Once more awash with love for everyone around me... I think it's one of the most beautiful intrinsic traits of people, to love one another <3

on note of the horror of applying for disability - make sure, if you're ever ill or struggling with health issues, you request and save all of your medical records yourself. i went through hell for over a decade, saw dozens of doctors, had countless tests done, got run around on diagnoses and proper treatment and avenues for help, finally applied for disability, it took over two years to even get into the beginning of a case and a hearing date, only to discover that the decade+ worth of medical records were gone. almost all of them (one hospital had theirs. one. and it was the one place i went that wasn't in my town) were just. not there. the court couldn't explain it and had never seen anything like it. almost everything i had was purged, deleted, or otherwise lost. the physicians had one sheet confirmations i'd been there but nothing further. without the concrete examinations of how desperately sick i had been for so long and how much had been done in my care, we had no case. no lawyer would represent me - i lost track of how many firms i called, emails i wrote, people i begged - one lawyer literally laughed at me as she told me no one would take my case because it would not be "financially advantageous" for them and she already knew she "wouldn't make enough money [from me]" for my case to be "worth it," as if she wasn't speaking about a human life. i was told to start over - go to every doctor again, have years' worth of tests again, but when i first got sick, i was still a teenager and then in my early 20s and had health insurance through my father. that ended, and i couldn't restart the process that had defined my existence with no health insurance. no doctors would see me, the one doctor who offered to help me ended up turning me away when her policy changed and she wasn't taking new medicaid patients. the indigent clinic that sent me to physical therapy in 2019 wouldn't do labs/couldn't do anything more extensive than the most basic exam, and i couldn't see a gp. cfs/me is often not seen as a "legitimate" illness even though research has found that it is as ruinous and negatively impacting to quality of life as certain life-threatening diseases, and then my multiple comorbidities are also dismissed as not that serious (though they are, the pots especially) and are very hard to treat (endo). if we'd known my records ever could've disappeared like that, we'd have requested every document, but it was too late. without the records and without a lawyer, the case was summarily dismissed (the judge was...less than sympathetic), without health insurance i couldn't start over, they won't allow you to even have snap benefits if you don't have disability and can't be put into the mandatory work program, so it left me with nothing. the system is byzantine, cruel, and exhausting.

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Welcome to the Nightmare Game II - CH8

**This is an edited machine translation. For more information, please [click here]**

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

-----

Chapter 8: Resurrection Overture (VIII)

When Qi Leren arrived at Chen Baiqi's store, it was 20 minutes earlier than the appointed time. Chen Baiqi was chatting with a woman with her back to him. They both looked at Qi Leren in the doorway, and Qi Leren also looked at the woman.　

That person was a very gorgeous and charming beauty, wearing a gorgeous and complicated low-cut witch's dress and a European top hat. Although her whole person was dressed in dark colours, it made her skin more white, and her bright red lipstick and smokey eye makeup were particularly attractive. When he noticed this, Qi Leren first reviewed why he noticed his sister's makeup at first sight... Was it really a matter of sexual orientation?

"Since you have a guest, I'll take a walk first. I'm tired from the task I just finished. Let's talk about it another day." The beautiful woman smiled at Qi Leren, picked up the women's walking stick at the table, and walked out of Chen Baiqi's shop gracefully.

"Who was that?" Qi Leren asked.

"The Illusionist," Chen Baiqi said.

Qi Leren suddenly remembered that the Court’s Miao Li had mentioned during his dream lessons that the Illusionist had helped cover up his tombstones on the Undead Island in order to hide them from the Slaughter Secret Society. Was it that beautiful woman just now?

"Have you had breakfast?" Chen Baiqi asked him.

Qi Leren nodded: "I’m full."

Chen Baiqi smiled meaningfully: "Don't eat too much next time, lest you throw up."

"..." Qi Leren felt that his future was grim.

"Although we’ve known each other for some time, I’ve never introduced myself properly. Since you will train with me from today, I will introduce myself again. Come with me. " Chen Baiqi led Qi Leren inside. Qi Leren had never been to the back part of the store. When he found that there was a basement with several floors, he couldn't help crying deeply for his future self.

"I used to be the executive officer of the Trial’s Heresy Court. I was mainly responsible for executing the Devil worshippers. Later, because of an injury, I could no longer continue such a high-intensity and dangerous job, so I retired early. Now I’m half an insider who does intelligence." The elevator stopped on the third basement floor and Chen Baiqi led Qi Leren out. The third basement floor was as big as a basketball court. The ground was made of concrete, without any obstacles, and it was scary.

Qi Leren wasn’t very surprised. He had always felt that Chen Baiqi was familiar with the Trials Court. It was to be expected that all of the information she had was somehow related to them.

"In the Nightmare World, so many players have explored 'playing methods' about this 'game' for more than 20 years. Today, I will briefly talk about the 'professions'," Chen Baiqi said.

Qi Leren pricked up his ears and listened attentively.

"Players will receive a skill card when they are in the Novice Village. This skill card is not given randomly, and most players will eventually build their own fighting style around this skill card. That is to say, the original skill card has actually selected the appropriate profession for the player. Take your Novice Village as an example: Dr. Lu, who is with you, is obviously a healer, while Xue Yingying is obviously a berserker. As for you, because your basic skill card is very delicate, it's the first time I’ve heard of such a skill card, so it's hard to judge your basic profession. But it doesn't matter. Most of the skill cards that players get in tasks will follow a certain rule. For example, a healer rarely draws a berserker-type skill card when drawing their card. That is to say, the skill cards obtained in the future are actually based on what you receive as your first skill card. They build around this 'profession'."

Qi Leren suddenly realized: so the skill cards he got later, such as "Rain-Day Laundry", "Primary Fighting Skills", and "Devil Etiquette", including the latest one, "Secretly Observing", all emphasized his profession.

—Assassin.

"I only know some of your skill cards, but I can make a rough judgment about you. You’re an assassin." Chen Baiqi folded her arms and looked at him laughingly. "So congratulations, I’m in the same profession. However, even amongst assassins, they will be subdivided into different categories because of their different personality traits and abilities. After all, everyone's skill cards are different. If you trust me, you can tell me your existing skill cards, and I will not disclose it to others."

Qi Leren vaguely felt that Chen Baiqi would sincerely teach him, and that his answer was the key. Of course, he couldn’t say it. Chen Baiqi would still train him, but she would not give everything to him. Chen Baiqi was... Qi Leren's brain flashed. She was looking for a successor!

Yes, Chen Baiqi entered the game very early and she said it had been eight years, which meant that she was an old player with high strength and rich experience, but it also meant that her time wouldn't be much longer.

Chen Baiqi was optimistic about him and willing to teach him, which was only too important for a newcomer who was still groping for his footing shortly after entering the game, and Qi Leren was very grateful. He didn't think Chen Baiqi had any malice towards him. After all, the gap in strength between the two people was right in front of him. If Chen Baiqi wanted to, she could kill him.

After figuring this out, Qi Leren relayed his skill cards and even told her of his items.

Chen Baiqi said, "You are an assassin. You already have basic premonition skills, detection and latent skills, and even half a camouflage skill. Right now, you still lack a skill to escape and strengthen combat effectiveness—Primary Fighting Skills is too low, it takes too long to upgrade past the basic stage. You can sell it after you’ve been trained."

Qi Leren nodded, "I’ve felt an obvious lack in combat effectiveness. I have no effective means of attack, and often I can only take the same route."

This also led to his excessive dependence on S/L Data as his solution.

"Although skill cards are very good and greatly improve newcomers’ survival rate in this world, I don’t advocate relying too much on them. The Nightmare World is a surreal world. There are many things that we can't do in the real world that can be done here. It also has its own power system. If you want to integrate into this power system, relying too much on skill cards will only hinder you. To put it simply, if you want to become a field-level master, you must quit your skill cards," Chen Baiqi said seriously.

"When you say the power system, you mean the Devils and the Holy See?" Qi Leren asked.

"Yes. With our status as players, if you want to reach the field level, you’re bound to become close to one of them. Because you’ve been parasitized by Slaughter before, I originally thought that your attributes were more inclined to the Devils, but now it seems that maybe you’re more inclined to the side of divine power," Chen Baiqi said.

"How do you see it?" Qi Leren was puzzled.

Chen Baiqi's mouth crooked and she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, they were already a pair of red eyes: "The holiness of your body has exceeded the standard. Maria gave you an important gift before she sent you back."

Qi Leren recalled the warm and comfortable feeling when the dotted light of endless faith had poured into his body, and nodded silently.

"In fact, in addition to these two power systems, there are many magical powers in the Nightmare World. For example, I seldom use investigation skill cards because I once learned the language of birds from an elder. Although I’m not very proficient, I have no problem with basic dialogue. You can imagine how desperate it is to meet me in a wild jungle. This is better than the ability of any reconnaissance skill card. After all, there is no cooldown."

Qi Leren imagined that if he had met such an opponent in the forest during the Witchcraft Sacrifice mission... The birds in the whole forest were her eyes. She could observe every enemy 24/7 without cooldown, avoid any danger she wanted to bypass, and set traps to deal with anyone she wanted to deal with. This was simply terrible.

"Well, with this said, I’ll now begin to test your abilities, including your physical quality, judgment, intuition, and so on. I’ll test your intuition first. If you want to be a good assassin, you can't do without phenomenal intuition. You stand there blindfolded, this won’t take more than a minute," Chen Baiqi commanded.

Qi Leren obediently went to the place she indicated and took the red cloth she handed him, tying it over his eyes. Suddenly, there was only a suppressed scarlet: "How do we test it?"

Chen Baiqi's voice floated from in front of him: "It's very simple. I'll throw some knives at you. You can dodge them with your intuition. I won't tell you when I throw them."

???

! ! !

This wasn’t a test, it was a threat on his life!

"Put away Rain-Day Laundry and only use S/L Data, or else you’ll really die," Chen Baiqi said with ease and pleasure.

"The Prophet told me to use it less," Qi Leren protested weakly.

"Oh, then you don't have to. I’ll try not to aim at anything vital," Chen Baiqi said.

"...Forget it, I'll use it." Qi Leren surrendered and thought he would use it just this once.

S/L Data was activated and the current position was set as the save point. Qi Leren looked at the red before his eyes and his heart beat fast with nervousness. He counted the seconds for S/L Data in his mind.

30, 29, 28...

Chen Baiqi didn't throw, she was walking—Qi Leren couldn't see her or hear her footsteps, but he had a strong feeling that Chen Baiqi was walking around him... She was on his left... Behind him...

Danger, danger, danger!

Clearly there was no warning, no noise, but Qi Leren's mind had already sounded the alarm. He quickly squatted without thinking and a slight wind flew over his head, cutting off two floating hairs.

"Eh? The response was good." Chen Baiqi's voice came from behind him. It was behind him!

Qi Leren stood up and continued to count the seconds: seventeen, sixteen, fifteen...

Under your feet!

Qi Leren suddenly jumped up, and the throwing knife shot obliquely downward and struck the ground with a tang.

Even though he wasn’t hit, Qi Leren still felt a dull pain in his feet, probably from jumping too fast and cramping.

"You’re really good." This time the voice came from above his head!

Qi Leren flung himself forward and rolled on the ground for three or four meters. There was a continuous sound of breathing behind him. Obviously, several throwing knives stabbed one after another—into the concrete ground, and he stopped breathing from nerves. In such a dark place, he directly evaded the ubiquitous fatal danger that made him feel on the verge of a breakdown.

When he stood up again, Qi Leren had forgotten to count the seconds and Chen Baiqi's voice came from ahead of himt: "Well, let's stop here for now."

Qi Leren breathed a sigh of relief and his whole person relaxed from his panicked state, stretching out his hand to untie the cloth over his eyes. When the cloth strip was torn off, there was no figure of Chen Baiqi in front of him—only a parrot standing on the ground and talking with Chen Baiqi's voice, which laughed at him: "Fool."

Qi Leren stood stiffly and a cold wind struck into his torso from behind, the knife piercing his heart. After 30 seconds, S/L Data successfully read the file.

The real Chen Baiqi came from behind Qi Leren with a cheerful demeanor: "This is the first lesson for you: never let off your guard down too early in the face of danger."

-----

[<<< Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter >>>]

just read your convo on Mordred. Agreed that his betrayal was horribly written. Dude took a knight's oath to defend and protect Camelot and her king and he forsake that oath for someone who knew about his oath but still went ahead with her assassination attempt? In those Middle Age Arthurian tales, breaking that knight's oath is enough to make Mordred the villain. ps that deleted scene was touching and explains Mordred's odd little smile when he is killed by Arthur.

I’m just not a fan of BBC Merlin’s Mordred. Usually, I love Mordred, but in most adaptations, he owns his choices and is dedicated to his betrayal (and usually, it isn’t even betrayal in the true sense as much as it is a long con). It is consistent and his reasons are understandable. In contrast to that, BBC’s Mordred turned his back on the magical community and embraced Camelot and all its anti-magic laws when it suited him. He literally led the knights when they hunted the Bendrui priestess in that one episode. He betrayed Morgana (she was evil and insane, but still) for his own ends (literally stabbed her in the back, btw), and then, after all that, he flipped again and betrayed Arthur, who had been nothing but generous and loving towards him. 

I mean, yes, there is an entire conversation to be had about Uther’s war on magic being an actual genocide and on how BBC treated the victims and made them out to be the villains, while Uther, a certified genocidal, homicidal, hypocritical, self-serving, narcissistic megalomaniac was treated with kid gloves, but Mordred is not the one to put on a pedestal as some brave freedom fighter here. They had all the backstory, all the material they needed for a fantastic character, but they wrote him in a way that left him with no likeable or redeemable qualities in the end. 

I hate how people blame Merlin for the way he turned out, because, yes, Merlin did not live up to Mordred’s expectations, but the catch is that Merlin owed him no loyalty to begin with, except being morally obligated to save the life of a child (which, after a crisis of conscience, he actually did). Mordred proved on more than one occasion that as an adult, he truly was untrustworthy and a false ally and friend to everyone he came into contact with, on both sides. Merlin was a fantastic judge of character and Mordred did not pass the sniff test with him, but he had nothing concrete on him to oust him from Arthur’s company except for the fact that the vengeful dragon who had once tried to burn down Camelot told him that he’s bad news. In addition, he was conflicted because he did not know whether Mordred truly was a bad apple, or if he himself was prejudiced against him because he was so afraid of losing Arthur, which is why it took him so long to act directly against him with no evidence.  

(I think it is also important to mention here that Merlin might have “turned his back” on the magical community, but here’s the thing: Merlin never switched loyalties! He was Arthur’s creature from day one, he made that choice very early on and he remained faithful to it until the end. It was other people who had expectations of him that he couldn’t meet, because Arthur’s well-being was always his no. 1 priority. In the meantime, he did the best he could to save as many people as possible from Uther, and later from Morgana. Blaming Merlin for Mordred and Morgana’ self-serving, murderous ways and unsavoury choices is a pet peeve of mine.)

As for Kara, I would find her a sympathetic character if they had put her anywhere else! Her hate for Arthur is perfectly understandable, her wanting to kill him is also legitimate, she was a revolutionary and wanted to die a martyr. I’m all here for that! After everything that happened to her people under Uther, and Arthur never really renouncing him or his laws (and also taking part in the persecution while Uther was still alive), she was totally justified. But, I mean, of course Arthur was going to execute her, and I don’t blame him for it either. This is a medieval warrior king we are talking about here, how could he not? Also, it is important to note that he did not execute her for using magic, but for murder, treason and attempted regicide, and on top of it all, he still threw her a lifeline to save herself, but she rejected it! In public! She signed her own death warrant. 

