you know what i make fun of tiktok a lot, bc most of the time it deserves it, but i think that a lot of people on tumblr could use some time on tiktok. a little bit of exposure.

the majority of tumblr users have been here a while and i know we all said that we wouldnt do the whole millenial vs gen z vs whatever comes next thing, but theres a whole lot of people on here taking things from tiktok out of context and going 'oh no look at the next generation, look how terrible' and then saying how awful tiktok is. and tiktok is awful. but its awful bc it harvests data, and is super addictive, and is fucking up the music and publishing industries, and not, i repeat not, bc the younger generation are just so terrible

yeah the whole goncharov rip off was boring and inauthentic and we all made fun of it, but the whole girl dinner and girl math thing. No.

girl dinner isnt promoting eating disorders. are there people with eating disorders that are using the girl dinner trend, yeah, but idk if you know this but any food related trend is going to have people with eating disorders jump on in there, and whilst there are definitely things we can do to mitigate the success of them spreading their gross diets and whatever the next fad laxative is, we shouldnt stop having fun with food just bc any food trend online can be done by people with eating disorders too.

girl dinner isnt some evil trad wife trend, its the exact opposite. women arent using the 'girl' in girl dinner to say la lala la laa look at me, im a little girly who only likes pink and not thinking, la dee da

they use it to say there are certain expectations that we have been taught women have to be beholden to, the idea of the perfect woman who can do it all, raise the kids, do the housework, have the full time job as well, but the kids and housework are full time jobs, and this is exhausting, and heres what i make for dinner when im too tired to cook a full meal, when living up to all the expectations is hard, bc im human, im not perfect, and if its not what a perfect adult woman would do then i guess im not, so heres me eating my girl dinner and i wont be ashamed of that, bc the patriarchy feeds on our shame, and if we arent ashamed of being the perfect woman under patriarchy, then at least in that way, it does not control us, if patriarchy is the panopticon then if we dont fear the watchman, we will never become our own watchman

ill admit, i know less about girl math, bc its popped up less for me (i think its a trend fewer people do, but it could just be the algorithm), but from what i can tell its basically just social/behavioural economics. it illustrates things like the sunk cost fallacy, eg. if ive already put money on an app to pay for my coffee then that coffee is 'free'. the people making those videos dont literally think their coffee it free, they're just saying it feels like its free, which it does, because of the sunk cost fallacy. thats not women being stupid, thats an actual theory in behavioral economics. i've also seen people talk about 'its cheaper to buy something else and get free shipping than to pay less but not get free shipping'. they don't literally think that, and its kind of insulting the amount of people there are seeing women make that joke and immediately assuming that they are too stupid to be joking.

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Is There Anything Wrong With Loving Sex But Hating Intimacy?

So, what if you like coitus but not cuddling?

Shellie R. Warren

Nov. 27, 2020 05:03PM EST

Based on my personal views on sex (that it shouldn't treated lightly or casually, and it's something that affects our mind, body and spirit—both the Bible and science will back that up; more on that in a sec), there used to be a time when I thought penning something like this would not be necessary. Yet, if you live long enough, life will teach you some things and expose you to a world of people who think totally different than you do. Between once working with a ministry that got people out of the sex industry and free from porn addiction, being a pregnant teen director for the local chapter of a national non-profit and then becoming a marriage life coach, I have met many (MANY) people who are kind, loving, generous—and also love the act of sex while pretty close to loathing the thought of engaging in physical intimacy.

For the record here, I'm not speaking of commitment-phobes. Those are a horse of a whole 'nother color, chile. No, I'm referring to those who are all about gettin' it in, as much as possible; however, when it comes to a ton of foreplay and definitely when it comes to any afterplay (or honestly, even when it comes to much physical intimacy in between romps), they are more than happy to take a pass. Oh, and before some of you roll your eyes and say to yourself, "Hmph. Sounds just like a dude", actually, who has shared this perspective with me the most have been women. So many, in fact, that I thought there had to be at least a handful of our readers who also can relate on some level.

So, let's do this. Let's dig into the polka dotted unicorns known as folks who love to have sex but can actually do without all of the physical intimacy stuff—whether in the bed or out. Is that problematic or not? Let's explore.

Is There Really Such a Thing as Sex Without ANY Kind of Intimacy?

As someone who grew up being taught that the Bible was to be the foundation for the choices I make, sex has always been seen as being pretty sacred to me. I'm pretty sure that anyone who is even remotely familiar with the Good Book knows that it says that sex is for married couples, period. Hmph. Come to think of it, I don't know of any holy books that say otherwise (definitely not the Qur'an or the Torah). And when it comes to Scripture, specifically, the verse that I've always adored is this:

Now here's the thing. As a woman who's never been married before (by choice, not by circumstance. I'm pretty sure many of you can say the same), you can read articles I've penned for the site like, "14 Lessons I've Learned From 14 Sex Partners" and "Why I Named The Children I Aborted" to know that I am certainly NOT the posterchild for abstinence (check out "I've Been Abstinent For 12 Years. Here's How."). I think that a part of it is because, although I do think that sex is absolutely best in a long-term relationship, the physical pleasure that comes from the act can make it REALLY HARD to turn it down, even if you're not "officially" with someone. That's why, I totally get it, when one of my married friends says to me, every time I hit another year of abstinence milestone, "It might be biblical, but it sure as hell ain't natural." Understood.

So why I am even approaching the topic of what sex is from this angle? Mostly it's because, when it comes to sex making two people one, whether you try and apply a holy book to your life or not, this is one area where religion and science are largely on the same page. Why do I say that? In walks, oxytocin.

Say that you don't subscribe to any particular faith or that you don't believe in God at all—science is still out here, making it abundantly clear, that there are hormones in your body that are designed to bond you to the person or people you have sex with. 

That's why I've written articles on here like, "Don't Mistake A Great Sex Partner For A Great Life Partner" and "We Should Really Rethink The Term 'Casual Sex'"; while physical pleasure is certainly a benefit of sex, it's important that you don't overlook the fact that sex can mentally and emotionally bond you to someone too. Don't believe me? Think about the guys you've dated who you didn't have sex with vs. the ones you did. 9 times outta 10, who was harder to shake? Be honest…with yourself.

You can Google articles about who has better sex—married people or single people (it's married folks). You can poll your friends about when they thought sex was better—in a long-term commitment or not. At the end of the day, it's kind of hard to get around the fact that while the mechanics of sex can be enjoyable, whether you're with your sexual partner or not, when the emotional intimacy component is in place, it's simply bar none better. And here's the thing—to a certain extent, oxytocin is gonna make damn sure that some level of attachment is cultivated…whether we want it to happen or not.

That's why, it's my personal belief that people who say that they like sex but hate intimacy may be in a bit of denial about the intimacy that transpires during the act, regardless of what they think is happening (or not happening). Yet when it comes to things like kissing and cuddling and them being semi-disgusted, let's pull back the curtain on that psyche, just a little bit more.

So, About Hating Physical Acts of Intimacy. What’s Up with That?

Some of y'all might remember, a few months back, when I wrote, "Umm, What's Up With These People Who Hate Kissing?". It was pretty enlightening, even to me, and I've been writing about sex for a couple of decades at this point. One woman I interviewed for the article said that her husband's tongue always feels awkward. A guy said that mouths feel wet and weird to him. What I found to be fascinating is, the people I spoke with didn't give me the impression that they had issues with physical intimacy, in general, so much as the mechanics of kissing itself. Got it. But what about physical intimacy overall? I decided to ask Melissa and Eric from that same article for their hot takes on that.

Melissa. Married. 29. "Funny that you would ask me this because I'm weird when it comes to physical intimacy. While I do like to hug my husband and I enjoy being close to him while we're watching television or something, during sex, I'll pass. Like cuddling after intercourse? All I can think about is that wet spot and how I want to get out of it. I don't know. 

"The sex is good but once it's over, I enjoy my personal space. I'm just now thinking that it might be because, once you've been that open with another person, you need to retreat to gain your bearings a bit. Does that make sense? I wouldn't say that I hate physical intimacy so much as, to me, it's just not all that necessary."

Eric. Single. 25. "I'm not even used to a woman separating sex and intimacy, so this question has caught me off-guard. Anyway, I like physical intimacy if it's with a woman I'm emotionally intimate with. Otherwise, physical intimacy before or after sex feels like we're trying to make the relationship something that it's not—or something that it's not yet. A lot of cuddling and stuff like that is way more sentimental to me than just intercourse, so if we're not together, I'm not the biggest fan."

Just to round this out a little bit, I decided to ask someone else I know who happens to love sex and loathe physical intimacy. Let's call her "Sheryl".

Sheryl. Married. 39. "I definitely have a higher sex drive than my husband and I absolutely am not a fan of physical intimacy. Meanwhile, he can't get enough of it. It just feels hot, awkward, and like you're invading my personal space. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I grew up in a home that was loving but definitely not big on the PDA. So, I got used to not needing a lot of physical touching. Plus, my husband is the exact opposite, which feels clingy and needy more than anything else. I don't think there's anything 'wrong' with me. I just think I process that a lot of touching comes with sex and outside of that, I'm cool. Who said that everyone needs to get kissed and cuddled all of the time, in order to feel loved, anyway?"

Sheryl has a point. Who did say that physical intimacy must come before and after sex is a cardinal rule? I will say that as someone who is a words-of-affirmation-and-physical-touch-love-languages kind of girl, I can't even imagine the two not going hand in hand, but after speaking with these individuals and also other clients, I get it. You can very much enjoy sex and not need all of the foreplay or afterplay that comes with it for so many people. It doesn't mean that anything is "wrong with you". It's just not your personal preference.

Still, how do you know when your preference might be linked to something deeper or if it has a great potential to become highly problematic in your relationship?

If your avoiding physical intimacy is costing you your relationship. Relationships are about compromise. And you know what? In many ways, so is sexual fulfillment. Even if physical intimacy is not really your thing if it is something that your partner needs or enjoys, find ways to meet him halfway. Again, as a physical touch person myself, to simply clam up after sex feels like rejection. If your partner feels the same way, that can start to build a wedge between the two of you, even if that's not anywhere close to being your intention. By the way, it's also a good idea to bring how you're feeling up to your partner. Even though it might seem a little odd to them, knowing where you're coming from can help him to be more patient as the two of you work to figure out what will work, well, for you both.

If compromising causes you to feel violated. There is a caveat to what I just said. If compromising in this realm makes you somehow feel physically or even emotionally violated, don't push past that. Instead, do some sex journaling or even consider seeing a reputable therapist, counselor, or life coach about what's going on. I know someone who used to hate kissing in the mouth. After seeing a therapist, come to find out, it was because she had been molested by a cousin who used to force their tongue in her mouth when she was little. While it can't be said enough that not preferring physical intimacy "just because" isn't a red flag, if you're someone who clams up or lashes out when someone attempts to be physically affectionate with you, that could be a sign that you're suppressing something. It can never hurt to work with a professional, just to see if that could possibly be the case.

If you "fear" physical intimacy. Not needing a hug vs. being terrified of one are two totally different things. If you fall into the latter category, it very well could be that you are dealing with some level of philophobia which is basically being afraid of emotionally attaching to another individual.

I know we covered a lot of ground here, but as I draw all of this to a close, let's get back to the title of the article. Is there anything wrong with loving sex and hating physical intimacy? In short, no. There's not. Just make sure that feeling this way isn't harming your relationship or that the "hate" isn't tied to something deeper. Other than that, feel OK with being this way. It takes all kinds to make the world go-'round and being different isn't automatically wrong. Enjoy your sex—and well, your dry spot too, sis. #wink

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Hey Neighbor (Part 3)

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader Word Count: 2686 Warnings: none unless you count awkward/cringeworthy moments

Summary: You had a plan and then life came along with one of its own. With your future almost derailed you worked hard to get yourself back on track and finally everything seemed to be going right… that is, until your new neighbor moved in.

A/N: This is a slow burn people so sit tight! A huge thank you to my wonderful beta Sam @buckyofthemyscira​ Feedback is always appreciated!

PART 2 | HEY NEIGHBOR MASTERLIST

You paced in your apartment for a few minutes, debating what you should do. The gift card was a lovely gesture but you can’t accept it, Bucky is a stranger even if he’s your neighbor, and even though he inconvenienced you it would be wrong to take this.

But then again, maybe he really meant no harm at all and it would be rude not to accept this. It certainly would be put to good use.

All of these thoughts raced through your mind as you walked the length of your apartment. The walls truly were thin and you knew Bucky was home, meaning if he heard you come home then he knew you had the gift card. Was he expecting you to thank him?

Fuck it, you’re going over there. You went to the bathroom to make sure you looked alright. You aren’t sure why you cared so much but you quickly brushed your teeth and dabbed a bit of perfume on your pulse points. With a final look at yourself in the mirror you put your phone in your back pocket, grabbed your keys and the gift card and shut your door.

Your teeth were clenched as you made a fist and knocked at Bucky’s door, holding your breath as you heard him shuffle towards the door to answer it.

“Y/N, hey!” Bucky seemed surprised to see you.

His hair was loose, falling on his shoulders. The blue of his t-shirt brought out his eyes, even in the dimmed hallway lighting.

“Hey Bucky,” you replied easily, as if the words fell naturally from your lips. Holding up the gift card you smiled and Bucky mirrored the gesture.

“I see you got it.”

“Yes, thank you. This was really sweet but honestly you didn’t have to do this.”

Bucky lifted his arm to rub the back of his neck, exposing part of his waist as his shirt ran up. Your eyes couldn’t help but catch the deep V line sculpted on his body, making you unconsciously lick your lips. As Bucky spoke you lifted your eyes to meet his again.

“I felt really bad. I didn’t mean to be a shitty neighbor. I’m not really used to this.”

“Having neighbors?” you asked with a giggle.

Bucky smiled. “Not ones so close.”

“That’s the city for ya,” you said awkwardly, looking everywhere else except Bucky.

“So listen,” Bucky began, clearing his throat. “You just got back from class right? If you wanted, how about I make you a cup of coffee? I definitely owe you a lot, even more than the gift card.”

The thought of having coffee with the embodiment of sex on legs made your knees wobble. You politely said you couldn’t impose.

“You wouldn’t be. I was about to make a pot myself, I’ve got a lot of work to do.”

There probably should have been more insisting on your end, saying that you couldn’t come in because you also have a lot of work to do but somehow your mouth had a mind of its own as you agreed to coffee.

You wanted to keep things light, and so as you followed him inside you joked, “How do you get any work done with all that music?” but the moment you stepped into his apartment you wished the ground would open up and swallow you whole.

Bucky’s apartment was a mirror of yours with his bed and couch placed in the same spot against the wall, though it felt smaller with the dark taupe covering the walls, but what really made things feel cramped were the instruments scattered all over the apartment.

Several guitars were hung along the brick wall with a variety of amps on the floor. A large keyboard was laid out on the trunk that served as his coffee table in front of a black leather couch. An electronic drum kit sat beside a large desk, with wires attaching to a device beside his computer.

“Music is my work.”

You were stunned into silence, feeling completely stupid for asking him to not play music when you were home. You wanted to turn around and go back to your apartment where you could shake away the cringey feeling that rooted itself into your bones.

“Ohh,” you managed to squeak out.

“Yeah…” he trailed off, baring his teeth for an awkward smile at your revelation. “But don’t worry about the sound, I went out earlier and got headphones.”

Bucky turned to hold up a bag from the floor and you recognized the name of the professional audio shop.

“I never needed them before. My old landlord had lost most of her hearing so my music never bothered her.”

