Lifetime - Staked: 865.9u, Profit/Loss: +28.08u, ROI: 3.24%, Parlay Suggestions: 164-63 Dog of the Week: 13-14
2024 - Staked: 218.8u, Profit/Loss: -5.28, ROI: -2.41%
As always, scroll down for UFC 301 Breakdowns. The following is just a recap of last event’s results.
UFC Vegas 91 (PREVIOUS CARD)
Staked: 8.5u
Profit/Loss: -0.29u
Parlay Suggestions: 2-3
Definitely not my best work there, but a testament to why hedging is an important tool to utilise when possible because it bailed me out of some bad bets. Thanks to those early moves, I managed to reduce my losses a lot more, so I’m happy with the overall results despite actually getting most of my bets wrong here. Onama’s ability to hit that reversal from back control was ridiculous, and if Pearce addressed that I think he would have been just fine. Guskov was a nice hit. Nicolau getting flatlined was not.
❌ 2u Matheus Nicolau to Win at -170
✅ 1u Bogdan Guskov to Win at +175 (won +1.75u)
❌ 1u Jonathan Pearce to Win at -140
❌ 1u Jonathan Pearce to Win & Over 1.5 Rounds at +150
❌ 1u Maheshate to Win by KO/TKO at +150
✅ 2u Liang/Petrovic FDGTD & Means/Medic FDGTD at -105 (won +1.9u)
❌ 0.25u Na Liang to Win in Round 1 at +1200
❌ 0.25u Parlay Pieces at +633
✅ Mayes/Machado Arb (won +0.63u)
✅ Silva/Lipski Arb (won +0.93u)
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UFC 301
We really were spoiled by UFC 299 and UFC 300, because this PPV looks anaemic in comparison. I guess it’s mainly because those events used up some of Brazil’s biggest names (Pereira, Figgy, Moicano, Andrade, Jailton, Marina, Lopes, Burns), and these kinds of cards are always Brazil vs the World (my favourite kind of style of card). I’m still looking forward to it compared to the typical Apex garbage though=, so no complaints from me!
It didn’t take long to realise that this card has been curated to be very Brazilian friendly. I am absolutely not one of these conspiracy theorists who thinks the UFC is rigged, but I think it’s very important when betting to ask yourself WHY this fight was booked (especially for PPVs). The UFC’s business model runs off creating stars and generating hype (the existence of DWCS proves this), so these kind of cards are the perfect opportunity to do that. The matchmakers are literally paid to make decisions on who fights who, so none of this stuff is accidental. If you’re familiar with my history as an MMA Trader, you’ll know that thinking about public perception is where my skills lie, so I’m always excited for PPVs because there’s extra narrative in a lot of the fights.
Let’s get into it!
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Alexandre Pantoja v Steve Erceg
This is a very weird main event. The Flyweight division is starting to fade again, as its top 15 is littered with fighters who have either shown their ceiling is below championship quality, or guys who aren’t active enough to be given title shots. Erceg has managed to bag himself a title shot from 11th in the rankings, despite having only three fights in the company. Aside from fighters coming into the organisation with a strong reputation in combat sports, or women’s divisions, I can’t think of a fighter who has made their way to a title shot quicker than Erceg has in recent years.
Historically, I bet on Pantoja against most opponents because I’ve always been convinced he’s been championship calibre, and has multiple paths to victory every time. I have tried to fade Erceg mostly due to the rapid stepping up in competition, but I also bet him against Costa.
I know there’s a bit of a theme with me being non-committal towards betting on title fights (except Pereira last event, hehe), but I think this is probably an acceptable fight to shrug my shoulders at – purely because of the unknowns regarding Erceg. I don’t really think you can look at his performance against Alessandro Costa or David Dvorak and come away with any conclusion regarding his chances against Pantoja. I guess you could take something from the opening five minutes against Schnell…but that’s still not a great comparison because Schnell’s biggest weakness is still Pantoja’s biggest strength (chin/durability)?
On the flipside, what we do know about Erceg is that some of his best strengths are actually in the areas that Pantoja looks to exploit. The Brazilian is one of the most durable fighters in MMA history, having never been finished in 32 professional bouts – 14 of which took place in the UFC. He weaponizes that by pushing a pace and creating chaos that he knows he can be the more durable fighter in. Aside from that, he’s also got an elite submission game, and his grappling is top notch. His striking certainly isn’t bad either.
But, as I said, that doesn’t sound as much of a nightmare for Erceg as it does for a lot of other guys. Steve’s done most of his work in the UFC on the feet, where he has shown some very impressive durability (and on the regional scene). People also therefore forget that he’s primarily a grappler also, having six submissions on his record. Of course I expect him to be inferior to Pantoja in both areas, but I don’t see him getting steamrolled like Perez, Royval (1) or Schnell did.
So whilst there are still a hell of a lot of unknowns about Erceg, what we do know is enough to predict that this is unlikely to be Pantoja’s most dominant win. If the Brazilian can’t get finishes against an opponent, he has to rely on his minute winning ability. Whilst those are still very good skills (and enough to get the better of Brandon Moreno!), it’s definitely the way he can be exploited the most (a 9-5 record in fights that go the distance, to quantify that belief).
So in short, despite not having much confidence in my line here, I have to grade Pantoja as less of a favourite than the books currently do, but a favourite nonetheless. Erceg’s ceiling is still unknown, but logic would dictate that this is too much too soon. It’s therefore no bet from me on the moneyline, but my belief in Erceg’s durability will obviously lead me to consider the overs in this fight. Not too sure what I expect to see here but if the FGTD is plus money then I’ll probably get involved somehow. Keep an eye on the bet list at the bottom of the post to see what/if I bet.
How I line this fight: Alexandre Pantoja -188 (65%), Steve Erceg +188 (35%)
Bet or pass: I may look at the overs, but the ML is a pass
Prop leans: None
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Jonathan Martinez v Jose Aldo
Second fight, second non-committal stance, I’m afraid. I know this one is around a pick’em, and I know it’s super interesting…but do any of you train with Jose Aldo or know him personally? If not, I don’t think any of us have even the slightest clue how he’s going to look in the cage after almost two years on the sidelines. Yes, he’s been boxing, which gives some positive signs that he’s still keeping in some sort of shape – but he drew with Jeremy Stephens and beat two guys with combined pro records of 0-9-1. Hardly enough to believe he’ll be as sharp as when he was an active UFC fighter.
Jonathan Martinez on the other hand is eight years younger than Jose Aldo, and in his athletic/career prime. He’s currently riding a six-fight winning streak that includes wins over Said Nurmagomedov and Adrian Yanez. He’s a very well-rounded fighter that uses leg kicks to great effect, as is typical from a Factory X homegrown talent. He’s also been criminally underrated in these last few years after the shock loss to Davey Grant. Dude was -105 against Zviad Lazishvili (who even is that?), and both of the aforementioned wins.
Unfortunately for Martinez, Aldo is not going to lose out to the leg kicking game, instead he may be the one landing the significant leg strikes there. That kind of takes away one of Martinez’s most reliable weapons, which makes this one even more interesting.
Other than that, I genuinely don’t know what more to say. Logic and history tells us that the younger and more conditioned Martinez should win here, but if Aldo manages to find a special Brazilian doctor of some sort, or if he just ends up being fortunate that father time is generous to him, then the Jose Aldo we know and love should confidently beat Jonathan Martinez.
Who wins this fight? I have no idea. Neither do you. That’s why it’s a pick’em. Don’t think about it anymore than that. Just pass and enjoy watching the questions get answered inside the cage.
How I line this fight: No idea.
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
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Paul Craig v Caio Borralho
Hell yeah, I love it when we get fights like this. Guys I rate very highly and always look to bet, vs guys I think are massively overrated and always look to fade. In case it wasn’t obvious, Craig is the fade and Borralho is the prospect.
I have a lot of love and respect for Paul Craig. He’s long been one of the most successful and inspiring UK fighters – and his fights at various UFC Londons have often been the highlight of the entire events. Also, the man has an exquisite music taste - his walkout song choices always result in me finding new bands and albums to listen to. Thanks for that Paul!
But in terms of in-cage ability…he’s as one dimensional as it gets. His style is pretty much identical to Royce Gracie in the earliest UFC days. He has an elite submission game, but everything else in his skillset is hugely inferior, which will always limit him. Statistically, I rate all of his skills at a 3, but his pure submission game as a 9.
It’s been really fun to see the UFC booking Craig in fights that allow him to show his best work (as opposed to the Volkan Oezdemir fight, which was painful to watch), but MMA is much more complex than sheer submission ability. Against Muniz he was victorious because he was actually the superior striker, and also had the superior cardio that night…but the fight against Brendan Allen showed those limitations again. Going back to those aforementioned skillset rankings, Craig was inferior in every area of MMA, but he was matched or even trumped by Allen’s BJJ too. In short, I knew that Craig had no consistent way of winning that fight, and needed a high variance Hail Mary. I bet Allen quite confidently there.
And that conclusion is the exact same one I come to here. Caio Borralho is actually a severely underrated wrestler, and that is what makes him so great. I have no doubt that his wrestling is superior to Craig’s, which will result in more top control time for the Brazilian. Of course, Caio is an elite BJJ fighter himself, so like Allen and Muniz before him, I’m not worried about Craig’s offence from guard.
So the only other ways I see Craig winning this fight are the same as the Muniz fight, via superior striking or cardio. Right off the bat, I don’t think Craig’s a better striker than Caio (though it’s competitive enough), and the aforementioned wrestling success should stop that from being the story of the fight if Caio approaches the fight intelligently…but the cardio dynamic could be one to be wary of. I personally think the complaints about Caio’s cardio are vastly overdone – he’s won the third round on 11 of the 12 scorecards that has been submitted in his UFC career (if we ignore the point deduction against Omargadzhiev).
Therefore, that leads me to conclude that I think this is a well-booked fight by the UFC, who want to bolster the record and popularity of one of their most interesting Brazilian prospects and get a big win for the home crowd. Craig will give Caio the fight he wants, and he will likely lose in doing so. Caio should win this fight at least 80% of the time, I think…which gives me about 6-7% of value on the -275 price tag I pounced on. As expected, that’s long gone now. That’s a 5u bet for me.
How I line this fight: Paul Craig +400 (20%), Caio Borralho -400 (80%)
Bet or pass: 5u Caio Borralho to Win (-275)
Prop leans: Caio could win this fight in any of the three ways tbh.
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Anthony Smith v Vitor Petrino
The UFC reward Anthony Smith for his years of warrior spirit, company-first mentality, and his contributions on the UFC analyst bench…with a fight against one of the LHW division’s scariest upcoming prospects. How generous of them. Nonetheless, Smith is still talking crazy in interviews saying he’s close to a title shot with a win here, lol.
Vitor Petrino had one of those questionable records coming into the UFC. People have tried to fade him with Anton Turkalj, Marcin Prachnio, Modestas Bukauskas, and most recently Tyson Pedro. I understood the Modestas one, but the others were ridiculous. I bet Petrino at -250 against Pedro, and I think he definitely justified the price tag there.
Petrino is just so physically imposing. Whether he’s using his wrestling or striking, it just always feels like his opponents are tentative that Petrino’s about to do something explosive and dangerous. It’s been quite impressive seeing him show off his wrestling ability, as most believed him to be a pure striker that would struggle on the ground.
Anthony Smith is a very interesting litmus test for any aspiring top 15’er though, because despite the fact that Smith is very shopworn and clearly a bit mentally muddled (the “you attacked my family” thing against Walker was terrifying and really should not have been glossed over IMO), he is still a very well-rounded martial artist that is respectably skilled everywhere. He can be outgrappled by a safe guard-chilling gameplan, or just by generally being a more powerful striker though, as seen in his multitude of losses in recent years to the likes of Rountree, Walker, Ankalaev, Rakic, and Teixeira.
Those are two routes that Petrino can take, because we’ve already seen him follow those paths on multiple occasions. Whilst that’s clearly enough to deem him the favourite against a clearly declining Smith, this is enough of a step up in competition that I’m not convinced enough by Petrino to get on board with the idea of him being -400. Yes he probably goes and starches Lionheart, but if the finish doesn’t present itself easily then I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see this one turn more competitive than that line indicates. Therefore, -200 to -250 sounds like an appropriate price to me, so it’s no bet.
How I line this fight: Anthony Smith +250 (29%), Vitor Petrino -250 (71%)
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
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Michel Pereira v Ihor Potieria
This is a pretty simple one to break down. Doesn’t surprise me that it kicks off the main card. This fight makes absolutely no sense from a ranking perspective, but it makes all the sense in the world from a narrative and promotional perspective.
Michel Pereira is one of the hardest non-Heavyweight hitters in the UFC. Ihor Potieria is a bang average fighter that is basically being used as a litmus test for a lot of unproven prospects. He’s a very beatable fighter and the perfect sacrificial lamb to get you an easy UFC win on your record. He was originally scheduled to face Shara Bullet Magomedov, who is definitely flavour of the month. Hell, they even tried to use him as a softball for 40 year old Shogun Rua last year!
Potieria’s recent upset win over Robert Bryczek does demonstrate that he’s got SOME life in him though, but there’s a massive difference between Bryczek and Michel Pereira. Potieria isn’t overly interested in shooting for takedowns either, making this even more of a nightmare fight for him.
Another highlight reel KO for Michel Pereira is expected, and I’d be quite surprised if he didn’t get it here. Therefore, I fully expect that prop to be priced at something around the -150 mark, maybe even steeper.
Took some time for the line to come out but -400 sounds about right in my eyes. I decided to combine Pereira with Mateusz Rebecki on next week’s card. -140 for the double.
How I line this fight: Michel Pereira -450 (82%), Ihor Potieria +450 (18%)
Bet or pass: Potentially on the KO, price dependant
Prop leans: See above
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Joaquim Silva v Drakkar Klose
This was the first bet I made on this card, and I placed it a couple of weeks ago when the line was much closer. I bet Drakkar Klose at -137.
I bet against Drakkar Klose when he faced Joe Solecki last time, and I’m still frustrated by how unlikely that finish was. Klose was definitely looking the inferior fighter there, but a moment of brilliance can be all it takes sometimes.
This one seems pretty cut and dry to me. Klose is a well-rounded fighter whose biggest issue had typically been his lack of finishing ability, but he’s still a very reliable fighter that will work hard for 15 minutes. He’s been in competitive fights with the likes of Beneil Dariush, Marc Diakiese, and Bobby Green in his time, and these bouts have spanned across all different realms of MMA. He’s never really done anything that will blow your hair back (aside from being on the receiving end of that amazing KO by Dariush, and the recent slam of Solecki), but I think that makes him a bit underrated. He’s 36 years old now, but he’s never been the fastest fighter, nor has he had a long and gruesome career.
Joaquim Silva has a similar level of experience, but his UFC record paints a different picture by comparison. The calibre of fighters he has lost two really does vary, but a decision loss to Vinc Pichel, as well as being finished by Ricky Glenn and Nasrat Haqparast, doesn’t really fill someone with confidence.
Silva’s most recent win came against 41-year-old Clay Guida, where he clearly lost a round and honestly could have lost the fight with a couple of adjustments. That fight was a terrible look for the -320 favourite, and to me that was a clear indication that he seems to be on the decline. Klose, by comparison, seems to be operating on a similar enough level to how he has done for most of his UFC career. Yes he has taken a step down in competition lately, but he’s performing as you would expect him to.
Statistically, Silva has a negative strike differential, and most of the key metrics are inferior to Klose as well. There’s every chance that this one turns into a barn burner, which would definitely suit the more dangerous Brazilian...but I fully expect Drakkar Klose to put on a typical 15 minute performance, where he settles down into his pace, and mixes in his superior striking and wrestling to coherently win rounds. It probably won’t be the most entertaining fight we’ve ever seen, but a commanding win is perfect for me. A vintage Drakkar Klose performance.
In terms of the betting line, I had Klose capped at around -200. The -137 available was a steal and I was very keen to take it, but I’d definitely be passing on this fight if I was looking at it for the first time now. Another reason why it’s important to keep track of my bet list at the bottom of each post, as I gave this out when -137 was widely available.
How I line this fight: Drakkar Klose -200 (67%), Joaquim Silva +200 (33%)
Bet or pass: 2u Drakkar Klose to Win (-137)
Prop leans: None
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Alessandro Costa v Kevin Borjas
Alessandro Costa is a very flawed fighter. Good skills across the board, but the guy’s volume is so, low. I bet against him when he faced Steve Erceg, and that was most of the reason.
He faces Kevin Borjas, who we don’t know much about other than he isn’t as good of a striker than Joshua Van…which doesn’t tell us much at all. He did win a round in that fight, but that’s because Van is a bit of a slow starter and will take some time to get going.
I didn’t do tape on this one because I’m still kind of unsure about Borjas, and the betting line kind of reflects that the books don’t either. He’s a non-committal underdog at +110, where the books think he’s inferior but they don’t believe it with any degree of confidence. That sounds about right to me.
I just hope Costa wins this one so I might get another opportunity to fade him in the future.
How I line this fight: I didn’t tape but it looks about right to me.
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
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Dione Barbosa v Ernesta Kareckaite
I lost money on Kareckaite’s DWCS fight, in what was brilliant demonstration of why you really shouldn’t bother betting or researching that show. Ernesta basically followed the blueprint I thought Judice was going to use, almost like I’d gotten the fighters the wrong way around. Super high variance when they’re so green.
And we’ve got more green-ness here. Both women have less than 10 professional fights. Barbosa is a -225 underdog. I’d blindly fade that if you had to bet on this fight. Otherwise I’d leave it alone. Take it as an opportunity to learn more about them for next time.
How I line this fight: Don’t know, didn’t tape
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
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Joanderson Brito v Jack Shore
Banger. This is potentially the most exciting fight on the card, as you have to really high skilled grapplers facing off against one another.
I am convinced that Joanderson Brito is quite overrated. He’s so explosive and dangerous, that it actually makes up for some pretty significant flaws. He’s an awful minute winner, and any opponent that is able to stay safe against him is likely going to win on the scorecards. He has bulldozed three opponents in R1, shown a moment of brilliance against Jonathan Pearce, and been out-hustled by Bill Algeo. That shows a 4-1 UFC record, but all I see is a guy who has actually lost more minutes in the UFC cage than he’s won. I think he’s also getting second hand hype because he beat Diego Lopes on DWCS, and that guy is possibly the most exciting prospect in the UFC right now.
So can Jack Shore stay safe here? Well he’s definitely got the grappling to give it a good go. Just like Jonathan Pearce before him, Shore can use his intense wrestling to stay safe from Brito’s striking. Shore also has good BJJ, which makes me feel confident he can avoid Brito’s opportunistic but ultimately low percentage submission from bottom – at least better than Pearce did.
Obviously the striking is where Brito has a big advantage, and his dangerousness will certainly show itself there in the early goings. Shore hasn’t really fought any dangerous strikers in his UFC tenure so far, so it’s kind of hard to say how well he will fare in those striking moments.
This is one of those fights where breaking down the betting line from a probability perspective just results in an uncomfortable feeling, however you spin it. Brito has more ways to win and is somewhat of a fan favourite, so I can understand why he has the minus next to his number. However, I can really easily see the path to victory for Jack Shore, and I don’t think it’s crazy to say he could go out there and look like a -300 favourite. But then if I think about making Shore the favourite I’m immediately thinking about how dangerous Brito is and how he could easily look -300 as well! It’s a mind fuck.
At the end of the day, the line is relatively close at the moment. Shore sits around +125 which, given he hasn’t fought for a year and is going up against the flavour of the month, I guess I’m okay with. If Shore moves to +140 or better, I think I’ll have to play him. I think he could easily do what Jonathan Pearce or Bill Algeo did. Brito is a boogeyman who is half the fighter he’s hyped up to be if he can’t find a finish.
How I line this fight: Joanderson Brito -110 (52%), Jack Shore +110 (48%)
Bet or pass: Pass, for now
Prop leans: Brito ITD probably the best looking prop available, Jack has too many paths
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Elves Brener v Myktkbek Orolbai
Man, what does Elves Brener have to do to catch a break!? Dude steps into the UFC (possibly on short notice?) and gets a win as a massive underdog against Tukhugov, then pulls off another upset against Guram Kutateladze. His opponent pulls out of his third fight and they give him a guy with a 15-1 record. Now he’s 3-0 and you’d finally think they start to give him the chance to build up some hype…but then they go and book him against Myktkbek Orolbai!
For those who haven’t seen Orolbai’s debut against Uros Medic last year, it was definitely one of the best debuts of 2023. He stuck to the Serbian like glue and, despite some persistent get ups, managed to find the submission relatively easily in what was a dominant performance.
Unfortunately, that fight was so one-sided that we don’t really know anything else about Orolbai at this level, as his other recent bouts took place on LFA against guys with 18-14 and 10-7 records.
With no further relevant info, there are too many gaps to form an opinion on Orolbai. What I will say is that Elves Brener has continued to play spoiler so far in his UFC career and continues to be underrated by the books despite that. Does he deserve to be around +200 here? Only if Orolbai is the real deal.
We will get our answers, but there’s no reason to put money on this fight. Anyone who does is putting blind faith in nine minutes of dominance against a Serbian on the mat…or they’re just chatting shit.
How I line this fight: Impossible to say
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
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Jean Silva v William Gomis
On the subject of underrated fighters, William Gomis features in our next bout. The Frenchman has a very underrated style, one that isn’t going to grab all the highlights or get him clamouring for a main event, but it’s still a very useful one inside the cage. He’s well-rounded, has great kicks to compliment a very technical striking style that goes well with his long frame. I was made first aware of Gomis when he dismantled the overhyped Cage Warriors prospect Tobias Harila. He was calm amongst the chaos, and put in a really professional performance that likely got the ball rolling to eventually earn him a UFC contract. The experience from that fight will serve him well here.
He faces Jean Silva, a very explosive Brazilian that trains with Caio Borralho’s Fighting Nerds. We saw him most recently when he obliterated the vastly inferior Westin Wilson – God knows how that kid got asked to come to the UFC. And they’re giving him a third fight. Really is an embarrassing company at this point.
Before that we saw Silva go 15 minutes on DWCS, and his style looks a lot less impressive when he can’t find a finish. There wasn’t much investment in striking fundamentals, everything was a big action with fight ending intentions. That’s all good when you’re fighting Westin Wilson who blocks punches with his face, but what about when you’re facing a talented kickboxer who prioritises defence and range management? I could very easily see Silva hitting air for 15 minutes.
So I think the line is the wrong way around here, and that William Gomis has the potential to win this one quite comfortable if he can play the matador game. Whilst that sounds like I am gearing up to bet him, I’m actually going to pass on this one currently. He’s only at +110 so it’s not like he’s at a clear underdog price, and considering he’s not the explosive fighter that’s going to be chasing the finish and doing the damage, I think he’s got more of a job to do to impress the judges. Furthermore, we are obviously in Brazil where I think the crowd can certainly emphasise the work that Silva does, which may twist the judges’ arm a bit more.
So there’s value on Gomis, but not enough to warrant a bet. It’s a reluctant pass for me. If there’s major line movement I might play Gomis at like +150, but I doubt it goes that far.
How I line this fight: Jean Silva +120 (46%), William Gomis -120 (54%)
Bet or pass: Pass, unless the line moves.
Prop leans: None
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Karolina Kowalkiewicz v Iasmin Lucindo
If Craig v Borralho was a nice gift for me as a bettor, this is possibly my worst nightmare. I’m probably one of KK’s biggest fans, and Iasmin Lucindo is a prospect I am very high on. I bet on these women pretty much every time I can, and I think I’ve actually won money on both Moneylines and Method of Victorys in every fight they’ve both had since I started posting here.
If you read my stuff every week, you’ll know Karolina is my girl. Genuinely my favourite fighter. But I think this is the wake-up call she and I knew was coming eventually. KK’s resurgence has been such an inspiring journey, from getting absolutely brutalised, struggling badly with her mental health, taking the time off and coming back to string together four wins on the trot. That post-fight interview against Herrig was one of my favorite interview moments in UFC history.
But, having said all that, the UFC have been really kind to her. They’ve given her competitive fights that she is capable of winning if she keeps herself together…but Diana Belbita, Vanessa Demopoulos, Silvana Gomez Suarez, and Felice Herrig are certainly a lower calibre within WMMA who have already shown us their ceiling. Iasmin Lucindo is a completely different fighter.
Lucindo is a prospect, pure and simple. She’s got great striking, and great BJJ. I said when she fought Jauregui in her debut that these two could easily meet again in the top 5 of the division in a few years time, and I think her sophomore performance against Polyana Viana showed that (I bet her quite heavily in that one). Viana’s trash and it was the perfect matchup for her, but there’s reason to believe that this one could be too.
Kowalkiewicz’s resurgence has relied on her fighting opponents that mostly want to strike, and even if not, the wrestling of these women has been at a level she could handle…I don’t expect that to be the case against Lucindo. Iasmin has an advantage in speed, and age/youthfulness as 16 years the junior. We know that plays a massive part in fights, and I expect it to here. Karolina isn’t particularly good on the mat if those takedowns, but we just haven’t seen it for some time. If Lucindo gets top time, I think she probably manouvres her way to a submission with relative ease.
Of course, this one is much more competitive if they choose to strike, as Karolina’s got the right blend of determination, volume, and technique to keep any B grade or lower striker honest over the course of three rounds. Lucindo’s not the most amazing striker I have ever seen, but I also don’t expect her to be outclassed by Kowalkiewicz either. In WMMA, if you don’t have a unique striking style such as power or suffocating pressure (which neither girl has), then there’s only so much you can really do at this level to separate yourself as the superior striker. If they fight 100 rounds on the feet, I wouldn’t expect either woman to win more than 65 of the 100 times.
So that’s the key bit of information when looking at the betting line here. I know Lucindo deserves to be a significant favourite, due to youthfulness and a style that finally doesn’t actually suite her Polish opponent…but Karolina is sound enough to easily make this one competitive. If Lucindo doesn’t show a significant urgency or even desire to shoot takedowns, or if Karolina can stuff them, then this one looks much closer to a 50/50ish fight on the feet.
Whilst that sounds like I’m leaning towards playing my girl Karolina Kowalkiewicz, I’m unfortunately not. It’s impossible to really say how much success Lucindo is going to have with her takedown attempts here, so I can’t clearly quantify how much of a favourite she could be. If she can land them with ease, she might look -500. If she can’t land them at all, she could look +100. Compared to the -300 betting line we are getting, that definitely sounds like a pass. If you’re someone who likes to bet on every fight for the fun of it, a roll of the dice on Kowalkiewicz definitely isn’t the worst idea.
However, I will be keeping an eye out for that Lucindo by Submission prop. I doubt I’d get a good line on it with her being -300, but there’s always a chance the books get caught napping because it’s WMM and they expect a decision. We’ll see, I’d probably take +200 or better.
How I line this fight: Iasmin Lucindo -200 (66%), Karolina Kowalkiewicz +200 (33%)
Bet or pass: Pass on the ML, might bet Lucindo by Submission if I get a nice price (I’m talking +225 or better)
Prop leans: See above
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Mauricio Ruffy v Jamie Mullarkey
Mauricio Ruffy has won all of his professional fights via KO, and has fought quite a few cans in his day. He is the -160 favourite and is obviously very undeserving of that price tag against a guy with a decent amount of UFC experience.
Jamie Mullarkey is very unreliable, has bad fight IQ, and just generally isn’t very good. Dude lost a striking fight to Michael Johnson and got KO’d by Nasrat Haqparast – two things I thought were very hard to do in this day and age.
Pick your poison. Or don’t, and just be smart and leave this fight alone.
How I line this fight: who knows
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
​
Ismael Bonfim v Vinc Pichel
Ismael Bonfim returns from what was originally a massive upset at the hands of Benoit Saint Denis last July, but thankfully for him the Frenchman’s performances since have helped that result age well, as he elevated himself to prospect status and faced Poirier.
I was sadly all aboard the Ismael Bonfim hype train, as I deemed his debut win over Terrance McKinney as arguable the debut of the year for 2023. McKinney’s actually been fraud checked a fair bit since then so that win has coincidentally aged badly on the reverse. Nonetheless, I still think this Bonfim is good and will eventually turn into a top 15 fighter (not like his brother, an overrated fraud that I faded against Nicholas fucking Dalby).
Either way, the UFC are trying to run the Ismael Bonfim hype back again by pitting him against a 40 year old Vinc Pichel, who they’re probably just looking to get off the books as he likely has a contract that pays far more than he’s worth (by the 10/10 standard, anyway). Pichel is old but not particularly shop worn due to lack of commitment to his MMA career. He’s a well-rounded guy that always seems to end up in grappling-based fights. He has been competitive with the likes of Mark Madsen, Austin Hubbard, Jim Miller and Roosevelt Roberts in recent years, which kind of paints the picture that he’s capable but limited.
I think it’s fair to assume that Ismael Bonfim really should have Pichel covered here. He’s the way more dangerous fighter, and will be the one having moments of success where he threatens to finish. Outside of some sort of massive cardio dump, I think he can either find a finish or competently win 2/3 rounds with relative ease.
He’s -400 on the betting line so the odds clearly reflect that. I definitely wouldn’t be interested in playing him at that number, seeing as he’s returning from a massive setback and may not be the same as he once was. I could see him winning via all three potential methods of victory, so I’m not really sure a bet is possible here.
How I line this fight: Ismael Bonfim -400 (80%), Vinc Pichel +400 (20%)
Bet or pass: Pass
Prop leans: None
​
Bets (Bold = been placed)
Xu Pantoja vs Erceg to last Over X.5 rounds (+XXX, can’t really say what I’d bet until I see numbers)
5u Caio Borralho to Win (-275)
1u Michel Pereira to Win by TKO/KO (+XXX, probably not bettable but I’d take under -150)
2u Michel Pereira + Mateusz Rebecki to Win (-105)
2u Drakkar Klose to Win (-137)
2u Jack Shore to Win (+140 or better)
1u Iasmin Lucindo to Win by Submission (+XXX, I’d take +225 or better)
0.25u Parlay Pieces (+XXX, props not out yet)
Parlay Pieces: Pantoja/Erceg Over 1.5 Rounds, Caio Borralho, Michel Pereira, Drakkar Klose, Ismael Bonfim
Dog of the Week: Jack Shore

