#but like we just spent five minutes arguing a question of basic addition

[psqqa]

me and apollo both staring at these fucking cards like ?????

#ace attorney #the cheat is not in fact more obvious by looking at both men’s hands #i’m not a total idiot #the first thing i did was check the cards for obvious discrepancies #but like we just spent five minutes arguing a question of basic addition #did you want me to be running some kind of statistical evaluation of all four aces being on the table or something? #if there’s something else you want me to be seeing here #you’re going to have to spoonfeed me some more poker rules first #on which note #thank you kristoph gavin for starting off with ‘so you know the terms ‘a pair’ and ‘three of a kind’?’ #you have correctly assessed my level of poker comprehension here

[wenevergotusedtoegypt]

I’m so angry! 🤬

So to recap: 2 jobs ago, my boss saw that my talents were not being best utilized in my current role and offered me a new position that leveraged them more. Namely, these talents were related to writing and editing. This spring, my boss’s boss wanted to cut my position and my boss spent literally multiple hours of her supervision time arguing to keep me. My job was cut anyway. A while later my boss revealed to me that she was getting a new job and there was an opportunity to take me with her into a writing-heavy position. She felt this position was absolutely vital to have (it did not previously exist) and assured me that I was her top pick for it and she had me in mind while writing the job description. There were politics etc with when exactly the hire could be made, but basically, if I still needed/wanted the job when things got moving, it was mine. Because of my writing skills that my boss had seen over the past 5 years working together.

Finally things got moving and my boss reached out. However there had been a slight shift and this position would now be reporting with a solid line to one department and a dotted line to another, which would be which still TBD, so the other department head needed to interview me since she didn’t know me. I was asked to send her my resume and some writing samples, which I did.

She spoke to me for less than 15 minutes. The first question out of her mouth seemed to indicate that not only had she not looked at my resume, she also hadn’t particularly absorbed the part where I’d worked with my boss for 5 years, which had been written in the approximately 3 sentence intro email my boss sent us both, as well as I would think ostensibly discussed between the two of them previously. Most of the less than 15 minutes was spent answering a question she really could have answered herself just taking a good look at my resume. The only time my writing came up was when she asked me if I had experience doing a particular type of writing, to which I responded that I do not, but that my boss and I are both fully confident that I have the skills to do it. She didn’t say anything about my writing samples or ask for additional ones written for a different context.

Today I got an email from my boss saying that the interviewer told her we had a great conversation and she really liked me, but she doesn’t think my writing is at the level she’s looking for, and she has to sign off on the hire for this position, so that’s that.

Like EXCUSE me?! I would understand if I was some rando who applied for a job I didn’t have the experience for and was just like “trust me, I totally have the skills to do it.” But that’s not the situation! I was RECRUITED for this job, which was created with me in mind from its conception, FOR MY WRITING SKILLS by someone who has seen me use them for FIVE YEARS! How the hell does this lady who hardly gave me the time of day and has seen literally 2 things I’ve written get to just waltz in and say my writing is not at the necessary level?! Ask me for some additional material, give me an assignment, just…take 2 seconds to try to understand why my boss wanted ME specifically in this position instead of dismissing me out of hand???

I immediately responded to the email asking if we could speak by phone, and my boss called me a couple minutes later. I told her about how short the interview was and how little of it had to do with my writing, and that I didn’t feel I had been given a fair shot to prove myself at all under the circumstances. She was very receptive, thankfully, and suggested that I put together some copy of the type that this lady was concerned about over the next week or so and then we will go back to her and present it.

This is kind of a big ask because I DON’T have the experience and I’m being asked to do it without the guidance or context that I would receive in the actual job (I’m making up a fake campaign!), but damn if I’m going to let this be how this lead ends when the job itself was created with me in freaking mind. So you can bet I’m going to give it my all.

The other ridiculous thing about all of this is that the type of writing this lady is ostensibly so concerned about is not even the entirety of the job! She zoomed in on this one thing and didn’t even ask about any of the other functions of the job.

The point is - it’s a writing job. I am good at writing. I am good at learning new things. I just have not been given the opportunity in the past to do this specific type of writing, but I can WRITE, so I can learn how to do this type of writing. I KNOW I can do this job and I would be good at it! My boss knows I can do it and would be good at it! That’s why she thought of me as she wrote the job description! Every single person I’ve told about this job has told me it sounds perfect for me and that I would be good at it. I WOULD BE GOOD AT IT! And it will be a massive, massive shame if this stupid lady can’t be bothered to give me a fair chance to demonstrate that even with my boss backing me up with 5 years of knowledge of my abilities.

#AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH #i was supposed to be offered a job this is ridiculous! #i shouldn't be fighting for a position that was created FOR ME!

[raywritesthings]

Wrong Road to the Right Place 11/?

My Writing Fandom: Arrow Characters: Oliver Queen, Laurel Lance, Quentin Lance, John Diggle, Thea Queen, Moira Queen, Joanna de la Vega Pairings: Laurel Lance/Oliver Queen Summary: Laurel finds herself curious about the marks Oliver showed her that night in his bedroom - and the tattoo on his left shoulder stands out in particular. When she discovers its meaning, she finds herself questioning everything she knows about the man she doesn’t want to admit she still loves. *Can also be read on my AO3 page*

As was their habit now, Laurel entered the car after Thea, sharing a quick smile with Oliver as John pulled away from CNRI.

“Hey, can I come over to the club with you guys?” Thea asked. “I wanted to talk to Tommy about something.”

“Alright,” Oliver agreed. “Anything in particular?”

“I was wondering how the hiring process was going. There’s a couple people I know who could use the money.”

“That’s very thoughtful of you, Thea,” Laurel remarked.

“I thought so,” she said with a satisfied smile. Laurel shook her head as she took out her phone to check for messages. A quick scroll through her news app had her raising her eyebrows.

She passed it over to Oliver. “Have you been following this?”

He skimmed the headline she’d left up. “Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have many investments in antiques.”

Thea looked between them. “Why, what’s going on?”

“Just a story about a jewel thief. They’re saying he uses bombs to coerce people into helping him, and he might be hitting Starling City next,” Laurel explained. Just thinking about how messed up a person had to be to do that kind of thing gave her the creeps.

“Jeez, why not just buy jewels with the bomb money?”

Oliver smirked. “Unfortunately, I think he’d still come up short for the kind of jewels he wants. People put a lot of value on them.”

“We’re here,” Diggle announced, and they all got out of the car. Thea went through the front while the three of them headed into the base through the back door. “So, what’s the plan tonight?”

“What about the Dodger?” Laurel suggested.

“This the bomb guy?” Digg checked. She nodded and handed him her phone for him to read. “We got time for that, Oliver?”

Oliver frowned. “I was going to pay a visit to Ted Williams tonight. He’s stolen millions from people through a pyramid scheme, he’s on the list, and he seems the type to break if you put the right pressure on him.”

“Ideal candidate,” Digg agreed.

Laurel still had some misgivings. “But if this thief is in town, he could get in and out while you’re interrogating Williams.”

“The mission takes priority, Laurel.”

“Well, this guy does use bombs, Oliver.” John had finished scanning the article and passed her phone back. “Does seem pretty dangerous to let him run around unchecked.”

“I don’t know what you want me to do. I can’t exactly be in two places at once,” said Oliver.

An idea came to her. “What if you didn’t have to be?”

“What do you mean?”

“Let me handle Williams,” she said. “I can make a case against him and call him in for negotiations or a settlement, and then we’ll talk. That leaves you free to handle the Dodger.”

“I don’t know if that’s safe, Laurel.”

She rolled her eyes. There was a reason she still hadn’t told him about her lessons with Digg, not to mention her shopping around for an additional trainer. “It’s a legal case, Ollie. The worst I can get is a paper cut. I’ll hit him with the evidence of his pyramid scheme and offer him a deal if he gives us information on the Undertaking.”

Oliver frowned. “I don’t know.”

“We’ll get more done in the same amount of time that way,” John remarked. “Plus, if you go after Dodger instead of Williams, it’ll make it harder for the Dark Archer and his boss to predict our next move.”

“I don’t want anyone knowing what we’re doing,” Oliver agreed. “But if Williams doesn’t break—”

“He will,” Laurel said. “It’s either that, or he’s going to court for his crimes. I’d guess most of the people on that list would do anything to save their own skins.”

“Alright, we’ll try it this way.” Oliver took a seat in front of the computer. “For now, let’s get to work tracking down this Dodger.”

While he and Diggle set to work, she got started pulling together all the information Oliver had recovered about Williams and his pyramid scheme. Even if she wasn’t planning to go to court over this, it would be important to make the proceedings look as legitimate as possible.

Laurel spent the whole next day drawing up papers against Williams to be sent over to his office. She was missing Thea and her assistance, but it was her day off community service. Probably for the best that she didn’t get mixed up in this, come to think of it.

She received an email just before getting ready to log off from Mike Burr, Williams’ attorney, demanding a meeting. Laurel was only too happy to oblige, inviting the pair of them to CNRI the next morning. It was clear Burr wanted to settle this discretely and quickly, which was exactly her aim as well.

While Oliver was out that night she and John squeezed in some more training at the base. As impatient as she was to get really started, she could admit going over these basics was proving more useful than she’d thought. It’d make her all the more ready to begin with a new trainer.

She’d changed back into her usual clothes by the time Oliver returned, frustrated since the Dodger had given both him and the cops the slip, but he and Diggle began drawing up a new plan.

“See, he didn’t get to steal anything, either, so he’ll want to pick up something before he goes,” Digg explained. “If we can figure out the kind of stuff he’s after, we’ll know where he’s planning to strike next.”

“Let me know if I can help.”

“Just get Williams to talk,” Oliver said.

“Oh, I’ll make him sing,” she promised, then smirked. “That’s what I do, right?”

Ollie only turned a dull red this time while John laughed. “Should have left you both wondering.”

She got in the car with the pair of them, going back over some of her notes while they drove to her apartment. To her surprise, Oliver got out of the passenger seat just as she was exiting the car.

“Pretty sure this is my stop,” she remarked. “Not yours.”

“Yeah, well, in case Williams or his lawyer get ideas like Sommers did, I can’t be all the way back at the manor,” he explained. Oliver took her arm and began walking them to the building. “I’ll stay on the couch.”

“I have a guest room.”

He gave a minute shake of the head as they crossed the lobby to the elevator. “Front room is better.”

“Yeah, but Ollie, the couch?”

“A bad mattress was the least of my problems on the island. I’ll be fine.”

Laurel sighed. She knew Oliver had endured terrible conditions, and she respected that he had done so. She just wished he knew he didn’t have to keep subjecting himself to situations like that or measuring pain in those kind of extremes anymore. Just because he could spend a night on the couch didn’t mean he should have to.

She knew better than to argue the point with him now. And as much as she wanted to argue she could take care of herself, she also knew she wasn’t ready to take on the likes of the Triad if Williams went that far. Not yet, anyway.

Laurel got out a mountain of blankets and pillows in an effort to make the couch a little more comfortable, and noticed how Oliver carefully laid his shoes on the floor at one end. She had a feeling he could be ready to jump into them at a moment’s notice if he needed to.

“Try and get some actual sleep, okay?” She requested.

“Don’t worry about me.”