The point is that even though Kara’s reasons justify her, they do not apply to Mordred and even though I like her on her own, the whole thing is obnoxious in context, as a part of a plot device to give Mordred a ~sympathetic~ reason to betray Arthur. I am so not here for Mordred’s manpain and a woman having to die for the incompetent writers to advance his horribly written character arc. 

Anyway, this turned out to be way too long! Sorry for the essay, anon! In conclusion, still no love for Mordred!   

Whumptober (Sickfic) Day 6 - Overheated

SCRC AU

Read on AO3

-----

Kit didn’t know if she’d ever sweat so much in her life, including her very first Physical Fitness Test. Which was saying a lot, because her first PFT had absolutely kicked her ass. 

“Íosa Críost,” she mumbled under her breath, pulling at the front of her shirt. She pushed her braids behind her shoulders and away from her neck, wishing she had a thick enough hair tie to take them out and tie her hair in a knot at the top of her head, like Monty did.

She was standing away from the crime scene, where they’d been for at least an hour, standing in the sun. In July. In Lake Havasu City, Arizona. Where it was actively one hundred ten degrees.

Easily the hottest place she’d ever been.

The team had slowly been shedding clothing as the day had gone on, but since they’d been standing there on the concrete, the period of time between articles of clothing being discarded had started to grow shorter and shorter.

JJ, Elle, and Kit were all in the tank tops they wore under their blouses, which Kit was actively tugging on, wishing hers wasn’t black. JJ and Elle, who normally wore their hair down, had pulled it up and away long ago. 

Gideon had unbuttoned his dress shirt, and Morgan had taken his off, leaving him in jeans and his undershirt. Reid hadn’t gone as far as the others, but the sweater vest he was previously wearing was sitting in the back of the SUV with the rest of their discarded clothing. He’d claimed that Vegas, while not as hot as Havasu was, had prepared him pretty well for dealing with the sun. Kit was too hot and tired to argue with him.

Only Hotch was still wearing every piece of the outfit he’d entered the plane in, suit jacket included. How he wasn’t melting where he stood had been a quiet conversation between Kit, Morgan, Elle, and JJ all morning, and at some point, Elle had thrown out the idea that Hotch must actually be a robot. They’d nodded and agreed, all too hot to think of something else.

“Come drink some of this,” Kit called over to the rest of the team, pulling mostly-warm water bottles out of her bag. She’d been able to convince Hotch to let her and JJ take the SUV to a convenience store to grab some water bottles and some gatorade, plus some quick snacks for Kit to replenish her backpack. Between long hours and picky eaters - picky eaters named Derek and Spencer - she had run out that morning on the jet. They’d gotten a much needed reprieve from the heat, blasting the air conditioner the whole time, but as soon as it felt that it had cooled down inside the car, they were back in the heat.

The unrelenting heat.

The rest of the team trickled over, sweat beading on upper lips and foreheads; dripping down temples and staining collars and underarms. They pulled faces at the tepid water, but drank it in large gulps. It was like they’d never had a drink before, and Kit drank her own water with just as much fervor. 

She looked around and counted when she stopped drinking to take a breath, raising an eyebrow as she came up short.

“Four, five- Where’s Hotch?”

“He’s still talking to the sheriff,” Morgan said, wiping at his brow with the back of his hand. “They’re wondering if the unsub was trying to use the heat as a forensic countermeasure.”

Elle scoffed, tugging gently at the hem of her shirt, as if she was dying to rip it off. “They probably didn’t think anyone would find the body. What idiot would be out of their house in this heat long enough to find a body?”

“Gretta Harrison,” Reid said easily, pulling the name of the older woman that discovered the body that morning. 

“She was picking up a prescription,” Kit added easily. “Depending on what it’s for, some people would go out in any weather for one of those.”

“You?” JJ asked, and Kit blinked at her for a second. “What?”

“Would you? Like, if you had an important prescription to get.”

Kit blinked at her for a moment. She’d kept everything so quiet. She didn’t think that anyone knew. “If it drastically affected the quality of my life? Yeah. Yeah, I would.”

“I think so, too,” she said, leaning against the hot SUV and taking another sip from her water. There were several other nods of agreement, water sipped a little less desperately as it started to rehydrate them. Kit took a deep breath. 

Not a pointed question. Get it together, Kody.

“Alright,” Gideon said, “Back to work.” He gave Reid a pointed look, and Reid nodded, the two walking off quickly. Morgan rolled his eyes but followed them, Elle on his heels.

JJ sighed, wiping at her forehead before looking over as the sound of tires on gravel rolled behind them. She closed her eyes and tried not to groan. “Please. Please tell me that isn’t a news van.”

Kit shrugged, taking another sip of her water before saying calmly. “Okay. I won’t tell you.” She gave JJ a guilty sort of smile before nodding in the direction just behind her. “But, there is a man walking towards us, so if you were going to throw your blouse back on, I’d do it now.”

“Damn it,” she mumbled, turning around and grabbing for her shirt before also picking up a water bottle. She tossed it to Kit, who caught it easily before she said, “You should see if you can get some water in Hotch. He’s still in his coat.”

Kit tried not to roll her eyes. “I tried when we got back, but I’ll try again.”

She started her trek over to where Hotch was standing, looking to be deep in through. She tossed a granola bar to Morgan and a package of Goldfish crackers at Reid on her way, earning a wave and a happy “thank you!” from both as she went. It hadn’t taken long for her to learn their rhythms, and she knew that those two were the most likely to need food by that point. The rest could wait.

Hotch didn’t look great when she walked up. Not that he was showing anything but calm ease, as always, but Kit could tell something was off. She could always tell, and as time had gone on, it was easy for her to see when there was something wrong with their fearless leader. Haley liked to joke that Hotch had a very specific wall built up, and only certain people could see through the microscopic cracks. It had become apparent that Kit was one of those people pretty quickly, and Haley had asked to exchange phone numbers as soon as they’d met.

But something was definitely wrong. She was tentative as she approached him, worried when he didn’t acknowledge her immediately. 

“Hotch?” She asked quietly, touching his arm and watching as he visibly jumped. “Woah, okay, it’s just me.”

He shook his head and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Sorry, I was thinking.”

“I could see that,” Kit said cautiously. She held the water out to him. “Here. I haven’t seen you drink any water since we got here.”

“I don’t need that, thanks,” he said, glancing back at the crime scene. “I should be with the sheriff. I just…” He trailed off, and Kit started to work. She looked over what she could see first before trying to ask any questions. Hotch was evasive on his best days.

He was sweaty, to put it lightly. There were beads of sweat along his hairline, his temples, and trailing down his neck. She didn’t miss the slight tremble in his hands, or the way he was blinking slowly, as if trying to ground himself. 

She reached out and grabbed his hand, cool and clammy, before she gave him a hard look. “Are you joking? Come on.”

“Colghain-”

“Don’t Colghain me, Hotchner. You’ve gotta be halfway to heatstroke.” He tried to shake her off, but his attempts were lethargic at best. “I’m fine.”

“We can play the game,” she said seriously, not even close to backing down, “or you can come quietly, and it doesn’t have to be a big thing in front of all these people.”

Hotch looked at her for a moment before there was a visible crack in his resolve. He gave her a miniscule nod, and she acted, tugging at his wrist in order to get him to move with her over to the SUV.

“Get in the car,” she said, nodding to the backseat. He raised an eyebrow at her, stopping short. His strides had been shorter and choppier than they normally were, and it was only causing her more worry. “I’m not leaving.”

She shook her head. “We’re not, but I want to turn it on and get some AC on you. Also, the jacket.”

“What about my jacket?” He asked, but his words had a little more float to them than she had heard before, and it made her heart rate pick up. 

“Take it off,” she said seriously. There was no room for debate in her voice

“Kit-”

“Aaron.”

Their eyes locked, and it took a moment before he narrowed his, moving to pull his jacket off. Kit could have gasped when she saw the way his entire back was sticky and soaked with sweat, but she didn’t make a comment. She was sure he knew exactly what was going on, and she didn’t need to compound on his discomfort by being outwardly worried.

“Get in the van.”

“Get in the van? Really?”

“Are you making a joke?” she asked. “You must be delirious.”

Kit opened the door for him to get in, which he did without complaint. That only served to worry her more. She worked quickly to turn on the AC in the SUV on as high as it could go, turning the temperature dial until the biggest blue section was pumping through the van.

She slid into the backseat on the opposite side, shutting the door behind her, and when she turned to face him she felt her eyebrows hit her hairline.

Hotch was sitting with his face in his hands, tie noticeably loosened, taking deep, even breaths. She shook her head slightly, leaning over to loosen the tie the rest of the way and pull it from his neck. 

“Talk to me, Hotch.”

“Hot,” he said simply, though there was an obvious shake in his voice now that they were in the privacy of the van. She nodded, though he wasn’t looking at her, and started going down the list.

“Hot. Okay. Do you feel like you’re going to pass out?”

“Not really.”

Absolutely not encouraging in the slightest. 

“Not really?”

He didn’t look up at her, but she noticeably shifted in the seat, as if his sweat-drenched shirt was bothering him. It was bothering her, and she wasn’t even wearing it. “Sort of,” he said to clarify, in a way that did not clarify it at all.

“Sort of. Okay. Nauseous?”

“More than sort of,” he relented before adding, ”Thirsty.”

Kit nodded, grabbing for her backpack and pulling a lukewarm, orange gatorade from the pocket. “I can fix that last one. I can definitely fix that. You’re dehydrated, Hotch. You can’t just-” She cut herself off as he let out a shuddering sign, swallowing her words. She was starting to get heated, which wasn’t going to help. If anything, she’d learned that she had to be soft with Hotch, despite his outward callousness.

She took a breath. "You can’t just expect us to all take care of ourselves if you won’t do it first. You’re our leader, we follow your example.” She cracked open the orange gatorade and held it out to him. “Here. Please drink this so I don’t have to drive your unconscious body back to the precinct. Or the hospital.”

He took a breath before taking his face from his palms. He raised an eyebrow weakly at her before saying quietly. “I don’t like that one.”

She blinked. “What?”

“I don’t like that one,” he said again, but took it from her with shaky hands. “I only drink the yellow one.” 

Kit found herself laughing and shaking her head. For someone known for being stoic and emotionless, Hotch had an incredible, if not dry, sense of humor. “The yellow one is gross.”

“You’ve wounded me,” he said quietly, taking a small sip from the gatorade before sighing and taking a larger one. He took a few more before he said, “You’re right.”

“Yeah,” she said, watching his liquid intake with rapt attention. “It’s my job.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head lightly. “When you said that the others follow my example. I need to be better at taking care of myself if I expect any of them to do it for themselves.”

She thought for a second before she smirked at him. He was being genuine, and she could feel the waves of acceptance washing through the SUV at his admission. “Yeah, I’m pretty smart,” she quipped, and he laughed before taking another sip from the very orange gatorade in his hand.

Where I Belong

The weather had finally shifted to spring.

Although, if we’re honest, there’s not a real spring in Chicago. Only winter and then false hope then more winter and then, somehow overnight, summer. 

It was sticky and the air was heavy. You could feel it on your skin the moment you stepped outside. Paired with some of the bluest skies and the clear water of Lake Michigan, one could understand the allure of Chicago, finally making sense of why people brave the winters and the grey skies. Every year around this time, I fell in love with the city all over again, fell in love with the vibe of spring baseball games and a beer on my front porch with a good book in my lap. I fell in love with beach days and rooftop day parties and going to the zoo for a walk around just because. 

The trees along Lakeshore were green and full when I ran past them in the mornings, the birds were singing loud over the traffic, and kids were playing with chalk on the sidewalk in front of their houses.

It wasn't like I needed a reminder of all the reasons I loved Chicago, because I just did, but the month of May brought the reminders out for me anyway. I was enamored by the juxtaposition of the busy city behind me and the vast, empty expanse of blue water in front, kicking at the wall under my heels as I dangled my legs over the edge.

I was sitting on a concrete barrier on the edge of the Lake that separated two beaches in Bryn Mawr and writing in my journal. 

It was something I was doing more and more since starting therapy all those months ago. I was not a writer by any means, nor was I eloquent, but I never felt pressure to write well or to even make sense of my thoughts as they left my mind and etched themselves into words on the pages. I simply felt a pull to get the thoughts down so that they weren't festering inside of me. It was a relief I felt that was similar to running. It was a solitary activity where I was alone with myself and able to attempt to understand myself better.

Three and a half months since my secret came to light, since I faced it out in the open and gave it a name and came to terms with the fact that I had to accept it and push forward in a healthy way. Last week, Brian had ‘graduated’ us all from his self-defense class and was gearing up to start anew with another fresh batch of students.

He was excited to start all over again in the fall, and I was excited to have not only completed his class but to have gained more than just knowledge but two friendships as a result of pushing myself through it. Tala and Brian were instrumental in my healing process, and I couldn't be happier with them being a part of my life. They also folded in seamlessly with the rest of the group. Between Tala’s wit and Brian’s charisma, they were always a welcome addition whenever they could join us in our activities.  

There was just one thing about those activities that I had yet to rectify.

I also knew it had to be me, that I had to make the move to solve it. It took me a while to come to terms with this, longer than it had taken me to come to terms with everything else. It was countless hours talking to Louis and Cleo. I even spent a lot of time with Liam and asked his opinions. His advice had been incredibly simple: do what you feel like you’re ready to do, and even if you don’t feel ready, take that step anyway: test yourself.

Ordinarily, I would’ve scoffed at his idea, but Tala said something similar when I went to her with the issue as well. She was the one who, despite what her brother had told her, approved of my severing ties with Niall in the first place. She was the one who said it was better for me. Recently though, she was starting to push me more and more. The conversation we’d had last weekend had centered around the fact that I would probably never feel ready to make this move, but going off of everything else I’d done and all the progress I’d made, I was ready.

I still wasn’t sure, but that was the thing. Emotions are like water. They're impossible to compress. So once the thought was there, I couldn't push it back down. I had to follow through.

I think it was like Tala had said, that I might never be sure. I thought about how rarely sure we are in life and it made me realize just how much we as humans gamble and hope for the best, blowing on the dice for luck before we throw them down. So what if I still wasn't sure? I couldn't remember a time when I was sure. Life was about putting all the pieces together and hoping they made a puzzle, but if not it was okay, there was always a new path, a new puzzle to piece together waiting around each bend.

My journal entry was reflecting this sentiment as I scribbled in it in all caps. I noticed that when I wrote now, my penmanship was all capitals, blockish and somehow a little bit flowy. It was how I’d written notes and essays when I was in high school but had steered away from when I was trying to take notes at a much quicker pace in college. I had told Dr. Winters a few weeks ago that maybe it was because it was more deliberate, slower and more methodical to write in all capital letters. I wasn’t sure yet why or if it meant anything specific–it could always be as simple as I like the aesthetic more–but it was something to think about anyway.

“Hey,” a voice called me from my reverie. I’d been absorbed in writing, absorbed in listening to the sound of the water below me, entranced by the sunshine beating down on me. I slipped a page marker into the journal and closed it, setting it and the pen beside me before looking up. 

It was the hat on his head that made me smile. 

“Hi,” I said, patting the ground beside me, signaling for him to sit.

He did. He maneuvered himself down and leaned back on his hands, his head falling back as he looked up at the sky, his eyes closed.

