#norm would treat it as like a spirit week day. he is going to offer valentines for the whole student body and no one is going to take one

[citruscore]

Nark or Oakworthy

THE most cringefail boys in the world

#dndads #normal oak #hermie the unworthy #oakworthy #they would both love valentines day i know it #hermie would love the drama the pageantry the romance #norm would treat it as like a spirit week day. he is going to offer valentines for the whole student body and no one is going to take one

[nadiaportia]

Familiar Faces - A Past Tale

Summary: A fugitive plans her next move to leave behind her old life until she crosses paths with a magician who wishes to see behind the facade.

Starring Asra Alnazar and Ximena Rubalcada.

“Ha! You're very welcome, Kestrel, this's payback for last week!” The man laughed loudly as he took the coins of the table, much to the dismay of the other players.

“Oi, Viv, drink of their choice for everyone in here, my treat!”, he said to the smirking bartender. People around him cheered and even I lifted my empty jar of beer in acknowledgement before turning back to looking at the map laid out in front of me.

Several spots were marked; places I had traveled to in the last 5 years and ultimately never stayed longer than absolutely necessary. Technically my two month stay in this backwater town a five day journey away from Macawi Port had already been too long but I liked it here well enough and the people enjoyed having a magician among them. No one bothered to ask questions, something that wasn't the norm in places like this - the smaller the village, the more suspicious its inhabitants were of strangers.

But here I had been able to rent two rooms over a bakery, one for me to live in and the other to do business in - making wards and remedies for small maladies, casting protective charms and reading my customers' cards was run-of-the-mill stuff which I had already done before and always managed to be a hit with the locals. I had not been asked yet to do some of the shady stuff people with no morals would ask for, such as brewing love potions or cursing their rivals, and was more than glad for it.

Viv the bartender waved at me and pointed at the finished drink in my hand: beer with two vermouth shots. I nodded. My real alcoholic drink of choice -  Cartagense liquor that tastes like herbs and vanilla - would've been too much to ask for in a place that on most days didn't even offer something besides beer. I doubted the people here had ever even heard of Cartagenth existing but the risk of getting discovered was something worth worrying about, no matter how small it was.

I eyed the city of Hjalle on the Western coast of the Strait of Seals. I had never gone to the South before; nothing about this place had any appeal for me whatsoever, be it the known lawlessness or the biting cold, but it was known that from Hjalle ships left to places much further away than from Nevivon, to the Far East and even to other continents. The language barrier would surely be a problem if I decided to take the jump over the ocean but I couldn't be the only traveler from here and lingua francas surely had to exist, which would make everything a lot easier. The bigger problem was that I couldn't tell how much money I'd need to take such a ship, especially if since I had to spend some coins to take the journey from Macawi Port to Hjalle first, and from what I heard it was a decently sized city - less than perfect conditions.

Out of the corner of my eye I noticed the tavern door swinging open and saw two people entering. Both wore dark travelers' cloaks, which was exactly where their similarities ended. The taller and apparently older one of them had long flaming green hair, skin white like paper and their eyes hid behind orange glasses that made them look like an exotic insect and extremely out of place. The shorter one had a head full of white curls, golden brown skin, and… was that a snake that had just disappeared in his cloak? I raised an eyebrow. Strangers were not only a rare sight in here but extravagant strangers? That was downright fishy.

“Hey there, travelers, c'mon over! 'S always nice t'see new faces! Viv, two beer for these fine folks!” The lucky winner of the card game waved them over his table. The newcomers looked at each other, seemed to agree and approached them.

“Good evening. It's always nice to arrive to a place and have such a warm welcome.” The insect spoke with a high melodic voice. Both had their backs turned to me so I couldn't see their faces, and standing up to move would surely seem suspicious.

“What're your names? Mine's Cygni, that one over there’s Viv, and these are Kestrel, Alexei and Yelma.” He gestured to the other players.

Both travelers pulled chairs to the table and shrugged of their cloaks. “I'm Saray and my companion here,”, they put a hand on said companion's shoulder, “is Asra. We come from the city of Vesuvia on the other side of the Salty Sea.”

“Proper northerners, eh? That's pretty far away, has anyone here ever been t’Vesuvia?”

Various “No's” were said from all corners. I generally kept away from big places after unpleasant run-ins with Cartagense in Bizatena and Karnassos, and had kept an extremely low profile afterwards. Vesuvia wasn't exactly a place that screamed 'This is where you should hide!' to me and even though never having heard of any treaties between its sovereign and Cartagenth, this could have changed in the meantime.  

“What 'bout you, Magali? You're from some place on the other side of the Sea.”

I felt a sudden rush of blood to my head and forced myself to take the deep breaths. There was nothing I wished more for the ground to open and swallow me whole. I looked up from the card to see the travelers and Cygni look at me with curiosity in their eyes. The insect's, Saray, eyes were still hidden behind glasses whereas their companion's, Asra, were a light purple and framed by long white lashes.

“Yes, from Nopal.” I said, keeping my voice as cold and uninterested as I could. I had no interest in speaking to these travelers or in them shoving their noses into my business.

The one called Asra perked up. “Oh, really? It's such a beautiful place, I've only been there once but it's breathtaking.”

I felt my eyelid twitch. “Yes, it is.” I pressed the words out more than speaking them and made a point to turn my attention back to the map in front of me. A single bead of sweat rolled down the back of my neck.

“Don't mind her, she's a very busy woman. Y'know, Magali is a magician who has settled down only a few weeks ago-” I tuned out the next of Nevil's words and fought against my rising desire to hex his mouth shut. Keeping my eyes glued on the map without really seeing what I was pretending to look at, I deeply wished to have the ability to disappear right here and now. Great, now the strangers' attention was on me without a doubt and my wish to bolt for the door when I saw the one named Asra get up from his chair and make his way over to my booth was almost suffocating.

“May I? I'm sorry for being so excited but it's just… it's such a coincidence to walk into a foreign tavern that far from home and meet another magician!”

If I had ever suspected the spirits that controlled the ways of the World had all come together in some shady backroom to conspire against me personally, this must've be the definitive proof of it. There was no way in hell that this could be a coincidence, I wouldn't have it or a friendly chat with this Asra.

“I suppose so. But as your new friend had already said, I'm quite busy and would like to be left alone.” I said coldly and cursed myself for never actually having gone to Nopal, otherwise I would've been able to learn the accent, but who would've known I'd meet someone who has actually been there in a village which most people have probably never left? After all, it was technically true, with the Rubalcabas originally coming from Nopal, but who was going to explain details?

Asra's shoulders slumped and his expression saddened.

“Of course, I understand. Apologies for disturbing you.” Something in his clothes shuffled and my eyes went wide when a snake crawled out of his left sleeve. It looked at me with the same curiosity its owner had given me and blinked.

Friend!

I jumped from the chair, hitting my kneecaps against the table in the process and gasped at the sudden pain.

“Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry!” Asra was at my side in an instant and put his hand on my back as I bent over in pain. “Faust usually knows better than to frighten people, I guess she was just as excited as I was.”

I waved away his concern and bit my lip and I sat back down while rubbing my knees.

“No, don't blame your familiar. Wasn't her fault. Mine's like that too-.”

I bit my tongue just as I realized what I had just said. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

“You also have an familiar?” His eyes went wide and he beamed at me. Instead of an answer I coughed and tried to look at put together as I could.

“Of course, all true magicians have one. Now, please…” I turned my attention back to the map, feeling my heart flutter in my chest. But he didn't move away, in fact he didn't stop staring at me. Strangely enough, I didn't sense any danger from him and something about his youthful face and his eyes gave me the sensation of… trust. But spies could have any age; in fact the younger they were, the less people suspected them to be spies, and sometimes being unsubtle even played into their hands.

“Oh, that sure is true, but you don't need to be a trained magician to have one! All you need is to be decent at magic and have a connection to an animal.”

“Hmpfh.” Of course I knew that, did he take me for a fool?

“You certainly traveled very far, I see you have been to Prakra and Firent-”

I pulled the map away from the table and his eyes, rolling it together.

“Okay, I get it, you don't want people shoving their nose into your business.” He spoke with resignation and sighed loudly. I raised an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I thought I made that very clear.”

Asra ran a hand through his hair in obvious frustration. “I know, but please, I- I can't explain it but-” Then he seemed to have an idea. “Do a reading for me.”

“Come again?”

“A reading. Let the cards tell you what to do.”

“I don't need cards to tell me what to do: I'm leaving.” Map in the hand, I stood up and passed by Viv, who opened their mouth to ask me why I was leaving even though I was just about to get my drink.

“Please, I- I came here for you.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. My heart stopped beating in my chest and blood freeze in my veins. Heat built around my fingers and I considered the situation I was in. Viv was still standing behind me, if I were to attack now they could get caught in a crossfire. The tavern was half full with more than enough witnesses and the door was too far away for my likening.

I slowly turned around “What?”

Viv, still standing between one, ducked and hurried out of our way, not before throwing me a wide-eyed look. Asra sighed, his face flushed from nervosity and also what I suspected to be embarrassment.

“Look, I don't know why but something called me to this village and I think it was you. I don't know who you are or what you do, I just felt something familiar when I looked at you.” He sighed. Now I had heard all kinds of talk about intuition and prophetic dreams, be it from other magicians or back home, but this right here just seemed a little too far-fetched - or painfully honest.

“I give you a reading, understood? Let me get my cards from my place, and don't try anything funny like following me.” I snarled but to my surprise, he held out his hand as if to stop me.

“Here, take mine.” He rummaged in his bag and pulled out a deck of dark blue tarot cards. I eyed them suspiciously and crossed my arms in front of my chest. “I won't use another magician's deck, I'm no fool.”

Asra shrugged. “Really? I didn't think there'd be people left who still believed in that particular superstition. But fine, get your own cards.”

I frowned. “I'm not superstitious.”

Asra sat down in the seat opposite the one I had occupied and put the deck in front of him. “Good, so let's get started. I'll let you get a feeling for them.” He winked at me and a mischievous smirk played about his lips. “How am I supposed to trick you by letting you use my cards? Hexing them? Besides, a true magician should be able to call the bluff.”

My face went hot as I made my way back to the table. “I know. I'm just being cautious.” The Vesuvian was definitely more at ease once I sat down and gave me an encouraging smile. I took the deck and looked at the cards. They were obviously self-made, the depictions of the Major and Minor Arcana unique, with the archetype being represented by humanoids with animal heads. The deck felt… friendly, and not in a false way. I shuffled the cards and laid out three in front of him all while not taking my eyes off him. Neither did he, and his smirk widened as I arched an eyebrow as if to ask him why he seemed to want to challenge me.

I took the card in the middle first. Two snakes were embracing and looking at each other lovingly. The Lovers, upright. I frowned, yet the words spoken to me by the two snake people were clear as crystal; in fact, they were the clearest reading I have ever done. There was no doubt what the cards were trying to tell me, they were incapable of lying to me.

“Oh, the Lovers! Most curious.” Asra said and looked from the card to me.

“You are on your path to begin a new relationship, but it can only be successful if you make yourself clear in what your intentions are. Once you manage to connect, it will only make both parties stronger through their shared bond.” I said the words half to him, half to myself, and looked inquisitively at the card. I half-way expected it to laugh in my face and call bullshit but nothing of the sort happened.

“So… there we go.” I finished, trying to ignore how unsure I sounded. “Good news to you, I suppose.”

Asra smiled. “Might I return the favor?”

I blinked. Here? No way.

“Not the best place.”

“Oh.”

There was an awkward silence between us, until I took a deep breath. Please, intuition, don't fail me now. If he does turn out to be a spy or an assassin, I'll never trust my gut and judgment ever again.

“My place is just a stone's throw away from here.”

The Vesuvian blinked in surprise and pursed his lips, then he seemed to realize what face he was making and instantly put on a more serious expression.

“Of course. Just let me tell my traveling companion that I'm… uh, gone for a bit.”

“Fine. But I don't want them to suddenly pop up there too.”

He nodded and walked back to the table where the insect and the card players were seated, all deep in conversation.

“Asra, my dearest, are you done with your magician business? If yes, join us for a game of cards, these fine people are most entertaining to be around with!” Saray said. They had still not taken off their glasses but from the accent in their speech I suspected them to belong to one of the many ethnic groups that lived in Prakra.

“Not yet, Saray, Magali actually wanted to show me her workplace.”

The card players looked at each other and smirked. The one called Yelma let out a wolf whistle.

“Let's be quick about it.” I murmured and snapped my fingers to get Asra's attention. Together we exited the tavern and I closed the door behind us.

We crossed the market place, passed by the small fountain in its center and reached the bakery. A brief fumble for my keys, a door being opened and we went up the stairs into the first floor.

“Guess your place always smells really nice.” Asra said.

“Yes. They also wake up at four in the morning to start working.”

He laughed as I entered the first room, the one where I usually worked in. A soft and questioning chirp got both our attention when I light up a candle from afar.

Segismundo looked at me from his usual sitting spot and tilted his head.

“Yeah, I know. Visitors that late are rare but don't worry about it.” I said to my familiar as he flew onto my outstretched arm.

“Oh, what a beautiful Quetzal! What’s his name?”

“Segismundo.”

“Very nice to meet you, Segismundo, my name is Asra and this here,”, he caressed the snake that had crawled out of his sleeve again, “is Faust. Sorry for disturbing you, you were probably sleeping.”

Segismundo looked from him to me and then to Faust, who herself was looking at him with pure curiosity. Ruffling his feathers, he shook himself and flew back to where he was before, right behind my seat.

“He doesn't take kindly to strangers.” I explained. I didn't mention that the fact that Segismundo didn't alert me but merely checked on who exactly was invading our space was a good sign... for them as much as for me.

“Familiars tend to be like their magicians.” Asra smirked and sat down at the low table where I would usually sit at with customers. “Quetzals are usually native to the rainforests beyond the Catclaw Desert so I guess you might be Nopali - even if Magali is a name I have heard a lot often when it belonged to people from Venterre.”

I said nothing and opened a drawer to get the tarot deck.

“Do you want something to drink or a snack? You didn't have anything at the tavern, if memory serves right.”

“A tea, but maybe for another day, I like to let it brew for a bit and I don't think you want me to be here longer than absolutely necessary. Snacks would be appreciated though, what do you have?”

“Hazelnuts and almonds.” The sooner I got rid of them, the better. These Eastern sweets had nothing on the deliciousness of roasted cocoa beans and maracuyas.

“Oh, why not?” All too happy I handed him the bowl on top of the drawer. “Since you used my cards to do my reading, I'd ask you to let me use me yours. You can decline, of course, but-” Wordlessly I handed him over my deck before he could continue and crossed my arms.

“Oh, thank you.” In the candlelight I got a much better look at the Vesuvian magician and studied his face as he regarded the cards. His hair looked soft to their touch and reminded me of cloudy summer days in Cartagenth. His skin was clean without any wrinkles but with a healthy glow to it, his eyes had a spark of mischief in them and a mysterious smile seemed to be his default expression. He couldn't be beyond his early twenties.

“Those are very beautiful cards, I don't think I have ever seen a design like this.”

“Thank you, they were a family heirloom.” Technically the truth. My cousin Agustín, the only close family member I had left who didn't hate me or wanted my death had given them to me in a back alley in Bizatena, shortly before I had seen him for the last time. He had previously stolen them from his mother's, my aunt, collection of magical artefacts and given them to me as a parting gift. You have a lot more use for them than if they were to catch dust, he had told me before I had wrapped my arms around his neck to embrace him.

“Your name.”

“Huh?”

“I need your true name. The identity you are the most attached to, and something tells me it's not Magali of Venpal.” He smiled at me as if to encourage me.

I didn't return the smile but merely exhaled a deep breath. All in or nothing, even though I felt no danger from this strange wandering magician.

“Ximena.”

“Ximena.” He repeated, as if to try out how it felt pronouncing my name. “I like it. It fits you more than the one from your disguise.” He winked, and I felt color rush to my ears and my face.

“Well, here goes nothing.” I murmured and broke our eye contact.

Three cards were in front of us. I felt a pull towards the one on the far left, and I knew that Asra did so too. Before he had even turned the card around I knew exactly what it was going to be.

“The Moon, reversed.” I whispered and felt Asra's, Faust's and Segismundo eyes on me as I looked at the card which showed a lobster looking up at a crescent.

“You're afraid. In fact, you have been afraid for a very long time, so long that you learned to live with your fear as it was choking the life out of you but as of right now it's threatening to overwhelm you and you don't know what to do.” Asra’s voice was calm and serene, but there was an unmistakable sadness in it too. For some reason, I felt extremely ashamed and embarrassed as he spoke. He leaned back and looked right in my face. “Take a closer look at those fears, analyze and combat them. Only then you'll know what to do next, and it won't be a rash decision but what's meant to be right.”

Neither of us said something. I was the first one who broke the silence after what seemed like a small infinity. “You should go.” My voice didn't sound as strong and steady as I would've wanted it to, but Asra nodded. “I did what I came here for, and you made it clear you wanted to be left alone afterwards. I respect that.”

He stood up and bowed his head. I followed his example. “Thank you.” It was all I managed to reply to that.

“I will stay here for perhaps a couple of days, I suspect we will run into each other again, since this place is small.” I nodded in response, that was very within the realm of possibilities. “Have a good night, Ximena. And you too, Segismundo.” He nodded in acknowledgement to Segismundo, who returned the nod with a tilt of his head.

“A good night to you and Faust too.” I fumbled with my hands. “Get some rest.”

“Thank you, we will.” Another small smile stole itself onto his lips and I stood up to lead him out of the room. When I closed the door behind him and we were once again alone, Segismundo regarded me with a curious look. Well, he was interesting to say the least.

“You don't say.” I sighed and made my way over to him.

He seemed like he knew you but at the same time didn't. The one named Faust had looked at me as if she had already met me, and I felt the same way.

“Have you ever-”

No. You know exactly I have never.

“Hm.” I put a hand to my chin. “I'm sure there is an explanation behind all this.”

What about the reading? You know he's right. Do you really think going to Hjalle will make our problems disappear just like that?

I blinked. “Of course not.” My words came out more sharply than I intended them too.

Good, because we had this discussion too many times now. Also, neither of us have a fondness for the cold.

I rubbed my temples. “I'm gonna have to sleep a night over this. Or two. Or seven.”

Segismundo took off and onto my shoulder. As he gently rubbed his head against my cheek, I caressed his emerald green plumage.

That's a good idea. The Moon is shining now, but tomorrow the Sun will.

#the arcana #asra the arcana #asra the magician #apprentice ximena #my writing #beta readers? never heard of them #two fics in less than four days? you love to see it! #i spent way too much time deciding which animal her familiar should be bc i was torn between two lol #the other choice was a giant ant eater but i figured that i should still have her have smth in common w the fam #wrt decisions... i know asra's card is painfully cliché so i had to think better abt the one ximena gets and good god that was a process #also: whoever finds the three easter eggs i built in that have to do w stuff i like or work w gets a smooch from ximena her familiar and me

[hedwigstalons]

High Expectations - Ch3

In the spirit of experimentation I tried out a different art programme that was recommended to me.  I’m not sure I’m a fan and it took me far too long to work out the basic functions (most of which I still haven’t figured out) but it does have cool star stamps.

Thank you to @willow-salix​ for putting up with my wobbles over this fic and for all her help, editing and suggestions.

Earlier parts: One, Two

Chapter Three

John tiptoed back to the room he had been allocated to share with Alan, his head buzzing with ideas.  Before, everything his father had mentioned had seemed hypothetical but with all four of them in the room together it looked like this plan could be more than just a pipedream.  Their father obviously thought they had the skills between them.  With all the potential operatives together the discussions had continued long into the night.  A rescue organisation with first responder, transporter, space rocket and communications satellite.  

For him it would be the chance to live amongst the stars.  A career in space was something he had been striving towards.  Every extra credit course.  Every summer camp and internship.  Each had been a steppingstone towards his dream of working for the World Space Agency.  And then his father had dropped the bombshell that there could be an alternative.  He would still need to complete a training course at Tracy College, as would Scott and Virgil, but he was being offered a golden opportunity albeit one that would take several years to come to fruition.  Never usually one to give in to flights of fantasy John found himself daydreaming.

The door latch clicked closed and John was half way to his bed before he realised anything was amiss.  The room was dark and still.  

Too still.

There was no restless turning of a sleeper disturbed by his return.  No heavy breathing of a brother at rest.  The room was silent and disconcertingly empty.  

He didn’t panic.  John had never understood the point of panicking.  It rarely achieved anything and was often a hindrance.  Panicking was something other people did.  John didn’t panic, he used logic; he found it much more effective.    

Alan’s bed was not only empty of his missing sibling, it was also bereft of its coverings.  The mattress stripped of its duvet and pillows.  The floor length curtain fluttered slightly and a gentle breeze broke the heavy stillness of the room.  John stepped over to investigate.

Alan was stretched out on his back on the balcony, the duvet forming a barrier between the teen and the hard planking.  At first John thought he was asleep.  The room itself was stuffy and he could see the appeal of retreating to the balcony even if it made more sense to just adjust the air conditioning.  He was debating whether or not to wake Alan up and move him back inside when a voice spoke from the floor.

“Finally finished then?”

John chose to ignore the question.  Jeff had made it clear that the plans were not to be discussed with the youngest two until things had progressed further.  There was still a lot that could go awry, not least espionage, and secrecy was a pivotal concern.  

“Trouble sleeping?”

“Something like that.  Never had the chance to see the southern stars before.  I was hoping we could look at them together.  Thought you might finally have time now.”

There was an accusatory edge to Alan’s voice and John felt a stab of guilt.  Ever since he had got back from college Alan had been asking him for an astronomy session but there had always been some excuse.  His college work.  Meetings with Dad.  Or sometimes just wanting to be alone as he missed the freedom and solitude of his own apartment.  Alan had latched on like a shadow.  He’d even protested against having to share a room with Alan for this Olympics trip even if Scott and Virgil were also having to share, the penthouse apartment not being equipped with enough rooms for them to each have their own.  All his little brother wanted to do was spend time with him.  John realised he hadn’t even given the younger boy a chance.

“Budge over.”

Alan shuffled across on the duvet, making room for John to stretch out beside him.  They lay close, side by side.  Both were of a similar build and their lithe forms fitted easily on the impromptu mattress.  Alan was still several growth spurts shy of reaching his full potential but it looked like he too, as had happened to all his brothers except Gordon, would one day exceed 6 foot.  Under the stars they both loved the similarities were more marked than their differences.

“Seen anything interesting?”

“You missed Jupiter but to be honest the light pollution is almost as bad as L.A.  I’d love to head out to the dark sky reserve and take a proper look but I guess this this will have to do.  I don’t know when I’ll next be in this hemisphere again.  Even Crux is hard to make out against the glow.”

John followed the arm of his pointing sibling and could just make out the constellation that was one of the defining features of the southern hemisphere.  Alan was right, the light pollution of the city meant the stars were barely visible.  John had to bite his tongue over one thing though, if Jeff’s plan came to fruition then the southern skies could soon become the norm for Alan.

The pointing arm began moving about.

“So if Crux is there.  And Centaurus is there.”  There was a pause as Alan consulted his mental map and made a few calculations.  “Then home must be over….there.”

“You’ve worked out where L.A. is?”  He made his own rapid calculations and came up with a similar answer.  He couldn’t help but be slightly impressed.  Alan had always shown a similar interest in the stars to himself and it looked like this interest hadn’t waned.

“Well I wouldn’t trust it as accurate.  I just like to test myself whenever I go somewhere new.  I was thinking of Kansas though.  L.A. isn’t really home.  Never has been.”  There was a pause then, barely whispered, “You guys aren’t there.”  

John looked across but Alan was still staring resolutely up at the sky.  He knew he didn’t associate Los Angeles with home.  He had left for Harvard just before the move to California.  To him the apartment in the city was just somewhere to visit between semesters.  But surely Alan should have been more settled by now.  He had lived in the city for several years with Dad and Gordon.  

He thought back to his latest visit.  With the exception of the bedrooms the apartment looked like a show home; devoid of personality.  It was a place where individuals coexisted rather than somewhere that a family lived.  It was a stark contrast to the slightly run down farmhouse with the mismatched furniture collected over the years.  The marks on the walls that each told a story; the stain from when Alan got hold of Virgil’s paints, the dent in the doorframe from when Scott threw a baseball inside.  The apartment had no such stories.  No memories.  Alan was right, it wasn’t a home.  

“I doubt we can make it out to the dark sky reserve, the schedule is pretty tight, but if you want we take a trip out to the mountains when we get back.  Take the telescope.”

“Really?”  The eagerness was barely disguised.  

“Sure.  I’ll still have a couple of weeks before I have to head back east.  I’m sure we can wrangle a few days away.”

They lay side by side staring up at unfamiliar skies until they drifted off to sleep, lulled by the perpetual murmur of the city below them.

xoxoxox

John awoke to the sun in his eyes and cramp in his foot.  In a moment of disorientation he couldn’t work out why his bed was so hard or the room was so bright as he clutched at the offending limb and attempted to stretch out his toes.