She shook her head. “Worry goes both ways, Ollie.” Laurel walked back to the hallway and paused at her door. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

It was a little difficult settling down at first, knowing he was out there in the next room. Sharing an apartment, if only for one night, just like she’d wanted all those years ago...Laurel drifted off into dreams of a far more pleasant kind than she’d been used to the last five years, though she would never admit them to a living soul.

She woke to the smell of coffee and eggs coming from the kitchen, and she slipped into her robe to follow the scent. Oliver was at the stove, some of his hair sticking up in little tufts here and there, and she couldn’t fight back a smile.

“Helping yourself?”

He looked back at her with a smirk. “I was lucky to find this much in your fridge. But no, these are for you.”

She grabbed two plates anyway and stood with her arms crossed until he split the food and joined her at the table.

“Big day today.”

She nodded and swallowed down her mouthful of eggs. “I guess on the scale of evil, Williams is slightly better than Sommers. No break-in.”

“No,” he agreed. “But we should keep our guard up all the same. He could decide to after you two talk.”

“Well, if we’re making this a habit, then you’re definitely taking the guest room. You can’t fight bad guys if you have a bad back,” she pointed out before he could open his mouth.

Oliver thought it over for a minute. “We’ll see.”

Laurel stood and put her plate in the sink. “I’m going to get ready. Do you, uh, need the shower?”

“I’ll just get one back home. Digg’s on his way to pick me up. We think there might actually be something in my family’s collection we can tempt the Dodger with.”

Laurel left her bedroom door open while she looked through her closet for a change of clothes. In the kitchen, water was running in the sink, and she’d bet anything Oliver had started on the dishes. “How’s that?”

“There’s an auction event tonight. I’ll tell you more about it at lunch.”

“We’re getting lunch, too?”

“We are now,” she heard him reply.

Laurel smiled to herself. She had a feeling that was more to do with how eager Oliver would be to hear whatever intel she obtained from Williams, but that wasn’t a bad thing in her eyes.

“Digg’s here,” Oliver called to her. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.”

She heard the front door open and shut, and Laurel moved through the rest of her morning routine before heading out herself.

All in all, she was in high spirits when she led Williams and Burr back into the empty conference room at CNRI later that morning. Burr was making a big show at being belligerent.

“You have nothing substantial on my client. You don’t even have a plaintiff.”

Laurel gestured to the other side of the table and sat down as they did, making a show of thumbing through the folder sitting there. “What I have is a pretty big file. Practically the size of a book. And it’s got quite the long list inside,” she added, lifting her eyes to lock with a rapidly paling Williams. “A list that’s been preoccupying Mr. Williams’ thoughts the last few months, if I’m not mistaken.”

“What are you talking about?” The attorney looked between her and Williams. “Ted, what’s she talking about?”

“Get out, Mike,” Williams muttered.

“What?”

“I said get the hell out!”

“You heard your client,” Laurel said with a smirk.

Burr glared at her but had gotten the message from Williams, and he shook his head as he stood and exited the room.

Williams leaned over the table. “How do you know about that list?”

“That’s not important. What is important is what you know, Mr. Williams. Such as the name of the person who wrote it.”

“You’re- you’re kidding, right? I can’t tell you that.”

“If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine. We can just go to trial for your pyramid scheme, and you can kiss coaching your son’s soccer team goodbye for a long time.” She glanced up at him. “Your call.”

Williams gaped at her. “This is blackmail.”

“Which is something you’re familiar with, isn’t it? That’s what the list was written for, right?” She pressed. “Who has been blackmailing you, Mr. Williams?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“Because whoever is in charge of this isn’t a friend to the people of this city. He’s the one who ordered the copycat archer to take those hostages at Christmas. Whatever else he’s planning has to be stopped, and we both know the police aren’t going to be the ones who do it.”

“And you think you will?” He nearly laughed.

“If not me, then someone. I think we both know there’s another archer who’s pretty keen on the list.” She shrugged. “You can talk to him instead if that’s what you want.”

Williams turned red. “Is that a threat?”

“It’s an inevitability. You and I both know you’ve done enough to put you in his sights eventually. Think about your son, Mr. Williams. Do you really want to explain why the two of you get a visit from the Hood one night?” Laurel knew, of course, that Williams’ son would never be in danger of Ollie. But he also liked striking the fear of God into people like Ted Williams, so she didn’t think he’d mind her implying the worst if it got them the answers they needed.

“You can’t—”

“I can stop that from happening. I just need a name.”

“Merlyn!” Williams blurted. “Malcolm Merlyn.”

Laurel sat back. “What?”

Of all the names that had even crossed her mind, that had never been one of them. Malcolm was Tommy’s dad. He’d been one of Mr. Queen’s best friends. He was Starling City’s humanitarian of the year.

“He wrote the list. He’s the one who let us know what he knew, that he’d turn us over to the police if we didn’t do what he wanted. Donate money, build a hospital, that sort of thing. But he stopped asking about five years ago,” Williams said in a rush. “I thought it was done. He said it was over!”

“He ended it? Why?” Maybe if he had, then Williams was wrong. Maybe it was someone else pulling the strings now—

But Williams shook his head. “No. I’ve already told you too much. I have to get out of this city before he finds out about this. My son. We’ll have to move. Do you understand? That’s the kind of power he has.”

“Mr. Williams, you’re not saying—”

“You should get yourself out, too, if you know what’s good for you.”

“But—”

Williams was already walking, however, and the door slammed shut behind him. Laurel sat there for an unknowable time. Williams had looked and sounded absolutely genuine — but how could it be true?

—-

He tried not to drum his fingers on his leg as he watched the traffic slowly pass by. They had plenty of time before the gala tonight where their trap on the Count would be sprung.

Oliver glanced at the brooch sitting in wrapping on the seat beside him. Diggle would be the one to deliver it to the organizers. Oliver was planning to meet him a little later; he had a ticket to the event he needed to give Laurel — a good way to maintain their cover of dating if nothing else — and he wanted to know what she’d gotten out of Williams.

Soon enough, the car came to a stop outside the law office, and he got out of the car.

“Hey, Oliver.”

He turned back. John had rolled down the window and held out his phone with a notification on the screen displayed.

Chen returns home after deal with Beijing

“I’ve been tracking the business section. Figured that’d be our best shot at hearing news.” Digg clicked the link and scanned the article. “Says he got in mid-morning yesterday.”

“Keep an eye on that. Good work, John.” He patted the roof of the car and turned to head into CNRI as his friend pulled away.

Kevin Chen was back. What did that mean?

Hopefully that and whatever Laurel was able to get from Ted Williams would be good news.

When he entered the office, Laurel wasn’t at her desk. A woman named Anastasia told him she was still in a meeting, and he stated he intended to wait. He displayed the gala ticket for good measure. Better for people to think he was here for only a date.

He wasn’t kept waiting long. The door to CNRI’s conference room swung open. Oliver hid his smirk as he watched Williams leave in a hurry, looking incredibly shaken. That was Laurel.

It took longer for her to emerge. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected. Frustration, disappointment, perhaps a wide self-satisfied grin?

Not this. Not the tense, wide-eyed fear Laurel seemed to only just barely be keeping a lid on as she walked right up to him and took his arm.

“So, lunch?”

“Sure.” He tucked the gala ticket away in his pocket. “Everything okay?”

“Not here,” she muttered.

He didn’t even spot Thea before they’d left the building, and Laurel led them a few streets away without showing any signs of slowing.

He tugged her to a stop. “Laurel, what’s going on? What did Ted Williams say?”

She still looked to be in shock, and it took her some time to raise her gaze to his.

“It’s Malcolm. Tommy’s dad.”

The air left his lungs in one exhale. He had to question his own ears for a moment. But there was no mistaking who Laurel meant.

“Are we sure?”

“Williams was. And he’s planning to leave the city as soon as possible now that he’s told me. I mean, Oliver, he sounds terrified of Malcolm.”

It just seemed so unreal. Sure, at times Malcolm could seem a little distant or cold, usually when it came to Tommy. But to think he could be behind something like this?

“We’ll watch to see what Williams does, whether this is some kind of bluff. Then I’ll interrogate another person to see if their stories match.” It was tantamount that they verify this before taking the next step. There would likely only be one chance to catch the man behind the Undertaking unawares. If this was a setup, Oliver didn’t plan to fall for it.

Laurel nodded, seeming to calm from hearing his reasoning. “Okay. What about Tommy?”

“Don’t say anything to him. He’s not involved either way.” Once they knew the truth about Malcolm, then a decision could be made. “We’ll figure this out, Laurel.”

Oliver weighed the pros and cons of going after another person on the list or skipping up the food chain to Chen now that he was back. Chen might be more likely to report to his boss, even if he did know more. Assuming he was in the know at all.

But he was getting ahead of himself. He’d already set a trap for the Dodger tonight, and that he had to follow through. So Oliver withdrew the tickets again.

“For now, I was wondering if you wanted to help me stop a thief tonight?” He pitched his tone purposefully light; he didn’t like seeing her look so shaken. It seemed to work. She glanced up and met his eyes, one corner of her lips quirking upward.

“If I didn’t know any better, that would almost sound like a date,” Laurel remarked.

“We vigilantes make do.”

“Uh-huh.” She plucked one of the tickets from his grasp. “When should I expect you and John?”

“Seven. The gala officially kicks off at eight.”

“Alright. I should get back to the office so I can head out a little early, then. Which means a rain check on lunch.” She placed the gala ticket in her purse, then looked up at him. “Thanks for helping me process, well, that.”

“No problem. I’m not sure I would’ve known what to say if Williams had told me Malcolm’s name.”

“Well, I needed a bit of grounding, and you gave me that.” She leaned in for a hug, which he was only too glad to return. “I’ll see you at seven, Ollie.”

“See you, Laurel.”

He watched her walk away, and grinned when she looked back upon reaching the door to smile at him. It wasn’t hard to fake dating Laurel, and that was probably a problem. He’d spent the night at her place, cooked breakfast for the pair of them, and now was planning on attending a gala with her on his arm. If he wasn’t careful, he’d start forgetting this wasn’t real. Oliver turned and took out his phone to text Diggle for a lift back to the manor.

If Malcolm Merlyn really was the man behind this unknown Undertaking, though, they had even bigger problems. As much as he wanted to know the truth about his father’s mission and how to end it, Oliver almost hoped they were wrong.

—-

Moira looked up as Kevin was shown into her sitting room for the second time in two days. It would be safe to talk in here for a while yet; Thea was upstairs in her room and would make plenty of noise should she choose to come downstairs, and Oliver was out for the evening.

Normally, she might have started off with the usual pleasantries, but time was of the essence. As soon as Raisa was out of earshot, she asked, “So, I assume you’ve given some thought to my plan?”

Kevin remained standing. “I have, but I’m afraid we have more pressing concerns, Moira.”

“What do you mean?”

“Malcolm asked me to see Ted Williams this evening. It appears he moved a large sum of money from his bank and was in the process of firing his home staff and arranging for a successor to his business. I believe this made Malcolm nervous.”

“He thought Ted was fleeing the country.” Even if Malcolm had ended his extortion scheme in favor of the Undertaking, he still liked to keep tabs on those on the list.

“Yes, and he was. But not from the law, even if a case was just opened up against him.” Kevin folded his hands together, she suspected in an effort to hide any fidgeting or shaking. “He and his lawyer went for a meeting with the prosecutor this morning, only it turned out the case being brought against him had less to do with his crimes and more to do with a certain list.”