I took that moment to look him over. He was tan, his skin practically glowing in the sunshine, and his facial hair was fuller. It suited him. I couldn’t tell what his hair was doing, but as he took a deep breath and lowered his head back down and opened his eyes, I noted that the easiness he’d always carried about him was still present. I’d worried that I might’ve stripped that from him, but from the looks of it, I hadn’t.

He turned his head toward me and I was struck by the blue of his eyes. Even with the blue water below me, the blue sky above me, and the blue hat situated on top of his head, his eyes were still the most vibrant, the most riveting of all the options. There was a depth to them that even the most renowned artists would struggle to capture. I could see them clearly even in the shade of his ball cap.

For months I’d thought that perhaps seeing those eyes again would cripple me, tear me down brick-by-brick until I was an amorphous blob on the ground, unable to function back at square one. Yet here I was, staring into those eyes and holding my own, maintaining myself. I had thought that I’d see something in those eyes that might indicate pain or regret. Instead, I saw curiosity and respect. I’d spent a few months dealing with both of those qualities in other people’s gazes to know what they were, and seeing them there, on him, felt natural. As if this was how it was supposed to be.

“You look tan,” I said. 

He nodded and looked out ahead of us toward the horizon. “Yeah, I um. I went on that trip to South Africa a few weeks ago with Greg. It was a place our dad had always wanted to go, so we figured we’d get down there and see what he’d been going on and on about for so long.” 

“How was it?”

“It was unbelievable,” he said. When he said that, I saw that smile, his smile, slip onto his face and watched as his features lit up. I could feel my own features shift into a smile as a response to his, the reaction involuntary, but I was unable to do anything but react to his contagious good vibe. “We did a great white shark thing, watched them breach from a boat and even went down in a tank to watch them from below. It was the scariest, coolest thing I’ve ever done by far. I don't know if I'll ever be able to top it, but I would like to try.” 

He was happy. 

I was struck by that when he looked at me full on again. He was happy and so was I.

We fell into silence. It was neither comfortable nor uncomfortable. There was so much to be said between us so much that needed to be discussed and sorted through, but somehow we both understood that we were under no pressure and that added a level of comfort to the situation.

He spoke first.

“You look lighter… somehow. Calmer,” he said, glancing at me, appraising, and then shifted his gaze back out to the lake.

“I feel lighter,” I said after a moment. Watching him, and then following his gaze to the horizon. He didn't interrupt me when I paused to gather my thoughts, and I appreciated his patience, and appreciated that even after all these months he still believed I deserved the time to get it right. “Therapy has helped quite a bit. As has telling everyone.”

“Louis mentioned to me that you told everyone, including your family,” he said. I watched him from the corner of my eye. “I was really proud of you for that. It must've taken a lot of strength.”

I let out a breathless chuckle. “The family’s response was something, to be sure. And it's funny, but I knew how our friends would react. I just didn't let myself believe that they would be so supportive, that it wouldn't make them look at me in pity. I knew that they wouldn't, but taking that leap of faith is still scary sometimes.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, the timber of his voice rattling my bones. “They're some pretty remarkable people, our friends.”

“If we're calling lunacy ‘remarkable’ nowadays, then sure.” He laughed out loud at my words and I felt it in my toes, his spirit floating lightly. His energy lifted me through this process. If it was anytime else, I couldn't have been able to do this, to tell them.

“I don't expect you to forgive me,” I said, my voice quiet suddenly. “I know I didn't exactly go about, well, anything the right way at first. But I'm trying now and I wanted you to know that I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to apol-”

“I do,” I interrupted him. He cut his gaze to me quickly, the confusion clear within it. “I do,” I repeated with a nod. “I hurt you. I know I hurt you. Regardless of why or the outcome, I still did that. And for that, I'm sorry.”

“I accept,” he said back quietly, his eyes still watching me.

I stayed silent for a long while, looking out over the water, but I knew he was watching me, and could feel his eyes on me. It must've been a handful of minutes later before I spoke again.

“I don't have my nightmare anymore.” As much as I wanted to keep looking at the water I desperately wanted to see his face when he processed that news. So, I turned and watched.

“You what?” His mouth was wide, his eyes searching my face and moving at a quick pace, his voice was nothing but a whisper of words on an exhale of breath leaving him in a gust.

“Since early March,” I said, nodding. “Two and a half months ago.”

“That's great, Ruby,” he said softly and looked away again. I watched as he took his Cubs hat off and ran a hand through his hair before settling his hat back down. His hair was wavy and long on top, but shorter onthe sides. It was my favorite style on him.

“It's been a relief,” I admitted. He nodded at my words.

“I'm sure Moggy appreciates not being woken up in the middle of the night, too,” he said, a smile pulling on his features, knowing that the worst was behind us.

“Oh she's never been happier,” I smiled back. “I was putting a real damper on her beauty rest.” We giggled quietly and then fell into another bout of comfortable silence, the minutes just passing by as we took in being beside each other again. A couple of kids passed by on skateboards behind us and a man blaring reggae music from a speaker walked by at a leisurely pace, the sound fading as he made it to the beach to our left.

“I was thinking,” I started after it had been silent for a while, “that it's probably time our friends stopped making two sets of plans.”

“Yeah?” He asked, pulling his gaze down to me and quirking his eyebrows.

“This wasn't nearly as hard as I built it up in my head to be,” I said, letting him know I'd been nervous about seeing him. 

He let out a slow breath and nodded, another smile pulling on his lips. “Yeah, it really hasn't been.” I let him think for a moment, able to see the thoughts whirring behind his eyes. “I think that's fair.”

“You think we can pull it off, being friends?”

“Well,” he drew in a breath and let it out slowly, “we've done being a couple, and we’ve done being nothing to each other, so I think that maybe friends can be a happy medium for us.”

I hoped so.

Sitting there I realized that although I had patched myself up and that I was happy, content with my life and who I was, I had still missed Niall.

I'd missed his contagious laugh and his easygoing energy. I'd missed his quirky bookish quotes that would come out when he was trying to be introspective and I'd missed watching him interact with Louis and the rest of our friends. 

I realized just how easily I could be his friend. I thought about how he would fit in with Tala and Brian and how he'd compliment each of them as well. I thought about our group game nights having good music again because my choices wouldn't be voted down and the Guinness that would be stocked in all of our fridges for just-in-case purposes.

If anything were to happen between us in the future–and I recognized that hypothetical as a long shot because of the trust that would have to be built back up–that was for the future. For right now, I was happy just having him around again.

It was enough for me. It was calm and I felt that ease settling into my belly as I thought about that. I wasn't wary of what was to come or nervous of screwing anything up. It was an easy friendship and there were expectations that went along with being a friend, but they didn't feel impossible to meet or to breathe under.

“Hey,” he said, pulling me again from my reverie with that single word.

I looked over at him.

“This feels good.”

“It does,” I acknowledged. “Thanks for meeting me.”

“Thanks for reaching out,” he said.

I took a deep breath and looking out at the lake in front of me, seeing it for what was far from the first time, I felt myself sink into happiness, all of my nervous energy from before leaving me like the waves pulling away from the barrier and all that was coming in was a warmth and a relief that spread through me. 

Looking right, I could see the green grass and trees and the golden beach past them, could see skyscrapers reaching up into the blue beyond above and could see the sun as it travelled its path, steady and constant and not concerning itself with anything but its own power and strength.

The sun knew that it would be cloudy some days, but that never dimmed its shine, it was bright regardless of what was happening around it. I took a deep breath and closing my eyes against the light hoped that I could be like that too, bright and unwavering and strong in the face of life. I finally felt like I was in a place where that wasn't an unreasonable hope.

I was rewatching some of the 2nd kuromyu and it hit me that Furukawa really spoilt us in every way possible with his portrayal Sebastian and It made me wonder what your opinions on Yuya Matsushita's sebas are?

Dear, deaaaar Anon,

I agree, Furukawa really did spoil us rotten ❤

Matsushita? Erm……….. well………. I guess the time has come that people will more concretely find out why my blog has zero Matsushita content despite aiming to ‘promote Kuromyu’ XD

Warning - Unpopular and PERSONAL opinion:

＊Disclaimer at the bottom of this post.

In 2009 I was very impressed to see my favourite manga turning into theatre, my favourite type of media. Despite being young and easily impressed at the time, even now 10 years later, I do recognise the pressure of a literal teen having to shoulder the pressure of playing an omnipotent demon butler in a wildly popular show. 2.5D actors are one of the most underpaid people in Japan. When it came to the casting of ‘the perfect butler’, they had to look for someone who:

could sing at least not terribly

act not terribly

looked not terribly

would be okay with basically no salary.

That’s how they ended up casting an 18-year-old Matsushita (a minor in Japan). The expectations were of course crushing, and Matsushita did not really manage to live up to these, mostly because of his very high pitched voice (which is not fair to condemn someone for).

According to many however, he looked decently handsome. Editor Kuma was aware of the limitations to this child-performer, and instructed Matsushita to play into what people did appreciate in him; his looks.

I don’t know whether it was Matsushita’s personal interpretation or the limit to his abilities, but to me, he never managed to show me any aspect outside ‘the handsome host-butler’. His singing was mediocre-good, his acting however was never believable to me. Though I was also painfully aware of the huge burden on his shoulders, so I appreciated him for what he was 1. The first 3D Sebas, and 2. A child working very, VERY hard in shouldering the impossible burden of the thirsty fandom.

When ‘The Most Beautiful Death in the World’ came out in 2010, I was stunned. It was such a major improvement in comparison to the first Kuromyu.

‘The Most Beautiful Death in the World’ was something that I loved at the time, and was my first reason to love Kuromyu. But now I recognise how ‘MBD’ is highly problematic and I can’t look at them anymore, mainly because:

The plot holes that… are just glaring XD (Eric: “I have an all-powerful Death Scythe with which I could kill a demon and without which I am basically powerless. Let’s throw it at him!”  Sebastian: “I caught the all-powerful weapon from the reaper who is powerless without. Hm. Let’s not use it against him or keep it from him, but throw it back at him :D”)

The corset scene (where they made a CHILD actor moan and play in a scene with heavy sexual context for a huge audience’s hedonistic pleasure! Or even worse in 2013, where they made 14 year old Tanaka Taketo play the role of a seducer with an adult in the curtain call for Matsushita’s Birthday. And the boy had NO say in the matter. UGH, I still can’t believe the producers made a child who had no power to say no do something like that…)

Of course none of those were Matsushita’s fault, but retroactively these two factors did bother me so much I found myself unable to enjoy the musical anymore.

When ‘The Lycoris that Blazes the Earth 2014’ came out, I was thrilled to see what Matsushita would make of it, because finally he was given the chance to show ‘a real Sebas in a canon story’. Somehow, Lycoris 2014 almost became a ‘test for Matsushita’ for me: “will be prove himself a worthy Sebas now he has the chance?”

By 2014 however, the rising fame really started to get to Matsushita’s head, and he started showing the alpha-male macho behaviour I dislike most in people. Still I was curious to see the musical, so I did give him a chance.

In Lycoris 2014 however, it felt like Matsushita turned Sebastian into him, rather than himself into Sebastian. His spastic acting and unnecessary comic additions just didn’t do it for me. It was like he was trying to steal a show that was already his. What also bothered me was how he forced his voice way below his range.

I am obviously aware that this alpha-male behaviour and the forced low pitch are both the product of the bullying where people criticised him with: “He sounds like a helium balloon” or “He sings like a girl”, but these do not excuse the behaviour for me personally.

So in a nutshell, to me Matsushita reached the peak of his performance of Sebas around 2013 where he seemed to see what Sebastian is supposed to be and walked towards him. In 2014 however when he was finally cast in a canon-story, it became blatantly apparent – TO ME PERSONALLY - how not-Sebastian he was.

There is hardly any information about Matsushita after Lycoris 2014, but Matsushita announced his retirement from Kuromyu using the word ‘graduated’. When Furukawa was announced as the second Sebastian, Matsushita basically disappeared off radar, and did not make any Kuroshitsuji-related public comments until 2016 where he publicly acknowledged Furukawa.

“Actually…Today after I just rounded up the rehearsals for X4 I went to watch the evening performance for “Kuroshitsuji – NOAH’s ARK CIRCUS – ”.I liked the circus arc to begin with, so especially this time I rushed to see[the musical]. It was super fun, and above everything else, the cast, the music, set and illuminations were of an altogether different level than before, it was very glamorous and I enjoyed it a lot.To begin with, the musical I played my first lead role in at age 19 was this“Kuroshitsuji”. I’m performing in all kinds of productions now, but more than half of my acting careers up till now had been Kuroshitsuji.I’ve done this 4 times now, and last year I had the honour to baton-pass the role to the current Sebastian, Mr. Furukawa Yuuta. I have decided to officially retire from this franchise and it might be presumptuous for me to say this, but the “Kuroshitsuji” musical franchise I had been part of from age 19 really has gone up in quality, the scale has suddenly become so amazing too. It is now at a level I can’t ever reach myself, but still I’m happy for [the franchise]. Really. I’m very moved~[…]  Already the new Sebastian has been established above anything else, and I’ve seen in him the Sebastian I always wanted to portray but never managed to. He is excellent.[…] - Matsushita Yuya

Original post

Click here for full translation

＊Disclaimer: I am not trying to bash Matsushita. I know this can be rather sensitive to Matsushita-fans. I am merely sharing MY personal opinion since I was asked.

1 2 4 7 8 9 13 18 20 26 27 29 30 32 39 40 41 43/44 45 46 49 51 53 55 56 57 59 63 65 that is. so many dghsdghsdgv I'm sorry I just see an ask meme and go crazy aaaa go stupid aaaa. You can just answer whichever u like from those!! also 69(nice): you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash

HDSKFJKS I completely understand but lucky for u I LOVE to talk !!

1) How are you?

Pretty good, actually!! Which is a nice change of pace. I went to Walmart with some friends yesterday and got a few things, baked a family recipe that my friends LOVE, and finally did my laundry (it’s been a couple weeks we love depression and executive dysfunction dfhkjsfd). I went to Cracker Barrel with some friends and earlier and played a 4-way game of Tetris after. :3c

2) Post a picture of yourself.

Here you go !!

4) What is your entire name?

Sierra Alexis and my last name is something constantly misspelled so I’ll give you the name of a historical figure whose name is a letter off from mine: George B. McClellan, to whom I may or may not be related because last name variations are fuckin’ WEIRD.

7) Your zodiac/horoscope and if you think it fits your personality.

I’m a Capricorn sun and moon, and Libra rising !! And from what I’ve read on Twitter from various astrologers, like Milkstrology, I LOVE her, I’d say it’s pretty accurate with my personality!! I like to say Capricorn’s aren’t cold bitches but, I Have A Tendency To Be One !!

8) What did you do on your last birthday?

God what DID I do on my last birthday… it was in January, so like, I SHOULD remember… OH I went to IHOP with my friends !! I share a birthday with another friend and I got a JoJo notebook and something called a Fuggler! They’re stuffed animals more or less but designed to be “ugly.” I got one that looks like Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty because I LOVE Gritty… he’s so fun and funky.

9) What is one thing you’d like to accomplish before your next birthday?

Get all my requests in my inbox over on my writing blog done KJHFDJKSF it’s been a few months and life has been. Hectic to say the least.

13) If you could change your eye color, would you?

There’s so much weird as hell brown-eye-phobia so like… I think blue eyes would be pretty neat. OR PURPLE… give me some unnatural eye colors pls...

18) Do you have any tattoos?

Not yet!! I’m going to get one the next time I go back home for break. :3c And I have a few ideas for other ones!! I wanna get a big-ass “Dragon Age: Origins” tattoo that’s the dragon on the cover on my thigh. I also wanna get a DA2 and “Inquisition” tattoo… and the Joestar birthmark… too many ideas… 

20) Left or right handed?

