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halothenthehorns · 3 years

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TLTNL- THE HOGWARTS HIGH INQUISITOR

"Padfoot mate, you don't really think you think," he cut himself off and went cross eyed before trying again, "I mean that Harry is-" then he stopped again for the ludicrous statement couldn't even manage to pass his lips.

Sirius watched with some distant form of amusement as James struggled to find words, a concept in itself, as he ran his fingers hard through his hair and tried to find a way to answer. "What if I do? All those stories we've heard about what happens to those in Azkaban, what makes you think that didn't happen to me after twelve years? Turning into a dog could only have saved me so much-"

"Don't," James snapped, his eyes darkening by the second. "I can't stand thinking of you like that, it's never going to happen."

"It's already happening Prongs," Sirius whispered back. "What if we can't stop this, it's all supposed to happen in less than a year! People will start going missing, and then Dumbledore's going to come around and get you and Lily to go into hiding, and I'll do it again, I swear I will, I'll hunt down that rat bastard and-"

"Think what you're saying," James snapped, fighting hard not to knock him upside the head while he did. "Future tense mate, we'll find a way to stop this happening well before then, so stop acting like it's inevitable already. You're not going to turn into that, I refuse."

Sirius still couldn't seem to take his words to heart, gazing at a picture Lily had hung up on the wall of a forest that had branches swaying in the wind, an occasional critter flipping in and out of sight. It reminded him of the Forbidden Forest, where he'd had so many happy memories, and it scared him how tainted those already were, and kept reminding him it was only going to get worse. "It's my worst nightmare come to life, I don't know how but the universe did that to me. Made me go as mad as my folks, in a different way I'll grant but all the same, and then jailing me right back there."

"It's not going to happen," James repeated, and would keep doing so until it sunk through his thick head.

They met eyes, Sirius almost absently saying, "you have always been around to remind me of that," and then quickly flipped subjects before even the notion of this no longer existing could linger, "honestly though, I thought you were going to bring me up here to rib me for talking to Harry like that."

James snorted and rolled his eyes, forcing himself to relax as he seemed to think he'd accomplished something. "I'd be remiss if you didn't tell Harry he wasn't having enough fun in his life. I still think you should show up at Hogsmeade and show those three what we used to get up to, Harry needs more fun in his life and he's clearly not getting it from his friends."

Sirius bit at his lip as he realized Harry wasn't getting that from him either, he'd been far too consumed with his own pity party, but at James' words, he was now at least holding out hope it would come true soon.

James watched as Sirius was already starting to fall back into wallowing, and he couldn't let that stand. Sirius was usually his inspiration to start all the madness they got up to, seeing him so low now truly was doing something to him he could hardly put into words, and he desperately hoped that the next time Sirius' name came up it would be in some form of his release back into a normal life already, he'd suffered long enough for it. For now he grasped his shoulder with a tight squeeze before actually managing his old laugh back and saying, "come on now, let's see what kind of mass destruction the school causes in rebellion against whatever that stupid comment of Percy's was. Dumbledore not in charge, pfft, Fudge couldn't do any such thing."

Sirius did at least smile as he followed him back for that, any talk of setting Umbridge in the area with the twins was bound to cause a laugh, which he was hoping to hear from soon. The methods she used on Harry weren't going to hold long.

Lily and Remus were still very concerned by whatever that reaction had been, but also knew James was the best, if not the only person Sirius would get help from with it and so were plenty satisfied to see him not visibly lingering on it when they came back.

Harry most of all wanted to persist on the subject, as he felt like he'd let Sirius down in some way, but when his godfather flopped down beside him with a normal smile in place Harry just couldn't bring himself to mess it all up again when his dad had clearly seemed to comfort him about it. So as James picked up the book and began, they were all feeling almost slightly hopeful again this was all going to somehow work out.

They'd expected to have to comb the paper to find this mysterious article, but instead it was right on the front page, with a very large shot of Umbridge accompanying it.

"Urgh, as if you don't get enough of that around the castle, now you've got closeups," James crinkled his nose in disgust.

The title read the woman's new position as High Inquisitor.

"Why do I already have a bad feeling about whatever the hell that made up title is?" Remus sighed.

"You've got good instincts," Harry's eyes were already narrowed with dislike.

Harry asked what that could mean, as Hermione began reading the article about the Ministry passing new legislation giving itself new levels of control inside Hogwarts.

James struggled to understand even the first sentence! What did that mean, the Ministry had control over their school?

Lily had her lips very tightly pursed as her mind flew through the ramifications of that. Hogwarts had always been of its own body and under the guide of the current Headmaster. This had allowed for a lot of free will inside the school outside of Ministry influence which many considered a good thing, as it left the children to grow up and form their own opinions of what they thought were right and wrong. Now their own government was more than actively stepping in as more than just a substitute teacher role? Just what the hell was Umbridge going to have these students doing? Aside from torturing them!

James looked to his friends like he was hoping for some kind of clarification from them, but both seemed just as confounded by the idea.

The Minister had been growing uneasy about the goings-on of the school for a while, says Junior Minister Percy Weasley.

"Did they have to post his title? I find that entirely unnecessary as of course his Junior would agree with him," Sirius scoffed.

"I just wish they hadn't said his last name, marks a bad light on all the Weasleys," Remus rolled his eyes for poor Arthur and his reaction to further seeing his son agreeing with all this.

Minister Fudge is now responding to the concerns from anxious parents who were concerned of the direction the school was moving in.

"Then they should talk to the Headmaster, and deal with this in house as it's always been," Lily stated absently, still trying to wrap her head around how this abrupt change had just sprung up overnight and it was entirely allowed.

This was not the first time Fudge had been seen influencing the school of late, as of the end of August he'd also enacted Educational Decree Number Twenty-two, giving the Ministry power to elect a teacher at the school should the Headmaster or mistress not find a candidate.

"Oh that's even better, they've been at this since the summer," James said in exasperation, already a spiel of comments he could imagine his parents saying if they'd heard about this.

Weasley continued speaking about how this was how Umbridge had begun her time there, and she was an immediate success-

"Let's put Percy in detention with her and see how long he holds that," Harry said grimly as he rubbed absently at the back of his hand.

"He'd have to be set up to be put in there, and even then I'll bet he could kiss her arse out of it," Sirius growled, perhaps even more darkly than he should have just for having to watch Harry do that.

Harry cut in there to protest the absurdity of that statement, but Hermione shushed him and kept reading about Percy saying she was revolutionizing the teaching of Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"By not teaching them! Yeah, I'd say that's revolutionary!" Remus balked at the absurdity.

The success of this function lead into current Educational Decree Number twenty-three, the creation of the High Inquisitor. A position that allowed the Ministry to evaluate the teachers on premises and make sure they were up to scratch to be teaching future youths. Professor Umbridge had delightfully accepted this role along with her teacher's position.

Lily had to swallow a bitter taint as she almost realized what a good idea that could have been coming from anyone else. Abysmal teachers like Lockhart and Snape wouldn't have been a problem then...but that's not what this job was really doing, and she knew it full well, so didn't bother speaking it.

These new transitions had received much support from parents who had children attending school.

"I do not believe that," James scoffed. "If my folks had heard the Ministry was weaseling around inside Hogwarts they'd have thrown a fit. They never have before and they're just suddenly doing it now after they've spent the summer campaigning what a mentally unstable person Dumbledore was? That doesn't seem the least bit suspicious it's all happening at the same time?"

Lucius Malfoy being quoted as saying his mind was much more at ease knowing Dumbledore was being put under evaluation.

"Ah, well at least that support suddenly made sense," Remus scowled.

The paper continues in saying this was something that should have long since been done considering the controversial appointments over the last few years, including half-giant Rubeus Hagrid, a delusional ex-Auror known as Alastor, Mady-Eye, Moody, and the werewolf Remus Lupin.

Remus suddenly felt such a sharp twist of fear in him he retched on the spot and felt lucky he didn't vomit. He'd never been afraid of attention before, unavoidable when you made friends with James and Sirius, but the fact that his name was actually being thrown out like that honestly made him question how he was even still alive. After all, the last werewolf that had ended up in the papers had a hole hunt formed around him-

Sirius gently cut off this train of thought by smacking Remus upside the head and saying, "knock it off Moony, if they haven't done anything to you before now they're not going to suddenly start just because the Ministry is pushing in. You're long gone, clearly not making a bid to come back, and Dumbledore's got you doing that shitty arse underground work that leaves you so far off the radar anyways it's a miracle if you'll even be reading this."

Remus almost found the comfort somewhere in there, at least his body stopped trying to throw up.

Harry was honestly curious enough to interrupt what this mysterious underground work was. He'd long since gathered it had something to do with Remus staying in contact with other werewolves, but he still longed for details he decided against asking even now because it was such a touchy subject for the poor guy.

Others were not as enthusiastic about these changes, two of the Wizengamot had quit in protest of this.

"While I applaud them," Lily nodded sadly, "but it's almost a backfire on them as well, for the same reason Tonks and Arthur haven't quit their post yet. They do more good holding their tongue and staying on the inside."

"That method ceases being useful when it's all you end up doing," James scowled, though at Harry for holding his tongue far too often.

One being quoted as saying that was a school, not the next outpost for Fudge, this was only further attempts to discredit Dumbledore.

Sirius gave a merry little applause for that bit at least, thankful that this had been put into the paper at all the way it was running lately.

The article ended then with the ominous comment how one of those who had quit had details of goblin subservice groups on a separate page. Hermione said at least now they had their reason of Umbridge being here, and now she could go and inspect all of their teachers? This was outrageous!

Harry agreed with his fist tightly clenched, the words etched into his hand already a dull white instead of having vanished.

James saw red as he realized four days had already been enough to put that mark into his skin. Years later and it was still there. None of them had the delusion this wasn't going to happen to Harry again, and he doubted he could read through it without screaming some more no matter how little good it would do.

But a grin was unfurling on Ron's face.

"I immediately like where his thoughts went," Sirius piped up at once as the same grin appeared, thinking of that foul toad trying to inspect someone like McGonagall and blissfully aware who was going to come up on top.

They asked what he found to smile about, and he said he couldn't wait for Umbridge to inspect McGonagall, the toad wouldn't know what hit her.

The others caught on as well, and now they were all grinning in anticipation of watching McGonagall have a thing or two to say to that pitiful excuse for a teacher.

Hermione stopped the conversation then by getting to her feet and reminding they had History of Magic. Harry was surprised when he didn't find Umbridge in there to inspect the lesson.

"What are the odds she won't be inspecting any of the ones Harry's in?" Remus said without a trace of hope.

"Non existent," James said without looking up.

Nor was she in potions, where Harry was given back his essay with a D for a grade.

"I find it an actual miracle he didn't just flat give you a T," Sirius rolled his eyes.

Once all the assignments had been handed back, Snape gave a speech at the front saying he'd graded these as if they had been OWL finals, and hoped to see better improvement over all, or he would start handing out detentions to the dunces that got d's.

Lily almost felt a twitch appear on her lips again at his alliterations, he'd always gotten a giggle out of her when he did this, but she forced herself not to react.

Malfoy snickered loudly that someone had gotten so low a grade.

"I'm guessing he gave you an O after you cheated off of someone else's," James rolled his eyes.

"Or paid another student to do it," Sirius agreed.

Harry saw Hermione looking sideways at his and he quickly stuffed it out of sight before she could see.

"Why bother?" Remus asked curiously.

"I can already hear the lecture she'd give about how I should have tried harder or some nonsense," Harry sighed.

Lily frowned at him for that, wishing he would try harder in this class even if he did hate the teacher, but at least holding herself back.

Determined not to give Snape a reason to ruin this attempt, Harry carefully studied every line of instructions today before brewing his potion. It was still a bit more runny and not quite the right shade of turquoise like Hermione's, but he handed it in with the satisfaction Snape couldn't say anything about it with mingled defiance and relief.

"I commend you, considering at some point I'd have just chucked the cauldron in his face," James snorted.

Hermione began babbling at once about OWL grades as they left for lunch, saying while she hadn't expected the top grade,

"I don't actually believe that," Remus snorted, "I can already imagine her near the end of this crying every five seconds if she doesn't get all O's."

even a pass at this stage was encouraging.

Neither boy responded, so she kept going on about how they now had time to improve, these grades were the baseline for their future-

"Is she going to keep going with this?" James groaned as he eyed the pages with misery. He'd been starting this thinking of more Umbridge carnage, but instead he'd been suffering through some OWL memories he'd have rather forgotten.

Ron finally cut her off if she wanted to know their grades, she should just ask them.

Hermione feigned surprise at the question, but finally did ask.

Ron said he'd got a P, while Fred popped up then to say there was nothing wrong with a good healthy P.

"Err, doesn't P mean-"

"Poor, yeah," Sirius said with chipper, "only one letter off from acceptable, so really they're not wrong."

Hermione was surprised at this statement, as P stood for Poor?

Lee agreed, then said at least it was better than D for Dreadful.

"I always thought it stood for Dunderhead," James grinned.

"Stop naming things after yourself James," Remus quipped.

Harry did not enter the conversation, but Hermione was still in full swing.

"This is most likely going to be an ongoing topic until next year, when she'll move onto complaining about her NEWT grades two years too early," Sirius groaned.

Hermione kept going saying the passing grades were O for outstanding, then A-

Though Fred corrected her E came next,

James gasped wildly, and then frantically prodded the page with his wand as if insisting to find a flaw.

"What do you mean Hermione doesn't know all these by heart?" Sirius agreed mildly. "The way she was obsessing over them, even having done some pre exams last year, you'd really think she'd know that."

"I'm actually quite sure she only took note of what the top grade was and didn't care about the others," Remus rolled his eyes.

for Exceeds Expectations. Personally he thought he and his twin should have gotten E's on everything, considering they exceeded expectations just by showing up.

Causing all five of them to giggle.

They all laughed except Hermione,

"Why is that a recurring thing, it always makes me sad," Lily sighed.

"Someone needs to tell her she's getting a T for her sense of humor, see if she lightens up any then," James agreed.

who ignored him and agreed then it was A for acceptable, and that was the last passing grade.

Ron mock celebrated then you could get a P, then D, while George finished with T, for troll.

Harry laughed unexpectedly, then looked around and realized that while they were smiling, he realized it was at his reaction, and he blinked in shock.

Harry laughed again, though he was not sure whether or not George was joking.

"Nope," Sirius grinned, "though I don't understand why they'd want to give you a letter grade that would make someone think, well that's better than B for Blast-Ended Skrewt."

"You're an idiot," Remus rolled his eyes.

He imagined end of year and getting T's on all his grades, and immediately resolved to do better on his work.

"Whatever gets you through it love," Lily grinned as the thought had never crossed her mind Harry would do any such thing. Even while being at his breaking point he'd still been putting effort into his homework, there was just no way he'd do so poorly on all his exams if he just tried a little harder.

Fred asked if they'd had an inspected lesson yet, because they just had in Charms.

George agreed she'd just sat in the back of the class making notes the whole time, and Flitwick was perfectly polite to her of course. Then near the end she went around asking them some questions on the subject.

Fred asked who they had for their afternoon classes and when Harry started with Trelawney, Fred agreed a T if ever there was one.

Causing them all to snort with laughter as they suddenly imagined the wonderful idea of if the twins had taken her class and the mayhem that could have been.

Then Umbridge herself.

George warned Harry about minding his manners then, because Angelina would do him in if he missed any more Quidditch practice.

"Because that's the important part," James said grimly as his eyes flashed protectively to his son again, wondering if it was possible Umbridge's detentions could somehow get worse if she realized Harry wasn't going to take her message.

Harry didn't have to wait for his last class to see Umbridge again though. As they were taking their seats inside Divination, a sudden hush went over the room as Umbridge entered, causing Trelawney to look around as Umbridge greeted her.

Lily felt an interesting struggle taking place in her mind. She'd disliked Trelawney from the instant she'd been introduced because of insisting her son was to die, which would set any mother on edge. Yet she hated Umbridge quantifiably worse for actually hurting her baby. She wasn't really sure what she wanted to see happen here, but she wouldn't deny she was listening just as curiously as the others.

She began by asking if she'd received the note Umbridge had sent about the date and time of this inspection?

Trelawney went stiff, nodded without response, and then spoke to the class as if she wasn't there that they would continue looking through their dreams.

"Can't deny I'm already intrigued," Remus said grudgingly. "Trelawney shouldn't have had much to do with her before now considering how rarely she leaves her own tower, which means her ire with this woman must come from something we haven't seen yet."

"Maybe just from students like Parvati and Lavender who might have talked about her," Sirius offered without much thought, but immediately corrected himself when he realized, "but they haven't exactly gone out of their way disliking Umbridge themselves yet either."

"I'm sure it's just the insult of her class being inspected," James snorted.

They divided into pairs and Trelawney went to take her seat, realized Umbridge was standing right behind it, and instead began circling the class.

Harry quickly made up a dream on the spot about how he'd drowned Snape in his cauldron.

