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illneverrecover · 4 years

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the sweetest thing (M) | myg

➛pairing: Min Yoongi x reader ➛genre: florist!Yoongi, baker!Reader, florist AU, baker AU, enemies to lovers, humor, smut. ➛word count: 4799 ➛rating: M ➛warnings: not too many, this is pretty sweet & soft. Heavy petting, cursing, making out, neck kissing, biting/marking, icing used in a dirty manner, implied sex, mild dirty talk, bad puns, witty banter. ➛summary: Min Yoongi was sure you moved in next door to his floral shop just to ruin him and his business. But when he needs your help, he realizes that it’s much sweeter working together then apart. ➛notes: Hehehe. My sweet little angel bb Paril requested some florist shop Yoongi E2L with baker reader, and I just had to oblige. I love writing Yoongi, he truly just is perfect for me to channel sass and sarcasm and a bit of sweetness. Thank you for commissioning me @serensama (and the kind bank of @quinnkook), I hope you enjoy this and that it’s what you were looking for! I love you tons and I’m proud to be your soulmate. 🖤 ➛song: People - AGUST D for the sweet fluff & Poison - GOT7 for the dirty dirty.

“She’s doing this on purpose.”

“No she isn’t, hyung. That doesn’t make sense.” Namjoon picks up a rose, twirling it in inspection. “Does she even know you exist?”

Yoongi scoffs then, eyes darting from the arrangement in front of him to glare at Namjoon. “Of course she knows I exist. Our shops share a wall.”

Instead of replying, Namjoon rolls his eyes before refocusing, carefully watching the stem as his hand slides the knife down it to remove any thorns. Yoongi accepts his silence as defeat, puffing his chest. “So, like I was saying - she’s doing this on purpose, and she’s going to bleed me dry.”

The door swings open then, Hoseok and Jungkook both moving to the workstations with arms full of supplies, the latter’s eyes wide as he picks up on the conversation.

“Wait! Are you talking about Y/N noona?”

“Yes, and how she’s killing business-”

“Isn’t she just the coolest?!” Jungkook interrupts, beaming over at Yoongi. “Have you seen the designs for her flower cookies? And how she’s selling twelve of them in a pack and calling them ‘coo-quets’? Get it? Like instead of-”

“Bouquets, yes Jungkook, I get the pun.” Yoongi mutters dryly, setting the finished arrangement in it’s vase and sliding it to the side. Hoseok is laughing, so hard in fact that he misses Yoongi picking up a roll of tape until it beams him in the head.

“Hey! What was that for!” rubbing his crown, he glares at the florist before reluctantly picking up the tape, fixing the customer label to the side of the vase before moving it over to the fridge. “Don’t be violent with me just because you have the hots for the pretty baker next door.”

Yoongi sputters, hand slapping the top of the table. “I do not have the hots for-”

“Yeah yeah, we know, you definitely aren’t into Y/N, at all,” Namjoon deadpans, reaching into the box for his next rose to dethorn. “You don’t find her attractive, you didn’t stalk her and pretend to be a customer just so you could see inside her business, absolutely nothing to see here.”

“Your sarcasm is noted and also not appreciated,” Yoongi sniffs, before turning away from the taller man all together. “All I’m saying is, ever since she moved into that building, she’s caused issues. And now this is how she decides to promote for the Spring Blossom festival? It feels like an attack.”

“But hyung, it’s called the ‘Spring Blossom Festival’, I think leaning towards flowers would be kind of an obvious choice, right?” Jungkook prompts, head tilting in naive innocence.

Yoongi sighs heavily, head dropping to his chest, and wonders not for the first time why he thought hiring his friends to work with him was a good idea.

Maybe Jungkook had a point; maybe they all did. But that wasn’t enough to convince Yoongi that your motives were all sincere in nature. He was telling the truth when he said that ever since you had moved in next door, things had gone haywire for his small, locally loved floral shop.

He had only been in the space for about a year, but the street it was on had picked up in popularity with a new pub and restaurant concept on the corner, and a local farmers market moving in on the weekends. Quickly, his little business grew, people coming to him when seeking unique arrangements that were both beautiful and affordable. As demand increased, so did the need to hire more hands, and his friends had been enthusiastic to join his payroll.

For the most part, things had been smooth sailing.Training the others had been relatively easy, and what shortcomings they had, he was able to find a new strength they each brought to the business. He was comfortable, thriving, going to bed with a full belly and fat wallet, and it’s all he could ask for.

Until you.

Yoongi didn’t even see you until after you had already bought and renovated the building next door, the sign for your bakery going up and accenting the coral pink of the painted brick perfectly. He had thought it was cute; how bright and cheery your shop looked, how you were always dressed in flattering sundresses and heels, despite spending your days in a kitchen baking. He walked past your place daily to get to his own, and had found himself curious about what you were like, how good your food was, how successful you’d be.

He figured the aesthetic alone would bring in some customers, if not the increased foot traffic the farmers market brought in, and he wasn’t wrong. Your soft opening had gone well, a small line forming outside the building to Yoongi’s amusement. Word of mouth worked like a charm in your neighborhood, and a steady flow of regulars would greet him on his trek into work each morning at sunrise as they awaited their breakfast pastry and hot cup of coffee.

While this was great for you, it wasn’t so good for him. Your customers would always line up in the direction where they would block his window, meaning people walking by couldn’t get a glimpse at the creations he had displayed in the windows. Not to mention the littering - flurries of light brown napkins with your logo stamped in the middle usually lining the street in front of the shops, seemingly taunting him.

And then, the festival came. The Spring Blossom Festival, to be exact.

It was clever, he’d admit that much. The word play of ‘cookie’ and ‘bouquet’, the different color options of the edible flowers painstakingly drawn onto perfectly baked sugar cookies. You had really put thought and effort into the design, and he wasn’t surprised that it seemed to be a hit, dominating the first several days of the festival.

But that didn’t mean he liked it.

He watched helplessly as his sales dipped, as customers that would’ve wanted the real thing instead switched it up for prettily decorated consumable flowers, all cooing and preening over the treats in their matching boxes.

Yoongi had to retaliate. What else was there for him to do?

After watching you hang neon pink flyers up around the street, he had made some as well, deciding he’d place them conveniently directly over your own. Matching the paper to yours had been Namjoon's suggestion, and Yoongi had thought it was genius. That seemed to bring in a few more customers, but the lull still remained, his till and bank account making it painfully apparent.

It had been Jungkook's idea to photo bomb some of your promotional pictures when he spotted you posing in front of the shop, pristine desserts in hand and a floral dress on to match. Yoongi had shook his head but ultimately agreed, handing him one of his best designed bouquets and nudging him towards your bakery. Trying to make it look natural, he strolled back and forth in the background, making sure the flowers in his hand were always towards the camera, that he looked as if he was enjoying the festival as a patron. After about the fifth pass through, the boxy lipped young man taking your pictures had scowled, shouting after him to get out of the way. You had laughed, invited Jungkook to talk with you, even posted one of the pictures with him in it on your Instagram like it hadn’t phased you at all.

Now, here he was with only two more days left of the festival - a time that he should be making double - and with nothing more to show for it. Pre-made and custom bouquets lined the shop windows, hoping to entice anyone passing by, but most remained untouched and without a home to go to.

He was desperate.

"Why don't you just go talk to her?" Hoseok interjects, an eyebrow raised. "Maybe you can explain what's happening, see if she'd be willing to help out or team up or something."

Scoffing loudly, Yoongi kicks at the ground. "Team up? You think I want to team up with her? This is a serious business I run here, you know."

Hoseok gives Namjoon a passing glance over the blonde's head, not that he notices, too stuck inside his thoughts. It's Jungkook's loud voice that breaks the silence once more.

"Y/N noona is really nice, you know. And her cookies are so yummy, I bet she would love to help us!"

"You've tried her cookies, Jungkook?!" Yoongi’s voice raises, incredulous. "This is a sudden yet inevitable betrayal, you know. It really be your own friends."

"Seriously, Yoongi. You think she's cute anyway. Might as well go over under the pretense of business and at least see if you can score her number." Namjoon deadpanned, dropping his knife and making sure to show him every ounce of pleading desperation on his face.

Yoongi ponders for a beat or two, pretending to mull it over all the while recognizing that it couldn't hurt anything to go chat with his new neighbor, introduce himself. Who knows, maybe there was a deal to be made?

You thought he was so cute, the grumpy little florist next door.

His mouth was perpetually in a pout, bottom lip upturned enough that it made him look like he was always inspecting, always exasperated. His eyes were sharp, but not in a judgmental way - more like in the way where you knew nothing went past his scrutinizing gaze, and they were offset by the soft white blonde of his hair, in the refined silver hoops that lined his ears.

Your neighbor Yoongi was a walking contradiction, and you couldn’t help but to be charmed by him.

You had heard rumors about him, heard people's worries of you moving into the building next to his very popular floral shop, but you didn't pay them any mind. You had yet to meet someone that you couldn't make a friend, and if he was impervious to your charms, he definitely wouldn't be able to deny your best coworker, Taehyung, and his infectious personality.

But despite your attempts, you always seemed to miss him, unable to properly introduce yourself when he bustled by during the morning rush, or when you were cleaning up shop. It didn't stop you from observing, from watching the way he eyed your building, the way he'd upturn his lip at the line forming outside the door at daybreak.

He seemed so easily ruffled, so annoyed but in this endearing way, and you couldn't help but want to get to know him, to see if you could get him to open up.

Especially once he started his attempts at sabotage.

They had been subtle at first - the flyer trick something you wouldn't have noticed if it hadn't been for Jin, who made sure to check and replace any torn advertisements at the end of each day. The designs had looked so similar that you didn't even double take until the elder had pointed out the word change, how the name of Yoongi's business adorned the top of the page. Jin's eyes were ablaze, but you had just laughed, instructing him to leave the ones he found alone.

But it made you more curious, further intrigued by your flower selling neighbor who took such lengths to garner business, and you couldn't help but want to see what he did next.

It had been Taehyung that grumbled about some tall dark haired boy ruining all your promotional shots, though he had smirked the whole time he showed you the images you ended up with. You recognized that he was a worker at the florist next door almost immediately, the immaculate arrangement he carried carefully in his hands striking your intuition further.

Finally, Taehyung had shouted at him, and you called the boy over to introduce himself despite his red cheeks and ducking gaze. You learned his name was Jungkook and that he was indeed a coworker and friend of Yoongi’s, and that he was just trying to help, though he wouldn't go into much more detail after that. You had chatted with him briefly, offering him a cookie for his troubles, and promised him that you weren’t mad about his attempts at photobombing.

And you were telling the truth - you really couldn't be annoyed at these attempts to thwart your advertising, instead laughing at each new picture, making sure you picked one where the bouquet was clearly visible behind you as you held an open box of 'coo-quets'.

It isn't hatred, you don't think, that drives your neighbor to do this, but you aren't quite sure where to go from here. He still hadn't introduced himself, and with how busy things were during the festival, you hadn't found the time to do the same either, working long hours to keep afloat with your orders and walk-ins. You wanted to ask him why he was so annoyed with you, what he had against your little bakery, but you told yourself there would be time for that later when the heat died down.

Not to mention, Taehyung had been chomping at the bit for an excuse to go introduce himself.

"Y/N," he whined, dragging the last syllable of your name out into an obnoxious tune. "I just want to go make friends! Why won't you let me?"

"Because someone needs to run the register for these customers, Tae. Jin and I are elbow deep in cookie dough, and Jimin can't run both sides of the counter himself."

The tall man sulks, bottom lip jutting out as his caramel hair flops into his face. "You have a point, I guess. But once the festival is done, I'm going to go introduce myself and invite them over for coffee."

You smile at him then, eyeing him from the corner of your vision as your hands continue to delicately trace colored icing on the cookies in front of you. "That sounds like a deal, Tae."

"Oh! Me too though!" Jimin shouts, turning from the counter to glance into the kitchen of your shop. Normally you'd have the doors to the kitchen closed, but with the day about to start, it made it easier to prop them open while you ran back and forth between the two stations. "I want to go say hi too. They look like really cool guys!"

I'd have to agree, you thought to yourself, picturing the sharp eyed man in your mind, but you stay silent.

To say you were startled when you heard a knock at the back door would be an understatement, even more so when you saw who it was - Yoongi, the pouting florist, blonde hair flopped into his face. He was wearing a fluffy white sweater, a dark green apron tied around his neck and waist, and his sleeves pushed up to his elbows, like he had been prepping for hours - much like you.

With a single look, you shooed the other men out of the kitchen to the front, opening the door to your guest.

"Well hey! You must be Yoongi, I'm-"

"Y/N."

"Oh, I didn't know you knew who I was!" you smile warmly, gesturing for him to step into the kitchen.

"Well, I had seen you move in, of course. Plus, Jungkook hasn't shut up since he met you," he mutters, shaking his hair out of his face as he took several steps inside. "He's like a stray cat, you know. Once you feed him, he's your friend for life."

That made you laugh, a hand rising to cover your mouth, and you couldn’t help the smirk that follows. "Well, he was too cute not to feed. Is that why you're here? Are you another stray who would like to be fed?"

Yoongi’s cheeks flush then, a dusty red that you think would look perfect in the petals of a rose, and you promise yourself to try to recreate it in frosting later.

“Ha, that’s funny,” he clears his throat, hand coming to rub at the back of his neck. “Actually, I was coming to talk to you to see if we could make an arrangement, you know - as one business owner to another.”

“Is that so?” you raise a brow, hands resting at your hips. “And what kind of deal would that be?”

You're surprised at how honest Yoongi is when he explains his situation, lays his hardships bare before you right there in the stuffy heat of your kitchen. He does manage to at least look a little embarrassed when he admits what he did in order to ramp up business, and you can’t stop your heart from softening as he finishes his request, wringing his hands as he looks at you expectantly.

“So, what you’re saying is - you want to work together, make something that the festival goers will love but will help both of our shops - is that right?”

He stands tall then, shoulders rolling back as his gaze pierces through your own. “That’s right. Think of it as a ‘I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine’ type of deal.”

“Is this another cat analogy?”

Yoongi groans, and you giggle at the roll of his eyes.

“I already regret this.”

Stepping closer, you peer up at the florist, watching the way his eyes widen at your proximity. “No, you don’t. And technically I think I’m doing all the scratching here, but that’s okay. I think we could make a good team, Min Yoongi.”

The event is crowded, more so than Yoongi could have ever imagined.

The tables he and you had placed in front of both buildings were stuffed with goods, the heads of your coworkers ducking back inside each entrance to refill them when they got low. Customers were milling about; some taking in the offerings, others lining up in wait to purchase, and the sheer number of people had Yoongi grinning widely.

It was your idea, of course - to offer up a half dozen flowers with a half dozen of cookies, the perfect set. That isn’t to say Yoongi didn’t help; the concept of decorating the tables and dressing formally to stand out being his own, as well as offering to match the flowers and cookies to each other. The red roses and pair set cookies were flying off the shelves fast, but so were the purple calla lilies and pink tulips, which made him smile.

You had been more enthusiastic with the plan, gladly altering the designs of your ‘coo-quets’ to match, and it was clearly a smash hit. Yoongi thought back to how easily it had been to talk to you, to be honest, to spill his guts - how quickly you were willing to help, how natural it had been to form a plan, to laugh with you, and he felt his heart squeeze painfully in his chest.

Yoongi was thrilled with the sales and popularity, of course, but found himself distracted despite the success. He was happy to see his employees grinning and getting along with your own, glad to see the till fill knowing that he’d be able to pay everyone on time, but more than anything, he was ecstatic to see you smile, to see you shine in the sunset pink summer dress that was brushing the tops of your knees.

He himself had donned some light grey dress pants with a white button down, the sleeves carefully rolled to expose his forearms, jacket long forgotten in the heat of the outdoors. You had beamed at him when he first arrived, nodding approvingly at his attire, and he couldn’t help the pride that swelled in his heart at your approval.

And now as the day wore on, every time his elbow knocked into yours, your bodies stepping and swaying as you worked, Yoongi felt a heat build; a sizzling lick of electricity that was sparking between the two of you that he couldn’t ignore.

“You know,” he leans in, mouth inches from your ear as you grin widely at a customer. “I think we do make a pretty good team, Y/N.”

He relishes in the way your skin warms, in the way he watches your cheeks blush so prettily at his words, and feels hopefulness tighten his chest.

“We do, Min Yoongi, especially now that you aren’t actively trying to ruin me.” You grit between frozen teeth, your smile unwavering until the patron is out of hearing range.

“Hey, I didn’t try to ruin anything-”

“Okay, how about ‘mildly inconvenience’ then?”

Chuckling, he raises an arm to rub at the back of his neck, and you follow the lines in his arm as he does so, watching the rippling of muscles beneath the cuff of his rolled up sleeve with interest.

“I guess that’s fair.”

It was amazing how well things turned out, how fast the day had blown by. Jin had slaved away in the kitchen making sure that there were enough baked goods for everyone, Jimin and Taehyung teaming up with Jungkook and Hoseok from the florist shop to run items back and forth and greet customers.

But it was Yoongi who had stolen the air from your lungs and any sense you had left rattling in your head.

You could see now why his business had flourished before you arrived, why the customers continued to return to him when they needed their next arrangement. He was such a good and intent listener, his eyes sharp and focused on whomever was speaking to him. Even in the case of the event, where the flowers were pre-arranged, he still listened, shook and held the hand of each buyer as they spoke, fawning over his flowers.

It was evident he was passionate about his business, which made the fact that he had been willing to do whatever it took - including partnering up with you - even more admirable.

The sun was going down by the time things seemed to slow, your hands aching from the intricate icing work and feet throbbing from running around in heels. It seemed that everyone had satisfied smiles of hard work etched on their faces, and pleasant adoration inflated your gut at the sight, especially when you landed on Yoongi.

The edges of his mouth had finally relaxed, his eyes creasing into half moons more and more as he laughed, stress leaving his body. It was a beautiful sight, if you could admit such a thing.

When the final customer waved goodbye, heading down to the main street for the firework finale of the festival, you left the giddy boys out front to begin cleaning, bones aching at the prospect of all the dishes that needed to be done, but not wanting to drag out the pain any longer than necessary.

“Need some help?” Yoongi was posed in the doorway, arm pressing against the jam, one leg crossed over the other, as if it was normal for him to be effortlessly handsome in sweaty bakery kitchens.

“That would be great,” you smirk, tilting your head. “I wash, you dry?”

And so that’s how you find yourself alone with Yoongi, sweat dotting his hairline as he gives you side glances and small talk over drying mixing bowls. You talk about everything and nothing, conversation flowing freely, and you feel drunk on his proximity, on the way he talks with his hands, the way his voice pitches when he laughs. His white button down is transparent in the spots where water had hit, and even the hint of a peak of his skin made you feel a bit dizzy.

“Thank you for helping me with all of this, by the way. It would have taken hours to do by myself.”

“It’s no big deal. Plus, I’m sure one of those guys out there would’ve came back if you batted your lashes,” he leers, nodding to indicate the young men of both businesses that were currently playing around out front. “Especially Jungkook. He’s been all ‘Y/N noona this, Y/N noona that’ ever since he met you.”

Handing him a dish, you look up at him through your lashes, blinking coquettishly. “Well, can you blame him? I mean, just look at me. All this and I can cook? I’m the full package.”

You were joking; a teasing lilt to your voice as you refocused on the task at hand, but you could feel the intensity of his stare heating you thoroughly, forcing you to meet his eyes once more.

“You really are,” he murmurs, voice low but clear, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “You’re funny and talented and so smart that it’s kind of intimidating,” he looks back at the pot in his hand, drying it thoroughly before setting it aside. “But you’re also kind hearted, and willing to listen and help those in need, even when you barely know them.”

He turns then, stepping closer until his breath is fanning across your cheek, his arms caging you to the sink as you turn to face him fully.

“Not to mention, you’re more beautiful than any flower I’ve ever seen.”

Dropping your head to stifle the giggles, you hear him wince loudly.

“That was pretty cheesy, huh?”

Nodding, you meet his eyes once more. “It was, but I have a few baking puns that will make you cringe.”

“Hit me with one.”

Raising on your toes, you lean into him, tentatively placing a palm on his chest. “Is that a baguette in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?”

His shoulders start shaking before he lets out a loud laugh, smile widening to show his teeth in a way that made your heart flip. Catching his breath, he sighs, leaning to rest his forehead against yours.

“Hmm, I don’t know. Wanna find out?”

Kissing Min Yoongi was a whirlwind, a focused intensity pressed in a powerful dance of his mouth on yours. Your lips answered in kind effortlessly, needing no prompting to follow his lead, to pull his bottom lip between your teeth. Electricity sparks at the base of your skull with each touch of his pout, each lick of his tongue into your mouth, and you feel your knees threaten to give out as he cradles your jaw in his hand, holding you in place.

