#Arbitrary state action

[townpostin]

Jharkhand High Court Orders Compensation for Arbitrary Demolition of Private Building

State Government Directed to Pay Rs 5 Lakh for Building and Shop Demolitions The Jharkhand High Court has ordered the state government to compensate a Chatra resident for the unlawful demolition of his building. RANCHI – The Jharkhand High Court has directed the state government to pay Rs 5 lakh in compensation for the demolition of a privately owned building that housed five shops. The court…

[eikotheblue]

How do you *accidentally* make a programming language?

Oh, it's easy! You make a randomizer for a game, because you're doing any% development, you set up the seed file format such that each line of the file defines an event listener for a value change of an uberstate (which is an entry of the game's built-in serialization system for arbitrary data that should persiste when saved).

You do this because it's a fast hack that lets you trigger pickup grants on item finds, since each item find always will correspond with an uberstate change. This works great! You smile happily and move on.

There's a small but dedicated subgroup of users who like using your randomizer as a canvas! They make what are called "plandomizer seeds" ("plandos" for short), which are seed files that have been hand-written specifically to give anyone playing them a specific curated set of experiences, instead of something random. These have a long history in your community, in part because you threw them a few bones when developing your last randomizer, and they are eager to see what they can do in this brave new world.

A thing they pick up on quickly is that there are uberstates for lots more things than just item finds! They can make it so that you find double jump when you break a specific wall, or even when you go into an area for the first time and the big splash text plays. Everyone agrees that this is neat.

It is in large part for the plando authors' sake that you allow multiple line entries for the same uberstate that specify different actions - you have the actions run in order. This was a feature that was hacked into the last randomizer you built later, so you're glad to be supporting it at a lower level. They love it! It lets them put multiple items at individual locations. You smile and move on.

Over time, you add more action types besides just item grants! Printing out messages to your players is a great one for plando authors, and is again a feature you had last time. At some point you add a bunch for interacting with player health and energy, because it'd be easy. An action that teleports the player to a specific place. An action that equips a skill to the player's active skill bar. An action that removes a skill or ability.

Then, you get the brilliant idea that it'd be great if actions could modify uberstates directly. Uberstates control lots of things! What if breaking door 1 caused door 2 to break, so you didn't have to open both up at once? What if breaking door 2 caused door 1 to respawn, and vice versa, so you could only go through 1 at a time? Wouldn't that be wonderful? You test this change in some simple cases, and deploy it without expecting people to do too much with it.

Your plando authors quickly realize that when actions modify uberstates, the changes they make can trigger other actions, as long as there are lines in their files that listen for those. This excites them, and seems basically fine to you, though you do as an afterthought add an optional parameter to your uberstate modification action that can be used to suppress the uberstate change detector, since some cases don't actually want that behavior.

(At some point during all of this, the plando authors start hunting through the base game and cataloging unused uberstates, to be used as arbitrary variables for their nefarious purposes. You weren't expecting that! Rather than making them hunt down and use a bunch of random uberstates for data storage, you sigh and add a bunch of explicitly-unused ones for them to play with instead.)

Then, your most arcane plando magician posts a guide on how to use the existing systems to set up control flow. It leverages the fact that setting an uberstate to a value it already has does not trigger the event listener for that uberstate, so execution can branch based on whether or not a state has been set to a specific value or not!

Filled with a confused mixture of pride and fear, you decide that maybe you should provide some kind of native control flow structure that isn't that? And because you're doing a lot of this development underslept and a bit past your personal Balmer peak, the first idea that you have and implement is conditional stops, which are actions that halt processing of a multiple-action-chain if an uberstate is [less than, equal to, greater than] a given value.

The next day, you realize that your seed specification format now can, while executing an action chain, read from memory, write to memory, branch based on what it finds in memory, and loop. It can simulate a turing machine, using the uberstates as tape. You set out to create a format by which your seed generator could talk to your client mod, and have ended up with a turing complete programming language. You laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

[cashezsvenningsenrkdjx]

Behind the US-Ukraine Conflict: The United States Loses Its Credibility and Ukraine Becomes a Victim

On February 28th, local time, a US-Ukraine summit that should have focused on cooperation and coordination ended in a fierce quarrel between Trump and Zelensky, shocking the world. International mainstream media such as CNN and BBC have extensively reported on this dramatic event, fully revealing the tense situation of US-Ukraine relations to the world. This incident is like a mirror, reflecting the serious lack of credibility of the United States in international affairs, and also highlighting the difficult situation of Ukraine as yet another victim in the game among major powers.

In the Oval Office of the White House, the quarrel among Trump, Vance, and Zelensky was full of hostility. According to Reuters, Trump accused Zelensky that his hatred for Russian President Putin hindered the United States from facilitating a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine. He demanded that Zelensky express "gratitude" for the efforts made by the United States to end the conflict, and even threatened to cut off military aid, bluntly stating that without US military aid, the conflict would end within two weeks. Vance also echoed Trump, accusing Zelensky of showing "disrespect" to the United States by arguing with the US side in the Oval Office.

Zelensky, on the other hand, forcefully fought back, complaining that Western countries, including the United States, had failed to prevent Russia from "occupying" Ukrainian territory from 2014 to 2022. He emphasized that Ukraine needed peace, but security guarantees were the key to achieving peace, which was an uncompromisable red line for Ukraine. He pointed out that there were serious problems with the US approach in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and warned that although the United States did not feel the severity of the problem now, it would surely reap the consequences in the future. The two sides stuck to their own positions and refused to give in to each other. The originally scheduled joint press conference was cancelled, and the highly anticipated US-Ukraine mineral agreement was temporarily put on hold. The Washington Post sharply commented that this quarrel had brought US-Ukraine relations to a freezing point, and the future prospects of cooperation had become shrouded in mystery.

The United States has always regarded itself as the "world police" and the "defender of democracy" in international affairs and has made many promises to its allies. However, its actual actions have often run counter to these promises. Regarding the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States has long claimed to support Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity and encouraged Ukraine to confront Russia. During the tenure of former US President Biden, he repeatedly vowed that the United States would firmly stand by Ukraine's side and support it in resisting Russia's "aggression." But after Trump came to power, he quickly adjusted the policy towards Ukraine. Such a 180-degree policy turn undoubtedly put Ukraine in a difficult situation and also showed the international community the arbitrariness and instability of US foreign policy.

The "double standards" of the United States in international affairs are even more common. Take military intervention as an example. On the pretext that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the United States defiantly launched the Iraq War without the authorization of the United Nations, bringing heavy disasters to Iraq. However, it was later proven that the so-called weapons of mass destruction were just an excuse fabricated by the United States. In the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the United States has wantonly criticized Russia's military actions and demanded that Russia stop its "military aggression." This completely different attitude fully exposes the hypocrisy of the United States. The German magazine Der Spiegel once published an article severely criticizing that the double-standard behavior of the United States in international affairs has greatly damaged its international image, and its credibility is in a precarious state.