Moira gasped. “No.”

“He told her everything, Moira. He gave her Malcolm’s name.”

The list. How had someone gotten a copy of the list? Robert’s had been destroyed with the Gambit, and she had tossed hers in the fire after Oliver had returned it to her.

“There’s more, I’m afraid. The prosecutor is a Dinah Laurel Lance.”

Her legs trembled, and she knew if she’d been standing they would have failed her.

“You know her.”

“Yes,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Moira, I can only assume there is one way she could have come by this information.”

Her head bowed. “Oliver.”

What had he done? Oh, her son. She’d tried to warn him, tried to get him to leave it alone. And Laurel, with her questions and worries the last few months. She should have been keeping a better eye on things. That innocent girl.

“It’s too dangerous to move against Malcolm now,” Kevin said, drawing her from her thoughts. “Ted Williams’ departure has made him suspicious, and I will have to tell him at least some of what I’ve found out.”

Moira stood. “Kevin, you can’t let him think Oliver’s involved in this.”

“Of course not. But if Miss Lance is allowed to keep digging, Malcolm will figure it out on his own. She must be silenced.”

“No.” She turned away from him. It was unthinkable. “We stick to the plan, Kevin. Malcolm has to be stopped.”

“Malcolm is too suspicious now. He’ll be taking every precaution, and even a hint of dissent will be enough for him to remove either of us. I have to report to him by tonight. I’m postponing as long as I can for Ted to get his son out of the country, but any longer will have Malcolm questioning both our loyalties.”

“If you report to him that Laurel knows, he’ll have to know Oliver is involved.”

“I won’t tell him the lawyer’s name yet. Malcolm should put me in charge of tracking that information down, and it will buy us time until he’s completed the Undertaking and gotten what he wants.”

The Undertaking. The closer it approached, the less far-fetched and impossible it seemed. All those people...

“It’s the only way. If she tells Oliver what she’s learned, assuming she hasn’t already, Malcolm will not be happy. You must do this, Moira, for your family.”

“She is family,” Moira insisted.

Kevin watched her, giving away little emotion. “I understand you are fond of her. But choices have to be made, Moira. If we allow her to go on, Malcolm will realize Oliver’s involvement. Then he’ll have them both killed.”

He was right, and she didn’t know what to do.

Everything she had done was to keep Thea, and then Oliver when he’d come back to them, safe. She was remaining silent about Walter’s kidnapping for their safety. Her own husband. As much as she didn’t want to see Laurel caught up in this — hadn’t the Lances lost enough already to Malcolm’s schemes? — she had gone this far to ensure her children’s survival. What would be the point of any of it if she gave up now?

“What do you suggest?”

“I have reached out to my contacts in the Triad. They are willing to provide a man for the job. We simply give them a new target.”

Moira’s eyes closed. She felt a chill, like a piece of ice was settling in her heart. “Oliver would never recover.”

“Perhaps. But he would be alive.” Kevin paused. “I need an answer.”

“Do it,” she snapped, then covered her face with one hand. “If you think it’s best.”

“This should all be over soon, Moira. We have to keep going, for our families.”

He touched her shoulder briefly, but Moira shrugged it off. Kevin left without another word, and she sank back down to the couch.

For one wild moment, she had thought she could see a way out of the Undertaking, out of Walter’s captivity, out of being under Malcolm’s thumb. Now she was more trapped than ever.

#lauriver #laurel x oliver #laurel lance #oliver queen #arrow #john diggle #thea queen #moira queen #green arrow #black canary #my writing

[fuelyogurt6-blog]

Inside the French Culinary Competition That Drives Chefs to Tears

In the rainy evening gloom, a man’s loud sobs echoed off the glass and concrete surfaces outside the Lycée Hotelier du Touquet, in northern France. If you didn’t know better, you would have thought that this faceless sufferer, hidden away in an inner courtyard, had just endured a heartrending breakup or the death of a loved one, so complete and uninhibited was his anguish. But no, this was a chef who had just learned that despite months of training, sleepless nights, hundreds of euros spent on equipment and supplies, and weekends of not seeing friends or family, he had not made the grade. He was not a MOF (pronounced in French like “moff”).

Though the title is not well known in the U.S., becoming l’Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France (“one of the best craftsmen in France”), shorthanded as the acronym MOF, is considered by French chefs to be one of the highest — if not the highest — honor. Begun in 1925, the MOF competition is in fact not just one competition, but encompasses dozens of contests in more than 200 professions, from taxidermy to piano tuning to graphic design to — the most well-known — those in the culinary fields: cooking (cuisine-gastronomie), patisserie, and chocolaterie. Under the aegis of the French National Education Ministry, the COET (le Comité d’organisation des expositions du travail) organizes MOF competitions every three or four years. The grueling cuisine-gastronomie competition is judged by a panel of more than 40 renowned chefs with exacting standards. Only about 200 chefs have been honored with the title since the competition’s debut.

“A chef hopes for two things: to earn three Michelin stars and to become a Meilleur Ouvrier de France,” explained the 78-year-old MOF Guy Legay, in charge of the competition’s cooking jury. The contemporary MOFs probably best known to Americans are the chocolatier Jacques Torres and Joël Robuchon, who died in August of this year.

For this year’s competition, 500 hopefuls were winnowed down to 28. Last Thursday’s 14 candidates (14 other finalists had competed the previous day) began entering the hotel school’s kitchens at 7:30 a.m., one by one, every 15 minutes. Their task was to cook three technically challenging dishes within five hours, dishes they’d had 15 days to learn, from precise instructions sent by the organizers. Four hours after beginning, they had to send a new dish to the judges every half hour, with a margin of error of three minutes. If they sent a dish between three and five minutes late, they were penalized. Later than five minutes, and the dish was not graded by the tasting jury. While cooking, they were aided by two commis, young students from the high school, with whom they had never worked before. They therefore had to instruct their helpers, while remaining calm, and cook while being constantly circled and judged by clipboard-carrying jury members.

By that afternoon, the morning’s cool laboratoires had turned into hot, tense arenas, where the smell of cooking meat, vaporizing liqueur, and burning sauces filled the air.

For chefs who earn the title, and the accompanying right to wear the blue-white-red collar on their chefs’ jacket, the rewards may be considerable. They may be more likely to nab prestigious jobs or lure more customers to their restaurants or stores. Many chefs, though, seem to launch their pursuit of the MOF title as a sort of personal Holy Grail, as a way to prove their merit to themselves above all, sometimes attempting the competition several times.

Stéphanie Le Quellec, a Michelin-starred chef and winner of 2011’s Top Chef: France, had been a finalist at the last competition, four years ago, when she was “not able to submit excellence [to the jury].” She tried her chances again this year. As a chef who is already well known, in some respects, she had more to lose than some unknown cuistot. “I worked with Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, so that makes you want to tackle the challenge yourself,” she said by way of explanation for her bid.

Virginie Basselot, a competition judge this year, is one of only two female chefs to have won the title. She too said she was inspired by working with MOFs, and by the values of “excellence, transmission, humility” that it promotes. It is a unique competition, she noted, as there is no first, second, or third place. Theoretically at least, all or none of the candidates could win the title. (Indeed, in 2015, none of the chocolatier finalists were deemed worthy to be named a MOF.) And it is a title, with a diploma bestowed by the National Education Ministry, that chefs carry for all their lives. It is not an honor that will be stripped from them when the next competition comes up in a few years’ time. And unlike, say, earning a Michelin star or being named as one of the World’s 50 Best, it is a contest that individual chefs knowingly enter, and over which they have some control.

“You’re competing against yourself, to give the best of yourself,” Basselot said.

This year, the two most famous MOF chefs in recent years, Paul Bocuse and Robuchon, died. To honor them, two of the three dishes candidates prepared during the competition drew inspiration from them: The fish starter had to be accompanied by lobster mashed potatoes, an homage to Robuchon’s famous purée; and the main dish was a hare cooked three ways, in memory of Bocuse’s lièvre à la royale. (The dessert was a Pavlova with aspic of fresh fruit and lemon cream.)

Seventy-something Jacques Maximin, one of the four-member presiding committee, under the president, Alain Ducasse, described to two reporters for more than 40 minutes — with fiendish pleasure — the complexity of the dishes that he had imagined to test the technical skills of the MOF candidates. He starts with basic techniques and fashions them into three dishes that generally require years of experience and unerring exactitude to carry off. For example, he described how the pollack in the first dish had to be pierced in four places (indicated in a drawing that accompanied the candidates’ instructions) by herring lardons. To a non-chef, piercing a fish with another fish seems almost physically impossible, but then, Maximin pointed out, chefs must also take into account, when salting the dish, the fact that the lardons would impart their saltiness to the pollack. And the specified “pavés” (slabs) of pollack (80 grams without skin) could by no means be “slices” of fish — an error that one chef had made.

Yet in a culinary world that often values flash over technique, you can’t help but wonder, is the MOF’s level of nerdiness out of step? “I have nothing against modernity,” Maximin retorted. “But I say, ‘Wait, children, let’s start first with the basics...’ When I conceive of the themes, [it’s because] I don’t want French techniques to disappear.” He continued, “French gastronomy, with its international reputation, is built around an edifice. We constructed it over centuries. These chefs who want to become stars, first they have to prove their savoir faire.”

Point taken, yet it could be argued that, like other culinary awards and competitions today, its protestations of high standards may mask its exclusion of women and people of color. Chefs at the competition, however, when asked about the lack of diversity among candidates and winners, defended the MOF’s traditional ways. Both Basselot and Le Quellec — who was one of only two women to make it to the finals this year (among 23 original female candidates) — noted that there are few women chefs in haute-cuisine. “Often women are chef-owners and it’s not easy to say, ‘I’m going to take a week off and train,’” Basselot said. Basselot herself works for a hotel and has assistants to back her up — plus, she remarked with a smile, “I’m single.”

Le Quellec, on the other hand, has three children. Training for the competition is “fairly violent,” she said. “There’s a lot of work. I don’t know if that’s an investment that women are willing to put in. [For me] it means that during the week I don’t see my children. I don’t think the MOF committee can do much; it’s the reality of the profession.” (As for racial diversity, there was one Japanese chef among the finalists this year.)

Tall, pale Christophe Quantin is one of three vice presidents of the MOF cuisine-gastronomie section along with Maximin and another MOF, Michel Roth. When initially asked about the candidates’ diversity, the misunderstanding was such that he began commenting on the contestants’ different styles of making lemon cream. Once the subject was clarified, and he was asked if the MOF committee could encourage more gender and cultural diversity, he said, “We can’t influence that. We take the candidates that sign up voluntarily… Even if there are more and more women in the profession, they really have to have a competitive spirit [to attempt the MOF competition]. It’s not always in women’s characters to compete — in addition, it’s competing against men, which could be an additional impediment.”

Sure enough, at the end of the day, roughly 12 hours after the first candidate had begun his mise en place, Ducasse named seven men l’Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France for this year.

