Some worldbuilding stuff I enjoy playing with:

The highest honor a man can have in Hyrule besides royalty or the hero is to be knighted. There are soldiers but they are simply soldiers. Knights on the other hand are blessed by the queen herself, and are knighted typically because they match the qualities of a hero: strong spirit, unwavering courage, and so on. The knights of Hyrule are the strongest fighters and defend the castle if it’s attacked.

The highest honor a woman can have in Hyrule is the status of a maiden. Maidens are blessed by the queen as well and typically match the qualities of the princess with the goddess’s bloods in her veins: wise and powerful with divine magic. Though their magic is not as strong as the princess/Queen’s, together, they are significantly powerful and can help in defense of the castle.

Rocking back and forth thinking about Wyll's response to Ascended vs. Spawn Astarion returning to Baldur's Gate......

Astarion: (Ascended) I know these cobbles well. The gate to the Upper City's just ahead. I found plenty of victims on the other side of that gate. Who knew they'd all come in so useful?

Wyll: (pissed) Gods, how many did you kill? Dozens? Hundreds??!

Alternatively,

Astarion: (Spawn) All that time and what's my legacy in Baldur's Gate..? Missing friends and broken families.

Wyll: (gently) You can't undo the past, Astarion. But you can craft a better future, if you so choose.

Sorry midnight idiot brain thoughts but. I’m thinking about that Vento Aureo interpretation where Giorno doesn’t actually care about drugs and stuff, he’s just telling Bucciarati what he wants to hear. And that’s usually a way to paint Giorno as a villain or whatever, but if we take Purple Haze Feedback into account. Something weirdly bittersweet about Giorno, who didn’t truly share Bucciarati’s dream at first, ending up eliminating the drug trade as his first priority as the boss. Idk.

ngl it really is almost impressive how easy it is to “not” be a villain in the eyes of edelstans.

“Edelgard says that she will sacrifice her own citizens for a “higher cause,” and then goes on to allow her own citizens to be harmed and killed for her own benefit, as well as innocent people in general (note: this is message is the result of failing to save Flayn... which Edelgard gave her strongest man to help do)”

edelstans: “okay but like, she knows that, and, like, acknowledges that - that makes it okay!”

“Edelgard explicitly says that she wants to get rid of the Children of the Goddess as a whole, who she finds to be creatures masquerading as humans, and she will celebrate their apparent elimination as the front liner of her S support.”

edelstans: “okay but like, Rhea is a meanie, so that makes it okay!”

“Edelgard will blatantly say that she wants to eliminate the Kingdom and Alliance along with the Church, and that she wants complete Imperial control over Fodlan.”

edelstans: “okay but like, Dimitri and Claude fight back against her though, and they don’t just stay exclusively on the defensive, so they’re just as bad! there’s no real good guy here, so that makes Edelgard okay!”

so all you have to do is

be aware that you’re committing atrocities against the innocent and undeserving

have a scapegoat to pass along all blame onto

have your victims strike back against your attempts at killing them

and viola! it’s just that easy! with this three step guide you may commit genocide and imperialism to your heart’s content, all while never being anything more than A Misunderstood Bad Boy Lonely Girl <3

WANT to make more of like evil king jaime x brienne but im stuck on what brienne is supposed to be in this au like.... what are situations i can put them in !

ocs???? tell about??????? pleese???????????

OKAY THANKS <33333

i want to put a scene in my slowly-being-written novel where cassie, bee, and phil are on a fact-gathering mission for Plot Reasons and end up stopping by a glitzy glamorous supernatural nightclub frequented by vampiric nightmare jenny callahan (this is an extremely elaborate in-joke from 2018 and anyone who remembers jenny callahan + exactly why her name is that specifically gets brownie points. it is not solely because of the jenny calendar thing. there is a reason) and jenny flirts OUTRAGEOUSLY with disastrously smitten cassie (who is seventeen and keeps falling face-first into crushes on dapper older butches) before phil grabs cassie by the scruff of her neck and is like. this is not twilight. i cannot deal with this right now. be normal or i'm not going to let you guys come with me for these things anymore. jenny, do NOT start coming onto the teenagers. (jenny is like MAYBE DON'T BRING TEENAGERS TO A NIGHTCLUB???? HOW IS THIS ON ME.)

see as much as i dont think tubbo is inherently fail rping or whatever whenever he uses minecraft mechanics to his benefit because other ccs Also Do That cc!tubbo does definitely just not care that much about rp in comparison to just playing minecraft and sometimes will prioritize just like. being funny to chat (which often means being a bit of a dick) over like. properly rping and yes and-ing what the others are trying to set down for him to play along with 😭 and im sure if the others actually minded that he did this theyd talk to him about it but a good chunk of his current rp style rn is less ohhhh angsty lore ohhhhh hes so sad and more tubbo just has issues and prioritizes the Bit over like everything else

which isnt to say it isnt cool that we can still extrapolate on what he says and does and make lore about it but also tubblings it may be time to accept that we are nawwtttt gonna get serious qtubbo lore where he gets better and starts communicating and learning how to like value himself and not be casually suicidal all the time bc cctubbo is just actually like a little self deprecating loser white boy who cares more about being funny and is into suicide jokes rn 😭😭😭😭

Favorite heist books?