Bucky turned to the small kitchen counter to start preparing the coffee. He hadn’t offered you to sit, not that you saw a chair, so you stood watching his shirt cling to his muscles as he reached up to open the cabinets. They were different from yours, their honeyed tone showing a little age but not old by any means.

He pulled down a small coffee maker that was clearly made for a single person. You’ve already had more cups of coffee today than that tiny thing can produce in a sitting. Bucky was an obvious bachelor, even if you didn’t know about the revolving door of women you could see it in the way he kept his place.

He had been here just over a month but the apartment looked as if he had been settled in for years. Beside the bag he previously held up were others filled with things that hadn’t been put away. His bed wasn’t made, but the dark blue comforter was mostly strewn over the mattress with just the corner pulled a little too low.

His TV was opposite the bed on a dresser whose bottoms drawers hung open, with a bunched up shirt preventing the middle one from fully closing. Things weren’t dirty, it just needed a good tidying. Behind you was a large bookcase, with each shelf overstuffed with books and graphic novels, loose music sheets spilling out from the top, a few Funko Pops and some other knick-knacks.

“Milk and sugar?” he asked, turning around as one hand gripped the handle of the refrigerator.

You nodded with a smile as you continued to observe his apartment. Above the couch was a large framed poster of the movie Psycho and briefly recalling the conversation you heard this morning you really hoped he was actually talking to his mother.

“Shit.”

You turned around to find Bucky watching you stare at the poster, though his eyes moved to the couch.

“I’m sorry, I should have asked you to sit down,” he said, apologizing for his manners as he moved the keyboard off the trunk and on to his desk. “I don’t usually have people over.”

You both know his statement was a lie; he has people, women specifically, over every night but what he meant was he doesn’t usually entertain.

The couch scrunched under his weight as he sat beside you, handing over a mug of steaming coffee. He warned you it was hot and so you held it as the ceramic heated your skin before placing it on the trunk. Bucky had done the same and so you felt comfortable enough to do so as well, even though asking about a coaster would have been just as simple.

“So you mentioned you’re in school. What are you studying?”

You were aware of how close his knee was to yours as he turned to face you. Nerves made you grab the cup of coffee first, sipping on the still too hot liquid before answering.

“I’m going for my MSW. I’m nearly finished too, I just have this last class before I somehow have to fit a ton of hours for an internship into my schedule which is a little difficult to figure out.”

“You work full time too, right? It must be hard doing both.”

Bucky’s blue eyes were focused on you, deeply staring into your own. All you could do was nod your head in response. He was enchanting, clearly a great listener; it’s no wonder he can charm the world into his bed.

You fell into a conversation about Stark Industries and how you came to work there, going to school part time as you worked to pay the rent.

“It feels like I’ve wasted so much time because of the road I had to take. I keep picturing myself at the end, finally graduating, knowing all the stress and sleepless nights were worth it.”

Bucky watched as the passion you had for social work poured off your lips. There was something deeper than wanting to be handed a diploma, he could see the fire burning in your eyes that you had for this field, something you left unsaid.

“I’m sorry, again, if my music kept you up and distracted you.”

“No, I’m sorry Bucky. I was rushing to class this morning and I probably could have said things in a better way.”

You shared a quick smile with him, bringing the mug up to your lips to mask the way your cheeks wanted to stay pulled tight to cement the smile on your face. Staring at Bucky made you feel giddy and warm all over.

You suddenly realized how long it’s been since you’ve hung out with a man that isn’t Steve. With all your school work keeping you busy you hardly had any time to notice what was missing in your life, not until now where you felt butterflies fluttering away in your stomach. Wow, you definitely needed to get out again.

“So you said music is your work, what do you do?”

Bucky tipped the mug back to finish the last drop of coffee, before smoothing his fingers over his lips.

“I’m a composer actually.”

Well that was unexpected. You definitely judged Bucky too quickly, with the loud music and louder women. Without seeing him you figured he was some punk in a band, who stayed up all night and didn’t give a shit about his neighbors because he wanted to live out the party lifestyle of a wannabe rock star. But as Bucky explained you found out he was so much more than that.

From a young age he was musically gifted, picking up melody and sounding it out by ear as he sat in front of the piano. His mother Winifred had also played and taught him what she could until Bucky’s enthusiasm for playing outgrew the time and knowledge she had to teach him. She and his father George hired a piano tutor who noted how talented Bucky was, especially for a young child.

Bucky’s ambitions grew as he wanted to learn more instruments, guitar, violin, percussion.

“I can’t do horns,” he joked, not having the patience to practice proper breathing for the brass instruments.

Bucky has been composing music since the days you were pining over boy bands, selling his first work to a commercial for an international airline.

“Wow, I feel like the biggest asshole for telling you to stop.”

Bucky chucked at your admission, “It’s okay Y/N, really. I should have realized I’m not in Long Island anymore. I promise to use the headphones for every instrument that I can.”

“Thanks Bucky,” you smiled, sighing a breath of relief although you still felt embarrassed. While trying to lift the weight of guilt you somehow made it worse. “I’m sure our other neighbors would appreciate that too.”

Bucky’s face twisted with concern. “Shit. Have they complained too?”

Your palms covered your face as you shook off your stupidity. Why was this man making you say all the wrong things?

“No, not in a bad way,” you tried to convince him. “Have you met Clint? A bit shorter than you, dirty blond hair.” Bucky shook his head back and forth. “You must have seen his fiancée then, beautiful redhead, Natasha?”

Again, Bucky shook his head. “Well they live above you.”

Bucky cringed at the thought. If you heard all the noise they certainly have as well.

“So it’s actually kinda funny…” you began, telling Bucky that Clint takes his hearing aids out when he was playing. “They’re both really nice, you should say hello if you see them. Plus now I can tell Clint I won our unofficial bet.”

Bucky’s head quirked with curiosity. “Well, he called you the Guitar Hero,” you admitted, watching a smile form on Bucky’s face.

“I don’t just play guitar,” he said proudly.

You smirked, “I know. That’s why I was calling you the Music Man.”

Bucky’s hair blanketed his face as he tipped his head forward to laugh at your nickname. When he sat up again you noticed the crinkles around his sparkling eyes, and the way he smiled from ear to ear showed off perfect teeth, beautifully bright against the beginnings of dark stubble that started to fill in along his jaw.

Butterflies swirled around your stomach like a tornado as your heart rattled against your chest. This sensation was bubbling up the longer you stared at Bucky. Why were you feeling this way? You couldn’t distract yourself, not with a man, especially not this one.

“I get it now, the walls are thin,” he stated, still shining that beaming smile.

Your brain jolts to life again, as common sense starts to combat the small army forming to defend your developing crush. Your brain wins this round however, as you remind yourself the noise wasn’t just about the music.

“Oh yes they are. Our beds are on the same spot on the wall,” you said, raising your eyebrows and widening your eyes to infer what you were talking about.

Bucky’s cheeks blush a deep shade of pink with embarrassment. “Oh… I’m….” He’s too nervous to apologize for what you both know you’re referring to.

“I wear headphones to sleep to drown out the noise.” Great, just keep making it worse Y/N. “But on the bright side, the banshees all sound like they’re enjoying themselves.” Nope, that didn’t help at all.

Fear of saying something even worse had you quickly fumble up an excuse to leave, telling Bucky you had a paper to work on so you thanked him for the coffee and practically ran back to your apartment, dreading every future interaction you would have with him.

Later that night Bucky opened the door for a woman who swayed inside with determination. He offered her a beer and with lust in her eyes Dot licked the neck of the bottle before bringing the top to her lips. Bucky turned away, shuddering with embarrassment at how hard this girl was trying.

He knows what she wants, what they all want but Bucky hasn’t believed in relationships for a very long time. It’s something that works for other people whereas he enjoys the physical connection; release your needs and move on.

Bucky wished he cancelled tonight. He felt… awkward after you left. It made him shift his bed forward a few inches away from the wall. He didn’t realize just how much his entire presence has affected you.  

With his arms caged beside Dot’s head he moved above her, thrusting his hips and checking to see that the bed didn’t touch the wall as his motions rocked it. Her nails dug crescents into his back as she began to cry out in pleasure. Bucky forced his lips against hers, an action she felt in her heart but Bucky just wanted to shut her up, hoping you hadn’t heard her.

Shutting the door behind Dot who begged to stay Bucky went to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his heated skin. His reflection stares back at him but he doesn’t want to look, wondering why his mind has been wandering to places he doesn’t want it going. He dries his face, letting the towel hang over the sink as he shuffles back to bed, staring at the wall for a few lingering moments before he turns over and hopes sleep will come quickly.

PART 4

Hi! in one of your posts u said: "infanticide, either female or otherwise, was not a common practice in pre-Islamic Arabia." can you please link me to some sources for that? i'd be forever grateful xxx

Anon I just finished one of my final papers and now I’m in a ranting mood and what a GREAT topic for ranting you have brought up. It’s a perfect example of how pre-Islamic Arabia has gotten shat upon for the better part of 1400 years because people, mostly their own descendants, have decided that they were all evil savages. Ask anyone who was raised Muslim, even if they’re no longer practicing, for a fact about “Jahiliyya” and you’ll be told “they buried their daughters”. I think pretty much everyone with even a month of Islamic education, myself included, has been taught that this was a routine and widespread occurrence that Islam stopped. Even non-Muslim people have probably heard of this.

It’s repeated so frequently that few people ever bother to look up where the accusation comes from and what evidence supports it, outside of Islamic texts. Let’s see. There wasn’t a ton of writing before the 7th century, but are there any surviving fragments that mention it? Hm… nope. Maybe it was mentioned in the works of some travelers or foreign writers? Not there, either. How about references to it from neighboring literate peoples, like the Byzantines and Persians, who saw the Arabs south of the Ghassanid/Lakhmid lands as backwards anyway and surely wouldn’t have minded reporting on such a practice? Or even the Christian Arabs to the immediate north? Nope. Well, the gender ratio must’ve been screwed up, isn’t there at least evidence of that? No? Fine, but surely there is at least some archaeological evidence of this? There must be lots of bones of female infants that people have uncovered, right? Uh… no.

I mean… okay, but there must be something, somewhere in the peninsula, from some time before Islam that mentions this, right?! Well, in fact there is one piece of pre-Islamic historical evidence that may concern this subject in the Arabian Peninsula. From between the fifth and the second century BC. In Yemen. It was not written in Arabic, as at the time Yemenis still spoke their own South Arabian language (called Sabaean). Nonetheless, let’s look at what the devious people of Jahiliyya were up to. It was codified that:

It is unlawful for anyone of the people of Matarat to kill his daughter.

…that, uh, it was illegal for people kill their daughters. Over 700 years before Mohammed was born. The linked article points out that the word can also be used to mean female relatives of any age, not only infant daughters, so it seems to have been a general prohibition against killing any female members of one’s family. There are fatwas throughout Islamic history that say the same thing, so we can’t even be generous and say “maybe the fact that this exists means it was socially acceptable beforehand?”.

So the only pre-Islamic evidence we have relating to any form of female-targeted killings comes from hundreds of years before Mohammed’s time, in a different part of Arabia, and it explicitly outlaws the practice. Now look, I’m not saying that infanticide didn’t happen at all, as it certainly did both in pre- and post-Islamic Arabia, in times of great hardship. But for such a supposedly widespread practice afflicting the entire race before Islam miraculously invented feminism and stopped it overnight, is it not a tad strange that no one of any civilization over the span of a thousand years bothered to mention it before Mohammed? And isn’t it kind of weird how there isn’t any record of even a single named person engaging in this practice outside of Islamic texts written in the 800s AD onwards, long after polytheism was no longer practiced? (And as I’ll show later, barely anyone is named even in those texts…)

At any rate, given that every single accusation about Arabs practicing widespread and specifically female infanticide comes from Islamic sources, I suppose we should look at what they actually say on this matter, even though Mohammed’s views of his contemporary polytheists were not exactly, shall we say, neutral and unbiased. I’ll explain why I find them unconvincing in terms of evidence that this was a common practice. This is going to be long! I’m putting this under a cut bc I think probably… five people in total on this entire site care??

Let’s deal with the Quran first. Infanticide is mentioned in four places: 81:8-9, 6:151, 17:31, and 16:58-59. 6:151 (it’s also mentioned a bit before that in surah 6 too but that one just says that it’s Allah’s will, so :|) and 17:31 do not mention daughters specifically and simply tell people not to kill their children because they are poor and starving and don’t have enough food to go around (which was the context of most cases of infanticide throughout world history).

So let’s take a look at the two that are actually about girls. The context of 16:58-59 is Mohammed complaining that the polytheists say that Allah has daughters (the trio of sister-goddesses popular in the Hijaz at the time). 16:58 has Mohammed saying that when one of the polytheists themselves finds out his newborn is a girl, he gets angry, and in 16:59 he has the imaginary polytheist wondering if he should bury the newborn “in the dust”. This is meant to convey that the polytheists disgrace Allah by giving him daughters when they don’t even want them themselves. It’s similar to 43:16-19, which does not mention infanticide but does complain that the polytheists claim that angels are female while being displeased with their own daughters.

(I feel like I’ve repeated this a thousand times, but Islamic sources themselves describe literate women, highly-revered female medics, successful female business owners, women in monogamous marriages, female clan leaders, women who inherited and distributed property, women who chose their own husbands, widows and single mothers working in respected professions, women who were on battlefields, and women leading thousands of troops in this era. The idea that non-Muslim Arabs in Mohammed’s time uniformly loathed women and routinely buried their own daughters is completely nonsensical even judging by solely Islamic sources and it’s absolutely bizarre that this perception still stands. Y’all they were a polygamous society and women seemed to outnumber men, not the other way around. I know some people think “if the Quran says it, it must be true!” but lookit, Alexander the Great did not have horns on his head and pre-Islamic Arabs were not all baby-killing savages, them’s the facts.)

In any case, the ayah actually just says the evildoing polytheists think of doing it because they want sons… not that they do it. Nor does it say that Mohammed has ever seen it happen. It seems highly unlikely that he ever personally witnessed such a thing in Mecca, as even the guys the Quran calls evil by name like Crazy Uncle Abu Lahab had daughters. I’ll also add that some noted Quranic commentators say the phrase “bury [her] in the dust” could be a metaphor meaning “to hide [her] out of sight”, because the first word can also mean “conceal”. But let me talk about the other verses now.

Hold on because the next one’s got a plot twist. Surah 81, At-Takwir, is one of those poetic ones about the end of the world, about the stars falling and seas being set on fire etc. 81:8-9 is part of this poem and says “And when the girl [who was] buried alive is asked/For what sin she was killed”.

The phrase translated as “the girl [who was] buried alive” is all one word, l-mawuda, stemming from a root used only in this ayah. It is evidently meant to refer to one killed via “wad”, meaning (in this case apparently) infanticide. So the word would mean, as literally as possible, “infant (girl) who was killed”. However!!

This verse is mentioned in one sahih hadith, which is… not actually about infanticide at all, but is instead about the practice of “azl”, which is the pull-out method, inexplicably called a form of infanticide (wad al-khafi–hidden infanticide, or “secret (way of) burying alive” as this translation puts it).

Then they asked him about ‘azl, whereupon he said “That is the secret (way of) burying alive”, and Ubaidullah has made this addition in the hadith transmitted by al-Muqri and that is: “When the one buried alive is asked[…] (81:8)”

Where might Mohammed have gotten such an idea? Why, I do believe this other sahih hadith has the answer. Someone informs Mohammed that Jews say that Every Sperm is Sacred (they call it mawudat al-sughra, minor infanticide. While the translation of mawuda as “girl buried alive” is standard now, it is clearly meant more in a general infanticide sense here… it’s not implying the dudes are literally burying their semen in the ground). Mohammed, who does not like Ze Jews, declares them liars. Despite the fact that they are saying literally exactly what he said in that other hadith.

