watching this drama and missing the obsessive friendships of middle school

Prompt fill - Xichen Week Day 7(+11): Himbo/Seachen

(On AO3)

One day.

Jiang Cheng just wanted one day of peace and quiet, away from home, away from his responsibilities, away from his idiot brother and his nutcases of a mother and father. Just a few hours alone — him and a boat and nothing else.

Clearly, that was too much to ask for.

His solitary little fishing expedition had lasted exactly two hours, and then everything went to shit. This day off must have been more sorely needed than he thought, because he had fallen asleep right there in his little boat, in the middle of the river, fishing rod hanging out the side and face baking in the morning sun.

As a man who grew up his whole life on a lakeshore, he should have known better — and he did, he did, goddammit, it wasn’t his fault that his stupid body betrayed him and abandoned him to drift on the currents like an absolute amateur, dead to the world, until his boat literally crashed into a clump of rocks.

That was half an hour ago. And now…

Jiang Cheng stomped angrily through the underbrush, slapping away any branches that dared cross his path. The fact that the ground was made up of dead leaves and soft moss only served to make him angrier, as they cushioned his steps so as to render them almost silent and thus robbed him of his god-given right to express his rage via the soles of his boots. Which, incidentally, were damp and squishing with every step. As was the rest of him. Because, as if getting stranded in the middle of a forest tributary wasn’t embarrassing enough, he obviously also had to be pitched overboard at the impact, lose his oars, and get his boat hopelessly stuck on the rocks.

So there he was, half an hour later, trawling the woods in search of a branch thick and sturdy enough to act as a lever and hope it would be sufficient to lift the (thankfully undamaged) boat out of its rocky trap.

He was having no luck so far, though. No likely candidates were presenting themselves on the ground, and any branches he had tried to pry loose from a living tree had resisted his attempts.

His stomach growled.

Well, great. It must be nearing midday. Good thing he’d thought to set up his net before leaving the scene of the disaster. Maybe, he if was lucky, some fish would —

Just then, a twig slapped him in the face, making him yelp and jump back in surprise.

That’s it, he thought vengefully, spitting out a mouthful of leaves, his pulse rocketing up in indescribable fury. Fuck this. FUCK it. I am DONE.

“Fine. FINE! Keep your shitty branches!” he shrilled into the forest.

The forest did not answer.

He whirled around and stomped (soundlessly, goddammit) back the way he came.

As he neared the bank again, a splashing sound  made him quicken his footsteps. Finally, some good fortune! Judging from the noise, he definitely wasn’t going to go hungry in the next few hours.

Actually, it was a bit strange that he could hear it so clearly from all the way over here. Just how big was this fish, exactly?!

He stepped out of the underbrush.

… And stared. That’s it, he thought. I’ve finally lost it. Finally gone off the deep end. It had to happen eventually, right?

In front of him, the mermaid kept struggling.

After a few moments, when Jiang Cheng was sure this hallucination wasn’t going to suddenly disappear, he stepped forward and called out.

“Hey. You there. You, uh… you need a hand?”

The mermaid immediately flailed upright (well… the parts of it that weren’t a giant fish tail, holy fucking shit, anyway) and its eyes snapped to Jiang Cheng’s.

It looked… male? Probably? Hard to tell, with all that hair sticking everywhere and all those… well. Fins. And scales. (Scales! What the fuck!)

Jiang Cheng was spared from his imminent meltdown when the mermaid’s eyes creased in a smile and he (it? did mermaids even have genders?) exhaled in relief. “Oh, would you? I seem to have gotten myself in quite the predicament…”

Yep, definitely male, going by that voice. Jiang Cheng stared some more. Well, if this guy was going to act so chill, who was he to do otherwise?

“Right. Sure. Let me just… Hang on.”

Feeling like he was having an out-of-body experience, Jiang Cheng unsheathed his knife from his belt and approached, before a thought struck him and he stopped abruptly.

“Wait.” The mermaid looked at him questioningly. “Is this a trap? Are you gonna eat me?”

The creature tilted his head. “...Eat you?”

“Or drown me, or abduct me, or whatever,” Jiang Cheng amended hurriedly. Okay, that was dumb, nobody had ever heard of a mermaid eating its victims, but give him a break, he was under a lot of pressure here. He just said the first thing that popped into his mind!

Either way, the mermaid seemed offended. “Drown you? I would never!” He splashed his tail agitatedly. “We’re not savages, you know!”

“Well, forgive me for assuming,” Jiang Cheng muttered. “Never met a fucking mermaid before.”

“Mer, actually,” the mermaid — mer — corrected, politely but firmly. “Merman, if you must.”

“...Right,” Jiang Cheng managed, before he stepped closer (close enough to touch, and to see that tail right there in front of this face, what was his life) and attacked the thick netting with his knife.

It was, sadly, unsalvageable. Jiang Cheng didn’t even want to know how the… merman… had managed to get himself that badly tangled up into it, though it did use to be a good, strong fishing net, wide enough to get a generous catch in one go, if luck was in your favor. As it was, though, it was about to be turned into a pile of frayed rope bits. He could kiss his much-anticipated lunch goodbye, Jiang Cheng thought morosely.

“I was just trying to free the fish inside,” the merman said then, apparently feeling the need to explain himself and unknowingly adding insult to injury. “The poor things had gotten themselves trapped, I just couldn’t leave them that way.”

“Yeah, no, obviously,” Jiang Cheng forced out. “Wouldn’t want them to remain trapped in a fishing net, in case any old fisherman happening nearby could just lift them out and eat them for lunch, huh? No way, that’d be ridiculous,” he added, perhaps a little more hysterically than necessary.

“...”

Jiang Cheng didn’t look up, forcefully focusing on his task, but he could still feel the moment when the penny dropped and the merman gasped in realization.

“Oh! Oh no! Oh, I’m so sorry, I didn’t — I really… I simply thought —”

Obviously distressed, the merman continued to babble and wring his hands for a while while Jiang Cheng worked on the last few threads digging into his tail.

“Oh, how awful of me! How thoughtless! Of course it was your net, I didn’t realize…” He trailed off for a moment, then seemed to reach a conclusion. “I must make amends,” he declared. “I shall catch you some fish. Bigger fish. Better fish,” he added, nodding to himself.

Jiang Cheng snorted. “Isn’t that, like, fratricide for you?”

The merman looked miffed, but, considering the circumstances, he must have felt like he owed it to Jiang Cheng to tone down the disapproval. “Of course not. We do eat fish, you know.”

“You do? Huh. Well, either way, don’t bother. I don’t think I could even stomach it, at this point,” he replied dejectedly. “I just wanna go home. And then maybe sleep for the next three weeks and hope that’s enough to forget this horrible, horrible day.”

This appeared to distress the merman. “Truly? Then you must allow me to repay you in another way. Anything you wish, that I am able to offer you. Name it, and it is yours.”

Jiang Cheng laughed ruefully. “Can you magically lift my boat from those rocks?”

He couldn’t. There was no way. That boat was well and truly wedged in there, stuck in between jagged boulders and buried in a tangle of driftwood.

“Oh! Of course! I didn’t see it there,” the merman replied happily.

...What? Jiang Cheng checked again, to see if the boat had moved from its previous immovable position.

Nope. Still there.

“Listen,” he started doubtfully, “thanks for offering, but I don’t think anyone can move that thing. I’ll probably have to come back with a few people,” he sighed.

“Nonsense,” the merman smiled. “Just get me out of here, and we’ll have it down in a flash.”

Jiang Cheng still doubted that, but whatever. No skin off his back if the merman tried and failed to rescue his stupid boat from the stupid rocks.

“You’re pretty trusting for a mermaid — sorry, merman — aren’t you?”

“Why wouldn’t I be? Our peoples have coexisted peacefully for a very long time, you know. Just because meetings between us are rare, does not mean I should feel threatened by your presence.” With a wide grin, he continued, “Quite the opposite, in fact — I am delighted to have made your acquaintance! Circumstances notwithstanding, of course.”

Jiang Cheng considered that. “You know, I thought Wei Wuxian was shitting me all this time, but…” He observed the merman critically. The pretty face, the silky hair held back by a glistening white ribbon… “Are you… are you that Lan Zhan guy, by any chance?”

The merman perked up. “Wangji? You know my brother?”

“He’s your brother?” Well then. Small world, huh. “I don’t know him, but my brother won’t shut up about him.”

“Really?” The merman clearly found this piece of information fascinating. “Where do they know each other from? Do you know?”

“Sorry, no clue. Honestly, I thought your brother didn’t even exist until a second ago. All I know is that my idiot of a brother claimed to have met a mermaid a few years ago and hasn’t shut up about him since.”

“Merman,” the other corrected again, absently. He seemed to be absorbed by the revelation.

“So?”

The merman snapped to attention again. “Hm?”

“Your name,” Jiang Chengs reminded him pointedly.

“Oh!” He drew himself straighter at that, a sunny smile settling on his features. “My name, yes. My name is Lan Xichen. A pleasure to meet you.” He dipped his head.

Lan Xichen. How… mundane. Boring, even. It was almost offensive, that such an exotic creature could have such an utterly normal name.

The creature in question kept beaming, completely unaware of Jiang Cheng’s uncharitable inner monologue.

Jiang Cheng blinked, slightly perturbed by the (frankly alarming) degree of cheeriness being displayed by the man — Lan Xichen, he reminded himself — while he was still restrained and a total stranger was brandishing a knife near his delicate fish parts.

Whatever. This guy probably wouldn’t live past thirty, with survival instincts like those, but that wasn’t his problem.

“Right. Well, I’m Jiang Cheng.”

At that point, Jiang Cheng’s intense sawing efforts finally paid off, and the last knot fell loose. He carefully picked at the threads digging into the fragile-looking membrane until every last scrap of rope fell away. He had half a second to survey his work — some areas looked a bit bruised, but at least no blood had been drawn — before Lan Xichen retracted his tail out of reach and under the surface. Jiang Cheng thought he could see him swish his tail a few times, cautiously testing it against the current, checking it for injuries. The river water was clean and crystalline there, and the sun danced off the merman’s light, silvery blue scales in undulating patterns.

When Lan Xichen refocused on Jiang Cheng, his smile was blinding. “Thank you! You have my gratitude, and that of the Lan clan.”

“...Yeah,” Jiang Cheng managed, dazed by the combination of glittering scales and beaming smile.

“Well! Let’s get to it, then,” the merman said cheerfully, already swimming away. Jiang Cheng stared.

Now that the urgency was gone, he was struck all over again by how utterly bonkers the whole encounter was. Would people back home even believe him, if he told them about this? Well, Wei Wuxian would, at least, he thought manically, gawking at the delicate fins rippling all along the merman’s tail as he swam away.

Wait. Away? Was he leaving already?

He ripped himself out of his trance just as the merman broke the surface again, long hair plastered to his neck and shoulders, and hoisted himself up on a boulder near the stranded boat.

He hummed thoughtfully, prodding at the thing and testing his grip.

“Wait,” Jiang Cheng started, “be careful, don’t —”

Too late. Lan Xichen gave a mighty heave, and with a grunt, the boat slid free of the rocks.

“— ...hurt yourself,” Jiang Cheng finished lamely, once again reduced to staring idiotically as his boat rocked slightly from the momentum, scraped but unharmed.

Somewhere on his periphery, Lan Xichen laughed brightly. “See? I told you it wouldn’t be an issue.”

“You sure did,” Jiang Cheng replied automatically, still not sure if he should believe his eyes. What, did merpeople have super-strength, or something? Or was he just that dumb, and the damn thing was never actually stuck in the first place?

Oblivious to his distress, the merman slipped back into the water soundlessly and took it upon himself to steer the boat toward the shore where Jiang Cheng was still kneeling like a useless moron.

When it bumped against the grassy bank, Jiang Cheng unfolded himself enough to find the anchor and tie it to a nearby sapling — not exactly secure, but good enough for the few minutes it would take for him to depart. Probably. Hopefully.

“Thanks,” he threw at Lan Xichen. The words felt inadequate, but he wasn’t sure what else he could say.

The merman watched as Jiang Cheng bent to retrieve the sad remains of the fishing net. It was completely ruined, but hey, he wasn’t about to leave it here and litter the woods like a barbarian. He threw the tangled mess into the boat, where it flopped with a pathetic, wet thunk.

A low whine drew his gaze toward Lan Xichen. “I’m sorry,” the merman said in a tortured voice, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy — and wasn’t that a feat, Jiang Cheng thought, considering he was a fucking fish. “I’m so sorry.”

“Are you seriously apologizing to me right now? For a stupid fishing net?” He demanded. “You could have stayed stuck and literally died.”

The merman pouted. “Still.”

“I give up,” Jiang Cheng signed, stepping into the boat to investigate the damage.

No holes, no water accumulated at the bottom, not even any scratches bigger than a hand-span. A miracle, really. Or rather, just compensation for all the rotten luck, Jiang Cheng thought grumpily. As if to prove him right, he also remembered — the oars. Those were still gone. Ugh. Seriously, fuck his life.

As he walked around, he caught the merman tracking his lower body with interest. His legs, he supposed — must look pretty weird to him, really. “So, have you ever actually met another human before?”

“Not up close, no,” Lan Xichen hummed.

“And yet you let me approach you without a single misgiving.”

“Well… yes?”

Jiang Cheng couldn’t help it — he dropped his face into his hands. “Oh my god,” he muttered. “You actually have zero sense of self-preservation.”

“Hey!”

“Don’t ‘hey’ me, you weirdo!  Seriously, what the fuck! How are you still alive? How old are you, even?”