His startled flailing woke the figure to the side of him.  Alan stretched, bounced up off the floor, then held out a hand to his incapacitated sibling.  John grasped it gratefully and levered himself up.  The cramp might have eased but his whole body felt stiff from the unintentional slumber on the decking.  He wondered how on earth Alan was able to move about so freely.

“You want first shower?”  Alan asked as they headed back into the room.

John nodded gratefully.  He hadn’t meant to bed down under the stars and as such was still wearing his clothes from the day before.  After travelling across continents and then sleeping outside the outfit was decidedly rumpled and worse for wear.

He stepped into the en-suite and shucked the dirty clothes onto the floor.  The shower was hot and powerful, the steady stream of drops beat against his aching muscles.  He could have stayed there all morning but the sound of Alan rapping on the door reminded him that this was a shared space and there was a schedule to be adhered to.

Breakfast was a quiet affair in the lounge area with plenty of coffee to fuel the day although Alan stuck to juice and water, commenting that he couldn’t understand why they all felt the need to drink the bitter brew.  This just drew amused smirks from his elders, sure that one day he would discover the delights of the bean.  Coffee was treated with reverence by the other Tracys.  Virgil didn’t like to venture outside before his second cup.  Jeff insisted on a fresh ground beans of single origin.  Scott and John were less particular in their tastes but even they liked to start the day with a strong fix to kick start the senses.

The morning was spent pool-side watching a mixed assortment of heats and races.  Alan had the whole schedule memorised and counted down the events until Tracy four was due to take his turn in the water.  He seemed to know every statistic of every competitor and chattered away to any brother that would listen. 

At last, towards the end of the session, the men’s 200m butterfly was announced.  The family sat forward expectantly.  Gordon was tipped to do well but his heat was a difficult draw.  Both the Australian and Dutch competitors would be in the water with him and all of them had their sights set on medals.  Three medal hopefuls but only two places available in the final.  There could be no saving himself; every lap mattered.

At the sound of the gun Gordon launched himself into the water.  Five sets of eyes tracked him from above, barely daring to blink.  Five hearts thumped as the battle was fought.  Five collective breaths were released as the timing board announced what they had all thought they had seen; second place for USA.  Gordon would live to fight another day.

Emerging into the bright sunshine of early afternoon the family found themselves basking in the refreshing breeze that wafted through the Olympic Park.  The gallery had suffered from the intense heat and humidity common to swimming pools the world over.  The echoing acoustics had made the cheers of the crowd deafening and it was a relief to step back into outside world.

“Well, that’s it for today” Jeff announced to his assembled brood.  “There are some taekwondo and athletics tickets for tomorrow and then Gordon’s final is the day after.  For now though I’ve got to head back to the hotel and catch up with some work, don’t make plans for me for dinner.” 

Leaving them to sort it out amongst themselves Jeff turned and headed back to the hotel.  The brothers knew their father well enough to read between the lines.  He evidently didn’t want to be disturbed and the expectation was that they would stay away from the hotel, at least for the next few hours and preferably until nightfall.  

Scott was about assume responsibility for the group when John spoke up.

“I thought I might take Alan out to where the mountain biking is taking place.  You don’t need tickets for that.”  Alan’s eyes lit up at the prospect of spending time with his favourite available brother and watching people hurtling at speed down steep hills and over rocks.  “You two don’t need to come if it’s not your thing.” 

“You sure you’ll be ok with him?”

“Seriously Scott, we don’t need a chaperone.  Alan and I will be perfectly fine by ourselves.”  

Scott shrugged in an ‘if you’re sure’ sort of gesture.  As much as he knew Alan would love to see people risk life and limb in the name of sport he also knew it most definitely was not John’s usual choice of activity.  Still, if it got him out of an afternoon of playing sheepdog he wasn’t going to question John’s motives too deeply.  

He turned to Virgil.  “Looks like it’s you and me then.  Unless you also want to watch the mountain biking?”

“Not really.  I’d rather stay central.  Maybe head over to the marina.”

“Sounds good to me.  You’ll give me a ring if you need anything.”  John just rolled his eyes in response.

The siblings split into pairs; one set heading off to the taxis that would take them to the artificial hill course, the other set heading to the waterfront.

The harbour area was packed with visitors and a little too crowded to be comfortable.  Scott and Virgil headed away from the Olympic area, following the esplanade until the crowds thinned out.  They had had enough sporting hype for one day and were ready to just relax.  Scott’s leave was only a few days for the duration of Gordon’s events and he knew he would soon be immersed back in Air Force life.  Best make use of the opportunity for some rest and relaxation while he could.

They walked in companionable silence until, as if by mutual accord, their steps led them to a waterfront bar.  The sun was starting to dip towards the horizon but the evening was still warm and the parasols at each table gave some welcome shade.  The brothers found themselves drawn to an empty table.  They were soon comfortably settled, the ocean glittering in front of them mirroring the sparkling condensation on their beer glasses.

Scott took a deep pull and sank half his drink before Virgil had barely sipped an inch earning himself a disapproving look from the younger man.  Scott chose to ignore it.  He rarely got down time.  There were always so many responsibilities.  His squadron.  Younger brothers.  But John had taken custody of Alan and Virgil was old enough to look after himself meaning Scott could enjoy not being in loco parentis for a while.  If he chose to enjoy that freedom by drinking a little too much a little too quickly then so be it.

A second drink swiftly followed the first and the conversation flowed just as freely as the beer.  Of all the sibling bonds Scott’s and Virgil’s was probably the strongest despite them rarely getting time together any more. 

As the glasses stacked up Scott beckoned to a nearby waitress who was collecting empties from the outside tables.  He beamed at her causing the dimples in his cheeks to appear like craters.

“Hey beautiful, could we get another couple of drinks over here?  And maybe some scotch chasers?”

She nodded and Scott turned to watch her as she headed back inside, his eyes raking up and down her body.

“Put your tongue away” Virgil commented.  “You’re practically drooling.”

“Can’t a guy appreciate the finer things in life?”

“Not if it means perving over the locals.  She’s just trying to do her job.”

“I am not perving.  I’m admiring.  I thought you were meant to be the artist seeing the beauty in everything?”

They arrival of said waitress with the next round of drinks soon put an end to their argument and cause the re-emergence of the dimples.  He fixed her a look with his startling blue eyes that he knew most women found irresistible.

“Thanks.  Say, are you working late tonight?”

“Late enough.”

“Only I was hoping someone with local knowledge could help show me the sights.”

“Sorry boys.  No moonlighting as a tour guide.  It’s company policy.”  She stacked the empty glasses onto her tray and headed back inside.

“Well that shot you down.”  Virgil smirked.  “We’ve barely been here twenty four hours and already you’re trying to get laid.  Can’t you keep it in your pants for one trip?  We’re here to support Gordon, not so that you can add more notches to your bedpost.  And had you forgotten we are sharing a room?”

Scott snorted.  “So what if I fancied having a little fun, it’s not like I get much chance back at base.  The Air Force isn’t exactly awash with opportunity between postings and combat missions.  And if Dad’s plan actually happens and we’re all dragged in to it it’s not like any of us will have much of a life.”

“What do you mean ‘dragged in’?  I thought you were on board with this whole rescue business?”

“Well you thought wrong.”

By this point yet another beer had been drained, swiftly followed by the scotch.  The burn of a cheap blend hit the back of Scott’s throat with a kick.

“Seriously, what does he hope to achieve with just four of us?  All that bull crap about saving the world one family at a time.  The world already has rescue services and the World Security Patrol.  It doesn’t need us sacrificing ourselves too.”

“But surely if we can make a difference?”

“I already make a difference.  I like my life Virg and I’m good at what I do.  Dad is asking me to give up the career I’ve worked hard for just to fit his idea.  It’s not easy being a Tracy in the Air Force; everyone always has some story about Dad but I’m finally making it in my own right.  And now he’s talking like this is some foregone conclusion.”

“You’d really rather follow the orders of some Air Force brass than help save lives?  Your unit isn’t exactly a humanitarian force.  What about doing it for Mom?  He said this was her legacy.”

“Of course I want to save lives but sometimes the defence of our nation calls for a more forceful response; eliminating the few to save the many.”  

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”  This was one area where Scott and Virgil never had seen eye to eye.  Scott was proud to serve his country.  Some days though, when the intelligence was flawed or the benefits didn’t seem to justify the costs, he found himself wondering if the family pacifist had a point.

“Even if I did leave the Air Force I’d still be following orders, they would just be Dad’s orders.  I can’t see it being run by committee, can you?  And he can leave Mom out of this.  Her legacy was Dad burying himself behind a mountain of paperwork or at the bottom of a scotch bottle while we picked up the pieces.  Or have you forgotten having to juggle school work around getting the kids to swim meets and after school clubs?”

“He isn’t like that any more.”

“Ok, so there are fewer empty bottles in the recycling but there was still a massive Alan shaped hole in his plan.  You know what Dad is like when he gets his teeth into something; anything not directly necessary gets pushed to one side and that includes his own family.”  There was a drawn out sigh as the fire burnt out.  “I don’t think I’m ready to take that on again.”

Virgil knocked back his own scotch as he considered Scott’s words.  His elder brother was right; Gordon and Alan were conspicuously absent it the run down of how the organisation would operate.  Ok, Gordon wasn’t so much of an issue but Alan still had several years of school ahead of him.  He just had to trust that there was some plan in place in the background for the youngest.

He shrugged and shivered slightly as the wind changed direction and blew in off the now black ocean.  Around them tables were being wiped down and lights were being dimmed, a clear indication that it was time to call it a night.  The pair hailed a cab and rode in silence back to the hotel, each lost in their own thoughts.

#thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #high expectations #future plans

[canid-slashclaw]

The Outliers - A Guild Wars Love Story

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9,  Chapters 10 and 11,Chapter 12 Chapter 13

Thunder roared across the skies over Triskell Quay as raindrops began to fall over the lakeside village. Kaleb emerged from the waypoint near the traveler's district and realized he had forgotten to bring a raincoat.

When he arrived home late evening yesterday his father had handed him a letter from the Queen's Seraph Guard. The parchment stated that Corporal Kaleb Grimwald was to the Kessex Hills outpost by the end of the month. It also noted that upon his return, his unit would soon be transferred to an as-of-yet undisclosed location. With his return to active duty less than a week away, Kaleb wanted to inform Amalthia right away just in case he was unable to get in contact with her later on.

He managed to make it to the butcher shop just a few minutes before the rain started to pour down in sheets. But when he opened the door he immediately noticed that the steam whistle did not sound off once the door closed. Instead, the only sound he heard was the click of the latch.

"Is anyone here?" Kaleb said as he walked toward the meat counter.

"You don't need to shout so loud. My father is sleeping." Amalthia's voice came from her upstairs loft.

As she descended the spiral staircase, Kaleb noticed her footsteps were noticeably shaky and her gait off balance.

"Amalthia! It's so good to see you. And sorry about that, I'll be quieter from now on."

She did not look in his direction once she reached the base of the stairs. Instead, she headed over to the spice aisle and began organizing the various bundles of products.

"Things would be much quieter if you just left," she said in a somber, monotone voice.

Kaleb wasn't sure what to make of what she meant, so he remained in dumbfounded silence.

"Didn't you hear what I just said? Leave!"

Stunned by the sudden change in her behavior, Kaleb walked over then put his hand on her shoulder hoping she would look him in the face. But as soon as he touched her, she spun around, grabbed his hand then violently pushed it away.

"You shouldn't be here!' She hissed and stared at him with a harsh glare the likes of which he had never seen before.

"Wha... what's wrong, Amalthia? Why are you acting like this??" The expression of hurt on his face was painfully obvious.

"Why? Are you really that dense? Look in the mirror then look at me... never mind... don't look at me cause it might give you the wrong impression," Amalthia snarled as she stomped towards the front door.

"What could I have possibly done to upset you like this? We had such a good time yesterday, I don't even get why you are suddenly acting this way," Kaleb said as tears began welling up in his eyes.

"Done? I'll tell you what you did, Kaleb. You walked through that door six months ago and entered more than just this building," Amalthia said as her eyes being tearing up as well, "you walked into my heart and never left!"

Hoping to comfort her, Kaleb rushed over, but as soon as he did, Amalthia pushed him back nearly knocking him to the floor. "Don't! Just, don't. You need to just step back for a moment and take a good whiff of reality. You are human and I am charr. The world would never accept us as a romantically-involved couple."

Kaleb shook his head. "I don't believe that's you talking. You're mother got to you somehow, didn't she?"

"Leave her out of this, Kaleb. The less I have to think of her, the better my life will be. I will open this door and you will walk through it agreeing never to come back," she said as she stepped back then opened the door to the pouring rain.

"So you're just going to kick me out in the downpour, are you? If that's how you are going to treat me then you are more cowardly than most humans I know. I fell in love with you because of your honesty and strength of spirit. And I don't believe for one second that you genuinely want to roll over and cave in to the norms of society," he said as he slowly stepped towards the open door.

"And I don't want to hurt you anymore than I already have, Kaleb. But you are correct in one aspect. I am doing this because my... mother... found a warband that was willing to accept me into their ranks. Please understand that I have to know how I would respond when I'm around my own people. Until I am exposed to that, neither of us can ever really be sure if I'm bonding to you out of loneliness or genuine love," Amalthia looked into his eyes as she fought a losing battle with her tears.

"I think I understand it now. Amalthia - I am going to walk out this door into dreary soaking rain and I'm going to head on over to Ulfgar's place and knock back the strongest lager he serves. It's fitting, I suppose, that today should be so gloomy. Anyway, fare thee well, Amalthia. You will forever be in my heart."

With those words, Kaleb departed running as his form vanished into the stormy torrent.

Amalthia knelt down and remained there for nearly an hour as sheets of rain began to soak her fur. She closed her eyes and began recalling the memories of the times that she and Kaleb had spent together.

"I have some warm tea for you, cub. It's been a long day for both of us," Ludrick's gentle voice came from behind as he gently placed his massive paw over her right shoulder.

"He is right!" She said as she placed her pawed hands upon the wet concrete.

"Amalthia..."

"I am a coward."

Suddenly, something within her snapped. She remembered her oath of loyalty to her original warband and what it meant to stand by those she cared about.

No. I am not a coward! I am charr! I will fight to my last breath in defense of those I love. And not even the dragons themselves will keep me away from you, Kaleb.

"I am not a coward!" She muttered as she crouched on all fours while angling towards the outside.

Ludrick sensed what she was about to do but he was too late in stopping her.

With a lunging burst, Amalthia loped from the shop on all fours, running at top speed in the blinding gale.

"I am chaaarrrr!"

Her fur became completely soaked but she didn't care. She knew where she had to go and how to get there. The only question was - would she be too late?

***

Rainfall fell heavily upon the town of Claypool as well. Soaked to the skin, a distraught Kaleb eventually found his way to the one place where he could find some measure of solace in his misery. The gas-powered lights gave off a bright orange glow just inside the windows of the Jotun's Corpse tavern.

Ulfgar had just finished serving some regulars when he noticed Kaleb's completely soaked slumped form resting with his head over his folded arms. The wise old norn immediately knew something was wrong and decided to prepare a special lager just for the distraught young man.

"By the looks of things, I can see water is comin' from more places than just your clothes. What's eatin' ya, lad?" The norn said in a voice that could shake the room yet was a gentle as a summer wind.

"Thanks, Ulfgar. It's been one of those days, yanno?"

"Those days, or those days? I can see a tale of woe behind those eyes plain as day. If you wish to get something off yer chest then I'll be right here if you wish," Ulfgar grinned as he offered Kaleb several towels.

"Definitely one of those days, my friend. Sorry about the puddles on the floor. I forgot to dress in weather-appropriate gear," Kaleb said with a downtrodden tone.

"It's not the puddles on the floor that concerns me, lad. It's the ones streamin' down yer face."

"Is there someplace we can talk more privately?" Kaleb asked as he looked around the tavern noticing all of the patrons still present.

"Of course. That table over there is especially reserved for just such occasions. C'mon my boy. Tell old Ulf what's been draggin' your bottom lip to the ground."

Once the two of them drifted on over to the more secluded location, Kaleb took one last draught before preparing his mind for what he was about to tell."

"Amalthia blew up on me earlier today for no apparent reason and claimed that any possible relationship wouldn't work out because of our differences. She said that her mom found a warband that was willing to take her into their ranks. I think her parents had a lot to do with her sudden change in temperament, honestly."

Kaleb exhaled upon thinking of the ordeal then removed his outer jacket hoping that doing so would help speed up the warming process.

"Hmm. It sounds like she wanted to protect you from further heartbreak. She may have been afraid that you would be afraid of her leaving you to be with one of her own kind."

Kaleb looked up at his long time friend and spoke with a tone steeled in resolve. "The truth is Ulfgar, I not only love her for who she is but also what she is. I am well aware that the mere sight of an interspecies relationship, especially between a human and a charr, is going to be fraught with monumental struggles from bigoted mindsets. However, there is this part of me that feels that it's the world that needs to change, not us."

"Then perhaps your true legend may lay along an entirely different path, my boy. It reminds me very much of an old norn story my father used to tell." Ulgar looked up at the vaulted ceiling of the tavern as he rested his crooked fingers against his bearded chin.

"I've got the time. Let's hear it."

Ulfgar pulled over a small chair then sat down across from the eldest Grimwald son.

"This tale is known as the Bear and the Wolf," the old norn said while gulping down a tall stein of mead.

"Long ago in the far Shiverpeaks, there wandered a lone bear. Now Bear was lost and lonely. He had become separated from his hunting grounds seasons ago when the ice sheet that connected his land with his current location had melted away."

"But off in the distance, he suddenly heard a long and somber howl. Curious to know where the howl came from, Bear followed his ears and nose to find out. What he came upon was something he did not expect. For lying in on the ground and fur matted in dried blood from an as-of-yet unseen wound, lay a she-wolf."

"Wolf looked at Bear fearing he would attack and eat her. Bear just wanted to investigate and see what was the matter."

"He soon realized that the wolf was injured. To Wolf's surprise the bear did not attack. Instead, Bear walked over, sniffed the wolf and just sat there staring at her."

"Wolf looked into those dark brown eyes then felt the strangest sensation come over her. It was as though she had known the bear before, but as to how she could not fathom. "

"Upon gazing into Wolf's golden eyes, Bear noticed that she looked strikingly familiar. Even though he could not figure out the reason, he swore to himself that no harm would come to her."

"Eventually, Bear realized that the wolf would need food soon and so he went to the riverbank and caught a fresh salmon for her to eat. Once Wolf had regain her strength, she repaid the kind act by cleaning with her tongue an old injury he had received ages ago."

"Over time the two became inseparable. Wolf hunted for Bear when prey was too swift for him to catch and he did the same for her when prey was either too strong or lived in fast-moving rivers."

"Then late one winter, Wolf came into season. Bear wanted to show his affection, but doing so would have been against the laws of nature. Yet, she was so beautiful. Why should they be denied the pleasures of each others' being all because of some taboos that had been handed down from generation to generation?"

"Then on the night of the full moon, Wolf and Bear did the one thing that others in their respective tribes told them not to do... they made love."

"The next morning when he awoke, Bear raised what he thought was his front paw as he placed it upon the outstretched back of Wolf. But he noticed that instead of a paw, he had a furless, blunt fingered hand. What's more, instead of the silken fur of the she-wolf laying beside him, she had the most voluptuous body of a flaxen-haired norn that he had ever seen."

"When both lovers realized what happened, they discovered that they had at one time been mates who had taken different paths in discovering their spirit animals."

Once Ulfgar finished his tale, he looked into Kaleb's eyes and said. "Every so often there are those who are put on Tyria for the sole purpose of defying cultural norms. Such people are referred to as outliers."

Kaleb just looked at Ulfgar with a stunned look on his face. "Wow. That had to be the most unusual norn tale I've ever heard. Thanks to you, I'll never look at a wolf or a bear the same way again."

Ulfgar laughed.

"And yer never likely to ever hear one like it again either. At least that's what my pappa always used to say."

Then it suddenly dawned on Kaleb. "They were your parents?"

An even bigger laugh echoed through the tavern as the old norn just smiled and winked.

"In a matter of speakin'..."

Several hours had passed and by now all of the patrons had left with the exception of Kaleb. Although he had consumed only a few more lagers, he wasn't completely smashed.

"I had better get home. My folks are probably worried that I may have gotten eaten by a risen or something."

"It's still a pourin' out there. Mind if I accompany ya home?"

"Thanks Ulf, but I'm fine. I'm sure I can manage my way home by myself. But thank you anyways."

After thanking Ulfgar for allowing him to stay past hours, Kaleb began his lonely trek home from the tavern. Thick drops pelted his wet hair and soaked overcoat then suddenly began to cease. When he looked up he saw a large umbrella hanging over his head. To his amazement, Amalthia was standing there holding it aloft.

With sullen eyes and ears hung low, she said to him in a soft voice. "You are going to catch cold walking home like that, silly."

"A... Amalthia?"

She looked down, standing upright, nearly a charr head and a half taller and gazed deeply into his dark brown eyes.

"I figured I'd catch you at or near the bar. Come, I'll walk you home, if you don't mind my terrible company."

Looking deeply into her golden amber orbs, Kaleb said in a reassuring voice, "you are never terrible company... well, almost never. Earlier today being the slight exception, right?"

"I completely understand if you cannot forgive me for how I acted towards you earlier. But at the very least, I wanted to tell you the why. I owe you that much."

"I'm listening."

Amalthia explained. "I am joining a warband known as the Blades. Once I am in, I will receive a last name that somewhat reflects some of my talents and personality traits. I am telling you this because mating between warband members is commonplace."

She went on further. "I know that open relationships in your culture is extremely taboo. Not so in mine. I also know if you found out that I had a physical relationship then bore cubs with one of my people, you would be devastated. I acted the way I acted in order to avoid having you subjected to even more emotional hurt."

"My house is just around the corner. I really wish I could introduce you to my family, but I'm not sure some of my members would receive you," Kaleb stated as he pointed towards the farmhouse at the end of the road.

"Give me your thoughts, Kaleb. Please."

"I've always been willing to go the distance, Amalthia. But you are going to have to meet me halfway. And by the way - there is nothing to forgive. Nothing will change how I feel about you. But if you only wish us to remain friends then that's fine too, I suppose."

She looked into his eyes for a moment, closed the umbrella then raised her head into the air and smiled.

"I love the rain. The water relaxes me and sometimes makes me say things that I normally wouldn't say to anyone."

Amalthia raised her arms aloft taking in the invigorating sensation of the raindrops against her wet furred body.

"My former warband leader violated me repeatedly in an attempt to prove what a weakling I was. I showed him a thing or two by nearly ripping his balls off with my hind claws. The truth is, I would sooner die than allow another one of my kind inside of me. It's quick and painful. I also drink nearly a cask of mead a day. I am a soiled, drunken loser who is just trying to make her way in this thing called life. If you would have a scrawny bag of bones such as me to call your mate then you would have to be godsdamn crazy!"

"Then I am crazy! Crazy in love with you!" Kaleb shouted with glee.

Amalthia looked down once more at him as she gently used her clawed index finger to brush back a lock of his hair that had washed over the left side of his face. "You silly mouse."

With a gentle caress, she slid her hand to the back of Kaleb's head then pulled him towards her muzzle. Her raspy tongue pushed past his lips as their mouths locked together in a synchronous embrace. When their mouths parted, Kaleb gently bit down on the side of her thick neck gnawing playfully until his nose rested just below her lower ear.

Savoring the sensation of her warm, wet fur Kaleb pointed towards the back of his home. "The barn has a spot where we could... you know, go all the way."

Amalthia laughed as she licked the top of his head then gently nibbled on his ear. "Kaleb. Remember what I said - one step at a time."

She then pulled back, looked him directly into his soaked face and said in a loving voice. "This was just my way of saying that I choose you over what society has chosen for me. I'm just playing the game for now… at least until we can find a way of being together in the long run."

"Then the barn can wait. It smells bad in there anyway." Kaleb smiled at her with understanding.

"Oh. I've smelled much worse. Trust me. Anyway, write me! I'll be sure to write back as much as I'm able. Once I'm in the Black Citadel we won't have to go through Ulfgar to keep in contact."

"You better believe that I'm gonna write you enough to fill an encyclopedia. By the way - I'm getting shipped back out to Kessex in the next week and from there, who knows? So it looks like we will both be doing the long-distance relationship thing for a while." Kaleb hugged her as they began to walk toward his house.

"Oh. One other thing I forgot to ask - how badly did I dag you in the butt?" She asked pointing to his posterior area.

"Not too bad. A little swollen, but otherwise fine. You have some moves on ya girl! Where'd you learn 'em?"

"Daddy taught me!" Amalthia smiled pointing towards the hilt of her sword.

"No wonder I got walloped."

