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freshouttaparsnips · 3 years

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A small journey of two skeletons, one really really depressed, and the other waging war on said depression.

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this is a fic for @kay91lurks about Edge, a guy that’s dealt with a lot of other people’s depression, and cares about Stretch, a guy that’s facing his own battle with it.

tags: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Depression, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Comfort, Friends to Lovers, Blue is a good bro, Service Animal, Enemies to Friends to Lovers

read chapter 1 on Ao3

or read it below!

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The thing about Stretch, the lanky asshole he was, was that for the most part, he absolutely infuriated Edge. Not in a mean, abrasive way, not in an on purpose and directed way, just in the way that grinded on Edge’s nerves and soul the most: self deprecation .

Red had dealt with low self esteem most of his adult, and partly child life. It was nothing new in any way, nothing that Edge hadn’t helped him with a million and one times, seeing as how Red would often go deep into bouts of self hatred. But Red knew and understood that, no matter what, Edge would always be there for him. There was no getting rid of his younger brother, no matter how much he hurt himself, no matter how much he hurt Edge.

As much as halfhearted insults at two in the morning and mild wrestling matches ending in a cathartic cry hurt, anyways.

But Stretch? There were a few times that Edge wondered if Blue was as decent of a brother. Not that Edge considered himself the pinnacle of brotherly affection, but… Stretch would fall headfirst into bouts of despising himself so deeply that he would not leave his room for ages, not take showers for weeks, and generally didn’t talk to anyone outside of his older brother unless he absolutely had to.

It was sad. It was unacceptable. So Edge had pulled Blue to the side one evening, when Stretch was feeling better and out in the living room, cleaning up with Red after a nacho party night. They’d each brought over a dish to go alongside, Edge having made the salsa and Red bringing his favorite homemade queso. It had been a delightful night, filled with shitty Surface movies and good food, but now came the time to get to the nitty gritty of what the hell was going on with Stretch.

“Blue, I need to ask you a question.” Edge started simple, by catching his attention. Blue seemed to realize how serious he was just by his tone, a sigh letting loose as he turned, arms crossed.

“Yeah?” If Edge didn’t know better, Blue might have sounded annoyed, maybe even to the point of wanting him to drop whatever it was he wanted to talk about. If Edge was a lesser skeleton, he might have done just that, but he recognized the gesture for what it was.

Blue was nervous. He had no idea what Edge could want to discuss, and in general, for someone who lived seeking to plan for every occasion, Edge understood the anxiety that came with an unexpected situation.

He continued washing the dish he was holding, not looking up. “Have you attempted to get Stretch into any kind of counseling?”

There was a long pause, before Blue sat heavily in a chair at the small kitchen table. “I guess it was pretty obvious, huh. Yes, I’ve tried. He won’t go.”

Edge nodded, but Blue didn’t say anything else. Didn’t offer a reason why, didn’t bother trying to give any reasoning whatsoever to why Stretch wouldn’t do something so beneficial to his own mental health. So, instead, Edge spoke.

“Red and I have been seeing the same woman for nearly 2 years. We got lucky, I suppose, finding a good one so quickly, but it has been a tremendous help in getting past the traumas of our world.”

Blue began to speak, but Edge turned to him, raising a hand.

“Do not say that what either of you went through is nothing. Trauma is trauma, and we all handle things differently.”

Blue closed his mouth, teeth clicking nervously before he finally huffed a laugh. “I guess you really have been through therapy, that sounds like something mine said once.”

Edge grinned sharp. “Well I’m glad one of you has sense. Now, why won’t he go?”

Blue sighed, staring at the now cooling stove, before finally he spoke, his voice pitched low even as the sounds of some violent video game filtered in from the living room. He explained, in very short terms, that Stretch was afraid, for the most part. He wasn’t comfortable sharing his personal life in general, and wasn’t trusting of many new people.

The thought of baring his metaphorical soul to a stranger had always scared him, whether it was for his own good or not.

So, every time Blue made him an appointment, he made himself sick with panic and anxiety, leaving Blue to cancel said appointments. It was a cycle, and one that he’d eventually stopped trying to repeat.

“My brother may be very smart, but he struggles. He never did well with the resets, no better than I did, I suppose.” he finished, taking a long swig of water afterwards. Edge nodded, hands still deep in the sudsy water. The dishes were taking a while, what with the nacho platter having more than a bit too clean off it. It gave him plenty of time to think.

So he thought, for a moment. About Blue and his obvious drinking problems, and the battles he’d overcome to get through those emotions. Stretch was obviously resorting to his own vices, whether he saw it that way or not, and Edge wasn’t sure he could allow it to continue.

“Would you be averse to me attempting to get him help?” Edge asked finally, waiting Blue’s answer with baited breath. If it was negative, he’d leave it be, but he’d be very tempted to meddle despite how it might affect their relationship.

Surprisingly, Blue’s answer was almost immediate. “Oh, would you? I really think it’d do him well to have a friend, he’s so lonely, and…” he paused, seemingly saddened by his thoughts. “I really think you’d be good for him.”

Edge stared at him, a little shocked, but somewhat understanding. “I’ll do my best.”

Blue clapped once, eyelights soft. “Excellent! Good, yes, you have my blessing. Please help him.”

And well. What was Edge to say to that except “Absolutely.”

#fresh writes #undertale #papcest #spicyhoney #depression #anxiety

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mandareeboo · 4 years

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Unfinished Work #38: Unnamed

Title: Didn’t have one!

Summary: Smth smth making lists is a reoccurring theme in my darkwing duck works

This one started out really strong! It was gonna be a longshot of Drake realizing “hey maybe I should give Gosalyn an actual room in an actual place to live” and them swinging for an apartment. I was gonna have the Muddlefoots be kind but silly neighbors that Drake lowkey despised because they kept beating him at hand and foot despite not knowing how to play. I was also gonna include a scene where Drake went into Gosalyn’s room and finds makeshift plans for a new RAMROD and they talk about Waddlemeyer a bit more. I just didn’t want to reach that far out of canon for what I was hoping to be a non-AU piece.

(I also have a running theme of Prof Waddlemeyer being German and Gosalyn being more connected to her German roots than her Spanish ones bc yeah but that just ended up being confusing rip.

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List of Gosalyn:

#1: Gosalyn likes to talk about good things. Not bad things.

Drake makes a list. Because, well, he figures Gosalyn's going to be around for a bit yet. And eventually they might get to a nitty-gritty point where he knows her like the back of his hand, but that time isn't now, and one thing he knows for sure is that she can and would hold it over his head.

(Okay, and maybe that'd make a bit more sense if she hadn't already found it and teased him over it, but! Kids are weird! Kids are so weird, and Drake doesn't pretend to get even the slightest thing about kids.)

Fun fun facts are first, and easy. Gosalyn loves to talk about accomplishments. She uses four languages fluently- ASL, English, German, and Swahili- has two she's got a good grasp of but doesn't speak well- Spanish and Mandarin- and has gotten the basic Latin alphabet in her brain somewhere for, and he quotes, "When I get around to summoning a demon one of these days."

She's related to Professor Waddlemeyer through her mother's side- apparently, his genius loves to run down the female side of the family- and though she has a tía out there somewhere, tía apparently cut contact with her father long before she was born. Gosalyn's pretty sure that's the only relative she has- that's, you know, in this universe. Neither Drake nor Gosalyn like to say Professor Waddlemeyer is dead. They can't confirm that. And maybe it's easier that way? Or maybe it's just harder, waiting every day for a magical solution to a problem that may never be solved.

(But Drake has hope! He does! He remembered Della Duck's disappearance, just as he remembered watching the TV with awe as she returned. Missing a leg, sure, but alive.)

Her favorite takeout is Chinese, because the boxes open so no one has to do dishes. Drake hadn't known that. He'd felt pretty silly when he found out. She can also use chopsticks. Drake is pretty sure he's dealing with a future diabolical mastermind at this point. Then she tries to teach him how to pick locks, and Drake scratches out the future part.

He knows she was in the foster system at some point. Saw the file when he filed for custody, and just how thick it was. He knows it's not for him to see, and signs on the dotted line without looking beyond.

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#12: Gosalyn doesn't "do" bedtimes.

"Alright, that's it," Drake decides, walking up to the little legs sticking out of his motorcycle. "I've got a mug of warm milk with your name on it, young lady. Get out here and do some self-care."

Gosalyn snorted. "Make it coffee and I might take you up on that offer." There's a loud snap noise that does very little to soothe Drake's nerves. "Dude, you gotta introduce me to Fenton. This baby has everything!"

"If I say yes, will you go to bed?"

"Nah. I'll just steal your phone."

He ignores that. Gosalyn's done it before. There's not much to see. A bunch of cat photos and saved Darkwing Duck wallpapers. Drake wiggles the mug pointedly, letting the milk slosh around. "Not gonna waste good dairy, are ya?"

"I just chugged five PePs. Nothing can stop me."

"Maybe not, but the bathroom can." Drake took an experimental sip. Lukewarm. Ah, well, better luck next time. Setting the mug aside, he bent at the knees, making one of those old-man grunts while he did so. He grabbed the sides of the creeper and tugged, bringing Gosalyn to the surface from her motorcycle dreams. She squinted at him, bags under her eyelids.

"You can't make me," she pouted.

"Yeah, yeah." He tucked his hands under her armpits and lifted Gosalyn up, surprised to find she was light. It was hard to remember that she was a child, sometimes. Children didn't typically chide him for not using gas instead of electric. "C'mon, kiddo. Time to sleep."

"Can't make me," she repeated, this time punching him in the shoulder. Drake stumbled, but managed to keep on his toes. Perks of being accident prone, he supposed. "I was gonna... gonna make the Ratchaser cool."

"It'll still be there in six to eight hours, Gos."

Despite her grumbling, Drake felt her begin to sink into his arm as they maneuvered towards the chair. Gosalyn leaned into him, chin digging into his shoulder. "I was gonna make it good," she mumbled, only half awake. "Was gonna.. was gonna be good."

Something vulnerable in her voice plucked at Drake's heartstrings. "I know, Gos. It will be."

"People like it when it's good..." Her voice fell into a slur as her head touched armchair, curling up like a disgruntled cat. "I'll be good, Opa. Ich vermisse dich."

#Unfinished Work #Ducktales 2017 #Darkwing Duck #Gosalyn Mallard #Drake Mallard #Writing

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pookiesmcbride · 4 years

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*sorry this is very long but i have a bit of a finale headcanon at the end :)*

i’m almost 100% positive that caryl will have an important interaction in the finale. whether it’s canon or something close to it, we’ll get something good for them. the writers wouldn’t leave their relationship how it is right now and especially not when they have the excuse of putting a big caryl moment in a finale. those few seconds of weirdness when carol came back was supposed to be that way, bc we’re supposed to get this feeling that theyve got unfinished business between each other, that no, they’re not on good terms rn and it’s never rly been like this between them before- but it could never stay that way.

further proof that we’ll get something is that carol went back to ASZ to make things right with those she loves, bc “it’s never too late.” considering carol doesn’t open up to her fam much, if at all, kelly is a great first step in this direction. we need to remember that carol probably never opened up to Ed all those years bc it most likely ended in a beating. plus with tobin she wore a mask the entire time, and she never wanted to open up to ezekiel either, which was kinda the cause of their rise and their downfall. zeke never knew the “real carol”, so she was content to live this little fairytale bc she could ignore all these demons in her head. there’s a common theme with carol and wearing these masks, and ending up alone a lot, hence the mention of “lonewolf” from kelly.

IMO, the last person, if not the only person ever, that carol has actually opened up to is daryl. he’s the one person noticing that she’s not being herself, and thus the only one that is caring about that. in 10x14 i think carol realizes this fact. “i could never let that happen.” she knows how important daryl is to her and if she ever wants to get to her real, happy self in the future, she’s gotta go back to daryl and make sure he’s okay, and that their relationship is okay. he’s the only one that really truly knows her, and considering hes one of the first in carol’s life to be this person for her, it’s overwhelming.

the problem now is talking to him. she wants to, and i believe he wants to as well, but it’s carol who’s gotta make the move here. getting thru the nitty gritty with him is so much harder than kelly because she knows him so much better, and she has it engrained in her head that she’s ruined his future and their important bond from her actions, how do you even begin to talk about that ya know? any word i say could ruin this forever, wtf do i even say? she was crying even talking to kelly, with daryl her emotions will be tenfold.

daryls done everything he could to let her know he’s a safe space - and his frustration rn is that she’s still running and not wanting to take him up on his many offers to talk to him- but she needs to decide. talking to kelly is a good baby step to get this courage to talk to him. like oh, maybe all of this turmoil and hatred is coming from my own head, my fam doesn’t actually despise me as much as i think. daryl probably still does, but there’s a chance he may not, maybe i’ll go take the chance.

i’m not sure how this conversation will begin or the circumstances they’ll be in when they do this. (i do think tho that connie will be revealed as dead beforehand) . maybe carol will blurt it out when they’re pushing back a big horde or something, or maybe there’s a moment of quiet in the hospital and they’ll be sitting like they were when carol was hallucinating daryls speech about his dad. i have no idea. but i imagine they’ll say some things like this.

“daryl..do you wanna know why i asked you not to hate me? ive told you before that i cant lose you, but it’s more than just in death. so much more. you’re the person that could bring me back from this. sometimes i get really caught up in this shit but i always seem to come back to you and things get a little better. you don’t have to forgive me for what happened, please don’t. i deserve it. but i just... really need you with me. you’re the last one daryl.. the last one who knows me. i cant be alone with myself.

did anyone ever tell you about what happened to lizzie and mika? *proceeds to choke thru the story and how she’s being plagued by her kids all the time. i imagine daryl begins holding her thru this and she’s talking into his chest/shoulder* I’m a fucking monster daryl. i kill kids and anyone else who’s in my path. dont forgive me for what happened in that cave either. i hate that i didn’t listen to you. i didn’t listen to a word you said and now connies gone. *starts sobbing* you tried so hard for me and i just... ruined everything for you. the one girl you cared about, the future you were fighting for, daryl i’m just so sorry.”