Zeynep Tufekci is a professor of sociology and public affairs at Princeton University, the author of “Twitter and Tear Gas: The Power and Fragility of Networked Protest” and a New York Times Opinion columnist.
[The outbreak of H5N1 avian influenza among U.S. dairy cows, first reported on March 25, has now spread to at least 33 herds in eight states. On Wednesday, genetic evidence of the virus turned up in commercially available milk. Federal authorities say the milk supply is safe, but this latest development raises troubling questions about how widespread the outbreak really is.
So far, there is only one confirmed human case. Rick Bright, an expert on the H5N1 virus who served on President Biden’s coronavirus advisory board, told me this is the crucial moment. “There’s a fine line between one person and 10 people with H5N1,” he said. “By the time we’ve detected 10, it’s probably too late” to contain.
That’s when I told him what I’d heard from Sid Miller, the Texas commissioner for agriculture. He said he strongly suspected that the outbreak dated back to at least February. The commissioner speculated that then as many as 40 percent of the herds in the Texas Panhandle might have been infected.
Dr. Bright fell silent, then asked a very reasonable question: “Doesn’t anyone keep tabs on this?”
The H5N1 outbreak, already a devastating crisis for cattle farmers and their herds, has the potential to turn into an enormous tragedy for the rest of us. But having spent the past two weeks trying to get answers from our nation’s public health authorities, I’m shocked by how little they seem to know about what’s going on and how little of what they do know is being shared in a timely manner.
How exactly is the infection transmitted between herds? The United States Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention all say they are working to figure it out.
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According to many public health officials, the virus load in the infected cows’ milk is especially high, raising the possibility that the disease is being spread through milking machines or from aerosolized spray when the milking room floors are power washed. Another possible route is the cows’ feed, owing to the fairly revolting fact that the U.S. allows farmers to feed leftover poultry bedding material — feathers, excrement, spilled seeds — to dairy and beef cattle as a cheap source of additional protein.
Alarmingly, the U.S.D.A. told me that it has evidence that the virus has also spread from dairy farms back to poultry farms “through an unknown route.” Well, one thing that travels back and forth between cattle farms and chicken farms is human beings. They can also travel from cattle farms to pig farms, and pigs are the doomsday animals for human influenza pandemics. Because they are especially susceptible to both avian and human flu, they make for good petri dishes in which avian influenza can become an effective human virus. The damage could be vast.
The U.S.D.A. also told me it doesn’t know how many farmers have tested their cattle and doesn’t know how many of those tests came up positive; whatever testing is being done takes place at the state level or in private labs. Just Wednesday, the agency made it mandatory to report all positive results, a long overdue step that is still — without the negative results alongside them — insufficient to give us a full picture. Also on Wednesday, the U.S.D.A. made testing mandatory for dairy cattle that are being moved from one state to another. It says mandatory testing of other herds wouldn’t be “practical, feasible or necessarily informative” because of “several reasons, ranging from laboratory capacity to testing turnaround times.” The furthest the agency will go is to recommend voluntary testing for cattle that show symptoms of the illness — which not all that are infected do. Dr. Bright compares this to the Trump administration’s approach to Covid-19: If you don’t test, it doesn’t exist.
As for the F.D.A., it tells me it hasn’t completed specific tests to confirm that pasteurization would make milk from infected cows safe, though the agency considers it “very likely” based on extensive testing for other pathogens. (It is not yet clear whether the elements of the H5N1 virus that recently turned up in milk had been fully neutralized.) That testing should have been completed by now. In any case, unpasteurized milk remains legal in many states. Dr. Bright told me that “this is a major concern, especially given recent infections and deaths in cats that have consumed infected milk.”
Making matters worse, the U.S.D.A. failed to share the genomes from infected animals in a timely manner, and then when it shared the genomes did so in an unwieldy format and without any geographic information, causing scientists to tear their hair out in frustration.
All this makes catching potential human cases so urgent. Dr. Bright says that given a situation like this, and the fact that undocumented farmworkers may not have access to health care, the government should be using every sophisticated surveillance technique, including wastewater testing, and reporting the results publicly. That is not happening. The C.D.C. says it is monitoring data from emergency rooms for any signs of an outbreak. By the time enough people are sick enough to be noticed in emergency rooms, it is almost certainly too late to prevent one.
So far, the agency told me, it is aware of only 23 people who have been tested. That tiny number is deeply troubling. (Others may be getting tested through private providers, but if negative, the results do not have to be reported.)
On the ground, people are doing the best they can. Adeline Hambley, a public health officer in Ottawa, Mich., told me of a farm whose herd had tested positive. The farm owner voluntarily handed over the workers’ cellphone numbers, and the workers got texts asking them to report all potential symptoms. Lynn Sutfin, a public information officer in the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services, told me that response rates to those texts and other forms of outreach can be as high as 90 percent. That’s heartening, but it’s too much to expect that a poor farmworker — afraid of stigma, legal troubles and economic loss — will always report even mild symptoms and stay home from work as instructed.
It’s entirely possible that we’ll get lucky with H5N1 and it will never manage to spread among humans. Spillovers from animals to humans are common, yet pandemics are rare because they require a chain of unlucky events to happen one after the other. But pandemics are a numbers game, and a widespread animal outbreak like this raises the risks. When dangerous novel pathogens emerge among humans, there is only a small window of time in which to stop them before they spiral out of control. Neither our animal farming practices nor our public health tools seem up to the task.
There is some good news: David Boucher, at the federal government’s Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, told me that this virus strain is a close match for some vaccines that have already been formulated and that America has the capacity to manufacture and potentially distribute many millions of doses, and fairly quickly, if it takes off in humans. That ability is a little like fire insurance — I’m glad it exists, but by the time it comes into play your house has already burned down.
I’m sure the employees of these agencies are working hard, but the message they are sending is, “Trust us — we are on this.” One troubling legacy of the coronavirus pandemic is that there was too much attention on telling the public how to feel — to panic or not panic — rather than sharing facts and inspiring confidence through transparency and competence. And four years later we have an added layer of polarization and distrust to work around.
In April 2020, the Trump administration ousted Dr. Bright from his position as the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, the agency responsible for fighting emerging pandemics. In a whistle-blower complaint, he alleged this happened after his early warnings against the coronavirus pandemic were ignored and as retaliation for his caution against unproven treatments favored by Donald Trump.
Dr. Bright told me that he would have expected things to be much different during the current administration, but “this is a live fire test,” he said, “and right now we are failing it.”]
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/24/opinion/bird-flu-cow-outbreak.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nk0.WeRo.Igp4uj_lGZo4&smid=url-share

The astronomical growth of the Chinese economy in recent decades has reshaped global power dynamics, with an impressive 9% average yearly growth since 1978 (World Bank, 2023) sparking predictions of China surpassing the United States as the biggest economy measured by nominal GDP (BBC News, 2020), and has caused some to even posit that China will be able to rival the US in power (Tucker, 2023).
However, a more nuanced examination reveals complexities in China's economic development model and its intersection with foreign policy. This paper delves into the evolution of China's economic rise, emphasizing its high-savings, investment-led growth model and its profound global implications. The inherent connection as well as tension between China’s domestic economic policies and its foreign policy will be examined.

China’s economic rise and the development of its economy over time

To understand how China has managed to join the ranks of the most influential players in the global economy, and what consequences it has for its foreign policy, it is essential to understand its political economic development model. Additionally, for the argument of this paper it is important to understand how the Chinese economy fits into the global economic puzzle.

A short history of the Chinese development model

From an economic perspective, societies can improve standards of living in a number of ways: increasing employment, improving the efficiency of workers, or expanding production through investment in capital equipment. Crucially, all of these factors highlight the importance of investment for development (Klein, Pettis, p.68, 2020). When domestic production is running at maximum capacity, there are two major development models (often applied simultaneously) that economies can follow to pay for additional investment (Klein, Pettis, p.68, 2020): On the one hand there is the ‘high savings model’, which transfers resources from domestic consumers to businesses and the government who save more than they consume. This thereby creates a trade surplus because it raises domestic production relative to domestic demand (Klein, Pettis, p. 68, 2020). On the other hand, there is the high-wage model, which transfers resources from the rest of the world by raising imports relative to exports in an attempt to attract foreign investment by raising domestic demand, increasing the trade deficit (Klein, Pettis, p. 68, 2020).
Authoritarian political culture and high centralization made the high savings model a logical option for the CCP. From the 1990s onwards, the Chinese government started to transfer spending power from ordinary Chinese people in order to subsidize domestic investment and foreign consumption, which meant the high savings model would end up becoming the development model China pursues until this day (Klein, Pettis, p. 108, 2020). Even though household income would increase greatly due to the substantial economic growth that these investments generated, households consumed an increasingly smaller share of economic output as savings increased as a share of the economy (Klein, Pettis, p. 108, 2020).
China utilized several internal transfer mechanisms to supress consumption and increase savings which included: currency manipulation; regulatory measures such as expropriations; unfavourable lending conditions for consumers and favourable lending conditions for elites with political connections; and lastly, the hukou system which deprived internal migrant workers of social security (Klein, Pettis, pp. 108-112, 2020). As a result, the decrease in household spending relative to GDP during the 1990s and 2000s was significantly more pronounced than the increase in investment (Klein, Pettis, 2020, p. 108). This led to a significant surplus in the current account, amounting to around 10 percent of China's total economic output by 2007-8 (Klein, Pettis, 2020, p. 108).

Untenable numbers

Global investment on average represents 25% of GDP (World Bank, 2023), and even though it is normal for a developing economy to have a higher rate of investment, China’s investment share of GDP sits at an exceptional 43% (World Bank, 2023). With a GDP of almost $18 Trillion accounting for ~18% of the world’s economy (World Bank 2023), China’s economic imbalances have great implications for the world economy, and at the same time the state of the world economy has great implications for China.
In his recent blog, Michael Pettis (2023) argues that with a share of only 13% of global consumption while having a 32% share of global investment, the Chinese economy cannot sustainably grow at 4-5% with the same model as it currently follows. Pettis (2023) argues:
Every $1 of investment has required approximately $3 of consumption globally to sustain it during this century. In China, however, $1 of investment is balanced by only $1.30 of consumption. If the global relationship between consumption and investment held over the next decade, an increase in the Chinese share of global investment from 32 percent today to 38 percent in a decade would require that the rest of the world disinvest to accommodate China’s domestic imbalances. (Pettis, 2023)
The following sections will discuss how China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policy, in combination with changing geopolitical circumstances has made global disinvestment extremely unlikely.

The evolution of Chinese foreign policy over time

As explained previously, the Chinese rise as an important actor in the global system has been facilitated by foreign consumers who consume the excess production which underpaid Chinese workers cannot consume themselves. Hence, China has great interest in maintaining the current global liberal trade regime, from which it has greatly benefited following its accession to the WTO in 2001. Seeing as trading relations with Western countries are of paramount importance to China’s economic prospects under the current economic model it pursues, it should be in China’s interests to avoid antagonizing the West. This section will explain how the historical Chinese stance allowed or its rise within the international system, and why its current stance undermines its future.

Chinese foreign policy pre-Xi

For a long time, Chinese foreign policy had been led by a quote of Deng Xiaoping in reaction to the international backlash to the Tiananmen Square incident. Around this time, he told other CCP leaders that their reaction should be to “lengjing guancha, wenzhu zhenjiao, chenzhuo yingfu” (observe calmly, secure our position, cope with afairs calmly) (Chen, Wang, 2011, p. 5). The foreign policy debate in China would long centre around this stance, paraphrased as “Tao Guang Yang Hui” roughly translated as: “hide your strength and bide your time” or “hide capabilities and keep a low profile”[1] (Chen, Wang, 2011).
The relative low-profile of China meant that other great powers not only tolerated its rise in the global system, but they also increased their ties with China dramatically, Western companies poured into the Chinese market to take advantage both of cheap manufacturing (caused by aforementioned reforms and industrial policy) and the large Chinese market. Between 1980 and 2004, US-China trade rose from $5 billion to $231 billion (Council on Foreign Relations, 2017).
Another guiding principle in the Chinese rise within the international system was the supposed “peaceful development” of China, a concept where progress and expansion were based on the historical philosophy of the “Middle-Kingdom” in which a non-confrontational approach was valued highly (Stevens, 2014, p. 1). The peaceful development narrative has persisted until this day but has arguably been more of a soft power campaign as of late to counter the “China threat” discourse (zhongguo weixie, 中国威胁) (Sørensen, 2015, p. 8), which has taken hold among foreign powers. The “China threat” discourse refers to a narrative that frames China as a potential menace to global stability and established international norms. This discourse encompasses concerns related to China's military modernization, economic influence, territorial claims, and geopolitical ambitions. Wang Yi, currently the Chinese minister of foreign affairs, called this discourse an “outdated Cold-War mentality” which has “no place in the new era of globalization” (Wang, 2013). Crucially, Wang's statements along with the "China threat" discourse within China concerning globalization, demonstrate an acknowledgment of the adverse consequences stemming from China's assertive actions in the realm of foreign policy. Wang went on to reassure that “China would never seek hegemony in the world” (Wang, 2013).
However, sentiment within the Chinese government started shifting around the 2010s (Stevens, 2014, pp. 1-2). The combination of the great financial crisis in 2008 and the resource intensive US-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, combined with the symbolic achievement of holding the 2008 Beijing Olympics, made some government officials believe that the balance of power was shifting, and that China should be more assertive towards a declining US (Stevens, 2014, p. 1). This was not truly a dramatic shift, which was to come later, with a new leader taking the stage.