“Twenty-nine,” the merman grumbled, sinking lower into the water until his nose barely peeked out over the surface, but otherwise taking the chastisement without protest. Something told Jiang Cheng that this must not be his first time being admonished for this particular reason.

“Twenty-nine! That’s older than I am!” (Barely by two or three years, but Lan Xichen didn’t need to know that…) “Even I know better than to be so trusting, and I’m not the one from a rare species and with a tail so gorgeous people would probably kill to get their hands on it!”

Lan Xichen popped back up. “You think my tail is gorgeous?”

“...!” Jiang Cheng was pretty sure he was about to burst a blood vessel somewhere in his brain. “That is so not the point! Are you kidding me right now? That’s your takeaway from everything I just said?!”

“You think my tail is gorgeous,” Lan Xichen repeated, his lips stretching into a grin so wide Jiang Cheng wouldn’t have hesitated to call it shit-eating on any other face. Not this one, though. It was much too pretty and delicate. “You like my tail,” he said again, looking much too pleased with himself, and then — “Thank you. I like your legs, too. They’re quite nice.”

Jiang Cheng spluttered. “You —!”

The merman laughed, a tinkling, delighted sound, before diving underneath the surface and into a series of gleeful rolls and spins and splashes.

Okay, Jiang Cheng thought resignedly, that’s fucking adorable.

He braced himself for Lan Xichen coming back up, but despite that, he was still slightly stunned by the sheer brilliance of the merman’s smile when he reemerged.

“I like you,” the merman said without preamble, effectively shocking Jiang Cheng into a stupefied stillness and thoroughly frying his brain, all in one fell swoop. “Can we meet again?”

“I — I, I, uh...” Jiang Cheng stuttered.

Lan Xichen just hooked his fingers over the lip of the boat and let himself float there, smiling patiently, his eyes shining with a gentle mirth. Golden, Jiang Cheng thought distractedly. They’re golden. Huh. He hadn’t even noticed that. How did he miss that? And since when was gold even a real eye color that actually existed?

“Jiang Cheng?” the merman prompted gently.

“What?” Jiang Cheng startled. “Yes? I mean… What?”

“Can I see you again?” he asked once more, hopefully.

“...”

Jiang Cheng was pretty sure he was dreaming, at this point — but in that case, he figured, might as well go all the way, huh? What could it hurt? Nothing, that’s what.

“...Sure. Yes. We can… do that. If you want.”

Lan Xichen’s soft smile grew into a full-blown grin again, his eyes almost disappearing into happy creases.

“But,” Jiang Cheng continued, trying to distract himself from the sight, “for that to happen, I’m going to need to go home first. Which is not looking likely right now,” he finished ruefully.

The merman tilted his head. “Why is that? Is there something wrong with your boat?” He drew himself from the edge and gave the boat an appraising look — not that he was likely to know anything about them, Jiang Cheng surmised. Silly fish.

“There’s nothing wrong with it,” he sighed, “except that it doesn’t have any oars. They got lost when I hit the rocks earlier. Probably floating somewhere far away downstream.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“Well…” Lan Xichen hedged.

Jiang Cheng met his gaze. “What? You got another miracle up your sleeve?”

“Not a miracle, but…” Lan Xichen diverted his glance sideways, towards a fallen tree resting on the bank. Its long-dead branches hung halfway into the water, gnarled and sturdy against the current. “Would one of these do?”

“Already tried those,” Jiang Cheng replied. “Don’t waste your time. They’re way, way too thick, no one could possibly —”

— aaand there he went again. Oh well, Jiang Cheng decided, settling in for the show. Maybe at least this way he could get revenge for earlier. He would sit there and point and laugh at Lan Xichen’s attempts, because there was no way in hell —

CRAAAAACK!

Jiang Cheng knew his eyes were bugging out of his head, okay, he knew, but listen. Listen. This time, he was positive he couldn’t have made a mistake, like he might have with the boat. This time, the branches were obviously enormous and obviously very, very securely attached to their trunk. He had checked. He had gone and touched those branches with his own two hands, and he knew —

Lan Xichen came back then, and lifted the thing out of the water to present it for his appraisal. A huge fucking tree limb, the straightest and smoothest he could probably find on that dead tree, which he had just snapped clean off with his bare fucking hands. And was now bringing to Jiang Cheng, like a proud puppy with a ridiculously oversized stick. Seriously. Seriously.

Jiang Cheng wanted to scream.

Instead, he very carefully grabbed the branch to deposit it inside the boat. Damn, but that thing was huge.

“So, is this one enough, or do you need anoth—”

“Shut up.”

Lan Xichen’s mouth snapped shut.

Jiang Cheng held out his hand imperiously. “Give me your arm.”

The merman raised wide eyes toward Jiang Cheng, a confused little frown pulling at his lips. “What —”

“I said,” Jiang Cheng growled, “give. Me. Your. Arm.” When the merman just kept staring at him uncertainly, he burst out, “Oh my god, you ridiculous dolphin, just come here already!”

Apparently deciding to trust Jiang Cheng despite his obvious bout of temporary insanity, Lan Xichen slowly approached and extended one of his arms towards him. With a wary look, he mumbled, “Dolphins aren’t even —”

“Shut up! I know they’re not,” Jiang Cheng snapped. With a tug, Lan Xichen’s arm was promptly brought over the edge of the boat for closer inspection, forcing the merman to grab the rim with his other hand for balance. He took the rough treatment without complaint, looking perplexed.

Jianf Cheng started with his hand, working his way up to the shoulder progressively. He carefully examined the webbed fingers (hadn’t noticed that, either), then poked and prodded at the wrist (all normal, same rotation as a human’s), the forearm (pale and muscular), the elbow (yup, just a regular elbow), the upper arm… Hm. Well, outside of it being pretty thickly toned, he couldn’t find anything. Why couldn’t he find anything? There was clearly something funky going on with this man’s arms, because no one, human or merman, should be able to win a contest with a boulder or rip an entire trunk off of a —

The merman cleared his throat.

It was then that Jiang Cheng realized with horror that he’d been… he’d been groping the poor man for several minutes, holding him in place and squeezing his biceps and just generally pawing at him like —

He dropped the limb immediately, feeling his face heat up with a vengeance and trying to hide it behind a scowl. “What?” he barked. “Don’t look at me like that! You’re the one who’s freaky!”

Unruffled, Lan Xichen offered, “Perhaps if you told me what you were looking for…?”

Jiang Cheng gaped. “Well, your —!” He paused, then flailed in the general direction of the fallen tree. “That thing you did! Twice! With the tree, and the… the rocks!”

“Ah,” the merman nodded in dawning comprehension. “Yes. It has been said that we of the Lan family have been blessed with unusual arm strength.”

“Excuse me, ‘unusual’? More like fucking monstrous, let’s be honest here — but I, uh, mean that in the best way, of course,” he amended hurriedly when Lan Xichen sent him a stricken look.

The merman lowered his gaze, lips wobbling.

Ah, shit. Goddammit, Jiang Cheng had really stepped in it this time. Calling a merman a monster, not even two seconds after molesting him, and after he’d been so disgustingly nice to him, too? Pathetic. Disgraceful. Despicable.

“Come on, I didn’t mean it like that. I’m sorry,” he tried.

A tiny sniff, barely audible behind the curtain of hair that fell before the merman’s bowed face.

Oh, no. “Lan Xichen, please,” Jiang Cheng coaxed, quickly getting desperate. “I’m sorry, I promise that’s not… It’s not what I…” He scrubbed his hands over his face “Ugh! I don’t know what to say,” he lamented.

Lan Xichen peeked at him shyly from behind his sleek tresses. “Maybe if you gave me another compliment…?”

Jiang Cheng opened his mouth, the words already halfway out, before he snapped it shut and squinted suspiciously at the merman.

He braced his hands on the edge of the boat and leaned even closer.

There! That glimmer in his eye, that was —!

“Lan Xichen! Are you screwing with me right now?!”

But the merman was incapable of answering, already howling with laughter, his façade collapsing in less than an instant. Jiang Cheng stared. Lan Xichen’s laugh was loud and uncontrolled, little snorts slipping out now and then, though he tried to hide them behind his slightly webbed hands — all for naught, as the crinkle in his eyes betrayed his glee with no hope of concealment.

Jiang Cheng was mesmerized. As Lan Xichen’s laughter settled into quieter giggles, he felt something take flight in his heart, or in his gut, or maybe in some other, equally ridiculous internal organ with asinine romantic connotations.

Whatever.

He felt like he should be mad — the little shit had emotionally manipulated him just now, and so skillfully too! He’d bought into his charade hook, line and sinker (ha!) — but no. He felt… proud, maybe? Fond, definitely. And awed, maybe, by this creature, by this meeting, by the improbable set or circumstances that had led to it.

He shook his head, his lips tugging up in a helpless smile, never taking his eyes off the merman now clinging to his boat once more.

“Lan Xichen,” he breathed, almost reverently, “you are something else.”

When the merman reached for his hand, he didn’t offer any resistance (turnabout was fair play, after all). Lan Xichen laced their fingers together over the edge of the boat, right in the middle, like a symbol. “But you mean that in the best way, of course,” he stated solemnly, his voice wobbling with yet more laughter.

Jiang Cheng couldn’t help the incredulous laugh that escaped him then, or the grin that settled over his face. He took a moment to marvel at that, and squeezed the hand clutching his. “Of course. The very best.”

The Bull Market Checklist To Living Your Best Life Today (Part 1)

Maybe I'm confounding some positive things that are going on with my life, however I haven't felt this great about the present condition of the business sectors since 2007. Certainly, everything went to hellfire the following couple of years and mass bloodletting resulted. However, that is neither here nor there.

Starting at the present moment, we are living in the best of times. On the off chance that you've been a Financial Samurai peruser for at any rate a year or are a sensibly smart speculator, your total assets ought to hit new record highs. Thusly, the measure of speculation pay you're producing so as to live free ought to likewise be creating new record sums.

With the Fed now immovably on our side, speculators have increased new trust in going out on a limb. Further, we would all be able to gain hazard free cash in our investment accounts at a loan cost significantly higher than the 10-year security yield.

This twofold success is uncommon.

I'd like to present a few musings on the best way to put and spend in a positively trending business sector to carry on with a superior life. Since goodness knows, the great occasions can't keep going forever.

The Bull Market Financial Checklist To Living Your Best Life

1) Take bit of leeway of lower rates. With the 10-year security yield at two-year lows, contract rates and longer term understudy advance rates are likewise at two-year lows. You should exploit by renegotiating your home loan and your understudy advances on the off chance that you have any.

Lamentably, for those of you with Mastercard obligation and other momentary advances, rates have not fallen in light of the fact that the short-end of the yield bend has expanded since the Fed begun raising the Fed Funds rate toward the finish of 2015.

I'm wrapping up my 7/1 ARM at 2.75% with all expenses prepared in addition to a $2,400 credit this late spring. On the off chance that I held as of recently to bolt, I may have had the option to get 2.625%.

2) Stay presented to hazard resources. Stocks, securities, and land are your companions in a declining loan fee condition. Lower financing costs make owning different resources with higher loan fees or conceivably higher returns progressively alluring. Loan fees are probably going to remain low for more.

I can't reveal to you how much hazard presentation you ought to have since everyone's hazard resilience and money related circumstance is extraordinary. Everything I can say is that you have to evaluate your hazard resistance and afterward contribute as needs be.

The most legitimate hazard resource for me to put resources into is land since lower home loan rates acquire all the more land request. We've just had a huge log jam in numerous land advertises in 2H2018. Without an adjustment 2H2018 I'd be increasingly wary.

With home loan rates generally 1% lower than in 2018 combined with a retreat in land costs, it is my conviction that land will bounce back or if nothing else remain unfaltering in the coming years. The Fed has broadcast it is happy to be accommodative (cut rates) to fight off a subsidence if important.

3) Ask for a raise or change occupations. We're at present at a 3.6% national joblessness rate in America. That is near full work. This is the ideal opportunity to request a raise or chase for the "impeccable occupation" on the off chance that you are not happy with your current one.

The general principle guideline is that you can get at any rate 20% more in the event that you put yourself on the open market tomorrow. Contingent upon execution and industry, after around three years at work in a hot work showcase, you could possibly get half or more.

Faithful representatives will in general miss out the most. Try not to resemble me. I remained at my old business for a long time and presumably surrendered more than $1 million in income thus. The primary positive about faithfulness is that it builds your odds for arranging a succulent severance on the off chance that you ever need to proceed onward.

4) Take a holiday. Given it's at present a worker's market, this is the ideal opportunity to take a long get-away or a holiday. Indeed, it's hard to get off the framework when a lot of cash is to be made. Be that as it may, it might be currently or never as it may be vocation suicide to take a holiday during a downturn. Since when you get back, your activity probably won't be there!

On the off chance that you intend to work for at any rate five additional years, if you don't mind take an all-encompassing get-away or holiday. Cash is working the hardest for you in a positively trending business sector, so don't stress such a great amount over attempting to get considerably more cash-flow.

My greatest mix-up was not taking at any rate a one-month holiday. I was too stressed over my activity during a downturn and needing to profit during a positively trending business sector.

It was a ceaseless cycle since I constantly anticipated that a downturn should be directly around the bend. In any case, on the off chance that I had taken a holiday, I would have been revived and likely expanded my working profession by at any rate a couple more years. This is one of my huge laments as an early retiree.

5) Start deliberately having a great time. On the off chance that you can't have a great time when times are great, you positively won't probably celebrate the good life when times are terrible. At the point when times are awful, you'll need to spare more and take on side hustles. The final product is that you never end up spending any of your cash on enjoy a quality lifestyle.