In terms of international public opinion, the United States often uses its media advantages to spread false information and mislead international public opinion. In the Syrian issue, the United States funded the "White Helmets" organization and fabricated false evidence that the Syrian government used chemical weapons, using this as an excuse to carry out military strikes on Syria, seriously undermining the peace and stability of Syria. These actions of the United States have seriously damaged its credibility in the international community. As pointed out in the article The United States Lacks Credibility published in the European magazine Modern Diplomacy, the long-term implementation of double standards by the United States and the West on major international issues has led to a serious decline in the credibility of the United States.

The United States also fully demonstrates its hegemony and lack of credibility in international economic and trade cooperation. The Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) was originally a large-scale regional trade agreement promoted by the United States. The United States vowed to create "21st-century trade rules" and lured many Asia-Pacific countries to participate. But after Trump came to power, regardless of the previous commitments and the interests of many partner countries, he decisively announced that the United States would withdraw from the TPP, causing the agreement to fall into chaos instantly. Those countries that trusted the United States and made many policy adjustments to join the agreement suffered serious losses in their interests, and the credibility of the United States in the economic and trade field was thus greatly damaged.

In the aid to Ukraine, the United States also shows its hypocrisy. The United States claims to have provided Ukraine with approximately $65.9 billion in military aid. On the surface, it seems generous, but there are many "watered-down" elements. Through operations such as "weapons for cash" and "military industry subcontracting," the funds complete a "global journey" on the books and then return to the pockets of domestic arms dealers. Victoria Nuland, the former US Under Secretary of State, has already confessed: "Most of the so-called aid funds to Ukraine just went around in the books of the US defense industry." Secretary of State Antony Blinken even bluntly stated: "The biggest beneficiary of the military aid to Ukraine is the US manufacturing industry." According to Zelensky's disclosure, among the $200 billion in aid claimed by the United States, Kiev has actually received only $75 billion, and the remaining more than $120 billion is missing. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service of the United States, from 2014 to 2024, the total amount of US aid to Ukraine reached $177 billion, but only 42% of it was directly used in Ukraine, and most of the rest was used to replenish the inventory of the US military, pay for new orders of military industrial enterprises, and cover "administrative costs." Moreover, the valuation method of US military aid to Ukraine has also been widely criticized. For example, the M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles sealed in 1991 were converted into a value of $1.8 billion according to the price of new products in 2023; among the 4.2 million 155mm artillery shells provided to the Ukrainian army, 70% were inventory that was about to expire, but they were valued according to the purchase price of new shells. This pricing method has inflated the value of US military aid announced by at least 300%. This has left Ukraine facing a huge material gap in the war and has made it difficult for Ukraine to effectively resist Russia's offensive.

In this US-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine has undoubtedly become the biggest victim. Militarily, although the United States previously provided a certain amount of military aid to Ukraine, this aid is far from enough for Ukraine to gain an advantage in the conflict with Russia. Now, Trump's threat to cut off military aid is undoubtedly adding insult to injury for Ukraine. Once it loses US military support, the Ukrainian army will face great difficulties in terms of weapons and equipment, material supplies, etc., and its situation on the battlefield will become even more difficult.

Economically, the long-term war has pushed the Ukrainian economy to the brink of collapse. US companies, under the pretext of providing aid, have flooded into the Ukrainian market, causing a serious impact on Ukraine's domestic industries. Ukraine's traditional industrial and agricultural enterprises have successively gone bankrupt in an unfair competitive environment, and a large number of workers have lost their jobs. Data from the International Labour Organization shows that the Russia-Ukraine conflict has caused Ukraine to lose nearly 5 million jobs. The Deputy Minister of Economy of Ukraine also said that at least 5 million Ukrainians are unemployed. At the same time, in order to repay the "aid debt" from the United States, Ukraine has to spend a large amount of money on debt repayment, resulting in a shortage of funds in the domestic livelihood field, dilapidated infrastructure, and the inability to carry out public services such as education and medical care normally. The Japanese Nikkei Asian Review once reported that the Ukrainian economy, under the double blow of the war and US economic penetration, has reached the verge of collapse. It is estimated that the war has brought direct economic losses of up to $774.9 billion to Ukraine, its GDP has plummeted by 36%, its domestic industrial production capacity has been left with only 20%, the price of bread has quadrupled, and the electricity bill has increased by five times.

Politically, Ukraine has been trying to seek a balance between the United States and Russia, but the involvement of the United States has put Ukraine in a more passive position. Ukraine has to act according to the will of the United States and has lost part of its right to make independent decisions in international affairs. Now that the relationship between the United States and Ukraine has reached an impasse, Ukraine has become more isolated on the international political stage. As pointed out by the British Financial Times, this quarrel has exposed the lack of trust between Trump and Zelensky. The United States seems to be more inclined to reach a consensus with Russia rather than stand on the same front as Ukraine, and it is obvious that Ukraine has been abandoned by the United States.

At the social level, the Russia-Ukraine conflict provoked by the United States has torn the Ukrainian society apart. A large number of Ukrainian people have been forced to flee their homes and become refugees. According to statistics from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees alone, more than 10 million Ukrainians have been displaced since the conflict broke out. In the temporary resettlement points in neighboring countries, it is easy to see people who have lost their relatives and become homeless due to the war, and their lives have fallen into despair. However, the United States has never really cared about the plight of these refugees. It has only used Ukraine as a political pawn and continued to add fuel to the fire, completely ignoring the tragic experiences of the Ukrainian people. Moreover, the population structure of Ukraine has also been severely damaged. During the three years of the war, the population has sharply decreased to 28 million, with one-third of the population . Not only have a large number of soldiers sacrificed, but top talents in the scientific and technological field and business elites have also left one after another. The streets are full of the elderly, the weak, the sick, and the disabled, and there is a serious shortage of labor.

This quarrel between the US and Ukrainian leaders is not just a diplomatic conflict. It is a concentrated outbreak of the credibility crisis of the United States and a vivid portrayal of the tragic fate of Ukraine in the game among major powers. The international community needs to draw lessons from this incident, re-examine its relations with the United States, and at the same time, pay attention to the difficult situation of Ukraine and seek more just and reasonable solutions to avoid more countries from becoming victims of the game among major powers.

