the time to respond, I will give you the dictionary definition of those words. If you understand nothing I commit to print, I will start a fund for your higher education. 

Prices subject to change without further notice. Money back guarantee is only available to those with a cumulative GPA of 4.0 or higher. Must be living outside a 500-mile radius of any highway in a non-liberal state that supports straight sex married couples. Liabilities stemming from major brain damage must submit, in detailed writing, with every t crossed with no spellin errors, and every I dotted correctly Submit claims with a non-refundable $5,000,000.000.00 processing fee to: Weird Writers Inc. 666 Bloopers Ave. Suite aBcD Ripoffville, Zamunda 72588302. Allow twenty-five years for responses. WARNING !!! This product has been known to cause wisdom to the consumer by the State Of Confusion.

If I so offend you then delete me, forget me, block me, defriend me (hey so called friends do that and I probably won’t know) and/or let me know you chose to be offended by a bit of hot air forced through vocal chords while the buccinator muscles form enunciation (I do use a VRP [voice recognition program] in my craft). I love brutal honesty; it helps me grow and is taken as “constructive criticism”. I rarely get too emotional and get over my offenses towards myself or others ASAP. That would be known as forgiveness.

 For those who are new to my pages or those who have read very little to nothing of my posts in 17 pages, I will give a brief educated, self-assessment. In other words for my friends from other lands and cultures; this is who I am (Sort of. OK I said brief. I am very complicated).

 I do not define myself by what I do for a living as my job typically only lasts 12 to 18 hours a day (OK sometimes longer) and doesn’t consume my entire life. That leaves time for me to pray (God forbid) (I see you running away) some sleep, and eat. Yes, I am one of those crazy people that loves my job with God. Am I perfect? Does the heading say Jesus’ blog? Then no. I make mistakes like everyone else and unknowingly sin (brain flatulence). As I get older I realize that I don’t want to miss out on the bliss of utopia or rapture which means “pure joy and/or overwhelming bliss”. I want to be on that train to heaven, not under the locomotive while it burns. I rarely allow others to dictate false teachings or doctrines to determine my beliefs about the afterlife.

I like music and am a professional musician; watersports like surfing, and helping others. I really like the happy, light-hearted humor of clean comedy. I have been successful in comedy and it leaks out every so often. I like Hagen Das Strawberry ice cream and sprout bread (Ezekiel 4:9). Long Epsom salts/ bubble baths with a candle burning leaves me with a warm fuzzy feeling inside, but physically cold when I fall asleep in the tub. I also like public speaking and ministering the word, Mercedes-Benz autos, older Chevy trucks, boats that don’t make too much noise, and the following. I love to live by the title of my first English essay, “Life Is Too Serious To Take Too Seriously!!!” I am sure there are others but you will have to get to know me first and that involves actually reading my works. 😊😊😊

 What I don’t like: Fake, smarmy people who present as saints but live as demons. Learn to walk your talk!!! It reminds me of the old song “The Back Stabbers” by the O’Jays.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5OpeUts7sA

Since at this space in time, I am in several discussions about begging; I DO NOT LIKE IT (begging) AND HERE IS WHAT I THINK IS TRUE.

A  Facebook post between my new brother and myself.

ME

When you first told me you needed instruments, you did not beg and I appreciate that.

I envisioned enough to fill a large stage.

I always do things in a big way and was overwhelmed by the erroneous price tag I envisioned.

Victor

Great brother

Begging is not good

ME

I agree but was wondering if I could help in your needs without church begging.

begging shows me a person’s lack of faith

VICTOR

Yeah

Praying is the best weapon

ME

Bob said in his song "So Jah Seys" "not one of my seeds shall sit on the sidewalk, and beg your bread.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZwSJrk1YPo

 I don’t like purple eggs and spam, I do not like them says, Moman I am.

Oh yeah, I don’t like US citizens who can not write the English language correctly. No excuse folks. All you need to know was taught by the time of graduation from the fourth grade, and it is the law that children go to school until 16 in this country. No excuses but now that I think about it I can make money by editing the uneducated fools writing in the restrooms of sleazy honky tonks. Just last night I was told I had upset my partner, a sixth-grade dropout by insisting that he shut his unlearned, southern, country fried ebonics speaking mouth and read his own legal document out loud as I knew he would get the proverbial picture since he speaks well. Although he got a bit miffed, he said it motivated him to get it right or prove me wrong. After a macho exchange of testosterone laden verbiage he did as I suggested and five hours later the document that might make him millions in a lawsuit for police brutality was professionally edited, and he said he was impressed with my knowledge and skills, actually thanking me. Hell, I tried to tell him how impressed I was with the job he had done from jail and a general lack of English writing skills, but try to get a word in edgewise. Education is obviously not restricted to a formal classroom setting. Life or the university of hard knocks is learning at its best but most people can’t or will not recognize that. My friends in foreign countries such as Africa are excused since I realize that you speak at least two languages and English is not the first. I cringe at bad grammar, and if my partner can learn to research and write legalize with a sixth-grade education, then Americans have no excuses with all the opportunities that abound.  In some countries, there are no such things as libraries or available textbooks. We should be thankful that we live in what was once a great country, back when indigenous peoples ran things and authors chiseled petroglyphs into rocks. Grrrr!!!           ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹ ☹

 It is my wish that you get addicted to my writings so that you purchase my books, enabling me to administer aid programs to orphaned children that focus on long lasting sustainability projects in African nations. I also seek your input and will value your participation in any and all of my posted materials. Who knows, you may wind up having your thoughts published and win the grand prize.

Enjoy and 500 billion blessings. Have a Mohay day!!! 😊 😊 😊

[nettlestonenell]

Afterword

Here I am, five years to the day of when I posted the go-for-broke chapter of Don’t Give Out With Those Lips of Yours where Marion ‘dies’/is sent away to Germany, posting the final chapter of the entire Don’t series, as well as an afterword.

I have always thought of myself as a persuasive writer—certainly with regard to writing, that is what has most often drawn me to the process.

It might seem strange to say, a persuasive fiction writer, but it makes sense to me: getting the facts, figuring out the character, persuading a reader to buy into the fact that the story is genuine, [even though it is] set somewhere they’ve never been (time or place), and that the characters are believable and ring true.

