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my-rose-tinted-glasses · 5 months

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Rose Recaps 2023 - Japan

So, because I have a hard time making big lists and choosing favourites, this my version of a superlative post, by country.

The one that had me at the first frame

If It’s With You | Kimi to Nara Koi wo Shite Mite mo

As soon as Amane appeared on screen I was gone. This damaged but confident boy had my heart from the beginning. But it was Ryuji that ended up with a bigger piece by the end. The way he saw Amane’s mask from the beginning and just went – “you don’t need to do that with me”. And the way he considered Amane’s feelings even when he wasn’t sure what to do or how to respond, or how he was feeling about all of it, was just beautiful to witness and at certain points kinda reminded of Ida.

Favourite Moment: Amane confessing and running away. Because visually it's so striking. The way he's running from the light that is Ryuji.

The one that was perfect and I never saw coming.

I Cannot Reach You | Kimi ni wa Todokanai

I think that by now at least some people know how I feel about Japanese BL. I love it so much. And for me it’s always about the characters. Whether they are the embodiment of chaos, like Aoki or they are just incredible complex and empathic humans like Ida. - Yes, I’m using Kieta Hatsukoi every chance I get- I just love the way all these characters are written and portrait.

I loved these 2 boys in equal measure all throughout the show. I might have a soft spot for Yamato, but that’s only because pining boys are my weakness.

Yamato’s back and forth in his own head about what to do would be annoying to me in any other show, but it was so well done, and we were privy to his thought process throughout that it just made me feel for him deeply. And Kakeru learning about Yamato’s feelings right away in the first episode was a great choice, because he gave the show time to make the reciprocity more believable.

Favourite Moment - The exchange of gifts at the door. I love the nervousness that the two of them are feeling in this moment.

The one where I gave in.

My Beautiful Man S2 & Eternal

Confession time. This was not love at first season for me. I don’t argue quality overall and much less the acting of the show, but it just didn’t click for me.

There were some truly great moments in the first season but there was a disconnect between my heart and my brain. This happens to me sometimes. Like I watch something that is objectively good but it doesn’t reach me.

That all changed with the second season and the film. I finally connect with Hira. Don't ask me why, I don't fully understand myself, but it happened right at the beginning of the season. I think perhaps it was because I started seeing more from Kiyoi pov, because before I was absolutely clueless about what he saw in Hira in the first place. Sorry if that sounds harsh.

I don't blame the show for this, as I said, I think all the elements are there, it just didn't connect for me.

Also, the film was gorgeous to watch. Several moments (specially the sequence where the gif is from) were so well shot and edited that I'm happy I went in already with a positive mindset.

Favourite Moment: The one from the gif. I'm a sucker for a drastic visual change when the moment calls for it.

The one that had me question if watching it was good for my mental health.

Tokyo in April is | Shigatsu no Tokyo wa

Ok. I love this show. I love Ren. But this was a hard watch for me. Every week I had a struggle between two sides of me.

- Don’t watch it. It will be sad and you will be sad because of it. - But the last one was sad so I need to watch it to see if there’s happy. - Why not just wait? - Because I started already, so now I can’t wait. - But in this case binging is best. Cause for sure the ending is happy so you won’t be sad for long. - Yeah, but I need to see more now. And there’s a new episode waiting for me. - Fine. Just press play. After the episode. - I really shouldn’t watch this one live. (all this repeats the following week)

It was beautifully acted, there were some outstanding moments, the past was as tastefully done as it could be given the subject matter, and in the end my heart of full, but slightly damaged with the process.

Favourite Moment: Ren finding out Kazuma had been looking for him.

The one with all the magic.

What Did You Eat Yesterday? | Kinou Nani Tabeta? S2

I already wrote how this show made me feel in another post. So I’ll just say this.

EVERYONE NEEDS TO WATCH THIS SHOW. NOW. If you haven’t, stop reading this and go. GO. NOW. Start.

There is magic here and you don’t even know.

Favourite Moment: ALL OF THEM. But really this one.

Shiro. Just Shiro.

Well, I'll try to write the next one in these next couple of days. Wish me luck.

Thanks for reading💜

#Rose Recaps 2023 #kimi ni wa todokanai #kimi to nara koi wo shite mite mo #i cannot reach you #if it's with you #kinou nani tabeta #tokyo in april is...#shigatsu no tokyo wa #utsukushii kare #my beautiful man eternal #rose rambles

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 month

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Async mugwump linkdump

I'm on tour with my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW in ANAHEIM at WONDERCON: YA Fantasy, Room 207, 10 a.m.; Signing, 11 a.m.; Teaching Writing, 2 p.m., Room 213CD.

For 20+ years, I've processed all the information that came over my transom by blogging – mulling on why something I saw in the world caught my attention and trying to summarize it for strangers. This turns out to be a very powerful way to do a lot of different kinds of mental work:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

With Pluralistic, the solo blog I founded 4 years ago, I've moved into longer, more synthetic essays that try to connect the things that caught my attention today with all those things I've written about for the past two decades. That's also proven very fruitful:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/20/fore/#synthesis

But this move to longer works has a downside: sometimes I'll arrive at the week's end and have a list of things that caught my attention without there being any obvious way to connect them, and when that happens, I devote a Saturday edition to a linkdump. There's been 15 of these so far:

https://pluralistic.net/tag/linkdump/

Welcome, then, to the 16th Pluralistic linkdump, and a warning, this one starts with an obituary.

Ross Anderson was one of the heroes of the cryptographic revolution, a brilliant scientist and communicator, a fantastic activist, and a scorching curmudgeon. Ross died this week. He was 67, and had chronic heart issues as well as long covid:

https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2024/03/29/rip-ross-anderson/

There's so much that's been written about Ross and his legacy already, and there's doubtless more to come, but I've picked out two pieces to point you to. The first is from Danny O'Brien, who was also the guy who talked me down off the ledge the first time Ross flamed me on a public mailing list, leaving me bleeding and furious:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39868983

As Danny says, Ross was "the model of a politically and socially involved computer scientist," a man whose blazing intellect, fierce moral center and relentless curiosity inspired a generation of technologists to think about politics, and a generation of political activists to think about technology. Few of Ross's eulogizers (thus far) have mentioned how Ross's passion came out as fury, and – as someone who counted Ross as a friend and inspiration – I think this is a serious omission. It's hard to imagine Ross doing all that he did without understanding the anger that – along with his ethics – fueled his passion.

(Compare with @neil-gaiman's classic essay on the anger of Terry Pratchett:)

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchett-angry-not-jolly-neil-gaiman

The other obit that I want to point you to comes from Bill Buchanan, one of Ross's closest collaborators. Buchanan's memorial for Ross does a superb job of rounding up Ross's technical contributions to the field of security engineering:

https://medium.com/asecuritysite-when-bob-met-alice/ross-anderson-rip-59233c75fadf

Buchanan embeds videos for some of Ross's best speeches, links to his key papers (including the classic "Programming Satan's Computer," on "programming a computer which gives answers that are subtly and maliciously wrong at the most inconvenient moment possible), reminiscences of Great Moments In Ross Anderson, and terrific, lay-friendly breakdowns of some of Ross's key mathematical work.

As an unreasonable, angry person, I take great inspiration from people who channel their unreasonable anger to socially beneficial conduct – like whistleblowers. After Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge was totaled by the 95,000-ton cargo ship MV *Dali(, a vast cohort of instant experts in structural engineering, sea freight and shipbuilding has taken to the internet with a slurry of takes on the Meaning Of the Bridge.

Some of these are very stupid indeed, like the idea that somehow "DEI" caused the collision. But you don't have to be an expert in maritime issues or civil engineering to understand the importance of this report from The Lever about shipping giant Maersk's culture of retaliation against whistleblowers:

https://www.levernews.com/feds-recently-hit-cargo-giant-in-baltimore-disaster-for-silencing-whistleblowers/

Maersk is the company that chartered the MV Dali; Maersk is also a key player in the cartel that controls the world's shipping. Maersk was just sanctioned by the Labor Department for retaliating against a whistleblower who complained of unsafe conditions on the ships that Maersk chartered:

https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/OPA/news%20releases/Maersk-Sec%20Findings%20-FINAL%20071423_Redacted.pdf

Maersk's policy required employees to bring concerns to their supervisors before alerting the Coast Guard or others. This is not how that stuff is supposed to work. OSHA called this policy “repugnant” and a “reprehensible and an egregious violation of the rights of employees,” which “chills them from contacting the [Coast Guard] or other authorities without contacting the company first.”

The whistleblower – chief mate on the Safmarine Mafadi – complained of "unrepaired leaks, unpermitted alcohol consumption onboard, inoperable lifeboats, faulty emergency fire suppression equipment, and other issues." We don't know (yet) what happened on the Dali, but it's obvious that a company that retaliates against whistleblowers, rather than heeding their warnings, is prioritizing covering its ass, not operating safely.