*i imagine there being some silence as daryl lets carol get all her tears out. then daryl starts talking into her hair or something*

“you know you’re not a monster. the farthest thing from it carol. you’ve saved us more times than i can count on my hands, and that includes you killing lizzie. she could’ve hurt even more people, you did the right thing. and you even saved judith over there, look where she is now *points to judith takin a little nap across the room*

you’ve always got the best intentions. nothing you could do would push me away, you need to know that. what hurts the most is you always try to get away from everyone. from me. *looking into her eyes at this point* you think everyone hates you enough to be fine with you gone? carol i can’t lose you as much as you do me... and that’s terrifying. *chuckles* never realize i need you more than when you’re not here. never felt i needed anyone before i met you, honest. *goes back to hugging her to his chest so he can get the courage to say this next part*

you were the first person i tried to find when that cave collapsed. i stayed put in those woods a few days ago waiting, just staring into the dark for you to come back to us. the reason i fought so hard for you to fight for a future is that i wanted you to be here for mine. you’re the only one i can see clearly in it, and if you were dead... god i dunno where i’d be. but you’re the girl i care about. connie was a great friend, but i really just need you. i just... please stay.”

*then i imagine carol carefully moving away from his chest with tears in her eyes and the biggest smile, she wipes his tears a bit and keeps her hand there. they stare at each other for a quick sec then look at each other’s lips, slowly moving in then BOOM cockblock from something and now we have to wait until s11*

sorry this ended up being vv long all in all I HAVE HOPE OK hope y’all are staying healthy and hopefully we don’t have to wait too long for this beauty🥺

#caryl #caryl positivity #idk how to make text under a cover #so deal with the scrolling if u dont wanna read dammit #love them w my whole ass heart

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waveypedia · 4 years

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Have anything else for that Team Spyience au you made ages ago? Some writng or a bullet list? I crave angst.

The AU in question

Yes!! Aaaaahh i was so excited when I saw this ask because i’m so happy people still like it!! I’m definitely still thinking about it, don’t worry. The old AU hinges on the fact that FOWL doesn’t have a way into Scrooge’s company and family but uhhhh that’s not how it is now lmao. So I’ve been thinking about revamping it for a couple months now. I don’t want to do anything concrete until we know a little more about FOWL and how it works. We know who its agents are and a little bit about its goals but we really don’t know anything about its inner workings, what the Board’s dynamic is with their agents, what their dynamic is with modern SHUSH (if it even exists), etc etc. all of which are things that would probably be addressed in the Team Spyience AU! It is an AU but I’d like to build on canon as much as possible (unless there’s something that I really don’t vibe with) since it’ll be cleaner and less confusing that way. Like if I threw 2019 Team Spyience AU at you guys rn it would 1) be confusing since the FOWL structure and motives are completely different from canon and 2) be less interesting since there’s SO much potential for angst and drama with the Board, Rockerduck/Jeeves, and Gandra as part of FOWL. (and oh boy I’m so excited to work with that!!!)

(sorry for that long block of text sdfgfds i wasn’t sure how to break it up)

that being said I have built a bit of a shaky foundation for a redone Team Spyience AU for when we learn more!! and ahhh i’m so excited to share. For bullet points, here are some ideas swimming around in my head. these all could change with new information from the show or just if i think of something better tbh

so this might change when we learn more about the Board in general and the nitty-gritty of FOWL’s plans, but right now I’m thinking that the Board realizes that 1) Gyro and his ragtag band of science nerds are powerful and stubborn, and will most definitely get in the way of their plans 2) Gyro already hates the Board, and if anyone in McDuck Enterprises were to pick up on their treason, it would be him 3) They have a strong foothold for control in the company, second only to Scrooge (and even that’s debatable), but they have minimal control over Gyro and the science department. So this time around it’s less about needing to spy on Scrooge and more about wanting to control Gyro and Team Science. how that translates to “capturing them and forcing them to spy on their boss and his family” is still up in the air, but i’ll let you guys know when i figure it out! (and if you all have any ideas lmk)

we all know Gyro dislikes the Board but it’s mostly just annoyance/spite since they always shut down his inventions. Here, though, he would hate them. He would probably start like smack-talking them to everyone he can, especially Scrooge, which is his own way of trying to get them to realize the Board is evil without tipping the Board off to his treachery. Scrooge would be confused and it would be like the first crack in the Board’s carefully built facade, but it wouldn’t work for him. He probably just thinks Gyro’s being his mean self.

Huey, though... I’m pretty sure Huey’s gonna end up researching FOWL since it’s his season, and he spends enough time around Team Science to notice how off they’re all acting, without being too busy to pay it much mind (like Scrooge). so one of Gyro’s snarky remarks will tip him off, and he’ll start to view the Board with a little more suspicion each time. Until he comes to the conclusion through his research, and SHUSH resources like Beakley and Webby, that oh god that was an allusion to FOWL the Board is FOWL-

and then- wait is Gyro FOWL?? is Team Science okay?? this goes deeper than I thought-

so essentially the B-plot of this AU is Huey (with the help of the rest of the kids, but especially Webby, Boyd, and Violet) researching FOWL in the background and trying to figure out why Team Science is acting so weird lately, and there’s a lot of dramatic irony

FOWL definitely threatens Boyd to get to Gyro because I love me some quality Boyd & Gyro family content 😌

I originally thought about working a “Gyro is a former FOWL agent that got away by the skin of his teeth” aspect into the AU since I was really fond of that concept when it was a theory, but now it’s been disproven. It does make for a lot of extra drama and angst, but I don’t think it quite fits, so I might just make that an entirely separate AU. I might add some non-canon bonus content with this concept though!

The majority of Team Science’s dynamic throughout the AU stays the same - they’re all incredibly stressed and on edge and just in a really sticky situation, so they snap at each other and have a lot of petty arguments. But at the same time, they’re all in the really sticky situation together, and so they come out of this mess a whole lot closer. It’s sort of a “You’re the only ones I can be honest with without dire consequences” situation.

also re: that last point - CUDDLE PUDDLES. i’m so soft for them. i’m thinking maybe on a night when FOWL makes them all stay in the cells overnight as a punishment or smth, but they’re all in one cell, they just fall asleep all on top of each other and it’s just a really sweet moment made bittersweet by the circumstances. it’s also a testament to how far their relationship has come under pressure and how much they trust each other now.

Gyro is the only target originally (I’m thinking maybe Fenton, Manny, and Lil’ Bulb catch the Board in the act and it’s very dramatic and terrifying. i think they’re originally gonna kill Team Science, since FOWL has a very take-no-prisoners leave-no-loose-ends sort of mindset, but Gyro convinces the Board that the majority of Scrooge McDuck’s research team mysteriously dying in one fell swoop would be extremely suspicious, especially since Scrooge has an in-house former SHUSH agent. so they live, miraculously, but the Board lets all of them know in no uncertain terms that if it happens again, the other person dies. No ifs, ands, or buts. So Team Science is all very, very nervous and careful about what they let slip. They want to tell everyone, especially Scrooge, but they can’t because they care too much. (Hence Gyro making passive-aggressive comments about the Board to Scrooge.) and of course everyone else gets suspicious and resentful since they know Team Science is hiding stuff from them. so that leads to a lot of drama and arguments.

speaking of the drama and arguments from the outside, the kids are doing their own investigation, but I headcanon Della as friends with Gyro from before the Spear of Selene, and she has a budding friendship with Fenton too. So she’d notice they’re all acting really weird and bailing on all her plans, so she storms down to the lab and tries an aggressive tactic to get them to fess up. They don’t, obviously, so she goes on a little investigation of her own. I’m thinking she might drag Launchpad and Donald into it - Launchpad since he’s good friends with Team Science, and Donald because I love him and I want him involved they’re the Duck Twins and they work best together.

I have this scene floating around in my head where, in the very beginning, FOWL agents/Eggheads capture Gyro and drag him to FOWL HQ underneath Funzo’s to be briefed on his new situation. He’s stuck in one of those glass cells Launchpad and Dewey were in when Steelbeak brought them back in the Double-O-Duck episode. The Board knows he’s there, but Gyro has no clue they’re villains. So they come to the cell to brief and belittle him (let’s be honest here, they’ve never liked Gyro) and he just. He’s pissed. Spitting mad. He’s always resented the Board but never like this; never pictured them as actual powerful villains. He may be spiteful of them because they shut down his projects, but at the end of the day, they’re good guys. They’re on his side, and more importantly, Scrooge’s side. Right?

So Gyro is like, up against the glass, trying to punch them through the airholes. He’s just so fucking furious. He’s not really thinking straight and he doesn’t care about any dignity, he’s just angry. The Board is just overly smug and pleased with themselves. It’s a very stereotypical “You’ll never get away with this, you villain!!” picture, and very dramatic. And then the Board just walks away after giving him a bare-bones explanation of the situation that he doesn’t really process because he’s so mad and terrified. And they turn off all the lights and let him stew in there overnight.

Once Huey and the kids have finally put the pieces together, Webby comes to the Bin one day with Scrooge, and she goes to the meeting room to look for him. Only he’s not in there - The Board is, and they’re berating Gyro for sassing off about them to Scrooge or smth. Webby, with all her trained spy skills, hears their conversation and is able to avoid detection (although the Board is suspicious, and they start investigating to tie off any loose ends). Their conversation, though, would be suspicious to any oblivious passerby, but from all the research the kids have done, they know what’s going on.

That’s not the actual reveal - I think thematically that should go to Huey, since he’s the closest to Team Science and it’s his season. This would just chase away any last doubts the kids may have. And maybe Webby gets a voice recording as evidence? I just love those; they’re so dramatic.

this is one part that might not end up aligning with canon but I’m REALLY fond of the Akita FOWL theory. So in this AU, I’m thinking Akita was a really casual member of FOWL all along that recently got an updated agent commission. So there’s even more potential drama there, since Gyro utterly despises Akita now. And a bigger incentive to keep Boyd safe, since Gyro knows FOWL would be more than happy to program Boyd into a mindless attack robot.

in the old AU I was toying with the idea that FOWL didn’t know Fenton’s Gizmoduck until a big reveal, and it was a secret weapon of Team Science’s (but also a point for a lot of arguments, since Fenton desprately wanted to be out there protecting people at the cost of his own safety) but uhh... they definitely know now. In a bid to stop FOWL from taking control of Gizmoduck, Fenton claims the armor is out of commission and sabotages it. So Fenton’s heroics are temporarily halted while Team Science frantically tries to figure out how to keep FOWL from hacking/taking control of a new and improved Gizmosuit.

As for writing... I don’t have anything done, least of all anything for the revamped version of the AU, but I do have this wonderful writing prompt from @advisortotheadvisor that I started back in January 2019, when I was working on the old version of the AU, that I really want to do with the revamped AU. (it just fits so well ahhhh!!!)

["If you won’t do it, I’m sure your friend wouldn’t mind being in your place." + your FOWL team spyience au?]

Gyro crossed his arms across his chest, scowling to hide his fear. He’d gotten pretty good at it over these past few months.

Watching the halls was basically useless. Fowl was careful to keep Gyro and his team within the same halls, as to not be able to find their way out on their own. And Gyro knew the way to Steelbeak’s office well. He’d lost count of how many times he’d been marched here.

At least he wasn’t cuffed anymore, though he suspected it was only because the agents and their minions knew there was too much at stake for an escape attempt. It had been too long, anyway. That was an amaetur move. Even though he loathed to admit it, Gyro cared too much about the consequences - the people at stake - to even try.

It was just a well-aimed mockery. Like everything short of punishment seemed to be these days under FOWL’s watchful eye and careful thumb. Gyro scowled deeper and crossed his arms tighter and pretended in vain it didn’t bother him.

That was all he could do, really.

Okay that kind of got away from me haha. thank you so much for the ask!! It means a lot to me that people are still interested in this AU. definitely motivation to work on both the AU and that fic haha!! I’ll talk more abt this soon when I have more info/content

#*screams* I LOVE THIS AU #this ask got me thinking more deeply about it... and that one fic...#my asks #anons #ducktales #team spyience au #ducktales 2017 #dt17 #gyro gearloose #fenton crackshell-cabrera #manny the headless manhorse #lil bulb #huey duck #webby vanderquack #scrooge mcduck #boyd gearloose #wavey writes

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afflicted-ascendant · 6 years

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Random Observations ‘bout the Mars Signs

Mars in Aries: Aggressively pursues whatever they’re after, whether it’s a goal or a person or a victory. “Short fuse” is an understatement. Not afraid to say or do anything they believe in. Can have a bit of a childish view of the world, no patience for the complexities. Often become heroes in the eyes of others for their diehard strength of will, but also get a lot of eyerolls and facepalms from people who think they’re too reckless or reactionary. They like to go hard and fast in relationships (in more ways than one), so they don’t have the time for people who aren’t upfront, honest, and confident about what they want. They’re the type of person who would leap into a burning building to save someone, without a second thought.

Mars in Taurus: Stubborn, stubborn, stubborn. Get really grouchy sometimes. The hardest workers you’ll ever meet, especially in blue-collar job environments. Artistic types with this placement will actually finish their projects because they’re willing to power through the nitty-gritty boring bits that so many of us flaky, flighty artists get stuck on. If they enjoy sex, they really enjoy it and have the stamina to go all night, but a lot of them seem to be uncomfortable with sex or even outright asexual. Many of them have literally the worst opinions on politics. But they’re solid, dependable people who will do anything to protect the ones they care about -- they don’t just say it, they do it.

Mars in Gemini: Their brains are always buzzing, they have a natural taste for knowledge. Their childlike curiosity is so freaking cute. Very good with words, they speak and type compulsively and even if their grammar/punctuation is shit, the spirit of what they say is almost always worth reading or listening to. They have many interests and many people “interested” in them, if y’know what I mean. Funny and charming is their default state and they probably don’t know how to turn it off. They also don’t know how to stick to one person, goal, or idea because there are so many tempting options that set the wheels in their heads a-spinnin’.

Mars in Cancer: Extremely moody people, but they hide it fairly well. They build up a thick shell to conceal how sensitive they are to changes in scenery and circumstance. They get very attached to people, places, and pets. Likely to be very clingy and needy when it comes to love and sex, but also very giving. Cuddles are recommended, though they’ll need to really trust you before they’re comfortable with physical contact. Like all Cancer placements, they complain a lot to blow off steam and deflect their nervous energy. The more time you spend with them, the more you can pick up on the roiling, boiling stew of emotions that’s constantly bubbling underneath their defensive crabby surface.