You aren’t sure when your hands had tangled in his hair, or when he had lifted you to straddle his waist, but you found yourself moving, his body twisting to place you on the cool metal surface of your work space. Hissing as the chill bit into your bare legs, you seek the warmth of his mouth harder, legs wrapping around his form to tug him closer to you, to grind your center against him.

He’s hard, impossibly hard, and he’s whispering all the things he wants to do to you in the shell of your ear, promising all the things he’ll make you feel with his tongue, his cock. You pull him back to your mouth, kissing him deeper, gasping when he dips his finger in the open icing container on the table, dragging it from the edge of your lips down to your chest.

He trails down your throat, sucking and nipping a marked path to your collarbone, licking the frosting off as he goes - as if it was the sweetest thing - until he reaches your breasts, cupping them. As you pant out groans of his name, you can’t help but think you’re glad that it’s Yoongi who’s hiking your dress up around your waist, that he is the first man to help you defile your quaint bakery’s kitchen, filling it with moans.

It isn’t until you stumble out just shy of an hour later hand in hand with Yoongi, smelling of sex with mussed hair and lips swollen, that you remember your coworkers - and that little window that shows the spacious floor plan of said kitchen.

Taehyung is shaking his head, tsking quietly with his arm draped around Jungkook. “Shame on you, Y/N. Poor Kookie here was just trying to bring the tables inside to be helpful, and instead he got traumatized.”

Namjoon scoffs then, rolling his eyes. “I didn’t realize ‘getting a boner’ was now considered trauma.”

“Hey!” Jungkook yells, eyes darting between you and Yoongi. “You said you wouldn’t tell!”

Cheeks flushing, you stifle a giggle once more, looking over to the blonde man whose fingers were still intertwined tightly with your own. Instead of embarrassment, or concern, you just feel a giddy flush of joy as you lean into him.

Yoongi sighs, exasperated, free palm rising to rub at the back of his neck. “Remind me again why I don’t fire them?”

“Because you love them. And, they work for cheap.”

Chuckling, he turns towards you, leaning in to press his forehead against yours. “I always knew I liked you.”

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sideburndanny · 3 years

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Batman Movie Villains Ranked from Worst to Best

Recently, a YouTuber I follow by the name of Mr. Rogues released a list of Batman villains ranked from worst to best. I have nothing but the utmost of respect for Mr. Rogues as a content creator, but I took issue with his list because his long-standing biases were often the deciding factor in many of his rankings. So, I decided to do a list of my own.

I’ll be going over every Batman villain to appear in the movies, briefly analyzing their portrayals and ranking them on a scale of 1 to 5. To prevent the list from being too cluttered, I’ll be separating the villains by which movie series they’re part of. Here we go!

Burton/Schumacher Tetralogy

Bane: Perhaps the only villain in this series I’d call “bad.” The calculating tactician of the comics is nowhere to be found here; instead, he’s reduced to a monosyllabic, brain-dead stooge for the other villains. Overall, he does nothing that couldn’t be done by a random henchman. 1/5

Two-Face: A deeply layered villain in the comics, Two-Face sadly gets upstaged by the other major rogue in the movie, but that’s not to say he doesn’t leave an impression. Tommy Lee Jones gives him a manic and mercurial demeanor that, combined with his colorful design, wouldn’t be out of place in the Adam West series. The size and scope of his criminal organization make him a genuine threat, and there’s something darkly fitting about Batman’s former ally being responsible for the creation of Robin. 3/5

Poison Ivy: Mr. Rogues for some reason ranked her as the worst Batman movie villain of all time, and frankly, I don’t see why. Like Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face, Uma Thurman gives this character a delightfully over-the-top demeanor that combines with a colorful, comic-booky ensemble to make for another great “what-if-this-character-appeared-in-the-Adam-West-series” take. She does a good job juggling the differing facets of Ivy’s character: she’s the put-upon cynic, the craven opportunist, the radical eco-terrorist, and the suave seductress all in one package. 3.5/5

The Penguin: Fuck the Razzies. Danny DeVito made this role his own and set the stage for the character for years to come. He’s a bit of a departure, but a welcome one: far from the refined gentleman of crime Burgess Meredith portrayed, this Penguin is an animalistic thug warped by a lifetime of anger and hatred of the society who rejected him due to his deformities. His signature wardrobe, trick umbrellas, and Penguin gimmick are all there, but DeVito sells the role by showing amazing versatility: he can go from a comical and pitiable weirdo to a terrifying sociopath at the drop of a stovepipe hat. 4/5

Mr. Freeze: I honestly can’t say much about this character that my mutual @wonderfulworldofmichaelford hasn’t already. Arnold Schwarzenegger perfectly encapsulates both popular versions of this character: the flamboyant, pun-loving criminal genius from the Adam West series and the Animated Series’ traumatized scientist desperate to cure his loving wife of her terminal illness. Sure, the puns and hammy one-liners are what this version character is known for, but Ahnold definitely knows when to apply the brakes and give a greatly emotional performance as he tries desperately to cure his wife. 4.5/5

Max Shreck: Probably the only time you’ll see a movie-exclusive character on this list, and deservedly so. Corrupt businessmen are dime-a-dozen in Batman stories, and most of them have little personality outside of being greedy scumbags who either get defeated by the hero or betrayed by the other villains. Shreck, however, is different. Not only does he have an eye-catching fashion sense on par with any of Batman’s famous rogues, but Christopher Walken brings his signature manic intensity to the role, creating a character that’s as wicked and sinister as he is cool and stylish. You totally buy that the general public sees him as the good guy. His warm relationship with his son is also a delight to watch. 4.5/5

Catwoman: Michelle Pfeiffer does a lot to really make the character her own. She gets a lot of genuinely badass moments, but underneath all of her coolness lies the undercurrent that she’s a broken, traumatized character lashing out at the people who abused her and took her for granted. Even when she takes these ideals to unreasonable extremes, you never stop feeling like the retribution she brings on her enemies is at least a little warranted. Also, she has amazing romantic chemistry with Batman and her costume is fucking metal. 5/5

The Ridder: It’s Jim Carrey. 5/5

The Joker: This role is perhaps the one that set the standard for future Jokers to follow: Jack Nicholson’s humorous yet unnerving performance signaled to audiences early on that this would not be the goofy trickster of the Silver Age, but a different beast entirely. This Joker is a film noir gangster on crack: a disfigured mob hitman who quickly takes the entire criminal underworld by storm and unleashes his special brand of chaos and destruction across Gotham. He’s an artist, a showman, a charismatic leader, and the man responsible for ruining Bruce Wayne’s life. 5/5

Christopher Nolan Trilogy

Talia al Ghul: You know that recent trend in Disney movies where a side character we thought was harmless and inconsequential turned out to have been the villain all along in a twist with no buildup or foreshadowing with the reveal happening too late in the movie for this character to really do anything cool or impressive before being unceremoniously defeated? That’s Talia. DKR is the weakest of the three Nolan films, and I feel like it would’ve been much better received without this twist villain contrivedly shoehorned in. Also, while I could kinda forgive the trilogy’s whitewashing of other villains like Ra’s al Ghul and Bane due to the talent their actors display, Marion Cotillard doesn’t get a pass because she just doesn’t have the charisma or screen presence needed to pull it off. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: While the idea of redefining Zsasz as an over enthusiastic mob hitman instead of a serial killer is very interesting, it’s ruined by the fact that he barely even appears in the movie and doesn’t really do or say much of anything despite the buildup he gets. 1.5/5

Two-Face: Aaron Eckhart portrays Harvey Dent as a character of tragedy in a slightly different way than other tragic villains in superhero movies: he’s lashing out at a society he feels wronged him, but instead of being a lifelong outcast or put-upon loser, he was a handsome, successful crusader for the common good who lost everything he once held dear all in one fell swoop. You really feel for him even as he does horrible things. If I had to nitpick, though, I am slightly bothered by the fact that he plays some comic book movie cliches straight (i.e. they never call him by his alias and he dies at the end,) but it’s a solid performance overall. 3/5

Scarecrow: I’ll be upfront and admit that I’m more than a little annoyed that certain facets of the character had been changed in the name of “realism” — once again, they never call him by his villain name and he never wears a comic-accurate costume — but other than that, I can’t complain. Cillian Murphy plays the character with a smarmy, eerie charm that really makes his scenes stand out, his willingness to ally himself with other villains suits his character well, and the fact that he appears in three consecutive films with a different evil scheme in each really helps tie the movies together. 3.5/5

Catwoman: Much like other secondary villains in this trilogy, she really doesn’t get a chance to shine compared to the main antagonist — and, once again, it pisses me off a little that they do the whole “never refer to her as Catwoman but vaguely hint at it” thing — but she’s everything a modern Catwoman should be. She’s sly, manipulative, really holds her own in a fight, has great chemistry with Bruce Wayne... it’s all there. It’s also great to see Anne Hathaway break away from her usual type casting to play a role this dynamic. 4/5

Ra’s al Ghul: He’s a character that was in desperate need of mainstream exposure, and by God that’s what he got. Making him Bruce Wayne’s mentor adds a layer of personal tragedy to the climax where our hero has to stop the man who made him who he is from destroying Gotham with his admittedly brilliant plan. Add in a strong, captivating performance from Liam Neeson before we found out he was a racist asshole, and we’ve got one hell of an overarching villain. 4.5/5

The Joker: Everybody’s already discussed this version of the character to hell and back and likely will for years to come, so I’ll keep it very brief. He’s funny, he’s badass, he’s terrifying, he has great dialogue, it sucks that Heath Ledger didn’t live to see his performance reach the audience it got, and he basically makes the entire film. 5/5

Bane: Mr. Rogues actually ranked Bane higher than Joker on his list, and keeping it 100, I actually agree with him here. Finally, after decades of being dumbed down and misrepresented outside of comics, Bane is finally portrayed as the tactical genius from the comics. Tom Hardy plays Bane to perfection, being very believable as the peak of human physical and mental achievement, the man who broke Batman physically and emotionally. His design is iconic, his every line is quotable, his voice is weirdly fitting, and the memes are funny. 5/5

DC Extended Universe

KGBeast: Another point where I agree wholeheartedly with Mr. Rogues. He is absolutely wasted in BVS, being nothing but a generic henchman for Lex Luthor. He doesn’t wear his costume from the comics, he’s never referred to by his alias, he doesn’t have his signature cybernetic enhancements, and he never does or says anything noteworthy. 1/5

The Joker: Ugh. I don’t know what’s worst: the tacky clothes, the stupid tattoos, the weird Richard Nixon impression that passes as his voice, the fact that promotional material hyped him up as a “beautiful tragedy” of a character even though he’s only in the movie for like 10 minutes and barely does anything, Jared Leto’s toxic edgelord behavior on set done with the flimsy pretense of “getting into character,” or the fact that he’s just trying to copy Heath Ledger instead of making the role his own. 1/5

Victor Zsasz: Chris Messina proves undoubtedly that Zsasz CAN work as a secondary villain in a Batman movie. He’s once again a mob assassin who enjoys his job a little too much, but unlike Batman Begins, he really gets time to shine. He’s just as sadistic and depraved as in the comics, but he also has this disarming, casual demeanor about him like he’s just indulging a hobby instead of slicing innocent people’s faces off. His close friendship with his boss Black Mask adds some depth to the character as well. 3/5

Killer Croc: Sadly, he doesn’t get much time in the spotlight, but he’s pretty cool nonetheless. The makeup and prosthetics used to create him look amazing, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje’s deep voice and imposing body language make him really stand out as an intimidating presence. He’s often in the background, which fits his role as an outcast by choice and a man of few words, but whenever he does get focus, he has everyone’s attention. It really would be a shame if this character’s only appearance was in a mediocre schlock action movie, but he makes the most of what he has. 3.5/5

Deadshot: Another highlight of what would otherwise be a forgettable film, Deadshot is just as cool and competent as he’s always been in other media, but this portrayal stands out for one simple reason. Will Smith was a very odd choice to play the role, but it worked out for the best here because you get the sense he truly understands the characters. He’s ruthless and pragmatic, but has just as enough charm and depth to make him likable. 4/5

Black Mask: I, like many, was skeptical when I saw early trailers depicting Roman Sionis as a foppish weirdo who doesn’t wear his signature mask, but upon seeing the final movie, I really feel like he has the high ground over other DCEU villains. Ewan McGregor is endlessly captivating in the role, portraying him as a swaggering dandy who is nevertheless dangerous due to his boundless narcissism and explosive temper. Sure, those who deal in absolutes would be put off from the differences with his comic counterpart — who is far more cold and humorless — but from a certain point of view, this flamboyant take on the character isn’t so much a departure as it is an addition to make him stand out while keeping his role the same. Black Mask has always been a middleman between the traditional mobsters of yesteryear and the colorful rogues that plague Gotham today, and this portrayal perfectly encapsulates that. He works in the shadows, but isn’t afraid to get his hands dirty; he flies off the handle and gets reckless at times, but there’s no question that the whole operation was his idea. 5/5

Harley Quinn: Margot Robbie owns this role. She’s unbelievably dazzling as a badass, funny, sexy antihero who deals greatly with tragedy and proves that there’s always been more to her than her initial role as the Joker’s sidekick. Again, not much to say, but she’s almost perfect. 5/5

#dc villains #batman #batman villains #dark knight #dc extended universe #batman movie

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maliciouslycreative · 4 years

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So I’ve mentioned a lot of times over the years that I used to be fandom famous in a small anime fandom and I spent a lot of my time running damage control to an anti however I’ve never actually recounted the whole tale for you all. Buckle up and crack open a lemonade because we’re going on a journey (more under the cut).

The year is 2004, I’m 17, and in my final year of high school. I wrote a lot of fanfic back then, mostly for anime fandoms and around the time I joined Gaia I started posting my fanfic “Several Blows to the Head” which became unexpectedly extremely popular. But before I go forward I feel I should give some back story because some of you will probably get extremely confused very fast otherwise.

For those of you who don’t know about gaia online let me give you some history. Gaia was pretty much THE SHIT back in the mid to late 2000s. It was an anime themed forum website where you had a little avatar you could dress up.You gained gold by posting, playing mini games, posting in polls, or even just browsing in general. There were hundreds of subforums and in each of them a tonne of active threads. Another feature was the guild system. Basically anyone could create a guild which was pretty much your own themed subforum that the guild admin could decide the rules and who was able to join as long as they still followed Gaia’s ToS.

The anime I was into was (Bakuten Shoot) Beyblade, which at the time was an ongoing series. For those unfamiliar with the series a bunch of teenagers use battling tops possessed with the spirits of ancient mythological creatures and even gods to fight each other. Let’s just say it wasn’t winning any awards for amazing writing but it was a lot of fun and I LOVED my small corner of the fandom. It was pretty much your average shonen series of the time which meant that it had a main cast of 5 male characters (with a female lead added in the second season) and then very few minor female characters. The only actual canon ship was only made canon in a post canon addition to the manga that was not even released outside of Japan. So I bet you all are coming to the same conclusion that yes, there was incredibly bad shipping drama. The breakdown of shipping pretty much looked like this

10% slash

70% canon male/OC

20% canon male/canon female

Now to resume our story. I joined Gaia and headed over to the anime forum and found the main Beyblade thread. I posted an introduction and in it made mention that I was a fanfic writer and I liked slash. This was when I met C. I’m not going to drag her name as all of this went down over a decade ago and I hope that she’s grown as a person since then. If any of you are REALLY resourceful I mean the threads still exist. You can go find them and see just how awful it got.

C was a year older than me and apparently the authority in these parts on all things Beyblade. She was also a writer but in her own words did not write fanfics, she wrote and posted novels. She was pretty well known in the canon/OC circles and had a pretty enthusiastic following.

So when I came in to that thread and introduced myself I opened a can of worms. I was told that we did not discuss slash ships in this thread because it was not canon and it made some people uncomfortable. And ok, I can see that. It was cool. I was there to have fun and chat with people. I mean anyone that wanted to chat slash I could add on YIM, MSN, or LJ. However, 2 things started driving the knife into the wound.

It was not ok to talk slash but it was perfectly ok for C to discuss in depth her fanfics because it was an OC and obviously did not contradict canon as the stories were post (a currently unfinished) canon

People kept recognising me because my fanfic was exploding in popularity. So people kept bringing up slash and I’d get dragged into it as my fic was usually a catalyst for discussion.

To keep things from escalating us slash fans decided to make our own thread to talk Beyblade slash. Now, there was some divide in the slash fandom and people pretty much shipped only Kai/Takao or Kai/Rei but for the sake of everyone’s sanity we put our shipping differences aside in the thread and aimed to make it a positive space for everyone. I mean, most of us were multishippers so we tended to just be excited to read anything that wasn’t one of the 9000 OC fics we had to wade through to find any slash.

Whenever people would come into the main Beyblade thread now if they happened to mention slash they would get an extremely cold message from C if one of us didn’t manage to intervene first and direct the new member to our other thread.

The other crux of the problem was Kai. Kai was probably the most popular character in the English fandom and Kai was C’s favourite character. She had an extremely specific idea of how people should interpret Kai. If anyone came into the thread and made a post like “I LOVE KAI <3 <3 <3” she would be rather unkind to them making back handed comments about how the person only liked him because he was attractive or a “bad boy” or that if they didn’t have anything to add to the thread they should leave because we didn’t like spamming in the thread. If we ever started character analysis on Kai then C had to have the last word. After all she shared some characteristics with Kai and obviously that meant that she therefore knew him the best.

You all can probably imagine how well conversations went in this thread. I did my best to kindly welcome people to the thread, redirect them when they needed to be, and tried to calm down discussions when they got too heated. And if things got too bad in the main thread we’d just move to the slash thread and be super excellent to each other. There were days where C became so unbearable that her friends that didn’t even ship slash would come into the slash thread to hang with us because we were just really nice.

She was also extremely pushy with her fics. Whenever fanfics would come up shed be the first to suggest to anyone that they should read her novels. She even tried it repeatedly on the slash fans. Being completely fed up I one day made her an offer that if she read one of my fics I’d read all of hers. I didn’t even specify which fic. So she could’ve chosen one of my under 5k fics and I would have agreed to read like 200k worth of her fics. She never agreed to this in all the years of me dealing with her.

The worst part of it all was we couldn’t even really report her for harassment or anything because she was friends with a lot of moderators. The last thing any of us wanted was to get banned over some petty grievance since we’d lose all our hard work to making our avatars look fabulous.

If the whole mess in the forums wasn’t bad enough there was 1 Beyblade guild and guess who the guild admin was. The atmosphere in said guild could best be described as… tense. Anyone that wasn’t one of C’s rabid followers ran under the constant fear that they’d be booted for saying something that didn’t agree with her narrow view of things. My best friend and I were honestly surprised that she even allowed us into the guild. But she probably couldn’t afford to outright deny us as I was a pretty prominent writer in the english slash community then and my friend was also a prominent writer and artist.

Eventually we got tired of walking on eggshells constantly so some of the other slash fans and myself pooled our resources together and I created a second Beyblade guild. Our message was simple, we were just there to be a safe haven for ALL fans of the series. We were expecting pretty much the people from the slash thread and then maybe a handful of other people to join.

The entire fandom on Gaia over the course of a couple days abandoned C’s guild and joined ours. Whereas before we created ours hers was on a steady traffic decline our guild was BOOMING with posts.

Unfortunately the oldest mail I have is from 2007 on Gaia so I don’t have any screenshots of this but C was understandably upset that we’d sniped her entire user base. We did try to smooth it over with her saying that that was never our intention but it ended with her sending me a message that literally said “ok, you win” and this is something I still think about over a decade later. It forever shifted how I perceive antis.

My whole time in fandom I’d just been here trying to have a good time. I didn’t intend to become fandom famous. I didn’t intend to be in charge of one of the most active Beyblade forums at the time. I wasn’t trying to change C’s mind or fight her. And this whole time she’d thought I’d been fighting against her because we had different views on the series.

The last episode of Beyblade G Revolution aired in September 2005, her guild officially closed in 2006 and the fandom eventually started drifting into other things. I stayed active in it until probably 2008 when personal stuff drew me out of fandom and then officially took a leave from fandom in 2009 when my best friend passed away. I don’t know what happened to C but I know she was still writing her novels at that point. Whenever I see fandom drama brewing I always think back to her and how frustrated she used to make me and then I think of the “ok, you win” and I’m just left feeling sad for her and people like her. I just don’t understand how people can let their hearts be so consumed by hatred and self righteousness that it poisons their entire fandom experience. I guess that’s a conversation for another time.

One final comment that I would like to make here since I didn’t know where to fit it in above is that my one friend was completely DONE with C one day and we were talking to each other and she was like “she acts like her fics save lives in Africa!” and honestly this is the most perfect description of C’s attitude. Like good for her for believing in her writing but there is sometimes a point where you need to chill out with self promotion.