Which brings me (inevitably) to Boeing, and to poor John "Swampy" Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who took his own life earlier this month. Barnett's suicide has stirred up similar low-yield online chatter focused on whether Boeing assassinated Barnett, a question that categorically cannot be answered through the method of arguing with internet strangers.

But there is a lot to say about Barnett: in particular, there's the substance of his whistleblowing, the specifics of his complaints about Boeing. For that, we can turn to the always-fantastic Maureen Tkacik, whose American Prospect piece "Suicide Mission" is definitive:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Tkacik does a great job of painting a picture of Swampy as a member of the tribe of unreasonable and angry people who refuse to sideline principle in order to get along. More importantly, Tkacik shows us what made Swampy so angry: a company that was hell-bent on lobotimizing itself by forcing out any technical expert who might point out inconvenient truths about the safety risks of high-profit strategies.

As Tkacik writes, Boeing once thought about "knowledge" in terms of expertise that could be brought to bear on the unimaginably complex task of making reliable, airworthy jets. But under the "value-engineering" financialized culture that arose after the McDonnell-Douglas merger, the company viewed knowledge as "intellectual property, trade secrets, and data." In other words, the point of knowledge was rent-extraction, not safety.

At the root of this transformation was the Jack Welch protege Jim "Prince Jim" McNerney, the former 3M CEO who took the helm at Boeing. McNerney was openly contemptuous of the company's senior engineers, branding them "phenomenally talented assholes" and rewarding managers who found ways to force them out of the company. It was McNerney who decided to produce the 787 "Dreamliner" in non-union shops, far from Seattle and its phenomenally talented assholes. Instead of these engineers, McNerney turned to Boeing suppliers to do the major engineering work on the 787 – despite the fact that many of these suppliers "lacked engineering departments."

The 787 was, infamously, a $80b-over-budget boondoggle, haunted by technical failures. Swampy was part of the "cleanup crew" that tried to salvage the 787, and witnessed first-hand how the company purged all the engineers who managed to ship the 787 despite McNerney and his "value engineers" and retaliated against workers who tried to unionize the South Carolina facility.

In particular, it was safety inspector who came in for the most savage punishment. When the FAA decided to let Boeing mark its own homework – hiring in-house safety inspectors to replace government inspectors – they pretended to believe that these Boeing-payrolled inspectors would be able to operate independently of Boeing's leadership. The inspectors tried to operate this way (not least because they were criminally liable for oversights that occurred on their watch) and McNerney's Boeing came down on them like a ton of aviation-grade aluminum.

To further neuter these inspectors, Boeing management ordered the inspectors to outsource their work to the mechanics they were supposed to be supervising – that is, the FAA outsourced safety checks to Boeing inspectors, and the inspectors outsourced those checks to the mechanics themselves. Tkacik: "Swampy believed relying on mechanics to self-inspect their work was not only insane but illegal under the Federal Aviation Administration charter."

Swampy kept careful records of every way in which this system produced unsafe aircraft and an unsafe workplace – including the day he discovered that someone had removed 400+ defective parts from the rejects box and installed them in aircraft in order to meet deadlines. Swampy's reports were key to establishing that the company's much-trumpeted "improvements" in safety reports were down to a culture of "bullying" – not any improvement in safety itself.

When Boeing went to war against Swampy, they barely bothered to pretend that they were playing by the rules. He was told one day that he was four-weeks into a 60-day "corrective action" that no one had told him about. The "corrective action" paperwork had a blank for Swampy's comments. He wrote, "Leadership wants nothing in email so they maintain plausible deniability. It is obvious leadership is just looking for items to criticize me on so I stop identifying issues. I will conform!"

Shortly thereafter, he was forced out altogether. Managers who tried to bring him on their teams were told that no one was allowed to hire John Barnett. His name appeared on a secret internal memo entitled "Quality Managers to Fire." Meanwhile, the value of Boeing shares had tripled.

After Boeing's 737 Maxes started falling out of the sky, Swampy's painstaking documentation of the flaws in the 787's production took on a new urgency. A program of random inspections of 787s found major defects in all of them ("Boeing Looked for Flaws in Its Dreamliner and Couldn’t Stop Finding Them" –WSJ). An Aviation Week diagram of problem spots with the 787 marked red arrows over "every single section, from the tip of the nose to the horizontal stabilizers":

https://aviationweek.com/air-transport/new-boeing-787-fix-details-reveal-extent-gap-check-challenge

Boeing's war on "brilliance" did its work: after everyone who understood how to make a safe aircraft was forced out of the company, financialized CEOs were able to cut corners on safety, triple the share-price, scoop up billions in government subsidies and bailouts, all without those pesky "phenomenally talented assholes" pointing out that they were going get (lots of) people killed.

Tkacik closes by saying that Swampy's former work colleagues refuse to believe he killed himself. A former executive told her "I don’t think one can be cynical enough when it comes to these guys…It’s a top-secret military contractor, remember; there are spies everywhere." I confess that I don't know what to make of that, but I'll say this: if Boeing killed Swampy, that's just one of hundreds of murders they committed. Whether or not Swampy's death was their fault, the deaths of everyone who went down on the 737 Maxes that crashed is on their hands.

That's what "profits before people" means, after all: sacrificing human lives to make yourself richer. It's the foundational tenet of the conservative movement, though that impulse is often checked by other factors, like human decency. It's only when sociopaths get a sustained run at leadership that you see what they really want.

Which brings me to the UK, which has been governed by the Conservative Party for 14 years. The Tories are tipped to get destroyed in the next election, and a long article in the New Yorker by Sam Knight catalogs the many ways in which Tory rule has devastated the UK:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

The thing is, after 14 years, it's impossible for the Tories to blame anyone else for the state of the UK. With strong Parliamentary majorities, Conservatives were able to govern as they pleased – the only compromises they made were between their own internal factions. The ideological commitment to making the rich richer, privatizing everything, subordinating governance to market forces – that's all them.

It's all them: the worst period for wage growth since the Napoleonic Wars, on them. The catastrophic traffic, housing, jobs market, and precarity, on them. Plummeting health, on them. The austerity, on them. The withering of the country's courts and prisons and police, its wilderness, its programs for young people and pensioners, its public health, its diplomatic corps, its road maintenance – on them.

A country where the police can't afford to prosecute burglaries – on them (4% of burglaries are prosecuted). The 2.5 year delay between a rape arrest and its trial? On them. Mass closures of schools that are literally crumbling? On them.

43% of the countries courts have closed. On them. Cuts to prison funding, coupled with longer sentences? On them.

And of course, Brexit – on them. Every part of it. The referendum. The referendum question. The failure to negotiate a deal with the EU. All on them. The collapse in British living standards, all on them. The fact that the 20% richest households in the UK have been untouched by all this? Also on them. But you might not notice it in London, where people earn an average of 400% more than people in Nottingham.

The only growth sector outside of London are the Citizens Advice Bureaux, whose client rosters are growing even as their funding is cut. Where the CAB once primarily catered to people who couldn't make ends meet due to disability, unemployment and other reliable predictors of economic distress, today, CAB advisors are seeing homeowners, people working two jobs. Desperation is "like a black hole, dragging more and more people in,"

More Conservative growth: Tories presided over a doubling in the rate of NHS antidepressant prescriptions, and a 20% rise in long-term health conditions. No wonder Tory Britain had the world's worst pandemic outcomes for a wealthy nation – that's on them, too.

Knight's article closes with a Tory MP who believes that "the key thing for the Conservatives now is to be more conservative…Toryism must have its day again."

We can't count on oligarchs to rescue us from oligarchy – not even when oligarchy's failures push society to the breaking point. There's always a rationalization explaining why we just had to lean harder into oligarchy.

You hear echoes of this in the pro-monopoly choir, whose squeals of outrage at the rise of a new anti-monopoly movement grow louder even as monopolism's failures grow clearer. One of the more tangible expressions of monopoly's failures is the Ticketmaster/Livenation octopus, which controls the entire live music industry – key venues, promotions, and ticketing. Ticketmaster fucks over music fans, but it also cheats famous musicians, the kinds of people with big microphones, so we know a lot about how bad it is:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/20/anything-that-cant-go-on-forever-will-eventually-stop/

Of course, the fact that Swifties hate Ticketmaster lets the pro-monopolists dismiss critics as foolish young girls, not Very Serious People Who Understand Economics and thus can see that Ticketmaster's monopoly is Good, Actually.

Last week, Congressman Bill Pascrell dumped a ton of litigation documents related to Ticketmaster's sleaze, and Matt Stoller broke them down:

https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/explosive-new-documents-unearthed

The docs reveal how Ticketmaster's system of (formerly) secret kickbacks let it choke out any competitor, so that it could charge fans more and pay artists less. The mechanics of the scam are beautifully laid out in Stoller's post – as is the many ways in which it violated both the law and Ticketmaster's numerous consent decrees arising from its previous lawbreaking.

