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streets-in-paradise · 5 months

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Of Palaces, Princes and Magic - Thor x (Fem)Reader

Warnings: Clueless, powerless Thor from 2011. Tons of fluff

Summary: Wandering arround your home Thor discovers evidence of the fairytale fantasies of your childhood and promises to make your dreams come true.

Note: I wrote this last night on my phone with the last bits of battery I had and post it on the morning from the laptop. There is no editing or proofread.

Tags: @thorsslxve

Allowing a stranger inside your home wasn't your initial intention, but you kept stumbling with him untill you realized he had nowhere else to go. From the barely understandable bits of explanations you got from him, your first guess was that he may have just escaped from a cult, but that didn't make him necesarily dangerous. He was lost, clueless of the world after abandoning the place that was all he ever knew. You did remember him mentioning something over the lines of ' being casted out as a punishment' and that seemed to comfirm your theory. A cult linked to norse mythology, with a leader believing himself to be Odin who had raised him as his son.

Thor lived in a fantasy world and you could tell he was harmless because he never meant to hurt you in any way. He probably required of professional help, but to get there he needed to reach some bassical functionality. If many people would get to hear more of his nonsense, he would end up locked and that possibility saddened you deeply. As far as you could tell, he probably had been physically disconnected from the world all his life already. Besides, it was clear that he trusted you, because the out of place displays of odd arrogance he had with everyone else didn't happen much between you. For you he only had a quirky but lovely chivalry that sometimes was enough to make you live his fantasy for a while.

From all the decorative details in the place, his atention was focused in a miniature replica of Cinderella's castle you had on a table near your bookshelves. A beautifull toy incluiding small figures of characters to habitate it, so delicated and romantic that you kept it as decoration even if you wouldn't play with it anymore like when you were a little girl.

" Do you like it? " You asked him, followed with a sweet smile of encouragement. " It was my favorite growing up ... I'm a grown up woman and I still love it."

The last part of the explanation confused him a bit.

" I don't see why age would fundamentally change your appreciation, it's a fine sculpture of a castle fitting for the aesthetic preferences of a lady."

You couldn't help chuckling a bit, then showed him how to unfold the toy in order to see the inside and put it all back in.

" It's a toy, for little girls to play with." You corrected him. " Many girls enjoy playing pretend to be princesses as children, but when we reach a certain age we stop thinking of palaces, princes and magic... Unless we are reading a fantasy novel or something like that. It's stuff of tales and Disney movies, not reality."

The answer surprised him even more, but there was some sort of sadness in it. Pretty much as if he took pitty on the fact.

" Are people like me casted out to remain only in the literature of this realm?" He asked, with genuine curiosity. " Which tale does this castle tells? If there is any, as your words suggest."

Even in the simplest of details, the conversations with him allways felt like the dialogue of a fairytale.

" If someone would tell me that you have came out from the pages of a fantasy book, I would believe it."

" Yet you can't believe that Asgard is my homeland." He mocked you in return. " I'll convince you, all your doubts will be clarified once I will have my mighty power back."

You didn't argue with him, there was no need at the moment.

" Alright, your highness ... Do you still want me to tell you the tale?"

Thor smiled in agreement and you began to narrate using the playset castle as a visual guide. The fact that a grown man was just being introduced to the tale of Cinderella felt quite odd, but very cute. He was particularly intrigued with the fact that the King found no issue on letting his son marry a servant that presented herself to him magically disguised just because she was the owner of the crystal shoe.

" ... Even if she was the rightfull heir of the household, her stepmother made her a slave and that's a downgrade that should have disqualified her at the eyes of the King. How could the prince convince him of blessing that union? "

He was taking the story seriously and it was hard to provide answers in that perspective.

" I guess he simply indulged his son and let him marry the woman he loved. Prince Charming fell for Cinderella at the Royal Ball, he had no idea of who she was back then. The girl was a princess in spirit and maybe the King saw that, the crystal shoe proved her worthy of the prince."

For some reason, your answer made him smile a bight brighter than before.

" I believe you are a princess in spirit. " Thor sweetly confessed. " ... and a magnificent storyteller."

His pure cuteness was too much for you and behind your own smile heat has started to take over your face.

" Me, a princess? Please! You don't have to flatter me for hospitality. I haven't wore a tiara since I was eight."

Thor looked at the little figures of Cinderella and Prince Charming in their miniature balcony, then glanced back at you as if a new strange idea had just occured to him.

" What if you could experience what's like to be a princess? Would you believe me then?" He asked you out of sudden. " Not only about Asgard, but about my very sincere perceptions of you."

You began to wonder if the last part was some sort of romantical approach and were quite confused about that. He was very sweet and you loved his company. It could be said that you fancied him too, but encouraging him would be taking advantage of the strange situation and you would never do that.

" It's allright, Thor. I'm fine just like this. We are friends, you can help me arround ... "

" I insist, that's how I will repay you for all the troubles I have caused. " He cutted you off with determination. " I will take you to a real Royal Ball."

He sounded so serious about it that you began to question your own sanity.

" The noblefolk would be judging, It's a bad idea. "

" They will see you like I do." He optimistically replicated. " Your looks will reflect your royal spirit and you will not have to flee at midnight. If that's your desire, you will get to dance with a real prince ... Maybe two, if Loki also requires it. Ask him nicely and we may convince him of hexing your shoes to look as if made of crystal."

You giggled out of a pure,sweet surprise while hearing the details of the fantasy he was almost roping you in.

" That's very sweet. You are the sweetest man I have ever known."

You were gazing into each other's eyes when he formalized the promise.

"Currently less than what you deserve, but I will fix that soon. I will be back to my former glory, I will be worthy of you and In honor of your infinite kindness and patience, I shall make your dreams come true. "

#thor x reader #thor odinson x reader #thor #thor odinson #chris hemsworth #chris hemsworth x reader #thor 2011 #marvel fanfiction #mcu fanfiction #mcu x reader #marvel x reader

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stargazer-sims · 3 days

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The Art Of Redemption - Timeline

Okay, so this isn't a timeline strictly for The Art of Redemption. It's more like a timeline for characters that appear in that story as well as in We Are Sugar Valentine, since the two are more than tangentially connected.

We Are Sugar Valentine is taking place in present day (2022-2024) and The Art of Redemption takes place in 2011-2012.

I noticed that several people may have been confused because I tend to jump around a lot between stories and also with random vignettes. It's all perfectly clear in my head, but since nobody else is living in my head, I thought a timeline of important events for all the major characters would help everyone make sense of it.

Anyway, for anyone who's interested, you can find the timeline under the cut:

1950

Nikolai Pavlenko (Nikolai’s grandfather) - 1 December 1950

1951

Stanislav Kovac - 3 June 1951

Milena Novotný (later Kovac) - 6 June 1951

1963

Jason Jones (brother of Beth-Anne) - 26 August 1963

1966

Elena Federova (later Pavlenko) - 13 January 1966

Mikhail Pavlenko (Nikolai’s father) - 28 December 1966

1968

Stan comes to Canada from Czech Republic to train with a renowned figure skating coach and to compete at ISU Senior level

Milena comes to Canada from Czech Republic as part of a foreign exchange student program

Stan and Milena meet at their high school

1970

Seong Min-Joon (a.k.a. George Seong) - 13 May 1970

Beth-Anne Dorothy Jones (born Jennifer Elizabeth Anne Jones) - 30 October 1970

1972

Stan wins an Olympic silver medal

1973

Milena finishes her undergraduate degree and begins law school

Stan and Milena become Canadian citizens

1976

Stan asks Milena to marry him

Milena graduates from law school

Abby Jones (sister of Beth-Anne) - 19 August 1976

Kim In-Hae (later known as Evie Seong) - 5 November 1976

1977

Stan and Milena get married on Valentine’s Day

Peace Adebayo - 25 June 1977

1978

Sae (Sarah) Ishida - 21 July 1978

1979

Stan & Milena’s daughter Alžbeta is born

Stan retires from competing and decides to pursue coaching as a profession

1980

Satoru (Stephen) Fujikawa - 16 January 1980

1981

Beth-Anne is put in foster care in April when she ends up in the hospital after being seriously injured by her mother

Jason turns 18 in August and becomes Beth-Anne's guardian

Jason and Beth-Anne's mother Claudia tells them their sister Abby is deceased and they try to find out if this is true, but the Department of Community Services won't give Jason any information

Jason and Beth-Anne experience several months of homelessness

1982

Beth-Anne's coach, Nancy Rogers, lets Jason and Beth-Anne move in with her until Jason gets a job and the siblings find a place of their own

Nancy helps Beth-Anne and Jason track down their father. He doesn't want contact with them but he sends them money each month.

Beth-Anne is able to resume skating

Christian Lindeman - 11 April 1982

1983

Hunter MacKay - 18 March 1983

Nikolai’s grandfather and parents immigrate to Canada six months before Nikolai and Natascha are born

Nikolai and Natascha Pavlenko - 18 December 1983

1985

Anna-Valentina Baranova (Anya Pavlenko) - 22 April 1985

Vivienne Louise (Ginger) Holmes - 14 September 1985

Juliet Cole - 8 October 1985

1987

Viktoriya (Vika) Vasilieva - 26 February 1987

Stan becomes Beth-Anne's coach

1988

Beth-Anne legally changes her name to Beth-Anne Dorothy Jones

Mikhaïl (Mishka) Vasiliev - 10 February 1988

1990

Mishka and Vika are taken away from their biological parents due to neglect and unsafe living conditions, and placed with the Vasiliev family. They are adopted by Dr. and Mrs. Vasiliev later that year.

1991

Beth-Anne wins gold at Skate Canada and eventually goes on to win bronze at the World Championship

Death of Jason Jones

Beth-Anne is in an accident during the off-season that ends her competitive skating career

Stan and Milena take Beth-Anne into their home while she recovers from her injuries

1992

Beth-Anne is sufficiently recovered from her accident to move out of Stan and Milena's house and go forward with her life, and she decides to go to university. She also decides to keep skating, even if she can no longer do it competitively

Grandpa Nikolai, Mikhail and Elena become Canadian citizens

1994

Nikolai competes in his first ISU event, in the Novice division, and wins silver

Nikolai’s grandfather gives him Champion the teddy bear

1996

Beth-Anne graduates with a degree in education and gets a job at an all-girls school as a physical education teacher

Beth-Anne stops skating at the Brindleton Bay Skating Club because seeing her friends and rivals continue to get ready for competitions while she just skates during community ice times is too painful and stress-inducing for her

Ginger competes in her first ISU event, in the Novice division

Brett Andrew Eriksson - 25 April 1996

1998

Evie & George Seong immigrate to Canada in January

Sadie Hae-Won Seong - 29 November 1998

1999

Competitive skier Stephen Fujikawa marries J-pop idol Sae (Sarah Ishida)

Nikolai’s family leaves Ontario and moves to Nova Scotia (Brindleton Bay is a fictional bedroom community of Halifax NS)

Ginger comes to Canada from the UK specifically to train with Stan

Stan also becomes Nikolai’s coach

Nikolai meets Ginger, Anya, Hunter, Juliet and Christian

2000

Nikolai adopts Tangerine the cat

Eden Yeon-Jin Seong & Charles Ki-Yeon (Charlie) Seong - 23 May 2000

Sakuharu (Haru) Abe - 11 June 2000

Stan convinces Beth-Anne to come back to the Brindleton Bay Skating Club

Beth-Anne meets Nikolai for the first time and she becomes his coach

Sebastian Fujikawa - 9 September 2000

2001

Haru’s mother passes away from a drug overdose. Haru is raised by his maternal grandparents

Nikolai wins gold at Skate Canada when he wasn't even expected to place in the top ten, much less the top three. Stan shoots the iconic "forever" photo of Nikolai and Beth-Anne. Nikolai gives Beth-Anne his medal

Stan and Milena’s grandson Marek is born in November (future figure skater)

2002

Stephen wins an Olympic gold medal in giant slalom

Sarah goes on tour and there's a scandal when someone starts a rumour about her and her bodyguard. It gets massive publicity and Stephen doesn't know what to think.