Chinese foreign policy after Xi

The ascension of Xi Jinping as Chinese leader has dramatically altered the way China interacts with the world. Bolstering development was no longer the only priority. A new moral objective inspired by the century of humiliation had entered the picture. Essentially, Xi Jinping has changed Chinese state identity within the international system. Under Xi Jinping, China no longer lay low and started to figuratively stand up, from 2013 the new guideline was to be “Fen Fa You Wei” (奋发有为, “striving for achievement”) (Sørensen, 2015), with the ultimate goal of achieving the “Chinese dream”.
The Chinese dream is inspired by historical revanchism, with the ultimate goal being the great “rejuvenation of the Chinese nation”, in which China regains its international status, rights and power (Sørensen, 2015, p. 10); reminiscing over times when China made the rules as hegemon within East-Asia. Essentially, Xi Jinping slowly and methodically started reconstructing Chinese state identity within the international system. This rhetoric has attracted negative attention in the Western media, seen as carrying sinister implications for the international order (Sørensen, 2015, p. 5). In 2017, Xi definitively departed from keeping a low profile. In his (im)famous “new era” speech at the commencement of the 19th party congress, Xi presented statements that appeared contradictory to Wang’s 2013 remarks. Xi asserted that Beijing would no longer shy away from world leadership and would aim to promote its model around the world: “It is time for us to take centre stage in the world and to make a greater contribution to humankind […] [China is] standing tall and firm in the east”. (Xi, 2017)

Chinese assertiveness antagonizes the world: The rediscovery of industrial policy, protectionism, and economic deterrence

Beyond long speeches and articulate rhetoric, Chinese assertiveness has manifested in such numerous ways that it is difficult to name every incident. The most prominent examples include its aggressive military posture in the Taiwan strait and the South China sea, where the Chinese military and coast guard have initiated numerous hostile encounters over the years. These encounters have prompted the EU and US to voice strong opposition to the PRC’s (People’s Republic of China) actions, with the US calling PRC actions “unlawful” (Reuters, 2023) and the EU “emphasising” that parties should “respect freedom of navigation” and settle disputes “through peaceful means in accordance with international law” (EEAS, 2021). However, more direct confrontations with Western powers have taken place in the economic realm. In 2005 Robert Zoellick, then Deputy Secretary of State of the United States urged the Chinese to become a “responsible stakeholder” within the system, as a result of Chinese hostile actions however, these hopes have been given up; the EU has labelled China a “systemic rival” (EEAS, 2023) and the Sino-American competition is no secret. The West is now changing its geo-economic policy according to the perceived “China threat” that Wang Yi (2013) was worried about.

Chinese economic coercion

Through its strategic use of industrial policy China has managed to forge several dependencies for the West, notably in the area of green energy, where it dominates the refining of rare earth minerals, the production of electric vehicles and batteries (Hárven, 2023). China has been abusing such dependencies through economic coercion (Cha, 2023). In a testimony to the US congress, Senior Vice president for Asia and Korea Chair at CSIS Victor Cha, perfectly articulates the consequences of Chinese economic coercion:
China’s economic coercion has become part and parcel of its foreign policy against many trading partners. Countries that interact with Taiwan, support democracy in Hong Kong, oppose genocide in Xinjiang or offend any other “core interests” of China face discriminatory, non-WTO-conforming sanctions and embargoes. Targets of this weaponization of trade since 2008 range widely. Eighteen Western and Asian countries, including Japan, Lithuania, Norway, and Australia, and over 123 private companies, including Walmart and the National Basketball Association, have been targeted precipitating tens of billions of dollars in economic damage. (Cha, 2023)
Cha (2023) went on to call on the United States and like-minded partners to consider a “collective resilience” strategy to deter China’s economic coercion. Even though Cha (2023) recognizes that most targets of coercion are asymmetrically dependent on China, he highlights that there are still a number of export items these countries possess on which the Chinese market is “highly dependent” and “in some cases almost 100% dependent”. If states come together to promise collective retaliation, Cha (2023) argues, it would be enough of a deterrence to Beijing to cease its aggressive behaviour.
In Europe too there has been a response to Chinese economic coercion, with the introduction of the Anti-Coercion Instrument, which went into force on the 27th of December 2023, providing the EU with means to deter and respond to economic coercion acting as a deterrent for future coercion by China (European Commission, 2023).

The rise of industrial policy and protectionist measures as a response to the fragmentation of the Liberal International Order

A more serious concern for China is the rise of industrial policy and protectionism in states that have until now acted as a sponge for excess Chinese production. Arguably, this is the most serious threat to the Chinese economic growth model. In the United States, the concept of economic decoupling from China, as advocated during President Trump's tenure, may have been an extreme interpretation of this viewpoint. However, the Biden administration has sustained and expanded specific policies aimed at reviewing critical supply chains, enhancing investment screening and export controls, and allocating substantial subsidies to national industries (Gehrke, 2022). In a similar vein, the European Union (EU) has also been actively pursuing strategic autonomy in response to the evolving landscape of global economic interdependence. A catalysing factor in the rise of European industrial policy has been the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the Chinese alignment with Russia in the conflict, leading some to say that this has been the starting point of a fragmentation of the Liberal International Order (Costa, Barbe, 2023, p. 2). There are strong signs that the dependence on China is viewed in Brussels in a similar vein as the one with Russia. This was signified by a statement by Ursula von der Leyen in the State of the Union of 2022: “Lithium and rare earths are already replacing gas and oil at the heart of our economy. [...] The not so good news is – one country dominates the market. So, we have to avoid falling into the same dependency as with oil and gas.” (Von der Leyen, 2022).
As a response to this dependence the Commission introduced the Critical Raw Materials Act (European Commission, 2023), which seeks to reduce EU dependence and was adopted last December. In addition, the EU is bolstering its industry through the Green Deal Industrial Plan and is seeking to apply tariffs to products which are produced with a lower environmental standard than within the EU through the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (European Commission, 2023). Similarly, the United Kingdom, under Project Defence, is exploring ways to diminish dependence on key imports from China, while Japan has elevated its bureaucratic infrastructure to monitor new technology and economic security threats, including potential risks associated with foreign dependence (Gehrke, 2023). Additionally, India's economic and technology policy, encapsulated by the term "Atmanirbhar Bharat" (self-reliant India), has become a focal point under the Modi administration (Gehrke, 2023). ECB research from 2019 indicated that if trade tension were to escalate significantly in the future, global trade would decline significantly. Based on the previously mentioned policy initiatives, this scenario seems more likely than ever, with potentially severe implications for the Chinese economy.

Implications for China

As mentioned earlier in this paper, the rest of the world would have to disinvest to accommodate Chinese investment-led growth. Seeing the discussion above, this seems like an extremely unlikely outcome. Critics might argue that the CCP has been aware of the problems its internal imbalances generate, for it can simply choose to escape the investment-trap by sharply increasing consumption, which it is already attempting to do under its “Common Prosperity Policy” (Koty, 2022). However, here Michael Pettis’s (2023) calculations can assist with finding out whether this is manageable within a reasonable timeframe. Michael Pettis makes two optimistic assumptions regarding China's rebalancing process. Firstly, considering China's historical high investment levels and the recent surge in its debt-to-GDP ratio, Pettis (2023) suggests a sustainable investment share might be lower than the global average. However, for this analysis, Pettis (2023) assumes it can be as high as 33–34 percent. Despite being one-fourth below the current level, this would still make China the world's top investor for the next decade. Secondly, based on Pettis's (2023) perspective, there is an assumption that China has a decade to bring its investment share to a more sustainable level, with GDP growth outpacing investment growth, reducing the investment share by nearly 10 percentage points to 34 percent. However, to achieve such a transformation Pettis notes that GDP growth would have to outpace investment growth by 2-3 percent per year, which would in turn necessitate consumption to outgrow GDP by 2-3 percent per year.
Pettis (2023) notes that the above will be incredibly difficult to achieve, as slowing investment growth will require a painful transformation in which construction jobs are lost and household income growth would have to be accelerated drastically through either direct transfer in wages or indirectly through a more generous social safety net. The challenge with implementing transfers lies in the financial burden they pose, and only three sectors can viably shoulder this responsibility. The first sector that wealth could be transferred from is the affluent, who consume a much lower share of their income, but seeing the size of China’s population this would have a smaller impact on consumption than it would have in economies like that of the US (Pettis, 2023). Pettis (2023) argues that the business sector is also an unlikely candidate, as jeopardizing China’s manufacturing competitiveness will likely be difficult given the “vested interests” which have been shown to have a significant influence on CCP policymaking, with Le Keqiang once saying: “It is now more difficult to deal with vested interests than it is to touch the soul” (Spegele, 2013). The last option is the government, specifically local governments, since the central government has explicitly stated reluctance to bear the costs of adjustment (Pettis, 2023). According to Pettis (2023) it would technically be possible to do this, but seeing the limited room for choice the Chinese government has as explained above and the trickiness of reversing four decades of direct and indirect transfers from household savings into investment (Pettis 2023), Beijing might very well fail in this task which might lead to a global overproduction crisis, or it might resort to a softer foreign policy stance. There are signals that Beijing is attempting to rescue its foreign image by going on a charm offensive and softening its stance, with China’s controversial “wolf warrior diplomacy” falling out of fashion, with prominent “Wolf Warrior” Zhao Lijan being “banished” according to Foreign Policy (Palmer, 2023). Additionally, China is presenting itself as an international peacemaker, although it is unclear whether this is a true change in policy or simply a “cosmetic change” (Harper, 2023).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the interplay between China's economic trajectory and its foreign policy shapes a complex narrative that underscores how domestic policy can influence foreign policy and vice-versa. This paper highlights the inherent tension between the investment-based Chinese economy versus its assertive global posturing. Xi Jinping and the CCP have arguably hurt the PRC’s economic prospects by poor coordination between the political-economic and foreign policy domain.
The response of the West to Chinese economic coercion and the nascent disintegration of the liberal international order underscores the pervasive implications of China’s economic course. The implications for China are substantial, encompassing the formidable challenges associated with rebalancing its extremely unbalanced economy and contemplating potential adjustments in its foreign policy to address global reactions. As the international community grapples with the ramifications of China's ascendance, the CCP faces a critical juncture. The decisions forthcoming will not merely shape China's trajectory but will wield strong influence over broader global economic developments and geopolitics.
[1] Some Chinese officials like the former deputy chief of the PLA have argued that the phrase is more benign than it sounds, due to difficulties in translating the phrase to English. (Chen, Wang, 2011, p.9)

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Harper, T. (2023, September 6). China is switching away from its aggressive “wolf warrior” foreign policy – here’s why. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/china-is-switching-away-from-its-aggressive-wolf-warrior-foreign-policy-heres-why-212658
Harvén, S. A. (2023, December 8). The Europe-China relationship: dependencies, divergence and decoupling - Friends of Europe. Friends of Europe; Friends of Europe. https://www.friendsofeurope.org/insights/critical-thinking-the-europe-china-relationship-dependencies-divergence-and-decoupling/
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I had some oddball legal questions after getting a toll bill for a bridge I never drove across in Michigan. I handled my own $60 annoyance with a phone call; the bridge company was pretty courteous about it, even. These questions are more abstract about the legality of how they're processing tolling. Before handling it, I kind of rabbitholed on the entire situation and since this bridge is the first in the state of Michigan (that I know of) to collect tolls under the 2021 bridge tolling law there isn't any applicable case law in the state on the subject that I could find.
Some background information -
A municipality in Michigan leased two of their bridges to a private company to repair and convert to toll bridges. They were originally sold outright, but the agreement was later amended to a lease to conform to 23 USC 129, which also stipulates that the state in which the bridges were located had to have a law allowing companies to collect tolls. The company purchasing the bridges lobbied the state legislature and got 2020 P.A. 353 passed, which added MCL 117.5k.
This toll bridge charges tolls under the authority of MCL 117.5k which states that :
"(6) A user fee may be imposed on the use of a public bridge facility only if the user fee is imposed for the use of a public bridge facility that is constructed or renovated after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this section. If a user fails to pay a user fee, a reasonable late fee may be charged to the user. A user fee, late fee, or administrative fee charged under this subsection is not subject to regulation by any other governmental agency. A city may enforce and collect or authorize a concessionaire or another person to enforce and collect the payment of a user fee, late fee, or administrative fee under this subsection. A user fee may be imposed, charged, and collected by manual, digital, or electronic means, including, but not limited to, video, transponder, tag, camera, or any other similar technology."
I cannot find anything in this law that defines "user" nor can I find anything in existing Michigan law that would definitively clarify that point. The bridge operators take pictures of the license plate only and bill by mail based on the most recent registered owner of that license plate according to the Secretary of State. Unlike other states like New York) or Washington, the Michigan legislature declined to specifically assign the responsibility to pay the toll to the vehicle's registered owner - even declining to advance 2022-SB-1151 which would have done just that. MCL 254.322 which covers tolling on the Mackinaw Bridge specifies that "all individuals or vehicles using the bridge shall pay tolls" a distinction that is not found in MCL 117.5k.
First question - Based on the law as it is written, does the tolling company have a responsibility to prove that the registered owner of the vehicle was driving or otherwise "using" the vehicle at the time the toll bridge was crossed in order to collect the toll based solely on the license plate?
Also present in MCL 117.5k is the city or operators legal remedy for users not paying tolls:
"(7) If a person fails to pay a user fee as required under subsection (6) within 180 days, the city or a person authorized by the city may bring a civil action against the person to collect the user fee. If the civil action results in a judgment against the person owing the user fee, the person owing the user fee must reimburse the city for all costs of enforcement and collection, including filing and attorney fees."
In the case of this particular bridge, in the contract signed between the city and the bridge operator indemnifies the city against any costs or attorney's fees arising from the operation of the bridge.
"The Parties agree that the City shall have no responsibility or liability for the design, planning, permitting, construction, operation, repair, maintenance, and rehabilitation of the Independence Bridge, and that UBP shall be liable for all such obligations, and any and all liabilities, costs, expenses, fines, fees, attorney fees, damages, injuries, and any other charges, except to the extent caused by the acts or omissions of the City, its contractors, or any other party for whom the City is legally responsible."
I'm pretty sure (NAL) that the judge in the civil action can just award whatever they feel like for fees to whomever, but I thought it was an odd omission to not include fees incurred by the "concessionaire" in this subsection of the law, despite specifically including them in subsection 6 of the same law.
Second question - In the case of civil actions brought by the bridge operator the cost to the city would be 0 as per the lease contract. Could the judge, at their discretion, award $0 for the enforcement, collection, and attorney's fees due to the law specifying that only the city's costs "must" be reimbursed.
(I know the second question is a bit of a silly semantic argument)
Post-Script:
Both of these questions are purely hypothetical; the bridge operator sent the first invoices for pay by mail approximately two weeks ago so it is impossible for someone to be in actual litigation over these issues. I'm just looking for thoughts and opinions on the matter either way, or the argument both ways. If anyone is interested in seeing the full text of the lease contract between the city and the bridge operator I can send it, it's a public record document and posted online, but the javascript link can't be posted.

Recently got back from an incredible 19 days in Japan. I’m really feeling the post-Japan blues now, but writing about the trip and sharing what I learned feels like a nice way to honour the memories I made.
I (35M) travelled to Japan with my partner (41M) from Canada. We were there from March 26 to April 13 - these dates were “chosen” for us because we were attending a wedding in Tokyo. We got to wear hakamas, walk in the procession at Meiji Jingu, and observe a Shinto wedding ceremony first-hand.
We did the Golden Route + Kanazawa, however, many travelers have already written about this route so I’ll try to offer new stories to interested readers instead.

About us and high-level trip summary:

• Our entire itinerary consisted of: Tokyo (+ trip to Kawaguchiko), Hakone, Osaka (+ trips to Himeji and Nara), Kyoto (+ trip to Hiroshima), Kanazawa (+ trip to Shirakawa-go), and then Tokyo again for the final night in Kichijoji.
• Stayed at a total of 7 hotels and made good use of the luggage delivery service. Usually took 1 day, but sometimes 2, so plan ahead.
• We got the JR West All Area Pass, which let us go to Hiroshima, Himeji, and Kanazawa from Osaka/Kyoto (plus a few other small trips). Not only was this worth it for us in terms of monetary value, but the built-in flexibility came in clutch i.e taking the train at our leisure and feeling much less stress over seat reservations or waiting in line. I used this website to help me determine which pass to get: https://www.japan-guide.com/railpass/
• As mentioned earlier, we attended our close friends’ wedding in Tokyo, which took place at Meiji Jingu and Meiji Kinenkan. It was a truly special and once-in-a-lifetime event. Being photographed by the sightseers at Meiji Jingu was also an interesting experience!
• We went out on weekend nights and checked out the popular places in Shinjuku Nichome (i.e the gay village). While they were fun, you need to dig deeper to find the places that make Nichome stand out from other gaybourhoods around the world.
• Did not make a lot of food reservations because we read how easy it was to find good food around every corner. We found this to be largely true and ate well on our trip (including many konbini meals and bento boxes on the train), but we look forward to diving deeper into the culinary world on trip #2.
• One of my favourite phrases was: Nani ga oishii desu ka? It means ‘What is tasty here?’ and is like asking the restaurant for their recommendation. I never got a bad result with this question.
• The ryokan, onsen, and kaiseki from our 1 night stay in Hakone were all amazing. It was probably our favourite room and meal on the trip. We would certainly return to Hakone and stay 2 nights next time.
• Saw a geisha performance in Kanazawa that was geared towards visitors and it was so fun and fascinating. My partner got to play taiko drums with a geisha!
• The big tourist must-sees were nice, but I’ll fondly remember all the times we just wandered the streets, witnessing small slices of other people’s lives.
• Kichijoji ended up being our favourite area of Tokyo.
• I planned this trip meticulously, but many items still ended up falling through or needed to be re-arranged due to various reasons (fatigue, sickness, timing mistakes). I think you will need to make peace with this and be prepared to be flexible with your plans, outside of pre-booked reservations.

Detailed report:

Before the flight

There were a few things we did before the trip began to help us out:

• Picked up a Wise card, allowing us to withdraw cash without paying extra fees. The fees can really add up.
• Reserved a pocket wifi router for pick-up at Narita.
• Made reservations for popular activities, namely the Ghibli Museum and USJ Express Pass.
• Adjusted our bodies to the new timezone a few days before our flight using an app called Timeshifter.
• Installed the Japan Travel by NAVITIME app, which I preferred over Google Maps when it came to anything involving the shinkansen.
• Watched Perfect Days, a meditative film that follows a toilet cleaner in Tokyo. It got us even more excited for Japan, plus the washrooms featured in this film are real and inspired us to look out for them in real life!

Landing in Japan

• After passing through customs, we picked up the pocket wifi router we had reserved. There are multiple drop-off locations, so you can pick up at one location and drop off at another. We chose the plan that gave us unlimited data for 3 weeks and it was worth it.
• I wanted to get our IC cards, but the line at the JR ticket office was so long that we just opted to buy individual tickets to take the Keisei Access Express. If you are going to be staying near any major metro stations (Ueno, Tokyo, Shinjuku, a few others), you can go there for your tickets because the lines seem to be shorter and you’ll ideally be rested by then.
  • I got my IC card at Ueno Station. On the ground floor, at the JR travel centre, you can line up for the Suica. However, I really wanted the cute Pasmo Passport instead. It took some asking around, but we eventually found the ticket office in the metro station, which is underground and had no line at all. We showed our passports and picked up our Pasmo cards without issue. It’s cash only.
• I also purchased an eSIM from Airalo. It was my first time doing so and I found the process fairly straightforward. I only got 3 gigabytes of data, which was for situations where I might find myself separated from my partner (who held onto the pocket wifi). Ended the trip with over 1gb remaining.
• On our first night, we wandered and found some restaurants in the alleyways behind our train station; we ate delicious ramen for around ¥800. It’s true what they say about your first night being a write-off, however, so don’t expect to do much else.

A note about the trains and ticketing system

I loved taking the shinkansen, they were so comfortable and predictable. The ticketing system, however... that’s a different story entirely. I think everyone just has to go through it like a rite of passage. I also couldn’t get SmartEx to work, which would’ve saved us a lot of hassle.
Regarding the JR West pass, I learned that you can’t make online seat reservations with it after you pick up the physical pass. You must use a specific machine or visit a ticket desk. To use the machines, find the ones with the green head boards and then select the option that mentions using a ‘discount ticket’ or something like that. Insert your pass and choose the destination and train you want to take. You’ll then get your pass back along with the printed tickets. Fortunately, there’s usually an attendant there to help you out.
I will miss having bento on the train while watching the scenery pass by (and listening to Fujii Kaze, haha).

March 26 - 28: A gentle introduction to Japan.

Places: Asakusa, Akihabara, Ueno, Ginza, and Chiyoda
Hotel: Route-Inn Grand Tokyo Asakusabashi
We chose this area because it was budget-friendly and gave us easy access to all the places we planned on visiting. A lot of people recommend staying in Asakusa, but we found Asakusabashi to be even quieter and cheaper.
Highlights:

• Itoya Ginza is a stationary lover’s paradise. Each of the ten floors is immacuately curated, filled with beautiful things to look at and use. If that wasn’t enough, a nature-inspired soundtrack plays the entire time to really put you in the mood. I picked up a Shupatto bag and liked it so much (great design and durability) that I went back and bought a few more as gifts.
• I found a place called the Okuno Building and it felt like a hidden gem for anyone who’s into art and architecture. Try to time your visit with when Room 306 is open: https://room306project.tokyo/about-en/
• Stepping outside of Tokyo Station, you feel small and the grandeur of Tokyo really hits you. Across the station in the building with the Beams store, there’s an observation deck that offers a gorgeous nighttime view of the area. There’s also a food hall with a great energy and vibe.
• About 10-15 minutes walk north of Akihabara station is an artisanal market tucked away beneath the train tracks. It was quiet and cute with a lot of interesting shops. Many handmade giftable items to be found: https://www.cntraveler.com/shops/tokyo/aki-oka-artisan
• I had a reservation for the Final Fantasy Eorzea Cafe in Akihabara - it was something I had wanted to do for a long time, though it felt underwhelming in the end. The food and drinks were photogenic, but forgettable. There are a number of cafes like these around and I imagine the gimmick is similar in each (at least, the ones run by Pasela Resorts). Still, no regrets!

Notes:

• Most of the hotels we stayed at did not allow use of stairs except in emergencies. This was usually fine, but during one busy morning rush we waited a ludicrously long time to get down from the 4th floor! We became acquainted with a charming Japanese woman as a result of waiting for the elevator, so there was a silver lining.

March 29 - April 3: Unforgettable memories made over a weekend.

