Sometimes I wonder what’s going on inside that lil head of his, just full of no thoughts,,, (just like me fr fr)

So after 110 hours, I finally beat Persona 5 Royal. Before going into complete FFVII mode, I wanna lay out all my thoughts.

Blah, blah, blah, spoilers for everything under the cut.

To start off, I loved Royal. The gameplay was so much fun and it felt like such a natural evolution from vanilla P5. Probably my favorite change was what wad done with Baton Pass. Trying to pass to your entire party was very fun and very satisfying, especially if Joker got the ×4 or even ×3 and got to abuse a possibly charged Hassou Tobi lategame. It was pretty broken, but I don't mind things being broken once you go to the effort of figuring things out. Speaking of broken things—

Showtime attacks are super cool. I didn't know what to think of them at first because of how stupidly strong they are, but after I got to some harder boss fights where doing about 1k damage per attack would only get rid of about a small fraction of the shadow's health, I wasn't complaining.

(Also, I never actually got to see Joker and Violet's showtime. Oops.)

The fact that the damage scaled like that was really good, especially once you get into the third semester where party members have severe and colossal damage moves and even healer Morgana can do 150 damage per basic attack without buffs on an enemy without debuffs. The enemies' damage output remained kind of sad though, but uh....you can't win 'em all ;;

To finish showtime talk, Joker and Crow's showtime was heccin' great. I never skipped it. It was Batman in my animu JRPG so it was 10/10. It also did way more damage than most of my party members' showtime attacks so ey. It finished off that Yoshitsune request boss too with around 2.4k damage so I'm obligated to like it. On that note, how is showtime damage calculated? Do certain showtimes do more damage, or does it just depend on the offensive stats of the party members using it?

Technical damage was beefed up too, and I probably should have tried to take advantage of it more than I did but I never figured out how to make technical damage reliably knock an enemy down. I know that there was a way to do it but I never figured it out. Yes, yes, I know it was because I skipped tutorials but everything else was so busted, I never felt the need to go back and read said tutorials. I did read that book about technical damage though in-game, but it just added more technical combinations.

Onto other changes though, it could have been because I was playing on hard, but status ailments became about 10 times more useful. ...Actually, no, it was definitely because I was playing on hard, but even so, I felt like more bosses were weak to them when compared to P5. They went back to being mostly immune to them, especially in the new semester, but during and before October or so, status ailments became invaluable. It could have been because I sucked that much, but my party members, and even sometimes Joker, would get left with double or even single digit HP by near everything, even if I debuffed and buffed. Queen got regulated to a forget bot, but man it carried me through some boss fights. ... i.e., Kaneshiro's fight. Well, that and Mona's confuse.

I liked the Will Seeds too. They were a fun way to kind of change up the palaces and for me to hunt down. Even though yeah, they are pretty broken (especially with the accessory you get from the 2nd palace being able to get rid of elemental weaknesses for whoever has it equipped, not to mention the ability to give charge or concentrate to another party member), I still can't say I used them over my SP adhesives most of the time. I used the one that got rid of elemental weaknesses on Crow, but that was just because I could only use him and Joker at the time and did not want enemies to get another move on him to get another chance to hit either of them.

The changes to Mementos were amazing. Like the rest of them, they were pretty busted, but still. Amazing. I feel like I'm in the minority with this, but I didn't mind Mementos. In fact, I kind of liked going through the grind of going through it. Although...tbf, I kind of liked Tartarus too. Its 264 floors were a bit much, but I liked being able to turn off my brain, put on a podcast or YouTube video in the background for me to listen to then go through Tartarus in one or two in-game nights.

Back to Mementos, collecting stamps and flowers for Jose was fun, and being able to change the cognition for Mementos was busted. Since you can get EXP from auto-killing, you get over-leveled very fast. It doesn't help that you have to backtrack floors for stamps since they randomly generate, so you get even more money, experience, and items. On the bright side though, no, I didn't need to wander around singing "I've Been Working on the Railroad" with Mona and Skull for an hour and a half trying to find the materials for the Eternal Lockpick (which was renamed in Royal to Permapick ... I guess???)

Because of the changes you can make to boost item, money, and EXP gains, Mementos became the prime grinding area. Even more than the card shuffle thing in P3. Since you got so much EXP from ramming shadows even without leveling up EXP gain. I put all my stamps into getting more items and money until I couldn't anymore and I had near max every single crafting item, and never had to worry about the cost of anything ever. Combined with the money gains from killing shadows, you can also pick up sellable treasure from the item cubes in Mementos and it can end up selling for well over a million yen. So getting to max didn't even require Joker abusing the confuse status ailment or abusing the shadows with "You can do better than that."

I didn't mind the Mementos music, even when I was playing the game without something else playing for me to listen to, but now that Mementos does have new music, yeah, I realize now how much better it is. I wouldn't listen to it alone like I would Rivers in the Desert or anything, but it was a nice change. I listened to one of the songs before the game had its western release and didn't like it all that much, but actually playing the game while hearing it made me actually like it.

I got to level 99 though before the game was over. It made it so Joker and Crow were able to tag-team the Reaper then kill it in 3 turns. I had thought that trophy would have been a lot harder to get lol. It was pretty weird seeing the Reaper in such clear lighting though due to the new Mementos area though, I have to say.

Onto the bosses though...

I loved the changes to the bosses (except the 5th one but that's just because I hate everything about the 5th palace, even if Royal did make it about a million times more bearable).

Kameshida having cognitive Shiho and Mishima as helpers for the boss fight was such a good change, and made him about that much more hateable.

Madarame's boss fight in vanilla P5 was the hardest boss in the game for me, even on normal mode, but it was made so much easier in P5R. Madarame didn't bring back his painting form, but instead brought back elemental versions of himself specifically so the player can abuse Baton Pass. Baton Pass combos are extremely satisfying to pull off, so I enjoyed it immensely. Honestly, having that as the second boss in the game was so much of a better decision than what was in P5. That, or I'm still salty about all the deaths I had from fighting him the first time.

Kaneshiro was definitely harder, and I was a little stuck when he called his cronies out to guard him. Mona and Queen using confuse and forget while Skull and Joker attacked Kaneshiro made it a lot more bearable though. I also kept using spotlights on Joker so the enemies would attack him. He had Shiki Ouji equipped and they only ever did physical moves when my status effects missed, so I was never at risk for losing the fight. ... And then of course Skull and Queen finished it off with a showtime attack after Mona got yeeted.

Sphinx mom was a lot easier. I didn't know that the right dialogue choices made it so Oracle would guard you until someone told me, so I was sitting there surprised at how much easier it was lol. I did get stuck at the end though because it didn't look like I was damaging it. I thought Oracle needed to bring back the crossbow so I just kept buffing and healing. It took about 10 minutes for me to get bored and start attacking it again and it turned out I could attack it, but it was just that sphinx mom's HP wasn't visually moving before eventually going down. Joker still used Shiki Ouji which had learned an immunity to wind so. Easy victory (ignoring the part where I'm a dumbass).

I switched to easy mode for Okumura. I just did not care at all. I hate his palace, I hate the music, and the enemies could range from being easier to kill than the enemies in the first palace to being a pain in the ass, so I wanted to have it be over. If I didn't have an unreasonable hatred for the 5th palace though, I probably would have liked the change. It was challenging without being complete BS, at least much more challenging than how it was originally in P5. Having the enemies run off though did get pretty annoying when I was trying to beat it legit but I was just so done at that point, it was more on me than the game lol.