Peace immigrates from Nigeria to Canada with her children Mercy (3) and Praise (1).

2004

Nikolai wins his first World Figure Skating Championship medal (silver)

2006

Nikolai wins his first World Championship gold medal

Stephen and Sarah divorce, and it’s messy. It's also highly publicized due to their respective statuses in sports and entertainment

Stephen is granted full custody of his son Sebastian

Mishka gets drafted into the NHL and begins his pro hockey career with an American team

Beth-Anne becomes Brett's coach

2007

Stephen retires from his athletic career and joins his father and aunt in the family's sports equipment company

Stephen adopts Sofia. She is seven, the same age as Sebastian

2008

Nikolai and Anya get married

Natascha marries local construction worker, Alex MacDonald

2010

Nikolai wins his second World Championship gold medal in a row and his third Worlds gold overall

Ginger also wins gold at Worlds

Ginger becomes a Canadian citizen

2011 (The Art Of Redemption)

Nikolai seriously injures his knee while competing at the four Continents Championship in January

Beth-Anne lets Nikolai stay at her place while he's recovering from his injury and dealing with his marital issues

Beth-Anne and Peace meet

Eden and Nikolai meet

Nikolai decides he wants to be a coach

Brett wins a medal in his last competition at Junior level

Beth-Anne decides she wants to find out what really happened to her sister Abby. Stan, Milena and Nikolai support her in her quest.

Anya retires from competition and goes to work with her grandfather in his photography studio

Brett and Nikolai have a one-on-one competition

Nikolai and Anya get divorced

Eden and Sebastian both compete in their first ISU events at Novice level

Haru discovers that despite his learning disability, he's exceptional at writing poetry

2012

Beth-Anne and Peace are in a casual relationship

2013

Ginger retires from competition

Nikolai officially becomes Eden's coach

Ginger has a whirlwind romance with British businessman Liam Harris

Mishka gets traded to the Mariners in a mid-season trade

Mishka and Nikolai meet by chance on Nikolai’s birthday

Ginger and Liam elope at Christmas

2014

Nikolai and Mishka have moved past simple friendship quickly and are in a relationship

Natascha and Alex get divorced. Natascha moves back in with her parents and grandfather

Anya continues to be an unwanted presence in Nikolai's life

Liam convinces Ginger to return to the UK with him

Ginger meets Sebastian and Sofia, who are attending a UK boarding school, and she becomes Sebastian’s coach

Ginger meets Stephen Fujikawa

2015

Eden wins gold at the World Junior Figure Skating Championship

2016

Eden has his debut at Senior level. It doesn't go as well as he expects

Ginger and Liam divorce

Ginger goes to Japan with Sebastian and Sofia at the end of the school year

Stephen offers to let Ginger live in a cottage on his property and Sebastian is thrilled because he gets to live so close to his “bonus mom”

Haru gets recruited as a J-pop trainee while performing at his school's music festival.

2017

After four years together, Nikolai and Mishka part ways, due to a number of issues. They promise to keep in touch, and to try and get back together some day, if and when their lives stabliize

Haru begins his adventure as a trainee and meets future bandmates Ryu, Keigo, Senjiro and Taiji

2018

TheJ-pop group Sugar Valentine debuts. Eden and Charlie are instantly huge fans

2020

Charlie goes to college to study cosmetology and aesthetics and starts taking Japanese classes. His dream is to become a professional stylist in the entertainment industry

Sugar Valentine goes on tour for the first time

2022 (We Are Sugar Valentine)

Charlie is ready to head to Japan to begin his adventure. He and Eden have never been apart, and Eden decides to go to Japan with him. Nikolai is heartbroken at this development, as he and Eden have been together as coach and student for years.

Despite not wanting to be separated from Eden, Nikolai hesitates to go to Japan because he's an extreme homebody and doesn't want to uproot himself from everything familiar in his life

Eden finds a new coach in Japan. It goes absolutely terribly.

Charlie lands his dream job, as part of the stylist team for Sugar Valentine

Haru sees pictures of Eden in Charlie's portfolio and begs to be introduced

Charlie introduces Eden and Haru. They quickly become an item

Nikolai eventually joins Eden in Japan, after learning how badly things are going for Eden. It's a difficult adjustment for Nikolai

Nikolai is delighted to discover that Ginger is coaching Sebastian at the exact rink where Eden is training. They've kept in touch over the years, but the physical distance between them has made things challenging. They waste no time in catching up

Mishka decides he's going to retire after the 2022-23 hockey season. He needs knee surgery that he's put off for too long

Sugar Valentine goes on tour again

Mishka contacts Nikolai and tells him that he's coming to see him for his birthday in December

Mishka gives Nikolai a kitten for his birthday. They name him Boris

Nikolai is juggling Anya's continued presence in his life and his feeling that maybe he and Ginger could be more than friends

Nikolai asks for time, and Mishka vows to wait for him

2023

Ginger and Nikolai experiment with having a relationship beyond friendship. It doesn't work out because as much as they love each other, they realize they'll never get past thinking of each other as siblings.

Eden wins his first World Championship gold medal

Mishka contacts Nikolai and tells him his surgery is scheduled for the first week of June. He asks Nikolai to come home for the summer, to help take care of him while he recovers, and Nikolai agrees.

Mishka moves into Nikolai's house during his recovery

Even though they haven't been together as a couple for several years, both Nikolai and Mishka realize their feelings for each other are just as strong as ever. They pick up right where they left off

Eden comes home around the same time as Nikolai. They mutually decide not to return to Japan.

Haru buys Eden a house in Brindleton Bay

Mishka does not move out of Nikolai's house in August, like they originally planned.

Mishka proposes to Nikolai at Christmas. They plan their wedding for the following summer

2024

Sugar Valentine undertakes their third tour

Haru gives Eden a horse for his birthday. He also gives himself one for his own birthday, which is only 19 days after Eden's

Mishka rescues a horse. He helps Eden and Haru with theirs.

Natascha finally decides it's time to move out of her parents' house and get her own place again

Mishka's sister Vika comes to visit him and Nikolai for the summer

Nikolai's grandfather decides to move into a seniors' community.

Grandpa Nikolai meets someone from his past, and has big feelings about it

Nikolai and Mishka get married in July

#sapphire notes #the art of redemption #theartofredemption #we are sugar valentine #wearesugarvalentine #writing #character timeline #stargazersims

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 2 months

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Marriage and its Challenges

1 In the same way, let me say a word to the women. You should be subject to your husbands, so that if there should be some who disobey the word, they may be won, without a word, through the behavior of their wives, 2 as they notice you conducting yourselves with reverence and purity. 3 The beauty you should strive for ought not to be the external sort—elaborate hairdressing, gold trinkets, fine clothes! 4 Rather, true beauty is the secret beauty of the heart, of a sincere, gentle and quiet spirit. That is very precious to God. 5 That is how the holy women of old, who hoped in God, used to make themselves beautiful in submission to their husbands. 6 Take Sarah, for instance, who obeyed Abraham and called him “Master.” You are her children if you do good and have no fear of intimidation.

7 You men, in the same way, think out how to live with your wives. Yes, they are physically weaker than you, but they deserve full respect. They are heirs of the grace of life, just the same as you. That way nothing will obstruct your prayers.

The New Way of Life

8 The aim of this is for you all to be like-minded, sympathetic and loving to one another, tender-hearted and humble. 9 Don’t repay evil for evil, or slander for slander, but rather say a blessing. This is what you were called to, so that you may inherit a blessing.

10 For the one who wants to love life and see good days should guard the tongue from evil, and the lips from speaking deceit; 11 should turn away from evil and do good; should seek peace, and follow after it. 12 For the Lord’s eyes are upon the righteous, and his ears are open to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.

13 Who is there, then, to harm you if you are eager to do what is right? 14 But if you do suffer because of your righteous behavior, God’s blessing is upon you! “Don’t fear what they fear; don’t be disturbed.” 15 Sanctify the Messiah as Lord in your hearts, and always be ready to make a reply to anyone who asks you to explain the hope that is in you. 16 Do it, though, with gentleness and respect. Hold on to a good conscience, so that when people revile your good behavior in the Messiah they may be ashamed.

Suffering for Doing Right

17 It’s better to suffer for good conduct (if God so wills it) than for bad. 18 For the Messiah, too, suffered once for sins, the just for the unjust, so that he might bring you to God. He was put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the spirit. 19 In the spirit, too, he went and made the proclamation to the spirits in prison 20 who had earlier on been disobedient during the days of Noah, when God waited in patience. Noah built the ark, in which a few people, eight in fact, were rescued through water. 21 That functions as a signpost for you, pointing to baptism, which now rescues you—not by washing away fleshly pollution, but by the appeal to God of a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus the Messiah. 22 He has gone into heaven and is at God’s right hand, with angels, authorities and powers subject to him. — 1 Peter 3 | New Testament for Everyone (NTFE) Scripture quotations from The New Testament for Everyone are copyright © Nicholas Thomas Wright 2011, 2018, 2019. Cross References: Genesis 6:3; Genesis 18:12; Genesis 42:25; Psalm 33:18; Psalm 34:12,13 and 14; Proverbs 3:25; Proverbs 12:21; Proverbs 15:28; Isaiah 3:18; Daniel 6:4; Matthew 5:5; Matthew 28:18; John 16:10; Acts 18:21; Romans 12:16; 1 Corinthians 7:16; Ephesians 5:25; Ephesians 5:33; Titus 3:5; 1 Peter 1:3

#wives #husbands #marriage #suffering #struggles #1 Peter 3 #The Epistle of First Peter #NTFE #New Testament for Everyone #Holy Bible

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cowederevived · 5 months

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HEY EVERYONE. WELCOME TO YOUR FAVORITE SHOW OF ALL : "instead of doing asks cowede talks about random subjects and advertised for shows and animes"

Now I was doing my stuff, slowly but surely progressing through bleach (some of you may now i'm watching it atm, its good (but veeeeeeeeeery slow) but it aint what were gonna talk about) and lowkey harassing plain with futa angie pictures because yes. And my brain was just waltzing around, as it usually does when I remembered out of nowhere a show that I watched during my early adolescence and the last time was a few years ago and that I really like, and since I have a small tumblr blog, may as well advertise good shows I like here! So, let me tell you a tell of red hair chinese cool mc, kepranks, knocks knocks, sick music and conspiracies. We're gonna talk about Detentionaire. (Micro spoilers)

Detentionaire is a Canadian 4 season 53 (lmao lolz lmao funny number) episode long thriller mystery comedy cartoon that came out from 2011 to 2014. I will spoiler free resume the plot as if : As Lee ping, 10th grader and (kinda) loner starts his new year at Alexander Nigma High he finds himself framed as the perpetrator of a Massive prank that hits the whole school, and is punished by a whole year of constant detention. Searching to prove his innocence, he will daily sneak out of detention to find the true perpetrator and clear his name, in the process he will discover that this "prank" hides a deep secret that goes far, far beyond what he could have ever imagined. While the series starts off as a little silly, "its just a prank bro" it ends up going very far, and I will not talk about how much it is, but let me tell you, it goes very far, and quite well. Its a way different tone, but you could definitely compare it to other mystery thriller cartoon shows like gravity falls (another absolute gem) I trully advice you to watch the few first episodes, theres a high chance it will hook you if you like those kind of "conspiracy" theme shows. The mystery and the way it progress is VERY well handled in my opinion, each episode gives you hint, or red herrings at the bigger picture, and they definitely knew what they were doing. Upon rewatching the series you will usually pick up on lots of small differents elements that were hidden in plan sight, making it feel all very well thought out. The series also takes place in a sliiiightly different universe than ours, for example the principal of a school is a military cyborg, and the (living and savage) mascot of the school is a tazelwurm, a cryptid, this gives the shows a real ambiance of mystery i'm personnaly quite a fan of. The side characters are honestly pretty well done, while some are very stereotypical, a lot of them get side stories or devlopment throughout the show, and the main gang as a very chaotic yet compeling chemistry with each other.