This kind of scam breakdown is essential. It's easy to think that we, as mere normies, can't hope to understand the machinations of the corporations that prey on us. But once you pierce the veil of performative complexity, what's left behind is a set of crude tricks and transparent ruses.

Here's one of those transparent ruses: Discord's terms of service require Discord users to actively opt out of its "binding arbitration" system. Binding arbitration is when you sign a contract saying you can't sue the company no matter how much it harms you – instead, you promise to have your disputes heard by an "arbitrator" (a fake judge paid by the company that screwed you). Unsurprisingly, these fake judges are awfully tolerant of their employers' crimes.

Discord says that once you click through its garbage legalese novella, you have just a few days to opt out of this binding arbitration clause – if you happen to miss that fine print, you have "consented" to giving up your legal rights.

But every time Discord changes its ToS, the clock for opting out starts ticking again, and Discord has just changed (that is, worsened) its ToS again:

https://discord.com/terms

That means that if you send an email right now to [email protected] with "I am confirming that as of the date of this email, I am choosing to opt out of binding arbitration to settle disputes with Discord" in the body, you can escape this consent theater:

https://mamot.fr/@[email protected]/112175832989845038

Consent theater is a particularly galling corporate ruse – the idea that we chose to allow them to abuse us. Consent theater gets more outrageous by the day. Take Soofa, who operate streetside digital kiosks that identify you by grabbing your phone's unique wifi and Bluetooth identifiers:

https://gizmodo.com/digital-kiosks-snatch-your-phones-data-when-you-walk-by-1851368948

Soofa sells this data to advertisers – claiming that by walking down a public street, you "consented" to being tracked and sold.

The only reason this flies is that the US hasn't passed a federal consumer privacy law since 1988's Video Privacy Protection Act, which bans video-store clerks from telling people which VHS cassettes you took home. Congress keeps on failing to pass a privacy law, despite garbage companies like Soofa.

But that hasn't stopped the administrative agencies from acting to defend your privacy! The FTC just dropped its latest Privacy and Data Security Update, a greatest hits list of the actions the Commission took while Congress failed:

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/2024.03.21-PrivacyandDataSecurityUpdate-508.pdf

One of the best things about the current administration is the number of extremely competent regulators who know exactly how much power they have and aren't afraid to use it to help the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

The new FTC report, which details how the Commission's existing powers let it go after the commercial surveillance industry from smart doorbells to review fraud, from kids' programming to medical data, from lax security to data-breaches, is a bright spot in an otherwise grim week.

One more bright spot, then, before I wind up this linkdump. All week, I've been humming a half-remembered lyric, "come on baby/you're a link in this chain/put your hands together/and get free of the pain." For the life of me, I couldn't place it.

Last night, I searched for it (using Kagi, the post-Google search engine I've been paying for for the past month, and which I'm loving) and discovered that I had somehow completely forgotten a whole-ass band that I once loved: Toronto's Bourbon Tabernacle Choir, whom I saw live on many occasions.

The mystery lyric came from "Death is the Great Awakener," a fucking banger of a post-gospel track that I've been listening to on nonstop repeat as I wrote this. It's a hell of a tune and I'm intensely grateful to have it back in my life:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6RUb63Tx3w

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/30/dewey-502/#rip-ross-anderson

Image: Waffleboy https://www.flickr.com/photos/waffleboy/28198395465/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

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padfootdaredmetoo · 1 year

Note

Hey how are you hope you ok

I got a request for Tommy Shelby if that ok

So basically you and Tommy are dating and one day in a meeting you was having theses really bad stomach pains and you thought nothing of at than when u got home and I got worse and than u went to Tommy crying in pain still and he said you might be in labour ( u don’t know u pregnant) than he calls polly and then u gived birth to you boy or girl up to you and then next day every one was Shock and yh hope that make sense u don’t have to do it x

Dear Anon,

Thank you for waiting! I changed things up a bit and I apologize for any mistakes as I'm editing on mobile at work. Hope you enjoy it!

Warnings: childbirth, mentions of Hugh stress and poor eating habits. Peaky related themes and magic.

Dating Thomas was a life changing decision in more ways than you had originally realsied. Your whole life plan had been derailed by the constant ups and downs.

Every new accomplishment and high was met with an even more dangerous low. You were along for the ride while managing your position at the book shop you owned. Long days and fun nights occupied these past few months so much that you realised that your period was late.

Very late.

You thought about it for a while and realised it was probably what used to happen when you were a teenager. High times of stress would stop it altogether. You had no other symptoms that women had told you about. No weird cravings, or morning sickness. Just lots of drama and stres.

You pushed the thought from your mind as you went about your usual routines.

________6 months later____

You had come to the realisation that you must be barren. A fact that was difficult to come to terms with, however Tommy had said he wasnt interested in children any way.

Looking at your self in the mirror you noticed a bit of weight on you and made a mental note to try and correct it by skiping meals for a while. Nothing big to worry about in comparison to another rival family causing chaos. You’d only just gotten sorted from being held captive a week ago.

You already had so much on your shoulders at the book shop, orders were piling up and you were spending more and more late nights and early mornings. Tommy’s men escorting you and staying by the door while you worked.

The multiple attempts on your life did nothing but add to the list of reasons you couldnt sleep at night. You were slowly falling apart.

Cramps set in about mid day and you finally gave up. You called Tom letting him know you couldnt make it to lunch and went right to bed. Taking a much needed nap you woke up to even worse sets of pain.

You grabbed your hot water bottle and tried to curl up on the couch with a book. Struggling through the sets of pain you began to wonder if something else was wrong. Wasn’t there an organ that could explode in your stomach?

Your thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

____________________________________________________

Sitting across the table from the old woman, Polly thought back through time. Her eyes were dark and she had told her lots of things about her life that night. Gave her the curse of knowledge, knowing all too well that the girl was too weak to fight fate. And Polly had tried, every step of the way to fight it.

It didnt surprise her that she was once again stuck at that wooden table. That the woman reflected on something said ages ago.

A child.

Polly’s heart sunk when she thought about the two children that were permanently out of her reach. A child? At this age. Not likely.

The dream took a turn and woman shouted at her.

“Go to her now before its too late.” And image of your face came into her mind and suddenly she was awake. The womans cold scream still echoing in her mind.

Getting her clothes pulled on she quickly called Thomas.

“Need to get to her place now” She said trying to pull on her boot at the same time.

“Pol - why? What’s wrong?” The sound of panic in his voice made her reconsider your place within the family.

“Just go, I’m on my way now.” She hung up the phone not wanting to waist anytime. On the drive over she thought about you and what this ment.

There was no way of making sense of the situation. All the things she was told never made sense as a girl and wouldnt likely start to make sense now. She sighed defeated. She liked you well enough. Smart, kept Thomas in line, a bit soft hearted but she could see that changing the more you saw of the world.

She parked and ran up the steps of your building. Opening the door she ould hear your soft cries as he tried to comfort you.

“Pol what’s wrong with her.”

“It’s a child.” Polly said moving into the kitchen seeing what supplies they were working with.

“Fuck off.” You said a tone of disbelif. Coming back into the room she watched your face cycle through the many stages of panic.

“Accept it so we can get on with it.” Polly said to the both of them.

“How?”

“Part of the prophecy. Flashbacks got me up in the middle of the night.” She watched as Tommy fell under the weight of her words.

“Alright, love.” He kissed the top of your head. “It’s not going to make sense. So just let it happen.” You looked at up him your fear fading in the warmth of his gaze.

“I dont think I can do it.” You groaned, tears welling up in your eyes.

“It’s already happened. Pol saw it. That means you certainly can. Just have to make it from here to there.”

After that you followed instructions, Polly was professional but couldnt help but feel a fondness growing for you. This was also a side of Tom she hadn’t seen since he was a small boy. He did everything without thought, never letting you out of his grip.

“Tough girl.” He kissed your temple. “You can do it, gotta push again”

Like many times before. Polly pulled a small little babe from their mother on the living room floor of a dingy flat in Birmingham.

You collapsed against Tom and Polly went to work ensuring the child was alright. Smallest little girl she’d ever seen. Born too soon, quiet as a mouse as she looked up at her great aunt. Her heart was strong, and Polly knew just by holding her that this child, was significant in something bigger than all of them put together.

She handed the girl off to her parents. Leaning back against the sofa sitting next to Thomas. He handed her a cigarette from his breast pocket.

Taking a long drag, she realized she should give them space to enjoy the moment. Her bones had no interest in moving as the night, and previous months took a toll on her.

“She predicted this? Why didn't you say something?” Tom whispered stoking the cheek of his first child.

Polly almost snapped at him, before registering his tone of voice. She’d never seen him this vulnerable.

“She told me a lot of things, I was small at the time. None of you were born yet. It’s not specific stuff-”

“Thank you.” You said with tears in your eyes. “I -I Don't know what to say.”