#fandom drama #long post #man i kind of wish i had screenshots of stuff that went down #because it was absolutely wild #and this is why i don't get involved in fandom drama any more #like this shit made me eternally tired #also y'all are welcome to rebagel this and tell your own tales #malicious musings

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team-science-mega-nerds · 5 years

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@shatterpath Prompt: Lena and Alex love what they have become, but they miss being scientists! Who could possibly understand the similar positions that they are in?

It isn’t that Alex doesn’t enjoy the perks of the job. Leadership, control over her hours, and free coffee courtesy of Vasquez - who arrives a whole hour before everyone else to make it. Alex is good at her job. Great even, but she felt a twinge of guilt when J’onn had announced her promotion to a chorus of cheers and Alex’s stomach twisted into a knot.

She had been working years for this. It’s what she wanted. Truly. But there was also that voice in the back of her head that kept saying isn’t there something missing? Because she’d felt it when her friends and family were buying rounds of drinks at their favorite bar, complementing her on all of her hard work. J’onn looked proud and for the first time in what seems like a hundred years, Alex didn’t wish that her father was there. Partially because J’onn had been there for Alex more than Jerimiah ever had, but also because Jerimiah could read her far too well and he would know that she wasn’t completely happy.

She’d tried to switch her route coming into the DEO. The left wing instead of the right. Coming in early, showing up late, but nothing worked. Alex still had to pass a lab. Her lab. And nothing ever quite felt like home except that place. Occasionally, Alex gets to oversee procedures and tests, but she doesn’t have time to spend hours in there like she used to and it’s been eating at her enough to slowly dwindle down her excitement about her new job enough to make people notice.

Kara is slightly oblivious. She seems very caught up on the idea that Alex is still wallowing in self-pity over Maggie. In fact, Kara had purposefully avoided going out with Lucy whenever Alex was around. Alex resented being considered that fragile and she insisted that Kara and Lucy continue on with their on again off again fling. At least it was entertaining to watch Kara squirm while Lucy tried to both be a flirty little shit and maintain appropriate boundaries.

At least Vasquez and Winn are treating her normally. They’ll occasionally ask her if she wants to join their DnD game, which she does - somehow - enjoy. They think she’s lonely.

They’re probably right.

It isn’t until Alex gets this call in the middle of the night that she even has an inkling of what’s going on with her. “Hello?” Alex checks her clock, it’s 3:16 in the morning and she immediately assumes the worst. It must be Kara calling or someone from the DEO. Alex mentally prepares to get into work mode. Her gun is in her lockbox, her shoes were trashed after that deadly fire escape last week, but at least she knew where her jacket was.

“Hey, Alex.” Oh. It’s Lena. Lena who has never once called Alex. Lena who once accidentally texted her a shepherd's pie recipe and apologized profusely for interrupting Alex’s day. Alex had talked to Lena alone approximately two times. Once when there was a bomb scare at LCorp and once during a bar trivia night when Kara, James, and Winn had ditched them because they thought they saw some famous baseball player near the tiny little stage. Alex had pinched Kara’s side as her sister scrambled out of the booth because Alex was concerned that being alone with Lena was going to be extremely awkward. And it had been, at first, but then Lena proved herself to be rather lighthearted and occasionally very sarcastic, and Alex liked that about her. Maybe a little too much.

“Everything okay?”

“Yeah, um...” Alex could hear movement on the other end, Alex seriously hoped that Lena hadn’t been kidnapped because that was going to be a hell of a ransom. “So, my friend Jack is in town and he got alcohol poisoning like some kind of nineteen year old, and Sam...who is also wasted, fell and broke her arm, so...”

“You need a doctor on call?”

“Kind of. I would hate for this to get into the papers somehow. You don’t have to if you don’t want to-.”

“No way, it sounds fun. Where are you guys?”

“LCorp. In my lab. Text me when you’re here and I’ll let you in.” Alex hangs up and throws on whatever clothes she can find that have been discarded on her floor. She sloshes mouthwash around her mouth as she combs her hair and that’s about all the effort she’s willing to put in for this late at night. She brushes the dust off her medkit, gets on her bike, and speeds off toward LCorp.

No traffic has made a ten-minute drive take two minutes and when Alex arrives Lena is already propping open the door and waiting for her. “Thank you so much for coming.”

“Anytime.” They do a little awkward shuffle as they enter the building, but Lena seems to compose herself enough to hit the elevator button and only slightly lean against the wall, which lets Alex know that Lena must be slightly tipsy. “Fun night?”

“It was very fun. And then we all started losing count.” Lena laughs a little at herself.

“You look nice.”

“Thanks.” Lena looks down at her black lace top dress. “Do you really think so? I feel a little juvenile in this thing.”

“No, it’s cute.” The elevator dings open before Alex can tell Lena that she looks really cute in the dress. Alex is so wrapped up in the sparkling white of the incredible and well-designed lab that it takes her a whole two minutes to notice Sam and Jack - she assumes - making poorly constructed paper airplanes and tossing them between their hospital beds. Jack has the upper hand, literally, as Sam’s arm hangs at her side. “Wow.”

“Alex!” Sam says enthusiastically. “Jack, that’s Alex.”

“Hiya, Doc.” Jack still looks very drunk but the fluids that Lena has administered must be helping. “Sam fucking ate it.”

“I was trying to help you, idiot.” Sam uses her good arm to throw a paper airplane in Jack’s general direction. She misses by a mile. Alex goes over to check Jack’s fluids briefly before she turns her attention to Sam. “You should get a lab coat.”

“And cover up those arms? That would be a crime,” Jack exclaims.

“Jack, leave her alone!” Lena warns. Alex feels the spot on Sam’s arm where the bone has been broken, gently. “How does it look?”

“Not too bad,” Alex says. She looks up at Sam with a reassuring smile. “I’m not even worried about you. You seem tough.”

“I’m drunk and tough, so I guess that helps.” Sam refuses to look at anything that Alex does. Jack feeds her peanuts that he’s found God knows where and Lena holds Sam’s other arm, rubbing her hand soothingly. “You’re good.”

“I’m surprised I still remember how to do this.”

“You don’t get to spend much time working in labs anymore, do you? Or med bays?” Lena questions. Alex tries not to let it show how much she’s dishearted by those two facts.

“Not really,” Alex replies.

“Did you do a lot of research? Before your promotion, I mean.” Lena seems to now be only focused on Alex. Sam doesn’t seem to mind, Jack is too drunk to care.

“Uh...a little. Mostly side projects. Don’t tell anyone, but they weren’t exactly CDC approved. Or J’onn approved.” Alex remembers all those times when she’d spend the hours between saving the city and finding new ways to change the world. Those were good times. She felt like everything was exactly as it should be.

“You sound like Lena back in college,” Jack slurs. “She’d rather be stuck in a lab than party.”

“I was never ‘stuck’ in a lab. It’s...it’s different. You don’t get it.” Lena waves him off. Alex’s eyes find Lena’s and she really does feel like she’s seeing the younger woman for the first time now.

“I know what you mean,” Alex tells her.

“Well, my lab is always open. If you’re interested,” Lena offers with a smile.

“That’s gotta be a euphemism,” Sam mutters which only makes Alex break her concentration and struggle to find a way not to blush. Lena’s blushing too, even her neck and shoulders have turned a lovely shade of pink.

“I am interested.” Lena’s eyes widen slightly and it takes Alex a second to realize that Lena - and probably Jack and Sam - are unsure if Alex is interested in the offer or the euphemism. “In the...lab. I miss discovery. That was my favorite part.” When Lena and Alex manage to get Sam and Jack to sleep, they’re left in some kind of limbo. Alex doesn’t want to leave them two alone. She also doesn’t want to leave Lena. “I can stay if you want. We can take turns watching them.”

“No, it’s alright. I can never sleep in a lab anyway. There’s always something I could work on and I’m afraid I’ll probably start at least three things tonight.”

“Okay.” Alex smiles. “Sounds like fun to me.”

“You’re such a nerd.” Lena nudges Alex’s shoulder with her own. “I like that about you.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Alex takes off her leather jacket and puts it over Lena’s shoulders. “Okay, so where should we begin?”

#agentcorp #lena luthor #alex danvers #sam arias #jack spheer #supergirl #gotta love some big ol nerds

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imageoftumult · 5 years

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Villaneve MBTI Personality Types

Let’s start with Villanelle. She was kind of difficult because she also has the psychopath thing going for her but I think she’s ISTP, the Virtuoso. I don’t want to make this post too long so I’m just going to pull some quotes from various sites and let you guys infer for yourselves.

“I wanted to live the life, a different life. I didn’t want to go to the same place every day and see the same people and do the same job. I wanted interesting challenges.” - Harrison Ford (a fellow ISTP)

“ISTPs are mysterious people who are usually very rational and logical, but also quite spontaneous and enthusiastic. They are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them.”

“ISTPs are attentive to details and responsive to the demands of the world around them. Because of their astute sense of their environment, they are good at moving quickly and responding to emergencies. ISTPs are reserved, but not withdrawn: the ISTP enjoys taking action, and approaches the world with a keen appreciation for the physical and sensory experiences it has to offer.”

“ISTP traits include a penchant for problem-solving, cool pragmatism, and eager curiosity.”

“ISTPs are adventurous and independent. They are fearless and thrive on challenging situations. They are gifted problem solvers. Their mechanical and technical nature enables them to operate many kinds of tools and instruments. They are proud of their relatively effortless ability to acquire many skills. They seek freedom and are typically unemotional.”

“Easily bored, they’re always looking for something new and exciting to do. Sometimes this means they’re drawn to high-risk situations that give them a thrill. Because they react quickly and are tuned into their surroundings, they likely have a better chance than some others of beating the odds.”

“They enjoy when someone takes an interest in their projects, because it creates a shared experience.”

“At times, they’re steady and consistent, plodding along the path they’ve laid out for themselves. But other times, they’re completely spontaneous, making them a bit unpredictable. It’s like an energy builds up within them, and when it hits its tipping point, it explodes without warning — often launching them fearlessly in new directions.”

“An adventurous romantic partner, they’ll never “grow stale” — they’re always surprising their beloved with new experiences, especially sensual ones that invite fun and pleasure.”

“When it comes to relationships, they may be a bit hard to nail down, alternating between detachment and passion.”

“ISTPs enjoy working with their hands and having a day that’s full of variety and action.”

“ ISTPs are very direct and say what they mean. They sometimes have difficulty with emotionally charged situations or conversations. They do not read between the lines and do not understand why others do.”

“They enjoy having other people take an interest in their projects and sometimes don’t even mind them getting into their space. Of course, that’s on the condition that those people don’t interfere with their principles and freedom, and they’ll need to be open to the ISTP returning the interest in kind.”

“Friendly but very private, calm but suddenly spontaneous, extremely curious but unable to stay focused on formal studies, ISTP personalities can be a challenge to predict, even by their friends and loved ones. They can seem very loyal and steady for a while, but they tend to build up a store of impulsive energy that explodes without warning, taking their interests in bold new directions.”

“Their decisions stem from a sense of practical realism, and at their heart is a strong sense of direct fairness, a “do unto others” attitude, which really helps to explain many of their puzzling traits. Instead of being overly cautious though, avoiding stepping on toes in order to avoid having their toes stepped on, they are likely to go too far, accepting likewise retaliation, good or bad, as fair play.”

“The biggest issue ISTPs are likely to face is that they often act too soon, taking for granted their permissive nature and assuming that others are the same. They’ll be the first to tell an insensitive joke, get overly involved in someone else’s project, roughhouse and play around, or suddenly change their plans because something more interesting came up.”

“Combining spontaneity with logic, they can switch mindsets to fit new situations with little effort, making them flexible and versatile individuals.”

“This flexibility comes with some unpredictability, but ISTP personalities are able to store their spontaneity for a rainy day, releasing their energy just when it’s needed most.”

“With all this hands-on creativity and spontaneity, it’s no wonder that they are naturals in crisis situations. People with this personality type usually enjoy a little physical risk, and they aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty when the situation calls for it.”

“Through all this, they are able to stay quite relaxed. They live in the moment and go with the flow, refusing to worry too much about the future.”

“As easily as they go with the flow, they can also ignore it entirely, and usually move in another direction with little apology or sensitivity. If someone tries to change their habits, lifestyle or ideas through criticism, they can become quite blunt in their irritation.”

“They use logic, and even when they try to meet others halfway with empathy and emotional sensitivity, it rarely seems to quite come out right, if anything is even said at all.”

“This stubbornness, difficulty with others’ emotions, focus on the moment, and easy boredom can lead to unnecessary and unhelpful boundary-pushing, just for fun. ISTPs have been known to escalate conflict and danger just to see where it goes, something that can have disastrous consequences for everyone around if they lose control of the situation.”

Characteristic of an ISTP

Adaptable

Logical

Independent

Active

Adventurous

Problem solver

Self-reliant

Analytical

Technical

Practical

Unemotional

Flexible

Impersonal

Logical

Concrete

Realistic

Direct

Fearless

Positive

Handy

Objective

Hands-on

Damn, that’s long. Oh well, to Eve. Eve is an INTJ, or The Mastermind.

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.”– Friedrich Nietzsche (a fellow INTJ)

“The INTJ is logic-driven personality type with a talent for solving problems and a focus on accomplishing goals. INTJs are capable of forecasting far out into the future with an astonishing level of accuracy. Perhaps the only area where an INTJ doesn’t seem to be able to predict the future is in their own personal lives; INTJs rarely factor their emotions or happiness into a plan, and can find themselves locked into careers, relationships, or patterns that they no longer enjoy.”

“INTJs tend to be critical-minded, blunt, and focused on getting results.”

“You’ve always known you’re meant for something bigger than punching in at a 9-to-5 job to pay the bills. You want to use your capabilities to do something that matters—and to have real accomplishments.”

“You’re a completely different person when you’re with close friends than you are with everyone else. You can be goofy, charismatic and outrageously funny, but remain very reserved with people who aren’t in your “inner circle.””

“When you’re feeling down, and a loved one tries to soothe you with comforting words, you pull away like they’re offering you a poisonous snake.”

“When someone asks which is more important to you, having an interesting job or having a meaningful job, you’re like, wait, I thought those were the same thing.”

“ You’re great at making life plans, but somehow you always manage to overlook how your emotional state will affect those life plans—or why that’s even important. Getting even a kindergarten-level education in your own emotions feels like you discovered profound truths about the world.”

“No matter what you do, you never feel like you’ve accomplished enough. This is what propels you toward great things, but it also leaves you feeling perpetually critical of yourself and your achievements. There’s always something bigger you feel like you should be on top of.”

“Few things will make an INTJ angrier than a boss or authority figure that seems undeserving of their position. If they see a person in charge that does not appear to think through their actions, avoids making decisions, or only seems to have gotten where they are through blatant self-promotion, it will be very difficult for an INTJ to keep their mouth shut. Above all else, these thinkers value brilliance, self-confidence, and the ability to make firm, effective decisions.”

“It’s not that INTJs don’t care. If you’re in their life, they definitely care about what you’re going through. Feelings just make them nervous, and the more they try to take emotions into account, usually the worse they do at pleasing other people. INTJs do feel, but they tend to take a pragmatic approach to their emotions, trying to optimize their lives and relationships based on what they can immediately control. They also expect the people in their lives to try to behave rationally.”

“Playing by the rules is not very important to INTJs. Give them a list of rules and they may endlessly question you, bend the rules, and even break them if they see a better way. INTJs are always innovating and tweaking. If they don’t have the opportunity to do that, they’ll be very, very, unhappy — and you’ll probably hear about it.”

“Obviously, routine tasks are not looking good for this personality type. INTJs are easily bored with process work and are not good at paper-pushing. They might, say, go to the gym, but only after they’ve created the best, most research-backed and efficient way of working out. Groceries, clothing, cooking, anything routine, will never be done the same way every day — if at all. Or they’ll delegate these tasks.”

“INTJs are private, independent and self-confident. They strive for perfection and achievement. They are gifted strategists with analytical, conceptual and objective minds. They are flexible and like to formulate contingency plans. Strategists are able to see the reasons behind things.”

“The INTJ personality type’s signature strength is deep perception. Otherwise known as “the mastermind,” the INTJ is naturally attuned to “the big picture” and cannot help but see how everything is interconnected. Their ability to perceive deep patterns and causal relationships has helped many achieve eminence.”

“They are typically independent and selective about their relationships, preferring to associate with people who they find intellectually stimulating.”

“People with this personality type are imaginative yet decisive, ambitious yet private, amazingly curious, but they do not squander their energy.”

“A paradox to most observers, INTJs are able to live by glaring contradictions that nonetheless make perfect sense – at least from a purely rational perspective. For example, they are simultaneously the most starry-eyed idealists and the bitterest of cynics, a seemingly impossible conflict. But this is because INTJ personalities tend to believe that with effort, intelligence and consideration, nothing is impossible, while at the same time they believe that people are too lazy, short-sighted or self-serving to actually achieve those fantastic results. Yet that cynical view of reality is unlikely to stop an interested INTJ from achieving a result they believe to be relevant.”

“INTJs radiate self-confidence and an aura of mystery, and their insightful observations, original ideas and formidable logic enable them to push change through with sheer willpower and force of personality.”

“Rules, limitations and traditions are anathema to the INTJ personality type – everything should be open to questioning and reevaluation, and if they see a way, they will often act unilaterally to enact their technically superior, sometimes insensitive, and almost always unorthodox methods and ideas.”

“They are brilliant and confident in bodies of knowledge they have taken the time to understand, but unfortunately the social contract is unlikely to be one of those subjects.”

“They are defined by their tendency to move through life as though it were a giant chess board, pieces constantly shifting with consideration and intelligence, always assessing new tactics, strategies and contingency plans, constantly outmaneuvering their peers in order to maintain control of a situation while maximizing their freedom to move about.”

“If something piques their interest, INTJ personalities can be astonishingly dedicated to their work, putting in long hours and intense effort to see an idea through.”

“INTJ personalities are perfectly capable of carrying their confidence too far, falsely believing that they’ve resolved all the pertinent issues of a matter and closing themselves off to the opinions of those they believe to be intellectually inferior. Combined with their irreverence for social conventions, they can be brutally insensitive in making their opinions of others all too clear.”

“They tend to have complete confidence in their thought process, because rational arguments are almost by definition correct – at least in theory. In practice, emotional considerations and history are hugely influential, and a weak point for people with the INTJ personality type is that they brand these factors and those who embrace them as illogical, dismissing them and considering their proponents to be stuck in some baser mode of thought, making it all but impossible to be heard.”

“Above all else, INTJs want to be able to tackle intellectually interesting work with minimal outside interference, no more, no less.”

Characteristic of an INTJ

Analytical

Structured

Objective

Introspective

Perfectionist

Attentive

Controlled

Private

Responsible

Self-confident

Thick-skinned

Quiet

Determined

Independent

Impersonal

Theoretical

Intense

Strategic

Adaptable

Complex

Conceptual

Disciplined

Deliberate

Abstract

What do you guys think? Agree? Disagree? Praise me or fight me, idc. Just join the conversation.

Cheers,

An INTP. Part 2 & Part 3

#killing eve #sorry it's so long #but not really #i love mbti #read it #i'm right

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noahxsweetwine · 6 years

Text

mistletoe

(no one sent this prompt I just wrote it bc I’m igyts trash. Also, I’m not a writer so this is probably bad asfflkajskl)

Jude Age 14

I hate mistletoe.

Given my trademark infatuation with the superstitious, most assume mistletoe is one of my good omens. In fact, Grandma Sweetwine’s Bible makes no mention of the spiky sprig, so I am left to turn to traditional ancient lore to find meaning in it.

The Druids believed mistletoe was a magical cure for every ailment. On the eve of their new year, they gathered it from oak trees, careful to not let it touch the ground. Then they hung it over their doorways and made it into drinks to take advantage of its fortuitous properties.

Mistletoe is actually poisonous. What’s more, it’s parasitic. It invades the soil around another plant’s roots and seeps the life out of it in order to live. The Druids were trying to cure one poison with another.

The more well-known connotation seems ridiculous to me. It’s as if we ignore the obvious danger of the plant for its seemingly harmless and beautiful appearance. (Better not walk under the mistletoe unless you want to smooch someone! What a joke.) Even if I did, the boycott is under full effect. They say if a woman is not kissed under the mistletoe at all during the season, she is destined to stay single for a year. That’s absolutely fine with me.

Some well-intentioned (or possibly mischievously-intentioned) CSA students thought it was a great idea to line the halls with the offending parasite. I’ve managed to mostly avoid it, but I have to check before I walk through doorways. (This isn’t too much extra effort: doorways are an auspicious liminal space anyway, so I’ve always been careful. Depending on who you ask, walking through an entryway backwards can be good or bad luck. Though, most things are either good luck or bad luck depending on who you ask.)