Persuasion plays an even greater part in fan fiction. Can I, as an author, sell you on decisions this character—whom you may know quite intimately—will make? Do their words sound like them? How about the setting, the diction?

 Not many know it, but I promised Glorious Clio that 2016 would see the conclusion of the Don’t Series. And I meant it when I said it. Well, 2016 proved a lot of things, a great many of them disappointing, and on this count I, too, failed 2016.

But here it is, February 9, 2017, and it’s DONE.

Funny, as Don’t Sit Under the Apple Tree actually began in direct relation to my finishing the long work Death Would Be Simpler to Deal With—and fearing what came next.

What would I think about? What would I scribble notes about on random scraps of paper? What would I write?

It was 2010, the year of season one Sherlock in the US. The idea of an Alternate Timeline re-boot hung heavily in the air. And me? I couldn’t think about anything but Robin and Marian MOST OF THE TIME. Go to a concert—imagine every song through that lens, for example. I was still really, really burnt from the show killing Marian, and the failure to even follow through dealing with it on the scale it deserved. But mostly the show killing Marian. And Robin. And…[footage not found].

Look, Marian and Robin die OLD, their deeds accomplished, their lives fully LIVED. That’s how it works. It’s not JFK’s Camelot, a sort of short, limited run. It’s a lifetime. It’s-- Anyway…

I knew about AT or Uber-fiction from the Xena fandom, at the time the most famous of which was Melissa Good’s Dar and Kerry stories (Xena and Gabrielle’s dynamic transplanted into present day).

As for WWII? Anyone who examined my childhood would say that I was destined to create something about that era. Myself, I was raised in the post-war 50s. Yes, I am Older than Reblogginhood—but I’m not that old. But when one lives rurally, time does move slower, and despite my parents being born 1939 and 1941, they were raised more like turn-of-the-century babies. My mother recalls the installation of electricity in her home, a home that never saw running water. And so, despite living in a world with Original Madonna and Thriller, at my house we were listening more often than not to “Wonderful Songs and Inspiration” on Cincinnati’s WSAI (one of the program hosts was George Clooney’s dad/Rosemary Clooney’s brother). Big Band songs were often the standard, the soundtrack of a lot of our lives.

My father (more on him later) consumed WWII-centric film and television round-the-clock. From early days I saw war films (I may not know all their titles, but if Hollywood made it, chances are I saw it—multiple times), I went to bed at night to the sound of anti-aircraft guns, or submarines diving.

In the days of the big three networks, it was public television that most often showed my dad’s John Wayne films, Audie Murphy, documentaries, and (bless them) screwball comedies and serious dramas infused with pre-war or war time life of (often) civilians.

And that proved to be my jam. The lives of regular people, un-enlisted people, in the midst of war. Often, this means women. Sometimes, it means prisoners. And there’s simply not enough written or filmed about them for my taste. If the soldier’s role in WWII is well-documented (perhaps, even, in contrast with other wars, over-documented), the civilian/non-combatant story is nearly silent, with the exception of Holocaust literature.

So as Papa Nettlestone watched his war films, I was always like a research assistant, looking into the corners of frames, fixating on incredibly brief scenes and unnamed characters who seemed to fit into that class: ‘regular’ people and how they managed life during that war.

Shows like Jeeves and Wooster (and those period-filmed screwball comedies) showed me a pre-war lifestyle the wealthy in both America and Britain took part, or at least a facsimile of it.

And the timeline—the intersection of this period of human history: that a title-stripped Russian aristocrat raised in the opulent (and it could be said) out-of-touch Court of the Tsars could find himself in the war, become part of the new world following that war.

That an English lord born during the hoop skirts of the American Civil War, could see the colonization of India, women get the vote—and live to see the fashion of WWII, and the German’s plans to exterminate an entire people. Hot dog, that compelled me. Such drastic reorganization of the world, of society, of all European aristocracy. Still blows my mind.

But credit also must go to Clio, who stuck with me once she found Death, faithful in communication and reviewing. I knew she loved Hogan’s Heroes (at our house, also, required viewing), that team dynamic. I loved it, too, the soldiers now rendered non-combatants by virtue of the fact they are imprisoned—yet finding clever means of resistance. I loved The Great Escape (a film that has plenty for both me and my dad). Thomas Carter a definite character ‘descendant’ of Steve McQueen’s Cooler King, Hiltz.

I love stories about people hiding downed RAF pilots (Mary Lindell in One Against the Wind). Hiding Jews. Fusia Podgorska (Hidden in Silence) who hid thirteen people in her house’s attic for two and a half years, feeding and supporting them while she was still in her teens. Eight months of this time, German officers and their nurse girlfriends occupied the rooms directly below that attic. Charlotte-freaking-Gray (please, just the film version) getting stranded in France without a full cover story, unable to tell a soul who she really is, scheming to find a way to her crashed RAF lover, and living a constant knife’s-blade-edge away from being discovered.

 Papa Nettlestone is a 1939 baby. He never really saw his father (that he would remember) until the man returned home after the war (Purple Heart, Battle of the Bulge). Papa N was six years old at the time. Their relationship was never less than damaged. So he’s that bridge between Then and Now, my dad, as is Zara--but he’s also quite strongly the story’s Carter.

Although what he would guaranteed say to me if he were ever to find and read these stories (which will never happen), is that they should contain battlefront action. And that it’s a great shame that they don’t.

 Mind you, when I began writing this I had no thought to cultivating a series of stories. Apple Tree was meant to be a one-off as they say in television, not a back-door pilot.

It was just meant to get me over the hump of concluding Death. But, as with any good (I would say) short story, the final lines of it conveniently spiraled outward.

And then Clio said she would read the story forever in one of her reviews.

And that? That was clearly a challenge.

And Carter proved to be the necessary plot propulsion key.

I don’t know how long it took me to fully ‘break’ the story (obviously, via the series, certain plot beats were already there—but how to re-imagine them?), it happened over time.

I remember where I was standing in my house when I realized not only that Guy should burn down the barn, not the house, but that Marian wouldn’t die but would be sent away to a camp. (Originally, those two plot points happened more back-to-back in the narrative.)

I went with four stories primarily because that’s how many lines from the song I wanted to use. Purely dumb luck that it worked out so well.