The Jews say that withdrawing the penis (azl) is burying the living girls on a small scale. He (the Prophet) said: The Jews told a lie.

This blatant contradiction in two sahih ahadith has puzzled scholars throughout history and has largely been completely brushed over despite the former (from Sahih Muslim) coming from the most conservative of all the ahadith collections and being repeated by other collectors.Many scholars throughout history have just said “yeah, well, that can’t be right because that’d mean that the prophet contradicted himself!”. Which…  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Here’s what I think happened. As with many things in his Mecca days, Mohammed based his understanding on azl on what the Jews said (see: the qiblah switch). Then he got to Medina and realized, oh, the Jews are actually garbage and we should stop imitating them. So when Muslims ask him whether he agrees with the Jews on the subject of azl, he forcefully declares that he does not, despite the fact that… he did. This is, in fact, an accepted explanation for the contradiction: the one where he calls azl infanticide is early, based on what the Jews believed, and was abrogated later once Allah “revealed” that it wasn’t true. And surah 81 is a Meccan surah, meaning it was from the period before he started loathing Jews, and his own followers connected his view on azl with the verse in question!

Anyway… that’s it for the Quran on this subject. I think I’ve explained why I find it pretty much impossible to believe that Arabs commonly murdered their infant daughters based solely on those verses. But of course, we have other sources that mention infanticide. So let’s do some other ahadith learnin’. For the sake of brevity (lol…) I am going to mainly focus on the sahih collections and will not go into any ahadith with da’if/weak narrators or traditions that appear out of nowhere in like the 10th century+ bc what’s even the point.

I think many Muslims would be surprised by how rarely this subject is mentioned in the sahih collections. There is only one hadith within them alleging any infanticide in Mecca itself, and it is this one narrated by Abu Bakr’s daughter Asma (through her son Urwa and his son Hisham).

I saw Zaid bin Amr bin Nufail standing with his back against the Ka'ba and saying, “O people of Quraish! By Allah, none amongst you is on the religion of Abraham except me.” He used to preserve the lives of little girls: If somebody wanted to kill his daughter he would say to him, “Do not kill her for I will feed her on your behalf.” So he would take her, and when she grew up nicely, he would say to her father, “Now if you want her, I will give her to you, and if you wish, I will feed her on your behalf.”

I’ll be straight with you: I do not believe this. Not in the sense that I don’t believe Asma said it, but in the sense that I don’t believe her actual words.

Zayd ibn Amr, for those of you who don’t know, was a man of Mecca (he was Umar’s cousin on one side and Umar’s uncle on the other–don’t practice incest, kids!) who died a bit before Mohammed became a “prophet”. Because he eschewed polytheism, Christianity, and Judaism in favor of some vague Abrahamic tradition, he was sort of retroactively declared a Muslim and all sorts of legends about his life were made up to portray him as a pious and righteous proto-Muslim. Mohammed claimed that he met him by chance at some point and discovered that Zayd happened to follow the same dietary rules that “Allah” would later instruct Mohammed to follow. I guess he is vaguely comparable to John the Baptist in the Christian tradition? Like a predecessor pious guy (who is killed… not because of persecution, though, robbers just shanked him).

Anyway, Asma was like… 10 years old at most when Zayd died, and he had been away on trading business at the time of his death, so it’s a bit unclear what the timeline is here, if it did happen. She would have been 5-8, I guess. And so here is my question: where, exactly, are these girls that he “saved”? She says that he raised multiple young girls, keeping some with him and later returning others to their families. These girls would have been between Asma and Aisha in age and, presumably, some would have been older than Asma.

So what happened to them? Where are they? Why are they never mentioned again?

Not a single one of these girls he supposedly cared for is ever named or referenced. This happened in Mecca, in a well-known family. Zayd’s own children, Saeed and Atiqa, were Muslims quoted in various ahadith. (Saeed was married to Umar’s sister, incidentally, and was part of Umar’s whole anime-ass backstory. Atiqa was a wife of Umar himself and had a rather scandalous personal history, but that’s irrelevant. Point is, neither had anything to say about their father rescuing or raising any kids of either gender.)

Given how young Asma was and how no one, not even Zayd’s own kids, corroborates her account, I tend to look at her words here with some skepticism. If they existed, the women who were “saved” by Zayd as infants would have become Muslims by or before the conquest of Mecca, and at least one of them would have been quoted or just mentioned in some hadith, somewhere. But they weren’t, and imo it’s because this is not something that really happened and is instead just a demonstration of early Islamic myth-making. The same trope is repeated in later and weaker sources, like some poetry attributed to al-Farazdaq claims that his grandfather raised 66 (!!!) girls he “saved”, who would presumably have been the same age as his parents, but does he name a single damn one of them or name the individuals who he “saved” them from? Nope. Just like Zayd’s mysterious disappearing foster daughters, the girls disappear from the story right after they stop being needed to prove a point. Hm.

There are no other recorded instances of specific people in Mecca either practicing or stopping infanticide. In the interest of fairness, despite my loathing for the guy, I must note that a semi-popular story about Umar burying his daughters is fabricated. Umar obviously had many daughters, his eldest being one of Mohammed’s own wives, who was not only not killed but even received an education and was literate.

The only other sahih hadith on this subject is this one, which just lists various bad things and is similar to 6:151. Again, no specific incidents are mentioned. The term used here is “wad al-banat”, meaning presumably the infanticide (wad) of daughters (banat).

Verity Allah, the Glorious and Majestic, has forbidden for you: disobedience to mothers, and burying alive daughters … (etc)

Nothing further is said of this supposedly common practice in any other sahih hadith. Zero people are accused of partaking in this practice, zero people confess to having done it, no one mentions having a murdered sister or aunt or daughter. And judging by the marriage practices of early Islam, there sure doesn’t seem to have been a gender ratio issue.

With this total dearth of evidence in mind, some Islamic scholars over the centuries have relented on the polytheists somewhat, proposing that female infanticide was a rarer practice than some claim in settled areas, but was still practiced somewhere by some tribe. (This is not just a modern practice: they were in the minority, but there were some 9th century scholars like al-Mubarrad who were explicitly skeptical of the baby-killing days of Jahiliyya.) Usually the Bedouin living outside the Hijaz are blamed because, you know, lol silly desert nomads. Even this requires relying on weaker traditions, though. So hey since this is turning into a goddamn dissertation, let’s dive into them!!

First, let me get this one out of the way: Qays ibn Asim, evidently a leader of the Banu Tamim tribe. If you’ve heard any specific person identified with the practice of female infanticide, it’s probably him. There are all sorts of versions of his story, though most of them go like this.

That story says that his tribe was raided by a Lakhmid (Iraqi) king, who took the women as slaves. Eventually the women were returned once peace was negotiated between the parties, but one of them, the daughter of Qays, refused to come home because she wanted to stay with her Lakhmid husband. After that, Qays buried all girls born to his wife, to avoid such a dishonorable thing happening again in the future. Sometimes it’s said there were 8 girls, other times it’s said there were 12. After he converted to Islam, he confessed and repented by sacrificing some of his camels. (Often this is presented as the first case of female infanticide among Arabs, which does… not… make much sense, timeline-wise?)

I suppose it goes without saying that while the Banu Tamim are mentioned (sometimes in a derogatory way, other times in a nice or neutral way) in the six main ahadith collections, this story is not found in any of them… in fact, Qays himself narrates some sahih ahadith and never bothers to mention that he’s apparently killed a dozen babies. Hmmm. Where does the story come from, then?

As far as I can tell, the bare bones of it come from al-Tabarani (he was of the generation of ahadith collectors after Bukhari et al; this book in particular has tens of thousands of ahadith of varying levels of authenticity, many of which are clearly weak), apparently quoting from Nouman ibn Bashir, who says he heard it from Umar (thus the confusion over Umar supposedly killing one of his children).

All that hadith says is that he buried 8 daughters; the other details about his tribe being attacked etc come from weaker/fabricated sources. There’s a variant of the story in which Qays’ wife saves one girl and (somehow??) brings her up on her own and Qays is devastated and shamed of his deeds when he sees her, which appears to be pulled from a fabricated account about some other guy named Awf ibn Muhallam. Neither account is considered sahih or even credible. The same is true of a ridiculous story from Sunan al-Darimi (Google Translate is shit at Arabic but I can’t find an English version, you can at least get the general idea, the unnamed guy says he kicked his daughter down a well as she screamed out for him!) that some people may have heard which is, again, never stated to be authentic and not found in any other collections; the details in that last one are quite clearly meant to demonize polytheists as shockingly as possible.

I searched and searched for the most credible possible account mentioning a specific incident of infanticide, and I think this one here comes closest. It is a hasan hadith from one of Bukhari’s commentaries. This is not Sahih Bukhari–this commentary has ahadith ranging from daif to sahih (weak to strong, hasan is pretty much “okay”). The guy evidently says he killed a daughter (“wadt mawudatan”, translate that as you will) in pre-Islamic times and asks Abu Dhar if he can repent. Abu Dhar says it’s fine because Allah forgives what has been done before Islam… then starts arguing with his wife about food and this hadith is classified under the chapter about giving guests food… the apparent infanticide being totally forgotten for the remainder of the hadith. Weird.

There’s a variant of this story with different wording in one of Imam Ahmed’s collections (#20376), with a different narration chain. The word mawudatan is not present–“wadt” وأدت is in fact without an object there. It’s possible it’s not talking about infanticide at all but rather using the word with a different definition to indicate being a leading participant in polytheistic practices. But… uh. That’s the best I can do here. One guy, and not from a source that’s considered super authentic.

There are no other even sort-of-reputable sources mentioning female infanticide. That’s it. In the entire history of pre-Islamic Arabia, that is the extent of the evidence for “Arabs always used to bury their daughters alive!!”. As you can see, the evidence that this was a common practice is… not convincing in the least, and the conflation between infanticide and splooging outside a vagina is confusing and not helping matters. In summary, please leave our ancestors alone!! They went through enough shit without ppl painting them as baby-killing monsters based on zero non-Islamic sources and barely any Islamic sources either. I’m just asking y’all to evaluate claims of them being evil with the same skepticism you’d grant claims of pagan Europeans being called evil by Christian sources. The fact that we’ve all been taught this “fact” is unfortunate but I hope I’ve convinced you that the practice at least wasn’t as common as it’s presented in the modern era.

I guess we may follow the prophet’s example and blame the Jews for this confusion. And Allah knows best.

“Mayhem, Moonlight and a Merry Christmas”

A Christmas Olicity Historical AU: What happens when a handsome Earl is visited by a beautiful young debutante in the middle of the night?