Once, though, I was in a rush to get to Anatomy (the science requirement for CSA students - it’s meant to be more tailored towards aspiring artists. I like it better than traditional science classes, but they still haven’t taught me what I really want to know. How can your twin brother’s beautiful brain suddenly stop communicating with his body? Why does my heart still feel pain when I’m hurt if emotions are controlled by the mind? What happens to the human body when it’s run through with a car?) In my haste, I didn’t look up before entering, and ended up nearly colliding with Caleb Cartwright (art-is-truth, I-have-no-filter Caleb Cartwright). I only dropped my pencil, but when I bent down to pick it up, there was snickering from within the classroom.

“Mistletoe,” one boy with purple hair pointed out. He looked immensely pleased with himself, despite the fact that he had spinach stuck in his teeth. “Wouldn’t want to defy tradition, would you, CJ?”

I gritted my teeth. In fact, I did not subscribe to every superstition out there, I wanted to say. I borrowed from what I saw fit, but Grandma Sweetwine’s Bible was my only obligation. Instead of saying anything, however, I pushed past Caleb, who looked like he couldn’t care less, honestly.

“No offense,” started Randy Brown. “But you look red as a tomato, CJ.”

I probably did. I willed my body to cease its vasodilation (a word I learned in Anatomy. See, education is not wasted on me.) The CSA kids aren’t nearly as malicious as those at my old school, but they often don’t have the tact (or the desire, maybe) to keep themselves from saying whatever came to mind. I wondered how Noah was surviving at the normal high school.

The bell rang, and I took my usual seat next to Fish. (Most CSA teachers changed the seating arrangements regularly to “promote evolving artistic collaboration,” but Anatomy was different because it involved lab partners.) Fish was staring intently at a Rubik’s cube she was holding in her hand. I wondered when she had gotten it, as I’d never seen her with it before.

I snap out of the memory. The mistletoe has started disappearing over the past few weeks, but I keep up my constant vigilance. I spot a sprig laying on the door frame leading to the art wing.

They say if mistletoe is allowed to touch the ground, disaster is sure to follow.

I flick the mistletoe off the door frame. I’m Calamity Jude, after all. Disaster seems to follow me anyway.

Jude Age 16

Maybe the Druids were right.

I keep finding bits of mistletoe in the hood of my jacket. Maybe it’s the work of my fellow CSA students, but I can’t imagine what reasons they would have for that and I doubt they would keep up the prank for five days in a row. More likely, it’s one (or both) of my matriarchal specters who is responsible. If it was meant to frustrate me, it’s probably Mom. If it’s supposed to...encourage me, or get me in the “holiday spirit,” it’s probably Grandma.

The French called mistletoe the “specter’s wand” and thought that its holder would have the power to see and communicate with ghosts. (I’ve never needed help with that.)

Regardless of the planter’s intention, the mistletoe has brought me good luck for once. Or that’s the way it appears.

Guillermo has agreed to mentor me, and English Guy (whose name is OSCORE!) is...certainly something. I keep having to remind myself of the boycott. Yesterday he tried to return the orange to me, telling me that “satsumas” are traditionally given as gifts around Christmastime in his home country.

My mind keeps drifting back to my last class before break: Thematic and Symbolic Art History. The lesson of the day was about, of all things, mistletoe. Or, at least, it was mistletoe-inspired. We learned the history and controversy surrounding works depicting the act of kissing. As in, The Kiss. All three versions: Klimt, Brancusi, Rodin. I wish Guillermo’s works had been included, now.

Guillermo is introducing me to his methods of teaching. I thought Oscar’s modeling would be a one-time thing, but apparently I need a lot of practice in portraiture if I’m going to ever sculpt my mother. I’ve drawn Oscar a lot now. His face is practically seared into the back of my mind. (Does it violate the boycott if I’m thankful his face is so nice to look at?)

Some ancient peoples believed that mistletoe had the power to open all locks. (Do hearts count as locks?)

Am I stupid to dream?

Jude Age 18

I’ve warmed to the mistletoe idea over the years.

It might have something to do with the fact that Noah is currently enthusiastically hanging mistletoe around the houseboat. Like the boat’s name, his sudden interest in the superstition, statistically my area of expertise, is a mystery. (Or maybe not: he only started decorating after Dad and I extracted a promise from him that the kissing rule would not be under effect. I doubt he’ll tell that to Brian, however, when he comes back from vacation tomorrow.) The anniversary of Mom’s death seems to loom less ominously than in previous years.

My wary appreciation, however, doesn’t entirely stem from my brother’s antics.

Christmas isn’t really a big thing in the Sweetwine family. When we were little, Noah and I made sandmen instead of snowmen, and our gingerbread houses were definitely not indicators of our level of artistic potential (at least, I hope not). But now the only tradition we have is ordering pizza and staying inside to watch movies, which happens year-round (especially the pizza part when Noah has anything to say about it).

I can appreciate the sentiment of the holiday, though. Renewal. Gratitude. Family.

Love.

I’m sick of losing soulmates. I’ve lost too many, especially in winter. Grandma. Mom (and Dad, for a while, around the same time). Zephyr.

At first, I thought the best way to heal was to cut out all possibility of love in my life. It seemed to be working for Noah. Hence, the boycott.

That went out the window as soon as I met Oscar and Guillermo. “I’m not okay,” Guillermo had said. “I’m not okay either,” I wanted to reply.

When I became Guillermo’s student, I felt like I was healing, through art and through Oscar. But over time, I realized Oscar had his own problems and we tended to amplify one another’s issues rather than resolve them. Being reciprocally “not okay” wasn’t an automatic path to a relationship. The inevitable breakup was mutual (if we were ever even in a relationship). It was nowhere close to being as messy as it could have been.

The whole Oscar thing should have made me more bitter about love. But it was more of a learning experience, really. A person can’t fix you. You can’t fix someone else. And too much of anything can kill you, as my toxicologist father often points out.

Mistletoe is the same way. It’s a parasitic species, yeah, and that shouldn’t be overlooked. Too much, and it seeps the life out of the forest. But in the right amounts, it has its place.

There was Zephyr. There was Oscar. There will be other chances. But for now, I’m content to have all ten fingers to draw and paint and sculpt with, a father and a brother to depend on in this rocking boat of a family, and the resolution to stop avoiding mistletoe as I walk through doorways.

When I think of mistletoe (and when I think of many things), Grandma Sweetwine’s words come to me:

Quick, make a wish. Take a (second or third or fourth) chance. Remake the world.

(Not confident I got the timeline right but just go with it. I know NoahandJude’s birthday is a bit before winter break, Jude met Oscar and Guillermo during winter break, and Diana died during a winter break....merry christmas/happy holidays!!)

(source for the lore)

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gold3nberry · 7 years

Text

Stand By Me

Cullen Rutherford X Demetra Trevelyan

Cinema!Au

For my last piece for the @cullenappreciationweek , day 6, the AU that nobody asked for! I hope you’ll enjoy it as much I enjoyed writing this little one shot.

“I think I’m in love with you.” Cullen’s heart jumped in his chest, as he fought to keep a surprised expression. The words were right, but the woman in his arms was the wrong one. Sitting at the edge of the room, checking the words with a frown, Demetra Trevelyan was carefully listening. “No, I don’t think I am. I know how I feel,” the woman actually in his bed turned in his embrace, half wrapped in the sheet “I do love you, my Commander.” He was stunned, he was shocked and he was almost annoyed with himself. The Demetra Trevelyan in his arms, the wrong one, told him the words he was carving to hear from the real one and it made them sound false and out of place. Not knowing was it was going on, she smiled, landing a kiss on the corner of his mouth. Cullen pressed his forehead against hers, struggling to put some feeling in his next sentence. He didn’t have the wish to ruin the work of an entire crew just because he had a giant crush on a woman. Even if a special one as Demetra. The real one. He was a professional, graduated from the Denerim Royal Dramatic Academy, Maker’s breath!, and he was perfectly able to do a good job. “I love you as well, my dearest Demetra.” he started, smiling “All that I can offer you, my heart, my body, my soul, is yours for as long as you wish.” She smiled at him, cupping his face, and then the director’s voice shouted “And cut! Well done, guys!”

Cullen’s colleague yawned, quickly disentangled herself from his body, and put on the velvety bathrobe that one of her countless assistants had already ready for her to wear. “Good job, dear,” she said stretching “Even if the words were sappy, you did it well.” “Thanks, Isolde.” he replied with a huff. The woman seemed unable to say an entire kind sentence to anyone without pouring a drop of poison in it. He accepted with a smile his own toweling robe, even if he had already worn a pair of loose trousers through the scene. The young assistant blushed and ran away, leaving him embarrassed. “Aw, look at you! Still not used to all the attention?” Isolde mocked him “Well, I can understand you, dear. These assistants can be really a bother, sometimes.” These assistants are a fundamental part of our team.” he reminded her, trying not to sound too cold “I would hardly define them a bother.” ”If you say so,” she shrugged nonchalantly, checking her lipstick in a pocket mirror “But now let’s talk about important things. Will see you tonight? I have a reservation at...” ”Sorry, as I already told you, I’m busy.” he pointed out, walking away. Isolde huffed soundly “Madame Viviene insists we help to promote this movie more.” ”She’s doing an excellent job, I don’t think that a photo of us dining together in a pretentious restaurant will add anything. Plus, as I said other times, I’m not keen to use such a poor marketing methods. Enjoy your evening, Isolde.” He left her without any other word and pretended not to hear her comment about the Fereldan lack of manners. "Mr. Rutherford?” The hesitant voice made him smile even before he turned to meet a pair of bright azure eyes. ”Good afternoon, Miss Trevelyan.” ”I’d say “good evening”,” she chuckled “you all worked a lot today.” Cullen nodded “Ah, yes, I suppose Varric want to finish this movie as soon as possible. He wants to use to our advantage the interested that the end of Skyhold restoration has lit about the history of the Inquisition.” ”I still can’t believe they’re going to make a movie about what happened one thousand years ago. I bet my ancestor would be delighted to know that such a talented group of people is making a movie about her time as Inquisitor.” ”And what do you think of our work, so far?” He wasn’t searching for compliments. He just wanted to speak to her a little longer. Their days were always so busy that most of the time they barely managed to greet each other. And he didn’t like it. Maker’s breath, Alistair was right: he had a giant, embarrassing crush on that lovely woman. Maker’s breath, after everything that happened in his life, he thought he was well beyond such things. Demetra flashed him a smile that made him long to reciprocate it “I’m just an external consultant, and I think I was called here mostly because it’s a clever marketing move to involve one of the descendants of the Inquisitor in the movie, but I think you all are doing an amazing work. The cast is marvelous and I disagree with your colleague: the words are not sappy at all. I hope my ancestor did have a love story as intense as the chronicles told us.” ”I hope that as well. I can’t imagine how hard it had been for that woman leading Thedas against Corypheus. She deserved to be happy, at the end.” Demetra gently put a hand on his vambrace “Thank you, Mr. Rutherford. You’re truly kind.” He blushed and barely resist the urge to rub his neck “Ah, you... you’re very kind, miss Trevelyan. You would be a perfect Inquisitor for Thedas as well.” He grimaced. Maker, the movie that Rosalie forced him to watch made him cheesy! She expected her to laugh, but she just threw him another captivating smile “Oh, I don’t know, Mr. Rutherford,” she laughed quietly “I hardly doubt I would be a fitting Inquisitor. In every sense.” she gestured with a wink towards her ample body “I’m also too shy and clumsy. I doubt Thedas would follow me!” There wasn’t a request of pity in her words, she was just telling something she believed it was totally true. Cullen spoke before his brain could realize it and paralyze him with his usual shyness. “No, I’m sure you would be a great Inquisitor, Miss Trevelyan!” he protested earnestly “I’m also sure your ancestor was exactly as you are: kind, clever, funny and beautiful. And even if she wasn’t, well, you are and I... I...I mean...I...” This time, he did rub his neck. Maker’s breath, the last thing he needed was to make a fool of himself in front of her. “Well, it’s late and I think I stole enough of your time,” Demetra said, taking her bag and a dangerously swollen notebook from a chair “Have a nice evening, Mr. Rutherford.” “Wait.” Cullen cursed himself. Wait for what? What he was going to tell her? Why his throat felt so dry? Why in the Void wasn’t he able to be relaxed and spontaneous? “Yes, Mr. Rutherford?” “Uh, it’s Cullen, actually.” he croaked “My family and friends call me just Cullen. I would like if you... if you want, that’s it! But I would like if you call me Cullen, as well.” Something passed over her face. It was twitch, fast and bright, and left behind a sudden tenderness that it took away his breath. Oh, he was knee-deep in trouble. “Cullen, then,” she agreed “But only if you stop with the Miss Trevelyan. Anyone calls me Demetra, friends and not!” she winked. He chuckled “Perfect, we have a deal. Uhm... what I was going to say... do you know Helen Hawke?” “The head of the Magical Effects Department? Well, I met her once when I arrived on the set for the first time.” “She invited a little group of us to try the new Nevarran Restaurant in Hero of Ferelden Street. Would you like come with me... us?” She was clearly surprised, but not displeased, Cullen thought, shifting his weight. “I don’t want to impose my presence...” she murmured. He wasn’t sure if she was blushing, she always seemed so comfortable in any situation that was strange thinking she could feel embarrassed. “I’m sure the others will be delighted to see you, Miss... Demetra. It’s a small group of old friends, nothing formal, and I’m sure you already know half of them. Like, Cassandra will come for sure! And Varric too and probably Bull...” He knew she had already met their Head of Technicians, the director and their Quanari trainer for the fighting scenes. As he thought, she nodded enthusiastically “Very well, then. I’d be glad to come. Can you give me the precise address to give to the taxi driver?” “Ah, I’d be happy to offer you a ride. A lift! I have my car here at the Studios.” he stuttered. She accepted gracefully and he couldn’t avoid smiling at her “Let’s go then.” “Uh, Cullen,” she started, pressing her lips together in amusement “I’ll wait for you here while you change your clothes. Maybe they’re a little too informal, for a public place.” Maker’s breath, he forgot he was still wearing a toweling robe and the gym trousers and plus, he was barefoot. But he hadn’t the time to feel embarrassed. He was tasting the way his name sounded on her lips. Nobody had ever pronounced it with that soft accent. With that... care? Okay, he should have definitely stopped to watch Rosalie’s favorite movies, he shook his head, quickly walking towards his dressing room. And yet, he couldn’t restrain the smile on his face. It wasn’t a date, but he was going to spend a couple of hours with Demetra. He just hoped he would be able to make the evening pleasant for her. “Let’s go, Rutherford.” he grinned at his reflection in the mirror. For once, he couldn’t wait to go out for dinner.

#cullen rutherford #demetra trevelyan #plus size inquisitor #dragon age #dragon age inquisition #fragments #stregatadallostregatto

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turtle-paced · 7 years

Text

Sansa, Smart

So. Sansa. I hear some people think she’s not very clever. This is a view shared by several characters in the books.

But there’s no reason the readership should share those views. Sansa is a very clever individual who makes increasingly good use of several skills she started the series with, and develops greatly as an observer and an actor over the course of the story.

Putting everything under a cut, for reasons of four books of brainpower.

Skills

Pre-series, what we know about Sansa’s academic talents is that she can read and write better than her fourteen-year-old brothers (Sansa IV, AGoT; and from what we see of Jon interacting with the written word he doesn’t have much difficulty) but doesn’t have a head for numbers. (Arya I, and again in Sansa IV.) We also know she can sew, dance, sing, and play the bells. (Arya I) She knows Westerosi heraldry well, as Arya tells us in Arya VII, ACoK - specifically in a situation where knowledge of heraldry could have been extremely valuable to her.

Sansa also has a strong grasp on the value of appearances. When she appeals for mercy for Ned, she chooses to wear a gown Cersei gave her, dyed for mourning, and no flashy jewelry. (Sansa V, AGoT) When she attends Joffrey’s nameday tourney, she makes sure to wear a hairnet he gave her, while also fully aware she’s wearing bruises he gave her too (Sansa I, ACoK). She wears Stark colours to the Purple Wedding, while also making sure she can accessorise her poison hairnet properly. (Tyrion VIII) In AFFC, as she’s dressing for a different role, her attention to her clothing comes back full force.

After initially putting on a red-and-blue Tully dress one morning, very obviously taken from Lysa’s wardrobe, Sansa must change clothing to meet with the Lords Declarant. As she says, she does not need to be reminded to avoid blue and cream (the colours of House Arryn). After a bit of thinking…

There was a gown of purple silk that gave her pause, and another of dark blue velvet that would have woken all the colour in her eyes, but in the end she remembered that Alayne was after all a bastard, and must not presume to dress above her station. The dress she chose was lambswool […] It was modest and becoming, though scarce richer than something a serving girl would wear. - Alayne I, AFFC

Arya I, AGoT, tells us that Sansa knows how to dress. It’s been a valuable skill for her the whole series through.

Political Actions and Analysis

Sansa’s first impressive moment is fairly early in AGoT, where in spite of being under stress and never having seen the people concerned before, she successfully identifies both Ser Barristan and Renly Baratheon. (Sansa I, AGoT) She knows her Small Councillors, and she knows her heraldry. It’s a damn good thing she has this moment, because AGoT is not her finest book, intellectually speaking.

But her first big public political action is her appeal for mercy for her father. (Sansa V, AGoT) Aside from carefully considering the visuals, she practiced what she had to say beforehand, so she could say it well when the time came. She knew the limits of what she could ask for Ned - she did not even try to deny Ned’s crime, but asked mercy and a reduced punishment for him because Robert loved him, and while she did, she downplayed Ned’s culpability, blaming Stannis and/or Renly and/or the drugs Ned was on. This was very well done from start to finish, and it’s not Sansa’s fault that Joffrey went off-script or that Cersei froze up at the critical moment.

Once her beauty = goodness illusions are mostly (not entirely) stripped away, Sansa immediately starts distrusting her servants (Sansa VI, AGoT). She quickly realises why they’re changed so often, too, and proceeds from the assumption that they’re all spying on her. (Sansa II, ACoK) Tyrion confirms this fact for her. (Sansa IV, ASoS)

Once Sandor Clegane articulates the nature of the role Joffrey wants her to play (Sansa VI, AGoT), Sansa starts playing it. Notably, she starts when neither Sandor nor Joffrey are around to remind her one way or another, denying herself her wishes to scream at Meryn Trant in favour of her developing perfect royal betrothed act - save for the fact she tells him disdainfully that he is no true knight. She still has a bit of trouble interpreting satire that chapter, though, not picking up very quickly that no, really, the boar in the singer’s song really was meant to be Cersei.

When we pick up with Sansa in her first chapter of ACoK, one of the first things we see her do is pick up that what people tell Joffrey the smallfolk have named the comet and what the smallfolk actually name the comet are probably quite different. She also sees through some pageantry at the tourney itself:

The Redwyne twins were the queen’s unwilling guests, even as Sansa was. She wondered whose notion it had been for them to ride in Joffrey’s tourney. Not their own, she thought. - Sansa I, ACoK

That is progress from the bulk of her AGoT chapters right there. Sansa also displays some impressive double-talk in this chapter:

“It’s almost as good as if some wolf killed your traitor brother. Maybe I’ll feed him to wolves after I’ve caught him. Did I tell you, I intend to challenge him to single combat?” “I would like to see that, Your Grace.” More than you know. Sansa kept her tone cool and polite, yet even so Joffrey’s eyes narrowed as he tried to decide whether she was mocking him. - Sansa I, ACoK

No, Joff, she’s not mocking you. She just said you can’t take her brother in a fight and she wants to see you dead. Keep up. It’s impressive facility with language for someone as young as she is, and in a stressful situation too. Just so we can confirm it wasn’t a fluke, she spots the same word games from Tyrion:

[Joffrey] gave Sansa an angry look, as if it were her fault. “[Jaime’s] been taken by the Starks and we’ve lost Riverrun and now her stupid brother is calling himself a king.” The dwarf smiled crookedly. “All sorts of people are calling themselves kings these days.” Joff did not know what to make of that, though he looked suspicious and out of sorts. - Sansa I, ACoK

That Sansa looked to Joffrey to see what he made of it tells us that Sansa knew perfectly well what Tyrion meant. In Tyrion’s words, Sansa saw something that Joffrey might react to.

Then, of course, she steps in to save Ser Dontos. Where her lie about ill luck falls flat and needs the assist from Sandor Clegane to get past Joffrey, her follow-up about making Dontos a fool rather than a knight, because “he doesn’t deserve the mercy of a quick death,” was definitely well done.

When she receives a mysterious letter under her pillow, Sansa immediately starts analysing not just the note (“unsigned, unsealed, and the hand unfamiliar”), but possible responses. She’s aware that this could be a trap, or Joffrey’s idea of a joke, and burns the note immediately. What she does not do is accept it at face value.

Throughout ACoK Sansa becomes steadily more skeptical. By the Battle of the Blackwater she sees that Joffrey’s battle getup is “bright, shining, and empty,” and by contrast “there was nothing childish about the battle-axe slung under [Tyrion’s] shield.” (Sansa V, ACoK) She questions rumour around the Kettleblacks, too.