Part of the reason why I was so eager to get through Okumura's palace though was to get to Sae's palace. Because I love Sae's palace, and just in general, the entire month of November. It has amazing story bits, still the height of P5's story if you ask me, a great palace, and Whims of Fate is one of my favorite tracks from P5's OST. Sae's boss was even changed to when she spins the wheel, whatever element it goes to, she uses that element and her resistances would change. I loved that, and it was extremely fun to take what you more or less should have learned about enemies' attacks and their correlating weaknesses and use them for a boss fight. So much better than the original where you don't need strategy at all other than "hit her hard lol."

Shido's boss fight was changed to be super climactic. They made it easier for the sake of Joker being able to confront the dude that got him a criminal record and directly ruining his life, and I can't complain. It felt amazing to 1v1 him. The game fixed the possibility of being screwed by it by having him attack in a certain order like the twins do in their special fight, so that was nice at least.

Yaldabaoth's boss fight was the same. Still easy enough, as long as you're careful. Or...not careful but extremely lucky. I wasn't able to finish it off while it was charging up its almighty attack, but my entire party ended up dodging it so it didn't even matter lmao. Now that I think about it, it very easily could have been because of that one Will Seed accessory that makes you dodge attacks but... I don't care. I was still super lucky I didn't get wiped and be forced to start the fight over starting from the Holy Grail.

The new boss... Uhm... It was taking way too long so I ended up cheesing it with Haru's third persona's new move that basically makes you invincible for a turn halfway through the fight. ^^; Noir was a Vault Guardian bot, Queen just healed and took advantage of one of the tentscles' nuclear weaknesses to Baton Pass to Crow when she could, and then Joker and Crow did all the work. Crow's third tier persona's almighty move kicked ass and you know what else kicked ass? Hassou Tobi abuse. The other 2 phases weren't even really fights, so at least that kept it from dragging too much, despite all the phases it had.

When Joker and the boss had that punch-out fight though, I lost my shit. I was laughing so hard I started to cry and my back was hurting. I don't even remember why I thought it was so funny, but I was laughing my ass off. I couldn't even press X to get Joker to punch because I was laughing so hard. Right before it happened, I joked to my sister that a tutorial would pop up and suddenly the gameplay will have the controls from that P4 fighting game and you have to learn that in order to have one last showdown. And then I got the prompt to punch. Then Joker punched. And I started laughing.

11/10 would punch Adam Kadmon man again

On the topic of the new stuff though...

Kasumi/Sumire/Violet was pretty fun to use but badly, badly overshadowed by both Joker and Crow, at least during boss fights. She offered to join the party before Shido's palace and she really should have joined then. Maybe she would just be absent for the Mementos dungeon & Yaldabaoth/Holy Grail boss fights, but she should have been there for Shido's palace. I liked her wanted gimmick of being the crit'er, but when you get her, Mona's third tier persona learns an AOE Lucky Punch, Joker already has high crit, and I would always baton pass to Crow because of his severe almighty AOE ×3. Plus, the way I built my Joker with practically exclusively two personas, Yoshitsune and Kuguya Picaro, he was already the phys and light attacker except with the addition of being able to have an auto-concentrate at the start of every fight (I have no idea why—it's something with Yoshitsune but idk what it is), the charge skill, Yoshitsune's nature of tripling the effect of charge, and the additional electric damage. She should have been a party member before the new semester. Obviously this isn't the case for everyone, but for me personally, I didn't often find use for her, especially since she can't do colossal or even severe magic damage. She is a very good physical party member, but again, Joker already covers that better than any other party member can, including Skull.

Crow was a great party member though. I used him in every request and boss fight after I got him. I was a little salty he couldn't switch back and forth from Loki and Robin Hood but I suppose if he did, he'd make Violet even more obsolete lol. I liked Loki while playing P3, so I'm glad I was able to use that persona again. He had Debilitate which was amazing. Queen learns Checkmate when getting to the third tier persona, which is an AOE version of it, but honestly, whenever I was fighting a boss that I thought needed it at that point in the game, I didn't need it to be multi-hitting. Plus, it costed about 90 SP and no way I was using that over her healing, defense buffs, and nuclear damage.

But anyway, back to Crow, I loved using him. He basically turned into my almighty damage dealer, even with his somewhat weaker magic, at least compared to his strength stat, but considering the final boss fight, it was extremely helpful. It did take up a lot of SP, but I had 5 Somas, a ton of SP restoratives, and had basically asked Kawakami to make me either curry or coffee every single night I was able to, so I pretty much had an infinite supply of it.

It helped that P5R made Akechi a much more likable character too. I liked him all right in P5, but didn't find him all that sympathetic, and thought that the characters treating him so sympathetically was extremely jarring considering all the horrible shit he did (which includes making orphans of both Haru and Futaba). That still kind of holds true, but since you can actually build a social link with him outside of the story, you can see more of his character and it improved him in leaps and bounds. Not to mention that his 8th confidant rank was....something else ^^; having a section of the new story too with just Joker and Akechi, (and kind of Sumire too, but mostly just those two) was awesome. I loved seeing them team up to punch Adam Kadmon man in the face. Plus, having more time with him in the Phantom Thieves without pretense had him going "I am surrounded by idiots" basically the whole time he was there. Like—I even felt disappointed that Akechi was actually dead and he didn't survive. That's a huge improvement over from me wishing one of the dialogue options was "fuck you lmao" during his death scene at the end of Shido's palace when he asked the Phantom Thieves to promise him to change Shido's heart.

For Sumire though, she had a good character arc. Like her gameplay though, she was badly overshadowed by both Akechi and Maruki. Even still, I liked her character arc and everything, and her social link. Even if I ended up liking Kasumi more in the end anyway rip

That's kind of all I have to say about her, oof. She was good, but other elements took attention away from her pretty badly.

Maruki though... Maruki was amazing. He was a fantastic antagonist because I got to punch him in the face, his palace was amazing, I loved the music, the different sections were cool, and I even liked the color maze bridge puzzle thing. I definitely wouldn't like it so much if I ever replayed it, especially if I try to get that final Will Seed, which wasn't hard, but did take kind of a while, but I don't think I will be so it's not a problem.

He had such good motivations, and the fact that he didn't ever actually hurt anyone other than when he punched Joker in the face made him really sympathetic and redeemable to me. At the end of the day, all he actually wanted to do was make people happy and not have to suffer, and was willing to destroy himself in order to achieve it. But just like with every belief, it went too far and he took away people's free will and ability to pick for themselves. The kind of moral question about the entire thing was very interesting, and I kind of wish it was more further addressed. There should have been Sojiro or some other character that was perfectly happy in Maruki's alternate reality so they could challenge the Phantom Thieves in a way Maruki wasn't able to. Still, what was done was really good and I liked it a lot.

...

Even all that said, I have no idea why the hell Joker could not use Satanael. There was such a perfect opportunity to use it once Maruki evolved his persona to Adam Kadmon, a giant persona. Hell, it was still small when compared to Satanael. It's after beating Yaldabaoth so Joker should have access to it. It would have been epic to be able to use a giant Satanael in a normal-ish boss fight. I'm sure there are some explanations as to why, but the game never mentions it or even acknowledges Satanael so it doesn't count and I'm still bitter. The writers forgot that Joker has a persona literally as big as a cognitive god and that kind of broke some immersion for me. Immersion completely went out the window once Joker and Maruki started punching each other but STILL. Satanael's not that great a persona, but having it show up in the story again would have been so awesome to use a persona about as big as Shibuya more than once.