Mars in Leo: Can be obnoxiously arrogant and oblivious to how they’re perceived. Self-awareness is not one of their strong suits, but self-expression certainly is. They really crave attention, admiration, and appreciation. The good ones are worth giving it to because they mean well and have a generous loving heart, but the bad ones won’t shut up about how great they are and go into a red-hot rage when they don’t get what they want. Very pushy people, no concept of boundaries. They treat love like a performance art, which is why the courtship stage is their favorite part. They’re usually very selfish sex partners who come up with some wildly imaginative roleplay scenarios. You’ll either love them or hate them, which they proudly proclaim because they get a kick out of being dramatic like that.

Mars in Virgo: Always strives for perfection in everything they do. Workaholics. Often come across as condescending or judgy. Their sarcasm is legendary. When they talk about sex, they describe it clinically and bluntly, it’s not something they romanticize as sacred. Many of them honestly do despise their fellow humans and will stick their nosy asses in everywhere to “fix” things. The nice way of putting this is that they “just want to bring out the best in you”. If nothing else, they certainly do put in a lot of effort for the people they care about, which they will aggressively guilt-trip you over when they want you to do something in return. There can be a lot of friction between them and their children if they become parents, mostly because they have no idea how to give praise without turning it into a critique.

Mars in Libra: This is an odd place for Mars to settle in because these people get really stressed out and upset by conflict of any form. Doesn’t mean they won’t fight back if you push them, but for the most part they recoil from arguments and will try to subtly nudge everyone into getting along. Because of this, it’s especially painful for them to have a falling out with a friend or family member, and they will always try to move toward forgiving and forgetting the issue even if it’s unforgivable. One of the least sexual placements of Mars -- they might have an aversion to even discussing sex. But they’re also skillfully flirty and charming, so don’t assume they don’t have an active love life. They usually believe in the power of “peaceful protests” and “civil disobedience” as a way of changing society for the better. Storytellers with this placement will often write stories where people ultimately talk out their problems and come to an understanding of each other, maybe even achieve world peace in the process. Basically, they’re hippies~

Mars in Scorpio: Even when they’re in a good mood, you can feel hostility suffused in the air around them. Scary as hell when they’re angry. Living with them means walking on eggshells. If they’re artistic they can make beauty out of the most fucked-up subject matter. Fascination with death. Does not know how to compromise, would rather die than give ground on what they believe in. Has the force of will to do pretty much anything. Usually not afraid to talk about sex, for them it’s like discussing the weather. Might be into some really kinky or taboo sex acts, might even be horny 24/7. They dominate others without even having to try. Probably has resting bitch face. When they’re not screaming with rage, they usually maintain complete calm and control in public because they loathe vulnerability of any kind. Being near them is an intense experience no matter who you are.

Mars in Sagittarius: Irreverently funny and playful. No matter how old they get, never stops acting like a kid. Enjoys being physically active in some way, getting out and doing things. Always itching to try something new. Has no attention span. Gets bored before finishing projects and drops them for months at a time. Their energy is infectious. Likes sex to be more physical and raw than emotional. Has no trouble laughing and having fun while doing the deed, and people who make them laugh and excite them are the ones who most attract them. They prefer friendships and romances to work pretty much the same way, relaxed, easygoing, with no pressure to commit to anything. This is why so many of them get into friends-with-benefits situations. When things get serious or the relationship runs into an iceberg, their first instinct is to wimp out and run away instead of stick around and make an effort. Can be absolute hypocrites to the point where it’s shocking how self-unaware they are. Will complain endlessly about things people do that they don’t like, not realizing they do those exact same things all the time. Will bristle at the slightest criticism, they can dish it out but they can’t take it. Their convictions/beliefs are usually based on gut reactions rather than research. Enthusiastic about their passions, can be adorable when they get excited. As frustrating as they can be sometimes, there’s just something so lovable about them that you can’t help but forgive them anyway.

Mars in Capricorn: Have this serious, broody aura about them that can be kind of alluring and intimidating at the same time. Will present themselves as rock-solid even if they’re on the verge of a breakdown. Will put in as much work and dedication to get a job done as it takes, without a single word of complaint. And they really like sex. Like I”m not even kidding, these are some lusty goats we’re talking about. But they don’t usually like admitting how horny they are because it might harm their public image. They put a LOT of work into maintaining that public persona -- they secretly want to inspire awe in every person they meet, they’re gluttons for glory but they hate people knowing that so, gotta act all cool and casual. Once they finally find fame and success, they’ll find non-verbal ways to brag about it, because all they really want is for people to be jealous of them for once.

Mars in Aquarius: Questions everything they read. Highly intelligent, incredibly quirky, but never comes across as “nerdy”. Pierces right through people’s fake bullshit. Knows a lot of big words but rarely uses them, because they despise any form of pretentiousness. Has firm beliefs backed up by extensive research, refuses to be pigeonholed into any one movement or ideology. May fall along any point of the political spectrum, and will be very outspoken and capable of strongly arguing the case for their independent views. Hates being labeled. Has trouble feeling attached to their body because they spend so much time in their own mind. Even when they get emotional, some part of them will be detached and objectively analyzing the situation to understand it more fully. They’re the same in relationships -- no matter how invested they become, some rational part of them will hold back and hesitate to care. When it comes to sex, they can be even kinkier than Mars in Scorpio. They want to try every possible position at least once, they love to experiment, they will never be satisfied if sex becomes the same routine every time. But in some ways they enjoy thinking about sex more than actually having it -- the act itself can be disappointing and dissatisfying for them, partly because they don’t know how to live in the physical moment instead of rationally dissecting the proceedings. They attempt to be open-minded toward everyone they meet, but they can also be coldly cruel and verbally vicious toward people who violate their personal code of ethics. They can be very uncompromising when it comes to their values, and if they ever view you as part of the “problem” in society, you’ll probably be dead to them.

Mars in Pisces: There’s always a touchy-feely atmosphere around these people. Socially conscious, likely to get involved in some form of activism, a cause they believe in. “Belief” is something they have in spades -- they’re drawn to mystical mumbo-jumbo and yoga routines. They can out-hippy the Mars in Libra people. Can easily become addicted to things. No matter how tough their other placements make them seem, they have a squishy teddy bear side that the people closest to them will see. Most of them are romantically and sexually submissive on some level, though they may try to hide it. Keeping things hidden is a talent for them, actually. It’s hard to get to know them on a deeper level because so much of their truest self is swimming beneath the surface. Passive aggression is their go-to tactic for expressing anger. Will bend over backwards to make their partner happy -- they love both making and receiving sweet gestures of affection. Most of them have a deep appreciation for art and aesthetics even if they aren’t artistic themselves.

#astrology #mars signs #mars in aries #mars in taurus #mars in gemini #mars in cancer #mars in leo #mars in virgo #mars in libra #mars in scorpio #mars in sagittarius #mars in capricorn #mars in aquarius #mars in pisces #long post #essays #random observations

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hazkiwislutt · 5 years

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chapter three: summer evenings in the park, ice cream, and the past

{ hey friends!! it’s athena, and here is the third chapter of the chasing love series. i hope you’re enjoying this series as much as i am! things are going to be good in harry and y/n’s world for awhile, but will it stay that way? we’ll see. this chapter contains mentions of abuse and cheating, and drugs. there’s also a new character introduced that’s going to be pretty important down the road. anyways, that’s all! i hope you enjoy reading this chapter, and be back next sunday for chapter four. have a safe week, i loaf you!! }

“Favorite color?”

Harry pursed his lips in thought, lulling his head side to side as he rested his weight on his hands behind him, legs kicked out onto the picnic blanket underneath him. The LA sunset was washing him and Y/N in liquid gold, creating an amiable atmosphere for their first date, which Harry deemed should be a picnic in the park.

He’d asked her out one day prior in her living room, and as soon as he’d (reluctantly) left her house, he’d gone home to write out a game plan for their date. Harry wasn’t normally one to worry, and he certainly knew Y/N wasn’t either, but he still couldn’t help but call his mother about what types of food to bring on this date, and what time of day they should go, and what he should wear. Anne simply laughed, happy that her son found a girl that could get him this riled up on the first date, and told him not to think too much, which obviously made him think harder. However, all his worries came to fruition as he gazed at Y/N adoringly from where they were sat on an old picnic blanket she’d taken out of her closet.

He was wearing a pair of light slacks with a brightly colored floral button down, ivory loafers to match, and a floppy hat that flattened his curls out. Y/N wore an overall skirt with a yellow t-shirt, hair clipped back with a cute butterfly barrette. She was undeniably beautiful, and sometimes Harry felt as if he could drink in the sight of her for the rest of his life, which should probably terrify him, but didn’t.

“Probably pink, love. Pink, or yellow. My turn. Favorite smell?”

Y/N furrowed her brow before reaching forward and grabbing a strawberry from the container, popping it in her mouth. The red juice had tainted her lips tantalizingly, and Harry so desperately wanted to kiss it off, but the both of them knew better. It was enough that they were out in public, because two high-profile celebrities were rarely spotted so openly, but to be seen together would cause an uproar of the tabloids that neither of them needed. He settled for leaning over and swiping it off her lips with his thumb before sucking the juice off, winking at her as she opened her mouth in disbelief.

“Christ, Harry,” she tutted, giggling before she continued, “My favorite smell is… Harry. You’re my favorite smell.” She peered up at him bashfully before ducking her head to retrieve another strawberry, hiding the shyness on her face. He grinned, gently chucking her under her chin, and she laughed before swatting his hand away. “Okay, okay… Most embarrassing moment?”

“Well… Considering that we have… public jobs, I guess I can say, I’m sure tha’ we both know embarrassment is a luxury we haven’t had the honor of enjoying for quite some time, right?” Y/N nodded in understanding, before peering around quickly and leaning in swiftly to peck Harry on the cheek. She pulled away frighteningly fast, and Harry reached his hand up to feel where she’d pressed her lips against his skin, beaming.

“Naughty, minx. S’a risky move, innit?” He clucked his tongue at her, grinning widely, because it was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who couldn’t keep his hands (or lips) to himself. For the past hour they’d been sitting atop the small hill in the park, they’d been trading simple questions back and forth while throwing in anecdotes when the time called for it, but Harry wanted to pick her mind a bit.

“A’right, think I know all the basics about yeh, love. S’get into the,” he wiggled his eyebrows, “nitty-gritty?”

Y/N scoffed, eyes wide, as she pretended to gag. “Please, never, ever say that again unless you don’t want there to be a second date. I’m warning you. That was disgusting.” Harry laughed, bumping her shoulder with his playfully.

“S’all part of my plan t’get rid of yeh, obviously. But really, love. My question is… What’s the most terrified yeh ever been?” Harry didn’t think much of his question, because his answer would probably be something along the lines of “playing MSG on my own”, but as he watched Y/N grow rigid at his side, he couldn’t help but wonder if he’d accidentally struck a chord. She seemed to interpret that questions differently, and he turned to face her, taking the weight off of his hands and sitting up, eyes searching her face in question.

Y/N felt him staring, and she knew Harry could tell he’d hit on territory that wasn’t entirely welcome. She knew he didn’t mean to do it, but her breathing became a bit shallow; she hated lying in general, and she despised the idea of lying to Harry when he’d been nothing but candid and blatantly honest with her since they’d met, but she didn’t know if she could talk about something so heavy so soon. She’d touched a bit on her past partnerships the night before, but she didn’t know if she could delve so deep into detail.

“H-how do you mean that?” The words were scratchy as they left her throat, and Harry cocked his eyebrow, as if he misunderstood her. She repeated it, a little more confidently, and he hummed thoughtfully. He reached forward the short distance between where their hands lay, not holding her explicitly, but brushing his against hers so she knew it was there. The sun was beginning to dip a bit lower, and the crickets began to sing.

“Exactly how I mean it, love. Yeh can answer however yeh want, but yeh don’t have t’answer at all. Would never push yeh into anything.” Y/N looked down at where their hands were touching, smiling softly before flickering her gaze back up to Harry’s. She just knew that she could be as honest as she needed to with Harry, who had shown her nothing but kindness and respect since they’d first met. She was startled by a new kind of sincerity that she’d never seen before, held in his eyes, and she knew she could be as honest as she needed to with Harry. If he wanted to know her, then he could, and Y/N felt that it was incredible to feel so at ease with someone.

From Harry’s view, he realized that there was a lot of pain there that she was about to tell him about and he wanted to make sure that she knew he was completely present for it. He just wanted her to trust him the way he trusted her, and he didn’t want her to think she couldn’t talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly.

“Well,” Y/N’s voice was so quiet, the crickets nearly drowned her out, “I think I was… Fourteen. I was fourteen, and I was with my first boyfriend at the time.” Her voice began to tremble, and Harry quickly gripped her hand in his own, paparazzi be damned, squeezing it tightly as he nodded at her encouragingly.

“He was older than me, like, sixteen or something. He’d snuck into my room, coming from like, a party or something. He was drunk, and… fuck,” she breathed in harshly, shaking her head, “Things were on a downward spiral for us at this point. The first year we’d been together was good, but the second year, not so much. Anyways, he was drunk, and I knew he’d been with someone else that night. He’d been doing it a lot lately, and I wasn’t stupid, but this night I actually got like, pictures sent to me…”

Y/N’s voice broke on the end of her sentence as she swiped angrily at a tear that had fallen, and Harry wiped another rogue one on the side of her face as he shushed her.

“Love, yeh don’t have t’answer. S’making yeh upset, an’ I don’t want to ever make yeh upset, so please don-”

“Harry, it’s okay. I trust you, and I want you to trust me. You deserve to know, especially if you… If I’m… if we’re going to do this,” she finally asserted, before forging forward, “I’d asked him why he was cheating, and he got angry. Part of our downward spiral was that he was drinking more, going out more, getting angry more. He was always yelling, and belittling me. I thought it was a phase. He wouldn’t let me be near him at school, and I became a secret. No one could know I was dating him anymore, and I followed him blindly for… other reasons. But, he got angry, and kept yelling, saying it was my fault that he even started to become so miserable and that I was the reason his life was so fucked and then he-”

Y/N stopped, shaking her head and letting out a humorless laugh as she let a few tears fall. She pulled her hand from Harry’s, and before he could ask what was the matter and reach for it once more, she balled it into a fist, and smashed it forcefully into her other hand, which was laid flat in an open palm.