Right-handed !! I could have been left-handed or ambidextrous if I broke my arm AFTER I started kindergarten, but alas that was before.

26) Something you are working on right now:

This !! But also the script for my next podcast episode that I record on uhhh Monday I think. Should probably figure that one out dsjfjhsf

27) Do you have any “rules” about food?

I answered that in the last ask !!

29) What would you say is your best quality?

I also answered this in the last ask !!

30) What do you think you’re really good at?

Writing, I’d say! And memorizing trivia about the stuff I’m super into. If it’s stuff pertaining to “M*A*S*H” or old movies or TV shows or actors or specific historical events, I will know that shit FOR LIFE. Don’t ask me to do math pls thank u

32) What talent do you wish you’d been born with?

I wish I was able to do stuff with music. That was never really in my blood, despite all the music classes they make you take in elementary school. I just never learned how to memorize or read sheet music. :/ I would have loved to play violin, tho… my friend plays and she says I would have been a good cellist.

39) Do you sleep with a stuffed toy?

YES… have for years. I still have my Care Bear from when I was 5, Gritty as mentioned above, a plush of my school’s mascot, and a little Fugo !! He’s so tiny.

40) What do you think about the most?

Everything and constantly and all at once. But the past really because I can never let stuff go and even the small things I mess up on haunt me forever… Wish that wasn’t the case but it is !!

41) Share two habits:

Biting my nails and having a very specific routine in which I get ready when I wake up. Like, I’ve gotta go brush my hair before I put my important cards in my left pocket, then put on my silver bracelet, then my beaded bracelet, then my earbuds in my right pocket, then put my earrings in. I HAVE to do it in that order…

And other oddities that include, like, if I need to go around something I HAVE to follow the urge to go one way and not the other, lest I feel the need to go back and fix it. And then which foot goes first before I reach a crack in the sidewalk, or up or down a curb, etc.

43) What are your career goals?

If I can just make people happy or get some kind of joy out of the things I do, I’d call that enough. :)

44) What is your ideal career?

Mmm, either a film historian or a film professor !! Preferably at the college I’m at right now but wherever the wind takes me, I’ll go! Or a Twitch streamer or YouTuber, it really depends on my mood jdhfjskf

45) Is your life anything like it was two years ago?

It was pretty much the same !! Freshman year was pretty lively, I didn’t have a job on campus yet though, or my podcast. Everything else is basically the same!

46) Do you replay things that have happened in your head?

CONSTANTLY… good or bad it’ll play back over and over and over again.

49) Do you have any phobias?

HOO BOY, DO I… fear of heights; fear of insects/bugs/arachnids/bees/wasps; I have a strong dislike of the number 13 but I don’t know if it’s a phobia, I just. REALLY hate it; the unknown, more or less what lurks somewhere beyond where I can see. Not so much a fear of the dark with that one, just what could BE in it.

51) Are you allergic to anything? If so, what?

I answered this in my last ask, as well!

53) Ever come close to death?

Two or three times, maybe? Two of them involved what’s called a laryngospasm, typically it can happen when your sick, which is what happened to me both times. Basically your throat just closes up on your for a hot minute and you can’t breathe. The first time I genuinely thought I was going to die (and my dad still sent me to school that day… HOE), the second time I was also sick and was losing/had lost my voice DURING A JOB RETREAT and it happened in the middle of the night so that was funny sitting there gasping for breath in the pitch dark.

At the FIRST retreat I went on for that job, you had to take pictures as part of a scavenger hunt, and the place used to be an old military fort, so there were still the old bunkers there. We had to take one on top of it and I was taking the picture, and it’s a wide shot so I go to take a step back but before I do I look behind me. If I hadn’t I would have fallen a good 10-15 feet down onto solid Civil War-era bunker concrete. I’d consider that being a “close to death” moment because I really could have died!

55) A random fact about yourself:

I have a half-brother !! My sis and I finally found him after her 23andMe results came back (which she decided to do despite us being like THE GOVERNMENT WILL COLLECT OUR DATA) and we didn’t think our mom would be happy she found him but she was !! My sis might reach out and contact him, she just wanted our mom’s permission first to do it.

56) What are three things most people don’t know about you?

Well, that I have a half-brother. I don’t mention it a lot. Aside from y’all on here and my sister, most everyone else doesn’t know I’m nonbinary! Everyone else knows I’m bi though lmao. And that there were times I’d stretch or bend the truth or lie about something just to impress someone else. It’s a… Bad Habit. Another thing is that most people don’t know I like coffee? Like I need to put a shit ton of creamer in with it because I’m a Bitch, but yeah.

57) An unknown fact about your life:

I wouldn’t call this an “unknown” fact but I’d used to go to work with my dad every now and again when he worked at the Home Depot and he was assistant manager. I’d either chill in the back room which was an office he shared with two other guys, or walk around the store with him. I had my own apron, too, which was my name with “Mini Mac” next to it, “Mac” being my dad’s nickname and something easier to say than my last name. I actually helped a few customers out so I wonder if I should have gotten paid for that despite being like, ages 9-13 when I’d go jshfkjd

And I guess I technically tested video games as a kid? Basically, when my dad was stationed at Fort Knox, they’d get demos of video games that hadn’t come out yet to test I suppose? and I still have a few somewhere. He’d hand them off to me and I’d play them so there’s that.

59) Five weird things that you like:

Eating globs of wasabi for no reason.

Scaring my friends also for no reason.

I wouldn’t say using cotton swabs to get wax out of your ears because it feels good is weird, just more medically inadvisable if anything.

When I was younger I’d like to floss really hard because the slight pain from it felt good. Young me was a #Freaque KJHDFJJDHF

I don’t know if being fond of alphabetizing and reorganizing things is considered weird but I LOVE doing that.

63) A quote you try to live by:

“It matters not how strait the gate, / How charged with punishments the scroll; / I am the master of my fate: / I am the captain of my soul.” It’s from the poem “Invictus” and the last two lines are what I’m getting tattooed !!

65) Weird things you do when you’re alone:

Practice the “Lucky Star” dance. I GOT THE LYRICS DOWN… JUST NEED TO DO THE DANCE NOW…

69) Leave me a compliment:

“you seem rly nice and funny from your 🅱️osts and I appreciate u... I hope you can find better irl friends who aren't trash”

Anon pls 🥺 I do my best to be nice but my friend really do test me sometimes... my feelings bounce back n forth like if they do something my feelings can switch to angry or like, hate, and then if they do something nice I’ll like them again. It sucks but ! I just take it one day at a time. Anon I care for u 💜💜💜

Kimi Räikkönen talks and laughs and talks. And laughs again. motorprofis.at experienced the most talkative and analytical Iceman of all times in a double interview with his Alfa Romeo team mate Antonio Giovinazzi. It’s exciting what the two of them have to say to each other and to us.

Source: motorprofis.at    Pictures: Alfa Romeo Racing, Gerald Enzinger

In the end Spielberg was worth a trip for everyone: for the Alfa Romeo Racing drivers Kimi Räikkönen and Antonio Giovinazzi because they both scored with a 9th (Kimi) and 10th (Giovinazzi) place – in the case of the Italian for the first time in his career. And for the selected journalists, who were invited to the roundtable with the two, even more so: in this interview session one experienced a brillantly cheerful and talkative Räikkönen. And first impressions of Giovinazzi, who once drove at eye level with Verstappen, Ocon and Auer in Formula 3.

Your team has always been known for its ability to work well with young people – as was the case with you, Kimi. What are your memories of your beginnings in Formula 1?

RÄIKKÖNEN: I wasn’t as young as others, I was 21, but I was still very inexperienced. I came straight from Formula Renault (which was the 4th level at the time, note), but it was of course a completely different world than the one I was familiar with. When I first drove a Formula 1 car it was – I wouldn’t say it was a shock now – but it was definitely anything else I had known up to that point. But the first day went by fast and then with every day it became easier and more normal in all areas.

How has Formula 1 changed in all these years?

RÄIKKÖNEN: In essence, it’s still the same. Over all these years the cars have changed a bit, the driving as such, the rules. But in principle, we as drivers still do the same thing as we did back then. Maybe now we do more PR work and sit more in meetings.

What is your goal for the rest of the season?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Hopefully we can fight regularly for the top 10 places and points. You don’t really have concrete goals, it’s just that you should always improve your car step by step. And if that works, then we can be in a good position – after a long way.

Question to both of you: As boring as Formula 1 usually seems to be, it must be fun to fight in midfield, where things are very tight and you have a lot of battles in every race.

RÄIKKÖNEN: Everyone tells me all the time: the races are so boring. But I think if you’re in the middle of it, it’s not boring. On some days you’re just defending, then there are phases where it’s always about attacking. From the outside it looks more boring than in the car, where things can get very hectic in the midfield. In this area it’s so tight, you might even see better racing than at the front.

GIOVINAZZI: I fully agree. It’s so close. In this area of the race you’re on the offensive and defensive at the same time, and your race goes both forward and backward. You have to have both in mind. But that makes pure racing more fun here. Honestly: it’s hard.

Kimi, your memories of the A1 Ring and the first years of the Red Bull Ring now?

RÄIKKÖNEN: I’ve always enjoyed being here – and it was a shame we lost this track for so many years. I think 2003 was the race back then. I have many positive memories. Fortunately, I’m old enough to have gotten to know some old race tracks – like the old Hockenheimring when it still had its long straights. Many tracks that are fun in their own way – Spa with the bus stop chicane, Hungary.

In Spielberg there are great sections, even if some things have changed in small details. But the first turn or the last two, they are a lot of fun. It’s always a great place to come here. And it’s probably also because of the whole scenery with all the mountains that the atmosphere here is always so relaxed. It’s a shame that we once didn’t have the track on the calendar – but it’s great that they got it back.

I think that you would have loved the old Österreichring with its long Flatschach straight, in whose braking zone, as Gerhard Berger puts it, you always looked death in the eye.

RÄIKKÖNEN: Yes, definitely! Everything I’ve seen about it looks pretty exciting. And of course there would be really good overtaking manoeuvres on such tracks. There are a lot of good corners where you can do something while braking. That’s the kind of track we want.

Antonio, what are your memories of the Red Bull Ring?

GIOVINAZZI: It’s certainly one of my favourite tracks and I have good memories of this place as well. Here I won my first race in Formula 3 and had a very good weekend in Formula 2. There are many high-speed corners. It’s not a long track, it’s more of a kart track. That’s why there are often good races. Here in Formula 1 we have three DRS zones, so a lot of action is possible. That fits well!

Kimi, you as a racer: What do you want from the Formula 1 of the future?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Holidays! (laughs).

In the long run, doesn’t concern me what’s going to happen. If I have no interest, I will definitely not turn on the TV and let myself be disturbed in my free time (laughs again).

But if you ask me, I’m sure I’d change a lot. For instance, remove all these data analyses if possible. If you wouldn’t setup the cars based on so much data, it would depend more on the feeling and certain qualities could make the difference.

What’s more fun: driving a Formula 1 car or a rally car?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Rally is so completely different. You’re not really driving against each other, but against time. If you see another car on the special stages during the rally, then something just went damn wrong for one of you. (grins)

But if you compare: I drove NASCAR once, you were allowed to use telemetry data during testing, but not during the race. That’s why you have to make your own experiences at a certain point. This makes oval races seem very simple, but in reality they are far away from simplicity. It’s a highly complex thing. That’s more pure racing. If you realize: Shit, I’m not fast enough – then you can talk to others. Then one person tells you that, and the other means that. In the end you have to draw your own conclusions. In Formula 1, on the other hand, the data is there and they tell you everything that needs to be changed. If you have to find your own setup and can’t look at the computer during set up, then that would be a completely different feeling.

Antonio, does Kimi help you, can you learn from him?

GIOVINAZZI: It’s like Kimi just said: Even if he wouldn’t tell me or if I don’t ask him, I can see all his data and draw my conclusions. There are no real secrets in the team when it comes to voting.

RÄIKKÖNEN: Now imagine how difficult it would be for you if you didn’t have access to my data. That would make a massive difference.

GIOVINAZZI: Yes, I agree. Without data it would be difficult – especially for me as a very young driver in the first season, who of course benefits from having such an exceptionally experienced teammate. That would be hard, but I’m lucky to be able to look at everything. And so it’s easier to improve session by session.

There are quite revolutionary ideas in the DTM: For example, that you can’t preheat the tyres or that radio communication is now very limited: Would such rules also be good for Formula 1?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Originally there was also a radio ban in Formula 1, for example in the warm-up lap. I’m that guy who doesn’t mind if nobody talks. (grins mischievously)

In other teams it is often the case that someone says that this driver is faster here or slower there. But what difference does it make? For me this information is no help. I think: if you ban radio, it won’t really change the races.

And as for your tyre question: If it’s as hot as in Spielberg, we’ll bring the tyres up to temperature even after a few laps, even without blankets. But if it’s cold, we’d drive like on ice without heating up. We would have zero grip, especially in the morning sessions. We would even fly off on the straight because we would have so little grip.

So if you ban the heating blankets, you would have to change the tyres completely at the same time. If the tyres are designed in such a way that they have to work without heated blankets – then it’s fine. But there are no plans. And it won’t change the game.

You’re a fan favourite, a real hero. What does that mean to you?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Yeah, that’s clearly a nice thing. It’s nice when they cheer for you! So some seem to like what I’m doing. Or maybe I’m just old and that makes them sentimental. (smiles)

Antonio, for you as an Italian, the day Kimi won Ferrari’s last World Championship title in 2007 must have been something very special. What are your memories like?

GIOVINAZZI: Of course I was a Ferrari fan! I saw the race at home on TV. And it was also special as three different pilots could still become World Champion – Alonso, Hamilton and Kimi.

RÄIKKÖNEN: (interrupts) But I strongly hope that you cheered me on.

GIOVINAZZI: Uh, sure. I made the point difference. (laughs)

RÄIKKÖNEN: How old were you back then?

GIOVINAZZI: 14! No – 12. I was driving a mini kart.

You are now factory drivers of Alfa Romeo, a big brand in motorsport. What do you associate with this name?

RÄIKKÖNEN: I’m too young to have experienced Alfa in Formula 1. But I know that they have a great history in this sport. They have won races, world championships. I think it’s great that they’re back in Formula 1.

Who was the last winner with an Alfa engine?

GIOVINAZZI: (answers immediately). Niki Lauda! (Note: Right, Anderstorp 1978, Brabham-Alfa.)

Privately you also drive Alfa: Kimi a Stelvio, Antonio a Giulia. Right?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Yes, in the Quadrifoglio version. It’s good for Switzerland and with the family. It’s fun.

GIOVINAZZI: The Giulia is a well-done car. I always enjoy driving it.

What is the biggest difference between a big team like Ferrari and a smaller one like Alfa, Kimi? My feeling tells me that this is a family size that you really like.

RÄIKKÖNEN: The pure work is not really different. The driving, the workflow, the meetings, it’s all very similar. The big difference is the stuff around it, I have less to do here. That was one reason why I wanted to do it that way.

But the passion, it’s the same, and usually the cars are very good. Only if you have a problem with the car it can take longer to fix it here – in such a case the size of the staff and the budget does make a difference.

What do you feel today when you are in Maranello?

RÄIKKÖNEN: I had good times there, even if the results weren’t always. But Ferrari is a big part of my heart, of my life. Not many can claim to have driven for this team and have won a drivers world championship title and the constructors’ championship twice. That connects and I still have contact with the people there. Of course.