Places: Shinjuku, Shibuya, teamLab, Kawaguchiko, and the wedding
Hotel: Yuen Shinjuku
Atmospheric hotel. Situated on a quiet street in Shinjuku while remaining within walking distance to all the fun places. Onsen on the top floor with amazing city views.
Highlight: The wedding

• To prepare for the wedding, we had a fitting at a kimono rental shop (Vasara) along with some friends. The men in the group wore hakamas, which are like trousers reserved for very formal occasions. Wearing a kimono and hakama was interesting - there’s a lot of tucking and wrapping under those robes, forcing you to stand straight while also having your organs squeezed in. But damn did we feel and look good in them, haha.
• The wedding itself was one of the most gorgeous and well-organized weddings I’ve ever been to and I’m still in a bit of awe. It began in the early morning with a Shinto ceremony at Meiji Jingu. The ritualistic garments worn by the bride and groom as well as the attendants were beautiful. After conducting the tea ceremony in a semi-private reception area, we gathered into a two-column procession and slowly walked to the main ceremonial site deeper within Meiji Jingu, led by a priest and two shrine maidens. Everything was solemn and immaculate. You can read about what these ceremonies are like online, but there were a lot of rituals, rules, and even audience participation e.g. standing, sitting, clapping, and drinking sake. Being photographed by hundreds of people while walking to and from the ceremonial site was also something I didn’t think I’d ever get to experience - I imagine this is what a celebrity feels like!
• The reception afterwards was at Meiji Kinenkan and followed a more familiar Western reception format, with an MC, music, multi-course meal, and live performances (including mochi pounding and spectacular Japanese Bollywood dancers) - but no dancing for the participants, haha. There was also an after-party at an Indian restaurant in Shibuya and it was a much more casual and colourful affair.

Highlight: Nichome

• Nichome - one could easily miss this entire neighbourhood during the day, but boy does it come alive at night. We visited most of the major bars: Eagle, Eagle Blue, Dragon Men, Arty Farty, etc. What immediately struck me about those places was how similar they felt to bars back home i.e Toronto. There were lots of foreigners and the vibe and music reminded me of our own bars. It’s still a fun time and you can meet other travellers if you put yourself out there.
• When I said that one needs to dig deeper to find what makes Nichome stand out from other gaybourhoods, I was referring to the hundreds of tiny bars in the basements and upper levels of the buildings all around Nichome. To really get something out of this experience though, you need to either: i) speak Japanese, or ii) be accompanied by someone who can speak Japanese. I was lucky to fall into the latter group and had a few nights of uproarious karaoke, bantering with drag queens, and intimate conversations with bar staff.

Other highlights:

• teamLab Planets was mind-blowing and I highly recommend anyone go at least once. The less you know about it, the better. The area around teamLab Planets (which includes the famous Toyosu Market) was also pleasant to walk around. In fact, we had a picnic by the water with a clear view of the Tokyo skyline.
• I find malls in Asia to be on another level and the one we visited - Shibuya Parco - was no exception. There was a large terrace on the top floor with expansive views of the city and the basement housed an impressive food hall with a wide range of cuisines. The floors in-between had many unique offerings as well, even if only to window shop.
• We found one of the washrooms from the film Perfect Days, the one in Nabeshima Shoto Park. The exterior was incredibly designed, though the interiors were just fine. The park also houses a tranquil pond that was nice for a stroll around and the neighbourhood itself was enjoyable to walk through.
• Got my hair cut at a place called Assort Tokyo with English-speaking hair stylists - shout out to Yutsuki who gave me one of the best cuts I’ve ever had!
• Karaoke Manekineko is prevalent in Japan and we had the fortune of going to one with our Japanese friends. It was fun, affordable, and equipped with all our favourite songs (both Japanese and English). Indulge in the bottomless drink machines - their corn soup is a best seller and after trying it myself, I can see why!
• Seeing Mt. Fuji in person is an out-of-this-world experience - pictures don’t do it justice. However, the popular places we visited (Chureito Pagoda, northern shore of the lake) were extremely busy despite the lack of cherry blossoms e.g. the queue to access the observation deck at Chureito was 1 hour long. Getting around Kawaguchiko also wasn’t easy or cheap - the buses were packed and unpredictable and taking a taxi across town cost us a pretty penny. If I were to return, I’d get a private tour guide or just stick to the not-famous places and aim to be there in the early morning.

Notes:

• We switched hotels from Asakusabashi to Shinjuku and it was worthwhile to do so. We valued being able to walk to and from the bars, especially at night after the trains close
• I made the mistake of thinking we could get tickets on the express/direct train to Kawaguchiko the day before - nope. You should book these early. We took the shinkansen to Otsuki and then from there took a local train the rest of the way.

April 3 - 7: Embracing the calm after Tokyo.

Places: Hakone, Osaka, Himeji
Hotels: Mount View Hakone and Onyado Nono Osaka Yodoyabashi
The hotel in Hakone was itself the highlight. This one was a bit higher up in the mountains, but still easily accessible by bus. Top-notch hospitality and amenities. Our Osaka hotel was also comfortable and had an onsen and was located in a convenient area - not in the thick of things, but close to the important metro lines.
Highlights:

• I wish we stayed longer at our Hakone ryokan. Their kaiseki dinner and breakfast were exquisite. The private onsen consisted of two large basins for our exclusive use with a view of an illuminated bamboo grove. That said, I think you could choose any 3+ star ryokan in Hakone and have a stellar time. The town was calm and charming; it was especially haunting with the light rain and mist when we were there.
• We took a bus that went directly from our hotel all the way to Odawara, where we caught the shinkansen to Osaka. Unlike at home, where riding the bus feels like a chore, I felt that taking the various transport options in Japan was an experience unto itself - always something to see and admire outside the window.
• Osaka’s nightlife was vibrant, though we preferred Shinsekai over Dotonbori if only because the former was way less crowded. I also went out to Doyamacho (Osaka’s gay district) on my own, which seemed tiny in comparison to Nichome. I visited the newly opened Eagle Osaka and met a Canadian expat; it was fun to hear stories about being gay in Japan from people who’ve lived there for a long time.
• Sunset at Osaka Castle with all the sakura was magical. The crowds were minimal here. My favourite shot to take was a close-up of the flowers with the castle in the background.
• My partner was very keen on visiting USJ and getting the Express Pass - I’m glad we did that because we got to experience (almost) everything we wanted to. Super Nintendo World was the absolute gem of USJ: going there felt like going to another dimension.
• Right outside USJ is a large shopping and restaurant complex. There’s a place on the fourth floor called TAKOPA Takoyaki Park and what a joy it was - pick any of the restaurants here, order a combo meal, and let your taste buds soar.
• Himeji is an easy day trip from Osaka and the famous castle is a straight walk down from the station. It was very picturesque - definitely visit the gardens while you’re there.

Notes:

• My partner started to feel unwell at this point of the trip, so we had to slow down our pace and also reshuffle a few itinerary items.

April 7 - 10: Sakura, temples, and museums.

Places: Nara, Kyoto, Hiroshima
Hotel: TUNESTAY Kyoto
A modern hotel that also feels like a hostel with its communal amenities and young vibe. Rest assured, the rooms are private and include your own bathroom. Minutes away from Kyoto Station and situated on the same street as the sightseeing buses.
Highlights:

• The sakura were now in full bloom and made for magnificent strolls around Kyoto’s famous districts, but like all other famous sites, they are best enjoyed early. We got up early for Philosopher’s Path and it was breathtaking and tranquil, just as we imagined it to be. It started to get crowded i.e noisier after 9am.
• The 10th floor of the Isetan building at Kyoto Station is a dedicated food hall, with one side being just ramen shops. Very yummy and very short lines!
• I read about how emotional the Hiroshima Peace Museum made people feel, but I still wasn’t prepared for the sheer gravity of it once we were there. I can only describe the experience as powerful and poignant. Certainly take your time to go through and read the cards on the exhibits. It was one of the rare places we visited that was both busy and quiet.
• Visit Okonomi-mura for delicious Hiroshima-style okonomiyaki and good vibes. It’s another food hall, but one that feels much more down to earth and gritty.
• We happened to stumble upon a night market at Murayama Park in Kyoto. The cherry blossoms were at their peak; they looked especially splendid under the glow of the lanterns. There were food stalls aplenty and we ate to our heart’s content: grilled fish, fried yam rolls, bamboo on a stick, and barbequed meats. Several restaurants and tables were set up in the middle of the park so you could sit down for a meal and some drinks while partaking in hanami. People were in very good spirits and we ended up chatting to a young couple sat next to us, where we bonded over our shared love for Howl’s Moving Castle and all things Ghibli. I’ll remember this particular night very fondly.

Notes:

• It’s possible to visit Nara on route from Osaka to Kyoto or vice versa. That’s what we did and we just stored our luggage at the station in Nara.
• It makes more sense to go to Hiroshima from Osaka - not only is it closer, but our JR West Pass did not include shinkansen travel between Osaka and Kyoto (even if we were riding on the same train going from Osaka to Hiroshima). We only did it this way because our original plans were changed due to my partner’s change in health status.

April 10 - 12: Winding down and enjoying small city life.

Places: Kanazawa, Shirakawa-go
Hotel: Hotel Kanazawa Zoushi
Our second favourite hotel of the trip. We had the warmest reception here, with complimentary tea and dango provided at check-in. The room was very comfortable, while the bathrooms were surprisingly spacious.
Highlights:

• Everyone comes here for Kenrokuen and... yeah, it’s an absolutely stunning garden, dressed in wide swathes of pink thanks to the pretty cherry blossoms. Having said that, we noticed other areas of the garden weren’t as lively because the plants had not yet flowered. I think coming here when you know certain flora will be in season will make for a more memorable experience.
• Right next to the gardens are the Kanazawa Castle Ruins, also home to some gorgeous blossom-lined paths. It was way less busy here, as if people didn’t realize they could walk another few minutes to this beautiful location.
• On the surface, Higashi Chaya looked similar to the historic districts in Kyoto. We primarily went there for the Geisha Evenings in Kanazawa performance held at Kaikaro Tea House and it ended up being one of our favourite highlights of the entire trip. Lady Baba is a fabulous host and storyteller; the two hours we spent here flew by, filled with laughter, music, and cultural learnings.
• Omicho Market feels a lot more like a real food market than Nishiki and smells like the sea. We enjoyed some huge oysters here and grilled scallop and octopus skewers.
• We dined at Gen-zae-mon on the recommendation of a local who worked at Kaikaro. It’s a cozy izakaya in downtown Kanazawa serving plenty of scrumptious regional specialties. Try asking the service staff for their recommendations if you’re overwhelmed by the menu options.
• Shirakawa-go was quaint, almost like being transported to a different era. The entire village is easily traversable by foot and it’s worthwhile to visit at least one of the historic houses that have been converted into a museum. If you can climb to the top of the observation deck, you’ll be rewarded with a serene lookout of the entire village. That said, I don’t think spring is the optimal season for Shirakawa-go to shine; I think any other season would colour it better, because it was still grey and barren when we went.

Notes:

• I mistakenly thought we could get tickets for the highway express bus from Kanazawa to Shirakawa-go last minute... nope. Thankfully, our JR West pass let us ride the shinkansen at no additional cost to Toyama, where we caught the bus there - and that bus was mostly empty. It only added about 30 minutes more to our travel time.

April 12 - 13: One more outing in Tokyo’s most desirable neighbourhood.

Places: Kichijoji, departure
Hotel: Tokyu REI Kichijoji
Standard hotel with few frills, but great price and location. We chose it because it was a last minute decision to switch from Akihabara to Kichijoji for our last night.
Highlights:

• I’m glad we stayed in Kichijoji for the last day of our visit. Walking the streets of this neighbourhood was exactly what we envisioned a peaceful Tokyo to be like and there was much to please the senses. It just felt like the whole package - picturesque, relaxed, easy to get lost in, and bustling to a degree that felt exciting without being overwhelming. The Internet claims that Kichijoji is the most desirable neighbourhood in Tokyo; I definitely believe that now.
• Ghibli Museum was delightful and I’m a big fan of the “no indoor photography” rule. The attention to detail was incredible. Treat yourself to a walk in Inokashira Park before or after your visit. It was late afternoon when we went and the park was filled with young families and students playing after-school sports. It just felt like a pinnacle “slice of life” moment.
• My very fashionable friend (the one who got married) said Kichijoji is her favourite place for consignment shopping and we saw plenty of those stores here. A bit deeper into the residential parts of Kichijoji is an artisanal market and cafe called Sippo: it was filled with one-of-a-kind goods at reasonable prices and everything was made in Japan. I know there are a lot of great shops in Tokyo, but this one stood out to us and we would certainly return on future trips.
• We hopped on an airport shuttle bus from Kichijoji Station to Haneda. No reservations, but the bus was only a quarter full. We gave ourselves three hours at Haneda and still felt like we ran out of time - lots of great shops for last minute gifts (including an Itoya outpost!) Take note that the higher rated restaurants are located outside of the security gates.

Now that some time has passed since departing Japan, the emotions that swept over me in that country have left a deep mark. Like a reminder of what I’m chasing after in this life, Japan excited me, fulfilled me, and left me wanting more. I know that being Japanese in Japan is an entirely different experience, but I still yearn to experience even just a sliver of that life.
Thanks for reading and I hope you got something out of this trip report. If you’re interested in seeing some of the photos I took on this trip, I’ve shared them on my Instagram account, which is the same handle as my Reddit username.

You go into labor, lose your triplets at 16 weeks, go through funeral process and cremate just to find out three weeks later they left one of the triplets in the OR (in a box) and had to go through cremation process again!
Exactly what the title says. What would you do? And before people start saying lawyer, lawyer lawyer trust me I’ve been trying for the last six months this happened in April 2023 atrium health, Charlotte I can’t find one local lawyer that is willing to take this case on and I think it’s because it’s one of the biggest hospital systems around But all is true, April 6, 2023 I went into labor at 15weeks and 3days pregnant. I was super excited to reach the 16 week mark I felt like it was a huge hill I had overcame… Two of the babies were identical boys, and they were in a sack together and then what I’m assuming was a little girl by herself . All three were healthy. The day of my appointment which was April 5. I told the specialist about some fluid that had been leaking out that I did not feel was discharge. He assured me I was fine that I had never had a triplet pregnancy and that these things just happened and I said OK went about my day announce start pregnancy online, just to go into labor about eight hours later. We had been so scared to announce our pregnancy because of the high risk, and because I had had a prior miscarriage. But surely at 16 weeks and with more ultrasound pictures that you could hold or take a picture, I think we had over 42 ultrasounds because it was such an interesting pregnancy. all the babies were healthy had great heart rates, and even a hygroma was outgrown and some special test came back that there were no problems with their DNA for any kind of defects Fast-forward to that evening, I go into labor, and the triplets lose their heartbeats one by one I sat in labor for over 12 hours before they finally took me in for a D and E It’s called a dilation and evacuation Afterwards, I was so numb from the emotional pain and feelings of everything I was going through. I just wanted to get the process over with. There was a very nice funeral home that donated their cremation services. It was a service through the hospital that they offered to us, and I thought it was the sweetest thing they have even gave us our children all three feet prints After that, we went to the funeral home we signed the paperwork and we got what we thought were the remains of our triplets. May 2023 I get a phone call and it is the medical Director and the attending surgeon that did my surgery and they’re calling to tell me that one of my triplets was put into a box and not found for over 26 days in the OR and that for some reason when they did their monthly Check or monthly cleaning or inventory. Whatever it is they were doing they found one of my triplets and there were no emotions. It was just we are sorry and we will get IT back out to the funeral home. At this point, we were instructed to wait for a phone call from the funeral home which we did, and when we went back up there we had to bring the urn along with the remains that we thought were all three of our children just to have it combined, and when we got those ashes, it was much more than what we were originally given the first time. As much as everybody’s gonna say, lawyer, lawyer lawyer, I have tried if you can refer me somewhere if you can give me some ideas because when people are feeling like they’re in a corner, they can’t always think outside of the box. That’s why sometimes it’s easier to have somebody else find something for you that your eyes are not able to see because you’re scanning all over for your keys but somebody can walk up right behind you and find your keys for you. It’s kind of an instance like that I just need other opinions, and other people to give me ideas of what I should do. Do you think that possibly I should go out of town to search for legal representation, should I start sharing my story and Get networking going and maybe I’ll come across somebody then I’m supposed to for a reason for that reason (I do very much believe in stuff like that) you guys please don’t come for me. I’m using voice to text so if anything isn’t punctuated correctly my apologies. I am a very busy person. I just got back to work about four months ago. I had a horrible time recovering after that surgery last April and it took me about six months to just get back to normal to where I didn’t feel extreme and utter anxiety when I would walk out the door. Also, I have been collecting my records. I do have every ultrasound in any screenings or anything that I did lab wise. I have all of those records and I did request my regular records that way whenever I go to make a complaint to the medical board they don’t have a chance to skew anything. That is also a fear of mine and I don’t know if that’s just anxiety or legit fear. Either way I appreciate any and all suggestions just please be kind. This is some thing that I haven’t even shared with family too much let alone the whole Reddit community. And again, thank you for your time. -lost

Right! One more episode just packed to the brims that makes me love how every character is always like:
"it's not my secret to tell" "it's not my business"
but then everyone is mixing themselves into every else's business because that's humans for you. And sometimes that has hilarious, others it has tragic results and feel free to guess where most of the meddling ends on that scale, in this episode.
https://preview.redd.it/og6w5agqc9xc1.jpg?width=606&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4363f060c8781084d67e715156ac21fc3d6c694
I love how Fellowes looves killing us softly. We're starting with a wide shot of Downton, as sunny a day as you can get up in Yorkshire, but then you look at the foreground, and see Matthew in a wheelchair with Mary pushing him on what I assume is a sad imitation of their usual walk and talk around the estate.
Just, take yourselves back a season, remember the young man who was "so full of himself", i.e. confident, strolling into Downton having no idea what to expect but being certain enough in himself to not be afraid of any criticism. And then meeting a young woman also so full of herself, confident, but also quite angry, and who could not understand why she was supposed to not only dine with him as equals, but be pushed at him, like he had already known and she had scoffed at, to be his wife.
And then life happened, and they were both humbled a lot, and grew up a lot, and sometimes the way it happened was way too tragic.
Because Matthew had never asked to be Lord of the manor strolling around Downton in splendour. He had been brought up to believe he needed to stand on his own two feet, to work hard and earn his way. And Mary had never had to work a day in her life. Had thought it was too enraging to even dine with Matthew, the usurper of her father's affections and her mother's fortune.
And now here they are, Matthew relying on others to make his way, and said others being Lady Mary Crawley.
Golly Gumdrops, what a turnip indeed!
Note: they are still the future of Downton though. Like I said, it's as sunny as a day can get in Yorkshire (some clouds but the sun/hope is coming through), and Downton is standing strong behind them. Visual language is a thing of beauty sometimes.
Mary: I shall have arms like Jack Johnson if I’m not careful.
Matthew: I’m strong enough to wheel myself.
Mary: I’ll be the judge of that.
I love them. Their situation might be different, but their stubbornness and character shines through immediately. Mary with a sarcastic joke. Matthew still insisting he can work his way. Mary letting him know she sets the rules of the game thank you very much.
They've changed, but they're still themselves, just more mature, a bit worn.
Matthew then going on a slightly depressive space all "William was the brave one, sacrifice should be rewarded, he should be here not *exactly* instead of me etc" and Mary picking up on it immediately and setting him straight.
"I don't think we can say "should" about things that happen in war. It just happens. And we should live with it."
She does that thing where she rolls her entire head (not just the eyes, Michelle you genius, the camera was too far away, wouldn't pick up on that) because clearly she's been talking him out of his depressive moods for a while and she's become an expert at letting him air his grievances but easily replying with just the thing that will shut him up and keep him grounded.
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Carlisle: Ought I to be jealous?
Ugh. Here we fucking go.
I love Robert's face. Constipated. And as terrible a liar as his eldest daughter, but unlike her he knows it so he doesn't even reply to Carlisle and instead changes the subject.
I'm so confused by Carlisle. Well, not confused, I know what he's doing. I'm just pissed off at him I guess.
He had made it clear to Mary, immediately, that he was not in love with her. That he felt no affection for her. That the marriage he had in mind was one of mutual social benefit.
So no, Carlisle, you're not supposed to be jealous. You asked Mary to be your society wife. To give you the aristocratic connection you needed, to be there to guide you through their insane traditions and to show up at functions and be socially savvy, and to give you "blue-blooded" children.
*vomits*
Carlisle has no rights to her heart, and she knows this. Mary guards her heart more than any other character on this show, and she'd certainly not offered it to Richard, ever, so why would he possibly be jealous???
Matthew is impotent in these scenes, clearly there's nothing they could do that could damage Carlisle socially, even if they wanted to (which they actually didn't, Mary was offering her love and care in the least sexual way possible, and Matthew was nowhere near that mindset), and Mary was offering Matthew none of the things Richard wanted so what's the deal mate??
It will be made clear, at the very end of the episode.
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I'm hating on Robert so hard in this scene. I love well-written it is though, because Robert and Carlisle are talking about completely different things.
Robert knows how Mary feels about Matthew. We've seen that realisation hit him in the previous episode. But when Carlisle says he wants to buy Haxby, Robert wonders whether it would be "comfortable" for them to stay at Haxby.
Does this mean he was aware Matthew was also still in love with Mary? Or did he simply worry it would be too painful for Mary to be so close to Matthew and Lavinia? Is it possible he could already see this being an issue, but decided to not say absolutely anything about it because... Who cares I guess????
So what if Mary is in a loveless marriage, as long as she's married, able to procreate, and somewhere far enough from Downton that her and Matthew's stupidity wouldn't cause trouble to the family?
Or did he think if they were far enough away she'd forget?
Either way, Robert is thinking of what Richard said previously, that Matthew and Mary are definitely not done, meanwhile, for all his "worries" over Mary falling for Matthew all Richard is thinking of is the practicalities of the place because he wasn't actually buying it with Mary in mind. Just his dreams of climbing the social ladder and then showing it off in absolute splendour.
With the beautiful aristocratic wife on his arm and his money buying the very best house and luxuries available, all trophies to show off to his potential crowd of sycophants.
*gags*
So, yeah, fuck Robert and his indifference to Mary becoming some asshole's trophy wife. Great, A++ parenting right there. I mean sure, she's a grown woman who makes her own choices, but Robert's inaction/indifference is just pathetic and telling of his parenting style in the past, when Mary was *not* a grown woman.
https://preview.redd.it/w8eruf54e9xc1.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=499f3e34fa606729f67a89edf2887049a0d4a223
Ah, fake Patrick, my beloved. I hope the user forever making their point about that storyline is still around, mate give me a shout if you like this breakdown in the end!
Let me start off by saying that he DID take terrible advantage of Edith. He read the situation really well, greeting her with: "Lady Edith, SECOND daughter of the house", to which Edith replied "Yes, IN CHARGE of non-medical welfare".
It doesn't take long for Fellowes to show character weakness when he wants to, and Edith wears her emotions on her sleeve. It does help her become more likeable (to those who like emotive characters, I prefer mine as frosty as the Antartica until you cut through all that ice but again, personal preferences!) but it also exposes her to exploitation, again and again because this is neither the first time, nor the last time it happens. Fake Patrick read her like a book.
We could also say that there were things he could know from the real Patrick. Edith has always worn her heart on her sleeve and she's openly tried to take the attention of Mary's suitors before, so it's no stretch to say she'd definitely show Patrick she was into him, something that Patrick might have said to his friend.
But as that is speculation, we still have that bit of dialogue to see how Edith gave herself and her weakness, her feeling of inferiority she tries so hard to make up for in various ways, away to this man.
Also, he says "I hope my appearance doesn't put you off" while he's still hidden in the shadows, and Edith quite confidently replies "At this stage there isn't much that puts me off" but then he quite swiftly comes into the light, and oh-
https://preview.redd.it/q0nd7zc8e9xc1.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7d67f39b02a99b607d14124c54a09cdf153905e1
Edith has to look away in shock, and to manage to hold on to her composure and continue in polite conversation. Very manipulative, this Fake Patrick, able to use his recent injury to his advantage, because this was a power move. That yes, he could put her off if he wanted to.
I do feel sorry for Edith here. She tries to give him an explanation for their common "family history", already a victim of his manipulation because she tries to give him comfort which he Definitely doesn't need, and she closes it off with "well, as I said, I'm hopeless".
Unfortunately, that is true, but sadly, not in the way she says it. She's hopeless in falling for his act, actually.
He drops the hook with saying "I hoped you'd recognise my voice" and sees her interest before she's pulled away by Sybil. For now, Fake Patrick is satisfied with himself. Progress, he thinks.
Fellowes, you witty bastard.
Right. Moving on to yet another manipulative bastard:
https://preview.redd.it/1vqm9m0ce9xc1.jpg?width=692&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2e96c83c057cf44646ebb4dbcd237afbb61281a9
Carlisle: Lady Mary and I intend to buy a home near Downton.
Fuck off. You never needed Mary's agreement or permission in doing anything. He just knows what he needs to say to get Carson to listen.
"It's a long way from London, but I've made enough money to please myself these days."
Finally, some honesty. "to please MYSELF". No kidding. I know it just slipped out, he didn't mean to show his hand, but again, excellent writing.
In any case, Carlisle had started his campaign on how to fix the Matthew and Mary issue. He's a newspaper man, he knows the best way to work is to surround yourself with people literally in your pocket. He offered to job to Carson to lull Mary in a sense of security, that she'd have someone she considered family with her, and hoped he could buy off his loyalty because Carlisle puts 0 weight on real loyalty and affection, so he'd never expect Carson to not fold to his own wishes, if he needed him to, over his loyalty to Mary.
Carson: I await Lady Mary's instruction.
Right. We'll get back to that, next episode. I'm not gonna comment here further than saying that obviously, at this point Carson's loyalty remains with his daughter current employer's daughter.
https://preview.redd.it/fd3vp26ie9xc1.jpg?width=719&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6c52a01b130ca5be5b93a588f108c095471ba39b
Mary: It's so empty
Visual language, she's standing alone in an empty and very grand house. But it's empty. Like her current situation. Very grand. And empty.
Also she and Carlisle are on opposite ends of the house AND when the camera looks at Mary, we look at her head-on because her situation is unchanged, but we look at Carlisle from below, because "he's rising" in the world 😒
The script again, gives us excellent lines "When Billy died it knocked the stuffing out of them" like the stuffing had been knocked out of Mary. All that misery had resulted in Billy's parents leaving Haxby, and Mary coming to it.
Also Mary when Carlisle says they can buy furniture and paintings "Your lot buys it. My lot inherits it. We ought to get back."