"They say dreams are where you live out your fantasies," Sirius snickered.

Ron snickered as he went to work on this, saying you were supposed to add age to the date of the dream, plus the number of letters in the subject, before asking if that was drowning, cauldron, or Snape?

"Drowning, isn't it? The other two are nouns," Remus said absently.

"Nouns can be the subject," Lily shrugged, "it depends on verb usage and-"*

"Please, this is why I was grateful Hogwarts never subjected us to Muggle classes, don't start on things I don't care about," Sirius groaned.

Harry couldn't care less about the answer as Ron went to work while Harry eavesdropped on Umbridge catching up to Trelawney and beginning to ask her some questions, such as how long she'd been in this position?

Trelawney regarded her for a moment before deeming the question worthy of the answer sixteen years.

Harry felt a sudden whack at the base of his skull for some unknown reason, absently reaching up and brushing at the back of his head as if to make sure it was still attached but ultimately ignoring the sensation.

Then Umbridge asked that Dumbledore had appointed her himself?

Though it was getting harder by the moment as Umbridge's questions really were starting to dig something out of the base of his skull that was beginning to build up quite a bit of pressure...

Trelawney kept up her curt replies as Umbridge then asked that she was the great-great-granddaughter of the renowned Seer Cassandra Trelawney?

Remus felt an odd smile flicker across his face as some old Greek myth came to mind about the Seer Cassandra who nobody believed truly was one, but he didn't point this out to the others for once as he was more invested hearing about this.

But she was the first in her family line to have inherited the gift of Second Sight?

Trelawney had to hesitate for a moment before saying these things tended to skip, err, three generations.

"Was the pause because she had to think about it and count that on the spot?" James mocked.

Umbridge was clearly not impressed as she made a few notes of this, and then looked on and asked for a prediction to be made.

Trelawney was outraged at once, saying the Inner Eye did not See upon command!

James was almost amused by this, as normally Trelawney spat out so many predictions in a lesson you couldn't shut the woman up. Now Umbridge was asking for one, and that was offensive?

Umbridge shrugged with indifference as she went to make a note of this, but then Trelawney wildly switched to grasping at the pink cardigan, apparently overcome with the fear of what she was seeing, a dark peril looming...

"I think she made herself worse by doing that," Sirius sighed. "Should have just stuck with the first thing she said, then later and a lot more randomly spouted something at least generally more threatening than that generic mess."

Dolores Umbridge was in grave danger!

Umbridge raised an unimpressed brow and ticked off something before saying that would be all.

Lily actually had to catch herself to stop from laughing. Even knowing Trelawney was a true Seer still didn't make this waffle intimidating in the least, but she despised Umbridge too much to agree with her on any level so she held it in.

She turned away and began asking some students questions, while Trelawney stalked over to Harry and snatched his dream diary away, proclaiming in a carrying voice for all to hear that even his most mundane dreams were filled with fortunes of his death.

"Yeah, there it is," James said tartly, least she could always fall back on that one, though how she managed to make that less believable every time was an actual achievement on some level.

Harry was having a hard time feeling sympathy for her during this, and when they were finally released and entered Umbridge's own class, the woman was humming.

"Urgh, having to listening to croaking all lesson, I'd rather live with a cicada," Sirius rubbed at his ears in thought.

They took their seats in the back and pulled out their books, while the teacher instructed those hopeful few who'd left their wands out not to do this very thing.

"I'm not sure if that's ignorance or delusions," Remus sighed.

They were to begin chapter two now.

Still smiling to herself, she set about some papers on her desk. Harry began flipping mindlessly through until the thought occurred to him if there were enough chapters to keep this going all year, and he was just flipping to check on that when he noticed Hermione's hand raised again.

"So were there?" Lily asked.

"Don't know, never checked," Harry shrugged.

"Even if there weren't, I'm honestly wondering if she'd have just made you reread it from the start or something," Remus rolled his eyes.

Umbridge took a different approach this time and approached her instead, bending down on her level as Hermione told she'd already read chapter two.

When Umbridge told her to go on to the next one then, Hermione stated she'd read the whole book.

"Man I wish I was more surprised, actually I'm just sad for the wasted time," James sighed.

Umbridge looked mildly surprised as she then asked Hermione what the author had said about counter-jinxes in chapter fifteen then?

Hermione gave the accurate answer at once, and Harry saw Umbridge was impressed against her will.

"People get that a lot around her it seems," Sirius mused, he didn't always like Hermione either, but she never failed to impress him with her knowledge at least.

Hermione kept going though, that she did not agree with Mr. Slinkhards interpretation of counter-jinxes and his statement they were only used as another form of jinx-

Umbridge cut her off this wasn't up for discussion.

"That was already established," Lily cocked her head to the side as she tried to understand, "what was the goal of her doing this?"

James shushed her and read quickly to find out, if anyone could find a way to push Umbridge's buttons and make something interesting happen in that class, he'd bet on Hermione.

Hermione tried to say something else, but Umbridge cut her off by taking five points from their house, while Harry demanded what for? Ignoring Hermione's warning for him not to get involved.

"She is sitting right next to you when she started this," Remus rolled his eyes, "don't tell me she really thinks you'd stay out of it."

Umbridge gave the answer for disrupting class pointlessly.

"She simply asked a question of what she was supposed to do now she's done with the work," Sirius tried for an innocent tone, ineffective as he wasn't likely to receive an answer for that anymore than Hermione.

She was going to teach them a Ministry-approved method that did not include inviting students to give opinions on things they didn't understand.

"Every bit of that was the most ludicrous thing I've yet heard her say," Remus said faintly.

"I particularly like the part they're not supposed to have opinions on what's being 'taught'," Sirius sneered.

"She read the whole book, how can she still try to make that claim!" Lily demanded.

"I'm beginning to wonder if there's something conceded about her," James said deadpan.

Their previous teachers, with the exception of Quirrell, would never have passed an inspection-

Harry cut off Quirrell had been great, except the fact that he'd had Voldemort's head sticking out of the back of his own.

"I'm actually wondering how many of the students knew that at the end of the year anyways," Remus suddenly blinked in surprise.

"Not the point," Harry grumbled.

Umbridge hardly acknowledge what he'd said except to give him another week of detentions.

Lily made a guttural, maddening noise of frustration for Harry suffering through that all over again, and she vented on the only person available. "Harry James, stop antagonizing her! It's clearly done you no good, after multiple people have warned you to stop, and you are suffering more consequences than doing any good!"

Harry flushed with anger for a moment, considered snapping back he was doing more good than anyone else was even bothering to try, but then considered the fact that snapping at her would achieve nothing. His mother was simply angry with the situation and he did not want to start yelling at them like he had been his friends in the past, so he simply held his tongue and nodded absently, also failing to mention whatever he did he couldn't go back and stop himself from doing it here now could he.

The first consequences of this came up at dinner that night, where Fred's prediction came true at once and Angelina caused such a racket with her yelling at him over having to miss another practice that McGonagall swopped in and interceded, taking points away at once for all the noise in the middle of the Great Hall. Several Ravenclaws at the table behind were still watching the show.**

Angelina wasn't deterred, saying he deserved it for another detention ruining her regime.

McGonagall turned sharp eyes on Potter, demanding who this detention was from, and very clearly displeased at the answer as she took another five points away.

"Who takes away house points after you find out someone has detention?" James demanded in outrage. "What's McGonagall playing at, he's already suffering enough for this!"

"I guess she did warn him not to continue messing with her," Remus sighed, "this is her way of punishing him for disobeying her as well."

"That did not make this feel better," Sirius scowled.

Harry tried to protest he was already being punished enough, but McGonagall wouldn't hear it, claiming detentions didn't seem to work on him so maybe this would.

"The worst part is she doesn't even know what's going on in those detentions," Lily groaned miserably, just begging for the sharp eyed woman to spot Harry's hand and raise hell for it any day now.

She warned them both to confine the shouting to the pitch before departing.

"I do love how she says confine shouting at Harry, not stop it," Sirius muttered.

Harry slammed into his seat beside Ron in a fuming mess as he demanded how it was fair he was getting his hand sliced open and losing points?!

"Maybe she wouldn't if she knew that part," James seethed.

Ron was sympathetic for him, saying she was out of order with that one.

"Are we really the only ones insisting on how dumb it is you haven't mentioned this," Lily demanded. "What about Hermione?"

"Still haven't told her yet either," Harry muttered as he shifted uneasily in his seat, still wishing this would stop being mentioned all together.

Hermione, however, merely rustled the pages of her Daily Prophet and said nothing.

"So she does know?" Remus yelped at this glossed over development.

"I guess Ron did tell her at some point," Harry blinked in surprise, he'd been too angry to realize what he was saying to whom at the time. "Honestly I'm just happy she didn't give me another go to Dumbledore speech, so I'm grateful I wasn't around when she did find out."

Nobody agreed with him, though clearly repetition wasn't doing any good regardless.

Harry snapped at her that he thought their head of house was in the right then?

Hermione answered cooly that she wished Harry wouldn't get points taken away, but she also wished he'd stop losing his temper around Umbridge.

"Hermione was the one who started the last two fights!" Sirius couldn't help but defend. "Harry more than likely would have sat in the back of the class and not said a word if it wasn't for her."

"You can't blame Harry's action on what Hermione decides to do," Lily scolded.

"Doesn't help one of his mates isn't trying to fix this problem either," Remus shrugged.

Harry did not speak to Hermione all through their next class, but all memory of the fight evaporated when he walked into Transfiguration and first spotted Umbridge instead of McGonagall.

James actually began wriggling in place in sudden excitement. If he'd put money on anyone giving that toad a run for her galleons it would be McGonagall, there was no way she could push her around like she just had to Trelawney.

The three watched almost eagerly as class began, McGonagall acting as if the extra woman wasn't even there as she instructed Dean to pass out homework, and Lavender to start handing out mice, and warning that vertebrate animals were much harder to-

Harry was distracted as he got his work back and saw he'd made an A.

"And that was with the minimal effort," James applauded, while Lily rolled her eyes at him even if she did agree.

Dean took his seat and mouse and was at once scolded for doing something to it that would wind him up in detention-

"What'd he do?" James demanded on the same breath as he'd finished.

"He was trying to place it on Parvati's shoulder," Harry shrugged.

"Less inventive than I was hoping," Remus sighed.

While Umbridge used the same, hem, hem, cough to try and get attention.

McGonagall turned cold eyes on her as Umbridge began that McGonagall had received the date and time of her inspec-

McGonagall coolly cut across of course she had, otherwise she'd be wondering why the woman was here.

James made a little squee noise when he was done with that response while Sirius was already full blown laughing, he knew McGonagall was his favorite teacher for a reason!

Harry and Remus shared a triumphant smile while Lily said impatiently, "James if you don't keep going, I will," though her eyes were sparkling with their own amusement for their old head of house.

James clutched the book to him protectively as he kept going with glee.

Then she kept going as if nothing had happened, even though Umbridge did the same act again not moments later.

McGonagall didn't even face her this time as she said sharply how Umbridge expected to get an idea of her teaching methods if she kept being interrupted, as she did not permit others to talk while she was.

James couldn't do it though, he immediately burst out laughing again, and this time Lily couldn't deny joining in. This was hardly the fiery pit they wanted to toss Umbridge into for what she'd done to Harry, but even seeing someone hold their own against her in this way was the most satisfying thing that had happened so far!

Umbridge looked as if she'd been slapped, before hastily turning to a fresh page and scribbling furiously.

"I would pay anything to get my hands on those notes," Sirius' grin was slipping past amusement right into evil. "See just what her version of, I need a burn healing charm looks like."

Looking supremely unconcerned, Professor McGonagall addressed the class once more.

Harry wasn't paying much attention to her warnings of the complexity of the larger the animal the harder it was to vanish, he was to busy whispering to his friends how she could get onto him about losing his temper when she wasn't acting much better. There was no anger though, as he grinned at McGonagall, all anger forgotten.

"Technically McGonagall hasn't gained a detention yet, so she's still doing better than you," Sirius smirked even as he was leaning forward eagerly to hear more of this.

At the end of the lesson, Ron was putting away only a wriggling tail,

"It is indeed a good mark he's already got the larger portion of the body by the end of the first day," James agreed absently, his eyes still eagerly hoping for more between Umbridge and McGonagall.

as they began to file out, but hung back when they realized Umbridge was going up to talk to McGonagall. She asked only one question, of how long she'd been at this post?

McGonagall said thirty-nine years in December.

Umbridge jotted this down before saying she'd receive her results in ten days.

McGonagall gave the curt reply of how she couldn't wait as she swept away.

"She really shouldn't act so thrilled, sets a bad impression," Remus snorted.

She barked at the three lingering at the door to get a move on, but Harry swore she smiled as she passed.

"Favorite teacher," James repeated warmly, hoping that would leave some kind of impact on Harry in Umbridge's next class. He wasn't the only one defying Umbridge.

Harry sadly turned up at his next class only to find Umbridge there again, already talking to Grubbly-Plank. She was being asked that this was not her standard position, to which the sub agreed she was only standing in for Professor Hagrid.

"I don't think anyone's yet called him that," Sirius' face crinkled as that registered.

"Does sound kind of weird, even if it is appropriate," Remus agreed.

Harry's spirits sunk as he watched Malfoy approaching as well, knowing he'd love nothing more than to gossip about Hagrid strait to the Ministry.

"He's already been doing that, surely he can't do even worse damage," Lily said with unease even she didn't believe.

Umbridge then asked if Grubbly-Plank knew anything of Hagrid's absence, but the woman was bare on the subject, saying she'd simply been asked to fill in for an unspecified time, she'd agreed, and here they were.

Umbridge waved for her to start the class then, and they continued their work on bowtruckles as Umbridge went around the class and began asking students about magical creatures, to which no one gave a flawed answer. Harry at least felt hopeful none of them were letting Hagrid down.

Remus couldn't help but wince for that, thinking that was far more likely luck depending on the questions she was asking.

Then Umbridge circled back to Grubbly-Plank, asking how a new staff member felt here? Supported, or more ostracized from the everyday crowd.

Grubbly-Plank gave the simple answer she'd always felt welcomed here, never had a problem.

Umbridge looked politely incredulous,

"That she's the only one being treated like scum? Can't imagine why that would be," Sirius snorted.

"I'm sure that's a look," James snorted, his liking for Grubbly-Plank going up somewhat. Sure she was having to stand in for Hagrid, but at least she wasn't going behind his back and trying to rub up to Umbridge, he could respect that.

She then switched to asking of reports she had from injuries in this class, but Malfoy enthusiastically stepped in then, saying that was done to him, he was attacked by a hippogriff.

"At his own stupidity," James emphasized. "Everyone seems to skip that bit!"

Umbridge began almost happily jotting this down, while Harry shouted over at them it was because Malfoy was being too stupid to listen to Hagrid before it happened.

"Oh, thank you Harry," James groaned, that hadn't been what he meant at all.

Harry shrugged without remorse.

Umbridge turned a pleased smile on him as she gave him another week of detentions.

"What was that one even for?" Lily all but screeched. "Doesn't she still have to give a reason!"

Baby Harry began squirming in unease underneath his toy so she forced herself not to keep going while James pushed on, mostly because the answer was no, that woman didn't have to give a reason to anyone about anything she did. It was becoming quite clear that was the scariest part of all to look forward to.

That evening, despite the late hour, Harry did not return to the common room empty this time, but found Ron and Hermione waiting up for him. Hermione seemed anxious at his visage as she pushed a yellow bowl towards him, telling him it was essence of murtlap and it would help.

Harry wasn't quite sure what that was, but when he put his hand, that was bleeding freely, into it it soothed the pain at once.

Ron still tried to push Harry should tell someone about this, McGonagall would do something, but Harry still wouldn't hear it, pointing out next thing they knew there'd be a decree that the person who questioned Umbridge would get fired.

"That would still cause enough of a stir in the community for it to be relevant and absolutely worth it," James tried to keep his voice even as he explained to Harry. "McGonagall's tough as they come, even if she did have to leave for a time she'd be right back the next day because Dumbledore would never let that stand, and he'd have support from those realizing how ludicrous this all is getting."

"Please tell me you've been seeing reports in the Daily Prophet about more people saying what a problem this is," Lily agreed.

Harry just shrugged though, Hermione only passed along very certain things, and she hadn't said anything about this. If the wider wizarding world did care about what was going on, he wasn't hearing about it.

Ron tried to think of some way to argue, but then closed his mouth back.

Hermione hissed what an awful woman she was, they really should do something about her.

"Tie her to the Whomping Willow?" Sirius suggested at once.

"Transfigure her into a cat and introduce her to Fang?" James smirked.

"Introduce her to the mermaids of the Black Lake," Remus said just a touch bitterly.

"See how long she could survive in the Forbidden Forest," Harry envisioned the fun.

"Poison?" Lily couldn't seem to stop herself tacking in much to all the boys amusement.