I chose the Channel Islands after seeing an advertisement for the Island at War DVD series in a mail order catalog, and reading the small blurb saying the Nazis had occupied British islands, which left me suitably dumbstruck. I know A LOT about WWII for someone who has never studied it, as I said above. I’d never heard of these islands, much less their war-time past.

So, I looked them up.

Now, keep in mind: when I began this odyssey in November of 2010, the Internet was not what it is today. Today I can sit and watch YouTube video after YouTube video of Channel Islands travelogues. I can *see* Sark. Then, Google could find exactly ONE image to show me of Joe Kennedy (Carter). The Channel Islands had neither an official webpage nor a very good Wikipedia entry. I was largely flying blind. I wasn’t even certain the estate I’d imagined as Barnsdale (and its house) could feasibly be located on Guernsey.

The internet has vastly improved in Channel Island content in the intervening years. (Somewhat, likely, due to interest in The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society published in 2008, but of which I was unaware until a reader brought it to my attention in the review section of-–I believe—Lover’s Lane.)

As I learned new information I tried to make use of it—without mucking up anything I’d shared in the narrative prior.

Finding Sark was, quite frankly, the kind of plot/setting gift any writer would endlessly thank her muse for. It is, and I say this as a person having never been there, the almost perfect 1:1 stand-in for Sherwood.

 I do have regrets. I regret not better outlining how the Sheriff even caught wind that Stoker’s sub was coming to Sark in Lips (sylvi10 caught me out on that giant oops when it was far too late to fix).

 I regret that fanfiction.net turns all my double dashes (--) into (-) single ones. That its cut and paste interface erases my (*,&,+)s that are meant to help me insert lines where breaks need to be.

I regret not allowing for more of a story between Mitch and Eva, that I didn’t get to make better, fuller use of Freyga Tuckmann and most particularly ReichKaptain Lamburg (at one point there was a whole side story during the break in Lips right after the wedding that focused on the unit and Lamburg, with R/M only in the deep background).

I regret misplacing the notes (I will find them someday!) that name Allen and Eleri’s two daughters.

As a (fan? is that the right word here?) of A Tale of Two Cities, I regret not having Robin reference Dr. Manette’s being ‘returned to life’ in the wake of his own ‘death’ and Marion’s ‘death’ and rediscovery. (I will not elaborate here on the Sidney Carton/Charles Darnay similarity to Marion/Magda, but I will recognize that I see it in the narrative, and that reading a lot of Dickens in my formative years is doubtless to blame.)

And while I don’t at all regret the format/design of ‘Til I Come Marchin’ Home (I 100% believe that it is done in the right, and the only, way to best relate the stor(ies) at that point), I do recognize that it is a format not at all conducive to reading easily in choppily posted, stretched-out-over-time excerpts.

I do not regret, but will take a sentence or two to explain that if at times words for things or spellings alter, such as sometimes tire, others tyre—color or colour, it’s because I always thought of the original series as a sort of US/British hybrid. US in the sense that so much pop culture is from there, and a series as openly anachronistic as BBC Robin Hood is going to have that aspect to it, Hollywood sort of creeping in here and there, the word ‘Okay’ being thrown around. For that matter, though he’s become a German Kommandant, the Sheriff, to me, still pronounces his English the same as Keith Allen doing Vaisey. He still barks LEFT-tenant at Guy, though a German would say LOYT-nant. Robin still says ‘punch’ like Jonas.

 I try not to regret that there’s a lot of Love in this story, a lot of couples. The BBC series is responsible for a lot of that, I think. Sometimes I wonder if it were to be placed in a bookstore (and not shelved as fanfiction) if it would get sorted into the ‘Romance’ section.

I did write it for myself—make no mistake, this is 5000% the story I Want to Read, and one of the reasons I wrote it down (that I write anything down) is because it started to become so immense I was having trouble keeping track of it all in my head.

I had gone to an October yard sale the year of the first story (some of you know this story), I bought a cassette tape of Time Life’s “Romantic Memories of the War Years”—filled with pre-war and war-era Big Band. A four tape series, they only had the first one. Because at that time I was doing a sort of Robin/Marian overlay to almost anything I thought about, I overlaid them on those songs, and it was a potent fit for me.

I had Glorious Clio on board, and soon enough sylvi10 joined in, and—much later—reblogginhood. I mention them in particular because while I was writing the story for myself, their comments—as do any comments—caused me to turn my attention to certain parts of plot and character, and the narrative changed in specific ways directly related to those reviews. (Which is a definite endorsement that readers should consider writing reviews.)

Allen Dale bloomed as fully as he did in the way that he did due to sylvi10, I’ve no doubt of that. Chatting with her about the stories, hearing her thoughts on Allen, her investment turned my brain to his corner, caused me to think more about him than I might otherwise have done. (Allan does tend to take over stories I write anyway, tbh.)

I had at least one reader caution me about putting Robin and Allen as the two main characters in the fanfiction description for Marchin’, saying it would make people think the story is about a romance between the two. But I couldn’t not list Allen as second-most-important in that story (and at times, first). For a great deal of Marchin’ is Allen’s story. He’s at a point in his grief and dealing with the war where he’s finally agreed after years of swallowing it down to become proactive. Where he’s realized that his path to handling what he did in the war is to pursue facing it, whatever the consequences.

Perhaps his personal life triumphs/finding the love of his life are his ‘reward’, then. The good that came to him from his agreeing to hunt down and conquer--face the bad. He would not have re-met Eleri, after all, had he not traveled back to put his memory of Annie to peace, and avenge and memorialize her death. And it is in Eleri, who is able finally to understand what he was during the war, to whom he needn’t hide any longer, that he needn’t be two-faced anymore.

There’s a definite Allen/Marion parallel (not 1:1 in any sense) in the series. From the first moment they meet when he, just, misunderstands 1000% about her, to the life that she leads (like him) where no one knows all the contradictory and self-transgressive it involves. And she misunderstands him, too, thinking he’s nothing more than a short grift con man.

But it’s Robin who, while he doesn’t see all about either, knows both for being more than is shown.

 I wrote Edward/Miranda entirely for myself. I fell so HARD for them and their narrative. But some of the latter sections with them (particularly their backstory in Marchin’) is directly resultant of reblogginhood having commented that she would read about them if it were written. That made me feel okay (because by the time you’re that far in to writing a series of this scope you can find yourself TOTALLY distracted by audience expectations) to write those portions, which were, to me as a reader, a joy in every way. So, thank you for that.