During a positively trending business sector, you're profiting path past your ordinary anticipated salary (day work, side hustle pay, automated revenue). As it were, buyer advertise cash feels like "free cash" or "clever cash."

You will probably figure how much interesting cash you've made every year from the buyer market and continue to invest some of it on yourself, your family, and your friends and family. You don't need to burn through 100% of your positively trending business sector increases every year. Be that as it may, you should attempt to designate and spend in any event 10% of the interesting cash celebrating the good life.

For instance, in 4Q2018, I was down about $300,000 (15%) in my House Fund portfolio. That hurt. Fortunately, the House Fund portfolio made up the entirety of its misfortunes and after that increased about $200,000 for a $500,000 swing in a half year.

Restoring $300,000 felt like free cash since I had absurdly over-allotted towards tech stocks. Be that as it may, making $200,000 truly felt like free cash. In this manner, I took a bit of the $200,000 and got myself some new clothing. I feel so new! Be that as it may, truly, I made an enormous buy not long ago which I may partake later on.

6) Hunt for unicorns. During a buyer showcase, greater air pockets will in general structure. In the event that you can get an air pocket and ride it before it implodes, you could possibly profit.

I would put aside 10% of your income (not existing ventures) looking for the following incredible theoretical speculation. A theoretical venture is normally a doubtful item, doesn't have positive income, and is something not standard.

You ought to hope to lose 100% of your 10% with the possibility of making a 1,000%+ return. The probability of either happening is most likely little. In any event, you will study putting resources into resources that are regularly neglected.

It's totally fine to put resources into record assets as long as possible. Most by far of your assets ought to be distributed towards an exhausting S&P 500 and bond file. You simply have minimal shot of regularly getting more extravagant quicker than most of the contributing populace.

On the off chance that I hadn't put $3,000 in VCSY in 2000, I wouldn't have had the option to make a $120,000 up front installment for my first SF property in 2003. In the event that I hadn't purchased my first property in 2003, I might not have had the fortitude to bet everything on a solitary family home in SF toward the finish of 2004.

All you need is one chance of a lifetime to supercharge your riches. In any case, so as to get your chance of a lifetime you have to go out on a limb with a portion of your assets.

7) Shop your business around. Valuations will in general be at their most astounding during a positively trending business sector since desires are so high for future profit development. On the off chance that you accept desires are higher than the real world, at that point you ought to forcefully attempt and shop your business around to the most noteworthy bidder.

In any case, to have the option to shop your business around, you should initially have your very own business. Having a business is extraordinary in light of the fact that in addition to the fact that it has an income segment, however it has a value segment also. To make next dimension riches is tied in with developing the value segment.

Despite the fact that the trailing year P/E proportion doesn't look silly yet at 21.9X contrasted with the 14.75X middle numerous, the Shiller P/E proportion is getting up there at 30X contrasted with the 15.75X middle various. The Shiller P/E proportion depends overall expansion balanced profit from the past 10 years.

8) Become a fraud. In a buyer market, capabilities and qualifications are regularly neglected in light of the fact that everyone is getting quite a lot of money. It's simply after individuals begin losing cash that people begin cautiously perusing the fine print and scrutinizing the foundation of the individual.

During the last positively trending business sector, I know one person who composed a book about how to get rich in spite of having as of late moved on from school with barely any cash. He wound up getting rich mostly in light of his book. Splendid!

Today, I am aware of 25-year-olds with zero budgetary foundations who are showing individuals how to put resources into the financial exchange and resign early. It's noteworthy how people are drenching it up.

On the off chance that you've at any point needed to profit as a fraud, right now is an ideal opportunity to exploit. It doesn't make a difference in case you're a bombed political advisor attempting to position yourself as a money related master or an organization author with no appropriate understanding. In the event that you counterfeit it, odds are higher you will make it during a positively trending business sector.

Fan(fic) Friday: Spotlight on Peni Griffin

Sul sul!

Today, I have a special treat for you guys. I had the chance to ask the very delightful @penig a few questions about Widespot and The Sims in general. For those of you who aren’t familiar with her work, she has created two widely popular hoods for The Sims 2: Land Grant University and the aforementioned Widespot. It’s longer than usual, and Peni expressed the concern that it would needed to be edited down, but in all honesty, her responses were such a wealth of information, deleting any of it seemed wrong.

I’ll stop teasing you, and let Peni speak for herself:

What inspired you to create Widespot?

“I’m always in story creation mode. This has been a large part of the appeal of The Sims 2 for me, as it allows me to tell a particular kind of story that I will never, ever be able to write for publication,  and have always wanted to: the story of a community in which we see every character as the hero of her own story, and how all the stories intertwine (often without the protagonists recognizing it) and affect each other as they all go about their business.” 

“At the time I started Widespot, I was in a situation in which my normal professional outlets were not available to me. You will excuse me from going into detail on the subject, which can be summed up as Health Crap. For our purposes, the important thing was that I needed a project, I couldn’t work on a book, I had been thinking for some time about the potential of my favorite game as a storytelling medium, and enough discussion of the matter had been generated over at MTS that I found/was directed to the late lamented Mootilda’s thread on creating a clean, safe, populated neighborhood for sharing.  ( http://modthesims.info/t/455403)”

“I actually went into some detail about the process on my writing blog at the time.”

( https://penigriffin.blogspot.com/2013/02/so-you-want-to-share.html )

Did you take inspiration from the Maxis neighborhoods?

“To a certain extent, yes. I decided that what I wanted to create was a neighborhood that would feel and play as if it had shipped with the game, but with less mess. No dead people without full character data, no memories that outright contradict each other, no hints in the bios that can’t be fully explored in the game.”

In your neighborhood, you included different story elements for each family that interconnect. What is your process in developing this story?

“Somewhere around here, I have the notebook in which I first started working it out, but I’d have to dig to find it. I remember starting with the admonition to myself to keep it simple, as your first attempt at publishing in a medium should be simple - you have enough to do mastering the new medium without trying to make something complicated with it. I knew my genre was soap opera, and though I’ve never been much of a soap watcher, my mother and husband are, so that set my parameters. I listed the tools at my disposal - the five base game aspirations, the jealousy mechanics, and the generational play. The question I asked myself at the start of the process was: “How do I create the most Drama for the least amount of effort?”

“Probably the notion of having five aspiration-themed households came almost at once, possibly as I started making name lists. I wanted to give elders a big role, because I had noticed that a lot of people thought elders were “boring,” and I knew they were wrong! I’ve always felt that Maxis missed a big trick by not having a Scheming Matriarch in Pleasantview. I wanted to shake up some stereotypes and have sims who didn’t obviously “belong” in their aspirations - shy Romance sims, outgoing Knowledge sims, lazy Fortune sims. I wanted all the households intimately connected to each other, which meant that for simplicity’s sake the story (story being defined as “person with a problem”) should center around one particular event that triggered events in all the households, a cascade of consequence. At which point I wrote down “It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a fortune must be in want of a wife,” and decided that the wealthy Mann family coming to town with a highly marriageable son and a Dark Secret was a good place to start.”

“That turned out not to be the trigger, but you have to start somewhere.”

Aside from your official captions, how did you set out to convey plot to those who play Widespot?

“I tried to take pictures of enough key moments that the players could inspect the albums for clues. By playing out the development I had ensured that some important information already existed in the memories and relationship panels, but I also went in and inserted memories that seemed to me significant. I had specific meanings in mind when I gave Mary memories of potty-training her younger siblings that extend all the way back to teenhood and manipulated some of her relationship scores with the testing cheats, but I wanted the players to be free to interpret those memories and relationships according to their own ideas, so I tried to background my own opinions as much as possible.”

“The plot, after all, is the players’ job, not mine!”

As far as literal world building goes, how did you factor in your characters’ surroundings to both their plotlines and their characterization?

“The smallness of the town, necessitated by the decision to keep things as simple as possible, gave me the starting point and the town’s name - it’s just a wide spot in the road, hardly a town at all. Rural areas have a certain vibe; certain types of people grow up there, and certain kinds of people wind up there, so this was on my mind as I designed the characters, built their homes, and decided what order they should be created in CAS and moved in.  Each house has a history, not all of which is necessarily made explicit to the player, and some of which really, really made me long for something more than BG Maxis content! But I think most people get that the Land cabin was built piecemeal over time, that a lot of Skye’s house was DIY, that the Beech house is Daytona’s house and the rest of her family just lives there, etc. Skye only got educational toys for his kids, but the Lands have a teddy and a dollhouse as well. The Mann’s house is the only one with a fence, and Rich ensures his privacy with stained glass windows in certain rooms. He also has that ominous closet full of aspiration rewards. (I hate that I couldn’t get him a counterfeiting machine - he clearly needs one.)”

“Some details were dictated by the game mechanics. Penny needed a double bed to get pregnant in, but there’s no particular reason for one to exist on her lot; so the heck with it, everybody in that house gets a double bed and I don’t even try to explain it. The lowest-numbered playable in the hood is always the telescope slapper, so I had to create the Mann family first in order for the guy with the Dark Secret to be the one who was incensed at the possibility of being spied on. But who would beard Rich in his own den when he, Lana, or Junior used the telescope in the daytime? That would be the local cop, wouldn’t it? This is why the Land house (with the nubile Land daughters) is right behind the Mann house and the Mann telescope is pointed straight at it. I also used the house to train the Manns - especially Junior - into wanting to buy things by furnishing it minimally to start with, and then adding items as wants were rolled for expensive artwork, games, etc.”

“When I gave characters their starting skill points, I assigned them partly at random, partly according to the implied backstory and role, and partly according to what would be possible in the game. If logic or a random roll indicated that someone in a household had a skill, I made sure that suitable skilling items existed in that household. Woody has an easel because it’s a solitary tool for gaining creativity points; the other families have the more sociable piano.  Neither family is much concerned about the impression they make on the outside world, so they are not oversupplied with mirrors, unlike the other families, where Charisma matters.”

“This all works back and forth; the character or situation requires something in the setting, and then I realize that having this thing here means that I also need this and that means I should improve the relationship between these two characters, or whatever. My first and best playtester insisted to me that Goldie needed a teddy bear, and made a good case for it based on Goldie’s characterization, both in the bios and as played; and she was right, so I added it almost at the last minute. (Which is why, so often, the first thing Rhett does it pick it up and try to talk to someone through it.)”

“One thing that I was aware of during development, but am a little reluctant to discuss, is the possible implications for the setting of the racial makeup of the neighborhood. At the time I was born, in the state where I was born, the Land and Beech marriages would have been illegal; and I had that in mind when I mentioned familial disapproval in the Land bios. Some people pick that up and run with it, most people ignore it. Most people look at the Hart’s Spanish-style house and decide (despite the name) that the family has a Mediterranean or Mexican background, but others have decided that Valentine is black/white biracial and all the Spanish influence comes from Angel. I have no desire to dictate anybody’s interpretation or play style, but I do want to enable as many interpretations and play styles as possible, and this variety is an indication of success to me.”

In a lot of ways, fans have come to regard Widespot as highly as they regard the original three Maxis neighborhoods. Did you envision the neighborhood being this popular?

“I beat my “expectations” about the reception of any particular work to death years ago. While I was building Widespot, I told myself that if the only person who liked it was Aegagropilon (my first playtester), that would be good enough and anybody else’s approval would be gravy. Well, Aegagropilon loved it; and I’ve lapped up quite a bit of gravy since then. I don’t have much of a grasp of how popular it actually is, and that’s not the important thing. The important thing is that I know some people are playing it, and enjoying it, and using it in different ways. How many there are, and how it stacks up next to the many other (and in some cases far more sophisticated) fan made hoods out there, is out of my hands. I’m better off not dwelling on that.”

How did Widespot evolve after you started? Were there any massive deviations from your original plan?

“Development was an alternating process of playing (including building, character design, and actual play) and working things out on paper in illegible notes, which is always how I work. I haven’t properly thought anything till I’ve written it down, but I’m a “pantser” rather than a “plotter” - i.e. I tend to fly by the seat of my pants when creating. Too much planning kills the story for me. So once all the preliminary work had been set up, and the broad strokes of the storyline determined, the rest was done directly in the game, with a little help from the testing cheats, Tombstone of Life and Death, and so on.”

“I knew I needed to wind up with a baby for every adult woman, but I didn’t always know who specifically would be the father of each baby until I saw how characters interacted. I knew one of the households would have a ghost, but for awhile I thought it might be Lana. I assumed Candy would have two lovers but I thought one of them would be Hamilton until she informed me otherwise. As mentioned earlier, I thought the Manns would be the central, triggering household rather than the Harts. I had no plans for the teens or children at all, and they took care of their own storylines”.

On a different note, what was your inspiration for the dynamic between the Harts and the rest of Widespot’s inhabitants? How did you develop the idea for these entanglements?

“As a family of Romance sims, their job was to wreak havoc. And boy, howdy, did they! But only after I realized Angel had to be the town ghost. The family ran much too smoothly when she was in charge - she and Valentine constantly smooching it up, Rhett being Mama’s boy, Candy being Goldie’s social support. Kill Angel, and everybody falls apart and starts making bad decisions. I designed Valentine as a Dirty Old Man; but he refused to be only that. I designed Rhett as a heartless jerk, and he can be that - but he’s also the only one of the immature Mama’s boys in the hood who has lost his Mama. I designed Candy as a golddigger, and yeah, she is - but she also made friends with Daytona and Goldie without any prompting from me, and she put herself in the middle of what turned out to be the hardest knot to untie in the whole hood, the Mann Triangle.”

“And Goldie - well, Goldie was a darling who autonomously put the rest of her family ahead of herself repeatedly, could never finish her homework, and never once brought anyone home from school or came home with anyone else.”