“He hit me. Again, and again, and again, until the room was black, and I couldn’t even feel my own body anymore. That was the most terrified I’d ever been, just seeing his fist keep coming down until my eyes rolled back and I was out,” she sniffled, wiping her nose hastily as she reached for Harry’s hand, and he squeezed it as if his life depended on it. The chirping of the crickets grew louder, and the sun’s finals rays began to dip below the horizon, the last of the light fading.

“I stopped counting after the fifty-sixth time he’d come home and hit me. It wasn’t the worst thing he was doing.”

Something in Harry snapped as he heard those words, this story. He grabbed Y/N, fiercely grabbing onto her in a hold that held all the words he couldn’t get out right at that moment, and he let her shake like a leaf in his arms as he murmured his assurances quietly, stroking her hair.

“Oh, love, my sweet girl,” he cooed sadly, holding onto her, clinging to her as if she’d vanish, “Yeh okay, m’never going to let anyone touch yeh like tha’ again. Ever. Yeh safe now, a’right?”

Y/N pulled back to look at him with weepy eyes, the reflection of the evening sky swimming in her waterline. Harry sighed, feeling such an overwhelming sense of amazement, admiration, and adoration as he looked down at her. She was so strong, and Harry couldn’t even fathom how… resilient, and unspokenly powerful she had to be at such a young age to survive that. His heart was heavy with disbelief and sadness as he basked in this newfound information, but it was set ablaze with anger for the absolute coward that dared to even put his hands on this girl. His girl.

“Yeh’re so… powerful. Amazing… I… I’ve not got the words for yeh, Y/N. Seems like I never do.” He nuzzled affectionately at the top of her head and she sniffled, smiling sheepishly at her.

“M’sorry I ruined our date by crying. It was so long ago, it’s silly.” Y/N quickly dabbed at her face, which was now a bit damp from the hot tears. Harry shushed her incredulously.

“S’absolutely not silly. Don’t ever say tha’ again, love. I mean it. Yeh didn’t ruin anything. Can’t believe yeh trust me with tha’ kind of information. M’honored.”

“Oh, Harry, you’re going to steal my heart, you sap. Thank you for being so supportive, and understanding, and kind. You made me feel so safe, even if what I was talking about was the complete opposite.”

Y/N snuggled into his neck a bit further, face still damp with tears, pinching his cheek cutely and breathing him in deeply. Harry’s heart melted as he repeated her words over and over again. Y/N felt safe with him, and that was all he could ask for. The sun had set already, and the summer evening sky was painted a cool blue that called the crickets to put their symphony in full bloom and the other animals in the park to take rest for the night.

“Careful, love,” he warned playfully, “Yeh keep complimenting me like tha’, I just might snatch yeh heart right now.”

“Bold of you to assume you haven’t already done that.”

Harry was taken aback at her quick answer, before he bit the inside of his mouth cheekily, grinning so deeply that his dimple made an appearance.

“Yeh’ve got all of my heart, Y/N.” He said it with so much sincerity that it made her freeze, slowly raising her eyes to look at him, her mouth pulling into a happy grin.

“Now, I know about a remote ice cream parlor on the road back, if yeh’d like to stop by and grab dessert? What d’yeh say, love?”

“Oh, Harry,” she cheered, “You definitely have my heart!”

...

They had driven up to the small ice cream shack on the side of the road, giggling madly because Harry had told the stupidest joke about avocados, and it reeked of bad joke. It really was remote, no cars driving frequently on the two way road except for the occasional passerby. The small shop was accompanied by a small dingy bar on the right, and a raggedy beach store on the left, which were both open, and looked as if they had seen better days. There were only a few cars parked alongside the road, including Harry and Y/N’s car. The less people, the better. Neither one of them wanted to complicate things with publicity when things were still so new.

“How’d you find this place?” Y/N asked, taking Harry’s hand as he opened her door. She stood up and smoothed out her skirt, listening as they walked.

“Awhile back, when I was just exploring with a couple of my friends from London. They’d come to visit me, an’ we’d gone down to a really isolated part of the beach near here, an’ ended up getting lost on our way back to my house. S’close to the park, but I only knew about that ‘cause I’ve got a friend tha’ lives in the neighborhood near it.” She nodded, stepping inside the parlor as Harry opened the door for her.

The old woman who ran the shop smiled warmly as they came in, amused at their constant tittering and playful banter while they decided what they wanted to order. They were standing in front of the ice cream counter, peering at the menu, while Y/N worried her lip between her two fingers, thinking hard.

“What d’yeh reckon, love? Cookies an’ cream, or strawberry?”

“Honestly, you kinda strike me as a lime daiquiri type of guy. It’s healthier than all of the other ones.” Y/N faced him, smirking as Harry rolled his eyes.

“What do yeh take me as? I’m not as deep as people think. I like basic, unhealthy ice cream flavors, too.” He scoffed, bumping her shoulder with his, before glancing quickly at the lime daiquiri and mulling it over in his head. Lime daiquiri on a summer’s eve did sound lovely, and it was low fat and had less calories than…

“Lime daiquiri, please.” Harry shook his head begrudgingly as Y/N jumped up, giggling again, doing a little dance that was quite cute and singing, “I told you so, I told you so!” The old woman behind the counter laughed, before scooping his order and handing it to him.

“Meance,” he whispered, as he made his way to the register, but Y/N scrambled in front of him, slapping down a twenty before he could. Harry opened his mouth to protest, but Y/N turned around quickly and pushed his cone to his mouth.

“See, it’s good, right, H?” She was laughing hard, as he sputtered, trying to break the ice cream cone away from where she was holding it at his lips, but Harry couldn’t find it in himself to fight back anymore, not when the woman was already handing Y/N her change back and Y/N just looked so cute beaming at him from under her lashes.

“Thank you, have a lovely night,” Y/N chirped, smiling at the old woman, who also bid them a good night, and began to lead Harry out to the bench outside the shop. Harry propped the door for her as she walked outside, and then lunged to wrap his pinky around hers. She looked up at him, and smiled, “Today was amazing, Harry.”

Harry’s ears perked up at her statement, because he had wracked his mind for date ideas and come up with this one, and he was so worried she wouldn’t like it. “Yeah? Amazing enough to go on another date with me?” Harry bit his lips between his teeth, and he prayed the nighttime could hide the way his cheeks darkened to a cherry red. Y/N plopped down on the bench, pulling him down to sit with her, legs touching.

“You’re silly, Harry. I’ll go on all the dates in the world with you if that’s what you’d want.”

She gave a kitten lick to her ice cream, and Harry nearly cooed at how cute she was. He quickly scanned the area, even though he knew that there was probably no one threatening around, and let go of her pinky to brush her hair behind her ear. He was glad this place was so isolated so that he could be with Y/N the way he wanted to. He leaned in quickly and gave her a sticky kiss on the cheek, exaggerating the puckering noises of his lips and making her laugh.

“Harry, you made me all sticky!” Y/N faked a disgusted look, wiping her hand across her cheek before wiping it back on him. He waggled his eyebrows mockingly, sticking his tongue out as she playfully pinched his waist.

“Not the first time ‘ve done tha’, is it, love?” He smirked smugly at her, taking another lick of his ice cream and her mouth opened in an “O” of surprise.

“Not funny, Harry Styles.”

“S’kinda funny, innit?” Y/N glared at him for a moment, before resolving into laughter, and Harry couldn’t help but follow suit, until…

“Y/N?”

For the second time that night, Harry saw Y/N tense up in discomfort. She snapped her eyes past Harry’s head, toward the voice, eyes ablaze with confusion. Harry pulled his cap further down his face, shielding his eyes as he quickly glanced back to where Y/N was looking.

A man had come out of the dingy bar next door. He was shorter than Harry by a few inches, with black hair that was gelled to one side and dark brown eyes that darted from Y/N to Harry, and back to Y/N. He was wearing khaki shorts with a black t-shirt, holding a blunt and letting the smoke filter out through his lips that were set in a firm line, frown lines evident as he drank in the sight of the two.

“Daniel! You’re still in LA? What happened to Aus?” Y/N asked, words kind, but voice a bit harder than it had been a minute ago, and Harry felt her interlock her pinky with his tightly, as if anchoring herself to something.

This was Daniel, the boy that Y/N had drunkenly told Harry about the first night they met. This was the boy that had left Y/N and strung her long from oceans away. Harry didn’t get all the details from what he’d done because of Y/N’s state, but he knew that much for sure, and that was enough for him to tighten his hold on Y/N’s pinky as well, because no one would hurt her while he was around.

“I decided to stick around and see if I could run into you, maybe convince you that throwing us away isn’t the best idea.” Daniel stepped closer to the bench, taking another hit before letting the smoke out and chuckling gruffly, before sneering, “Looks like you gave us up for something else, though.”

Y/N was on her feet, quick as lightning, ice cream thrown to the ground, before Harry could even register what was happening. She had let go of Harry’s pinky, moving in front of him swiftly, blocking Daniel’s view of him, and reaching behind her with an open palm, which Harry took in his hand. She was trying to defend him, he realized, and it made his heart ache.

“You don’t get to do that,” Y/N hissed, “You absolutely do not have the right to act as if you’re entitled to ask for anything more from me! You left me, which would have been fine, if you had left me here, and left me alone, Daniel! But you kept me around, even though you were an entire country away, and you cheated on me! It was so easy for you, when you didn’t have to be around me and you could just promise me things that would never come true, and tell me you love me when you were wrapped up in other girls. You had it so easy, and then when I found out and tried to get rid of you, you flew back and demanded we continue where we left off, as if the choice was all yours.”

“Of course I’m the bad guy,” Daniel growled, waving his arm animatedly, smoke emanating from the blunt he was holding, “You didn’t want to come to Aus with me! I asked you if you wanted to come along, and you declined!”

“I declined because I was going to university, and all you wanted to do was party, smoke, and fuck! I thought if I stayed, you’d realize that there’s more to life than that!”

“Bullshit! You didn’t go because you didn’t love me!” They weren’t yelling, but their voices weren’t quiet, and both Y/N and Harry were thankful that there was no one around. Y/N’s hand was clammy in Harry’s, and he gently ran his thumb along her skin to calm her down. In his other hand, his daiquiri ice cream melted down the fingers of his other hand, uncomfortably cold. She was shaking from where she stood in front of him, but he couldn’t see her face, or if she was crying.

Y/N wasn’t sad, or hurt, she decided. She was angry, and frustrated, sure. But she was most enraged by the ugly sneer that he directed toward Harry, who hadn’t done anything to him. She just wanted to go home with Harry and have a cuddle, which would have been a lovelier ending to their date rather than this spectacle.

“You know that’s a damn lie. You didn’t love me, obviously, if you cheated on me.”

Daniel groaned, throwing his head back and looking at the night sky, “Fucking get over it already! I’m human, and anyone on this planet would have cheated if they were on the other side of the world without their partner! I was bored, and you didn’t come along. Of course that’s what I would do, you should have known that’s what I would do, especially to someone as plain and boring as you, you fucking-”

“Mate,” Harry spoke, voice low, from behind Y/N. He didn’t move from where he sat. He wasn’t entirely sure if Daniel recognized him, but the less he knew, the better. “Yeh better not finish tha’ thought. Don’t talk about my girl like tha’.”

Y/N’s heart swelled as she heard Harry call him her girl, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it.

“Your girl? That’s fun and all, but I had her first, didn’t I?” Daniel squinted his eyes, trying to peer around Y/N at the figure with the floppy hat. Y/N moved farther back, completely shielding Harry from view.

“Don’t talk to him like that,” Y/N protested. Daniel ignored her completely, throwing the burnt out blunt to the ground and stepping on it.

“Your girl is a prude that doesn’t want to live life the way it should be lived. She didn’t want to be adventurous back then, and even though she’s some sort of shitty pop star now, she still doesn’t. She’s boring. There’s nothing about her worth sticking around for, so I left.”

“I said don’t talk about my girl like tha’, wanker. Yeh didn’t deserve her then, yeh don’t deserve her now. Yeh don’t deserve her at all, an’ neither do I, but I’ll be damned if I do the same bloody thing yeh did ‘cause m’not a piece of shit. I ask you to kindly go back inside an’ waste away like yeh want to do so badly.” Harry’s voice was level as he spoke, but inside, he was trembling with rage. Who was this man to say such hurtful things about Y/N?

Daniel took another step closer, mouth open to counter.

“Daniel, please,” Y/N said softly, voice worn down and tired. It made him stop, and stand there as he drank in the sight of her. She looked exhausted, as if the conversation had drained her of all the energy she’d had prior to it, and he felt a trickle of guilt in his heart. He never wanted to see her like that, but how did things get so complicated?

Daniel snorted, rolling his eyes as he adjusted his t-shirt, shrugging his shoulders and grumbling. He turned around, and headed back into the bar.

Y/N turned around, just to look at Harry, just to know he was there. Her hand ached from how intensely she had been gripping it behind her back in an attempt to shield him and her eyes stung from angry emotions that found a way inside out, but as she looked down at him, wearing his silly, floppy hat low on his eyes, holding a pathetically melted ice cream cone, and smiling the most beautiful, reassuring grin she’d ever seen in her life, she decided if Daniel decided to come back out and stir trouble, she’d do it, again, and again, and again, if it meant she got to turn around and see Harry right behind her.

…

“Get your feet away from me! They’re freezing, Harry, seriously!” Y/N squirmed around in her bed, trying desperately to free herself from Harry’s hold so that she didn’t have to feel his ice-cube feet brushing against her calves.

They had driven back to her house, hands intertwined the entire time as Harry drove, which Y/N thought was quite nice. They’d decided they wanted to just have a good cuddle to end the night, and so after washing up (separately, which Harry voiced his… complaints about), Y/N had led them to her room and snuggled in next to Harry. It was funny, he thought, that with most people he’d feel the need to ask if he could spend the night, or even decline because he felt as if he were intruding, but with Y/N, it was as if spending the night was exactly what he was meant to be doing.

“Tha’s why I want them near yeh, so they can be warm,” Harry reasoned, drawing her back in when she managed to make progress. She shrieked as she felt one of his feet drag up her leg and lodge itself between her thighs, wriggling around in vain as Harry laughed gleefully. He began to tickle her, causing her to thrash wildly as her screams elevated.

“You are,” Y/N wheezed, “the worst person ever! My neighbors probably think someone’s getting murdered over here!”