“You shouldn't say, anything love. You're family now”

_________________________________________________

You were the most exhausted you’d ever been, but a family meeting was unavoidable. That night was the last night you spent in your apartment. He’d carried you to the car the next morning to take you to his place.

You watched him move around the massive kitchen. He got you a cushion before letting you sit at the head of the table. A cup of strange tea was placed in front of you as the family started to pile in.

Ruby slept in your arm and you tried to relax as the family came close. You were friendly and warm with everyone but this was the first time they were seeing you as a permanent fixture in the family.

“That must have been so scary love. Your body hid it so well” Emse came up to you putting her arm around you in a makeshift hug. “Look at her. So small. Pretty like her mum.” She sat close to you and you knew that it was because of her natural distaste for family meetings. Her posture told you if anyone got smart she’d chew them out.

Arthur and John started to congratulate Tommy loudly and your stomach turned when they set on you. She was so small you didn't feel comfortable passing her around yet. What if that offended people?

“Look at that! Next Shelby made a grand entrance like her da” Arthur kissed your cheek, his mustache tickling. “Good job, love.”

“Thanks,” You said softly.

“God I hope she’s just like you Tom. Finally some payback.” John came over and lowered his voice once seeing her. “Fuck she’s so small. You can call us any time if you need anything. Got a truckload of baby clothes for ya.”

“Really though, love. Call any time.” Esme said and you hoped more than anything you would get closer to her.

The meeting started and Tommy made a grand speech. It didn't take long before Polly was rushing you back up to lie down in bed. When you woke up there was a ring on your wedding finger and a note on the bedside table.

Gone to London for business. Be back tomorrow.

You went back to the massive set of diamonds on your finger. It was talked about but you hadn't had the chance to think about it yet.

There was a soft knock at the door and Esme poked her head in.

“Staying while he’s away, do you need anything, love.” Without knowing what to do you just stuck your hand out at her.

She looked at the ring.

“When!” She whispered.

“Just woke up and it was there.” You whispered back in disbelief.

“Such a Thomas thing to do.” She laughed and sat on the bed next to you. You both talked for hours and you were grateful she let you doze off and nap.

You and Ruby fit right in.

#peaky blinders #tommy shelby #peaky blinders imagine #tommy shelby imagine #tommy shelby x reader #thomas shelby #thomas shelby imagine #thomas shelby x reader #childbirth #ruby shelby #shelby family imagine #shelby family

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mollyringle · 4 months

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Laughter in LOTR

My household has been rewatching the Extended Editions of The Lord of the Rings, and this has inspired me to excavate some of the LiveJournal (!) posts I wrote twenty (!!) years ago. In this one, I ran a search on all the times laughter is mentioned in the books, and listed them. It’s a long list—view the link only if you dare. My shorter sum-up is pasted below, however. The grim/bitter/nervous laughter section intrigues me now: I’d forgotten about Galadriel laughing upon being offered the Ring, or Pippin laughing about the palantír. Those moments were definitely not in the films!

Analysis from 2004:

I'd say we have at least three varieties of laughter: the genuinely happy, the grim/bitter/nervous, and the disturbing/evil.

The Genuinely Happy variety is what the hobbits do most of the time. It's also what the other good guys do when in the company of friends, old or new, when they are not currently under active attack from Mordor. Bombadil, the Elves, and the Ents engage in a lot of Genuinely Happy laughter, being pretty much without a care in the world. Gandalf engages in a lot of it too--and surprisingly so does Aragorn--despite both of them having plenty of cares. The sweetest and most touching instances of the Genuinely Happy laughter, in my opinion, are moments between Frodo and Sam: when Sam somehow makes Frodo laugh on the quest (e.g., see that passage about Samwise the Stout-hearted). Indeed, these tend to be the only times Frodo laughs on the quest, and it's good to see that they're genuine laughs and not laughs of our next variety.

The Grim/Bitter/Nervous/Ironic laughter encompasses those moments like Eowyn's laugh on the Pelennor Fields when she takes off her helmet, or Sam wondering what kind of spider made cobwebs like these. I would also count here the laughs I'm not sure what to make of. For instance, Galadriel laughing when Frodo offers her the One Ring? Is this really a funny moment to her? Maybe, but only if you consider it shocked/nervous laughter. Or Pippin laughing after the Palantir episode, saying he wants Gandalf to tell him everything there is to know. I can't imagine Pippin laughing at all that night, after getting psychologically knifed by Sauron, but if he did I suppose it would be to relieve the tension. We could probably put Gollum's cackling in this column too, since it comes of being mentally unstable. Ditto for Denethor and sometimes Saruman, though they're shading into the third category.

The Evil laughter is yet another beast. We find it in places where the movie also had it: Saruman, Orcs, Ringwraiths, and other evil creatures tend to laugh when contemplating the helplessness of their good-guy victims. That's standard fare for this type of tale. But Tolkien also includes laughter the characters fancy they hear in the wind howling off Caradhras, or in the depths of Moria, or from the roots of a nasty willow tree. Those instances are the laughter of the haunted house, the laughter we don't want to hear at night. Cruelest of all may be the Mouth of Sauron, who seemingly can't stop laughing when telling Frodo's friends that Mordor has caught him and the quest has failed and he'll likely die a painful death.

I think I've babbled enough now. You can easily compare it to the films, since we've all got the films memorized. One addition comes to mind that wasn't in the books: "It's the beards." Other things in the film were funny, but only the audience laughed; not the characters. ("In fact, it's better if you don't speak at all, Peregrin Took.")

Feel free to discuss.

#lotr #lord of the rings #tolkien #laughter

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hiraya-rawr · 2 years

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When you're on your period

synopsis !! them on your blood week

note 01 !! writing this half drunk? ish will edits later

note 02 !! I tried editing it a bit but turns out, half drunk me can actually write pretty well!

characters !! diluc, kaeya, childe, zhongli, thoma

cw !! stereotypical period talk, afab reader

Diluc

Despite growing up in an all male household, I'm pretty sure Adeline and the other maids force fed him all he needed to know about how to treat a lady right on her period.

Not to be stereotypical, but he knows better than to be a spoiled brat around his childhood nannies when they were on their red weeks. That would've earned him an ear pinch and Crepus would've sided with the maids as well.

At least their efforts paid in full. Now they have the perfect gentleman and ideal bachelor for a master, except that he's a little antisocial...

Luckily, he somehow got you! Now he's in the early stages of your relationship and you're experiencing a particularly terrible period day.

We all know he's a walking heater. Just grab his big hand and place it over your abdomen! Voila! A heating pad.

It would be cute if you do it randomly too, like out in the day or in the tavern when your cramps hit and you just need a hot compress. He'll get a little flustered and confused until he realizes 'oh. i should activate my pyro.'

"Can I... take my hand back now? I have a bartending shift..."

"No."

Overall, man is happy to be a pyro allogene if it proves to be useful for you. Pyro can be so destructive, but for you to seek its comfort is so <3

On the occasion that he is clueless, though, he'd rush to Adeline for some advice, only to be crowded around by maids bombarding him with information on how to treat you.

Just imagine Diluc sitting in the kitchen surrounded by young maids and he's trying to mentally list everything but archons, they're lowkey intimidating him like a kid cornered by bullies — what are pad sizes and how is he supposed to know whether you need cold food or hot food?

Couldn't decide on a chocolate you like so he buys off two of every flavor.

Same goes with every other craving you have. If you so look at something, he buys it to appease you.

Kaeya

Like Diluc, he grew up being taught by the maids but as an adult, he has a more hands-on experience with people on their red days.

Most of his acquaintances in the knights order are women after all; Jean, Lisa, Amber, Eula... He's learned to help them through their bad days, even filling in their roles when the cramps get too much!

Despite that, I think his most reliable rule when dealing with periods would be to let you rest. Maybe because it's what he tells the knights under him whenever they ask to be excused.

"Oh? Dysmenorrhea? Head to the infirmary for some rest, you're excused for the day."

He'll buy you take out after a long day though! It'll be your favorite too.

He also likes slipping in bed to cuddle, hands gentle massaging any sore muscles with a gentle cool temperature.

If you're experiencing mood swings, he's the type to go along with you.

Oh? You're crying because... the cake he brought you is too cute? Alright... Kaeya understands. He nods along and agrees with you.

Childe

To my knowledge, he's the middle child with two sisters so he definitely knows what he's doing. Although he isn't home as often, his mama taught him well!

Like Kaeya, he probably also has his fair share of agents excusing themselves over their period or cramps.

Unlike Kaeya though, he doesn't rely on "go and rest" as the ultimatum. Childe treats you more like a child on your period, coddling uou and making sure you can handle yourself.

You have to reassure him that you're not exactly a sick kid 🤨 like... you can feed yourself. it's fine.