“TL;DR: I didn’t develop the Harts. They did.”

You’ve been very active on both Mod the Sims and Tumblr for a while now. How has The Sims community evolved since you first got involved? Why do you think there is still such a strong following of the series?

“It’s hard for me to speak to how it’s evolved, since I was never part of the Age of LJ and only started playing Sims 2 since after Sims 3 was already out. Also, having been on the fringes of a lot of subcultures in my life, I have become adept at keeping away from the stuff that stresses me out. So I’ve never hung out at SimSecret. I block tags on tumblr. I avoid anything smacking of edition wars, don’t allow anonymous communication, and back out of controversies as fast as I can - with an apology if necessary, because face it, everybody’s a jerk on the internet sometimes, and the most you can hope for is to not be one any more often than you can help.”

“So I have no idea how the Sims community as a whole is going on, and I only have a limited knowledge of the portion of the Sims 2 fandom that hangs around specifically at MTS and attracts my attention on Tumblr (often by tagging Widespot). Within this limited sphere, I have noticed a few changes. I used to see it assumed as common consensus that all Maxis premades were “ugly” and that “ugly” is a bad thing; moreover, that certain sims - Goopy Gilscarbo and Sandy Bruty in particular - are more “ugly” than most and are to be avoided at all costs. Now people are shipping Goopy and Sandy (that’s largely @holleyberry’s doing, I believe) and embracing the cartooniness of sims with enthusiasm.”

“On older websites I often see “realistic” (i.e., modeled on airbrushed photos in fashion magazines) sims that, as far as I can tell, are identical to each other and to the ones on the other old websites they link to. With current websites, however, I can not only tell the sims from each other, I can tell Person A’s versions of the premades from Person B’s at a glance. This is especially marked on tumblr, where I often know who originally posted the pics I’m looking at regardless of the attached avatar.”

“And there has been such a flowering of creativity in so many directions in the last eight years it’s overwhelming, though I don’t know how that compares to the days before I started participating. I like to think of Widespot as the vanguard of a Golden Age of hood-sharing. Nobody moans about the lack of clean fan made neighborhoods anymore; they’re agonizing over whether to play Europa or Widespot or Emerald Heights or Polgannon. And suddenly people are making new face sliders. Neighborhood deco lights up at night now. There’s mods for parking on the street, taking toddlers and pets on vacation, hunting, foraging, beekeeping, on and on and on.”

“I think the main difference between now and eight years ago is, that people were defensive about still playing Sims 2, and a general air of playing a “dying game” hung over us all. Now we are joyous and defiant and declaring that Our Game is the Best and Will Never Die.”

“Or maybe that’s just the people I self-select to see. How would I know?”

As a writer by trade, did you find many similarities between creating Widespot and writing a novel?

“My experience has always been that there’s an underlying unity among all kinds of creation, and in particular that storytelling is storytelling, whether it’s the language of text, sound, line and color, or whatever. My writing habits and skills translated seamlessly into the medium of the game. The chief difference, once you factor out technical matters, is that in most forms of storytelling, you need to provide a discrete unit of Story and give the reader the pleasures of closure and narrative structure, pruning out everything that disrupts that weakens the sense of completeness.”

“When making a sims neighborhood, though, you need to be as open-ended as possible, and you need to discern the optimum moment to turn the hood over to the player, while it’s still bristling with plot hooks and unresolved situations. You don’t need, as I did, to deliberately choose the moment at which a bunch of hard choices must be made immediately; but you need to put the player into a situation in which the choices he makes will matter and shape how the neighborhood develops from that point.”

You often play neighborhoods like Pleasantview and Strangetown. Do you prefer playing your own sims or those created by Maxis?

“That’s like asking if I prefer to read Diana Wynne Jones or Megan Whelan Turner. (And if you aren’t familiar with those authors, boy do you have some great reading ahead of you!) The answer is “both.” I enjoy playing characters I’m engaged with, regardless of who made them. Sometimes I wonder what’s going on with Vidcund and want to play Strangetown; sometimes I want to reconnect with the sims in Drama Acres, my personal custom neighborhood; sometimes I want to play with some of my own plot hooks from Widespot. It’s all good.”

If you had to pick between Widespot and Land Grant University, which would you choose?

“I’d attach LGU to Widespot and play them both. I don’t do either/or choices.”

(She just defeated the Kobayashi Maru.)

Do you intend on creating more neighborhoods?

“I actually have three on hand right now: a downtown called Bigg City (an empty version of which is available on SFS  http://simfileshare.net/download/207580/ ); a Seasons/Pets neighborhood I call Knotthole County; and an AL neighborhood called Port Cochere. The populated Bigg City got real complicated, real fast and when Health Crap is in a certain state I can’t work on it. Knotthole County is almost completely built but got interrupted while I was designing the characters; and Port Cochere is an SC4 map and a bunch of illegible notes. And at the moment I can’t work on any of them because I need two disk drives in order to use AGS, and one of them has gone wonky. However, I should be able to replace that soon, and then - well, maybe I’ll finally get that last week of work done on Bigg City. Or maybe I’ll decide (again) that if I’m organized enough to work on that, I should seize the moment and get queries out instead.”

Your content is themed around The Sims 2; have you played other titles in the series?, If so, which installment in The Sims is your favorite to play? For storytelling? For building? For creating sims?

“I’m a late adopter by nature. I started with the original The Sims and played it till I felt I didn’t have anything more to discover in it, at which time I started looking into the Sims 2, assuming that I’d eventually plumb its depths, too, and move on to Sims 3 about the time Sims 4 came along. Then I discovered that Sims 2’s depths are unplumbable, and that it was the perfect vehicle for that all-community storytelling I’d always longed to do.”

“The more I learn about the later iterations, the more certain I am that I will never play them. I’m sure they’re fun in their own ways, and I certainly don’t look down on anyone who chooses to play them; but I don’t like the way they look, I don’t like the lack of a storytelling tool, and most of all, the mechanics and structure of the game don’t enable my style of neighborhood play. The Sims series consists of four distinct games with four distinct sets of strengths and weaknesses; and the first two are the only ones I feel any call to play.”

Lastly, why do you still continue to play The Sims? Do you feel that the games provide a positive creative outlet?

“It still gives me pleasure. And I still have Health Crap and need projects, and have a computer that will play it. The Sims 2 is as much a part of my life as reading and playing tabletop RPGs and board games with my friends. So why would I stop?”

“The game is a positive creative outlet - it has nothing to do with my feelings on the subject. One of the most rewarding things about having made Widespot and LGU is seeing people use them as springboards for developing and experimenting with their own creative capacities. Also, a lot of simmers are deliberately using the game to control or relieve some condition or other. Depression, OCD, chronic pain from which they need distraction - I’m not the only one with Health Crap, and I am honored whenever anyone uses something I made to  deal with theirs.”

“They could have done these things without me, of course - but they didn’t. They used something I made for their own benefit, and I can feel good about that.”

Any parting comments, teasers, spoilers, public service announcements, etc.?

“One of the core concepts by which I live my life is that creativity is the quality that defines humanity best, and that it is the birthright of every single one of us. But we’ve been educated to think that it’s something special and separate, accessible only to certain special “talented” people; and brainwashed to think that personal creativity that can’t be monetized is a trivial use of time. On the contrary, creativity is to a large extent what time is for. Whether it’s a book, or a game, or a prom dress, the process of making is fulfilling and enriching, and sharing what we make is nourishing to us and to those we share with. So whatever your medium is, whatever resources are available to you, whatever ideas are quickening in your brain and hands - go for it.”

“It is not a silly waste of time.”

To those of you who haven’t played Widespot, go check it out; you won’t regret it. Thanks again to Peni Griffin for allowing me to pick her brain, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. I certainly found a new favorite word in “pantser.”

If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions, feel free to visit my ask box. If you are interested, give Plumbob Post a follow, and reblog for anyone else who you think would enjoy this blog. Stay tuned for upcoming posts!

Dag dag!

88.9 Hey Radio, Gandhi's Gun, and Me

When Bill sent me the song "Through It All" by Gandhi's Gun, the first thing that I thought of was "Through It All" by Spoken. I thought it was a bad sign because I would just be comparing it to a completely different song that I didn't think it would be able to stand up against, since I like Spoken. But, I was wrong. Luckily they are different enough that I won't compare the two, and I would say Gandhi's Gun is just as good.

There are two versions of this song that Gandhi's Gun has out: the original and the acoustic versions. I like the acoustic version myself. But, we'll get to that in a minute. Gandhi's Gun has the normal story about a band, and I will put that here, but the song "Through It All" has a more interesting story. Both of these came from their website: http://gandhisgun.com/

- - - - - - -

With positive messaging and an aggressive edge, Gandhi’s Gun combines the best elements of rock from days past with the most modern textures of synths and electronic dance music. Fronted by two perfectly matched male and female voices, the San Antonio based group steps ahead of their time while remaining comfortably familiar. The most recent incarnation of the group formed in late 2015, has two full-length albums, has released their 2017 EP titled “The Changes We Face," and two new singles titled "Through It All" & "We Are The Stars."

- - - - - - -

And the story of "Through It All".

- - - - - - -

Before we set out for tour in July of 2018, we wrote, self produced, and recorded "Through It All" but, we didn't feel that the timing was right to release the song. On our way back home from that particular tour, we were in a severe collision outside of Arizona in our 13,000lb motorhome, almost killing our entire band. It was a very close call, and we are very fortunate to be able to continue touring. In the aftermath of the collision, this song became very special to us. We know that many people go through difficult situations in life, often. Originally, this song was to provide hope for others who were experiencing a tough time in hopes that they knew they weren't alone. Now, this song also provides hope for us.

- - - - - - -

Here is the Youtube acoustic version of "Through It All": https://youtu.be/AE5SzDXzCuI

The band was nice enough to send me the lyrics. Here they are, then I'll dive into them.

- - - - - - -

I know you’re with me through it all

This time I’m

I’m desperate Your end Is all I’m left with

So consume me

Breathe through me

Close my eyes till You’re all I can see

I’m on my hands and my knees

Crying out for relief

I need a miracle

Supernatural

To come and rescue me from my enemies

Don’t let me forget

When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me

I know you’re with me through it all

So control me

Console me

Come be my one and only

Overtake me

Come and break me

Mold me into what you made me to be

I’m on my hands and my knees

Crying out for relief

I need a miracle

Right now

When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me

When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me

Through it all

I know you’re with me through it all

- - - - - - -

"I know you’re with me through it all"

The most obvious question from this first line is, who are they talking to? I assume that it is either a person or God, or both. Either way, it's a significant other. Humans are not designed to be alone, we can't handle it. That's why Tom Hanks in the movie Castaway makes the volleyball into his friend Wilson, he needed someone. It's why people in solitary confinement for long periods of time will become friends with spiders. Loneliness is one of the worst things that humans can experience. We need people. That's why ancient societies would exile people for punishments. (The term significant other was coined by the psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan. It's important through this whole song (and life).)

"This time I’m

I’m desperate Your end Is all I’m left with

So consume me

Breathe through me

Close my eyes till You’re all I can see"

Desperate people seek transformation. This transformation can come about from different things, but one of the most powerful ways is by interaction with a charismatic personality. That's what charisma is actually about, it's about transformation and reorienting yourself in the world. Len Oakes in his book "Prophetic Charisma" talks about how this works. But, this stanza describes it pretty well in itself. The follower gets the advantage of being transformed, hopefully in a positive way. The leader gets the advantage of having a follower that is acting basically out of blind faith towards an end chosen by the leader.

That last line is a bit different though. This is about what we are aware of and what we aren't aware of. Everything that you're aware of is your phenomenal field. Some of those things are more prominent, those are called figures. Some things are in the background, those are called ground. Your phenomenal field determines all of your behavior. Personality transformation requires a change in the phenomenal field. By making one thing such a prominent figure and pushing everything else into the ground a person can completely change, essentially becoming a different person. Closing your eyes symbolizes this shutting out of the rest of the world so that one figure can come to dominate the phenomenal field. ("Individual Behavior" by Combs and Snygg is a great book on the phenomenal field.)

"I’m on my hands and my knees

Crying out for relief

I need a miracle

Supernatural

To come and rescue me from my enemies

Don’t let me forget"

Being on your hands and knees can represent three things that I can think of: 1) being exhausted and possibly beaten. 2) submissiveness, subservience, worship, surrender. 3) being a child that hasn't learned how to stand on its own yet. In this stanza it seems like it might represent all three of these at the same time, but the first one is the most obvious because the person is crying out for relief. You can see how all of these work right with what we've started to explore about significant others and charismatic individuals. A desperate person is attracted to a charismatic individual in a state of surrender so that they can learn to transform themselves, so they can learn to stand on their own in a new way as a new person.

Supernatural miracles are interesting. Supernatural essentially means something that we can't explain as part of nature, thus it is beyond nature, or super-natural. Miracles are essentially a knowledge gap. Something happened and we don't know how, it's a miracle. Miracles are the good things that are unexplained. And, if we're talking about personality transformation here, which it seems like we are, then it is a miracle because no one understands it fully.

I could say some things about those last two lines, but honestly I'm not fully connecting them. That last line especially, I'm not really sure what that's about. Being rescued from enemies makes some sense. It makes a lot more sense if those enemies are within, and we need to be rescued from something like our resentment or doubt, for instance. Also, once we transform it's easy to forget the period before the transformation because it slides out of figure and into ground in the phenomenal field. Maybe it's something like that.