Harry finally ceased his assault on her ribcage and cocked an eyebrow as she turned around to face him. “M’sure they’re fine, love. Remember how loud yeh were when I had yeh screaming from-”

“Harry!” Y/N shrieked again, slamming her hands down over her ears and scrunching her face up, which made Harry giggle and lean in, touching his nose to hers as he rubbed them together. He pulled back a bit, looking into her eyes, before leaning in again, slowly. He heard her breath stutter as he pressed his lips against hers, and felt her hands grab his shoulders as if to steady herself.

She pulled away first, and Harry had to wonder if he’d done something wrong, until she shook her head and murmured, “You’re so pretty, Harry.”

He smiled shyly, before asking, “Yeh think m’pretty?”

Y/N nodded earnestly, head bobbing wildly. Her hands were still on his shoulders, fisting at the fabric of his shirt, and he grabbed one to bring it up to his lips and skim them across her knuckles. She brushed her thumb along his cheekbone before tangling it in his hair and twirling the strands softly.

“I think yeh bloody beautiful. Most beautiful thing ‘ve seen in this world. S’it too soon to say tha’?”

Y/N shook her head vigorously, biting her lip to keep her smile from splitting her face. “I don’t think it is, especially if I’m...,” she hesitated, “You said I was… That I’m… You said I’m your girl, right?” Her voice tapered off at the end as she shrunk away from Harry and into herself.

“None o’ that, love. Don’t hide from me,” he scolded, drawing her back to him and gently guiding her face to look at him, “I did say tha’, didn’t I? Meant it too, but like I said, it doesn’t have to be serious, yet.”

Y/N thought for a moment. Jumping into something serious with Harry seemed rash, especially given the situation that had taken place earlier that night. She wanted to give it some time to burn, and she wanted to make things serious at a time when emotions weren’t so high.

“Maybe we don’t have to be serious, yet,” Y/N decided, looking at Harry to gage his expression, which thankfully, was still set in a dopey, sleepy smile with droopy eyes.

“Yeh take all the time yeh need, love. M’not going anywhere.”

Normally, that would set off red flags in her head, but looking at Harry, whose hair was now a rumpled mess because of her ministrations and whose eyes were drooping heavily with the weight of sleep, Y/N believed him.

How could she not?

{ @lovableah }

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lazylacadaemon · 5 years

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Do you have any advice on reading and taking notes from textbooks in classical studies? I'm taking a Roman law class this semester and knowing all the nitty gritty details is pretty important, but the amount of readings is so much and I don't know how I'm going to get through it all in the limited time I have. Thanks :)

Hooboy Roman Law! That’s a class I avoided like the plague! :’D I don’t have any specifics for Roman Law, but I do remember an enormous amount of random terms about Greek Religion somehow which might be a comparable feat.

Short answer: No - I’m notoriously bad at taking notes especially from textbooks in part because my brain is just perfectly equipped to be a repository of stupid words (or it was, in my undergrad.)

Long answer: I can sure as hell try to describe ways that I am guessing might be helpful and hopefully are! Let’s give it a try!

1. Efficient Reading

Please read what I’ve written on doing a research paper: I touch a little on reading and writing notes from written sources here. To summarize: do NOT try to read everything cover to cover, you will burn yourself out. Start with abstracts, introductions, headings, thesis statements... and then keep a little reading log somewhere! Also if you have friends in the class, try to divide up the readings between you and compare notes, or at least read a bit of everything and see if different things stuck out to each of you.

2. The Reading Log

My advice is either in your notebook for class (if it’s a grad seminar or other class where you are expected to discuss them, or if you just like having things together) or in a separate (small) notebook (if you are planning to use it as a study guide for a written test or research paper or even an eventual thesis, or if you just like keeping things separate) to keep a reading log. It’s essentially a very rough annotated bibliography.

I can post examples of my reading log from last semester once I get back to Toronto later this week. What I do is set aside one page a week (no more, no less because I know I have a tendency to write too much) and divide up the space on the page by how many readings I have that week (if you have a LOT of small things, especially primary sources, it might be useful to either use a two page spread or keep each source to two lines max). On the first line of each section, I write a brief “citation” (what we in Museum Studies might refer to as a “tombstone” label, Title/Author/Date/Source or whatever is useful). In the rest of the space, I try to write the “big idea” or at least several key words and phrases in a way that gives me just enough information to remember what the reading was about so that I can use it as a sort of finding aid later when I’m in a panic about where-did-I-read-that-thing.

Also: most of my readings these days are digital pdfs and I’m able to easily highlight things I find interesting, but for physical books I’m not keen on highlighting them. For this reason I also suggest doing a pre-class brain dump of things you found really funny or interesting, either immediately after your weekly log or in your notes or wherever, with page numbers if you like. This would be hella useful in a grad seminar if you want to bring something up in class but also for a potential paper later on, or it might just give you something to chuckle about later when you’re dying and trying to remember things. Even if it’s just “i really enjoyed this” or “i despise this author and want to fight them” or a Really Colloquial and Bad paraphrasing of a complex idea, that stuff is gold.

I make the assumption that the reading log is analog because that’s what I find useful in class and outside of it, and it’s actually kind of relaxing for me since so much of school lately involves staring at a screen. With a digital log, you can use proper citations much more easily if you want, but I’d still suggest trying to keep it to a page.

TL;DR Creating a reading log is an easy way to make a “quick reference” after you’ve read a lot and might need to refer to it later. Make your notes clear, concise, and easy to look back at later. Colours and stickers would be great, anything to make it fun to do and nice to look back at!

3. The Glossary

Another thing that I found super helpful when taking Latin was creating a glossary for words I didn’t know and knew I would forget because they didn’t have obvious equivalents in a modern language (or cognates that are actually false friends that look similar but mean totally different things, watch out!)

- each week while taking notes either in lectures or from readings, keep a list of roman law terms that just keep coming up or are already highlighted for you- I dunno if the textbook is going to be at all helpful in this regard, but sometimes it’s nice. You can even refer to readings featuring specific dead romans in your glossary if they provide a great example.

- the book may already have a glossary at the back, but it’s nice to keep a small glossary for each week that gives you a chance to highlight each word, alphabetize it yourself, and write down any stupid mnemonics that help. I wish I had my glossaries from the Aeneid because I’m sure I wrote down some really stupid things in there, but they did the trick...

- also doing it every week has two major benefits- you get used to seeing the words and they’re not going to leap out at you on the final exam, and theoretically you have to do less and less of it as the term goes on (or at the very least it will get easier!)

- finally, if you make a glossary and keep it updated and email it to your classmates... they might be your friends :’)

I sincerely hope some of this helps, good luck in your studies!

#advice #studyblr #classics #tagamemnon #gradblr #hapo rambles #hapo's gradventures #Anonymous

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Batwoman: Where Does Wallis Day’s Kate Kane Fit in Gotham?

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This Batwoman article contains spoilers through Season 2, Episode 12.

Following the revelation earlier this season that Kate Kane is, in fact, very much alive, Batwoman fans have been wondering how, exactly, the former Scarlet Knight might return to a show that has largely moved on without her. After all, Ryan Wilder is fully Batwoman in her own right now and the show has recalibrated itself accordingly. Her unique perspective as both a Black woman and a product of Gotham’s failed justice system has allowed Batwoman to tell the kinds of radically different stories that most superhero series aren’t even attempting. And Ryan is building her own relationships with Luke, Mary, Sophie, and even Alice (sort of). Is this a world that even has room for Kate Kane – let alone still needs her?

According to Wallis Day, the answer to that question is a resounding yes. The former Krypton star made her official debut as Kate Kane in Season 2 episode “Initiate Self Destruct,” and spoke to Den of Geek about the excitement and challenges that have come with taking over the role.

“There’s always going to be a place for Kate in Gotham,” Day says. “I genuinely believe that she’s so integral to all these other characters in the show – if you look at Alice and you look at Jacob and Mary, they orbit around Kate.”

Day teases that the actor behind the character won’t be the only change we see in Kate Kane when she returns to Gotham in Season 2: “I think the main difference is the Kate that we see now, post-season one, has had so much more happen to her. There’s so much more depth to her. I think that’s probably the main difference, and it’s very exciting.”

Day herself, who starred for two seasons as Nyssa-Vex in Syfy’s Krypton, is over the moon about returning to the world of DC Comics and its characters. “I absolutely love it,” Day says. “I love the DC universe so much. And I think having the chance to play you know, more of a hero instead of a villain is so exciting. But then again Nyssa sort of flipped and I feel like this could as well. Oh, my goodness. I am just really excited for her, [to play her].”

Of course, at the moment, Kate’s return probably doesn’t look the way most of us Batwoman fans might expect. She’s not only clearly been damaged physically and mentally – she also doesn’t even really know she’s Kate. Thanks to the hypnotist Enigma, she now believes herself to be Circe Sionis, the daughter of False Face Society leader Roman, who is also the infamous Black Mask.

“The Circe thing is amazing. That is a whole different element,” Day says. “And I don’t play Circe as Kate who believes she’s Circe, because that’s not what Circe would believe. But then you see fragments of [Kate’s] memories that come back, and you’ll see that I incorporate more of Kate as we journey through this season. There’s just such an incredible storyline with her.”

Day, who spends her first episode wearing a wooden mask that hides her face, had to rely on her physicality not just to initially define her Kate, but also to differentiate her from Circe, the woman she believes herself to be.

“I’m such a physical person. I work with a movement coach before everything I do. And obviously, your face is your main form of expression, with acting,” Day explains. “So, we had to basically we had to amp up the physicality of it. [Just] really hone in on how Circe moves in comparison to how Kate moves her body. And then I put a lot of the emphasis in the eyes because obviously, [that’s what] you can see through the mask.”

“[But] Kate is still in there,” she insists. “I think it’s going to take core memories and key moments and key people in Kate’s life to be able to bring back [her] memories and personality and overpower Enigma has been able to do.”

It’s also not an accident that Day’s first major scenes as Kate occur opposite Rachel Skarsten’s Alice, a character who has admittedly floundered a bit in the wake of Ryan’s arrival, spending most of her time isolated from the rest of the series’ cast. And though Batwoman gave Ryan a perfectly justifiable reason to despise Alice, their antagonistic relationship has really never felt that compelling. Of course – as “Initiate Self Destruct” proves – Ryan is never going to go out of her way to save or help the woman that killed her mother.

“I think the thing I’m most excited about is for Kate to reconnect with Alice/Beth,” Day says. “Obviously, the whole twin storyline is so powerful anyway, and I feel like they have so much potential as one kind of villain twin sister and one hero twin sister. It’s just so exciting for me that they can do so much with it.”

“Rachel was one of the first people that reached out to me,” she elaborates. “And I know how important this recast has been for [her]. It was so important for me and Rach to get the chemistry right between our characters and to do this the right way. We had so many conversations before I even got to Vancouver – speak on the phone, FaceTime, and just really get down to the nitty-gritty of who Beth is and who Kate is, what Beth has been through [on her own], and what they’ve been through together.”

Batwoman: Black Mask, False Face Society, and the Rise of Sophie Moore

By Nicole Hill

Batwoman is So Close to Becoming a Truly Radical Superhero Story

By Nicole Hill

Of course, Kate’s long-awaited return to Gotham does raise an important question – how will Batwoman navigate the balance between its former leading lady and its current one? The show has really put in the work to center Ryan’s Batwoman as a new and different kind of hero with a uniquely interesting story in her own right. But it’s still true that many of Batwoman’s supporting characters still have strong, deep ties to Kate.

“I think Kate is so concentrated right now on trying to find out who she is and what’s happened to her in the last year that there’s definitely, definitely space for both Kate and Ryan on this show,” Day said.

At the moment, it certainly seems possible that Kate may never take up a vigilante mantle of any type again. That’s more than her right, after everything she’s been through. Maybe she doesn’t want to be Batwoman anymore if she doesn’t have to be – or maybe she’d rather take up a different mantle within the Bat Team since Ryan seems to be doing fine in the cowl on her own. There’s certainly plenty of story to explore – in a way that could, should the show decide to do so, keep both women around. But it sounds as though we may have to wait a while to find out either way.

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“Whether we see Kate step up or not, I don’t know yet. But there is definitely room for them [both] in this show. And I think the answer to your question [about how Kate will fit back into the world she left behind] is probably going a story to be told next season.”

The post Batwoman: Where Does Wallis Day’s Kate Kane Fit in Gotham? appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/33bBXFg

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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bibleteachingbyolga · 3 years

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I was a submissive person before I got married. I was a go-with-the-flow sort of gal. Laid back. Easygoing. If others had an opinion about something — like what activity to do or what to eat or how something should be done — I was the first to agree to their way of thinking.

I also was quick to assist — taking whatever job I was assigned and happy not to be in charge. I assumed submission in marriage would come fairly easily to me. I was so agreeable! True, I did have strong convictions around God’s word, but as long as I married someone who shared those commitments and convictions, submission would be breezy. Or so I thought.

What I hadn’t reckoned with before marriage was the somewhat terrifying reality of being completely and utterly bound to another person in every conceivable way. No matter how enthusiastically we choose one another on our wedding day (and would still do so today), there still comes a time in marriage when we realize that the husband’s problems are the wife’s, and the wife’s problems are the husband’s.

Perhaps we wish we could un-choose one or two of those problems. Perhaps we’d like a little distance from those particular difficulties. But for better or worse, we belong to one another.

Untried Submission

If the sheer reality of being bound to someone else so completely is enough to shake us up a bit, then it’s not hard to see how submitting to another person can be even scarier. And frankly, many women don’t get around to the submitting part. They see him and his problems, and it seems like enough work simply to stay utterly bound to him for as long as they both shall live.

Submission hasn’t been tried and found wanting — it’s been left on the shelf gathering dust. As the hardened wife walks past it, occasionally she jabs, “Hey, some of us have real problems to deal with in life, like being married to this sinner over here.” Submission is that quaint idea meant for women married to near-perfect men, not for us. We live in the real world. Leave it to the pastor’s wife or professional Christians. We’re just trying to get by.

But it’s much easier to scoff at and deride the command for wives to “submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord” as an impossible ideal when we’ve never actually tried it out (Ephesians 5:22). Or when we’ve only once or twice given it the lukewarm effort a small child gives the first time they’re asked to share their favorite toy. We’ve dabbled half-heartedly and given up the moment no one was looking (if we’ve even dabbled).

What Is Submission?

Submission is willingly coming under the authority of another. This is why every true Christian is a submissive person. The new heart that God gave us when he saved us, and made us his own, pumps submissive life all through our new selves. We submit to God — who is the Author of our lives and, therefore, our true Authority in every way.