Ron had suggested poison,

"Ha!" Lily pumped a fist in triumph, "two against you lot!"

"That's fair," Sirius miraculously gave in.

"Can it at least be a slow acting one?" James contended.

"I can work that," Lily agreed.

but Hermione said she'd meant something more practical about her horrid teaching habits, how they weren't learning any Defence this year.

"Well I mean, she's not wrong," Remus snorted.

"Yet I don't really see how that's so different from your first two years either," Sirius sighed.

Ron couldn't see a way around this, she had the job and that clearly wasn't changing any time soon.

"At least until the end of the year," Lily still looked for that bright spot.

Hermione shot Harry a nervous look before beginning to tell what she was thinking today,

"Should I be worried that's how this is starting?" James looked bemused as he kept going.

that they should just learn DADA themselves.

"That's really not that far fetched an idea," Remus shrugged, "we had to do it a few years as well. Our teachers never got to the level of trying to kill us mind you, but they weren't all stellar either."

"I don't know, remember Novak? Considering how many spells he used backfired on himself, I think at some point that counts as attempted murder when he still encouraged us to trust him," Lily shrugged.

Ron scoffed at the idea of doing more extra homework, they were already behind as is.

Hermione said this was more important than homework.

"Hang on," Sirius mimed cleaning out his ears, "alright read that bit again."

James ignored him.

The boys goggled at her saying such blasphemy, Ron insisting she'd always said homework was the most important thing in the universe!

Hermione brushed them off for being silly,

"She had yet to say otherwise," Harry rubbed at his ear at all her remembered lectures.

stating this was about learning to defend themselves from what was out there.

Harry looked honestly bemused Hermione had taken his words to heart like that, no matter how much he still vouched for them being true.

Ron still wasn't on the idea, saying sure they could look up jinxes and practice them, but-

"Just like you did at the end of last year," James agreed, "that seemed to help you out loads, even with a competent if murderous teacher."

but Hermione said it would be all the better if they had a teacher, someone who already knew a boat load of spells and could correct them if they were doing it wrong.

Harry began if she was talking about Lupin,

"Naw, you're the first teacher he thought of Moony," Sirius chuckled.

"Shut up Padfoot," Remus said around a smile.

but Hermione at once said that wouldn't work, he couldn't come around often enough to be of help.

"Not with that Umbridge woman about anyways," Lily said grimly, as it had honestly been a good idea for a moment for Dumbledore to summon him to the castle at his random choosing, and just incidentally running into Harry and his friends, for a few hours, no one in the school would really question that too much if it had worked out that way. That pink frosted lump of dragon dung though would put a wrench into anything like that.

Harry couldn't imagine who else she was talking about, but then she said him of course.

Harry looked at his dad in bewilderment, before looking at the other three who all looked just as surprised at the answer as him to his relief.

"Honestly, for a moment there I thought she was leading up to herself," James snorted.

"I mean, I suppose she's not got the wrong idea," Lily pulled gently on a strand of hair as she thought about it, "but no offense love, I haven't really seen you with the patience yet to be teaching anyone much."

"Ron was better at teaching you chess than you were explaining how a phone worked," Sirius snorted in agreement.

"Oh stop picking on him," Remus scolded, though Harry hardly looked offended, he still had a politely puzzled expression on his face like he was still nursing the idea and had hardly heard them. "I don't find it a bad idea at all, Harry was the only thirteen year old I've ever seen to manage a Patronus, even you two hadn't managed that until fifth year to find out what you were going to turn into only a few months later. If Harry could master that, I'm sure passing that knowledge along wouldn't be much of a challenge."

"There's a difference between being a good student and being as good a teacher," Sirius shrugged, but he backed down altogether as Harry was starting to look a little hurt they were still giggling more than anything at the idea.

James kept himself going in hopes Hermione would come to some conclusion this should be more a group effort between the three than Harry starting secret lessons to teach these two anything.

Harry was stunned at the idea, turning to Ron for some backup, but he seemed just as keen on this as Hermione now she'd pointed it out.

Harry began laughing it off, saying what good would he do, while Hermione said in exasperation to think of all he'd done.

"Really Harry, you apparently spent all summer complaining about this bit, but you need this part explained," James rolled his eyes.

When Harry still didn't get their meaning, Ron started to laugh he didn't want someone this stupid teaching him, before beginning loudly of all his accomplishments, like second year killing the Basilisk and Riddle.

Harry tried to interrupt that had been Fawkes and-

"I really am loving the reverse of this conversation," Sirius gave a forced smile. "How are you the one saying you shouldn't get credit for doing this now, when it was you shouting at them you did all this single handedly to them at that house?"

Harry was scarlet by now, both from remembered shock of his friends throwing this at him, and how true that comment was that put on the spot he still didn't want to admit all the things he'd done no matter how angry he'd been he'd felt ignored.

"Can't have it both ways," Lily told him gently as she seemed to read his mind.

Ron completely ignored him and was still going on, coming up with fourth year and everything he'd done there as well, he and Hermione were smirking by the end as Harry felt his temper rising, he wasn't even sure where the anger was coming from.

"Actually neither am I," James frowned lightly from the book to Harry now. "At most they're still pulling your leg, what's the anger for?"

Harry brushed at his scar without comment, a deep look in his eyes that shot a thrill of fear through James instantly promising him he actually didn't want to know the answer, so he quickly moved on.

He began telling them how he'd blundered through all that, not because he was any good at Defence, he'd always had help and- stop laughing at him!

Remus let out a low whistle of surprise as he told Harry, "when you get angry, you really ramp yourself right to the top at once."

"Harry doesn't do anything halfway," Sirius said halfheartedly, Harry leaning back into the couch looking miserable he'd been caught shouting at them again, and they hadn't done anything even remotely close to deserving it this time.

He lunged to his feet so fast he knocked the essence of murtlap away, now practically shouting at them they didn't understand, none of that had been skill when he'd fought Voldemort, that Cedric had been just as good as him and he'd died so if they were insinuating he'd messed up and Harry had somehow done something better-

James had winced at every blow Harry dealt his friends, of all the pain and fear his son had suffered without anyone there to help, how even hearing it first hand hadn't quite left them with the reality Harry had lived through. To them it was all in a distant future, something they hoped never had to happen to him and so without underplaying the events happening they kept pushing past these terrible moments because it would ultimately help him to remember them just to find a way he'd never have to live through them. Most of all, James wanted more than anything for Harry never to have to witness what had happened in that graveyard, to Cedric.

Ron looked aghast Harry had come to the conclusion they were having a go at Cedric.

Harry was aware, and very grateful no one had snapped at him for this in here. He distantly saw himself doing these things, pushed into this uncontrollable anger from something he didn't understand, but one truth stood out his friends would never insinuate any such thing, so he was grateful for the silence ringing in here.

Hermione was near tears now as she insisted this was exactly the reason they needed to learn, he was the only one who had ever faced V-Voldemort.

"Well there's a distraction if ever there was one," Sirius blinked slowly to refocus off of Harry's anger, how everything he'd said had been all too real.

It was the first time Hermione had ever said Voldemort's name, and for some reason this calmed Harry. He sat back in his seat, his hand now throbbing worse than ever and gazed at the broken glass and essence of Murtlap now seeping into the carpet.

Hermione got her feet as if to go to bed, quietly asking him to just think about it.

Lily opened her mouth, wanting to say something in comfort as well as push for a change of subject, but Harry was still looking miserable and rubbing hard at his scar again, so she was afraid to push him while he was too vulnerable.

Harry nodded silent agreement now as she went off to bed, Ron following suit. Harry repaired the bowl with a quick spell, but could do nothing for more medicine for his hand.

"Wonder how she got hold of that," Sirius happily shot off, as always just looking for something to say in the awkward silence.

"She's too proud asking the house-elves for a batch," Remus played along, "I more imagine she might have asked Madam Pomfrey for some, given a vague reason as to why she wanted it."

"I'll buy that," Sirius said, looking hopefully at Harry like he was hoping for confirmation, but even if he had ever bothered to ask Harry spoke nothing for or against the idea.

He was more exhausted now than when he'd stepped in, but still he forced himself to climb up the stairs rather than sleeping in the common room, and had another restless night of dreams full of locked corridors, and waking to his scar prickling again.

Harry twitched harder than ever in his seat, his eyes swimming with pain as he yearned to understand how it all fit together, and terrified of learning the answer.

HPHPHPHPHP

I probably came off pretty anti-government in this chapter, and I swear I'm not actually trying to whip up a rebellion and start an anarchy, I just always found it really extreme that clearly since it's conception Hogwarts seemed to have stood as it's own body, but suddenly the government was stepping in and causing a ton of reforms, and the public seems generally okay with this? Of course the Daily Prophet likely didn't post more outrage than a couple people quitting, I don't even know how it would have been put into the narrative, I'd just have liked to see more people be confused and angry about this sudden regime change going on inside the most popular wizarding school in Britain.

*I was actually never very good at English, I have no clue what the actual answer was, thank you for nothing four years of high school.

**I pointed this out in the last book, but this is now a blatant mismatch of the house tables. Last time it was the Hufflepuffs on their other side as Harry had to walk past them, this time it's Ravenclaws? Someone must have been right in saying it does switch up on a regular basis.

#Harry Potter #fanfiction #reading the books #Marauders #Jilly #OotP #James Potter #Remus lupin #Sirius Black #Lily Potter #The LIfe that Never LIved

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totally-normal-boy · 3 years

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Nanami Deserved Better

At the end of Revolutionary Girl Utena, we see a brief sequence showing what has become of the other members of the student council. Both Miki and Juri have reconciled with Kozue and Shiori, laying frameworks for the beginnings of healthy relationships. In contrast, Touga, Saionji, and Nanami’s story lines have been reset, with them reverting back to the same places that they were in at the start of the series. All of these endings align well with what the characters deserve after their actions in the series, with one notable exception. Nanami Kiryuu deserved a better ending than the one that she received both because of the character development that she underwent and the way her relationship with Utena changed over the course of the series. The concept of a character “deserving” better is a very subjective one, most viewers like to see characters who change for the better get some sort of reward for that positive growth at the end of the story. However, regardless of whether or not one agrees with this, there is plenty of evidence showing that by the end of the series, the role that Nanami plays in both the narrative series and Utena’s life is more similar to that of Utena’s friends, Miki and Juri, than that of her enemies, Touga and Saionji.

Miki and Juri’s character arcs both focus on broken relationships and reconciliation. Miki’s first duel shows his desire to restore the romanticized version of his childhood with Kozue that he remembers. Similarly, Juri’s first duel shows how she wants to use the power to revolutionize the world to “disprove miracles” by freeing herself from her unrequited feelings for Shiori. These duels present the themes of the desire to return to the past and the desire to overcome one’s own feelings as two separate theses. These theses are then inverted by Kozue and Shiori’s duels in the Black Rose saga, where viewers learn that both Kozue and Shiori only do things to hurt Miki and Juri because they envy them and they want their attention. These duels serve as the antithesis to the theses provided earlier on in the show by showing that, while Miki and Juri’s struggles may be relatable, putting other people on a pedestal in the same way that they do has negative consequences. In the Akio arc, both the conflict between the Kaoru siblings and the conflict between Juri and Shiori reach their most climatic point in the synthesis of the previous duels. The end of both episodes show the black rose duelist walking past the student council duelist and looking at them with a contemplative expression on their face, implying the pair has reached a crossroads in their relationship that could either lead to its reformation or the dissolution.

Touga and Saionji’s plotlines are both structured differently than this. Instead of following this hegelian structure, their story arcs are more repetitive because unlike Miki and Juri’s story arcs, which present a conflict between two parties, Touga and Saionji’s story arcs present patterns that have the potential to be broken. One significant factor about the difference between Touga and Saionji’s narratives and Miki and Juri’s narratives is that Touga and Saionji’s duels teach us more about Utena and her feelings for Anthy than we do about Touga and Saionji. Even though Saionji is the first character Utena duels, we don’t learn why he’s dueling until episode 9, The Castle That Holds Eternity. Both Utena and the viewers first learn who Touga is from his interactions with Utena and the rest of the characters long before his first duel. In the black rose arc, both Touga and Saionji’s black rose duelists are girls who have primarily admired them from afar up until the events of their duel. Both Wakaba and Keiko’s duels are focused on both girls using others to feel special, instead of the intricacies of Touga and Saionji’s personalities. Both Touga and Saionji are absent for large chunks of this arc, but while they are present we catch glimpses into the fact that they are both more complex than the versions of them that we saw in the first arc. Saionji’s anger and violence temporarily disappear, suggesting they’re just tools that he uses to prove that he is masculine and strong. Touga slips into a deep depression for the entirety of the arc after being defeated by Utena, showing that he would rather not be perceived at all than be perceived as vulnerable or flawed. However, in the third and fourth arcs, Saionji and Touga do not build on their character arcs in the same way that Miki and Juri do. Instead, they both show that the knowledge they have of who The Ends of the World really is leads them to have second thoughts about participating in the dueling game, but they both ultimately revert back to the same toxic patterns of behavior that we saw at the beginning of the first episode. Once defeated, Saionji softens and Touga loses interest in the duels, reverting to slightly more self actualized versions of their isolated selves from the Black Rose Arc.

Even though in the end of the series Nanami receives the same ending as Touga and Saionji, her character arc is the same structure as Juri and Miki’s arcs. Nanami’s character arc is primarily concerned with her relationship to another character, Touga. While she does play a significant role in multiple episodes before her duel, the viewers don’t learn her primary character motivations until she duels for the first time she duels Utena. Her black rose duelist, Tsuwabuki, is someone that she has a preexisting relationship with. Even though it doesn’t directly further her relationship with Touga, it does explore the relationship dynamic between her and Tsuwabuki, which itself is modeled off her relationship with Touga. Additionally, the scene where Tsuwauki attempts to kiss her in the movie theatre is somewhat similar to the scene where Touga tries to kiss her in Akio’s car before her second duel. This duel is motivated by her desire to “surpass” Touga and break down the over-idealized version of him that she had built up in her head. After the duel, we do not see the two together again until the end of the series. After each duel, Nanami grows further away from the juvenile, possessive person that she was at the beginning of the series.

Another way that Nanami’s narrative role resembles Miki and Juri’s more than Touga and Saionji’s is that, despite the fact that she starts off as an antagonist, she is an ally to Utena by the end of the series. In the beginning of the series she is jealous of the attention that Touga gives Utena and Anthy, which causes her to antagonize them both. However, when she moves into the Chairman’s tower before her second duel, her perspective on Touga is shattered and her views on Utena shift as a result of that. This is evident because in the episode One to Revolutionize the World, she is included in the badminton scene with Juri and Miki even though she isn’t playing the game with them. Many fans even cite the way that she gets flustered talking to Utena in this scene as evidence that she may be starting to develop feelings for her. Conversely, Touga and Saionji are seen primarily with each other or Akio before the final episode of the series after Touga’s final duel.

By the end of the series, it is clear which of the student council members are on which side of the conflict in the series. Miki, Juri, and Nanami all support Utena, while Touga and Saionji have sided with Akio. This aligns with which members of the student council used their duels against Utena as an opportunity to grow and change and which ones used reverted back to their old ways, even when presented with the opportunity to change. These narrative parallels between Nanami, Miki, and Juri justify Nanami receiving a happier ending than she did in the series. Instead of sitting on the sidelines, making tea, while Touga and Saionji practice kendo, it would have been much more rewarding to succeed on her own independently. While a chance to start from scratch and become better people is exactly what Touga and Saionji needed at the end of the series, Nanami had already put in all of that work. So, it’s disappointing to see her reduced to the role of Touga’s little sister once again. Maybe we could have seen her putting her leadership skills to use for the student council, helping Miki train Tsuwabuki or planning a big school dance. She could have been taking care of a pet kitten, showing she had changed from the jealous little girl who had drowned Touga’s pet in the river. Even a joke about her and her followers wearing matching cowbells would have been more rewarding then the ending we got to see because it would have shown she was developing her own life outside of her relationship to Touga.

#revolutionary girl utena #nanami kiryuu #utenalysis

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lawofattraction112 · 4 years

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Regulation of Attraction : Cooperative Reality

the law of attraction There is an enormous amount of dialogue lately about the Legislation of Attraction, you may say that the Legal requirements of Attraction comes with gained celebrity condition as the personal progress tool of the minute, the current popular means for manifesting your aspirations. What most people don't understand is that the Laws of Attraction is not really a new idea, in truth it's not even a past idea in the sensation that there has been a point in time as soon as somebody coined that phrase and abruptly everyone began deploying it like some innovative appliance. Someone not surprisingly did invent this phrase Law with Attraction, but in the identical way that Mister Isaac Newton devised the word gravity. Regulations of Attraction enjoy gravity, just is usually, no one owns your rights to it, plus its impossible to avoid utilizing it. the law of attraction The Law of Selling point is one of many legislation by which mankind may be operating consciously and unconsciously since the start of time. Most people are blissfully unaware of precisely how these laws have an impact on their lives together with equally unaware that power of these legal guidelines can be gathered and used to terrific effect on a daily rationale.