A/N: Wishing you all a wonderful Holiday season and a very, Merry Christmas.  This one-shot was inspired by one of my favorite Historical Romance books called, “To Wed A Wicked Earl” by Olivia Parker.  

~~~~~~~~~~

1820 London

Long, cold fingers, of the frosty December night, trailed over the bare chest and sculpted arms of the slumbering Earl of Starling, Oliver Queen.  

They startled him from the heated depths of a particularly, enjoyable dream. One filled with a beloved, bespectacled visage, peony pink tinted lips and lustrous blonde curls that his sleep muddled brain swore could still be felt wrapped around his fingers.

Oliver shivered then sat up.  His silk bedsheet pooling around his waist as he peered through sleepy eyes in the direction of the loud thud that echoed from the far corner of his master suite.   The French doors of his second story bedroom balcony stood open and he watched in dismay as a dark shadow twisted and fought within the tangled curtains and took shape into the form of a woman.

“Lord, help me,” he mumbled under his breath. Not another crazed debutante, who thought she was in love with him, attempting to sneak into his room.  He’d had his share of misguided attempts over the years.  As one of the most sought after bachelors of the ton, Oliver had to be very careful.  Matchmaking mothers and eager daughters doth make an interesting season.

“Oliver?” came a familiar voice, its normally melodic tone, now full of disbelief and sharp reprimand. “Is that you?”

Is that you? Was he still dreaming? It couldn’t be, Felicity, sneaking into his bedroom.  The Lady Felicity Smoak, younger sister of Oliver’s best friend and the woman he was secretly, hopelessly and completely in love with, was not this reckless.  She was in fact, one of the most intelligent, steadfast and kind women he had the pleasure of knowing.  He could only fault her for one thing.  She could not see that his heart was utterly hers, had been for a very long time and would always be.

Another frigid gust of wind came through the open balcony doors, ruffling tendrils of her normally proper chignon that had fallen loose in her struggle with his curtains.

Even now his fingers rubbed together with the typical want to reach out and touch her; to see if her tresses were as soft as he thought they were.  

Her glass spectacles sat askew on the bridge of her nose and twigs and winter jasmine petals were caught in the fabric of her winter cape.  She was breathtakingly beautiful.

And apparently, she was extremely reckless.

What adventure was she up to?  For as long as they had known each other, since she was 10 and he and her brother were 14, Felicity was always involved in something. Either it be a scientific experiment or original play from one of her many books or mechanisms of human nature; she was in constant motion.  Her mind racing almost too fast for her words to catch up. Almost.  Her enthusiastic babbling was well known amongst her closest friends and family.

“Yes, of course it’s me.  Who else would it be, in the middle of the night, in my bedroom?”

She stilled, one of the few times Oliver had ever seen her entire body come to a stop, “Oh dear, um, did you say, ‘your bedroom’?”

”Fe-li-ci-ty,” Oliver said, as he gave up the idea of being left alone to his dreams of her.  He stood up, wrapped the silk sheet around his naked body, and stalked towards her.  

“This isn’t your bedroom.  I specifically counted three windows from the chimney.  This is your library,” she said, as she calmly re-adjusted her glasses with all the aplomb of a woman who thought she was in the right.

Unbelievable.  Oliver shook his head and chuckled under his breath.  This explanation was going be very, very interesting.  He wondered if his state of undress had even registered with her yet.   It had certainly registered with him.  The slinkiness of the bed sheet chafed against him as it slid along his already over-sensitive skin.  His awareness of her always made his body raw.  Every cell in his body screaming to touch her.

“I would know if I was in my library.  It’s the third room from the ‘west wing’ chimney.  And by the way, why are you climbing up my trellis in the middle of the night?”

Oliver’s body surrounded her as he leaned forward and closed the balcony doors.  The curtains floated down sealing them in secluded moonlight.  

The fire in his room had long since burned down to a low radiant glow.  He watched as a deep blush bloomed across Felicity’s cheeks and down the elegant line of her neck as she finally realized how naked he was.

He really should put on a robe or a shirt, but damn it…he was tired, frustrated and ravenous for her.   He wanted her to see him for the man he was.  Not the man she thought him to be.  

The scent of heated jasmine mixed with the seasonal fresh pine and holly, his room decorated for the Yuletide holiday season, filled his lungs as he took a deep, fortifying breath trying to stem the need to close the last few inches between them.

“You’ve been ignoring me,” a breathless whisper brushed against his neck and his body went hard.  He groaned internally as the softness of her voice reminded him of the sighs she’d made in his dreams as he pleasured her.

Their bodies swayed closer as he looked down and became lost in the stunning blue of her eyes.  This was dangerous.  He was already holding onto the last threads of his control around her.

He stepped away and grabbed a hold of the bed sheet, that was resting precariously around his hips, before his body gave away just how aroused she made him.

Bloody hell, this woman would be the death of him.  And yes, he had been ignoring her.  Not well, but he had tried.  He thought he had escaped her inquiring glances by leaving the Christmas Eve ball early.  

A month ago, Felicity had decided she needed to help him recapture the eye of the woman he loved.  Little did she know that she had the identity of that woman totally wrong.  

At the beginning of the season, Oliver had tried to move on from his hopeless love for Felicity, by courting, the Lady Eliza Thornton.   He had been miserable.  Every moment spent with the wrong woman had hurt his already tender and bruised heart.

One dance and a walk in the park had shown both he and Lady Eliza that they made good friends and nothing more.  In fact, his brief courtship had roused the interest of the man Eliza truly wanted and Oliver had gladly stepped aside and wished them the best.

But now, the ton and Felicity thought Oliver still had a chance to win Eliza back.

All in all, it was a mess.  Oliver had been trying to stay away from Felicity’s good hearted efforts, but it would seem she was on a mission.  With the thought of her wanting to help him, find love with someone else, intense pain seared his soul.  

Oliver knew he was notorious.  The frolicking ways of his youth had earned him the legendary title of Rake, but as his admiration and respect for Felicity had matured into love, he had stopped all that behavior.  And that personal devotion to her had gone unnoticed below society’s and Felicity’s impressions of him.  

She saw him only as a friend.  And if he ever lost her friendship and regard, he could not bear it.

He was in a constant battle between leaving her alone or kissing her senseless.  The more time she spent with him the closer he was to losing the war of good intentions.  

“My maid, Martha, knows your maid, Margaret.  They have been friends for years. Perhaps friends since both their first days in service to our families.  They gossip worse than the ton.  And drat, I must have had their hastily drawn map to your library turned the wrong way.”  

At Oliver’s bemused look, Felicity just kept on talking. “Oliver, you truly have been trying to avoid me haven’t you? I sent you two notes this week arranging to meet you in your library after the ball. I swear, it’s as if you don’t wish to win Lady Eliza back at all.”

He may have just reached a surrender.

“It’s because I don’t want her back,” he growled, as he ran his fingers through his dark, thick hair.

“But, you agreed when I offered to help,”

“I did not agree,” he responded quietly.  

“But you didn’t say no.  And ever since then, you’ve been avoiding me.  Don’t you want to be happy?”  Felicity asked in confusion.  “You are one of my dearest friends and you deserve happiness.”

And at Oliver’s continued silence she repeated, “Oliver?”

“...she isn’t the woman I love,”

“What? But,…you courted her. And you have never courted, anyone,” Felicity whispered in bewilderment as she stepped closer and lifted her hand.  “Wait, you said she isn’t the woman, …is, is there someone else?” her last words spoken in a voice so small and so tenuously vulnerable.

Her breaths quickened and her chest rose and fell faster, almost touching his.  

She had no gloves on.  Her fingers hovered, slightly shaking, above his golden skin and her heated gaze slid over his broad shoulders and the taught, defined muscles of his chest and stomach.  Oliver’s body burned from her attention and their bodies hummed with their scandalous proximity.  The air went heavy with heady, acute awareness.  

He watched her lick her lips before she looked up at him and the undisguised hunger he saw in her eyes shook him to the core.  She wanted him.  Good god, she wanted him.

He lost the entire, god damn war.

“Oliver?” Felicity’s voice quivered with wonder and hope as if she sensed something incredible was about to happen.  

He reached for her.  He finally reached for her.  

Oliver cupped the back of her neck and pulled her flush against her his body.  

The both moaned as their bodies touched.  Softness melted against hard maleness.   Her hand was caught between them and now lay over his heart.   He swore the entire world must hear it beating out of control.  

His hands slid into the thickness of her hair.  Pins flew everywhere as he finally touched the luxurious weight and her hair fell in fragrant waves over her shoulders.  The scent of jasmine would forever be hers.

Felicity’s eyes closed and her body shuddered against his.  

“Felicity,” Oliver watched as her passion heavy eyes fluttered open at his voice and Oliver allowed his feelings for her to show.  “The woman I love, is you,”

“Me?” Felicity whispered, as joy and love swirled in her eyes.  

Could his dreams come true?  How long had she cared for him like this?

“I’ve been a fool.  I was so afraid of losing your friendship.  The small part of your heart that I had, that...I didn’t, couldn’t show you how I really felt.  It’s always been you, Felicity.”

“Oliver...I have loved you, for forever. I can no longer remember when I did not.  I’ve always wanted you.  I never thought, you, wanted me.  And then you turned to Eliza,”

“Forgive me, please...I never meant to hurt you. Never. I didn’t feel I was worthy of you,”

“Oh, Oliver,” she said as she soothingly rubbed her palm over his heart and Oliver placed his forehead against hers.  

Their hearts and eyes met and all of their pent up want and need took over.

Oliver took her lips in a kiss that was as gentle as warm summer rain, exhilarating as a storm over the moors and as addictive as the most divine confection.

Her mouth opened at his sensual coaxing and he tasted heaven.  Her essence.  Her love.  

Felicity’s hands traveled up his torso and into his hair, holding onto him, as he showed her the decadent advantages of loving and being loved by a Rake.    

A little while later, he reluctantly pulled his head back, allowing them both to catch their breath.  He watched her mouth curve into a smile more radiant than any he had ever seen before.  He was going to shower her with all the love he had in him and if she’d have him; he was going to marry her.

“I need to take you home now, my love, before I can no longer be a gentleman,” Oliver groaned as he brushed his lips against hers once more.  “And then, at exactly 10 am, I’ll be right back there to ask you a very important question.”

Felicity’s smile grew even larger and incandescent as she nodded her head.  “Merry Christmas, Oliver.”

“Merry Christmas, Felicity.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

My lovelies: @diggo26 @charlinert @kawusia25 @whoeveryoulovethemost @letsnevergrowupfan @priya108 @ohliverfelicity @andjustforthismoment @relativelyobsessedfangirl @felicityssoliver @readerkas @sinceriouslysarah @jedichick04 @smurfica @bluemorgana @arrow-through-my-writers-block @florence-bubbles @secretglimpses @arrowolicity88 @travelingwinchester @scu11y22 @lerayon @multi-fandom-crazy-fangirl @pharmalen @photogeniques @mrsd923 @iv-on-ka @miriam1779 @beautiful-dreamer-sara @thebeckyford @aussieforgood @allyouneedisolicity-tiva @iloveyouallthemore @lesanchea @crazypants5 @geniewithwifi @pleasedontletmedownx @quiveringbunny @cityofolicity @the-girl-wednesday @flailykermit @moomoosstudio @dopecycleblaze @malafle @u-r-notdonefighting @bytemegeekette @lindsey8907 @onlyhere4olicity @niki-is-amazing @olicityhappyeverafter @dalisia3 @danski15 @felicityqueenforever @amac313 @kajunblueyes @music-and-motorcycles @itsthatwallflower @mrsbubblelee @tinaday3w @memcjo @octoberwren @pamanaus @mymusiclove101 @ellefraser17 @sinceriously-melodiful @yespleasehawkeyee @olicityforeverqueen @redpensandgreenarrows @thesunshine-in @quiquikalikala @thedreamersmovement @leagueofolicity17 @georgiakblog @myuntetheredsoul @mochababychristy @arrows-4ever @jaspertown @lgtwinkie99 @convictionwithpurpose @pjcmfalcon @lexi9515 @redpenbluebox @pleasantfanandstudent @oliverfel4 @almondblossomme @marniforolicity @somewhatinvisible @muslimsmoak @vaelisamaza @velvetsteel @angelalafan @cinfos @tdgal1 @djeniiscorner @vicky-vale @bwangangelic @olicityandsteroline @imthedoctordonna @lynaye1993 @f0xyr0xy @sammieathome @arrowgirl20 @coal000 @green-arrows-of-karamel @amytosh @so-caffeinated @tjmartinez98 @queeningrid @cndyprfumegirl

The Urban Dictionary of Dance Lessons

Dancing is an exciting and thrilling passion and In case you have generally relished it, then chances are you will want to take up dance classes Later on. There are plenty of different dance lessons to choose from in the two private and community configurations, and they are also presented at various times in the yr.

The good news is the fact Should you have Great site time to get dance courses in a dance studio You'll be able to love the main advantages of this way of dancing, nonetheless, this isn't a must. For those who have children or other tasks Then you definately may perhaps choose to figure out how to dance in your own home.

To start out, you ought http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch/?action=click&contentCollection&region=TopBar&WT.nav=searchWidget&module=SearchSubmit&pgtype=Homepage#/Dance to have a look at your local dance college and find out when there is an available dance lesson about the weekends. If you live in a location with a large number of people that live in the identical residence then it is best to talk to if they have got a dance lesson around the weekends. This will provide you with the opportunity to Have a very one on just one lesson with a neighborhood dance Instructor and learn to dance concurrently.

The different sorts of dancing, you'll find out incorporate Ballet, Jazz, and Blues. Ballet is definitely the oldest method of dance and it is executed by the Ballet dancers and is very very simple. Jazz is a good sort of dance and is a great introduction to dance for youngsters. Blues is often a type of dance Dance Studios that works by using lots of classic African music, which is also pretty popular.

If you cannot consider dance classes at a dance studio Then you can certainly figure out how to dance at your house, there are lots of Internet sites that supply free dance classes for children. You will want to ensure that you've got the correct equipment to have the finest outside of the teachings and you will also need to be sure that you've got the appropriate Mind-set to be able to figure out how to dance adequately.

Many people could wish to consider dance courses for a while and after that choose they no more provide the time to take action They appear for other options. It can be value seeking around at distinctive dance studios that supply lessons and viewing what is on provide and regardless of whether you normally takes classes at any of them.

If you will be able to choose dance lessons in your house Then you can certainly make a decision in order to acquire classes with a weekly or month-to-month foundation. It's also possible to consider as numerous classes as you want, you will need to decide in the event you will stick to one particular class or if you will be having a number of lessons at different situations with the 7 days.

With regards to using dance courses, There are tons of differing types and styles of classes obtainable. If you wish to discover how to dance for 1 particular motive, then you may want to consider lessons in a dance studio where by you may be taught to dance ballet, jazz, fashionable, up to date, hip hop, fashionable and jazz dance, tap and even more.

You will have to come to a decision what sort of course you wish to take and afterwards you will have to determine if you'd like to have a a single-on-one particular course that has a Trainer or in the event you will choose a category that is a single to a bunch of men and women. Many people can have a specific kind of dance in your mind and wish to find out about that sort of dance right before they go to consider the teachings. If This is actually the circumstance then you might want to take lessons which have been a person-on-1 or team lessons.

Additionally, you will require to determine just how long you should go ahead and take lessons and what time-frame you are going to go ahead and take classes in. If you are using classes for your while you're youthful then you may want to consider them for a longer stretch of time and understand differing types of dance which include hip hop and jazz as these are generally much more Highly developed than Some others and may be more difficult to discover.

In case you are taking courses for a crucial rationale which include a wedding then you may want to just take courses immediately. It's because it is vital to have the right gown and Ensure that you appear your very best before the huge working day.

You may also wish to go ahead and take lessons when you're young so that you will be ready to get in the best possible condition before the wedding ceremony in order to be in the very best temper to enjoy it. Acquire a category if you find yourself young so that you could enjoy it and get quite possibly the most out within your dance.

Ladies! Dance All Night - 5 Simple Rules to Help Ladies Get on the Dance Floor and Stay There