"When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me

I know you’re with me through it all"

We all feel like giving up at times, or at least I have many times. That can often feel like something is breaking inside. What, what is breaking? There are a number of ways to come at this and I'm going to propose this, it's the breaking of the personality itself. In a stressful situation where we are both overwhelmed and confused part of the self can become dissociated. We're not sure which way to view the world, we're not sure what's important and what's not important, so instead of having one solid phenomenal field we have different possible phenomenal fields that we try to hold at one time. I've never heard anyone else propose this, so it's my own formulation. Essentially we get separate versions of personalities. Sometimes these will show up in dreams and other revery states. If we can reintegrate these parts then we become more unified and whole again. We probably need someone else to help us through that process because it's so difficult. You need someone that is strong while you are weak.

There are a few more things here, but I'm going to move past them because that last paragraph was already a lot of challenging information for one stanza.

"So control me

Console me

Come be my one and only

Overtake me

Come and break me

Mold me into what you made me to be"

This is a great description of the experience of being a follower of a charismatic individual. The last two lines are extremely interesting. The person is seeking to be broken. To transform the personality in a radical way then maybe it's necessary to challenge beliefs and perspectives to the point where the person is confused, and to do this under some pressure. That pressure can be internal, maybe it can only come from an internal place to be effective. Then, in this state, the person has made themselves malleable, and hopefully they've placed themselves in an environment that will help them be molded into the kind of person they desire to be.

The last line in this stanza brings us back to the idea of the significant other. Humans need approval to survive. We can't survive alone, especially when we're young, and if we don't have approval then we will be alone. Social approval from significant others is necessary for life, that's why approval and disapproval are so powerful. Sullivan even proposes that most of the personality is formed from what is approved and disapproved by significant others. They literally mold and form the personality. And, this is as it should be. The psychologist Lev Vygotsky invented the idea of the zone of proximal development. It's what is beyond our ability to learn on our own, but we can learn it with the help of a more knowing other, and that's the only way we can learn so much and so quickly. Learning to be in the world requires this molding of the self from significant and more knowing others. (I could also take that last line of the stanza in a completely different direction theologically, but I won't for now.)

"I’m on my hands and my knees

Crying out for relief

I need a miracle

Right now"

We have covered most of this. Notice that crying out is a social process. If it wasn't social then crying out would be completely pointless. The last line adds some feeling of urgency, which only makes sense when a desperate person that has been overwhelmed by a confusing world has broken pieces of their personality vying to dominate their phenomenal field. They know they need some big, good thing to happen, and to happen fast (a miracle).

"When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me"

Having nothing to give can refer to two things: 1) being so exhausted that you have no energy to do anything, this can be physical and/or emotional, essentially it's having nothing left to confront life with. 2) having nothing to give someone else. So, you need someone else and you need them to be generous.

I think the line about "This is my song to keep holding on" is great. It's one of those things that I could talk about, but I don't think I'm quite up to really pulling apart how powerful it is. Essentially, it is a line that is beyond my ability to add anything of worth to at the moment.

When I first heard perfection referred to in the song I was just a tiny bit confused. Perfection isn't achievable, we're told. But, that isn't really true. If we have an expectation about something, let's say it's about our own actions in the future. And then, we meet those expectations, we were perfect. And, I think most people have had that experience at some point, when everything seems to be just as it should be, that's the experience of perfection. Then, inevitably, we fall away from that impermanent state.

"When I feel like givin’ in

Got nothing to give

I’m breaking within

In my weakness you are strong

This is my song to keep holding on

I know you’re with me through it all

When I’m right when I’m wrong when I’m perfect when I fall

I know you’re with me

Through it all"

This need for the possibility of transformation and orientation through an interaction with a generalized, significant, and more knowing other is why the concept of God is so important and powerful, why it always has existed, and why it always will exist.

"I know you’re with me through it all"

I like that the song ends with the same line that it began with. In public speaking we call this bracketing, or at least I do. It seems to wrap the ideas contained within into a unit, into a package, a single piece that we can hold in our minds.

Overall, I think it's a great song. And I love the fact that Gandhi's Gun wrote it to help other people and it ended up helping them in their own time of need. Serendipity at its finest.

________________________________________________

You can find more of what I'm doing at http://www.JeffreyAlexanderMartin.com

five Approaches to Crack By means of Body weight Decline Plateaus

najlepšie tabletky na chudnutie Have you strike a fat decline plateau? It is time to understand why, and what you can do about it. Fat was pretty much slipping off your body just a number of months in the past, and now you might be wanting to know if your scale is broken mainly because no make any difference what you do, your fat is not going to budge. What presents? Why did your regime suddenly cease working, and what can you do to thrust through this bodyweight reduction plateau? Comprehension Bodyweight Decline Vs. Unwanted fat Decline "Excess weight reduction" is a tricky little devil simply because it doesn't differentiate between alterations in excess fat, muscle, and h2o. The goal, of study course, is to eliminate optimum unwanted fat and minimum muscle mass, and to preserve h2o retention at a healthier minimal. When you phase on the scale and register a pound lighter than the working day or 7 days ahead of, you possibly presume that you've got lost a pound of extra fat if you weigh the identical or much more, you in all probability think that you've got missing no extra fat, or acquired. Unfortunately, it can be not that uncomplicated. Practically nothing swings weight up or down as effortlessly as h2o retention, for illustration. If you try to eat a ton of sodium and carbs, and drink little drinking water, you will retain quite a little bit of water, giving you that puffy, easy search. This can effortlessly add 3-five lbs in a working day, which can be quite disturbing if you occur to hit the scale in this point out. On the flip facet, you take in tiny sodium and carbs and drink lots of drinking water, your entire body will flush h2o out, providing you a more durable, additional defined look, which may guide you to feel that it was a good day of fat loss. The unpredictability of water retention is just one cause why I only weigh myself the moment per week, on the same day, in the morning, naked. Weighing by yourself many instances per 7 days, or worse, for every day, will swiftly kill your self confidence and mess with your head. I also recommend that you opt for a "weigh day" that isn't going to contain a cheat food, as this can usually incorporate a pound or two of drinking water that will appear out by the stop of the adhering to day (my experience, at least). What is a Accurate Weight Decline Plateau? A real weight loss plateau is a situation wherever you are no for a longer time losing unwanted fat. I contemplate that I have strike a plateau if my weight has not adjusted in two weeks. As I am only going for one pound of genuine fat loss for each 7 days, no transform on the scale after a single 7 days of dieting just isn't always a purpose for issue-I could've shed that pound of excess fat but happen to be retaining a bit of h2o, or probably my bowel actions weren't as normal in the prior working day or two. No change in fat soon after two weeks of dieting tells me that I am surely trapped. Some Excess fat-Decline Facts to Hold in Intellect

Prior to I protect how to split these plateaus, I want you to know a several things about losing fat. one. Fat Loss Plateaus Are to Be Envisioned Just about every person encounters weight loss plateaus. If you have no concept what I'm chatting about and are equipped to achieve solitary-digit physique body fat percentages with comprehensive simplicity, rely on your own fortunate. It's very prevalent for people to strike various plateaus on their journeys to a six pack because, properly, the human physique is just stubborn when it arrives to shedding fat. I've found that I can't get beneath nine-10% human body unwanted fat on diet plan on your own (you can only minimize your calories so considerably, or you commence to take in up muscle mass)-I have to incorporate in cardio if I want to keep on dropping. When I bulk, I commonly end off about 14-15% physique excess fat, and I can diet off the initially five% or so, but then I strike a plateau that only 3-4 days per week of cardio can treatment (20-twenty five minutes for every session). Then, the next plateau for me will come close to 8%. If I want to go reduce, I have to up my cardio to 4 days for every 7 days, for thirty-forty minutes for each session. Everyone I've skilled and in any other case aided has knowledgeable the same phenomenon, but the thresholds change. I've recognized a several uncommon persons that can diet regime decrease than 10% without having adding cardio, but most folks are unable to split double-digit human body body fat percentages without having a very strict diet plan and typical cardio schedule. two. The A lot more You Lose, the Tougher It Will get The leaner you develop into, the for a longer time it can take to get rid of fat healthily (the key, as you want to protect as a lot muscle mass and power as possible while shedding fat). If you happen to be at 25% human body body fat, it is very achievable to lose two-three pounds of excess fat for every 7 days for the 1st many months. If you're at 10% human body body fat and are building a operate for solitary digits, nonetheless, two-three lbs of excess fat per 7 days would be impossible with no risky medicine. For me, when I get underneath 12% or so, I am very happy to see just a single pound of body fat decline per 7 days, and I have to get the job done for it. three. Your Body Has a "Ease and comfort Zone" Although it may possibly seem a little bit broscientific, it is the very best way I can explain a phenomenon knowledgeable by me and thousands and thousands of other athletes around the planet. The overall body looks to have a body weight (and, appropriately, a body excess fat share) that it is most relaxed at. Your natural hunger tends to retain this body weight and if you consume significantly less than this, you come to feel hungry. If you try to eat additional than this, you really feel fairly entire. For some, this "consolation zone" is somewhat body fat, although other folks settle into a excess weight that is really lean. For me, for case in point, I find that my body is most comfy close to 11% body extra fat (which would at present put me at about 200 lbs). I will not have to view my energy also closely and I can cheat several times for each 7 days, and I am going to just remain close to eleven%. Now, keeping a body weight underneath this comfort and ease zone calls for constant function in the kind of restricting energy and carrying out cardio. Finding fatter than this requires regular overeating, and if this carries on for way too very long, the comfort and ease zone creeps better and greater. 5 Ways to Break Your Body weight Loss Plateaus Alright, now that you know the distinction involving excess weight decline plateaus and excess fat reduction plateaus, right here are three surefire ways to stoke your body's furnace once again to preserve the unwanted fat coming off.

Fic request: pre-relarionship; f!hawke & anders have to pretend to be a couple for some sort of undercover mission; UST, shenanigans & teasing from the gang ensue 👀

A Delicate Balance

Fandom: Dragon Age II

Pairing: Fhanders

Rating: PG-13 (Some swearing, implications of sex)

NOTES: Okay, so sexy bits just aren’t working for me right now. If you want a completed love scene, I’ll gladly write one when the characters are behaving themselves. Also, I used my custom Hawke. I hope that’s okay.

It was a lovely party, Anders observedas he stood with a flute of something pale-yellow and bubbly,chatting about current events with people he didn't believe he knew.The masks made it hard to tell. Claudia Hawke was on his hip, hergloved fingers wrapped gently around his forearm, playing the part ofhis demure wife. It was the role they were forced to take in order tomaneuver the ballroom undetected. Claudia's name carried weight thesedays, and she would be of no use as a spy if she was constantly beingbombarded by the other nobles with marriage proposals, or whereverelse they wanted from her.

She looked lovely that evening, drapedin silks, with jewels and gold hanging from her collar bone andknuckles. A picture of high society wealth and beauty. The mask shewore obscured her face, but he could still catch glimpses of therouge on her cheeks and her painted red lips. He could have admiredher all night. Not just the way she looked—and she lookedbeautiful—but how she navigated the nobles with an air of gracethat she lacked when wearing her blood-stained leathers. Later, hewas sure they would all hear about how difficult it was to keep upthe facade while bound in a corset like a stuffed sausage and whilewearing heels on top of that.

But for now, she was the picture of anoblewoman.

And it was increasingly difficult topay attention to conversation as a result.

Claudia squeezed his forearmdiscreetly, her signal to let him know that she needed to speak withhim privately. That he neededto direct them out of the conversation and into somewhere where theycould discuss whatever it was that she had on her mind. Andersscanned the floor quickly. Most of the exits from the room weremanned by guards. One of them was Aveline, disguised in their armorin order for her to play the field and gather any useful information.He was unaware which one was her, however, and was unwilling togamble on it. The dance floor was hardly occupied, he observed in astroke of luck. They could mask their conversation with dancing.

Anders discretelymotioned towards the dance floor while their conversation partnersweren't paying attention. He received a solitary nod in response.

“This has been afascinating conversation,” Started Anders; he took the moment toplace his glass onto a nearby table, “but I promised my wife adance, and I believe it is time that I make good on it.”

The men they hadbeen speaking with murmured in understanding, giving Anders anopportunity to lead Claudia to the dance floor by pressing his handinto the small of her back and guiding her there.

Anders had someexperience with dancing. When he was with the Wardens, his commanderwas insistent upon all of them learning a couple of waltzes, or otherformal dances, in the event that they were invited to parties such asthe one he was currently attending. For once, it would actually payoff.

Claudia, however,tensed.

“I don't know howto dance.” She whispered hastily to him as the dance floor drewnearer with each step they took. He could see her eyes growing widefrom the eye holes in her mask. She was nervous.

“It will be fine,just follow my lead.” He reassured, mimicking her tone. “Theworst thing that can happen is you step on my toes and make a fool ofyourself in a room full of people you'll never see again.”

“I alreadyoccasionally step on your toes during battle and make a fool ofmyself in front on strangers.”

“Then you havenothing to worry about.”

There was a pausefor contemplation. “Good point.”

Anders turned heraround, so that she was facing him, and he replaced his hand onto thesmallest part of her back. Her body was pressed into his enough towhere her warmth spread over him and he could smell the perfume andhair tonics she wore specifically for that night. It was pleasant andinviting. They joined hands, which caused Anders to notice how smallhers were in comparison.

The music startedup. Luckily, something with a nice change and easy to dance to.Claudia followed along, though with wooden movements and a lack ofself assurance.

“I think theComte hosting this party is planning on attempting a coup on ViscountDumar.” Claudia said, though her speech was muffled from herkeeping her eyes downcast and on her feet.

“A coup?” Heasked, leading her into a turn. “Where did you hear this?”