Anyway! that is all! I really kinda struggle advising shows in general, but if you like good thriller mystery cartoon with decent plot progression and likeable (imo) characters ? Go for it, its a total hidden gem, as the show got high ratings, but isnt very well known. And uh, theres (kinda slow) good romance too ? I guess theres that. it's a high school show of course it was gonna be the case. The episodes are fully disponible (for free) on youtube having been posted by Retro Rerun (just search detentionaire and you will find the full series playlist very easily) So yeah, if you have some free time and want to see something else than animes and series, remember good cartoons also exist!

#cowede talks #cowede talks about series #Nah really watch the show its pretty dang good

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religion-is-a-mental-illness · 5 months

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By: Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch

Published: May 15, 2023

When parents are asked to identify their top fears about the safety of their children, what do you think tops the list? According to a survey last year by Safehome.org, it’s not cars, strangers, or any other physical threat; it’s “internet/social media.” That’s not just for parents of teenagers and pre-teens, whose lives seem to revolve around their phones. It’s even true for parents of younger kids, ages 7-9 because every parent sees it coming and few know what to do about it. Parents don’t want their children to disappear into phones, as so many of their friends' children have; some resolve to wait until 8th grade, or later. Then their child hits them with the main argument that makes parents buckle: “But everyone else has a phone, so I’m being left out.”

For parents who resisted, or who plan to resist, a new report may encourage many more parents to join you: Sapien Labs, which runs an ongoing global survey of mental health with nearly a million participants so far, released a “Rapid Report” today on a question they added in January asking young adults (those between ages 18 and 24): “At what age did you get your own smartphone or tablet (e.g. iPad) with Internet access that you could carry with you?” When they plot the age of first smartphone on the X axis against their extensive set of questions about mental health on the Y axis, they find a consistent pattern: the younger the age of getting the first smartphone, the worse the mental health that the young adult reports today. This is true in all the regions studied (the survey is offered in English, Spanish, French, German, Portuguese, Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili), and the relationships are consistently stronger for women.

We believe these findings have important implications for parents, heads of K-12 schools, and legislators currently considering bills to raise minimum ages or require age verification for some kinds of sites (especially social media and pornography). We’ll address those implications at the end of this post. But first: what did Sapien Labs do, and what did they find?

1. The Sapien Labs Study

Sapien Labs is a non-profit research foundation with the goal of understanding how the rapidly changing social and technological environment is changing human brains and minds. Their main research project has been the Global Mind Project, an ongoing program that tracks mental well-being around the world using a comprehensive assessment of mental health along with questions about demographics and various cultural, technological, and lifestyle factors. They have issued a variety of reports on the state of mental health around the world. Among their most important findings is that in all the regions they’ve studied, mental health is worst for the youngest generations.

It didn’t used to be this way. There is a well-known finding in happiness research that, across nearly all nations, happiness or well-being forms a U-shaped curve across the lifespan (See Rauch, 2018). Young adults and people in their 60s and 70s are happier than those in middle age. But that may be changing, especially for women, as Gen Z (born in and after 1996) enters young adulthood. You can see the sudden collapse of young adult mental health in some of our previous posts on this Substack. For example, Figure 1 shows that up until 2011, young Canadian women were the most likely to report having excellent or very good mental health. By 2015 they were the least likely, and the decline in their self-reported mental health accelerated after that, while it changed very little for older women. (The same pattern holds for Canadian men, but to a lesser degree.)

[ Figure 1. Percent of Canadian women reporting excellent or very good mental health, by age group. Canadian Community Health Survey (2003-2019). Graphed by Zach Rausch. ]

Why would this be? What changed in the early 2010s that could have rapidly reduced the mental health of teens around the world, with a bigger impact on girls? At the After Babel Substack, we have argued that the sudden switch of teen social life from flip phones (which are designed for communication) to smartphones (which enabled continuous access to social media and much higher levels of phone addiction), is the major cause, though not the only one. There are unique factors at work in each country, but we know of no alternative that can explain the synchronized, gendered, and global decline in teen mental health.

At Sapien Labs, they decided to test the smartphone hypothesis by adding a question about the age at which people got their first smartphone (or tablet). Is it just a coincidence that the first global generation to grow up on smartphones became the first global generation to have lower well-being than the one before them?

Sapien Labs uses a comprehensive assessment of mental well-being that asks participants about 47 elements of mental, social, and emotional functioning on a life impact scale. These 47 elements are aggregated into a single score called the Mental Health Quotient (MHQ), which gives extra weight to patterns that indicate severe problems. It also uses subsets of these 47 elements to create scores along six domains: Mood & Outlook, Social Self, Adaptability & Resilience, Drive & Motivation, Cognition, and Mind-Body Connection.

(You can take the MHQ yourself and you can request access to the full dataset. For scoring and validation of the MHQ, see Newson, Pastukh, & Thiagarajan, 2022, and see this blog post that offers a clear explanation of how the MHQ is scored, and why.)

Figure 2 shows the most basic result in the report: they simply plotted the responses from the nearly 28,000 participants who answered the “first phone” question, from all countries combined.

[ Figure 2. As age of first smartphone goes up, so does the mental health reported by young adults, assessed by the MHQ. Data from SapienLabs.org. ]

MHQ scores are calculated from responses to the 47 questions and converted to a scale that runs from -100 to 200, as shown here:

As you can see, the respondents who got their first smartphone before they were 10 years old are doing worse, on average, than those who didn’t get one until they were in their teens. The most mentally healthy respondents are those who did not get a phone until their late teens.1 You can also see that the slope is steeper for young women than for young men. The Gen Z women who got their first smartphone before they were 9 years old are in negative territory, on average.

The power and unique contribution of the Sapien Labs dataset come from two features of their work: First, they use a far more detailed measure of mental health than is used in most other large surveys. The second important feature is their international coverage. So, let’s zoom in and explore the six domain scores that make up the MHQ, first for the global sample, and then for the region and culture we know best: the Anglosphere.

2. Domains of Functioning

As you’ll see if you read the full report, the next step after examining the overall MHQ scores is to examine scores on the six domains of mental functioning:

Mood & Outlook: Includes items about optimism, calmness, anxiety, mood swings, sadness, and anger.

Social Self: Includes items about self-worth, relationships with others, empathy, cooperation, aggression toward others

Adaptability & Resilience: includes items about adaptability to change, ability to learn, and emotional resilience.

Drive & Motivation: Includes items about motivation, curiosity, enthusiasm, and addictions.

Cognition: Includes items about memory, decision-making and risk-taking, focus, and concentration, unwanted thoughts, hallucinations

Mind-Body Connection: Includes items about sleep quality, energy level, appetite, and physical health issues.

Figure 3 shows that for young women, all six domain scores show the same basic pattern as the MHQ: a consistent rise. You can also see that a few of the domains seem to rise more slowly or level off somewhat after the age of 13 or 14: Drive and motivation, Mind-body connection, and Cognition. However, the other three dimensions continue to rise all the way to age 18. The domain that rises fastest, meaning that it is most highly correlated with age of first smartphone, is the “social self” domain.

[ Figure 3: The 6 domains of well-being, for young women, as a function of when they got their first smartphone. From SapienLabs.org. ]

Figure 4 shows the same analysis for young men. The pattern is similar, with two important exceptions. First, the slopes are substantially lower, meaning that the mental health and well-being of young men are not as strongly related to the age at which they got their first smartphone as it is for their sisters, although it is still related. (All of the significance tests and effect sizes can be found in supplementary materials posted in this Google Drive link.2) The second difference is that all of the lines are higher for boys, meaning that boys are doing better than girls at all ages (at least, according to their self-reports). The one exception is that the line for Adaptability & Resilience reaches the same level for both sexes by age 18. Given the steeper slopes of all six lines for girls, this means that sex differences in adult mental health are larger among those who got a smartphone earlier.

[ Figure 4: The 6 domains of well-being, for young men, as a function of when they got their first smartphone. From SapienLabs.org. ]

One major issue in analyzing an international dataset is that there are just so many differences between countries, regions, and religions that there are many opportunities for confounding variables to lead us astray. For example, in the Sapien Labs dataset, in the less wealthy countries such as India, few young adults had received a smartphone before the age of 10, which means that the data points on the left sides of the graphs contain almost no Indians, whereas the data points on the right side (no phone until 17 or 18) contain many Indians and fewer from the USA. If Indians are mentally healthier than Americans (for other reasons), this could cause the lines to slope even if smartphones had no effect on mental health. It is important, therefore, to look at individual countries and regions. (The Sapien Labs report does this in its appendix, where you can see that the trends hold for each of the world regions).

The region that we (Jon and Zach) know best and have written on extensively is the Anglosphere (the English-speaking countries of The United States, Canada, The United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and sometimes Ireland). We, therefore, decided to examine what Sapien Labs had found about those countries and compare it to what we have found.

3. Zooming in on the Anglosphere

At the After Babel Substack, we have been documenting the patterns of rising mental illness among teens around the world, and, like Sapien Labs, we have found that the sudden decline of teenage mental health is an international phenomenon. Our research so far indicates that the increases in mental illness in the 2010s were slightly larger in the Anglosphere than in any other region we’ve examined. Figure 4 shows the large and sudden rise in self-harm rates among teens, particularly girls, in four of these nations (you can see much more in Zach’s initial report on the Anglosphere).

[ Figure 5. Since 2010, rates of self-harm episodes have increased for teens in the Anglosphere countries. For data on Australia and for all sources, see Rausch and Haidt (2023). ]

In every Anglosphere country, the mental health of teens declined sharply around the same time (~2012) and in the same way (depression, anxiety, and self-harm, with bigger increases for girls). We have also found that the five Nordic nations show similar trends, particularly when examining changing rates of depression and anxiety (though not always for self harm).