It’s from this ultimate submission to God that every other earthly submission makes sense. He has ordered his world and, in our submission to him, we take our place within that order. So, when God says, “Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord,” we don’t shrug it off because, in minimizing this command, we minimize and make light of our submission to God himself.

I’m hesitant to give an example of boots-on-the-ground submission because I’ve seen how such examples can be stretched and misapplied. But the Scriptures are clear that older women are to teach younger women how to be submissive to their own husbands (Titus 2:3–5), so it’s worth a try. The trick is finding an example that helps you submit to your husband, rather than accidentally sets you up to be ready to submit to mine.

For instance, my husband likes for us to regularly have people over for meals or other gatherings. Part of submission to him means inviting people over, writing emails or texts, coordinating the times, getting the menu planned, and making sure our home is decently clean to welcome others. But your husband may prefer a quieter home with less hospitality than what we do. Submission in your marriage may mean waiting to invite that family over until you check with him, and then refraining from doing so if his vision for family life involves a slower pace of entertaining.

Now, you might be wondering, “But what if it’s sinful for him not to want to invite that family over? What if he’s just being selfish? Should I still submit?” And while I think you should likely take these questions to an older woman in your local church, there is an important distinction to be made between submitting in such a way so that you are sinning, and submitting to a man who still has imperfect motives.

The first kind of submission we must not engage in (for instance, if he asked you to stop being part of a local church); the second kind will be the reality for all of us until Jesus comes again. Just like your husband is called to love you even as you persist in sinful attitudes and behaviors, so you are called to submit to him even when his motives may not always seem pristine. This doesn’t mean that you can’t have a conversation and let him know you’d like to do more hospitality and ask him to reconsider. But it does mean that how you do it matters.

One Thing Submission Is Not

One thing that often gets mistaken for submission is acquiescence. Acquiescence is different than willingly placing yourself under another’s authority. When we acquiesce, we reserve the right to be on our own team inwardly, while outwardly appearing to be on the same team as our husband.

An acquiescent wife silently goes along with something she disagrees with and even perhaps despises. She will not raise an objection because she thinks she’s being noble or godly by keeping her thoughts to herself. But a godly wife can and should raise an objection if she has one. She should ask questions of her husband and seek to understand why he is leading them the way he is.

A good marriage is one filled with agreement. A wife ought to seek to get on the same page as her husband as much as she can. Sometimes this means raising objections and asking him to change his mind. Other times this means drawing him out or letting him know you aren’t sure where he’s leading you. In any case, silently acquiescing (while inwardly living in anger, fear, or contempt) can do damage to the marriage relationship by concealing distrust and leaving your husband in the dark about the true state of your heart.

When we communicate truthfully and in good faith with our husbands, it doesn’t automatically make submission easy, nor does it mean we will always agree, but it will give us deeper peace as we entrust ourselves first and foremost to God and, next, to the man God has joined us to.

To Silence Scoffing

Submission is often hidden. It happens in the nitty-gritty moments of life. It’s the disposition driving our heart when we follow our husband’s lead and come alongside him to cheerfully do what we can to help his initiatives succeed, realizing that his success is our success and vice versa.

When we do it well, nobody notices. Or if others do notice, they assume we were just born with the gift of submission. But what we often don’t realize is that submission is a weapon. Titus 2:3–5 says, “Older women . . . are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled.”

One of the primary teachings older women are to pass to younger women is to be “submissive to their own husbands.” Why? “That the word of God may not be reviled.” That’s the hidden weapon of submission.

Revilers of God’s word are all around us. Would you like to know one way to slow their tongues? Submit to your husband. We may wonder just what it is about our wifely submission that could keep God’s word from being reviled — after all, it seems that to even bring up the topic of submission can be the source of much reviling for the person brave enough to do so.

But in God’s high and unsearchable wisdom, he has made submissive wives a bulwark against the reviling of his precious word. When we submit to our own husbands, we are a living authentication of the truthfulness and goodness of his word and his ways. Won’t you join me in asking God for more and more grace to obey this glorious charge?

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alexanderessex3dstoryart · 3 years

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Script-Writing - World-Building and Planning - Billboards and Holograms

After reviewing Cyberpunk 2077, I thought I would plan my process looking ahead for the script-writing essay as I didn’t really have a clear plan to what I wanted to write. This lead to me researching online how to write a script itself as I was feeling a bit unconfident from how long it’s been since I’ve last looked at the project from working on other projects. One website that really helped me out was the website ‘WriteBetterScripts’ as they detail what steps you should take before writing up a screenplay. Looking at the website, I felt comfortable with looking further into the history of my location and world much further on from the previous lecture I had on script writing as like the article says, it would help me understand the mechanisms of my world and how my characters react to them all.

To help establish this for my script, I took the notes from my last lecture with Carla as the whole process of thinking how every exact thing is made influenced me to look into the nitty-gritty details of the world I want to imagine for myself so that the writing process was easier for me. I first looked at one of my earlier mood boards that I had created for both the script-writing and character design projects as this captures the overall tone and feel for what I want going on in my scene with the bright lights illuminating the city whilst a dark vibe happens on the lower parts of the city giving it a false persona. The main focus from the mood board was to see how I could research parts of these images and look into the history of where these sections came from and how I can mentally put together the background and mechanisms of my scene for the essay. Focus points I found from looking at the mood board were the bright lights of the outside city and the slum-like environment that was inside the lower decks of the city. Ideas like Blade Runner and Ghost in the Shell immediately springed out to me as these may be films and media I want to look into more as I go through this project.

Working off the previous lecture and mood board, I wanted to look into the history of my area and the makings of some of the things that are set in the world. For example, Led screens and holograms were peak interests of mine from the subject matter I want to go for in this essay being a story of a man obsessed with celebrities and idols that leads him to destroying what he loves most out of pure rage. I started by researching on different websites that detailed what goes into the making of LED billboard and Screens as these would be the main focus of my city area where my characters would walk in and receive different feelings to what they see. Here I learned different things like an LED screen consisting of little lights packed closely together which can’t be seen by the naked eye and how they only emit three colours being - Red,Green and Blue. How these lights are packed together to create one larger thing reminded me a lot about my Jekyll and Hyde characters and how they seen in the world as Jekyll to me is one of those small Red, Green or Blue lights that are packed closely together in the monitor and Hyde being an ad you see on an electronic billboard that you see in Times Square. This is because Jekyll to me is a small individual that doesn’t have any standout details to him compared to the celebrities and idols that dominate the city’s culture which comparing to my Hyde character is a lot more eye-turning since there’s been nothing like him before to exist being this humongous mechanical beast that no-one has seen before as it’s out of the general public’s imagination.

Alongside this, I did a few bit of research on the different types of billboards that are visible in New York where there’s this one website detailing what each billboard is used for in the city from events, ads and celebrations. One thing I really took out of it was the shapes of these screens as they curve and warp around buildings to create unique visuals that you couldn’t make on a traditional sign. Things like animations, placement of the promoted material and how it’s structured all make it as memorable as possible for people to see thus in term making people remember what was on the billboard itself. This lead me to creating a mood board between New York’s Billboard culture to Shibuya’s layout as I wanted to see and realise the differences of how both cities advertise and use colour on their billboards. Looking at New York’s billboards as previously mentioned, use complicated shapes and techniques to advertise their work and promote events with curved and flexible boards as well as different kinds of rectangles and squares. They act very unconventional but somehow work amazingly which is what draws your attention to them as well as giving each board in Times Square room to breathe with a lot of them having their own space to show off what the boards have to offer. Comparing this to Shibuya in Tokyo, the billboards are a lot more clustered together like how LED’s are laid out when you zoom in. There’s so much more colour on offer because of this to the point where it feels overwhelming and feel like they’re all watching you as you walk on the streets. And this is why I love it as it also makes feel like you’ve entered into the future when you step into the city for the first time as you can’t comprehend all the colours that surround you and just wants you to look at them all.

Both of these cities I found have different ways of advertising and how they format it which is why I feel I imagine a mixture of both of these cities in my world for Jekyll and Hyde to explore in and add to the dense city I imagine it to be.

One last bit of my LED screen and Billboard research is that I stumbled across this article which features Tokyo’s famous advertising areas like Shibuya without the advertising, bright colours or 3D text and replaced with just bright blocks instead. These are the works of Graphic Designer Nicolas Damiens and to me, I think it takes away the character out of the areas as it’s very mute looking but however not dull as the white out blocks give ti a new architectural feel to it all. One revelation that I had when looking at these amazing images is that this could be how my Hyde character interprets the city for himself as he despises the culture so much to the point he can even pictured out what’s even being displayed other than just hollowed out people. Comparing this to Jekyll where all he sees are the flashy colours and imagery to the point his dreams have come to life.

Overall, I feel really pleased with this first bit of research I’ve done on my world-building for the script as I’m starting to pick up the pieces to how both of my characters visualise the land around them which will definitely be important to my scene as I at least would love to feature it outside which would let me able to express the city fully. I think for the next post, I plan to look at other futuristic details like holograms to help with not only the advertising of the city, but to also play with the humanity of the Hyde character as whilst he’s a giant mechanical beast, he wants to be seen as normal as well despite being made out of rubbish.

Websites

The complete guide to the screenwriting process - https://writebetterscripts.com/how-to-write-a-script/

LED Screens FAQ - https://www.yslv.co.uk/led-faq#:~:text=An%20LED%20Screen%20is%20like,create%20a%20range%20of%20colours.

Digtal Screens and BillBoards - https://www.timessquarenyc.org/do-business/promote-partner/advertising-sponsorships/digital-screens-billboards

Tokyo without ads: Japan's capital stripped bare – in pictures - https://www.theguardian.com/cities/gallery/2015/aug/12/tokyo-without-ads-japan-stripped-bare-in-pictures

https://www.kingman.com.au/signage-throughout-the-years-how-the-digital-age-has-changed-signs/

How Do Electronic Billboards Work? - https://www.ledsignsupply.com/electronic-billboards-work/#:~:text=Digital%20billboards%20are%20made%20with,so%20eye%2Dcatching%20and%20unique.&text=If%20you%20are%20looking%20for,maintenance%20way%20to%20create%20buzz.

#ScriptWrtitingBA2a

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pumpkinpie59 · 4 years

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rant thing idk:

someone decided to get nasty with me during a discussion about masaya on amino ...

them: His personality is unrealistic because they didn't give him any character flaws which is why to me he was not an interesting character

me: no character flaws? dislikes humanity, can get jealous, keeps his personal life a secret and therefore has few friends, etc. the only reason we don’t really see his main flaws is because the series is from ichgo’s pov so we see things how she sees them. she sees masaya as a kind and caring individual, so we don’t see all the nitty gritty stuff. also it’s been shown that he works rlly hard to be “perfect” bc that’s what people expect of him. he liked ichigo because he felt like he could be himself. sorry, but i do not see how he could be unrealistic or uninteresting :/

them: I don't remember him ever getting jealous always accepting ichigo's being late all the time ,he always protects her and senses when she is in danger , never one got mad at her, acts to perfect which if it is in her prove to , he would be just as manipulative as kisshu , he felt like he could be himself in front of her but yet he still tried to act perfect, therefore he was never his true self in front of her and realistically eventually he would get mad at her for being late all the time and would feel like she's not making an effort to show up despite his secret life , he despises humanity which would mean he would secretly despise her to, there for he had a motive for acting perfect so he was using her all the same

me: he gets pretty jealous in the manga many times. also he says he’s a bit jealous of ryou in the anime. protecting his gf is what he should do as a bf? he got mad at her in episode 4 since she was being secretive and ran off and he was rlly worried about her. he’s definitely not as manipulative as quiche. quiche forces her to do things she doesn’t want to do, while masaya lets her make her own decisions unless he feels uncomfortable (which is a very healthy thing to do in a relationship). if you watch the christmas episode, he admits to his secrets to her and from then on is able to be honest with her when he’s upset or uncomfortable. as for the last few sentences, where does it ever show that he’s mad at her for being late/not making an effort (which he knows isn’t true)??? he said himself that she’s helping him accept humanity and learn to love it. he wasn’t using her, he just saw something in her that he didn’t see in other people and admired her for it and eventually fell for her. that’s innocent and sweet and i don’t understand why you hate him.

them: But he wasn't honest from the very start and neither was she so that would be a toxic relationship. And you got to look at how both were raise I'm not saying it was right but he was raised as a soldier since he was young and properly taught to take everything by force but then you know what he realized his mistakes , I don't ever remember him openly admitting he was jealous of you and ad a boyfriend he also should let he be independent and not so clingy , how wasn't he using her if he was the vessel of deep blue ??and also remember when he turned into dark blue if his love was true enough he would have not at all and she was the first one he went to kill so he was also violent and no better then kisshu ,the problem I have was hes not an upfront and blunt character as kishu and atleast he admitted he was wrong and then he let her be happy though honestly he ended up going to England afterwards then left her alone to be a mew mew to fight by herself

me: okay 1, you started this discussion claiming that masaya was too perfect, and now you’re claiming that he’s toxic. you went back on your claim. 2, masaya wasn’t deep blue. he was his own person, but deep blue only created his body to later be his host body, but masaya was not deep blue himself. 3, masaya and ichigo went to england together. ichigo left him there to help the mews, and he missed her and came back to see her later. he tries to keep in touch as much as he can. and finally 4, not being honest right away is not toxic. they were in the testing phase of their relationship, and thus had to work up to an understanding that both could benefit from. he was able to give her her space so she could grow to accept him and vice versa. that’s healthy. yes, quiche learned, but he still has such a long way to go before he can have a healthy relationship. also, ichigo insisted so many times that he leave her alone. she is in love with masaya and he needs to respect that. even ryou respected that. i don’t hate quiche, but he’s not a great choice for her. at least not at his age. i really don’t want this to get nasty, especially given that i’m a curator and want this to be a safe and enjoyable community, so i would like to respectfully ask you to drop this.

them: You can seem perfect and be toxic it's called narcissism look it up , look in the manga he was his vessel which mean he is deep blue (...) Not being honest is being dishonest , your getting nasty because you don't respect my views and can't handle I have good points , but think what you want you even have in your profile you hate ppl that hate mayasa you must be extremely young and can't handle a good debate but w/e be immature because I have a different opinion and you can't handle it

then they blocked me.

so here’s the thing. i’m not sure if it’s because of my high school background of debate or whatever, but coming up with counter arguments is how debate works? i wasn’t trying to insult them or antagonize them. i was trying to have an intelligent conversation.

this is how i would’ve responded had they not blocked me:

“i wasn’t going to respond because i want this argument to end, but you’re choosing to insult me specifically. i’m 19 and have been active online for ten years now. i never said i hated people *who* dislike masaya. i said i dislike the fact that people hate masaya. completely different. having a good argument means being able to deconstruct a point and giving an alternate point clearly. i literally went to a classical school that taught how to debate. i may not be best at it, but i’m not inexperienced. i’m not trying to be nasty. i’m just trying to respond to your points with my own, which is how debate works. i really wish you’d stop this tho. you’re calling me disrespectful and yet you go and call me immature. this argument is pointless and at this point you’re being hurtful, which is itself a fallacy called ad hominem.”

some more things i wanna say just to get it out of my system: coming up with counterpoints is not disrespecting someone’s opinion. they can believe they have good points. that’s whatever. i believe i have good points. the whole point of a debate is to take an argument and analyze it. tbh i don’t think they were fully reading my points and instead came to conclusions.