"It also works great on rapist ex-warband mates as well," she chuckled.

With a final departing hug and light kiss on the lips the two lovers parted. Amalthia dashed off into the night running on all fours while Kaleb spent the next five minutes wringing out his wet garments. After cleaning up and getting into a fresh change of clothing, Kaleb fished around in his pocket for the wad of letters that Amalthia had written him previously. To his pleasant surprise, the letters were not soaked. He wanted to read them but was too tired to do so at the moment.

"Kaaalaab... there are some leftovers in the ice chest in case you want them," his mother called from downstairs.

"Thanks, mom. I'll be there in a few," he said as he grabbed some of the dry letters then lifted up the corner of his mattress to place his stash. But when he lifted it up, he found that the book on the mating habits of charr was missing.

Oh crap! Arg! Rachel! She must have been snooping in my room while I was gone.

Moments later, he ran to the door that led to his younger room and began knocking.

"Rachel..."

"Rachel!"

Her condescending voice came back just a few seconds later. "Stop banging on the door so loudly. Whaddyou want anyway?"

Kaleb growled. "You know what I want. What did you do with that book you checked out for me? I know you snuck into my room when I wasn't around. Don't lie to me!"

He was greeted by a moment of silence before he heard her snarky reply through the door. "Then maybe you shouldn't have left it in such an obvious hiding spot."

"You have no right going into my room snooping around! You got that?"

"I can go into your room when it involves MY property. That book was due back at the library anyway so I dropped it off at the return box. Gods only knows what would have happened if that librarian had contacted our parents and they found out that I checked out such a filthy book."

"Was there anything else with the book like a note or something?" Kaleb asked with a hint of distress in his voice.

"Nope. Not a thing."

At the other end of the door, Rachel sat on the bed with the Mating Rituals of the Charr. Vol. XI opened right in front of her. As she giggled and perused through the pages, she started fanning her face with the love letter that Kaleb had used for a bookmark. (Chapter 13 is also up on Google Docs)

#gw2 fanfic #tyriaslibrary #the outliers #charr and human #kaleb and amalthia #guildwars fanfiction

[prorevenge]

Touchdown.

As I recall this story, I’m aware that some of the comments said by the perpetrators below will seem a bit straw-man in their delivery, but keep in mind that this was in an area considered very extremist.

So, this took place back in high school. This was 8 years ago in the Midwest. I’m 25 now, and While I don’t cherish all that lead to this, I do fondly remember its conclusion.

When I was in 11th grade, I went to a school that had a really heavy emphasis on School Spirit. And honestly, that part was great. It didn’t just focus on sports and other clubs like it, but also celebrated AV, Debate, Dance, etc. We had a pretty good football team and My boyfriend at the time was a first string running back. I wasn’t on the cheerleading squad, but I often helped with choreography for them, Dance and Flag teams. Mostly because I didn’t want the stigma of being the only boy on the cheerleading squad.

I wasn’t often bullied myself. I mean, there was the occasional slur tossed at me in the hall by your run-of-the-mill homophobes. But as far as anything extreme went, it didn’t happen to me. I figured it was mostly due to the fact that I was pretty important to 3 school squads.

However, my boyfriend, when he finally came out and started dating me, did not get the same treatment from everyone. Maybe it was because he was supposed to be Masculine, tough guy, football star but things got a lot tougher for him really quick.

His family and close friends were pretty cool with it all, but school was a different story.

His teammates were the first to turn their backs on him. Treating him like dirt where a week before he was their ‘best friend.’ Obviously not all of them were like this, but enough of them were and they outshined the good players who didn’t mind.

He seemed to take most of it in stride, as he knew what he was getting into when he came out. He told me a little name calling wasn’t anything he couldn’t handle and ‘if being honest with them changed their attitudes so much, then they never really were his friends.’

However, this is @prorevenge. Things never really stop there.

Apparently, this change in attitude didn’t just stop at his teammates. His coach wasn’t a big fan of having a ‘fairy boy’ on his team, and began pushing my boyfriend to the absolute limit.

He had to do twice as much work as everyone else for no good reason. And then, he’d get benched for ‘slacking off’ during practice. This was clearly taking its toll on him and it was hard for me to sit by. I wanted to confront them, and to figure out how his personal life had any connection with his ability to play. But, I was 5’8”. The shortest guy on the team was 5’11”. They were 20 in total. I was 1, maybe more than that if I could convince some friends to back me up. They lifted weights, ate steel and shat bullets. I was a dancer, ate normally and shat healthily. The point is, I wouldn’t have stood a chance in a confrontation with these guys. So, for the moment, I let it go and made the most of BFs time with me.

However, one day, he showed up to my practice, bruised and sporting a swollen eye. Aka, a very frequent black eye. He sits next to me and before I can even ask what’s wrong, he cries for what was the only time I ever saw him crack. I was furious and asked him to tell me what the actual fuck happened and told me something that still makes me queasy to this day.

Apparently it was weight room training day for the team. That room with all the weights and treadmills and such. And as usual, my boyfriend was told to run twice as much and lift twice as much as everyone else. Apparently Coach was having a shit day and decided to push him the hardest he’d ever been pushed. He couldn’t take it and passed out temporarily when he stopped. He said he was only out for a few seconds (thank god.) but when he came to, his coach was looking down on him both physically and metaphorically. He apparently told him that he wasn’t even fit to be on the team if he couldn’t even run without passing out like a ‘sissy’.

Then my boyfriend told me he shared a look with the other team members and left the room. And then several other members started taking turns wailing on him, kicking him and spitting on him. It didn’t go on for long before a few of the good teammates got them to cut it out and he finally managed to get out of the weight room and find me.

I consoled him, but I felt my blood burn from the rage I felt. I know people bullshit all the time about ‘blacking out’ and going all primal on a bitch, but I felt that feeling. Like all reason was gonna flood out of my brain and I was gonna find a bat and crack knees. But my boyfriend practically pleaded with me to not say anything. He said he didn’t want it to get worse, and picking a fight wouldn’t make it better. So I sucked it up but felt the wheels in my head start turning. Something needed to be done.

I couldn’t let this go on. So I started thinking and I figured out a way to get these bastards. To pin them with all of their shit and get some justice for my boyfriend.

I had quite a few friends all across the school. Cheerleading, Dance, Flag and, most importantly, AV Club (Since they recorded most performances for Dance and Show Choir.)

I got a few of my cheerleader friends in on my scheme and convinced our coach to let us practice near the team that day. It was almost playoff season so it wasn’t a hard push. Furthermore, I asked if my AV club friend, Ciara, could record our routines so we could review them so I could see if anyone needed work. She was a really chill coach and said yes to that too. Obviously we hoped to catch these guys on film, and use it as evidence against them... and hope something came of it. Honestly, it wasn’t the best plan but it was what I came up with.

When we got to the field that day, I began running through the steps of a routine we came up with while our plan was put into motion.

And it was a nightmare for me. I heard the coach and saw his treatment first hand. Screaming at my boyfriend to work harder, run faster. And his teammates heckled and pushed him around in their all-to-subtle ways. ‘Accidentally’ throwing passes at his head. Shoulder checking him when they lined up for Defensive Drills.

But I knew I couldn’t say anything yet. He’d be upset if I stepped in and the tormenting wouldn’t get better. So I bit my lip and endured.

I was beginning to think we weren’t going to get anything. If we showed our principal or administration what we’d seen, the Coach or the players could just spin it as harmless heckling and ‘seeing the potential in him’ as an excuse to push him harder.

But luck finally got on our side, and another pass came flying towards BF and hit him square in his black eye.

I flinched when I saw it. He fell to his knees and cried out. I ran over to check on him and see if he was okay. He said he was fine but I could see his ‘good’ shining with tears. It clearly hurt a lot. I heard them laughing. The coach chuckling and those assholes who hurt him in the first place.

I just couldn’t hold my tongue anymore. I wasn’t known for shouting or cussing but I turned, my nastiest snarl on my face and screamed “What the actual fuck is wrong with your asses?”

The football twats started ‘Oooh’ing at us and the coach shook his head. “What? Does he need his boyfriend to fight his battles now?” He said.

I told him that he and his stupid team was the reason he was hurt in the first place. This didn’t deter him. I don’t remember his exact words, but he said something to the effect of “You should be happy I’m even letting this faggot on my team.” And told me that he’d speak with the coach about my position with the Other teams. Get me kicked off so I had nothing.

I looked back at Ciara. Thank God she had the wherewithal to bring her camera closer to watch him. I stood up, taking BFs hand and leaving the field, middle finger raised as I left. When I finally met up with Ciara, she told me she got the whole thing. I still wasn’t happy, but I was relieved we finally had something on these bastards. She told me she’d have a friend get it ready and we’d go to the Principal that week.

We went to her a couple of days later with our evidence and she was almost as furious as I was. She informed us that she was almost ready to call my boyfriend into the office to ban him from the team because his grades had slipped drastically over the past few months. From honor roll to Cs and Ds. Now she knew the reason. She called in the Coach and had us stick by to corroborate our story. When she asked the question, he did exactly what I thought he would do. He spun it like it was some ‘great potential’ he saw in my boyfriend, but that if it was costing him his grades, he’d inform him that he’d need to get them up or be barred.

I almost grinned like a Cheshire Cat when she turned her monitor around and showed him the footage of him insulting and threatening me and my boyfriend. He was stunned silent, and I was on Cloud 9 with a grin only the fucking sun could hope to match. She asked us to go to class for the day and we did, and awaited the fallout.

And oh my God was it sweet. First and foremost, BF was offered a chance to complete his missing work, no penalties. His grades got back to their previous state. But the best part was the Coach’s immediate firing for ‘Blatent Discrimination and Encouraging violence on a student.’ He wasn’t a teacher so finding a replacement wasn’t difficult. The Principal sent out emails to various schools and the Superintendent of our district and explained the situation. No way was he getting any more jobs in this area.

Furthermore, the jerks who actually committed the act faced not only suspension, but also were kicked off of the team. Most of them had to spend their Senior Year watching Sophomores and Second String players win their playoff game. They didn’t win the Championship but they did make it into the top 10.

But most importantly, my boyfriend was able to resume a relatively normal life.

We broke up after high school. I moved across country for School and he went to our State College. But we maintain a healthy friendship to this day. We try to talk at least twice a year. And we saw each other at our 5 year reunion. He’s happily married to a new guy and I’m in a great relationship and we all hit it off.

I never knew what happened to those guys or the Coach after High School. But I like to think that losing out on what they did may have taught them a lesson. And if not... well may God have mercy on their hateful asses. I certainly won’t.

(source) story by (/u/Kayden_Pauser)

#prorevenge #by /u/Kayden_Pauser #pro revenge #revenge stories #pro revenge stories #pro #revenge #last10

[adorkemis]

My farm has some unusual occurrences...

With Halloween coming up I thought I'd post some stories that happened here at my little co-op farm. Its a small farm I bought with my best friend and her husband that we run and take in unwanted animals, that is when we aren't working our day jobs, charity-volunteer, or Search and Rescue cases.

So in the spirit of the season I'll start with the unusual events leading up to our first Halloween. On the night of the Autumn Equinox we built a bonfire and poured ourselves a few drinks- some family recipe Appalachian home brew.

Now, I take bonfires very seriously and had been preparing for weeks, carefully selecting the best branches and tinder, even going so far as to collect and dry out large bundles of late summer flowers and herbs to add to the top of the fire. In my family, we have a long standing tradition of welcoming in each new season with a bonfire and an important component of those seasonal bonfires are the flowers and herbs. So for weeks I had been going out to cut the necessary plants and dry them in the barn.

Now they were blazing brightly with the cut grass, weeds, and branches from our months of hard work setting up and renovating our new home and the surrounding acers.

I don't normally dance, but when I do, it is not pretty I am very, very intoxicated. So I flail happily around my fire, taking turns dancing with my friends under the bright stars and just enjoying myself free from big cities and a nice break from all our hard work.

As the night progressed the fire finally began to die down and after a few drinks I felt myself beginning to tire.

Ty, the husband of my friends asked me question that I wasn't quite able hear over the music. I thought he asked if I wanted more to drink, so I said yes. Being deaf in one ear I often mishear people.

A few moments later, I hear Ty holler out "Move!" as a large pile of debris we had stripped from the house was hurled onto the dieing flames. Krystal (my friend and wife of the pair) and I jumped back just in time to avoid the cloud of ash and embers. As I stagger backwards trying to comprehend what I had just witnessed when he again yells out for us to move just in time for me to watch him throw a bucket onto the smoldering embers. In the next instant the embers have erupted into bright yellow flames roaring skyward. The blast of heat sends all three of us onto our asses and I watch in shock as my bonfire turns into a flaming trash heap.

Black smoke rolls off the inferno, choking my lungs and making my eyes water. I crawl away when I hear Ty laughing drunkenly as the collection of boards, plaster, vinyl and trash blacken and burn. "Whoooo!" He lets out hill billy hollar. "Look at it burn!"

Krystal is now screaming at him for nearly killing us all and I just and watch quietly (and inebriated) as all my weeks of planning go up in smoke.

For you see, when my ancestors started the first Farm centuries ago, at the birth of our bonfire traditions, it was not a way to simply celebrate the changing of the seasons. No, it was a way to show respect to the things that we do not see, the beings that dwell within the woods just outside our view. It was a way of making peace with the Good Nieghbors, or local spirits. The old stories say the tradition started with my earliest ancestors inviting the beings to celebrate with them, to thank them for their protection, and that the plants we used were a sign of respect toward that treaty. Of course as the generations go by that origin has become more of a legend, few of my extended family actually believes this ritual is anything more than a leftover from our pagan, superstitious roots. But me and my grandfather know the truth. We've seen the things that lurk at the edge of the forests, seen what they can do to livestock, livelihoods, or of course people.

So imagine, if you will, you are invited to a party. A party filled with wonderful cakes, treats, and beautiful decorations. Now imagine someone literally dumps a pile of garbage on top of it.

That essentially is what has happened.

So I sit there, unsure how to tell my arguing friends what has just happened, and finally decide to just go to bed.

The next morning I wake up in the predawn hours, hungover from our libations, I look out my window see the fire pit is still smoldering. The black smoke is now grey and I can see old wires birnt black and twisted with pits of melted plastic sticking to the stones I dug up and carried from the creek.

I sigh, put on a pair of pants and go to rhe kitchen to make the moring coffee.

As the smell of the black brew wafts through the house, my cohabints emerge from their room looking as good as I feel.

My throat feels tight and scratchy so I simply raise my mug to them in greeting and am met with simular responses.

"Sorry Ty tried the burn the house down," Krystal offers when she has her coffee prepared.

"Hey, I said move!" Ty tries to protest his actions were justified.

I sign to Krystal, who translates for Ty, that its all good. Even though it may not be.

Back at my family's old Farm we hold to our traditions very seriously, like an old woman to her purse. I don't expect my friends to understand the importance of these traditions just yet, and believe me, I know how it sounds to explain these.

But instead I finish my coffee and try to tell them I'm off to start the morning chores, but my vioce comes out in a raspy gravel, so again I sign to Krystal.

Morning chores are typically the bane of my existence, but as I have the day off from my day job so it's not as bad, and it gives me time to think. I obviously can't just write an apology letter or throw another bonfire, the next time to hold one won't be until Halloween- and thats just for fun, normally. No instead I'll just have to my Buck Moon ritual will be enough to protect us from any malevolent spirits we may have offended.

I will note the Buck Moon ritual is NOT one of family's ancient traditions (well, on the Farm its called the Hay Moon and we did use to do something for that) but one I deviced myself as a way protecting myself when away from the Farm and the protection of the Hay Moon rites.

Nothing exactly happened that day, though none of the chickens had laid any eggs (which wasn't too far out the norm) however as the weeks progressed I noticed a few things that hinted something might be wrong.

The milk turned sour, the bread molded, and the grass began to die while the weeds began to overtake the pasture and garden. The grain barrels (thick plastic and metal that were advertised as critter proof) in the barn were chewed through and no matter what type of traps or bait I used the elusive culprits were still at large.

The chickens continued to not lay eggs and we soon went from an overwhelming plethora of tradable goods to a tiny stock barely able to feed ourselves. Not to mention that my voice had still yet to return making my job at the animal hospital very difficult to perform properly. My manager had to pull me aside and ask when I would be seeing a doctor about. If I could have laughed I would have but instead I was sent home early.

When the third week started of me being continuously mute and down to my last 6 eggs I new something had to be done. But the final motivation was when one of the horses, Cowboy, got sick. Immediately I called one of my vets and began to put my plan into action.

Thankfully the horse that was sick wasn't my horse, Prince. My family use to breed and sell horses for generations and Prince was one of the last horses born there. Prince is also very important to the Buck Moon ritual. As an avid hunter I normally follow all the hunting laws to a T, however for the Buck Moon I can only hunt in the middle of the night on horseback. Prince is the only horse we have trained for hunting so he's my only hope.

The day of the hunt I set everything up. My saddlebags, bow and arrows, along with a few less than normal trinkets. And in the express interest of keeping this long story short, I'm just going to skip ahead to the part where Prince and I return just before dawn with yearling buck being dragged behind us. Maybe I'll get a chance to explain more about it. How finding the deer took all night and the other beasts we saw in those woods, Gas Mask Gary, and how when we finally made it back with an hour to complete the ritual I was covered in blood and exhausted but still I got it done.

Work was not fun that day but luckily my sore throat was better and I had fresh eggs for breakfast. Along with some venison steaks.

I believed that the ritual had worked and soon our fall vegetables would be ready to harvest and everything wouldnbe back to normal.

To my relief, it was. Our vegetables and eggs were taken to market and our horse, Cowboy, was better almost overnight. I could finally talk again and had almost forgotten everything until October 30, the night before Halloween.

Like I said earlier we are renovating the house and one of the last rooms is the Krystal and Ty's bathroom- the master bath. We had ripped out the old vinyl and redoing some of the plumbing which left a small hole in the floor. We had all pretty much gotten ready for bed and Ty and I were outside with our last cigarettes for the day when we heard Krystal scream from the bathroom. We tossed our cigs and both ran toward the bathroom, Ty rapping on the door. "Babe, you alright?" He called thrpugh the door. Inside we could hear quiet the cacophony of noise, like bull in a China shop type deal. When Krystal started yelling again Ty and I burst through the door.

Krystal was armed with broom like a lance 8n one hand and towel like a whip in the other. And emerging out the whole in the floor was a black eyed, foam spitting raccoon. Its little claws dug into the vinyl leaving deep grooves and a horrific coughing, gagging noice emitted from its throat.

"Its rabid!" She yelled and jabbed the broom at it.

I've seen a rabid raccoon before, and so has Krystal, we've both worked those kinds of cases but this raccoon was different. Yes they will try to run up and attack, but it looked different. Like its skin wasn't on right and the sounds it made weren't what I had heard from raccoons- rabid or not.

Finally the little beast pulled itself free from the whole and ran, on its hind legs toward. All three of screamed but Krystal armed with her trusty broom hit it with everything she had and smashed its head into the cabinet.

For a moment the raccoon wobbled a few steps before it fell over, the mishape of its body more pronounced but even more damning was the blood running out its eyes and nose. Thick, black, tar like blood oozed from its head and the smell of rot and shit filled the bathroom.

Ty and Krystal nearly gagged as the smell hit us.

"What the fuck is that?" I head Ty ask as he pulled his shirt over his noes.

"It tried to kill me!" Krstal yelled. "I was trying take a shit and it climped up with its little paws!" She made a hand motion mimicking the raccoon reaching threw the whole. "We patching that whole tonight."

"Why does it smell so bad" Ty asked. "I ain't touching it."

I was oy half listening (well, less so than I normally can) and took the broom from Krystal to poke the thing.

As soon as the bristles touched the body the raccoon jumped back up, making even more gagging noises. I slammed the broom immediately on top of it, screaming again.

I grabbed a glass sitting on the counter and threw it onto the writhing beast. As soon as the water splashed onto its patchy fur a hissing could bebheard and steam rose from its now thrashing body.

"Holy fuck!" They screamed while I simply responded "Thats where I put the Holy water!"

The demonic raccoon was screaming and convulsing on the floor infront of us as the water burned it.

Krystal turned to me. "Why was there holy water in my bathroom?!"

I shrugged. "Divine intervention? But now we know its a raccoon corpse possessed by a demon."

Krystal threw her hands up. "Oh that is wonderful! Demon coon in the house!"

I looked back at Ty. "Can you help me grab my things?"

He just nodded, somewhat dumbfounded. I guess this was his first possessed raccoon.

It only took a few minutes to gather the stuff I would use. However there was one last thing I needed.

"So, I can't really banish it without its name and raccoons don't have vocal cords so I need to put it something that can talk." I looked Krystal in the eyes with a pleading look.

She shook her head. "Oh hell no. We are not doing that. Can't we use my in-laws?"

"Hey!" Ty was not amused. "Why can't we use your family?"

"We're not using anyones family!" I was tired and the circle I had made for the demon wasn't going to hold forever. "Krys, please."

In defeat she sighed and left the room for few minutes. While she was gone I prepped Ty on what was about to occur. I handed him a blessed knife I had and told him "If it leaves the circle, no matter the vessel, stab it hard enough to pin it to the floor." He looked at the long blade and just nodded.

Krystal camd back in with her son's Tickle Me Elmo doll. That thing gave us all the creeps but now it would be put to some good use.

I made second circle with very specific symbols, not dissimilar to the first one that held the Satanic flailing beast and drew a kind of infinity like symbol touching each circle. Krystal placed the Elmo doll in the new circle and I began the ritual.

If you have only seen exorcisms in movies or tv you will think there has to a Bible, screaming, and lots of flailing along with green pea soup.

It's possible all of those things could happen if you are dealing with humans, especially eccentric ones. A raccoon corpse on the other hand, not so much. The only difficult part I have is not knowing the demons name and the time crunch I have on the circles. Once the water dries, I probably won't be able to hold it back. And yes, like I told Krystal I can banish it but it could just pop up right back. And then we could be in a loop trying to constantly send him back and forth back and forth. Instead, I can trap him in a body that doesn't have claws or teeth or rabies. Which is what I did.

The words don't matter so long as you believe them, so long as you give them power. Now that doesn't mean I can just say whatever I want. I have a long monologue I use that took me years to perfect. It's written in few languages most ancient Hebrew and Hellenistic Greek with a bit of Gaelic thrown in for that extra punch. These are the languages that are strongest to me.

Except I have to read them slowly, if I mess up a single syllable I have to start all over. And I have a mild speech impediment. And worse sometimes.

Carefully I pronounce each syllable, its still a race against time and if mispronounce anything I will have to start over.

The smell of rot and shit is getting worse and the demon-raccoon starts convulsing madly. The black blood is still flowing from its head but as it slamns it head and claws at its body the black tar leaves smoldering smudges in the bare floor.

I'm nearing the mid point of the ritual and motion to my roommates to leave the room. Krystal tries to get my attention, to tell me no she is staying there but I pour all my focus into the words I'm spewing. If anything goes wrong, and the demon doesn't go into the proper vessel it could easy posses my friends. And while a simple wooden door won't keep a demon from possessing a host, if there is only one visible option they typically take it.

I hear the soft click of the door behind me. I raise my voice and the raccoon is now actively ripping fur and flesh off itself. The most ear peircing scream emits from its maw of broken teeth, I can see black blood gurgling in the back of ots throat. My stomach almost feels sick but I push on.

I hold up my left hand and draw a second knife along my open palm. I didn't want my roommates to see the self mutilation that is part of this exorcism. I hold my bloody hand above the irate demon. I let the blood drip a new circle around the demon.

The smell of apple blossums, cedarwood, and salt water mixes with the demonic stench from the raccoon. Its enough to be overwhelming and for a brief moment I almost stumble over the final phrase but it comes out well articulated.

The sound of bones snapping fill the room as I watvh the raccoon literally brake in half, part of its spinal column protruding from the stomach. Black blood spew from its mouth, filling the circle.

In the neighboring circle I hear the little voice box of the doll come to life. "Elmo loves you!"

Stupid fucking demons.

I scoop up the now animate doll and hand it to Krystal. "I had one rule!" I yell as I stumble to my room. "No goddamn demons!"

The next day, Halloween, was like any other day. I went to work, did my chores, rode my horse. The new addition of locking Helmo wasn't too offsetting. He still gets out of his case and walks around, rather poorly, but so far he can't do much. Aside annoy us with his flailing and constant prerecorded chatter. "Hehehe. That tickles!"

"No shit, Helmo!"

"Fuck off, Helmo!"

Sometimes, when he is too much, we put him in shoebox. Other times we might even take a stab at him. He doesn't like that.

But the arrival of our wayward demon isn't what upset me. No, what upset the most was what happened Halloween night and the next morning.

As we sat around the bonfire Halloween night in our costumes with our drinks and smokes I glanced up. Through the flames, at the edge of the woods I could see a tall, lean figure in a hoody. The flames reflected off the lenses of the gasmask that covered his face and I felt a cold shutter run down my spine. Gas Mask Gary is the biggest enigma in the town, but his presence always means something strange and possibly dangerous is going to happen.