Nevertheless, a small, light breeze of change may be in the air. The COET, the body that oversees all of the MOF competitions in dozens of fields, has begun to question its own ways. “Should [candidates] spend 1,500 hours preparing for the competition? I don’t know,” Jean-Luc Chabanne, secretary general of the COET, told the magazine Lyon Capitale. “That’s what we have to work on. We also have to look at the cost of the contest for the candidates. Some say it’s 1,000 or 2,000 [euros], but sometimes it’s 10,000, 15,000, 20,000 euros” — accounting for the fact that competitors must bring their own equipment and supplies to the competition, as well as associated costs for training, travel, and, in some cases, hiring consultants to help increase their chances. “It’s not acceptable,” Chabanne said, “because it means you have to be rich to become a MOF.”

These inklings of change are small comfort to those who were not on the list of winners last week. Shortly after Ducasse read off the names at the modest ceremony, Stéphanie Le Quellec walked toward the back of the room, clutching her baby boy, her face streaked with tears. Though that baby certainly doesn’t care about it right now, perhaps by the time he grows up, the MOF competition will present a different face to the world.

Sono Motoyama is a journalist who lives in the Paris area. Editor: Erin DeJesus

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Source: https://www.eater.com/2018/11/30/18118337/mof-meilleur-ouvrier-de-france-french-chef

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[vthiker09]

Feelings

I have many fuzzy feelings towards NH surgeon guy.  Mostly rooted in an appreciation for him being able to exhibit basic empathy and having the skill set to help me, I try quite hard to keep him out of the rest of my feelings.  I had a routine check-in with surgeon guy last week and I asked: “do I have do that running progression thing?”  Although a little preemptive, because I can’t run for another five weeks, I wanted to know where I stood.  Surgeon guy seemed to be a little taken back by my phrasing and said: “Why do you call it that thing?  Even if you weren’t hurt, it would be a good idea after not running for several months.” I mumbled something about being frustrated, said I understood, and moved on to my next question.  This is what I wanted to say: “I’m having a hard time dealing with the amount of loss I’ve experienced. Two months ago, I was running 3-4 miles three or four times a week.  This was after I wasn’t able to run for a year and a half. The idea of taking, what I perceive as several steps backwards, and then having to walk 4 min run 1 min for 30 min, wait 48 hours, and then increase the run piece by 1 min until I can run for 30 mins - makes me really sad.  I just did this.” 

Although NH surgeon guy is much better than most, I’m aware I don’t really have time to delve into my emotions, if I want all my medical questions answered and Surgeon guy isn’t really the right person to talk to.   As a community, we decided a long time ago, to compartmentalize medical care into “specialties.”  The general idea being some areas of medicine require a more in-depth knowledge than others and in order to give people adequate care, some doctors need to spend their entire career working on one area - because the human body is complicated.  Mental health was identified as a specialty area and was carved out long ago.  At the same time, mental health carries a host of societal stigmas with it.  It was carved out under the general guise of “specialties,” but at the same, it gave “traditional medicine” a way to say “nope, not us - go to talk to your therapist.”

In addition to what seems like a general fear of phrases like “I feel,” my experience has been the medical community sways in the opposite direction.  I suppose after you see a couple hundred or thousand broken bones, blown apart joints, blood, and whatever else - a person’s natural progression would be become to less empathetic. When someone’s worst day is your norm - it might be a little harder to understand why they are whimpering in your office.  There seems to be more space, however, for medical professions to be insensitive, rude, and hurtful.  It’s as if their vicarious trauma provides them with the green light to make my trauma worse.  

In my experience, the worst offenders are nurses and anesthesiologists.  I have endless examples, but let’s just stick with my most recent surgical experience:

1. Nurse after seeing how much I weigh: “So are you kind of a healthy person?”

2. Nurse when Mike takes my purse as I’m being taken into the OR: “Nice Kate Spade (laughs)” me: “Thanks!” Nurse: “Oh, it’s yours?”

3. Anesthesiologist within 30 seconds of meeting me: “Oh, looks like you’ve been a good customer” - as she reviews my surgical history.

4. Anesthesiologist: “Is your heart rate normally in the 40′s?” - with a panicked tone me: “yes” nurse: “do you run?” me: “yes”  anesthesiologist: “Oh, that must be difficult with your foot.” 

Now keep in mind, I interacted with the nurses and the anesthesiologist for maybe a total of 20 minutes.  That’s a lot of less than trauma-informed language to use in 20 minutes.  

Surgeons tend to share their lack of empathy by just not listening, belittling you, or dropping anxiety causing statements about the extent of your injury.  My personal favorites have been:

1. Me: “If everything is okay, why is my ankle so swollen, why does it give out all the time, and why does it hurt so much?” surgeon: “Well, we could re-break your leg, take the screws out, rearrange your bones again, and see if that works (laughs).” 

2. Surgeon describing my initial injury: “It was kind of like your foot was torn off your leg.” 

3. Surgeon describing the extent of damage to my foot: “It was kind of like you were walking around with an amputated toe.”

4. Me: “The inside of my ankle really hurts and I keep rolling it.”  Surgeon: “I know your MRI says your deltoid is damaged, but it’s not - you’re fine.”  me: “Then why does it keep giving out?”  Surgeon: “I don’t know.” 

5. Me: “I can barely walk 3 miles and I can’t hike at all.” Surgeon: “That’s pretty good!  I haven’t walked 3 miles in years.” 

Egos, paired with burnout, paired with vicarious trauma, paired with a general sentiment mental health and physical health have no space in the same building, has made dealing with the words coming out of my medical professionals faces, as difficult as my actual medical problems.  For anyone who knows me well, I am not quiet.  Thus, many times, I just had to bite my tongue when medical professionals would say something which was hurtful.  I did this, because I knew it was in my best interest to keep them happy.  If they didn’t like me or I was deemed to be a “trouble patient,” it wasn’t going to help my overall cause - which is to move again without pain.

What happens when your mental health is effected by your physical health? All the bad emotions I currently struggle with didn’t exist before my injury - they were caused by it.  Thus, why is it not somewhat the responsibility of my medical providers to acknowledge I’ve been through an awful ordeal and to just be decent to me? 

In theory, they would every so often ask if I was okay, but I know this would be asking too much.  If they ever did, this is what I’d tell them: 

I feel angry: I’m mad about the medical care I’ve received.  I feel like my care was delayed, diagnoses were missed, I was belittled, not listened to, two of my five surgeries were pointless - and I’ve lost 2.5 years of my life because of it.  I have a had time sitting with this and knowing the people involved will never acknowledge their role or be held accountable in any way.  In the meantime, I will never get those 2.5 years back.

I feel hurt: I’m hurt in the feelings sense of hurt.  There are people around me who have let me down.  I’ve lost friends and there are others who I don’t feel the same way about.  I saw pieces of people I didn’t want to see.

I feel sad: I spent a year and half not being able to do the things which help me relieve stress and help me maintain my mental health.  In an extremely stressful time, I didn’t have the normal activities I look to, to help manage stress.  I got them back for a few months and then had to give them up again.  I feel a great sense of loss and it makes me sad.

I feel worried: I’m worried this won’t work.  Why should it?  the other four times didn’t.  I’m worried I will never be the same.  I’m worried I will live with chronic pain.  I’m worried when you say “you have an ankle like no one else,” it means I will never be “done” with this process, because I will always struggle in some capacity.  I’m worried it’s only a matter of time before I blow out my joint again.  I’m worried I have fewer years to hike because my injury will, at some point, completely take hiking away from me.  I’m worried “normal days” are something I may not experience for a long time.  I’m worried I am going to be alone while I try to figure out how to live with this.  I’m worried I’ll struggle because I’m too stubborn to tell the difference between healing and a problem.  I’m worried about what life will be like 10 years from now and if I’ll be able to deal with it.

I feel alone: I don’t know anyone who has hurt themselves to the extent I did.  I know a pile of people with bunions, arthritis, broken ankles, broken legs, tendinitis, or other foot and ankle afflictions.  I don’t know anyone who has dealt with something like me and it’s difficult.  Sometimes I want someone to talk to - who really “understands.”  The closest person I’ve found are the surgeons and they don’t have time to talk to me.  

I feel tired: I don’t want to do this anymore.  I don’t want to drive three hours to take an x-ray.  I don’t want to go to PT.  I don’t want to have a surgeon.  I don’t want to have rules about how I have to move through the world.  I don’t want to argue with Aetna.  I don’t want to rely on Tylenol and Aleve to make it through the day.  I don’t want to have to deal with the lack of compassion within the medical profession.  I don’t want to have to leave dinner because I can’t sit in a chair any longer.  I don’t want my entire life to be based on my leg and say things like “I don’t know if I can do x, we’ll see how I feel.”  I want to go back to being “Erin” and see my primary once a year - maybe.   

I feel lost:  I know I will have to manage my healing for quite awhile.  I don’t really know how to do this.  I don’t know how to manage a serious injury.  I feel like everyday is something new and not in a fun way.  I feel like I don’t have the skills to properly assess what is and isn’t okay.  I wish I didn’t have to learn these skills.

I feel overwhelmed: I walk through everyday holding all of this and it’s exhausting.  I feel like I’ve become selfish out of necessity.  I have become someone who takes and takes emotionally from those around me and I don’t like it.  I want to be there for my friends and family like I used to be.  I don’t want to say “I’m sorry, but I can’t listen to this right now.”  I don’t want to worry someone will tell me they are having a bad day because it’s going to send me over the edge - since I’ve had 700 or so “bad days” in a row.  I want my emotional pot to empty out a little so I have some space for other people.

I feel bitter: I feel bitter both about the medical care I received and the whole process.  I complied with every single direction I was given.  I worked really hard to get better and it failed.  It failed four times.  Other people do everything wrong and they end up okay.  This seems unfair to me.  Why did it fail four times? and why can’t anyone give me this answer?

This is how I feel.  This is what I walk in with every single time I go to see a surgeon, PT, nurse, or office staff.  This is also how I feel as I manage my non-medical life.  It’s what I walk around with every minute of everyday.  

Given all of this I wish a few things were true:

1. I wish there were mentors within the medical community.  I would have loved to talk to someone who had had a similar injury and was a few years out.  I wanted someone to talk to, who has experienced what I have and has been trained to help others.  I don’t want someone who gives me faulty medical advice based on their own experiences.  I want someone who “gets it” and has the skills to listen.

2. I wish the medical community had more skills around managing the mental impact of injuries or illnesses. I wish there was a higher standard when it came to how patients are treated verbally and offenders were held accountable.  I wish the people who knew my medical situation the best could’ve also been the people who said “we know this is hard.”  

3. I wish doctors were given the time and space to care for people instead of treating individual body parts.  This piece alone would’ve made a huge difference.

[lionhart-w]

Necromancer

He was in a dark room - it was impossible to tell how big it was - and he was in a kneeling position. Desmond tried standing up but there was something firmly holding him in this by the second more uncomfortable position. Desmond started to sweat heavily and his breathing grew louder and louder. Then he threw up. The stinging warm mash wandered up his throat, passed through his mouth and finally dripped down his chin. What were probably minutes felt like days. Every second agony as his head started to hurt and the vomiting didn’t stop. Then it stopped. He was standing upright and his chin was free of sick. Silhouettes started to trace around him. After a while Desmond could make out a mountain and very distant lights. Another amount of time passed (it was strange… he could feel a large amount of time passing but it didn’t feel like he had spent any of it) and he could see everything around him. It was dark but he could see. Not that there was much there. A gray dessert and the shape of the mountain, which was more prominent than before.