1. Apparently, if you're going to marry a man this authoritative, you really should learn that you will suffer if you're going to be so open with your opinions, as a woman. Mary finds that out soon enough. But it's MARY, and God knows I love her for her strength of spirit, so she definitely won't slip into the role of the compliant, broken wife. My girl 🥹
2. "your lot buys it, my lot inherits it. We ought to get back" Her brain has gone from Carlisle's lot, to her lot, which is Matthew, who will inherit Downton and all its furniture and paintings, because Matthew has gone from interloper to her lot/family in her mind, and by the way, Matthew needs her so they ought to get back.

Again. So. Well. Written.
Carlisle: Why? What's at Downton that needs your attention so urgently?
https://preview.redd.it/ypiot7i1f9xc1.jpg?width=564&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7c7fccff6d65e938ee46ae07a99b0bff6ca610f9
Again, fuck off Carlisle. Why do you care who she spends her time with, she's still your trophy wife. Mary doesn't even bother responding because, guess what, it's actually none of his fucking business. MY GIRL
Carlisle: Well, what do you think? Should we give the house a second chapter?
Mary: Well, I suppose one has to live somewhere
She really can't understand why he's suddenly pretending they're something more than what they actually are. She won't give him the satisfaction of going along with it. "One has to live somewhere" i.e. it doesn't matter where we'll be, the house won't make any difference to what we will be to each other.
Back to Fake Patrick and his campaign of misinformation.
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He says "do you still not recognise me" and traps Edith, both because he knows she will want to give him what he wants, and because she's in a situation where a woman of her station simply has to remember an acquittance so she says "I know, I'm being so silly" even though she's not being silly at all, she has no reason to remember him.
This is why Edith is the more feminine of the three sisters. Neither Sybil nor Mary would give a flying fuck about the rules of society here, while Edith truly tries to be a model woman, still. They would refuse to make themselves appear silly to satisfy a man. They'd both say some variation of "Why the fuck should I remember you?" Mary's probably closer to that sentiment than Sybil's, and go on with their lives.
Anyway, Fake Patrick goes on creating connections that Edith doesn't actually see, only reads them through what he's dishing out to her, and slowly begins to believe his bullshit.
"I was just hoping you'd realise without me having to spell it out" he shifts the blame on her for not recognising him, when she had 0 reasons to make that connection. Like a manipulative bastard.
There's a reason there wasn't a scene between Fake Patrick and Mary. She'd eat him alive.
It's also moments like this that make me feel sad for Edith and Mary's relationship. This is something that Mary could have protected her sister from, if their relationship wasn't so very damaged.
He gets Edith to sit down and he feeds her the tale, but she still has questions so when he gets the chance he manipulates her again:
Edith: And it must be so hard for you, what with Mary getting married.
Fake Patrick: Did I love her very much?
Edith: Well, I'm the wrong person to ask.
Fake Patrick: Because you were the one who really loved me, you mean?
Edith: I never thought Patrick knew.
Fake Patrick: Well, he did. I--I do.
He asks Edith if he loved Mary, because he knows that will give her the space to expose herself, to let him know if she has lingering feelings for Patrick, and that gives him a footing to manipulate her emotionally.
They actually don't speak about Patrick's feelings at all. Only Edith's. They don't say if Patrick loved Mary. They don't even talk about if Mary loved Patrick. They only talk of Edith's feelings, and he lets her know that Patrick knew about it (and slips a bit when he says that Patrick knew, not himself).
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Mary: *something about Haxby park with the least amount of enthusiasm imaginable*
Matthew: Can we stop??
Yeah, mate. I wish you would. Take a moment to actually think. But why would you do that when you can both be idiots instead.
Matthew: I'd much rather see your face when we talk
Mary is hard enough to read when you're watching her expressions closely, how can he judge what she feels if he can only tell from her voice? And he needs to know how she feels about Haxby, and Carlisle.
Oh, Matthew 😔
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Mary: I don't have to marry him, you know.
They talk about Mary and Carlisle buying Haxby, about Carson's devotion to her, and she's so desperate. I think part of it is because she wonders who will Matthew have in his corner. She wants to tell him that just as Carson would "open his veins for her" she would do the same for Matthew. And she tells that to him now, not before or after, because now, this moment, is the only time when Lavinia is truly not in the picture. Because she doesn't take away from Matthew's happiness by not only showing him, but telling him how much she truly cares. Well. As much as Mary can manage to talk about feelings anyway.
She also thinks she will have Carson in her corner, and that's something, but who will Matthew have if she leaves? She's also so desperate the more the time passes and the closer she comes to the reality that actually, she won't be able to stay at Matthew's side for much longer.
How else would she say "I don't have to marry him", if not in despair? Of course she has to marry him. She still thinks her father and Matthew would hate her if they knew the truth. She thinks Carlisle would sell her story the moment she pulled out of the deal (and we'll talk about why he didn't do it when the time comes), her plea here is more showing of how desperate she is over their situation, and to show Matthew that she'd do anything for him.
From his end, Matthew would never accept that kind of devotion.
Matthew: Yes, you do. If I thought for a moment that I was an argument against your marriage, I should jump into the nearest river.
There's two sides to this:

1. If he wouldn't "trap" Lavinia in a life as his wife and nurse, he certainly wouldn't "trap" Lady Mary Crawley to a life as his nurse. What I love is that, unlike other men on the show who just don't think women capable of knowing their own minds, Matthew doesn't dismiss Mary's opinion and feelings, he only dismisses himself. He doesn't think she's misguided in her thoughts, just that he doesn't want to be the one to drag her down to his level, because he thinks himself quite worthless right now.
2. "I wouldn't let you anywhere near me" I think in the end of the day, he's aware of his weakness, and his weakness is Mary. And if Mary weren't engaged, if what she was offering wasn't to be his nurse, he wouldn't be strong enough to send her away. He loves her too much.

Right, from that tear-jerker lets move to some fun bits for once:
Matthew:... I should jump into the nearest river.
Mary: And how would you manage that without my help?
Matthew: Well, I'd get you to push me in.
Lord give me strength.
A marriage of equals. Where Matthew would need Mary's help. Where Mary would be in a position to help him, but would be reluctant to do so, unless persuaded by Matthew to change her mind.
Hmmm, I think there's a storyline (or two) from season 3 that fits this dialogue perfectly. And some that fit it in reverse.
https://preview.redd.it/ynlzfi2ag9xc1.jpg?width=806&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=083feb4df2413be6c954eb8c163217ef599198d0
*insert any and all rage gifs*
He looks so, so sad. His own life seems so bleak. And Mary is engaged so he "lets" her spend time with him. But also, Mary is engaged, to another man.
And look at her as well. She can see how depressed he is and it's killing her, and she's trying so hard to help him find some hope. Mary's heartbreak over Matthew's self-pity and fatalism is a thing that can destroy a person (me).
If only they weren't so perfect for each other and still killing me with their endless drama and bloody stubborn stupidity and gaaaaaaaahh.
Moving on
https://preview.redd.it/k8um7kucg9xc1.jpg?width=400&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=26e61e621f1b8991fa49a62ab8ee58699c5175d2
I love how these scenes come in one after the other.
Mary and Matthew bathed in light, even in their tragedy, and Carlisle and Cora shown in dark outlines as they're watching them, because what they are plotting is truly, honestly, so disgusting and vile in its selfishness.
No one expected anything better from Carlisle, but Cora???
First of all, Mary would be so ashamed to be so easily read. Matthew doesn't care, he's open with his emotions because he's confident in his ability to withstand whatever comes his way, and to not be manipulated by them, Mary cares, and she'd normally hate being so obvious if she wasn't so torn apart by Matthew's misery.
Second of all, honestly, Cora. I thought she'd have known better than involving herself in Mary's life by now, but apparently not. And by the way, she doesn't make a choice for Mary here, she makes it for herself, and her family, and what SHE thinks is best. And what she thinks is best is marrying Mary off to Carlisle because Carlisle CAN make babies with Mary and what does Mary even matteworth to anyone if she doesn’t do her duty and bear children?
*gags, vomits, throws computer out a window*
Anyone who knew Mary, truly knew her, and cared about her, would know that taking her away from Matthew and pushing her further in with Carlisle would not be in her -personal- best interest.
Also, selfish, and frankly disgusting, that Cora bulked at the idea of Mary being Matthew's nurse, but didn't mind throwing Lavinia at that "hideous" prospect. After all, Lavinia has no “blue blood” to speak of so who the fuck cares.
I honestly hate these people. They can both fuck right off. Their interference here was an absolute travesty. And if we want to talk about the real reason things went so sour with Lavinia, we can stare at these two, in this moment.
Because before Matthew's injury, he and Mary were far more removed from each other. After all that time of her taking care of him though, there was a bond there that was far more difficult to ignore. And if Lavinia hadn't come back, they would have figured it out. And Carlisle knew that. So at least I can understand his motivations in not wanting Lavinia back, because he was actually worried at this point that Mary might pull out of their agreement (and again, we will talk more about his "leverage" over her later on), but Cora? Shameful. Honestly.
https://preview.redd.it/wqgolomng9xc1.jpg?width=800&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=bfcc27b542011770a8c3050963f4382de2b01e49
HER FACE
She couldn't believe that someone, anyone, would change their lives for her sake. Carson says "It would be a huge wrench for me to leave Downton" but he would do it for her, and she just can't believe it.
And this is important in how bad her reaction is later.
Because Mary isn't used to people showing her CARE. Interest yes, many people are interested in her. But interest and care are two very different things.
Also, just one bit from her conversation with Robert later:
Robert: You know there is nothing more ill-bred than to steal other people's servants.
Mary: But you're not other people. And Carson brought me up.
I.e. You're not "other people" you're my actual father, and should show a bit more consideration for my welfare. And Carson is not a servant, he's family. And he's showing Mary more consideration than her actual father in this instance. Or at least, that's how she sees it, in this moment. Especially since in the end, Robert doesn't give in to losing Carson for Mary's sake, but because it's what Carson wants.
The bad stuff haven't come yet and I'm already crying for her. Life has another slap on its way and it will hit her hard. And it's not even the one coming from Fake Patrick and his bullshit. Speaking of which-
https://preview.redd.it/0y1gc49sg9xc1.png?width=1205&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc46ea8d1be487b71bd5e4941d72882f5b7368a9
Family councils hadn’t made an appearance in ages and honestly, given how sad this one is, and how they normally come around when one tragedy or other strikes, I can’t exactly say I’ve missed them.
Emotions run high, and it’s amazing that the most exuberant of them all is Mary.
Matthew is only finding an outlet for his grief, the loss of inheritance seen as yet another thing he had trouble accepting before, but is certain he doesn’t deserve now. And Mary looks at him with so. Much. Pain.
Because she’s been there. She IS there. She knows what it feels like to feel completely worthless. To think you’ve lost your place in the world. That whatever it was that gave your life value before simply isn’t there anymore, and it’s KILLING her to see Matthew completely lost in self-hatred.
But because she’s Mary, she won’t just sit there quietly and let him take it, no matter what he says. She’ll yell and make a fuss and fight for him when he’s not in a place to fight for himself, and she'll do those things with much more conviction than she ever fought for herself so far.
And she’s literally got nothing to gain from this. Matthew has rebutted her efforts to stay by his side time and again, and her standing up for him now won’t win her any favours with literally anyone. It serves no purpose for her to be suddenly so emotional over something that really shouldn’t matter to her, but she’s not standing up for her own benefit, but for Matthew’s.
Edith is certainly surprised, exactly because she doesn’t understand why Mary would care, because Edith doesn’t know/believe how much Mary loves Matthew.
Note 1: Matthew and Mary have this in common: when they're most hurt they turn their pain to anger. My heart breaks that Mary knows this and can read that in Matthew's reaction, because it's so like her own.
Note 2: I love how Carlisle is almost uplifted to hear about Matthew’s loss of his inheritance, only to immediately intervene when he thinks it might be something that will cause issues to his own plans (when Edith points out that Mary used to be engaged to Patrick). I love how Mary rolls her eyes because of course that is absolutely ridiculous, and not only because Mary knows Patrick is dead.
I can tell Mary is Fellowes’ favourite character in this scene at least, because she’s the only one who doesn’t buy Fake Patrick’s absolutely ridiculous ploy. And it’s probably the reason why we don’t get to see her end Fake Patrick because she would never bother even meeting him, that’s how convinced she is he’s fake.
https://preview.redd.it/kihe5v3wg9xc1.png?width=1205&format=png&auto=webp&s=0da90fce57dbd957a8b263730cbfd9d45750821c
Note 3: The only other 2 people who react strongly to these news are Isobel and Robert. Isobel because it’s heartbreaking for her to watch her son, always so strong and confident, be this defeated, and Robert because he does love Matthew as a son. It is though heartbreaking he wouldn’t show the same consideration when his daughter is writing off her own life.
Oh well.
We momentarily get back to Edith and Fake Patrick, and Fake Patrick continues giving Edith reasons to create stories she thinks he remembers, without him actually remembering any of them. It’s just sad. She was too desperate.
https://preview.redd.it/i1b1c6pdh9xc1.png?width=1241&format=png&auto=webp&s=da9c9904cf117f5d2ee74fd407b844c9cee1c427
At the second family council re: Fake Patrick: Violet very astutely places herself in support of Matthew. And in this instance, I think it was simply because she was smart enough to know that this was a Fake Patrick.
Mary hits the nail on the head when she randomly guesses one of the things Fake Patrick “remembered” and gives a pause to Edith’s conviction.
Isobel is still worried over Matthew, even though he appears to be much calmer, and I think a combination of Isobel, Mary, and now watching Violet sort of take his side has helped him see reason, if not that he’s worthy of his position (since he still says “It’ll take a man who’s more than I am now to follow you. So don’t think about me”), that at the very least he’s nowhere near losing it.
I don’t think even Edith herself realised how damaging it would be for Matthew to lose Downton now, that it would have been incredibly difficult for him to find work.
https://preview.redd.it/uzlenehlh9xc1.png?width=1767&format=png&auto=webp&s=722df548837c70215b717f0bff8b68a513216139
Carlisle brings Lavinia back to Downton, Cora greets her like she’s an lamb for slaughter old friend, and there’s a variety of shock and horror on multiple people’s faces.
https://preview.redd.it/b288zpfph9xc1.png?width=1199&format=png&auto=webp&s=24116f5d80c2703c9d825fa188a7404051a46b21
I think what gets to me the most is this, Matthew has mostly resigned himself to his situation rather than happily accepted Lavinia’s return. He’s been told by so many people that he should embrace this new life, that he should make the most of it, and he’s probably quite vulnerable now when he realises that actually, he still has so much to lose when he thought he’d reached rock bottom, that he will take this, even though he probably still doesn’t think it’s right.
I don’t know how to feel about the row Robert and Cora had.
On the one hand, it could explain Robert’s lack of reaction to Carlisle being a horrible future husband for Mary. He can clearly see Mary loves Matthew, but he doesn’t like the idea of Mary still being attached to him any more than Cora does.
He does say however “Sometimes Cora you can be curiously unfeeling” and I’m not sure if he says that because Cora doesn’t care if Lavinia ends up as Matthew’s nurse, or because he can see how hard it all is for Mary and Matthew and he finds the solution of “Mary is still in love with Matthew even though she’s marrying Carlisle, so let’s bring Lavinia in to even the odds out” a cruelty to everyone involved.
I find it all incredibly cruel so for Robert’s sake, I hope the answer is both. It’s a cruel, stupid plan and will literally hurt everyone involved.
https://preview.redd.it/3bjoh2xyh9xc1.png?width=1854&format=png&auto=webp&s=4e06af52102bd839ece8cad6ddc835d32e609c65
I don’t know about any of you, but I remember being young and watching this, and my heart almost giving out.
For one thing, Mary freezes again the moment Carlisle grabs her.
For another thing, it happens in her home. Again. In the place where she should feel strong and safe because it’s her “noble” family’s home. And she’s yet again reminded that, no, actually, she’s not strong. Or at least, her strength of character doesn’t matter because in the end she’s not a man, she’s a woman at the mercy of the man who currently has control over her.
And he forces a kiss on her and she just stands there, numb, nods that she’ll follow his wishes, absolutely frozen still.
I do hate this show sometimes, but I do love that Mary stood up to him all by herself. In the end.
Note: the thing that Mary says to Carlisle that sets him off is “suppose Matthew won’t have her” i.e. Lavinia, and that in the end of the day if Mary wants to spend time helping Matthew it really isn’t Carlisle’s business. But Carlisle is a controlling fuck, so he took issue with that. That has been his problem all along. He doesn't care if Mary has feelings for another man, he just wants her entirely under his thumb regardless and he makes sure she knows he has all the cards.
The fact that there’s people on here saying Carlisle was “mistreated” really pisses me off to no end. But then they're often on here defending Pamuk so, you know, people be people.
Anyway. Fake Patrick leaves, the war ends, Mary is told to keep her distance, and Matthew starts gaining some feeling in his legs, which is I suppose what salvaged his relationship with Lavinia, at this stage.
God, this was long. Have a nice week everyone, the next episode should be easier as I think it's the filler one before Fellowes starts killing off ppl 💀

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Hi, this is going to be super long, and a lot of probably unimportant details. I'm from the US btw!
Hello!! I don't have a lot of knowledge about getting a job in research, so I figured that this would be the best place to ask! If you have any recs where I can find more info about this, please share! In the meantime I'll just share what my plans are and if you think something is a really silly idea or horribly misinformed, kindly let me know please! It would probably also help to mention I do want to be making big bucks if possible, but I know that takes a few years in a position to achieve that no matter what. I've looked at that Google sheets with the listings of people's job title, their years in that job, education level, pay, benefits, etc.
I also want to preface by saying I LOVEEEE lab work. I like slipping on the PPE and just working with plates, pipettes, gels, etc. and seeing different outcomes and results.
So I'm about ready to transfer, I just need to take both parts of Organic Chemistry. Buttttt... my school is a starter in a new bachelor's degree program at community colleges, and they're offering Research Laboratory Technology. It's seems to fit all the boxes of what I want to do. I still plan to apply to places like UCSD, UCSB, UCD, etc. but I honestly think staying home at the community college would be better for me now that I can get a bachelor's that preps really well for a lab based job. Tuition is soooo much cheaper (I'm talking 10k for the degree, what a steal if its not too good to be true!) Housing wouldn't be an issue for CC, but all the schools I'm interested are mostly beach schools so housing would be crazy whether I'm in a dorm or not. However, I'm under the assumption that with science degrees the school you go to matters on terms of getting a PhD right? It's probably because some schools provide better lab experience, and if you go to the same school you want a PhD at you're more likely to get into that schools PhD program?
Anyways, my plan for if I transfer AWAY is to finish my bachelor's at the UC or CSU, and try to score a Masters/PhD joint program?? Idk what it's called, but my uncle did it at Davis, I'll also be picking his Chem PhD brain when he visits in a couple weeks since he graduated fairly recently (maybe 2 years now?).
Plan for staying at the CC and doing their bachelor's program is to finish my bachelor's at home, and then get some experience in the job field (part of the reason this program was created was because a lot of places here are looking for lab people, so they're endorsing the introduction this bachelor's program and looking to snatch people from it to work for them. They're having problems of no one sticking around and I assume that's because our town doesn't really have money in that field, it's more farming, hence the introduction of this program to get people to stay working here with them rather than getting the experience and running.) to get some experience on my resume and references. Then after doing that for a couple years, getting a Masters online if possible, maybe even while working the job. I would get a PhD (or go get my masters in person, jointed with PhD hopefully) after buffing my resume in the work field for a couple years, but idk if you can do that if you haven't come from a regular state school..? I've heard PhD is mostly about your experience, if you've got the lab experience you're already ahead. Idk how true that is either.
If it helps, the community college bachelor's degree program in Laboratory Research Technology is said to be pretty hands on and preparing people for the work force in a lab straight out of the CC. ( I think it's mostly hospital testing and quality control, but I don't remember what all was mentioned in the meeting) I did ask the people in charge what they thought of doing the program and then trying to get something like a PhD, and they said they didn't know because it's so new for 1 (just introduced in the fall, but they've had another degree available as a tester that's been super successful for about 10 years now, but completely different field) but that they also weren't catering it specifically towards that so if it works out it's just lucky happenstance.
Also, for any curiosities, here's my current lab skills! Pretty basic stuff, but I definitely want to get back into a lab and get some more hands on work and skills! (I'm looking into hopefully doing some this summer and doing basic little chores in our school lab next term with our lab tech) - pGLO gene transfer, started my biology passion and made me change my major in HS 💪🏼 I also left pictures, because I never get to share them! - Micropipetting - growing + culturing bacteria - ELISA tests - gel electrophoresis - protein electrophoresis - PCR - CRISPR-Cas-9 - making agar for gels + petri dishes - plasmid transfer - growing yeast - staining slides - microsope work - serial dillutions - chromatography - other things that I don't remember off the top of my head because I need to use those skills again in the lab, have I mentioned that I miss the lab???