The Sapien Labs study began in 2019 so it cannot show us trends since 2010, but it can show us how young adults are doing today, and it can link variations in mental health today to variations in age of first smartphone. We wanted to get more familiar with the data and examine these links for ourselves, so we downloaded the full dataset as it was available on their Brainbase site on May 13, 2023, which was just about 2 weeks later than the dataset used in the Sapien Lab report. Our dataset contains 1,798 more participants, for a total of 29,767. The number of participants from the six anglosphere countries was much smaller: 1,465 (823 females, 584 males). By country: 682 in the USA, 297 in the UK, 224 in Canada, 239 in Australia, 10 in New Zealand, and 13 in Ireland.

We cleaned and organized our dataset in the same way as the team at Sapien Labs, with a small modification to account for our much smaller sample size. To reduce the jerkiness of the graph lines when we drop down to lower numbers of respondents for each point, we grouped participants into 2-year buckets (or three years, for our youngest bucket, 5-83). Figure 5 shows that the MHQ scores of Anglosphere boys and girls show patterns very similar to those reported in Figure 1 by Sapien Labs for the full 28,000-person international sample: The later the age of smartphone acquisition, the better the mental health. At least, that is true for the girls, all the way up to 18. For Anglosphere boys, there is a leveling off after the 11-12 mark. Delays beyond age 12 do not seem to be related to further increases in MHQ scores.4

[ Figure 6. Anglosphere countries only: As age of first smartphone goes up, so does the mental health reported by young adults, especially for women. Data from SapienLabs.org, graphed by Zach Rausch. ]

We also plotted the six MHQ domain scores and found similar results. For females, all six dimensions of mental well-being improve as the age of smartphone acquisition increases.5 The effects are particularly strong for the “social self” and “mood and outlook”, which correspond well to the rise of internalizing disorders (depression and anxiety), which Zach has shown is rising within every Anglosphere nation.

[ Figure 7. Anglosphere countries only: female MHQ dimension scores. Well-being on all 6 dimensions increases as age of smartphone acquisition increases. ]

The trends for boys are similar to girls, though the effects are smaller and there is more fluctuation.6 Figure 8 shows that at the youngest ages, increasing age corresponds with improvements in each of the six dimensions. However, for boys, improvements tend to level off after age 12.

[ Figure 8. Anglosphere countries only: male MHQ dimension scores. Changes are smaller and more varied compared to females. ]

4. Limitations

It’s important to note that the report from Sapien Labs is one of their “rapid reports” made possible by their fast-growing number of participants and the easy access they offer to their data. They added the question about age of first smartphone in January and they are publishing a report, with data from nearly 28,000 participants, in May. We believe that this ability to move quickly is a public service during a global pandemic of teen mental illness. While their rapid report is not a standard academic publication and has not been through peer review (which often takes a year or more), the open access to the data has allowed us to investigate and confirm the trends they are reporting. We hope and expect that other researchers will download the dataset and offer critiques of the data, the analyses, and the conclusions drawn. This sort of “post-publication peer review” is becoming increasingly common as the problems with the existing peer review system become more widely known.

One issue to keep in mind with the Sapien Labs dataset is that the participants in each country are not a random or representative sample of the people in that country. Such studies would be extremely expensive to run, and now that so few people agree to phone solicitations or even answer their phones, it is unclear how representative such surveys can be. Those who agree to be interviewed, or who are motivated by money to participate, are not representative of the broader population. For this Sapien Labs report, participants came to the site on their own, or from online advertisements paid for by Sapien Labs, for the purpose of getting a detailed report on their wellbeing. So, the means reported for any country should not be treated like direct measures of the true means. However, samples such as these are still very useful for examining differences within the sample, such as those between men and women, or between those who got a smartphone early and those who got one late. And the much larger size of the Sapien Labs dataset, compared to Gallup and other survey organizations, allows for many additional analyses.

A second factor to keep in mind is that like all surveys, what we get is correlational data that is open to alternative interpretations. The graphs in the report are likely to suggest to most readers that getting a smartphone early causes later mental health problems. But with correlational data we must always consider the possibility that the causal arrow could run in reverse. In this case: having low well-being as a young adult could cause people to believe that they got a smartphone earlier than they did, but this seems unlikely. We must also always consider that there could be “third variables” that cause both of the first two variables to rise. In this case, one plausible confounding third variable is permissive parenting. Perhaps permissive parents (in each country) simultaneously do two things: they give their kids smartphones at very young ages, and they also give them few boundaries and little structure, which then interferes with development and produces struggling young adults. While this hypothesis is plausible and should be investigated, it is not clear how it would explain the fact that, in all the regions studied, it is the girls who show a tighter connection between early phone acquisition and later mental health problems, just as it is the girls who show a tighter connection between heavy social media use and concurrent mental health problems. Nor would it explain why mental health dropped so rapidly in the early 2010s (especially for girls) if permissive parenting (or some other variable about family life) was the real culprit.

And finally, we note that no one study is definitive, and more research is needed. We have been able to find a few other studies that examined the age at which children got their first smartphones (We have created a new appendix [8.14] in our collaborative review doc on Social Media and Mental Health). So far they are mostly smaller studies that have produced mixed results. If you know of any others, please add them to the doc or put a link to them in the comments below. We want to get this right.

5. Implications

We cannot be certain that the correlations shown in the data are evidence of causality, but we think it is appropriate for those who care for children to act on the preponderance of the evidence (which is the standard in a civil trial) rather than waiting for evidence beyond a reasonable doubt (which is the standard used in a criminal trial. See proposition 2 in this post.) There is increasing evidence that smartphones have a variety of detrimental effects on child development including reductions of sleep, focus, and time with friends in person, along with increases in addictive behaviors, so it makes sense that the cumulative effect of getting one’s first phone in elementary school would be larger than for those who don’t get a phone until high school. This is an important point made in the Sapien Labs report: The relationships they find suggest that there is a cumulative effect of having had a smartphone (and its many apps) over many years of childhood; they do not represent the effects of having used a phone a lot in recent days or weeks (which is the focus of most of the published research).

We think the implications for action are strongest for policies related to children and younger teens––those still in elementary and middle school (that is, age 14 and below) In most of the graphs in this post, including those for the Anglosphere, the slopes of the lines are steepest for those ages, and the links are visible for boys as well as girls (though smaller for boys). This concern to protect children before and during early puberty is consistent with a study published last year which found that in a large longitudinal study of British adolescents, the peak years for evidence of links between social media use and lower satisfaction with life were 11-13 for girls (which corresponds to the early part of puberty), while for boys (who begin puberty a bit later) it was 14-15.

On the other hand, the implications for action related to older teens and especially boys are less clear, at least within the United States and other Anglosphere nations. The lines for boys are somewhat flat in those ages, and the increases for girls generally slow down too. Furthermore, the arguments for why high school students need a smartphone (rather than an alternative, such as a flip-phone) are stronger than the arguments for why elementary and middle school students need one.

We, therefore, believe that the Sapien Labs findings should motivate us to think carefully about whether and when to give children their own smart devices, especially before high school. It is not the Internet per se that is harmful; so much of the internet is fantastically educational, useful, and entertaining. The most relevant questions, we think, are: 1) At what age do you want to give a child continuous access to the internet and social media, even when away from home, even when sitting in class? 2) At what age do you want to give social media companies, and other companies, continuous access to a child’s attention? And 3) does a child really need a smartphone when other kinds of phones (such as “flip phones” or Light Phones) work just as well for general communication (phone calls and texting)?

Implications for Parents

The group Wait Until 8th was founded to solve the collective action problem that parents and teens are in: Even if most parents wanted to wait until high school to give their children smartphones and social media, as long as most kids have those things by 6th grade, there will be enormous pressure on their children, and hence on the parents, to relent. Unless the parents can coordinate. So Wait Until 8th asks parents to sign a pledge, when their children are in elementary school, that they will wait until 8th grade to give them a smartphone. The pledge only takes effect once ten families in that child’s grade have signed the pledge so that the child will have a community of peers and will not feel so isolated before 8th grade.

We think this is a great idea, we just suggest that the pledge should be: Wait Until 9th. Or Wait Until High School. Children are usually 12 or 13 at the start of 8th grade; that is still within the period of early puberty. Plus, if 8th graders have smartphones, that means that smartphones will be everywhere in middle schools, increasing the desire of 7th graders to get them. To solve collective action problems, we think it’s best to focus on setting good norms within collectives (such as schools): make elementary schools and middle schools be smartphone free.

Parents understandably want to be able to reach their children when they are away from home, and a flip phone or other “dumbphone” is a very reasonable first phone that allows parents and children to reach each other. We suggest that parents not give smartphones as first phones. Let children learn to master a simpler kind of phone, one that cannot be loaded with addictive apps. Wait Until 8th offers an excellent list of the many smartphone alternatives.

Implications for Schools

Many of the teachers and heads of schools that Jon talks to are bitter about the effects of smartphones on their students and their school culture. They complain about the constant drama unfolding on social media during the school day. They complain about the distraction and the increased difficulty of getting students’ attention during class, since many students sneak looks at their frequently-buzzing phones, especially those sitting in the back rows. Many schools say that they ban phones, but what they often seem to mean is “the rule is that you can’t take out your phone during class.” That means that some students (the ones most suffering from phone addiction) will learn to do it stealthily, and many of the rest will just pull out their phones as soon as class is over, thereby missing out on face-to-face interactions with the students right next to them.

We suggest that schools consider going phone free, meaning that students can use their phones to arrive and depart from school, but once they enter, their phones (smart or dumb) would be placed in a phone locker, or in a lockable pouch. We think the case for doing this in elementary schools and middle schools is strongest. In a few weeks, Jon will write a substack post laying out the empirical evidence that smartphones distract students and disrupt education, even when they are kept in students’ pockets.

We also suggest that school districts collaborate with social scientists to do experiments on entire schools, rather than on individual students. What if a state or district identified 20 middle schools that were willing to cooperate, and then randomly assigned half of them to go phone free? There is no research of this kind that we can find, yet such a simple study would give us results within a single year that could potentially yield findings that improve both mental health and educational outcomes.

Implications for Legislatures

If there is a cumulative effect of smartphone ownership in childhood, and if the effect is due in part to heavy use of certain kinds of apps (such as social media) rather than other kinds of apps (such as watching movies, or using Wikipedia), then it becomes even more vital that we develop ways of age-gating certain apps and content. At present, US law sets a minimum age of 13 at which children can sign contracts with companies to give away their data (when they check a box on the terms of service). But the law was written such that the companies are not required to verify ages. As long as a child says that she is 13 or older, she’s in and can create a social media account.

This must change. If the minimum age were enforced, it would help parents solve their collective action problem, at least with regard to Instagram, Tiktok, and other social media sites for underage users. It is precisely Congress’s failure to enforce the age 13 rule that puts parents in the trap. Many states are now introducing legislation to remedy this omission. And there is one federal bill that does a particularly good job of focusing on age limits and age verification: The Protecting Kids on Social Media Act, introduced by Senators Schatz (D-HI), Cotton (R-AR), Murphy (D-CT), and Britt (R-AL). The act would “set a minimum age of 13 to use social media apps and would require parental consent for 13 through 17 year-olds. The bill would also prevent social media companies from feeding content using algorithms to users under the age of 18.” The bill also requires social media companies to develop rigorous age verification methods. (There are already many in existence, and many more would appear if the bill gets passed.) We also think the Kids Online Safety Act of 2022, introduced by senators Blumenthal (D-CT) and Blackburn (R-TN) would do a lot to make social media less damaging to children, and easier for parents to control. The fact that so many bills are bipartisan, at both the state and federal level, is a very encouraging sign in our polarized time. Legislators often report seeing the problems in their own children.