How was it in 2007? The day on which you became world champion – and little Giovinazzi was excited in front of the TV?

RÄIKKÖNEN: Our only chance in the races was to be in the top two and then look: what are the McLaren doing? We had a lot of speed, but the World Championship was no longer in our hands. We had to bring our cars to 1 and 2. It worked. But it wasn’t just this one race. We had a phase of the season where we were struggling, but then we were really good.

Can Vettel still fight for the championship this year?

RÄIKKÖNEN: He can fight. Can he also win? That’s something different. He’s not in an easy position, but things often change fast. They will fight to the end.

GIOVINAZZI: I agree. Giving up is not an option for a team like Ferrari.

Okay, it really doesn’t make any sense to me at all that the Mighty Nein really thought “the humans are slaves” was a good plan. For a number of reasons, including that humans live in Xhorhas and at least one works in the Kryn government, but the biggest one being there is no evidence that slavery is legal in Xhorhas. The only examples I can think of that might possibly indicate that are not definite.

1) The orc who asked Fjord “how much” Caleb was. This doesn’t necessarily mean slavery. It could be “how much do you pay him” or “how much to hire him” or “how much to buy out his contract”. It could mean slavery, but it’s not definite.

2) Lytheir (spelling?) seemed to refer to Beau and Caleb as “pets” (honestly I thought he was asking about the moorbounders but probably not) and laughed at their abuse. Definitely not good, but a) this happened after they went with a slavery cover (that they never actually told anyone about), and b) this is still not a definite sign that slavery is legal in the Dynasty. Firstly, in hindsight we know that Lytheir suspected the M9 were enemies, he easily could have been testing them. Secondly, he could have thought that the humans were prisoners of war or servants. That treatment and attitude towards them is still undeniably awful, but one person’s terrible viewpoint is not automatically indicative of the Dynasty’s laws around slavery. There are still too many questions surrounding this interaction for me to feel certain of anything.

3) This is the biggest one. I saw someone say that Yasha once said that the Kryn take slaves. If this is true, throw out everything I said, but I have a pretty good memory, and as I recall she said there’s stories about them taking people. I understood her meaning as more of a boogeyman sort of story, a cautionary fairy tale. “Listen to your elders or the Kryn will take you” sort of thing. I could be wrong here, and if so it invalidates my whole argument, but if I’m not there’s still no concrete evidence that the Kryn are slavers. 

Also I’ll throw out there for good measure, when Lady Zethris seemed confused by the humans’ appearance, Fjord never said they were slaves. He said they worked for the group. Her reaction was not acceptance of the group having slaves, it seemed more like confused acceptance of the group’s weird harness wearing members. We probably won’t ever know exactly what she was thinking there, but it doesn’t seem like it was about slavery.

It’s still possible that slavery is legal in the Kryn Dynasty, but I honestly really hope it’s not. For a number of reasons, but mostly two. First that it would ruin all the wonderful gray morality surrounding the war, and the “no clear better side” thing Matt has so beautifully been building. For that reason alone, I find it unlikely that the Kryn would be slavers. The Empire is still corrupt and oppressive, but versus a nation that openly condones slavery? Automatically the better of the two. So there’s that, but also I have a personal reason for wanting the Kryn to be, overall, good, or at least not evil. I love drow. I really love drow. And I love taking what are thought of as evil races and showing other sides to them. Cause really how could every member of an entire race be the same? So there being a place that drow, and many other traditionally “monstrous” and “evil” races inhabit where the predominant culture isn’t evil? Yes please. That feeds my soul. The Kryn Dynasty was basically designed to appeal to me personally, and I really want to like it. I expect it will have its share of flaws and corruption like any government, but legal slavery would make them evil, no matter their other good qualities. I couldn’t like slavers, and I so like and want to continue liking the Kryn. 

24 Surprising Things You Never Knew About Target

Do the trick it to state that these days, it’s practically unthinkable not to shop at Target. The organization’s site alone has more than 1 million guests—every day. What’s more, regardless of whether you incline toward block and-concrete to web based shopping, the organization’s about 2,000 stores offer adequate open door for you to do your shopping face to face.

Yet, while Target is a prevalent goal both basically and truly for clever customers, the vast majority don’t really know the certainties or figures behind this retail goliath. Thus, we’ve gathered together some astounding Target actualities that even the most committed clients likely don’t have the foggiest idea.

Target Corporation wasn’t the organization’s unique name.

Dayton Dry Goods Company

At the point when New York local George D. Dayton opened the business currently know as Target Corporation in 1902, he did as such under the name Goodfellow’s Dry Goods Company. In 1903, Dayton turned into the sole proprietor of the business and changed the name to Dayton Dry Goods Company—and it wasn’t until 2000, after a few more name changes, that the business formally progressed toward becoming Target Corporation.

The principal Target store opened during the 1960s.

In spite of the fact that Dayton framed his business in the mid 1900s, it wasn’t until the 1960s that the principal Target store opened in Roseville, Minnesota. During its excellent opening on May 1, 1962, the new store was touted as ��a store you can be pleased to shop in, a store you can believe in, [and] a store that is amusing to shop and energizing to visit.” By the finish of that equivalent year, three different Targets had officially opened.

The organization used to likewise claim retail establishments.

marshall field’s store target

What numerous individuals don’t know is that Target’s parent organization, Target Corporation, didn’t in every case only claim Target stores. Up until 2004, the organization likewise possessed various retail chains, (for example, the Marshall Field’s in Chicago), however it chose to surrender those for concentrating on making the Target brand thrive.

Target made its first $1 billion in deals in 1979.

Most noticeably awful Things to Say to a Cashier

For the Target Corporation, 1979 was a momentous year. It was during this time the organization saw its first $1 billion in yearly deals from its 74 Target stores alone—and to commend, they put on a “Billion Dollar Sale” for all their faithful clients.

The organization got an honor from Ronald Reagan.

ronald reagan achievement cites, offending lawmakers

Target isn’t one of those organizations that is just about profiting. Truth be told, the association has verifiably tried to offer back to the network that in 1983, it was even granted the President’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities Medal of Honor—by President Ronald Reagan—for its empowering endeavors in expressions of the human experience and social welfare.

They once opened 11 stores in a single day—all in a similar city.

Chicago Bean Tourist Traps That Locals Hate

In 1993, Target ventured into the city of Chicago. In any case, when they made their turn into the Windy City, they chose to do as such with a blast—by opening one, however eleven stores all around the same time.

The organization has its very own test kitchen for R&D.

lady with a clipboard taking notes in a kitchen

Have you at any point thought about how Target thinks of the plans for its in-house brand items? A lot of that innovative work happens in the organization’s test kitchen, where sustenance researchers detail and test out potential new things. What’s more, evidently, the organization’s kitchen even has a Cake Week multiple times each year, where in excess of 100 plans are assessed. Yum!

It’s a prevalent goal for school year kickoff shopping.

closures of pencils

Scarcely any organizations can outrank Amazon nowadays in essentially any class. Be that as it may, one 2017 study found that Target was in reality more prominent than Amazon as a class kickoff shopping goal, with 64 percent of respondents saying that they intended to hit up Target for their school supplies contrasted with only 50 percent who wanted to shop at Amazon.

It has its very own Mastercard.

On the off chance that you’re a long standing customer at your neighborhood Target store, at that point you should need to consider putting resources into a Target REDcard. The organization’s card—which comes as a plastic or a charge card—accompanies extraordinary advantages like free delivering, 5 percent off all things considered, and an all-inclusive return window for all things.

Their low costs are deliberate.

target deal segment

It may some of the time feel like you’re getting bargains at Target that are unrealistic, yet don’t stress: that is actually what the organization needs. At the point when the primary Target was established during the 1960s, it was made, as per the organization’s site, as “another sort of mass-showcase markdown store that takes into account esteem situated customers looking for a higher-quality encounter.”

The organization’s author initially needed to turn into a priest.

religious writings profitable things in your storage room

George Dayton didn’t generally imagine himself as the organizer of an organization worth billions. Or maybe, the business person initially moved to Minnesota from New York with the expectation of turning into a priest, yet his arrangements changed when he happened upon business prospects that were too great to even think about passing up.

Target attempted (and fizzled) to venture into Canada.

Canada has been standing out in Movemember

In March 2013, Target opened its first store in Canada and immediately extended to 133 Canadian areas by January 2015. In any case, a blend of forceful challenge and constrained determination kept Target Canada from succeeding—and in April 2015, the organization’s Canadian branch shut down for good, refering to misfortunes of $2.1 billion.

Individuals have been calling it “Tarjay” for a considerable length of time.

Individuals love to tongue in cheek articulate Target as if the store were an extravagant French boutique, yet what they can be sure of is that this convention goes back decades. As Douglas Dayton, the main leader of the Target Corporation, has noted previously, individuals have been making that joke since the chain’s creation in 1962.

The organization helped fix the Washington Monument.

washington landmark DC

In the late 1990s, the Washington Monument experienced some long-late fixes that cost upwards of $5 million. And keeping in mind that you may imagine that these rebuilding efforts would have been settled for by means of regulatory expenses, they were really canvassed in full by Target, both through gathering pledges endeavors and direct commitments.

The chain quit selling cigarettes during the 1990s.

stopping smoking disposes of wrinkles

These days, it’s for all intents and purposes increasingly hard to discover a chainstore offering tobacco items than it is to discover one that puts the strength of their clients over benefit. In any case, harking back to the 1990s when the battle against tobacco wasn’t as solid, Target wound up one of the principal enormous retailers to quit selling cigarettes (clearly on the grounds that, for them, it was too expensive to even consider keeping them out of the hands of minors).

One of the originator’s relatives is the legislative leader of Minnesota.

rochester minnesota damp spots

The impact of the Target realm grows well past business. Despite the fact that a significant part of the establishing family went into the privately-run company, one of George Dayton’s incredible grandsons—Mark Dayton—decided on a somewhat unique way, and he is at present the legislative head of Minnesota and a previous congressperson from the state.

The middle age of a Target client is 40 years of age.

Target draws in clients everything being equal and socioeconomics, however the organization has discovered that their normal customer is around 40 years of age with a family unit salary of roughly $64,000 every year.

They’re a conspicuous power in the design retail showcase.

shirts

Target’s cute and reasonable attire items make them a power to figure with in the design business. Truly: According to one study of in excess of 10,000 individuals directed by Market Force Information, the organization tied with TJ Maxx for individuals’ preferred esteem retailer, and barely beat contenders like Marshall’s and Nordstrom Rack.

They’re the eighth-biggest retailer in America.

Mastercard

In 2016, Target’s yearly offers of $69.495 billion made them the eighth biggest retainer in the United States, soon after Amazon.

The name Target identifies with the organization’s low costs.

Target logo

Ever wonder what the name Target is about? As indicated by the organization, it was picked on the grounds that “as a’s marksman will likely hit the middle bulls-eye, the new store would do much the equivalent as far as retail merchandise, administrations, promise to the network, value, esteem, and in general understanding.”

Vermont was the last state to get a Target store.

vermont church

As of not long ago, Vermont was the main state in America without a darling Target. In any case, that all changed in late 2017, when the organization reported that they would at last be opening one of their stores in South Burlington in 2018.

Bullseye was presented as a mascot in the late ’90s.

A great many people today partner Target with Bullseye, the lovable bull terrier with the Target logo revolving around his eye, however she really wasn’t acquainted with the organization until 1999. It was around then that the organization publicized their first business with the popular pooch—and after she demonstrated to be a triumph among clients, she turned into a staple in future plugs and promotions alike.

Target’s shopping baskets are eco-accommodating.

target bullseye shopping baskets

In addition to the fact that target are red shopping baskets on brand, however they are additionally useful for nature. That is on the grounds that as per the organization, these trucks are made of recyclable material. (What’s more, reward, they weigh as much as 20 pounds not exactly the run of the mill metal ones!)

Target’s drug stores are claimed and worked by CVS.

CVS Pharmacy is one of americas most appreciated organizations

Despite the fact that the two organizations are rivals from multiple points of view, Target and CVS made a $1.6 billion arrangement in 201

Chronicle; 3 - Lost and Found

Drip.... Drip.... Drip....

The thief twitched with each drop. He had found a bowl to place under the leak in the roof, but he was quickly becoming impossibly annoyed with this safehouse. He could tune out bombs, gunfire, club music, and loud neighbors, but a constant drip- now that just got on his nerves. 

Eventually, he crawled up into the attic to try and find the source. Once one hung around Jace enough, they tended to pick up a few things about home improvement and repairs. Shining a flashlight around the attic as he crawled over the rafters, he grumbled irritably at a raindrop hitting his nose. 

Ishani had become a strange commonality to his life recently. The thief didn’t know what to think of her, but the more times he’d spoken to her, he was convinced she wasn’t crazy. No, in fact, she made a certain degree of sense, especially when it came to the Rift. It wasn’t that Iolar minded differences of opinion, but most people tended to be rather irritating to debate with. If they couldn’t keep up with him, he tended to walk away rather than try to teach them enough to be able to discuss the opinion. But Ishani....

Well, his fellow Rift Walker was intelligent. When he challenged her viewpoints on the Rift, on the shadows, she could back them up. She acknowledged the danger of the Rift, but seemed to be able to use it more- effortlessly than him. Even still, she seemed more interested in her research than anything else. He left her to it, and the few times he’d visited her, he found it interesting to glance over her notes and the artifacts she’d recovered. 

The ruins she had sketched out in her journals interested him, old buildings and structures that had long since started to deteriorate in the Rift. He couldn’t see a full culture, no, but he could see that- people used to use the Rift a lot more frequently than they did currently. The original Rift Walkers had to be more- sturdy than their modern counterparts. More able to withstand the Rift. 

‘Or the Rift changed.’ Ishani had pointed out during one of their phone calls.

He didn’t have a response at the moment to that statement. Of course things changed, but the Rift seemed to be immutable since he’d known it. Yet again, the Rift seemed to be around for many millennia. Fifteen years was nothing compared to thousands of years.

Iolar could see the wisdom in some of what she said, but other things just seemed like youthful indiscretions. She had had the Rift for about as long as him, but she was younger. Had more optimism than he did about the true nature of the Rift. He hadn’t mentioned the reasons why he hated the Rift, why he believed it a danger. No, some things were a bit too personal to share with someone he’d known for only a handful of weeks.

The memories still visited him in his sleep some days. He would deny it if anyone questioned him. He would blame the cold sweat at his brow on a too warm room, or the yells or whimpers on anything he could. Some days, he could still see the light in those eyes disappear, replaced by a manic haze. Those eyes he knew so well, the warm brown eyes that once comforted him when he’d had nightmares. Now those eyes were the source of his night terrors. 

Shaking off the cold feeling, Iolar spotted a few places in the roof that needed to be patched up. He didn’t have the supplies down in the safehouse, but he had spotted a hardware store a few blocks away. 

It would be good to get out for a bit, despite the rain.

Iolar sighed, crawling down to get out of the attic as thunder rolled outside. He pulled on a coat, gathering what he needed, including an umbrella. As he was about to step out of the safehouse, he felt his phone vibrate with a call. He blinked, pulling it out to glance at the caller ID. Chris? What was he doing calling?

Answering it, he pressed his phone to his ear as he slipped out of the door, closing it behind him. “A call, not a text? Is everything alright?” He waited for the familiar taps on the other end of the line, one for yes or two for no.

“Everything’s alright, Iolar. I just thought to test this out.” An electronic voice greeted him instead, a voice synthesizer of sorts. Iolar blinked in surprise as he opened his umbrella. “And before you ask, the sky is clear. It’s me.”