Sorry in advance for my rant. It's so lengthy! So appreciate anyone who reads! I'm at the stage where I'm just so angry and want to vent but I don't have that many places left to do it anymore 🤦. I'm sick of being angry and negative, but also really sick of waves and waves of horrible stuff hitting our family in the longest shit season ever.
2017, I had my first son. It was a difficult first few months with feeding but we got there in the end. As soon as things started improving, in Feb 2018 my Mum got diagnosed with breast cancer. My husband had a visa application rejected and was threatened with deportation and out of work for two months. My Grandad got diagnosed with colon cancer in the April. He had died by the June, and my Mum died, cancer free, of a reaction to the chemo, in the October. They both died on intensive care and I was a newly established ITU nurse before maternity leave so I couldn't face going back there and changed to work in the community. Leading on from Mum's unexpected death we fought for a series of changes in the hospital which were our through, and an inquest. Alongside this my Dad who has NPD and BPD was very difficult and abusive and I had to worry about him and obviously my one year old.
Shortly after the inquest finished in late 2019, I fell pregnant with my second child. This was quite a difficult pregnancy with lots of anxiety and obviously coincided with COVID in 2020. Incidentally COVID was very triggering in itself as all the images of people dying with hoods and ventilators and the damage done to their lungs was exactly what happened to my Mum. Our very young cat also dropped dead over the weekend at this time coughing up blood which was awful. Anyway, August 2020 I gave birth to a health boy. By December he was having some trouble feeding and in some pain. From February 2021 to September 2021 we were admitted in hospital with him, several times in ITU and many weeks in HDU. He had a pancreas tear, several blood clots, massive ascites, pancreatic pseudocyst, sepsis 6 times. Basically on several occasions he nearly died. Obviously this was absolutely horrific. I haven't really dealt with it because when do you get the chance?! While he was in hospital I developed debilitating panic attacks which would wake me from my sleep when I felt I couldn't breathe and caused me to hyperventilate while driving sonI had to spend a fortune on cabs going home to see my 3 year old.
Once we were discharged in September 2021, obviously there was considerable anxiety as no one had been able to tell us what had caused his issues, and as no one had ever seen it before, didn't know how it would play out. He still was tube fed and had medication. I was off work with stress for another three or four months, and when I tried to return, asking for special considerations (bearing in mind including COVID and maternity leave, I had been out of work for two years by this stage, and needed help to return. While I had left, the whole office had moved and all the staff had changed, and I was still having panic attacks while driving.) work refused to support me so I left.
I spent most of 2022 working in a really low pressure job and taking my son to appointments. It was actually a good year I was grateful for the respite! I spent a while considering whether to return to work or totally renounce my registration as a nurse. I decided to return and was very fortunately offered a position by such a supportive team, and 2023 was mostly starting therapy to address all these issues and relearning how to nurse after three years out. It was unbelievably anxiety inducing!!! My resilience for stress is extremely low since all the previous trauma and it took everything I had to get up to scratch at work and also deal with processing some of the grief and trauma (I have made a little headway on this but still a long way to go). As a result I have started having somatic pain which seems to have replaced the panic attacks. Now I get abdominal flares when I am stressed and they literally feel like I am in labour and lay me up in bed for several days. Work has brought these on.
Fast forward to late 2023. My FIL starts complaining of pain in his arms and legs and losing weight. He seems okish at Christmas time although not himself. Just after Christmas we get news that he's had scans and all is fine. In March this year we are told that actually no, he has pancreatic cancer. Soon after finding this out my Nan gets ill and dies over the space of a week which was traumatic. Then I get another abdominal flare so I am signed off work, I get through her funeral, and then come home to find my FIL is deteriorating and that his cancer has spread (we found that out today). He's a most excellent father and Grandpa. In the absence of a decent father figure in my life, he has shown so much love and devotion to our family and life will be considerably shitter without him here 😔.
Sigh phew, well done if you got here. Crux is, my life is really hard!! I just wanted the normal stressful 30s people get, where they are bringing up kids and the money is tight and the car keeps breaking. Instead I get all those joys, but just body altering constant stress, anxiety, pain. And I am so over it!!!!

General Content Warning for this entire write-up, so everyone can have a good time: - Extensive discussion of topics related to mental illness, including self-harm, suicidal ideation, mania / bipolar disorder, distortion of truth, medication, involuntary hospitalization, medical abuse in a hospital setting, and romanticization of mental illness. - Non-detailed mentions of domestic violence (implied abuse by intimate partner and parents) and sexual / gender-based violence (including rape, child sexual assault, grooming, sex trafficking and torture). These last few items feature prominently in one installment, pertaining to a work of fiction; descriptions may be a bit more specific/detailed in that segment, but not graphic. - Mentions and quotes of unchill bigoted behavior, including ableism (mental and physical), white nonsense / white fragility / racism, fatphobia, prejudice against drug users.
Additional CWs may be added at the beginning of specific segments when relevant. While these are heavy topics, the tone of this write-up is generally light-hearted and aims to entertain. If this approach sounds uncomfortable or trivializing, this may not be a good read for you; please trust your gut!
*
Picture this: it's the early 2010s, somewhere in the western world. Instagram is a novelty, Harvey Weinstein runs Hollywood, almost no one on Earth leans one way or the other about RNA vaccines, and Donald Trump is that one real estate guy you vaguely remember from Home Alone 2. New player Lady Gaga is the most interesting thing to have happened to pop since Madonna, and the whole industry is attempting to catch up; Miley Cyrus is the chick who used to be on Hannah Montana; Melanie Martinez hasn't hatched yet. The time of Oddball Concept Divas is dawning just below the horizon.
You're a Bowie-loving student who skipped goth night at the club to tag along with your art school friends for a very special evening. You're a giddy sixteen-year old rocking cat ears, purple Wet 'n Wild eyeliner, a polyester petticoat, and a coffin-shaped backpack. You're an effete theater kid who sewed his own waistcoat for the occasion, but won't dare wear it to school the next day. You're a buff, bearded dude in a Venom shirt who's trying not to look too excited, since your girlfriend supposedly had to drag you here. You're a slightly bemused parent leaning against the back wall of the venue, sipping a warm half-pint, wondering if this isn't all a bit dark for a tween. (“It's called 'Victoriandustrial', mom,” you've been told in the car, “and it's not dark, it's art.”)
On stage is a pink-haired woman, with red porcelain-doll lips and a heart painted on her cheek. Among a set of antique consoles, twee tchotchkes, teacups and plastic rats, she pounces and twirls in glittery platform boots, tattered striped stockings, and a tightly laced crystal-studded corset that looks like it's splattered in blood. This is ostensibly a concert, but there is no live band. Where one would expect a drum kit or a bass, three bedazzled burlesque vixens act as back-up singers and dancers, with the occasional vaudeville act – a fire-twirling number, a fan dance, throwing pastries and spitting tea into the audience. Lots of wholesome girl-on-girl kissing, too. The music on the backing track is a genre-bender of clanging beats and beeps, lofty orchestral strings, and the frantic hammering of a MIDI harpsichord, as the pink-haired frontlady sings of heartache and betrayal and drowning. Think if the Brontë sisters had invented industrial rock.
The audience gasps in excitement when the lady whips out a vamped-out wireless electric violin. With rockstar cool and virtuoso poise, she leans into the instrument, touches the bow to the strings, and tears out a single plaintive, impeccably distorted high note. Then her fingers go wild, and for a few seconds, everything is perfect suspended animation. Uncannily perfect, almost. Just behind you, you hear someone whisper: “Wait, is she miming it?”
*
Forgive the theatrical intro, but I had to set the stage for... the drama. And I do mean drama in the thespian sense of the term! This, ladies and gentlemen, is a Shakespeare play: wordy and confusing, but it's neat how the main character's opening lines foreshadow the tragic climax. It's a Greek tragedy for the digital age – if, instead of killing his dad and banging his mom, after becoming king, Oedipus was doomed to becoming uniquely obnoxious. It's The Rocky Horror Show under the grim direction of Samuel Beckett. Like all good theatre, this story is about how fiction bleeds into reality – through the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, and how all the world's a stage and all that.

WHO IS EMILIE AUTUMN, AND WHAT'S THE DRAMA?

Here's the Broadway Weekly blurb, so you can decide whether the show is worth your time: Emilie Autumn, also known as EA, is a US-American alternative singer-songwriter, author, and actor. She became known in alt circles in the mid-2010s for her violin skills, unique fashion, outspoken stances on feminism and mental health advocacy, and the way she dramatized and sublimated her own life story in her art. In 2009, she self-published a semi-autobiographical book that became a sort of bible to her creative universe and fandom. She toured extensively and enjoyed niche, but considerable success until the mid-2010s – with hordes of devoted fans adopting her fashion sense and lingo, and crediting her music for getting them through dark times.
For the past twelve years or so, EA has mostly been focused on adapting her book into a stage musical, releasing two more albums of songs intended for the libretto. At the time of this write-up, it has been six years since the last album and a decade since the last live show. Although she still talks about the musical as an ongoing, Broadway-bound project, in recent years, she's often gone dark for months at a time on social media. There is no forum, no large Discord, no active community to speak of; comments are restricted on her currently-inactive Instagram and blog.
Who is she hiding from, you ask? Why, you've probably guessed it: the hordes of devoted fans whom she infuriates every time she does anything.
And what are they furious about? (Or frustrated, flummoxed, or plain ol' flabbergasted?) Well, it depends who you ask. For some, it's disappointment in her artistic and marketing choices (what are fans for?). Others cite unkept promises or absurd release delays. For others yet, it's the AliBaba merch sold at jaw-dropping markups with three paragraphs of purple prose in the product description.. Or maybe it was the angry rants on Twitter? Okay, it's the casual bigotry that she staunchly denies or dismisses. It's the criticism she can't take. It's the fact that she won't stop lying about her own life! Either way, I don't personally know of any fanbase that has been so consistently exasperated, for so many years, and for such a diverse array of reasons, by their favorite artist.
In truth, each individual mini-scandal isn't all that juicy or scandalous. Nobody died, no one got sued; nothing of significant value, other than time and sanity, was taken away from anyone. What I find interesting here is the years and years of bizarre parasocial codependency (and antagonism) between a fragile woman who became addicted to her own poppycock, and an obsessive fanbase who cared way too much not to take it personally.
Before we even get to EA's relationship with her fans, you're going to need some lore about EA herself. A “Hobby History” of sorts. Strap in! There's romance, tragedy, laughter, character development, variety numbers, numerous costume changes, (actual) celebrity cameos – and based on how long this OpenOffice doc already is at the time of my writing this, we're probably going to need several intermissions too. This write-up is link-heavy, both with receipts and with additional watching and listening material. Not all of them need to be clicked in order to understand the story; I'm merely providing the rabbit holes. I've tried to make things more easily navigable by including a little glossary about the nature of links; one emoji-indicator carries over the next link until I use a different one.
🪞 = picture / visual 🎵 = music 📺 = video 📝 = primary source / receipt 🔍 = press article / write-up / further reading 🎤 = song lyrics / spoken word audio 🐀 = anonymous fan confession 🦠 = reaction / meme

BAROQUE BEGINNINGS: THE VIOLIN YEARS

VampireFreaks: Do you ever smile to yourself knowing your old music teachers might be seeing your success? EA: I smile to myself knowing they might be dead. (Long-lost interview, late 2000s)

Born in Malibu in the late 70s, Emilie Autumn, often known as EA, was originally trained as a classical violinist.
By her account, she started playing the violin at age 4, and was homeschooled at age 9 so that she could focus on her instrument. After stints at various performing arts colleges, some rather prestigious, she dropped out of formal schooling in her mid-to-late teens to embark on a solo violin career.
In 2001, after disappointing experiences with major record companies, she created her own label, Traitor Records, and released a EP of chamber music, with minor success. The stuffy industry of classical music didn't “get” the twenty-something manic-pixie-fiddler, who played Bach just a bit too fast, but with electric stage presence – wearing period corsets, combat boots, and the occasional fairy wings. But EA evidently knew that there was an audience for that somewhere.
And that somewhere – drumroll – was Illinois.

VW: What do you most hope to accomplish? EA: Everything. (‘Virtual World Radio’ Interview, 2002 📝)

ENCHANT ERA: BRUSHES WITH FAME ON FAERIE WINGS

What if I'm an ocean, far too shallow, much too deep? (...) What if I'm a siren singing gentlemen to sleep? (“What If”, 2003 🎵)

Soon, EA relocated from her native California to Chicago. There, in between odd jobs, she veered away from baroque and began performing her own “fantasy rock” stylings at piano bars, holiday fairs and local venues – and building a decent following through her LiveJournal, website, and IRL friends. People loved the whole renegade genius thing, loved the violin, loved the nightingale voice, loved the fairy wings and costumes🪞, loved the handmade merch and general disdain for The Business, loved her deadpan humor and bookish nerdiness. In 2003, she released her first LP, Enchant 🎵 – an ethereal, introspective indie-pop joint, born under the sign of Imogen Heap, with a moon in Fiona Apple and Tori Amos rising.
Everything about EA's act was exquisitely DIY, personal, and intricate. For instance, the Enchant booklet folded out into a Masquerade-style puzzle of her own design.🪞 The first person to solve the puzzle would win “the Wings, Ruff, Fan and Scepter of the Faerie Queene herself” – all lovingly handmade by EA, and depicted in peak 2003 graphic design on the booklet. For months, YEARS after Enchant came out, people poured over the cryptic metaphors and literary references, the historical symbolism and visual puns of the artwork, looking for hints and patterns. They read every fan chat, every interview, every relevant Shakespeare play, hoping to decipher the inner workings of EA's mind and find new keys to the puzzle. Sure, it's been two decades now and no one's ever managed to crack the damn thing 🔍, which is by now widely assumed to be flawed and unsolvable; still, it's the kind of zany, brainy, immersive experience that tends to cultivate a niche but hyper-invested fanbase.
So it makes perfect sense that underground aficionada and internet frontierswoman Courtney Love (she haunted public AOL chatrooms as early as 1995! 🔍) would take an interest. Just a few months after releasing Enchant, EA was off to southern France to record violin and vocals for Courtney's new solo album; a few months after that, in early 2004, she joined Courtney's band on a brief tour to promote the record.
Alas, no cigar: America's Sweetheart flopped. Maybe because most of those summer recording sessions were ultimately lost to an engineering oopsie; maybe because Courtney was having an especially rough year – and going through all the “rock-bottom moments” that she would discuss in group therapy, later that fall, when she began her sobriety journey at court-ordered rehab. EA, a former homeschool kid who had never done drugs, seems to remember the tour as a generally terrifying experience; she later stated, with some bitterness, that the experience was not worth the time it had taken away from her own solo career.
But it was a good year for TV appearances! Here she is on the David Letterman Show in March 2004, rocking out on a perfectly inaudible violin as C-Love fades in and out of her own body. 📺 She also landed a cute tutorial segment on HGTV's Crafters: Coast to Coast, making sushi-shaped soap and fairy wings. In December, she accompanied Billy Corgan for a Christmas song on a Chicago station.
All of this was chronicled in quirky, wordy posts on her blog – interspersed with late-night musings about casual misogyny in the media 📝, including against Courtney, handmade crafts and clothing auctions, candid pictures of outings with friends in Chicago... as well as periodic updates on the progress of her next opus: Opheliac.

God, too much to even begin to tell right now, and I’m recording anyway, but I can give you this update: I just finished yesterday recording violin parts and backing vocals for B. Corgan’s first single (...) More later, recording piano for my new track “GOD HELP ME”…why do I torture myself with my own self-inflicted drama…or is it a way of exorcizing…yes, I’ll go with that one for now…☠ (“Whirlwind...”, December 2004)

By that point, EA was starting to be more open about her conflicted relationship with what would later be diagnosed as bipolar disorder. The galaxy-brain moments, the trance of creative frenzies, the liminal high of going three days without sleep, the magic... the crippling sensitivity, the restless anxiety, the Zoloft that one both needs and hates, the ever-lurking suicidal thoughts. As EA gradually revealed over the course of 2004, Opheliac would be an exploration of the “mad woman” archetype. The title was a medical neologism for “the syndrome of Ophelia”, as in the tragic character from Hamlet 🔍, driven to insanity and ultimate self-destruction by the fuckboys who rule her life. Here's EA explaining it in her own words. 🎤 The album would dive into how psychiatry and romantic relationships are governed by old misogynistic tropes, and how the “mentally ill” label is used to silence and downplay the justified anger and hurt of abused women.
In a striking case of life imitating art (are you picking up on the theme yet?), this concept was about to become more painfully relevant than ever to EA's personal existence.
CW: implied partner abuse, suicidal ideation.

DISENCHANTMENT: A SERIES OF UNFORTUNATE EVENTS

In the lake, you will find me Behind your house, behind your house (...) My ocean is bluer than the heart you had to break My sea is deeper than your lake (“In the Lake”, 2005 🎵)

Where were we? Ah yes, the Christmas song with Billy Corgan at the end of 2004. Around that time, EA was also recording violin parts and backing vocals for his upcoming solo album. 🎵 They had presumably connected through Courtney, they both lived in Chicago, I guess something clicked.
In January of 2005, EA abruptly went off of her meds, broke up with her live-in boyfriend-slash-bassist, packed up her violin and corsets, and moved into Corgan's mansion. In March of 2005, she posted very melancholy lyrics about drowning in a lake to haunt a deceitful lover. The post was entitled“In The Lake (The Zoloft is calling my name...)” 🎤📝. Later, after the song was released as a B-side, EA disclosed that it had been intended as a public suicide note 📝.
Blog entries from that time touched on a “whirlwind of action and emotion”, “changing residences” and feeling like “you're falling through the air, but you don't know if you'll hit the water or the rocks” 📝. But, EA being an expert vague-poster, her posts remained very elusive about what was going on, who was involved, and how it impacted her. (The specifics were pieced together years later, by fan-led forensic efforts – which, obviously, involved ascertaining the existence of an actual body of water in Billy Corgan's backyard 📝).
Whatever happened over the course of those months was never disclosed explicitly by EA, but is widely assumed to have inspired songs such as “Liar” 🎤, “Misery Loves Company”, “Let the Record Show”, and “I Know Where You Sleep”, , recorded that same spring. A solid quarter of the Opheliac tracklist – which was shaping out to be decidedly darker and grittier than Enchant.