Of late Ser Osmund had taken Sandor Clegane’s place at Joffrey’s side, and Sansa had heard the women at the washing well saying he was as strong as the Hound, only younger and faster. If that was so, she wondered why she had never once heard of these Kettleblacks before Ser Osmund was named to the Kingsguard. - Sansa VI

And tourney-and-heraldry enthusiast Sansa would know the top competitors. She knows something does not match up here. Sansa VI also features her rejection of the philosophy of ruling Cersei promotes.

…she had always heard that love was a surer route to the people’s loyalty than fear. If I am ever a queen, I’ll make them love me. - Sansa VI

This woman has been telling Sansa again and again that she’s stupid, but in this matter Sansa has enough confidence in her own judgment to say to herself, you’re wrong. GRRM will also go out of his way to show that Sansa is correct, too - contrast the reaction to Margaery’s imprisonment (mobs outside the Sept of Baelor calling for her release), to that to Cersei’s imprisonment (…nope, no mobs), and Ned’s legacy (armies fighting for his children’s rights) and Tywin’s legacy (time to tear that shit down!).

When the rewards post-Blackwater are being handed out, she examines the reward handed to Littlefinger very critically indeed. First, she notes that she doesn’t know what he did to earn it. Second, she notes that the Lannisters don’t even have Harrenhal to give away, and that Littlefinger’s Lannister-backed Lord Paramountcy is not something her maternal grandfather’s vassals are going to accept, “unless my brother and my uncle and my grandfather are all cast down and killed.” (Sansa VII, ACoK) Sansa here gets a glimpse of the Red Wedding, half a book in advance.

Once the Tyrells enter the picture in King’s Landing, we really get to see Sansa’s analysis pick up. Tyrell PR is exactly the sort of thing she’s developing a mind for picking apart. Again, since she’s a twelve-year-old prisoner with no assistance (both things that don’t exactly lead people to keep her informed), it’s sometimes slow going and she definitely makes mistakes, but she also makes progress. Literally the first thing we see her do in ASoS is question Margaery’s motives. The second thing we see her do in ASoS is critically recount Margaery’s entrance to King’s Landing. As she watches the smallfolk cheer, she thinks,

The same smallfolk who pulled me from my horse and would have killed me, if not for the Hound. Sansa had done nothing to make the commons hate her, no more than Margaery Tyrell had done to earn their love. - Sansa I, ASoS

What happens in the rest of Sansa I of ASoS shows that in Sansa, we’re still dealing with a beginner, compared to the mature skills of Olenna Tyrell. Margaery, too, has had rather more lessons in politics than Sansa at this point, and it shows. The purpose of Olenna’s “candor” (to induce Sansa to be honest in return), plus Margaery’s good cop tactic, both go over her head. She also fails to question Ser Dontos’ loyalties, to her detriment, in Sansa II, ASoS, going to far as to think that Ser Dontos “didn’t count” in Sansa IV, ASoS. But then again Ser Dontos is pressuring her into trusting nobody but him. Sansa’s vigilance is not total, and in order to be a plausible character, it cannot be total. She also still has a naive streak, as we see when she discusses a bit of history with Tyrion and Oberyn Martell (Sansa IV).

However, she does quickly realise that something else is wrong, the more she thinks on Margaery’s match with Joffrey and Loras’ appointment to the Kingsguard.

Joff might restrain himself a few turns, perhaps as long as a year, but soon or late he will show his claws, and when he does…the realm might have a second Kingslayer, and there would be war inside the city, as the men of the lion and the men of the rose made the gutters run red. Sansa was surprised that Margaery did not see it too. She is older than me, she must be wiser. And her father, Lord Tyrell, he knows what he is doing, surely. I am just being silly. - Sansa II, ASoS

There’s a lot going on there. Sansa’s right about Joffrey. She’s right about Loras. She’s right about the consequences if Loras kills Joffrey. She’s right to be surprised that Margaery, who she judges to have “a little of her grandmother” to her, is acting like there’s nothing wrong about this at all.

At the Purple Wedding, despite again being under quite a bit of stress, Sansa still has time and energy to notice that Ilyn Payne isn’t carrying the same sword as he has been since ACoK. (Tyrion VIII, ASoS) Not to mention she immediately notices the missing stone in her poison hairnet, and starts connecting its absence to the night’s events. She weighs “it’s only an amethyst” against “the hair net is magic,” and “you must wear it at Joffrey’s wedding feast,” and ends up with the truth. “There was murder in them!” (Sansa V, ASoS) She gets to that in a matter of minutes. Minutes at most. Likewise, as soon as Littlefinger tells her that he arranged for the joust at Joffrey’s wedding, Sansa knows that he framed Tyrion, though she doesn’t understand his motives.

Littlefinger, along with his oh god so creepy grooming of Sansa, also teaches her how he does his politics. The first half of Sansa VI is lesson one. While Sansa errs in applying her knowledge before receiving the lecture (Ser Dontos did not poison Joffrey; Ser Osmund with his proximity to the king was a better guess but still incorrect), she does keep up with the lecture quite easily.

By Sansa I, AFFC, she’s not only following Littlefinger’s lessons but applying them. She sees why Littlefinger signed the documents giving Nestor Royce the Gates of the Moon, as opposed to getting Sweetrobin to sign, bringing it up before Littlefinger points it out. In Alayne I, she can spot that a declaration that speaks of “false friends” and “misrule” is aimed squarely at Littlefinger without ever naming him.

Also take note of the seating arrangements for the meeting between Littlefinger and the Lords Declarant; when Sansa supervises the setup of the room, she has two seats put on one side of the table, and three on the other side. Littlefinger takes one of the two seats, forcing Nestor Royce to sit next to him, across from the others who came to the meeting. Regardless of whose idea it was, again, the narration makes it clear that Sansa sees the purpose of the seating plan. And when, at the end of the chapter, she goes to Littlefinger to clarify what happened in that meeting, she goes with a theory: Lyn Corbray was in Littlefinger’s employ, to disgrace himself and by extension his co-conspirators at this critical juncture. This time, she’s right.

In Alayne II, she also manages to follow a giant wall ‘o text from Littlefinger explaining how Harry is the Heir. It’s no picnic to follow when written down, but Sansa manages it without notes. At the very least, she can concentrate well.

A Developing Liar

One of the major skills Sansa learns in King’s Landing, and only develops further in the Vale, is her skill at deception. She’s actually got a pretty decent knack for it, as soon as ACoK calls her to start lying. When accosted by Sandor Clegane on her way back from her first meeting with Dontos - close to her worst case scenario for the meeting, being caught by someone in Joffrey’s employ - this happens:

“And what’s Joff’s little bird doing flying down the serpentine in the black of night?” When she did not answer, he shook her. “Where were you?” “The g-g-godswood, my lord,” she said, not daring to lie. “Praying…praying for my father, and…for the king, praying that he’d not be hurt.” “Think I’m so drunk I’d believe that?” - Sansa II, ACoK

This is a really good lie. Simple. Plausible. Reusable. And believing that the extent of Sansa’s falsehood is that she wasn’t praying for Joffrey’s health at all, Sandor looks no further. Even the level of deception is plausible. What’s more likely, twelve-year-old Sansa sneaking out to the godswood to pray for her father and Joffrey’s defeat, or twelve-year-old Sansa sneaking out to plot her daring escape from the Red Keep? It fools Cersei too, as we see in Sansa VI, ACoK.

She also successfully deceives Tyrion at a key moment, and Tyrion is not easily fooled.

“I would sooner return to my own bed.” A lie came to her suddenly, but it seemed so right that she blurted it out at once. “This tower was where my father’s men were slain. Their ghosts would give me terrible dreams, and I would see their blood wherever I looked.” Tyrion Lannister studied her face. “I am no stranger to nightmares, Sansa. Perhaps you are wiser than I knew. Permit me at least to escort you back to your own chambers.” - Sansa III, ACoK

Tyrion was that close to putting her under guard in the Tower of the Hand, putting a serious crimp in her plans to meet with Ser Dontos in the godswood and continue planning to escape. She’s not fooling him that she’s loyal to the Lannisters (she can’t fool Cersei that she has any love for Joffrey, as seen in Sansa IV, ACoK), and her plea that the wildlings frightened her didn’t move him, but she found the thing that would.

We see how good she’s become at lying when she’s confronted with a whole new person to deceive in Lysa; dependent on her aunt’s good will, she quickly works out that she cannot tell Lysa that Tyrion was kind to her, and tells her Tyrion preferred to patronise sex workers instead. (Sansa VI, ASoS)

In Sansa I, AFFC, she lies to a murder investigation, channeling her own emotions into her performance. (This lesson in particular came with a whole lot of troubling baggage, thanks to Littlefinger being Littlefinger.) She even evaluated her performance as she went: “That’s good, a tear is good…” This performance was accepted uncritically. Sansa has got good at lying.

Why Do People Think Otherwise?

A few reasons.

One, AGoT. Most of the book she’s stuck in beauty = goodness thinking. She has a very rigid idea of how the world works, and real trouble reconciling events and personalities that don’t fit into this model. But she’s eleven, she gets over it, and an immature eleven-year-old is still not necessarily an unintelligent eleven-year-old. To paraphrase the wise words of Princess Myrcella, children are supposed to be childish. Still, first impressions are powerful.

Two, the huge long list of people who call Sansa stupid or think of her as stupid. The vast majority of the time, when we get feedback on Sansa’s intelligence, it’s negative.

Joffrey calls her stupid.

“You truly are a stupid girl, aren’t you? My mother says so.” - Sansa VI, AGoT

Cersei calls her stupid.

“I see flowering hasn’t made you any brighter,” said Cersei. - Sansa IV, ACoK

Olenna Tyrell calls her stupid.

“You know, child, some say you are as big a fool as Butterbumps here, and I am starting to believe them.” - Sansa I, ASoS

Tyrion doesn’t have a high opinion of her intelligence. This is important, since the reader has already been trained to accept Tyrion as a highly intelligent PoV. As always with GRRM, though, highly intelligent =/ infallible.

It’s one of the first things Tyrion thinks about her from his PoV in ASoS, allowing for the possibility that “Sansa had been stupid enough to confide in one of her bedmaids, every one of whom was a spy for Cersei.” Sansa hasn’t trusted her bedmaids since the end of book one. It’s an interesting dynamic, as Tyrion consistently fails to understand that Sansa’s clever, even with exchanges like this:

“I confess, I know little of the old gods,” he said, trying to be pleasant. “Perhaps someday you might enlighten me. I could even accompany you [to the godswood].” “No,” Sansa said at once. “You…you are kind to offer, but…there are no devotions, my lord. No priests or songs or candles. Only trees, and silent prayer. You would be bored.” “No doubt you’re right.” She knows me better than I thought. - Tyrion VI, ASoS

In other words, Sansa has learned about Tyrion, and now Tyrion knows that, where Tyrion has failed to learn about Sansa. If anything, he’s further from discovering that Sansa’s sneaking out to the godswood to conspire with someone than he was back in book two.

He was tempted to ask what she prayed for, but Sansa was so dutiful she might actually tell him, and he didn’t think he wanted to know. - Tyrion VI, ASoS

Girls her age were not known for keeping secrets. - Tyrion VII, ASoS

Yeah, no. Sansa has an ideal position for lying to Tyrion, now. He does not believe she is capable or willing to lie to him. Readers know that she can, will, has already, and continues to. So thoroughly does he underestimate Sansa that at the Purple Wedding he asks himself, as Sansa fiddles with her (poison-carrying) hairnet and looks towards Joffrey,

Does she wish it were her in Margaery’s place? Tyrion frowned. Even a child should have better sense. - Tyrion VIII, ASoS

And Lysa calls her stupid.

“You can’t love her. You can’t. She’s a stupid empty-headed little girl.” - Sansa VII, ASoS

There are advantages to the appearance of not being very clever, as Ser Dontos outlines to Sansa.

“My Jonquil’s a clever girl, isn’t she?”

“Joffrey and his mother say I’m stupid.”

“Let them. You’re safer that way, sweetling.”

- Sansa IV, ACoK

Advantages or no, Sansa’s clearly hurt by being called stupid. Not to mention the constant negative feedback matters. Is it terribly surprising, after all this, that Sansa would come to join the list of people who don’t think she’s very bright? Let’s look at this again:

Sansa was surprised that Margaery did not see it too. She is older than me, she must be wiser. And her father, Lord Tyrell, he knows what he is doing, surely. I am just being silly. - Sansa II, ASoS

That pesky internalised belief that she’s not all that bright stops Sansa questioning any more deeply. And a good thing for GRRM too, or Sansa would be well on her way to spotting the Purple Wedding in advance. As it is we’re kept out of Sansa’s head for the wedding because she knows too much, and only allowed to return to her PoV once Joffrey is dead.

The internalised belief that she’s not very clever rears its head again later.

“Do you read well, Alayne?” “Septa Mordane was good enough to say so.” - Sansa VI, ASoS

It’s a long way from the girl who read and wrote better than any of her brothers and wasn’t afraid to think so. She refers to her past self as “foolish” and “stupid” in Sansa I and Alayne I of AFFC respectively.

With all these characters, including Sansa herself, thinking so poorly of Sansa’s intelligence, it’s that much easier for the reader to let it skate by as well.

There is also, frankly, audience sexism to contend with as well. In a narrative full of people underestimating Sansa because she’s young and female, parts of the audience are inclined to accept the sexist views of the characters doing the underestimating.

Conclusion

It’s obviously the case that over the course of the series, Sansa has made a few big and noticeable errors because of unsound thinking. She’s not the only character in the series with an intellectual blind spot. She’s even not the only smart character in the series with a sizeable intellectual blind spot. Tyrion, and Stannis during ACoK in particular, both leap to mind.

What Sansa is, is a girl of 11-13 with a lot stacked against her learning things for half the series. During books 1-3 she has no effective mentor and is left to figure out how things work by herself. During books 2 and 3 she must do this while people tell her she’s not smart at all. It’s only in book 4 that someone tries to teach her. Littlefinger’s tutelage is not designed to help her become an independent political actor, and Sansa must fight against certain aspects of his teaching even as she learns.

In spite of this she uses the skills she already has well, develops new skills, and her ability to analyse and make connections becomes better by orders of magnitude from where she started. In other words, Sansa started out not knowing much, but she learned - something she can do all the more effectively because she is, in fact, smart.

#ASoIaF #asoiaf meta #it took me longer than i thought #because there was a lot of smart to analyse #sansa stark #a game of thrones #a clash of kings #a storm of swords #a feast for crows #essay

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deadsculs · 7 years

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( » » tasks | 025 ; identity. )

“I am what happens when they turn good men into monsters.”

n a m e m e a n i n g —

Alexi

Rare romanization of Alexey. Alexey is a Russian and Bulgarian male first name deriving from the Greek Alexios (Αλέξιος), meaning "Defender", and thus of the same origin as the Latin Alexius.

Nikolayevich

Russian patronymic name, literal translation is “Son of Nikolai.” Nikolai is an East Slavic variant of the masculine name Nicholas, meaning "victory of the people."

Alexandrov

Alexandrov is a Slavic surname derived from the name Alexander and common in Bulgaria and Russia. The name Alexander is derived from the Greek Ἀλέξανδρος (Aléxandros), meaning "Defender of the people" or "Defending men" and also, "Protector of men", a compound of the verb ἀλέξειν alexein, "to ward off, to avert, to defend" and the noun ἀνήρ anēr, "man.”

a s t r o l o g i c a l —

Birth date: April 10th, 1977

Star Sign: Aries

Element: Fire

Quality: Cardinal

Color: Red

Day: Tuesday

Ruler: Mars

Greatest compatibility: Leo, Sagittarius

Lucky Numbers: 1, 2, 8, 9

As the first sign in the zodiac, the presence of Aries almost always marks the beginning of something energetic and turbulent.They are continuously looking for dynamic, speed and competition. They are always first in everything - from work to social gatherings. Thanks to its ruling planet Mars, Aries is one of the most active zodiac signs. People born under the Aries sign, are meant to emphasize the search for answers to personal and metaphysical questions. This is the biggest feature of this incarnation.

Aries is a fire sign, just like Leo and Sagittarius. This means that it is in their nature to take action, sometimes before they think about it well. Their fiery ruler affects their excellent organizational skills, so you'll rarely meet an Aries who doesn't like to finish more things at once, often even before the lunch break! The challenges are increased when they are impatient, aggressive and vent anger on others.

Aries rules the head and leads with the head, often literally walking head first, leaning forwards for speed and focus. They are naturally brave and rarely afraid of trial and risk. They possess youthful strength and energy, regardless of age and they perform tasks in record time. By aligning with themselves they could achieve the best results.

Strengths: Courageous, determined, confident, enthusiastic, optimistic, honest, passionate

Weaknesses: Impatient, moody, short-tempered, impulsive, aggressive

Aries likes: Comfortable clothes, taking on leadership roles, physical challenges, individual sports

Aries dislikes: Inactivity, delays, work that does not use one's talents

Year of the Snake

In Chinese culture, the Snake is the most enigmatic animal among the twelve zodiac animals. People born in a year of the Snake are supposed to be the most intuitive.

Snakes tend to act according to their own judgments, even while remaining the most private and reticent. They are determined to accomplish their goals and hate to fail.

Snakes represent the symbol of wisdom. They are intelligent and wise. They are good at communication but say little. Snakes are usually regarded as great thinkers.

Snakes are materialistic and love keeping up with the Joneses. They love to posses the best of everything, but they have no patience for shopping.

Snake people prefer to work alone, therefore they are easily stressed. If they seem unusually stressed, it is best to allow them their own space and time to return to normal.

m y e r s b r i g g s —

“The Defender” ( ISFJ-T )

The Defender personality type is quite unique, as many of their qualities defy the definition of their individual traits. Though sensitive, Defenders have excellent analytical abilities; though reserved, they have well-developed people skills and robust social relationships; and though they are generally a conservative type, Defenders are often receptive to change and new ideas. As with so many things, people with the Defender personality type are more than the sum of their parts, and it is the way they use these strengths that defines who they are.

Defenders are true altruists, meeting kindness with kindness-in-excess and engaging the work and people they believe in with enthusiasm and generosity.

There’s hardly a better type to make up such a large proportion of the population, nearly 13%. Combining the best of tradition and the desire to do good, Defenders are found in lines of work with a sense of history behind them, such as medicine, academics and charitable social work.

e n n e g r a m —

Type Six ( The Loyalist )

Until they can get in touch with their own inner guidance, Sixes are like a ping-pong ball that is constantly shuttling back and forth between whatever influence is hitting the hardest in any given moment. Because of this reactivity, no matter what we say about Sixes, the opposite is often also as true. They are both strong and weak, fearful and courageous, trusting and distrusting, defenders and provokers, sweet and sour, aggressive and passive, bullies and weaklings, on the defensive and on the offensive, thinkers and doers, group people and soloists, believers and doubters, cooperative and obstructionistic, tender and mean, generous and petty—and on and on. It is the contradictory picture that is the characteristic “fingerprint” of Sixes, the fact that they are a bundle of opposites.

Basic Fear: Of being without support and guidance

Basic Desire: To have security and support

c h a r a c t e r a l i g n m e n t —

Neutral Good

Characters of neutral good alignment believe that there must be some regulation in combination with freedoms if the best is to be brought to the world--the most beneficial conditions for living things in general and intelligent people in particular. Characters of this alignment see the cosmos as a place where law and chaos are merely tools to use in bringing life, happiness, and prosperity to all deserving people. Order is not good unless it brings this to all; neither is randomness and total freedom desirable if it does not bring such good.

Neutral goods value both personal freedom and adherence to laws. They feel that too many laws may unnecessarily restrict the freedom of good beings. They also believe that too much freedom may not protect society as a whole and encourage counterproductive divisions and in-fighting. They promote governments which hold broad powers, but do not interfere in the day-to-day lives of their citizens.

These characters value life and freedom above all else, and despise those who would deprive others of them. Neutral good characters sometimes find themselves forced to work beyond the law, yet for the law, and the greater good of the people. They are not vicious or vindictive, but are people driven to right injustice. Neutral good characters always attempt to work within the law whenever possible, however.

To a neutral good person, life and the assurance of other people’s rights take precedence over all else. This is not to say that this character will have an aversion to taking another's life when faced with a choice between an attacker's and his own, however. Neither numbers nor individual concerns have any bearing on decisions regarding the needs and rights of any given peoples. In other words, in the view of a neutral good person, rarely will either the needs of the many or the personal desires of an individual outweigh the needs of any other person. All life is given even-handed treatment. As with all alignments neutral with respect to law and chaos, self-reliance is a cornerstone of a neutral good being's personality. In a crunch, neutral good characters trust in themselves and in no other individual or group. This doesn't mean they can't make friends and develop trusting relationships with others, however. Neutral good beings aren't normally as independent as chaotic good beings, and they can cooperate in groups. But they won't always trust a group to be more effective than they could be themselves.