Iolar couldn’t help a faint smile, knowing no one would see it. “... So did you program the synthesizer, or find it?”

“A bit of both. I borrowed a bit of code from a classmate, but personalized it.” Chris responded. “But I was wanting to talk to you. We haven’t spoken much since the new Rift Walker came on scene. How have you been?”

“I’m good, Chris. Ishani is- challenging, but she does have a lot of good information.” He stepped out into the rain, thankful it wasn’t too windy. “But it is a bit stormy out, are you sure you want to talk now?”

“I’m fine for now. Does she need a glove?”

Iolar thought for a moment, furrowing his brow. “I... haven’t asked her yet. Is that an offer?”

The sound of shuffling could be heard on the other end of the line, before a meow sounded. The thief could only imagine the sort of trouble the once-stray kitten Chris had adopted was getting into. Rasmus liked to mess with his gadgets, but Chris still did adore the fleabag. The electronic voice finally sounded again. “Sorry, that was Rasmus. It is an offer, actually. But I’d have to meet her, or have you take detailed hand measurements and style requests. Want to learn glovemaking?”

“If it means keeping you safe, I’ll manage. Your mother will have my hide if you get hurt.” Iolar feared few people, but Cameron spoke volumes to how terrifying a mother could get when her child was threatened. “I’ll ask her. Ishani seems to deal with the gauntlet better than I do, but she still may like one of your gloves.”

“I do try to make them good quality.” 

“Chris, they’re the best. There aren’t many designs that can handle the edges of the gauntlet and still look somewhat decent. You improve with each design. That goes for your tech as well.” 

There was a brief silence over the line, before the voice sounded again. “... Thank you, Iolar. Midterms got me a bit down recently.”

“If you need more time off, I can-.”

“No, I’m fine, Iolar. Besides... who else will make sure everyone gets home safe? Don’t worry too much.”

Iolar rolled his eyes. “... Can’t help-... it.” He trailed off as a noise caught his attention. He slowed his pace to a stop, turning toward an alley. “... Chris, I’ll call you back later.” 

“Do you need me to contact Jace or Eva?”

“I can handle it.” He hung up, stashing his phone and listening closely.

A yelp, followed by voices. Two sets. One seemed almost incoherent, the other was- panicked. Fearful. 

“Pl-please, d-don’t come near me!” 

“Like-... like us. Like us. Shadows, shadows call.” 

Iolar tensed. 

Memories came back, of a night fifteen years prior in his life. The night it all truly began. That man- he spoke such similar words. His tone was such a similar pitch, tone, everything. It was almost identical. Another- Rift Walker. And the other voice-.

He closed his umbrella, sprinting into the alleyway. Rain hit his face and his feet splashed in a few dirty puddles, but he was focused on only one thing. 

A boy was pinned against the wall of the alleyway, struggling against an older man. The man’s eyes were wild, crazed, and he lashed out against the boy with one hand, something metallic glinting off it. Iolar recognized it immediately as a gauntlet. The boy shoved against the man, but he was tackled to the ground. The man lashed out suddenly, shouting. The shout nearly drowned out the yell of pain from the boy. 

Iolar closed in on them rapidly, grabbing the man by the collar and dragging him off of the boy. He threw the man against the wall, clasping his hands around his closed umbrella to offer some form of visible deterrent. 

The man jolted when he hit the wall, looking up sharply at Iolar with those same wild eyes. The thief couldn’t resist a chill that went up his spine. All of a sudden, he felt like he was a teenager again, on that night. But he shoved the feeling aside, steeling himself. No, he was no defenseless kid anymore. He tightened his grip on the umbrella as the man lunged for him.

The gauntlet lashed out and slashed through the fabric of the umbrella effortlessly, but Iolar used the momentum the man had to jab at him. He stunned him with a jab to the throat, before sweeping his umbrella to rap at his knees. The man was forced to kneel, and Iolar hit him upside the head, hard. The man fell to the ground, eyes open as he stared up at Iolar blankly.

His mind was gone, that much Iolar knew.

Just as Iolar was about to move to check on the boy, the man jolted. Iolar jumped back a bit as he lunged for him again, a crazed smile at his lips and a darkness at the edge of his eyes. Iolar could see a shadow surrounding his soul in the Rift, the colors of his soul obscured.

Possession, what next?

Iolar gritted his teeth, before tossing aside his umbrella and lunging for the man. He was gone, the thief reminded himself as he gripped the man’s hair. He was already dead. The man clawed at his arm, the sparking pain barely registering in the moment. Iolar forced himself not to think about what he did as he slammed the man’s head sharply into the concrete.

He finally let the man’s head go, closing his eyes for a moment to pull himself together. A whimper brought him back to the present.

The thief opened his eyes. The boy. He looked to the small form of the teenaged boy, curled up tightly in the fetal position and whimpering from pain. Blood glinted off his face and hands.

Iolar stood, walking over cautiously and kneeling beside the boy. He had a curly mop of black hair, slowly getting matted by blood. His dark skin had wet blood all over it. The thief hesitated, but rested a hand at the boy’s shoulder. The boy froze, gasping in anticipation of pain. But he slowly unwound as no pain came.

“... W-who are you?” He whispered.

The thief leaned down, keeping his hand where it was. There were cuts over his eyes from the man’s gauntlet. Just like- his own. Just like Ishani’s. Dread settled in the pit of his stomach. “... I’m a friend. My name is Iolar. I need to take a look at your eyes, can you move?”

“What a-a-abo-ut-...?”

“The man has been taken care of. You’re safe.”

The boy whimpered again, but slowly nodded. He shifted his head so his face was more visible. Iolar looked down at him. The cuts bled profusely, and yes, cut over both eyes. The thief swallowed his own unease.

“... Alright, you need medical attention. Let me bring you back to my place, I can help you there. No questions from doctors, no hospital fees. I’m- familiar with these wounds. You need help.” 

“B-but... I c-can’t-....” The boy whimpered again, his hand grasping at the air desperately. It finally found purchase on his vest, gripping there tightly. “... I- I have t-to get- get back.”

Get back? Back where? What was so important that he would disregard such a serious injury? 

“Kid, I don’t know where you need to go, but you’re bleeding. A lot. You need the bleeding to stop before you do anything, and I can’t do that here.” Iolar paused, before resting a hand on the boy’s hand, staring down at him. Something- something about him rang familiar, but-. “... I can carry you back to my house. It’s not far.”

The boy didn’t respond verbally, but a choked sob escaped him at the pain. He slowly nodded, shifting faintly closer to Iolar. The thief sighed softly in exasperation, but moved to slip his hands under the boy. He pulled him close to his chest, standing. He was- lighter than Iolar expected, but yet again, he seemed rather small. He couldn’t be older than about sixteen, but even for that age, he was- thin. Small. 

Iolar tightened his grip on the boy, leaving the alleyway at a fast, but steady pace. 

He had to contact Ishani, but first- he had to get back home. The boy desperately needed medical attention, and the amount of blood he had already lost was alarming, to say the least. 

Reflective Journaling

Reflecting

Whilst studying the ‘Bachelor of Creative Technologies’ I think the most meaningful learning curve for me in this course has been the project Cards for Play. This project for me was the most important as it gave me a taste of what group work is like in this course, it also demonstrates how throughout the design process there will be a conflict with yourself as well as team members. We were also trying to design with a very vague process which broke most of us out of the step by step method we were all exposed to in high school. By doing so, it breaks down the design process alongside the paradigm shifts within the outlook of how it works. By doing this project we were also exposed to different people and how they worked, as well as how they managed their time during the project. With that, we discovered the difficulties we would face when we traversed towards the final product.

Conceptualization

For Cards for Play, we got into teams of 5 – 7 and my team consisted of – Jordan Bryan, Sophie Matthews, Bhumika Patel, Ciara Robinson Huggins, Max van Dijck, Thomas Woodfield and myself. As a group, we went straight to designing and planning out our project.

Our group’s values were not in the same place and were not on the same page. Therefore, we were faced with a lot of dead ends which resulted in us killing our baby on multiple occasions. It was very chaotic trying to think of a concrete idea and it proved to be difficult until we pieced together our statement of intents into a single sentence. This really helped with voicing the opinions of the people in our group who were quieter. If we had not done this then I don’t believe our group would have been able to connect as well if we did not combine our statements into one.

By doing this, we had created a common ground as to where we could work from and having fewer conflicts, due to our clashing personalities, as we could relate back to this statement. Bringing all our divergent ideas into one to prevent unnecessary conflicts in the future.

As the project went on we were faced with many situations where we needed to backtrack and work on things we had already finished. Every time we made progress, we were sent back to the beginning to re-evaluate what we had done previously so we could refine it over again. I wondered why we needed to redo aspects of our project again and I then realized that if we didn’t we could not develop more ideas in the future.

Working back and forth really helped us create discussions and gave us ideas on the prototypes we needed to make. By using that we would conduct play tests with different groups within our cohort and could research the finer details as to why it worked and how it could be better. With every test we could see we needed to improve, therefore, we needed to build something up again from the bottom up and avoid the mistakes we had made before.

The design process was messy, and I was not used to it as it wasn’t ingrained in me to work in different areas at different times. The whole experience created a paradigm shift to what my group and I thought previously about the process.

The Experience

The conflicts in our group were inevitable, however, I believe it was good for us to progress. The composition of our team was important as it should be positively related to our performance, because of the variety in our skills, opinions, and things we can and can not do. (Christian, et.al. 2006) This was shown as our conflicts within opinions also helped us find solutions that weren’t exactly presented to us at the start. Because the solutions we came up with satisfied all the people in our group, it helped us with finding the best solution for our target audience as well. Due to the diverse thinking in our group, we could come up with a final product that everyone could be pleased with as it created an interactive experience for the user.

The whole design process was completely new to everyone in our group. The backtracking, rethinking, killing the baby, etc. Because of this, we felt like we were thrown from one place to the other. The design process is best described as one of those chaotic party games where the players dash from one room of the house to another simply in order to discover where they must go next. (Wong, Siu. 2012) As explained, everything that we did in this project was very hectic. It didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere but as time went by it gradually came together and we saw how the process we went through backtracking and re-evaluating our concepts helped us a lot in the process. The more we did, the more it came together, and it really encouraged us to keep going until we were satisfied with the outcome of our project. It’s still quite a new concept we, as a group, because of the paradigm shifts from high school to university. It was because of those paradigm shifts that we were able to create the product.

Experimentation

In my opinion, the internal conflicts that we faced as a group helped us immensely. Because of these, we were able to communicate and figure out the differences between us as people. It helped us contribute more into the group as we all had different intentions, by joining them together was a great way for us to start off the project. Maybe next time, we could establish these statements of intents and combine them, so we didn’t need to agonise over it like when we did for Cards for Play project. However, I wonder if the project would have gone in a different direction had we not joined our statements together. If we didn’t face this conflict would we be as pleased with our outcome as we were currently? If there wasn’t a divergent idea would the project be as polished like our current one due to the variety of skill and similar technique? I believe that there would be a similar outcome but not the same, as it lacks the different ways of thinking our final product had.

Although, the design process did help us the quality shift in our project. By going back and forth with the design process, we could refine and develop our ideas more through playtesting and receiving feedback from our playtesters and peers. For my current project, data objects, we had to go through many ideas to reach our end goal. It was not as concrete as my last group as we do not really know what we want to achieve but through asking our peers it helped us with the deeper understanding of what we needed to do. I believe that currently, we needed to keep backtracking as we did not with our initial prototype which led us to become stressed as we had to change our idea a few weeks before the deadline. I do wonder what would have happened if in our Cards for Play project we never backtracked back to the beginning, would we be pleased with the outcome? Would playtesting with only the members of our group be beneficial to our product? Would we still be able to play it? I believe it would be quite an experience to see what would happen if we were to compare the different feedbacks we could get from the different user experiences. As Cards for Play was mostly user experience-oriented project.

References:

Christian, J., Porter, L. W., & Moffitt, G. (2006). Workplace diversity and group relations: An overview. Group Processes & Intergroup Relations, 9(4), 459-466.

Retrieved from:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/1368430206068431

Wong, Y. L., & Siu, K. W. M. (2012). A model of creative design process for fostering creativity of students in design education. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 22(4), 437-450.

Retrieved from:

https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10798-011-9162-8.pdf

Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the vicious constipation of moral relativism

POETRY IS THE ART OF PREJUDICE: An interview with Jack Gilbert

(Note: Originally transcribed from a tape-recorded conversation between Jack Gilbert and Gordon Lish, at Gilbert’s San Francisco apartment, July 18, 1962)

LISH: In your poem “Quality Is a Kind of Exile” you mention a lady asking what poets are like between poems. If the question were asked specifically about you and you had to give a prose answer, what would you say?

GILBERT: I’d be evasive. It’s the sort of question that can only make a fool of you.

LISH: But if you had to answer?

GILBERT: If I had to? Well, I’m a little like a mongrel dog, I guess. Not the sickly kind, or the savage or woe-begone kind. But the shorthaired, off-white type you still sometimes see trotting along in the city. Obviously on his own. The kind that survives.

LISH: Not a lap-dog?

GILBERT: Wait. Let’s not get this started off wrong, full of terse clever answers. It was my fault; that sounds pretty precious about the dog. I didn’t mean it like that, but it’s a hard question to answer quickly. I just mean that I’m not respectable. I’m thirty-seven years old and a kind of failure. I don’t really have an occupation. Most of the time I wander around looking at the trees. Or the concrete. And trying to understand and to have my life. And love. Kind of an urban Walden. I’ve never worked at a job more than six months at a time in my whole life. And most of those were in steel mills or washing dishes or selling Fuller Brushes. I’ve evaded all the adult responsibilities of marriage, a home, a car, a regular job, children, furniture, a bank account for emergencies, pipes, guns, and all the rest. While other people have been coping with their responsibilities as husbands and citizens and PhD’s, I’ve been off looking at the sea and trying to write a poem. Or living in the mountains. Or on the Lower East Side.

LISH: But you’re not part of the Beat Movement?

GILBERT: God, no! And I don’t go in for freakish behavior nor esoteric knowledge.

LISH: What do you conceive your world to be then? What audience do you write for, for example?

GILBERT: I suspect I’m like most poets in that I write with a vague audience in mind made up of a few friends multiplied and a bunch of heroes—most of whom are dead.

LISH: But certainly some poets have a more general public in mind?

GILBERT: Maybe so, but remember that the contemporary artist’s audience is not the same one aimed at by Edwardians and Victorians. One of the things that defines modern poetry is its separation from a general audience. Not because the poet wants it that way, but because what he wants to do pushes him beyond the scope of the bus driver.

LISH: All poets?

GILBERT: Well, just about all serious poets today are beyond the reader of good will who is inexperienced in current literature. It used to be there was usually something for anyone with a minimum education. If you listened to music, you could wait for the tune to come around again. Today you’d wait a long time. Or in painting, you could enjoy the way a lemon peel was imitated or be moved by the scene of a young boy saying goodbye to his mother before going off to the big city. You might not know anything about painting, but you’d remember when your boy Walter went off. In poetry you could enjoy the sense of beauty without any idea of the meaning—the lovely, hypnotic beauty-bath. But poets aren’t trying to do this anymore. Nor good composers, nor sculptors, nor novelists, nor architects. They are trying to do something different, and it involves the nature of poetry and the audience both.

LISH: What specifically is this difference?