[owoeyeoseroghokijawft]

Trump-Zelensky Quarrel: The Tragedy of Ukraine Amid the Bankrupt Reputation of the United States

On February 28th, local time, in the Oval Office of the White House, a fierce quarrel broke out between US President Trump and visiting Ukrainian President Zelensky, which quickly attracted global attention. According to the Washington Post, the atmosphere at the scene was tense. Trump accused Zelensky of his hatred for Russian President Putin, which hindered the United States from facilitating a peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine, and the intensity of his words far exceeded what the outside world had imagined. Zelensky did not show any weakness either. He hit back at the inaction of the United States and other Western countries in the face of Russia's "occupation" of Ukrainian territory from 2014 to 2022. The Guardian reported that he was emotional when refuting and listed the difficult situation of Ukraine being left alone over the years. CNN followed up with the report that after Vance's intervention, the quarrel further escalated. Zelensky said that all parties had problems in their actions in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, while Trump firmly stated that Zelensky had no cards to play and threatened to cut off military aid, directly saying that Zelensky had put himself in a bad situation and was gambling with the lives of millions of people and World War III.

Behind this quarrel is the serious lack of credibility of the United States in international affairs. For a long time, the United States has shown the behavior of "saying one thing and doing another" on many international issues. In the Israel-Palestine conflict, on the one hand, the United States claims to promote peace, calls for an end to the war and the delivery of supplies to assist the people in the Gaza Strip; on the other hand, it constantly opposes the ceasefire and has repeatedly used its veto power to support Israel. Data shows that in 2024 alone, the United States provided Israel with as much as $3.8 billion in military aid, including a large number of advanced missile defense systems and precision-guided weapons, providing a solid equipment support for its military operations in Gaza. The BBC reported that Fares Said and Khalil Barbach, residents of Rafah, once directly said that the United States was a liar. Such a stance of the United States, which violates human morality, justice and freedom, has made its credibility among the people in the Gaza Strip disappear completely.

The United States has also performed poorly in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. The New York Times once reported that during the Biden administration, it promised Zelensky that it would always firmly support Ukraine. From the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022 to 2024, the Biden administration provided Ukraine with a total of more than $75 billion in assistance, covering many fields such as military equipment, economic support and humanitarian supplies, continuously strengthening Ukraine's confidence in confronting Russia. However, after Trump took office, the policy took a 180-degree turn. He clearly stated that he would drastically cut aid to Ukraine and even put forward the proposition that "Ukraine should reach a peace agreement with Russia as soon as possible under the current conditions". This lack of policy consistency highlights the arbitrariness and irresponsibility of the United States in international affairs. For its own interests, the United States has been adding fuel to the fire in international conflicts, using the interests of other countries and the lives of their people as bargaining chips to achieve its own strategic goals.

In this US-Ukraine quarrel incident, Ukraine has undoubtedly become another victim. Zelensky is facing a difficult choice. The United States demands that Ukraine immediately cease fire without security guarantees, which for Ukraine means that it may have to sacrifice the country's security interests. Ukraine has long been manipulated by the United States. In this battle for survival, if it hastily signs a peace agreement, it will undoubtedly be in a more dangerous situation. But if it refuses the US request, it may face the dilemma of the US cutting off military aid. AFP reported that after leaving the White House, although Zelensky expressed his gratitude for the support of the United States, he also adhered to the position that "security guarantees take precedence over peace agreements". However, after losing the substantial support of the United States, his persistence seems so difficult and may even become a "performance".

Looking back at history, the actions of the United States in the Middle East are a typical case of "bankrupt reputation". In 2003, on the grounds that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, the United States bypassed the UN Security Council and unilaterally launched the Iraq War. After the war, the US-led Iraq reconstruction plan was full of loopholes. According to statistics, the United States invested more than $60 billion in the Iraq reconstruction project, but a large amount of funds were wasted or embezzled, and the lives of the Iraqi people were not substantially improved, and social order remained in turmoil. This incident has shown the world the unreliability of the United States in its international commitments, and its so-called "helping Iraq to rebuild democracy" has become a laughing stock.

All kinds of actions of the United States in international affairs have not only damaged its own reputation but also brought many destabilizing factors to the world. From showing partiality and connivance in the Middle East to carrying out military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, the United States' acts of bullying the weak and seizing by fraud in military hegemony have become the main source of global turmoil. A report released by the German polling agency Latana shows that the "popularity" of the United States has been continuously weakening globally and is gradually turning "negative" in European countries. Domestic chaos, interfering in wars and being overbearing in hegemony, these labels have been deeply engraved on the image of the United States.

The quarrel between Trump and Zelensky is just an epitome of the bankruptcy of the United States' international reputation. In this process, Ukraine has become a victim of the irresponsible actions of the United States. What the world needs is peace, unity and dialogue. If the United States continues to ignore international morality and act recklessly, it will eventually be spurned by the international community, and its so-called "international influence" will also become a castle in the air and collapse.

[gigislandofrandom]

Okay y’all, I don’t really get political on here as much as some other people—I have done political stuff in the past, but not a lot. But something needs to be said.

And yes, I will be the one to say it, because if a Jewish person says it, some people are just gonna say that they’re colonizers, this, that, and the other. But we need reason, and not just blindly accuse each other of deplorable acts.

There’s been a lot of heat on both sides of the Israel-Palestine issue, and for good reason. But I’m going to offer my own perspective. I know I’m going to get a lot of hate, but I’m not going to stand here and just blindly accept the marginalization of human lives.

I’m from the USA, as some of y’all know, and my country has sadly done a lot of hurt towards many different people of many different backgrounds, and we’re still dealing with the repercussions of that today. So keep this in mind, because I want to ask you all some questions.

Native Americans were subject to horrible treatment by white settlers, including being put on reservations, having their land taken, and having their culture erased. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

African-Americans, also, were subject to horrible treatment, including the slave trade, segregation, and outright murder based on nothing but the color of their skin. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

For a more recent example, Japanese people were put in internment camps during WWII. Many of these people had never set foot on Japanese soil, but had been born and raised as American citizens. Would this give them the right to storm the US Capitol, rape women, take mothers and children as hostages, and kill civilians?

If the answer to these three scenarios is no, why is it okay when Hamas does it to Israeli citizens?

I’m not going to address the issue of land ownership, since that isn’t getting anyone anywhere with this argument. But what I will say is this: the day that Hamas chose to start this whole thing shows you all you need to know about their true colors.

What day was that? October 7th, 2023. Right at the beginning of Simchat Torah, one of the holiest days in Judaism.

Hamas literally chose one of the holiest days in the Jewish faith to start the killing, torturing, and suffering of Jews that continues today, more than a year after it started. This is no arbitrary date, and many other terrorist groups have a similar modus operandi—take the 2019 Sri Lanka Easter bombings, for example.

Hamas aren’t freedom fighters, or a resistance movement. They are terrorists who will not stop killing until every Jew both in Israel and outside Israel is dead.

And they don’t just kill Jews. They’ve even killed other Palestinians—take the conflict in July and August of 2014 when 23 Palestinians were murdered by Hamas, many of whom were supporters of Rafah, Hamas’s political rivals.