Since the release in the movie The Secret, regulations of Attraction provides come to the attention in peoples heads as the ultimate product for changing your daily routine and that is a good thing. As i find however that a lot of people after viewing and reading information regarding the Law of Attractive force are still somewhat lost as to how the idea actually works. There is a number of talk about holding graphics in the mind, delivering thought vibrations available to the universe, having a state of requirement and gratitude, and additionally waiting for the galaxy to respond by way of the Law of Drawing card and provide that with which you have focussed ones intention, and so on. These things are very delightful and I have found these useful in my own personal learning, but non-e of these ideas available me with really satisfactory answers precisely how the Law of Destination actually works, both spiritually and scientifically.

Today if you're anything such as me, blind confidence just doesn't slice it, most people just like at least to have an decent explanation for why jointly get involved with the Law involving Attraction, otherwise people tend to reject the main idea outright, which will be a unfortunate really.

Vital Knowledge

The difficulty that I think a lot of people have is they will hear about unbelievable success stories relating to the Law of Selling point, amazing tales of folks that have gone with having an average types of existence to experiencing a life that a lot of people only dream of, and then set out with good faith to obtain similar results. Undoubtedly not everyone defines the results they had expected, why is this? Maintain a pool of Law of Attractive force failed? Are all associated with the success reviews bogus? Are people just clever ploys to get us to own books and flicks about how to use what the law states of Attraction?

There are plenty of individual claims regarding the Law of Drawing card bringing great wealth and the fulfillment from great dreams, in addition to there are also charlatans holdings and liabilities area of life, strict, secular, scientific, but it surely would be a great misstep to reject a notion of such probable because of a few people, you might as well give up all personal advancement right now.

As for the primary idea that the Law with Attraction has by some means failed to work, mine experience tells me that the is simply not possible, legal issues of Attraction is absolutely not a business approach, or a clever program that is subject to marketplaces or the moods of individuals, it is since constant and foreseeable as the sun increase, all that is required is a appropriate level of recognizing in order to leverage it's potential.

This I do believe is where a great number of confusion exists, how come do some people are generally able to apply legislation of Attraction using great affect whilst others struggle to see the littlest things manifest? The result is knowledge, you will find there's basic lack of realizing about how the Law involving Attraction works. A lot of people however seem to be capable to easily apply regulations of Attraction and find results even though they also have no more knowledge of precisely what is actually happening ın comparison to the next person, how come this? It is because a lot of people have a mental pre-disposition to accepting what the law states of Attraction, her requirements and effects without question, some others don't and involve further instruction concerning fundamentals of the regulation of attraction in advance of being able to apply independently properly.

Its a tad like being offered a kit to get a model aeroplane without worrying about the assembly instructions, most people may have a natural comprehending about how to assemble items, they may have seen their father putting together model aeroplanes in earlier times, but for others it's going to an almost impossible process, time consuming and irritating.

It is my encounter that with a fundamental increase in knowledge about the Law associated with Attraction and the fundamental principles that control it, any individual start to see real ends in every area of their lifetime almost immediately. Which means that let's now check it out at some of that will useful knowledge that will aid us in increasing a better understanding of ways to apply the Law from Attraction to excellent affect.

The Most Important Thing

The very first thing that I would like to claim is that the Regulation of Attraction is simply not the most powerful legislation in the universe, not like popular opinion, web site of underlying basics that govern that the Law of Destination works, and that is the place we shall get started.

I want to start by creating this statement; when we use a Law of Selling point, we do not get things! this is additionally contrary to popular viewpoint. There is not a racecar with your vibration on it waiting for want you to believe that it's your own property before it appears inside driveway. This may sound a ridiculous proclamation, but there are many coaches of the Law with Attraction that condition exactly that, it can be about manifesting elements, well it's not.

What the law states of Attraction can not work by you applying out a imagined vibration to the world and somehow a universe, through the process of the Law involving Attraction, responds compared to that thought by giving you the thing that suits that vibration, nevertheless unfortunately this is what is actually taught. Some people just accept this examination and get on by means of using the Law associated with Attraction to superb success, you could telephone that blind hope, and I have no issue with that at all, nevertheless it won't work for absolutely everyone, and that does issue me because it can perform for everyone.

The most important thing you certainly will ever understand for the Law of Attractive force is that that always involves some others, other minds, many other realities, not important things. I call the following underlying principle Cooperative Reality and examine it in detail across my book.

To put it differently, Cooperative Reality advises that in order to employ the Law of Drawing card you require the synergy of other people realities. Understanding that concept has been that single greatest help my own personal increase, when I came to this approach realization it altogether revolutionized my practical experience in using the Legislation of Attraction. The idea provided me along with meaningful direction with the application of all the options I was ignorantly using to apply legal issues of Attraction.

I have already been asked many times to describe my success within using the Law from Attraction, and My partner and i discover that it's not straightforward to summarise the concept of Cooperative Reality, and that is so why I decided to generate my book worthy Law of Destination - Cooperative Truth of the matter. I will however make an attempt to summarise the booklet in order to give you at the least some idea of the strength of this concept with regards to the Law of Selling point. I must state nevertheless that there will be ideas that may seem really unusual, but We assure you there does exist solid scientific signs for everything My organization is putting forward, ever again, explained in detail all over my book.

That Quantum Field

For a start we need to ask this question "what is normally reality? " along with I will begin by using a brief look at a perception within Quantum Physics called super job. Briefly stated tremendous position is mentioning sub atomic dirt appearing in a few place at the same time, the truth is the same electron, just may use this particle as an example, may well appear in as many as 3000 different or possibilities locations simultaneously, this particular phenomenon is known in Quantum Physics as a wave purpose. So the entire market being made up of abdominal muscles tiny world with sub atomic dust exists in extremely position, or several potential locations, for a universal scale Quantum Physicists call the following the Field involving Potential.

This is modern for us all, it indicates that your reality is not necessarily fixed, it is accommodating, changeable, it can be improved from one form even to another, but who does your transforming and the way in which?

The Observer

The following brings me to your second point I want to consider, also an idea used in Quantum Physics called The Onlooker, and this principle straightaway affect and changes the Field associated with Potential. So what could be the Observer? Well, you will be the Observer, and ever other sensitive individual on the planet. Together with what does a Observer do? This Observer is responsible for that collapse of the send function. What will do that mean? Basically this in essence means whenever you consciously take notice of the Quantum Field people snap your truth of the matter into a single setting in time and breathing space. Scientists conduct sophisticated experiments with debris that bare released this concept therefore certainly aligns by using my own experience.

Then when we observe the Quantum Field, the world, this universe, what standing do we fall the wave performance to? Where does indeed our reality finish off? Well that is figured out by what you believe, together with I'm not making reference to your religious allegiance, I'm talking about genital herpes virus treatments believe your truthfulness should be with just about every fibre of your increasingly being, which is taught around the Law of Attractive force, it's just not typically explained that properly. Now you are not the only real Observer collapsing your wave function setting reality by what everyone believe, everyone is a great Observer, and that is from vital importance to learn. To properly use the Law of Drawing card we need to somehow switch the way other people see reality, and we will examine that shortly.

Rewiring The Mind

Finally we should instead consider how it can be that we change some of our fundamental beliefs approximately ourselves and within the world. Fortunately for individuals, the construct in our belief systems are in existence within the mind, within the complex structure with neural pathways that define the different instances the brain. I express fortunately, because current discoveries in neuroscience have revealed that this neural structure with the brain is really flexible, not strict and fixed when scientists first idea. You are not destined to remain locked in to manners and attitudes for the past, ways of considering and patterns involving belief that have been neurologically passed down to you from your ancestors through ones own DNA, you possess the capability to reconstruct a neural pathways inside your brain and generate a brand new construct associated with reality in your mind.

This can be a vital area of know-how that most Law from Attraction publications don't go into, most of the common Law with Attraction methods which include, focussed intention, and additionally holding an image inside the mind of a brand-new reality do receive an affect on the nerve organs construct of the head, but the affect may be temporary, because i am not taught methods to solidify the new generate for use above the long term. The people mind processes estimated at 100, 000 items of information per minute, yet we are just consciously aware of available 2000 bits of which information. What we should do is begin to figure out how to permanently alter that construct of our sensory net in order to see a new reality, being aware of things that everyone had never deemed before and for good change our serious beliefs about which we are and precisely what we are doing these.

Putting it all Jointly

So what does that all mean in connection with using the Law involving Attraction more properly? Your first purpose when attempting to fill out an application the Law of Destination must be to improve your fundamental certain principles about what your own the truth is in order to begin collapsing the quantum discipline to that new truth, but as I outlined earlier, you are not this only one that packages reality through confidence, and this is the location where the Law of Selling point really comes into its very own.

As you apply most of the methods around the Legal requirements of Attraction, visual images, intentions, gratitude or anything else, you create a more powerful reality for yourself, and therefore reality connects using corresponding vibrations inside minds of those approximately you. You will alter other most people beliefs in relation to most people, and they also set out to collapse the quantum field in position with your new actuality. Basically you produce a stronger personal truth of the matter that affects people around you, it's no game associated with chance, but with the Law of Attractive force properly does come to feel a little like stacking the chances in your favour. To look at first began to truly understand and submit an application the principles already mentioned, all the small information on my life began to switch, my life went because of 80 percent within the things that happened in my opinion being a disappointment to help 80 percent from things becoming definitely positive and miraculous virtually overnight.

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ryanmeft · 4 years

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Movie Review: 1917

NOTE: this review contains some spoilers. It may seem like a strange statement, but high drama does not suit a war picture. That’s certainly not the attitude old Hollywood took, where war movies were most often grand and patriotic affairs, giving actors like John Wayne plenty of occasion to stop and make rousing speeches. Even Saving Private Ryan, a great film that revolutionized the way war was shot, had more than enough big drama. Sam Mendes has little time for that, and of all the major conflicts of the 20th century, World War I was perhaps the least suited to it. Mendes’s plot concerns two ordinary soldiers who must brave the trenches, the open lines and No Man’s Land to deliver a message calling off a fatal attack, but the plot is merely a pretense for a cinematic experiment that draws us into the war and holds us there. Some may call it a gimmick. I call it a boldly ambitious epic at a time when Hollywood is more timid than ever.

By now, it’s fairly well known that Mendes and famed cinematographer Roger Deakins used long takes and carefully planned shots to give the impression that the camera never breaks away. Certainly it remains on the main characters throughout, and we are closed in their frame of reference, never being granted the slightest omniscience regarding the rest of the war. The first shot introduces us to Lance Corporals Tom Blake (Dean-Charles Chapman) and Will Schofield (George MacKay) as briefly as can be: they sleep under a tree, probably a much needed rest, until they are awakened and told to report to a General for orders. We learn they are soldiers and friends, and that’s all. When they report in, they are informed that aerial reconnaissance has discovered that an apparent German retreat is a feint; the Germans are laying an ambush, and 1600 men are going to walk straight into it. One of them is Blake’s brother. The two are tasked with delivering the order to stop the attack.

The path to their goal, they are told, is straightforward. They are also warned not to expect things to go to plan, because after all it is a war. That is an understatement. As soon as their mission begins, we follow them through the trenches, and those who know little of this war may be struck by the space men had to live in. They do not just wait on the walls to go “over the top”: they sleep there, eat there, piss there and daydream about the end of the war there. Schofield and Blake pass by dozens of lives a second, and for the fraction of a second my eye alighted on each, I wondered what their stories were. Peter Jackson’s incredible documentary They Shall Not Grow Old attempts to illuminate the real people in the conflict, and if you can I suggest watching it before 1917; it adds human context to the many soldiers you’ll see in passing.

Blake is the more laid-back of the pair, Schofield the more serious, yet neither is a character, really. Blake jokes and tells funny stories because he is scared to death, and because it takes his mind off what it will cost him personally if he fails. Schofield is stoic because his mind is full and he reacts to that in a different way; he has become in some measure used to the war, and dreads any leave he gets, knowing he’ll just have to go back. Had this been a real mission, it is likely both men would have passed long stretches without a word (there were, after all, enemies anywhere and everywhere), but Mendes must be aware modern audiences will sadly not tolerate long stretches of silence. He chooses to ignore this reality in order to develop the two men through conversation. We do not know a thing of them that they do not choose to reveal.

That is because, as I mentioned before, we are given no context whatsoever for their situation. When they are forced to emerge onto No Man’s Land, when they come across a seemingly deserted farm, or a bombed-out, German-held town, or witness an aerial dogfight almost over their heads, we know precisely as much as they do. If we knew more going in, if we had studied the war, the heart-twisting tension of being stuck in it quickly erases our knowledge. There is a single glimpse of life that does not involve war, and that glimpse only strengthens our impression that this conflict devoured everything. Deakins has accomplished much more than a gimmick with the cameras: he has affected a film in which I only became again fully aware that I was not in it when the screen faded to black.

The film contains a list of excellent actors in supporting roles that last maybe five minutes, because the central duo must push on and this is not like an adventure movie where one can pick up friends along the way. Colin Firth is the General who gives out the initial order, and who we then never see again. Andrew Scott is a drunken officer whose main concern in sending the boys into hell is that he won’t get his flare gun back. Mark Strong is a Captain who shows up at just the right time. Benedict Cumberbatch is Colonel Mackenzie, the far-off man to whom the orders are to be delivered. Richard Madden has a role I will not reveal. They are there, they have their scenes, and then they are gone. Blake and Schofield must move on, and will not discover their fates. Nor will we.

The film is so laser-focused that we don’t question the logic of the mission until it is over. It is at this point that Cumberbatch’s Mackenzie informs the soldiers, and us, that his orders to stand down will simply be reversed within days. Until this point, we have accepted the General’s word that the mission is crucial, and because we think of movies as a medium where the end of the film is victory, we are certain that Blake and Schofield’s success is vital to the war. We are then snapped out of it, and reminded that most of the men they are trying to save will never see home again, anyway. A question occurred to me then: did the General manipulate the men into going using their emotions, knowing the charge they were halting was inevitable anyway? Were they buying those men anything other than a few days more of horror before a sudden and senseless death?

Perhaps Mendes and co-writer Krysty Wilson-Cairns never meant for me to ask these questions, or perhaps they did, or perhaps they made a movie about war, stark and unsentimental, and were okay with whatever questions or thoughts that led us to. I fancy the latter is the right of it. Mendes based the concept on a fragment of a hint of a tale told to him by his grandfather, who was in the war. It is clear from interviews that he has been carrying this fragment with him for a while, and before all other concerns the movie is mainly his tribute to Alfred Mendes, and to the men whose youths were doomed and who never got back to tell their grandsons stories, or to have grandsons. He could have had these entirely legitimate feelings and still made a bad movie. He did not.

Verdict: Must-See

Note: I don’t use stars, but here are my possible verdicts.

Must-See

Highly Recommended

Recommended

Average

Not Recommended

Avoid like the Plague

You can follow Ryan's reviews on Facebook here:

https://www.facebook.com/ryanmeftmovies/

Or his tweets here

https://twitter.com/RyanmEft

All images are property of the people what own the movie.

#Colin Firth #benedict cumberbatch #Sam Mendes #movies #1917 #mark strong #george mackay #dean charles chapman #andrew scott #richard madden #krysty wilson-cairns #roger deakins

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hecallsmehischild · 5 years

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Grieving the Good

Beyond Boundaries by Dr. John Townsend claims there are six components for grieving a lost relationship. Most of the steps are already inherent to how I deal with pain, and I recognized each as I went through them. One, however, took me off guard. It makes sense, but it hadn’t been said to me before.

3. Name what you valued.

When you value someone, you affirm that he or she is important to you. When the connection is over, there are certain aspects of the person and the relationship that you miss the most. There are the values you have to grieve. {List of examples follows}

Sometimes, the value you need to grieve is connected to specific memories as well. It could be a trip you took or a private joke you shared. It might be a time of deep intimacy in which you were very close. Perhaps it was good times with the family.

Why is it important to name the specific things you valued? Because you must say good-bye to the entire person, not simply the negative parts of the person. You cannot walk away from the things you disliked, which may be the things that ended the relationship, without also saying goodbye to the things you loved as well. A half grief is never a healing grief.

It has been seven months since I ended a ten year friendship. Things have been better. I feel more healing every week that goes by. However, I am still stuck some days. I still cycle fruitlessly through each thing that hurt me. In my head, I argue and shout and scream until I’m acknowledged. I deliver biting, sarcastic lines designed to cut. I make it so that this time, I’m not the one in a thousand pieces on the floor.

I can’t seem to move on from this simmering anger on the back burner. I want it to protect me, but I know that’s not what it will do. It will turn into bitterness and a permanent wall that will hinder me from connecting to new people in my life. I also know, though, that if I try to suppress or ignore it, it will come back to bite me in other nasty ways down the line. So I continue to try and find ways of legitimately dealing with it, torn between letting it run its course and trying to find ways to let go.

