My week has finished out with more just bleh feelings about training.
Just a pity party down below so nothing important
I am stopping doing any training on retrieves with Ryker. I will give him a month or so off and see if I can start it again after, if not maybe it will have to wait until he gets out of adolescence. He shuts down the moment I grab the dumbbell or the PVC I had been using, or if I say "take it".
He is really really handler sensitive. Which is a bit surprising and I am really going to have to learn to adapt. Aayla is a little handler sensitive, but not like this. It makes things so frustrating and then I spiral down and things are just hard.
I think this is getting compounded by the fact that I'm seriously debating retired Aayla from obedience. Her avoidance to sitting at the last trial just has me worried about her hips. She DOES do no-sits when feeling stressed or there is too much pressure. Which the judges were doing a lot of pressure during the whole weekend. Yet the amount she was refusing to sit was embarrassing and has me worried its physical pain versus stress.
We got 0 utility Qs and therefore 0 UDX legs and her two qualifying open runs had such poor scores she got 0 OM points. The whole weekend did not progress her to those titles I want her to have...and I would like to retired her from AKC sooner than later. Maybe I should just give up. Getting her UD was amazing and she has had fantastic runs, but I am not going to trial her for two more years to get those titles.
I also decided Aayla will not do anymore agility. I had thought maybe the ASCA senior ACE program would be okay, but if she is struggling in obedience there is no way I'm making her do any agility.
I always thought I would go back to AKC rally after I stopped having her jump 20" for obedience but if sitting is bothering her than rally isn't fair for her to do either. That's a lot more sitting.
She isn't ready to retire from training or sports, I know it. She is getting upset more and more if I don't work her when I'm working Ryker but I'm getting to this point of what can I have her do that isn't asking her to do things that possibly hurt? Do I work her because it makes her happy and accept if she says no? Will she say no? I doubt it, unless it really hurts.
I'm going to be taking her into the vet within the next few weeks, might get some hip x-rays and ask about adequan and anything else we can maybe do.
I hate this. So much. It's breaking my heart. I worry that her body is going to give out on her long before her mind is.
21 notes
·
View notes
Something about Luis leaning into Virgin Mary more than Jesus and God himself. Something about her being associated with holiness, hope, conversion of a sinner and motherly love.
His mother, absent; a memory, a tale, not so different from the knights and the dragons, save for the things that—Grandfather claims—carry the imprint of her fingers, the things that had the pleasure to witness the gentleness of her hand, years past. To Luis, she's family, familiar, a stranger, a ghost; a blurry figure in the eye of his mind. No pictures, no paintings, just his Grandfather's words: you have her eyes.
Luis being taught that, even if they say otherwise, God's love is conditional; but having Grandfather, more so than the Priest, be the source of information about Holy Mary. And never having Grandfather imply that her love is conditional. Luis believing that even if he's abandoned by God and His son, the Mother will be there for him.
Grandfather telling little Luis that his mom is watching over him alongside the Holy Mother. That even when mom can't watch over him, Mother Mary can, and she does, and she always will.
Her love isn’t religious, in his eyes. It’s purely motherly.
You can't love her more than Jesus did, Grandfather says to him one day, in passing.
Luis thinks it a challenge, and loves her even more.
The drastic difference between God (Father; Allfather, paternal, proud, unreachable, mighty. God give me strength and God bless and God be with you. Conditional love; hate for the sinner. The one to exile, condemn, abandon) and Virgin Mary (Mother; maternal, gentle, caretaker. Present in households, a symbol of hope, protector of hearth. Unconditional love, no matter the weight of the sin, no matter what happens—watching over her children)
Luis' life, where God exists mainly in the church, in the prayer, in the concept—but Mother Mary is present, and in every house; somehow, or more so, even in his house, the house where no mother reaches out to her for strength and guidance, for protection from evil, because there is only two of them here; he and Grandfather.
In this house, she fills in the blanks.
When he's older and push comes to shove, it's not God or Jesus that he keeps close to his heart. When he thinks himself a sinner, a lost lamb, when the gifted cross no longer gleams around his neck, resting instead in a dusty drawer under ink-stained notes—it's the silhouette of Holy Mary that keeps him company, engraved on a ring he got, in a subtle reach for faith, off a man at the flea market. It's Holy Mary's image that he turns towards the wall on the nights when men pass through his sheets. It's her that sits patiently in the back of his mind, the corner of his kitchen, even though no prayer leaves his lips, other than the sinful ones he doesn't dare repeat in the light of day—they're not for the ears of the Mother, and they're not for the ears of God.
He might be His child, and still he picks Mother over Father.
pet project: meta // luis, on holy mary
148 notes
·
View notes
I am going to say that what Arya Stark needs is salwar kameez (for the lack of a better word). People go on and on and on about her not liking dresses. And truly she doesn't like it when they hinder her from doing what she wants. But we do see her in Braavos. She isn't constantly complaining about her dress while selling oysters or working as an apprentice under Izembaro. Like i am a bit frustrated that there is nothing to imagination in a fantasy series when it comes to costuming. I am not saying to appropriate a dress, but the inspiration to fashion for make a believe world is so limited when it comes to Hollywood. And I am sitting here and thinking...
Like do you see the pants?
Arya and dresses and pretty frilly things won't ever really comfortably mash but to see fandom people and actual GoT costume designers going from rags to bland boiled leather when she is a princess. Even during celebration where she is being celebrated...😭😭😭😭😭😭 like you know Michelle Clapton spent so little time on Arya's costumes and excused it with "oh Arya is not like other girls!"
105 notes
·
View notes
on my "anti elain/anti elriels are allergic to reading comprehension" tirade; taking the word of nesta (who is literally proven in the same book to be unreliable when it comes to her perspective of elain with her "elain is like a dog" comment that cassian later disproves) on blind faith about how elain would love the spring court or that it was "made for someone like her" simply because it has flowers when, in the first book, we are explicitly told that there is no gardening done in the spring court- which is what elain actually enjoys about flowers, the actual process of gardening and getting her hands dirty. it's like sjm is trying to tell us something about elain and how fundamentally no one in the inner circle (cough, besides azriel, cough) understands her as a person.
124 notes
·
View notes
@crobat
So fun fact, I got no notification of getting this submission whatsoever and I rarely check my inbox unless I’m actively doing something with it
So I was wholly unprepared to discover a Closure shaped landmine when I opened it last night to look for something and it killed me on the spot
Anyway, I took the liberty of zooming out the image so everyone could see what Ada is looking at
385 notes
·
View notes