They had been ateach others side all night; it would have been difficult for her tohear something that he had not.

“One of theservants.” Her eyes flickered up towards him, where their gazes metmomentarily. He felt his face grow hot from the eye contact, thoughfelt fortunate that she couldn't see it due to the mask he wore.

She looked backdown at her feet. “While you were talking to those men earlier, Iwas eavesdropping on a conversation. Some of the servants are passingmessages between the guests planning the coup. From the sounds of it,they're intending the attack sometime next week.”

“We should tellthe others, then. To stop it before it begins.”

“Agreed.”Another pause. “Can we finish dancing first?”

Anders saidnothing, but continued leading her through the dance. Claudia waspicking it up quickly, though was still rather awkward with some ofthe transitions and steps. It was cute, how self-conscious she wasbeing and how she'd occasionally glance up at him to gauge whethershe was doing a good job.  And if their eyes met in one of thoseinstances, she was always quick to pulling her attentionelsewhere—usually back to her feet.

When the musicslowed, and then transitioned into something easier to talk over, hewas left standing there a moment, arm still wrapped around her waist.Claudia was staring up at him, reddened lips slightly parted. Like aninvitation for a kiss. For a split second, he imagined himself takingthat offer, tasting her in a manner that he had fantasized about forthree long years, there, in a room full of strangers.

For a split second,he fooled himself into believing she was engaged in a similar fantasyabout him. But, he knew that a woman like Claudia Hawke would neverwant a man like him. Not when every other man trying to passflirtations to her while playing it off as pleasant banter waswealthier than him, better looking than him, and could give her somesemblance of a normal life.

In a room full ofbeautiful people, Anders acknowledged that he never stood a chance.

Not when he waspossessed and had no promises of a future to offer her.

He broke away fromher hastily, quick enough where he would have forfeited his characterif Claudia wasn't quick to taking his hand tenderly in order to keepup the image of a happy married couple. Even through the gloves, herhand was warm and familiar. She came in at once, going so far as tostand on her tip toes so that she may whisper in his ear.

“I'll go speakwith Isabela, Fenris, and Merrill. You go see Varric and Aveline.Tell them to meet us on the balcony overlooking the gardens.”

Anders nodded whenthey departed, and went to find Varric; it shouldn't have been hard,given he wore no disguise and was usually the center of attention atgatherings.

***

Isabela wasn'tterribly difficult for Claudia to spot. She was near one of therefreshment tables, sipping on spirits while eager suitors tried tocoerce her into a dance or a stroll through the gardens. Isabeladeflected them all, either by paying more attention to either Merrillor Fenris—whomever was nearer at the time—or ignoring themcompletely. She was on her very best behavior, though Claudiawouldn't have faulted the woman if she chose to brawl with them; shecould only imagine what it must have felt like to have people piningfor you constantly due to your “exotic” look.

One such suitor wastrying his had and being the one to convince Isabela to go off withhim when she spotted Claudia. She quickly shoved her drink in hishands and announced rather loudly that she was going to speak with afriend and did not desire to be followed. This, naturally, led toMerrill and Fenris following.

“How is it goingso far?” Asked Isabela, wasting no time.

“I can't breathe,my feet hurt, and I'm tired of smiling and being nice to nobles.”

“Youare a noble.” Fenrisreminded her.

“Yes, well...Ilike to think I am a more palatable sort. Less turning my nose up.”

Isabela chuckled.“You'll get used to it one day. The corset, I mean. I don't thinkyou can ever become used to nobles.”

“Did you havesomething you wanted to tell us?” Fenris got straight to the point.Claudia respected that about him.

“Yes. I overheardsome things earlier that I need to share. Not here, though. We're allgoing to meet on the balcony overlooking the gardens so I can briefyou all. Anders is already telling Aveline and Varric to meet usthere.”

“Speaking ofAnders,” Began Isabela while she gestured towards the other end ofthe ballroom, “look.”

Claudiadiscreetly turned her head to look in the direction Isabelasuggested. Anders was speaking with Varric. But, he wasn't looking atVarric. He was looking at Claudia. Her heart skipped a beat at thesight. Still, she knew better than to think he was watching herspecifically. He probably just wanted to make sure that she found theothers without any trouble.

“So?” SpatClaudia defensively. “I bet he just wanted to make sure I found thethree of you.”

“Mmhmm.” PurredIsabela softly, clearly not believing a word of what Claudia said.Neither Merrill nor Fenris seemed convinced, either. Claudiadiminished among them. “The both of you have been taking this whole'married couple' act pretty seriously. Holding one another close,gazing lovingly into each others eyes, subtle touches and secretglances you hope no one else notices. Don't play coy, Claudia.”

“Be nice,Isabela.” Chided Merrill sweetly. The jade and turquoise tones ofher dress were doing wonders for her, Claudia observed. “They lookso happy together.”

“Thanks,Merrill.” Grumbled Claudia, knowing that she didn't earn any pointsin her favor with what was said. Still, she wondered if it had reallybeen that obvious. Sure, she had been stealing glances at himwhen she thought he wasn't looking. Anders was always the picture ofa fine man, even in his raggedy coat and elbows-deep in refugees inneed of healing. But tonight, he looked like the prince in the fairystories her mother would tell her and her siblings before bed. And,his sandalwood and elfroot smell had a way of intoxicating herthoughts and making it hard to concentrate on anything outside ofhim.

She liked him in a'more than friends' sort of way, that much was true regardless of hismanner of dress or his cologne. However, spirits were flowing and herinhibitions were lowered; little heed was paid in making it less thanglaringly obvious.  

“Oh, please.”Spat Isabela. Her amused smirk betrayed the ferocity in her tone.“All of Kirkwall knows that you want to sleep with each other. Itmakes me sexually frustrated just thinking of it. You shouldinvite him in for a drink tonight and get it over with.”

“Okay, enough.”Argued Claudia. Her face was surely growing red under the mask fromembarrassment. “Let's just get to the balcony and meet with theothers so that we can figure out how to proceed.”

***

When Anders arrivedto the balcony, everyone else was waiting. There was some chatterbelow, from the gardens where guests were sneaking away to stealprivate moments with one another. Other than that, only Isabelaspoke, feathering flirtations between both Merrill and Fenris.Aveline stood by the door, looking staunch and proud and stillcompletely armored. He almost didn't believe it was her, if not forthe scolding she gave to Claudia when she expressed envy in one ofthe guest's hair pins down in the garden and the subsequent curiosityabout whether or not she could steal it off of her person without thewoman noticing. Varric narrated the exchange, much to both women'sdismay.

His presence withthem caught Claudia's attention more than a shiny bauble she coveted,which caused her to clear her throat and peel her attention from whatwas happening below. She pressed her hands together in preparation.

“I believe someof the guests at this party are planning to overthrow ViscountDumar.” Her tone of voice was hushed, barely loud enough for thosepresent to hear her. “Some of the guests were relaying informationto the servants for them to pass to other guests. I didn't hear anynames, though.”

“I heard some ofthe servants chattering among themselves about this as well.”Admitted Aveline. Her armor clanked as she adjusted which footcarried her weight. “I could look into it in the morning. I haveaccess to public records, which would allow me to see who hasbusiness with one another. It would give us a chance to narrow downour suspect list.”

Claudia rested herback against the banister. “I'll need you to work quick; if what Iheard is reliable, we only have about a week before they plan toact.”

“I could call onsome of my contacts.” Varric's suggestion came with a flourish ofhis wrist. “One of them might know something about this coup.”

“Great. I'll meetwith you sometime in the afternoon or evening tomorrow, then. I'llstop by the barracks tomorrow and help as much as I can. If I'm luckyand get to the bottom of this, perhaps the Viscount will commission astatue of me.”

“Again with thestatue?” Groaned Aveline. “Give it a rest, Hawke.

“Ideally, I'dlike it placed opposite of the Gallows, and making an obscenegesture. You know, so everyone in Kirkwall is reminded that theTemplars can kiss my ass.”

Anders couldn'thelp the smirk that crossed his lips at her babbling.

“I take it we'redone, then.” Fenris didn't sound much like he was asking. Butrather, demanding that they finish soon. Anders bristled, but saidnothing; he wasn't about to be the one to start a fight.

“We can probablycall it a night. Of course, if you'd rather stay and rub elbows withthe nobles, who am I to—“

“—No, that'snot necessary.”

“I thought so.”Said Claudia with a snort. “Well, it's been a...an evening, but Iwant to get out of this blighted dress. I'll see some of youtomorrow.”

There was amurmuring of 'good nights' as Claudia headed back towards the ballroom. Everyone else was readying to leave as well; the others, saveVarric, all headed out after her. It was then that Ander caught hislook, accented with a wicked grin on his face and a troubling twinklein his eye.

“So, Blondie,when were you planning on telling me about you and Hawke?” Herested against a pillar, grin nearly doubling in size. Anders'stomach churned uncomfortably; he knew where this line of questioningwas going.

Anders walked overto the banister and rested his forearms on it. It was a lovely night,one where you could see every star twinkling in the sky. The sort ofnight he fantasized about seeing when he was little more than a boytrapped in a tower.

“What about her?”He feigned ignorance, hoping Varric would drop the subject if he did.

“You know exactlywhat I mean.” Varric peeled himself from the pillar and joinedAnders at the banister. “She's hanging off your arm all night,looking at you like you were the only two people left in Thedas.”

Anders' ears glowedred at the prospect, but he shrugged it off as best he could. Hedidn't need to remind himself that he was bad for Claudia, and thatshe could easily find a better lover. Not when Justice was eager todo the honors.

“Claudia doesn'twant me.” He said aloud, though mostly for himself. “Why wouldshe?”

Varric groaned.“You're killing me, Blondie! Just go...offer to walk her home, orsomething. I don't know...just stop this whole 'I'm no good' pityparty and actually do something to convince her that you areworth her time.”

“But, what aboutJustice, or the fact that I'm an apostate with nothing to offer her?”

A snort. “I'd saythose things turn her on, with how she was looking at you all night. And always.Just...just go offer to walk her home. She probably didn't get toofar in those shoes.”

Anders begrudginglyfollowed after Claudia, who, as Varric predicted, had not made it toofar. She seemed surprised to see him, to say the least, but acceptedhim taking a place at her hip with no argument against it.

They walked out ofthe building together, not a word exchanged between them, but hisintent was clear enough, given her lack of questioning. Anders didn'tknow what to say. Neither did Claudia, for that matter. He wasn'tsure if he wanted her to say much of anything. If she did, he fearedit would be an affirmation that they were, and only ever would be,friends.

Still, he couldn'thelp the stolen glances, or the way his breath hitched and heart spedup whenever she looked his way.

She removed hermask when they were within sight of her home. Bits of her red hairspilled out from the updo in the process. Anders followed suit,relishing in the sensation of the night hair hitting his skin as hedid so.

At her door,Claudia hesitated in saying goodnight and letting herself in. Shelooked somewhere—anywhere but his face—for the answer to thequestion she wouldn't say. Her fingers flexed around the doorknobanxiously.

“Do you want tocome in for a drink?” She asked modestly. It was foreign on hertongue. They both knew this. “You can take the basement entranceout so that you don't have to walk through the whole city, as well.”

Under differentpretenses, Anders would have been sure that she was inviting him infor more than a drink. Men and women alike had offered him similar,and it usually ended with him in their beds. Claudia wasn't likethat, or at least, she didn't think of him like that, he remindedhimself as he struggled to find the right words. Even so, he feltthat he would have been an idiot to not take her offer.

“Sure. Thatsounds nice.”

***

Claudia let themboth in with the key she had stashed in her dress. It was completelysilent within the estate, except for Ser Biscuit's thunderous snoringin the parlor. Everyone else must have been in bed. She led himthrough the vestibule and into the study, though not without placinga finger to her lips in an effort to remind him to be silent, notthat he really needed to be told.

She guided him tothe study, where the liquor was kept. Claudia set her mask down,grabbed two of the glasses from the mantle, and a decanter filledwith an amber-colored liquid. She handed one glass to Anders, beforesetting the other down on the desk so that she may pull the stopperout and pour them both a shot. The decanter was abandoned on the deskwhen she took up her own glass.

They were bothquietly avoiding speech or eye contact, making the situation moreuncomfortable than it had to be. Claudia shifted, hoping beyondanything that she could find the right words to say; being aroundAnders in such an intimate setting always had a way of leaving hertongue-tied.

Anders took a smallsip of the liquor and swirled his glass around uncomfortably. He mether gaze, but not without a sheepish look that pleaded with her tomake this easier than it was currently.

“I...I don'tthink I ever thanked you properly. For everything you do for themages in Kirkwall, I mean. You don't have to stick your neck outthere for us, but you do.”

Claudia's defaultin this situation was simple: empty flirting. Her grip tightenedaround her glass when the words wouldn't come. Couldn't come. Amillion thoughts buzzed around her head, telling her to throw cautionto the wind and just tell him how she felt. But, there was still apart of her that was little more than a scared child, self-consciousabout how he would take it.

So, she smiled in adisingenuous fashion as a way to hide her bleeding heart. “What canI say?” Claudia said with a shrug. The usage of her lilting,sweetest voice and hooded eyes was purely subconscious. “I have athing for scrappy underdogs.”

“Stop.” Andersdemanded bluntly. He took several paces away from her, far enough towhere he was able to place his glass on the mantelpiece. “I'vetried to hold back. You saw what I almost did to that girl. You'veseen what I am. But I'm still a man. You can't tease me like this andexpect me to resist forever.”