You would spend hours picking out the perfect outfit. You stand in the mirror for God knows how long making sure no locks is out of place. Shoes and purse... fierce. Make-up... completely flawless. You've been taking dance types for the past few weeks and in fact you just finished a 6 week beginners Salsa course. You have the looks... you have the moves... but you will soon find out you're missing one important piece... the attitude. People ride along with your friends, with the music blasting expecting a fun night. You arrive at the club and you see the beat of the conga. You watch as smooth gentleman whisk women away to the dance ground and the ladies gracefully move to the beat. "Wow" you think to yourself... "everyone is just so good! " Before very long you're in the back of the room with clammy hands avoiding eye contact. You've gone from hoping for a nights dancing and great times to feeling like your back at your 6th grade Sadie Hawkins dancing. In an effort to maybe meet someone or bring a bit of attention to yourself you move to the bar. No one tells anything to you and certainly no one asks you to dance. You think to yourself... "Maybe I should buy a take to loosen up". You get the drink... and feel a little better... but no one comes over to people. Your friends have already spread out. The ones who had no intention to dance are hovering near you while the heroic are out on the floor. What went wrong? If you're like most women especially women who don't get out considerably... within the first 20 minutes of being out you started to doubt yourself. Women, we are our own worst opposing. We tear ourselves down before we give anyone else a chance too. I have taught countless dance lessons where I have heard the following... I don't go out because no one will dance with me... I'm overweight. Not a soul will dance with me because I'm ugly. No one will dance with me because I don't have nice clothing. No one will dance with me because I'm not that good. No one will dance with me because So i am not sexy. No one will dance with me because I'm not thin enough. The list goes on. Precisely what I am here to tell you and what I have told many of my students is that non-e of this is true. I have given the following advice to countless women who after following my simple tips would probably find that not only were they being asked to dance, but they could barely get off the dance terrain! I wrote this quick guide to getting on the dance floor to help women everywhere get out... get moving together with feel better about themselves. Rule #1 Realize there is NOTHING wrong with you. When you feel insecure you take action insecure. Sometimes insecurity or shyness comes across as unfriendliness. So first thing is first... realize there is nothing mistaken with you. You are beautiful. You are smart. You're entertaining and you are worth someone's undivided attention. Remember confidence is what one thinks of them self. It comes from within. You decide how you view you. So from this issue on see yourself as the gorgeous and sexy vixen you are! Tip: Want instant weight loss? Stand up upright! Just by paying attention to your posture and standing up straight you will appear thinner and more confident. Rule #2 Look. Smiling does wonders not only for your face but others perception of you. People who smile often are generally friendlier. What women often fail to realize is that asking someone to dance is a nerve racking encounter for men. Just like they were in the 8th grade... they're often still a little afraid of the other intimacy. No one likes rejection. You might be thinking no one is talking to me because I'm not pretty but it may be the exact opposite. There might be tons of men in the room that think you're the most beautiful woman in the world and are merely too afraid to say something to you... let alone ask you to Sparta NJ Dance Classes with them. Now imagine if you're unconsciously scowling. No-one is going to come within 10 feet of you. Now you might be thinking... "smiling sounds nice and just about all... but what the heck am I supposed to smile at? " Yes staring off into breathing space and smiling will in fact make you look like a lunatic. You don't want to go that far. What you want to undertake is look for reasons to smile... such as people or things to smile at. Personally I like to go sites where there is a live band. When I am watching a live band it's hard for me not to look and bounce to the beat. Another easy way to slip in some smiles is to spot a couple on the boogie floor who is either having a great time or are phenomenal dancers or both. As you enjoy their dance smile! The easiest way to smile... find someone hot... make eye contact and smile at him. Your dog just might smile back! Once you're on the dance floor, keep the smile on your face. Smiling really softens you and it will appear to your partner and to those watching that you're actually having fun! Rule #3 Get on the dance floor. One of the first mistakes women make is to head straight for the bar or to find a chair. It's OK to find a place to set your jacket down... but if you want to dance don't sit. You have to try to stand and to stand near the dance floor. Men tend to assume that women who are sitting don't wish to dance and women who are near the bar are getting a drink and will not want to dance. You want a fast monitor to the dance floor... stand next to it and bounce to the music. I guarantee someone will swoop you up in an instant. I have heard guys refer to women who stand near the dance floor as an "easy target" because they can tell they're ready to dance. Don't forget to smile! Rule #4 Dress Appropriately. If you're mastering a specific type of dance and you're out for practice and to have a good time then dress the part. For everybody who is learning Latin dance, invest in a good pair of Latin style ballroom shoes. If you're learning general ballroom, ditto get a good pair of closed toe ballroom shoes. There are appropriate types of shoes for almost every dance. In case you are serious about learning the dance or could see yourself going out to dance that style often , get the shoes. Firstly men who are out dancing and want to dance will often scout out the stage and find the ladies who have the correct footwear. They target the ones with appropriate shoes because they assume people know how to dance and they rightly assume that the women wearing the proper shoes want to dance. Second you'll be and. When I first started dancing socially I wore regular high heels and could not understand why after one hour As i was sore and wanted to go home. One night a lady was nice enough to clue people in on her secret which was ballroom shoes. Shortly after I bought my first pair and never looked back. You furthermore may want to make sure that you're not dressing too skimpy. A lot of women feel like they have to show all of their body parts in order to get some curiosity. This simply just isn't true. While wearing a super short mini dress and platforms will get you notice... chances are it will be the wrong kind of attention. I mean if you're looking for that kind of attention more power to ya sista... otherwise be sexy, but not slutty. Just like there are different types of shoes for every dance there are typically different types of clothing that go along with each style. Observe what is most appropriate for the style of dance you're interested in and try to stay in that will realm. If you're into Latin dance like me, you will soon discover that there are many ways to be sexy nevertheless classy, which I will discuss in my next guide. Rule #5 Be a Kind and Gracious Dance Accomplice. Once you get on the dance floor, be nice! Some women go from being on the sidelines to help turning into an instant snob once they hit the dance floor. Be kind to your partner. Also don't scared away from the ones you believe to be poor dancers. If they are there to learn be kind enough to let these practice with you. Everyone has to start somewhere. Even if they are terrible (in your eyes)... smile. If they are generally off beat... be off beat with them. Dancing with a partner is about lead and follow... it's not constantly about doing the dance correctly according to the "textbook". Let him lead. There is nothing worse than watching a lady with a back-lead that is so strong that it looks like she and her partner are doing karate rather then dancing. Believe it or not... if you're in tandem most people won't even realize you're doing it wrong or off whip. Just smile and have a great time. And unless you're insulted, injured or there is a fear of injury never basically leave your partner on the dance floor. Finish the song and allow your partner to escort you off the flow floor. Not only will your partner thank you for your patience, but other men are watching you. They will note down your kind and gracious behavior. You don't have to dance with a poor dancer all night, but make sure you try and party with everyone at least once. There is something that can be learned from everyone. You should make an effort to dance with people off skill levels. Be sure to always thank your partner at the end of a dance. It will make him more likely to want to night with you again. Now get up... get out and get dancing!

"[D] Combating discrimination towards engineers in AI"- Detail: I recently joined one of the research organization as ML engineer which is part of a tech giant that you most certainly have heard of. However, I am stunned at how engineers are being consistently discriminated at such research organizations irrespective of their contributions. Unfortunately my recent learnings suggests that this might be a systemic problem in our field and therefore motivating me for this post.First let me say that this post has be anonymous but to give some background, I have been working with ML since those days when SVMs were the coolest things (part of me wants to say that they still are). I don’t have PhD. I’m completely self-taught when it comes to ML, constantly improving and learning by solving real world problems as all engineers likes to do. Since past 7 years or so I’m focusing almost exclusively on deep learning and have shipped models for real money making products (yes, they do exist!). For my love of ML research, I finally decided to join formal research organization and now I’m finding out that engineers are very clearly second class citizens in such research organizations.It’s hard to get sense of how discrimination feels to someone without talking about specifics. So I will give few examples here. Please understand I can only show you the tip of the iceberg but people in my position precisely know what I am eluding to.One of my first memory as I arrived was learning that there was some “offsite” going on in my group. It turned out that only researchers were invited while engineers were en-mass excluded even while the topic of offsite was very important for everyone. It was absolutely shocking that exclusion was purely based on job titles with no consideration given to seniority or past contributions. This apparently wasn’t the first time this had happened as one of the colleagues told me. Several such important meetings as well as events often happened without engineers getting invited or involved, often irrespective of the subject of the meetings. And it wasn’t just meetings either. Few months back there have been large scale hiring of interns and FTEs with ton of interviews and hiring events lined up. Apparently only researchers were invited to do interview loops. At least one position I looked was advertised to require only Masters degree (which I happened have too!) but even for those positions no engineers were invited to be part of any of the interview loops. These candidates, if selected, will be our colleagues and supposed to work with us but none of us engineers were deemed good enough to interview any of them. At the same time junior researchers with zero years of experience would almost always be invited to be part of these interview loops. I would think that interview process should benefit from the diversity in backgrounds. The goal for inclusion in interviewing process is for the team to have good representation to evaluate compatibility with future colleagues as well as diverse skill sets. I was also told that this is not the case in any other divisions outside of this research organization at my company.There are many such things that I can go on about how engineers are carefully excluded and discriminated regardless of their experience, passion, expertise or contributions. One such example is public podcasts that my research organization has started to give some publicity to projects and personals. However only researchers are invited to be featured, interviewed or be part of these podcasts. I recently became aware of one case where the work that was boasted about at length by a researcher in one podcast episode was actually entirely done by engineers. I was pretty disgusted at how any mention of this fact was very carefully avoided even when interviewer asked related questions. I talked to one of the engineers involved and the person was visibly shaken just at the mention of that podcast.As one more example, my research organization does a tons of internal panels, events, workshops, seminars and so on. Each of these usually have committees, chairs, reviewers, organizers and so on. In my admittedly short time here I have never seen any engineers getting ever invited to participate in any of these committees in any capacity whatsoever. It appears that engineers are simply prevented by design to be part of any decision making bodies that exists at my research organization at any level. In several cases that I am now aware of, engineers have been equal contributors, in some much more than equal. Yet this exclusion from being in any position of power, gaining visibility or rewards seems to be deliberately designed in to the system. The most funny thing I ever learned here was that some researchers set up a seminar on “best engineering practices”. The catch? They had zero engineers as part of the committee and speakers! It turns out that engineers are apparently not intelligent enough to even talk about engineering.It’s depressing enough that I am planning to leave and have been talking to few engineers in other research organizations. Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be very positive feedback for other organizations either. I tend to think this is not just problem at where I work now, rather it’s something that is fundamentally and deeply ingrained in research organizations. This is especially stunning given that these research organizations derive their freedom, stability and all other comforts on the back of engineers who actually bring bacon home in terms of company’s revenues. I love research but it’s super hard to live with such naked and blatant discrimination every day. In my opinion this is no different than how whites treated blacks by considering them much lesser beings or how men treated women by looking at them as one notch below by creating a system where they are not allowed to express opinions, acquire positions of power or exercise any sort of authority all the while wildly profiting from their work.How do we change this? More importantly can this be changed?. Caption by relletreknit. Posted By: www.eurekaking.com

TD: The Paddy Reilly Connection

Okay, so I noticed this while re-watching s3. I got super excited about it and still am. Part of it I've actually said before, but I found new evidence of it that I didn't have before, and it's got me super giddy.

So here's what happened: I talked about how I love the scene in 3x01 where Beth sings and Daryl stares at her, right? But I noticed that Hershel first suggested she sing a song called Paddy Reilly. As soon as he suggests it, Maggie chimes in saying, "No, not that one, Daddy." So he instead suggests Parting Glass, which they sing. I was curious about what Paddy Reilly was and why Maggie wouldn't want to sing it. I didn't expect it to be a TD thing. I just wanted to know.

So I looked it up.

Paddy Reilly (full title, Come Back Paddy Reilly) is well known Irish song about a coachman named Paddy Reilly...

The story goes that Paddy Reilly used to drive the writer of the song, Percy French, into the town of Balleyjamesduff for his appointments. French went away for a time, and when he returned, he found that Reilly had emigrated to the U.S. It was something many people were doing at the time because there was more work in the States, and people in Ireland were starving. But French was sad to see so many of his countrymen forced to leave their beloved Ireland to find work. He loved his homeland and especially Balleyjamesduff. So he wrote this song.

Now, it sounds a whole lot like a romantic, longing, unrequited love song. Understand, it was not actually written that way. It’s written from one man to another, but was not meant romantically. If you read the information about what it means and its history (HERE) it's widely believed that French used the name Paddy Reilly as an allegory for all Irish people who have left their homeland. It's song for all emigrants. He misses them, is sad that they've left their homeland, and wants them to come back.

Now, why am I telling you this? Let's start with the lyrics (bold emphasis mine):

The Garden of Eden has vanished, they say

But I know the lie of it still;

Just turn to the left at the bridge of Finea

And stop when halfway to Cootehill.

'Tis there I will find it,

I know sure enough

When fortune has come to me call,

Oh the grass it is green around Ballyjamesduff

And the blue sky is over it all.

And tones that are tender and tones that are gruff

Are whispering over the sea,

Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

 My mother once told me that when I was born

The day that I first saw the light,

I looked down the street on that very first morn

And gave a great crow of delight.

Now most newborn babies appear in a huff,

And start with a sorrowful squall,

But I knew I was born in Ballyjamesduff

And that's why I smiled on them all.

The baby's a man, now he's toil-worn and tough

Still, whispers come over the sea,

Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

 The night that we danced by the light of the moon,

Wid Phil to the fore wid his flute,

When Phil threw his lip over Come Again Soon,

He's dance the foot out o' yer boot!

The day that I took long Magee by the scruff

For slanderin' Rosie Kilrain,

Then, marchin' him straight out of Ballyjamesduff,

Assisted him into a drain.

Oh, sweet are the dreams, as the dudeen I puff,

Of whisperings over the sea,

Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

 I've loved the young women of every land,

That always came easy to me;

Just barrin' the belles of the Black-a-moor brand

And the chocolate shapes of Feegee.

But that sort of love is a moonshiny stuff,

And never will addle me brain,

For the bells will be ringin' in Ballyjamesduff

For me and me Rosie Kilrain!

And through all their glamour, their gas and their guff

A whisper comes over the sea,

Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

 Encore verse

 I've struck oil at last!

I've struck work, and I vow

I've struck some remarkable clothes,

I've struck a policeman for sayin' that now,

I'd go back to my beautiful Rose.

The belles they may blarney,

the boys they may bluff

But this I will always maintain,

No place in the world like Ballyjamesduff

No guril (sic) like Rosie Kilrain.

I've paid for my passage, the sea may be rough

But borne on each breeze there will be,

Come back, Paddy Reilly to Ballyjamesduff

Come home, Paddy Reilly, to me.

(Lyrics Source)

The Garden of Eden - we've seen a ton of Garden of Eden symbolism in the show. One place we saw it a lot was around Beth and Daryl in Still. (More Info: X, X)

Bridge – Remember the bridge references in S6 around Denise? (X, X)

Ireland is green, so there are lots of green references.

The ocean certainly reminds me of the Oceanside Theory. (X) So we have someone who must come back on the ocean in order to return home.

Newborn Babies – Lots of baby references around Beth. Something @boltthrutheheart and I have been hashing out. I’ll get around to doing a theory about it eventually.

“The Baby’s a man.” – Slightly different but reminds me of Carol telling Daryl in 5x06, “you used to be a boy, now you’re a man.”

“Danced by the light of the moon” – Still reference, perhaps? 

Also this dog/wolf/moon reference from S4:

Ah, my favorite. Stanza 4, line 5. This song actually has a moonshine reference.

“I struck a policeman…” – Grady anyone?

“I’ve paid for my passage…” – Gov to Tyreese: “You’ve got to pay the bill.”

“The sea may be rough…” because of the Oceanside theory, but also this: 

So you can imagine that when I read it, I was kind of jumping up and down.

So let's just state for the record that this makes total sense in the context of S3. This is an Irish song and, per his convo with Glenn in S2, Hershel is big on ancestors and knowing one's heritage. So this is a song he and his wife would have known and obviously taught their children.

I'm assuming Maggie didn't want to sing it because it would have been too painful. It talks about people who have left a person's life and aren't coming back. And there was a reference specifically to Beth's mom, so I'm assuming it was just too sad and she didn't want to hear/sing it. (To be fair, Parting Glass is also sad and talks about going away, but in that case it's the narrator going, rather than talking about others who have left. Either way, Maggie was just more comfortable with Parting Glass.)

But we have a song with all these interesting references, connected to Beth and the Greenes in general in S3, about someone who went away across the ocean. And the narrator begs them to come back.

But that is not all, my friends. No, that is not all.

I told you I'd said something about this before? Here's what I meant. Let's take a trip down memory lane to S6. In 6x08, which we all know was oozing with Beth symbolism, Daryl met Dwight and Sherry in the woods. Do you remember what they were looking for? It was a fuel truck called--that's right!--Patty. Yes, the spelling is different  but the name is the same.

There was a weirdness in this episode that made no sense at all. In fact, it was so confusing,  they had to explain on TTD that "Patty" was the fuel truck, because it didn't come across in the episode. Why would they do something that would confuse the audience? Well, because it's symbolic of course. So I figured out that the whole Patty thing was symbolic of Beth's arc. You can read the post in detail HERE, but basically Dwight and Sherry left the fuel truck behind in the chaos of what happened before. Walkers, fire, etc. When they went back in this episode to find it, it was gone. They freaked out. That's much like what we think happened with Beth. And we have evidence that people freaked out about it: 