 I learned some things: I learned that if I, with the RL I have, with the lack of RL time-to-myself, can not only find time to write, but to finish, this is an accomplishable goal for anyone. If you want it.

There’s a lot of writing advice getting blogged around on tumblr, but being a writer can be boiled to the simplest terms: the thing about writers is, They Write.

You can go to school for writing for as many years as you like, and your instructors will tell you this, they will expect this of you, but until you embrace it yourself, you won’t really get it. Writers write.

 Look at these ridiculous timelines:

Apple Tree – Nov. 1, 2010 -  November 10, 2010 – completed in TEN DAYS!

Lover’s Lane – November 11, 2010 – January 18, 2011, it’s 67K words. In just two months’ plus one weeks’ time.

Lips – January 20, 2011 – March 24, 2012, 239K word count. Fourteen months. That is within spitting distance of the length of HP and the Order of the Phoenix, for reference, which has 257K.

The first stories are ridiculous because of how MUCH was accomplished, and how quickly.

I posted the final chapter of Lips from the hospital, after having a baby—largely because I knew from experience I wasn’t about to get many chances to work on Don’t anytime in the near future.

So, I came to Marchin’. Of which contemplating it is hysterical to me, because I had always expected it to be only just slightly longer than Apple Tree. [laughs maniacally]

Marchin’ – April 1, 2012 – February 9, 2017. (Completed, though not yet fully published on fanfiction.net) Final count will show it just over 220K words. 30K more than HP and the Goblet of Fire. [Yes, I realize the almost five-year timeline to finish this was really, really, not acceptable. Way tooooo long to expect anyone to still be hanging around. I am not Susanna Clarke. And not only because I never got close to the 308K final word count of JSAMN in a single one of the discreet stories.]

 And please don’t forget the little bit of holiday side-fic of Zara and Carter, with gang-based Christmas flashbacks. Don’t: The Ghosts of Christmas Past, published January 2012, at 5K words.

And to be accurate, I was occasionally writing and posting other fic while also writing Don’t (including fic outside of BBCRH).

 I learned that I can write to an epic length (an important discovery for a short story writer), I learned how to craft a chapter (feel free to tell me I failed if you disagree). I learned how to juggle 10K plot strings and tie them off in the ending.

I learned that in the beginning writing is easy, slick as soap in an empty-but-wet bathtub; words can pour onto the page. You’re building. But then something clicks over in your plot, and suddenly you’ve got a lot of things to juggle, a lot of stitches not to drop.

You have to navigate among and around what you’ve built. Writing speed slows, writing time can get eaten up referring back to what you’ve written before to make sure all your pieces fit. To make sure you’re still holding the strings of all your marionettes.

I learned (I already knew a little about this before) that sometimes, when the words are gross and sticky and not coming out onto your screen you must fight to put them there anyway. That 97% of scenes/writing is clumsy and workman-level rather than craftsman quality. But you have to put down the bones and sinew before you can go back and build on that and add the plump flesh, the other parts of it that add beauty and poetry.

You have to trudge at times before you can dance. And if you’re not willing to slog through, you’ll be done (but not finished), your work will stall—and you’ll never dance.

 As for process, I wrote these straight through, beginning to end. Does that sound crazy? I don’t know. I got into the way of that due to posting updates online, I suppose. In the early days, I would always be posting something a little earlier in the narrative than what I was presently working on. But at some point that stalled out and I was publishing in tandem with what I had just done, having no other writing ‘banked’.

As for the ‘finale’, I will confess that portions of Carter’s journals used there were written—as many as five to six--years ago. And a lot of the reunion scene speeches were also conceived and written before the last chapters of Lover’s Lane were posted online (that was posted Feb 2012).

I don’t mean that as a brag, only, to say that the storyline has always been pretty closely orchestrated and set for some time. Not all the particulars, though.

 Clio said something recently about it being difficult to get back into the swing of writing Don’t, but you know, I’ve never really been out of it all these years. I wrote the unconventional narrative format of Death as what I expected to be my way to work through Marian’s on-screen murder.

And I started Don’t even before I completed the ending of that story. And creatively and in any daydreaming, I have lived solidly in that world ever since. Spare time? Think about Don’t. Can’t sleep? Think about Don’t. People, that’s a long time. Am I over Marian’s death? Probably not, but that frustration point is more like background noise at this point. But Don’t’s been with me long enough that I don’t think it will ever leave.

I’ve been stalling a long time (telling myself to finish it first), not going back to Story 1 and reading straight-through sequentially to the end.

It’s startling to think I don’t have to put it off anymore.

Don’t has received its share of criticism—not necessarily hostile criticism (thankfully). A reviewer thinking Marion’s reaction to Robin upon seeing him in Story 1 is too stoic (yes, I may have been watching too many stone-cold Barbara Stanwyck films, but I stand by the characterization), LOTS of feedback on how Marion was not in ‘Til I Come Marchin’ Home, the notion that all four stories are too sad/depressing, just to name a few.

It was always a deliberate intention to keep Marion absent for most of Marchin’. She is, after all, a ghost at that time. And readers should feel the Marion-shaped hole she left just as much as do the characters. Even saying her name is at times too much a trigger for them. And almost every side-flash scene of Marion when she appears post-war refrains from using her name in a familiar way. As though she no longer even thinks of herself as Marion.

I do believe her absence and the emotion of her post-war storyline is more bearable when all of Marchin’ can be read as a seamless whole rather than in parts and pieces and stops and starts.

As for sadness—well, okay. Maybe? I’ll say it’s hard for me to judge. If it is sad, to me it is an exquisite pain, a pain felt on the way to coming joy. But then, I always knew the end. I always knew the pain would not end in loss and futility.

And the end, frankly, may not satisfy all. [spoilers] Everything that happened (even, took place pre-series) to our beloved Robin and Marion can’t be fixed, simply, by mind-blowing sex following their reunion.

But their scars and insecurities still present shouldn’t be taken as unreclaimable. Only, the time it takes to regain such things in a relationship isn’t covered explicitly in the plot.