GILBERT: In the old days, poets tried to create beauty, and to please. Most of them, anyway. Today, the major talents aren’t interested in creating beauty—not in the ordinary sense, and certainly not in the sense of providing recreation. Poetry before the First World War was usually an elevating experience taken dutifully after a good meal in the better homes; rather like going to church each Sunday to sit worshipful and empty-headed. Instead of providing instant-uplift or a passive sense of nobility, the poets now are trying to interest and disturb.

LISH: Surely this kind of poetry has been with us a long time.

GILBERT: I don’t mean it’s a new thing. However, I doubt if it’s ever been so predominant. And there is a difference between the serious art of today and art in the past in that our art is harder to misuse. You look at the painting elements in a painting today or you go home. You read contemporary poems as poetry, and actively, or you leave it alone.

LISH: I assume this would be your answer to the accusation of limiting your readers by the geographical, historical, mythological, and personal references in your poems.

GILBERT: It depends. I don’t believe in poems as cross-word puzzles—poems created as victims of the New Criticism. There should be a public level of the poem available to an educated reader who is willing to contribute a fair amount of thinking. On the other hand, there are some things you have a right to expect him to look up. Helot, for example, if he doesn’t know. But if a poem has too much of this, its function breaks down—becomes a game of scholarship.

LISH: Or of vanity.

GILBERT: Especially of vanity. Not always, though. Not all poets who go in for this sort of thing are trying to create the illusion of profundity by an illicit obscurity. Some are entirely sincere. Just as some of the surrealists are, or the word-manipulators, the logomaniacs.

LISH: Are you equating the pedant poets with the surrealists and the logomaniacs? Aren’t some of these people legitimately experimental poets?

GILBERT: Of course. But I’m tired of the kind of experimental poetry we’ve been getting. I don’t say it’s not poetry. There isn’t any one correct way to write poetry. Poetry is a word like love: an endless confusion of different things all warped into one word because no vocabulary of discrimination exists. So I’m not saying my way of writing poetry is the way. But I am admitting my weariness with the great body of poetry which is nothing more than a curious manipulation of words, what Kenneth Tynan has called literary masturbation—a sterile effort to force words to breed. After one or two pages of surrealistic poetry my mind just stubbornly refuses to be polite. Wallace Stevens put it very well when he said that the trouble with surrealism is that it invents rather than discovers. It’s a kind of trick anybody can learn who has imagination. You just throw your mind slightly out of focus so everything seems different. Or better yet, you learn to set your mind wrong so that each item is mechanically related to an inappropriate neighbor. It’s great when you’re starting out in poetry and words are a kind of fascination. But how can a poet sustain an interest in this kind of thing. Wait a minute, I was just reading something by Samuel Johnson. Here it is: “The irregular combinations of fanciful invention may delight awhile, by that novelty of which the satiety of life sends us all in quest; but the pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted.”

LISH: And yet your poetry isn’t devoid of experiment. For example, I’ve noticed in your poetry a peculiar distortion of line—as if the language were strange to you, new—especially this poem “The Poetry Line”.

GILBERT: All good poets today try to wrench the language, to freshen it. But my main concern with form is different. I’m concerned with how to make poems work. I think any group of my poems will show a range of solutions. Many poets have one or two ways to write a poem. The poem to them is like a cake-decorator where you put your different materials into the same bag each time and squeeze. The cake will be decorated differently each time, but the method is the same. My greatest difficulty is not finding subjects or language or conceits, but in finding the poem.

LISH: This would be a preoccupation with form rather than language then?

GILBERT: Yes, but obviously not form in the sense of sonnets or sestinas. In fact, I think the major esthetic problem in the 20th century is the attempt to escape Form with a capital Fto form in lower case. At the beginning of the century with the idea of Art for Art’s sake, with the influence of Flaubert, with the distaste for a world in which falsification had become standard, many poets went in for what Yeats called technical sincerity. They found truth in an esthetic technology. Recently poets (and artists in the other arts) have become discontent with Form as an object. They no longer are content to create a pretty, well-made thing. They want to make a poem that extends beyond the museum of perfection. Often they don’t particularly care how it looks—if it’s shaggy or messy or incomplete or exaggerated—as long as it has the effect on the reader that the poet intends. In fact, he may deliberately include the anti-poetic in order to prevent misunderstanding. He doesn’t want the reader coming along collecting jeweled phrases. I’ve talked to a number of the best writers working today about this. Some at length, like Pound, or some just briefly, like Saul Bellow, and I’ve found over and over that they want to escape the inhibiting quality of Form as a hieratic, imposed felicity. They want to devise a form that allows them to do things. Pound expressed it by saying his greatest contribution to younger poets was enabling them to get things back into poems—to make historical references, for example. This recurring groping for an open form can be traced through the whole history of European literature.

LISH: But your poetry shows considerable concern with form in a more direct sense.

GILBERT: Sure. Any poet must be concerned with it. I would expect any poem of mine to meet all the tests of craftsmanship. And obviously form in this sense can never be separated from the other concern. And still, in some peculiar way, they are separate. No one has ever been able to say exactly how, but it is nevertheless true that a preoccupation with the formal construct produces a lesser poetry. Primary poetry deals with life. This is, of course, the most old-fashioned of positions. It has been repeatedly denounced by all the best modern critics like Northrop Frye, Warren and Wellek, Wimsett, and the rest. I always have the feeling they are annoyed that poems are written by people instead of being spontaneously generated out of the accumulations of books in the great solemn libraries. It’s an inconvenience. They remind me of the people who confuse technology with sex.

LISH: How does your attitude affect your poetry?

GILBERT: I am far more concerned with content than most poets, I think. I assume I manage all the technical elements adequately, of course. But usually my poems are caused by and impulse to communicate some part of my life rather than to please. I don’t want the reader to finish the poem and say how lovely it was. I want him to be disturbed. Even miserable. I don’t envy Spenser the slightest bit. I do envy the man who wrote Lear. And yet…it’s so hard to get it straight. At the same time I am always deeply concerned with the poem as a made thing. Always. Like something chopped out of stone that won’t weaken. But not as a decoration. Not a recreation. There are two kinds of poetry finally. The kind that gives delight, and the kind that does something else. Delight is fine. But in Lear or Oedipus there is something else. It’s a delight, too, but of a kind so different that it is misleading to use the same word. The first is recreation; the second change man. It is a grave misunderstanding to come from a performance of Lear concerned primarily with technical felicities. Ideally, one should cry at a good performance of Lear. If the critic can’t cry, he should be unfrocked.

LISH: Doesn’t this kind of approach set you apart from a lot of contemporary poets?

GILBERT: Maybe so, but an awful lot of the poems I see published remind me of the correspondence between Marx and Engels. Engels was always writing elaborate letters filled with ingenious, painstaking comments on Marx’s theories equating them mechanically with some current scientific thought. And Marx (or the reader) kept writing back, Dear Fred, please send the money.

LISH: But you go beyond just insistence on a relation to life in your poems. You seem preoccupied with moral values. Isn’t it true that most contemporary poets no longer accept the ideal of right and wrong?

GILBERT: Who knows? Surely it’s an exaggeration to say most. But it is true that a great many poets now shy away from this kind of subject in favor of a kind of genre verse. Partially I think this is the result of a moral paralysis that is current. But isn’t it also because they don’t have a sufficient motivation for writing? Isn’t a great part of poetry now being produced to support an established reputation? The poet is actually tired of poetry, but he must turn out poems to qualify for prizes, grants, and academic positions. What’s he going to do? He manufactures verse. And it’s a lot easier to deal with a small subject when you’re getting by on merely careful technique. And if he’s a man teaching at a university, as he probably is, and married to a wife he courted years ago, and has several quite healthy children…what’s he going to make his poems out of? He makes them out of books or he makes them out of the incidents of a normal, commonplace life. If he goes sailing off Long Island on Sunday afternoon and he wants to write a poem after dinner, he will probably write a poem about sailing off Long Island.

LISH: A small poem?

GILBERT: Oh, he’ll mention Charon at the end to make it seem big, but he is probably tired after a long day and he contents himself with making a respectable poem rather than trying to do anything to the reader. He’s unlikely to be what the Elizabethans admired so much, an over-reacher. You aren’t likely to get a big-boned poem straining its limits.

LISH: And you think this is the case with most poets today?

GILBERT: It seems to be true of most poetry today. Probably it has always been true of most poets. And it is only fair to say that all poets would like to write great poetry. It is also true, though, that if ninety-nine percent of the poets writing today stopped publishing, it would not be a loss. It might not even be noticed. We are in danger today of the kind of misguided tact that has so hampered modern British poetry. A kind of insidious conspiracy of courtesy. If there could be a truly unmalicious literary pogrom, it would do more for American literature than even making them publish anonymously. Or how about another way? You know how in the Congressional Record they have all those speeches that were never actually delivered in Congress? They save everybody’s time by waiving the reading and just print it so the people back home can see it and be satisfied their Congressman is making his voice heard. Suppose we publish a huge book called The Very Finest American Poetry of 1962? Everyone will waive the poems being actually published anywhere except in those thousands of pages of unreadable tiny print. And each poem who sends in something will automatically be issued a certificate saying he has published so-and-so many poems in 1962, and they have been declared to be the very finest of the year. It will be signed by all the right people. Then the poet can just turn this over to the head of his department when culling time comes around. The reward of promotion will be for the greatest number of certificates—and these will be given for assiduity, just as now. And he can get duplicates to send his mother, or to show his wife’s friends, or to send to the Fulbright and Guggenheim and Ford people. Or to have lying around when he has a girl up he’s trying to make.

LISH: Do you think these people who are involved in poetry to further their careers or who make mild poems out of trivial material are dangerous to the reader?

GILBERT: Mostly in being dangerous to themselves and other poets—in that they reduce poetry to something toilet-trained and comfortable. They pretend poetry is just like everything else, only fixed up funny. Like sex. Everybody understands now that sex isn’t really dirty. A little odd at times, but certainly nothing to be disturbed about. Like the sensible books on technique say. And it’s good for you. Rosy, reasonable sex. Well, it isdirty. And fantastically intimate. A kind of insanity. Of course, they often feel the same way about insanity. It’s kind of like the common cold now. And they can’t get over the secret feeling that their friend really knows, at the bottom, how silly he’s being. Someone once said to Blake that after all when he looked at the sun he saw a bright copper penny like the rest of us. Blake replied that when he looked at the sun he saw a choir of singing angels.

LISH: You feel the poets really don’t know the difference?

GILBERT: Who knows anything about poets? But I remember talking recently to a poet who teaches at the University of California who kept saying how it’s all nonsense to criticize professors for not having enough life in their poems. Take him for example, he said. One of his favorite things was to go walking up and down the main street of Oakland at night. Now I’m not making fun of him. He is quite intelligent and talented, and he sincerely believes he’s getting close to the brute reality of non-academic life walking up and down there in Oakland. It’s admirable that he wants to reach reality, but it scares me to think a man so intelligent can become so insulated that he isn’t even aware how far he is from the demon world of actuality.

LISH: What poets do you think are in touch with that demon world?

GILBERT: First let me take back that bit about the “demon world.” It sounds like the dark-world-of-unnamable-evil out of somebody like Huysmans or Lovecraft. And let me say that most poets have had contact with the world beyond the academy and domesticity when they were young or in the army or on their year tour of Europe. But how many of them have recently lived for any time really with hunger or corruption or danger or ecstasy or madness or the alien or romance or physical labor or poverty or anything? Or evil? Directly, I mean.

LISH: All right, but what poets do you admire?

GILBERT: In the world, or writing in English, or just in America.

LISH: Let’s say just American.

GILBERT: It’s hard to answer. I admire some things in many, many poets. You remember in The Lost Weekend how the guy is hurrying down the street full of ain and he sees a new book by F. Scott Fitzgerald in a window and he stops and crouches down to read what he can of the two pages that are half open? In the middle of his hurry and unhappiness? Well, I’ll tell you the people I’d crouch down like that to read. Pound and Eliot, of course. And Williams. And Frost. And Auden, if I’m allowed both him and Eliot. And Marianne Moore. Lowell and Duncan and Wilbur and Creeley. Shapiro and once upon a time Ginsberg. And Laura Ulewicz and Richard Hazley and Gerald Stern and William Anderson and Jean McLean. And others I’ll think of later. It’s a fine century for poetry.

LISH: Doesn’t that contradict what you were saying before?

GILBERT: I hope not. It’s exactly because I think we are in one of the great centuries for poetry that I feel so strongly. The last fifty years has been a golden age for English poetry. But it’s a constant race against being inundated with proficiency. We are in danger from a glut of mediocrity of an extraordinary high calibre. The problem is to write the poems that matter. Too many poets are concerned with poems as art objects. It’s a clever kind of juggling. It’s beautiful, and very difficult, and even admirable. But it mustn’t usurp the center of poetry. We will never get people like Chaucer or Villon or Dylan Thomas or Baudelaire or Blake or Homer or Sophocles or Shakespeare by making merely beautiful things. We’ll get them only from a poetry that is significantly involved with life. And I don’t mean domestic life. Certainly the poetry must also be technically competent, but the important thing is to exceed this. So many poets now seem to aim at the adequate poem rather than the important one.

LISH: Doesn’t this dearth of important poetry at the moment owe, in part, to the feeling of many poets that life no longer holds significant subjects? What do you, for example, consider significant material?

GILBERT: All the conventional subjects for poetry. Love, death, man, virtue, nature, magnitude, excellence, evil, suffering, courage, morality. What is the good life. What is honor. Who am I.

LISH: But isn’t that just the point? Aren’t the conventional subjects too confused and wearied from a surfeit of examination and the blurring of values?

GILBERT: That’s why poets shirk.

LISH: They try something more manageable?

GILBERT: Not only that, but they don’t have enough experience or involvement to try the other. It’s what I was saying before. Most of the poets are trying to earn a living and support a family. That usually means teaching school. And after a while, it means teaching school comes first. Poetry comes second. You meet very few poets whose lives are devoted primarily to writing poetry. The may love poetry, and respect it; they may be competent, well-trained, well-meaning, good people. But you don’t become a great poet in your spare time. Besides, nice guys seldom write exciting poetry.

LISH: But even if that’s true, doesn’t part of the reluctance to deal with large moral problems come from the complexity of the problems today—obsessed with relativism, wanting to be fair, to be objective? No longer understanding all of anything, especially the major values?

GILBERT: That’s true, but it’s exactly why poetry is crucial now. Poetry and the novel have largely taken over the function of philosophy for us. Philosophy is locked up in epistemology and can’t get out. No philosopher asks any more: What is the good life? What is justice? They deal with technical problems about cognition and even more with a kind of verbal paraphernalia. Poetry seems almost the only device we have for persisting at problems without their being mysteriously transformed into an abstract game. It seems almost our only escape from the blind alley of sophistication where comparative anthropology and psychiatry have led us, seeing that there are so many sides to any question that it is impossible to have convictions. Poetry is almost the only way we can escape from the vicious constipation of moral relativism. Because poetry is the art of prejudice. If prejudice is the inability to discuss a conviction calmly, then poetry is prejudice. Prose is rational and fair. It works out an idea and gives all the evidence. Poetry doesn’t. It doesn’t argue, it demonstrates.

LISH: Then you do see absolutes. That is out of fashion, isn’t it?

GILBERT: I think most good poets see absolutes, but they mistrust themselves because they think they’re not being fair. Well, poetry isn’t fair. Poetry, at it’s best, doesn’t try to be fair. Poetry is one-sided, and being one-sided, it can say what truth is. As the art of prejudice, poetry eludes the modern situation where everything seems true and nothing seems to matter very much. The poet has a way of thinking that, peculiarly, breaks through the ambush of qualification and gets to the other side where you so often can see the truth all along but can’t find your way through the jungle of intellectual ceremony.