But the analogy goes farther: Like TF, Dwight and Sherry take off without ever finding the fuel truck. At the end of the episode, Daryl finds it. There's a walker in the front which reminded us of this: 

which we've always thought symbolized Beth's awakening. He then takes the truck someplace else. So that could parallel with someone else (*coughs Morgan*) finding Beth and taking her someplace else (*coughs Grady*).

Back then, the only thing I could connect Patrick to was the Patrick that died in S4. And I still think he's connected because he was in the flashbacks of 4x16, and playing with a toy firetruck, no less. (Check out THIS POST, near the end, for my thoughts on that.) But now we have this Paddy Reilly reference, that's connected directly to Beth.

So this is just more evidence that the Patty fuel truck was an analogy for Beth. That Paddy Riley is somewhere across the sea, and people want her to come back.

Here's hoping Daryl's Patty returns to him in S8. Cheers!

Towards A Darker Femslash by holyfant

This post is part of Femslash Revolution’s I Am Femslash series, sharing voices of F/F creators from all walks of life. The views represented within are those of the author only.

Hello everyone! I hope your Femslash February is going great so far. I was stoked to be asked to write a little something for I Am Femslash, particularly because while I’ve written bits and pieces about my experience as a young, queer, multishipping and writing young woman in fandom, I’ve never really tried to put any of my thoughts together in a truly coherent way. So, here I go, attempting to write about a topic that is dear to me. Feel free to engage me on any of the points I make in this little essay!

So, hi. I’m holyfant, a 26-year-old ESL fanfic and (aspiring) original fiction writer. I’ve been active in fandom for nearly fifteen years, and have written fic for a lot of that time, picking up English and fannishness along the way. Writing fic gave me a way to connect with other people who had to same interests I did – and only later did I realise it also paved the way to more self-knowledge. At some point during my teens, the question of my own sexual and romantic identity became pressing; maybe paradoxically this first drew me to male slash, and only later to femslash – perhaps because the former was and is more visibly present in fandom than the latter, and perhaps also because reading and writing femslash was still too direct a way to engage with my own identity at that point. I still don’t fully understand this; I remember that when I was first playing with the idea that I might not be straight, it felt safer to read about men in love than women in love. Maybe seeing male characters discover their non-straightness was close enough to my own experience to stir up emotion and feeling, but far enough removed from it that it didn’t stir up panic. Who knows?

Either way, when I was more comfortable with who I was, I returned to f/f and found it infinitely rewarding. I read a metric ton of femslash fic and wrote lots myself – for a fairly long stretch of time I enjoyed deep obscurity in the Harry Potter and Greek mythology fandoms as a niche femslash writer with two or three loyal readers, and it was truly a lovely time. I engaged with femslash in a curious, non-discriminatory way – I shipped everyone. I’d take two minor female characters who perhaps had never even interacted in canon and found a way to put them together. I took prompts for characters that were only featured in throw-away lines, and wrote a lot of fic for the now sadly defunct LJ community hp_rarestpairest, which encouraged the nichest of pairings. Basically I was honing my writing skills, while also representing my questions, hopes and fears about my own sexuality at the same time. In my fics I dealt with women falling in love, being rejected, having sex with each other, coming out to their families and friends, dealing with heartbreak – all of these were things that I was thinking about, was experiencing or wanted to experience, or was scared of. I think it will surprise few queer femslash writers to hear that reading and writing femslash taught me a lot about my own identity and sexuality and gave me a community of queer women that I would otherwise never have found.

Despite the fact that I was mostly a femslash writer in my early times in fandom and the fact that I write f/f in my current fandoms today, it remains a curious truth that my growth as a writer from someone who wrote 1,000-word oneshots in one go to someone who wrote novel-length fanfic over several months coincided with going into a different fandom where my main focus was a m/m ship (BBC Sherlock, where I was sucked into the black hole that was Sherlock/John). I said I “shipped everyone” earlier – it would be just as correct to say I shipped no one, because I had no deep emotional investment in the ships I wrote about, and often wrote only one fic per ship. (Perhaps the only exception was Lavender/Parvati, which I wrote often and regularly gave me the warm fuzzies to think about.) It wasn’t until Sherlock happened that I started to understand what people meant when they said a ship was their OTP, or how people could get so intense about their reading of a relationship. As a result of this increased feeling of investment I read and wrote so much fic that I became a much better writer for it, by pushing myself to write more and more complex stories. This was all fine in itself, but even as it happened I was aware that it was curious that this sudden spur of feeling and craft was because of a juggernaut white dude ship, something that had never held much interest for me before. I felt – even at that heady time when you’re in a new fandom and it’s like being in love – like I wanted to continue to write smaller pairings and explore female characters, too. And I did, but the point remains that when I look at my story stats now, it’s clear that my f/f stories are shorter in word count and are less varied in their plot and execution than my m/m stories.

All this to show that I am 100% part of what I am about to describe: not a problem, per se, but an observation that I think is useful to be aware of and think about. The fact is that femslash, across fandoms, remains a niche category, and that while there are great amounts of people who read and write almost exclusively m/m this is barely ever the case for f/f. A lot of the f/f writers I know have talked at some point about the realisation that f/f in general seems to lack novel-length stories and stories that have the diversity of plotting and thematic exploration that we easily find for m/m ships. Most f/f stories are shorter stories or oneshots that focus on meet-cutes, sex and domestic bliss. Longer fics are rare. Darker themes, such as character death and grief, trauma, relationship issues, adultery, abuse and so on are also rare. I am not the first to notice this and not the first to theorise on it, but I would still like to identify why I think f/f fandom has developed in this direction, and to formulate some ideas as how to diversify our creative experiences a little.

I think there are a lot of possible reasons that f/f writers are in general less motivated to write long stories that explore complex themes, and these will surely differ for everyone. For me, I’ve identified three causes, in increasing order of importance: 1. a small audience, and therefore a smaller possibility of extensive feedback, 2. a lack of variation and complexity in female characters and their relationships in a lot of canon materials, and 3. the awareness that f/f is often rooted in a deeply lived experience for many of its readers and writers, and that it’s therefore necessary to be wary of representing “bad” female characters or negative tropes about lesbian and bisexual relationships. The most complex of these is certainly no. 3, which is why that’s the one I will be writing about a bit more.

Statistically f/f is most likely to be written and read by cis queer women, which of course influences our relationship with the characters we portray, because they refer to our own lived existence. This makes f/f different from m/m – m/m is also mostly written by cis women (straight and otherwise), which creates a certain leeway for “true” realism. Anecdotally I can share what happened when my housemate and my best friend, both cis gay men, delved into the world of m/m fanfic on some of my recommendations. While they enjoyed a lot of the stories I told them I’d liked, they also talked about many of the things they felt were inaccurate about gay sex and romance – for instance, they could name several often-described sexual acts that they said didn’t quite “work that way”, and they were generally uncomfortable with the fannish (certainly often problematic) tendency to label characters as strictly tops or bottoms, especially if this was based on stereotypical characteristics outside of the bedroom. If gay men were to write these stories (which they do, of course, only in much smaller numbers), they might look different – they might be less fictionalised, less genre-specific; the language developed to talk about men in love might be different, there might be different focuses. It’s hard to definitively say what it would be like. Either way, it would seem logical that it follows, from the fact that lesbian and bisexual women overwhelmingly write the fannish stories that we have about lesbian and bisexual women, that we should find it easy to access their spaces and write about many different aspects of their lives. In reality this doesn’t necessarily seem to be so. Perhaps the scrutiny, both internal and external, is larger – perhaps because we are writing about ourselves we put more pressure on ourselves to “get it right”, and perhaps our audience, who is looking to see itself represented, does the same at times. Or maybe we simply perceive our audience as being more critical than it truly is.

What is a “bad” female character? Most people will agree that women often get the short stick of characterisation in most media – to such an extent that there are tropey names for them, like the Girl Next Door, the Femme Fatale, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and so on. Women are still often used as crutches for men; their stories are supporting stories, their pain is used to further a male character’s pain. Writing about women in fanfic is often already a rebellious act in itself, one that reverses harsh or flippant treatment by canon writers. While this is fine in se, and sometimes even lends a pleasant sheen of fannish disobedience to writing female-centric fic, I do believe it has the unintended and unsavoury result of effectively also policing the sort of woman that can be written about. This may seem like a paradox, but in reacting to the one-dimensional representations of women in fiction it can become important to “fix” those wrongs, and this makes it hard to write about women who don’t overtly challenge assumptions about womanhood: unsympathetic women, women who are perhaps weak-willed, petty, bigoted, jealous, aggressive, criminal, highly sexual, or abusive. Considering that, at least in a Western vision on literature, stories derive meaning at their base from conflict, removing the option to write “bad” women removes a lot of possibility for thematic conflict. This might be part of the reason why there are significantly less plot-driven f/f stories than there plot-driven m/m stories; plot usually requires conflict, and conflict often requires flawed characters and flawed relationships.

I know that when I write about women I’m conscious of the fact that I have internalised societal ideas about what it “should” mean to be a woman, but I’m also aware that in trying to combat those ideas it’s easy to get mired in different ones. I know that I sometimes interrogate myself about what it is that I’m saying about women when I write about this particular woman cheating on her partner or being generally secretive and untruthful – doesn’t that reproduce a societal prejudice that women are untrustworthy? It’s very hard to separate a single performance of fictional womanhood from the general performance of womanhood – this is not usually a problem with (white) men, who are allowed to represent only themselves, and not their entire gender.

The above paragraphs talk about “women” – clearly the problem of treatment that I write about becomes many times more pressing when dealing with women who are on other intersections of oppression. Women who love women are more vulnerable to prejudice and abuse than straight women, and wlw of colour are again many times more vulnerable than their white sisters. And when these wlw or woc are not cisgender, again their situation becomes many times more dire. These societal realities are often reproduced in media – 2016 was the year in which no lesbian or bisexual woman on tv seemed to be safe, and their pain and deaths hurt all the more because we are confronted with this pain in real life, too. I remember my tumblr dash around the time that The 100’s Lexa died; the pain there for many queer women who watched the show was very real, because – I think – it echoed a feeling of being unsafe, of being cruelly treated in society. I remember fans writing about how hurtful it was to see a brave female character who loved another woman killed off like this; in their pain many people stated that it was unacceptable that lesbian or bisexual female characters should be killed in fiction at all. Of course, this was understandable considering how hurt fans were, and how often they had been disappointed – still, the typical fannish tendency towards lack of nuance frustrated me. In capable writers’ hands, tragedy can be performed very meaningfully. I wrote a little about this on my blog at the time, because I was starting to feel insecure about my own tendency to prefer darker thematic material – was I complicit in my own oppression, and was I hurting other queer women by writing what I enjoyed? Clearly my own privilege was also part of this question: I am a wlw, but I’m white and cisgender, and I hail from a country where legal equality has been realised for the entirety of my adult life. Obviously homophobia is still a problem, but my close environment has been nothing but supportive and accepting from the moment I first came out as lesbian at 16, and again as bisexual at 24. So I haven’t experienced much of the tension and fear that other wlw might have experienced. Does this make me a part of the oppressive machine that performs queer women’s pain for shock value? I seriously thought about this question before tentatively concluding that I had to have faith that I was a thoughtful enough writer to avoid these pitfalls.

It might seem from this essay that I find writing femslash to be an exhausting trial of constantly having to think about what prejudices I’m reproducing – this is not the case. I love writing femslash and I love my femslash-writing friends. I’ve learned heaps about myself and others by reading some of the stellar f/f stories out there, and with every f/f story I write I become more aware of how much I love to write about queer women – and I remind myself that I should certainly do it more often, and more ambitiously. As I stated above, this is something that I’ve noticed in my own writing practice, so it’s not an accusation leveled at anyone else. It’s simply something that I find worthwhile to examine. Judging by some of the conversation that periodically does the rounds in my f/f-loving circles, I’m definitely not alone in that.

Now how to deal with this in our f/f-writing community? There’s no singular answer to that, and whatever we can do is both blindingly obvious and hard to actually do. One of the possible answers is, as it is with so many complex questions that have complex roots, to simply push through and do it anyway, to try to ignore some of the fear and uncomfortable associations we might feel in writing unsympathetic f/f narratives and write them anyway. Diversifying the stories we write will automatically diversify the stories we feel we’re allowed to write. Audience response is probably important too; I think that there must be plenty of people who feel, like me, that it’s a shame that so much of femslash is short and that a lot of it focuses on narrative happiness rather than also exploring narrative unhappiness and conflict, which (in my opinion, at least) yields more fertile literature. And if we feel that way, then we have to try to reward people who write the things we like to read, through our attention, our comments, our kudos, our podcasts, our recs, et cetera.

I write this mere days before the beginning of Femslash February, and I’m certainly planning to walk the walk that I’ve talked in this talk; I’m absolutely sure that the strong core of people who love to read about women loving women will continue to keep this community vibrant and alive and that there are plenty of new directions our stories can go in. I’m looking forward to seeing what the other voices who are participating in I Am Femslash have to say, and I’m looking forward to all of the new content that will be produced. I’m grateful that as a young teen I stumbled upon fandom and that I found my way towards femslash a few years later; I’m pretty sure my own journey of discovery and creativity would have been very different, and probably more difficult, if I hadn’t found this community. So, to all of us: We Are Femslash! <3

About the author

holyfant is a 26-year-old bisexual woman from Belgium, who’s been writing about women and their relationships since she was a budding young wlw. She loves to think about literature and how it relates to the core of our human experiences: the only thing she really wants to be, in the end, is a storyteller.

Tumblr: http://holyant.tumblr.com

AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/users/holyfant

Dr. Ultraviolet Meets Her Nemesis

Incomplete portion of Chapter 1. Intended to be a full length novel eventually.

Huddled in her underground bunker while explosions went off in her lab overhead, Dr. Ultraviolet took stock of her situation.  Calmly and logically, as befitted the Greatest Mind On Earth, of course.  This wasn't as bad as it seemed.  Yes, her lab was blowing up above her; yes, it was full of toxic chemicals and high-powered explosives and radioactive materials, so it was within the realm of possibility that a chain reaction between volatile substances could possibly break open the roof of her bunker and let superheated air, radiation or poison gas in; yes, her secondary escape route from the bunker had been blocked when Landslide had dropped a few tons of rock down the side of the mountain to cover and fill the cave that had concealed her emergency exit.  But she'd been in far worse situations than this, and survived them.  And, in fact, usually she came out of such situations in a better position than she'd started in.

After all, she considered, there had been the time that her clone had wrested control of her organization from her, and then had ended up being murdered by a rogue member of the Alliance of Good.  That had gotten a volatile, potentially dangerous so-called do-gooder out of her hair with a life sentence for murder, and had given her nearly a year in which the world's heroes thought she was dead to be able to plot and rebuild for her comeback.  Plus, it had taught her the important lesson that if she wanted a clone to harvest for replacement organs, she needed it to be brain-dead on life support.  Things had certainly seemed dark when she'd been languishing in her own dungeon, with her clone gloating to her about using her for replacement body parts, but it had all worked out in the end.

Or then there was the time when her supposed ally Malevil had doublecrossed her and she'd ended up on a spaceship with no controls, rocketing out of the plane of the ecliptic, doomed probably to starve to death or run out of air before she ever reached a planet.  Alien pirates had found her and taken her captive, to sell as a concubine to wealthy aliens with unusual xenophiliac fetishes for human women.  And that had seemed an even worse fate than being trapped on a one-way journey to the stars without an FTL drive had been, until she'd turned the tables on her captors and killed them all with a neurotoxin she'd developed that was extremely similar to chocolate.  (Humans, thus far, were the only species she'd ever encountered, including the other non-sentient beings on Earth, who could tolerate chocolate.  Her neurotoxin might have had an effect on a human who didn't consume several pounds of high-grade ultra-dark chocolate every year, but Ultraviolet had always guessed that her own personal weakness for the stuff would turn out to be adaptive someday, and she'd been right.)  She'd returned to Earth with a faster than light drive and a good deal of alien technology to reverse engineer.  Why, in a sense Malevil had actually done her a favor, which was why she hadn't killed him, although the genetically engineered flying lice with skin-damaging toxins in their bite that she'd infested his base with had probably made him wish she'd just killed him, at least for a while.