In conclusion: there is a great deal that can be done, individually and collectively, to address one of the top fears that parents express, about the safety and health of their children. The Sapien Labs data offers us new insight into the nature of the problem, and it alerts us that the problem may be global. It also guides us to the ages at which reform efforts are most likely to work.

POSTSCRIPTS (added on May 18, 2023)

1—We welcome additional and deeper analyses of the Sapien Labs data, and will post links here to such reports whether they support or contradict our analyses in this post.

2—One issue we should have discussed in the text is the inclusion of tablets, along with smartphones, in the Sapien Labs’ questionnaire. If their findings differ from those of other labs which asked only about age of first smartphone, then we won’t know whether part of the difference is the inclusion of tablets. We hope that future studies will ask about the two devices separately to figure out which devices are associated with harm at which ages (if any).

3—Some commentary online has made the important point that it’s not the phone itself which is harmful; it is the particular apps that the child uses, a child with a particular personality, in the context of a particular family that does (or does not) exercise oversight and apply restrictions. We agree. The original iPhone introduced by Steve Jobs was three devices: a phone, an iPod, and a web browser. Great! Three tools. Probably not harmful. It’s the addition of the app store that turned the smartphone into a portal to everything. If early acquisition of a smartphone is shown to be reliably associated with developmental problems, it would likely be because it enables continuous 18-hour-per-day access to hundreds of activities.

#Jonathan Haidt #Zach Rausch #smartphone #smartphone use #mental health #mental health issues #mental illness #depression #Sapien Labs #smart phone #smart devices #Mental Health Quotient #human psychology #psychology #religion is a mental illness

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missyourflight · 10 months

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some stuff i read and watched in august:

good omens (s2): enjoyed this more than s1 bc i didn't have to spend any time at all w jack whitehall, they're very cute

the righteous gemstones (s3): surprisingly affected by the judy storyline lol, judy/bj a true freak romance long may they reign. i miss these idiots already

tour de france unchained: i got hashtag influenced by @eff41 and i'm so glad, watched most of this mouth agape why would anyone put themselves through this etc 🚴

the borgias (s1): how was this 2011 lol, so many awful wigs, one time a bunch of us met david oakes after a play he was in and he was Such a sweetheart, again the wigs are truly so bad, can you imagine the incest discourse if this came out today

the rules of the game: gosford park 60 years before gosford park existed! rich people!! gonna have to watch more renoir bc some of those tracking shots were Wild

opening night: oh my god gena rowlands. as ever i love stories about putting on a show

a few good men: hadn't seen this in years and it's classic sorkin fun (woof at the end tho lol 🦅), everyone's talking so fast, tom cruise is a Star etc, you can't handle the truth!!!

jerry maguire: again, hadn't seen this in years and i'd remembered it as being way more of a romcom when really it's mostly a sports film. the secret garden needle drop is brutally good and it got me Twice, intresting to think about paired w eyes wide shut in terms of cruise performances where he's desperately trying to cover the Void beneath it all. even though it's nonsense the big romantic moment gets me!!!

please baby please: fun sexy queer, i would not have predicted harry melling would have one of the most interesting post-potter careers lol, andrea riseborough!!! should have been a musical probably!!

nicola dinan, bellies: liked this a lot, the dual pov works at showing you both sides' feelings and flaws in a v empathetic way i think

ann patchett, tom lake: putting on a show!! pairs well with sweet sorrow by david nicholls in the bittersweet theatrical romance nostalgia subgenre. our town isn't as much as a thing over here as it is in the states so i'm very glad i got to see the rx production from a few years back - it was beautiful and it definitely helped to be familiar reading this

adam zmith, deep sniff: a history of poppers and queer futures: got reminded by @baking-soda's foray into poppers discourse that i had this sitting on my kindle lol. an odd but enjoyable read - much more of a personal manifesto for pleasure than i was expecting but i'm all for that, could have done without e.g. the extended tangent about a self-published mystery novel?? the star trek bits can stay

freya marske, a restless truth: love a mystery set entirely on a boat, love an f/f romance that's actually hot (if you have any other recs please share ty)

claire keegan, small things like these: absolutely devastating slip of a novella jfc

also i teared up today listening to adrian lester on the shakespeare unlimited podcast so you should listen if you enjoy that sort of thing!

#monthly media #sophposting

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vikenticomeshome · 2 months

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Cyberchase Comics: Cyber Idol by Ron Barrett

Here is the final comic from a group of three one-shot Cyberchase comics produced by Ron Barrett for the pbskids.org website sometime in 2011. They were placed under the "activites" section, but they have since been removed. I will transcribe the dialog.

The Hacker (singing): My gorgeous chin, my sparkling eyes, I'm the one I idolize.

Buzz: The boss practices singing in the shower.

Delete: Ouch! He should take more showers!

The Hacker: I'm practicing, you tinheads! I've entered the Cyber Idol Talent Contest, and I'm going to WIN!

Delete: Gee, when did you get talent?

The Hacker: Everyone loves a celebrity - I'll have Cybersites kissing my dancing feet!

Buzz and Delete: Go Hacker-O!

Narration: CRASH!

The Hacker: Whoops! I think I broke something - My guitar!

The Hacker: Now - which act do you like best? My Elvis imitation?

The Hacker (singing): Love me tender, love me doooo,

The Hacker (singing): And I'll make chaos for you

Delete: Elvis lives!

The Hacker: Or - My J. Lo?

Buzz: Please autograph my head!

The Hacker: Or - remember the Beatles?

Hacker Head #1: Yeah!

Hacker Head #2: Yeah!

Hacker Head #3: Yeah!

Hacker Head #4: Yeah!

Delete: No, no, no.

Editor's Note: Oh god, why?!

The Hacker: Now the 3 of us will vote! The act that's our favorite is the one I'll perform on Cyber idol!

Voting Card: I love all the acts, but the Hacker Act I love most Is:

Elvis

J. Lo

Beatles

Check One!

The Hacker (thinking): I hope Elvis wins, I hope, I hope, I hope.

The Hacker: Now I count the votes...hmm...one for J. Lo...

The Hacker: Next, I graph the results. The scale shows the number of votes.

The Hacker: Elvis Wins!

Buzz: Something's wrong. I voted for J. Lo. once!

Delete: And I voted for the Beatles once!

Buzz and Delete: Hey! Aren't there only 3 of us?

The Hacker: Pay no attentionto that! Just tell me - how talented are you?

Buzz: I can burp any song!

Buzz: rr-up! burp-urp!

Delete: I can play "My Bunny Valentine" on my head!

Delete: Clunk! Clink!

The Hacker: So bad! But that's good! With both of you in the contest, victory is mine!

Digit: Motherboard, look! Hacker & company are on Cyber Idol tonight! Are you gonna watch?

Motherboard: Oh, Oh!

Motherboard: Watch out... If he wins... Cybersites may... bow down...to Cyber Idol...

Digit: What'll we do?

Motherboard: Quick! Send for Jackie, Inez and Matt!

Digit: Hey, Earthlies, we've got to go to the Cyber Idol show tonight!

Inez: Sure, Didge.

Jackie: We'd love to.

Matt: But why?

Digit: Hacker's a contestant, and...

Inez: Say no more.

Jackie: He'll stop at nothing to win.

Matt: It's showtime!

Sam Vanderom: Hey! A big Cyberwelcome to Cyber Idol! Tonight's winner will be judged by audience applause as measured by our Clap-meter!

Sam Vanderom: Out first performers- Glowla and Spout!

Sam Vanderom: A whale of an act!

The Clap-meter: 40

Sam Vanderom: And now Buzz, with a song from his heart- and his stomach.

Buzz: Burp! Brup! Orp! Belch!

The Clap-meter: 10

Sam Vanderom: Next-Delete-who's got a good head for music.

Delete: Clunk! Clink!

The Clap-meter: 10

Sam Vanderom: And finally - The Hacker

The Hacker (singing): Don't you step on my blue suede shoes, Cause I'll step on you!

The Hacker: Whoops!

Narration: CRASH!

The Clap-meter: 20

Sam Vanderom: Hey, looks like we've got a winner!

The Hacker: I protest! This chart is misleading! It's false!

The Chart:

For Glowla and Spout: 40

For Buzz: 10

For Delete: 10

For The Hacker: 20

The Hacker: This is the true picture

The Hacker: There's hardly any different between us - It's too close to call.

Sam Vanderom: Hmm.

Inez: There's something fishy here.

Jackie: Yeah, he used the same nnumbers as on the Clap-meters, but they sure look different on this graph.

Matt: Spout looks like a guppy.

The Hacker: Nonsense, you Earthworms! If this is really a Cybercontest, let all of Cyberspace vote!

The Hacker: Then we'll see who wins.

Sam Vanderom: Okay, let's open the phone lines!

Ollie Nollie(?): I vote for...

An Unnamed Ape: I vote for...

An Unnamed Troll: I vote for...

Ivanka the Invincible: I vote for...

The Hacker: AH-HA! I am ready to accept your congratulations!

The Hacker: A giganto number of votes for me - teensy weensy numbers for everyone else!

Matt: Hold on, Hacker!

Jackie: Where's the scale?

Inez: What's the matter? Don't you dare to compare?

Buzz: Boss, we did like you told us, honest.

Delete: Yeah, each mark on your graph is one vote, and it's 100 votes on the other.

The Hacker: Quiet, you cackling cat food cans!

Inez: So if we put the votes you got onto the other graph, it doesn't look so good for you.

The Hacker: I care not...

The Hacker: ...Because my talent has been recognized! I have received an offer to entertain at a very big party!

Delete: Pin the tail on The Hacker?

Buzz: I'm next!

Young Radopolite: Giddyup Mister Donkey!

The Hacker: Ahhh, the things I do to be a Cyber Idol. OUCH!

And with this post, I think I've covered all of the official Cyberchase comics.

Would you let The Hacker entertain at a children's birthday party?

#cartoon #cyberchase #2000s #nostalgia #pbs kids #2000s childhood #inez #jackie #matt #digit #web comic #longpost #archived web content

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wildflowerswildhorses · 1 year

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I have literally sat on this for about 18 hours (and spent the entirety of my work day thinking about it. I’m impressed I got any work done or that no one asked me what was wrong).

At first, I hated that apparently Liv and Amanda haven’t talked. I mean, we can at least assume that they have physical seen each other in a while considering Amanda is obviously pregnant and Liv didn’t know (course though Amanda was probably like 5ish months when she finally told Liv about Jesse and who knows how far along with Billie bc that whole timeline is just a mess that I don’t want to dig through). I refuse to believe they haven’t at least texted or talked on the phone.

But atlas, if we’re to believe that they really haven’t spoken since Amanda left or if they have, it was probably terse and short. To an extent, I can get it.