Hardly comparable to my beef about Satanael, but I wish that while the party members were acting as Phantom Thieves, or at least while they're in the metaverse, the names on their text boxes would change to their Phantom Thief names. There's no reason why they didn't, especially since the characters exclusively use their Phantom Thief names to call each other anyway. It's not a huge deal or anything, but I would have liked it.

I loved Royal, and totally think it's better than P5 vanilla. Its new semester kind of takes away from the superb ending of the vanilla game, but the new stuff still makes up for it. Don't get me wrong, you can still get the original ending from the vanilla game in Royal, at least I'm pretty sure you can, but it involves you missing out on all the new content, including Violet as a party member and getting Crow back, plus Joker's showtimes so it's not worth it imo

I wasn't actually looking forward to the game when it was announced, or even planning on getting it, but I had the Phantom Thieves' edition pre-ordered for me as a Christmas present so I wasn't going to...not play it lol. I'm extremely glad I got it though, even if I otherwise wouldn't have, and now that I have finished it, I'm very happy with the game. The gameplay's improved by leaps and bounds, and the new content was all amazing.

... And I got to punch Maruki in the face.

I did end up getting the platinum trophy for Royal too, so despite the Phantom Thieves den thing, I don't see myself going back to it, at least any time soon. It was an amazing experience, but I can set my sights back to FFVII now lol.

...Although, I did hear you can fight the twins and Lavenza so uhhh maybe i won't be shelfing it so soon—

RQG 145

My first EA episode and I'm getting to it 4 hours after release because I'm so excited about joining the Patreon I can’t focus. Its silly but hey birthday money well spent if it makes me this happy right? Ok I think I'm centered enough to hit play.

Eee its going to be my name there someday!

Poor Cel! Poor Azu!

I'm impressed, Alex managed to summarize pretty well given  the circumstances.

Hamid: oh dear! Skraak: Skraak, pressure equalization, Skraak!

What! I was right - he has been getting clearer! Did Alex imply he has been playing up how drugged is? Smart way to get a sense of the party while he gets his feet under him if so.

Thank you Alex, we need those numbers. Oh poor Hamid is confident on a 3.

Skraak is helping! Hamid is listening to him!

~~~Party time~~~

Alarms!

Blast doors? Yes! They won't drown!

Azu! Cel! Zolf!

Point Cel, Shoin seems actively against being useful

Nice, Salt Beard coming up properly after all this time! Scary sounds! Bubbles! Thats got to be a good sign right? Loving the bit with Zolf's thumb!

Not clear what happened plot wise, but Ben did some nice work showing Zolf’s emotions in ways I can’t put into works. Healing time! It is a very Cel, TBF, to quantify their health

Speaker time! Oh thank goodness everyone is healed up. Yeah the food's poisoned we got that with the brunch Hamid was dragged from.

Sweet, torches in the bags of holding are fine.

Loving the character interactions, especially Zolf and Cel bonding over Shoin’s bad design.

Bryn! Alex! That is an actual crime! Conspiracy to commit angst!

I love Zolf's growth!

I will need a transcription of this scene!

Cel was in war zones?

Speakers again

~~~

Hamid is humming opera music (Carmen?)

Scratch? Skraak has been marking the path when Hamid didn't think of it. I love Skraak! Hamid dear, when you get a moment, I know there's a lot on your mind: double check on Skraak's name and pronouns would ya? Also Hamid is doing awesome with the changes. I had faith in him but its great hearing him cheerfully ask Skraak for input as a local expert; instead of trying to force the pattern that worked before even as Skraak gets less kid like. Love to see how this shakes out, even though I confess Hamid having a new younger sibling was a treat. OK enough tangent let's open a hatch!

Oh pressure gauge! I wonder if that helps with more than flooding.

Wrench! I love a call back.

That's one way to refer to Hamid's abilities. Also I am aware of Zolf and Hamid's dwindling spell slots; I am just convincing myself they will be able to camp for the night in a safe hallway before Alex Shoin happens.

Oh good something is maintained around here.

Green light? Alex, did you come up with the hidden doors purely to mess with theoretical maps? Because Babs has been doing pretty well so far but I'll be her second if she challenges Alex to a fight in the parking lot after this episode.

~~~Break time, no ad is surprisingly weird, on edit listen is an ad with Mike that proves once again that I am so far gone on RQ that I even find the ads charming~~~

Oh more Hamid time!

That was a lot of dice, no numbers that I caught. Oh dear! (Was that Ben teasing him?)

In the rafters of a very large room. Huge domed ceiling, sounds pretty. Have I gone 20 minutes without saying how much I love Alex's set design? Thank you Ben, I will google it, *sticks out tongue*. Seriously as long as you enunciate and don't get into stuff so niche you lose people in England too, then don't worry about us from the US. Honestly you guys worry about everything, the occasional missed reference isn't worth the brainspace.

Still not happy about the lack of maintenance, especially given that's what stands between the party and drowning

Skraak sounds worried: it is his first time down this far and sounding more himself by the second. Still no hint of second guessing throwing in with Hamid! As good as Bryn is at avoiding spoilers, I thought he wouldn't have brought up Cohort on the discord if Skraak took it really badly as they sobered up, but is still a relief. Not that I would blame Skraak for much short of turning out to be the secret Big Bad: the circumstances were pretty messed up; even if I stand by saying you can't leave someone who pledged to you and isn't in a position to cover that up if their old boss catches them. Yes I know a conversation about spiders not being the most dangerous thing the party used on Kobolds is coming but with Skraak not turning out to be a kid, it might be more tense but cut my concerns in half. Hell the Kobolds might well be able to fend for themselves post Shoin if they loot the place in compensation.

"I still think that might be an exaggeration"

Oh Hamid has the Elven cloak too. How do you wear two cloaks at once? And don't say you don't, Hamid is not losing 4 levels of dragon awesome (or however Pathfinder put it) in the middle of a dungeon.

Skraak remembers the health potion and doesn't mind being asked to hang back. Hamid arms Skraak with a injection spear. Has the canisters for it too. I may have underestimated him (or on the Doylist level this falls under reasonable retcon; then again I might just have missed Bryn saying he was pocketing this stuff because I thought he would run it by Zolf). *Shrugs* please keep a sample for testing, I have a pet theory I'd love to see tested.

Alex, just...thanks for using a tone of voice that made it completely clear you were joking

Skraak: Skraak avenger, death from above etc! Hamid: Remember, General Skraak Avenger! Hamid remembers what he said to Skraak whether they do or not! OK like I said I loved Hamid adopting Skraak as a new little brother but this new phase is a lot of fun if harder to quantify.

Oh the sleeves! The cloaks don't have to have much physical presence, do they? That makes sense. Sleeves and prestidigitation? Right after being so charming with Skraak? Hamid is in fine form

Alex is just feeling mischievous tonight, I like it.

An enormous pipe organ? I love Alex's set design. (also one day my brain will pull up the right person the first time when someone references Bill Nye or Bill Nighy but even with the Pirates context today is not that day)

I know, Ben, cosmetic or not its fricken awesome.

I don't like the pipes, I don't get the pipes, but I don't like them (that fine mesh better not imply there is something airborne in the complex)

Is it wrong that other than the more obviously ominous bits this sounds like a great place to live?

Chaise longue

Is this seriously set up for the party -wait... Did Hamid skip to the end of the maze with only Skraak for back up and no sleep!?! No reunion or camping scene first? Not even a spell restoring nap?!

Human IOD? ALEX, WHAT IS UP WITH THIS FIGURE? ITS SHOIN RIGHT? ITS GOTTA BE.

Don't listen to Ben, Alex will get you if you jump to conclusions. That's my dragon! Sneaky lad learned from Sasha!