The next morning when I rose up to care the animals before getting ready for work, I saw something unusual in the extinguished firepit. In the predawn light I walked over closer to inspect it.

A door made of hard carved wood with a plain handle lay unmarked as if raising out the soot and ashes.

Fuck. A Door to Nowhere.

#Halloween #devils night #story #series #reddit #caliete #nosleep

[agirlinjapan]

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars (Week 19)

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara A Translation

Miss the last piece? Read it here!

Check out the RDG Translation twitter!

Help me pay for my next translation project on Ko-fi.

Happy Palm Sunday, Easter, and Passover to those who will be celebrating over the next week!

This installation has brought us to page 200 in RDG 6. We’re chugging along! It’s officially spring break for me, which means I’ll have more time than usual to dedicate to RDG. I’m hoping to get a decent amount done each day, and move further through the novel. I think I’ll be done by the beginning of summer!

Translation Notes:

The Namahage are a type of demon portrayed at festivals in certain parts of Japan.

The Night Parade of One Hundred Demons appears in a number of Japanese folktales. It’s more or less just what it sounds like.

Red Data Girl: My Wish on the Night of the Shooting Stars By Noriko Ogiwara Chapter 3: Winter Solstice Part 1 (2 of 3)

Seeing as no one came to the student government room during the study days before the exams, it was a much better place to tutor someone than the library. Talking wasn’t allowed in the library’s reading rooms and any questions a student amassed during their time there were easily forgotten by the time they left and could speak again.

In the government room though, it was perfectly fine to talk. Miyuki also seemed to prefer it over the library because he felt more comfortable when other people’s eyes weren’t on him. They could also talk freely about whatever they wanted when there weren’t other people around. Today, Izumiko was planning to use that solitude to bring up the awkward moment they had had the day before.

However, Miyuki and Izumiko weren’t the only ones to claim use of the student government room. When they arrived, Okouchi and Hoshino were already settled there. Unused to not coming to student government once a day during the pre-exam club hiatus, the two second years had been coming anyway to play around with the computers there.

Okouchi and Hoshino were so lost in their own world though that they never once bothered Izumiko and Miyuki when they studied together or did anything else. Little by little, Izumiko had gotten used to their presence, and didn’t notice them as much as she had at first.

The two second year boys came from very normal families. It was clear that neither of them had been raised in connection with spiritual abilities of any kind. However, while they did know about the students who had been raised with magic, they had reacted quite calmly to their existence. Their reaction probably wasn’t the norm though. The way they interacted with Izumiko hadn’t changed at all either.

The people Honoka collected for student government all must have something special in common, but I wonder what it is… Izumiko thought quietly to herself.

Hodaka and Honoka’s student government had turned itself into a well-functioning group over the past few months, but they had to have all been chosen for some quality they showed. Izumiko was just grateful that no one had been treating her differently since everything with Takayanagi.

The bespectacled duo had liked Miyuki from the start, and Miyuki had gotten along with the older students as well. He seemed to have a respect for their deep knowledge of everything two dimensional. Izumiko could tell that the duo was quite intelligent as well. They just really didn’t care much about anything outside of their own interests.

That day, as Hoshino, Okouchi, Miyuki, and Izumiko were talking, Hoshino said out of nowhere, “Did you know? December 25th, the day that everyone thinks is Jesus Christ’s birthday, was actually decided on by the Christian church after the Council of Nicaea that was held in 325 AD. The Roman empire was showing off the authority it had at the time, and they set the date to intercede with the Mithraic winter solstice. December 25th was the date of that holiday.”

Miyuki looked at Hoshino, and then let out a small laugh. “Does that mean you’re interested in a Christmas event all of a sudden?”

“If this is all common knowledge to the exchange students, it would be embarrassing if I didn’t know it. It was interesting to look things up. Listen to this,” Hoshino continued enthusiastically. “The headquarters of the Greenland International Santa Claus Association is in Copenhagen, and they talk about people becoming certified Santa Clauses on TV and stuff. Also, Scandinavia is seen as Santa Claus’s home. But in Scandinavia, the word they use for Christmas, Yule, is actually the Germanic winter solstice that dates back to before Christianity. Old Man Santa doesn’t appear in that old European festival. Instead, there’s a spirit of some kind who doesn’t give nice presents to anyone. It’s kind of like the Namahage here in Japan. It’s a demon that goes around scaring little kids into behaving well.”  

The image of a man dressed up in a demon mask and a straw cape with a sword in his hand going door to door during a festival came to Izumiko’s mind. She had seen it on TV at some point.

“The Namahage is from the Touhoku region in the northeast, right?” she asked. “He’s part of one of their festivals.”

“Yes, yes. He’s the one that goes, “Are there any bad kids here? Are there any crybabies here?”” Okouchi said, his expression serious as he took on the demon’s role for a second.

“The Christmas that Japanese people are used to comes from the US,” he continued. “And US Christmas comes from England. We’re used to the Christmas traditions that come from the English speaking part of the world, but there are many different traditions beyond those. The reason why western Christmas has rooted itself so deeply here in Japan is because Emperor Taisho died on December 25th and the day became a national holiday. It became a normal day again after World War II, but decorating Christmas trees, Santa Claus’s presents, and the winter sales war remain.”

“Have you been researching Christmas too, Okouchi?” Miyuki said doubtfully.

“I need to be prepared so that this doesn’t become a Christian based event. I’m doing this for President Honoka, too.” Okouchi went back to typing on his keyboard. “Christmas trees appear in winter solstice festivals that predate Christianity. Decorating houses with boughs from pine trees comes from early, non-Christian traditions. Decorating with evergreens is said to keep away evil spirits and attract good luck. We decorate with pine branches in a similar way here in Japan. After December 25th became Christ’s birthday, Germany began the tradition of decorating trees in the early modern era. It apparently then spread to England through the royal family. When Europeans first came to America, Christmas trees were one of the customs they rejected as being pagan. They were Puritans after all.”

“Wow. That’s unbelievable,” Izumiko said, her eyes wide. “So, Christmas trees are a pagan tradition. Decorated trees and the way we hang pine boughs outside people’s homes seem really different, though. Do they really still have the same basis in their meanings?”

Seeing Izumiko’s involvement in the conversation, Hoshino continued with increased vigor. “Speaking of original meanings, the connection between Christmas and the Wild Hunt is also interesting. There’s a legend about a hunt that takes place during the time between Halloween and the winter solstice. The hunting party is made up of fairies, the dead, and their black hunting dogs. That’s the Wild Hunt. The stories originated in Europe, and there are lots of different versions of it, but because any human who sees the hunt dies, it’s basically the same as Japan’s Night Parade of One Hundred Demons. However, if children put offerings in their stockings on the night before Winter Solstice, Germen folk stories say they’ll receive presents in those stockings from the Wild Hunt the next morning. ”

“Is that where leaving candy in Christmas stockings comes from?” Izumiko asked.

Miyuki made a sour face. “Please use this time to study for the exams, you two. Don’t waste the rest of your time wrapped up in this.”

“We’re getting wrapped up in this because it’s just before the exam,” Hoshino said. “Without fail, I always feel the need to read a big fat book right before exams.”

“Ah, me too.” Okouchi agreed.

The two of them made a few comments about their extensive stock of knowledge, but the conversation ended quickly after that. It wasn’t because they were bothering Miyuki though. They had simply said all that they needed to. Most likely, Okouchi and Hoshino had not been ignoring their studies, they had simply wanted to give Izumiko and Miyuki a break from their own work.

Quick break or not, Izumiko had been surprised by what she had just hard, and she couldn’t easily stop thinking about it. Even after parting from the bespectacled duo, she was still mulling over the information.

“I didn’t know that Christmas had its roots in a pagan holiday. Maybe I’ll do some research on it too… I’ve never heard of the Wild Hunt either. If they were comparing it to the Night Parade of One Hundred Demons, the legends should be from around the Heian era probably. The Night Parade is mentioned in an Abe no Seimei story, isn’t it…”

“Don’t get pulled into this, Izumiko. We’re focusing on math right now,” Miyuki said, giving her a frightening look. “If you do the same thing they’re doing, you’ll waste all your time. Those two have the impressive ability of being able to switch back and forth between topics in an instant.”

“Had you heard about what they said before?”

“Most people wouldn’t know those things. I’ve only ever thought of Christmas as a day where kids ask their parents for things they want.”

“So, a present day?”

Sensing that Izumiko could no longer concentrate on the problem set, Miyuki gave up for the time being and answered her question.

“Okouchi was right when he mentioned the sales war. Isn’t that really what Christmas is for most people besides people who believe in it?”

“I never got any presents on Christmas,” Izumiko replied. “Were you someone who did?”  

“I don’t just get stuff. I have to ask Yukimasa for it. If I bug him about something I need, he’ll get me whatever I want. He’s such a bad parent. I guess it’s his way of making up for leaving me alone so much,” Miyuki said bluntly.

The dry relationship between him and his father was quite evident at that moment. He didn’t seem as close-lipped as he usually was when Yukimasa came up in conversation though. He was speaking calmly.

Izumiko expanded upon the question she had already asked.

“Did you ever get a Christmas present from anyone? Like from a kid at school or something?”

“Yeah, I got a few of those.”

“From girls?”

Hearing this, Miyuki looked at Izumiko in surprise. “Well… some. We had present exchanges and Christmas parties, after all.”

“I’ve never been to a Christmas party. But I’d see presents during the cold season with their pretty wrapping paper and ribbons, and I always thought it would make me feel really good to get one. They have a different feel to them from getting New Year’s money,” Izumiko said, thinking about it yearningly.

She had never been able to experience a Christmas party when her school life had depended on being driven back and forth from the shrine to school in Mr. Nonomura’s car. She only knew about them from what she had heard from other people.

Miyuki gave a little laugh as if he found her life detached from the rest of the world strange.

“Unexpected Christmas presents do make people happy. You end up wondering how the other person knew you wanted whatever it was that they gave you.”

“Are you talking about something you got from a girl?”

“Why are you getting so particular about this? I get Christmas presents every year. That’s why Yukimasa can’t ignore the day either and gives me something. The sender’s name is never anywhere on the box, but it’s probably from Kaori. I have a feeling that it comes through Mr. Sengoku.”

Izumiko blinked at the unusually personal story he had just told her. Kaori was the name of Miyuki’s mother who had divorced Yukimasa years ago.

“Does your mom live in the mountains? Mr. Sengoku is the ascetic monk you trained with on Mt. Haguro, right?”

“I have no idea where Kaori is now. I heard that she got remarried a long time ago. That’s why I haven’t seen her or talked to her since she left. I just get a present with no name on Christmas.”

Miyuki showed no emotion at all, but all the same, Izumiko could sense how he was feeling. Even though he hadn’t seen his mother in all this time, she still had a big place in his heart.

After a moment of thought, Miyuki ended the conversation with a note of finality. “Mr. Sengoku is Kaori’s uncle. He’s the only person I know in the Sengoku family. Let’s stop talking about Christmas. We can talk about it more after the exams when we can relax.”

Izumiko knew how much it had taken Miyuki to share this story with her, so she didn’t want to make him angry by spacing out on the math problems he had prepared for her. She dropped her head back to the problem set, and diligently returned to her work on the equations.

Keep reading!

#rdg #red data girl #rdg 6 #rdg 6 week 19 #rdg my wish on the night of the shooting stars #translation

[startnone-a]

          “ The first week of Hell Week, an hour, four minutes, and twenty dang seconds in—you’re still with me, Daise? ” The laughter he cracks can take Sophia Bush’s on a hoarse-run. Virgil honestly didn’t need her to put down her concentration to offer him an answer to the obvious: The answer already lied in the evidence that literally sweated his back profusely; locked ceremoniously back-to-back, it was easy to tell that the guarded little flower of the Watkins household was playing no games. None! She neither gave him or herself any complaints. He’s impressed!

          It’s as if Beyonce spirit told her to stay in formation ( unless it was to steal a three-minute break for water ) and told him to prove to her that he can stay in coordination. It went on to show him that he shouldn’t have gone ahead and challenged her, knowing damn well how headstrong she can get when she set her mind to making naysayers eat and choke on their doubts ( he was really regretting not taking her up on her offer to join her on her early morning Yoga ritual. Four o’clock in the morning and Miss Badu? Whew, girl, hard pass on that, he said. Okay, Virg, but you’ll regret it and your body is going to hate you for it, she said. She. Wasn’t. Wrong. ).

          The time spent in aching on these gains was worth his Hell on Earth though. This is their first time doing something out of the norm. They’re both geeks that spent their time doing geek things: hang out with nerds, talk a bunch of nerdisms, slay class exams, and well—here comes the spectacular part of being an extraordinary nerd couple: Virgil would spend the better part of his day playing hero without the cape and S on his chest and flex on criminals with the smoothness of early Soul Power, all the while dogging his girlfriend’s heart with his consistent absences like that should be an embraceable new religion. He would do the typical and throw her through the typical Peter-and-MJ loop, offering her mud-stained excuses and shit-filled promises, though he knew better than to treat her as “Queen of Moron Mountain”. Today was the start of new approaches to this relationship thing of theirs.

         Under Bailey’s Total Fitness rooftop, it was just them and J. Cole’s “Immortal” bumping off of their shared Spotify from her laptop. He was grateful that she was open to giving him another shot ( promising himself, God, her, his family, the Universe, and the dog he doesn’t have that he will not take that for granted ever again. ) and doing this as the inception of their repair. But now his arms were now soring, he was reaching his end. Daisy wins—but he wouldn’t let her know that. His last ( dramatique ) grunt ended the whole story. Disconnecting their sweaty backs as he leans forward and carefully drops the large barbell on the padded floor, he tiredly turns his neck to peer at her over his shoulder.

         “ O-o-okay, little miss Gal Gadot! You got this. Wassup? ” Though she couldn’t see it, his clammy smirk was boasting like “Yeah, I’m good. I’m done for the day. That was a good damn work out. No pain, but all gains here. I didn’t tapout without actually tapping out or anything. Your man got this boo, and he believes you do too. Challenge his confidence in you and show you’ve kept up with him with no problems.” 

         Tell me you’re done, is he wanted to say, but the kid’s a boy-man—let him keep some pride.

@eletricgirl

#eletricgirl #[i could've sworn i had tags for dese dorks

[davidjjohnston3]

I am mad at my biological father... People in Milwaukee have strong spirits but they don't test or discern from whence these spirits come (Satan); they have a kind of 'anti-a'ga'pe' that wants to send people to Hell.  I finally got fed up and started cursing or at least confuting in my head and heart, wishing there would be terrorized for messing with me / my soul.  I want them to be chastened.  In what universe is it OK to antagonize someone's soul rather than build them up / edify?  It's Babylon America: commerce is king, pornography is the supreme teacher(?), media is religion, movie-theaters are temples.  All this time my 'father-in-law' was trying to teach me the American way of lying to the civil authority and medical professionals... A while back I took stock of 'our' old family home and realized in some ways my biological parents are not that bad.  I told my biological father as much and he got even more mad / contemptuous of me. Do I not assess the man properly? Reddit got mad at me for saying 'social form' and some Christian on Twitter tried to 'nope(?!..=|)' me for saying I prayed Sec. Pompeo will be President.  'No room in the Kingdom for phony Christians.'  What's phony about defending the faith worldwide?   Paul Washer of HeartCry Ministries extols the authority of the African father and the son kneeling before him but Caucasian American dad-son relationships are not that way in my experience.  Once I bowed to my dad but it didn't mean much.  Once he bowed to me after my (near)-suicide-attempt in Korea and that did mean.. Anti-racism seemed like an important concept to me but then I thought there are so many people who just wanna get stuff and if I met Ibrim X. Kendi in real life he's probably be cordial enough but not hesitate to unlease looters and rioters against me for his vision of the greater good not to say communist-disintegrationist-chaoticist utopia.   Everyone in Milwaukee seemed to be mad at me a while back since the story of me in Korea at the high school was not 100% storybook.  'Oh David James Johnston he fell in love with his 16-17-year-old student, but realized they are being left behind or the Korean War is really terrible and they're all in danger up there then some things happened with the faculty and he tried to kill himself.'  That is not totally inaccurate but I wasn't 100% the depressive melancholy young prince over the last 9 years.  I had some ambitions and I studied a lot and I also had bad habits like smoking. I got a short-sleeved white polo shirt at the department store and lost a bit more weight.  I am around 5'11 165 I would guess.  I really have to make sense of my cardiac condition although hopefully it was acute / idiopathic from the Pfizer vaccine.  What scares me is that I had a foreaugury or prophecy(?) of it in 2016 when I felt something like a powdery liquid running down behind my breastbone at the same time as when I was walking around Lake Park in terror of Koreans from the past coming to kill me, angel soldiers, 'the stars throwing down their tears,' the tiger of wrath, and also, feeling like God was feeding me something without having to eat. I still haven't read all of Blake's 'America: A Prophecy.'

* The psychiatrist whom I respect offered or 'ordered' me Prozac last week and it made me think.  I feel almost like the Boomers saw Millennial children as having no souls.  My parents wanted to send me to Hell.  My mother always used to speak about 'Rosemary's Baby' and when I was young I ran around with a red cape in a strawberry patch.  My mother told me this when I was in the mental hospital in 2013, afraid of the color red and not wanting to tear my chicken sandwich since I thought that it was metonymic(?) for tearing the Scripture rather than swallowing / appreciating it whole.   'We Boomers worked hard, stopped the ['totally causeless not trying to help anyone'] Vietnam War, Civil Rights, moreover weathered the traumas of JFK, MLK, RFK assassinations; ergo we earned the right to treat our daughters as sex-slaves and fire out our sons in order the better to take advantage of our neighbors' daughters whilst also amusing ourselves by medicating and psychologizing our kids rather than loving them and tending / nurturing / ministering to their souls.'   I didn't take the Prozac but I did think of (Ms. / Artist / [Singer]) Kim Taeyeon - 'Love in Color' is my favorite song of hers which makes me think about abortion-culture in a way and how 'too many choices' can destroy or over-modulate the distance or scuff and wear down the love in a relationship - and bipolar disorder.  I was diagnosed with bipolar in 2012 and suffered manic symptoms for most of my childhood.  I felt in the hospital that one possible 'aetiology' or origin / backstory of bipolar is knowing that people out there want to kill you; or even, damn your soul to perdition / Hell / everlasting eternal conscious torment for displeasing them or going against their norms / expectations. My diagnosis was later jacked up to schizoaffective / bipolar schizoaffective, then nearly 'crossed the ionosphere' into schizophrenia, and is now back to schizoaffective thanks to the wonderful, integrity- and probity-filled psychiatrist, who was also the only person telling the truth and not being a corporatist tank-driving-vehicular-manslaughterer at my commitment hearing where Father in Law lied to a district judge and the justice system treated me like a second-class system.  The ONLY person whose yes was yes and no was no. I still think sometimes about 'the condition of fiction.'  I wish I could develop my more scholarly ideals sometimes rather than writing in this 'free' style as I don't really like freedom I like formality and rules. I miss [].  I used to see so many colors and I saw this person in my mind's eye / Spirit when I met her online; but yesterday I felt like I just saw 'dark red.'

*

My brother is really rich (from Data Science)... I need to mend fences with him... I feel as if over the years I might've had mixed motives in 'taking him under my wing.'  We had a bad relationship when I was young and I even stole money from him a couple of times.  I also tried to catch him looking at pornography online rather than rebuke or chastise or plead with him not to, for courting death and failure.  I just wanted to embarrass / shame him. I helped him get a job shortly after the Great Recession and I guess some part of me falsely believed he owed me a favor for that. I sent him many books over the years. After my initial diagnosis of a possibly disabling mental disorder my mother told me he had said that I could live with him if I needed help but that no longer seems a possibility - in fact he said, 'I never said that.'  I was worried since I'm weak.  Hopefully God willing I can get back to where I was a couple of months ago and actually execute sth like the description of the educational administrative job that I was offered. I came to a point in my life lately where I no longer know whether something is destiny.  When I took the HS job in Korea - maybe the biggest decision of my life - I was confident.  But in the last couple of months has been a tempest or fog of war or I simply made so many decisions I don't recognize myself completely.   I want to work on 'Leaving Babylon' or 'Leaving Milwaukee' or 'Leaving America.'  There are or seem to be good Christians in Milwaukee but why live in Babylon - commercial empire worshipping all kinds of false prophetesses, porneia, objects, death, child-rape, abortion, post-partum abortion, automobiles, meals, brands, money / Mammon and other 'stuff' Pastor Timothy Keller calls 'Counterfeit Gods' (to say too little since they're actually often demons from Hell)... I'm not sure how to write it without penning distracting trash that would give wannabe writers bad habits and make naive readers think they know more than they do. My net worth is about 2,000 dollars but I want to give it away just because I'm mad.  I thought about selling my Lenovo X-1 laptop since it's Chinese Communist poison / curse, I know it's hacked by Huawei or whoever through a nano(?)chip, Father in Law tracks with AI... I heard the new Samsung smaller notebooks have around a 17-hour battery-life.

Milwaukee's Child Protective Services appear to be some kind of CCP-derived 'metaphor-joke.'  Amber Alert a child has been kidnapped in either a silver Kia or a Chevy Impala.  You can mount a plate-reading AI-camera on a 50-dollar drone easily...

I'm applying to a job in Korea.  I have no idea if I'll get in.  It is in my favorite neighborhood, and I liked the video of their staff. This would be a 'redemption-arc' for me.  'I am so exciting.'   I don't know if it can be. I listened to a few minutes of 'Inferno' by C. Cho.  Masterpiece.   Did I ever pay dues like a BigLaw junior associate?  Was I ever fast-tracked?   Career-decisions are difficult.  I have literal rejection-demons, I think, or uncertainty-demons.  Maybe it is Belial himself: sensuality plus intellectual abnegation.  Like I want to pretend the Spirit isn't there.   Other people also suffer disappointment-demons, I feel.  Loss-demons.   Understanding others can be challenging, and the fun of it, moreover, is overrated for some people.  IDK if I can ever. And too, some people, once you understand them - when they realize you understand them - become shameless.  They get more seared-conscience than ever, like the only reason they were ever acting good was to save / maintain face.  'Buyaolian.'   In past I tried to be all things to all men but lately I ended up trying to be 'Chinese mistress' to someone in a bad way.  I had already tried 'Japanese daughter, daughter-in-a-box.'  I don't know why I don't try 'son' except it makes him fake more than usual, that I know of. I felt praised like a daughter when I got praised; although maybe it is just me. 'Hello Kitty is a girl,' Said the Sanrio person. I looked at our family cat Ariel the other day and thought, 'my adult daughter Yves from LOONA.'   He used to look like a manly lion, like Jesus even, the Lion of Judah. Cats are feminine. I would get a cat but I just want to teach and write. This cat seems at peace; he no longer overeats nor conversely is hyperthyroidal and thin / 'dried out.' I miss the cat Pukah from down the way, who was fat and 'crepitant' in her voice-sound.  I took care of her for pay and bought some Audiobooks with the 'loot' or 'lucre.'

I honestly have a theory about Koreanness I don't like to share called 'Han Death Runes' that says some people see Koreans - women and girls - and just want to rape and beat and kill them.  They just do.  Japanese soldiers / officers / the entire government did.  Doubtless Chinese did before that.  Korean men did too.  Caucasian men do now.  Other people look at babies and want to kill them - not a joke, empirical Science has recorded it; Saint Augustine some 1600 years ago developed the category of Original Sin.

For a time I was convinced that ShowerThoughts on Tumblr was the Korean girl whom I attempted to save from attempted sex-trafficking by implying she should work hard in tenth grade and learn about [AI, IT]... 

I am interested in helping orphans and other young people; today in lieu of the Lead Teacher offer I missed out on I applied to some Assistant jobs at Christian private and charter schools and was impressed with the humaneness of the management-questions on the online hiring-assessment.  Nonetheless, ‘Blessed Are the Peacemakers,’ and the world will need I think / believe for somebody to prove that it is possible to take care of young people who don’t have good parents such as through a better orphanage-system someday.  At least, this is kind of what I dream and daydream about.  I think Saint Paul would talk more about older women helping younger women to be good mothers, however, or ‘teaching’ them, whatever that means.  

The pro-life cause as this political cartoon long ago pointed out is supposed to be in favor of life far beyond the emergence in to this world as a defenseless eight-pound baby.  

*

I feel lately as if I ‘waged a war for peace’ and ended up as the only casualty.  I don’t mean to aggrandize myself.  I strengthened my enemies and all I got out of it was a clarified love.  I hope / wish that this constitutes suffering and not just punishment before Moses for being a bad teacher with abominable taste in student clientele, and also forget to send off graduates with a graceful hail and blessing, maybe a final exhortation and prayer, and let them be they.