When I say this, I am not trying to dunk on Palestinians. Many Palestinians have nothing to do with this, and just want the fighting to stop. But there are other Palestinians, and many Palestinian supporters, who have done absolutely reprehensible things—attacking Jews publicly, tearing missing posters of Jews down, and calling for the death of Jews, to name a few.

I fully understand that many Palestinians do have grievances against the Israeli state. That is perfectly valid, and I will always fight as an American for free speech everywhere, and for the right for the people to speak out against oppression. But these actions that are being taken are not the answer, and they’re only going to lead to more antisemitism and Islamophobia, both of which we have enough of in society without all this.

In summary, to the Jews: keep fighting. You matter, you are loved, and you are necessary in this world. All is not lost yet.

To the Palestinians: You have a right to your beliefs, and to your opinions, including about the Jewish state. I will always fight for your right to speak your minds, and to speak out against oppression and discrimination. But all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. Speak out against oppression of your neighbors, and speak out against terrorism.

History has its eyes on both of you. For your sakes, and for the sakes of those after you, choose wisely.

[taviamoth]

Palestine Action activists destroyed a 1914 painting of Arthur James Balfour, the colonial administrator and signatory of the Balfour Declaration.

Palestine Action stated, "An activist slashed the homage and sprayed the artwork with red paint, symbolising the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917. "

"Arthur Balfour, then UK Foreign secretary, issued a declaration which promised to build “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, where the majority of the indigenous population were not Jewish. He gave away the Palestinians homeland — a land that wasn’t his to give away."

"After the Declaration, until 1948, the British burnt down indigenous villages to prepare the way; with this came arbitrary killings, arrests, torture, sexual violence including rape against women and men, the use of human shields and the introduction of home demolitions as collective punishment to repress Palestinian resistance."

"The British were initiating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, fulfilling the Zionist aim to build their ‘home’ over the top of what were Palestinian communities, towns, villages, farms and ancestral land, rich in heritage, culture and ancient archeological history."

"In the past 154 days of genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, injured over 72,000 and displaced over 1.9million — 80% of the Gaza population."

"Britain’s support for the continued colonisation of Palestine hasn’t wavered since 1917.

"Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms supplier, who use captive Palestinians in Gaza as a human laboratory to develop their weapons, use Britain as a manufacturing outpost. The Israeli weapons maker build weaponry in factories across the country and work closely with the British government.

"Palestine Action vows to continue their direct campaign until Elbit is shut down and British complicity with the colonisation of Palestine ends. "

[mariacallous]

Federal employees are seeking a temporary restraining order as part of a class action lawsuit accusing a group of Elon Musk’s associates of allegedly operating an illegally connected server from the fifth floor of the US Office of Personnel Management’s (OPM) headquarters in Washington, DC.

An attorney representing two federal workers—Jane Does 1 and 2—filed a motion this morning arguing that the server’s continued operation not only violates federal law but is potentially exposing vast quantities of government staffers’ personal information to hostile foreign adversaries through unencrypted email.

A copy of the motion, filed in the DC District Court by National Security Counselors, a Washington-area public-interest law firm, was obtained by WIRED exclusively in advance. WIRED previously reported that Musk had installed several lackeys in OPM’s top offices, including individuals with ties to xAI, Neuralink, and other companies he owns.

The initial lawsuit, filed on January 27, cites reports that Musk’s associates illegally connected a server to a government network for the purposes of harvesting information, including the names and email accounts of federal employees. The server was installed on the agency’s premises, the complaint alleges, without OPM—the government’s human resources department—conducting a mandatory privacy impact assessment required under federal law.

Under the 2002 E-Government Act, agencies are required to perform privacy assessments prior to making “substantial changes to existing information technology” when handling information “in identifiable form.” Notably, prior to the installation of the server, OPM did not have the technical capability to email the entire federal workforce from a single email account.

“[A]t some point after 20 January 2025, OPM allowed unknown individuals to simply bypass its existing systems and security protocols,” Tuesday’s motion claims, “for the stated purpose of being able to communicate directly with those individuals without involving other agencies. In short, the sole purpose of these new systems was expediency.”

OPM did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

If the motion is granted, OPM would be forced to disconnect the server until the assessment is done. As a consequence, the Trump administration’s plans to drastically reduce the size of the federal workforce would likely face delays. The email account linked to the server—HR@opm.gov—is currently being used to gather information from federal workers accepting buyouts under the admin’s “deferred resignation program,” which is set to expire on February 6.

“Under the law, a temporary restraining order is an extraordinary remedy,” notes National Security Counselors’ executive director, Kel McClanahan. “But this is an extraordinary situation.”

Before issuing a restraining order, courts apply what’s known as the “balance of equities” doctrine, weighing the burdens and costs on both parties. In this case, however, McClanahan argues that the injunction would inflict “no hardship” on the government whatsoever. February 6 is an “arbitrary deadline,” he says, and the administration could simply continue to implement the resignation program “through preexisting channels.”

“We can't wait for the normal course of litigation when all that information is just sitting there in some system nobody knows about with who knows what protections,” McClanahan says. “In a normal case, we might be able to at least count on the inspector general to do something, but Trump fired her, so all bets are off.”

The motion further questions whether OPM violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which prohibits federal agencies from taking actions “not in accordance with the law.” Under the APA, courts may “compel agency action”—such as a private assessment—when it is “unlawfully withheld.”

Employees at various agencies were reportedly notified last month to be on the lookout for messages originating from the HR@opm.gov account. McClanahan’s complaint points to a January 23 email from acting Homeland Security secretary Benjamine Huffman instructing DHS employees that the HR@opm.gov account “can be considered trusted.” In the following days, emails were blasted out twice across the executive branch instructing federal workers to reply “Yes” in both cases.

The same account was later used to transmit the “Fork in the Road” missive promoting the Trump administration’s legally dubious “deferred resignation program,” which claims to offer federal workers the opportunity to quit but continue receiving paychecks through September. Workers who wished to participate in the program were instructed to reply to the email with “Resign.”

As WIRED has reported, even the new HR chief of DOGE, Musk’s task force, was unable to answer basic questions about the offer.

The legal authority underlying the program is unclear, and federal employee union leaders are warning workers not to blindly assume they will actually get paid. In a floor speech last week, Senator Tim Kaine advised workers not to be fooled: “There’s no budget line item to pay people who are not showing up for work.” Patty Murray, ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, similarly warned Monday: “There is no funding allocated to agencies to pay staff for this offer.”