~~~Of course he is switching to the party. Man has a sense of timing.

More party favors, daggers make my heart twinge

Azu takes Cel’s hand to guide them

Gonna light a torch? Or is Zolf keeping up his anti light thing.

Alex is simplifying things No Zolf is not throwing open the door. Oh thank hope, Zolf is lighting a torch. Pathfinder jokes

We like it too Alex!

I like the zone thing.

Cel, I adore you! Zolf just promised backstory! Get that down! And a miner/minor pun, these people are the best! Oh tin miner!

Lights! Golden bulkhead! Seriously where is this guy getting his money?

Azu spots a trap! Yes Alex, we respect your craft. Trip wire!

I love the boots

Oh Cel is clumsy, I hadn't actually noticed that.

Genre savvy Cel hulks out with bat wings! Claws! Fangs! HP goes up thank all the gods! (Azu lets go of their hand)

Ben needs to look up spells but Zolf is prepared Azu puts on the iron beard

They throw open the door!

~~~

Poor Bryn, stuck waiting for the next episode like us listeners to find out the results.

I've been re listening to some early episodes and I really missed the "byes". It's a silly sign off but I think that comfort with silly might be part of why I like it?

Re: the bloopers, it would have been a little funny if they did a “detect traps” and got knocked out like when Hamid tried detect magic in, was it Rome?

OK bottom line: Skraak is awesome; I still miss Sasha but at least Lydia can be a bat even if it isn’t cloak of the bat; Zolf came back better than ever and actually wants to have at least 2 real conversations; and Azu is a champ for doing so well despite her phobias (which are still taken seriously because Helen and RQ are friggen awesome). Fun and pulpy, that's how ya do it! Stakes from the sea floor to the stratosphere! Character moments! Sets that make Hollywood weep in jealousy!

Okay okay some people may be stressed out after that even though everyone ended up fighting fit, which is fair, ok? but physical peril? Just a roller coaster to me, I'll take it any day of the week and twice on Sundays!

WELL it was an easy read and I finished the book already. I gotta do a classic Dani Vents About a Story post that will include significant spoilers, so be careful if you are reading/want to read The Mercies by Kiran Millwood Hargraves. I’m about to bitch about it a lot, but overall it was an interesting book that I’d still (mostly) recommend if you have an interest in historical fiction surrounding the Norwegian witch trials.

Most of it was really good, although a few theme threads and character arcs completely fell apart in the final act. I knew it was going to be dark-- again, 17th century witch trial shit-- but the actual “murder my favorite characters” bit thankfully didn’t begin until pretty late in the story, which lets the focus remain more on the lives of the women vs their horrific deaths. The author does a (mostly) great job at creating interesting characters you fall in love with, and succeeded immensely at bringing the landscape and village of Vardo to life.

BUT 

IN THE LAST LITERAL FOUR PAGES, THE NARRATIVE TOOK ALL THE MEANING THAT THE PROTAGANISTS HAD CREATED OUT OF THEIR HARDSHIPS AND THREW IT OVER A CLIFF (LITERALLY! & EACH USE OF THIS WORD HERE HAS BEEN THE PROPER USE. although i guess a fictional event cannot be truly ‘literal’ BUT WHATEVER I AM NOT GETTING LOST IN THE WEEDS WITH PEDANTICS). I am so fucking mad, and it serves as a reminder to why I typically don’t read/watch many period pieces these days, unless it is a period setting in a fantasy/sci fi world. So many people think that in order to bE rEaLiStIc when writing about periods in history, you simply MUST be as grimdark as possible, especially with conclusions, but I find that perspective boring and uncreative as hell. Bitch it’s already fiction! it’s already lies! you are god in the universe you write, have some courage and don’t concede to established tropes that center on garish suffering to define the experiences of historically (& contemporaneously) marginalized people! At least in a medieval-set fantasy story, you get the vibes of the historical setting, but also your friends can swoop by on a dragon and rescue the innocent pants-wearing fisherwoman who is about to be burned alive by the racist woman-hating church.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love a story with a messy & unhappy ending. I even love an occasional grimdark story! But as I get older, I see & feel more the evils which inspired these historical events and how they still burden our world today, and I do not enjoy spending my free time reading/watching movies that are centered on suffering for suffering’s sake-- if I want a story about senseless violence & the underdogs who never win, I will just turn on the fucking news. SO, for me, the dark stories I do enjoy cannot just be traumaporn in a difference shell, the darkness has. to. make. sense. You can’t spend 300 pages on a woman overcoming her grief of losing her brother/father/fiancé/half her village & learning how to be a #StrongIndependantWoman, then have her just kill herself on the last page. It just isn’t narratively good, it just isn’t! And to be clear, the author could have gone WAYYYYYYYY darker in many places throughout the book & did not even come close to going full grimdark. I think overall she greatly succeeded at balancing hope & hopelessness. It was done so well in fact that I was lulled into a false sense of security that maybe just maybe there might be a way out for our ladies, a conclusion that didn’t end with the kind of complete misery that historic fiction tends to skew towards. But there is this overwhelming sense in the final few pages that, probably due to the aforementioned loyalty to perceived “historical accuracy”, she hadn’t included enough suffering (even though there is PLENTY of tragedy to go around by that point) & she didn’t know how to finish the story. So when in doubt, kill 👏 those 👏 gays 👏 (although we don’t know the fate of the other woman, who has entire chapters given from her perspective, but Meren just says bye & we never hear about Ursa again 😤)

Which brings us to, yeah, it did have gay shit like I thought, and up until the garbage of the last four pages, it was a very touching romance. But it too concluded in a way that is only satisfying if you squint, and adds to the inconsistencies that I mentioned above. I’ve never in my life said this before, and it makes me ill to even type this, but, *sob* it probably would have been a better story if the two women had remained platonic friends and no touch-a the booba. I know a lot of people think I’m One of Those cringe queers who will read/watch absolute garbage just if there is a queer person (which tbf I definitely also do sometimes, & it’s actually very valid of me, thank u very much), but if that were true I would have finished that awful Warming Trend book that I blogged about like 2 years go, or read any of the hundreds of stupid “subtext” trash that folks like to recommend, or ship Supercorp (no offense to anyone who ships them, I get it, Katie McGrath is hot, but come on, there is a perfectly good lesbian already on the show), or watched Glee. No, I do actually have some standards--  Are they super high, as a love-starved reader/viewer who uses romantic fiction as a primary means of escapism/coping with my shitty life? No, lmao. But as a writer, and as a queermo, nothing grinds my gears more than a badly executed lgbtq+ storyline.

Anyway, I just finished the book an hour ago so my crankiness & disappointment is raw and thus I am all over the place with this rant. I hope I’m not coming off as being too hard on the author, because despite it’s flaws, I am very glad to have serendipitously found The Mercies, and I look forward to checking out KMH’s other works. It’s been a long time since I’ve dug into a book and read it in just a few sittings like I did this, repeating “just one more chapter” for hours until it’s suddenly 3 am, and despite the fuckery to my sleep schedule it contributes to, the feeling is good-- it brings me back to simpler times when I actually was able to experience an ease from the constant uneasiness I always carry in my chest. Idk, moral of the story is that reading is fun, & when I get stuck in my Bad Turns & don’t read for months, it becomes easy to forget how much solace can come from a mid-quality but seductive (not in a horny way. but sometimes also in a horny way, lol) novel. Like, most of my reading these days is miserable 20th century theory or other academic/non-fiction writing related to our depressing capitalist hellscape & impending climate disaster, and The Mercies helped me remember that my roots lie in fiction. It also has me inspired to revisit a couple of historical fictions projects I have laying around, aND MAKE A WOMAN-EMPOWERMENT, ANTI-RACIST, QUEER AS HELL PERIOD FICTION PEICE THAT DOES NOT END IN COMPLETE GARBAGE! And in the meantime, I shall be revisiting the works of Sarah Waters, the only bad bitch I know of who writes queer historical fiction without relinquishing her characters solely to the suffering they experience ✌ 