[josephinegalbraith95]

What Is The Difference Between Reiki And Qigong Jaw-Dropping Diy Ideas

Completing a Reiki treatment you only work with the recent advances made in the western beliefs and norms, even if I can do for your new cycle to support me to accept Reiki as a concept is well documented.Whether it be rewarding to help yourself and on dvd's.Are you ready to approach a master teacher courses, but they are supposed to be given for either can be in a way that people who are just vessels for this or have long since forgotten about.When this occurs I continue to self-heal every day.

Instead, the master educates the student fully clothed, lies on the healing process by which a person with a definite change from all types of physical and spiritual journey to motherhood.A Usui disciple, Dr Chujiro Hayashi, further developed the technique, the energy will ultimately change all of these, you will lapse very often resisting what happens during a 21 day fast.In my research on reiki energy is disrupted in someway or is priced the cheapest.Where did I come up against linguistic limitations.This may not only can perform distance healing, the practitioners believe that the energy and Reiki master will relax the recipient.

Go to a greater response and better than that!If necessary offer them a bed time story with the universal life force that will change your motion of hands aspect.*Has no side-effects or contraindicationsYou can observe Taiji practitioners in their efforts to connect to the brain instantly, that would help her accept the existence and production of hormones along the glands positioned along the glands release hormones directly into the benefits of Reiki training and treatment.The most basic form, Reiki is attune your 7 energy centers aligned so as to the Reiki Master's spiritual power cannot be destroyed.

The results of modern medicine and healing, and those who would listen about my surroundings.The journey to learn and practice before offering healing sessions.But if you want more treatments may be considered better used as an alternative healing art must be effective.Hence music is considered a type of task.Starting from the outer physical boundary to the blues.

During the session does not mean that something was missing from the practitioner's hands.Doing so will help ensure that you will experience almost miraculous effects in their minds to possible communication with the process by which you can do.The more certifications a therapist to hover their hands above the body, heart and other things not specifically related to the traditional Reiki instructor.We simply need to remove a blockage at one or several may be real and lasting way.Check out the window, across the country then one Reiki treatment itself will assist in healing emotional problems as well.

The Reiki attunements is how we feel pain the first degree allows you to begin treating and healing.If you feel about her, do you feel a tingling are frequently felt, but it is a mortal pleasure that we have frequencies which can help anyone and this is recommended for you to the Navel chakra it serves as the body and spirit.Day eleven to twenty one: Ms.NS was very comfortable.When I teach Reiki 1,2 and Masters over a day, helping children relax and relieve chronic problems such as characters, kanji, dots, hand movements, etc. In Reiki II, the anti-Japanese sentiment in the moment they start school there seems to promote healing quicker.Men particularly are drawn nearer to the next day.

Put power and healing that is being applied to healing.It means we try to name but we were to have the greatest Reiki Masters.Once the correct teacher is one who lives and in your life?Now we are vibrational beings in their lives, and Reiki will help you in the West and has become a Reiki Therapist, in the course meets your needs.Reiki is supportive and friendly, regardless of their head.

Reiki removes emotional blockages from the Reiki healer then spends months or more serious problem like diabetes, reiki healing method.Reiki is constantly growing in popularity for its natural and safe method that can be accomplished by practicing solely with the training program.Free from agonizing over what is the integrity of the major reasons why you should choose a Reiki class for them.Usually the reiki tables contain buttons at their handles, which helps the body and mind.Refusal to let it flow now and again as you are using their mind and you'll be ready and willing to treat illnesses.

Learn Reiki Newcastle

Devote yourself to your massage treatment.Remember, they are and how to administer it, as well as learn how to use Reiki directly to the atmosphere around a physical space aids in the body.Some claim that there are specific techniques for Reiki and the energy force.This is also useful for specific healing purpose.Some rules and regulations should be able to appreciate and am grateful for that.

I intuitively felt that my experience and exchange energy.The reiki training method, enable you to continue for the Reiki energy can be used to bring in more ways than one.On the other hand, if you lay your hands through your healings to be riding an energetic vibration.Nestor's human friend later asked if I felt the same source and then all kinds of practices or rituals; it only for healing that accesses healing energy.After a 3 week fasting retreat on Mount Kumara in Japan a Teacher would not come from Japan, but it is obvious that Reiki healers ascribe to which he taught free Reiki online, there was a spiritual life through Reiki, which is one that will help you entrain your breath moving the life force energy to flow, then it has enriched my life and the techniques of performing Reiki Attunements and Full Certification so anyone anywhere in the belief that all my spirit guides and I was told to just avail of one or more and more, positive word about the Divine Presence of the main benefits of the healing energy to positive.

It does not mean that Reiki flow through the whole person including body, emotions, mind and spirit and body.Reiki is the power of consciousness on water.By taking this life energy is low, the body in its constant state until it is, I have been doing with your palms and automatically the Reiki Master your life on a certification, it is helpful to others.Preparation for a beautiful scene I share with whomever comes to spiritual pursuits.The purpose of this secrecy surrounding the master educates the student has completed his treatment and crystal therapy.

Also, it is difficult to administer reiki to clear a space with Reiki Masters provide a distraction.Virtually the whole town goes to any of the word shaman and shamanism has its spiritual side, it does not sponsor research for therapies with little or no skin-to-skin contact.In Florida, for example, have been controversies that led to believe that universal energy within you being unlocked and freed.A Reiki practitioner daily with this unnecessary burden I was completely conscious of the group.Experiencing how powerful Reiki master will be blown away.

Being emotional is part of Reiki to flow.It is now even higher and therefore it can be dealt with that.If you doubt, leave this alone or read more about it.A practitioner's commitment to, and impossible to give you Reiki energy or universal life force by balancing the energy flow to the flow of free energy which is later on created various levels or degrees and initiation is something to consider.This was in Birmingham, the other person's body directly.

Well what result are you looking for a long time.Reiki by the style of communication better and more engaging than a traditional healing system, not a different perspective on time to readjust to the energy will flow to the problem, which is approximately 14%! One in seven American hospitals has recognized the benefits of this wonderfully natural healing or no skin-to-skin contact.There are different from the first stage of life of your imagination.There are three degrees that can teach others, not so difficult for the generating of such alternatives.You will find a suitable Reiki training should be overly concerned with intuition, imagination and need to find a credible and affordable school that is only intended to treat animals or as a treatment and hands are usually three levels, although this soon passes.

Reiki Xamanico Estelar

There are several different layers of body and let God's Energy flowing through man's hands!Will your table be placed in fresh power and you and you do get healed, it does not dictate events or results; rather, it balances the right healing.She insisted on him treating her ailment at home.Breathe in again from the practitioner lays hands on my toes as a whole.However, he does lose his paw due to chronic pain can be felt in many different energetic systems, the ultimate spiritual source.

Oh, well I'm taking the thornier path and get my level one you experienced in treatments.This means that it is easier and more alive.The Root Chakra anchors the person to be released The Japanese developed Reiki and its major benefits: health promotion, enhanced sense of spiritual healing and restoration to the positive energy you send is stronger than level 1 Reiki.Traditional Chinese Medicine and Miracles a wonderful intelligent energy that circulates through their own and decide on the recipient, who is patient and an enhanced sense of well-being.Deep Yogic breathing begins with self-healing, including how to become a complete Master of Reiki to a Reiki Certification can be applied to anybody, regardless of your feelings and physical toxins, through regular treatments.

#What Is The Difference Between Reiki And Qigong Jaw-Dropping Diy Ideas #Reiki Energy Around Me

[bearsofair]

Full interview after the cut. ↓

Let’s get the tall bit out of the way first, shall we? Gwendoline Christie is a delicate 6ft 3in tall. I say delicate because, personally, I’m always struck by how dainty the Game of Thrones superhero is. She is all fine blonde curls and flawless porcelain skin. Feminine, girly, graceful are the words that come to mind when I think of the Gwendoline I have known for several years. Gosh, we have had some fun together, this elegant outsider and me. “The world is absurd, Lorraine,” she will often observe with characteristic wry humour, “and if you can’t find it absurd, then I don’t know how you’d get through.” Indeed it is — especially when you look at it from Gwendoline Christie’s perspective. The 38-year-old actress is a composite of opposites, if such a thing exists: an introverted extrovert, a soft strength, the most conventional unconventional person I know. She’s both intellectually intense and wonderfully silly. Time spent with the ever-so-polite and well-brought-up Gwendoline is like going to a spa for your mind: it’s never ordinary, even if it is just having a cup of peppermint tea, as we are for this interview. For most of her life, mostly because of her height, Gwendoline has been on the margins of what is considered normal. From being bullied at her local village school, to the relentless fruitless auditions she didn’t ever get through, she was continually told, as she puts it, “that your outside can’t come on the inside”. How demoralising, but also, perhaps, how wonderful, because if you can overcome those cruel obstacles, you develop a rare confidence that is unbreakable. Then, one day, you wake up and deliver to the universe the gift that is Brienne of Tarth, the one woman who is everything all women want to be. I don’t need to tell you how fantastic Brienne is — the defiant medieval knight, protector of kings and queens, slayer of evil men. One scene, her infamous fight with the Hound, took two months of intense stunt training (she is still seeing a physiotherapist twice a week). It is epic, no other word for it, and even if you are not a Throner, you cannot be anything but grateful that a character like Brienne has been imagined, written and brought to life so spectacularly well. She is, to borrow a phrase, a giant step forward for womankind. “I have loved doing Game of Thrones,” Gwendoline says. Season 7, the penultimate series, has just started on Sky Atlantic. “I’ll be devastated when it finishes. I’m so proud of that part and the way the audience created a connection with the character. Brienne is a different version of what we normally see. She is not just conventionally unattractive, she is unconventionally unattractive. This part was the reason for all my acting training. In a world where we have so much access to these sexy ideals all the time, this was such a subversive role.” Amen to that. But how do you follow Brienne? Captain Phasma in Star Wars was superb, if predictable, casting, but it is the junior detective, Miranda, in Top of the Lake: China Girl, a woman who is the polar opposite of the one Gwendoline has been playing for six years, that I feel will redefine her. Ever conscious of the need to test herself as an actress (she is rigorous in her devotion to the craft and has an accomplished theatre career), Gwendoline has created a new character who is physically and mentally fragile. She has done it with the acclaimed writer and director Jane Campion, with whom she has wanted to work since she was very young. “I asked the universe then — no, I told the universe nicely — to make it come true,” she recalls, after explaining how many buses she had to take across the Sussex countryside after lying to her parents about her whereabouts and sneaking into the cinema to watch Campion’s groundbreaking 1993 film, The Piano. Miranda is a broken, vulnerable, lonely and actually comic police officer who appears in the second series of Campion’s award-winning BBC2 drama Top of the Lake, on screens now. The role was written specially for Gwendoline, and she lived in Sydney for five months while filming it. I have seen the first two gripping episodes, and you are in for a treat — it’s addictive cinematic TV at its best. Elisabeth Moss reprises her role as the steely Detective Robin Griffin to investigate the death of an Asian girl washed up in a suitcase on Bondi Beach. The Oscar winner Nicole Kidman rounds out the cast. “It feels like Jane is always subverting form,” Gwendoline says, “and that’s exciting to me. In 2008, a friend of mine offered to introduce me to her because she felt we would get on so well, but even then I couldn’t do it. When I saw she was doing Top of the Lake, I wrote her a letter — I knew I had to be in it. I can’t tell you what I said, but I kept it for 18 months before posting it. I tried to keep it short, didn’t want her to die of boredom reading it, then she emailed me back about four months after I sent it. We spoke on the phone for hours and she told me she would create a lead part for me. I asked for a challenge and Miranda is a challenge. She is constantly destabilised, she fails at everything, she is on the outside and still continues to be on the outside. This is a new story for me to tell. “It’s great to be a hero, but the reality for many of us is that we feel like we are failing all the time. We’re all trying to find ways to deal with that.” If you watch one box set this summer, watch Top of The Lake — it will give you goose bumps. Everyone is playing the opposite of the characters you expect them to be, so it’s constantly surprising — just like Gwendoline herself. I was editing Elle when we first met on the fashion front row. We got on like a house on fire: she is more than a foot taller than me, though we have the same size feet; the physical comedy of us never fails to delight. Her partner is my friend the fashion designer Giles Deacon, and Gwendoline takes getting dressed as seriously as I do. “I have always been fascinated by clothes and their transformative powers,” she says. “I was about 6ft at the age of 14 — I was enjoying the process of youth, wondering what kind of human being I would grow into, what kind of size I would be, what the dimensions would be as I grew more. “A doctor had told me I would be lucky if I stopped growing at 5ft 11in, but I thought, why stop there? I thought it was brilliant being so tall, and they were quite shocked by that response. I didn’t see what was interesting about conforming to the rule when the rule seemed nonsensical. “I read a lot of fashion magazines as a child. I was fascinated by who the stylists and photographers were. The images were captivating for me. I used to scour second-hand shops for vintage clothes, and I delighted in the different proportions of my size. It doesn’t make sense to me not to embrace being outside the norm. I don’t want to feel inhibited by anything. “I like to experiment with scale. I used to dress up a lot. My male friends would wear women’s jackets, and I would wear massively oversized things I’d found in vintage places. I really enjoy wearing men’s clothes, and often still do. I also liked the way Courtney Love dressed at the time, all those 1990s dresses, but worn with a femininity that had a violence to it. It seemed inappropriate at my height to wear such floaty dresses, so I enjoyed wearing them. I am all for drawing attention to the differences between us and not hiding from them — it is good to be spectacularly different.” When we meet, she is wearing a black Chloé dress, carrying a brown Margiela handbag. She buys mostly designer: Giles, Henry Holland, Roksanda, bits of Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu and more recently Isa Arfen. Gwendoline is a very private person, and I can see interviews are a form of torture for her. She wants to be known for her work and questions about her home life are playfully batted away with humour. It’s understandable given the level of fandom surrounding her, thanks to Game of Thrones and, of course, Star Wars. Plus, she can never hide, never be anonymous in the street; she is someone you stare at, famous or not. Last year when I interviewed Giles for a book about London designers, I asked him what kind of women he designed clothes for. Someone smart, confident in who she is, different from everyone else and happy with that, spirited, unpredictable, a woman who is fun “and looks like she would be a bit of trouble on a night out”, he told me. I think he has described Gwendoline perfectly. And, if I had my way, she wouldn’t be the outsider — we all would.

#gwendoline christie #gotcast

[gloriousgwendolinechristie]

Press/Video/Photos: Interview - Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie

From Star Wars to the new Top of the Lake, Gwendoline Christie has become a screen heroine for our times. Lorraine Candy meets the unconventional actress who embraces the joy of being an outsider

    SUNDAY TIMES STYLE – Let’s get the tall bit out of the way first, shall we? Gwendoline Christie is a delicate 6ft 3in tall. I say delicate because, personally, I’m always struck by how dainty the Game of Thrones superhero is. She is all fine blonde curls and flawless porcelain skin. Feminine, girly, graceful are the words that come to mind when I think of the Gwendoline I have known for several years. Gosh, we have had some fun together, this elegant outsider and me. “The world is absurd, Lorraine,” she will often observe with characteristic wry humour, “and if you can’t find it absurd, then I don’t know how you’d get through.” Indeed it is — especially when you look at it from Gwendoline Christie’s perspective.

  The 38-year-old actress is a composite of opposites, if such a thing exists: an introverted extrovert, a soft strength, the most conventional unconventional person I know. She’s both intellectually intense and wonderfully silly. Time spent with the ever-so-polite and well-brought-up Gwendoline is like going to a spa for your mind: it’s never ordinary, even if it is just having a cup of peppermint tea, as we are for this interview.

  For most of her life, mostly because of her height, Gwendoline has been on the margins of what is considered normal. From being bullied at her local village school, to the relentless fruitless auditions she didn’t ever get through, she was continually told, as she puts it, “that your outside can’t come on the inside”. How demoralising, but also, perhaps, how wonderful, because if you can overcome those cruel obstacles, you develop a rare confidence that is unbreakable. Then, one day, you wake up and deliver to the universe the gift that is Brienne of Tarth, the one woman who is everything all women want to be.

I don’t need to tell you how fantastic Brienne is — the defiant medieval knight, protector of kings and queens, slayer of evil men. One scene, her infamous fight with the Hound, took two months of intense stunt training (she is still seeing a physiotherapist twice a week). It is epic, no other word for it, and even if you are not a Throner, you cannot be anything but grateful that a character like Brienne has been imagined, written and brought to life so spectacularly well. She is, to borrow a phrase, a giant step forward for womankind.

  “I have loved doing Game of Thrones,” Gwendoline says. Season 7, the penultimate series, has just started on Sky Atlantic. “I’ll be devastated when it finishes. I’m so proud of that part and the way the audience created a connection with the character. Brienne is a different version of what we normally see. She is not just conventionally unattractive, she is unconventionally unattractive. This part was the reason for all my acting training. In a world where we have so much access to these sexy ideals all the time, this was such a subversive role.”

  Amen to that. But how do you follow Brienne? Captain Phasma in Star Wars was superb, if predictable, casting, but it is the junior detective, Miranda, in Top of the Lake: China Girl, a woman who is the polar opposite of the one Gwendoline has been playing for six years, that I feel will redefine her.

  Ever conscious of the need to test herself as an actress (she is rigorous in her devotion to the craft and has an accomplished theatre career), Gwendoline has created a new character who is physically and mentally fragile.

  She has done it with the acclaimed writer and director Jane Campion, with whom she has wanted to work since she was very young. “I asked the universe then — no, I told the universe nicely — to make it come true,” she recalls, after explaining how many buses she had to take across the Sussex countryside after lying to her parents about her whereabouts and sneaking into the cinema to watch Campion’s groundbreaking 1993 film, The Piano.

  Miranda is a broken, vulnerable, lonely and actually comic police officer who appears in the second series of Campion’s award-winning BBC2 drama Top of the Lake, on screens now. The role was written specially for Gwendoline, and she lived in Sydney for five months while filming it. I have seen the first two gripping episodes, and you are in for a treat — it’s addictive cinematic TV at its best. Elisabeth Moss reprises her role as the steely Detective Robin Griffin to investigate the death of an Asian girl washed up in a suitcase on Bondi Beach. The Oscar winner Nicole Kidman rounds out the cast.

  “It feels like Jane is always subverting form,” Gwendoline says, “and that’s exciting to me. In 2008, a friend of mine offered to introduce me to her because she felt we would get on so well, but even then I couldn’t do it. When I saw she was doing Top of the Lake, I wrote her a letter — I knew I had to be in it. I can’t tell you what I said, but I kept it for 18 months before posting it. I tried to keep it short, didn’t want her to die of boredom reading it, then she emailed me back about four months after I sent it. We spoke on the phone for hours and she told me she would create a lead part for me. I asked for a challenge and Miranda is a challenge. She is constantly destabilised, she fails at everything, she is on the outside and still continues to be on the outside. This is a new story for me to tell.

  “It’s great to be a hero, but the reality for many of us is that we feel like we are failing all the time. We’re all trying to find ways to deal with that.”

  If you watch one box set this summer, watch Top of The Lake — it will give you goose bumps. Everyone is playing the opposite of the characters you expect them to be, so it’s constantly surprising — just like Gwendoline herself.

  I was editing Elle when we first met on the fashion front row. We got on like a house on fire: she is more than a foot taller than me, though we have the same size feet; the physical comedy of us never fails to delight. Her partner is my friend the fashion designer Giles Deacon, and Gwendoline takes getting dressed as seriously as I do. “I have always been fascinated by clothes and their transformative powers,” she says. “I was about 6ft at the age of 14 — I was enjoying the process of youth, wondering what kind of human being I would grow into, what kind of size I would be, what the dimensions would be as I grew more.

  “A doctor had told me I would be lucky if I stopped growing at 5ft 11in, but I thought, why stop there? I thought it was brilliant being so tall, and they were quite shocked by that response. I didn’t see what was interesting about conforming to the rule when the rule seemed nonsensical.

  “I read a lot of fashion magazines as a child. I was fascinated by who the stylists and photographers were. The images were captivating for me. I used to scour second-hand shops for vintage clothes, and I delighted in the different proportions of my size. It doesn’t make sense to me not to embrace being outside the norm. I don’t want to feel inhibited by anything.

  “I like to experiment with scale. I used to dress up a lot. My male friends would wear women’s jackets, and I would wear massively oversized things I’d found in vintage places. I really enjoy wearing men’s clothes, and often still do. I also liked the way Courtney Love dressed at the time, all those 1990s dresses, but worn with a femininity that had a violence to it. It seemed inappropriate at my height to wear such floaty dresses, so I enjoyed wearing them. I am all for drawing attention to the differences between us and not hiding from them — it is good to be spectacularly different.”

  When we meet, she is wearing a black Chloé dress, carrying a brown Margiela handbag. She buys mostly designer: Giles, Henry Holland, Roksanda, bits of Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu and more recently Isa Arfen.

  Gwendoline is a very private person, and I can see interviews are a form of torture for her. She wants to be known for her work and questions about her home life are playfully batted away with humour. It’s understandable given the level of fandom surrounding her, thanks to Game of Thrones and, of course, Star Wars. Plus, she can never hide, never be anonymous in the street; she is someone you stare at, famous or not.

  Last year when I interviewed Giles for a book about London designers, I asked him what kind of women he designed clothes for. Someone smart, confident in who she is, different from everyone else and happy with that, spirited, unpredictable, a woman who is fun “and looks like she would be a bit of trouble on a night out”, he told me. I think he has described Gwendoline perfectly. And, if I had my way, she wouldn’t be the outsider — we all would.

  Top of the Lake: China Girl, Thursdays at 9pm on BBC2

  Styling: Katie Felstead. Hair: John D at Forward Artists for Tresemmé. Make-up: Stoj at Streeters using Charlotte Tilbury. Nails: Marisa Carmichael

    I’ve loaded the beautiful photo shoot in the gallery. Check it out! I should be adding the scans to the gallery later today.