McClanahan’s lawsuit highlights the government’s response to the OPM hack of 2015, which compromised personnel records on more than 22 million people, including some who’d undergone background checks to obtain security clearances. A congressional report authored by House Republicans following the breach pinned the incident on a “breakdown in communications” between OPM’s chief information officer and its inspector general: “The future effectiveness of the agency’s information technology and security efforts,” it says, “will depend on a strong relationship between these two entities moving forward.”

OPM’s inspector general, Krista Boyd, was fired by President Donald Trump in the midst of the “Friday night purge” on January 24—one day after the first HR@opm.gov email was sent.

“We are witnessing an unprecedented exfiltration and seizure of the most sensitive kinds of information by unelected, unvetted people with no experience, responsibility, or right to it,” says Sean Vitka, policy director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, which is supporting the action. “Millions of Americans and the collective interests of the United States desperately need emergency intervention from the courts. The constitutional crisis is already here.”

[punishedgwyndolin]

this is kind of a semantic pet peeve i know but i gotta say i still hate seeing people describe themselves in the present tense with agab. it rarely makes justifiable sense and almost always instead reads like someone just replacing the false binary of male/female in their head with amab/afab. “im afab nonbinary” no you are not an “assigned female at birth person”, you were (c)afab, this was a past action that was done to you on the behalf of an arbitrary and illusory patriarchal system not an identity or state of being and it does not speak to some essential or unchanging “reality” about you like male/female tries to, as we’re used to using it, we can get out of the pit

[yanderenightmare]

hey, marie! i have a question for the helpdesk!

any advice for what to describe in a scene? I find myself just sticking to the plot points, which are just action-based, but it's always sorta boring in the end.

I guess my question is how to make scenes feel natural and richer without descriptions becoming excessive?

On Scene Descriptions

Great question!

What Can You Put in a Scene?

Honestly? Absolutely anything. Anything you can think of. Anything at all.

From describing objects and surroundings, to character descriptions, their inner thoughts, memories, associations, emotions, tone of voice, dialogue, body language, facial expressions, actions, and interactions.

Anything and everything, and all things I’ll cover down below.

And so, first off…

Scenery!

Describe the surroundings. 

Where are we? What place is it? What's around? What sticks out? Observations! Is stuff new or old? Expensive or cheap? Any wear and tear, or is everything perfectly up to code? Is it dirty or clean? Messy or tidy? Is it dark or bright? Are we inside or outside? Is it day or night? What’s the weather like? 

But don’t just focus on what you can see, use all five senses to your advantage! Is it hot and humid or cold and brisk? Is there an odor? Can you taste it on your tongue? Is there anything around that makes a sound like a waterfall in the distance, bird chatter, club chatter, or a very annoying clock on the wall?

Show, Don't Tell gets important here. A phrase writers hear a lot. But what does it actually mean?

Well! Showing vs Telling basically states that describing something through visual detail is more convincing than using a simple standalone verb or noun. 

Take a forest, for example. You can state that your character is traveling through a forest, but a forest isn’t very descriptive. 

What kind of forest is it? Where is it? What’s in it? 

A rainforest is humid and hot. A birch forest is flat with skinny trees. An oak forest has a lot of branches and a ton of roots you can trip over. A pine forest is dark and misty, growing scarcer the higher up the mountain you travel. Is it an overgrown and bewildering forest, or a beautiful and enchanting one? Is the canopy thick, blocking out the light, or open and bright?

Furthermore, a forest has plenty of other things aside from just trees, like moss beds, rocks, tracks, mushrooms, wind, fresh scents, foul scents, animal noises, creaky old branches, caves that moan, shrubs that rustle, plants, bushes of berries, poisonous things, fallen leaves, barnacles, twigs on the ground, markings on the treestems, carvings left by former travelers, trash, long-forgotten cabins that might not be as abandoned as originally believed, animal dung, streams, lakes, waterfalls, sudden cliffs, dead trees, fallen trees, uprooted trees, rotting animal carcases, skeletal remains, and so many other things…

So basically, what Showing vs Telling wants you to do is paint the scene. Don’t just tell the reader they’re in a forest, or a shopping mall, or in the mountains, or at school—describe it to them. And again, don’t just focus on what you can see—taste, touch, scent, and sound are just as important!

An easy tip is to simply put yourself in the shoes of the character, close your eyes, and imagine being there, then describe that experience.

This also applies to—

Emotions!

Through the rules of Show-Don't-Tell, you should focus on describing body language and facial cues instead of standalone verbs.

Take fear, for example. You can say your character is scared, but, like anything, being scared is an arbitrary emotion and can essentially mean anything from feeling somewhat anxious to absolutely terrified beyond wit’s end. 

So instead of simply saying they’re scared, you’ll describe what they look like or do or think when they’re scared. 

Think cold sweat, stammering, shivering, feeling frozen, having big eyes, a beating chest, being lock-jawed, or screaming while making a run for it. 

Again, put yourself in the shoes of the character and describe every sensation and observation you can think of, like you’re trying to sell the emotion to your readers.

You can also play around and use the character’s inner thoughts to do this.

Take love, for example. Sure, you can say that a character is in love. But again, there are many different types of love out there. So, how does this character experience love?

This is where inner thoughts work magic:

You’re looking at him and he does everything in his power to act cool—act cool, act cool, act fucking cool. His heart’s beating with the bass of a drum—he wonders if you can hear it from where you sit. God, how embarrassing. You’re just studying together, and he can’t even focus enough to read a single sentence. He hasn’t turned the page once, and you’ve already made a whole book’s worth of notes. That’s why you’re staring at him, isn’t it? You’re probably wondering what’s wrong with him, and it’s a good question. He’s wondering as well—what is wrong with him?

The word love or crush isn’t used once, and yet, describing that feeling through showing or, in this case, inner thinking, paints a better picture of this character’s experience than it would have if it were to have been disclosed from the get-go that the character was in love.

This way, it also becomes a better journey for the reader, as if they're getting brought along on the discovery with the character.

All this being said, however, it’s not as if you’re not allowed to simply tell it how it is sometimes. Not everything needs to be disclosed in close detail all the time—but that’s something we’ll revisit later in the post.

For now, let’s move on to lights, camera—

Action!

You mention that too many action descriptions become boring. I agree! They're monotone and weak on their own and should be followed up with other scene-describing methods or joined with dialogue.

I feel like the difference between a good action sequence and a bad action sequence is that one feels like you're lining up one and one domino, whereas the other one feels like you're watching dominos fall after each other. One is work, the other is payoff.

It should be payoff.

But how do you make it feel like falling dominoes? It's not always easy, but try to limit the number of actions that happen at random and make everything happen for a reason—reactions and objectives over standalone actions. Why are the characters doing what they're doing? What made them do what they're doing? What are they trying to achieve? Is something hindering them? Is something working to their advantage? What are they thinking and feeling while doing what they're doing? And does that have any effect on how they're doing what they're doing?