A neutral good character will keep his word to those who are not evil and will lie only to evil-doers. He will never attack an unarmed foe and will never harm an innocent. He will not use torture to extract information or for pleasure. He will never kill for pleasure, only in self-defense or in the defense of others. A neutral good character will never use poison. He will help those in need and works well alone or in a group. He responds well to higher authority until that authority attempts to use the law to hamper his ability to do good. He is trustful of organizations as long as they serve his utilitarian purpose. He will follow the law unless more good can come from breaking the law. He will never betray a family member, comrade, or friend. Neutral good characters are indifferent to the concepts of self-discipline and honor, finding them useful only if they promote goodness.

t h e f o u r t e m p e r a m e n t s —

Melancholic

Your temperament is melancholic. The melancholic temperament is fundamentally introverted and thoughtful. Melancholic people often were perceived as very (or overly) pondering and considerate, getting rather worried when they could not be on time for events. Melancholics can be highly creative in activities such as poetry and art - and can become preoccupied with the tragedy and cruelty in the world. Often they are perfectionists. They are self-reliant and independent; one negative part of being a melancholic is that they can get so involved in what they are doing they forget to think of others.

e x t r a s —

Hogwarts house: None, attended Durmstrang. Might have been sorted as Gryffindor.

Ilvermony house: Unknown, possibly Wampus.

Divergent faction: Dauntless

Hunger Games district: District 2

French Republican Calendar: Judas Tree

#( » » tasks. )#( » » tasks | 025 ; identity. )#i've already done this task but i didn't have an edit so....#i got bored and made this????? anyways fun time messing around with editing

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adashofstarshine · 7 years

Text

FE: Fates Revelation Review

It’s time for another review! I’ve been stuck at home full of pain and illness for the last four days, so I spent a lot of that time playing FE: Revelation. So whilst I may have blanked a few levels, I have finished the game! I’m probably going to play it again with a male Corrin, I did Conquest with both Corrins so will likely do the same again.

So, in the style of my Conquest review, I will splitting this into Gameplay and Story. I will also be trying to come up with as many positive comments as I can negative ones. Also if I praised/complained about it in the Conquest review, and it’s remained the same, I likely won’t bother mentioning it again unless something was especially wonderful or irksome in this playthrough.

I think I will also be making some other sort of musing posts, some of which are currently half-done in my drafts.

There will be spoilers below. With that in mind onto:

Gameplay

Positives

I enjoyed the game. I think I should probably state that first. I enjoyed playing the game, when playing Conquest I admit I realised how much I missed playing FE games. It’s harder to pick it apart when you’re actually playing it, which helps.

I liked the endgame. It wasn’t the most difficult FE final boss. (That award still goes to Ashera.) However the three stages to the fight (the third I didn’t expect) and the danger of the very high level reinforcements were a good challenge. There was a lot of desperate healing up of units on the first two stages. On the third Leo just tanked it. He and Cactus took apart from the eye orb together.

Anankos’ design. I’ve never seen a dragon that looks like that before, well mostly the whole orb, eyes, mouth situation he’s got going there. A good mix of draconic and eldritch. It did lead me to some questions as to whether Anankos is actually a dragon. We know he can control the dead so maybe he’s that orb, and the dragon is a reanimated husk he lives in? Maybe he’s a demon of some kind that wanted to be a god? Nice ideas, but ultimately pointless.

Continued good level design. I said this before but I think this might be the game’s greatest strength. I was sad the opera house got destroyed but I liked the warpy and shifting platform levels in Valla. Also the lift level with Hoshido Dad.

Accessories. I didn’t bother with them before but with the sheer amount of stuff collected in this playthrough I amused myself but giving people silly hats. Sakura got a regal feather. Leo ended up with a nice bow on his head. I think Oboro got a mask when I got her and never took it off.

Negatives

Needs more Master Seals. I complained about the lack of auto-promotion last time but it was a bigger problem in Revelation with a bigger army. Everyone was getting used in paralogues and challenges for the sake of producing children, so a lot more people were promoting. There just weren’t the master seals or the money available.

Kitting out an Army, I didn’t have the money to kit out that many people. I actually used the extra eshop funds left over from getting the game to get the Ghostly Gold DLC

I do not need to see Cactus’ knickers. I actually only noticed how bad it was until the final cutscene with Azura when I realised she was showing a lot from behind. I could ramble on about the ladies outfits for days but I’m sure someone else has already done that.

Omega Yato looked awful. Fiery chainsaw blade? You might as well have made it the Flaming Raging Poisonous Sword of Doom. Also why is it called the Omega Yato when we’ve been told it’s called the Fire Emblem.

Beach Brawl is hard. Not an overall flaw with the game but I’m trying to get Leo to sit on a beach and I can’t do it.

Story

Positives

Forrest and Midori. (And Kana if I had bothered) I like those three children. I can’t remember the others very well.

Hoshido and Nohr sibling interactions. My favourite supports in this game are between siblings and some of the Nohr-Hoshido royalty reactions too. Expect some on my list of best supports.

I came for the Nohr siblings, I stayed for the Nohr siblings. And there was more of them. That’s a positive. The cutscene where Garon is maniacally laughing, Leo is concerned and Xander is sure Garon is fine was certainly memorable.

Shooting Iago with two ballistae. Subaki on one, Niles on the other, pew pew. I think Cactus finished him off though.

Bridge-jumping. I found it very funny when Xander (I think) asked what they were supposed to do now and I knew the answer was ‘jump off this bridge’.

Negatives

The revelation came too soon. The game being called Revelation I felt the Revelation itself would be something built up to (though you could call the other two entire games that.) Or there could have been multiple big revelations. The Revelation itself just didn’t feel grand enough to be worth an entire title. I mean, we knew Anankos existed already and that he was a dragon so it didn’t come from nowhere.

Corrin is boring. Out of all the characters I was the least interested in Corrin. I felt that all the siblings, especially the Nohr ones, could have had a lot of very interesting story-telling around them. However the story had to focus around Corrin who just felt generic and bland by the end. Better at the start when they were choosing their own path but once everyone agreed with them they became very generic.

Was I supposed to be able to save Scarlet? Genuine question. I think Kaze dies if you don’t A support him in Birthright but that hasn’t been a problem for me.

Too many people to care about them. This wasn’t a problem in FE10 because your giant army divided up into smaller armies so you more of, and cared more, for your individual units. Out of all the children, only Forrest actually saw a battle and the Nohr retainers who arrived too late to be useful saw none.

How did they get back from space? It probably wasn’t space but how did they get back from the boss fight place which appeared to be floating in a starry magical place.

Boring or nonsensical S supports. I’ll do a post on which supports I like most, few of them will be S supports. By nonsensical I mean the confession didn’t seem to make logical sense, and seemed very tacked on. Also there was a lot of “I can’t wait to get to know you after we marry”... Shouldn’t you do that first?

Sudden ultimate Yato. I thought Corrin would get an upgraded Yato each time they bonded with a special-weapon wielding sibling but no, it happened all at once in a way that felt a bit cheap.

Undervalued Princesses. Not only did they not get special weapons but I feel Camilla and Hinoka got very hard done by. Especially Hinoka who I thought was quite cool but she didn’t do much of anything.

Yeah my ability to focus has just wandered off, so if I have any more points I’ll do review number two after or during playthrough number two. Cactus’ spiritual successor needs an equally ridiculous name. Suggestions welcome. Or feel free to comment on what I’ve said, I like chatting about these things! (May be slow with replies because I’m ill but I’ve very enthusiastic regardless.)

#Dash plays FE:Revelation

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wallythayer · 6 years

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Essential Oils: What You Need to Know

If there’s a “cool kid” in the social-media wellness world, it’s essential oils. In recent years, these plant-derived extracts have been celebrated on Pinterest boards and Instagram feeds for their ability to do just about everything, be it elevating mood, lowering anxiety, easing heartburn, or cleaning grimy floors.

Indeed, essential oils can play a powerful role in promoting wellness. And research suggests that they have some hard-hitting pharmacological functions. But the online fervor raised by enthusiastic advertising campaigns and multilevel marketing strategies has made it more challenging to decipher when essential oils make a great choice for enhanced health and wellness — and when another treatment might make more sense.

Using oils safely and effectively requires basic knowledge about what they are, how they work, and how they can be safely incorporated into daily life. That’s because essential oils can be powerful medicine — and irresponsible use means risking overexposure, toxicity, and allergic reactions. Here’s what you need to know to enjoy the benefits of aromatherapy while sidestepping potential dangers.

How Essential Oils Work

As active botanical compounds that give certain plants their signature aroma, essential oils are substances “that we respond to biologically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually,” writes certified aromatherapist and licensed massage therapist Cher Kaufmann in Nature’s Essential Oils: Aromatic Alchemy for Well-Being. “Essential oils have the power to change our relationship with our environment and ourselves,” Kaufmann explains.

How exactly do essential oils support psychological well-being? It’s likely via your olfactory senses. “We know that smell is connected to the limbic system, which is an area in the brain that deals with emotions and memories,” says Sarah Villafranco, MD, an emergency-medicine doctor originally from Washington, D.C., who left medicine to create the essential-oil-based skincare line Osmia Organics in Carbondale, Colo.

This is the neurological theory behind aromatherapy: Because your sense of smell is so uniquely connected to emotion and memory, aromas have the power to transport you back to a particular moment — and feeling — in time. It’s why the scent of homemade chocolate-chip cookies can make you feel like you’re 8 years old again, licking the wooden spoon in your grandmother’s kitchen.

Or, as Kaufmann sums it up in her book: “Smelling things you like will reduce stress.”

Then there is the pharmacological potential of essential oils. Tea-tree oil, for example, can be used topically to combat the fungus behind athlete’s foot. Other oils have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties, and a meta-analysis of 16 studies found that peppermint oil — rather than commonly prescribed pharmaceutical drugs — might be “the drug of first choice” in patients with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). Peppermint oil is believed to work by reducing muscle contractions in the GI tract, which is similar to how IBS pharmaceuticals work to reduce symptoms. A 2010 data review found that lavender-oil capsules taken orally can be as effective as lorazepam (Ativan) in reducing symptoms of anxiety. Essential oils are also being used as low-risk pesticides in some agricultural practices.

But what really excites experts is essential oils’ potential role in combating the antibiotic-resistance epidemic. Experimental research suggests that essential oils may have the power not just to kill otherwise resistant bugs, but to actually reverse resistance to conventional antibiotics. Most of the researchers haven’t delved into the question of howessential oils might reverse resistance, but they have some theories. One is that when essential oils are used in combination with conventional antibiotics, the duo has a synergistic effect that enhances antimicrobial activity. Some suspect that essential oils, either alone or together with conventional antibiotics, may work by a different mechanism all together. Whatever the case, the early research is considered promising and experts are calling for more work to be done in the field.

Essential-Oil Safety

An essential oil’s power to kill germs is a result of its intrinsic toxic potential. “Toxicity in essential oils is an attribute we welcome when we want them to kill viruses, bacteria, fungi, or lice,” writes Robert Tisserand, an aromatherapy educator, and Rodney Young, PhD, a lecturer in plant chemistry and pharmacology at the University of East London in the United Kingdom. “And human cells share some characteristics with these very small organisms.” In other words, essential oils have the power to destroy other organisms, whether they are dangerous pathogens or delicate human skin. The oils don’t discriminate.

So when it comes to essential-oil use, knowledge is key. “Essential oils are complex chemical components that we can use to our benefit, provided we are using proper caution and we know a little bit about what we are doing,” says Kaufmann.

In general, essential-oil use is considered very safe. There hasn’t been a single reported case of poisoning from ingesting one (when administered by a practitioner). But with all the social-media buzz around essential oils, more people are adopting a DIY approach — and practitioners see their share of overexposure, toxicity, and allergic reactions.

“We’re seeing more reports of injuries because more people are using essential oils. Poison centers are reporting an increase in ingestion,” says Carol Scheidel, RN, BSN, CCAP, and CEO of R.J. Buckle Associates, a leading provider of courses in clinical aromatherapy to licensed health professionals in the United States.

Scheidel opposes any internal ingestion without the guidance of a trained aromatic-medicine aromatherapist. That’s because oil and water don’t mix, so adding essential oils to water-based liquid doesn’t dilute them. It simply allows them to come into contact with sensitive internal tissue at their full, undiluted strength. “Adding essential oils to drinking water can be dangerous. Your esophagus is made of very delicate tissue, and essential oils can damage it.”

Essential oils also trigger different responses in different people. A scent that relaxes one person might trigger a migraine in another, which is one reason that following suggestions you read online can backfire. “I don’t recommend using social media to get your recipe,” says Kaufmann. “One scent in that blend might not be a match for you, and it can create more harm than good.”

A similar problem can happen in children, says Amy Kreydin, board-certified reflexologist and certified clinical aromatherapy practitioner in Austin, Texas. Kreydin points out that young children are thought to have overlapping sensory reactions to smells. An adult who is exposed to lavender might feel a sense of calm — and that’s it — but a child might experience a cacophony of overwhelming sensations in response to the same scent, including sounds and swirling colors.

“Someone might think, ‘This lavender will really help calm down my 10-year-old at night,’ but what they’ve really just done is bring the marching band into the room.”

Most overexposure injuries also happen with children, for whom a lower dose can trigger an adverse reaction. Overexposure taxes the liver, which processes all the volatile oils we come in contact with. “The liver doesn’t mature until the teen years,” Kreydin explains. “So you cannot give an adult dose to a child and expect that they can metabolize it in the way an adult could.”

But overexposure can be a problem for adults, too. The olfactory systems get fatigued after about 30 minutes, so we stop smelling even the most obvious aromas around us — risking overexposure and eventually sensitization — the term aromatherapists use to describe essential-oil intolerance.

“In the case of sensitization, the kidneys and liver cannot metabolize that oil anymore,” says Kaufmann. “Before I learned about essential oils . . . I wore this one oil all the time. Now I have this spot on my wrist that will break out even if I just smell it!”

How to Use Essential Oils

To safely incorporate essential oils into your daily life, consider these top tips from the experts:

Dilute, dilute, dilute. Never put undiluted essential oils on your skin. This can set you up for sensitization and allergic reactions. Essential oils should always be diluted with a carrier oil — not with water or a different non-oil-based liquid, because the two won’t mix. When mixing with a carrier oil, opt for jojoba or fractionated coconut oil because of their long shelf life. Avoid sweet-almond oil for long-term use, advises Scheidel, because it goes rancid quickly.

Don’t confuse “more” with “better.” Marketers and lay practitioners often make the case that essential oils are safe because they come from nature. But these compounds are highly concentrated extracts that are far more active (and potentially dangerous) than in their as-it-exists-in-nature counterparts. When using essential oils, says Scheidel, dosage is critical.

It pays to invest. Quality matters, and in the case of essential oils, price almost always reflects quality. “It takes 10,000 pounds of actual rose-petal blossoms to make one pound of rose essential oil,” says Villafranco. That’s expensive from a labor and raw-materials standpoint, and it’s a big incentive for unethical producers who hope to lure in customers with lower price points. “Some producers assume the average consumer won’t know if an oil has been diluted with olive oil or cut with something else,” she continues.

Test your oil’s purity. Paying more helps safeguard against purchasing an oil that’s been cut with cheaper ingredients, but you can also test the quality of an essential oil by placing a drop on a piece of white computer paper, says Villafranco. “If there is a grease stain on the paper after 24 hours, the oil has been cut with a carrier oil. If it is pure, it will evaporate. You might see the faintest ring, but nothing more.”

Don’t buy “absolutes.” If you see “absolute” on a label, it means that it is a petroleum-based byproduct of the essential-oil extraction process. You don’t want this on your skin, says Scheidel.

Choose organic — and look for third-party certification. Organic oils won’t expose you to the pesticides and herbicides used in the conventional growing process. If you still have concerns about the quality of an oil, look for independent lab assessments of the oils as noted on the label. Third parties certify that a specific oil contains the chemical constituents it says it does.

Ignore “grade” scales. If you see the terms “clinical grade” or “medical grade” on labels, it’s easy to think you are getting the highest-quality product. But these are just marketing terms — they’re unregulated, and they don’t have any meaning when it comes to quality assessment.

Pick the right tools. Look for diffusers that are made specifically for essential oils. They are designed to break up the particles in a way that makes the vaporized oils easier for the body to process, says Scheidel. Never diffuse oils in products made of plastic or Styrofoam, which can release plastic particles into the air.

Diffuse smartly. If you want to add essential oils to a humidifier, don’t put drops directly in the water — the oils will break down the internal plastic parts of the humidifier and begin to send vaporized plastic into the air. Instead, put a drop or two on an organic cotton ball and put that cotton ball into the vapor outlet, says Scheidel. And don’t diffuse continuously for more than 30 minutes, adds Kreydin, because you risk overexposure.

Don’t diffuse at work or in schools. Everyone responds to essential oils differently — and children are especially susceptible to the effects. Also, some essential oils are contraindicated with certain medications, causing adverse reactions or preventing the medicine from doing its intended job.

Give pets a chance to get some fresh air. Essential oils can be hard for pets to process. If using a diffuser, always make sure pets can leave the room if they need some fresh air. Pay special attention to cats, who have a particularly hard time processing essential oils. All oils can be hard for cats to process (thanks to a missing liver enzyme that helps metabolize certain types of compounds), but they are specifically sensitive to sweet-birch oil, peppermint oil, cinnamon oil, clove oil, pennyroyal oil, eucalyptus oil, tea-tree oil, and pine and citrus oils.

Don’t use oils that have gone bad. How can you tell? Smell it. “Does it smell like what you anticipated?” says Scheidel. If not, toss it. The oils that go bad the quickest are bergamot, lemon, lime, and sweet orange. Resinous oils — like frankincense, Douglas fir, cedarwood, pine, and the balsams — tend to last longer.

Pay attention to lavender varieties. Lavender is almost always marketed for its relaxing powers — but there are many different varieties of lavender, and not all of them are ideal for bedtime. Certain types, such as spike lavender, are actually stimulating.

Don’t use single oils. As much as possible, create oil blends for personal use rather than using single oils. This helps inoculate against entrainment, when the brain associates a particular smell with a particular time in life. If you diffuse rosemary all the time during a period of illness or grieving, you may not be able to smell it again in the future without being reminded of those times.

Rotate your oils. Give your body a break from specific scents or blends by rotating the oils you use every two to four weeks, says Kaufmann. This helps prevent overexposure and sensitization.

Don’t use essential oils for everything. When another intervention is appropriate, try that first. “If you have a dehydration headache, no essential oils will help you,” Kreydin explains. “You need to drink some water.”

Choose well-researched oils and blends. “If you are going to work with essential oils on your body (diluted in a carrier oil), choose an oil that has been studied extensively, whether for its analgesic, antibacterial, or calming properties,” says Villafranco.

Don’t ingest essential oils without the guidance of a certified practitioner. Ingested oils can do significant harm, so always consult a practitioner who is certified in medical aromatherapy before taking an oil internally. Even adding a drop or two of an essential oil to a glass of water can be dangerous. Oil and water don’t mix, so your esophagus and stomach lining will be exposed to the undiluted oils in the water.

Be careful in the sun. Some essential oils, particularly the citruses, dramatically increase the risk of sunburn, or phytophotodermatitis. So don’t wear these oils when you’re out in the sun, and be cautious on your next tropical vacation — even drinking a margarita rimmed with lime juice can lead to sunburned lips.

Remember that responses are different for different people. A scent that relaxes you and puts you straight to sleep might make another person agitated or restless. This is another reason to treat recipes you find online with caution, and to think small when using essential oils. When in a classroom, meeting room, or other group space like a group fitness class or gym, use a personal inhaler that only you can smell. And resist the urge to turn on your diffuser for your next dinner party; you may unknowingly give half your guests a headache.

Don’t believe everything you read online.“Keep in mind that many Facebook pages and other social media are run by product representatives, which makes them a biased place for safety information and learning,” Kaufmann advises.

Get the full story at https://experiencelife.com/article/essential-oils-what-you-need-to-know/

#brain

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itesfashion · 6 years

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How come Complete You will Apparent Powerful Verdict?

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Plot Dissertation Decision Illustrations

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“College student Fiscal loans Wall membrane St Sign” by Funding Zen, Flickr.com (CC BY 2.0)

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dalecmainviscom · 6 years

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‘For the Love of Birds’ TED talk Transcript

Washington Wachira at TEDGlobal 2017

With me here today I brought something beautiful. This is a feather from one of the most beautiful birds we have in Kenya, the crested guinea fowl. But this feather is more than just that. If you've taken time when you are outdoors to look at the feathers around you, you'll have noticed that there is this huge variety of different sizes, shapes and even colors. The feather is one of the most astonishing pieces of technology invented by the natural world, and for centuries, this feather has helped birds to keep dry, to keep warm and even power flight.Only one section of the tree of life can actually make a feather. Among all the world's animals,birds are the only ones who can make something like what I'm holding today. I personally have given them a nickname, and I like to call them the feathermakers. It is the major difference between birds and any other animals we have on earth, and if you can't make a feather, you cannot call yourself a bird.