Claudia discardedher glass swiftly onto the desk and followed after him. There wasstill some space between them, perhaps only an arms' length. Shedidn't know what she was doing, what was driving her. But, she knewwhat she felt, and that was sweaty palms, her heart beating soferociously and with such strength that she feared her rib cage wouldsnap under the pressure, and the fluttering of the butterflies in herstomach. The same butterflies that were always there whenever he wasnear, when he smiled or laughed. Or when their hands would brush pastone another and she for sure believed that he was grappling for hersto hold.

Or all the timesthey were moments from engaging one another in a kiss and he turnedaway before they could.

“I don't want youto resist.” Claudia protested.

He was facing thewall, staring ahead and not at her. But, something in him changedwhen she said that. His grip on his mask went limp, so limp that henearly dropped it. Anders didn't turn to look at her, but from theway his body seemed to ease, she knew she had his attention.

“Andraste's tits,Anders, I never wanted you to resist.”

There was a momentof hesitation.

Only a moment.

The mask dropped tothe floor, and the sound of Anders' heavy footfalls on the woodflooring as he approached graced Claudia's ears before the sight ofhim swiftly approaching met her eyes. His hands gripped either sideof her face. Firmly, but not with malice. She was driven backwardsuntil she made contact with the wall behind her. Claudia wasn'tfighting it, she was just caught off-guard.

Their lips met inan explosion of unbridled passion. Anders devoured her over andagain, his body molding against hers, as close as two people couldpossibly get with their clothes still on. Claudia balanced on thetips of her toes in order to receive more of his kiss and to feel thethree years of barely-contained desire wash over her. He tastedslightly still of the liquor, but she craved it. Claudia was drunk onit and her head swam with his scent, and his touch, and his taste. Itwas too much and yet not enough in the same breath.

When Anders finallybroke their kiss, he sighed in complete satisfaction just before hebegan stroking her cheek tenderly with the heel of his thumb. Hislips were tinted slightly red with the lipstick she wore, but heneither noticed nor cared, it seemed.

“This is adisaster.” He breathed out, slightly in disbelief. “But I can'tlive without it. We could be dead tomorrow. I can't let that happenwithout telling you how I feel.”

“Come upstairs.”Murmured Claudia softly, her invitation for further intimacy. Theywaited long enough; there was no sense in dancing around their desirefor one another in the bodily sense any more.

“Upstairs?” Heasked. The word sounded foreign in his mouth. “You mean—“

“—Yes. I'mtired of beating around the bush. Join me in my bedroom tonight.”

Anders didn't takehis left hand from her cheek, though his right drifted down to thesmallest part of her waist. Claudia wasn't sure what to expect; thiswas uncharted territory and she had no idea what she was doing.Luckily, Anders seemed just as nervous. His touch was shaky, thoughnot without a hint of electricity that sent her skin tinglingeverywhere he touched her.

“In the Circle,”He began anew, a sadness in his voice, “love was only a game. Itgave the Templars too much power to know there was something theycould take away, something you couldn't live without.”

“I won't let themtake you from me like they took Karl.” She protested, a riskygamble that she wasn't sure would pay off.

“I know.” Itwas barely audible, but potent enough to mean something. “That iswhy this is the rule I will most cherish breaking.”

He kissed her onceagain, more restrained than the first, but still as delicious. Whenthey parted, more of her lipstick had transferred onto him. Again, heseemed not to care in the slightest.

“Let's goupstairs.” Her words barely had force enough to truly be calledwords, but he still understood the point without them. They headedout of the study, and up the stairs swiftly. Claudia glimpsed overher shoulder at him more than once, wearing a coquettish look oflonging each time as she led the way. Anders' response was similar,often a coy smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth, or reaching upthe banister to playfully stroke her knuckles.

This was wanted. Byboth of them.  

5 Techniques to Break By means of Fat Reduction Plateaus

tabletky na chudnutie predaj Have you hit a weight loss plateau? It's time to learn why, and what you can do about it. Extra fat was almost falling off your physique just a handful of weeks ago, and now you are questioning if your scale is damaged because no make a difference what you do, your bodyweight will not likely budge. What presents? Why did your schedule suddenly stop performing, and what can you do to press by this body weight reduction plateau? Comprehension Fat Reduction Vs. Extra fat Reduction "Body weight loss" is a tricky little satan since it isn't going to differentiate amongst adjustments in unwanted fat, muscle mass, and h2o. The aim, of course, is to lose greatest fat and minimum amount muscle mass, and to preserve h2o retention at a healthier minimum. When you move on the scale and sign-up a pound lighter than the day or 7 days just before, you most likely think that you've got dropped a pound of unwanted fat if you weigh the very same or additional, you probably presume that you have lost no fat, or obtained. Unfortunately, it is not that easy. Absolutely nothing swings bodyweight up or down as easily as water retention, for case in point. If you consume a ton of sodium and carbs, and drink very little drinking water, you will retain really a little bit of water, offering you that puffy, smooth seem. This can quickly incorporate three-5 lbs . in a day, which can be fairly disturbing if you come about to hit the scale in this point out. On the flip side, you try to eat tiny sodium and carbs and consume lots of h2o, your physique will flush drinking water out, supplying you a more durable, far more defined glance, which may well guide you to consider that it was a great day of unwanted fat decline. The unpredictability of drinking water retention is 1 purpose why I only weigh myself after for every week, on the same day, in the early morning, naked. Weighing by yourself many occasions per week, or worse, per working day, will quickly destroy your self esteem and mess with your head. I also propose that you choose a "weigh day" that doesn't consist of a cheat food, as this can frequently add a pound or two of h2o that will come out by the end of the pursuing day (my encounter, at the very least). What is a Correct Bodyweight Reduction Plateau? A correct bodyweight reduction plateau is a circumstance exactly where you are no lengthier shedding unwanted fat. I contemplate that I've strike a plateau if my body weight hasn't modified in two months. As I'm only likely for 1 pound of true unwanted fat loss per week, no modify on the scale after one particular week of dieting just isn't essentially a motive for problem-I could've missing that pound of fat but take place to be retaining a little bit of drinking water, or perhaps my bowel movements weren't as normal in the prior working day or two. No modify in body weight after two weeks of dieting tells me that I'm undoubtedly stuck. Some Unwanted fat-Reduction Info to Preserve in Head Prior to I include how to break these plateaus, I want you to know a several things about shedding unwanted fat. 1. Body weight Reduction Plateaus Are to Be Predicted Just about every person ordeals fat decline plateaus. If you have no notion what I'm speaking about and are equipped to attain one-digit human body excess fat percentages with total ease, depend your self fortunate. It really is very widespread for people to strike numerous plateaus on their journeys to a six pack due to the fact, very well, the human overall body is just stubborn when it comes to shedding unwanted fat. I've observed that I can not get beneath nine-ten% physique unwanted fat on diet plan by itself (you can only lessen your energy so substantially, or you begin to eat up muscle)-I have to add in cardio if I want to continue on losing. When I bulk, I usually end off around fourteen-15% entire body unwanted fat, and I can diet regime off the initially five% or so, but then I hit a plateau that only three-4 days for every 7 days of cardio can treatment (20-twenty five minutes per session). Then, the following plateau for me will come close to 8%. If I want to go reduced, I have to up my cardio to 4 times per week, for 30-40 minutes per session. Everyone I've educated and otherwise aided has expert the exact same phenomenon, but the thresholds vary. I have regarded a few uncommon people that can diet regime reduce than 10% without having introducing cardio, but most individuals cannot break double-digit body body fat percentages without having a quite rigorous diet and common cardio routine. two. The Much more You Lose, the More challenging It Receives The leaner you grow to be, the more time it will take to get rid of excess fat healthily (the critical, as you want to protect as a lot muscle mass and toughness as attainable while losing body fat). If you might be at 25% overall body extra fat, it can be extremely feasible to drop two-3 pounds of excess fat for each week for the initially several weeks. If you are at 10% overall body excess fat and are making a operate for solitary digits, nevertheless, 2-3 lbs . of excess fat for every 7 days would be difficult with no dangerous medicine. For me, the moment I get down below twelve% or so, I am quite pleased to see just a single pound of excess fat decline for each week, and I have to get the job done for it. 3. Your Entire body Has a "Ease and comfort Zone" Though it may well sound a bit broscientific, it really is the very best way I can describe a phenomenon knowledgeable by me and millions of other athletes close to the globe. The overall body appears to be to have a fat (and, accordingly, a body unwanted fat percentage) that it is most comfy at. Your organic appetite tends to preserve this fat and if you take in significantly less than this, you sense hungry. If you consume far more than this, you truly feel rather full. For some, this "comfort and ease zone" is relatively unwanted fat, although other people settle into a excess weight that is quite lean. For me, for instance, I uncover that my overall body is most cozy all over 11% human body extra fat (which would at the moment set me at about 200 lbs). I never have to observe my energy too carefully and I can cheat several periods for every 7 days, and I am going to just remain all around 11%. Now, retaining a body weight beneath this comfort and ease zone needs continual operate in the form of limiting calories and doing cardio. Getting fatter than this requires regular overeating, and if this carries on for also very long, the convenience zone creeps larger and larger. five Ways to Break Your Excess weight Decline Plateaus Alright, now that you know the variation amongst bodyweight loss plateaus and excess fat decline plateaus, listed here are 3 surefire methods to stoke your body's furnace all over again to maintain the body fat coming off.