These are two women who have been through so damn much, taken advantaged of by men, groomed in Liv’s case, assaulted, kidnapped, shot at (actually shot twice in Amanda’s case and probably actually shot in Liv’s case if that promo says anything), had crappy childhoods, toxic family environments, had everyone walk out on them (parents, partners, relationships) and they’re fucking traumatized and don’t like to deal with the root of their traumas with their therapists. (I need Lindstrom and Hanover to stage an intervention or something)

Amanda and Liv are easily one of the most, if not the most important relationships in each other lives and is one of the strongest and realistic portrayals of female friendships that I’ve seen in media. They care so deeper about each other and that but it wasn’t always like that; they had a rocky start and have come a long way since season 13. Sure things may be rocky again right now; but that doesn’t change the fact about how loyal they are to each other at their cores.

We’ve seen how Liv reacts when people leave her; she’s shuts down closes herself off and doesn’t reach out. So yes, she’s happy for Amanda and understands that Amanda had to make that decision to leave; but it doesn’t change the fact that it was just another person who walked out on Liv (and then didn’t reach out when she said she wouldn’t just disappear).

Shit, Stabler walked out on her, didn’t even have the balls to tell her he was leaving (she found out from Cragen) and then he shows up a decade later and blows up her life, they spend the next year and half in a weird fucking whiplash nonsense. Liv never dealt with Stabler leaving - she as much as tells Amanda that in the hotel room and then he shows back up and things are weird. Liv doesn’t reach out, doesn’t make contact because a part of her still thinks she’s gonna open up to him again, get close to him again and he’s gonna leave again.

I can see Liv not at first reaching out to Amanda to give her time to settle cause even Liv knows Amanda doesn’t like change; but at the same time, Liv is still an NYPD Captain and has an entire precinct to manage - communication is probably gonna be slim pickings; but a few weeks go by, maybe a month. Maybe, just maybe, Liv is transported back to that June day in 2011 when Cragen told her Elliot put his papers in, she goes back to those days, weeks, months, years following of no contact.

Liv roughly knew Elliot and Amanda for the same amount of time before they left (the only major difference in how they left is that Amanda told her) and maybe Liv thinks she’s re-living that same thing again and she can’t do that again. And so in true Olivia Benson nature, she closes off and doesn’t reach out. Doesn’t make that first move because she can’t be hurt again by another person she cares about even though she wants to and she misses her best friend but there’s also something hat won’t let her break the communication barrier, so Liv does the next best things and asks/gets updates about Amanda through Carisi - still waiting for Amanda to make that contact.

Similarly, we know how Amanda deals with trauma - she closes off and she deals with people leaving her by lashing out. Choosing to leave SVU was probably the hardest fucking decision Amanda Rollins had to make - because this squad, these people, became her family over her tenure there; Liv and Carisi were the ones who broken down her ways and are the reason she started letting people in. When you let people in, you get attached and then changes are a bitch.

There was nothing keeping Amanda in Altana, so leaving there was probably easy; but Fin and Liv and the familiarity - they are reasons to want to stay at SVU - but Jesse and Billie and Carisi are the reasons to leave. There’s gonna be a pull about what’s the right reason and what’s the wrong reason and even now, especially now, Amanda probably feels guilty about leaving; because she feels like she abandoned Liv. Hell, barely a month after Amanda left, Liv got jumped in the fucking street.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Amanda wanted to reach out to Liv - she was just scared of letting Liv down, this woman who she looked up when she first came to svu and who has become such an important part of her life and is her children’s godmother. She loves and respects Liv’s so damn much and I think it terrifies Amanda that she could be letting her down by doing what’s best for herself - (even if Liv would never hold that against her)

Amanda is also probably busy as hell what with a new job and new baby on the way, maybe even apartment/house hunting - and then time goes by and suddenly it’s been too long and reaching out probably feels like the wrong decision because you waited too long. Maybe Amanda also tells herself that if Liv cared, she’d reach out herself.

Also Amanda’s spent her entire life knowing that being independent and not relying on people is the only way to live. Yes, she’s been working past that - but a couple of years of therapy are not gonna just undo decades worth of trauma and damage that go as deep as Amanda’s. There’s gonna be back pedals too. A lot of them.

That scene at the end of Organized Crime says so damn much even beyond the words that Amanda and Liv say and Mariska and Kelli play it so fucking well. You can tell they still love and respect each other, you can tell Liv’s happy for Amanda (and Carisi) but still hurt at the lack of contact, you can tell Amanda fells guilty for not reaching out.

So that leaves Amanda and Liv in this weird limbo of what do we do now. And it’s gonna take some effort, but they’ll get back to where they were because at their core that love and respect isn’t going anywhere.

#svu #svu spoilers #amanda rollins #olivia benson #rolivia

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lizardrosen · 9 months

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Hamlet Liveblog 2011, Act 3 Scene 1

Going through my notebook from twelve years ago with my line by line reading of hamlet, and sharing the good, the bad, and the ugly! I'm just doing scene one for this post because the nunnery scene and the Murder of Gonzago are both long enough and important enough that they should each get their own spotlight!

3.1.8-10 "but with a crafty madness keeps aloof when we would bring him on to some confession of his true state" - but he did make a confession! that whole passage where he goes "man delights not me" and talks about how everything has lost flavor for him

If Claudius already knows that Hamlet is faking (most of) his madness, why does he need R&G at all? Since Hamlet (might be) merely pretending to be crazy, we must take into account that he wasn't entirely sincere when talking to R&G. But some of the things make too much sense for him to not be feeling it to some extent. Or he's really really calculating and knows exactly what to say. Is that a kind of madness?

3.1.30-1 "That he, as twere by accident, may here affront Ophelia" - does Ophelia know about this plan? By now she's probably used to being another prop in Polonius's plans. And then he dies and she is left adrift and freer than ever before

3.1.38-40 "I do wish that your good beauties be the happy cause of Hamlet's wildness" - Gertrude is sympathetic to having a controlling male figure - and they've both had two!

3.1.56-88 (To Be Or Not To Be) Oh God, here it comes! The bit everyone waits for and secretly fears!!

3.1.62-3 "the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to" - it's part of living, Hamlet, and yes it hurts, but life in a box is better than no life at all

3.1.63-4 "Tis a consummation / Devoutly to be wished" - he fervently wants to end it all (primary meaning); BUT - consummation is the sex to seal a marriage, and 'devoutly' is religious, so he sorta becomes a High Priestess of Death; also, is this where he gets the idea of a nunnery? current Will: oh my god. hamlet the high priestess of death. this was definitely a stretch for the meaning of this specific sentence, but it's also pretty true to his character. I'm laughing so hard.

3.1.67 "When we have shuffled off this mortal coil" - slow and plodding, like a breadline or a movie premiere, where everyone is looking forward to the end

3.1.89-90 "Nymph, in thy orisons / Be all my sins remembered" - compare to Othello, who told Desdemona to confess her sins before he killed her; but why does he mention his sins instead of hers? because he knows he's going to be a dick?

3.1.96 "I never gave you aught" - denies ever loving her? he's a different person than the one who gave the favors? She didn't acknowledge it, so why should he? if the emphasis is on "you," he means that she has changed, or he's talking directly to Claudius and Polonius. Also, switched from 'thy orisons' to the formal 'you' :(

3.1.101 "for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind" - He fears she doesn't love him anymore, and she wants to spare his feelings by returning the favors as gently as possible. Or he is the original giver and has been unkind and frightening to her current Will: I wasn't thinking of this at the time, but it's worth pointing out that this phrasing sounds like the kind of advice Polonius would give his kids

3.1.107-8 "Your honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty" - again with the idea that pretty girls don't stay virgins

3.1.116-117 "You should not have believed me; for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not." - Hamlet makes virtue into a disease, which horny noblemen "cure" current Will: honestly I'm still a little confused by this line but i'm pretty sure this interpretation was wrong

3.1.119 "Get thee to a nunnery - why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners?" - How serious is he? Does he really believe the world would be better off without men; or that a nunnery is safer for Ophelia, body and soul? Maybe he's mocking her and telling her to go to a brothel; Also, notice the return to 'thou' - is this genuine affection or the disrespect of talking to someone much lower than him?

3.1.121 "I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me" - self-loathing for things he's done or said or thought; if he hadn't been born he wouldn't be tormented by his uncle/father/mother now; also R&G wouldn't end up executed silly version - if his mother weren't so pretty, he wouldn't want to bang her and if he weren't 'born of woman' he could kill Macbeth and have great king-killing practice current Will: I think the bit about hamlet's ~oedipus complex~ was tongue in cheek, especially since I started by saying "silly version" but I also know that for a while I did buy into that theory and it colored some of my interpretations. I'd like to publicly renounce that now.

3.1.125 "We are arrant knaves all" - this is where he realizes that he's being watched, and shortly after asks "Where's your father?" Also, Hamlet calls Claudius an arrant knave in Act One

3.1.128-9 "Then let the doors be shut on him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in's own house" - he doesn't want Polonius to jump to conclusions but since he is there watching him, Hamlet will take advantage of it

3.1.133-5 "or if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters you make of them" - cuckolds! current Will: yes, past self, you're very smart

3.1.152 "Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh" - she recogizes the sweetness they once shared, but it's just not there anymore; compare to Hamlet's "the time is out of joint" (1.5.189) headcanon: Ophelia took clarinet lessons when she was ten

3.1.159-9 "There's something in his soul / O'er which his melancholy sits on brood" - Claudius can tell Hamlet's sadness is exaggerated to cover up something else, but he doesn't know it's vengeance

3.1.167 "shall expel this something-settled matter in his heart" - perfect description of Hamlet and his indecision and desperation 3.1.168 "whereon his brain still beating" - makes his brain a muscle that does actual physical work

3.1.172-4 "How now, Ophelia! You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said; we heard it all" - Polonius honestly cares for his daughter but isn't very good at showing it current Will: this was a generous reading of Polonius, because this line can definitely be said dismissively or impatiently, but i've also seen productions where he drops everything to comfort Ophelia and is only half-listening to Claudius

3.1.176-7 "Let his queen mother all alone entreat him to show his grief" - why does Polonius insist on torturing this poor boy? It's no wonder he loses it. Is he even still paranoid if people really are out to get him?

#hamlet liveblog 2011 #hamlet #claudius #ophelia #my writing #not quite liveblogging my life

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uncloseted · 9 months

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i'm just so exhausted. i just read this tweet that was like "what are your reasons for staying alive?" like assuming that EVERYONE is suicidal deep down and that's just not true. and the thing is that i'm very very mentally ill. i don't have a diagnosis. but i'm not suicidal. yes i think about it when I'm panicking and out of control but when i calm down i realise i don't want to die. and i really don't think most of these people have real clinical depression. the girls that bullied me for being

in therapy as a child and then being medicated as a teenager are on antidepressants now. i had a nervous breakdown in high school and i got suspended and i heard that some of my classmates wanted to raise money for me to get therapy. i couldn't have been the only crazy person in a class of like 30 people. or in my whole school. people with actual diagnoses seem happier and more normal than me. i don't think anyone looks at me and wishes they were me.

it's hard for me to express myself because i rarely have conversations with people. but it doesn't make me feel better to see that normal happy people have pain because their pain is not like my pain. like i thought things were so hard for me because i was mentally ill but now i see other mentally ill people who have everything i want and i'm like: what's left for me? a lobotomy? if these people have everything and they're still depressed is there even hope for me?