Probably tries to entertain you, "You can play with this toy while waiting for dinner. Or would you like to read a book instead?"

"Childe... I'm on my period, not regressing."

Childe would be the type to cook a great meal from scratch, most of it being sick people food like chicken soup (again, treating you like a little sibling).

Just allow yourself to be coddled like a child, being a big brother figure is his expertise I guess.

Zhongli

Honestly one of the best in dealing with you on your period. From your mood swings to your cramps, he's got it all covered.

Uses his excellent memory to predict your next period better than you can. Sometimes, you get surprised he's showing up with chocolates or a hot meal not knowing it's almost your period already.

Knows all the best tea and can personally make dysmenorrhea medicine from scratch. He has this little herb garden for you too!

He's amazing but modern period practices are kind of lost on him. Please, Liyue has come so far when it comes to personal care, back then, people used clean rags.

There are pad sizes and weights now? Cottony soft? Wings? Dry pads? Disposables? He's a little worried and tries to choose the safest option to his best knowledge.

Probably asks the store clerk or a nearby lady just to be sure he's got the right one for you.

Period shopping isn't his forte, but once he's got the grasp of it, expect him to show up every start of your period with everything you need! (paid by someone else, of course)

He has the tendency to treat you like a sick child as well. Maybe because of how fragile and weak mortals seem to him.

Thoma

He's an amazing housekeeper and caretaker, but he probably doesn't have a lot of personal experience dealing with periods.

I can imagine him learning to deal with Ayaka's red days first. There are usually maids for that, but sometimes the responsibility falls on him as a dear friend!

Back then, Thoma wasn't as aware but when people started welcoming him more as a foreigner, I can definitely see the other houseworkers talking kitchen gossip with him about their periods. He's just so polite and understanding about the topic, their gossip turns to advice giving when he genuinely asks for tips!

Like Diluc, he's your portable hot compress. Just grab his hand on a particularly bad day to feel warmth!

Also like Diluc, he gets crowded by the housewives and young maids telling him everything he needs to know if he ever asks for help.

Rather than caring for you though, I think he just continues to act like a house maid.

Especially if he's in your house; he'll cook and clean for you even though you're reminding him that it's just a bad cramp day.

Thoma cooks for you. I think this one's obvious.

navigation

as someone who gets rly bad cramps, I may or may not make a more comprehensive fic about them caring for particularly bad dysmenorrhea

#genshin impact x reader #genshin #genshin impact #diluc #kaeya #childe #zhongli #thoma #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #childe x reader #zhongli x reader #thoma x reader #genshin x reader #genshin fluff #diluc ragvindr #genshin imagines #genshin scenarios #genshin hcs

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yandere-mc-yt · 8 months

Note

Do you think there's any yanderes who wouldn't get along? Like Wilbur and Quackity might not be able to stand each other or Tommy and Purpled finding it difficult to not bicker? Everything you've written so far is really cool!

Thank you! It's nice to hear people like my writing. :) I don't want this to be long because honestly? A lot of yandere's wouldn't get along. I'm going to list the top 1 that'd not get along AT ALL and then the top 3 that'd work unfortunately TOO well together.

EDIT: Old ask but I've polished it a bit and only included one ba. Enjoy!

P.S. don't be afraid to send more poly asks! Both romantic and platonic :)

Top 3 Best Yandere Duos

Technoblade & Ph1lza: should be obvious why they'd work well together! These two have known each other for ages and its highly likely that they'd even form a polyamorous relationship along with their shared darling. The two care and trust each other enough to compromise to ensure their darling is kept and taken care of!

Tommyinnit & Ranboo: a surprisingly good team! Its mostly because they're similar kinds of yanderes (mostly harmless towards their darling, only wants their companionship and attention, clingy, ect) that they wouldn't immediately clash. Also while Tommy is the jealous type, Ranboo is not but it's rarely an issue since Ranboo is so submissive in general scenarios- allowing Tommy to hog more of their darling's time with no problem.

Wilbur & Quackity: okay I know what you're think- you think they'd clash right? Well your right there's a lot of clashing!! But!!! They somehow make it work in an albeit disfunctional kind of way. The main reason this team even works is becuase Wilbur not so subtly is also just as attracted to Quackity the way he is towards their darling, willing to put himself "below" Quackity to help him contain their darling. Hey a bit of selflessness goes a long way!

The Absolute WORST Yandere Duo

Dream & Tommy: An EXTREMELY unlikely duo but has high odds of forming a dynamic- especially if obsession takes hold during the exile arc of all times. There's already so much going on mentally for tbe both of them and they absolutely do not want to fucking share their poor darling. They're both clingy in their own fucked up ways and even though I've stated before that Tommy is harmless, that all goes put of the window when Dream isn't above hurting their darling. Tommy would never try to hurt them of course- only Dream really but he's also so much more paranoid that somehow Dream will sway you away from wanting to hang out that he may start to verbally lash out. Everything is just..... awful. Even for Dream this situation sucks but he's too proud and stubborn to let go of his literal two greatest obsessions.

#yan answers #welcome back event #anon ask #poly yandere #yandere dream #yandere technoblade #yandere quackity #yandere philza #yandere ranboo #yandere wilbur soot #yandere tommyinnit #if it wasn't clear btw the Dream/Tommy one is extremely platonic #actually maybe whatever the fuck is on the opposite spectrum from romantic and platonic #I'm not going to reference homesruck fuck you

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straycalamities · 7 months

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alright i been meaning to do this so:

what is and is not allowed to be done with any of my characters! this includes art, fics, edits, headcanons, whathaveyou

[general content/trigger warning for uncomfortable, possibly-triggering topics because this is mainly the gist of what i dont want to see]

x = never ? = ask for permission

do nots: x - no noncon (if you engage to work through your feelings, never make my characters the perpetrators, it skeeves me out) ? - no genderbends/sexswaps/whatever they're called anymore? idk just don't mess with their gender, pronouns*, or assigned-sex-at-birth as a general thing unless i already have or okayed you directly. triple-especially if they're not cis x - respect their romantic orientations/sexualities! if you don't know a character's then you can ask me, but yeah. ie: don't ship andrew with women, he's homosexual x - [NSFW] absolutely no ageplay kinks or anything like that with my characters. no raceplay. just..nothing like that. x - no pregnancy. no mpreg. no omegaverse. none of it. (i've come a long way from it being straight-up a trigger but still, yea,) i have had some of my characters naturally be pregnant/have babies but i'd rather handle it myself, if you know what i mean x - this is a duh, but nothing hateful/bigoted using my characters. like, for instance, i do joke abt shit and say mainverse!entre is a conservative but don't unironically use him for anything awful like that. joking/memeing around about his terrible political stances is fine though x - i would never write or have my characters telling anyone to "kill yourself" so please don't have them say stuff like that. even if it's a joke. it makes me uncomfortable. (there may be a few exceptions in my giant roster of ocs but as a general rule just avoid it) x - never use my ocs likenesses or art of them as art for your own ocs. that's never okay. my ocs designs are for my own characters only.

*it's okay to have neopronoun headcanons

okay! generally anything i havent said isn't okay IS okay, but just so anyone reading this has a clearer idea

it's okay to use my characters for expressing yourself, venting, or just personal stuff like that. if my characters help you through something, go ahead and express it. i'm happy they help :)

playing around with gender presentation (not gender) is perfectly okay with any of my characters

shipping in general is fine as long as it doesnt go against the don'ts list. i dont care who you ship them with

[NSFW] i'm okay with pretty much any other kinks other than anything that goes into noncon, bigotry, or underage so go wild even if it's not my thing personally i don't care. (ie: the swagtre piss fic? lol im not a watersports guy but chase your bliss)

my characters are all free game for anything horror themed as well. horror as a genre, body horror, psychological horror, whatever. go for it. i have a personal major squick for eye gore but i can handle (and enjoy) pretty much anything else in this realm. go as gorey or not as you like (just tag appropriately for other ppls sakes)

handling self-harm/suicide idealization themes is technically? okay? for my characters? just uh...be respectful i guess. and definitely tag appropriately. this theme is canon for a few of them so i am okay with it just handle it with care is what i'm saying

go ham-buck-wild with mental illness headcanons or projections or anything like that. i dont think i have an oc that doesn't have at least something, so if you see yourself in their symptoms, go for it. only some of them i have personal labels for some of their stuff but otherwise it's whatever. just be respectful, again.

kinning is also okay! kin, synpath anything like that. go ahead! go wild with it. i think it's neat. just be respectful.

and an important note to all of this, other than being respectful to others and the characters themselves, is to respect me. just because it's okay that you do it with my character, doesn't mean i have to agree with it or make it canon or anything like that. it just means i gave you permission to engage like that. so please don't come to me trying to ask or force me to change something about my own characters or get so lost in your headcanons you start to disrespect what i've established myself

and if you ever have any questions about them or any of this, just let me know. i'm always happy to help

also yet again DONT REPOST MY NSFW ART ARGHHHH!!!