I have grieved the negative parts and events for months, now, though I have not publicly disclosed all the specific events that led to this dissolution. It is time to grieve the good. I will grieve the good without asking which parts were lies and which were truths, because I’ve already asked myself that untold times and there is no answer to be had. At the time, it was all true, and I will grieve that.

My friend,

You are one of the two people that I know who writes at what I call a college-Lit-class-level. It’s a very specific compliment that carries a great deal of my awe. I know many truly wonderful writers who floor me every time I read their work. But I do believe your work, if published, could be taught in college classes. Not everyone would get it. You probably will not have a broad readership. It took me years of reading your writing to start to understand what you were getting at. It’s a small niche, but people who understand what you’re saying, well. Their conscience will be smitten. Your wordplay and sensory overload descriptions are brilliant. I will miss getting to read your work in advance and offering what I could to the editing process. I will miss cheering every time you got accepted for publication. I will miss collecting any printed piece you got published and begging for your autograph. I grieve that I will never hold your published novel and say, “See? I knew you could do it.” I still know you can.

We made two books together. Did you know how fun that was? Yes, there was some pain in the process, but we made two children’s books. You crafted two lovely stories. You weighed in on design ideas and I illustrated them. I am much more comfortable with my tablet and Art Rage after 9 and 6 months spent on the respective books. I have some concept of character design, simply by doing it over and over. This isn’t something I ever sought to pursue myself, but I learned a little of it through trial and error and repetition. Perhaps you will take the stories and have someone else illustrate them for publication. That is okay. I have my copies. They are the only two I can’t part with, even now. I will miss creating children’s books with you, friend. I grieve the ones we will never make. I grieve these ones will never be seen, but for the few copies that exist among friends and ourselves.

I miss sharing music with you, trying to find songs you would enjoy and occasionally finding for you one you’d searched for without success. I will never hear many of the songs you would have sent me, a lifetime of accumulated musical taste we could have traded.

I miss your passionate conversation about topics that interested you. You were never annoying, in spite of your concerns about being so. I could have listened to talk about your passions for hours. I miss how, when we got together, we could (and did) literally talk for hours, as if jamming together all the time we hadn’t spent together. I miss our long-distance communication. The wall-o-text emails. The few months we did Marco Polo, when we thought it would revolutionize our communication to be able to pick up on tone and facial expression. I miss getting to show you the cool little mundane things about my day. I grieve the loss of our communication.

You and I shared our deep sorrows and victories. We shared vulnerability and acceptance. We both mourned friendships that didn’t last or people who used us and wondered why people were so quick to cast loyal friends aside. I thought I could talk to you about anything and everything that hurt. I kept that belief very shielded from the things I knew I absolutely could not bring to you. Fortified heavily with denial was the belief that you were a safe person, and during the time I believed it, it was a good thing for me. I grieve the loss of that. I grieve the loss of trusting that you were really going to tell me the truth once you confessed to your lies, and that there were and would be no more lies between us.

I saw a great beauty in you, and I wanted so desperately to see that beauty bloom and grow, and to have been a small part of that because I felt you were so much wiser, smarter, more talented than me. I grieve that I will never see what becomes of you in this life up close. I hope, desperately, that you do heal and grow.

Once, when I really needed it, you stood up for me. Though details have come into question, now, in that moment I fully believed I needed it, and you were there for me. In the very early years of our friendship, you provided a friendly and safe-feeling place to talk with you. We talked about anything and everything. I grieve that.

I grieve the gifts I could not keep, chosen with care for every birthday and every Christmas. I grieve the joy I took in picking out gifts for you as well.

You loaned me your knowledge. Knowledge about health and food, theology and psychology. Book recommendations that were dead on what I needed to know and what my brain was able to process correctly. Articles you sent that made you think of me. You have had your head more in the real world than I ever cared to, and when I was stymied about how to even research, you shared your store of collected knowledge with me.

You had such insight. I felt that you “saw” me, and you phrased what you saw in me all so beautifully. I thought I was so fortunate to be friends with someone like you, who would point out my strengths in such a healing way. Do you even comprehend what a balm your words can be, when you want?

I remember playing the What-Does-M-See game. Because you said you could see the spiritual realm. Now I don’t know what to believe, but at the time, I was always in awe when you saw or described something. Especially if it was about me, and especially if it was accurate to something in my life.

I miss praying with you in the early days, when we first got to be prayer partners in the huge house.

I’d never had a delicious vegan meal before. You astounded me by cooking incredible savory 100% vegan dishes. And I got to cook one dish for you that you fell in love with. And even when we lived apart, it was fun to cook with you over Skype, creating the same dish across several states’ distance.

I’d only recently begun reading aloud books for you. Books I thought spoke to your situation, or books that I hoped held some answers for you. I grieve that I will not be able to share with you like you shared with me.

Slumbertale was a short story born out of our friendship. I wanted to sustain you from week to week. Give you something to look forward to. I miss coming up with a new few paragraphs of the story each week and waiting for your reaction to the next twist in the tale. I miss picking out a weekly treat to mail you. I miss making gestures of Philia (deep friendship)--nearly Storge (familial)--love and having them received. I grieve the loss of the times I was able to shine a little light into the darkness for you.

You actually got me to like parenthesis. With a super creative poem. How even? I was so anti-parenthesis in fiction and storytelling, but you did the thing. I liked it so much I had to literally paint the poem.

Some of my most beautiful artwork and poetry were inspired by something you said or wrote, or a part of who you were. You influenced my poetry style. You twined into my craft sphere. We even started a mini-partnership about my trees, remember? I wanted to start writing micro-fiction, but was having a hard time titling the trees. Your titles were spot on and creative and always inspired a fabulous story. I offered $2 per title if the tree sold because I wanted to. Now I title them myself, and have only just returned to the micro-fiction, because the grief was so sharp.

I believed you were someone worth flying out for on as short notice as I could afford during the absolute worst times. I did this three times. I grieve being able to hold the belief that you deserved this, and much more, from me. I grieve the image of you that I had and refused to release for so long.

I grieve good times in Seattle, the city I never want to visit again because the painful associations now outweigh the good associations. You were the last remaining reason I ever wanted to return there.

I remember one time, during a visit to you, I spiked myself into a panic attack. I had ordered a mocha from one of Seattle’s hipster one-off coffee shops. I could tell from the first sip that the balance skewed way more toward coffee than chocolate, and that it might be too strong for me, but I drank it anyway. And shortly after, my heart was hammering and my breathing was shallow and every dread in my heart came screaming up to the surface of my skin. And I asked you for a hug, and in the middle of the coffee shop, with no embarrassment, you held me. Spoke gently into my ear. Helped me regulate my breathing. Helped me back down to a tolerable level of anxiety (it would be a few hours before the caffeine totally left my system).

You wrote me a journal in response to the one I wrote to you. Then you spent months helping me decode your handwriting so I understood all of what you had to say.

You wrote the single piece of derivative fiction (or fan fiction) that exists for my still unfinished novel. You accompanied it with components of a visual piece of art for me to assemble, one that directly related to the story you’d written, in spite of you “not being a visual person.” It had so much meaning to me.

You gave me a deeply meaningful nickname, and called me that almost to the exclusion of my name.

I miss your laughter. I miss your sense of humor. I miss your warmth.

I grieve the good in you, and I grieve the good I received from you. I grieve the good we made together, and the good we shared with each other. As hurt and furious as I am, I still miss you. But I will not return this time. I cannot express to you how much I hope you heal, truly heal, and learn to relate to people. I wish you well. I wish you healing. I wish you true joy. I wish you a life where you do not have to leave claw-marks behind.

Goodbye.

#emotional abuse #rlchild #grieving #goodbyes

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gruenersmoothie · 4 years

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8 Somewhat Weird Ingredients That Will Revolutionize Your Smoothie-Making

Time to make smoothies aplenty! There is in no way like a smoothie for transforming crisp natural products into a tasty, excellent, reviving nibble in a glass!

Be that as it may, while new organic product can be motivating, smoothies don't need to be about natural product. Truth be told, many motivated smoothie makers have amplified natural product's taste and medical advantages by including fixings you may never envision ought to be permitted in a smoothie formula.

Prepared to hit the "Liquify" button on your blender and bring tasting to an unheard of level?

Take a stab at including these unexpected fixings to your next smoothie...

Extraordinary Greens For SuperGreen Smoothies

Alongside those delectable organic products, the rancher's market is loaded up with rushes of green. Furthermore, in those waves you'll locate some dynamite smoothie sustenance sponsors. Spinach and kale are among the best greens to include since they have a mellow flavor. Be that as it may, you don't need to stop with them - attempt mustard greens, radish greens, collards, chard or even romaine lettuce.

Spinach - Popeye's capacity nourishment - isn't just high in iron, yet additionally significant levels of manganese, magnesium, calcium, potassium, copper and zinc. It brags a riches carotenoids like nutrient A, lutein and zeaxanthin just as folate, nutrients K, E, C, B2 and B6.

Kale rivals spinach in its great nourishment. Additionally pressed with nutrients An and K, it has more nutrient C than an orange. What's more, for minerals, it's a decent wellspring of manganese and copper. An individual from the cruciferous group of vegetables, kale likewise contains exceptional sulfur-based mixes, called glucosinolates. These mixes appear to support the action of detoxifying proteins in your body. They have additionally been connected to essentially decreasing your hazard for cancer.[1]

While a great many people enjoy the fresh mash of the radish bulbs, the radish greens are the genuine nourishing powerhouse. Stuffed with nutrient C and calcium, radish greens carry a pleasant sharpness to any smoothie blend. Like kale they are a piece of the cruciferous family which implies they contain a decent measure of extraordinary malignant growth battling mixes.

Beet greens are similarly on a par with the root with regards to supporting your body. Furthermore, they may even lift your state of mind. Notwithstanding Vitamins A, C, and K, beet greens have a rich stockpile of the amino corrosive tryptophan. Tryptophan not exclusively can assist you with unwinding and rest, it additionally is a structure obstruct for the synapse serotonin. Serotonin is connected to a sentiment of fulfillment and happiness. While the flavorful taste of a smoothie in itself can lift your state of mind, beet greens may really give you the mind-set boosting science you need.

How to prepare them? Search for dark green leaves that haven't yellowed. Wash them cautiously and drop them in stem what not. More youthful leaves are simpler work for your blender. Be that as it may, on the off chance that you have bigger, harder leaves, don't surrender. Essentially ensure you add a lot of fluid to enable your blender to hack them up adequately.

Need a snappy, supergreen hit? Add some chlorella granules to your mix. Chlorella green growth has more green chlorophyll than some other plant on the planet, also elevated levels of nutrient An and magnesium. Also, its novel chlorella development factor speeds tissue recovery. What's more, it is one of the main plant-based wellsprings of genuine nutrient B12, basic for cerebrum and heart wellbeing.

Smoothness Factors That Make Smoothies Go Down Smooth

Avocadoes

Actually avocadoes are a natural product, as well. They develop on huge avocado trees like pears - consequently their other name, Alligator Pears. In any case, despite the fact that we generally just partner them with flavorful nourishments, they're not only for guacamole! Avocadoes carry a light smoothness to your smoothie alongside unique fats your body adores.

Avocado contains bravo fats like:

· Phytosterols like beta-sisterol, campesterol and sigmasterol;

· Oleic corrosive, essentially found in olives;

· Polyhydroxylated greasy alcohols (PFAs) are just found in sea plants;

These fats help your body battle aggravation. They likewise increment exponentially your body's assimilation of carotenoids. Carotenoids are fundamental for nerve, eye, insusceptible and conceptive wellbeing. Avocado brings a surprisingly various blend of these carotenoids to the table too.

At last, in case you're looking to smoothies to assist you with cutting your midsection, avocados are an absolute necessity have fixing. Ongoing research demonstrates avocadoes' rich sustenance may help control desires and bolster weight reduction. [2]

Need to maximize your avocado? Ensure you scratch out the darker tissue close to the skin. This is the piece of the avocado with the most noteworthy grouping of carotenoids.

Substantial Cream

A significant part of the smoothie disturbance has been activated by an enthusiasm for low-fat, profoundly nutritious nourishments that can assist you with getting in shape. Consequently, including substantial cream may appear an abomination to great smoothie conventions.

Not really... While some examination shows the soaked fats in cream may build your hazard for coronary illness, cream additionally has fats that are verifiably bravo. Cream from field raised creatures contains exceptional fats called conjugated linoleic acids (CLAs). What's more, these exceptional CLAs really assist you with building slender bulk. Discovered uniquely in items from grass-bolstered creatures, they can assist you with getting in shape and may even help keep your corridors clean.[3]

Notwithstanding CLA's, grass encouraged cream offers you another rich and delicious course to getting omega-3's and nutrient A. Lastly - like avocado - overwhelming cream can make your smoothie fulfilling enough to hold you until the following feast.

Obviously, while cream may offers some medical advantages, including helping you nibble less throughout the day, remember the worries raised about soaked fats. By appreciating cream in your smoothies with some restraint, you can be certain you're getting the great fats and supplements without trying too hard on the possibly unsafe fats.

So as to appreciate these velvety advantages, get your cream from a rancher who you know pastures her animals or search for grass-encouraged dairy in the store. Natural cream will likewise contain a portion of these supplements since natural dairies are required to offer some entrance to pasture for their creatures.

Coconut drain and oil

The coconut offers another approach to add solid smoothness to your smoothie.

Coconuts contain unique medium chain fats. In contrast to the most well-known fats on earth, long chain fats, coconuts' fats are consumed distinctively in your body. Rather than being put away, they are utilized quickly for vitality creation. Along these lines, coconut fats really accelerate your digestion and help you consume significantly more fats.

Moreover, coconut fats are anything but difficult to process. Furthermore, as an uncommon reward, they appear to battle contagious, parasitic and bacterial contaminations too.

How to get these exceptional fats? Get them straight as chilly squeezed coconut oil. Simply add two or three bits to your blender and appreciate the rich flavor. Or then again attempt them joined with coconut water by pouring in some full-fat coconut milk.

Change Your Smoothie With A Dose Of Creativity

Fire up your smoothie motor and escape your smoothie trench... there's a wide range of supplements you could be tasting through a straw. Envision your body getting fired up with the intensity of green? Or then again contracting those awkward desires down with the smooth extravagance of cream?

An incredible smoothie formula can fill your heart with joy. Be that as it may, don't lose all sense of direction in another person's formula. Trial. Include something new. You might be shocked at how delicious a little smoothie inventiveness can be!

Sources:

[1] Cruciferous vegetables and disease avoidance. National Cancer Institute site.

[2] Wien MA et al. Randomized 3x3 hybrid concentrate to assess the impact of Hass avocado admission on post-ingestive satiety, glucose and insulin levels, and consequent vitality consumption in overweight grown-ups. Nourishment Journal 2013 volume 12: 155

[3] Whigham LD et al. Adequacy of conjugated linoleic corrosive for lessening fat mass: a meta-examination in people. Am J Clin Nutr May 2007vol. 85 no. 5 1203-1211

About Dr. Michael E Rosenbaum, MD

Dr. Michael E. Rosenbaum is a 35-year veteran and broadly perceived pioneer in the field of wholesome drug, elective social insurance and therapeutic needle therapy. As one of America's most regarded specialists in regular wellbeing and mending, Dr. Rosenbaum has been a regular speaker to proficient restorative gatherings and has taken part in various TV and radio television shows. He is likewise a regarded individual from the Sun Chlorella Advisory Board, which helps manage the medicinal development behind Sun Chlorella items.

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kaliiwashere · 5 years

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dating site for seniors over 60

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chibisquirt · 6 years

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Celestial Navigation remix teaser

This isn’t even its final form.

No, seriously, this isn’t anywhere close to even a first chapter first draft. It will change! And I’m not writing it right now. (I would say “I’m not writing The Thing,” except that that would be true, and this would be The Other Thing.) I’ll probably seriously start work on this sometime in... April? May? Right around then. Definitely not during Remix Madness, not unless I can somehow work three work shifts and write *eyeballs it* 60-100k in two days.

Don’t hold your breath.

But @sabrecmc said she loved my idea, and I wanted to get it down before I forgot it. So this is... the start of an idea.

I had fun with it, anyway.

Tony stormed into the lab in a bitch of a mood, but he really didn't think he could be blamed. Fury's words were still ringing in his ears like a boxing blow.

“We have no problem with Iron Man; Iron man does damn good work. And we have no problem with Tony Stark; Tony Stark is revolutionizing every lab we got in this damn place. But Tony Stark and Iron Man being one and the same? Yeah, that we kinda have a problem with.”

In the wake of Afghanistan, Tony had been adamant that Stark Industries would no longer make weapons that could fall into the wrong hands. He couldn’t shut down every operation— SI was under contract for up to three more years, in some cases, and they couldn’t afford the fallout of breaking those deals— but all the contracts they were bidding on were dropped, and Tony had flat-out refused to consider any future deals making weapons.