You can lie to the papers, you can hide from the press (...) I know your tainted flesh, I know your filthy soul I know each trick you played, whore you laid, dream you stole I know the bed in the room in the wall in the house Where you got what you wanted and ruined it all I know the secrets that you keep I know where you sleep

Even as her personal blog posts grew more somber, nihilistic, and generally fed-up in the face of what she called “the worst breakdown of her young life”, even as the songwriting process had her rummage through traumatic memories [CW: CSA] 🎤, and even as the Corgan-adjacent trauma was compounded by various rushed moves and broken friendships over that summer and fall, EA remained remarkably (some might say frantically) prolific.
Other than progress on Opheliac, 2005 saw multiple violin collaborations with alternative bands, numerous auctions of, mh, visually strident “punktorian” fashion pieces 📝🪞 (“STRESS COUTURE!” 🦠📺), and an updated re-issue of her 2001 poetry collection, complete with audiobook. ("...The book has been selling like crack in a limo with Courtney Love (and believe me, I know)." - Ooooof, EA. Low-hanging fruit. 📝)
In October, she started recruiting:

WANTED: Hot goth bitch to join touring band of other hot goth bitches. (...) Must be able to: sing backing vocals in a wide range with excellent pitch, growl à la Kittie, handle minimal keyboard parts, push buttons/turn knobs with killer attitude, be extremely comfortable on stage in bloomers and a corset, reside in the Chicago area, know the difference between a crumpet and a scone, have at least one hidden talent. 📝

By winter, most of her blog post titles were written in THIS FORMAT!!!!!!!! In December, she announced that “Emilie Autumn and the Bloody Crumpets” would preview Opheliac live at the Double Door in Chicago, on Friday the 13th (ooh!) of the following month. “We are coming to destroy your world,” the post threatened enticingly. "Miss it and suffer. We really don't want to hurt you.” The flyer advertised a dress code:

Masquerade, Ophelias, green girls, Victorian insane asylum escapees, princes of Denmark, bloomered harlots and rogues – general burlesque ribaldry!

Exit diaphanous butterfly wings and elven tiaras 📺, enter the haunted murder-doll with the blood-red heart on her cheek; out with Elizabethan chamber-pop, in with Victoriandustrial. The fairy had to die to make way for the iconic, the sublime, the tragic, the ridiculous, the positively bananas...

OPHELIAC ERA: LET THE RECORD SHOW

EA: What's more interesting, and what's more fun to watch, than a crazy girl's self-destruction? Nothing. Nothing in the world. (The Opheliac Companion, 2008 🎤)
If I'm going down Then I'm going down good I'm going down Then I'm going down clean (...) The prettiest broken girl you've ever seen (“Let the Record Show”, 2006 🎵)

CW: mania, self-harm, abortion, suicidal ideation, hospitalization.
If you haven't gathered as much by now, what fans were witnessing in real time on EA's blog, without necessarily seeing it, was the ebb and flow of a months-long manic episode. That's not me armchair-diagnosing: EA herself has discussed penning and recording a lot of her best material in a trance-like rush, “when you're writing on the ceiling because there's not enough paper to contain your thoughts”.

...Once I became stable and healthy, I realized that I had no memory of how a great deal of my music had been created. I had written and even programmed most of my best work in a similar manic state, and, when stark raving sane, I didn’t know how to do it anymore, because the part of me that really composes never needed to know how to do it, it just did. (2019 Instagram post 📝)

It's not an uncommon experience for artists with bipolar disorder. Before you burn so hot that you wind up in the back of an ambulance, and/or before the pendulum swings back towards debilitating depression, the boundless energy, heightened sensitivity, and unexpected thought patterns associated with mania can lead to periods of prolific and effortless creation.
Mania also has the potential to lower your inhibitions, making you more bodacious, more quick-witted – more dazzling, more fun at parties, more dramatic. All traits that are valued in the entertainment industry, especially one that, with the rise of social media, was coming to rely increasingly on parasocial engagement and “personal branding”. Why would you refrain from oversharing, overreacting, overworking, overpromising, overcurating a fantasy image of yourself... when new industry models reward exactly that?
My point is that, in retrospect, “the end was built into the beginning”: all the things that would make fans go “What the hell, Emilie!” in subsequent years were brewing below the surface before the album even dropped.
In the summer of 2006, EA said goodbye to her Chicago friends and returned to California, where she moved in with her new beau, another Illinois-born guitarist with an impressive forehead: Brendon Small, of Dethklok/Metalocalypse quasi-fame. (If you're into that sort of thing: the orchestral strings on “Detharmonic”? Yep, that's EA! 🎵📺)
In September, Opheliac was released into the world. Expectations were high... And many sources agree it was a goddamn banger. It was ultrafemme, ultradark, unhinged, hilarious and deadly and brilliant. It had gnarly kitchen-sink drums layered under angelic string harmonies, fauxperatic swells, and guttural screaming. It had sarcastically self-aware double-entendres that were also literary references that were also musical notation jokes. You get the idea: it was the album that a small, but sizable demographic of tormented millennial teens had been waiting to obsess over. Some time in late 2005 or so, EA had signed with German label Trisol Records, which gave her access to better promotion, press coverage and touring opportunities in Europe when the album came out in the fall. By winter, she was on the cover of alternative mags, and the talk of the town on underground music webzines. Within a year, she was embarking on the first of three almost-back-to-back European tours.
It was around that time that EA started giving her fanbase a more defined, aesthetically on-brand identity. EA, funnily enough, disliked the term “fan” due to its proximity to “fanatic”, and started calling individual supporters “muffins” or the "Bloomer Brigade". (After The Book came out in 2009, they would become “Plague Rats”. You know how pets get weird if you re-name them too many times? I wonder if the same is true of fans.) Meanwhile, EA's fanbase as a collective – as well as her home, her recording studio, her online forum and her inner brainspace... – became canonically known as “The Asylum”. Cue infinite jokes about her fans being “committed.”
And they really were, in a slightly more intense way than your average indie-alternative fanbase. Many fans enthusiastically adopted facets of EA's mannerisms and lingo, which gave the fandom a definite LARP-ing bend; and the official forum did, in fact, offer a subforum for Asylum-themed role-play. (In a number of ways, the Asylum was basically Juggalos for socially anxious theater goths. Substitute the clown facepaint, Faygo, and hatchets for cheek-hearts, Earl Grey tea, and obsolete medical tools.) While there was always some side-eye at the embarrassingly candid, often very young Plague Rats who took the Asylum thing too seriously (always speaking in character and worshipping the ground Mistress Emilie walked on), a lot of people were quite thrilled to play romantic Victorian madhouse with their new favorite artist. Live shows were like costume balls. The forum thrived.
It was like Opheliac had opened a portal to this vibrant and inclusive alternate dimension, which the community was now bringing to life in the real world. And each tour brought more inmates (muffins, Plague Rats, you get it) to the Asylum. “Spread the Plague!” was the name of the game.
So, on paper, in the three years that followed Opheliac, EA kind of won the high-concept-indie-artist equivalent of the lottery. After going through her own personal hell of abuse, major upheavals and serious mental health crises, she had decided to gamble on a radically different tone and musical direction. She came out the other side with critical acclaim for her soul-baring record, tons of live shows with a badass girl squad, photoshoots so iconic they pop up on random Pinterest boards to this day, snazzy corporate sponsorships (including Manic Panic and RockLove Jewelry), and an exponentially growing fanbase who couldn't get enough of whatever she had to give. And she gave quite a lot!
Within those three years, in between tours, EA released A Bit O' This & That 🎵 (a compilation of demos and back-catalogue curiosities), Laced / Unlaced (a full-instrumental double album - one side was the baroque recordings from her late teens, the other was demented, distortion-heavy classical-prog), and three EPs packed with new songs, covers, remixes and bonus content. There was also a deluxe reissue of Enchant, without the puzzle, but with a brand new booklet of handwritten lyrics and marginalia. All came in lovely inter-matching digipaks that really made you want to collect them all – much like the handmade merch 📝🪞 that EA still sold on some legs of her tours. She spent time with the fans at most shows, eventually holding meet-and-greets and private showcases for VIP ticket-holders. She also released “The Opheliac Companion”, a kind of “director's commentary” of the album – roughly 10 hours worth of lyrical deep dives, microphone specs, tangents within tangents within tangents, and whacky (tipsy, sometimes unintelligible) banter between EA and her sound engineer🎤. On top of all that, she wrote, designed and self-published a fully illustrated 200-page coffee-table book, the first print of which sold out within a year. Not bad!
Of course, things that seem to good to be true usually are: at this stage in the story, EA is never as enthusiastically prolific as when her personal life is falling apart behind the scenes.
In the three years that followed Opheliac, along with soaring success, EA got to experience: more rapid-cycling between manic phases and the pits of depression, multiple harrowing medication adjustments, an very-much-unwanted pregnancy followed by a traumatic abortion, a suicide attempt, at least one inpatient stay, and a break-up in the aftermath of it all. There were also a few physical health scares that required hospitalization. On one occasion, she had to go off all her meds cold-turkey when they were confiscated at the EU border right before the start of a tour. In some pictures from her summer 2007 festival appearances, you can make out faint self-harm scars on her thigh through the layered stockings. (Obvious CW, for the morbidly curious.🪞(But if you weren't, would you still be reading?))
So yeah. EA was not doing great.
She didn't share any of these struggles with her fans in real time; her posts were all droll banter and updates on tours and releases. Most of what I just listed was disclosed in late 2009, in the autobiographical part of The Book. (The Book gets at least one instalment of its own. Bear with me, there's a LOT to unpack.) And The Book, while never specifying a timeline, kind of really made it sound like the Bad Stuff (the abortion, the suicide attempt, the hospital stay) had taken place a while back, before the release of Opheliac. In fact, EA plainly stated as much, citing “getting locked up and being put in the asylum" 📝 as the reason for the shift in sound between Enchant and Opheliac.
She repeatedly referred to herself as “stabilized” and “now properly medicated” in interviews. As far as the fanbase was concerned, she had triumphed over her abusers, turned trauma into beauty, and lived to pass on her story of survival. And now she had found balance and community and true acceptance of herself, all that good stuff – and all was fine and dandy within the Asylum. On stage, she sang about blind rage and all-consuming despair and general hopelessness, but she didn't actually feel like that – not anymore, right?
This narrative was both inspirational and quite convenient for the fans. We love our Mad Hatters 🎵📺, our Rainmen, our manic pixies. We love and celebrate “crazy” when it manifests as outside-the-box brilliance and/or bubbly eccentricity. But in my experience, even in spaces that ostensibly focus on "destigmatizing mental illness", positivity and support can quickly turn to rejection and awkwardness when your “quirks” manifest in more challenging ways – like through erratic decisions, aggressive or dishonest behavior, or increasingly untethered beliefs about yourself and the world. No matter how much people claim to “embrace the madness”, it just isn't that fun or in good taste for a large group to play-act ~ whimsical insanity ~ with someone who is for realsies mentally falling apart.
Before time has had time to do its thing, "revisiting your trauma" is just called ruminating. And it's rarely good for you, even when you commit some of greatest art in the process.
I think fans had to assume that there was some critical distance in EA's act, that these extreme negative emotions were all theater – because if they weren't, then the Asylum wasn't an empowering performance about healing from past hurt. It was more like a years-long reality show in which a woman picked at her wounds publicly, again and again, in real time, to the cheers of oblivious strangers who thought they were watching a play.
All I'm saying is that EA was essentially still in the thick of raw trauma when she became a poster-child for overcoming it; that the last thing a person needs, at such a vulnerable stage in their life, is an intense parasocial relationship with sad goth teenagers, let alone one centered around romanticized retellings of their own darkest moments; and that if more people had declined to actively engage in pretend-play that toed the line of self-harm... there is a chance that things might have turned out differently. Maybe EA would still be a successful musician whose career isn't plagued by conflict and mutual disappointment, and maybe some fans wouldn't have wasted years getting red in the face at an over-exposed mentally ill woman for not getting her shit together.
OKAY, THAT GOT HEAVY (and preachy), apologies and thank you for your patience. I will now quit my soapboxing, resume telling the story, and let you draw your own conclusion as our dark plot unravels.

EPILOGUE: DEAD IS THE NEW ALIVE

A quick taste of the poison A quick twist of the knife When the obsession with death, the obsession with death Becomes a way of life ("Dead is the New Alive", 2006 🎵)
I am still over-glorified My reasons to live Were my reasons to die But at least they were mine (“306”, 2006)

In summation: becoming an overnight success thanks to your darkest trauma will do things to person's mind.
As EA kept hyping up how much her fans meant to her, and what an amazing and inclusive and free-thinking motley crew the Asylum was, she was also growing more and more controlling of her increasingly large (and opinionated, and overall rather young) fanbase – and more generally, of the way people ought to talk to and about her.
It was during the Opheliac era that she started reveling in made-up stories about her own life. Then came the habit of losing her shit on fans that she perceived as ungrateful or disrespectful. It was also then that massive kerfuffles became routine on the merch and planning front, and EA's creative output started to routinely fall short of her promises. The more fans started raising legitimate complaints, the more defensive and uncompromising EA became in her public interactions. The more people expressed weariness of the Asylum theme, or started questioning EA's hot takes on mental health and feminism, the harder she doubled down on the Asylum lore and fictional universe. Which is where the drama really starts.
Alright, the time has come. Let's talk about The Book.
...Actually, let's not. I'm nearing my character limit, and you could probably use a break and a stretch after making it this far. This is our intermission, and we'll get to The Book in our next instalment.
Thank you for reading! Stay tuned if you're interested in how it all comes tumbling down.

Hey everyone! I’m looking for advice on what to do in addition to what I’ve stated below.
All events happened at a charter school in the state of Florida in the US.
My son was on the receiving end of being double-hand choked around the neck by another student in class last week. My kid states, the other kid was full power choking, and my son at full power couldn’t get the other kids hands off his neck / stop him from being choked. My son said it wasn’t until other kids started screaming, ‘student A is choking student B’ that the other kid let go.
My wife was briefly made aware of the situation after calls were made to my wife and the other kids parents by the VP. Due to the timing of the incident, when it was reported to my wife, and us both being at work… I was only told by my wife that an incident occurred at school and we would talk about it later that night. Unfortunately, my wife and I never had a chance to fully discuss the incident that evening once I got home from work because everyone was asleep by the time I got home.
The next morning, I spoke to my son about the incident, and uncovered all the details that I’ve already described. Remember, my wife and I hadn’t yet spoken in detail, and she had only been told by the VP an incident occurred that would result in my son with silent lunch and the other kid with a ‘more severe punishment’. When my wife picked up my son from school at the end of the day, my son didn’t want to talk about it with her.
So, when I took my son to school for drop off as a tardy / late start that next morning, I checked him in, he was sent to class, and I immediately asked to see the VP. However, career day was happening day and it was already chaos for the school…, so the resource officer was sent out, told me to leave, the situation was already handled / why do I have and why would I have more questions?
After a long back-and-forth between the resource officer and myself, and clearly disagreeing on everything, I was told by him to leave and make an appointment to see someone because, ‘the focus is on career day, not what happened to your son yesterday’. I then told the front desk administrator to call my son back to the front office because we were leaving.
Once I got home, I reviewed the policies of the school, and how to make an official complaint. I then sent an email detailing everything I knew at that point, including what had happened at the school that morning to the school board.
The school board liaison immediately sent my complaint to the principal, which resulted in the principal calling me, so, the principal and I spoke about everything. She admittedly was not aware of the situation, and I told her that since my wife and I had not spoken, and I only had the information from a seven-year-old, she didn’t know anything about the situation, that we need to have a conference call later that evening between her, the VP, and my wife after my gets home and we’ve had time talk.
Once my wife got home, we spoke in great detail about everything we knew, what had happened, what happened that morning, what I had done in response so far, and that we had a conference call scheduled in a few hours…
After the conference call, the school agreed to speak with some of the kids, pull some camera footage, and have a sit down with us, including our son. We requested the sit down because the school has politely said my son is lying and is inaccurate in his version of events. The school acknowledges there was an incident, but it didn’t happen in the classroom, it happened in the cafeteria. They appear to be unaware of a secondary choking incident in the classroom between the two that happened on the same day??
As parents, we reached out to other parents in the class and asked if their children had mentioned anything about a situation that happened in class that day. Multiple parents spoke with their kids and corroborated our sons story without leading the children to the story. What I mean is, the other kids that witnessed it either told their parents in advance that something had happened, or told their parents something happened in class only after being asked.
The general theme of what happened is consistent with the other parents; however, some of the smaller details are inconsistent.
From here, there are details that get really specific, and I’m trying to give just enough context without oversharing for obvious reasons, so I’ll stop here, but might be willing to share more if what I’ve said so far does not paint a full enough picture to get the right answers.
I’m searching for what more we could be doing at this point.
If we decide to do something… what do we need to know? What can we do? What shouldn’t we do? Whatever we decide to do… we want to do it the right way.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

What Is an ENFP? Let's start with perhaps the most famous description of us... the ENFP description on 16personalities. I'll just put a link to it here. https://www.16personalities.com/enfp-personality
I read it over again to make sure and I will say that in general, this description while not entirely inaccurate, sort of loses the main picture of what makes us an ENFP, and barely scratches the surface of what actually drives us and what it means to live a life as an ENFP... the deep thoughts... the serious decisions we make almost on a daily basis. Our down time, the impassioned ideals that we strongly wish for, the frequent debates we get involved with to defend truth and justice, the decisions we have to make to perhaps abandon what we want to do for the sake of someone in need... the times that we have to withdraw from people for a time to recharge especially when we have had to deal with toxicity. No mention is really made of the strong moral principles that we generally have. We are all lovers of love. And not this silly willy nilly frilly hippy happy love... But the kind of love that makes a person want to help another. The kind of love that makes someone want to bring a person to joy and peace of spirit. The kind of love that will do anything necessary to help our neighbor. But that's not all. The love is founded on truth and justice as well, and while we can be understanding of people, if something needs to be corrected, we will make it a point to point it out. Our mode of life is "Love they neighbor as thyself." Honestly, if we were in the wrong, we don't mind a correction that addresses it. So, why shouldn't you be able to learn from it too? It's not just soft and comforting and understanding, it's also serious and can be firm at times. With our strong Fi, we generally know ourselves and what we want. And what we want *ultimately* is to help other people. Sure, we'll want to enjoy ourselves at times too. Who doesn't? But our greatest fulfillment is doing things with other people. We like being around them, and as an added bonus, maybe the people like being around us? And if someone comes in our radar that needs help? Well then there we are! Pretty cool.
The Light of Chosen Friend Groups
Speaking of "doing things with other people"... We may often get involved in something... like a friend group, or game club, a social server, or something, and become one of the most active and involved members there, getting obsessed for a time over it and adding to the community, coming up with new ideas about things and perhaps helping organize concepts in like game play or theories or something (We love using our Ne for stuff like that), and help people out as well in whatever issues they may have, whether it's a question that needs answered, a technical issue that needs fixed that we can help with, or if they are having a rough day. We just love brightening people's day. :) However, don't be surprised if after something comes up in which the ENFP feels that it's time to move on after doing whatever it can to help that community, the ENFP just leaves... Perhaps they will come back for a visit or two, but ultimately... the ENFP journey continues on to another community that might need some light.
Cause for Shifting Focus in Projects
And, speaking of moving from one thing to another, I should address the difficulty many of us have of being able to finish most of the ideas we start. This is affected by multiple factors. 2 of which seem to stand out. 1) The idea keeps getting new ideas added to it, or an arrangement is decided to be faulty so it gets scrapped and restarted anew multiple times, continuously evolving until it's nothing like the beginning and it just keeps growing and expanding so we can hardly keep up with it. 2) Something may cause us to feel that people won't appreciate the project we're working on, or that people won't understand or fully benefit from it, or that the work needed for the project outweighs its perceived value for others. This is because our ultimate goal in... pretty much anything we do... is to do or make something that will help or benefit others. That Ne drive to create order in abstract concepts is strong and we want to make it not just for ourselves but for others! We get our fulfillment there. Sure, we may love our own time in exploring concepts, games, books, and things on our own too (and certainly constantly collecting Ne data), but if we're in project mode, it's ultimately for others' benefit. Same goes with our interactions with people.
Interacting with Others
I'll skip over the one on one connections we have often have with people we choose to help (since it's the most recognizable) and jump straight into a more normal setting. Let's say meeting strangers... Well right there we have a problem. Despite being supposedly "extroverts" we want a *reason* to interact with someone. Do we know this person? Are we working for or with this person? Does that person need help? etc. Otherwise if they are just chilling or whatever, we aren't the type normally to just walk up to somebody casually and ask about their day. That sounds pretty stressful actually lol. If there isn't a solid reason for it, then we'd just rather stick with ourselves and whatever we we're doing. After all, why should we bother people if we got nothing important to say or do for or with them? On the flip side, if we are just doing our own thing and there happens to be people around, depending on the setting, we may just absolutely not care and do whatever we want, whether that's running/skipping to our destination, dancing to some grocery store music, singing a song, or whatnot, half oblivious to people's reactions to us. We don't mind just being ourselves when we are around people we are comfortable with too, so we'll laugh and crack jokes over minor things and in general just be high energy and often enthusiastic over whatever might be going on (If we don't like what's going on, we'll be sure to let you know and give a different opinion on how things should be done hehe).
Debating
We have strong opinions about things, and if we value something enough and see someone stating something contrary to it, or perhaps against one of our core values, we won't be afraid to call them out on it and debate the reasons against it and for our cause (we are huge logic fans. Even if we might make an illogical point now and then, we actually appreciate it when we are countered with a more logical approach). This is a common occurrence both on the web and in real life which may lead many ENFP's to think that they are the debater ENTP's for a while. Like: "I thought ENFP's were these compassionate flighty butterfly thought people?" Well actually there is a time to play and a time to fight. We won't constrict ourselves to one modality. We're experts at living in the moment, and if something needs to be said, then by golly we will say it and be serious about it too! We will do our best to show how we see it, how we came to the conclusion, why it's logical, etc. We aren't against being proven wrong, but it had better make logical sense. If not, then we won't respect your opinion.
Inside the mind of an ENFP
We love both order and chaos. More specifically we love making order out of chaos, or making chaos out of an illogical order. As we look at the world around us, or indeed, even in a small project we may be working on, we think about various connections to different facets of the thing and attempt to bring the various seemingly chaotic arrangements and relationships into a logical conclusion or arrangement... Sometimes such arrangements can seem chaotic, but there will likely be some logical undertones of how or why the connections were made. We are often obsessed with patterns in the midst of trying to work things out. If something sticks out like a sore thumb then we assume that there must be a logical outcome and try again to make it work. (If you are confused of what on earth I'm talking about, then I'm sorry. There are just too many varied examples to give a reasonable example of what I'm trying to talk about, so either you get it or you don't) We usually use these thought processes to problem solve for almost anything even in those heart to heart conversations as we try to search for solutions to a person's problems, giving advice that neatly fits into what they need and navigating the emotional waves. It's interesting because while we can be deeply emotional for those people, we can also be more or less stoic and pause in thought as our brain takes in the information and comes up with an answer. During many conversations after I have been told something/asked for advice/thinking about what a person needs, I'll often say "Hmm..." and maybe "Hmmmmmmm..." Hmm means that I am entering into zen mode and trying to read deeply into everything... what was said, what was left out, the energy I feel off a person, the situation the person is in, the mindset of the people the person deals with, or whatever else I think I need to figure out what needs to happen before answering as honestly as I can to help them. This is called reading your mind (Not really, but if feels like it sometimes lol). Just let us cook and we'll think of something, and if we can't right away, we'll ask a question or two to try to fill in missing information. Yes the questions may seem off the wall sometimes, but they are important questions for what we need to figure out the problem. This is also why we have so many uncompleted projects. We gather some information, put it together, but are still left with so many holes that we need more information to fill it in before we feel we can do a project or story justice. We can find things out perhaps, but after a while it gets kinda draining, especially if some information is hard to come by. And this is also why we often hastily put together some ideas of how we want things to turn out, assemble what we can in an incomplete fashion, and then just post it for others to see and comment on and inform on what is missing and tell me what we need to know because we are searching for more data and information to help finish the project. At the same time we are also looking for enthusiasm and encouragement because we want to make sure that what we are doing will be appreciated by others and that they care. Otherwise... if no one cares about the result (when we think they should) then what would be the point of continuing it honestly? So, don't blame us just for being lazy (sometimes we are... if something isn't easy we are liable to just give up at times). Sometimes we are just so obsessed with making sure a thing is perfect that anything less isn't good enough. We may have made a lot of progress on something but if we run into an incongruency or it's turning out much worse than we imagined, then we will not hesitate to scrap the entire thing, make some (sometimes drastic) revisions, and start over again.
Open for Revision
Such indeed is this description here. I'm not even sure I have covered all the bases yet and will do the typical ENFP thing and publish it before I think it's finished. It's probably too detailed and wordy, Have too much stuff, or not enough. Maybe I'm even missing an entire point or two. Maybe I'm even missing the underlying point of the whole thing. Who knows? Honestly I will never be fully satisfied especially in a description that is subject to change and perhaps may even be wrong in places. If any ENFP doesn't resonate with something in here, PLEASE! Let me know and I will edit/change it as needed. I feel like I should also put something up to show what an ENFP stereotype aught to look like because what we got now, hardly resonates with any of us except in very specific situations rather than a general feeling of "Yeah, I could see myself doing that! haha!" It's more often like: "Well... I mean... sure... I could do that but I'm more likely to do it another way and act completely different." Also we get tired of being seen as the hippy freak when we feel more like the hero that really cares about helping people and doing the right thing. I could say more, but I suppose I will leave it for now and come back and probably make a few edits later. Please share your thoughts and how it made you feel!