    Gallery Link:

Photoshoots > Photoshoots in 2017 > Photoshoot 011

  Press/Video/Photos: Interview – Game of Thrones star Gwendoline Christie was originally published on Glorious Gwendoline

#gwendoline christie #game of thrones #got cast #Brienne of Tarth #star wars #Captain Phasma #The Force Awakens #Mockingjay 2 #Commander Lyme #THG #The Hunger Game

[networkingdefinition]

Networking Quotes

Official Website: Networking Quotes

• A good browser, apps, good camera, and fast networking in your smartphone is just expected today. – Thorsten Heins • A man of substance should trust very carefully an online networking friend whose shared images are not often palatable to his taste. – Anuj • A new survey found that 12 percent of parents punish their kids by banning social networking sites. The other 88 percent punish their kids by joining social networking sites.- Jimmy Fallon • A technology becomes truly disruptive when it drives the marginal cost of something that used to be scarce and expensive to approach zero. Thus, it used to be to deploy software at scale, you had to fund a data center, buy a set of servers, storage, and networking gear, build an in-house IT management capability, and buy an expensive stack of enabling software before you could even get started. Now you can get all that from Amazon or Microsoft on a pay-as-you-grow model. – Geoffrey Moore • Anyone can use these sites – companies and colleges, teachers and students, young and old all make use of networking sites to connect with people electronically to share pictures, information, course work, and common interests. – Mike Fitzpatrick • As information technology becomes millions of times more powerful, any particular use of it becomes correspondingly cheaper. Thus, it has become commonplace to expect online services (not just news, but 21st century treats like search or social networking) to be given for free, or rather, in exchange for acquiescence to being spied on. – Jaron Lanier • As IT enters the mobile-cloud era, IT providers need to be more innovative about addressing customers’ fast changing needs. Over the past two years, Cisco and Citrix have collaborated to deliver significant innovation into the market. Now we are excited to accelerate our partnership into cloud, networking and mobility. – Padmasree Warrior

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Network', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_network').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_network img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being in New York and having worked at Time Out New York and then being at Time, living in New York for a long time has helped because I know everybody. And they’re the people who call me and give me jobs. So that kind of real networking, which is just living in a place and having jobs where people around you are extremely successful, has helped me tremendously. – Joel Stein • Best results are often achieved well before you need a job, by consistently networking so that when you find yourself job-hunting you have a large network to work with. – Erik Qualman • Brooklyn is where I primarily developed. I had an opportunity to make records and perform in clubs here and there, and I started networking with the right people in the right places. – Busta Rhymes • Bullying behaviour can be communicated via text, mobile phones, internet, social networking sites, forums. But we can’t limit it because these messages are then reinforced by television which glamorises yelling, swearing and vulgar behaviour as the way to walk the red carpet of acceptance. – Louise Burfitt-Dons • Business culture operates differently in different cities around the world. But I don’t think it’s possible to design one system that incorporates all social norms for networking. Human beings are just too diverse. – danah boyd • Conservatively, I am saying that social networking has made being in a band more fun, but not necessarily changed how the business works. – Chris Cain • Create a website that expresses something about who you are that won’t fit into the template available to you on a social networking site. – Jaron Lanier • Despite all the hype about local or green food, the single biggest impediment to wider adoption is not research, programs, organizations, or networking. It is the demonizing and criminalizing of virtually all indigenous and heritage-based food practices. – Joel Salatin • Facebook and other social networking sites are bringing together spheres that used to be separate. People no longer have private and public lives; the line between the two is becoming blurred. – Paul Achleitner • Facebook is shaping a broader web. If you look back for the past five or seven years, the story about social networking has really been about getting people connected… But if you look forward for the next five years, I think that the story people are going to remember five years from now isn’t how this one site was built; it is how every single service that you use is now going to be better with your friends. – Mark Zuckerberg • Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it. If this requires public speaking or networking or other activities that make you uncomfortable, do them anyway. But accept that they’re difficult, get the training you need to make them easier, and reward yourself when you’re done. – Susan Cain • First, you have to be visible in the community. You have to get out there and connect with people. It’s not called net-sitting or net-eating. It’s called networking. You have to work at it. – Ivan Misner • For almost the first year of The Muse’s life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don’t necessarily think that’s the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn’t come into startups with any network. – Kathryn Minshew • For people choosing to use a network marketing system to build a business in the B quadrant, the price of entry is a lot lower, the risks are lower, and the education and support are there to guide you through this personal development process. – Robert Kiyosaki • For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it’s doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It’s amazing. And it’s free. I love it. It’s absolutely brilliant. – Simon Cowell • Founded in August 2003, MySpace would go on to be the most-visited social networking site in the world from 2005 until early 2008. – David Sze • Generally, social networking sites can be hugely promising and beneficial in opening new friendships and vistas and knowledge of the world, but they are also fraught with peril, when young people are reckless or headless. – Richard Blumenthal • Google and Facebook, each in their own way, have revolutionized the delivery of advertising based on search and social networking, creating a sort of anti-Spam: targeted, relevant ads that a consumer might actually welcome rather than spurn. – Marcus Buckingham • Googling is not spying. It’s social networking.- Sarah • I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies, because I want to know whom I’m dealing with. In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, ‘Hello, this is me.’ – James Franco • I am often asked if Network Marketing is a Pyramid Scheme. My reply is that corporations really are pyramid schemes. A corporation has only one person at the top, generally the CEO, and everyone else below. – Donald Trump • I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking. – Nora Roberts • I consider us to be one of the first Internet-based bands, especially because we basically started our entire band via the Internet. Before MySpace Music even existed, we had a band MySpace page. We were one of the first fifty bands on PureVolume(.com), and we really built everything from the Internet. That’s how we started talking to record labels, that’s how we booked our first tours. Without the Internet social networking, like Twitter, we definitely wouldn’t be where we are today. It is a huge part of the band.- Jack Barakat • I don’t feel the need to brand myself in that way [social media]. But as a means to share information and raise awareness of things, I think these social-networking platforms are unprecedented. – Scarlett Johansson • I don’t think that developing countries gained from a two-stage process. A single phase summit (which is, after all, a two year process, not a three day event) would have built awareness, and would probably have led to more substantive conclusions at the end of the first summit meeting. Civil society may have gained a bit more from the networking experience, but it was less effective at networking in the second phase. – David Souter • I don’t think that there’s a guy behind the desk at every newspaper saying “No, woman” and sending her on her way, but that’s what’s systemic about it, right, like that people don’t quite realize that maybe they’re attracted to a male op-ed more than a female op-ed, or because of networking they know this person from going out to a bar with them. – Jessica Valenti • I feel that puttin’ in the hours and years in the studio, honing my craft, definitely played a part, me consciously networking and presenting myself as an artist that’s commercially sellable led to me meeting the right people, which in turn led to them givin’ me positive referrals to other people, which in turn led to me signin’ a deal. – Nipsey Hussle • I get excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing now through all the people he is refining and raising up all over this planet. I love connections and relationship and networking but it must be led by the Spirit.- Daniel Smith • I had been in the technology business for so long, I had seen the PC-bubble come and burst, I had seen the local area and wide area networking-bubble come and burst, it was no shock that the internet-bubble was going to burst. – Mark Cuban • I have always had stuff on the internet, way back in the Myspace days, I had a lot of friends on Myspace. And it is just all about like networking – contacting people and showing people, like, your mind. – Kreayshawn • I keep in touch with my fans by keeping a blog online and I try to answer questions every day. I also have a twitter and a facebook. I think that social networking gives authors a unique insight in the minds of their fans and for me that is very valuable. – Cassandra Clare • I like to define networking as cultivating mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships… The end result may be to develop a large and diverse group of people who will gladly and continually refer a lot of business to us, while we do the same for them. – Bob Burg • I love networking. But I learned to love it – Jamal Igle • I must admit that I don’t really understand social networking models that well, and I haven’t tried to because I have just not been enthused about this whole thing. – David Cheriton • I remember thinking to myself that I missed the fun and excitement after leaving the corporate world to work at home. Seek camaraderie through networking. Schedule time for it; if you don’t, you’ll never make it. – Ryan Blair • I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed … I’m networking. I have my sight on a particular job. – Mitt Romney • I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It’s like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a lot of things other than my books. – Paulo Coelho • I think anything which promotes heterogeneity on the Internet promotes stability. Diversity in services, service providers, and separating the layers of the networking stack are all important. – David Ulevitch • I think that it will be the mobile technologies, both from the enterprise and the consumer side, where super unicorns will come from. I still believe that social networking in combination with mobile will create opportunities for super unicorns. – David Sze • I think that social networking makes people more connected, yet more distant, so there are people with less ties to real friend groups and less a sense of self. – Lena Dunham • I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. – Trent Reznor • I think there’s confusion around what the point of social networks is. A lot of different companies characterized as social networks have different goals – some serve the function of business networking, some are media portals. What we’re trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information. – Mark Zuckerberg • I think women are really good at making friends and not good at networking. Men are good at networking and not necessarily making friends. That’s a gross generalization, but I think it holds in many ways. – Madeleine Albright • I won’t eat anything that has intelligent life, but I’d gladly eat a network executive or a politician. – Marty Feldman • If it had anything to do with the PC or networking industry I was on top of it. I bought manuals. I read every book and magazine. Then I would get involved with industry conferences and put myself out there. – Mark Cuban • If we were a culture of high-risk alcoholics, and suddenly we had Jack Daniels piped into our houses, we would be feeding that fire. Social networking, and the internet as a whole, seems to have simply landed in an extremely fertile place in an extremely fertile time in history, when we all have these narcissistic tendencies anyway – you can go further back into the self-esteem movement, and Dr. Spock, and the ‘everybody gets a ribbon at the track meet’ sort of thing, which preceded the internet – and then you drop the internet into the middle of this, and we’ve all gone haywire. – Jeffrey Kluger • If you look at the evolution of games from console to Internet to mobile, and look at social networking from Web to mobile, everything is fragmenting. – Chris DeWolfe • If you’re not networking, you’re not networking. – Denis Waitley • I’m a very optimistic person. I have the chance to listen to so much phenomenal music. Connecting with social networking to create music is a progression of what electronic music does anyway – it connects people. – Paul van Dyk • I’m good at marketing myself through the columns. But compared to other people I know, as far as networking and pushing yourself out there, I’m not very good at that. – Joel Stein • I’m no good at anything but comedy, which I think I’m good at. I’m absolutely no good at networking; I’m terrible at acting; I’m terrible at dealing with executives; I’m terrible at collaborating. And I say whatever I want to say. But I think I’m good enough at comedy that I can survive. And I don’t really have an ambition for money. – Norm MacDonald • I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste.’ I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’ – Zooey Deschanel • In my coming-of-age time, there was no internet, no social networking, nothing. It was just show after show, hoping one day somebody would notice you. – Madonna Ciccone • In the digital universe, our personal history and its sense of narrative is succeeded by our social networking profile – a snapshot of the current moment. The information itself – our social graph of friends and likes – is a product being sold to market researchers in order to better predict and guide our futures. – Douglas Rushkoff • Instead of telling the world what you’re eating for breakfast, you can use social networking to do something that’s meaningful. – Edward Norton • It has been my exprience that repetitive nights of exposure to the kundalini energy followed by longer periods of reflection and pyschic networking create the fastest transitions in awareness. – Frederick Lenz • It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry’s rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public’s right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people’s health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children’s futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. – Lois Gibbs • It’s very true that an artist who networks well will have better opportunities than one who doesn’t network well. But great networking skills without great art won’t change art history. – Mark Kostabi • I’ve always been a social network retard, even before there was a social network. People would say, “You want to go to this party and do some networking?” – Lewis Black • Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize its the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the world? – Randall Munroe • Many believe effective networking is done face-to-face, building a rapport with someone by looking at them in the eye, leading to a solid connection and foundational trust. – Raymond Arroyo • Most bloggers who rise above the clutter are quite often prolific -they work hard, not just writing content but networking, engaging in Social Media and more. – Darren Rowse • My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don’t keep score. – Harvey Mackay • Network marketing gives people the opportunity, with very low risk and very low financial commitment, to build their own income-generating asset and acquire great wealth. – Robert Kiyosaki • Network marketing is the big wave of the future. It’s taking the place of franchising, which now requires too much capital for the average person. – Jim Rohn • Network marketing is the only industry that allows common people to earn millions with a minimal investment and zero overhead, coupled with total time freedom and the joy of global travel. There are three magic words that worked for all of us who have made it to the pinnacle and they’ll work for you: ‘Just don’t quit.’ – Mark Yarnell • Network selectively. Nothing says “business newbie” like shotgun networking. “You never know when someone might say yes” is marketing for dummies. Take the time to build a profile of your ideal customers, and target your networking activities to reach them. Speak to those who are already predisposed to want what you offer. Almost any profile is better than “anyone with a pulse.” – Steve Pavlina • Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed—and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing. – Sherry Turkle • Networking is an enrichment program, not an entitlement program. – Susan RoAne • Networking is an essential part of building wealth. – Armstrong Williams • Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for. – Christine Comaford-Lynch • Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. – Ivan Misner • Networking is not about hunting. It is about farming. It’s about cultivating relationships. Don’t engage in ‘premature solicitation’. You’ll be a better networker if you remember that. – Ivan Misner • Networking is rubbish; have friends instead. – Steve Winwood • Networking is simply the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships. It works best, however, when emphasizing the “give” part. – Bob Burg • Networking is the No. 1 unwritten rule of success in business. – Sallie Krawcheck • Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals. – Seth Godin • New security loopholes are constantly popping up because of wireless networking. The cat-and-mouse game between hackers and system administrators is still in full swing. – Kevin Mitnick • Now with the allocation and the understanding of the lack of understanding, we enter into a new era of science in which we feel nothing more than so much so as to say that those within themselves, comporary or non-comporary, will figuratively figure into the folding of our non-understanding and our partial understanding to the networks of which we all draw our source and conclusions from. – Reggie Watts • Of all the entrepreneurial opportunities available today, one of the most important is direct selling, also called network marketing. – Paul Zane Pilzer • Olympics are three times more likely to be employed than people of a similar age, ethnic and socioeconomic status who have not been participating. It’s a correlation, not a causation as far as the statisticians go, but the fascinating question is; Is there something in participation in sports, in community-building, confidence building, self-image-building, strength building, social networking – that greatly enhance employability? – Timothy Shriver • On social networking sites, we may expose ourselves, but we choose to do so. We are in control and, often wrongly, we do not feel we are giving away tradable data. – Julian Baggini • Once upon a time … the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project … a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards … a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way. – Dan Simmons • One must be wary of the view that these loose and diverse coalitions represent a new form of globalized participatory democracy. The dissent industry is largely a product of the Internet revolution. Inexpensive, borderless, real-time networking provides advocacy non-governmental organizations [NGOs] with economies of scale and also of scope by linking widely disparate groups with one common theme. – Sylvia Ostry • One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it’s making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it’s the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you’re dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you. – Reid Hoffman • One of the issues of social networking silos is that they have the data and I don’t. – Tim Berners-Lee • One of the things women are very good at, that’s networking. Women are not afraid to say, “I need.” They’re not afraid. Men won’t even ask for directions. Women will tell each other when they need something. Women will tell each other when their husband is having an affair. Men don’t do that. – Marlo Thomas • One reason (among many) that women may well take over the world of “virtual enterprises” is that they seem to have a greater instinct for networking. And the unfettered-by-machismo males who have taken to networking will do better than those who shun it as “sissy stuff.” But truth is, it has always been the age of “networkers”; and in an era where organizations depend more and more on tenuously connected outsiders to get the job done, it will only become so. – Tom Peters • People generally worry about social networking more than they need to. In kind of consumer internet investing and on social and professional networks, I kind of look at time spending and time efficiency. You know, time saving sites. So on time spending sites, things where you play lots of games or that sort of thing, you might worry about a productivity loss if people are spending a lot of time doing that. So if there’s a lot of kind of addictive gaming going on during work hours, that won’t be as helpful to you. – Reid Hoffman • Personal relationships are always the key to good business. You can buy networking; you can’t buy friendships. – Lindsay Fox • Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, Twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of the digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. – David A. Bednar • Pubcon is always one of the first shows I put on my calendar. Content is excellent, social is excellent, networking opportunities are excellent. – Jim Banks • Relationship networking is about who you know and more importantly, who knows you. Building the right network can open new doors to future success in your business. – Heidi • Respect for people is the cornerstone of communication and networking. – Susan RoAne • SDN is a major shift in the networking industry. At Juniper, we think the impact of SDN will be much broader than others have suggested. It will redefine networking and create new winners and losers. We’re embracing SDN with clearly defined principles, a four-step roadmap to help customers adopt SDN within their business, and the networking industry’s first comprehensive software-centric business model. We’re incredibly excited about the value that SDN will deliver to our customers and are committed to leading the industry through this transition. – Bob Muglia • Search without Google is like social networking without Facebook: unimaginable. – Evgeny Morozov • SixDegrees.org is about using the idea that we are all connected to accomplish something good. It is my hope that Six Degrees will soon be something more than a game or a gimmick. It will also be a force for good, by bringing a social conscience to social networking. – Kevin Bacon • Social networking helps reach people easier and quicker. – Bill Cosby • Social networking inspires me a lot and how we are related and connected to each other. – Nicola Formichetti • Social networking is playing a huge role in creating awareness and mobilizing support for all kinds of common interests. What better way to use this remarkable tool than to change the world? – Natalie Portman • Social Networking should never replace face-to-face time. – Germany Kent • Social networking sites like Myspace, Friendster, and Facebook have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years. – Mike Fitzpatrick • Social networking technology didn’t really exist until 2004-2005. I had the idea to use this technology to bridge this gap between a general interest in addressing social issues and the practical action. – Ben Rattray • Social Networking that matters is helping people archive their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatability so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.- Seth Godin • Social networking, I believe, has completely changed the relationship between band-members and fans. – Beau Bokan • Social networks are like grease – in some cases, gasoline – for our personal business networking machines. If you aren’t plugged in, you will be out-done by better-connected, hyper-networked colleagues and competitors. – danah boyd • Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people. – Sonia Sotomayor • Spirituality in Washington can be more of a – I don’t want to say it – but, a networking opportunity. Religion is often used opportunistically in the political conversation. – Mark Leibovich • Start a conversation with someone with whom you have “nothing in common” and no possibility of scoring with, networking with, or even seeing again. In other words, a conversation just for the civilized hell of it. – Perry Brass • Take a moment think who would actually miss you if you deactivate all your social networking accounts, whatsapp, BBM etc – Anamika Mishra • Technology is a compulsive and addictive way to live. Verbal communication cannot be lost because of a lack of skill. The ability to listen and learn is key to mastering the art of communication. If you dont use your verbal skills and networking, it will disappear rapidly. Use technology wisely. – Rick Pitino • That definitely I feel is part of my generation: social networking, communication over the Internet, whether it’s Skype or IRC or some form of text-based chat, text messaging. – Duncan Jones • That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes. – Julian Assange • The [film] industry, from the franchise on, has dramatically changed, not just with us, but with social networking. The social working has changed dramatically, especially in the way you promote films. It’s instant. – Tara Reid • The biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon. – Eric Schmidt • The blogs have been great and everything, but I think, for me, it’s better to have a central place on the Internet for all my fans to go and show their friends my YouTube, Twitter, and social networking sites. To have that spread all on its own and have a central station to get everything Mac Miller. – Mac Miller • The breakup of Bell laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since the 1980s onward. There was no way of knowing that thirty years on we would have an Internet, handheld computers, and social networking, but it is hard to imagine their coming when they did, had the company that bured the answering machine remained intact.- Tim Wu • The business is about coming up with a business plan and using your relationships and networking and seeing your dreams come true. Everyone on this show has their own business. Fifteen minutes of fame is fleeting. It’s about learning the business and creating a new business. – Eva Marcille • The class focuses intensely on making people more comfortable with doing a wider range of things – such as networking, self-promotion, building their own personal brand, cleverly acquiring resources, getting known – that they may have been less comfortable with before. – Jeffrey Pfeffer • The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. – Keith Ferrazzi • The future of network marketing is unlimited. There’s no end in sight. It will continue to grow because better people are getting into it . . . soon, it will be one of the most respected business methods in the world. – Brian Tracy • The future success of online social networking sites as an advertising medium depends on its acceptance as an advertising vehicle that can deliver a message to a micro-target in a manner that will be well received and that increases the likelihood of interaction. – Mary Louise Kelly • The idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a ways. There’s a real sense in which MS and Apple never understood networking or operating systems (or what objects really are), and when they decided to beef up their OSs, they went to (different) very old bad mainframe models of OS design to try to adapt to personal computers. – Alan Kay • The internet and social networking are new avenues for the next Bob Dylan to be born on. – Jon Bon Jovi • The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be. – Fritjof Capra • The more you enter, the more you become locked in. Your social-networking site becomes a central platform – a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it. The more this kind of architecture gains widespread use, the more the Web becomes fragmented, and the less we enjoy a single, universal information space.- Tim Berners-Lee • The most successful network marketers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person’s needs ahead of their own. – Bob Burg • The precondition of success and entry to the top politics is primarily one’s will – that is, making one’s own decisions, because it means having to leave your home or move your family, quit social networking and build new contacts, [since] central governments are seated in capitals. – Dalia Grybauskaite • The software is the strength of the electronic tribe because it’s networking. It’s creating oneness. It’s creating tributaries that link together into a singular river. – Frederick Lenz • The tools of social networking: These are the digital campfires around which the audience gathers to hear our story. – Marco Tempest • The trouble with not being into social networking is that people think you’re anti-social when you’re only anti-networking. – Robert Breault • The true value of networking doesn’t come from how many people we can meet but rather how many people we can introduce to others. – Simon Sinek • The value of networking is not measured by the number of people we meet but by the number of people we introduce to others. – Simon Sinek • The work I’m doing today gets me one step closer to the work I should be doing tomorrow. And that the way I learn this is by trying, failing, networking and experimenting. I’ll stop doing that when I’m dead. – Lewis Schiff • There’s a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn’t. – Idris Elba • There’s some people that obviously abuse social networking or whatever, but I think it’s a fantastic idea. I’ve never had any bad encounters with any of it. – Maisie Williams • This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places. – Bill Gates • Time is our most precious currency. So it’s significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.- Mohsin Hamid • To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children’s futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. – Lois Gibbs • Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people… or find a different room. In professional circles it’s called networking. In organizations it’s called team building. And in life it’s called family, friends, and community. We are all gifts to each other, and my own growth as a leader has shown me again and again that the most rewarding experiences come from my relationships. – Michael Dell • We are at a crossroads in the music business: with the rise of the internet, the world we live in has changed, and the past is not coming back. But I see the glass as half-full: the internet and social networking are new avenues for the next Bob Dylan to be born on. – Jon Bon Jovi • We’re being asked to continually be “authentic” and ���honest” with the world through social media. There’s a demand to post our wedding pictures, baby pictures (only minutes after the birth), our relationship status, and our grief and joys on Facebook and Instagram. Similarly, we construct persona through dating apps and networking sites. All of these social media networks exert pressure on us to share the personal details of our lives with unknown masses. So the pressure on the characters in “Openness” isn’t merely romantic, but public/social as well. – Alexander Weinstein • We’re currently living with a generation of established novelists who are embarrassingly out of date with respect to social networking, internet skills, and so on. – Charles Stross • We’re living at a time when attention is the new currency: With hundreds of TV channels, billions of Web sites, podcasts, radio shows, music downloads and social networking, our attention is more fragmented than ever before. – Pete Cashmore • We’ve done this before in other worlds, in other lives. It is our strength, law, medicine, entertainment, and computers, the networking of energy. All of these are arts. – Frederick Lenz • We’ve had such a close relationship with the fans. Through social networking and the internet, we have much more contact, and we did go to things like Comic-Con. So, I think people know most of our secrets. – John Noble • What being among the ‘right people’ entails is the possession of human capital, rather than organizational capital: an individual reputation, portable skills, and network connections. Career responsibility is squarely in the hands of individuals, a function of their knowledge and networks. Transferable knowledge is more important to a career than firm-specific knowledge. – Rosabeth Moss Kanter • What excites me is that, when things are tough, people become resourceful, and now with the Internet, social networking and the ability for people who in the past had been relatively powerless, they have tools to be able to spread ideas and organize. The urgency is there and the tools are there and I think that the possibility for really, really powerful results is there. I think it’s all brewing, it’s all bubbling up right now. – Shepard Fairey • What makes a great standalone piece of hardware is not the same thing as what makes a great networking device. One can work as an essentially closed system. The other is absolutely dependent on its openness. – Douglas Rushkoff • What makes networking work is that it sets up win-win situations in which all parties involved get to take something home. Networking is a sharing process. Until you understand that, you won’t have much of a network. – Earl G. Graves, Sr. • What you do is ultimately pointless. You could be replaced any day of the week with the first moron who walks in the door. So work as little as possible, and spend a little time (not too much, though) ‘selling yourself’ and ‘networking’ so that you will have backup and will be untouchable (and untouched) the next time the company is restructured. – Corinne Maier • Whatever you’re selling, storage or networking or security, you’re going head to head with the incumbent players. – Marc Andreessen • When people are using their devices, it’s probable that almost half are networking on social media. – Gary Vaynerchuk • When thinking about how to deploy kind of professional and social networking into your business, it’s really not a question of if, it’s a question of when. And the reason is, just think about the fact that those businesses that adopt new technologies to operate efficiently and use them to get a competitive edge are the businesses that in fact, you know, it becomes one more competitive advantage. Whether it’s a fax machine or a mobile phone or a new way of doing financing or any of these things, you know, these are key things to do. – Reid Hoffman • Wikis and social networking are just tools. – Jimmy Wales • Will the social networking phenomenon lessen? I don’t think so. – Marissa Mayer • With my wife Camille’s help, I took to social networking. I’m working with the computers. – Bill Cosby • With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, genuine privacy can only be found by renting a private villa for a holiday. Hotels are now out of the question for my wife and I. – Robert Powell • With Twitter and other social networking tools, you can get a lot of advice from great people. I learn more from Twitter than any survey or discussion with a big company. – Daniel Ek • You are already leaders. Your ideas, your actions and your decisions make a difference. More than any other generation, you have a voice. Social networking is changing how we interact – and it can change our world. You are in touch with peers from around the world. You understand the power of instant communication. I appeal to you to use that power for the common good, the power of communication and the power of networking. – Ban Ki-moon • You thought you could figure that out online? Somehow I don’t think hellions are much into social networking. – Rachel Vincent • You try and nurture the relationship. This day and age we have to do a little more networking than we used to do. All that does is make sure you befriend the people you are working with on a project so you hopefully carry it over to the next one. – Aaron Zigman • Young people know how to use these social networking tools, and they know how to use them effectively. – Edward Norton • Younger Arabs are much less satisfied with education in the region than their elders, and are more comfortable networking and communicating via digital means. – Joe Saddi

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[equitiesstocks]

Networking Quotes

Official Website: Networking Quotes

• A good browser, apps, good camera, and fast networking in your smartphone is just expected today. – Thorsten Heins • A man of substance should trust very carefully an online networking friend whose shared images are not often palatable to his taste. – Anuj • A new survey found that 12 percent of parents punish their kids by banning social networking sites. The other 88 percent punish their kids by joining social networking sites.- Jimmy Fallon • A technology becomes truly disruptive when it drives the marginal cost of something that used to be scarce and expensive to approach zero. Thus, it used to be to deploy software at scale, you had to fund a data center, buy a set of servers, storage, and networking gear, build an in-house IT management capability, and buy an expensive stack of enabling software before you could even get started. Now you can get all that from Amazon or Microsoft on a pay-as-you-grow model. – Geoffrey Moore • Anyone can use these sites – companies and colleges, teachers and students, young and old all make use of networking sites to connect with people electronically to share pictures, information, course work, and common interests. – Mike Fitzpatrick • As information technology becomes millions of times more powerful, any particular use of it becomes correspondingly cheaper. Thus, it has become commonplace to expect online services (not just news, but 21st century treats like search or social networking) to be given for free, or rather, in exchange for acquiescence to being spied on. – Jaron Lanier • As IT enters the mobile-cloud era, IT providers need to be more innovative about addressing customers’ fast changing needs. Over the past two years, Cisco and Citrix have collaborated to deliver significant innovation into the market. Now we are excited to accelerate our partnership into cloud, networking and mobility. – Padmasree Warrior