#txt #important

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wrongcaitlyn · 7 days

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also, since i feel bad about making you guys wait so long and i'm also not 100% sure if i'll manage a chapter before sunday (will be trying, but it's been a whileDJSD) here's a snippet of what i've already written!

and a little update on the chapter, i've got like.. 1/6 of it done? ish? and i def could've written more earlier but instead i spent an hour planning and outlining one of nico's future music videos with @wronghuntress

it's a very cool mv and i am very proud of it and just like the details and aesthetics of the next few albums are ahghsldkjsldfj im so so excited for you guys to seee!! i feel like i should be making pinterest boards for these. but that's my brain derailing me again. i will do that over summer.

so!! snippet!!

They decide on the end of July for the rescheduled concerts. Partly because it gives Nico a little over two months to mentally prepare, partly because Will has a summer class in June so he’d be able to travel with them in July (along with Leo, who invited himself along too), and partly because it worked with Alex’s schedule.

Until then, though, there turns out to be a lot to get done.

Will’s rescheduled finals have been all finished by the end of May. Apollo has set up a series of job interviews for the three main people he’s decided they need—a publicist, a tour manager, and an assistant for him (that last one was pushed for by Nico, and then Will as well, and because Apollo isn’t able to resist their combined efforts, it worked)—throughout the last week of May and early June. The Archery World Championships are from the tenth to the sixteenth, in the Netherlands, and the entire family will be there to watch Kayla.

From there on, it’s studio work, studio work, and more studio work throughout the rest of June. It’s a lot of therapy. It’s some secret project that Apollo keeps obviously working on, but is clearly attempting to hide the evidence of. Nico doesn’t know whether he should be concerned, but his eye bags have faded slightly, and he’s returned to styling his hair rather than throwing it up in a bun, so Nico thinks that’s a good sign.

The New York estate doesn’t have a proper studio—at least, not as good as Apollo’s house in LA. Still, it has the basics, including a mic, a computer with some audio editing software that Nico’s familiar with, and a keyboard, so while Will is studying and out taking his exams, Nico is there.

For once, he feels like he doesn’t have much to write about the situation. It scares him for a bit when first walking into the studio, expecting to open his phone to an extensive list of depressing lyrics, only to find nothing.

He tells Mr. D that during their next therapy session. There’s no concrete answer, because Nico isn’t quite sure what exactly prompts him to spill out his thoughts in lyric form usually, but Mr. D had suggested the idea that instead of falling straight to the conclusion and having to sort out his thoughts, he was instead stuck in a sort of paralysis while Will was in the hospital, and then immediately talked out his feelings in person rather than on paper afterward.

Nico supposes that it makes sense. But that doesn’t stop him from rushing to the studio as soon as he’s sure Will won’t ‘accidentally’ overwork himself once left alone for over an hour—just to see if there really isn’t anything left to say.

It turns out, there is. There always is. But the songs that he writes now feel more self-deprecating and slightly relieved rather than the accusatory, grieving tones of the rest of the album. And besides, he thinks that he’s too close to a possible release date (or, at least, the beginning of the promotional singles process) to be planning an entirely new series of songs.

He still writes them, of course. They’ll just have to remain in lyric form, for now, though.

#this was not proofread i just copied it from the doc ummm hope it's good i do not have the patience to revise #i've written a chapter's worth (and my chapters are like 5-7k words) of rhetorical analysis essays over the past few days #and my brain is brained out #wrongcaitlyn #talk ur talk fic

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multimystica · 2 months

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Card of the Day!

So, I'm not great with editing/design or with running social media but this is honest work so let's go! Take a deep breath and pick a card. If you want a personal reading message me here, leave an ask, or message me on my ig @multimistica (beware of spelling, it's spelled like that because my ig page is in portuguese) This reading is much more intense than I intended it to be, it may help to mentalize what you need advice on today to narrow down the meaning of your chosen card from the descriptions I've made below so your reading can be more precise.

Card 1 - X of Swords

Defeat. Peak of despair. This is pretty much rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. You might suffer some sort of tragic event today in which you feel defeated, like a martyr, broken beyond repair, or something of the like. It's like when something goes wrong in the worst way it possibly could. The message of this card is it can no longer get any worse than that, pick yourself up and move on. Dwelling in that is no use, move on (as hard as it may be). The depiction of this card is quite graphic, for those unfamiliar with it, here it is:

So help yourself, remove the swords, tend to your wounds and move on. Biggest advice with this card is to move on cause it's literally the worst it can get. The worst that could happen did happen, so after this it can't get any worst at all, and that's what brings relief about it. If this is rock bottom, and you're there and still alive, things can no longer get any worse, and it is in that you must find your peace and fucking FINALLY start healing and moving up, after this defeat things can FINALLY start to get better, even if a small bit at time. You've survived the worst, now you live on to see the best start coming.

Card 2 - II of Pentacles

Multitasking. There may be a lot on your plate right now, as you're dealing with lots of things. It's the kind of day where you're in a rush with a long list of tasks to finish, you have to get things done and you wish the day extra hours to accomodate all of that workload. This is also true in a figurative way, you might be having to deal with lots of emotions all over the place. The depiction of this card is literally a juggler:

It's certainly hard to deal with such workload, so if one or two tasks go unfinished today, that's okay, just keep doing your best at it. If this card speaks to you in the emotional sense, dealing with ups and downs or with indecisiveness, the advice is to try and work through said emotions in a healthy way as they come and go. Be it work-wise or emotionally wise, the biggest advice of this card is to set your priorities and work through them in order from the most important to the least. This card may also refer to financial decisions, in this sense it is imperative you pay attention to how you're spending your money, make sure you don't spend more than you earn, if you're already doing so, then it can mean one of two things (or even both): Be careful on your financial decisions (if you're investing in something rn it means a high risk), that is the first thing. The second thing is you're going to have to work hard. Remember, hard work is highly rewarded.

Card 3 - VII of Swords

Doing what serves your own ends, often in unethical ways. This card can mean a fuckaton of different things depending on your life's context right now and in a collective reading like this it might be hard to tell in which sense it applies to you, but I'll do my best. First of all, are you being unethical, sneaky, or dodgy in any way? If so, the message is simple, stop being a bitch and go look for a ethical way to get what you're going for, seriously. Be conscientious, do no harm, if you're dead set on something by unethical means there is certainly a better, more ethical way to get it and you must find it. If you're about to do harm to someone seeking justice, don't, let divine justice take place instead. Take a good look at this card:

With that out of the way, if you're not doing any sketchy shit right now, then BEWARE.

If you're in a relationship - Beware of cheating, betrayal, mind games, a stab on the back, broken trust, going behind your back, that kind of stuff coming from your partner.

If you're in a bad friend group - Beware of being backstabbed, of negative gossip, people betraying your trust, taking things from you, going behind your back or fucking you over somehow.

In the work/academic context - Beware of people stealing your work, stealing your ideas, erasing your name from a paper and putting theirs in, plagiarizing you, backstabbing you via the HR, planning a coup, or anything.

IN ANY CASE - Beware of two-faced people. Keep your guard up, protect your secrets, don't let anyone fuck you over in any way, beat the enemy at their own game.

It's really hard to see any positive trait in this card, the whole damn card is a huge red-flag for unethical stuff, and the worst part of it is that in the case of this card the asshole at hand is usually able to get away with it. You must stay alert and be smart.

Other than the whole vitriol of warnings this card brings to stay alert to those surrounding you is, if you have to make an escape out of something, this is the right time to do so. It's the time to take a risk. It's the time to be resourceful, to plan out your strategies, to be self-reliant, and to beat your enemy at their own game, really.