LISH: Somehow this seems a lot like the attitude of the Beat poets.

GILBERT: Well, it is true that one of the reasons the Beat Movement got so much attention (outside of their gift for publicity) was that their intellectual crudity helped them to break through the impasse of sophistication and establish some contact with subjects that mattered in a real world. Just as the Italian Renaissance was possible partly because the people in Florence were provincial. It could never have happened in Byzantium.

LISH: You say the beats were intellectually crude.

GILBERT: Yes, but that doesn’t mean dumb. Let me make it clear that I’m not attacking them. It’s pointless for people to keep kicking them now when the whole thing is in such disrepute. Five years ago, people in the universities hated the movement but were secretly fascinated. Now they are genuinely contemptuous and indifferent. It is useless to attack it or defend it now on doctrinaire grounds. It’s more important to evaluate it; not only fairly, but with knowledge. It was the most important literary movement of a quarter century in America. Why did all that talent and opportunity come to so little?

LISH: Why, then?

GILBERT: Mostly because of inadequate character and the repudiation of intelligence. Most of the poets in the movement are incapable of maturity. Any examination of the work of, say, Ginsberg and Corso (and Kerouac in prose) show a failure to grow. In fact, they are dedicated to the opposite. They apotheosize all the infantile qualities: impulsiveness, resentment of discipline, incapacity for self-discipline, short attention span with a consequent preoccupation with the moment, mistrust of authority and order, egocentricity, and all the rest. At first this gave their work the freshness and energy that’s usual when gifted children start out in any field: poetry, tennis, science, music, chess, whatever. But it also has a similar tendency to come to nothing. To predictably pass through a stage of exaggeration and a kind of hysteria, followed by bitterness, and finally a withered passivity. They are like those insects that get arrested at the larvae stage. I forget their name. They have all the parts, but they just don’t continue. If you want a case in point, read the interviews involving Ginsberg and Corso and Burroughs in the Journal for the Protection of All Beings. It’s sad and rather frightening to see people of such native talent ending up in such juvenility. And it’s not just in that one example. Almost anything they do now shows it. Look at Ginsberg’s piece in Pa’lante where he’s approaching middle age lost in a hopeless confusion of the most elementary philosophical problems.

LISH: And you say this failure of character goes along with the repudiation of intelligence?

GILBERT: Yes, in favor of some kind of intuition. I think intelligence has produced almost everything that is noble in man. Of course, when I say intelligence, I don’t mean just syllogistic logic. I mean the total capacity for perception and understanding available to man. Logic, intuition, gestalt, common sense, empathy, and all the rest. They want to rely on primitive, clumsy impulsiveness alone. Anyone who has lived where intelligence hasbeen replaced by intuition (such as Apulia or Mexico or India) knows how quickly life becomes diminished to something close to the animal. These people feel more at ease in those conditions. They evade the complexity life really has; and they can escape awareness of themselves into sensation. When you realize how little these people like being themselves, you begin to understand why they want to escape consciousness.

LISH: But I thought the idea was to arrive at a greater awareness of the self. And to be more open to love.

GILBERT: They talk a lot about love, but they experience almost none. Neither for people nor the world. Their natural condition is unhappiness. And because they have so little genuine appetite for the world, they go in constant fear of boredom. That’s why they are quiet so little. After all, there is something radically wrong when you have to go to always more violent and stranger devices to get a response. A man who delights in the world isn’t so dependent on drugs and alcohol and novelty. And the sad thing is that even so they manage to squeeze our always less response. If you’ve been to any of their parties, you must have noticed how much it was like an hysterical woman straining for an orgasm synthetically. And the poetry is the same. Almost none of it stands up under rereading. In the first place, it all ends up sounding curiously anonymous. And in the second place, despite the cult of energy, all that violence of language and image seems curiously slack after six months. The poems just don’t wear well.

LISH: None of it?

GILBERT: Certainly some remains. Parts of Howl and Kaddish, for example. And besides, it depends on who you mean when you refer to the Beat Movement. It’s as Procrustean a word as academic. I certainly am not talking about Creeley or Duncan or Olson. And I think Whalen and Snyder will produce important poetry. But for the rest, if you travel around America, you find the reputations of five years ago washed up like great dying whales. And beginning to stink.

LISH: There’s that figure whales. Whales and elephants and Alcibiades. What precisely do you mean by whales?

GILBERT: You know without my telling you that no poet means precisely anything. It’s not a one-to-one relation. That’s allegory. It means a lot of things. For one, it’s the impossibly literal world. And it’s what you can’t reduce to the human scale. For me, trying to think about a whale, that endlessness down in that infinity of depth, in darkness, moving around—with a mind inside it…

LISH: Doing things.

GILBERT: Yes, and silent. I can’t make any adjustment to it. Like Lawrence said: “I said to my heart, who are these? / And my heart couldn’t own them.” He was talking about fish. And he says someplace else in the poem: “There are limits / To you my heart; / And to the one God / Fish are beyond me.” Whales in this sense, the sudden sense of the alien nature of the universe not translatable into human terms. But what particularly interests me is the sense of magnitude. It’s out of scale, and not just physically. It threatens my life, the formulations on which I operate. I have to redo my mind. There’s a poem by Rilke where he goes along describing a statue. All of a sudden, for no reason, he breaks off and says: You must change your life. When I think about whales, it’s the same in a way. Or elephants or love.

LISH: Or Alcibiades, evidently.

GILBERT: Or Alcibiades. He was the Golden Boy of 4th century Athenian culture. Pericles was his guardian, Plato his teacher. A fine athlete, a brilliant general, handsome, marvelously intelligent, popular, everything. A summation of the Golden Age. And what happened? He went bad. He was vain, treacherous, selfish, sacrilegious, debauched, dishonest, and a traitor twice over. His aid to the enemy during the Syracuse campaign destroyed Athens. Just about the finest product of the most notable civilization man has accomplished, and it turned out like that. This haunts me like the whales. Like the irrational East haunted the Greeks. Like the irrational still frightens the French. It is so much the problem today. It is so often our most endowed people who go wrong—become corrupt, sexually distorted, criminal, mad. I don’t mean just because of irrationality, or course. You might just as well call it Evil as it has been so often called to simplify things. But whatever the name, it is clear that Cordelia has little relevance for us except as a lost Eden. What concerns our time is Goneril. That’s why insanity, homosexuality, and semi-criminality are so common among poets. These prevent him from escaping into the obliviousness of normal life. Especially in modern times, the poet often has a built-in inability to succeed, so he is forced to associate with whales.

LISH: And you intend to continue to live with them by choice?

GILBERT: Well, I’m not crazy, queer, or crooked (Ai! Is there any group I haven’t offended?)…anyhow, I don’t know about it being by choice. Certainly after this interview I’m not likely to be tempted by either the universities or the foundations. It’s a choice in that I prefer whales and love and the rest; but then Heraclides said a man’s fate is his character. In any case, I intend to go on wandering around having my life and watching for whales—willingly. And with delight.

LISH: One final thing. Before the Yale printing of Views of Jeopardy, you were almost completely unpublished and unknown, weren’t you?

GILBERT: Before sending the manuscript to Yale, I had submitted poems to editors only twice in the twenty years I’d been writing poetry.

LISH: And now you have been nominated for next year’s Pulitzer Prize competition.

GILBERT: That’s true. And it makes me happy in a shamelessly uncomplicated way. To be nominated, I mean. I’m thinking of writing a poem, though, called “How It Feels to Be Nominated for the Pulitzer Prize Competition the Season Robert Frost Published His First Book in Fifteen Years.”

(https://unsaidmagazine.wordpress.com/2012/11/16/jack-gilbert-interviewed-by-gordon-lish-1962-from-issue-one-of-genesis-west-part-one/)

Paladins Patch 1.3 Thoughts

So now that it’s a bit after the fact, I figure I might as well organize my thoughts more about the upcoming patch! Everything is under the cut, and I apologize in advance to mobile users. The patch notes for 1.3 are already up if you’re interested.

The Emote Wheel, and Gold Sinks

Okay so first off, just the addition of being able to equip multiple emotes and sprays on its own is such a good addition! But also as one of those folks currently sitting on a mountain of gold right now, we REALLY needed this sort of gold sink:

From the looks of it to upgrade to each additional slot for both sprays and emotes, the amount of gold will be:

Slot 2: 50,000g

Slot 3: 100,000g

Slot 4: 150,000g

Which works really well for me. Fernando has so many good emotes, I can’t be expected to pick just one! Speaking of Fernando though -

Please excuse the quality of this image but my BOY is using his SHIELD like a SURFBOARD! I don’t care if its Battle Pass exclusive, I WANT IT

...Okay back on topic. I’m not sure if you have to unlock these additional slots for each champion on their own, or if its a universal unlock yet - only PTS will tell. I honestly have enough gold that I’d probably be set either way though...we really needed a gold sink that doesn’t revolve around buying champion levels. I only buy champion levels if I want to unlock their talents, but nothing beyond that. No sir, I like to EARN my gold skins!

The other gold purchasable addition to the game is additional language announcer packs - 25,000g each. I think we’re definitely going to see someone playing champions of a specific nationality along with their respective announcer pack in youtube videos. So, Fernando with the spanish announcer pack for example. It just seems like an inevitable thing that’s gonna happen, haha

New Map, New Queues

So first off, the separation of TDM and Onslaught and the reintroduction of multiqueue are GREAT and I’m happy to see this happen. It looks like Snowfall Junction will also be added to the TDM queue, so that will be interesting to see how it works out. More importantly, the Rise of Furia event map isn’t going entirely to waste; I really love the look of the modded version outfitted for a classic TDM match, and the creation of points of interest with the spawned pickup that gives you a full ult charge sounds neat on its own as well. A sort of objective in an objectiveless game mode if you will.

The fact that the old Throne Area at the top of the Spire during the event will still be accessed from the custom match lobbies is just the icing on top.

I honestly would love to see more of an emphasis on new map additions over new champion additions in the future. We really are in sore need of new maps. Hell, I’d love to see the reintroduction of the test map queue just on its own.

Balance and In Game Adjustments

Fusillade Nerf: Both necessary AND welcome!

Cherish Nerf: I’m gonna miss that extra burst, but I can also see why this was necessary.

BUCC: It’s a bit of a mixed bag here, isn’t here? Self Sustain nerfed, but buffs to his ensnare as well. Then you have the reload changes; kinda makes me wonder if he’s one of those champs that’s going to receive yet another rekit later in the future because these tunes he always receives tend to be all over the place.

Bug Fixes:

Grumpy Bomb no longer deals 3x damage to Shields: AS A FERNANDO MAIN, THANK YOU

Overall audio fixes: these were a long time coming, I especially noticed the Mal’Damba one brought up.

Fixed an issue where Furia’s Wrings of Wrath Projectiles were sometimes tracking and moving through walls: Thank u lord.

Seems like a lot of map collision bug fixes went through too

Misc:

You know that thing where you’re making a Loadout, the queue pops, then you get sad because you can’t finish the loadout before the match? Now you can – until all the other players have accepted!

This is a quality of life change that I sorely needed considering how many times this has happened to me, lol.

Skins + Battle Pass

So the Battle Pass looks to have more concrete stuff this time around though they did up the buy in price - from 500 to 600 crystals. So, some skin reviews.

Crimson Serpent Mount

I actually kinda dig this mount; its nice to have another non-horse addition, and the fire trail effects are also neat.

Makoa – Akuma Skin

While the fact that there are elements that remind of Bowser is pretty fun to me, this is overall not a skin that suits my personal tastes. It feels too overdesigned, too cluttered, too clunky, too many unnecessary spikes everywhere. I guess I’m just not...too into edgy aesthetic skins though overall so I’m biased here.

Cassie – Dragoncaller Skin

When the visuals for her first dropped with the splash art for the new mount, I deadass thought this was going to be a Lian skin because of the hair and the royal vibe, but no it’s...Cassie. Honestly this feels more like Cassie cosplaying Lian more than anything, right down to the voice pack. Seriously the voice pack has HUGE Lian vibes to it, its the high born haughtiness. I guess if you’re into that, this is your skin. I do admit though, Dragon Ziggs is pretty cute, and the crossbow is alright.

Mal’Damba – Shadow Lord Skin

CONGRATULATIONS TO HI REZ FOR BEING COMPLETELY INCAPABLE SO FAR OF PUTTING OUT MAL DAMBA SKINS THAT I DON’T LIKE. This skin goes so against what kind of aesthetics I usually go for, it’s very “edge” but my snake boy pulls it off and I love him. The only downside is that the voice pack is very generic and is definitely outclassed by all of Mal’Damba’s other voice packs by far. It’s situations like this that really make me wish they added voice pack customization back so that I could equip his halloween voice pack with this skin.

Oh also who gave snek a knife?

If I get this battle pass it will be purely for the Fernando emote and this Mal’Damba skin, and I suppose the mount as well.

New Champion: Koga

Okay so visually? I don’t find Koga appealing at all. The colors just clash so much, especially that orange, and once again this is a character with Too Much Stuff and Clutter. Visually a lot with Koga gets lost to me; again, it’s just...too much. Sometimes, less...is more. As to his recolors, I do like the concept they’re continuing with in terms of recolors having slight tweaks to the model; in this instance, its the recolored version not including Koga’s mask:

It would be neat if we had multiple gold purchasable recolors for champions like we used to outside of masteries, but that ain’t happening anytime soon. That’s visuals though; kit wise, I do dig what he brings.

I think the concept of working off a resource meter for all abilities instead of using cooldowns is interesting, and his mobility looks super fun. While I am dissapointed that his claws serve no melee functionality outside of his ultimate, I do like the way their attacks tie in similarity with Zhins flame sword attacks. I was hoping for another weapon switch champion along the lines of Strix, but the way the claws function as a weapon switch is much more of a set time focused thing, since using your claws eats up resource meter. He has a talent right off the bat that restores energy when he uses his submachine gun, and if I had to guess that’s probably one of his talents that’s going to get a future nerf. Again, that’s just if I had to guess.

Seeing Koga’s passive wall climb ability and his dash is a bit dissapointing in some ways though, since much of his mobility is things people have suggested in the past for Skye in terms of a rekit. Before Koga, it was Skye that was our resident Ninja Themed champion. The woman wears kunais, uses stealth and smoke bombs, she’s clearly meant to evoke a stealthy ninja assassin in terms of how she operates. While we already know Skye will receive a visual reworking first before we see any rekit, its still going to be a hard pill to swallow for most Skye mains out there. Speaking of Skye, we did see her visual revamp teased during the Koga trailer:

I am NOT a fan of this wristbow redesign. If Koga is meant to evoke a more aggro ninja archtype, than Skye is meant to evoke a more stealthy one; besides that, Skye has always struck me as the more sleek and elegant type. This giant cumbersome crossbow she’s wielding here just DOES NOT fit the bill. Well, at least we know for sure that she’s still going to be purble (the lighting in these screenshots is affected by a firey background so its a bit misleading color wise).

I can also definitely see Maeve mains being salty though; while Street Justice has been the talk of the town, that talent really has been the ONLY thing going for her, as her base kit and mobility has been nerfed multiple times. When you look at Maeve’s large cooldowns and compare them to Koga’s resource meter, its quite the disparity. What I’m trying to say is, Maeve and Skye mains should stand in solidarity against this injustice and maybe commiserate in a bar over drinks later I guess.

I feel pretty positive about the new additions overall though, and I’m kind of looking forward to this patch which is nice for a change. Let me know your thoughts too!