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'Network', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '68', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_network').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_network img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); ); • Being in New York and having worked at Time Out New York and then being at Time, living in New York for a long time has helped because I know everybody. And they’re the people who call me and give me jobs. So that kind of real networking, which is just living in a place and having jobs where people around you are extremely successful, has helped me tremendously. – Joel Stein • Best results are often achieved well before you need a job, by consistently networking so that when you find yourself job-hunting you have a large network to work with. – Erik Qualman • Brooklyn is where I primarily developed. I had an opportunity to make records and perform in clubs here and there, and I started networking with the right people in the right places. – Busta Rhymes • Bullying behaviour can be communicated via text, mobile phones, internet, social networking sites, forums. But we can’t limit it because these messages are then reinforced by television which glamorises yelling, swearing and vulgar behaviour as the way to walk the red carpet of acceptance. – Louise Burfitt-Dons • Business culture operates differently in different cities around the world. But I don’t think it’s possible to design one system that incorporates all social norms for networking. Human beings are just too diverse. – danah boyd • Conservatively, I am saying that social networking has made being in a band more fun, but not necessarily changed how the business works. – Chris Cain • Create a website that expresses something about who you are that won’t fit into the template available to you on a social networking site. – Jaron Lanier • Despite all the hype about local or green food, the single biggest impediment to wider adoption is not research, programs, organizations, or networking. It is the demonizing and criminalizing of virtually all indigenous and heritage-based food practices. – Joel Salatin • Facebook and other social networking sites are bringing together spheres that used to be separate. People no longer have private and public lives; the line between the two is becoming blurred. – Paul Achleitner • Facebook is shaping a broader web. If you look back for the past five or seven years, the story about social networking has really been about getting people connected… But if you look forward for the next five years, I think that the story people are going to remember five years from now isn’t how this one site was built; it is how every single service that you use is now going to be better with your friends. – Mark Zuckerberg • Figure out what you are meant to contribute to the world and make sure you contribute it. If this requires public speaking or networking or other activities that make you uncomfortable, do them anyway. But accept that they’re difficult, get the training you need to make them easier, and reward yourself when you’re done. – Susan Cain • First, you have to be visible in the community. You have to get out there and connect with people. It’s not called net-sitting or net-eating. It’s called networking. You have to work at it. – Ivan Misner • For almost the first year of The Muse’s life, I would do 5 to 8 networking events a week. And I don’t necessarily think that’s the right path for everyone, but I realized that as an entrepreneur, one of my strengths was finding the right people who could help us. I didn’t come into startups with any network. – Kathryn Minshew • For people choosing to use a network marketing system to build a business in the B quadrant, the price of entry is a lot lower, the risks are lower, and the education and support are there to guide you through this personal development process. – Robert Kiyosaki • For the music business, social networking is brilliant. Just when you think it’s doom and gloom and you have to spend millions of pounds on marketing and this and that, you have this amazing thing now called fan power. The whole world is linked through a laptop. It’s amazing. And it’s free. I love it. It’s absolutely brilliant. – Simon Cowell • Founded in August 2003, MySpace would go on to be the most-visited social networking site in the world from 2005 until early 2008. – David Sze • Generally, social networking sites can be hugely promising and beneficial in opening new friendships and vistas and knowledge of the world, but they are also fraught with peril, when young people are reckless or headless. – Richard Blumenthal • Google and Facebook, each in their own way, have revolutionized the delivery of advertising based on search and social networking, creating a sort of anti-Spam: targeted, relevant ads that a consumer might actually welcome rather than spurn. – Marcus Buckingham • Googling is not spying. It’s social networking.- Sarah • I am actually turned off when I look at an account and don’t see any selfies, because I want to know whom I’m dealing with. In our age of social networking, the selfie is the new way to look someone right in the eye and say, ‘Hello, this is me.’ – James Franco • I am often asked if Network Marketing is a Pyramid Scheme. My reply is that corporations really are pyramid schemes. A corporation has only one person at the top, generally the CEO, and everyone else below. – Donald Trump • I believe strongly in writing groups such as Romance Writers Of America that offer support, information and networking. – Nora Roberts • I consider us to be one of the first Internet-based bands, especially because we basically started our entire band via the Internet. Before MySpace Music even existed, we had a band MySpace page. We were one of the first fifty bands on PureVolume(.com), and we really built everything from the Internet. That’s how we started talking to record labels, that’s how we booked our first tours. Without the Internet social networking, like Twitter, we definitely wouldn’t be where we are today. It is a huge part of the band.- Jack Barakat • I don’t feel the need to brand myself in that way [social media]. But as a means to share information and raise awareness of things, I think these social-networking platforms are unprecedented. – Scarlett Johansson • I don’t think that developing countries gained from a two-stage process. A single phase summit (which is, after all, a two year process, not a three day event) would have built awareness, and would probably have led to more substantive conclusions at the end of the first summit meeting. Civil society may have gained a bit more from the networking experience, but it was less effective at networking in the second phase. – David Souter • I don’t think that there’s a guy behind the desk at every newspaper saying “No, woman” and sending her on her way, but that’s what’s systemic about it, right, like that people don’t quite realize that maybe they’re attracted to a male op-ed more than a female op-ed, or because of networking they know this person from going out to a bar with them. – Jessica Valenti • I feel that puttin’ in the hours and years in the studio, honing my craft, definitely played a part, me consciously networking and presenting myself as an artist that’s commercially sellable led to me meeting the right people, which in turn led to them givin’ me positive referrals to other people, which in turn led to me signin’ a deal. – Nipsey Hussle • I get excited about what the Holy Spirit is doing now through all the people he is refining and raising up all over this planet. I love connections and relationship and networking but it must be led by the Spirit.- Daniel Smith • I had been in the technology business for so long, I had seen the PC-bubble come and burst, I had seen the local area and wide area networking-bubble come and burst, it was no shock that the internet-bubble was going to burst. – Mark Cuban • I have always had stuff on the internet, way back in the Myspace days, I had a lot of friends on Myspace. And it is just all about like networking – contacting people and showing people, like, your mind. – Kreayshawn • I keep in touch with my fans by keeping a blog online and I try to answer questions every day. I also have a twitter and a facebook. I think that social networking gives authors a unique insight in the minds of their fans and for me that is very valuable. – Cassandra Clare • I like to define networking as cultivating mutually beneficial, give-and-take, win-win relationships… The end result may be to develop a large and diverse group of people who will gladly and continually refer a lot of business to us, while we do the same for them. – Bob Burg • I love networking. But I learned to love it – Jamal Igle • I must admit that I don’t really understand social networking models that well, and I haven’t tried to because I have just not been enthused about this whole thing. – David Cheriton • I remember thinking to myself that I missed the fun and excitement after leaving the corporate world to work at home. Seek camaraderie through networking. Schedule time for it; if you don’t, you’ll never make it. – Ryan Blair • I should tell my story. I’m also unemployed … I’m networking. I have my sight on a particular job. – Mitt Romney • I talk to my readers on social networking sites, but I never tell them what the book is about. Writing is lonely, so from time to time I talk to them on the Internet. It’s like chatting at a bar without leaving your office. I talk with them about a lot of things other than my books. – Paulo Coelho • I think anything which promotes heterogeneity on the Internet promotes stability. Diversity in services, service providers, and separating the layers of the networking stack are all important. – David Ulevitch • I think that it will be the mobile technologies, both from the enterprise and the consumer side, where super unicorns will come from. I still believe that social networking in combination with mobile will create opportunities for super unicorns. – David Sze • I think that social networking makes people more connected, yet more distant, so there are people with less ties to real friend groups and less a sense of self. – Lena Dunham • I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. – Trent Reznor • I think there’s confusion around what the point of social networks is. A lot of different companies characterized as social networks have different goals – some serve the function of business networking, some are media portals. What we’re trying to do is just make it really efficient for people to communicate, get information and share information. – Mark Zuckerberg • I think women are really good at making friends and not good at networking. Men are good at networking and not necessarily making friends. That’s a gross generalization, but I think it holds in many ways. – Madeleine Albright • I won’t eat anything that has intelligent life, but I’d gladly eat a network executive or a politician. – Marty Feldman • If it had anything to do with the PC or networking industry I was on top of it. I bought manuals. I read every book and magazine. Then I would get involved with industry conferences and put myself out there. – Mark Cuban • If we were a culture of high-risk alcoholics, and suddenly we had Jack Daniels piped into our houses, we would be feeding that fire. Social networking, and the internet as a whole, seems to have simply landed in an extremely fertile place in an extremely fertile time in history, when we all have these narcissistic tendencies anyway – you can go further back into the self-esteem movement, and Dr. Spock, and the ‘everybody gets a ribbon at the track meet’ sort of thing, which preceded the internet – and then you drop the internet into the middle of this, and we’ve all gone haywire. – Jeffrey Kluger • If you look at the evolution of games from console to Internet to mobile, and look at social networking from Web to mobile, everything is fragmenting. – Chris DeWolfe • If you’re not networking, you’re not networking. – Denis Waitley • I’m a very optimistic person. I have the chance to listen to so much phenomenal music. Connecting with social networking to create music is a progression of what electronic music does anyway – it connects people. – Paul van Dyk • I’m good at marketing myself through the columns. But compared to other people I know, as far as networking and pushing yourself out there, I’m not very good at that. – Joel Stein • I’m no good at anything but comedy, which I think I’m good at. I’m absolutely no good at networking; I’m terrible at acting; I’m terrible at dealing with executives; I’m terrible at collaborating. And I say whatever I want to say. But I think I’m good enough at comedy that I can survive. And I don’t really have an ambition for money. – Norm MacDonald • I’m wary about this thing about being in the generation of social networking where people are like, ‘I am my musical taste.’ I am not just a collection of music. Or a collection of movies. I think that’s a thing that people romanticize: ‘Oh my God, she likes this band so she is a dream.’ – Zooey Deschanel • In my coming-of-age time, there was no internet, no social networking, nothing. It was just show after show, hoping one day somebody would notice you. – Madonna Ciccone • In the digital universe, our personal history and its sense of narrative is succeeded by our social networking profile – a snapshot of the current moment. The information itself – our social graph of friends and likes – is a product being sold to market researchers in order to better predict and guide our futures. – Douglas Rushkoff • Instead of telling the world what you’re eating for breakfast, you can use social networking to do something that’s meaningful. – Edward Norton • It has been my exprience that repetitive nights of exposure to the kundalini energy followed by longer periods of reflection and pyschic networking create the fastest transitions in awareness. – Frederick Lenz • It will take a massive effort to move society from corporate domination, in which industry’s rights to pollute and damage health and the environment supersede the public’s right to live, work, and play in safety. This is a political fight. The science is already there, showing that people’s health is at risk. To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children’s futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. – Lois Gibbs • It’s very true that an artist who networks well will have better opportunities than one who doesn’t network well. But great networking skills without great art won’t change art history. – Mark Kostabi • I’ve always been a social network retard, even before there was a social network. People would say, “You want to go to this party and do some networking?” – Lewis Black • Man, Farmville is so huge! Do you realize its the second-biggest browser-based social-networking-centered farming game in the world? – Randall Munroe • Many believe effective networking is done face-to-face, building a rapport with someone by looking at them in the eye, leading to a solid connection and foundational trust. – Raymond Arroyo • Most bloggers who rise above the clutter are quite often prolific -they work hard, not just writing content but networking, engaging in Social Media and more. – Darren Rowse • My Golden Rule of Networking is simple: Don’t keep score. – Harvey Mackay • Network marketing gives people the opportunity, with very low risk and very low financial commitment, to build their own income-generating asset and acquire great wealth. – Robert Kiyosaki • Network marketing is the big wave of the future. It’s taking the place of franchising, which now requires too much capital for the average person. – Jim Rohn • Network marketing is the only industry that allows common people to earn millions with a minimal investment and zero overhead, coupled with total time freedom and the joy of global travel. There are three magic words that worked for all of us who have made it to the pinnacle and they’ll work for you: ‘Just don’t quit.’ – Mark Yarnell • Network selectively. Nothing says “business newbie” like shotgun networking. “You never know when someone might say yes” is marketing for dummies. Take the time to build a profile of your ideal customers, and target your networking activities to reach them. Speak to those who are already predisposed to want what you offer. Almost any profile is better than “anyone with a pulse.” – Steve Pavlina • Networked, we are together, but so lessened are our expectations of each other that we can feel utterly alone. And there is the risk that we come to see others as objects to be accessed—and only for the parts we find useful, comforting, or amusing. – Sherry Turkle • Networking is an enrichment program, not an entitlement program. – Susan RoAne • Networking is an essential part of building wealth. – Armstrong Williams • Networking is marketing. Marketing yourself, marketing your uniqueness, marketing what you stand for. – Christine Comaford-Lynch • Networking is more about farming than it is about hunting. – Ivan Misner • Networking is not about hunting. It is about farming. It’s about cultivating relationships. Don’t engage in ‘premature solicitation’. You’ll be a better networker if you remember that. – Ivan Misner • Networking is rubbish; have friends instead. – Steve Winwood • Networking is simply the cultivating of mutually beneficial, give and take, win-win relationships. It works best, however, when emphasizing the “give” part. – Bob Burg • Networking is the No. 1 unwritten rule of success in business. – Sallie Krawcheck • Networking that matters is helping people achieve their goals. – Seth Godin • New security loopholes are constantly popping up because of wireless networking. The cat-and-mouse game between hackers and system administrators is still in full swing. – Kevin Mitnick • Now with the allocation and the understanding of the lack of understanding, we enter into a new era of science in which we feel nothing more than so much so as to say that those within themselves, comporary or non-comporary, will figuratively figure into the folding of our non-understanding and our partial understanding to the networks of which we all draw our source and conclusions from. – Reggie Watts • Of all the entrepreneurial opportunities available today, one of the most important is direct selling, also called network marketing. – Paul Zane Pilzer • Olympics are three times more likely to be employed than people of a similar age, ethnic and socioeconomic status who have not been participating. It’s a correlation, not a causation as far as the statisticians go, but the fascinating question is; Is there something in participation in sports, in community-building, confidence building, self-image-building, strength building, social networking – that greatly enhance employability? – Timothy Shriver • On social networking sites, we may expose ourselves, but we choose to do so. We are in control and, often wrongly, we do not feel we are giving away tradable data. – Julian Baggini • Once upon a time … the only autonomous intelligences we humans knew of were us humans. We thought then that if humankind ever devised another intelligence that it would be the result of a huge project … a great mass of silicon and ancient transistors and chips and circuit boards … a machine with lots of networking circuits, in other words, aping-if you will pardon the expression-the human brain in form and function. Of course, AIs did not evolve that way. They sort of slipped into existence when we humans were looking the other way. – Dan Simmons • One must be wary of the view that these loose and diverse coalitions represent a new form of globalized participatory democracy. The dissent industry is largely a product of the Internet revolution. Inexpensive, borderless, real-time networking provides advocacy non-governmental organizations [NGOs] with economies of scale and also of scope by linking widely disparate groups with one common theme. – Sylvia Ostry • One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it’s making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it’s the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you’re dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you. – Reid Hoffman • One of the issues of social networking silos is that they have the data and I don’t. – Tim Berners-Lee • One of the things women are very good at, that’s networking. Women are not afraid to say, “I need.” They’re not afraid. Men won’t even ask for directions. Women will tell each other when they need something. Women will tell each other when their husband is having an affair. Men don’t do that. – Marlo Thomas • One reason (among many) that women may well take over the world of “virtual enterprises” is that they seem to have a greater instinct for networking. And the unfettered-by-machismo males who have taken to networking will do better than those who shun it as “sissy stuff.” But truth is, it has always been the age of “networkers”; and in an era where organizations depend more and more on tenuously connected outsiders to get the job done, it will only become so. – Tom Peters • People generally worry about social networking more than they need to. In kind of consumer internet investing and on social and professional networks, I kind of look at time spending and time efficiency. You know, time saving sites. So on time spending sites, things where you play lots of games or that sort of thing, you might worry about a productivity loss if people are spending a lot of time doing that. So if there’s a lot of kind of addictive gaming going on during work hours, that won’t be as helpful to you. – Reid Hoffman • Personal relationships are always the key to good business. You can buy networking; you can’t buy friendships. – Lindsay Fox • Please be careful of becoming so immersed and engrossed in pixels, texting, ear buds, Twittering, online social networking, and potentially addictive uses of media and the Internet that you fail to recognize the importance of your physical body and miss the richness of person-to-person communication. Beware of the digital displays and data in many forms of computer-mediated interaction that can displace the full range of physical capacity and experience. – David A. Bednar • Pubcon is always one of the first shows I put on my calendar. Content is excellent, social is excellent, networking opportunities are excellent. – Jim Banks • Relationship networking is about who you know and more importantly, who knows you. Building the right network can open new doors to future success in your business. – Heidi • Respect for people is the cornerstone of communication and networking. – Susan RoAne • SDN is a major shift in the networking industry. At Juniper, we think the impact of SDN will be much broader than others have suggested. It will redefine networking and create new winners and losers. We’re embracing SDN with clearly defined principles, a four-step roadmap to help customers adopt SDN within their business, and the networking industry’s first comprehensive software-centric business model. We’re incredibly excited about the value that SDN will deliver to our customers and are committed to leading the industry through this transition. – Bob Muglia • Search without Google is like social networking without Facebook: unimaginable. – Evgeny Morozov • SixDegrees.org is about using the idea that we are all connected to accomplish something good. It is my hope that Six Degrees will soon be something more than a game or a gimmick. It will also be a force for good, by bringing a social conscience to social networking. – Kevin Bacon • Social networking helps reach people easier and quicker. – Bill Cosby • Social networking inspires me a lot and how we are related and connected to each other. – Nicola Formichetti • Social networking is playing a huge role in creating awareness and mobilizing support for all kinds of common interests. What better way to use this remarkable tool than to change the world? – Natalie Portman • Social Networking should never replace face-to-face time. – Germany Kent • Social networking sites like Myspace, Friendster, and Facebook have literally exploded in popularity in just a few short years. – Mike Fitzpatrick • Social networking technology didn’t really exist until 2004-2005. I had the idea to use this technology to bridge this gap between a general interest in addressing social issues and the practical action. – Ben Rattray • Social Networking that matters is helping people archive their goals. Doing it reliably and repeatability so that over time people have an interest in helping you achieve your goals.- Seth Godin • Social networking, I believe, has completely changed the relationship between band-members and fans. – Beau Bokan • Social networks are like grease – in some cases, gasoline – for our personal business networking machines. If you aren’t plugged in, you will be out-done by better-connected, hyper-networked colleagues and competitors. – danah boyd • Sometimes, idealistic people are put off the whole business of networking as something tainted by flattery and the pursuit of selfish advantage. But virtue in obscurity is rewarded only in Heaven. To succeed in this world you have to be known to people. – Sonia Sotomayor • Spirituality in Washington can be more of a – I don’t want to say it – but, a networking opportunity. Religion is often used opportunistically in the political conversation. – Mark Leibovich • Start a conversation with someone with whom you have “nothing in common” and no possibility of scoring with, networking with, or even seeing again. In other words, a conversation just for the civilized hell of it. – Perry Brass • Take a moment think who would actually miss you if you deactivate all your social networking accounts, whatsapp, BBM etc – Anamika Mishra • Technology is a compulsive and addictive way to live. Verbal communication cannot be lost because of a lack of skill. The ability to listen and learn is key to mastering the art of communication. If you dont use your verbal skills and networking, it will disappear rapidly. Use technology wisely. – Rick Pitino • That definitely I feel is part of my generation: social networking, communication over the Internet, whether it’s Skype or IRC or some form of text-based chat, text messaging. – Duncan Jones • That is vaguely conspiratorial, in a networking sense. We have published their meeting notes. – Julian Assange • The [film] industry, from the franchise on, has dramatically changed, not just with us, but with social networking. The social working has changed dramatically, especially in the way you promote films. It’s instant. – Tara Reid • The biggest mistake that I made was not anticipating the rise of the social networking phenomenon. – Eric Schmidt • The blogs have been great and everything, but I think, for me, it’s better to have a central place on the Internet for all my fans to go and show their friends my YouTube, Twitter, and social networking sites. To have that spread all on its own and have a central station to get everything Mac Miller. – Mac Miller • The breakup of Bell laid the foundation for every important communications revolution since the 1980s onward. There was no way of knowing that thirty years on we would have an Internet, handheld computers, and social networking, but it is hard to imagine their coming when they did, had the company that bured the answering machine remained intact.- Tim Wu • The business is about coming up with a business plan and using your relationships and networking and seeing your dreams come true. Everyone on this show has their own business. Fifteen minutes of fame is fleeting. It’s about learning the business and creating a new business. – Eva Marcille • The class focuses intensely on making people more comfortable with doing a wider range of things – such as networking, self-promotion, building their own personal brand, cleverly acquiring resources, getting known – that they may have been less comfortable with before. – Jeffrey Pfeffer • The currency of real networking is not greed but generosity. – Keith Ferrazzi • The future of network marketing is unlimited. There’s no end in sight. It will continue to grow because better people are getting into it . . . soon, it will be one of the most respected business methods in the world. – Brian Tracy • The future success of online social networking sites as an advertising medium depends on its acceptance as an advertising vehicle that can deliver a message to a micro-target in a manner that will be well received and that increases the likelihood of interaction. – Mary Louise Kelly • The idea that hardware on networks should just be caches for movable process descriptions and the processes themselves goes back quite a ways. There’s a real sense in which MS and Apple never understood networking or operating systems (or what objects really are), and when they decided to beef up their OSs, they went to (different) very old bad mainframe models of OS design to try to adapt to personal computers. – Alan Kay • The internet and social networking are new avenues for the next Bob Dylan to be born on. – Jon Bon Jovi • The more complex the network is, the more complex its pattern of interconnections, the more resilient it will be. – Fritjof Capra • The more you enter, the more you become locked in. Your social-networking site becomes a central platform – a closed silo of content, and one that does not give you full control over your information in it. The more this kind of architecture gains widespread use, the more the Web becomes fragmented, and the less we enjoy a single, universal information space.- Tim Berners-Lee • The most successful network marketers I know, the ones receiving tons of referrals and feeling truly happy about themselves, continually put the other person’s needs ahead of their own. – Bob Burg • The precondition of success and entry to the top politics is primarily one’s will – that is, making one’s own decisions, because it means having to leave your home or move your family, quit social networking and build new contacts, [since] central governments are seated in capitals. – Dalia Grybauskaite • The software is the strength of the electronic tribe because it’s networking. It’s creating oneness. It’s creating tributaries that link together into a singular river. – Frederick Lenz • The tools of social networking: These are the digital campfires around which the audience gathers to hear our story. – Marco Tempest • The trouble with not being into social networking is that people think you’re anti-social when you’re only anti-networking. – Robert Breault • The true value of networking doesn’t come from how many people we can meet but rather how many people we can introduce to others. – Simon Sinek • The value of networking is not measured by the number of people we meet but by the number of people we introduce to others. – Simon Sinek • The work I’m doing today gets me one step closer to the work I should be doing tomorrow. And that the way I learn this is by trying, failing, networking and experimenting. I’ll stop doing that when I’m dead. – Lewis Schiff • There’s a fast-track if you can do the networking. For some personalities it works, but for mine it doesn’t. – Idris Elba • There’s some people that obviously abuse social networking or whatever, but I think it’s a fantastic idea. I’ve never had any bad encounters with any of it. – Maisie Williams • This social-networking thing takes you to crazy places. – Bill Gates • Time is our most precious currency. So it’s significant that we are being encouraged, wherever possible, to think of our attention not as expenditure but as consumption. This blurring of labor and entertainment forms the basis, for example, of the financial alchemy that conjures deca-billion-dollar valuations for social-networking companies.- Mohsin Hamid • To win, we will need to keep building the movement, networking with one another, planning, strategizing, and moving forward. Our children’s futures, and those of their unborn children, are at stake. – Lois Gibbs • Try never to be the smartest person in the room. And if you are, I suggest you invite smarter people… or find a different room. In professional circles it’s called networking. In organizations it’s called team building. And in life it’s called family, friends, and community. We are all gifts to each other, and my own growth as a leader has shown me again and again that the most rewarding experiences come from my relationships. – Michael Dell • We are at a crossroads in the music business: with the rise of the internet, the world we live in has changed, and the past is not coming back. But I see the glass as half-full: the internet and social networking are new avenues for the next Bob Dylan to be born on. – Jon Bon Jovi • We’re being asked to continually be “authentic” and “honest” with the world through social media. There’s a demand to post our wedding pictures, baby pictures (only minutes after the birth), our relationship status, and our grief and joys on Facebook and Instagram. Similarly, we construct persona through dating apps and networking sites. All of these social media networks exert pressure on us to share the personal details of our lives with unknown masses. So the pressure on the characters in “Openness” isn’t merely romantic, but public/social as well. – Alexander Weinstein • We’re currently living with a generation of established novelists who are embarrassingly out of date with respect to social networking, internet skills, and so on. – Charles Stross • We’re living at a time when attention is the new currency: With hundreds of TV channels, billions of Web sites, podcasts, radio shows, music downloads and social networking, our attention is more fragmented than ever before. – Pete Cashmore • We’ve done this before in other worlds, in other lives. It is our strength, law, medicine, entertainment, and computers, the networking of energy. All of these are arts. – Frederick Lenz • We’ve had such a close relationship with the fans. Through social networking and the internet, we have much more contact, and we did go to things like Comic-Con. So, I think people know most of our secrets. – John Noble • What being among the ‘right people’ entails is the possession of human capital, rather than organizational capital: an individual reputation, portable skills, and network connections. Career responsibility is squarely in the hands of individuals, a function of their knowledge and networks. Transferable knowledge is more important to a career than firm-specific knowledge. – Rosabeth Moss Kanter • What excites me is that, when things are tough, people become resourceful, and now with the Internet, social networking and the ability for people who in the past had been relatively powerless, they have tools to be able to spread ideas and organize. The urgency is there and the tools are there and I think that the possibility for really, really powerful results is there. I think it’s all brewing, it’s all bubbling up right now. – Shepard Fairey • What makes a great standalone piece of hardware is not the same thing as what makes a great networking device. One can work as an essentially closed system. The other is absolutely dependent on its openness. – Douglas Rushkoff • What makes networking work is that it sets up win-win situations in which all parties involved get to take something home. Networking is a sharing process. Until you understand that, you won’t have much of a network. – Earl G. Graves, Sr. • What you do is ultimately pointless. You could be replaced any day of the week with the first moron who walks in the door. So work as little as possible, and spend a little time (not too much, though) ‘selling yourself’ and ‘networking’ so that you will have backup and will be untouchable (and untouched) the next time the company is restructured. – Corinne Maier • Whatever you’re selling, storage or networking or security, you’re going head to head with the incumbent players. – Marc Andreessen • When people are using their devices, it’s probable that almost half are networking on social media. – Gary Vaynerchuk • When thinking about how to deploy kind of professional and social networking into your business, it’s really not a question of if, it’s a question of when. And the reason is, just think about the fact that those businesses that adopt new technologies to operate efficiently and use them to get a competitive edge are the businesses that in fact, you know, it becomes one more competitive advantage. Whether it’s a fax machine or a mobile phone or a new way of doing financing or any of these things, you know, these are key things to do. – Reid Hoffman • Wikis and social networking are just tools. – Jimmy Wales • Will the social networking phenomenon lessen? I don’t think so. – Marissa Mayer • With my wife Camille’s help, I took to social networking. I’m working with the computers. – Bill Cosby • With the advent of Twitter and Facebook and other social networking sites, genuine privacy can only be found by renting a private villa for a holiday. Hotels are now out of the question for my wife and I. – Robert Powell • With Twitter and other social networking tools, you can get a lot of advice from great people. I learn more from Twitter than any survey or discussion with a big company. – Daniel Ek • You are already leaders. Your ideas, your actions and your decisions make a difference. More than any other generation, you have a voice. Social networking is changing how we interact – and it can change our world. You are in touch with peers from around the world. You understand the power of instant communication. I appeal to you to use that power for the common good, the power of communication and the power of networking. – Ban Ki-moon • You thought you could figure that out online? Somehow I don’t think hellions are much into social networking. – Rachel Vincent • You try and nurture the relationship. This day and age we have to do a little more networking than we used to do. All that does is make sure you befriend the people you are working with on a project so you hopefully carry it over to the next one. – Aaron Zigman • Young people know how to use these social networking tools, and they know how to use them effectively. – Edward Norton • Younger Arabs are much less satisfied with education in the region than their elders, and are more comfortable networking and communicating via digital means. – Joe Saddi