“Chapes!”, a male voice echoed from somewhere deep, deep beneath Desmond.

His vision locked on a large building seemingly carved out of the mountain. He started walking towards it but soon started running - sprinting. Desmond didn’t fall or trip over the dunes. Then when he wanted to cross a stream running between two especially large dunes, he woke. 

———————————————

Desmond woke up smelling a salty-acidic smell. He felt cooked. Hot and his clothes were drenched with throw-up and sweat. Vaguely remembering the night before he tried to jump up but found himself bound. Ezekiel must have bound him in this unbelievably awkward position. 

“Ezekiel?”, Desmond shouted.

“I’m here.”, he was somewhere behind him.

“Look, I am so sorry.”

“Well, you should be.”, said the other man and moved into his field of view. He had a dark purple spot on the left side of his face. “But you drank almost a liter of Demon-Juice and, except for drinking that, was basically not your fault.”

A few moments of awkward silence passed.

“Why am I bound then?”

“Just for insurance. Never seen a human drink more than a shot of that stuff without having both kidneys fail and or falling into a deep coma. I tested you for every possessing demon, hellish parasite and Necromantic magic traces.”

“So why am I bound?”

“Because the testing for the Necromancy traces showed positive, Desmond.”

“What? How?”

“You tell me.”

“Wha- no! I don’t do nectar mancy!”

“Necromancy.”

“Huh?”

“THEN TELL ME WHY YOU DRANK A WHOLE LITER OF DAIMOCIT WITHOUT HAVING EVERY ORGAN IN YOUR BODY FAIL!”

“I don’t know, Ezekiel.”

“Necromancy has died out except for one guy and he is locked up in the Immortal asylum on Ahall and can’t fucking move!”

“Maybe your test was flawed! Do it again!”

“I already did — five times!”

“Then… wait did you just say immortal?”

Ezekiel stared at Desmond for a while. “Maybe.”, he finally said.

“Immortality is real? You can live forever?”

“Well… no. You are either born into it or, as the last Necromancer did, try out an experimental way that horribly went wrong and end up being a sentient kull for the rest of eternity. And- why am I telling you this?”, he thought for a moment. “NECROMANCER!”

Knock knock

“Guys? Are you okay?”, Hester shouted through the door.

“Come in!” said Ezekiel.

“Oh lord. Is he possessed?”, she said almost casually as she entered.

“No. But he is a Necromancer.”

“Nonsense. Necromancy went extinct 800 years ago.”

“I found traces of Necromantic magic in his scalp.”

“Maybe Morgan flung a turd at him but he is not a fricking Necromancer.”

She went over to Desmond, pulled out a knife and started sawing at the thick ropes that bound him there. 

“No!”, Ezekiel shouted and he darted towards them.

“Don’t you come any closer, Azriel!”, she pointed the knife at Ezekiel.

He stopped dead. “Azriel?”

Hester lowered her knife and continued cutting Desmond’s bounds. Ezekiel just stood there, watching them gloomily now.

“Forget that.”, Hester calmly said to Desmond but she looked very, very sad all of a sudden.

“Alright. Thanks.”, he said rubbing his wrists.

“You’re welcome.”

“You got the bandages?”, asked Ezekiel.

“Yup.”, she said as she drew a metal case out of her backpack.

Another couple of moments of awkward silence.

“Let me help you with that.”, offered Desmond but was soon looking down the barrel of Ezekiel’s gun.

“I ain’t trusting you yet, Desmond. So if you want to keep your brains I suggest we keep our distance.”

Desmond nodded briefly and went to the sink to wash himself up a little. He could hear Ezekiel, trying to keep his voice down, debating with Hester over whether to trust him. “He could have done something with the Djinn!”, he said.

“If you kill him I will-“

“You will what? Be salty?”

“I will stick your stupid head where the sun don’t shine.”, he didn’t say much after that.

Desmond didn’t want to go outside since he didn’t want to spark any suspicions (not that he would do anything suspicious), so he went into the other room. He looked at each of them again. Unsurprisingly they all were still in place. Just the metal flagon was gone. Desmond lied down and thought about the creature that erupted from it. He thought of the dizzying effect it had on him. Those deep, black eye-holes that made his head hurt. He remembered that skull that sat over the Djinn’s containment and then, within seconds he connected the dots.

The skull wasn’t there anymore and that creature had a similar one. He sprang up and rushed to the main room.

“EZEKIEL!”, Desmond shouted. 

“WHAT?!”, the other man answered.

“The skull!”

“What skull?”

“It- There was a skull over the flagon! It’s gone and it looked like the thing’s!”

Ezekiel remained silent. Then he repeated: “What skull?!”

“Come on! I’ll show ya!”

He hurled back to the bedroom and pointed to the skull’s empty place.

“Do I have to say it again? What skull?!”

“Wha- There- I explained it already.”

“I never had any skulls here, Desmond.”, Ezekiel calmly explained.

“But-“

“Skulls carry bad energies. I wouldn’t bring one without the peel in here.”

“Peel? Oh lord, that’s a weird way of saying skin. But what did I see then?”

“I don’t know but you’re gonna have to do me a favor.”

Did Desmond imagine that skull? Why would he? He doesn’t know anything about skulls.

“What do you need?”, Desmond finally asked.

“I need you to shave your head.”

“Excuse me? What for?”

“We need to go to the city and you’re missing so we need to change your appearance.”

“What do we need from the city?”

“Hester tells me that lumberjacks have been going missing on Fonrica for the past years and I suspect a demon is doing that. Also, I’m bored.”

“Why do I have to come?”

“Because I can’t let you be alone with this many ingredients for summonings after the necromancy thing.”

Desmond considered asking further into Ezekiel’s questionable morality but decided it would still be there when he had more energy. Right now he felt like curling up in the bed and die, but that could wait as well. He cut down his hair so that only a light reddish bristle remained. Desmond hadn’t shaved his face for a few days and his facial hair grew like rambling weed so that a messy beard was obscuring half of his face. 

Hester had left shortly after she and Ezekiel argued so he and Ezekiel made their way through the dense forest towards the water without her. 

“Has Morgan gotten out of his cage the other night, by the way?”, Desmond asked.

“No. Why?”

“I had another nightmare. I guess it was just a regular one.”

“What did you dream?”

“Can’t really remember. I just know it was stressful.”

“Probably the Daimocit had its effects on you.”, Ezekiel muttered something under his breath and looked a bit disappointed as he glanced at Desmond after he finished.

Soon they could see the sea glittering in the afternoon sun and Desmond couldn’t help but relax as he smelled the stinky steam-motor of their ferry. For additional disguise, the two men wore hats and Desmond was pretty sure Ezekiel put on some make-up. 

“Where to?”

“Not your harbor-apartment. They were watching it after you went missing.”

“Really? I don’t think that they’ll be observing a victim’s home.”

“No, I just don’t wanna go there because I broke a lamp on my way out.”

“What? That wasn’t mine! I’m gonna have to pay the landlord.”

“What? Why?”

“Why?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because it was his, Ezekiel.”

“Yes…”, he shut up for a minute before continuing. “…but why? You’ve been kidnapped. Why would you have to pay for something a good looking criminal broke?”

“Well… I don’t have insurance.”

“That’s ridiculous! Even without insurance, you should not have to pay that. Unless…”

“Unless?”

“Unless they can’t know you live there. Reasons for that would be…”, he thought for a moment. “…being a fugitive? An escaped prisoner? A refugee? You did say you were from Ukune. Or maybe an illegal immigrant?”

Desmond looked at his toes to avoid eye contact.

“It was one of them, wasn’t it? I can tell by that very obvious averting of eye contact.”

“I… It is none of your business, Mister Rave.”

“Rave? Oh yeah. That’s my name. But you can tell me, Desmond. I am, after all, your closest friend.”

He was the closest thing he had to a friend. “No.” But still not an actual one.

“Oh come on-“, Ezekiel was cut off by the shouts of ferrymen, docking into the harbor.

“We’ll continue later.”, said Ezekiel, as they walked off the ferry.

They had arrived on Simm.

“You asked where to. We’ll spend about an hour here on Haven Boulevard and then take the next ferry to Fonrica. There Hester organized a hotel room for about a week for us.”

“And we’ll hunt the demon?”

“Probably some plant demon or angry island spirit, but yeah. We’ll hunt it.”

“Dope.”

Ezekiel made a sharp left turn into an alleyway. The alley merged into the main street. They were on Simm, which was the last of three smaller islands. The store, Ezekiel had shot the Subrians at, was on Skrimm the first one. They shopped some basic supplies like clothes, some food, and two storm lanterns and then made their way towards Flimm, the middle island, where their ferry left.

They waited inside a rusty shed missing its front wall. They didn’t sit there for long for the ferry had arrived earlier than anticipated. Fonrica was about half an hour away so they settled down beneath a very simplistic sheet metal roof.

The sun was already setting. Desmond thought to himself, that it was odd how fast the day had passed. Ezekiel was asleep and he decided to do the same.

[whateverfloatsyourboatangie]

7 Times HIMYM Was Right About Life

1) Graduation Goggles.

In E6S20, the lot talks about Graduation Goggles, according to Robin, the phenomenon when you quit doing something or someone you hated, but as soon as you determined the finalisation, you get nostalgic and wish it back, like in high school, when everyone gets nostalgic after graduation.

During the past six months I worked at a publishing house as English editor and it was, plainly, pretty boring. I didn’t like the hours (far too many) and the work was primarily not challenging enough…

Anyway, when I could quit for good reasons, I suddenly felt sorry for leaving (it wasn’t long though, rather a Barney Goggle Moment). I also always get Graduation Goggles when I go to the hairdresser’s. Initially, I hate my hair and yearn for the moment a too stylish black-clad woman finally massages my temples before getting my hair cut, but then, as soon as I am comfortably seated in one of the chairs, the InTouch on my lap and  the black plastic cloak around my shoulders, I look into the mirror and think ‘Hey, it’s not too bad, is it?’ and wish I could have the indecency to walk out and keep my hair put - which I never do.

2) The Lobster Situation

This refers to when Robin is obsessed to get Barney back after she’s seeing him with another woman. Previously, she was told she couldn’t have lobster and then had a sudden urge to only eat lobster, making her face swell up.

I guess this is something everybody can associate with. The minute you are told you can’t do something, you just NEED to do it. I sometimes have that when I am somewhere really high and I have this sudden urge to drop my phone or camera (which is why I can never get out my phone somewhere high). Or when someone tells you not to scratch a spot, it starts itching so badly, you’d rather pull your face off than not scratch it.

3) Nothing good happens after 2 a.m.