There was a rock a little way away. But there were rocks everywhere, the very bones of the Disc were near he surface here. He looked hard at the yew tree, just in case it had been speaking. But the yew, being a fairly solitary tree, hadn't heard about Rincewind the arborial saviour, and in any case was asleep. 'If that was you, Twoflower, I knew it was you all along,' said Rincewind. His voice sounded suddenly clear and very alone in the gathering dusk. Rincewind remembered the only fact he knew for sure about trolls, which was that they turned to stone when exposed to sunlight, so that anyone who employed trolls to work during daylight had to spend a fortune in barrier cream. But now that he came to think about it, it didn't say anywhere what happened to them after the sun had gone down again . . . The last of the daylight trickled out of the landscape. And there suddenly seemed to be a great many rocks about. 'He's an awful long time with those onions,' said Two-flower. 'Do you think we'd better go and look for him?' 'Wishards know how to look after themshelves,' said Cohen. 'Don't worry.' He winced. Bethan was cutting his toenails. 'He's not a terribly good wizard, actually,' said Twoflower, drawing nearer the fire. 'I wouldn't say this to his face, but' – he leaned towards Cohen – 'I've never actually seen him do any magic.' 'Right, let's have the other one,' said Bethan. 'Thish is very kind of you.' 'You'd have quite nice feet if only you'd look after them.' 'Can't sheem to bend down like I used to,' said Cohen, sheepishly. 'Of courshe, you don't get to meet many chiropodishts in my line of work. Funny, really. I've met any amount of snake prieshts, mad godsh, warlordsh, never any chiropodishts. I shupposhe it wouldn't look right, really – Cohen Against the Chiropodishts . . .' 'Or Cohen And The Chiropractors of Doom,' suggested Bethan. Cohen cackled. 'Or Cohen And The Mad Dentists!' laughed Twoflower. Cohen's mouth snapped shut. 'What'sh sho funny about that?' he asked, and his voice had knuckles in it. 'Oh, er, well,' said Twoflower. Tour teeth, you see . . .' 'What about them?' snapped Cohen. Twoflower swallowed. 'I can't help noticing that they're, um, not in the same geographical location as your mouth.' Cohen glared at him. Then he sagged, and looked very small and old. 'True, of corsh,' he muttered. 'I don't blame you. It'sh hard to be a hero with no teethsh. It don't matter what elsh you loosh, you can get by with one eye even, but you show 'em a mouth full of gumsh and no-one hash any reshpect.' 'I do,' said Bethan loyally. 'Why don't you get some more?'said Twoflower brightly. 'Yesh, well, if I wash a shark or something, yesh, I'd grow shome,' said Cohen sarcastically. 'Oh, no, you buy them,' said Twoflower. 'Look, I'll show you – er, Bethan, do you mind looking the other way?' He waited until she had turned around and then put his hand to his mouth. 'You shee?' he said. Bethan heard Cohen gasp. 'You can take yoursh out?' 'Oh yesh. I've got sheveral shets. Excushe me—' there was a swallowing noise, and then in a more normal voice Twoflower said, 'It's very convenient, of course.' Cohen's very voice radiated awe, or as much awe as is possible without teeth, which is about the same amount as with teeth but sounds a great deal less impressive. 'I should think show,' he said. 'When they ache, you jusht take them out and let them get on with it, yesh? Teach the little buggersh a lesshon, shee how they like being left to ache all by themshelvesh!' That's not quite right,' said Twoflower carefully. They're not mine, they just belong to me.' 'You put shomeone elshe's teethsh in your mouth?' 'No, someone made them, lots of people wear them where I come from, it's a—' But Twoflower's lecture on dental appliances went ungiven, because somebody hit him. The Disc's little moon toiled across the sky. It shone by its own light, owing to the cramped and rather inefficient astronomical arrangements made by the Creator, and was quite crowded with assorted lunar goddesses who were not, at this particular time, paying much attention to what went on in the Disc but were getting up a petition about the Ice Giants. Had they looked down, they would have seen Rincewind talking urgently to a bunch of rocks. Trolls are one of the oldest lifeforms in the multiverse, dating from an early attempt to get the whole life thing on the road without all that squashy protoplasm. Individual trolls live for a long time, hibernating during the summertime and sleeping during the day, since heat affects them and makes them slow. They have a fascinating geology. One could talk about tribology, one could mention the semiconductor effects of impure silicon, one could talk about the giant trolls of prehistory who make up most of the Disc's major mountain ranges and will cause some real problems if they ever awake, but the plain fact is that without the Disc's powerful and pervasive magical field trolls would have died out a long time ago. Psychiatry hadn't been invented on the Disc. No-one had ever shoved an inkblot under Rincewind's nose to see if he had any loose toys in the attic. So the only way he'd have been able to describe the rocks turning back into rolls was by gabbling vaguely about how pictures suddenly form when you look at the fire, or clouds. One minute there'd be a perfectly ordinary rock, and suddenly a few cracks that had been there all along took on the definite appearance of a mouth or a pointed ear. A moment later, and without anything actually changing at all, a troll would be sitting there, grinning at him with a mouth full of diamonds. They wouldn't be able to digest me, he told himself. I'd make them awfully ill. It wasn't much of a comfort. 'So you're Rincewind the wizard,' said the nearest one. It sounded like someone running over gravel. 'I dunno. I thought you'd be taller.' 'Perhaps he's eroded a bit,' said another one. 'The legend is awfully old.' Rincewind shifted awkwardly. He was pretty certain the rock he was sitting on was changing shape, and a tiny troll – hardly any more than a pebble – was sitting companionably on his foot and watching him with extreme interest. 'Legend?' he said. 'What legend?' 'It's been handed down from mountain to gravel since the sunset[3] of time,' said the first troll. ' “When the red star lights the sky Rincewind the wizard will come looking for onions. Do not bite him. It is very important that you help him stay alive.” ' There was a pause. 'That's it?' said Rincewind. 'Yes,' said the troll. 'We've always been puzzled about it. Most of our legends are much more exciting. It was more interesting being a rock in the old days.' 'It was?' said Rincewind weakly. 'Oh yes. No end of fun. Volcanoes all over the place. It really meant something, being a rock then.There was none f this sedimentary nonsense, you were igneous or nothing. Of course, that's all gone now. People call themselves trolls today, well, sometimes they're hardly more than slate. Chalk even. I wouldn't give myself airs if you could use me to draw with, would you?' 'No,' said Rincewind quickly. 'Absolutely not, no. This, er, this legend thing. It said you shouldn't bite me?' 'That's right!' said the little troll on his foot, 'and it was me who told you where the onions were!' 'We're rather glad you came along,' said the first troll, which Rincewind couldn't help noticing was the biggest one there. 'We're a bit worried about this new star. What does it mean?' 'I don't know,' said Rincewind. 'Everyone seems to think I know about it, but I don't —' 'It's not that we would mind being melted down,' said the big troll. That's how we all started, anyway. But we thought, maybe, it might mean the end of everything and that doesn't seem a very good thing.' 'It's getting bigger,' said another troll. 'Look at it now. Bigger than last night.' Rincewind looked. It was definitely bigger than last night. 'So we thought you might have some suggestions?' said the head troll, as meekly as it is possible to sound with a voice like a granite gargle. 'You could jump over the Edge,' said Rincewind. There must be lots of places in the universe that could do with some extra rocks.' 'We've heard about that,' said the troll. 'We've met rocks that tried it. They say you float about for millions of years and then you get very hot and burn away and end up at the bottom of a big hole in the scenery. That doesn't sound very bright.' It stood up with a noise like coal rattling down a chute, and stretched its thick, knobbly arms. 'Well, we're supposed to help you,' it said. 'Anything you want doing?' 'I was supposed to be making some soup,' said Rincewind. He waved the onions vaguely. It was probably not the most heroic or purposeful gesture ever made. 'Soup?' said the troll. 'Is that all?' 'Well, maybe some biscuits too.' The trolls looked at one another, exposing enough mouth jewellery to buy a medium-sized city. Eventually the biggest troll said, 'Soup it is, then.' It shrugged grittily. 'It's just that we imagined that the legend would, well, be a little more – I don't know, somehow I thought – still, I expect it doesn't matter.' It extended a hand like a bunch of fossil bananas. 'I'm Kwartz,' it said. 'That's Krysoprase over there, and Breccia, and Jasper, and my wife Beryl – she's la bit meta-morphic, but who isn't these days? Jasper, get off his foot.' Rincewind took the hand gingerly, bracing himself for the crunch of crushed bone. It didn't come. The troll's hand was rough and a bit lichenous around the fingernails. 'I'm sorry,' said Rincewind. 'I never really met trolls before.' 'We're a dying race,' said Kwartz sadly, as the party set off under the stars. 'Young Jasper's the only pebble in our tribe. We suffer from philosophy, you know.' 'Yes?' said Rincewind, trying to keep up. The troll band moved very quickly, but also very quietly, big round shapes moving like wraiths through the night. Only the occasional flat squeak of a night creature who hadn't heard them approaching marked their passage. 'Oh, yes. Martyrs to it. It comes to all of us in the end. One evening, they say, you start to wake up and then you think “Why bother?” and you just don't. See those boulders over there?' Rincewind saw some huge shapes lying in the grass. 'The one on the end's my aunt. I don't know what's she's thinking about, but she hasn't moved for two hundred years.' 'Gosh, I'm sorry.' 'Oh, it's no problem with us around to look after them,' aid Kwartz. 'Not many humans around here, you see. I know it's not your fault, but you don't seem to be able to spot the difference between a thinking troll and an ordinary rock. My great-uncle was actually quarried, you know.' 'That's terrible!' 'Yes, one minute he was a troll, the next he was an ornamental fireplace.' They paused in front of a familiar-looking cliff. The scuffed remains of a fire smouldered in the darkness. 'It looks like there's been a fight,' said Beryl. 'They're all gone!' said Rincewind. He ran to the end of the clearing. 'The horses, too! Even the Luggage!' 'One of them's leaked,' said Kwartz, kneeling down. 'That red watery stuff you have in your insides. Look.' 'Blood!' 'Is that what it's called? I've never really seen the point of it.' Rincewind scuttled about in the manner of one totally at his wits' end, peering behind bushes in case anyone was hiding there. That was why he tripped over a small green bottle. 'Cohen's linament!' he moaned. 'He never goes anywhere without it!'

Pagan publishing in a changing world: an interview with Anne Newkirk Niven

By: Terence P. Ward FOREST GROVE, Ore. — Pagan magazine publishing might be considered a cottage industry, with a rich tradition that extends back to the days when newsletters were created on photocopy machines and shared ad infinitum among friends. BBI Media might not be operated out of an actual cottage, but it is one of the last remaining publishers of Pagan-focused print magazines in the United States, and it isn’t exactly an empire, either.

“We work out of our basement,” said Anne Newkirk Niven, whose company puts out both Witches & Pagans and SageWoman magazines. “People are surprised when they call and I answer the phone. It’s just my husband, my son, and me.” BBI Media has never been the sort of company that is headquartered in a gleaming tower with the CEO’s corner office providing a command view of the world below. It is more like a shining soapbox, a place where Pagans with something to say have been able to find an audience.

Through a number of magazine titles and a wide variety of blogs hosted at Pagansquare.com, Niven has provided opportunities for Pagan writers who may or may not be ready to publish an entire book.  She offers an opportunity for thoughtful discourse in a world where reaction often outpaces cognition.

Niven is unable put a date on when she first identified as Pagan, but estimates that it’s been about thirty years. “I’m an eclectic polytheist Witch,” she said. “I do think that different gods have agency, but I have a great fondness for the God and Goddess.”

She considers the fact that her livelihood is based on serving the Pagan community a great boon. “I’m very, very lucky and fortunate,” she said. “I’m sure a lot of people would like to dedicate their professional life to Pagan practice. It’s a great blessing.” “I had a copy of SageWoman, and cold-called the publisher,” she explained. The timing was right. The publisher “had just had one printed upside-down and backwards,” and was ready to try someone new.  After successfully printing it right-side up for several issues, Niven learned that the publisher had “hit hard times.”That blessing came in the form of opportunity or, as she put it, “I got into it by accident, but not entirely by accident.”  Niven was seeking clients for her husband’s printing business, and hand-printed ‘zines were all the rage at the time.

“I offered to buy the magazine with an inheritance from my mother,” Niven said. Three years after making that purchase, Niven took on editing responsibilities, as well, starting with issue 25. SageWoman now has 90 issues published, with Niven editing all those since.

“Don’t quit your day job,” Niven said, as a warning to anyone who wishes to follow in her footsteps. “You won’t draw a salary for a long, long time.”

Anne Newkirk Niven

Building upon SageWoman, a number of other titles have been created over the years: PanGaia, New Witch, Blessed Be, and Crone were all created as BBI periodicals. SageWoman and Witches & Pagans are the only two now being published by the company, and Niven said that there are no plans at this time to create any new titles.

What’s stayed the same through all the titles and all the years, Niven said, is the desire to “tell our stories to each other. Inspirational, relatively upbeat stories. That’s why we’re still around.”

Surviving as a magazine publisher alongside the internet is no small feat. Doing so while serving a Pagan community that is undergoing massive change adds another layer of challenge. “Paganism is more varied and complex” than when the first issue of SageWoman hit the stands, Niven said. “It was very Wicca-flavored, at least the West Coast Paganism I’m familiar with.”

She went on to describe a Paganism steeped in hippie counterculture, protests, and peace movements. It was in opposition to anything that had a whiff of “establishment” to it. “Now, we’re everywhere. Some are working on Wall Street, at least one is in the presidential administration, and there are Pagans in every profession. I even know several Christian ministers who are Pagan. It is no longer scary to say you are a Witch or Pagan,” she added, although acknowledging that the fear still exists in some areas.*

“In a sense, we’ve won,” Niven said, noting that she began this work in the heyday of Jack Chick, the Christian comic artist who died last month. “We no longer have to convince people that we aren’t going to sacrifice their children and cats; that’s no longer a mainstream belief about us. Mostly, we’re seen as harmless goofballs.”

As the number of Pagans has risen — Niven guessed that there are ten times as many as when she started on her path — being seen as “goofballs” is a “sea change” from when most people, as she said, “thought we were evil, or didn’t know we exist.”

She hopes that BBI publications has helped in some way.

While perceptions of Paganism among members of the general public have changed, so too have Pagans changed in how they view themselves. Recalling a time when nearly all Paganism was Wiccan influenced, Niven said, “In the ’90s, we thought it was the ‘old religion’ with an unbroken lineage. Metaphorically yes, but literally no. We now have more sophistication about our roots. That’s important, because it keeps fundamentalism down.”

A 1995 issue of PanGaia published a lengthy article debunking of the trope that nine million women were burned during the so-called “Burning Times.” Niven said that she is still quite proud of that piece. She did add that she likes the song that Charlie Murphy wrote about it, but said that “there are no winners in the victim Olympics.”

Awareness brings its own issues. Pagans, particularly Witches, are now a regular part of Hollywood entertainment. While that in part helps to normalize the idea of Paganism, there are consequences. “I get asked for spells like body-switching from time to time,” Niven said, not to mention requests for instant wealth. “I would have used that myself!” she said.

Today, Paganism has many branches that stem from Wicca, and many more that do not. Polytheists and Heathens do not always consider themselves Pagans, based on what they feel the overarching values associated with that label are. Niven thinks Paganism “resembles first-century Christianity,” in that there are many factions and a fair bit of theological squabbling.

“It’s very cool, and totally healthy,” she said.

Niven hasn’t been a member of an established group in quite some time, and in that way mirrors most of her readers. “I think about Paganism 60-70 hours a week,” she explained, “and at the end of the day, it’s time to have dinner, watch television or play a game.” Repeated surveys have shown her that most readers of BBI magazines also worship largely on their own.

“Back in the day, there was a theory that one became a Witch by saying so three times. Self-initiation is absolutely a thing. There’s no pope setting the rules.” In addition, most Pagans and others stuck with that label tend to bristle at the idea of hierarchy, she has observed.

In a sense, Niven thinks that the trend toward solitary practice is an historical aberration born of the current culture of individualism. “In a hundred years, or 200, it might transform again into set of more socially-controlled religions, and that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.” Witches, however, will likely always have a solitary role to play, living on the edges of society and providing wisdom and healing to those who seek it.

Continuing to publish on paper also makes BBI Media stand out. “Paper is becoming a premium product,” Niven said, calling it an underrated technology that’s easy on the eyes and doesn’t require a power source. “Comparing paper and digital is like comparing cabbage and a banana,” she said, “they just don’t taste the same.”

Niven feels that paper is superior for long-form writing, and that’s what is mostly what is presented in her magazines. The bloggers at Pagansquare.com tend to write shorter pieces, which is suitable for that medium. Digital is much better for information such as phone numbers, where a search function makes the data more usable.

CC BY-NC-ND by emanuela franchini

Niven believes that there will always be an audience for paper. “The ecological footprint of digital is not zero,” she said, and BBI publications have been printed with soy ink on recycled paper for far longer than most people knew about those options. There’s also a number of her readers that prefer to peruse the magazines while in the bath, which can be tricky when using a tablet.

BBI became one of the last publisher of print Pagan magazines in North America last year, when Circle Magazine’s final issue was published. She attributes that not to any failing on the part of Circle’s staff, but to a difference in mission. “[Circle Magazine] was never their main ministry. Publishing is all we ever do. We don’t hold services, give degrees, consecrate, or initiate.”

What the hardworking people at BBI Media do instead is provide a platform for mostly positive pieces on Paganism, in all its many forms, including for people who don’t want to be called Pagan at all but would like to be heard by those who do.

[Author’s Note: This interview took place prior to the recent presidential election, and does not reflect any events that have occurred since that time.]

Terence P Ward

Terence P Ward is a moneyworker, journalist, Hellenic polytheist and convinced Friend who lives in the bucolic Hudson Valley with his wife, five cats, and multiple household shrines.

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