And who could forget the time she had been struggling to escape Captain Cosmic's grip as he'd been flying her to the Max, the maximum security prison for supervillains, and she'd fallen while he'd been flying at a thousand feet, and the nanobot lubricant she'd sprayed on him had made his hands so slippery he couldn't catch her, and then it had gotten into his eyes and blinded him temporarily so he hadn't even been able to try any longer?  She would surely have died then if she hadn't happened to have a prototype of the Antigrav Lodestone in her lab coat pocket.  Ultraviolet remembered desperately running the calculations in her head, over and over, as the wind of her descent whipped against her body and the ground below had rushed up to meet her, figuring out how to make use of the tiny amount of power in the Lodestone prototype to negate gravity just long enough to break her fall, and exactly when she'd need to turn it on for its tiny power supply to last long enough to save her. 

As it was, she'd forgotten to carry the 2 and had ended up with three broken limbs, which had left her in traction for a month because she had no minions loyal enough that she could trust them to move her physically immobilized body back to her base with her regeneration capsule.  (That, in itself, seemed hardly fair.  Why couldn't she get good minions?  People were lining up around the block to work as henchmen for Crazy Eights, who'd shoot them for failure, or sometimes success, or sometimes just because he thought it was funny… and even Deathlord, whose stated purpose in life was to kill the entire universe, got plenty of loyal help.  But test an experimental protocol that de-evolved humans into air-breathing, bipedal sharks on the henchmen one time and now she was persona non grata with the union… so she had to go to non-union labor for her henches, and you just couldn't get loyal service that way.)  But that had… well, actually, there had been no upside to that event.  Having a chance to reconnect with her younger sister could have had an upside if Scarlett's life hadn't been so mind-bogglingly, boringly mundane.  And if she'd actually been reliable about bringing Ultraviolet books in the hospital like she'd asked her to.  And if she hadn't spent all her time whining and moaning about her love life when she'd been supposed to be cheering up her older sister in traction.  And if she hadn't been so damned smug about her older sister actually needing a favor from her.

Well.  At least Ultraviolet wasn't in traction right now.  She was free, there were no superheroes dragging her off at the moment and with the temperature and violence of the conflagration above, it was unlikely that they'd figure out that she was alive and hiding in a bunker underneath it.  She wasn't injured.  She had food, supplies, all her amenities.  She even had a computer, though it wasn't going to do her a lot of good with the multiply-backed-up secure RAID array that had stored all her data melted to slag, or exploded to bits, or whichever specific way the destruction of her lab had demolished it.  It was possible that there would be an unfortunate confluence of unlikely but statistically possible events up there that would crack open her ceiling and let in roaring flames, or toxic chemicals, but her calculations suggested that there was only an 11.3709% chance of that happening.  All she had to do was wait for the fires to die down up there, and then the cleanup crew to come through and try to find her body, and she estimated that if she waited down here for eight days, those events would both have run their course and she'd be free to leave by the escape hatch.  She had enough food down here to survive for ten years.  Waiting a week wouldn't be so hard.

Dr. Ultraviolet took a deep breath and went into the kitchen.  Staring at the ceiling, wondering if it was going to crack, was hardly a productive use of her time.  She needed to eat something, and then start making plans for what she'd do when she got out of here.  Unfortunately, her giant walk-in supercooled freezer full of cryo-stored meat and vegetables had developed a tiny crack and was full of toxic fumes, a fact she'd found out about half an hour ago.  The intense cold of the freezer and the intense heat of the explosions upstairs must have combined to weaken the ceiling in that specific area.  Fortunately for her, she'd designed the freezer room to be completely airtight, so all she had to do was keep it locked and she'd be safe from the fumes leaking in.  The lack of the freezer reduced her food supplies, but she still had an enormous pantry stocked with cans, and while canned meat and vegetables were hardly a gourmet experience, they were food.  She could get some canned beans, some diced tomatoes, and cook up some rice, and with a little chili powder make herself some vegetarian chili.  Maybe even throw in some canned chicken breast for a passable chili con pollo.  Ultraviolet pulled the cans she needed out of her pantry and went to the drawer she'd had her minions store the can opener in.

There was no can opener in it.

Twenty minutes later, breathing hard and furious, with every kitchen utensil she had available in this bunker laid out on the table mocking her with their lack of being a can opener, she thought back to that Twilight Zone episode she'd seen with Scarlett when they were kids, or maybe it was Outer Limits?  She could never remember which was which.  It had been a story about a man who'd stocked his bomb shelter with cans, and then there'd been a nuclear war, and he'd discovered he'd forgotten the can opener.  She'd sneered at that.  Anyone intelligent enough to build a bomb shelter, she'd insisted, anyone who'd thought to stock his bomb shelter with cans, would remember the can opener because can openers went with cans.  How could a smart person possibly forget that?  She considered now that it had never occurred to her that maybe he'd asked a friend of his to bring down the can opener or something.  The foresight to put the can opener on the list of supplies she had ordered her minions to stock the bunker with hadn't come to much, in the end, given that her minions were incompetent and she hadn't thoroughly checked their work.

Well.  She had pasta, rice, powdered milk and cold cereal in the pantry as well, and they were all in good condition.  If she had to stay down here for a year, she'd probably get vitamin deficiencies, but she could hold out for eight days.

Another explosion overhead shook the bunker.  Everything was gone.  The work of a lifetime, destroyed.  It was a carefully planned attack, she thought, intended to destroy her as a scientist even if it didn't kill her.  She'd been on the phone with the data center where she'd stored her backups, hearing to her horror that the Teslanauts had trashed the place with their magnetic cannons and annihilated the data on all the magtapes at the center, and had just been ranting to the peon on the phone that if he didn't get his boss to explain to her how this could happen right now she would come over there with her sonic decalcifier and liquefy every bone in his body, when the Alliance of Good had broken in.  They'd been working together.  Who would have ever thought that the overly pompous, self-consciously superior Alliance of Good would have ever coordinated with the nerdy Teslanauts?  She'd have thought Captain Cosmic would feel he had to drag the 'nauts off to the Max for MP3 piracy or something. 

She had other backups – her Antarctic base probably still had her RAID array running; the fusion power generator should have kept the base warm and electrified enough to keep the servers alive and the data on them intact for the next several thousand years, and it had only been five.  But when she'd made her way back to Earth after Malevil's doublecross, she'd found that an icequake had buried the hidden entrance to her base, and she'd have needed to invest considerable resources in excavating her way back into it… and since she'd had backups at the data center, she'd just built a new base and retrieved the data from the backups.  But that meant that even if she got to that old data, it was five years old, and all of the work she'd done reverse-engineering the alien technology she'd brought back from space was gone… as was the technology itself.  She didn't expect any of it to survive the explosions.  And even aside from the alien tech, five years of work for an evil genius was an irreplaceable resource, priceless discoveries and inventions and data and years of her life, destroyed.

Ultraviolet's chest grew tight, and her eyes stung.  She rubbed them angrily.  Not only had the minions screwed up with the can opener, but obviously they hadn't cleaned the air recirculators thoroughly, because somehow something she was allergic to must have gotten into the air supply.  She couldn't possibly be tearing up.  She was the Greatest Mind On Earth, the world's foremost evil genius, a ruthless and cunning supervillain, and she could not possibly be feeling like crying.  Actually, she'd better check the environmental console, she thought.  Toxic fumes might account for the burning in her eyes.  And was her nose running?  Good god.  She hadn't even had tissues packed – she hadn't expected to need them, not with properly clean and working air recirculators.  Well, toilet paper would work as well.

Except, as she found out after quickly checking her readouts to confirm that actually, there weren't any toxic fumes, the minions hadn't packed any toilet paper in her bunker either.

She could kill them, except they'd probably died in the explosion already.

Ultraviolet sighed.  It was going to be a really long eight days.

Eight days later, after her remote telemetry no longer identified any heat sources above larger or hotter than a squirrel, Doctor Ultraviolet was even more convinced that, if any of her minions had survived, she was going to have to hunt them down and kill them herself.  They had packed her wardrobe with one spare costume, one spare lab coat, the two civilian outfits she had hand-picked and given to them, but no bras, no underwear, and no socks.  Also, no soap.  Also, no towels.  Also, no deodorant.

She emerged from underground, smelling like she'd been living underground with no soap, towels, changes of clothes or deodorant, in a pair of civilian business slacks and a nice blouse.  At least no one could see how filthy her underthings or socks were, although she was sure anyone would be able to smell her at ten meters.  Well, at least no one was likely to guess that someone dressed as a businesswoman and marinating in body odor was the feared Dr. Ultraviolet, and she had cash.  Given the attack by the Teslanauts on her data center right before the assault on her base, she doubted any of her credit cards were safe, but she had more than enough cash for some toiletries and a cheap motel room for the night.  All she had to do was get a ride into the nearest city.

This was, unfortunately, easier said than done.  She hadn't been stupid enough to build a secret base near the city; Utopolis was crawling with super heroes.  And the traffic through the suburbs was so bad that she hadn't wanted a base there either; the odds of a random commuter taking a route off the beaten path to try to avoid the traffic and accidentally going past her base were extraordinarily high.  Of course the odds that a sheeplike commuting salaryperson who spent their workday in a cube farm would notice that her base was a secret base, and not just a random manufacturing facility for nothing they had any interest in buying, was much lower, but she'd thought it would pay to be more secure.  On the other hand, everyone always located their bases in places like the Arctic or the Himalayan mountains or the Australian outback, so those places were usually the first places superheroes looked when they were hunting down secret bases, and besides, the low-quality minions she was able to hire weren't generally loyal enough to the job to be willing to live on site, so she had to be near a population center.  Which was just as well, now that she was walking, on foot, through the far exurbs of Utopolis, watching cars drive by ignoring her as she headed down the road.  She might have a ten mile walk to find the nearest motel, but if her base had been located in Antarctica like her old base was, her situation would be much more dire.

A car slowed as she went past.  She turned, expecting that perhaps one of the sheeple heading into the city was going to offer her a ride.  Instead a young man screamed out the window, "Hey, freakshow!  Love the glasses!"  And then he drove off.

Oh.  The goggles.  Right. 

Ultraviolet pulled her goggles off, dismayed.  She'd grown so used to them, she'd almost forgotten she was wearing them.  A critical error that could have gotten her captured or killed – her goggles were her signature, her symbol as much as the skin-tight black bodysuit with the iridescent purple highlights and the sparkles that appeared under black lights was.  But now that they were off, the light was painfully bright in her eyes.  She put up a hand to shade her eyes – the hand holding the goggles, since the other one was carrying her bag, which caused the headband of the goggles to dangle in her eyes.  Irritated, Ultraviolet stuffed her goggles into the bag.  Now the light was hurting her eyes, she could barely see, and of course she hadn't thought to bring her prescription sunglasses, or her prescription glasses with the tinted lenses, or even a hat. 

Two hours of walking alongside the road, holding her hand above her head and squinting her eyes against the ambient glare of the overcast sky, and Ultraviolet was half ready to put the goggles back on anyway in hopes that some superhero would hear about it and drag her off to prison.  At least she wouldn't have to walk miles and miles in inadequate footgear then.  She should have had the minions pack sneakers with her civilian clothes rather than her smart businesswoman pumps, although those would have hardly matched the outfit. 

A car pulled up alongside her with a middle-aged matron at the wheel.  "Miss?  Do you need help?"

The idea that she, Dr. Ultraviolet, nemesis of the Alliance of Good, world-reknowned-and-feared supervillain, would be called "Miss" almost made her snap at the woman to respect her betters… but she had a car, and unless Ultraviolet wanted to fish around in her bag for one of her ray guns and vaporize the woman or mind-control her, she would have to play nice in order to get transportation into the city.  "Oh, uh, yes, thank you.  My car broke down a few miles back."

"And you need to get help?"  The woman smiled.  "Don't worry.  My husband is a mechanic!  Why don't I bring you back to my house, and he can drive you out to your car?  I'll bet he can get it up and running in no time."

Since Ultraviolet did not, in fact, have a car – or, in fact, a driver's license, though she'd like to see a policeman try to stop her from driving one of her flying, radar-and-light-bending, virtually indetectible hovermobiles with computer-assisted control – this was not going to work for her.  "Oh, no, no!" she said, hurriedly – the last thing she wanted was to have to deal with some strange woman and her probably ape-like husband for any greater length of time than necessary.  "You could just drop me at my sister's house.  She's expecting me."

"You don't have a cell phone to call her?" the woman asked sympathetically.

The Teslanauts had found her data center, and someone had found her base and given the information to the Alliance of Good.  The likelihood that her cell phone was uncompromised was so low that Ultraviolet had deliberately left it behind.  "No, I actually left it at her house."

"Oh, I hate that.  I always leave it behind and then I'm like, 'Oh, I'll just call on my cell phone' and then I realize I don't have it and it's so irritating!  I swear, I want one that's connected to my head."

Ultraviolet had had one connected to her head, but she didn't dare wear her goggles in public and hadn't been able to risk using them for teleconnection anyway… and the one that had looked just like a civilian cell phone, she'd left behind so she wouldn't be tempted to use it.  "She lives in—" God, where did Scarlett live again?  Some stupid suburban name.  "Middleton Oaks."

"Oh, that's only about forty-five minutes away.  It's actually not far from my house!  I live in Birchwood."

Ultraviolet was a genius, but even geniuses had limitations on their mental capacities, and as a result she had used up absolutely none of her precious brain's capacity on knowing where the hell Birchwood was in relation to Middleton Oaks, or Utopolis, or anywhere.  "If you could take me there, I would be enormously grateful."

"It's no problem!  Hop in!"

Ultraviolet got in.  The woman turned her music back up.  It was playing some sort of godawful cross between pop and country.  Ultraviolet pretended, very very hard, that the sound was some sort of cacophonous alien speech and not actually something that was posing as music.

Her benefactor winced.  "Miss, I don't want to be rude," she said in an almost whisper, as if there was anyone else in the car who could hear them,  "but I think I should warn you that your deodorant's worn off.  When you get to your sister's I think you need to take a shower."

"Believe me, it's my number one priority," Ultraviolet said, and daydreamed about the creative ways in which she might be able to kill this idiot if she had her back at her base.

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Gillette Ad Response

By Essa Kouyate

While reading the article “ Conversation: masculinity” from the book Everyone’s An Author I have come to a conclusion that the ideological masculinity doesn’t have to appeal to every single person because everyone is different. I can understand where the ad that Gillette did is coming from, but I can understand why people would feel inferior or feel threatened by the ad as well. These are my responses to the questions asked in the article.

Question one asks What is the “more” that Gillette wants its audience to do? Is the suggestion reasonable? Why or why not? How would you characterize the tone of the message—calm, scolding, strident, smug, sincere, something else? Why do you think so? To the quote “It’s only by challenging ourselves to do more that we can get closer to our best.” I feel like what Gillette is asking the audience to do is do more for society, in the video you can see traits we see everyday in life. Guys approaching girls at an aggressive level, men fighting each other and men in general trying to meet the ideological masculine image. I feel like the tone of the message was calm but it brings out a loud message that just because things have always been the way it is since the beginning people can remember doesn’t mean that you have to comply and be just that.

Question two ask What is USA Today’s purpose in reporting on the negative responses to Gillette’s “We believe” ad? Why do you think so? Explain your reasoning. The Gillette ad is presumably directed toward an audience of men; who is the intended audience of USA Today’s report? How can you tell? Even though the USA Today’s video says most of the negative feedback of the “We believe” ad I feel the point was to inform the viewers of what the majority of what the average male thinks on the subject. It is hitting a lot of males way of living and how they see things in their everyday lives. I would say the main intended audience would be towards the males, but more specifically the conservative like males. Reason why I say that is because the majority of people who watches the USA Today’s is conservatives so it only makes senses it’s oriented towards them.

Question three ask French places blame for boys’ falling behind in school on their “female-dominated elementary-school experiences,” but he doesn’t address why so few men are elementary school teachers. Would an exploration of that question have been relevant to French’s argument? Why or why not? If you think about it this is a good point. It is relevant because he uses this as one of his main points in the article and depending on how you see it the answer to this question holds the liability of his point.