“not being honest is being dishonest.” maybe in some cases, but i literally said they were in the early stages of a relationship. idk about anybody else, but say i had a toxic family life as a child. i wouldn’t tell a new partner that right off the bat. i would wait a bit before sharing something so personal so i know it’s safe with that person. same with masaya and ichigo.

“masaya is narcissistic.” i don’t even know how to argue against this because it’s such a ridiculous claim.

tbh tho i kinda wish i had been able to come to some middle ground in the end with a better understanding of each other’s opinions. i keep feeling like i made a wrong choice ... i dislike it when people assume things about me because i honestly want to get along with people. what did i do wrong?

i’m choosing not to tag this

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justgotham · 7 years

Link

The joke is on Gotham City.

In “Gotham’s” first season, Jerome (Cameron Monaghan) was locked up in Arkham Asylum for killing his mother. Crime lord disguised as public servant/wealthy philanthropist Theo Galavan later staged a prison break, and Jerome was one of six inmates who escaped. Theo ultimately betrayed and killed Jerome, but the smiling lunatic is now having the last laugh. Thanks to the resurrection powers of Doctor Hugo Strange’s technology, Jerome is back, and poised to terrorize the city once again.

Ahead of tonight’s episode, the final Monaghan spoke with CBR News about Jerome’s resurrection, throwing Gotham City into chaos, why he’s targeted Bruce, and mastering all Jerome’s mannerisms.

CBR: In Season 2, it appeared that Jerome had been knocked off for good. How surprised were you to get the call about this arc?

Cameron Monaghan: I knew there was a possibility of me returning. We had talked about it back at the end of my arc in the second season, but I didn’t know exactly how I’d be returning. I was very excited when I got the call that they were going to go ahead with the story and bring me back. It was all about getting to the nitty-gritty and the best way to do it. I started forming ideas on what I wanted to do.

How does this resurrected Jerome 2.0 compare to the previous incarnation?

A lot of his ideals are still there. He has this ideology of wanting chaos and raising violence and freeing yourself from the constraints of civility or order. That was pretty well established in the second season, where he delivered that great monologue in the police station. We already had the fundamentals of the character in his ideology.

With that being said, he’s coming back from the dead this time around. He feels more mature and darker and more twisted with a more distinct, calmer approach to what he is doing. He has greater aspirations on a larger scale. He’s become an escalated version of what we introduced in the second season. He’s really come into his own now. The whole city and world is a lot worse off for it.

What makes Jerome such a deadly adversary?

There’s a lot that makes him deadly. First, and foremost, is the lack of fear. If you have a lack of fear and a lack of self-preservation, you are able to do pretty terrible things. He’s also extremely intelligent. We started to establish it in the second season ,and we really get to see him stretch his legs in that category. He’s always one step ahead of everyone else in the room. He’s extremely perceptive. He’s able to dissect the psychology of people around him. He’s able to push people really well and effectively.

He’s also very clever. He’s a trickster, so he always has something up his sleeve. We saw that a couple of times in 3.14. We see the sleight of hand of the character and how he is able to misdirect. He’s a deadly showman. The last thing that makes him such a deadly adversary is because he is a showman, he’s able to inspire. By inspiring, he has a personal army that he’s amassed. It brings a level of chaos to the city that’s never been established before on this show.

For Jerome’s first appearance, you practiced that maniacal laugh in front of a mirror. How did you go about nailing his voice and movements for this arc, or was it like riding a bicycle?

It’s different every time. Before we filmed the second season, I wanted the character to feel extremely comfortable in his body, in how he presents himself, and how he moves. I wanted him to feel light on his feet. I danced. I would take dance class, a couple of hours a day, every single day, wherever I had an opportunity.

This time, I wanted him to have that same lightness on his feet and athleticism, but I wanted him to be comfortable in confrontation and mentally jousting with the other characters So, I boxed. I would spar with people. Not only did that help because I wanted to lose as much weight as I could so that I physically looked lankier and had more pronounced features facially, but. it also helped that fighters have very quick eyes. I can’t even describe it, but there’s a certain quality to quickly breaking apart a circumstance. Boxers are able to perceive what other people are doing very quickly in a way that is reminiscent of Jerome.

I tried to find body and movement. The challenge this time around is, I had prosthetics for a lot of it. I couldn’t see properly. I was literally blinded by bandages and blocked by makeup, so I wanted to pay a lot of attention in my performance to voice and body. I recorded my voice a lot in speaking, just trying to figure out what I wanted to do with him and what I wanted him to sound like. Also, I would tape myself performing the scenes in a ski mask, so that you couldn’t see my face and I was purely body. I just did stuff that made sense for the character and the performance.

In “Mad City: Smile Like You Mean It,” Jerome plunged the city into darkness and encouraged the citizens to go crazy. What’s his endgame?

I don’t know if Jerome needs an endgame. What’s great about him is how he lives in the moment in such a strange way. His version of fun comes from this misery and destruction that he brings around him. He’s able to do it on a larger and larger stage each time. Right now, what’s propelling him is his desire to do that. As the story goes on, he’s going to need to gain a more distinct focus with his targets. He’s kind of found that now in Bruce. He had that a bit with Gordon, and he might continue to down the road. He really sees Bruce as an adversary he loves torturing and trying to corrupt. Ultimately, he’s trying to corrupt everyone. His goal is to bring out that level of violence he feels within himself.

What can viewers expect from the confrontation between Jerome and Bruce?

We see the formation of ideology within Bruce that is spurred on by the level of destruction and murdering that Jerome is creating around him. We plant the seeds of what has always been my favorite interaction between the Joker and Batman, and that we have in Jerome and Bruce, which is these dark reflections of each other. They are constantly pushing each other to escalate. Jerome sees so much of himself in Bruce. He also sees inherent goodness in Bruce. He hates that. He despises it and wants to twist it. So, we have the sense of that playing out within this episode. I got goosebumps. I got chills. This was my favorite thing about that interaction, about that dynamic.

What else can you tease about what kind of mark Jerome will leave on Gotham?

We have a climax that is on a scale that I’m not sure has ever been on the show before. It’s extremely ambitious. It’s a gamble. Fingers crossed they pull it off. It’s a really exciting moment for the show. The fact I had the opportunity to be part of it is special. I can’t wait for people to see it.

#Gotham #Jerome Valeska #Cameron Monaghan

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allanpaulvin · 6 years

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I ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY!

Well, its time once again for me too, enlighten the next fourteen hours of your lives. My brain is functioning at optimal levels; my aging digits are fully flexed and rearing to go, my eyes are fixed on the keyboard of my IdeaPad, and my ears are clear of impediments and capable of hearing the "Breaking News," from the boys and girls at CNN. So at 9:49 AM EDT on the thirteenth day of April I'm about ready, willing and able to provide you with what you need to know about to make your day even more fabulous.

My day will be somewhat better once I leave my comfortable couch, and return to my kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. By so doing, I'll ensure that I stay awake at least until my "words of the day," have been posted to an email and my Social Media pages. Please bear with me until my return. Your patience is much appreciated.

To those of you who might be interested, the sun has now penetrated the clouds in the skies above the center of the Garden State. "Uncle Weatherbee," and his crew are predicting that temperatures will rise into the high eighties. I for one certainly hope so.

I know that you, my loyal constituents, are eagerly awaiting the probing questions that follow. So, without further ado, here goes.

1. What's your opinion of the ensuing battle between James Comey, the former FBI Director and our esteemed Commander and Chief? Are they anticipating making an appearance in the ring, at Madison Square Garden? 2. Is their battle just a "pissing contest," or is there some credence to Mr. Comey's accusations. 3. Do you think Kellyanne Conway needs some plastic surgery and should she have her lips sewn shut? 4. Do you have any questions regarding last night's High School Prom? 5. Are you secure in your "own space?"

Wait no longer, here are today's headlines from New York Times.

1. "In Reversal, Trump Weighs Rejoining Trade Pact for Pacific." I find it difficult to believe that the "DUMPSTER," would change his mind about anything. 2. "Of Course Trump can Fire Mueller. He Shouldn't." No shit. His words, about Mr. Mueller's probing investigation, are only intended to direct the nation's attention away from the truth regarding Mr. Trump's connections to that little dude who serves as Russia's Mafia Chieftan. 3. "The Self-destruction of Paul Ryan and the G.O.P." The destruction is due to their allegiance to a loud mouth without the credentials to serve as the leader of our great nation. 4. "China's Top Leaders Find Trump's Trade Threats Baffling." I think the "Donald," finds his threats baffling. 5. "In Comey's Memoir, Visceral Details and Grim View of Trump." I do think some of Mr. Comey's views are a bit much, but overall, I do believe what he has to say. I look forward to the publication of his book.

I've taken up enough of your time. So I'll quickly move forward to the "nitty-gritty" of today's edition of: "Al's Diatribes." Our subject is: "I ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY."

For whatever it's worth, I do so because:

- I'm trying to tell the truth while my aging digits still work - while my creative juices continue to flow vigorously, I can come up with the words that reside in my vast vocabulary - I seek forgiveness from the Lord up above and those I've trespassed against - I'm left-handed - I have a fear of heights - I drink decaf coffee - if you haven't figured it out yet, I despise our current President - I'm an ardent liberal - I am somewhat overweight - I haven't been following my daily exercise program - of my desire to stop viewing episodes of "Law and Order, SVU." - I tend to provide you with overly-wordy prose in my daily rants

Accepting responsibility is somewhat difficult for me. But there does come a time, in everyone's life, when we have to do so. So I guess April 13th, 2018 is that time in my life. With that admission, please have a great day!

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thedescentfromthesea · 7 years

Video

youtube

Transcript analysis: Bold highlighted are areas to look into, people, theories, questions etc.

Well, this is 2009 (modern) And it's the Bicentenary (200th anniversary) of Charles Darwin. And all over the world, eminent evolutionists are anxious to celebrate this. And what they're planning to do is to enlighten us on almost every aspect of Darwin and his life (RESEARCH DARWIN, methods, thoughts, experiments etc) and how he changed our thinking) I say almost every aspect, because there is one aspect of this story which they have thrown no light on. And they seem anxious to skirt around it and step over it(why are they so in fear?) and to talk about something else. So I'm going to talk about it. It's the question of, why are we so different from the chimpanzees?

01:02 We get the geneticists (an expert in or student of heredity and the variation of inherited characteristics) on telling us how extremely closely we are related -- hardly any genes of difference, very, very closely related. And yet, when you look at the phenotypes, there's a chimp, there's a man; they're astoundingly different, no resemblance at all. I'm not talking about airy-fairy stuff about culture or psychology, or behavior. I'm talking about ground-base, nitty-gritty, measurable physical differences. They, that one, is hairy and walking on four legs. That one is a naked biped. Why? I mean -- (Laughter) if I'm a good Darwinist, I've got to believe there's a reason for that. If we changed so much, something must have happened. What happened?

01:51 Now 50 years ago, that was a laughably simple question. Everybody knew the answer. They knew what happened. The ancestor of the apes stayed in the trees; our ancestors went out onto the plain. That explained everything. We had to get up on our legs to peer over the tall grass, or to chase after animals, or to free our hands for weapons. And we got so overheated in the chase that we had to take off that fur coat and throw it away. Everybody knew that, for generations.

02:24 But then, in the '90s, something began to unravel. The paleontologists (scientist who studies fossils) themselves looked a bit more closely at the accompanying microfauna (microscopic interstitial animals living in the soil) lived in the same time and place as the hominids. And they weren't savanna species. And they looked at the herbivores. And they weren't savanna herbivores. And then they were so clever, they found a way to analyze fossilized pollen. Shock, horror. The fossilized pollen was not of savanna vegetation. Some of it even came from lianas, those things that dangle in the middle of the jungle.

03:04 So we're left with a situation where we know that our earliest ancestors were moving around on four legs in the trees, before the savanna ecosystem even came into existence. This is not something I've made up. It's not a minority theory. Everybody agrees with it.

03:26 Professor Tobias(RESEARCH HIM) came over from South Africa and spoke to University College London. He said, "Everything I've been telling you for the last 20 years, forget about it. It was wrong. We've got to go back to square one and start again." It made him very unpopular. They didn't want to go back to square one.

03:49 I mean, it's a terrible thing to happen. You've got this beautiful paradigm. You've believed it through generations. Nobody has questioned it. You've been constructing fanciful things on top of it, relying on it to be as solid as a rock. And now it's whipped away from under you. What do you do? What does a scientist do in that case?

04:10 Well, we know the answer because Thomas S. Kuhn wrote a seminal treatise about this back in 1962. He said what scientists do when a paradigm fails is, guess what -- they carry on as if nothing had happened. (Laughter) If they haven't got a paradigm they can't ask the question. So they say, "Yes it's wrong, but supposing it was right ..." (Laughter) And the only other option open to them is to stop asking the questions. So that is what they have done now. That's why you don't hear them talking about it. It's yesterday's question.

04:55 Some of them have even elevated it into a principle. It's what we ought to be doing. Aaron Filler from Harvard said, "Isn't it time we stopped talking about selective pressures? I mean, why don't we talk about, well, there's chromosomes, and there's genes. And we just record what we see." Charles Darwin must be spinning in his grave! He knew all about that kind of science. And he called it hypothesis-free science. And he despised it from the bottom of his heart. And if you're going to say, "I'm going to stop talking about selective pressures," you can take "The Origin of Species" and throw it out of the window, for it's about nothing else but selective pressures(maybe look into this?).