"social media is not real people don't show the bad things that happen to them" (or whatever) bullshit bullshit bullshit. social media taught me that apparently everyone is depressed and traumatized and autistic and has panic attacks and i get weird looks when i scream on the street because i have so much rage but at least i have enough self control to not smash my phone on the ground

I get where you're coming from for sure. It can be hard to see people with the same diagnosis that you have that are seemingly "doing better" than you are or that are "higher functioning" than you feel like you are. But I want to push back a little bit on the idea that most of the people talking about these issues online don't have clinical depression.

42% of Gen Z are formally diagnosed with at least one mental health condition, and 27% reported that their mental health was poor. 37% have received treatment or therapy from a mental health professionals. 58% of Gen Z high schoolers reported feeling depressed or sad. Data from the CDC found that, of high school students between 2011 and 2021, 22% considered suicide, 18% made a suicide plan, and 10% have attempted suicide. These numbers are higher for LGBT+ students and students of color. So you're correct that you definitely weren't the only "crazy person" in your class of 30. Based on the averages I just listed, in your class of 30, about 17 feel depressed or sad, 12 have been diagnosed with a mental health condition, 11 have been to therapy, 6 have considered suicide, and 3 have made an attempt.

We're in the middle of a very real mental health crisis. Honesty on social media is a double-edged sword, but it can be a really good thing when people speak about their experiences. There are lots of different ways that mental illness can manifest itself, and the more that people talk about their own experiences, the more people might recognize their own symptoms and seek help. Lots of people may seem fine from the outside, but have a lot of internalizing behaviors that cause them distress and impact their quality of life. Other people seem like they have their life together because of perfectionism or anxiety that stems from their mental illness, but that's still creating an intense amount of pain and suffering for them, and it's not sustainable. Just because someone else's mental illness doesn't look like ours, it doesn't mean that they're not struggling in their own way or that their pain is less valid.

In terms of what's left if even the people who seem to have everything are still unhappy, I think there are actually a lot of things, from the personal to the communal and societal.

On the individual level, treatments for mental illness are improving all the time. New antidepressants come on the market (not just SSRIs, but SNRIs, TCAs, and MAOIs), new technologies are developed (such as TMS and VNS) and other types of interventions are being explored (like ketamine therapy and other psychedelic therapies). Therapy is becoming more accessible to the average person, and there are more options for therapists and more types of therapy than there used to be. We have apps that make it easier to learn therapy skills, engage in therapeutic activities, and that remind us to engage in healthy habits that improve our mental health. We have a lot more information than we used to about what mental health is, what causes mental illnesses, and what works to support mental health and well-being.

On the community and societal levels, I think we can work on building support systems that not only make it easier for people to access the above treatments, but that decrease the likelihood that they'll need those treatments to begin with. Excuse me if I sound like a Boomer for a second, but strong communities do make a huge difference in terms of happiness and well-being. Knowing that there are people who will pick you up when you're down, that you can go to when you're struggling, that will help you make ends meet until you can take care of yourself again, those things are invaluable in bolstering the mental health of individuals. And on the flip side, having a group of people that you can do those things for improves an individual person's mental health as well- one of the things that makes people happiest is actually helping other people. It's not necessarily easy, and there are some people who are hard to get on with. But I think one of the major reasons we're seeing such a large mental health crisis is because people are isolated and lonely, and it's hard to find community even when you're intentionally seeking it out.

I guess what I'm getting at here is just that everyone is fighting their own battles that we know nothing about. It's important to offer them empathy and compassion, even if we don't totally get what they're going through. And it's important to band together as much as we can, because that's the only way we're all going to get through this.

#mental health #mental illness #therapy #coping #emotional health #mental wellbeing

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incarnateirony · 2 years

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badump, badump... badadadadana-- on the new development cost targets for CW: Who will survive and won won't based on show type, age, budget, (even light digital consideration wouldn't uh, change the pattern)

skimming this here. mostly agree. but the coproduction is ironically glossing over AA, AAH, TW. It does mention them earlier, and that the licensing fee is significantly lower right now, which would cause complaints, but now WB and CBS are splitting those loads so it dont burn. but otherwise yeah they're gonna defer either to working studios on younger shows (addressed elwhere in this huge ass piece nobody will ever read all of)

alright so here you go. this is why he asks how many people watch, like what kind of demo does it pull. cuz profit and can't be that international stuff talked about in the other post. so

that's a target cost right now. cost, not audience before anyone loses it at the one million

soooooo this is why the co prod thing is happening. CBS a lil WB a lil Nexstar a lil and you can go big on big concept breakout pieces. (by "big", we mean like a solid 3M budget if we WANTED.)

we don't really need that with mostly young stars and in house development, shows younger than 3 years are pretty cheap and Winchesters handles really well on that. So realistically, that 1M goes hella far, especially with mostly young stars etc.

Shows over 3 years get bloated salaries, especially if someone was high cost to begin with etc. So all of a sudden that same 1M doesn't go as far, even if it's a lower concept product. So a solo show like Walker or Windy suddenly .... burns up. Suddenly they actually NEED at least 2, but like he asks... how many people are watching, what's it's ad profits like?

3 years seems a lowkey new target, and that matches well the 2025 stuff I been talking on track.

so Winchesters stretches out that 1 million target and CBS and WB barely have to put in pennies and suddenly everyone DOES profit. While meanwhile it's selling the hottest space and climbing demo.

Shows that fail in demo swap out, ez pz.

and oh no like. they got a plan. These articles can always start strong then kinda veer off on their commentary a bit. It's true, we're keeping the top products and ditching the demo failures, but there's no need for "at least for short run" murmurings other than older displaced misreads of "older skewing dramas" (2006-2011 CW was 18-34, pedowitz was supposed to be but that rotted by now under his digital philosophy so now we're going to standard 18-49, that's "older skewing").

It's really not complicated at all, pals.

The 8PM kids around 0.1 this year selling big ad bundles survive.

others don't

9PM kids outperforming 8PM kids may be considered/moved.

Shit will rotate. We will cope. Winchesters marches on. Bonvoyage to those that can't make the cut.

youtube

#nexstar #bye #Youtube #vulture watch #vulture circle #walker is going promethean

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astrolaurical · 2 years

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Can you do a reading for me? I am not claiming to be Namjoon's twin.

It was around the year 2011 or 2012. I was laying on my bed half asleep. Suddenly I had a vision about some boy coming and hugging me. He seemed familiar. After that I had recurring dreams about the same person. Fast forward to 2021. The year I came to know about BTS. If it was not for Instagram I would have never known about BTS. I guess I was living under the rock or something. Everything was fine until I saw Namjoon. He seemed familiar. I did not understand it then. Again I had a dream about the same guy. And this time I knew who it was. It was Namjoon. From day one, I had this intense desire to meet him talk to him.. it was crazy. I am married and so in love with my husband. Even after my marriage I used to have the dream about the same guy.

First I was in denial of my feelings for him. It was like I had known him all my life. The fact I have seen him 10 years before in my dream is crazy. I was feeling euphoric and very creative. Suddenly I wanted to write poems.. it was a habit I have long forgotten. Something clicked for me. It was all too much.

Then one day everything changed. I felt like spiraling into an unknown dark tunnel. I felt terrible. I was grieving. I don't know for what. I was at this state for almost two months. While everyone felt happy after coming to BTS. I could not relate. I felt the worst I have ever felt in my life. Don't mistake me.. I love BTS dearly. But something about you.. I don't know. For almost 2 months I was in this state. I felt stuck, alone and out of place. Slowly I started having interest in spirituality. My mind is a lot clearer now. And calm too. I didn't have any idea about dark night of the soul before experiencing it. Now I know. It is something we go through before spiritual awakening. And I know that he triggered it. And I am thankful to him. I started seeing some repeating numbers too. So I know it is just not in my head.

Everytime I see him I can see myself in you. It is like you are mirroring me. Even before knowing twin flames I used to think that. Sometimes it is embarrassing. I think to myself oh my God I also do the same.. we have the same interests. Books,arts, museums, visiting historical places.. it is like he is similar but also different.

Earlier I used to to have this overwhelming feelings for him. But not anymore. I still love him but not in a crazy kind of way. After my awakening I have been feeling much calmer about my feeling for him.

This may seem super crazy to you. But everything I have said above is true. I don't have the habit of lying. I don't want his status, I don't want his money. No I don't dream of him anymore. It was like my subconscious trying to tell me of his existence through my dreams.Now I know that he is a real person.

Miss, you are not namjoons twin flame. Your lives have to be parallel. You have a husband and a baby. He doesn’t have a wife or a kid. Your eyes look similar because of the region of the world you are in. You are dreaming about him because he is on your mind 24/7 because you are obsessed with him.

None of these qualify as twin flame behaviors, but instead come off as borderline sasaeng behavior. PLEASE seek help.

#ask #bts #namjoon #namjoon fs #namjoon twin flame #namjoon soulmate #namjoon future spouse #bts fs #bts tarot #bts analysis #bts twin flames

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bbcmerlinvault · 2 years

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[Article] “EXCLUSIVE: ANTHONY HEAD TALKS MERLIN, SOLD AND HIS £2000 PHONE CALL”

by Luke Connolly for Shadowlocked, first published 10:05 Wednesday 22nd June 2011

(the following is a copy/paste of the article followed by screenshots from the Wayback Machine. The original article is no longer available.)

Anthony Head talks openly about his remarkable career and generous work for charity...

As one of the most iconic actors ever to emerge from England, Anthony Head really is the definition of a true great. Comedy, drama, live theatre – Head has done it all, bringing his classic style of acting to each and every role. Best known as Rupert Giles in the Joss Whedon vampire classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Head has since diversified into other areas of acting. In recent years, he's guest starred in Doctor Who, found success as the Prime Minister in Little Britain, and at present is portraying Uther in the BBC's smash hit Merlin.

In this intimate interview with Shadowlocked – conducted at the Merlin: The Dragon Tower launch day at Warwick Castle – Anthony Head talks openly about his life, filming with Merlin and his career to date...

Well, while we are here (Merlin launch day), let’s start with this. How’s it all been going?

It’s been going great; very grateful for the production to let me potter over to the other side of the pond; they moved filming dates for me which was great. It’s looking gorgeous, they're now shooting it on a 35 million budget.

Well I think it deserves it considering its success...

Well yes, but these days everything’s shot on digital, thus cutting costs, but I think it loses so much from filming and from acting in general. But yes, I suppose it shows the BBC are 100% behind it, which they should be really. It’s in 183 territories (countries) so it deserves a budget complimentary of this achievement.

They’ve just finished season three in America and, from the viewing figures, they just can’t seem to get enough. On that note, have you been surprised by its success?

Erm, I’m always surprised...you always hope, but you just don’t know. From the very start, it had a good vibe about it, but even when I was offered the part I was concerned that it may limit itself to a young audience only; but the fact that it’s got such a wide demographic has really saved it. In fact, it was with NBC for the first year, and they said – on a number of occasions – that they were genuinely surprised by the numbers it got, especially considering it got little to no advertising or promotion, but it didn’t attract the demographic they were actually hoping for.

Well, duh...it got an older demographic instead of a younger one due to the fact that they showed it in the middle of the summer. Thankfully, Syfy saw the potential and picked it up, and they pitched it just right. It’s – well – one of those shows that has a genuine interest across all spectrums of society; it’s a show that the whole family can watch, with all members getting an honest level of enjoyment from it. A show like that is rare these days.