Real world studies have been done about those imprisoned in the camps. Contact me if you want some links. Everything from (obviously) PTSD to a myriad of health complications plagued those liberated, often for the rest of their lives. To pay true respect to what Marion is to have been subjected to, is to admit that there is no easy fix for it, not simply a ‘spunky’ disposition that can overcome it.

As for why Marion stayed away, when taken as a whole, pieces of that puzzle are (without direct mention of Marion) everywhere within Story 4’s narrative (and strong correlations exist to it in earlier stories), spoken about, by, or with regard to everyone tainted by the war, from Allen to Miranda to Djak to Carter (and others).

As for the long timeline between Marion’s ‘death’ and her being located alive, I respect cries of ‘too long!’, but as a person older than reblogginhood, I say: a decade, when life is at its most distracting (as with small children to care for), passes as less than two years’ time in one’s carefree singleton twenties. Time simply shortens later into life.

 From Story 1, Don’t has always been about the conundrum of sexual loyalty, just as the song it was crafted around. A loyalty that goes (according to the original song’s lyric) both ways, just as the woman is asked not to sit under the apple tree, the man is later on admonished (*significantly, but curiously, this lyric is absent from The Andrews Sister’s most-famous version of the song) “Watch the girls on the foreign shores, you'll have to report to me, When you come marchin' home. Don't hold anyone on your knee, you better be true to me… you're gettin' the third degree, When you come marchin' home”

Clearly calling out the woman’s mate who is currently serving overseas.

So the sexual loyalty question in WWII goes both ways. Let me be clear: I don’t necessarily believe jealousy and compromised sexual loyalty are a 1:1.

I would, in fact, mount a defense of BBC series Robin as not necessarily motivated by jealousy toward Guy. At least not ‘simple’ jealousy. (ie: you have Marian! And I don’t!)

With as much in-series as is NOT said between Robin and Marian (recall: he tells her he loves her when she’s dying/dead/unconscious—and when she recovers he doesn’t bother to re-state it), a partial dynamic of Marian/Robin’s relationship is what goes unspoken between the two of them. Yet Guy is held back by no similar scruples. He may pursue BBC series Marian openly, speak with her openly, offer her safety, a home, financial and societal security. In short, as given, Guy represents   a future for Marian. (And to most people/certainly her peers and her betters, an ACCEPTABLE future, as Guy is allied with the present power structure and law-in-place).

In this, BBC series Robin is frustrated (and Don’t series Robin even more so). What can he offer Marian? What can Don’t Robin offer Marion? Even less. He has nothing of stability, no home, no financial means he can access. He cannot even offer her (with any certainty) that he, himself, will remain alive and accessible to her.

I confess, I kept from placing Marion into a fait accompli sexual relationship with Guy primarily because that felt like more weight than the story was prepared to bear, and secondarily because I find the idea of Geis’ sexual frustration really enjoyable, and it drives him very particularly as a character. A Geis who agrees to be put off by Marion repeatedly, when nothing truly stands in the way of his forcing himself on her is far more interesting than Geis as Marion-rapist. (Now, Geis as Anya-rapist is interestingly fraught in its own way, and faithful to the BBC series, as well.)

Sexual loyalty through the lens of female characters whose agency is compromised by something like an Occupation exists as well. Marion and Eva (on the BBC series more of a contrast than a comparison) here become two versions of a similar story. Yet the chance arose to give Eva, the more sexually transgressive (for the era depicted) with a bastard child and a confirmed sexual relationship with the Kommandant, offered the chance to give that character a happy ending sooner than that of her former mistress.

Early on, in a world where so little can be counted on, the question of Marion’s loyalty is of paramount importance to Robin, more so one might argue, than whether, even, she reciprocates his love.

The sexual aspect of her loyalty early on in Apple Tree and Lover’s Lane is almost always their departure point for argument. Marion expects him to have faith in her. But Robin, as would any of us (like the rest of Guernsey), logically assumes she is sexually involved with Geis.

Robin believes that sleeping with Geis would equal a betrayal of English values, and therefore, of him.

He carries the wound of Marion, at the time of their break-up fight, attempting to (in his eyes) use sex to manipulate him before she intends to leave him behind for America. And he knows, historically in their relationship, that Marion has never viewed sex in the same light as he has (and was socially expected to do).

Which culminates in the argument on Sark before Marion is returned to Geis following her kidnapping, wherein she attempts to get him to see that on the Islands during occupation, believing her agency is uncomplicated and without consequences in any sexual liaison is merely an illusion.

Hopefully, the series is more than just this debate/discussion. Certainly, to me it’s about more than sexual jealousy, but certainly that was an inciting catalyst.

Then again, maybe the overriding issue of sexual loyalty is just a notion I contemplate to try and defend the large number of hook-ups in finalizing the series…

But Don’t is also about heroism. At its very core.

I have personally long been fascinated by certain ‘hero’ narratives that see the heroes returning to normal life, such as the man instrumental in the Warsaw ghetto uprising who survived the war, moved to Florida, and successfully opened a chain of grocery stores. Or the Daniel Craig character/ real-life figure of the Jewish commando, Tuvia Bielski, who hid people in large numbers in the Polish woods in Defiance and went on to live a life in New York, running a small trucking company for 30 years--where his own children were ignorant of what he had done during the war.

For a long time this kind of “post war information”/return to normalcy always bummed me out. But as I’ve aged, I’ve honestly come to believe that this is wherein true heroism lies.

To know when to stop fighting. To manage to reclaim something of a ‘normal’ life. To enjoy the accomplishment of what was being fought for, the fruits of your wartime labors—and particularly for the oppressed people groups in WWII (Jews, the Rom), to partake in the society, culture, and family life/continuation of your people, as that is exactly what your enemies were trying to prevent you from doing.

To thrive in the wake of your oppression.

And in my age, I think I’ve realized that even though these heroes, these people who accomplished remarkable things during the war, then stop behaving quite so obviously heroic (no longer action movie stars) the heroism that they then face is a quieter one, one of learning to cope and process what the war did to them.

And really, it’s not flashy, but it is no less compelling. No less transformational, and dramatic as can be.

Some readers may still wish to argue that twelve years is too long a time, that it is impractical that Carter’s grandson is not well-acquainted with all that took place in the narrative. Rest assured; I’ve read more than my share of war and post-war narratives, of combatants and non-combatants alike, and the thread of survivors never again speaking of what happened to them, or simply never coming back home (though they lived) are more common than not.