But he wasn’t willing to just shut down the company wholesale, so alternatives had to be found. SI already made body armor and flight prototypes; Tony had ramped those categories up, adding green energy and communications to their list of milieus. He had SI producing with his usual high standards within months, and SHIELD was his biggest contractor.

Of course, once he had SHIELD clearance for those contracts— which weren’t being offered to the military yet— it made sense to bring Tony in as a contract engineer, too. For the last three months, he had been romping around as many SHIELD research departments as he could find, and been playing merry hell with all of them. (Except for linguistics; the linguists were a little weird, even for him.) He already had a helicarrier under development, as well as some prototype hard-light armors that no one other than SHIELD would ever be willing to pay for. He even had his hands in SHIELD’s perennially doomed efforts to create a super-soldier, not that he expected it to make a difference. SHIELD had been failing at that one since back when they were the S.S.R., Tony didn’t exactly expect it to succeed now.

The science division was about fifteen floors of the Triskellion (twenty-seventh to forty-second, in fact), but the central area of the twenty-seventh floor was its own little access way: if you wanted to get anywhere in the science division, you had to go through there.

Tony swanned into that science lobby like Alan Rickman entering a potions dungeon.

“Alright, kids, show daddy the good stuff," he said, and a dozen Beta scientists leaped to obey. Ten points to Ravenclaw, he thought, and sneered at the first project that came under his nose.

Well, okay, come on— that wasn’t being in character, it was just a really bad design! “Why did you put your damn rotors on the bottom, Evans?” As if Tony didn’t already have a migraine...

“I thought— it’ll make for less wear on the bolts to heave up the body than to pull, right? So—”

“First of all, no it won’t. And second of all, it’ll increase the wear on the rotors themselves—”

“No, but— it lands in water, right? I mean we’re not doing this from land, or anything—”

“ — and at those speeds, the water may as well be concrete! This isn’t grade school—”

Evans got the message.

Tony worked his way through them, the UAV’s and the phasers and the—

“Please don’t call it that.”

“Well, if you come up with a better name than the ‘night-night gun’ I’m sure we’ll be happy to change it,” the little Beta huffed.

— and slowly worked his way through to the back of the lounge where the scruffy-looking Dr. Banner was waiting.

“Done with the scrum?” Bruce asked. He sipped his tea.

“Mostly. Saving the best for last.” Tony pasted on an encouraging grin, just for him.

It wasn’t Bruce’s fault, it really wasn’t. Bruce was a good damned scientist, careful and thorough and painstaking, but with an effortless grasp of higher concepts of physics and chemistry that still seemed to elude some of his more decorated colleagues out there. It was Bruce’s bad luck, though, to be assigned to the shittiest project in the whole place. Seriously: if the projects were potions students, Bruce’s was Neville Longbottom. And it wasn’t fucking fair— but then, very few things were.

Plus, at this point, Bruce was contributing to his own relegation. It wasn’t like his good work had gone unnoticed— if no one else had tried to scoop Bruce, then Tony would have. But as Tony had been informed— repeatedly, and at a variety of volumes, some of which had not been necessary, thank you, Fury— Bruce had stubbornly insisted that he could crack his stupid Super-Soldier project, and had remained, slowly chipping away at it, for over a year after he could have been reassigned.

That was honestly the only reason Tony was even interested in the project. It was a bad idea; far too much potential for abuse, for one thing— what if you super-soldiered the wrong guy, and got a madman? So Tony jumped on board to help Bruce get done faster, and then he started screening the candidates, too— just to make sure they were all people he would trust with super-powers. It took up more of his time than anything else he did here, but it was also a bigger challenge: psych evaluation wasn’t exactly Tony’s strong suit. See exhibit one: Stane, Obediah, betrayals thereof.

“Got a new batch of subjects in,” Bruce said mildly. “I know you like to meet them.”

“Fabulous; something else to fail at.”

Bruce stopped and pivoted halfway through the door of his department, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

Tony sighed. “Nothing. Meeting with Fury went... poorly.”

Bruce tipped his head to the side, but didn’t push. Very restful guy, Bruce. Tony really did like him. “First one’s through there,” was all he said, pushing through and back to the exam rooms. Bruce’s department was set up so much like a doctor’s office that Tony suspected it had originally been intended to be one, and the decor didn’t help: muted tones and uncomfortably-padded furniture. He even had magazines in the waiting room, although, being for SHIELD agents, they were more Guns&Ammo than out-of-date US Weekly.

Tony snagged the file out of the holder on the back of the first exam room door. “Barnes, J. B., Level 3 SHIELD Agent,” he read off. “Fabulous, more spies; just what we need.”

Bruce nodded unironically and headed to the lab— ostensibly to run tests, but Tony knew that was where he kept his teapot, and his mug was suspiciously empty. Mark down another on the list of people who drink around me, Tony thought, although the thought was a lot fonder than it usually was. “Be nice to that one,” Bruce instructed. “I like him.”

“Good lord, why?” Tony opened the door.

“I’m serious, Tony; he’s on the short list.”

Tony blinked, and then without another word, stepped through, closing the door behind him.

J. B. Barnes was tall and fit, a Beta wearing a SHIELD uniform. So, they hadn’t pulled him off of an assignment for this, then. Closer examination revealed the cast on his left arm: a-ha. Benched, for now. His hair was brown, eyes pale— blue or gray, hard to tell at this distance— and his ears, apparently, were sharp, because he was grinning.

There was something familiar about that grin... Tony shrugged it off.

“Name and birthday?”

The grin barely faltered— no more than a sixteenth of an inch.

Okay, and right off the bat, that one was probably on Tony; they were required— stupid Bruce and his stupid scrupulousness about protocols— to confirm the identity of the people they were talking to before discussing any medical records. But Tony didn’t have to say it quite so sharply. He didn’t usually spit the words “name and birthday” like they were going to take out Gilderoy Lockhart, after all. So once Barnes had confirmed that, yes, he had been born March 10th, twenty-one years ago, Tony settled into the little doctor’s stool, did a full rotation because wheelie stools never got old, and apologized. “Been a long day,” he explained it, “people being difficult.”

“And by people you mean pirates?”

Tony almost didn’t get it for a second, because it was said so blandly it might as well have been asking his oatmeal preferences, and because it was so unexpected coming from a Level 3 agent. “You usually that irreverent about Fury? He might keel-haul you.”

Barnes grinned again. “I have a well-established pattern of snark,” he admitted. “There’s a reason I’m only a level three.”

Tony looked back at the chart again. “You’re a baby,” he said absently, “don’t take it personally—”

It was a pretty impressive chart, though. “You can shoot.”

“Yeah, a little.”

Barnes could probably win gold at the olympics and be set for life, given the numbers from his last round on range. Sure. “A little,” Tony repeated dryly. “Interrogation specialist, really? ‘Exceptional problem solver,’ what does that even mean? And you speak...”

“Five languages— well, okay, the Irish is mostly profanity.”

Tony hefted the file. “This says four. Counting the Irish.”

Barnes shrugged. “The Klingon’s more recent,” he admitted, “and it really shouldn’t count anyway, there’s only, like, three thousand words—”

“Closer to thirty-five hundred.”

“It’s not Chinese, though, right? I mean...”

Tony’s mouth twitched. “It’s not Chinese, no. Or... Russian, apparently. Huh; eclectic.”

“Thanks.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

“There a reason you’re busting my balls?”

Tony paused. More of the snark? Or was he really being too harsh?

“I mean, given that Doc Banner just told you he likes me. Either you’re trying to break me— which, good luck, chill out though because it’s not going to happen— or you’re in a legitimate shitty mood. In which case, I’d rather not be your punching bag.”

There was something about how he said it... The young man wasn’t saying it to push, like another Alpha would have. He wasn’t saying it defiantly, either; it wasn’t like he was daring Tony. That one was a standard technique in Alphas and Betas alike: the Alphas used it to start a fight, the Beta’s used it to make the Alphas look irrational and over-emotional. It usually worked pretty well in either case, too, although Tony had seen it often enough in boardrooms that he could handle it.

But that wasn’t what was going on here, and the difference was so obvious it set Tony blinking. The guy— Barnes— was just stating a fact, that was all. “Here’s what I see, and that’s how it is.” No bravado, no push— just truth.

Which neatly left only one possible response. “Sorry,” Tony said again, and meant it this time. “Pirates. You know.”

“Perils of the high seas,” Barnes agreed. “But it’s just us up here in the crow’s nest; you wanna talk about it?”

Tony laughed, impressed by the balls on the guy if nothing else. “No.”

“Could help.”

“No,” Tony repeated, struggling to keep down the simmering heat that had been resting behind the arc reactor since his meeting with Fury delivered his ultimatum.

“Look, we like what you do, Tony— there’s no doubt about that— but Iron Man is too reckless, too borderline suicidal, to also be the guy essentially running every research operation we have! Add to that, every analysis we’ve got—”

Tony had sent Natasha Romanov, sitting at the table with them, a dirty look, but she had just blinked slowly at him and Fury hadn’t checked his tide of words.

“ — has indicated that Iron Man is a dysfunctional personality— and that was even before we knew he was also you.”

Tony caught his breath. Iron Man was the best of him; hearing that even his best wasn’t good enough... that hurt more than he wanted to admit. And certainly not to Fury.

“He is headstrong, disregards the standard protocols of operation, twice he’s put our other agents in danger—”

“Point of order: he can’t put your ‘other’ agents in danger because he isn’t one—”

“I don’t care, Stark. Make a show. Be stable. Invest in the future—”

“What do you think the whole ‘green energy’ thing is about?!”

“ — personally invest. Hell, get yourself an Omega! Pop out a couple kids! We’ll all pray the brains are heritable and the personality isn’t. Just... don’t break things, for once in your goddamn life. Show me you can be a team player, and I’ll think about it. Show me you’re not an adrenaline-junkie mess, and I’ll welcome you back with open arms! But until that happens, Iron Man— and you— are barred from all aspects of the Avengers Initiative.”

Fury had almost made it to the door when Tony’s head snapped up. “You know,” he called, “if you don’t break things, you can’t put them back together with improvements!”

The only answer was the whisper-soft slide of the Black Widow’s boots as she followed Fury out the door.

“Unless you’ve got an Omega in your pocket,” Tony said now, his voice approximately as dry as a dead cactus, “I’m shit out of luck.”

Barnes froze. He blinked, and then blinked again. He looked around the room as if scanning for cameras before bringing his head back around to meet Tony’s eyes. “I mean...” He rubbed his palms along his navy blue trousers as if he were trying to rid them of sweat. “...You can’t tell Fury.”

Tony froze, thinking about it. It had been an offhand joke, a throwaway line designed to get the conversation back on course. But then again...

Tony was about to make a very, very, very large mistake. He tossed Barnes’ file on the counter.

“Tell me more.”

#celestial navigation #remix #steve/tony #stony #steve rogers not actually appearing in this snip #unless you count the phrase 'very very VERY large mistake'#in which case Steve absolutely does appear #whoops

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kopicrypto2 · 3 years

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Yarloo

Yarloo is a global lottery ecosystem built on transparent and decentralized blockchain technology

Since the advent of decentralized finance (Defi), a number of peer-to-peer financial products have been built, allowing users to lend cryptocurrencies to other users and stake funds in liquidity pools to enable trading. But here's one that may not make sense on the surface.

Crypto Lottery, whether it be UK National Lottery or US Big Millions – lottery games give you the chance to win big while keeping bet sizes to a minimum. With that said, it is only a matter of time before lottery games reach the crypto and blockchain technology arena.

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Yarloo is a new take on the lottery gambling system that is known to everyone around the world. We feel that the current state of the lottery is quite… lacking, to say the least. It's not fun, the risks are too high and your chances are dim. Very. Here's an excerpt from K5: “According to the US Lottery, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million and the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. Combine the two and the odds of winning both jackpots for over a billion dollars go to 1 in 88 quadrillion. That's 88 followed by 15 zeros.

But with the current advancement of the crypto space, we at Yarloo feel that something can be done to revolutionize lottery systems around the world, and to make it much more fun, give people a much higher chance of winning, create a much more flexible jackpot pool, and introduce set the NFT card as the core function behind the ticket. Also the fun aspect of making the whole project theme revolve around pirates!

Yarloo is a global lottery ecosystem built on transparent and decentralized blockchain technology, in which the system will be distributed on a public network, making global lottery operations more efficient and transparent. By leveraging the Blockchain technology platform as well as the Binance Smart Chain Blockchain technology features, smart contracts enable various processes, such as collecting or distributing each lottery process, to be more efficient than the traditional centralized systems currently in use. Since a platform that ensures the safety of international lotteries is their top priority, their blockchain based lottery platform also offers daily lottery draws. which covers a wide geographical area and can be followed by anyone, wherever they are. The use of smart contracts, of course,FEATURE

Yarloo will be full of cool features that will be very useful for everyone, and as we progress in the future, we will start to include more features, and discuss them with our community so we can see what else can be done in the future. . Yarloo.

NFT : We are also the first lottery project in crypto history to use NFT cards as your main entry ticket system in any pool! This means instead of buying a ticket, your ticket is represented by the card you used in your lottery pool.

DeFi : You will benefit financially from Yarloo thanks to its hybrid DeFi system, especially by allowing you to earn 2% of pool profits if you are the creator, and by leveraging our RST ecosystem if you have enough $YARL!

HOW DOES IT WORK?

At Yarloo, you will be able to participate in a number of financially rewarding activities, including, but not limited to:

Solo Lottery Jackpot

Team Lottery Jackpot

Fortune Spinner

NFT Trade Center

Yarloo Wallet (to snoop and exchange our tokens)

Game Arcade

DeFi Loan & Lending System

As you can see, Yarloo offers different ways to participate in our unique lottery system, and profit through different styles and approaches. Are you a risk taker? The solo lottery is most likely for you. Want to feel the security of a higher opportunity thanks to others supporting you as a team? The team lottery is definitely the way to go. Feeling lucky today? Use our lucky spinner to see if you can collect new special cards that increase your odds. Are you a collector who has collected a large number of valuable cards over time? The trading center is yours for the taking, and there is literally no risk as you only sell your cards. If you're not as lucky as the cards and don't want to take high risks, then of course, staking is your way.

Love to gamify your gambling experience? Our pirate themed arcade will meet your needs, and if you feel you are short on cash or want to use our DeFi system, please borrow our tokens with added collateral. With each different method, you gain the ability to experience what it feels like to be lucky, without feeling that there is too much risk. The different Yarloo jackpot pools vary significantly, with limited and unlimited pools available to allow users the ability to participate in all types of jackpots, no matter how big or small the main prize is.

What makes Yarloo unique, however, is how it uses the NFT system, making it the main engine behind entry tickets. If you wish to participate, you must enter by planning a particular set of cards that you have. Combining cards can usually give you special attributes, depending on the rarity and type of the card, and its compatibility features with other cards you may have. The card is your go-to ticket, and it's the only way you can try your hand at winning the jackpot. To enter using cards, there is an entry fee that needs to be deposited into the pool to add to the grand prize, but then you will be free to allocate 5 cards only from your set, combining them for the best possible outcome which will increase your odds. If your strategy works well, then you may have hit the jackpot,

The idea remains the same for team jackpots, except it requires more thought before entering, as the right plan and combination of cards can skyrocket a team's chances of winning the jackpot they are into. For example, as we said earlier, you are limited to 5 cards per pool, meaning you only have 5 cards to use for lottery, solo, or team-based jackpots. But if you are part of a team, consisting of 4 participants including yourself, that means you will each use 5 cards from their collection, up to 20 cards. The idea for team participation is because several individuals will have different unique cards in their collection, and not everyone is lucky enough to get all the card combinations that match unless they spend a lot of money collecting everything there is to get. This means having a team is the best strategy if you want to increase your odds, as you can pair your cards together for maximum effect. If you have a rare special card that is compatible with other cards from a team member's collection, then you will have special effects that generate more tickets, increasing your chances of winning by miles.

But remember: you are not the only team that participates in this lottery, and you must consider your partner properly and efficiently, taking into account the fact that there are other teams that plan their odds and prepare their cards. This way, the lottery will not really be based on pure luck. There's thinking to be done, and strategizing, and you'll have many different options available to you, allowing you to navigate through dozens of potential ways to profit through Yarloo.

PRODUCTS AND FEATURES Yarloo will be full of cool features that will be very useful for everyone, and as we progress in the future, we will start to include more features, and discuss them with our community so we can see what else can be done in Yarloo.

RST: Yarloo is the first project in the world to implement a technology known as “Revenue Sharing Token”, which allows the community to receive 30% of Yarloo's profits to serve the ecosystem in which it is built. NFT : We are also the first lottery project in crypto history to use NFT cards as your main entry ticket system in any pool! This means instead of buying a ticket, your ticket is represented by the card you used in your lottery pool. DeFi : You will benefit financially from Yarloo thanks to its hybrid DeFi system, especially by allowing you to earn 2% of pool profits if you are the creator, and by leveraging our RST ecosystem if you hold enough $YARL!