Question four says McBee outs himself as a trans man in the middle of his essay. How does his admission affect his authority to speak in a personal way on the topic of masculinity? Does it damage his authority? Enhance it? Why do you think so? Should he have made his admission in the very first paragraph so that readers would have that information right away? Should he not have mentioned it at all? Why do you think so? I didn’t think it affect his authority on the topic because at the end of the day he thinks like a male and has the same traits as a male would have so why should it matter. It might damage his authority to some but not to all because everyone has the entitlement till their own beliefs and the fact that his feelings caters towards females makes him as much as male than any other male.

Question five states In his concluding paragraph, French summarizes masculinity as a desire “to be strong, to be brave, and to lead,” all very laudable goals. Is there anything in the Gillette ad’s recommendations that is incompatible with those goals? Could it be reasonable to conclude that French and Gillette are, in essence, pursuing the same objectives? Why or why not? The attributes stated correlates with the ad because it shows all of these traits but in a different representation and form. French uses examples with his son on how if he didn’t train his son being hit could have been fatal and damaging. He uses his stand point to prove his statement of the characteristics of being strong, brave and being a leader. In the Gillette ad it might support that point French uses but I feel like French wouldn’t support the ad due to his man point at the beginning of his article and as well as being the title, “Grown men are the solution, not the problem”.

  Question six ask McBee defines and discusses the sociological concept of identity threat. What behavior and enactments of identity threat can you identify in the Gillette ad, the USA Today report, and French’s essay?  I can fully understand what McBee is saying when he says this, He talks on the ego and the manhood as they would say in a male. Males are taught growing up in society to suppress their feelings and always was taught to be dominate as far as time goes. What Gillette shows in the ad is completely different, it undersizes the term “ let the boys be boys” or  “let men be men” and when an ad that has an audience of majority males way of living and how they were taught to grow up and be it can upset a lot of people.

Final Question stated was whether masculinity is part of your own identity or something that you interact and co-exist with (or both), you almost certainly woke up this morning with ideas about what masculinity is and likely also about what else it could or should be; perhaps these selections have helped refine your ideas. What, then, might constitute a healthy and functional masculinity to you? Do all men and boys embody masculinity? Does your concept of masculinity exclude women and girls in every way?  I feel like real and healthy functional masculinity traits is universal it doesn’t apply to just men. It can apply to trans, dykes or even females. If you have the leadership and bravery to withstand a lot of pressure and hurdle of adversity that takes bravery and takes leadership as well as strength. And anyone has the ability to be able to do that, single mothers who have take care of kids do that because they are the mother/father in that circumstance. It takes a lot to come out in society as a trans or dyke because they have issues really fitting in into society and tons of people are always constantly ridiculed. And in my eyes that’s takes a lot of bravery, strength and leadership so that is a form of masculinity if you are going based off the article written by David French, senior editor of national review on the term “traditional masculinity”. So not just men and boys can have that, everyone has the ability to truly achieve this traditional masculinity.

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Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k5E-34Rft4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5OWNGdn3_s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z224xttJZcI

The Pregnancy Miracle Review pregnancy miracle system reviewThe Pregnancy Miracle: Holistic and Ancient Chinese System for Getting Pregnant and Having Healthy Babies by Lisa Olson has several people talking. This is often our Pregnancy Miracle review based on how it helped us out. One of the main reasons it has sparked thus abundant dialogue and reaction is that it makes sweeping assertions and guarantees. Olson create some terribly big guarantees and provides detailed steps concerning how to urge there. But will it work? What is the Pregnancy Miracle? It’s not simply a book about how to urge pregnant, it is concerning adopting an entire new philosophy on not solely conception, but eastern vs. Western medicine additionally. Lisa Olson describes herself as not only a Nutrition Specialist, Author and Health Consultant (no degrees specified) but conjointly as a “Chinese Medication Researcher, Various Health and Nutrition Specialist, Health Consultant and Former Infertility Sufferer”. Her book guarantees to instruct readers how to urge pregnant quickly, even for older and fertile-challenged women. She discusses the way to treat male and feminine infertility and a bit by bit set up on how to proceed successfully with a healthy pregnancy and birth. She uses her own fertility problems as a backdrop and her own trial, error and research as the basis for and proof of her learning. Does It Work? Naturally, we were skeptical. If all her daring assertions were true, she would be famous the planet over. There are message boards that state the guide is a scam. It’s in all probability “too good to be true” we tend to thought, thinking of all those happy testimonials of oldsters with children. It absolutely was simply another sales page designed to prey on your emotions and offer you false hope. Right? After struggling for two years to possess children, but before plunging into expensive fertility treatments, we tend to decided to buy it anyway. It value but another trip to the doctor we were seeing, after all. Plus, it's a money back guarantee, so we could have merely returned it if it had been fluff. We scan it, followed it, made changes in our lifestyles as she proscribes … and BOOM, got pregnant. Today, we tend to have 2 healthy, stunning kids. Therefore, for us a minimum of, yes it worked … however once more, just saying “we got pregnant!” looks like another “faux” testimonial (because the individuals on those message boards like to say), thus allow us to describe what specifically happened. The book has a lot of information – maybe an excessive amount of for us to use. We have a tendency to knew about taking special herbs and vitamins, we tend to knew about ovulation charts and basal temperatures. But, the guide DID teach us some things we tend to’ve never heard of – mainly, about acupuncture and the Chinese way of trying at infertility. And we have a tendency to believe deep in our hearts that this is why the guide helped us get pregnant – it gave us new avenues to attempt that we have a tendency to weren’t alert to. What We have a tendency to Didn’t Like Regarding the Pregnancy Miracle Some of the reasons for the controversy is that it is continuously risky to promise individuals your book will cure conditions that Western Medicine has been making an attempt for years to remedy. This is particularly daring when this “miracle cure” is obtainable to individuals who have probably already been treated conventionally and giving them hope within the face of such odds is bold and nearly negligent. The claims on the sales page indeed are a small amount misleading. When the book guarantees to help girls with cysts, obstructions, PCOS, endometriosis and fibroid tumors, it will be browse at 1st as a substitute for the treatment of these conditions. The book ought to not be a substitute for medical care. What she will assert is that you'll have a healthy pregnancy even with those medical conditions. DO NOT BUY THIS BOOK if:     You know all about acupuncture, qi gong exercises and Chinese drugs – the book talks a ton regarding this     You grasp a lot about homeopathy     You are acquainted with natural healing strategies and a holistic approach to taking care of your body     You are acquainted with the foods you wish to eat, what to avoid, and special fertility juice blends Why We tend to Bought and Love This Book For those (like us) who followed the whole 350 pages, what Lisa Olson did is compile an straightforward-to-follow roadmap for us to follow so we tend to didn’t should spend months or years trying to work out “alternative” methods ourselves. It’s already all within the guide, and it helps offer you focus. Luckily, we have a tendency to took the plunge and tried her system before reinventing the wheel and tormented by months of information overload and lots of pages of contradictory info … which I’m certain would have happen had we have a tendency to done our own desperate analysis for alternate (and natural) strategies. Lisa has done it all for us, and we’ve certainly thanked her for it. Japanese Vs. Western Ways Of Wondering Infertility Jap ways that of wondering energy and a holistic approach of life are therefore different from anything we are used to. We are taught to go to the doctor or the hospital once one thing is wrong. If we tend to are infertile, we tend to take measured tests, semen and blood samples to pinpoint the matter – and typically come back away with “nonspecific infertility”, which was our diagnosis. Within the East, however, folks view health problems as not necessarily caused by one symptom. The matter is looked at as part of a larger whole. Infertility is usually seen because the symptom of a problem elsewhere in the body that should 1st be healed, rather than as the base downside. Why Ought to You Try It? The Japanese philosophy of treating fertility is fascinating because it works, and has worked for thousands of years. Lisa’s book takes a Westerners’ lifestyle and read on infertility, then successfully adopts techniques that are foreign to a skeptical Western audience. The result's a very straightforward, concrete and readable guide for those willing to attempt an alternate approach before expensive and invasive surgery and medications. It includes data on what causes infertility, Western vs. Jap views, the male and feminine reproductive systems, and ovulation. The meat of the guide is the five steps you would like to require to get pregnant and deliver a healthy baby, even if you’re past forty: 1. Achieving balance and harmony – Yes, it sounds “new age-y”, however you wouldn’t believe the concrete advice and the way effective it had been with us. two. Diet, supplements and eliminating toxins from the body – We have a tendency to had tried this previously, however Lisa has a whole new (and a lot of more effective) take on it. 3. Acupuncture to heal your whole body – We tend to had no clue that you'll use acupuncture to increase fertility. After a couple sessions of this, we have a tendency to conceived! We tend to’re not certain if it’s because of this, as a result of we tend to were conjointly following the nutrition and detox methods in her guide at the identical time. 4. Body Detox – A one-week program to dramatically increase your levels of fertility. We tend to were half approach through this when we got pregnant … after attempting for a year and a 0.5 with no success! 5. Acupressure and Eastern exercise methods – To still prime your body, this final step takes you visually through a variety of the foremost effective exercises and techniques to dramatically increase your probabilities of obtaining pregnant. The remainder of the book features a 4 step set up to increase male fertility, and there are shut to 100 pages on overcoming medical conditions like immune disorders, infections, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, recurring miscarriages and a lot of a lot of. All in all, a terribly complete and successful roadmap for getting pregnant.     Check out Lisa Olson’s Pregnancy Miracle guide here Conclusion Olson’s book and her personal struggle are terribly open and candid. She spares no detail and space, hence the length of the book. For individuals who are through everything else, it solely makes this guide a lot of relatable. For yourself who is wanting for effective natural answers and methods, we tend to believe this book can help you greatly.

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

Pregnancy Miracle Review

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-k5E-34Rft4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x5OWNGdn3_s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z224xttJZcI

The Pregnancy Miracle Review pregnancy miracle system reviewThe Pregnancy Miracle: Holistic and Ancient Chinese System for Getting Pregnant and Having Healthy Babies by Lisa Olson has many folks talking. This can be our Pregnancy Miracle review based mostly on how it helped us out. One of the most reasons it's sparked thus much debate and reaction is that it makes sweeping assertions and guarantees. Olson make some very big guarantees and gives detailed steps regarding how to urge there. However will it work? What is that the Pregnancy Miracle? It’s not just a book about how to get pregnant, it is concerning adopting a full new philosophy on not only conception, but jap vs. Western drugs also. Lisa Olson describes herself as not solely a Nutrition Specialist, Author and Health Consultant (no degrees specified) but also as a “Chinese Medicine Researcher, Various Health and Nutrition Specialist, Health Consultant and Former Infertility Sufferer”. Her book promises to instruct readers how to get pregnant quickly, even for older and fertile-challenged women. She discusses a way to treat male and female infertility and a drop by drop plan on the way to proceed successfully with a healthy pregnancy and birth. She uses her own fertility issues as a backdrop and her own trial, error and research as the idea for and proof of her learning. Does It Work? Naturally, we have a tendency to were skeptical. If all her daring assertions were true, she would be famous the world over. There are message boards that state the guide may be a scam. It’s in all probability “too sensible to be true” we thought, thinking of all those happy testimonials of oldsters with children. It absolutely was just another sales page designed to feed on your emotions and offer you false hope. Right? When struggling for 2 years to possess kids, but before plunging into expensive fertility treatments, we determined to buy it anyway. It price but another trip to the doctor we were seeing, after all. Plus, it's a cash back guarantee, therefore we tend to could have simply came back it if it had been fluff. We tend to scan it, followed it, made changes in our lifestyles as she proscribes … and BOOM, got pregnant. Today, we have 2 healthy, beautiful children. Therefore, for us at least, yes it worked … however again, simply saying “we got pregnant!” feels like another “fake” testimonial (because the folks on those message boards like to mention), thus allow us to describe what specifically happened. The book has a ton of information – maybe too much for us to use. We knew about taking special herbs and vitamins, we knew regarding ovulation charts and basal temperatures. However, the guide DID teach us some things we have a tendency to’ve never heard of – mainly, regarding acupuncture and the Chinese means of wanting at infertility. And we believe deep in our hearts that this can be why the guide helped us get pregnant – it gave us new avenues to attempt that we have a tendency to weren’t awake to. What We have a tendency to Didn’t Like About the Pregnancy Miracle Some of the explanations for the controversy is that it's perpetually risky to vow folks your book will cure conditions that Western Drugs has been making an attempt for years to remedy. This is especially daring when this “miracle cure” is obtainable to folks who have probably already been treated conventionally and giving them hope in the face of such odds is daring and virtually negligent. The claims on the sales page indeed are a bit misleading. When the book promises to assist girls with cysts, obstructions, PCOS, endometriosis and fibroid tumors, it can be read at first as an alternative to the treatment of those conditions. The book ought to not be a substitute for medical care. What she does assert is that you can have a healthy pregnancy even with those medical conditions. DO NOT GET THIS BOOK if:     You know all about acupuncture, qi gong exercises and Chinese medicine – the book talks a ton regarding this     You grasp a ton about homeopathy     You are familiar with natural healing methods and a holistic approach to taking care of your body     You are acquainted with the foods you would like to eat, what to avoid, and special fertility juice blends Why We tend to Bought and Love This Book For those (like us) who followed the whole 350 pages, what Lisa Olson did is compile an straightforward-to-follow roadmap for us to follow so we have a tendency to didn’t have to spend months or years making an attempt to figure out “various” methods ourselves. It’s already all within the guide, and it helps offer you focus. Luckily, we have a tendency to took the plunge and tried her system before reinventing the wheel and stricken by months of knowledge overload and hundreds of pages of contradictory information … which I’m sure would have happen had we tend to done our own desperate analysis for alternate (and natural) strategies. Lisa has done it all for us, and we have a tendency to’ve certainly thanked her for it. Eastern Vs. Western Ways Of Brooding about Infertility Japanese ways in which of wondering energy and a holistic manner of life are thus totally different from something we are used to. We have a tendency to are taught to go to the doctor or the hospital while something is wrong. If we have a tendency to are infertile, we tend to take measured tests, semen and blood samples to pinpoint the problem – and usually return away with “nonspecific infertility”, which was our diagnosis. Within the East, however, people read health issues as not necessarily caused by one symptom. The problem is checked out as part of a bigger whole. Infertility is typically seen as the symptom of a downside elsewhere in the body that should first be healed, rather than as the base downside. Why Should You Attempt It? The Japanese philosophy of treating fertility is fascinating as a result of it works, and has worked for thousands of years. Lisa’s book takes a Westerners’ lifestyle and read on infertility, then successfully adopts techniques that are foreign to a skeptical Western audience. The result's a very easy, concrete and readable guide for those willing to attempt an alternative approach before expensive and invasive surgery and medications. It includes info on what causes infertility, Western vs. Eastern views, the male and female reproductive systems, and ovulation. The meat of the guide is that the 5 steps you would like to take to induce pregnant and deliver a healthy baby, whether or not you’re past 40: one. Achieving balance and harmony – Yes, it sounds “new age-y”, however you wouldn’t believe the concrete advice and the way effective it was with us. 2. Diet, supplements and eliminating toxins from the body – We tend to had tried this previously, however Lisa includes a whole new (and a lot of a lot of effective) take on it. three. Acupuncture to heal your whole body – We have a tendency to had no clue that you'll use acupuncture to extend fertility. After a pair sessions of this, we tend to conceived! We tend to’re not sure if it’s as a result of of this, because we were additionally following the nutrition and detox methods in her guide at the same time. four. Body Detox – A one-week program to dramatically increase your levels of fertility. We tend to were half manner through this when we got pregnant … once making an attempt for a year and a half with no success! 5. Acupressure and Eastern exercise strategies – To continue to prime your body, this final step takes you visually through a selection of the foremost effective exercises and techniques to dramatically increase your probabilities of getting pregnant. The rest of the book includes a 4 step set up to extend male fertility, and there are close to a hundred pages on overcoming medical conditions like immune disorders, infections, ovarian cysts, endometriosis, recurring miscarriages and a lot of a lot of. All in all, a very complete and successful roadmap for obtaining pregnant.     Check out Lisa Olson’s Pregnancy Miracle guide here Conclusion Olson’s book and her personal struggle are very open and candid. She spares no detail and area, hence the length of the book. For people who are through everything else, it solely makes this guide a lot of relatable. For yourself who is wanting for effective natural answers and ways, we have a tendency to believe this book will facilitate your greatly.