Sometimes they find a way to speak of what happened to them, they speak only to others who experienced it, they go on to help curate a memorial—that safe space where they can speak and share about their experiences; they write it down, they paint it.

 I’ve had two feedback responses that I think are important enough to include here for the general reader.

The first involves the gang not attempting to canonize Marion as a hero during the time she is missing/a thought that Marion should not feel quite so awfully, or make such drastic decisions based upon her wartime life choices.

Historically, honestly, that would have been pretty unlikely. The taint of collaboration would have overwhelmed any ‘redeeming possibility’ of Marion's resistance work as the Nightwatch (which it would not be simple to convince anyone she 100% was; the wrong accent--the fact no one ever really saw the Nightwatch, the fact Vaiser put forth that it was really Joss Tyr just for starters), and the fact Marion was female, in the 1940s; the world at large would hold the likelihood of her having been Geis' lover (recall: the importance of sexual loyalty) far above the slim chance that she was also the Nightwatch. Such things as promiscuity (especially with the enemy) weren't taken lightly, nor forgiven in females. Robin’s connection to her would have been colored by the notion she had been a scarlet woman, and him, doubtless unable to resist being in her thrall. (Honestly, as backward a notion that man is defined by an inability to resist his private parts as that a woman is in all situations responsible for what befalls hers). In fact, into the 1980s and 90s, the Channels were still fighting over who collaborated and who didn't. (Jersey records account for at least 900 illegitimate babies born to Islander mothers and German soldiers during the Occupation. As recently as 20 years ago the Islands were still in denial of this, despite Public Records being released that proved the numbers.) It was very divisive, a true crisis of the islands, and remains so to this day. So while I think, in later decades, yes, the world could embrace Marion as a hero, could believe her tale--those alive during the war, living out those years and trying to survive the wake of its ending, would not have been in a state of mind to accept her. In that starkly black and white, right and wrong, mindset of the times, she would have been condemned on all accounts. She would have had to be dead for real for her to be lionized, or even thought acceptable in Britain. Additionally, the National Secrets Act, which kept Robin & Co., and likely Carter from speaking about their war work for DECADES (if ever) following the war's end would have prevented anyone from talking about the Nightwatch, their time on Sark, etc., under penalty of imprisonment, and/or threat of a charge of treason. Not to mention being socially ostracized.

  And Marion is that great sort of pragmatist/realist that fully understands this. And she's right, really. At least in that she's right that collaboration was not at all tolerated in the wake of the war. The taint she fears for Robin would have been 125% a real thing. He would have been tainted.

And we all know how skeletons in the closet are found and often via spin made into skeletons when they may not really be—in the political (or as he calls it, public) world. In fact, despite the majority of Islanders alive during the Occupation having died (and some, emigrated elsewhere) the Channels are still trying to work through and figure out how to accept WWII collaborators among them, how to speak of them historically. As said, it is still a tremendously divisive issue. So Marion's right in her conclusion about what association to her would bring about (even if her Nightwatch identity were known), but she's wrong in her understand of Robin. She's always hoped for that public life of doing good and legislating for Robin (no doubt because Edward was her standard for how a good man behaves/takes action), and she's right that Robin would excel at it, but she has never been able to get her head around the idea that Robin doesn't have any interest in that, playing that game, being that person—no interest in matters of state and diplomacy. It is that tragic flaw of a mistake/miscalculation she makes over and over again.

 It may seem to go without saying, but let me thank you (any of you, all of you) for reading. Let me shower laurels on those of you who reviewed. I did write this work for myself, no doubt about it, but the encouragement of hearing from others reading cannot be undercut. It is an immense support to know as an author that your words matter to someone else out there.

And if you’ve been reading and you’ve never commented or checked-in, by golly, you’ll never find a better time than now.

 I made some promises to myself, for when I finished Don’t. To buy all four CDs of Time Life’s Romantic Memories of the War Years (digital files of the original versions of many of the songs on them not available). To commission some fan art. To work to get the entire series posted to AO3.

But right now, I’m learning something new. I’m learning how to deal with surviving in the wake of completing a long, long work. As I mentioned earlier, when the end of Death came, I was already working on Don’t.

But, what now? What next?

I will never be over Robin/Maria(on). Of that you can be sure. But will I write more BBCRH? It seems doubtful, unless I do so to conclude at least one unfinished story (hi, sylvi10!). Don’t is certainly my ‘last word’ on the BBC series (I think). While I’ve not ‘gotten over’ them killing Marian (etc.), I have at least worked through it.

There was a time I thought to play around with writing “Widow Hood”, wherein Robin is killed in S2 in the Holy Land, not Marian, and Marian is the one left to reassemble the gang (re-recruit Will and Djaq back to England) and we sort of see if she can accept Guy into the gang, as the show had Robin doing, if she can forgive Allan’s betrayal, and see if she can overcome Robin’s loss (as the show had Robin ALLEGEDLY doing in S3). But I think my pursing that (at least as a whole) is pretty unlikely at this point.

What I do know, is I feel confident I can write to a longer form now, and manage chapter breaks to my own satisfaction if not others’. And somewhere out there, the promise of The Perfect Hat is waiting for me.

[mastcomm]

Impeachment, Coronavirus, Brexit: Your Thursday Briefing

(Want to get this briefing by email? Here’s the sign-up.)

Good morning.

We’re covering the 16-hour Q. and A. session at President Trump’s impeachment trial, Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union, and Americans’ increasing life expectancy.

Republicans push for a speedy end to trial

Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, and other Republicans sound increasingly confident that they have the votes needed to block witnesses and bring President Trump’s impeachment trial to an end as soon as Friday.

They’ve offered multiple rationales for refusing fresh testimony, but our chief Washington correspondent says that Republicans are worried that hearing from John Bolton, the former national security adviser, would lead to a cascade of other witnesses. That would tie up the Senate indefinitely when Mr. Trump’s acquittal is not in doubt.

On Wednesday, the Senate began a two-day question-and-answer session with the House impeachment managers and the president’s legal team. Here are six takeaways.

Closer look: One of Mr. Trump’s lawyers, Alan Dershowitz, offered a strikingly broad defense, arguing that a president cannot be removed from office for actions to improve re-election prospects if he believes his re-election is in the national interest.