So many parents sit down and watch shows with their children that they have no interest in – to keep them happy – but there are very few shows that everyone can get into.

Marcus: My twin girls are big fans of the series, and when they started watching it so did their mother and I. I totally agree with what you’re saying, it’s like Doctor Who, you can grow up and watch it, regardless of your age. I think it’s very similar to Buffy really...

Well, it’s not the same writing as Buffy, but it’s got the same vibe. It’s humorous, but at the same time it’s capable of both its dark and somewhat surreal moments...

Marcus: Yes, I know – you are very scary sometimes.

Good – *evil smirk* – I’m glad to hear it...means I’m doing things right haha.

Marcus: You play a great Uther, and it’s a tricky character isn’t it? If you looked at Thomas Mannerie’s Uther, and how he gets off on countless maidens, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot more does there?

Yes, traditionally there is not much about the character Uther, other than the fact that he was a bit of a wino and liked to party. Oh, and he may have been partial to the odd woman or two.

And I’m sure, like any good actor, you researched this in depth for the role?

Haha, oh yes, to play a role well you must experience it for yourself. In all seriousness though, there is not a whole lot to research. I went to see a couple of other actors playing kings, but other than that the research element was fairly limited. For me, assessing the character of Uther, the most important aspect of the role was to make sure I understood his mythology and where he was coming from.

But that’s the point – it was the middle of the dark ages, and he was forever wrestling with his kingdom, holding onto it as best he could; with berserkers on every border. Basically though, he is an old fashioned father, and he’s just holding it together as best he can; whilst in the knowledge that Arthur is going to kick against everything that Uther stood for, and I think that’s what makes it interesting. The fact that he gets it wrong almost everytime – he wasn’t wrong about Mordred though – well that’s just a shame...

I can’t believe it’s been seven years since Buffy left our screens, but I love how you have diversified since. We all know about Little Britain, both a commercial and critical success, but I remember one you did way back...Sold. Unfortunately, that never kicked off – any ideas why?

To be honest, I remember thinking, from my very first read-through and onwards – can they hinge a whole series around estate agents? Well, they did, but that whole concept of them having a fantasy world was, well, a little bit thin...but there you go. I reckon with different circumstances, it could have been great.

Finally, I have to ask. I follow you on Twitter and I couldn’t help but notice a while ago that someone paid just short of £2000 for a 20 minute phone call with yourself...

And, the person who came in second – offering to pay around £1670 – was so eager, we have agreed to do a separate 10 minute conversation with her. It now means that £3670 has been raised for the Mental Health Foundation, so I’m just glad I could help do my bit to raise awareness and support their cause.

So, not to put any pressure on you, but what are you going to talk about? £2000 for 20 mins equates to £200 a minute, and I’m sure you will want to give them their money's worth...

You know, I’ve done it a number of times before, and after the old “wow” “argh” from them, it just kind of runs through. You know me, I could talk for England! It’s actually quite nice, and it’s for a good cause – so everybody wins, right?

Special thanks to Shadowlocked writer Marcus Pullen for his help in conducting this interview.

#article #cast: Anthony Head #year: 2011 #interview: anthony head

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mariacallous · 1 year

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Protests in Iran spurred by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini at the hands of the country’s so-called morality police have continued, with escalations by the regime—including the executions of a well-known wrestler and a dual national—failing to dampen public anger. Looking for a silver bullet to silence its restive public, Tehran has failed to find one. But the Iranian people have failed equally, being yet unable to find their own silver bullet to topple the ayatollahs for once and for all.

But it may be that bullet exists: corruption. And it’s lacking only a responsible Western power to pull the trigger.

Before digging into the ordure of Iranian official thievery, take a moment to recall the tales of other deposed regimes. In too many cases, leaders and cronies of various tyrannies were fully fledged members of the community of nations—with a seat at the United Nations, reception at the White House, and/or a nose at the U.S. taxpayer’s trough, among other seals of approval—only to be ousted and for the world to discover with shock—shock!—that the despot had been skimming billions of dollars from their country’s coffers.

Remember Washington’s dear pal, former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak—a Camp David attendee who conducted annual visits to Washington and received tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic assistance? He was ousted in 2011, but his corruption was legend inside Egypt—unofficially, of course—with only the smarmiest of admirers ignoring its manifest evidence. It should have been obvious in Washington as well. Mubarak owned property in Beverly Hills, a share of resorts in the Egyptian seaside city of Sharm el-Sheikh, and houses in London and New York. Experts estimated his fortune at a cool $70 billion, with his two kids also allegedly billionaires.

Or how about former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who had been Washington’s darling before that embarrassing 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Throughout the 1990s, he used a United Nations-administered oil-for-food program to skim millions of dollars for his and his sons’ personal profit, with some of his dealings also reportedly enriching then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin and a young Vladimir Putin. The U.S. government was also well aware of Saddam’s evasions of oil sale restrictions, including to U.S. allies in Jordan, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf. (By the way, guess who was also profiting from Saddam’s dirty business? Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, or IRGC. Also, one-time U.S. ally in the war on terrorism Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.)

And then there was former Libyan leader Muammar al-Qaddafi, the same Qaddafi who sponsored the downing of U.S. carrier Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988, killing all 259 people aboard as well as 11 people on the ground. True, he was no one’s darling, even after a brief post-9/11 rapprochement with the West. But after then-U.S. President Barack Obama finally turned on the aging Qaddafi in 2010, implicitly supporting the Libyan mobs that ultimately captured and killed him, the press professed itself shocked: “As Libya takes stock, Moammar Kadafi’s hidden riches astound,” the Los Angeles Times marveled. The mercurial Qaddafi was discovered to have more than $200 billion stashed around the world. The kicker? Around $37 billion were reportedly in U.S. banks.

And like his neighbor Mubarak, the Libyan dictator shared with his kids, as did everyone seeking to curry favor with the leader. A friend of his son Saif earned $58 million in “advisory fees” from French financial services firm Société Générale, per Transparency International. The international anti-corruption watchdog also noted a Canadian company with Qaddafi’s daughter-in-law on its payroll. In 2019, the Independent reported on a “deadly web of global corruption” that risked entangling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The stories go on and on and on. And apparently, someone is still stealing the money Qaddafi stole first.

As this litany makes clear, any exposé of kleptomania in the Middle East could stretch for terabytes. Lebanon alone suffers from titanic levels of elite and government corruption that have destroyed what little Iran and Syria have left for the Lebanese people. Also clear is that most (though not all) such corruption is revealed after the fact; serious U.S. government action against corruption in, for example, Russia only came after Putin’s second invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Which brings us to Iran.

There was a time when both Sunni and Shiite Islamists prided themselves on their resistance to the corruption endemic in the Middle East, but those days are long gone. Infamous former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani was said to have millions of dollars to his name. Anti-regime organization United Against Nuclear Iran runs through a timeline of official thievery, detailing billions of dollars stolen inside the Iranian oil ministry, billions more embezzled from state banks, tiny percentiles of government appropriations for health actually spent on medicine and supplies. After current Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was appointed to run the nation’s judiciary in 2019, his predecessor was nailed for depositing bail money into 63 different bank accounts to the tune of almost $100 million.

Some of this corruption has been detailed in domestic newspapers and reports inside Iran. But the closer to the top the miscreant gets, the less likely there is to be any news. Infamously corrupt former senior IRGC officer and Tehran mayor Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf allegedly bribed state officials to avoid fraud charges. Former IRGC-Quds Force Commander Qassem Soleimani was also implicated, with all revealed in a leaked recording.

The story received extremely limited coverage inside Iran because of Ghalibaf’s ties to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Soleimani’s so-called martyrdom. Indeed, Khamenei slammed newspapers for reporting the story at all, labeling the leaks as enemy efforts to “[slander] the central elements that played a role in the advancement of the revolution; one day it’s the Majles [Iran’s parliament], one day it’s the Guardian Council, and one day it’s the IRGC. Today, it’s the IRGC’s turn. Today, they slander the IRGC and try to tarnish it and the great martyr Soleimani.”

Khamenei similarly swept sexual assault charges away in the case of a favored Quranic orator, censured newspapers and ministers that reported on corruption within the government, and denounced charges of corruption against former Chief Justice Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, who was accused of tolerating widespread theft. (His former deputy was actually arrested for financial crimes in 2019.) Larijani was ultimately replaced by Raisi, who is now considered a likely candidate to replace the ailing supreme leader after his death. And when Rafsanjani began detailing Khamenei’s sons’ vast wealth in 2016, his own son was quickly arrested and sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Opposition cleric Mehdi Karroubi, who has been under house arrest since 2011, wrote an open letter to the supreme leader in 2018, accusing him of tolerating systemic corruption and impoverishing tens of millions of Iranians while enriching a small elite. “Under such conditions,” he warned, “it is natural that the lower classes, who were the grassroot supporters of the Islamic Revolution, will turn into a gunpowder barrel.”

Given widespread awareness of corruption inside Iran, curious people may wonder why additional sordid details could tip the balance of what is already a widespread revolution inside Iran. But there is a huge hole in reporting on graft at the most senior levels of Iran’s government, with allegations about Khamenei’s own crimes appearing only on exile and hostile foreign websites.

In short, Khamenei does not want his citizens (or lesser government officials) to know about the breadth of his own sins. And small wonder: Iran’s own Ministry of Cooperatives, Labour, and Social Welfare reported in January that around 60 percent of the country’s 84 million people live below the poverty line, with one-third living in “extreme poverty”—double the number of the previous year.

Far from blaming the United States or international sanctions for their strife, Iranians have made clear they blame their own government. Were they to know in real time—rather than after the fact, Qaddafi- and Mubarak-style—just how much money their supreme leader and his cronies had stolen, it could, as Karroubi warned, tip the balance and finally turn the regime’s remaining supporters in the security forces and the public against them.

How could this happen? Trump administration officials accused Khamenei of being worth around $200 billion. (A previous Reuters investigation detailed assets worth at least $95 billion.) But that’s the extent of U.S. government jabs at the supreme leader. Much as the Trump administration began detailing Khamenei’s personal wealth, the U.S. and European governments could begin unraveling the web of concealed assets owned by the supreme leader and his family—and act on the information.

Subsequent to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, the U.S. government froze Saddam’s assets. Ditto the assets of Qaddafi and his cronies once the United States decided he had to go. True, some of these assets were sovereign—nominally the foreign government’s money. But not all. So why wait? If corrupt enemies of the United States can have their assets frozen in the event of their ouster or war, then why not do it preemptively? As the Biden administration has made crystal clear in the case of Russian oligarchs and Putin’s cronies, it has the legal authority to freeze the proceeds of corruption.

Most of the Middle East’s late dictators had money and real estate in the United States under the jurisdiction of the U.S. federal government. The United States has multiple avenues to communicate details to the Iranian people, whether through whatever U.S. press leaks in, Persian-language Radio Farda (part of U.S.-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty), or the U.S. president’s own bully pulpit.

If, as senior U.S. officials have suggested to me, corruption is truly the Iranian regime’s Achilles’ heel, isn’t it time someone started exploiting that weakness to the benefit of the long-suffering Iranian people?

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