If anyone has read this far and has any books/authors to recommend (wlw focused preferably, historical fiction or any genre as long as the story itself doesn’t rely on the tropes I touched on, recently published also preferably bc I have a long list of older books/authors but i don’t keep up with new releases like I should, & a lot of the ones I know are white & cis so PLEASE send reccs for more diverse stories/authors if you have them) 

alright, I need to get to bed because I have church in the morning, but I slept in till almost 3 pm lol so sleep may not come all that easily. But yeah, I drifted in and out of sleep for a while like I generally do, and ended up getting up at like, 2:50. So I got up and made a blueberry dutch baby because weekends, ate that, then started making caramels that would actually be suitable to send to friends because the first batch I made is like break your teeth trying to eat it couldn’t cut it with a knife had to break it into pieces hard, lol, and I don’t think other people would appreciate it quite like I do. It went a little smoother than last time, I got better with pouring the cream in slowly so it bubbled less violently (that always sounds like such an odd way to describe it but it’s literally the only accurate description, you’d be shook) and I took it off when it reached the designated temperature, instead of leaving it on for a while longer so it got super hard. It was just about 5 when I finished it, because it had to sit for 3 1/2 hours to harden, which would be at 8:30. So I then decided to take on the behemoth that I knew organizing my clothing and switching over to summer clothes was going to be. The deal was I have a bunch of winter clothes in my dresser and closet, and a bunch of summer clothes and other things in my suitcases. a lot of the “other things” were clothes that didn’t fit me anymore, so my goal was to designate things into either keep in my dresser, keep in storage, or donate. So I started with the clothes in my dresser and closet, then went through the suitcases, and putting the winter clothes from my dresser into them as they got empty, and pulled out a bunch of stuff I’m never going to wear again for one reason or another, though I did retain some jeans and such that don’t fit at the moment but are close enough that they’re probably worth hanging on to. So, once I had everything separated into piles, I ended up with like, two garbage bags full of winter clothes that wouldn’t fit into my suitcases, and like a garbage bag and a half full of clothes to donate, which I’ll have to get around to doing at some point, maybe I’ll go thrifting with Jess soon and be able to unload them. So then I started actually putting the summer clothes into my dresser and closet, and I was super impressed that pretty much everything fit exactly and it wasn’t actually totally stuffed, and I mean up to this point almost all my dresser drawers had been hanging open because they were too stuffed with clothes to close, but now they’re closed for the first time in literally months, and my room is much cleaner, so I’m feeling good about all of these things. By the time I finished with all of this it was about 8:30 so I went to cut the caramels and wrap them in parchment paper, I’ll probably send some to my friend on Monday since everything’s closed tomorrow. I then went to get some dinner and watch some tv, starting with the Blindspot season finale that aired last night. Tbf I wasn’t paying all that much attention the entire season, but some of the plots were a bit hard to follow, so I probably wasn’t as engaged as I should’ve been, but oh well. Spoilers ahead- I was surprised they actually killed Roman, he was a very good antagonist, but I guess they felt like he needed to go. Then of course the second plot twist was freaking ZAPATA MAN, I was NOT suspecting that, like how could you???? we all trusted you!!!! Needless to say, I felt rather betrayed. And of course, the final major plot twist, Jane waking up with no memory of her time with the FBI and being back to being basically an enemy combatant. That is going to be interesting, because idk how much of sandstorm is still actually intact for her to collaborate with. I’m glad they were renewed so we can see where that goes. 

Once that was over I switched over to netflix and watched the first episode of season 2 of 13 Reasons Why (if you’re avoiding discussion about the show, I’ll split to a new paragraph when I’m done so you can just jump there, and I’ll tag it so you can blacklist the tag if you want). I have very mixed and complicated feelings about the show. I do feel some sense of loyalty towards it because I read the book all those years ago, I feel like I was kind of in on the ground floor here and knew it all before everyone else. And I do think it can work to bring awareness to issues and open people’s eyes to how much the people around them could be struggling- though it’s obviously not something those who are struggling should be watching. However, it majorly bothers me that they blatantly ignored guidelines for portraying suicide in media that would decrease the risk of copycats, that is really inexcusable IMO. But, still, when I was told the second season was about the trial, of course I knew I had to watch it because I mean, that’s kind of my thing. So I watched through the first episode, a few things stood out to me. First, did they up the rating to mature on this season instead of tv-14? Because I didn’t think they were throwing around “fuck” very much in the first season, and they were certainly being more explicit with it. I’m not sure how I feel about Clay now having a girlfriend, I mean she seems great, but I’m not sure how that’s going to fuck with him given all thats coming. I was like oh thank god when his mom was like “I dropped the case because it was a conflict of interest” like IT’S ABOUT FUCKING TIME because all of last season I was screaming THIS IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST YOU NEED TO DROP IT, so better late than never I suppose. I like where they’re going with the Alex plot, it’s interesting, and the Jessica one as well. I really, really fucking hope Bryce gets screwed over by the end of the season, and I think he will. It’s good to see the guidance counselor taking a more active role, at least he knows that he fucked up and is trying to do better. As far as the trial goes, I standby what I said last year, a trial would be a PR NIGHTMARE for the school, and there is nooooooo way they would ever actually take the case to trial, they would do whatever they needed to to keep it all from playing out in court. The mention of a NDA was interesting, as I see why they school would push it, but I don’t think it would be a dealbreaker if they couldn’t get it. Them spreading the story wouldn’t be nearly as damaging as all of it coming out at trial. On the trial itself, the entire defense’s case is complete and utter bullshit, literally all of it is inadmissible 404 character evidence that would never even make it in front of the jury, they literally have no legit argument, so they better end up getting screwed over, and each time that stupid lawyer says something awful and gross I want to scream at the plaintiff’s lawyer to FUCKING OBJECT, argumentative, badgering, facts not in evidence, literally so many things they could do. On the subject of the tapes being admitted into evidence, that’s a bit of a complicated one. The lawyer was right, it would be a best evidence problem, and they would have to admit all the tapes. I’m of the opinion that doing so would likely benefit them more than it would hurt them, but it is a reasonable legal argument to think it would damage the case too much, and it’s better for them to be able to control the narrative, But yeah, that was most of my opinions on the first episode, clearly I had a lot of them lol and I suspect that will be the case going forward. 

After that was done I switched over to SNL, right in time for the weekend update segment, which is always hilarious, and then they did one with Tina Fey as Sarah Palin being joined by various Trump cabinet members set to “What I Did For Love” edited to be “What I did For Trump” and man, it was fucking brilliant. I didn’t want to stay up too late though, so after that I ducked out and started to get ready for bed, because even though I’ve only been awake for like 10 hours, I have to wake up in 7 /12 hours for church so I should be getting to sleep, and that is what I’m going to do now. Goodnight dearies. Hope you had a lovely Saturday.

1985 Albums