“Every public official I know believes that his election is in the public interest,” Mr. Dershowitz said. “Mostly, you’re right.” Our congressional editor discussed his comments on The Latest, our podcast about the impeachment investigation.

What’s next: The trial will resume at 1 p.m. Eastern today. A vote on whether to hear from new witnesses is expected on Friday.

Another angle: The White House has said it reviewed a draft of Mr. Bolton’s coming book, but Mr. Trump’s lawyers insisted on Wednesday that they were unaware that it contradicted the president’s impeachment defense.

Rushing to halt the spread of the coronavirus

A World Health Organization committee is set to meet for the second time in a week to decide whether the outbreak is a global health emergency. Today’s meeting comes as the number of confirmed cases surpassed 7,700 worldwide, most of them in China. Here are the latest updates.

More than a dozen countries, including the U.S., are isolating patients and screening travelers from China. Nobody has died from the disease outside mainland China, where the death toll rose today to 170.

Closer look: The outbreak is a reminder of how dependent the world’s economy is on China, our business correspondent in Hong Kong writes. Global brands including Ford, Ikea and Starbucks are shutting down factories and stores, while Apple is rerouting supply chains.

Brexit is finally happening

Britain is scheduled to formally withdraw from the European Union on Friday, after more than three years of confusion, political division and missed deadlines.

But a potentially volatile new chapter — in which London and Brussels try to hash out a trade deal by the end of the year — is just beginning.

Go deeper: While Brexit has produced some unity among the 27 other European Union members, it stands to weaken the bloc’s diplomatic clout and highlight internal divisions, our senior diplomatic correspondent in Europe writes.

Quotable: “It’s a defeat for everyone — for the European project, for Britain’s position in the world and for American interests, since the U.S. was the beneficiary of Britain in the E.U.,” said Ian Lesser, a former American diplomat.

Which Democrat agrees with you most?

As primary season begins, you might be unsure which presidential candidate best matches your views and priorities.

To help, we’ve produced a 10-question quiz to determine the Democratic hopeful with whom you most align.

Closer look: Joe Biden has highlighted his work during the Obama administration to help widen access to health care and revive the economy. But to many labor union officials, those years were a disappointment.

Another angle: Iowa State University has prohibited political slogans written in chalk on sidewalks after students complained that the messages had become discriminatory and divisive. A group has sued the school, saying the ban violates the First Amendment.

If you have some time, this is worth it

Loyal to China, but locked up anyway

From Beijing’s perspective, Zulhumar Isaac, above, a Uighur woman from the region of Xinjiang, grew up in a model ethnic-minority family: Her mother was a Communist Party cadre, and her father worked at a newspaper that toed the official line.

But when President Xi Jinping’s government began cracking down on Uighurs, her parents were detained. Our writer spent nearly a year documenting her effort to get them back.

Here’s what else is happening

Living longer: Life expectancy for Americans has increased for the first time in four years, the government reported today. After a decline driven by a surge in drug overdoses, the benchmark rose to 78.7 years in 2018.

New York’s crumbling facades: Scaffolding surrounds about 1,400 buildings in the city because of safety concerns. An investigation by The Times found that landlords flout laws on building exteriors and ignore enforcement, including $31 million in fines.

Get crackin’: A sculpture outside C.I.A. headquarters contains an encrypted message that hasn’t been fully decoded for almost 30 years. Its creator has offered a new clue.

Snapshot: Above, the surface of the sun, pictured by a telescope in Hawaii. The high-resolution image released on Wednesday revealed cell-like “kernels,” each about the size of Texas, that carry heat from inside the sun to the outside.

Late-night comedy: At the impeachment trial, senators have to submit questions written on a card. “It looks like the card you fill out before singing karaoke,” Jimmy Fallon said.

Cook: There’s only one rule for cheesy cornbread muffins: Don’t overmix.

Watch: We spoke to the actor George MacKay about how he pulled off the thrilling final run in the film “1917.”

Read: “A Very Stable Genius,” by the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, is a No. 1 debut on our hardcover nonfiction and combined print and e-book nonfiction best-seller lists.

Smarter Living: Not everyone develops social skills as a child. Here’s a primer for adults.

And now for the Back Story on …

Gandhi’s mantle

Today is the 72nd anniversary of the death of Mohandas Gandhi, who helped win India’s independence from Britain with a campaign of nonviolence and who enshrined protections for all religions. Protesters challenging Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-nationalist agenda have been evoking Gandhi’s legacy — as has Mr. Modi. Maria Abi-Habib, a South Asia correspondent for The Times, spoke with Mike Ives of the Briefings team about the clash.

How have the protests changed since they started a few months ago?

They’re a lot broader. It’s not just Muslims or a bunch of liberal students, it’s people who see the India that Gandhi built, one of secularism and religious coexistence, giving way to a government that is bent on a sectarian narrative at a time when the economy is sputtering.

Do any scenes spring to mind?

Some protesters held a placard that read: “Dear Hindus, We rejected an Islamic state in 1947. Now it’s your turn to reject a Hindu state. Sincerely, Secular India.” That really spoke to me because 1947 was the partition, when Hindus in Pakistan decided to stay or flee to India, and Muslims in India had a similar choice.

India chose secularism in 1947. It was majority Hindu and said its strength was its diversity, and that it would embrace Christians and Muslims and Sikhs just as much as its Hindu citizens.

Why is one protest in particular — a highway sit-in by Muslim women in New Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh neighborhood — seen as so significant?

Over all, India’s Muslim community has not been well organized in recent decades, but these protests have mobilized it. Shaheen Bagh has become a symbol of that. And women’s place in Indian Muslim homes has tended to be a conservative stereotype: They don’t come onto the streets, they don’t protest, they don’t mobilize. So Shaheen Bagh has really changed the game.

That’s it for this briefing. See you next time.

— Chris

Thank you Mark Josephson, Eleanor Stanford and Chris Harcum provided the break from the news. You can reach the team at briefing@nytimes.com.