For us humans, who are earthbound, birds represent freedom. This feather has enabled birds to conquer gravity and take to the air in an extraordinary way. Don't you sometimes wish you could fly like a bird?

Birds are my passion, and I want to change the way each one of you thinks about them. The easiest reason I love them so much is because they are beautiful. There are 10,000 species in the world, and each one of them is uniquely beautiful. Birds are amazing, and this talk is dedicated to all the birds of the world.

Indeed, these birds have been part of our lives and cultures all over the world for centuries,and every society has a story about birds. You probably have heard childhood stories of different birds and how they relate with man. I personally recently learned that our human ancestors would follow flocks of vultures and then they would help them to identify where carcasses have been dropped by large carnivores, and these humans will scavenge and eat part of that meat. Birds have been used as brands and labels all over the world. You know the bald eagle? It was chosen as the national emblem for the US because of its majestic strength,beautiful looks and even a long lifespan. And just like us humans who have managed to live in virtually all habitats of this earth, birds have also conquered the world. From birds such as these beautiful penguins that live in the cold ice caps to even others like the larks, who live in the hottest deserts you can imagine. Indeed, these species have conquered this world.

Birds also build houses like us. The real pros in housebuilding are a group of birds we call the weaverbirds, and this name they were given because of the way in which they weave their nests.

An interesting one: birds also love and date just like us humans. In fact, you'll be surprised to know that males dress to impress the women, and I'll show you how. So here we have a long-tailed widowbird, and this is how they would normally look. But when it comes to the breeding season, everything changes, and this is how he looks.

Yeah? Birds also, multiple species of them, do love to touch and cuddle just like humans. And I know you're wondering about this one. Yes, they kiss too, sometimes very deeply.Some have even learned to cheat on their spouses.

For example, the African jacana: the females will mate with multiple males and then she takes off to find other males to mate with and she leaves the male behind to take care of the chicks.

And birds help us so much, and they play very crucial roles in our ecosystems each day.Vultures clean up our environment by literally digesting disease-causing pathogens, and they finish carcasses that would otherwise cost us lots of money to clear from the environment. A sizable flock of vultures is capable of bringing down a carcass the size of a zebra straight to the bone within just about 30 minutes. Owls help to rid the environments of rodents and this helps us a lot because it saves us money -- we don't lose our crops -- and secondly, we don't have to buy harmful chemicals to handle these rodents. The beautiful sunbirds we see in our environments are part of nature's pollination crew, and they help our plants to form fruits.Together with other pollinators like insects, they have actually helped us to get most of the food crops that we depend on for many years.

Unfortunately, the story of birds is by far not perfect. They are faced by numerous challenges every day wherever they live. Top on the threats facing birds is habitat loss and reduced food availability. Birds are also hunted, especially migratory species and ducks that congregate in water bodies. Poisoning is happening to flocks that like to stick together, especially in places like rice schemes. Moreover, power lines are electrocuting birds and wind farms are slicing birds when they fly through the blades. Recently, we've heard the talk of climate changemaking a lot of headlines, and it's also affecting birds, because birds are being forced to migrate to better breeding and feeding grounds because unfortunately where they used to liveis no longer habitable.

My own perspective towards birds was changed when I was a small boy in high school, and there was this boy who struck, injuring the wing and the leg of a bird we called the augur buzzard. I was standing there, just a mere 14-year-old, and I imagined a human being in a similar situation, because this bird could not help itself. So even if I was hardly any biologist by then, I gathered with three of my friends and we decided to house the bird until it had regained strength and then let it free. Interestingly, it accepted to feed on beef from our school kitchen, and we hunted termites around the compound for its dinner every day. After a few days, it had regained strength and we released it. We were so happy to see it flap its wingsand fly off gracefully. And that experience changed the way we looked at birds. We went on to actually make a magazine, and we called it the Hawk Magazine, and this was in honor of this bird that we had helped within our own high school.

Those experiences in high school made me the conservationist I am today. And a passion for birds should especially matter for Africa and all Africans, because among all other continents,Africa hosts some of the most amazing bird species you can find anywhere in the world.Imagine having a name like "shoebill." That's the name of that bird. And there are countries like DR Congo, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya who are leading the continent in highest numbers of diversity when it comes to the species. These birds continue to provide the continent with very crucial ecosystem services that Africa needs. Moreover, there is huge potential for Africa to lead the world in avian tourism. The economy will definitely benefit.Imagine how many communities will benefit from groups of tourists visiting their villages just to see the endemic birds that can only be found in those villages.

How can we help birds together? There is now a chance for all of you to turn your passion for birds into contributing to their continued survival, and you can do that by becoming a citizen scientist. Citizen science is a growing trend around the world, and we are having scenarios where people are sharing information with the rest of the community about traffic updates,security alerts and so on. That is exactly what we realized as bird-watchers, and we thought, because birds are found everywhere, if we've got all of you and everyone else in Africa to tell us the birds they find where they live, where they school, or even where they work, then we can be able to come up with a map of every single species, and from there scientists will be able to actually prioritize conservation efforts to those habitats that matter the most.

Take for example these two projects, the Africa Raptor DataBank, which is mapping all birds of prey in the continent of Africa, and the Kenya Bird Map, which is mapping about 1,100 species that occur in my country, Kenya. These two projects now have online databases that are allowing people to submit data, and this is converted into very interactive websites that the public can consume and make decisions from.

But when we started, there was a big challenge. We received many complaints from bird-watchers, and they will say, "I'm in a village, and I cannot access a computer. How do I tell you what birds live in my home, or where I school, or where I work?" So we were forced to renovate our strategy and come up with a sustainable solution. It was easy: we immediately realized that mobile phones were becoming increasingly common in Africa and most of the regions could get access to one. So we came up with mobile phone applications that you can use on your iPhone and on your Android phone, and we made them freely available for every bird-watching enthusiast out there. So we came up with BirdLasser, which is used by the Kenya Bird Map, and also we have the African Raptor Observations, which is now used by the African Raptor DataBank. This was a huge breakthrough in our work and it made us get enormous amounts of data from every birder out there in the regions. With this, we realized that citizen science is indeed very powerful, the reason being, citizen science is adaptive. And we were able to actually convert many bird-watchers to start sharing new information with us.

When we were starting, we didn't know that birds could be a huge gateway to approaching conservation of other forms of animals. Interestingly, now in the Virtual Museum for Africa, we have maps for dragonflies and damselflies, butterflies and moths, reptiles, frogs, orchids, spiders, scorpions, and yes, we are even mapping mushrooms. Who could have imagined mapping mushrooms? So this showed us that indeed we've created a community of people who care about nature in Africa.

I hereby call upon all of you to join me in promoting the value of birds within your communities. Please just tell your friends about birds, for we are always inclined to love and care for that which we know. Please spend a few minutes in your free time when you are at work, at school, or maybe at home, to at least look around you and see which beautiful birds are there. Come join us in citizen science and tell us the birds you're finding in the places where you visit. Even simpler, you could buy your child or your sibling a pair of binoculars or a bird book and let them just appreciate how beautiful these birds are. Because maybe one day they will want to care for that one which they know and love.

The children indeed are our future. Let us please teach them to love our feathermakers, because the love of birds can be a huge gateway to appreciating all forms of nature.

reference: https://www.ted.com/talks/washington_wachira_for_the_love_of_birds/transcript

#tedtalkresearch #tedtalkeditorial

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Sexualization

Masters of Porn: The Systematic Promotion of Sexual Deviance

June 6, 2012 —

373 Comments

Dr. Lasha Darkmoon

Alfred Kinsey, Time Magazine cover, 1953: “The only unnatural act is that which you cannot perform.”

It comes as a big shock to learn that two of the fathers of the Sexual Revolution were both sexual perverts with an evangelical mission in life: to infect society with their wacky ideas and turn the world into a vast masturbatorium.

I refer to the 2oth century’s premier sex researcher Alfred Kinsey (1894-1956) and his notorious contemporary, cult psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957).

Steeped in the dangerous claptrap of the fraudulent Freud—see here and here—both Kinsey and Reich enthusiastically embraced the laissez-faire Freudian philosophy: “I advocate an incomparably freer sexual life”. Like their Viennese mentor, they would have been only too pleased to add, “If only Americans knew—we are bringing them the plague!”

According to Freud and his followers, anti-Semitism was a universal pathology which had its roots in sexual repression. Its cure lay in “sexual liberation”. The theory, in its crudest and simplest form, amounted to this: instead of picking on the Jews, why not just chill out and have sex?

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The underlying assumption here is that sex is the great liberator and that all political and economic frustrations can be alleviated by sexual activity—particularly by obsessive and addictive sex. People who spend all their waking hours in search of sexual stimulation are obviously unfit to organize pogroms, mount bloody revolutions, or become a threat to the rich and powerful.

This, in a nutshell, was the philosophy of Wilhelm Reich, high priest of the “masturbation industry”, to borrow a phrase from E. Michael Jones’s magisterial work Libido Dominandi, where Kinsey and Reich are both discussed in great detail.

Sex, according to the philosophers of the Sexual Revolution inspired by Reich, is to be the panacea for all society’s problems: the new opium of the people. If people cannot have bread, let them eat cake. If they cannot have jobs, security, fulfillment, and a valid purpose in life, let them have sex as a substitute. If nothing else, recreational sex will provide a useful distraction and give people something to do.

The Case Against Reich

A compulsive masturbator himself, Reich believed that masturbation was a useful tool in producing “well-balanced” individuals without religious hang-ups or anti-Semitic attitudes. His major finding (hereand here) was that masturbation and the religious life were incompatible, which is why he advocated masturbation as the most effective means of eradicating the religious instinct—which he regarded as the ultimate evil. “What Reich discovered was a fundamental truth of sexual politics, one discovered by the Catholic Church long ago, “Dr E. Michael Jones comments. “Either masturbation destroys your prayer life, or prayer destroys your ability to enjoy masturbation. The two forms of activity are psychically mutually exclusive.” (See here, p. 259) Like many other psychoanalysts, Reich is known to have masturbated his female patients in therapeutic sessions. “The pleasure of living and the pleasure of orgasm are identical,” he pontificated, thereby equating infinite happiness with the provision of an infinite number of orgasms.

Reich was, by his own account, not only a compulsive masturbator from early childhood but a self-confessed pervert with wide-ranging sexual interests. Beginning sexual activity at the early age of four with a maidservant whose pubic hair he was allowed to play with, he went on to seduce the family cook at eleven-and-a-half. While still a small boy, he had begun to take an unhealthy interest in farm animals and could be seen prowling around the stables where he “stimulated mares by inserting whip handles in their vaginas.” At 15 he began visiting brothels where his insatiable appetites made him the talk of the town. Here he is in his Autobiography describing his uncontrollable libido:

Was it the atmosphere, the clothing, the red lights, the provocative nakedness, the smell of whores—I don’t know! I was pure sensual lust. I ceased to be. I was all penis! I bit, scratched, thrust, and the girl had quite a time with me! I thought I would have to crawl inside her…

Nursing an incestuous passion for his mother, he would snoop on her having sex with the family tutor. “I need a woman,” he wrote in his journal, “who is both mother and whore.” Once he was tempted to break into his mother’s room, while she was engaged in sex with his tutor, and demand to be part of a threesome:

I heard them kissing, whispering, and the horrible creaking of the bed in which my mother lay. Ten feet away stood her own child, a witness to her disgrace…. All I remember of that catastrophic night is that I wanted to rush into the room, but was held back by the thought: they might kill you!… I crept back to bed, without hope of consolation, my youthful spirit broken! For the first time, a deep feeling of misfortune and of having been abandoned overcame me…. [I even thought of] breaking in on them and demanding that she have intercourse with me too (shame!), threatening that otherwise I would tell Father.

As it turns out, he did inform his father about his mother’s infidelities, conveniently omitting to mention his own incestuous desires for his mother. His disloyalty to her in becoming an informer, combined with the brutal ill-treatment she was to receive from her tyrannical husband Leon, finally drove his mother to suicide. She swallowed a pint of Lysol, a common domestic cleaning fluid, and died in agony. Another account fills in the bizarre background details to this family saga: “She swallowed one poison after another, while Leon continued to beat her as she died” (emphasis added).

Wilhelm Reich, her son, the famous psychoanalyst-to-be, was only 13 at the time.

This is the man who went on to become, like his equally perverted contemporary Alfred Kinsey, one of the godfathers of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s.

From the likes of Kinsey and Reich, the easily duped Americans were to receive instructions on how to conduct themselves sexually.

(For corroborative details, see Wilhelm Reich [pdf download])

As part of the neo-Freudian school of psychoanlysts, Reich received the enthusiastic support of a number of psychiatrists and writers, many of them part of the Jewish psychoanalytic sub-culture that was so important to erecting a powerful critique of Western culture, reaching its peak influence in the post-WWII era: Herbert Marcuse, Erich Fromm, Adorno, Horkheimer, Alexander Lowen, Stanley Keleman, Moshe Feldenkreis, Ida Rolf, Paul Goodman, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg, Saul Bellow, Fritz Perls and Arthur Janov (see here and here).

Jewish Porn star Richard Pacheco, who had wanted to become a rabbi at one stage and had even applied for admission to a seminary, was an ardent admirer of Reich whose books he read from cover to cover. Reich apparently influenced his final decision to become a porn star rather than a rabbi. Like his mentor, Pacheco was also an unabashed masturbator. When asked if he still watched pornographic movies now that he had retired from acting and become a senior citizen, he replied with disarming candor, “Occasionally I’ll toss one on for masturbation if my wife ain’t around.”

In 1954, at the height of the McCarthy era, Reich was imprisoned on a charge of medical fraud for trying to promote and sell “orgone boxes”. Slightly smaller than telephone boxes, these were little compartments that patients were told to sit in for short periods to soak up “cosmic rays”. These would reportedly reinvigorate them sexually, cure impotence and cancer, and act as an antidote to radiation poisoning from UFOs which (according to Reich) had secretly invaded the earth. (See here)

While interviewing Einstein, Reich told the great man in confidence that most people considered him (Reich) mad. Einstein replied dryly, “I can believe that.”

The Case against Kinsey

It comes as no surprise to learn that Kinsey, like Reich, was also an avid consumer of pornography, even going so far as to photograph his own penison several occasions and getting his wife to act in home-made porn movies. His favorite boast was that his Institute’s collection of pornography was the second largest in the world, the largest being housed at the Vatican. A malicious lie, it turned out, since it was easy enough to prove that the Vatican was entirely porn free. (See “The Case Against Kinsey”, here)

It has to be emphasized that Alfred Kinsey, though born and brought up as a Christian, was not only an atheist with a lifelong hatred of Christianity in general and the Catholic church in particular, but was also a Zionist and Shabbat goy who owed his spectacular success entirely to organized Jewry. His fraudulent research, designed to make deviancy appear to be the norm, was generously funded by the Rockefeller Foundation and other Jewish-dominated organizations. (pp. 340–341). “By the time it cut him off in 1954,” E. Michael Jones tells us, “the Rockefeller Foundation had poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the coffers of the Kinsey Institute.”

The only reason they decided to stop the funding is that by this time the Institute, anxious to retain its squeaky clean image, could no longer take the risk of being associated with Kinsey. His shady criminal activities with a predatory homosexual pedophile, a pervert who had molested and tortured 800 children, suddenly made Kinsey persona non grata (see E. Michael Jones, Libido Dominandi, pp. 327–337).

A sexual pervert of the kinkiest kind, Kinsey once inserted a toothbrush into his urethra and had himself filmed, subsequently adding this gem to his porn collection. Himself a homosexual with an avid interest in little boys, he would make a point of measuring the penis, both recumbent and erect, of every male he interviewed while conducting his “research”. Why? One can only guess.

A year before he died, Kinsey sliced off the foreskin of his penis with a pocket knife—a crude attempt at self-circumcision. No one has been able to figure out why he did this. Kinsey’s death, however, has been ascribed to his sexual proclivities.

Dr. Judith Reisman writes:

An early adherent and advocate of masturbation, Kinsey suffered an untimely death due, at least in part, to ‘orchitis,’ a lethal infection in his testicles that followed years of orgiastic self-abuse.

The New York Times, owned by the Sulzberger family and known to be America’s foremost organ of left/liberal propaganda, did its best (like the Rockefeller Foundation) to promote Kinsey and turn his name into a household word. Indeed, it comes as no surprise to learn that Arthur Hays Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, was actually on the board of trustees for the Rockefeller Foundation all during the time it was approving money for Kinsey’s dubious experiments (see here, p. 340).

Kinsey’s most vocal critic and nemesis, Dr. Judith Reisman, has this to say about the Kinsey-Rockefeller connection:

The Rockefeller Foundation was the major funding source for Kinsey, even though it had ample, repeated warning from noted statisticians and social scientists that Kinsey’s pseudo-science was a hoax….

Kinsey is second only to Darwin in the secular pantheon, and a lot of people recognize that exposing Kinsey’s lies is a major assault on the Sexual Revolution and a threat to the sexual license they enjoy….

Kinsey claimed to have proven, based upon the deviant samples used in his research, that 95 percent of American men engaged in deviant sex and thus were sex offenders….

Kinsey believed that all sex was legitimate—pedophilia, bestiality, incest, adultery, prostitution, group sex, transvestitism, sadomasochism—and he worked to overthrow all laws prohibiting any of these perversions. (See here)

Kinsey went out of his way to interview the dregs of society, frequenting slums, gay bars, brothels and prisons. From these interviews he formed sweeping generalizations about the sexual habits of society in general. His methodology, you could say, was outrageous. In Gary, Indiana, for example, he collected 71 case histories, all of them based on interviews with Black female prostitutes. Taking note of what these women told him, Kinsey was apparently happy to conclude that the average White American housewife was a cat in heat—sexually adventurous in the extreme! American psychologist Abraham Maslow put it mildly when he said, “The whole basis for Kinsey’s statistics was proven to be shaky.” (See here, p. 322 and p. 324)

Dr E. Michael Jones is as convinced as Dr Judith Reisman that Kinsey was far more than just an impudent fraud, he was in fact a criminal: a blackmailer (p. 330 ff), a perverted pornographer, and a pedophile who masturbated little children as part of his so-called “research”.

One four-year-old was “specifically manipulated” for twenty-four hours around the clock. This child achieved twenty-six orgasms in this time period. Another eleven-month-old infant had fourteen “orgasms”, according to the Kinseyan definition, in a period of thirty-eight minutes, or one orgasm every 2.7 minutes. (E. Michael Jones, Degenerate Moderns, p. 106)

It cannot be stressed too strongly that all this criminal activity was supported by generous grants from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Kinsey Institute, still flourishing at Indiana University. Waxing eloquent with indignation, Jones’s devastating conclusion is that Americans have to all intents and purposes been led over the cliff like Gadarene swine by Kinsey and his corrupt supporters:

The Rockefeller family was not above supporting illegal activities to attain their ends. … They were willing to use psychological warfare against their fellow Americans. … Sex was part of the arsenal of psychological warfare, and the Rockefellers’ interest in supporting Professor Kinsey of Indiana University gave every indication that they were planning to use that weapon in dealing with new enemies. (p. 313) …

The Kinsey Institute was now in the pornography business and the Rockefeller Foundation was footing the bill . … the Rockefellers were [now] funding the filming of the molestation of children. (p. 336) …

The Rockefellers were interested in social engineering through the manipulation of sexuality, and the Kinsey Report was the vehicle which would make that possible in the near future, with the collaboration of a supine mass media culture. (p. 341)

If Kinsey is still a national hero today, the ultimate authority on all things sexual, we have to thank the Rockefeller Foundation for this remarkable public relations stunt.

The bizarre private lives of sex researchers who dupe millions of people into buying their books—and enthusiastically adopting their mad, bad, and dangerous ideas—simply beggars belief.

Sexual Perversion is good for you: The case of The Independent

Here is another representative of the elite intelligentsia, British prize-winning author Howard Jacobson, who happens coincidentally to be Jewish. He, too, would be proud to wear a T-shirt sporting the slogan: SEXUAL PERVERSION IS GOOD FOR YOU!