This relates to Ted’s mother’s rule that you should make sure to be home after 2 a.m. because everything from there on is only crap. A long time ago, I wrote a post on the inner child where adults, when having the inner child switched on, react childishly and don’t want the evening to end, which, ultimately, ends in the evening being ruined. Example: Last NYE I made a bad mistake and agreed to celebrate NYE with my man and his friends, who have their inner child turned on permanently when going out (and mostly likely the rest of the time, too). Anyway, it was NYE and we were quite a bunch of people and still managed to secure a table to have everyone seated comfortably, which is close to winning a million Euros, if you ask me. Midnight had passed and so had 2 a.m. and people were starting to go home. The people who didn’t have their inner child on, did the sensible thing, saying “it’s late, let’s go home”. Anyway, not my man’s friends...no, even though everyone was seated and happy, we NEEDED to move to the next club because...reasons. From then on, it was only a drag. I, not wanting to be the sensible for once, accepted the stupidity and dragged along, knowing the evening had passed its peak and it was time to go home; however, the inner children didn’t know, nagging “no, mummy, just five more minutes” while the mummies could already see the children would be arguing and crying in five minutes’ time. Anyway, instead of going home and reminisce the evening with fond memories, we spent an hour not deciding which the next club would be and when we had finally decided, it was so crammed we couldn’t get in before I told them I would go home whereupon everyone agreed it was finally time to go home (apart from the ultimate inner child, but this would be getting too long if I started talking on inner child narcissist traits in people).  

So, heed Ted’s mum’s advice and just go home when the clock strikes 2 a.m..

4) Long Distance Relationships Rarely Work

In season one when Ted meets patissier Victoria, he is quickly falling in love with the sympathetic, warm-hearted cake maker (and part of me still mourns she didn’t end up being the mother, if I am honest with you).

However, their luck quickly gets challenged when Victoria receives a bakery fellowship in Germany, prompting the difficult question whether to stay with Ted or further her career. Both agree quickly that long distance wouldn’t work for them and that her accepting the fellowship would mean their relationship was over (honestly, a year is not that long of a time…).

Now, it is not that long distance cannot work, after all I have already had long distance for a year with my man and it worked out alright; however, I have to agree that long distance isn’t what you should be opting for - especially if it is not foreseeable how long the relationship will have to endure the additional burden. My man and I knew it would only be a year and even knowing that, we needed a little “re-entering phase” when I came back.

For Ted and Victoria  things do not end well in the show and Ted cheats on her with Robin (why, Ted, why? Robin’s really not all that special…). Lily and Marshall also drone on about Lily’s exchange in Paris in which they both suffered from the long distance.

In the end, I would say being together also means being together. Personally, when I choose to be with someone, I want to be with this person, in mind and body.

5) Things you didn’t like in the beginning, you may end up really liking after years

Upon reviewing a shirt he initially didn’t like, Ted realises it has grown on him and he revisits his ex-girlfriends to see if one of them would be a fit now, even if she wasn’t back then. I don’t know about ex-girl or boyfriends, but I can certify that you can actually grow to like things you didn’t previously.

For me, it has mostly been food which has transformed from eugh to yummy, such as carrots. I hated carrots as a child and told my mother only rabbits would eat them; however, now they have become one of my favourite vegetables. My man has always hated hot chocolate, but now I catch him nipping of my cup when I drink one and he has admitted he has grown to like the taste.

Another area in which I regularly flip my mind is fashion. I can perceive something as terribly horrible and wear it a couple of months later myself. Initially I thought the idea of ripped jeans was laughable because who would buy torn jeans? However, even though they’re still not my favourite, I have some pairs of them in my wardrobe now too. Same goes for sneakers. I still oppose the ridiculous sneaker culture creeping up upon us and people who, out of principle, only wear sneakers should be flogged in my opinion; yet, from downright declaring I would never ever wear one pair myself, my man actually bought my a pair of Nike’s last year and I have been seen wearing them on occasion.  

6) Clubs are terrible

There is no message I can endorse more than this one. I. Hate. Clubs. In HIMYM, Ted and Barney go to some fancy club while Lily and Marshall dedicate their time with more grown-up occupations, quickly yearning they were at the club too.

Inside the club, Ted can barely talk to a woman because of the loud music, two beers cost him thirty-something quid and it takes hours until he can get them. Ultimately, he concurs that clubs suck and I can fully understand that.

Personally, I have never been a party bunny myself and preferred reading in bed (I know it sounds so cliché, but it is actually the truth). However, once or twice I year I convinced myself that partying was fun, so I went out to some fancy club in which the music was drumming from the walls and I was elbowed all evening long, leading me to the conclusion that clubs actually suck, unless you enjoy being deaf for the three ensuing days, like to be butt-grabbed every five minutes and drunk men harassing you. And if you do, you should seek advice...

7) The Platinum Rule

Barney has a rule for everything, we know that, but this rule actually isn’t such a bad idea. Basically it states to not eat where you defecate, i.e. not date someone from work, befriend a neighbour or engage in relational contact with anybody whom you cannot simply avoid.

Obviously, it is difficult to stay out of any sort of relationship at the places you primarily exist; however, I would not seek a relationship at the workplace, for instance, because in the case it doesn’t work out (which usually is the case), everything gets really weird and the place you spent most of your time at suddenly becomes a haunted space for unwanted memories.

Additionally, neighbours can be tricky too. Obviously we all desire pleasant relationships with our neighbours, i.e. them letting us be without interfering too much. But friends? Hm, could work out the other way too. As we can see in HIMYM, Lily and Marshall get all cosy with their new neighbours who then constantly knock on their door, wanting to play charades. Obviously, this can become rather tiresome if one party is more involved into the relationship than another and, personally, I have never sought to be friends with my neighbours. An affirmative nod in their direction has so far sufficed.

Obviously HIMYM is set in a world of extremes and long distance can work, as can a relationship with a co-worker or neighbour, but the above given theories  explained in HIMYM make sense in many life situations and are well-valued to be kept in mind.  

#himym #series #american tvshows #america #platinum rule

[mysteryshelf]

SF & FANTASY WEEK - The Four Worlds

Welcome to

THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF SF and Fantasy Week!

DISCLAIMER: This content has been provided to THE PULP AND MYSTERY SHELF by Silver Dagger Book Tours. No compensation was received. This information required by the Federal Trade Commission.

Interview with the Author

What is something unique/quirky about you?

I’m a left-handed pescaterian and I love cooking and mixing drinks.

  Tell us something really interesting that’s happened to you!

When I was 15 I went on my first trip out of the country. I spent ten days in Panama City, Panama. I got to see historic sights like the Panama Canal, but the experience that stuck with me was visiting one of the native indian tribes. It took an hour long bus ride and from there a 45 minute canoe trip to the hill they lived on. The tribe welcomed the group with a traditional indian dance, they painted us with unique symbols and fed us. I’ve never had food so fresh and delicious in my life. The tribe didn’t wear clothes and in some cases the children ran around butt-naked, it took some getting used to, but no one was ashamed or embarrassed about it. They lived in tree houses, not the kind of tree houses we think of with walls and a roof, but basically a platform in a tree. Since they didn’t have lights, when it got dark outside we went to sleep and slept under the stars. It was one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had and it made me feel close to the environment and nature.

  What are some of your pet peeves?

I don’t have too many, but one of them is when people make sweeping assumptions without doing research. I like to be open minded and understand there are differing perspectives and situations. Seeing things from different points of views helps me to become a better writer.

  What are your top 10 favorite books/authors?

I’m an avid book lover and read about 50 book a year, if not more. Some of my top favorites are:

  The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A. McKillip

A Threat of Shadows by JA Andrews

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

When Tomorrow Calls Series by JT Lawrence

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch

The HitchHiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

The Legend of Eli Monpress by Rachel Aaron

The Redwall Series by Brian Jacques

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien

  These are all books that inspire my writing. As you can tell, I read a wide variety of genres.

  What inspired you to write this book?

I love telling stories. The Four World Series is was inspired by my love of storytelling and also inspired by the games I played in my childhood. I grew up with 4 sisters, we are all quite close and enjoyed using our wild imaginations. I’ve noticed in reviews, reviewers often talk about my imagination and it honestly came from my childhood.

  I started writing The Five Warriors because I had a dream about a warrior, standing on the edge of a battlefield. He’d been through a lot and he stared out with relief. When I dreamed about him, I knew I had to write his story. His name is Marklus. The Five Warriors opens with him in prison.

  What can we expect from you in the future?

Currently, I’m working on the final novel in the Four Worlds Series. From there I have a couple of additional series that happen within the Four Worlds and about 20 standalones. All in all I have about 50 novels and novella in my queue and will be releasing them over the next 25-50 years, depending on how long it takes me to write them out. While the main genre I write is fantasy, I’ll dive into sci-fi, romance, thrillers, and other genres along the way.

  Do you have any “side stories” about the characters?

I do! I adore side stories and digging into some of the side characters to learn more about them, their histories and their motives. My first stand-alone with a side character is Myran. Myran tells the story about Eliesmore’s mother and why she behaves the way she does. It’s a dark fantasy novella, and I will release more like it in the upcoming years.

  What did you enjoy most about writing this book?

I love seeing the characters come to life, it’s the best part of writing. They are good and bad, light and dark, they argue, have insane motives, stand up for each other and enjoy a good fight. They don’t always make the right choice, they make mistakes, but once you get to know them, you love them, despite how crazy and annoying they get. There will be characters you root for, and others you’ll want to choke out and remove from the book altogether. It’s a wild ride with these characters.

Tell us about your main characters- what makes them tick?

When did you first consider yourself a writer?

This might sound a bit odd but I’ve always considered myself a writer. I did not consider myself an author until my first book was published in 2015. Now, when I meet people and they ask me what I do, I tell them, I’m an author. It feels good.

  About the Books

The Five Warriors

The Four Worlds Series Book 1

by Angela J. Ford

Genre: Epic Dark Fantasy

“The characters were well-written and well-developed, the story was clear and enjoyable without being predictable, and there were a couple of evenings I stayed up later than I intended just so I could get to the end of a chapter. If you’re a fantasy fan, you’re going to LOVE this!” —Amazon review

What if…

your best friend started a rebellion in the middle of a war?

your lover awakened a deep evil and helped it grow?

your people were too cowardly to face a battle?

you stole an ancient power source?

you gambled with the fate of the world?

Join five powerful warriors each with a unique ability and magical weapons. Their quest is to discover where the transformed creatures are coming from and put a stop to it.

Along the way they run into treacherous immortals, sea monsters,

powerful beasts of the air and talking animals.

Each has their own reasoning for joining the quest, but one carries a deadly secret which just might be the destruction of them all.

“Angela’s imagination has brought these characters to life and the

worlds they live in.”

—Amazon review

Add to Goodreads

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The Blended Ones

The Four Worlds Series Book 2

Over 100 years after The Five Warriors saved the Western World, the Blended Ones have become a curse in the Eastern World. Beware the Blended Ones…

Phyllis and her 17 year old twin sister, Ilieus are Blended Ones. But Ilieus suffers from visions of darkness she is unable to discern. Forsaken by their parents the two cross the country in search of the Order of the Wise for help.

Cuthan the Charmer is mischievous enough to change anyone’s mind with a smile and a wink. Born into a family of treasure hunters, he s searching for the key to unlocking his dormant powers.

Pharengon the Horse Lord was born to be King. Young and inexperienced he

seeks a weapon to turn the tide of the war in his favor. But when his very own army betrays him, he will have to turn to the Lost Ones for assistance.

Caught in the fate of the Eastern World the youths destinies become twisted together in a frightful quest that will change the course of time. In the midst of their whirlwind adventure, they discover love, loss, and uncover the truth about who and what is behind the chaotic, spiraling events in the Eastern World.

This can be read as a stand alone novel

Add to Goodreads

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Eliesmore and the Green Stone

The Four Worlds Series Book 3

Changers have arisen, wreaking havoc as they harvest the world, searching

for the Green Stone. The South World sinks in despair, holding its breath, waiting for the One.