RST ECOSYSTEM Revenue Sharing Token, or RST for short, is Yarloo's revolutionary backbone, the first implementation of its kind that will one day be recognized as NFT and DeFi technology, RST is how Yarloo can be armed as an anti-bear project, which can withstand any market sentiment . The way it works is pretty simple, and can be reconfigured based on individual company preferences, but we'll be using Yarloo as a core example of how RST will be used considering we were the original founders of this concept and its first integrator.

Investor Seed & IDO: 30% Holder: 25% Buyback: 20% LP Provider: 15% Wheel of Fortune/Rewards Pool: 10%

📷

CARD SYSTEM Our card system is not very complicated. There will be 5 types of cards, ranked from bottom to top as:

These 5 types of cards have very different functions and values. For example, a small card only gives 1 ticket per card, due to its low value, and a Bronze card gives 2 tickets per card, but both have no special attributes and cannot be paired with other cards.

On the other hand, from Silver to Sapphire, cards grant more tickets and all have special attributes. Silver cards give 5 tickets per card, Gold give 10, and Sapphire gives 50 participation tickets.

Card sets will be released consistently at Yarloo, even after launch, as they will always be an important part of the way things work. There will be 3 types of card sets, so users can know what to expect from each:

Standar Premium Eksentrik

📷

ROAD MAP Q3 2021:

Conclusion of Funding Round 3-5 Set of Alpha Marketplace Alpha Q4 2021 Wallet Launch Cards :

Wheel of Fortune Release Lottery Platform Launches Bridging $YARL to new network First CEX List 5-8 New Card Set Fusion System Test Governance features for $YARL holders Updated Lightpaper Q1 2022:

Roam around the Seven Seas! We will continue to update our roadmap depending on new introductions, games we announce, and more. For now, only information about this year's Q3 and Q4 is available.

For more information:

Website : https://yarloo.vercel.app/

Telegram : https://t.me/yarloochat

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/yarlannouncements

Twitter : https://twitter.com/yarl oo_rst

Medium : https://medium.com/@yarloo

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/yarloo

Username: MohamedSalahh Link: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3122527

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gabuzzz756 · 3 years

Text

Yarloo

Yarloo is a new take on the lottery gambling system that is known to everyone around the world.

Yarloo is a new take on the lottery gambling system that is known to everyone around the world. We feel that the current state of the lottery is quite… lacking, to say the least. It's not fun, the risks are too high and your chances are dim. Very. Here's an excerpt from K5: “According to the USA Lottery, the odds of winning the Mega Millions jackpot are 1 in 302.6 million and the odds of winning the Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292.2 million. Combine the two and the odds of winning both jackpots for over a billion dollars go to 1 in 88 quadrillion. That's 88 followed by 15 zeros.

But with the current advancement of the crypto space, we at Yarloo feel that something can be done to revolutionize lottery systems around the world, and to make it much more fun, give people a much higher chance of winning, create a much more flexible jackpot pool, and introduced the NFT card set as the core function behind the ticket. Also the fun aspect of making the whole project theme revolve around pirates!

Through this methodology, we believe that, while lotteries provide people with very small odds of winning, encrypting the system, wrapping it with fun games and money-making features for those who don't want to risk too much will potentially change the whole shape. the lottery industry, and that's the clear end game for us at Yarloo.

HOW DOES IT WORK?

At Yarloo, you will be able to participate in a number of financially rewarding activities, including, but not limited to:

Solo Lottery Jackpot

Team Lottery Jackpot

Fortune Spinner

NFT Trade Center

Yarloo Wallet (to snoop and exchange our tokens)

Game Arcade

DeFi Loan & Lending System

PRODUCTS AND FEATURES

Yarloo will be full of cool features that will be very useful for everyone, and as we make more progress in the future, we will start to include more features, and discuss them with our community so we can see what else can be done in the future. Yarloo.

EKOSISTEM RST

Profit Sharing Token, or RST for short, is Yarloo's revolutionary backbone, the first implementation of its kind that will someday be recognized as NFT and DeFi technology, RST is how Yarloo can be armed as an anti-bear project, which can withstand any market sentiment. The way it works is pretty simple, and can be reconfigured based on individual company preferences, but we'll be using Yarloo as a core example of how RST will be used considering we were the original founders of this concept and its first integrator.

Seed Investors & IDOs: 30%

Holder: 25%

Repurchase: 20%

LP Provider: 15%

Wheel of Fortune/Rewards Pool: 10%

Seed Investors & IDOs: 30%

Holder: 25%

Repurchase: 20%

LP Provider: 15%

Wheel of Fortune/Rewards Pool: 10%

CARD SYSTEM

Our card system is not very complicated. There will be 5 types of cards, ranked from bottom to top as:

On the other hand, from Silver to Sapphire, cards grant more tickets and all have special attributes. Silver cards give 5 tickets per card, Gold give 10, and Sapphire give 50 participation tickets.

Standard

Premium

eccentric

ROADMAP

Q3 2021:

Funding Round Conclusion

3-5 Sets of Launch Cards

Alpha Wallet

Pass Alpha

Q4 2021:

Wheel of Fortune Release

Lottery Platform Launch

Bridging $YARL to the new network

First CEX List

5-8 New Card Set

Fusion System Testing

Governance features for $YARL holders

Updated Light Paper

Q1 2022:

Wander around the Seven Oceans!

We will continue to update our roadmap depending on new introductions, games we announce, and more. For now, only information about this year's Q3 and Q4 is available.

For more information, please follow our social links below:

Website : https://yarloo.vercel.app/

Telegram : https://t.me/yarloochat

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/yarlannouncements

Twitter : https://twitter.com/yarloo_rst

Medium : https://medium.com/@yarloo

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/yarloo

username gabuzzz

url https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=3357668

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sewdieecrypto · 3 years

Text

Yarloo

the first lottery project in crypto history to use NFT s cards

Yarloo is a global lottery ecosystem built on transparent and decentralized blockchain technology, where the system will be distributed on public networks, making global lottery operations more efficient and transparent. By leveraging the Blockchain technology platform as well as the Binance Smart Chain Blockchain technology features, smart contracts allow various processes, such as collecting or distributing each lottery process, to be more efficient than traditional centralized systems currently in use. Because platforms that ensure international lottery security are their top priority, their blockchain -based lottery platforms also offer daily lottery draws. which covers a wide geographical area and can be followed by anyone, wherever they are. The use of smart contracts, of course,

Yarloo is a new look at the lottery gambling system known to everyone around the world. We feel that the current state of the lottery is quite poor, to say the least. This is not fun, the risk is too high and your chances are slim. Very much. Here is a quote from K5: “According to Lottery USA, the chance of winning the Mega Millions jackpot is 1 to 302.6 million and the chance of winning the Powerball jackpot is 1 to 292.2 million. Combine the two and the chances of winning both jackpots for over a billion dollars become 1 in 88 quadrillion. That's the number 88 followed by 15 the number zero.

But with the advancement of the crypto space today, we at Yarloo feel there is something that can be done to revolutionize the lottery system around the world, and to make it much more fun, give people a much higher chance of winning, create a much more flexible jackpot collection, and introduced the NFT card set as the core function behind the ticket. Also a fun aspect of making the whole project theme revolve around pirates!

Through this methodology, we believe that, while lotteries give people a very small chance of winning, cryptifying the system, wrapping it with fun games and money-making features for those who don't want to risk too much will potentially change the overall shape. the lottery industry, and that’s the clear end of the game for us at Yarloo.

📷

The nature of the world economy has changed relentlessly since the founding of cryptocurrencies, beginning with Bitcoin, and now with more than 4,000 existing cryptocurrencies, the total market capitalization of all cryptocurrency assets combined is at a market capitalization of $ 2,000,000,000. wrote this article.

Since the advent of Decentralized Finance, Non-Fungible Tokens, and many more elements that changed the shape of this industry, this space has become very attractive to outsiders to the point where it is now like a moth attracted to fire.

Unfortunately, however, while this space is significantly better than the FIAT system of today, it is not without its fair share of drawbacks. Most importantly, the fact that if you are in this space as an investor or trader, most likely you will lose a percentage of the funds, even if in the end you make a profit. That must have happened, and everyone has experienced it.

The problem is that people continue to lose funds because of holding, or trading at the wrong time, or simply because they entered at the same time when the whale decided to get out of their position, causing a crash and leaving retail in the dust.

But what if there was a method that could change this system for retail profit, in fact, what if there was an ecosystem that allowed whales and retail to profit simultaneously without having to do any trade? Could this be a necessary factor to prevent a bear market entirely?

This is where RST, or more precisely the Revenue Sharing Token system, comes into play. As the name suggests, this method concentrates on income sharing such as how shareholders receive dividends each duration specified for their investment, although dividends are usually quite small compared to the investments they make, and ROI is very slow.

On the other hand, RST is the ability to allow project token holders to receive a certain percentage of the company's revenue automatically just by holding their tokens, while receiving a proportionately fair share of what the project generates.

Here's an example:

Project X generates $ 3,000,000 per year. Gross profit is about $ 2,500,000. Project X integrates RST into their ecosystem, where they dedicate 40% of their revenue to be shared as they wish across the community, so this can be holders, liquidity providers, certain elite holding groups, whatever the conditions, and the group will meet requirements for a 40% share of that amount, with a total distribution of $ 1,000,000 of losses across the community, consistently, in the amount of time the company determines, be it daily, weekly, monthly, etc.

Depending on how much each individual holds a token, they tend to get a larger share of the profits, all for holding the token.

But how does this end the bear market?

Simple! The bear market is basically the fall of most tokens and reaching the bottom zone where the value is quite low. However, if RST is to be implemented in most projects, they will never face this dilemma regardless of market sentiment and selling pressure, because using RST revolves around one core factor that is important for its success:

Hold the token and do not sell it.

Earning more than you ever get from dividends by holding cryptocurrency is quite profitable, and will attract many investors to adopt the “HODLing” mindset - more importantly, projects can also allocate a certain percentage of their income to repurchase programs where they can later burn the tokens they buy or put them back into the ecosystem, which means market values remain consistently safe in healthy resistance zones with the potential for ongoing ATH encounters.

But there are catches.

RST is not perfect. There is one problem that makes it not applicable to all projects, which is the fact that it will be a total failure if the project that implements it generates minimal revenue. For example, if a project only generates $ 100,000 per year, the share of RST that holders receive will be low enough, and not attractive enough for them to keep the token and prefer to sell it later, meaning that most companies that will adopt this method will need to:

Have a strong business model that generates at least $ 1,000,000 per year.

Create a new revenue model around their project to generate enough funds for RST to work.

And lastly, they will need the strength of their HODler, the true front line and economic hero of any cryptocurrency, and a foundation for the RST ecosystem to function well. The real evidence of this is how HODLers survived when BTC underwent its first major correction in 2021, and how they would not let it return to a point without a return, instead, they allowed it to survive until restored. to a much stronger foundation, so companies should have all the right incentives to collect their HODler, and RST will definitely help achieve that incentive.

To date, the only RST company at the time of writing this article is Yarloo, a crypto lottery company that has a strong business model that allows users to continue to generate revenue for themselves and the company, enabling a substantially high revenue stream that will provide feed into the RST ecosystem they build.

Yarloo is the company behind the RST concept, and the original founder of how it works. We offer RST integration and consulting to fellow crypto projects, and would be happy to play our part in enabling retail investors and traders to never feel exposed to market corrections again.

About Yarloo

Yarloo is another translation of the lottery betting structure that is circulating for everyone around the world. We feel that the current status of the lottery is very weak, no doubt. It's horrible, the risk is too high and the results you imagine are weak. However, with the advancement of the crypto space today, we at Yarloo feel there is something very possible to change the structure of lotteries around the world, and to make it more fun, allowing people to essentially have a higher chance of winning, creating a much larger treasure trove. versatile, and introduced a set of NFT cards as the middle border on the back of the ticket. Likewise the incredible part of making the whole subject of business revolves around privateers!

Through this methodology, we recognize that, while lotteries allow people essentially few chances to win, cryptifying the structure, wrapping it with fun games and parts that are beneficial to individuals that may not be too harmful will potentially change the overall condition of the lottery. industry, and that was the undisputed end of the game for us at Yarloo.

📷How It Works

At Yarloo, you really need to check out the various activities that support finances, including, not limited to:

- Jackpot Lottery Solo

- Jackpot Lottery Team

- Luck Spinner

- NFT Trade Center

- Yarloo Wallet (to check and exchange our tokens)

- Game Arcade

- DeFi Loan and Lending System

As can be seen, Yarloo offers a variety of ways to handle our original lottery system, and to profit through different styles and approaches. Use our luck spinner to check if you can assemble other amazing cards that expand your possibilities. Is it fair to say that you are an inventor who has collected a large number of critical cards over time? The trading center is yours to pick up, and from the original perspective there is no risk at all because you are just selling your cards. If you are unlucky with cards and do not want to face high difficulties, then of course, stamping is your best method.

We are different

What makes Yarloo unprecedented, however, is the facility that uses the NFT system, making it the standard machine behind admission tickets. Because you want to play, you have to sign in by designing a specific game plan from the cards you have. Joining a card on a regular basis can give you unprecedented characteristics, depending on the uniqueness and type of the card, and the similarity features it has with the various cards you can guarantee. Cards are your travel ticket, and they are the only way you can work hard to win big bets.

To enter using a card, there is a partial fee that must be entered into the pool to add to the incredible prizes, however at that point you will be allowed to share 5 cards only from your set, following them to get the best results. which will create the results you can possibly imagine. If your strategy turns out to be incredible, you might get a gold mine, and congratulations on everything.

Products and Features

Yarloo will be filled with cool settings that will be very useful to everyone, and as we make progress later, we will start to include more, and analyzing it with our environment, we can see what else can be imagined in Yarloo.

- RST: Yarloo is the first task in the world to implement a development known as "Pay Sharing Token", which allows the surrounding environment to get 30% of Yarloo's profits to serve the organic framework on which it is produced.

- NFT: We are also an important lottery project in the history of crypto to use NFT cards as your guide segment ticket system in any collection! This concludes that instead of buying a ticket, your ticket is likely by the card you use in your lottery collection.

- DeFi: You will have the option to benefit financially from Yarloo due to DeFi's diverse structure, basically by allowing you to get 2% of the collection profit if you are the creator, and by taking advantage of our natural RST framework if you hold enough $ YARL.

ECOSYSTEM RST

The Revenue Sharing Token, or RST for short, is Yarloo's revolutionary backbone, the first implementation of its kind that will one day be recognized as NFT and DeFi technology, RST is how Yarloo can be armed as an anti-bear project, which can withstand any market sentiment. The way it works is quite simple, and can be reconfigured based on each company's preferences, but we will use Yarloo as a core example of how RST will be used given that we are the original founders of this concept and its first integrator.

Seed Investors & IDOs: 30%

Holders: 25%

Repurchase: 20%

LP Provider: 15%

Wheel of Fortune/Rewards Pool: 10%

📷CARD SYSTEM

Our card system is not too complicated. There will be 5 types of cards, ranked from bottom to top as:

On the other hand, ranging from Silver to Sapphire, cards give you more tickets and they all have special attributes. Silver cards give 5 tickets per card, Gold gives 10, and Sapphire gives 50 participation tickets.

The set of cards will be released consistently at Yarloo, even after launch, as it will always be an important part of the system how everything works. There will be 3 types of card sets, so users can know what to expect from each:

Standard

Premium

eccentric

📷

ROAD MAP

Q3 2021:

Funding Round Conclusion

3-5 Launch Card Sets

Alpha wallet

Alpha Market

Q4 2021:

Wheel of Fortune Release

Launch of the Lottery Platform

Bridging $ YARL to a new network

First CEX list

5-8 New Card Sets

Fusion System Testing

Governance features for $ YARL holders

Updated Light Paper

Q1 2022:

Wander around the Seven Oceans!

We'll keep updating our roadmaps depending on new introductions, games we announce, and more. For now, only information about Q3 and Q4 of this year is available.

Useful Links:

Website: https://yarloo.vercel.app/

Telegram: https://t.me/yarloochat

Telegram Channel: https://t.me/yarlannouncements

Twitter: https://twitter.com/yarloo_rst

Currently: https://medium.com/@yarloo

Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/yarloo

Username: SewdieeLink: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=profile;u=2979414

0 notes

talabib · 3 years

Text

Valuable Lessons About Investing

Financial mistakes: we all make them. From overdue library fees to parking fines, our financial mishaps can be frustrating – but they rarely cost us hundreds of millions of dollars.

And as it turns out, even the world’s most eminent investors miscalculate and end up deep in the red. Whether it’s overconfidence or an underperforming economy, it turns out the people we hold to be financial wizards are still just people too.