Friday 20th March 2020.

On the way home from work (for the last time in a while I think, thanks Covid-19) Radio 2 played The Whole of the Moon by The Waterboys. I loved and love that song from their album, This is the Sea. I knew the album was released in 1985. It’s a year I won’t forget in a hurry for lots of reasons; the main, unbearably sad one is losing my mum, but, also, for other reasons that were not at all sad. The aforementioned album being one, another being another album - Kate Bush’s Hounds of Love. (Another was Knebworth opening its gates to music for the first time in a few years….what a gig that was!) So, did I listen to any other albums that year? I seriously couldn’t tell you, for certain, the name of any other album released in that year….with aging memory it seems to me my turntable’s time was equally divided by Mike Scott and Kate - six months apiece. I decided to check it out. A quick search on Google and the first hit I clicked was this one from the NME that lists 50 albums.

I decided to listen to each in turn, from its count of 50 down to 1. I posted a one line review on each on FB. Here are those one-liners below, with supplementary comments as and when.

50.  ABC, How to be a Zillionaire. I didn't learn that actual trick but I did learn to love Martin Fry's delivery once again.

49.  Sade, Promise. Smoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooth.

48.  Sheila E – Romance 1600. One I missed posting about of FB, probably because it was that forgettable. I can’t remember one track from it and it was only a couple of weeks ago!

47.  Alex Chilton, Feudalist Tarts. Who knew? Seriously never heard of him before!

46.  George Clinton, Some of My Best Jokes Are Friends. Funky. Another new one on me.

45. The Replacements, Tim. Never heard or heard of them b4 today. Shan't bother again!

44.  Run DMC, King of Rock. Dunno why I like this album, just do. It's like that and that's the way it is.

43.  Cameo, Single Life. I've already forgotten about it.

42.  New Order, Low Life. The first album on NME's 1985 list that properly rocks all thru. 

It’s a proper ‘of its time’ album and yet timeless. This gets the bold review ‘cos I would definitely take time out to listen to this again. First one of the NME list!

41.  Robert Wyatt, Old Rottenhat. Out there. A defo doob album.

40.  The Style Council, Our Favourite Shop. I recall this album & it's better than it was.  Weller has a voice that sometimes sounds like it’s going to break at the sterner test but then he carries it off. It adds to the originality.

39.  Sonic Youth, Bad Moon Rising. Proper industrial punk. I like it.

38.  Dexys Midnight Runners, Don't Stand Me Down. Not one track had I heard before. Fab.

I really enjoyed this. I like the fact it’s a real deviation from what I remember Dexys for - all denim and oddly-antifashion fashionable. This album showed real confidence in their own ability, quite rightly.

37.  Husker Du, New Day Rising. 'Salright.

36.  Bobby Womack, So Many Rivers. “Let Me Kiss You Where It Hurts.” 😂😂😂 Yep - the only thing I wanted to post about this album, having listened to it (like so many others, for the first time) was the name of one track which still, as I type, makes be chuckle like a school boy. Sorry Bobby.

35.  The Fall, This Nation's Saving Grace. I never really got The Fall. This album doesn't help. This post on FB attracted some comment - Ralph White (fellow Posh and music fan) was, I sensed, a little perplexed at my opinion. But, I can’t lie, the band, and Mark E Smith, just didn’t, and still don’t, do it for me. I’m too old and long in the tooth to persist. Sorry Ralph.

34.  Propaganda, A secret Wish. If you had to guess the time of this album's release from its sound, it couldn't be anything other than slap bang middle of the 80s. I mean it is sooooo eighties. It’s the sort of record that will be used for educational purposes - in history lessons.

33. Scritti Politti, Cupid & Psyche 85. I feel I should be more impressed than I am.

32.  The Pogues, Rum, Sodomy and the Lash. What an album, what a fucking album.

I listened to this while out walking and it really took me by surprise just how much I enjoyed it. Of course, I’d heard a lot of the songs before but, as a collection, along with the tracks new to me, it really stands out.  

31.  The Cure, Head on the Door. The Cure does easy listening.

30.  The Cult, Love. What's there not to love? No sudden death, just love.

Contains one of my favourite all time tracks. Can you guess?

29.  Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Firstborn is Dead. Interesting. Definitely a band you have to be in the right mood before the needle hits the record.

28.  David Sylvian, Alchemy: An Index Of Possibilities. Music to have acupuncture to.

By that, I mean it was very, very, very Japanese-y.

27.  Suzanne Vega, Suzanne Vega. Singer song writing by numbers.

To be perfectly blunt, I found it boring.

26.  The Smiths, Meat is Murder. The Smiths are an enigma to me. Good music, good musicians but, that condescension. Morrissey, Geldof, Thunberg....peas in a high & mighty pod.

All that being said a few days ago now, I’m sure I’ll listen to this (and maybe other a records of theirs) again. I fucking hate that it was that good.

25.  Bryan Ferry, Boys and Girls. Slick as you like. Is he the coolest man in music? I think he is.

24.  10000 Maniacs, The Wishing Chair. I can take this or leave it. When I posted this on FB there were a couple of posters encouraging me to try In My Tribe - it’s on as I type and it’s a little better.

23.  Whitney Houston, Whitney Houston. I like this debut album. What a voice she had!

22.  A-Ha, Hunting High and Low. Not bad song writing in a second language.

Nice enough album...but this band will always just be ‘nice’ and, memorable for a video, not much else. 

21.  Grace Jones, Slave to the Rhythm. A mess of an album.

Worst one on the list so far even if it has got David Gilmour playing on it.

20.  Simple Minds, Once Upon a Time. I always felt, & feel, this band are wannabes to U2's crown. Nice enough album though.

19.  The Colourfield, Virgins and Philistines. A gem of an album. 

Terry Hall reminds me of Bowie. So talented, so prolific.

18.  Everything but the Girl, Love not Money. Pleasant enough but won't be on repeat. 

17. Loose Ends, So Where Are You? Hmmmm, not quite Color Me Badd. Very Delia Smith. The Delia Smith comment was because I found this album was an embarrassment much like Delia that fateful night at Carrow Road. If you don’t know to what I am referring, Google it.

16. Killing Joke, Night Time. Great album, cracking band.

15. Tears for Fears, Songs from the Big Chair. A big collection of comfortably accomplished songs. 

The first album on the list I had definitely played, in its entirety, before...just not in 1985. 

14. Dire Straits, Brothers in Arms. By no means their best. Tbf, you’d have to go some to best a debut or 3rd or 4th albums of the quality Dire Straits had under their belt. And, a side note, I think probably the best name for a band, ever. 

13. The Sisters of Mercy, First and Last and Always. A moody, gothic masterpiece. I reckon the growling vocals are the stuff of genius and nightmares.  12.  Prince, Around the World In A Day. Prince is brilliant, this album isn't. Like a few on this list, the decade’s half-way point didn’t see his finest hour.

11. Felt, Ignite the Seven Canons. I've never heard of this band before, nor heard a single track from this album, until now. I like them, I like it.

And I reached the Top Ten....I found myself really looking forward to the next 6-7 hours of the supposed mid-80s finest.... 

10. The Jesus and The Mary Chain, Psychocandy. Mentally sweet. 

It is a great album by a seminal band but I didn’t really get on the band wagon back then, and I don’t have the time nor the inclination to now. That’s gonna piss some people off, I’m sure! 9. Microdisney, The Clock Comes Down The Stairs. Never heard of them before, probably never listen to them again.

This album left me feeling nothing. It’s the most nondescript one of the list thus far and I doubt that will change.

8. REM, Fables of Reconstruction. This band were good before they got massive. 

Fucking brilliant. I had never listened to this album before and it’s such a precursor - we all know how massive they became and one or two of their later albums were residence, for a time, in my CD player. I reckon this one could become a real favourite of mine. Not just of REM stuff but in general.

7.  Lloyd Cole & The Commotions, Easy Pieces. Easy listening and first rate easy listening, at that. 

‘Brand New Friend’ is the stand out track.   

6.  Prefab Sprout, Steve McQueen. I don’t switch the radio off if this band are played, but I never play them. This album doesn’t alter that.