P.S. • We’re listening to “The Daily.” Today’s episode is about the coronavirus outbreak. • Here’s today’s Mini Crossword, and a clue: Highly capable (five letters). You can find all our puzzles here. • The Times has named Ben Smith, the editor in chief of BuzzFeed, as its next media columnist.

from WordPress https://mastcomm.com/impeachment-coronavirus-brexit-your-thursday-briefing/

[recentanimenews]

BTS is Conquering the World, and They’ve got Anime on Their Side!

  It’s hard to escape the pull of BTS; even if you aren’t a K-Pop fan or don’t know what it means when someone says that they’re ARMY, you’ve still probably heard of this top selling group. BTS has become inescapable, appearing in Time magazine, Saturday Night Live, and even winning 2 Billboard Music Awards yesterday along with doing an amazing performance with Halsey at the awards show! "But why am I reading about them on Crunchyroll?" you might be asking yourself. Well, as you may have guessed, the BTS guys are big anime fans! Although not a very well kept secret, you might be surprised at just how much anime is not only a part of BTS’ downtime, but also their music, influencing their songs and even some of their concert appearances. As we said in our article about wrestlers and anime, you can find anime fans everywhere, even at the top of the music charts!

  One of the most visible instances of BTS revealing their anime and manga fandom came in an episode of RUN BTS!, a show where the members chat about things that are going on both in their lives and in the performing world. In one episode, the boys end up at a manga cafe, and use the manga on hand to affect the mini games they’ll be playing on the show. Suga, a devout Slam Dunk fan, immediately searches for the manga while proclaiming that “Slam Dunk is the best.” When he finds the volumes of it on the bookcase, he immediately starts humming the show’s theme song! V asks the other members if they know about Law of Ueki and then fawns over the power of turning trash into trees! J-Hope finds a Naruto volume, which automatically gets him, Jimin, and RM singing the show’s theme song. RM even Naruto runs over to them enthusiastically!

    In 2018, a rumor started spreading online that Jungkook had deleted Twitter off of his phone in order to make room for Crunchyroll (we even made a little video about it!), and while we may never know if that rumor was true, Jungkook does indeed use his phone to catch up on anime! The official BTS Facebook page even featured some candid shots of Jungkook relaxing, watching episodes of Haikyu!! on his phone during some downtime. 

  While Jungkook’s Crunchyroll adventure caught fans and media attention, the rest of the boys have revealed in various interviews that they all enjoy anime and manga of various sorts. Noisey did some lightning round questions, with them being asked to choose between One Piece, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z; although some members tried to be a bit impartial (citing “all”), the guys all seemed to prefer Naruto to the rest, with Dragon Ball Z coming in a close second! But don’t fear if you’re a fan of pirate action—the BTS members love One Piece too, with Jungkook stating that if he could be a superhero, he’d be Sanji! Jimin is also a huge fan, getting a Zoro figure for his birthday and revealing that when he first saw Zoro as a kid, he wanted to grow up to become a cool swordsman just like him, practicing Kendo for 8 years. Although he eventually chose singing over swordsmanship, sometimes his slick Kendo moves make an appearance in some of their videos! The BTS guys have also stated their love for series like Full Moon o Sagashite, Shugo Chara, Pokémon, and many more, showing off an impressive history of anime and manga enjoyment.

    Sometimes, BTS’ love of anime has bled into their performances and public appearances. During one show, V did a Nico-Nico-Ni, complete with hand gestures, as an homage to everyone’s favorite Love Live gremlin, Nico Yazawa. V also sang the Card Captor Sakura opening song at a public event, doing a pretty good job of singing it off the cuff and acapela! Not to be outdone, RM had a pretty famous run in a Sailor Moon costume, even documenting the transformation he went through to get the look down, while Suga appeared on stage as Naruto, complete with whisker marks, blonde hair, and of course, the signature ninja headband. Jungkook’s also been filmed doing a pretty impressive Naruto run, confirming that Naruto is indeed the one series that all members have a lot of love for! 

    During a karaoke RUN BTS! episode, J-Hope and Jimin (the rest of the gang couldn't contain themselves and also joined in!) sang the Korean Naruto theme song as they did the classic Naruto run and threw paper ninja stars! J-Hope and Jimin did an improptu cosplay of Rock Lee and Naruto, and members did some impressive attempts at jutsu hand movements to channel their inner shinobi for their performance. Naruto is pretty great, so we aren’t surprised that it's the big favorite amongst the BTS guys, but one of their recent hit songs actually has some direct homages to another anime series that may be a little less well known outside of Asia...

If you guessed Anpanman, you’d be right! The song "Anpanman" takes direct reference to the classic series of the same name by Takashi Yanase, featuring a brave superhero who also just happens to have a head made out of bread and filled with red bean paste. Anpanman is a global hit, and its unsurprising to hear that the BTS boys not only know who he is, but are also fans; after all, it's pretty hard not to love such a delicious superhero! In their song "Anpanman," the BTS guys sing about how they may not be superheroes like Batman or Superman, but that they can be your Anpanman, giving you strength and support when you need it, just like the sweet bread-headed anime superhero himself. Through comparing themselves to not the world’s strongest hero, but the world’s weakest hero, BTS stays true to their message with the thought that, rather than being a hero just because you have strength, you can also be a hero even if you’re soft like sweet red bean buns. Of course, the BTS guys might be a bit more attractive than Anpanman, but they are right to idolize a hero who happily shares his deliciousness with anyone who is hungry or in need!

It can be easy to forget that some of our favorite pop stars are also just regular people, and the fact that BTS have such a deep love for anime and manga helps to remind us that, between the world tours and the amazing performances, they enjoy relaxing with their favorite shows, being inspired by their favorite characters, or simply just enjoying the pleasure of Naruto running whenever they get a chance. As BTS continues their world domination of the music and media charts, we’ll hopefully hear more about what anime they’re enjoying on a daily basis; I don’t know about you, but I’m curious to know what shows they’re all watching this season!

Are you going to see BTS during their Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour? Do you have any similar tastes to the BTS guys? Do you also enjoy Naruto running in your free time? Let us know in the comments!

----

Nicole is a features writer and editor for Crunchyroll. Known for punching dudes in Yakuza games on her Twitch channel while professing her love for Majima. She also has a blog, Figuratively Speaking. Her biases are RM and J-Hope. Follow her on Twitter: @ellyberries

  Do you love writing? Do you love anime? If you have an idea for a features story, pitch it to Crunchyroll Features!

By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com