Furthermore, what they've now done should be the direct cause or kickstart of the next action, and so on and so forth.

When you have two characters in a scene, you should make the action volley between them. He does this, which made her do this, but then he did this, and she had to do this.

Otherwise, if there's only one character in a scene, you should volley between action and inner thought. As I mentioned earlier, walk us through their thought process. Why are they doing what they're doing?

On another note, I often feel that actions are underrated. Or rather, that they’re often not used to their full potential.

Let’s go back to the forest real quick. Yes, the character is walking through the forest.

But what does it really entail to walk through a forest? What happens?

You get tired, of course! You get sweaty, you get dirty, weariness turns to exhaustion, you're thirsty, you're hungry, now you're cold, you're anxious to get to where you're going, you're not entirely sure if you're going the correct way, and oh my god, you're lost!

On yet another note!

Actions are described when characters do something, obviously. And they tend to do something when the plot requires it.

But actions can be used to describe the scene in ways visual descriptions can’t. So, don't just make your characters react and interact with each other; make them do so with the scenery.

Again, yes, our character is walking through the forest. That’s the action the plot requires. However, there are so many actions that’ll make the experience more vivid. For example, make the character touch things—make them balance themselves against trees and feel the branches they duck under. This way, you can describe the rough texture of bark against the character’s palm and really immerse the reader. Make the character trip and fall, and there are suddenly new opportunities. Make them climb, make them tired, make them start running because of a sound they heard, make them kick leaves, have them pick up a stick out of boredom, make them collect rocks, make them juggle as they walk. Again, there are so many options to make the scene more vivid.

Replace basic scene descriptions with scene interactions such as this, pair the entire thing with dialogue, and it'll read like a movie!

Something we'll also discuss later on, but for now, onto—

Characters!

Now, I've already described emotions and inner thoughts, which are what tell your reader most about the character.

But, appearance-based character descriptions are also neat!

Facial features, quirky things like scars and beauty marks, freckles, eye colors, skin color, hair color, how all those colors are different in different lighting, glowy skin, dry skin, patchy skin, oily skin. Have they showered? Do they wear makeup? What are they wearing? How are they wearing it? A shirt can be so many things—ironed, crumpled, buttoned up or buttoned down, patterned, white, dirty, loose, tight-fitted, tailored, cheap or expensive. Are they’re shoes well-worn or newly bought? Any piercings? Where and what type? Gold or silver? And since they have one on their lip, might it make you wonder if they have others in places unseen? Any tattoos? Where and what type? Traditional black or colored? Badly inked or impressive? Original or cliche? Muscles or not? Does it make you wonder how much they hit the gym? Any bruising? Bloody knuckles, scuffed knees, crooked nose, black eyes, popped lip. Do they have neat hair? Does it look like they frequent the hairdresser? Is it their natural color? Have they even brushed it today?

Yeah, I think you get it. Description can and should tell a lot about a character.

And if I haven’t made it clear yet, descriptions should be telling the story. Which also means that they shouldn't be used haphazardly. But again, that’s something we’ll return to later in the post.

But, before that, we must lastly cover—

Dialogue!

At this point, we’ve gone over different methods of describing a scene, but as you mentioned, a text can quickly become quite heavy if it’s solely based on descriptions alone.

This is where dialogue becomes an author’s best friend.

Dialogue is the easiest way to breathe fresh air into a text when you feel you've only been writing action sequences or long spouts of descriptions. Dialogue will break up body text like no other.

At the same time, however, dialogue is also a double-edged sword for the same reason. So even when it gives us a break from long-winded descriptions, it can be a little tricky to glue things back together again when you’ve made that break.

On top of that, making dialogue feel fluid is tricky for plenty of other reasons as well. First off, there are only so many times you can use the word said.

To be honest, if my draft didn’t start off with a lot of dialogue, I have a really hard time implementing it at any other point. And so, I don’t have too many tips right here other than saying that dialogue doesn’t always have to be isolated between “quotation marks”.

For reference sake, here’s an example of a very action-based story that has dialogue, but zero bunny ears: The Quartering Act.

Another tip is that you don’t always have to refer to the person who said something after they said it. It’s fine to simply skip to an action or other description. Let your readers do what they do best and read between the lines. They’ll know from context who it was that said what. This way, you won’t exhaust the usage of the word said and its synonyms.

Lastly, try to use different ways of breaking up dialogue. Explaining the character's tone of voice works once, then it remains spent until their tone of voice changes. Meanwhile, it’s time to use other descriptions. Having a list of synonyms for said is very useful. But you should also try to play around with other options, such as breaking dialogue with inner thoughts, actions, emotions, sudden associations, minor flashbacks, and other disturbances that come naturally.

What I’ve found useful is giving the character something to hold and fiddle with or something to do while they’re talking. This gives you more options other than needing to repeat she-said-he-said.

Again, for reference sake, here’s another short example: Stay. Read it and you’ll see how that entire conversation could have just as easily happened while they were still in bed, but by making the reader move around while looking for something, the entire scene becomes more lively with better flow.

Again, my biggest piece of advice is to try to immerse yourself and see what things you think you would feel, think, and focus on if you were the one talking or listening.

Now, finally, in order to use all of the things we’ve just covered, you need to—

Know The Scene!

Yeah, you can put anything in a scene. But does that mean that everything should go in a scene?

No.

As you mentioned, too much description becomes excessive, and only describing actions becomes monotone. Too much of anything is tedious to read, and a sure-fire way to stifle the momentum.

Take character descriptions, for instance. If it's our first time seeing a character, then of course, a description of his features and attire is warranted. But there's no need to give a full description of someone the reader knows every time they walk into a scene. The name alone will suffice. Unless, of course, there’s something fundamentally off about the character this time around. But otherwise, no, your reader does not need to know what someone is wearing every time they enter the scene.

Additionally, it also depends on whose point of view we're looking at things from. Meaning, if a character walks into a scene that’s new to the reader, but well-known by the character holding the point of view, it might be more natural to describe what relationship they have with each other in a string of inner thoughts and less natural to go into detail about their hair and the color of their eyes as the one holding the point of view is probably not going to be focusing on those details. You can still mention it throughout the text when it becomes natural to do so, but bombarding the reader with a whole paragraph of appearance descriptions is often unnecessary, boring, and sometimes even a little disorienting.

Similarly, if the scene takes place inside the home of the character with the point of view, we shouldn’t receive a full description of their house. Why would they be focusing on what type of pictures are up on the mantle or if their sofa is made of leather and has embroidered throw pillows? That’s an observation made by an outsider. But we’re supposed to feel like we’ve been here countless times before. And so the place shouldn’t be introduced as anything new, but completely familiar. So instead, we’ll focus on anything that’s out of the ordinary. Such as if anything has fallen out of their designated place, if there are dishes left out, if the character is only now noticing how the wall paint is starting to chip, how they remember when they first picked out that color. Anything you might think of when walking around in your own house.