I'm realizing now that I haven't read any of the pure crime fiction books which would be the literary equivalent of the heist movies I love so much, maybe because of my inability to gracefully handle the stress of true thrillers (as I was just saying to sunkentowers). I have read a few especially quality fantasy/sci-fi heists, though! In very loosely most-to-least-strongly-recommended order:

The Palace Job by Patrick Weekes (first of the Rogues of the Republic series. it was a challenge for me to pick a favorite of them, but I think probably this is the one. very funny, very clever, love the characters)

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo (intense and with especially good characters. the sequel Crooked Kingdom is also good but not quite as heist-y)

River of Teeth by Sarah Gailey (hippo-cowboy alternate history! explosive hippo river heist! it does have a sequel but I haven't ever read it)

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner (my favorite of the Queen's Thief series, though they're all good in their own ways. the main character is sort of in a constant state of con and/or heist behavior)

Artemis by Andy Weir (standalone sci-fi heist! how odd that this is the only standalone novel in my list)

The Heist by Janet Evanovich and Lee Goldberg (romantic comedy suspense thing! first in the Fox and O'Hare series, and the only one I've read)

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer (easily the best of the series by the same name, and honestly the only one I'd really recommend reading. clever worldbuilding and writing, and the twist is lovely)

Skin Game by Jim Butcher (part of the Dresden Files series and it was such a surprise to me when I found out this one--fifteenth in the series!--was going to break with format and be so heist-centered. I don't think it works as a standalone and I wouldn't necessarily recommend the series as a whole, certainly not if what you're looking for is crime capers, but I enjoyed it so so much and couldn't leave it off)

this is such an indulgent au I made for myself that's not even related to selfshipping but i love to imagine the dexholders in a filipino school setting where some of the kids are part of the class officers and this is definitely based on my irl experiences with my old class when I was elementary to... freshman. <3

animated fox characters will trans a young child's gender in a Second

it's smol wizard missing hours

(it's always smol wizard missing hours)

I feel like I'm definitely on team "Imogen likes animals better than people, or at least sympathizes more with them." seeing this episode.

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

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Hi- er, this is my first-ever writer's strike, how does one not cross a picket line in this context? I know how not to do it with things like Amazon and IRL strikes, but how does it apply to media/streaming?

Hi, this is a great question, because it allows me to write about the difference between honoring a picket line and a boycott. (This is reminding me of the labor history podcast project that's lain fallow in my drafts folder for some time now...) In its simplest formulation, the difference between a picket line and a boycott is that a picket line targets an employer at the point of production (which involves us as workers), whereas a boycott targets an employer at the point of consumption (which involves us as consumers).

So in the case of the WGA strike, this means that at any company that is being struck by the WGA - I've seen Netflix, Amazon, Apple, Disney, Warner Brothers Discovery, NBC, Paramount, and Sony mentioned, but there may be more (check the WGA website and social media for a comprehensive list) - you do not cross a picket line, whether physical or virtual. This means you do not take a meeting with them, even if its a pre-existing project, you do not take phone calls or texts or emails or Slacks from their executives, you do not pitch them on a spec script you've written, and most of all you do not answer any job application.

Because if this strike is like any strike since the dawn of time, you will see the employers put out ads for short-term contracts that will be very lucrative, generally above union scale - because what they're paying for in addition to your labor is you breaking the picket line and damaging the strike - to anyone willing to scab against their fellow workers. GIven that one of the main issues of the WGA are the proliferation of short-term "mini rooms" whereby employers are hiring teams of writers to work overtime for a very short period, to the point where they can only really do the basics (a series outline, some "broken stories," and some scripts) and then have the showrunner redo everything on their lonesome, while not paying writers long-term pay and benefits, I would imagine we're going to see a lot of scab contracts being offered for these mini rooms.

But for most of us, unless we're actively working as writers in Hollywood, most of that isn't going to be particularly relevant to our day-to-day working lives. If you're not a professional or aspiring Hollywood writer, the important thing to remember honoring the picket line doesn't mean the same thing as a boycott. WGA West hasn't called on anyone to stop going to the movies or watching tv/streaming or to cancel their streaming subscriptions or anything like that. If and when that happens, WGA will go to some lengths to publicize that ask - and you should absolutely honor it if you can - so there will be little in the way of ambiguity as to what's going on.

That being said, one of the things that has happened in the past in other strikes is that well-intentioned people get it into their heads to essentially declare wildcat (i.e, unofficial and unsanctioned) boycotts. This kind of stuff comes from a good place, someone wanting to do more to support the cause and wanting to avoid morally contaminating themselves by associating with a struck company, but it can have negative effects on the workers and their unions. Wildcat boycotts can harm workers by reducing back-end pay and benefits they get from shows if that stuff is tied to the show's performance, and wildcat boycotts can hurt unions by damaging negotiations with employers that may or may not be going on.

The important thing to remember with all of this is that the strike is about them, not us. Part of being a good ally is remembering to let the workers' voices be heard first and prioritizing being a good listener and following their lead, rather than prioritizing our feelings.