Prizewinning author Howard Jacobson puts in a good word for sexual perversion:

It is only when we explore the outer boundaries of our sexual desires that we become most fully human. We are all sick in our way….When he wasn’t looking at pornography or writing The Trial, Kafka visited brothels. I am glad for his sake and for literature’s that he did. I feel about prostitution as I do about pornography—that a man ought to avail himself of whatever is on offer…

We grow a little freer when we read De Sade’s One Thousand Days of Sodom, though we know we cannot live up to its lawlessness….We must find the space to think, and where possible to act, rebelliously, refusing all attempts to confine us to the hell of the normative…

We are strange creatures, part angels of reflection, part beasts that claw the earth. It is too cruel that an accidental species as peculiar as we are should ever have been made to think there is a right way and a wrong way of conducting ourselves sexually, as though there were some divine pattern we were framed to follow. I don’t say that giving ourselves over to the demoniacal, or just the deviant, will necessarily make us happy … but the straight and narrow has never yet made anyone anything but miserable. — Howard Jacobson, In Praise of Perversion. (Emphasis added)

According to this unabashed advocate of sexual perversion, being sexually normal is “hell”. Add spice to your life by making use of prostitutes and pornography. A man, after all, “ought to avail himself of whatever is on offer.”

Howard Jacobson is a Jewish writer who has written novels in which sexual perversion always plays a predominant part. For example, in his novel Peeping Tom he gives us voyeurism; in The Act of Love he dishes up generous dollops of fetishism. All Jacobson’s heroes, like Philip Roth’s Portnoy, are devout masturbators. Jerking off, you could say, is their substitute for religion.

Jacobson’s article advocating perversion was published in a newspaper in which he has appeared as a regular columnist for many years. The same British newspaper, the Independent, has also published for many years the articles of another Jewish writer known as Johann Hari who shows an equal aptitude for sexual perversion. In 2002 Hari wrote an infamous article for the Guardian, Forbidden Love, in which he had put in a good word for incest.

A self-confessed plagiarist, Hari received the Orwell Prize fraudulently in 2008 with the full backing of his newspaper editor who vouched for his veracity. He was forced to return the prize in 2011 when the full extent of his plagiarisms and other duplicities became apparent. For example, he had made up many stories for the Independent, including African atrocities, passing off fiction as fact. Later on, to make matters worse, this gay rights activist and mincing homosexual was to be outed as a writer of gay incest porn.

Now consider this bizarre coincidence: two Jewish writers, both vocal advocates of sexual perversion, receive major literary awards in quick succession (in 2008 and 2010), thereby giving an air of legitimacy and glamor to sexual perversion.

If you’re repelled by the idea of having gay sex with your brother, don’t upset yourself needlessly by reading Hari’s How my little brother learned to be a whore, written under the secret pen name of “David Rose”.

* * *

Now try and connect the dots here: during the many years that these two Jewish writers, Howard Jacobson and Johann Hari, both of them enthusiasts for deviant sexuality, had been regular columnists for the Independent, the editor of that newspaper was also a Jew: one Simon Kelner.

And now for the Big Surprise: the Independent is also Jewish-owned!

Here, then, is the pattern: Jewish columnists pushing sexual perversion, Jewish editor encouraging sexual perversion by publishing their articles, and Jewish newspaper tycoon presiding over the same edifice of sexual perversion by making it all possible by his ownership of the newspaper.

Who owns the Independent?

Step forward Alexander Yevgenievich Lebedev, listed in Forbes magazine in May 2008 as the 358th richest person in the world. Estimated fortune: $3.1 billion. Mr Lebedev, a Russian oligarch, ran away from Russia with billions of rubles under his belt when Vladimir Putin came to power and decided to claw back some of the ill-gotten wealth that a small number of mega rich Jews had filched from the Russian treasury.

On 25 March 2010, Lebedev bought the Independent for a nominal fee of £1, with the derisory token sum of £9.25m to be paid a few months later.

This reminds me of that other Russian oligarch, convicted crook Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who in 1995 rigged an auction in which he managed to steal Russia’s largest oil company, Yukos, reportedly worth $40 billion, for the laughably small sum of $300 million—a mere fraction of its value. (See here)

How do they do it?

The Case of Frank Kameny

Founding father of the gay rights movement in America, Jewish pornographer and perversion promoter Frank Kameny was the main force behind pressuring the American Psychiatric Association (in 1973) into reclassifying homosexual activities as “normal sex”. Hitherto regarded as a socially destructive mental disease that was curable, homosexuality was now given the green light and reclassified as a normal and healthy “alternative lifestyle”.

Here is Kameny saying nice things about sexual perversion:

If something which someone arbitrarily defines as a ‘sexual perversion’ provides happiness for consenting adult participants, then its enjoyment is enshrined in basic Americanism. So let us have more and better enjoyment of more and better sexual perversions, by whatever definition, by more and more consenting adults. We will all be the better off thereby. And that will be Americanism in action…

Having given his imprimatur to sexual perversion in general, Kameny then gives bestiality his blessings. He himself is not particularly keen on having sex with dogs, he tells us, but he sees no reason why other people shouldn’t have sex with the family pet if that’s what turns them on:

Bestiality is not my thing. But it seems to be a harmless foible or idiosyncrasy of some people. As long as the animal doesn’t mind (and the animal rarely does), I don’t mind, and I don’t see why anyone else should. (See here).

How can Kameny be so sure animals “don’t mind”? Has he asked them? No, he casually assumes they will be delighted. Had he studied the Babylonian Talmud, he might have been astonished to learn that bestiality was forbidden to a woman at all times, though it was permissible for men under certain circumstances—a clear case of double standards. “If a woman allows herself to be made the subject thereof, whether naturally or not, she is guilty. But if a man commits bestiality, he is liable only for a connection in a natural manner, but not otherwise.” (Scroll down to picture of Talmud, page 55a, here).

To clarify: For a woman, sex with an animal is wrong at all times, whether the sex is natural or unnatural. For a man, on the other hand, sex with an animal is wrong only when the sex is “natural”. It’s NOT wrong when the sex is unnatural! Figure that out for yourself. I confess I am stumped.

We’ve all heard of Jewish chutzpah, but it comes as a surprise to learn that this famous gay rights icon Kameny has the cheek to condemn God Almighty for his prudish homophobia. Wagging his finger at the God of the Bible, Kameny describes him as “a sinful homophobic bigot who needs to repent.”

Sigh. That’s the trouble with God. If he’d been less bigoted, he would have allowed Adam and Steve to have sex—and make babies.

It comes as even a greater surprise to learn that President Obama recently conferred the supreme honor on this bestiality-supporting Jewish paragon of sexual perversion by rolling out the red carpet for him at the White House, actually shaking his hand and congratulating him on the remarkable benefits he had bestowed on mankind.

At a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender (LGBT) reception held at the Oval Office in June, 2009, President Obama congratulated Frank Kameny, gay rights pioneer and promoter of sexual perversion, for his outstanding contributions to society. “We are proud of you, Frank,” he said, “and we are grateful to you for your leadership.” (See here)

Jews Dominate the American Porn Industry: The Case of Reuben Sturman

Let’s approach this subject from another angle now by asking a simple question: What group dominates the systematic promotion and dissemination of pornography in society? What group can therefore be held responsible for the mass contamination of minds that takes place on a daily basis in Hollywood movies, television shows, magazines, newspapers, and advertising?

We shall now consider this question as objectively as possible, relying only on established facts from the most reputable sources. No source could be more reputable than academic historian Dr Nathan Abrams, world authority on Jewish pornography. I have therefore relied heavily on Dr Abrams. His classic article on Jewish dominance in the porn industry, jewishquarterly.org /issuearchive/articled325.html?articleid=38 (now a hijacked site) Triple-exthnics, was published in the winter edition, 2004, of the prestigious Jewish Quarterly.

From 1890 onwards, the main peddlers of inflammatory erotica in America were immigrant Jews of German and East European origin. In the postwar era, America’s most notorious pornographer was a Jew: Reuben Sturman, known as the ‘Walt Disney of Porn’.

By the end of the 1960s, Sturman ranked at the top end of adult magazine distributors and by the mid-70s he owned over 200 adult bookstores, including updated versions of the traditional peepshow booth.

This involved a hole in the partition wall of the booth, through which a pervert would thrust his erect penis, allowing an anonymous individual on the other side of the partition to fellate him discreetly without being seen. The hole in the wall, for some reason, is called a “glory hole”. And its inventor was almost certainly a degenerate Jew associated with Sturman and his sleaze factory.

Convicted of tax evasion and other crimes, Sturman was to die in prison in 1997, surrounded by a stack of his own pornographic magazines. His son David continued the family tradition of constructing “glory holes” across America for the delectation of millions.

If I focus here on the sordid aspects of the peephole, it is not out of prurience but because I wish to draw attention to the fact that Jewish-dominated Hollywood during the next few years has thought it perfectly legitimate to introduce the glory hole into the average American home, which includes children, as a normal and healthy ingredient of family entertainment.

The same people who try so hard to squeeze tears out of the eyes of the public with Holocaust movies such as Schindler’s List, are also, it seems, doing their best to contaminate the minds of the public with movies like Sex Drive, Serial Mom, Jackass Number Two, and other such excursions into the sleazy world of lavatorial lust.

Family entertainment has now been reduced to nasty and scurrilous scenarios such as this: lurkers hanging around urinals hunting for sex, heavy breathers in cubicles with their pants round their ankles, lesbians thrusting their breasts through portholes cut in female washroom walls, female voyeurs invading male washrooms and looking through a peephole only to have their eyes injured by a rampant penis rearing up at the other side, deadly snakes sinking their fangs into tumescent organs thrust though same peephole—and other such abominations too depressing to mention. (See list here.)

It’s worth noting that all this gross indecency continued unchecked without the American government lifting a finger to intervene. There was no attempt to rein in the smut merchants or restrain them from defecating on the cherished values of Christian America. It’s almost as if the ruling classes wanted to see their “huddled masses” turn into salivating perverts.

The reason for this laissez-faire attitude to the systematic demoralization of Christian America is not hard to identify. It clearly lay in the fact that America’s former elite, the WASPs, had already capitulated to the rising Jewish elite. They had been debased and corrupted themselves by the polluted mental atmosphere in which they lived, a psychosphere created by the philosemitic media and Hollywood. One could hardly expect these victims of moral decay to clean out the Augean stables of America, given that they were themselves accustomed to wallow in the same filth and feculence. When the Good Shepherds are up the creek without a paddle, what hope for the good sheeple?

The link between pornography and sex crime

According to Rabbi Samuel Dresner, an orthodox Jew (born 1923 in Chicago), the rootless Jews who ran Hollywood and were behind the lucrative porn industry were all “despoilers of morality and corrupters of culture.” Indeed, Jewish history for Rabbi Dresner was “one long battle against sexual deviancy.” (See when site is repaired jewishquarterly.org /issuearchive/articled325.html?articleid=38 [now a hijacked site] and here)

Ted Bundy, Serial Killer: In an interview with his prison psychologist, James C. Dobson, Bundy confessed to the murder of over a hundred young women. Agonizing over his life-long addiction to pornography, he revealed how it had fueled his compulsive behavior. “I’ve lived in prison for a long time now,” the serial killer confided, “and I’ve met a lot of men who were motivated to commit violence. Without exception, every one of them was deeply involved in pornography—deeply consumed by his addiction.” (See here). Homosexual serial killer Gary Bishop was equally candid in revealing that porn had turned him into a sex killer. “Pornography was a determining factor in my downfall,” he admitted.

Perhaps the most chilling and persuasive porn-made-me-into-a-sex-killer story is that of Thomas Schiro of Evansville, Indiana, whose obsession with pornography from the age of six onward—accompanied by compulsive masturbation 10-12 times a day—led him into a spree of sex crimes in the 1970s and early 80s. “The one thing that remained constant in Schiro’s slide toward the ultimate violation was his constant use of pornography,” Dr E. Michael Jones reports. “It was the gas that fueled his obsession.” (Libido Dominandi, p. 569).

“Exposure to erotica has no impact on moral character….. The increased availability of explicit sexual materials has been accompanied by a decrease in the incidence of sexual crime…. There is no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior.” (The Lockhart Commission Report on Pornography. Quoted here, p. 558)

In an ideal world, there would be no need or place for pornography. Porn is a toxic product of dystopia. Any government that permits it is under the dominion of evil.

Dr Lasha Darkmoon (email her) is an academic with higher degrees in Classics. She is also a poet and translator. Her articles can be read here, her poetry here.

http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2012/06/06/portraits-of-masters-of-porn-the-systematic-promotion-of-recreational-sex-sexual-callousness-and-sexual-deviancy/

Aug 21st, 2017 8:34:40pm

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safari-west-rec-blog · 7 years

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Conservation Corner

In Your Own Backyard

By: Brian Eberly

Conservation is a critical part of what we do at Safari West. As a tour guide, I talk a lot (probably too much) about conservation. I am also very aware of the massive scope of wildlife conservation and how it can either be too big or too sad for most people to remember, let alone incorporate into their day-to-day lives. Realistically, we can’t all quit our jobs and move to Africa to defend elephants from poachers. So while it is really important for the general public to be aware of the plight of our iconic (and not so iconic) African species, we wanted to highlight today several projects or movements that one might be able to fold into one’s lifestyle which will have a direct impact on wildlife conservation and do not require uprooting to Mozambique.

Clean Oceans

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has an entire program dedicated to reducing the amount of trash that ends up in the oceans. While I could fill this post describing why trash-in-the-ocean is a bad thing (degrading habitats, killing sea-life, and introducing non-native species), I think it more constructive to focus here on small lifestyle changes that help keep these waters clean. The above links offer a comprehensive outline of ocean pollution.

NOAA reports that the largest category of land-based ocean pollution is food and beverage containers. To curtail this problem they have partnered with Clean Water Action on the ReThink Disposablescampaign, asking people reduce the amount of single-use products they purchase/use. Reducing the amount of plastic bags, soda bottles, food containers and other such items stops this pollution at the source. You might be the most vigilant recycler but once your bins go curbside, you are no longer in control. Anything from industrial irresponsibility to neighborhood teenage pranksters can undermine your attempts at social responsibility. Remember, there are two other “R’s” before you get to Recycle, Reduce and Reuse, in that order. If you don’t buy it, it won’t get made and you don’t need to discard it. While by no means exhaustive, here is a manageable list of things you can do to help:

Get reusable cloth bags, keep them in your car and bring them everywhere you go.

Bring your own “doggie bag” containers when you go to a restaurant, so you can bring home your leftover linguine without styrofoam on the side.

Get reusable produce bags for your lettuce and apples or wash and reuse the plastic ones.

Bring your own cup to the café; not only will you be reducing waste, but many coffee businesses give a little discount when you bring your own cup. (You can even get one with an ironic saying on it so you can be more of a hipster). According to Clean Water Action, the average to-go coffee cup is only used for 12 minutes.

Keep a set of reusable flatware with you, so you don’t need a plastic fork, knife, or spoon

Skip the straw (or get a reusable one and keep it with your reusable flatware)

Use a refillable water bottle (this saves money too).

Safari West is taking many steps to help reduce the amount of single-use items we generate: our restaurant and deli are working to eliminate condiment packets, we have increased the price of bottled water to discourage staff and guests from purchasing them. We sell reusable flatware, straws and water bottles in the gift shop. Check out the ReThink Disposable website for more ideas, info, and to take the pledge.

Bird Safety

I began this post by stating that we would focus on conservation topics close-to-home, but clean oceans can seem as removed from some of us as the Serengeti. Luckily nothing is closer to home than our actual houses and some simple household adjustments can have some positive impacts on wildlife. According to the American Bird Conservancy (ABC), 988 million birds are killed each year in the United States by colliding with windows. That is nearly a billion (with a “b”). Ironically, a nature lover is probably someone who has a lot of windows in their home for natural lighting. These glass panels are great for both energy use reduction and from an aesthetic perspective but the more windows a building has, and the larger the windows are, the more likely that a bird will think they can fly right through it and…THUMP, feathers everywhere!

Fortunately, one does not need to completely give up their beautiful views to save some local birds. There is a trade-off between window obstruction and cost. For just a few dollars, one can purchase simple decals that stick on a window, partially obscuring the glass and deterring birds. Apart from this simple step, bird-proofing can become complicated and/or expensive. Bearing aesthetics in mind, more appealing modifications can include anything from simple string-like curtains and textured decals to the more elaborate specially textured glass designed to prevent bird strikes. The general idea here is to enable birds to see your windows so they don’t die by flying into them. To help, the ABC has a specific directory with different deterrents that have been shown effective in reducing bird-window collisions.

Another issue championed by the ABC and the National Audubon Society involves outdoor cats. One of my few marital disputes concerns whether a theoretical pet cat would be indoor or outdoor. As both ABC and the Audubon Society point out, domestic cats kill between 1-4 billion birds each year in the USA. I’m very immobile on the no-outdoor-cat side while my wife thinks it is cruel to keep a cat inside. Therefore we have no cats. You might love your cats, but an outdoor cat is a well-fed predator killing a lot of birds every year. Thus, other steps to making your home more bird-friendly are to rethink getting a cat, keep your existing cat inside, or consider a way to make your cat bad at hunting. Anecdotally, I have had experience with cats learning how to walk so a bell-collar doesn’t make any sound. There are other options, however, for the cat and bird lovers alike. Here an avian ecologist describes an effective method for reducing her cat’s hunting abilities.

Backyard Wildlife

Not all acts of conservation are as reactionary as the topics discussed above. As we come into the Spring season and start thinking about developing front and back yards again it might be nice to know a couple of extra ways to contribute to your environment. When one pictures local wildlife, they often imagine a large, iconic animal posing in front of a backdrop of pristine wilderness. While these iconic settings certainly exist, most of us could be encountering some amazing critters on a daily basis in our own urbanized environment. If, for instance, you take a moment to really consider your yard you may realize that it is not as isolated (or somewhat mundane) as you previously thought.

Urban and suburban yards host dynamic ecosystems easily overlooked by “nature” enthusiasts. For example, I am lucky enough to live in a small pocket of habit for the elusive red bellied newt (Taricha rivularis). These slender amphibians come out after a rain and amble around the leaf litter only occasionally stopping to show off their bright red bellies (informing me how poisonous they are in case I was considering eating one). The emergent newts are a seasonal, weather-dependant event at my house and I get as excited about them as I would at seeing bald eagle or a mountain lion. If you don’t happen to live in the country as I do, and are more urban, worry not, you can still find wonder in the creatures that call your yard home. It doesn’t matter if your yard is a twenty acre pasture or a window-box on a balcony, there will be animals there. And if you do it right you can encourage all sorts of wildlife to move in, which may be fun for you but it is even better for the animals.

Having a wildlife friendly garden/yard can be readily accomplished by taking a few easy steps when planning your area. The National Wildlife Federation (NWF) has a Garden for Wildlife program offering information on how to create a wildlife-friendly garden and will even certify your garden as an official “Wildlife Habitat”. According to the NWF, the four factors to encouraging animals to move into your yard are Food, Water, Cover, and a place for animals to raise their Young.

Obviously nothing will move into your yard if there isn’t anything for it to eat, but this doesn’t necessarily require putting up a bird-feeder. Planting native plants provides a food source of nectar when in bloom and fighting the urge to “deadhead” flowers that have passed their prime leaves the seeds as a meal for a variety of animals. Even dead trees and logs can invite insects as well as allow fungi and plants to grow, which in turn feed animals.

Of course we all need water to live, so NWF recommends having at least one source of fresh, clean water. While this could be an elaborate pond or water garden, a simple bird-bath will give a place for birds to drink and clean their feathers. It will also provide drinkable water for the other animals too. If you have space for a more natural water feature, go for it! Many amphibians, insects and reptiles need water for part or all of their life cycle.

Most animals don’t need a house, per se, but most of them need some form of shelter. Shrubs can serve as a multipurpose place to get out the sun or rain and also to hide to avoid predators or help sneak up on smaller prey. Other forms of cover could be a rock pile, a wooded area, a pond, roosting boxes, or a meadow.

Lastly, animals often seek out places to raise their young, so a wildlife-friend garden/yard should strive to offer that. Mature trees, meadow, and wetland all offer a natural setting but in a limited area you can offer simple simulated spaces to rear offspring such as nest boxes, host plants (think milkweed for monarch caterpillars), dead trees/logs and water gardens.

One last important consideration promoted by the NWF is to make your area sustainable. This usually means conserving water and soil, managing exotic species, and eliminating chemical pesticides and fertilizers. Such efforts are easily managed by simply paying attention to the products you buy and the means by which you tend to your plants.

It is worth pointing out that the NWF is not the only organization promoting wildlife friendly gardening. There are a number of resources available to provide guidelines and detailed projects to make your yard friendly to wildlife. Google may be your primary tool but I will highlight one other local organization, the Sonoma County Beekeepers’ Association. Obviously they have their focus on bees, but many of the practices they promote will help all pollinators, be it honey-bees, native bees, or butterflies. Not only will this attract cool insects to your space (and the animals that eat those insects), but encouraging pollinators will help your crops if you happen to have a vegetable garden.

In closing, it is important to all of us here at Safari West to spread the word about conservation. While we work hard to protect large animals such as Rhinos and Cheetahs, we also strive every day to make an effort to reduce our footprint and contribute to conservation on the whole, even in our own 400 acre backyard. We hope that you will join us in this effort.

#Conservation Corner #backyard conservation

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