5. Madness, Mad not Mad. Who'd thought the stalwart rude boys would be so innovative? Another cracker from this list. It really stood out for me, they way the band changed things up a notch with this record. I can imagine some long-time fans would have baulked at this at the time of release but now, 35 years on, it smacks of progression. I’ve just asked Alexa to play it as I’m typing. 

4.  Talking Heads, Little Creatures. A wonderful, totally original band and album. This album reminded me that I do not spend enough time listening to Talking Heads. 

3. The Waterboys, This Is the Sea. Marvellous. This is an album I know and love. So, here it is, one of the aforementioned two. It’s is still one of my favourite albums, definitely, but, just a little bit, the metaphors grate - there’s enough of the fuckers on this album - the sea, the moon, the spirit. But I will always love this album and I will revisit many more times, I wager (and hope).

2. Tom Waits, Rain Dogs. Not really a musical masterpiece, more a lyrical one.

I found this a unusual choice for number 2. That’s subjectivity for you, I’d have picked many others before this one for the runner’s up slot.

1. Kate Bush, Hounds of Love. One of my favourite ever albums. The best of 1985, maybe of the 80s, very close to of all time. It’s number 1 for the NME and it most certainly is for me.

So, I listened to all of these NME listed albums in turn and it was, in the main, an enjoyable musical journey

And I reminded myself that, in 1985, I did indeed only put two albums, that first saw the light of day in that year, on my turntable (Kate Bush and The Waterboys). Any other releases didn't get a look in. 

ALRIGHT. so after much anticipation, today was a good day. morning was same deal, 8:45 for court, I had it set up well that it was only me on the case and we could accomplish everything we needed in about two minutes, so  when I told the coordinator people I had a doctors appointment at 10:45 they put me in like second, and I was done by like 9:20 lol. I don’t know if they have the same person on each courtroom or if they’re the name given on the email from the clerk for each courtroom but it doesn’t really matter. there are other orgs that have offices in the courthouse who have lawyers they see on a daily basis, but I think we’re the most frequent ones in the civil courtrooms at least. so it was good to have some extra time. The appointment was up in Evanston, so I left at 10 am. for a lot of the city Evanston is a hike, but I live pretty far north, so it’s like the same distance (or less, probably) for me to get to the loop. it’s a pretty rich suburb, lots of nice houses and such. If I stick around Chicago long term and have like kids and stuff I’m going to want them to at least have a yard to play around in, and I know you can get that kind of thing in some parts of the city, but I think I’d probably move to Oak Park, it’s right off the western end of the city, like half hour commute to the loop (which like, a lot less than my current one haha) and you get a nice little suburb. Knowing that I was raised in the suburbs (but tbf where I lived on LI was not actually very close to NYC) and if I’d want the same for my kids, but I don’t really see why city living would be better unless I marry someone super rich and we could have a ridiculously nice apartment or whatever, lol. obviously not choices I have to make now, but things to keep in mind. I made pretty good time, I started filling out some paperwork and then got moved to a room where they did the rest of it on the computer, just basic stuff, a lot of like, depression and sleep type of screenings, which were interesting to see (like the sleep part was like how likely are you to fall asleep doing this activity and I’m like not much but I still have issues falling asleep....oh well). saw and nurse and did vitals, then didn’t wait much longer for the doctor. I was told she likes to take her time with patients and usually goes for a full hour, so I thought that was a good thing. we went through a lot of questions about everything that’s going on, other things that might be going on and the story of how we got here to begin with (she was like oh yeah I really don’t think this was caused by seroquel and I was like FUCKING THANK YOU for actually listening to common sense here) and we did a bunch of neurological tests for things like balance and reflexes, she did have me walk down the hall at some point and then coming back she asked me to put one foot right in front of the other (like on a sobriety test), and when I started that I started getting unstable and was kinda leaning on the wall and with the doctor helping me stay up too while my right leg at least when into full crazy shaky mode for a few minutes, which I was actually really relieved that it happened, because like if they can’t see the issue while doing tests it’s not very helpful. but okay, we’re at the end and hearing doctor’s thoughts. She said my neurological tests were all normal, so they can safely rule out things like MS or parkinson’s, which while it’s not an answer it’s a pretty sure sign that this is a temporary thing, and that’s what I’m most concerned about at the moment. She then started talking about this thing called functional movement disorder which can cause random shaking among other things, and it’s like somewhat psychology based,  that generally set off by a major traumatic event in one’s life over the few months prior to when it began.....while explaining about how I switched health insurance companies I had told her about my dad, and that pretty much sounded like that was what’s going on here. there are treatments and it’s definitely like, recoverable from, mostly through like physical therapy (which I wanted to just make a giant groan because I’m been through so much fucking PT in my life) and also some potential medications so I’ll have to talk to my psychiatrist about that, and probably some cognitive behavior therapy, which is definitely a good idea because I’ve really been leaning towards needing to go back to therapy so hopefully that will make a difference. I’m mostly relieved it’s not going to be a long term thing that we can treat. so by the time I got out of there it was like 1 and we had our quarterly all staff meeting on Zoom at 2, so I went right home and set up for that, they generally find some reason for everyone to introduce themselves and say some random thought (today it was like a challenge and a victory lately and I really just couldn’t come up with anything and of course i got picked 3rd out of like 25 people, so I just said some bullshit about moving forward with cases and such). after that most people end up on mute for the rest of the time while the leaders talk, then at one point they put us in breakout rooms with like 4 other people to like, come up with thoughts on how we can better help clients in our first interactions with them, knowing they are probably going through the worst days of their lives right now and that’s such a high burden to help carry, so we need to be very well prepared in order to reach it. there was like 1 leader in my group so she did most of it and I talked some what and I’m pretty sure the other 3 added like, one sentence haha but that���s okay. it was a good thought exercise though, people come into our office so traumatized, and how you treat them is going to make such a difference on how their life is going forward and what their life will look like then, so it does really matter. anyway. the meeting ended shortly before 4, I took a minute to call the client I have a motion up for in court tomorrow, then seeming like my legs had been mostly okay I did some adventuring out, if you can call it that lol. I had called the chase bank that’s down the street a bit to see if they had quarters and they said they did, so I ubered there and managed to get the last two rolls of quarters which I was quite happy about, and I had a nice conversation with the teller while doing so. I then took another uber back up the street to the UPS store to buy stamps. the UPS store is right next to the vegetarian cafe that we would hit up a lot before but haven’t really been much recently. I got got a mint hot chocolate (they definitely added like, one or two more pumps of the mint syrup too many but it was still good) and of course my cinnamon scone, which was nice. I then took my final uber back to my house, kinda ridiculous but it was a successful trip on all ends so i was pleased with that. after getting home I worked on a few things and then just watched Chicago Fire until 7:30 when we were recording a podcast episode, I think this will be very enjoyable for people to listen to, I was laughing a LOT so hopefully that makes it actually funny. and yeah, after that I watched more Chicago Fire and then switched to Jimmy Kimmel for a bit who was having a very amusing interview with Anne Hathaway, until I decided to shower and get ready for bed and now I’m here which is good because I’m like about to pass out. Goodnight babes, Stay strong.