This post looks at a few investors and runs us through their worst investments. What’s more, it shows that we’re in a privileged position – by learning from the best’s mistakes, we receive the benefit of their hard-won wisdom without the cost of heavy losses.

In investment, methods and techniques are useful but not infallible.

Humans naturally seek explanations for events in the world; neat little rules and tidy formulas that package things up into clear explanations. Unfortunately, the world is far too complex for this to really work – and as the legendary investor Benjamin Graham demonstrated, this is particularly true with investment.

Graham had a wildly successful financial career and authored the most influential investment book of all time: The Intelligent Investor, which was deemed “the best book on investing ever written” by the legendary Warren Buffett. But Graham’s most important act was pioneering a powerful new financial technique called value investing.

And at the heart of this concept is Graham’s observation that the price of a company fluctuates more than its value. This means that the cost of a company’s shares – its price – often doesn’t reflect the company’s value, which is a combination of things like revenue, assets and future potential. So, why this difference between price and value?

Well, it’s because humans set prices while businesses set values – and because humans are more fickle and emotional than businesses, price and value can vary considerably. For example, when Graham watched General Electric’s valuation plummet from $1.87 billion to $784 million in the 1930s, he noted that nothing disastrous had happened to the company’s assets, employees or revenue that year – it was simply investor optimism and pessimism driving these changes.

But even Benjamin Graham couldn’t concoct a market-beating formula, and his philosophy almost ruined him during the Great Depression. After watching prices skyrocket during the 1920s, he sensed that prices and value were way out of sync. So, he decided to bet against the market, predicting prices would fall. And he was right – except he misjudged the extent of the fall.

By 1930, the stock market had taken a beating. Assuming that the worst was over, Graham began to invest heavily once again. But prices kept falling, and the market wouldn’t truly bottom out until 1932; by that time, Graham’s portfolio had lost 70 percent of its value.

Experiences like Graham’s prove there are no iron-clad laws in investing, and certainly no magic formula. Being aware of value is critical, but don’t be a slave to it. Cheap can always get cheaper.

Failing to manage your risk is fatal – even to seasoned investors.

The famous investment maxim “buy low, sell high” has endured for a reason; it simplifies one of the most complex industries around with sound logic. But ironically, the man who coined it had an irrational appetite for risk.

Jesse Livermore was born in Massachusetts in 1877. At 23, he moved to New York and secured a stockbroking job, where he made $50,000 in his first week. Things were going well, but soon Livermore made a fatal miscalculation – and it wouldn’t be his last.

In 1901, Livermore shorted 1,000 shares of U.S. Steel and 1,000 shares of Santa Fe Railroad stock. In investor parlance, going short is the opposite of buying: you predict stock will decline from its current price, and aim to pocket the difference if it does. It’s a risky tactic; if shares increase in price, you’ll lose money. The price of Livermore’s shares rose.

He lost around $50,000 on these two deals, his entire fortune. In fact, he was worse than broke: he owed his employers $500! But Jesse Livermore wasn’t finished yet.

After working to repay his debt, Livermore returned to New York to start speculating again. The next few decades were a turbulent time, and the talented but flawed trader made and lost millions of dollars. Even so, the 1929 crash created the perfect environment for going short, which suited the naturally skeptical Livermore. Soon, he’d amassed a fortune that’d be worth $1.4 billion today. Livermore was one of the richest people in the world – but this would be his high-water mark.

When the stock market reached its lowest in 1932, it had fallen to such an extreme that a corrective bounce seemed likely. In fact, days later it experienced its greatest bounce in history. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, an important stock market index, surged 93 percent in 42 days. But there was a problem: Livermore had bet his capital on further losses. He was crushed. Days later, he decided to reverse his bets and hope stocks would rise further. They didn’t.

After struggling in poverty for the next few years, Jesse Livermore committed suicide on November 29, 1940. Jesse Livermore is a go-to source for financial words of wisdom, but bankrupted himself multiple times by failing to manage his risk. So what’s the most important strategy to manage your risk? Diversification.

Concentrated investments are a risky business.

Imagine you’ve got a nest egg tucked away. You know investing it is a risky business, but you want to give it a go anyway. You split your money between ten stocks, but soon one crashes to zero and you’ve lost 10 percent of your capital.

But if you’d split your investment between 100 companies, you would’ve lost only one percent. This is diversification: a strategy the Sequoia Fund should’ve paid more attention to.

One of the most successful investment firms of all time, Sequoia prefers long-term and large-scale investments. This preference for potent positions is the very opposite of diversification, but it has worked magnificently: a $10,000 investment into Sequoia in July 1970 would be worth $4 million today.

But in 2010, the fund introduced shareholders to an ill-fated purchase: shares of Valeant Pharmaceuticals. On April 28, 2010, Sequoia began purchasing shares in Valeant at $16. By the year’s end, the company’s price had ballooned by 70 percent. The next year was just as auspicious: Valeant gained 76 percent in the first quarter, becoming the fund’s largest holding. Things seemed rosy, but financial disaster was just around the corner.

Sequoia described Valeant to its stakeholders as a company which cuts corners on research and development (R&D) but invests “heavily in its sales force.” This might sound like savvy cost-cutting, but the reality is far more crooked: Valeant skimped on R&D because its business model revolved around purchasing existing drugs and jacking up their prices.

Just take Valeant’s 2013 purchase of Medicis – a company who invented a treatment for people exposed to lead poisoning. Before the acquisition, the drug cost healthcare providers $950. Overnight, the price rocketed to $27,000.

Because of incidents like these, Valeant started receiving increasingly bad press. And when presidential candidate Hillary Clinton pledged to prevent price gouging in the pharmaceutical industry, Valeant’s shares slid 31 percent. One month later, Citron Research published a report accusing Valeant of accounting fraud. Shares tumbled another 19 percent.

The debacle was a disaster for Sequoia. Soon after, they sold their entire position – the fund’s biggest holding – and took a 90 percent loss. The company’s assets crashed from $9 billion to under $5 billion in the space of a few months. The lesson to take from this incident is that concentrated holdings can generate wealth quickly – and decimate it just as fast.

Emotions can cloud our judgements when it comes to business deals.

Mark Twain is one of the great American novelists. He combined a sharp writing style with wry humor and an ability to convey great emotion. And, like many novelists, he put passion before logic in everything he did. In 1893, he wrote “when you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.” Good advice, sure – but with such a visceral mind, it's hard to think of someone more unsuited to investing. Yet that's exactly what he pursued in his spare time.

Twain was constantly searching for the “next big thing” to revolutionize our lives. In his time, he ploughed his fortune into many non-starters – but was particularly infatuated with inventors and their devices.

For example, in the 1870s an investor “invested” $42,000 – around $953,000 in today’s money – into a new technological process called a kaolotype. Charles Sneider, the inventor, claimed it would change the illustration and engraving industry by streamlining the process, and Twain was convinced. He put Sneider on a salary, and even funded a workshop in Manhattan without any agreement on deadlines. But the kaolotype was ineffectual, Sneider dishonest, and Twain didn’t receive a penny back from the episode.

Twain’s biggest blunder was yet to come. Sore over his mounting losses and bitter toward inventors, Twain passed on a golden opportunity: the telephone.

Twain was invited by his friend, General Joseph Roswell, to hear a pitch from a young inventor named Alexander Graham Bell. According to Twain, Bell gave a moving pitch filled with passion for his new product – but he still declined. Twain said he “didn’t want anything more to do with wildcat speculation.” At this, Bell even offered Twain the stock at a discount price. Twain’s reply? He didn’t want the stock at any price!

The trouble was that Twain was an emotional man and got attached to his investments. When they failed, he felt aggrieved – which then clouded his rational thinking for future investments. But what if Twain had set hard limits on what he was prepared to invest before signing on the dotted line? After all, a proven way to avoid rash decisions is to decide how much you’re willing to lose before you invest. This way, logic – not fear – drives your business decisions.

Traders should never overestimate their abilities.

As a schoolkid, did you ever take a test you were sure you’d fail, only to wind up with a decent grade? If so, you probably felt pretty good about your abilities, and maybe it even encouraged you to stop studying! One possibility you probably didn’t consider, though, is that it was an unusually easy test – just like how Jerry Tsai’s plaudits probably didn’t acknowledge that the 1960s was an easy decade for investments.

Jerry Tsai was managing the firm Fidelity Capital Fund before he’d turned 30. He was a character who exuded confidence; finance’s hot prospect in the 1960s and the first celebrity fund manager. His aggressive investment style involved executing many lightning-fast trades – often instinctive and perfectly timed.

Most importantly, though, he was effective: from 1958 to 1965, Tsai delivered Fidelity annual gains of 296 percent. He was hailed as a hero, and left Fidelity in 1965 to start his own fund: The Manhattan Fund.

And from there, Tsai’s star kept on rising. The Manhattan Fund offered 2.5 million shares in its company to financial professionals – but Tsai’s reputation had spread beyond the world of finance. Demand was ten times greater than anticipated: the Manhattan Fund issued 27 million shares in total and raised $247 million in capital. It was the biggest offering ever for an investment company.

This was a time of huge economic expansion: post-war austerity was over and many early tech companies were beginning to flourish. Between 1964 and 1968, the earnings of IBM and Xerox grew by 88 and 171 percent, respectively. Tsai himself was from a generation of investors who had only known extraordinary growth and affluence. In the 1960s stocks rose exponentially, and this gave Tsai an overinflated confidence in his own ability. But the 1969-1970 price plunge was just around the corner, and when it arrived, he was caught completely flat-footed.

Just take the Manhattan Fund’s investment in National Student Marketing. Tsai bought $5 million worth of shares at $143 each and watched this tumble to just $3.50 seven months later. Tsai’s machine-gun style of investment wasn’t suited to recessions and their aftermaths – the new climate rewarded patient, long-term trades. In 1969, the Manhattan fund ranked 299th out of 305 funds, and investors left in droves.

Tsai was playing an unwinnable game. He overestimated his personal ability in a time of great financial growth and paid the price when rapid trading became unprofitable. Remember: a rising tide raises all boats, so it’s a mistake to assume that yours is particularly buoyant!

Overconfidence has cost even the best investors millions of dollars.

Imagine you’re at a soccer game. To heighten the drama, you decide to place a wager on the outcome. But it’s a tough call - both teams seem equally skilled. Once you place your bet, though, you instantly feel confident about your choice. Suddenly a fan approaches you, offering to buy your bet slip – for more than you wagered. Would you do it?

Well, according to several psychologists, it’s unlikely you would. In a famous paper from 1991, academics Kahneman, Knetsch and Thaler described what they called the endowment effect. This hypothesis argues that we ascribe more value to things simply because we own them. But it doesn’t mean our possessions are inherently appealing – it’s just harder to give them up.

This illustrates two important points: first, objective thinking melts away when we own something; second, our confidence rises once we’ve made a decision.

It’s then that we fall prey to overconfidence. Just ask Warren Buffett, perhaps the most famous investor of all time.

Buffett has a stellar track record. Between 1957 and 1969, the “Oracle of Omaha” managed a partnership which returned gains of 2,610 percent. In 1972, Buffett and his company, Berkshire Hathaway, purchased See’s Candy for $30 million. Since then, it’s generated $1.9 billion in pretax revenue!

By 1993, Buffett had a long list of success stories. He was flying high and oozing confidence – but his biggest mistake was around the corner. That year, Berkshire purchased the Dexter Shoe Company for $433 million.

Dexter was an American-based manufacturer, and it had Buffett’s total confidence. He wrote to Berkshire shareholders “Dexter, I can assure you, needs no fixing: It is one of the best-managed companies Charlie and I have seen in our business lifetimes.” The legendary investor was so enamored of his new purchase that he failed to see the winds of change blowing through the industry.

Just five years later, Dexter was in freefall. The rise of manufacturing powerhouses like China and Taiwan crippled the US domestic shoe market. By 1999, Dexter’s revenue had declined 18 percent. It ended its US shoe production in 2001, and Berkshire folded the company into its other shoe firms.

Buffett had been on a run of successful deals and failed to be vigilant. Even the world’s best err.

Reducing unforced errors is vital to investment success.

A chess game between two grand masters is a remarkable thing, a master class in grace, accuracy and timing. Grand masters employ elaborate techniques, of course, and above all they orchestrate their pieces to cover vulnerabilities and force errors from the opponent. Just as it is in chess, so it is in finance.

The crucial idea is that professionals in any game rarely make unforced errors – their fate is usually sealed by errors that the situation forces upon them. In contrast, the outcome in contests of novices is determined by their own, avoidable mistakes. Novices shouldn’t focus on winning points – they should focus on not losing points.

But even professionals are guilty of unforced errors sometimes. Consider Stanley Druckenmiller. After a successful career running his own investment fund, Duquesne Capital Management, Druckenmiller was appointed lead portfolio manager for George Soros’ Quantum Fund in 1988. Druckenmiller thrived there: in his first four years, annual growth never dipped below 24 percent, mostly due to his strong knowledge of the world economy and foreign currencies.

However, in 1999, Druckenmiller ventured outside his zone of expertise and committed a string of unforced errors.

Tech stock was beginning its meteoric rise that year. Druckenmiller, however, believed that they were overvalued. He was so sure of this that he bet $200 million of Quantum’s capital on a price decline – except this didn’t happen.

Instead, these expensive stocks kept getting pricier, and soon the Quantum was down 18 percent for the year. Druckenmiller, deciding he was out of touch with the market, hired two young, tech-savvy employees and went back to his forte – foreign currencies.

But he couldn’t stay away from tech stocks for long. After Druckenmiller made a major investment in the euro only to see it decline in value, he watched with envy as his new employees were still raking in cash from tech stocks. Not wanting to be upstaged, he invested $600 million in the networking company VeriSign.

But the tech bubble was about to burst, and Druckenmiller would be left with a half-billion-dollar sized hole in his pocket. By May 2002, VeriSign was worth just 1.5 percent of its peak value.

From neglecting his areas of expertise to allowing himself to succumb to the fear of missing out, Druckenmiller illustrated the danger of unforced errors and why we should focus on stamping them out rather than casting around for our big wins.

Investors must take big losses in their stride.

Have you ever looked at the price history of Amazon stock? If so, you’ve probably kicked yourself for not realizing this sleeping giant would change the world. After all, an initial investment of $1,000 early on would have netted you $387,000 today! But such thinking is harmful and masks the superhuman nerve that would’ve been required to hold onto your Amazon stock. It was slashed in half on three separate occasions.

And this doesn’t just happen to the financial layperson: short-term losses test the resolve of seasoned investors too, including people like Charlie Munger.

Munger is best known as Warren Buffett’s long-time partner and the vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway. He has a formidable intellect that thrives on inverting questions and reverse engineering problems. This intelligence, along with his razor-sharp wit, have made him famous for his playful aphorisms, or “Mungerisms.” For example, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.”

But Munger’s genius didn’t save him from some financial nosedives. In 1974, he threw diversification to the wind and invested 61 percent of his fund into Blue Chip Stamps – a company producing loyalty tokens redeemable for consumer goods. But soon there was an economic downturn, and firms producing non-essential goods were devastated.

Such a concentrated position was completely unadvisable, and this stake in Blue Chip was almost fatal: an investment of $1,000 in Charlie Munger’s company in January 1973 would have been worth just $467 in January 1975. Many investors were questioning his judgement, scrambling to cut their losses with him.

But Charlie Munger wasn’t beaten yet, and neither was Blue Chip Stamps. Munger’s investment company posted gains of 73.2 percent by December 1975, and Blue Chip later purchased several companies which would become some of Berkshire’s prize assets: See’s Candies, Wesco Financial and the Buffalo Evening News.

So, after a disastrous period in the mid-1970s, Munger bounced back stronger than ever. Ever since, he’s been a guiding light in one of the most successful investment companies of all time.

Charlie Munger’s Blue Chip investment shows how crucial it is to exercise patience and composure when investing long-term. It’s common for portfolios to take massive hits due to external factors like the wider economy, and you must be able to insulate yourself from temporary large losses. Remember: the time not to sell your investments is in a panic after a drop in value.

Investing is a dangerous game – even for the most talented players. But by studying the greats and their greatest blunders, we can benefit from their mistakes without the million-dollar price tags. If you’re an amateur, you should focus on avoiding unforced errors rather than shooting for big wins, and if you do win, stifling overconfidence is crucial. Above all, don’t become attached to your assets: emotions like fear, anger, envy and greed are your portfolio’s worst nightmare.

Action plan: Exercise due diligence and don’t over-trade.

If you’re new to the world of stocks and shares, you should know that making too many trades is one of the most common errors. Like a true venture capitalist, you should exhaustively research every company you plan to invest in and don’t be afraid to walk away. Warren Buffett once suggested that investors should act like they are only permitted to make 20 trades in their entire career. This way, you exercise extreme caution and keep yourself focused on high-quality trades.

#Valuable Lessons About Investing

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