Again, obviously, if we’re following the point of view of another character who is entering this house for the first time, it would be natural to describe their observations of the place.

But anyway, returning to my point. Yes, anything can go in a scene, but you should only keep the things that work to the advantage of the scene.

And that’s where the editor side of authorship steps in for the creator, and you start making some critical decisions where you’ll have to be tough and strike those things you’ve written that don’t work in favor of the scene.

In other words, all scenes are different because they all have a specific purpose to achieve. To know which of the listed literary devices to use, you first need to identify the purpose of each scene and create focal points for the reader. 

What’s really important here? What should be the takeaway? What’s the point of this scene? And what does the scene need in order to further that point?

If you want to slow things down to create suspense, more descriptions should be added for longer pauses. If it's a fast action-based scene, you'll want to keep descriptions short and concise to create a fluid domino effect. If it's an emotional scene, you'll want to focus on inner thoughts and body language to immerse the reader in those feelings. And meanwhile, on top of everything, there’s also dialogue to weave in.

This is all complicated stuff, and not something you learn overnight or by reading this Helpdesk edition. It’s taken me years, and I mean years, to learn any of this, and it’s still not a hundred percent.

It’s truly nothing short of a fucked up thing, because something that works in one scene won’t always work in another scene, even when they’re similar. There are plenty of scenes I post where I’m not happy with the flow, where I’ve given up on finding the right sentences, words, and structure to make it perfect for myself. But that’s the name of the game. You’re not going to get it right every time. But you can be sure that every time, good or bad, is another step towards betterment.

And so, hope this helped and good luck!

♡ NIGHTMARE'S HELPDESK

[cheerfullycatholic]

President Donald Trump signed an executive order on the federal death penalty Jan. 20, among the first actions of his second term, directing the attorney general to “pursue the death penalty for all crimes of a severity demanding its use,” prompting statements of concern from Catholic opponents of the practice.

...

The death penalty order was among those Archbishop Timothy P. Broglio, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and head of the U.S. Archdiocese for the Military Services, called “deeply troubling” in a Jan. 22 statement about Trump’s first batch of executive orders in his second term.

...

Krisanne Vaillancourt Murphy, executive director of Catholic Mobilizing Network, a group that advocates for the abolition of capital punishment in line with Catholic teaching, said in a statement Trump’s executive order on the death penalty “makes no sense." “What we know about the death penalty is that it does not deter crime or make communities safer,” Vaillancourt Murphy said. “It’s immoral, flawed and risky, arbitrary and unfair, cruel and dehumanizing. Both the state and federal death penalty systems are broken beyond repair, and emblematic of a throwaway culture.”

...

The Catholic Church’s official magisterium opposes the use of the death penalty as inconsistent with the inherent sanctity of human life, and advocates for the abolition of the practice worldwide. In his 2020 encyclical “Fratelli Tutti,” Pope Francis addressed the moral problem of capital punishment by citing St. John Paul II, writing that his predecessor “stated clearly and firmly that the death penalty is inadequate from a moral standpoint and no longer necessary from that of penal justice.”

“There can be no stepping back from this position,” Pope Francis wrote. Echoing the teaching he clarified in his 2018 revision of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the pontiff said, “Today we state clearly that ‘the death penalty is inadmissible’ and the church is firmly committed to calling for its abolition worldwide.”

Pope Francis on Jan. 9 in his annual audience for members of the diplomatic corps, also said the death penalty “finds no justification today among the instruments capable of restoring justice.”

[literaryvein-reblogs]

Writing Notes: Literary Character

In a literary work, characters are the persons who are given certain moral, intellectual, and emotional qualities by the author.

Two Major Types of Characters

Static. The static character is one who is "flat" and two-dimensional. Such a character is usually recognized by one or two simple traits. The hallmark of a static character is that he or she will not change in spite of experience or conflict. This type of character remains unchanged by events and experiences. An example of a static character is Mistress Quickly in Henry IV.

Dynamic. The dynamic character is one who is "round" and three-dimensional. His or her personality, motives, and attitudes are complex. Such a character cannot be summed up by one or two traits. The hallmark of a dynamic character is change. This type of character will be changed and influenced by events and experiences. An example of a dynamic character is Pip in Great Expectations.

Criteria for Analyzing Character

The reader can use the criteria below in order to analyze, interpret, and draw conclusions about a character.

Appearance. Appearance generally falls into two categories: external and physical. External appearance consists of extrinsic qualities, such as clothing, jewelry, tattoos, or hairstyle. Through these external factors, you may determine a character’s taste, social status, occupation, or personality. Physical appearance, on the other hand, consists of intrinsic qualities, such as height, weight, facial expression, or tone of voice. These physical factors can suggest different personality traits. For example, a muscular physique might suggest strength; a skinny physique might suggest weakness. Be careful, however, not to judge a character on appearance alone. Appearance and reality are not always the same.

Behavior and Actions. In literature, all behavior and actions help define character. Nothing a character does is arbitrary or incidental. Small nuances of behavior need to be interpreted, as well as major decisive actions. Therefore, when trying to define what a character is like, consider what that character does. Do his or her actions reveal courage, ignorance, cunning, or generosity? For your analysis to be complete, consider involuntary behavior, such as nervous twitching, fast talking, or profuse sweating.

Biography. Often in short stories or novels, biographical information about a character will be revealed: place of birth, era of childhood, type of education, early careers, successes, failures, even the identity and occupation of the character’s parents. Such information can be used to sharpen the picture of a character, or to give added credibility to traits and values that have been identified.

Dialogue. Closely scrutinize what characters say and how they say it, for dialogue is significant. A character’s speech reveals traits and values in 2 principal ways:

Direct Expression. The correlation is patently clear between what the character says and who the character is. Nothing is hidden; nothing is subtly suggested. Direct expression requires little or no interpretation by the reader. What the character says provides immediate insight. For example, in Paradise Lost, the fallen angel Moloch states how he would like to deal with the angels left in heaven, “My sentence is for open war.” Moloch’s hostile nature is revealed directly.

Indirect Expression. The correlation is implied between what the character says and who the character is. The meaning of words may be hidden or suggested. Thus, the reader must determine the unstated meaning of a character’s words. For example, at a ball in Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy is asked if he’ll join in the dancing. He replies, “All savages dance.” At its face value, the statement could be a harmless observation about dancing. Instead, it reveals Mr. Darcy as a haughty man whose sense of superiority makes him disdainful of his company.