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My child was choked by a classmate during class at school
Hey everyone! Long time lurker of Reddit, but never a poster, but here we are… before, I get to my post, if for any reason the limited details I share make you aware you are directly or indirectly involved with these specific incidents, please make sure responses won’t dox anyone, become inflammatory, hateful, or anything like that.
This is a text wall, and I’m sorry, but I’m looking for advice on what to do in addition to what I’ve stated below. I’ll provide as much context as possible to help generate appropriate advice and responses. Also, if this is not the right space for this post, please guide me to where I should post or cross post.
Here we go…
All events happened at a charter school in the state of Florida in the US.
My son was on the receiving end of being double-hand choked around the neck by another student in class last week. My kid states, the other kid was full power choking, and my son at full power couldn’t get the other kids hands off his neck / stop him from being choked. My son said it wasn’t until other kids started screaming, ‘student A is choking student B’ that the other kid let go.
My wife was briefly made aware of the situation after calls were made to my wife and the other kids parents by the VP. Due to the timing of the incident, when it was reported to my wife, and us both being at work… I was only told by my wife that an incident occurred at school and we would talk about it later that night. I received no communication from the school. Unfortunately, my wife and I never had a chance to fully discuss the incident that evening once I got home from work because everyone was asleep by the time I got home.
The next morning, I spoke to my son about the incident, and uncovered all the details that I’ve already described. Remember, my wife and I hadn’t yet spoken in detail, and she had only been told by the VP an incident occurred that would result in my son with silent lunch and the other kid with a ‘more severe punishment’. When my wife picked up my son from school at the end of the day, my son didn’t want to talk about it with her.
So, when I took my son to school for drop off as a tardy / late start that next morning, I checked him in, he was sent to class, and I immediately asked to see the VP. However, career day was happening day and it was already chaos for the school…, so the resource officer was sent out, told me to leave, the situation was already handled / why do I have and why would I have more questions?
After a long back-and-forth between the resource officer and myself, and clearly disagreeing on everything, I was told by him to leave and make an appointment to see someone because, ‘the focus is on career day, not what happened to your son yesterday’. I then told the front desk administrator to call my son back to the front office because we were leaving.
Once I got home, I reviewed the policies of the school, and how to make an official complaint. I then sent an email detailing everything I knew at that point, including what had happened at the school that morning to the school board.
The school board liaison immediately sent my complaint to the principal, which resulted in the principal calling me, so, the principal and I spoke about everything. She admittedly was not aware of the situation, and I told her that since my wife and I had not spoken, and I only had the information from a seven-year-old, she didn’t know anything about the situation, that we need to have a conference call later that evening between her, the VP, and my wife after my gets home and we’ve had time talk.
Once my wife got home, we spoke in great detail about everything we knew, what had happened, what happened that morning, what I had done in response so far, and that we had a conference call scheduled in a few hours…
After the conference call, the school agreed to speak with some of the kids, pull some camera footage, and have a sit down with us, including our son. We requested the sit down because the school has politely said my son is lying and is inaccurate in his version of events. The school acknowledges there was an incident, but it didn’t happen in the classroom, it happened in the cafeteria. They appear to be unaware of a secondary choking incident in the classroom between the two that happened on the same day.
As parents, we reached out to other parents in the class and asked if their children had mentioned anything about a situation that happened in class that day. Multiple parents spoke with their kids and corroborated our sons story without leading the children to the story. What I mean is, the other kids that witnessed it either told their parents in advance that something had happened, or told their parents something happened in class after being asked.
The general theme of what happened is consistent with the other parents; however, some of the smaller details are inconsistent.
From here, there are details that get really specific, and I’m trying to give just enough context without oversharing for obvious reasons, so I’ll stop here, but might be willing to share more if what I’ve said so far does not paint a full enough picture to get the right answers.
I’m searching for what more we could be doing at this point, if there are any other parents whose kids went through something similar, how they navigated this and what they did… I’m looking for ideas, experiences, and things that we might not be aware of since this is a first time thing for our family, but we want to do everything the right way.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Hello all. And welcome to our domain. You may have run into an ENFP, or an ENFP may have come to you, or perhaps you are an ENFP yourself, or are just curious and interested in us ENFP's. Welcome all and I hope you enjoy your stay. We can be a handful sometimes, but we always mean well and truly care about you. If you have any problems or issues, please feel free to make a post and let us know. You will be sure that one of us (or many of us) will be their shortly to advise, help, or support you in your difficulty.
Now that the preliminaries are out of the way, let's discuss this important matter at hand... What Is an ENFP? Let's start with perhaps the most famous description of us... the ENFP description on 16personalities. I'll just put a link to it here. https://www.16personalities.com/enfp-personality
I read it over again to make sure and I will say that in general, this description while not entirely inaccurate, sort of loses the main picture of what makes us an ENFP, and barely scratches the surface of what actually drives us and what it means to live a life as an ENFP... the deep thoughts... the serious decisions we make almost on a daily basis. Our down time, the impassioned ideals that we strongly wish for, the frequent debates we get involved with to defend truth and justice, the decisions we have to make to perhaps abandon what we want to do for the sake of someone in need... the times that we have to withdraw from people for a time to recharge especially when we have had to deal with toxicity. No mention is really made of the strong moral principles that we generally have. We are all lovers of love. And not this silly willy nilly frilly hippy happy love... But the kind of love that makes a person want to help another. The kind of love that makes someone want to bring a person to joy and peace of spirit. The kind of love that will do anything necessary to help our neighbor. But that's not all. The love is founded on truth and justice as well, and while we can be understanding of people, if something needs to be corrected, we will make it a point to point it out. Our mode of life is "Love they neighbor as thyself." Honestly, if we were in the wrong, we don't mind a correction that addresses it. So, why shouldn't you be able to learn from it too? It's not just soft and comforting and understanding, it's also serious and can be firm at times. With our strong Fi, we generally know ourselves and what we want. And what we want *ultimately* is to help other people. Sure, we'll want to enjoy ourselves at times too. Who doesn't? But our greatest fulfillment is doing things with other people. We like being around them, and as an added bonus, maybe the people like being around us? And if someone comes in our radar that needs help? Well then there we are! Pretty cool.
The Light of Chosen Friend Groups
Speaking of "doing things with other people"... We may often get involved in something... like a friend group, or game club, discord server, or something, and become one of the most active and involved members there, getting obsessed for a time over it and adding to the community, coming up with new ideas about things and perhaps helping organize concepts in like game play or theories or something (We love using our Ne for stuff like that), and help people out as well in whatever issues they may have, whether it's a question that needs answered, a technical issue that needs fixed that we can help with, or if they are having a rough day. We just love brightening people's day. :) However, don't be surprised if after something comes up in which the ENFP feels that it's time to move on after doing whatever it can to help that community, the ENFP just leaves... Perhaps they will come back for a visit or two, but ultimately... the ENFP journey continues on to another community that might need some light.
Cause for Shifting Focus in Projects
And, speaking of moving from one thing to another, I should address the difficulty many of us have of being able to finish most of the ideas we start. This is affected by multiple factors. 2 of which seem to stand out. 1) The idea keeps getting new ideas added to it, or an arrangement is decided to be faulty so it gets scrapped and restarted anew multiple times, continuously evolving until it's nothing like the beginning and it just keeps growing and expanding so we can hardly keep up with it. 2) Something may cause us to feel that people won't appreciate the project we're working on, or that people won't understand or fully benefit from it, or that the work needed for the project outweighs its perceived value for others. This is because our ultimate goal in... pretty much anything we do... is to do or make something that will help or benefit others. That Ne drive to create order in abstract concepts is strong and we want to make it not just for ourselves but for others! We get our fulfillment there. Sure, we may love our own time in exploring concepts, games, books, and things on our own too (and certainly constantly collecting Ne data), but if we're in project mode, it's ultimately for others' benefit. Same goes with our interactions with people.
Interacting with Others
I'll skip over the one on one connections we have often have with people we choose to help (since it's the most recognizable) and jump straight into a more normal setting. Let's say meeting strangers... Well right there we have a problem. Despite being supposedly "extroverts" we want a *reason* to interact with someone. Do we know this person? Are we working for or with this person? Does that person need help? etc. Otherwise if they are just chilling or whatever, we aren't the type normally to just walk up to somebody casually and ask about their day. That sounds pretty stressful actually. XD. If there isn't a solid reason for it, then we'd just rather stick with ourselves and whatever we we're doing. After all, why should we bother people if we got nothing important to say or do for or with them. On the flip side, if we are just doing our own thing and there happen to be people around, depending on the setting, we may just absolutely not care and do whatever we want, whether that's running/skipping to our destination, dancing to some grocery store music, singing a song, or whatnot, half oblivious to people's reactions to us. We don't mind just being ourselves when we are around people we are comfortable with too, so we'll laugh and crack jokes over minor things and in general just be high energy and often enthusiastic over whatever might be going on (If we don't like what's going on, we'll be sure to let you know and give a different opinion on how things should be done. XD).
Debating
We have strong opinions about things, and if we value something enough and see someone stating something contrary to it, or perhaps against one of our core values, we won't be afraid to call them out on it and debate the reasons against it and for our cause (we are huge logic fans. Even if we might make an illogical point now and then, we actually appreciate it when we are countered with a more logical approach). This is a common occurrence both on the web and irl which may lead meany ENFP's to think that they are the debater ENTP's for a while. Like: "I thought ENFP's were these compassionate flighty butterfly thought people?" Well actually there is a time to play and a time to fight. We won't constrict ourselves to one modality. We're experts at living in the moment, and if something needs to be said, then by golly we will say it and be serious about it too! We will do our best to show how we see it, how we came to the conclusion, why it's logical, etc. We aren't against being proven wrong, but it had better make logical sense. If not, then we won't respect your opinion.
Inside the mind of an ENFP
We love both order and chaos. More specifically we love making order out of chaos, or making chaos out of an illogical order. As we look at the world around us, or indeed, even in a small project we may be working on, we think about various connections to different facets of the thing and attempt to bring the various seemingly chaotic arrangements and relationships into a logical conclusion or arrangement... Sometimes such arrangements can seem chaotic, but there will likely be some logical undertones of how or why the connections were made. We are often obsessed with patterns in the midst of trying to work things out. If something sticks out like a sore thumb then we assume that there must be a logical outcome and try again to make it work. (If you are confused of what on earth I'm talking about, then I'm sorry. There are just too many varied examples to give a reasonable example of what I'm trying to talk about, so either you get it or you don't. XD) We usually use these thought processes to problem solve for almost anything even in those heart to heart conversations as we try to search for solutions to a person's problems, giving advice that neatly fits into what they need and navigating the emotional waves. It's interesting because while we can be deeply emotional for those people, we can also be more or less stoic and pause in thought as our brain takes in the information and comes up with an answer. During many conversations after I have been told something/asked for advice/thinking about what a person needs, I'll often say "Hmm..." and maybe "Hmmmmmmm..." Hmm means that I am entering into zen mode and trying to read deeply into everything... what was said, what was left out, the energy I feel off a person, the situation the person is in, the mindset of the people the person deals with, or whatever else I think I need to figure out what needs to happen before answering as honestly as I can to help them. This is called reading your mind (Not really, but if feels like it sometimes. XD). Just let us cook and we'll think of something, and if we can't right away, we'll ask a question or two to try to fill in missing information. Yes the questions may seem off the wall sometimes, but they are important questions for what we need to figure out the problem. This is also why we have so many uncompleted projects. We gather some information, put it together, but are still left with so many holes that we need more information to fill it in before we feel we can do a project or story justice. We can find things out perhaps, but after a while it gets kinda draining, especially if some information is hard to come by. And this is also why we often hastily put together some ideas of how we want things to turn out, assemble what we can in an incomplete fashion, and then just post it for others to see and comment on and inform on what is missing and tell me what we need to know because we are searching for more data and information to help finish the project. At the same time we are also looking for enthusiasm and encouragement because we want to make sure that what we are doing will be appreciated by others and that they care. Otherwise... if no one cares about the result (when we think they should) then what would be the point of continuing it honestly? So, don't blame us just for being lazy (sometimes we are... if something isn't easy we are liable to just give up at times). Sometimes we are just so obsessed with making sure a thing is perfect that anything less isn't good enough. We may have made a lot of progress on something but if we run into an incongruency or it's turning out much worse than we imagined, then we will not hesisitate to scrap the entire thing, make some (sometimes drastic) revisions, and start over again.
Open for Revision
Such indeed is this description here. I'm not even sure I have covered all the bases yet and will do the typical ENFP thing and publish it before I think it's finished. It's probably too detailed and wordy, Have too much stuff, or not enough. Maybe I'm even missing an entire point or two. Maybe I'm even missing the underlying point of the whole thing. Who knows? Honestly I will never be fully satisfied especially in a description that is subject to change and perhaps may even be wrong in places. If any ENFP doesn't resonate with something in here, PLEASE! Let me know and I will edit/change it as needed. I feel like I should also put something up to show what an ENFP stereotype aught to look like because what we got now, hardly resonates with any of us except in very specific situations rather than a general feeling of "Yeah, I could see myself doing that! haha!" It's more often like: "Well... I mean... sure... I could do that but I'm more likely to do it another way and act completely different." Also we get tired of being seen as the hippy freak when we feel more like the hero that really cares about helping people and doing the right thing. I could say more, but I suppose I will leave it for now and come back and probably make a few edits later. Please share your thoughts and how it made you feel. :)

Hey everyone! Long time lurker of Reddit, but never a poster, but here we are… before, I get to my post, if for any reason the limited details I share make you aware you are directly or indirectly involved with these specific incidents, please make sure responses won’t dox anyone, become inflammatory, hateful, or anything like that.
This is a text wall, and I’m sorry, but I’m looking for advice on what to do in addition to what I’ve stated below. I’ll provide as much context as possible to help generate appropriate advice and responses. Also, if this is not the right space for this post, please guide me to where I should post or cross post.
Here we go…
All events happened at a charter school in the state of Florida in the US.
My son was on the receiving end of being double-hand choked around the neck by another student in class last week. My kid states, the other kid was full power choking, and my son at full power couldn’t get the other kids hands off his neck / stop him from being choked. My son said it wasn’t until other kids started screaming, ‘student A is choking student B’ that the other kid let go.
My wife was briefly made aware of the situation after calls were made to my wife and the other kids parents by the VP. Due to the timing of the incident, when it was reported to my wife, and us both being at work… I was only told by my wife that an incident occurred at school and we would talk about it later that night. I received no communication from the school. Unfortunately, my wife and I never had a chance to fully discuss the incident that evening once I got home from work because everyone was asleep by the time I got home.
The next morning, I spoke to my son about the incident, and uncovered all the details that I’ve already described. Remember, my wife and I hadn’t yet spoken in detail, and she had only been told by the VP an incident occurred that would result in my son with silent lunch and the other kid with a ‘more severe punishment’. When my wife picked up my son from school at the end of the day, my son didn’t want to talk about it with her.
So, when I took my son to school for drop off as a tardy / late start that next morning, I checked him in, he was sent to class, and I immediately asked to see the VP. However, career day was happening day and it was already chaos for the school…, so the resource officer was sent out, told me to leave, the situation was already handled / why do I have and why would I have more questions?
After a long back-and-forth between the resource officer and myself, and clearly disagreeing on everything, I was told by him to leave and make an appointment to see someone because because, ‘the focus is on career day, not what happened to your son yesterday’. I then told the front desk administrator to call my son back to the front office because we were leaving.
Once I got home, I reviewed the policies of the school, and how to make an official complaint. I then sent an email detailing everything I knew at that point, including what had happened at the school that morning to the school board.
The school board liaison immediately sent my complaint to the principal, which resulted in the principal calling me, so, the principal and I spoke about everything. She admittedly was not aware of the situation, and I told her that since my wife and I had not spoken, and I only had the information from a seven-year-old, and that she didn’t know anything about the situation… that we need to have a conference call later that evening between me, her, the VP, and my wife after she gets home and we’ve had time talk.
Once my wife got home, we spoke in great detail about everything we knew, what had happened, what happened that morning, what I had done in response so far, and that we had a conference call scheduled in a few hours…
After the conference call, the school agreed to speak with some of the kids, pull some camera footage, and have a sit down with us, including our son. We requested the sit down because the school has politely said my son is lying and is inaccurate in his version of events. The school acknowledges there was an incident, but it didn’t happen in the classroom, it happened in the cafeteria. So, apparently, they seem to be unaware of a secondary choking incident in the classroom between the two kids on the same day.
As parents, we reached out to other parents in the class and asked if their children had mentioned anything about a situation that happened in class that day. Multiple parents spoke with their kids and corroborated our sons story without leading the children to the story. What I mean is, the other kids that witnessed it either told their parents in advance that something had happened, or told their parents something happened in class after being questioned.
The general theme of what happened is consistent with the other parents; however, some of the smaller details are inconsistent.
From here, there are details that get really specific, and I’m trying to give just enough context without oversharing for obvious reasons, so I’ll stop here, but might be willing to share more if what I’ve said so far does not paint a full enough picture to get the right answers.
I’m searching for what more we could be doing at this point, if there are any other parents whose kids went through something similar, how they navigated this and what they did… I’m looking for ideas, experiences, and things that we might not be aware of since this is a first time thing for our family, but we want to do everything the right way.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading.

Personal background - I live alone in a 1 bedroom apartment. I am single. I am a people pleaser and potentially have a “savior complex”. I say potentially because I don’t feel I’m helping to make myself feel good or to bring attention to “what a good person I am”, but I do put my own life and problems on the back burner and become mildly obsessed with trying to solve the other persons issues.
My friend Beth is 27 and got married to Carl (40m) after finding out she was pregnant so she could get on his health insurance. Beth was unsure if she was ready to be a parent, but Carl said he would leave if she didn’t keep the baby.
Personally - I don’t like Carl that much. He’s nice I guess… but examples of what raise some flags to me - Beth made a remark about how she’s independent but more left leaning. Carl shot a “let me put you in your place look” and said she doesn’t get how the world works and that leaning left isn’t allowed in his home. - Before pregnancy Beth would hangout 2-3 nights after work. Once pregnant, Carl started picking fights and the result is that Beth can see friends that he approves of once a month. - In the very beginning of pregnancy when Beth was undecided, she had gone out to the bar with friends one night. Regardless of opinions on that, Carl used that as an excuse to reconnect with his ex and “hangout” and Beth only found out because she borrowed his phone. - Beth had to go back to work last week and he calls her within an hour of every shift demanding she leaves to come home and care for the baby. If she is on her one night out with friends, he berates her and calls her a bad mother for putting friends above their baby who is crying.
I ran into Beth on her night out the other day and she was very drunk. I took her to my place to sober up before bringing her home. That whole time she cried to me about how unhappy she is. She loves her daughter so so much but she thought because Carl wanted the baby he would help more. That she feels like a single mom of 2. She feels trapped and like she has to tiptoe in her own home to avoid starting an argument. She said “I just wish you and I could be roommates.” Which brings us to the problem.
Hearing that has really thrown me for a loop. I love living on my own and not having the responsibilities of living with someone. That being said, I slack on adulting things because I don’t have to worry about others. Sometimes I’ll leave dishes in the sink for a few days because I don’t feel like getting to it at that time and things like that.
Part of me feels like if I let Beth and her baby move in, that would help push me to grow up in the ways I’ve been wanting to. It would feel less lonely and it would give more purpose to my days. It would be great to help Beth get out of a situation she doesn’t want to be in. Though it’s a 1 bedroom, there is a lot of space and it could work… I just could really use some outside input.