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ghostedcas · 11 months

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i haven't posted anything in a bit and i'm so sorry, i don't want to reveal too much detail at the moment but i've just been having a wacky time mentally to put things simply.

in return, have some (extremely) random personal COD headcannons :))

warnings: mentions of mental health disorders (including eating disorders), mentions of religious trauma, mentions of child abuse/childhood trauma, idk just some sad stuff but also way more happy stuff than sad stuff i swear

a/n: reminder that i've never played the game, a lot of the information i have on the characters is from fan created content and a little bit of research and some things could be slightly inaccurate canon wise. also these are once again personal headcanons, you don't have to agree with them, just pls don't be mean :)

anyway, i apologize that there's not that many :(( this is just a short lil list so there's def gonna be some characters missing and such. but i will have more headcanon posts out another time <3

cod headcanons (very random edition)

könig is a farm boy <3

impovershed farmer's child to soldier pipeline is real

also idk why but i feel like his real name is like eduard german spelling of edward or something

2 sisters (1 older, 1 younger but born the same year as him) and a little brother

soap is an ipad kid (i will be taking no criticisms)

ghost probably has borderline personality disorder but because it doesn't present in the way it stereotypically does for borderline men so he is undiagnosed

was audhd undiagnosed until he was 25

bro was baffled

the development of his bpd was both through the abuse and neglect he faced growing up and the trauma that one can experience from being autistic growing up but left undiagnosed

soap has severe adhd

PRICE LISTENS TO DISCO AND CLASSIC ROCK 🗣️ guilty pleasure is 50's love songs and smooth jazz

gaz tried to establish team game nights

regretted his decision after one game night

both ghost and könig are gymbros but in the disordered way

orthorexic könig

an-bp ghost

every one of those mfs has ptsd and/or cptsd

valeria is a radfem (trans inclusive)

gaz secretly likes a few kpop songs from various different groups (he really likes g-idle for some reason)

catholic trauma soap📢

was probably forced to undergo an "exorcism" at one point

also had a scene phase

emo könig :(( <3

ghost wouldn't necessarily label himself goth but he does enjoy quiet a lot of goth music and some of the fashion intrigues him

gaz used to be a roadman😭 absolutely hates admitting it though bc he's embarrassed about it

idk i feel like horangi would listen to ayesha erotica unironically

ghost listens to lana

i could also see könig having bpd as well (this is mostly feeding off of the obsessive/possessive/jealous headcanon the fandom seems to share, though i do have some other reasons i could go into another time)

can i get an amen for he/they könig??

soap jokingly said he wanted to use she/her pronouns too and now ghost wont stop actually using them seriously and soap doesn't want to correct him

ghost is fully aware it was a joke and he just wants to see how long it'll take soap to correct him

141 all have matching tattoos (including kate)

ghost also listens to hollywood undead

valeria's guilty pleasure music is taylor swift's earlier albums

ghost smoked weed in high school

dream blunt rotation is the 141, könig, horangi and valeria

könig's social anxiety really manifests itself as arrogance and sometimes he hates that

könig and soap are actual pyromaniacs

one of könig's favourite movies is howl's moving castle

that's all i can think of for now,, hope y'all enjoyed🫶

if you did pls gimme a like and send an ask if you want to request anything <3

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twosides--samecoin · 1 month

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WIP WEDNESDAY

My first WIP post of the year! Thank you @bokatan for including me. No pressure tags - @unrepentantweirdo @electricshoebox @thedrawbacksofbeingmortal @incognito-insomniac @omkdear @some27-url @vault-heck @sirmanmister @leavingautumn13 @happyhappysparkle @perfectlypreservedpie @charliesvarietyhour @valentineenjoyer I hope y'all are well!

So I've been fairly offline lately! I took a deliberate step back from fandom/posting online these past few weeks, for mental health as well as to focus on Long Time Running. It's almost been 11 months since my last fic update, so in anticipation of as-of-yet unnamed Chapter 12, I am working on updates to address clarity first, followed by punctuation, grammar and continuity. One of the ways clarity takes focus is working on custom CSS/HTML that should have been there all along so that my fic style guide is, well, much more clear.

My biggest takeaway about the early chapters is how little of the story needed to be altered; the biggest change has been more context about Jack in Chapter 1. I still believe in the vision. I thought I would cringe at some of the old writing, but that hasn't been the case. It's a really fucking good story! Long Time Running is a work that shows off my excellence as a writer, and it's been a true joy spending time with my characters again.

Wife @edaworks is helping by reading ahead; she gives me notes from a reader perspective, then I do a full reread and edit. So far, we've completed one chapter edit per day. I will be posting an edit to Chapter 3 tomorrow, and hope to release updates daily until it's time to post Chapter 12. If you've never read my fic before (and you want a MacCready longfic that examines neurodivergence; immigration/culture shock, treats RJ as an emotional punching bag, starts with Med-Tek being a failure, addresses Canada in the Fallout universe, has SoSus from two different vaults, the list goes on), now is a great time!

sorry I'm left handed lol

#listen if you're not cocky about what you do - if you're insecure about it. if you don't believe in your excellence. y u doing it #long time running #fallout 4 #robert joseph maccready #fallout #maccready #rj maccready #fo4 #<3 #fallout fanfic #wip

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starsstuddedsky · 1 year

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As a Matter of Fact [Teaser]

reader x jihoon

masterlist | Chapter 1

summary: when you're caught in a simple lie, the best solution? dig in and stick to your guns until everything inevitably goes wrong and everyone gets hurt

or, a serial dater and a pessimist fake a relationship in the vain hope that nothing will go wrong

genre: fluff, angst, non-idol au, lawyer au, coworkers to lovers??? friends to lovers???? fake dating!!!!!

warnings: drinking, food, arguing, refusal to acknowledge feelings, two kisses, whatever is going on with Wonwoo, suggestive jokes (courtesy of Wonwoo)

teaser wc: 1.5k

full wc: 38k (I’m sorry)

a/n: AHHHHHHHH i've been working on this for too long, I'm so happy that i'm finally sharing this with you all!! I'm gonna split the full story into chapters but i'm not entirely sure how many there will - though it's all written (AH), it still needs editing so i will keep y'all updated <3

edit: I’m estimating roughly 10 chapters, hopefully released weekly (first date 2/14!!!)

updates: every tuesday

finally if you would like to know when the first chapter drops, just send an ask <3

If Jihoon was stopped on the street and told to name three facts about you, he could probably do it. He doesn’t know your favorite color, or what you ate for dinner last night, but he knows where you went to school (since it’s been the same school as him since elementary school) and where you work (since it’s the same law firm he works at). He might struggle for a bit for a third fact, but eventually settle for this: you are hopeless when it comes to love.

Unfortunately, Soonyoung isn’t asking three facts about you, he is asking what Jihoon has planned for your anniversary. Jihoon blinks at Soonyoung, standing beside his table.

“My anniversary?”

“Yeah,” he says slowly. “With yn?”

He runs a mental check of any possible thing that Soonyoung could be referring to, then checks his calendar on his phone. Both come up empty.

To be honest, Jihoon would be more surprised if there is something he’s forgetting. Despite knowing you for so long, he’d never call you his friend; at best, you're a coworker.

But the way Soonyoung is looking at him now makes him wonder if he’s forgotten something, and worry that whatever he’s forgotten is important.

“You don’t have anything planned?” Soonyoung says, loud enough for the couple sitting at the table across from Jihoon look up. Soonyoung doesn’t seem to notice. “Dude, it’s been a whole year. I can’t remember the last time yn has had a boyfriend for a full year, you have nothing planned?”

Boyfriend? Jihoon stands up, snapping his laptop shut. “Look, I don’t really know what’s going on, and quite frankly, I don’t have time for it. Tell yn, or whoever is behind this prank that it’s not funny and to grow up.” He leaves Soonyoung standing there frowning, leaving the coffee shop and pulling his satchel over his shoulder.

It’s a short walk from the coffee shop to the firm, and Jihoon uses it to think things through. Here is what he knows: 1) Soonyoung is your best friend since middle school 2) he isn’t the type to lie about this for fun and 3) you have sworn off dating (a fourth fact!). So either A) Soonyoung lied (uncharacteristic) or B) you’ve lied (not out of character for you, you are a divorce lawyer). He figures the second option makes the most sense, though the why still troubles him. He waits for the elevator staring at his distorted reflection that makes face shrink and his ears look comically large.

There’s a small ding and the doors open, a stream of people flowing out that Jihoon politely steps to the side to let through. Thankfully, it’s a much less crowded ride up, only a couple other people, none of whom are going to the firm on the nineteenth floor. Jihoon is able to focus completely on the person he otherwise has spent very little time thinking about: you.

Despite knowing you for so many years, Jihoon really couldn’t say much about you (see above limited list of facts). What he does know is usually filtered by Wonwoo, whose office is next to yours and separated by rather thin walls. Jihoon didn’t expect Wonwoo to be into gossip, especially since he’s known you since law school and actually calls himself your friend, but Jihoon has heard more about your love life than he ever wanted to. That’s why he knows of crucial fact #4: You have sworn off dating.

He knows, from Wonwoo, that after your third boyfriend in as many months, you gave up on ever being able to balance dating and work, tired of having your heart broken over and over again. According to Wonwoo, who allegedly heard this from you on over the phone with your friend (which Jihoon thinks is at the very least an invasion of privacy, but Wonwoo argued you were on a personal call during work hours so it’s free game), you cited your failures in love to your own tendency to “catch feelings too fast” (he isn’t sure if Wonwoo was quoting you or using his own words, but they stuck with him). But, from Wonwoo’s lamenting, he knows that you’ve since sworn off dating, giving up on the pains of failed romance. So why does your best friend think that you’ve been dating him for the past year?

He isn’t thinking when he walks into your office without knocking. You’re on the phone, though you hang up quickly when he walks in. You’re frowning, and he wonders if Soonyoung was on the phone when you hung up. You stand as he pulls the door shut behind him.

“I can explain,” you say, confirming his suspicions. “It’s not what you think.”