Eliesmore is a Blended One, growing up on the edge of the forest of the creatures of the wood. Young, headstrong, and inspired by magical rituals, he spends his time between his overprotective mother and sneaking out to dance with the wild things.

His courage is tested when Eliesmore discovers that he is the One who is meant to save the Four Worlds from the Changers. Unwilling to accept his fate, he turns his back on the prophecy and the futile quest to dissolve the Green Stone.

But Eliesmore will soon learn he cannot escape his destiny. Beset by creatures of the deep and hunted by servants of the Changers, Eliesmore finds his task will test the loyalty of his companions and help him answer the ultimate question:

Can he trust the immortals – or are they the reason the Changers

have come to power?

Add to Goodreads

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Myran

A Tale of the Four Worlds

Darkness has fallen in the South World, a land ruled by forces of evil and dark powers. Those who would resist live in hiding, hoping for the prophecy concerning the One to come true.

Born into a shadowed world Myran experiences her first loss when her parents are murdered before her eyes.

Adopted by the Green People she makes it her goal to hide from the woes of the world. As she grows older, she discovers her actions will birth the most significant change in all of the Four Worlds.

Recommended: Read this after reading “Eliesmore and the Green Stone”

Add to Goodreads

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Brought up as a bookworm and musician, Angela J. Ford began writing The Four Worlds Series—a fantasy series—at the age of twelve. The storyline of those books was largely based off of the imaginative games she played with her sisters.

Angela originally finished the series when she was sixteen. After college, Angela began to rewrite The Four Worlds Series, bringing it from a child’s daydream to an adventure young and old can enjoy. Since it is inspired by fairy tales, high magic, and epic fantasy, Angela knows you’ll enjoy your adventures within the Four Worlds.

If you happen to be in Nashville, you’ll most likely find her at a local coffee shop, enjoying a white chocolate mocha and furiously working on her next book. Make sure you say hello!

Website * Facebook * Facebook Group * Twitter * Instagram

Google + * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Follow the tour HERE for exclusive excerpts, guest posts and a giveaway!

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SF & FANTASY WEEK – The Four Worlds was originally published on the Wordpress version of The Pulp and Mystery Shelf with Shannon Muir

#shannon muir #pulp and mystery shelf

[trendingnewsb]

Which One Is Better: A Minimalist Lifestyle or a Maximalist Lifestyle?

Throughout history, many intelligent people have claimed that it’s better to live a life without excess, and just as many intelligent people have claimed that it’s better to live a life of excess. In 2017, this disagreement is being played out in the world of interior design.[1]

For minimalists, less is more. That means white walls, white furniture, and creating calmness and beauty by limiting yourself to the absolute basics. For maximalists, more is more. That means throwing together as many colours and patterns as possible and creating beauty through the sheer variety and amount of stuff in a given room.

However, becoming a minimalist [2]or becoming a maximalist is about much more than sofas and lampshades. They are both philosophies which try to tell us how best to think, to feel, and to live our lives. This is nothing new.

Plato debated with his contemporaries [3]about how we can achieve eudaimonia, a Greek word which roughly translates as “human fulfilment”. 2,400 years later, the minimalists and maximalists are arguing over the very same question.

Minimalist from Past to Present

The Beginning

Minimalism has its roots in cynicism. In the 21st Century, we tend to imagine that this word means someone who is world-weary, negative, and sceptical. However, the original, Greek meaning of the word referred to a school of philosophy which questioned how much we really needed.

Ancient Greek cynics [4]believed that true happiness did not depend on material goods or things from the external world. Rather, true happiness could only be found within. As a result, it’s something that anyone can attain.

One of the most famous cynics was a man named Diogenes. Diogenes was a philosopher who wandered the earth with only four possessions: a barrel (which was also his home), a stick, a cloak, and a bread bag. According to some sources, he was once asked by Emperor Alexander the Great if there was anything he wanted. He replied by saying that he wanted the Emperor to move to the side; he was blocking the sun.

The Modern Time

In more recent times, minimalism can be traced back to American philosophers and writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson[5] and Henry David Thoreau.[6] Emerson was born and raised in the United States at a time when the country was still trying to figure itself out. He felt that, while the US had declared itself politically independent from Europe, it had yet to become intellectually or philosophically independent from Europe.

As a man raised by a long line English puritans, Emerson felt trapped by the traditions of Europe and, in turn, he felt trapped by what he saw as an obsession with the material world. He was struck by the epiphany that, though humans are a part of the natural world, we often act as if we are apart from it.

As a result, we try to achieve happiness by shielding ourselves from nature through extravagant homes with countless possessions. Emerson rejected this idea, claiming that a simpler life which was more in touch with nature was best.

This philosophy, known as transcendentalism, was then developed upon by Thoreau. After moving into a cabin the woods in order to become completely self-reliant (and to avoid paying taxes as a form of political protest), Thoreau discovered that he didn’t need all that much to achieve the state of eudaimonia that Plato talked about.

Maximalist: Its Root and Development

The Beginning

Maximalism, too, can be traced back to Western antiquity. In response to the cynics, the epicureans saw things differently [7]. These guys believed that it was more important to live a life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure than it was to rid your life of unnecessary things. For them, if something feels good, then it probably is good.

However, epicureans were also aware that pleasure was a kind of calculation. After all, too much short-term pleasure can get in the way of long-term pleasure. If you drink two bottles of champagne at a fancy bar because of a commitment to short-term pleasure, you’ll likely regret it in the long-term when your head is throbbing and your bank account is empty.

For epicureans, this doesn’t mean that drinking two bottles of champagne at a fancy bar is wrong. It just means that short-term pleasure can sometimes come at a cost. The secret to happiness means just being aware of this cost.

Jump forward a few hundred years, there was a man named Oscar Wilde[8], the author of his first and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. For Wilde, art is beautiful uselessness. To stay alive, we only need to sleep and eat. So a home with just a bed and a table would be an extremely ugly place because it would only contain useful things. A home with unnecessary but attractive additions such as sculptures, paintings, vast numbers of books, comfortable chairs, and an enormous grand piano is an extremely beautiful place. This is the basis of Wilde’s aesthetic philosophy, sometimes referred to as “new hedonism”, and it’s also the basis of maximalism.

The Modern Time

Maximalism, as we understand it today, is mostly defined by post-modernism. Novels such as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 [9] and Salman Rushdie’ s Midnight’s Children [10] do not limit themselves to the traditional idea that a novel needs to be about one story happening at one place or at one time. Both novels span hundreds of years (though flashbacks and flash forwards), take place in hundreds of settings, and explore the lives of hundreds of characters. In doing so, these novels ask us a question: why limit the stories you can tell when there are so many stories to tell?

What’s Good with Minimalism?

One man influenced by Thoreau’s writing was Gandhi. Living under the British Empire in the early 20th century, Gandhi felt compelled to live a life where he didn’t need to rely on British goods in order to survive. Eventually, this idea evolved into a philosophy whereby Gandhi felt determined to live on just the bare essentials in order to survive.What’s more, he was also influenced by Thoreau’s notion of “civil disobedience”. Rather than protesting British rule with aggression or violence, Gandhi opposed it with noncompliance[11] . He wouldn’t pay their taxes, buy their products, or follow their law. He would rely on himself by growing his own food, knitting his own clothes and, ultimately, thinking his own thoughts.

With this is in mind, the benefits of minimalism can be divided up into two broad categories: the practical benefits and the intellectual (or spiritual) benefits.

Practically, minimalism means having less physical stuff to weigh you down and fewer things to depend upon.

In turn, this leads to the intellectual benefit of being free to consider for yourself what you need and want rather than have this dictated to you by the culture which you happened to be born into.

Intellectually, you can think independently.

By being independent from society (both practically and intellectually), you are then able to think independently about society. It’s no coincidence then that Thoreau and Gandhi ended up deciding upon two quite radical (but ultimately correct) ideas about the societies which they had removed themselves from.

For Gandhi, minimalism helped him to better realise that India needed to be free from British rule. For Thoreau, minimalism helped him to better realise that slavery was indefensible and needed to end. Both of these ideas sound obvious now, but they weren’t at the time. It’s difficult to criticise a society if you yourself are part of that society. Minimalism allows you to stand outside society. As Shakespeare once said, “the eye sees not itself.[12]

What Do We Gain from Maximalism?

Life is short. If the entire universe were a 13-year-old girl, she would have only known about humans for the last 50 minutes. [13] What’s more, for most of those 50 minutes, humans would have been hunter-gatherers who roamed from place to place. The first proper human civilisations would have emerged just five minutes ago.

More than that, those five minutes have been spent on planet earth which, though it is everything we have ever known and contains within it the lives and ideas of everyone we have ever heard about, is just an infinitesimal speck in the vast depths of space. As Carl Sagan once put it, the earth is just a pale blue dot.[14]

If the whole of human civilisation makes up just five measly minutes on a few tiny corners of a microscopic dot in the cosmic, 13-year-old’s life, then how can one human life have any meaning? Nihilists believe that it doesn’t.[15] The cosmic, 13-year-old is blind to humanity.

When you embrace stuff, you may experience more with little time you have.

Maximalism is a reaction to this idea. While Epicures and Wilde could not have known how vast the universe is, they still would have had a decent grasp of how fleeting life is. With so little time on earth, these men felt compelled to live lives according to pleasure.

Post-modern literature takes this further by embracing the madness and information overload [16]of the modern world. Planes, the internet, television, films: all of these things make the world feel smaller. This, maximalists argue, is not a bad thing. It’s good that we can experience so much with what little time we have. In fact, there’s science to back up the idea that varying your experiences as much as possible can help you to feel like you’ve lived longer.[17] So rather than abandoning all the progress society has made by allowing us access to so much stuff, maximalists embrace this chaos. After all, we’ll soon be dead.

So Is It Better to Be a Minimalist or a Maximalist?

Being a minimalist means running contrary to the advice of Oscar Wilde, Epicurus, and countless post-modern writers while being a maximalist means running contrary to the advice of Diogenes, Emerson, and Gandhi. All these people have shown how both minimalism and maximalism can make you happy, unhappy, and everything in between. Like everything else, it’s a matter of taste.

Philip Glass’s Glassworks[18] shows us what beauty can be created when we stick to the essentials. The 40-minute album is a minimalist composition divided into six movements. Even though it expresses so much creativity and originality, it mostly consists of repetitions and variations of the same tunes played on different instruments.

By contrast, musicians like Kanye West with his magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy[19] show us what can be achieved when we embrace our artistic greed and fill a song with as much noise, content, and experimentation as possible. The album is maximalist masterpiece of controversial lyrics, loud and layered music which blends dozens of genres at once, and even a 34-minute film to accompany it.[20]

Asking whether it’s better to be a minimalist or a maximalist is like asking which album is better. As previously mentioned, it’s a matter of taste. Consequently, a better question would be, “which album do you prefer?” If you can answer that question, you’ll probably have a better idea of whether you should live a minimalist lifestyle or a maximalist one.