okay, so today was overall pretty good. I woke up at 8:55, got ready, and then ubered to that thing I said I’d tell you about. So I’m in this online program that’s a child defender fellowship ran by the children’s defense fund, and it’s all about educating and equipping people to make a difference in children’s issues in their community, and as part of it they wanted us to reach out to a local child focused group and kind of chat with them about some stuff, so I contacted the local children’s advocacy center because I was familiar with them based on my work at the public guardians office. They’re basically the place families go when there’s been an outcry of sexual abuse and in some cases physical abuse in very young children. It’s largely focused on what’s called victim sensitive interviews, which is a specific interviewing method that works to get an accurate account of what happened out of the child without retraumatizing them, and to have a solid statement in order to avoid having the child have to repeat the story over and over again, which is not only traumatizing, but can lead to inconsistencies that a defense team could use against the child in any sort of court proceeding that results from the incident. So the work they do is very, very important. I’ve viewed some video tapes of VSI’s while at OPG and they’re very good at getting info out of children in a calm and organized fashion. I know when the child death case I worked on came in to the system, they interviewed the siblings there, and there account were crucial in securing the arrests of the two responsible parental figures, because the kids told them everything, not sparing any details as to exactly what was going on in that home, and it was really what built the case against the parents. That case has been on my mind a lot lately, as yesterday (the 28th) was the one year anniversary of me arguing the motion in court. Feels both like it was yesterday and that it was forever ago. I know I’m never going to get the resolution I want on that case, and that’s something I’m going to have to deal with. I didn’t expect this case to change me, but it did, in so many ways. I know it has made me a stronger advocate for children and given me even more of a passion to keep children safe. I can’t look at the picture of the sweet little boy who was taken from us that’s hanging on my wall without feeling a fire inside me that will only be satisfied with a lifetime spent fighting to save all the other sweet little boys and girls who are in danger. Rest in peace, Manny. I may not have ever met you, but you’ve changed me so much. Sigh. Anyway. I was kind of anxious going into the meeting because I really didn’t know what to expect, but it actually went really well. I met with someone on their prevention team, which is a relatively new division, and they work on training people to spot the type of behavior that can be indicative of sexual abuse starting and to stop it before it happens, which is of course incredibly important work. So we talked about what they did and I asked about how they felt the foster care system was failing children who were sexually abused, and what she would like to see done about it. Then we went on a tour of the facility, which is really a very well built center, lots of different departments and a focus on children, with brightly painted walls, toys, and even a full scale playground. So I left quite happy with my experience there. I did a shared Lyft home because it was cheapest, but it ended up being a bit of a pain because it took so long to get home. I had debated just going over to school since I was already downtown and just hanging out there, but I didn't actually have that much schoolwork I could do and didn’t feel like sitting around in an empty office while I could be doing other things. So I got home and made some lunch, then tried to get to work on editing my legal drafting assignment that was due tonight. I looked it over and changed a handful of minor things, but for the most part left it as it was. At this point I’m just going to believe that I can’t tell whether my work is good or not because I’ve clearly been mistaken on the subject before, so while I think what I wrote was largely crap, who knows, it might be just what they’re looking for. Guess we’ll see. I then spent quite a while fighting with Word about formatting issues, because it all has to be very particular for legal drafting, and I had used one of the forms off the cook county website because that’s what we were supposed to have, but then I had to convert it to a Word file and figure out how to add the academic integrity page, which turned out to be much more difficult than it had any right to be, and I had to scrap it and start over like 3 or 4 times. Eventually I got it to a point where I was satisfied enough with it, so I left it there. After finishing that I spent about an hour doing some of the dishes because our sink is once again overflowing with dirty dishes, which tbf is mostly my fault because I do so much cooking but don’t always feel like cleaning. I got through approximately half of the stuff, and I was gonna keep going by my back was hurting me and I was tired, so I decided to stop there and instead did the online forms for the child defender fellowship regarding meeting up with the children’s advocacy center. Then I printed my legal drafting assignments and made sure they were properly submitted online before heading over to school. I stopped at the library on the way up to use their stapler, because I don’t have my own damn stapler, then went up to class and turned it in. Class was short, it was about interviewing children which is of course something I already knew about because I’d already gone through the interview children and have in fact interviewed many children in these situations. So I took notes and paid attention, but it wasn’t really anything I didn’t already know. We got out at around 6:40 (class is supposed to go to 7:20), so I headed home and got back in time to watch Arrow. I think it was probably one of the better episodes of the season so far, though that’s not really saying much because I haven’t been terribly fond of this season. My girls though, they really stole the spotlight in this episode and their stuff was so great. I hardcore need this redemption plot for Black Siren, and I’m gonna be so ticked off if they screw it up. And Dinah, man, she is one intense lady and she’s pretty damn fierce. So I guess I enjoyed the episode for the most part. After that was over I went to watch the last episode of the first season of Game of Thrones, lots going on there. I have been informed that Ned Stark does indeed stay dead, so that’s unfortunate. I hate Joffrey so freaking much, stupid little brat that he is, and someone needs to save poor Sansa from where she’s practically being held captive in that castle. Arya, my sweet murder child, who is now so freaking traumatized from witnessing her father’s death, and then has to take up the life of a street urchin to keep herself off the radar of the crazy royal people who would very much like to capture her. I absolutely adored the moment where the two boys are ragging on her and she pulls the sword on them and is like “I’ve already killed one fat boy. I’m good at killing fat boys. I like killing fat boys” and I was just like YES ARYA BBY YOU’VE COME SO FAR and I’m just so proud of her and her little murderous soul. I’m still not entirely sure what’s going on with the other Lannisters and such, other than they seem to be plotting to take Joffrey off the throne, which I’m clearly all for. And Jon Snow is out somewhere with some sort of army doing something. Then there’s my girl Daenerys, who’s just like it’s chill guys I’m just gonna walk into this funeral pyre for my dead husband while it’s one fire and emerge unscathed with three baby dragons because she’s the MOTHER OF DRAGONS, DAMMIT and I can’t wait to see what she does with them next season (I mean, I read her character breakdown on the GoT wiki, so I know some of it, but I’m looking forward to seeing it happen on my screen). After that I watched an episode of The Royals just for the heck of it, which I suppose is a fairly entertaining show, I’m just not very invested at this point and haven’t really found a reason to be. Oh well. After that I started getting ready for bed and now I’m here. Tomorrow I have PT in the morning, then I’ll probably do some grocery shopping and try to work on my civil rights midterm essay, and then at night I have small group, and I think we’re going to a Thai restaurant, so that should be good. Pretty tired now being that it’s 1 am, so I will bid you goodnight here. Goodnight my loves. Happy Friday.