“Oh, so you haven’t lied to your friends and told them we’re dating?” Jihoon says, folding his arms.

“It sounds bad when you say it like that,” you mumble.

“It is bad,” he says, shaking his head. “Honestly, you’re lucky I don’t report you to HR. This is borderline harassment, you really should know better.”

“I know,” you say, voice barely above a whisper.

“Seriously, did you think you could get away with it? Soonyoung went to middle school and high school with us, surely you knew this wouldn’t last,” he says. “What were you going to do at a reunion?”

“Well, I didn’t go last year,” you mumble. You leave out neither did you, but when you meet his eyes, he can tell that you aren’t totally beat. Not yet.

“I just thought you were smarter than this,” Jihoon says. “I mean, we don’t know each other well, and I know you never scored as high as I did on tests, but I didn’t think you’d be this stupid.”

“I get it, you think I didn’t think this through,” you say. “I really am sorry, but I don’t have the time to listen to you lecture me for a full hour, so can you at least make it quick?”

Jihoon blinks. “Why?” He says, more statement than question. “Why did you lie?”

You sigh, slumping into your chair. “Long story very short, I had a few too many bad relationships and I decided I wasn’t going to date anymore because apparently I have a tendency to fall in love with brick walls.”

Jihoon figures it’s a bad idea to tell you he already knew that, opting to nod so that you continue to explain.

“The problem is, pretty much none of my friends believed that I would actually be able to keep it up,” you say. “They thought that I’d fall for the first person that gave me an ounce of attention. The thing is, it actually did work. I haven’t been on a date in a year, and I think it’s been really, really good for me. But my friends didn’t believe it.

“So I lied. I told them I started dating someone from work, and I did think it through: I said someone from the firm, since they don’t know anyone, and because my mystery boyfriend is a lawyer, they weren’t surprised when he was busy all the time and couldn’t come to anything. Plus, since it was someone from work, I could say that we had to keep everything quiet because I told them dating wasn’t allowed. Everything was perfect, actually.”

Jihoon can almost see your logic. Almost. “Why me?”

You’re quiet for a long moment, staring at your closed laptop. “They wanted a name, and yours was the first I thought of, and then the lie just sort of took on a life of its own.” You have the audacity to smile. “Did you know that you’ve been in love with me since elementary school?”

Jihoon scoffs. “There’s no way they believed that.”

“You’d be surprised,” you say, smiling fondly. It vanishes when you meet his glare.

More than anything, Jihoon is confused, but the one thing he is sure about is that he doesn’t want anyone walking around thinking he’s dating someone that he isn’t, especially not when that someone is you.

He can’t think of anyone more different than him, and your office is testament to that, filled with all sorts of knick knacks and brightly colored pillows, mugs from around the world strategically spread around your bookshelves, which hold a combination of books on law as well as classic novels and collections of stories. He remembers that before you went to law school, you majored in English. Pride and Prejudice sits in between a copy of War and Peace, with a bright red glass ornament keeping them upright.

He thinks about his own office. His only decorations were at the insistence of Seungkwan and Seungcheol: a plant that Jihoon was actively trying to kill (and starting to suspect is fake), a set of colorful highlighters that he would never use that Seungcheol said “lightened the room,” and a framed photograph of all of his friends at Seungkwan’s graduation. The last piece, a gift from Seungcheol, is the only one he will admit he doesn’t mind having in his office, but he could live without everything. He doesn’t know how you manage to work with so much going on in your office.

But the biggest difference between the two of you, Jihoon realizes, comes from a fundamentally different understanding of the world: while you seem to find love in everything (and everyone), Jihoon simply doesn’t believe it exists.

if you would like to know when the first chapter drops, just send an ask <3

#jihoon x reader #woozi x reader #lee jihoon #woozi #svt woozi #svt jihoon #seventeen #svt #seventeen x reader #svt reader #woozi fluff #woozi angst #lee jihoon fluff #lee jihoon angst #seventeen woozi #seventeen Jihoon

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kerubimcrepin · 4 months

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Episode 11: The Hairy Arachelmet

First of all, Kerubim's cup is in a dangerous ass place. If he spills it, he will have burns.

Truly, if Ecaflip wasn't on his side, he would be long dead.

Second of all, love that he begins looking at Simone when she's on The Ladder That Looks Like It Will Fucking Kill You.

When I first noticed this moment, I assumed it was Kerubim y'know. Ogling her. But now, considering this is the only time in the whole scene he's looking at her, I think he's looking at her because she's on The Ladder That Looks Like It Will Fucking Kill You, and if she began to fall things would be bad.

Btw, the only pictures Keke has in his home, anywhere where it's visible, are of himself, Lou, or some random scenery.

There HAS to be something psychological going on here, considering he is a father and canonically, uh, really normal about it.

Like. Whatever the reason for having Joris call him grampycat is, is the same for not putting up any cute pictures of Joris.

Something-something, his canonical guilt about killing ("""killing""") Julith, perhaps? Perhaps, feeling a bit too old for fatherhood? Maybe both?

On one hand, YESSS RARE SIMONE FAILGIRL MOMENT + i love it when people who are supposed to be good at something are bad at it.

On the other hand... Kerubim, your upbringing single-handedly changed the course of Joris's life so much, that, as an adult huppermage man, he uses a "magic wand" (log) to bash in people's skulls.

Kerubim yells at him to stop, and he just immediately stops and salutes.

It's never explained why Joris does this all the fucking time in the series, (besides the fact that he has ADHD. (To me. In my brain. I decided that he has it.)) but I think Kerubim did some Pikmin-style parenting shit on him.

Except instead of Pikmin it was probably something like "let's pretend I am a commanding officer and you are a member of the Bontarian army."

Okay, so, this is a whole can of worms we'll get in now.

This text is the famous Lorem Ipsum placeholder. The first two words are exactly Lorem Ipsum. Yet, I am mentally ill enough to sit down and translate this all.

So, uh. Yeah. I translated it by hand. It was painful.

The interesting parts are: the first page is the usual Lorem Ipsum placeholder with random edits, spaces, and changes. The second page is the original Lorem Ipsum from Cicero's De finibus bonorum et malorum.

I may be wrong with some of the spaces, because of the way the letters that look like " : :: . " and their weird sizes.

But also... Who give a shit?

Obligatory food moment: he is eating grapes and bird legs. Maybe tofu, or maybe other bird that size.

He is so fucking stupid.

My friend @dullard had pointed out that the way Kerubim's system works is probably by assigning a number to a direction.

I am not good with numbers OR directions, so I hope he makes a post about this. Or sends me an ask.

All I can point out, in regard to this, is the often neglected connection of Ecaflips to scrying and predicting the future and destiny.

So yeah. For all intents and purposes, Kerubim, with his level of luck, maaaay be a bit of an, uh. Oracle.

Though, I think he'd be scandalized by this idea I'm proposing here.

I suppose this episode's story takes place after the story in the episode 38, Dragokart Race, where Kerubim becomes a second place Dragokart champion.

Is this in any way relevant? No. Welcome to my blog, where I talk about literally the most useless Dofus facts. Anyway.

Adding to the list of Implied Adventures We Never See:

Literally everything to do with Atcham.

Kerubim working with Arachnees some more.

To be added.

Culture note: being a hypermage is associated with being smart and being able to predict how situations are going to go.

This blog may seem like it's pointing out the most obvious shit, but keep in mind, besides me wanting to gush about this show and write analysis pieces, this blog is also meant as a bit of a resource for Random Irrelevant Lore. For fic writers.

I may be the fic writers.

...It's interesting to think about how these cultural standards may affect Joris, who, in all honesty, is fucking stupid. There are pebbles where his brain should be.

Anyway.

He really is stupid.

For how cheerful this show is, this moment is a very stark reminder of the fact that Kerubim was fighting and killing people.

I think that the way he was describing this to Joris probably was something like "and then I sliced that guy in half". Which is both... very violent, and also not very detailed.

Your daily reminder that while searching for Ecaflip City, to get rich and be able to propose to Lou, he tried to fuck a pandawa girl, and DEFINITELY fucked these three. Sad! (Edit: that, or he was searching for it long before the proposal thing.)

Better late than never, Keke. Better late than never.

But it would have been cool if you knew that when you were [SPRAYS HIM WITH A WATER BOTTLE] an orphan, as described in the official text The Wheel of Destiny #8: Kerubim Crepin.

This is my legally required once-in-a-few-liveblogs Wheel of Destiny lore mention. You're welcome.

Joris looks like he heard what just happened, and like.... I know that this is just a funny animation moment.

but i want to belive so so badly, that, due to dragon possession, joris can hear whatever the fuck is going on with this hat, by intercepting its ~~psionic waves~~

that he just heard a spider call his father a motherfucker.

Is it not a wonderful vision of the world, that I just described here?

#ep11 #wakfu #dofus #krosmoz #ro liveblogs dofus

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