05:36 And the irony of it is, that this is one occasion of a paradigm collapse where we didn't have to wait for a new paradigm to come up. There was one waiting in the wings. It had been waiting there since 1960 when Alister Hardy, a marine biologist, said, "I think what happened, perhaps our ancestors had a more aquatic existence for some of the time." ( RESEARCH HIM ) He kept it to himself for 30 years. But then the press got hold of it and all hell broke loose. All his colleagues said, "This is outrageous. You've exposed us to public ridicule! You must never do that again." And at that time, it became set in stone: the aquatic theory should be dumped with the UFOs and the yetis, as part of the lunatic fringe of science.

06:27 Well I don't think that. I think that Hardy had a lot going for him. I'd like to talk about just a handful of what have been called the hallmarks of mankind, the things that made us different from everybody else, and all our relatives. Let's look at our naked skin. It's obvious that most of the things we think about that have lost their body hair, mammals without body hair, are aquatic ones, like the dugong, the walrus, the dolphin, the hippopotamus, the manatee. And a couple of wallowers-in-mud like the babirusa. And you're tempted to think, well perhaps, could that be why we are naked? ( Focus on the nakedly appearance of certain creatures etc )

07:11 I suggested it and people said, "No no no. I mean, look at the elephant. You've forgotten all about the elephant haven't you?" So back in 1982 I said, "Well perhaps the elephant had an aquatic ancestor." Peals of merry laughter! "That crazy woman. She's off again. She'll say anything won't she?" But by now, everybody agrees that the elephant had an aquatic ancestor. This has come 'round to be that all those naked pachyderms have aquatic ancestors. The last exception was supposed to be the rhinoceros. ( Look into aquatic ancestors, sea monsters, sea fossils, etc )

07:42 Last year in Florida they found extinct ancestor of a rhinoceros and said, "Seems to have spent most of its time in the water." So this is a close connection between nakedness and water. As an absolute connection, it only works one way. You can't say all aquatic animals are naked, because look at the sea otter. But you can say that every animal that has become naked has been conditioned by water, in its own lifetime, or the lifetime of its ancestors. I think this is significant. The only exception is the naked Somalian mole-rat, which never puts its nose above the surface of the ground.

08:25 And take bipedality. Here you can't find anybody to compare it with, because we're the only animal that walks upright on two legs. But you can say this: all the apes and all the monkeys are capable of walking on two legs, if they want to, for a short time. There is only one circumstance in which they always, all of them, walk on two legs, and that is when they are wading through water. Do you think that's significant? David Attenborough thinks it's significant, as the possible beginning of our bipedalism. ( Footage of animals wading through water )

08:59 Look at the fat layer. We have got, under our skin, a layer of fat, all over: nothing in the least like that in any other primate. Why should it be there? Well they do know, that if you look at other aquatic mammals, the fat that in most land mammals is deposited inside the body wall, around the kidneys and the intestines and so on, has started to migrate to the outside, and spread out in a layer inside the skin. In the whale it's complete: no fat inside at all, all in blubber outside. We cannot avoid the suspicion that in our case it's started to happen. We have got skin lined with this layer. It's the only possible explanation of why humans, if they're very unlucky, can become grossly obese, in a way that would be totally impossible for any other primate, physically impossible. Something very odd, matter-of-factly, never explained.

10:01 The question of why we can speak. We can speak. And the gorilla can't speak. Why? Nothing to do with his teeth or his tongue or his lungs or anything like that -- purely has to do with its conscious control of its breath. You can't even train a gorilla to say "Ah" on request. The only creatures that have got conscious control of their breath are the diving animals and the diving birds. It was an absolute precondition for our being able to speak. ( Look at the video of the dolphins, and how we will be ‘able to speak to them’)

10:35 And then again, there is the fact that we are streamlined. Trying to imagine a diver diving into water -- hardly makes a splash. Try to imagine a gorilla performing the same maneuver, and you can see that, compared with gorilla, we are halfway to being shaped like a fish. I am trying to suggest that, for 40-odd years, this aquatic idea has been miscategorized as lunatic fringe, and it is not lunatic fringe.

11:05 And the ironic thing about it is that they are not staving off the aquatic theory to protect a theory of their own, which they've all agreed on, and they love. There is nothing there. They are staving off the aquatic theory to protect a vacuum. (Laughter) (Applause)

11:29 How do they react when I say these things? One very common reaction I've heard about 20 times is, "But it was investigated. They conducted a serious investigation of this at the beginning, when Hardy put forward his article." I don't believe it. For 35 years I've been looking for any evidence of any incident of that kind, and I've concluded that that's one of the urban myths. It's never been done.

12:00 I ask people sometimes, and they say, "I like the aquatic theory! Everybody likes the aquatic theory. Of course they don't believe it, but they like it." Well I say, "Why do you think it's rubbish?" They say "Well ... everybody I talk to says it's rubbish. And they can't all be wrong, can they?" The answer to that, loud and clear, is, "Yes! They can all be wrong." History is strewn with the cases when they've all got it wrong. (Applause) And if you've got a scientific problem like that, you can't solve it by holding a head count, and saying, "More of us say yes than say no."

12:43 (Laughter)

12:44 Apart from that, some of the heads count more than others. Some of them have come over. There was Professor Tobias. He's come over. Daniel Dennett, he's come over. Sir David Attenborough, he's come over. Anybody else out there? Come on in. The water is lovely. ( Look into these people )

13:04 (Applause)

13:07 And now we've got to look to the future. Ultimately one of three things is going to happen. Either they will go on for the next 40 years, 50 years, 60 years. "Yeah well we don't talk about that. Let's talk about something interesting." That would be very sad. The second thing that could happen is that some young genius will arrive, and say, "I've found it. It was not the savanna, it was not the water, it was this!" No sign of that happening either. I don't think there is a third option.

13:42 So the third thing that might happen is a very beautiful thing. If you look back at the early years of the last century, there was a stand-off, a lot of bickering and bad feeling between the believers in Mendel, and the believers in Darwin. It ended with a new synthesis: Darwin's ideas and Mendel's ideas blending together. And I think the same thing will happen here. You'll get a new synthesis. Hardy's ideas and Darwin's ideas will be blended together.

14:18 And we can move forward from there, and really get somewhere. That would be a beautiful thing. It would be very nice for me if it happened soon. (Laughter) Because I'm older now than George Burns was when he said, "At my age, I don't even buy green bananas."

14:48 (Laughter)

14:54 So if it's going to come and it's going to happen, what's holding it up? I can tell you that in three words. Academia says no. They decided in 1960, "That belongs with the UFOs and the yetis." And it's not easy to change their minds. The professional journals won't touch it with a barge pole. The textbooks don't mention it. The syllabus doesn't mention even the fact that we're naked, let alone look for a reason to it. "Horizon," which takes its cue from the academics, won't touch it with a barge pole. So we never hear the case put for it, except in jocular references to people on the lunatic fringe.

15:42 I don't know quite where this diktat comes from. Somebody up there is issuing the commandment, "Thou shalt not believe in the aquatic theory. And if you hope to make progress in this profession, and you do believe it, you'd better keep it to yourself, because it will get in your way."

16:07 So I get the impression that some parts of the scientific establishment are morphing into a kind of priesthood. But you know, that makes me feel good, because Richard Dawkins has told us how to treat a priesthood. (Laughter) He says, "Firstly, you've got to refuse to give it all the excessive awe and reverence it's been trained to receive." Right. I'll go ahead with that. And secondly, he says, "You must never be afraid to rock the boat." I'll go along with that too. Thank you very much.

16:47 (Applause)

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type2diabetestreatments-blog · 7 years

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Keeping Insulin Cool (Win a Cool Pack of Your Own!)

New Post has been published on http://type2diabetestreatment.net/diabetes-mellitus/keeping-insulin-cool-win-a-cool-pack-of-your-own/

Keeping Insulin Cool (Win a Cool Pack of Your Own!)

Today, we're talking cool packs, with a chance to win one of your own! Be sure to read through to the Giveaway at the end of this post.

Growing up in the mild climate of Oregon, I was raised to despise excessive heat. But you know what hates heat more than me? Insulin.

Insulin is a fragile substance that does not do well in extreme hot or cold temperatures, and it's never more evident than in the sweltering heat of the summer months. Whether you're lounging at the beach, trekking through European towns, or just running errands, there's never a better time to think about the life of your insulin.

Insulin + Heat: What Happens?

The nitty-gritty of insulin science: it's a big protein that has the potential of breaking down into smaller proteins when exposed to heat. That basically leads to ineffectiveness (see high blood sugars!).

Industry expert Charles Fraser, Senior Director of Medical Information Services at Sanofi, explained in a phone interview that the breakdown of insulin varies depending on the temperature to which the insulin was exposed and for how long, and we need to be particularly cautious about exposing insulin to temperatures over 86 degrees for any length of time. How long and how hot is risky?

"If you went directly home from the pharmacy, within that short period of time the stability is not going to be impacted," Fraser said. "If you put the insulin in your car on a hot day and then went shopping, and the car was 135 degrees inside, and the insulin was in there for two hours? It is conceivable that insulin is already breaking down."

But how can you tell if your insulin is going bad? You know, short of the sudden skyrocketing BGs? You might notice that your otherwise clear insulin is starting to look a little cloudy. Fraser says sometimes you can even see the crystals starting to form in the vial.

Since it's sort of a mystery exactly how quickly your insulin will degrade, it's better to be safe than sorry! And the safe route is to keep your vials, pens or pump nice and cool as much as possible.

So, how do you do that?

Cool Packs Go Hi-Tech

Traditionally PWDs used ice or other water-related cold packs to keep their insulin cool when outside or away from a refrigerator. And for that choice, there's a new company on the scene that is taking insulin protection to a whole new level.

Texas-based Kewl Innovations is fittingly named. It's sole product, the ClimaPak, is dedicated to keeping insulin cool — or warm, depending on the situation. The ClimaPak is a small, battery-powered device that continuously monitors the environment to keep your insulin at the proper temperature. It's a snazzy little contraption that holds two insulin pens, two insulin bottles, or one of each. It seems like a great solution, especially for outdoor adventurers who need to keep their insulin protected year-round.

In a conversation with Shayne O'Sullivan, Kewl Innovation's Community Engagement Specialist (read: social media person), I learned that the company's founder, Mike Wilkinson, has a personal D-connection: he has type 2 diabetes. After being diagnosed, Mike noticed he had difficulty keeping his insulin cool while traveling. He was tired of the hassle of cold packs and requesting hotel rooms with fridges. Having worked in the healthcare and tech industries for 30 years, Mike decided to do something about it and went to work creating the ClimaPak.

In our email exchange, O'Sullivan writes, "We've all heard horror stories about folks who end up injecting useless insulin after being outside in the hot sun all day, or people who end up freezing their insulin from leaving it on ice for too long. ClimaPak keeps insulin at the right temperature, with no messes or extra steps to plan (who likes packing coolers, or running by the store to buy ice!)."

Another fun feature is their programmable alarms and last-injection timers, showing when you last took your shot. Similar to the pen-cap-with-timer product Timesulin, the ClimaPak will eliminate the "Did I take my shot?" quandary faced by many folks who take multiple daily injections.

Sounds pretty kewl, huh? Especially since this product is useful for keeping your insulin safe in icy winter situations, too. The downsides?

First, they brag about it being portable and lightweight, but let's face it: this is yet another bulky thing to be carrying around. ClimaPak is 6.7 inches tall, 4.78 inches wide, and 2.78 inches across and it weighs 22oz, which O'Sullivan points out is less than an iPad. But from contextual photos, it appears to be about the size of a small, portable hair drier, and very space-age looking. (Loads of fun at airport screenings, to be sure.)

And then there's the price tag. At a whopping $199.99, my first thought was Ouch! It would be handy to have, but only if I had extra money to burn! The device also requires regular charging. Although you can juice it up using a wall or car charger, the rechargeable battery only lasts 3-5 days. Not such a good option if you're hiking in the Himalayas. But if you are going on a long-distance trip away from an electrical outlet, you can purchase an extra battery pack for $60.

Tried-and-True to Keep It Cool

For those who bristle at paying that much for a cooler, there are much more affordable options. FRIO cases have long been a go-to resource for PWDs to keep their insulin just right. They are extremely convenient to use and affordable to boot.

All you have to do is soak the soft FRIO case in cool water for about five minutes, and the specialized gel inside becomes enlarged and forms a perfect temperature barrier for the contents of the case. They don't require any refrigeration and won't need another soak in water for at least a week. FRIO cases look like big envelopes, and come in a variety of shapes, sizes and colors for everything from your insulin bottles and pens to a special "wallet" case for your insulin pump! They are very easy to pack in a suitcase or backpack, i.e. not the least bit bulky.

FRIO cases are also very affordable, ranging between $20 and $40.

Keeping your insulin cool — and in the winter months, safe from freezing — is very important in protecting the stability and effectiveness of this critical medicine, which in turn helps keep you healthy.

If you have another product or option that you use to keep your insulin safe, we'd love to hear about it!

And now...

A DMProducts Giveaway

Enticed by the products we just shared? Want one of your own? We're giving away one ClimaPak and two Frio cases (your choice of size and color) to three lucky winners!

As always, entering for your chance to win is as easy as leaving a comment.

Here's what to do:

1. Post your comment below and include the codeword "DMProducts" somewhere in the comment (beginning, end, in parenthesis, in bold, whatever). That will let us know that you would like to be entered in the giveaway. You can still leave a comment without entering, but if you want to be considered to win the contest, please remember to include "DMProducts."

2. This week, you have until Friday, July 27, at 5 p.m. PST to enter. A valid email address is required to win.

3. The winner will be chosen using Random.org.

4. The winner will be announced on Facebook and Twitter on Monday, July 30, so make sure you're following us! We like to feature our winners in upcoming blog posts, too.

This contest is closed.

Disclaimer: Content created by the Diabetes Mine team. For more details click here.

Disclaimer

This content is created for Diabetes Mine, a consumer health blog focused on the diabetes community. The content is not medically reviewed and doesn't adhere to Healthline's editorial guidelines. For more information about Healthline's partnership with Diabetes Mine, please click here.

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