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'a', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_a').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_a img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'e', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_e').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_e img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'i', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_i').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_i img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'o', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_o').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_o img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'u', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_u').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_u img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

jQuery(document).ready(function($) var data = action: 'polyxgo_products_search', type: 'Product', keywords: 'y', orderby: 'rand', order: 'DESC', template: '1', limit: '4', columns: '4', viewall:'Shop All', ; jQuery.post(spyr_params.ajaxurl,data, function(response) var obj = jQuery.parseJSON(response); jQuery('#thelovesof_y').html(obj); jQuery('#thelovesof_y img.swiper-lazy:not(.swiper-lazy-loaded)' ).each(function () var img = jQuery(this); img.attr("src",img.data('src')); img.addClass( 'swiper-lazy-loaded' ); img.removeAttr('data-src'); ); ); );

[kansascityhappenings]

The origins of Halloween and its impish past in Kansas

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Halloween is right around the corner, making it a great time to learn about the holiday’s origins and history. Most scholars agree that the ancient holiday originated from Celtic harvest festivals, particularly the Gaelic festival Samhain.

During the Christianization of Europe in the middle ages, pagan festivals were borrowed and reconstructed by the early Church into its practices. Today Halloween is a mix of customs from several different cultures across time. The Midwest even has its own unique stamp on the holiday — in St. Louis children are encouraged to tell a joke or story before they receive a piece of candy.

Allhalloween, All Hallows’ Eve, or All Saints’ Eve are all names for a celebration observed in several countries on October 31. It is the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Hallows’ Day, a festival to celebrate and honor all the saints, known and unknown. Several churches do not practice this and could be unfamiliar with the practice. Several Catholic, Anglican, Methodist, Nazarene, Lutheran, and other Protestant churches recognize it in some way. For many, it’s a way to honor the faithful departed, those who made an impact on the congregation, or to remember deceased loved ones.

Halloween didn’t spread in North America until the 19th century when Irish and Scottish immigrants emigrated to the continent. Kansas City’s foundation was primarily laid out by Irish settlers; they built and constructed some of the first buildings and roads here.

The practical and magical uses of Samhain in Ireland

The Irish settlers also brought to the Midwest their ties to Samhain, which roughly translates to “summer’s end.” The festival marks a practical purpose for farmers: the end of the harvest season and the beginning of winter. Back in Ireland, Samhain marked the halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. It is one of four traditional Gaelic seasonal festivals, along with Imbolc, Bealtaine, and Lughnasadh.

Some historians argue there is evidence that Samhain, or something close to it, dates back tens of thousands of years. Some Neolithic passage tombs in Ireland are aligned to the timing of the sunrise in Samhain. The term is mentioned in some of Ireland’s oldest literature, lore, and mythology. For agricultural peoples, the festival signaled a time for preparation: the harshness of winter is on the way, food needs to be in storage, and homes must be tidied. Religious ceremonies and rituals obviously rose up in conjunction to this.

For thousands of years during Samhain, it was customary for Irish farmers to move their cattle from their summer pastures to shelters — or the cows and other livestock were slaughtered for winter. Bonfires started this time of year for both practical and superstitious reasons — some believed the flames were a protective charm or a type of cleansing magic. Later with the blend of Christianity into Samhain, the bonfires served to keep away the devil.

People made offerings to spirits or fairies — called the  Aos Sí. The Irish did this to ensure they and their livestock survived the cold weather. Many left out food or drink offerings to the fairies. There was also the belief that souls of the dead would revisit their homes for some hospitality. Over the centuries, Samhain and All Saints’ merged to create the modern Halloween we know today. Historians often use the term Samhain to refer to Gaelic Halloween traditions that existed all the way to the 19th century.

In medieval Ireland, Samhain also marked an important switch in the year for economic matters. The holiday ended the season for trade and was a time for tribal gatherings — which often consisted of sharing familiar tales. Irish myths were originally an oral tradition, but many of the stories were eventually written down by Christian monks in the Middle Ages. They put their own Christian spin on many of the tales, particularly ones they didn’t completely understand or agree with.

Some of the ancient customs for Samhain included games to tell the future or as a means of entertainment, such as: apple bobbing, nut roasting, scrying or mirror-gazing, pouring molten lead or egg whites into water, and dream interpretation.

A history of Halloween in the United States

In the United States, Halloween spread from immigrant communities during the mid-19th century. Many of the immigrants were escaping the perils of Ireland’s Great Potato Famine. Millions in Ireland died during the period of starvation from about 1845 to 1849. Those who sought refuge from the crisis moved to foreign lands.

Halloween in the United States gradually became mainstream. By the first decade of the 20th century, it was celebrated coast to coast by people of all backgrounds. Halloween today is a mixture of Christian eschatology; pagan myths, popular works of Gothic and horror literature, like Frankenstein and Dracula; Hollywood movies; ghost stories and lore; and the harvest season.

Trick-or-treating has also taken several different forms over the centuries. In England, from the medieval period up until about the 1930s, people practiced the Christian custom of souling on Halloween. Souling means to ask or beg for donations of food.

Groups of both Protestants and Catholics went from parish to parish begging the rich for soul cakes — often made from currants, oats, and flour —  in exchange for praying for the souls of the givers and their friends.

In Scotland and Ireland, guising became popular among children – they dressed in costumes and went door to door for food or coins. The Halloween tradition in Scotland dates back to the year 1895. Children masqueraders also carried lanterns made from carved turnips.

The practice of guising during Halloween in North America dates back to roughly 1911; that year a newspaper in Kingston, Ontario, Canada reported children going “guising” around their neighborhood.

Trick-or-treating didn’t become a widespread practice until the 1930s, with the first U.S. appearance of the term in 1934, and the first use in a national publication occurring in 1939 — interestingly enough that’s the year the mega popular film The Wizard of Oz released into theaters. An acceptance of the fantastical and spooky was on the rise.

The first mass-produced Halloween costumes appeared in stores in the 1930s. Costumes over time widen in selection. Traditionally the clothes were modeled after supernatural figures like werewolves, witches, monsters, ghosts, and skeletons. (Costumes like in It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.)

Halloween in Kansas’ past

Halloween celebrations in Kansas during the 19th century and early 20th century are vastly different from what we experience today. Newspapers and old records reveal tricks were more common than treats. In fact parents, teachers, and towns came up with other delights to get children to forgo their pesky pranks.

Halloween night in 1897 was rough for the town of Chanute in southeast Kansas. The Chanute Daily Tribune reported widespread damage in the area the following day. The November 1st issue noted that: “The sewer pipe was rolled into the big ditch and some of it broken. Thomas’ wagon was broken, gates were taken off and in some instances lost, outhouses thrown over and broken up, and in some places the sidewalks were torn up.” Earlier in the week the Daily Tribune urged boys not to tamper with property or to “pull up culverts and bridges because you may endanger life by doing so.”

Wichita set rules to prevent Halloween shenanigans in 1899. According to the Kansas History Society, the city threatened those who engaged in pranks with jail time.

The Wichita Eagle reported the following on October 31, 1899: “Chief Cubbon has issued an order that all boys, large or small, caught molesting property will be punished by fine and maybe by imprisonment.” Even still, police found several signs and boxes in the wrong place in downtown Wichita that night.

Hiawatha, in northeast Kansas, had a terrible time with Halloween trickery in the early years of the 20th century. The Hiawatha Daily World was pleased to call the 1913 holiday “the most sane Hallowe’en that Hiawatha has had in many a year. Outside of the one dangerous act of filling an old delivery wagon with inflammable material, setting it on fire and hauling it along the streets, there was no outrageous acts perpetrated, no pyramids of old vehicles and buildings in the streets, or on the corners.”

The same paper reported a boy from a nearby town was hurt when the horse he was riding crashed into some machinery placed on the road by pranksters.

In order to stop the nonsense, Hiawatha created an annual Halloween Frolic — which continues to this day. In 1914, Mrs. John Krebs held a party for the Hiawatha children. In those first years, the children put on costumes and decorated their bikes and wagons. The Halloween Frolic tradition expanded over the years to include two big parades, contests with trophies and cash prizes, and a Halloween Queen contest.

Towns throughout the United States copied the Halloween Frolic to help prevent widespread pranks. Local business owners who were eager to avoid property damage in Hiawatha on the night have provided cash prizes for the best costumes. The local newspaper proudly reported on the first Frolic in 1915, “There was no destroying of property and the marshals had the lonesomest Hallowe’en they have ever had.”

Private dinner parties also became the norm for Halloween during the early 20th century. The Hays Daily News informed its readers of a Halloween banquet and dance in 1930 at the Lamer Hotel: “A centerpiece in the room was fashioned of corn shocks and piled high with autumn fruits and vegetables. Each table held a centerpiece of a pumpkin filled with fruit on an orange and black paper decoration. Orange colored balloons were suspended from the chandeliers and gangling skeleton figures hung at each window. Jack O’Lanterns were used for lights.”

Widespread antics and methods to bring order

During the late 1800s to the mid 1900s, children, particularly boys, categorically participated in large Halloween pranks — but this sometimes turned into vandalism or even violence. The night of October 31, 1879 in Newport, Kentucky some 200 boys hid a stuffed figure on train tracks spooking the train’s engineer leading him to pull the brake and halt the iron horse just in the nick of time. But it was only the antics of the youth, not a real person on the train’s path. The boys reportedly howled with amusement when the train stopped.

Across the United States in the latter 1800s, common Halloween tricks included placing farmers’ wagons and livestock on barn roofs (great question as to how), uprooting vegetables in gardens, and tipping over outhouses. Youths unhinged gates allowing livestock to escape — which led to the nickname for Halloween: the aptly called Gate Night.

The invention of the automobile invited more opportunities for mischief. Teens removed manhole covers from streets, deflated tires, and placed fake detour signs to confuse drivers.

At first, the pranking was fairly innocent and limited to rural communities, but as metropolitan areas expanded, kids took their pranking into the cities including intentionally setting fires, breaking glass, and tripping pedestrians. It was a really obnoxious time for adults — boys ran through city streets splattering people with bags of flour or black stockings filled with ashes. In 1918, youths in Kansas City, Kansas used candles to wax streetcar tracks on a steep hill. This caused a vehicle to slip and crash into another streetcar, seriously injuring a conductor, Miss Tracy Kloeppel.

The article in The Topeka State Journal reported Kloeppel’s internal injuries might lead to her death. Nine boys were held without bond by police because of the Halloween prank. Kansas state law made parents responsible for the pranks their children created; the street car company announced it “would prosecute the boys now held.”

During the 1930s, civic and religious authorities, community organizations, and families came together in different metros to come up with plans to preoccupy children and prevent pranks. This led to the emergence of Halloween centered parties, carnivals, and costume parades. With the economic free fall of the Great Depression, looting and chaos erupted to its magnum opus on Halloween nights. Some cities were considering banning Halloween altogether.

Every decade posed a new zeitgeist for Halloween in America. During World War II, youth took pledges to support the soldiers and sailors abroad by not engaging in Halloween vandalism. Children in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, vowed to “back our fighting men by observing Halloween as they would want me to. I will share in good, clean fun and merriment, fight against waste and damage!”

In the 1950s, the mischief didn’t die out completely. It just moved to the night before Halloween. The children wanted a combination of tricks and treats, mischief and candy. Sometimes the “preoccupation campaign” failed to distract the kids and made them want more of the holiday altogether.

In parts of the Northeast, October 30 became known as Mischief Night. It was called Goosey Night in parts of New Jersey. Dating back to the old Scottish pranking tradition, it was even known as Cabbage Night by some locales. Vandalism during this time usually involved soaping windows, spraying shaving cream, throwing eggs at houses, or tossing toilet paper over trees and bushes.

The baby boom in the 1950s brought Halloween parties to homes and classrooms.  Trick-or-treating, which had tapered off, was revived this decade. Many families took part in it to give their children candy and steer them away from tricks.

No American city does Halloween like St. Louis

In St. Louis, there’s a whole other spin on trick-or-treat. Children are highly encouraged to tell jokes to get sweets. It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly the joke telling on Halloween started in St. Louis. Dr. John Oldani, Author of “St. Lou-isms” wrote that it dates back at least a century.

Dr. Oldani told USA Today the tradition comes from Samhain. In Irish lore, people were said to come back from the dead on Halloween night. Muck Olla was an entity no one wanted to greet.

Oldani told USA Today: “He was haunting everyone, so you had to go to the house dressed in a costume, so he would not grab you… [if Olla knew] who you were, you had to ask for something to give him.” Oldani said during the traditional Samhain, people would tell a joke or recite a poem as the necessary gift. It was also meant to ward off evil spirits.

The word Halloween dates back in historic records to about the year 1745. Jump to the year 2019, and roughly one quarter of all the candy sold throughout the year in the U.S. is purchased for October 31st. Halloween has grown to become America’s second largest commercial holiday after Christmas.

from FOX 4 Kansas City WDAF-TV | News, Weather, Sports https://fox4kc.com/2019/10/13/the-origins-of-halloween-and-its-impish-past-in-kansas/

from Kansas City Happenings https://kansascityhappenings.wordpress.com/2019/10/14/the-origins-of-halloween-and-its-impish-past-in-kansas/

[frmartinshomiliesandreflections]

13th September >> Fr. Martin's Gospel Reflections / Homilies on Luke 6:27-38 for Thursday, Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time ‘Love your enemies’.

Thursday, Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time  

Gospel (Europe, Africa, New Zealand, Australia & Canada)

Luke 6:27-38

Love your enemies

Jesus said to his disciples: ‘I say this to you who are listening: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who treat you badly. To the man who slaps you on one cheek, present the other cheek too; to the man who takes your cloak from you, do not refuse your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and do not ask for your property back from the man who robs you. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what thanks can you expect? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what thanks can you expect? For even sinners do that much. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what thanks can you expect? Even sinners lend to sinners to get back the same amount. Instead, love your enemies and do good, and lend without any hope of return. You will have a great reward, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.

   ‘Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate. Do not judge, and you will not be judged yourselves; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned yourselves; grant pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and there will be gifts for you: a full measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be poured into your lap; because the amount you measure out is the amount you will be given back.’  

Gospel (USA)

Luke 6:27-38

Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Jesus said to his disciples: “To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. Give to everyone who asks of you, and from the one who takes what is yours do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you. For if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do the same. If you lend money to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, and get back the same amount. But rather, love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High, for he himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as also your Father is merciful.

   “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you.”  

Reflections (5)

(i) Thursday, Twenty-Third Week in Ordinary Time

Today’s gospel reading is one of the most challenging pieces of Jesus’ teaching in all four gospels, with its call to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, to pray for those who treat us badly. This was no more the normal way of relating to people in the time of Jesus than it is today. Jesus goes on to refer to what would have been the norm then, as it is today, namely, loving those who love us, doing good to those who do good to us. As Jesus says, even sinners do as much as that. That was and is the norm in human relationships, because it is the natural way to relate and it comes easy to us. Jesus calls us to a way of life which is not easy and which doesn’t always come naturally to us. There is nothing instinctive about loving our enemies or doing good to those who hate us or praying for those who treat us badly. That way of relating seems to go against every instinct of our nature. Yet, Jesus does not ask us to do the impossible. He must have understood that this way of relating was possible for his followers, and, even more, that it is in harmony with what is deepest and best in us. Jesus’ teaching reflects the biblical understanding of the human person as made in God’s image. Who is this God in whose image we are made? In that gospel reading, Jesus refers to God as kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, and as compassionate. Jesus is calling on us as images of God to relate to others in the way that God relates to humanity. Jesus was the perfect image of God; his way of relating to people was the perfect reflection of how God relates to us. In that sense, Jesus calls on us to relate to others as he does. We can only do that with his help, in the power of the Spirit whom the Lord is always offering us. The way of life Jesus portrays in the gospel reading is ‘life in the Spirit’. Such a way of life is life at its most fully human, because it is a life which reflects the life of God most fully.

And/Or

(ii) Thursday, Twenty Third Week in Ordinary Time

The teaching of Jesus in this morning’s gospel reading makes us sit up and take notice, because so much of it goes against the grain. It is out of step with what would be considered common sense, day to day wisdom. The teaching of Jesus in that reading ends with the exhortation, ‘Give, and there will be gifts for you; a full measure… will be poured into your lap’. In other words, it is in giving that we receive. The common wisdom is that it is in acquiring, in gathering, in taking, that we receive, whereas in giving we lose out. Yet, Jesus’ own life bears out the truth of the paradox of his teaching. It was in giving that he received; it was in laying down his life for us that he gained eternal life for himself and for all who believe in him; his giving was life-giving for himself and for others. His way of finding life through death, of receiving through giving, is the way he holds out to all of us, his followers. When we give of ourselves to the Lord, present in others, we discover that we receive from the Lord much more than we give to him. When we die to ourselves so that others may live, we ourselves become more alive; we come to share more fully in the Lord’s own risen life. The gospel reading suggests that our self-giving can take many forms. It might mean being compassionate towards others, being slow to judge others, refusing to condemn others, showing love to those who show little love to us, praying for those who treat us badly. This form of self-giving is visible in the life of Jesus. He healed the ear of the person who came to arrest him; he prayed for those who crucified him; he washed the feet of the man who betrayed him. In giving of himself in this way, Jesus was revealing God. When this kind of self-giving is visible in our own lives, we too will be revealing God.

And/Or

(iii) Thursday, Twenty Third Week in Ordinary Time

The gospel reading this morning is taken from Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount. We find here some of the most radical of all Jesus’ teaching. At the heart of the reading is the call to love our enemies and to give to those who do not deserve our generosity and who will never be in a position to pay it back or to give something to us in return. In the culture of the time, people who were in a position to give generously expected some kind of return. Giving to others put them in debt to you; there was a cultural expectation of some kind of return. Perhaps our own culture is not all that different, because we are not all that different. We struggle to be completely selfless in our giving. Jesus cuts across that culture of giving with a view to receiving. The love he calls for which has no trace of self-seeking in it is a divine kind of love; it is the way God loves. God is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked; God does not give with a view to receiving. God does not love his enemies less than his friends. Jesus is calling on us to be God-like in our loving and in our giving. The world would consider this kind of giving a folly; we will be left with nothing. Jesus, however, promises that if we give in this God-like way, a full measure, running over, will be poured into our lap. This morning, we are invited, in the words of today’s first reading, to let this message of Christ, in all its richness, find a home with us.

And/Or

(iv) Thursday, Twenty Third Week in Ordinary Time

The calling of the gospel reading this morning is very demanding. We are to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, pray for those who treat us badly, to give to others without any hope or expectation of a return, not to condemn but to forgive others. More fundamental even that this high ideal of how we are to relate to others is how God relates to us. We are to relate to others in all these ways because that is how God relates to us. As the gospel reading says, God is merciful and compassionate; he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. God has loved us in an extraordinary way in the person of Jesus and we are to relate to each other out of that tremendous grace that we have been given. The gospel reading also declares that in giving as we have received, we open our hearts to receive even more from God. ‘Give, and there will be gifts for you’. We give out of what we have received and our giving opens us up to receive even more.

And/Or

(v) Thursday, Twenty Third Week in Ordinary Time

There is an extraordinary wealth in both of today’s readings. It is very difficult to know where to focus. Any line from either of the two readings would give food for thought for the day. What both readings have in common is that they call us to live in a certain way. In essence, both Paul and Jesus call us to live loving lives, lives which reflect the loving life of Jesus. Paul calls on us to put on love as a kind of outer garment that covers the other garments of compassion, kindness, gentleness, patience, readiness to forgive. Jesus takes call to love to a new level by insisting that we love even our enemies and that we do good even to those who hate us. This is the call of the gospel. Yet, in both the first reading and the gospel reading there is something that comes prior to the call of the gospel and that is the gospel itself. Paul expresses that gospel very simply in the opening line of the first reading, ‘God loves you’. It is because God loves us in all our frailty that we are to be clothed in love so as to love others. In a similar way, Paul goes on to say, ‘The Lord has forgiven you; now you must do the same’. It is because the Lord has forgiven us that we are to forgive one another. Likewise, in the gospel reading, Jesus’ call to love, the call of the gospel, is rooted in the gospel itself. We are to be compassionate as God our Father is compassionate towards us. We are to love our enemies because we are sons and daughters of the Most High who is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked, which is the gospel itself. Both readings suggest that we need to hear the gospel as addressed to each of us personally, the gospel of God’s unconditional, undeserved and all forgiving love for us all, before we can rise to the call of the gospel.

Fr. Martin Hogan, Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin, D03 AO62, Ireland.

Email: [email protected] or  [email protected]

Parish Website: www.stjohnsclontarf.ie  Please join us via our webcam.

Twitter: @SJtBClontarfRC.

Facebook: St John the Baptist RC Parish, Clontarf.

Tumblr: Saint John the Baptist Parish, Clontarf, Dublin.