Reference

[1]^TheWallStreetJournal: Maximalism: The Lush New Décor Look That’s Vanquishing Minimalism[2]^TheMinimalists: What Is Minimalism?[3]^Youtube: PHILOSOPHY – Plato[4]^InternetEncylopediaOfPhilosophy: Cynics[5]^Youtube: Literature – Ralph Waldo Emerson[6]^Youtube: POLITICAL THEORY – Henry David Thoreau[7]^InternetEncyclopediaOfPhilosophy: Epicurus[8]^TheUniversityOfAdelaide:  The Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde[9]^Independent: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, book of a lifetime: Thundering originality and depth[10]^TheGuardian: The 100 best novels: No 91 – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)[11]^EncyclopediaBritannica: Noncooperation Movement[12]^MassachusettsInstituteOfTechnology: The Life and Death of Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2“[13]^Youtube: The Big Bang: Crash Course Big History #1[14]^BusinessInsider: 26 years ago, Carl Sagan gave us an incredible perspective on our planet[15]^InternetEncyclopediaOfPhilosophy: Nihilism[16]^PewResearchCenter: Information Overload[17]^Youtube: The Speed of Life[18]^AllMusic: Philip Glass: Glassworks[19]^Vice: Revisiting the Radical Black Fever Dream of Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’[20]^Youtube: Kanye West – Runaway (Full-length Film)

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Which One Is Better: A Minimalist Lifestyle or a Maximalist Lifestyle?

Throughout history, many intelligent people have claimed that it’s better to live a life without excess, and just as many intelligent people have claimed that it’s better to live a life of excess. In 2017, this disagreement is being played out in the world of interior design.[1]

For minimalists, less is more. That means white walls, white furniture, and creating calmness and beauty by limiting yourself to the absolute basics. For maximalists, more is more. That means throwing together as many colours and patterns as possible and creating beauty through the sheer variety and amount of stuff in a given room.

However, becoming a minimalist [2]or becoming a maximalist is about much more than sofas and lampshades. They are both philosophies which try to tell us how best to think, to feel, and to live our lives. This is nothing new.

Plato debated with his contemporaries [3]about how we can achieve eudaimonia, a Greek word which roughly translates as “human fulfilment”. 2,400 years later, the minimalists and maximalists are arguing over the very same question.

Minimalist from Past to Present

The Beginning

Minimalism has its roots in cynicism. In the 21st Century, we tend to imagine that this word means someone who is world-weary, negative, and sceptical. However, the original, Greek meaning of the word referred to a school of philosophy which questioned how much we really needed.

Ancient Greek cynics [4]believed that true happiness did not depend on material goods or things from the external world. Rather, true happiness could only be found within. As a result, it’s something that anyone can attain.

One of the most famous cynics was a man named Diogenes. Diogenes was a philosopher who wandered the earth with only four possessions: a barrel (which was also his home), a stick, a cloak, and a bread bag. According to some sources, he was once asked by Emperor Alexander the Great if there was anything he wanted. He replied by saying that he wanted the Emperor to move to the side; he was blocking the sun.

The Modern Time

In more recent times, minimalism can be traced back to American philosophers and writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson[5] and Henry David Thoreau.[6] Emerson was born and raised in the United States at a time when the country was still trying to figure itself out. He felt that, while the US had declared itself politically independent from Europe, it had yet to become intellectually or philosophically independent from Europe.

As a man raised by a long line English puritans, Emerson felt trapped by the traditions of Europe and, in turn, he felt trapped by what he saw as an obsession with the material world. He was struck by the epiphany that, though humans are a part of the natural world, we often act as if we are apart from it.

As a result, we try to achieve happiness by shielding ourselves from nature through extravagant homes with countless possessions. Emerson rejected this idea, claiming that a simpler life which was more in touch with nature was best.

This philosophy, known as transcendentalism, was then developed upon by Thoreau. After moving into a cabin the woods in order to become completely self-reliant (and to avoid paying taxes as a form of political protest), Thoreau discovered that he didn’t need all that much to achieve the state of eudaimonia that Plato talked about.

Maximalist: Its Root and Development

The Beginning

Maximalism, too, can be traced back to Western antiquity. In response to the cynics, the epicureans saw things differently [7]. These guys believed that it was more important to live a life devoted to the pursuit of pleasure than it was to rid your life of unnecessary things. For them, if something feels good, then it probably is good.

However, epicureans were also aware that pleasure was a kind of calculation. After all, too much short-term pleasure can get in the way of long-term pleasure. If you drink two bottles of champagne at a fancy bar because of a commitment to short-term pleasure, you’ll likely regret it in the long-term when your head is throbbing and your bank account is empty.

For epicureans, this doesn’t mean that drinking two bottles of champagne at a fancy bar is wrong. It just means that short-term pleasure can sometimes come at a cost. The secret to happiness means just being aware of this cost.

Jump forward a few hundred years, there was a man named Oscar Wilde[8], the author of his first and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray. For Wilde, art is beautiful uselessness. To stay alive, we only need to sleep and eat. So a home with just a bed and a table would be an extremely ugly place because it would only contain useful things. A home with unnecessary but attractive additions such as sculptures, paintings, vast numbers of books, comfortable chairs, and an enormous grand piano is an extremely beautiful place. This is the basis of Wilde’s aesthetic philosophy, sometimes referred to as “new hedonism”, and it’s also the basis of maximalism.

The Modern Time

Maximalism, as we understand it today, is mostly defined by post-modernism. Novels such as Thomas Pynchon’s The Crying of Lot 49 [9] and Salman Rushdie’ s Midnight’s Children [10] do not limit themselves to the traditional idea that a novel needs to be about one story happening at one place or at one time. Both novels span hundreds of years (though flashbacks and flash forwards), take place in hundreds of settings, and explore the lives of hundreds of characters. In doing so, these novels ask us a question: why limit the stories you can tell when there are so many stories to tell?

What’s Good with Minimalism?

One man influenced by Thoreau’s writing was Gandhi. Living under the British Empire in the early 20th century, Gandhi felt compelled to live a life where he didn’t need to rely on British goods in order to survive. Eventually, this idea evolved into a philosophy whereby Gandhi felt determined to live on just the bare essentials in order to survive.What’s more, he was also influenced by Thoreau’s notion of “civil disobedience”. Rather than protesting British rule with aggression or violence, Gandhi opposed it with noncompliance[11] . He wouldn’t pay their taxes, buy their products, or follow their law. He would rely on himself by growing his own food, knitting his own clothes and, ultimately, thinking his own thoughts.

With this is in mind, the benefits of minimalism can be divided up into two broad categories: the practical benefits and the intellectual (or spiritual) benefits.

Practically, minimalism means having less physical stuff to weigh you down and fewer things to depend upon.

In turn, this leads to the intellectual benefit of being free to consider for yourself what you need and want rather than have this dictated to you by the culture which you happened to be born into.

Intellectually, you can think independently.

By being independent from society (both practically and intellectually), you are then able to think independently about society. It’s no coincidence then that Thoreau and Gandhi ended up deciding upon two quite radical (but ultimately correct) ideas about the societies which they had removed themselves from.

For Gandhi, minimalism helped him to better realise that India needed to be free from British rule. For Thoreau, minimalism helped him to better realise that slavery was indefensible and needed to end. Both of these ideas sound obvious now, but they weren’t at the time. It’s difficult to criticise a society if you yourself are part of that society. Minimalism allows you to stand outside society. As Shakespeare once said, “the eye sees not itself.[12]

What Do We Gain from Maximalism?

Life is short. If the entire universe were a 13-year-old girl, she would have only known about humans for the last 50 minutes. [13] What’s more, for most of those 50 minutes, humans would have been hunter-gatherers who roamed from place to place. The first proper human civilisations would have emerged just five minutes ago.

More than that, those five minutes have been spent on planet earth which, though it is everything we have ever known and contains within it the lives and ideas of everyone we have ever heard about, is just an infinitesimal speck in the vast depths of space. As Carl Sagan once put it, the earth is just a pale blue dot.[14]

If the whole of human civilisation makes up just five measly minutes on a few tiny corners of a microscopic dot in the cosmic, 13-year-old’s life, then how can one human life have any meaning? Nihilists believe that it doesn’t.[15] The cosmic, 13-year-old is blind to humanity.

When you embrace stuff, you may experience more with little time you have.

Maximalism is a reaction to this idea. While Epicures and Wilde could not have known how vast the universe is, they still would have had a decent grasp of how fleeting life is. With so little time on earth, these men felt compelled to live lives according to pleasure.

Post-modern literature takes this further by embracing the madness and information overload [16]of the modern world. Planes, the internet, television, films: all of these things make the world feel smaller. This, maximalists argue, is not a bad thing. It’s good that we can experience so much with what little time we have. In fact, there’s science to back up the idea that varying your experiences as much as possible can help you to feel like you’ve lived longer.[17] So rather than abandoning all the progress society has made by allowing us access to so much stuff, maximalists embrace this chaos. After all, we’ll soon be dead.

So Is It Better to Be a Minimalist or a Maximalist?

Being a minimalist means running contrary to the advice of Oscar Wilde, Epicurus, and countless post-modern writers while being a maximalist means running contrary to the advice of Diogenes, Emerson, and Gandhi. All these people have shown how both minimalism and maximalism can make you happy, unhappy, and everything in between. Like everything else, it’s a matter of taste.

Philip Glass’s Glassworks[18] shows us what beauty can be created when we stick to the essentials. The 40-minute album is a minimalist composition divided into six movements. Even though it expresses so much creativity and originality, it mostly consists of repetitions and variations of the same tunes played on different instruments.

By contrast, musicians like Kanye West with his magnum opus My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy[19] show us what can be achieved when we embrace our artistic greed and fill a song with as much noise, content, and experimentation as possible. The album is maximalist masterpiece of controversial lyrics, loud and layered music which blends dozens of genres at once, and even a 34-minute film to accompany it.[20]

Asking whether it’s better to be a minimalist or a maximalist is like asking which album is better. As previously mentioned, it’s a matter of taste. Consequently, a better question would be, “which album do you prefer?” If you can answer that question, you’ll probably have a better idea of whether you should live a minimalist lifestyle or a maximalist one.

Reference

[1]^TheWallStreetJournal: Maximalism: The Lush New Décor Look That’s Vanquishing Minimalism[2]^TheMinimalists: What Is Minimalism?[3]^Youtube: PHILOSOPHY – Plato[4]^InternetEncylopediaOfPhilosophy: Cynics[5]^Youtube: Literature – Ralph Waldo Emerson[6]^Youtube: POLITICAL THEORY – Henry David Thoreau[7]^InternetEncyclopediaOfPhilosophy: Epicurus[8]^TheUniversityOfAdelaide:  The Preface of The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde[9]^Independent: The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon, book of a lifetime: Thundering originality and depth[10]^TheGuardian: The 100 best novels: No 91 – Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (1981)[11]^EncyclopediaBritannica: Noncooperation Movement[12]^MassachusettsInstituteOfTechnology: The Life and Death of Julius Caesar Act 1, Scene 2“[13]^Youtube: The Big Bang: Crash Course Big History #1[14]^BusinessInsider: 26 years ago, Carl Sagan gave us an incredible perspective on our planet[15]^InternetEncyclopediaOfPhilosophy: Nihilism[16]^PewResearchCenter: Information Overload[17]^Youtube: The Speed of Life[18]^AllMusic: Philip Glass: Glassworks[19]^Vice: Revisiting the Radical Black Fever Dream of Kanye West’s ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’[20]^Youtube: Kanye West – Runaway (Full-length Film)

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