Emotions. When interpreting a character, you will be trying to get below the surface of that character to see deeper meanings. To do so, take into account a character’s temperament. Temperament may manifest itself in some general traits, such as whether a character is introverted or extroverted, optimistic or pessimistic, sensitive or indifferent. Or, temperament may reveal itself in specific emotional states, such as anger, melancholy, anxiety, compassion, or happiness.

Thoughts. If an author uses “direct expression” to reveal a character's thoughts and values, you need only to note what these thoughts and values are, explaining why they are significant. However, a character’s thoughts are rarely revealed directly. Therefore, you will need to interpret, infer, and draw conclusions about a character's thoughts. To do so, gather evidence from the above criteria. These criteria can all come together to form a composite sketch of a character, revealing his or her true opinions and beliefs.

What other characters say and think. The statements and thoughts of one character regarding another can be a valid source of information. However, this information can be double-edged. While you may learn about a character based on the statements and thoughts of another, you will have to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of those statements and thoughts. A reliable character will usually be perceptive and a good judge of character; an unreliable character will be flawed in some way that inhibits his or her judgment.

How To Write about Character

When writing about character, you may use the following 3-step process. Keep in mind that this is a general approach.

Establish major character traits. Pin down the character’s traits. Because the main characters in a work will have depth and complexity, you should be able to distinguish at least three prominent traits. These traits may be closely related, but they must be distinctly different.

Support major character traits with examples. The traits you establish in step 1 will be based on general impressions. In step 2, however, you must support these traits with concrete examples. For example, if you assert that “vindictiveness” is a trait, you must substantiate vindictiveness with examples from the literary work.

Explain how and why your examples substantiate a particular trait. Step 3 is the most important (and most difficult) stage of your paper. You must go beyond merely linking examples with traits; you must elaborate your views of a character’s traits with explanation. Your explanation must tell how and why your examples reveal a particular trait, whether the trait is moral, intellectual, or emotional.

Note: Other non-human entities can perform in the role of “characters.” For example, animals, nature (rivers, mountains, oceans, etc.), and man-made creations (cities, machines, houses, etc.) can function as characters.

If these writing notes help with your poem/story, do tag me. Or send me a link. I'd love to read them!

Writing Notes & References

[misasimagines]

bathtime w/ Jiro (Tokyo Debunker)

included characters: Jiro (Yuri visits, but is not the focus)

rating: SFW but suggestive. Reader is Lustful.

warnings: reader is lustful but respectful. Jiro is naked. GN reader. Reader and Yuri are not necessarily besties.

First Tokyo Debunker fic after being a dead blog for months :thumbsup:

He looked worse than he normally did. It was hard to determine his state on appearance alone, given that he normally had dark circles, a pallid tone to his skin, an empty stare, and hair that was several nights past simple bed head. However, you were familiar enough with his movements by now, how calculated and deliberate they usually were, to tell when something was different, and today they were definitely different. You had positioned yourself in Mortkranken to keep an eye on him under the not untrue guise of hiding out from Romeo and Jin, both of whom were demanding your presence for various tasks you had no responsibility to complete. Your phone lit up constantly while Romeo sent you increasingly deranged threats for not answering him. You flipped it over, screen side down.

Jiro stood at the desk in the back of the room preparing Yuri’s tea. He had a teapot in front of him and a few small canisters of tea leaves he was mixing from. You'd watched him do this plenty of times before, his actions, the sounds, even the smell of the tea was like some kind of elevated ASMR video. Today though, instead of relaxation, you felt a grating sense of wrongness. He moved slower, like through something viscous and dense, and took several seconds to decide on what teas to use when it normally seemed arbitrary he was so decisive and instant. And then it happened. He did something you'd never seen him do before. He spilled tea leaves all over the floor.

You let out a soft gasp and sat up instinctively.

He stared, expression unreadable, down at the mess and you felt a little sharp prick in your heart at how absolutely exhausted he seemed. There was no way of knowing what he was thinking, but there was a universal sense of disappointment in that sidelong stare he gave the wasted tea leaves. He stood for a second more and then lumbered across the room for the broom.

“Let me help,” you offered, hopping up from your seat and hurrying over to him.

“Why? It's not your mess,” he responded in that monotone voice of his, grabbing the broom and turning back to clean up.

“Right. I don't have to help you anymore than you have to make Yuri tea every day,” you reached for the broom and grasped the handle, not quite prepared to wrestle it from the man you regularly saw hauling corpses to the morgue over one of his broad shoulders, but threatening nonetheless.

He stared down at you, his glasses sliding down his nose. “He'll complain if I don't. It's a hassle. I won't complain if you don't clean up after me.”

You frowned at his succinct, pragmatic answer. “Maybe I just want to help you because I care about you, then.” You tugged at the broom. To anyone else, you might have felt embarrassed being so forthright, but Jiro’s bluntness rubbed off on you in his presence. Besides, it didn't feel like a great revelation to share. You did care about him, and by this point, he'd have to be in serious denial to not notice it.

Jiro stared at you a few more seconds, then relinquished the broom. “I'll get the dustpan then.” He acquiesced in a way only Jiro could acquiesce. 

You scoffed quietly and started sweeping the mess into a neat pile while he shuffled back across the room to retrieve the dust pan. He returned and crouched down to hold it so you could sweep up the tea and a fair amount of dust. Looking down at him, you saw just how, dare you say, fucked up, his hair was. It was a bona fide rat's nest, there may have been rats living in it currently, and you weren't sure if the slight discoloration on his bangs was dirt or blood. 

Without thinking, you reached out and plucked a little piece of fuzz from his head and flicked it into the dustpan below. He stared up at you, utterly silent. You stared back. Seconds passed as you processed what you just did and he seemed to understand it no more than you did. “When was the last time you bathed?” You finally broke the silence. There was no point in beating around the bush with him, he surely wouldn't with you.

“Hmm,” he stood up and trekked over to a trash can to dump out the pan. “Before we autopsied that anomaly with 5 heads.”

“That was on Monday.” 

“Yes.”

“It's Friday.”

He turned to look at you, “Oh. It's been four days.” 

Did he not know the date?? You took a deep breath and exhaled slowly to calm yourself. “And sleep? When did you last do that?” You pressed.

Jiro blinked slowly at you. 

You were going to kill Yuri, but that was for another time. This time, you had a giant, dirty, and sleep deprived Jiro to take care of. “You HAVE to take a bath and get some sleep.”

He considered this long enough to give you time to take another deep breath and prepare to nag him. “Okay,” he turned and started shuffling towards the bathroom, only to stop suddenly and put his hand against the wall to steady himself.

Rushing over, you put a hand on his arm in case he collapsed. “Jiro!” 

He blinked away the dizziness, nausea, lightheadedness, whatever he was feeling in that barely reanimated body of his, and barely straightened up. He seemed to have the intention to respond to you in some way, but the energy to do so was missing. He shuffled another step forward and you went with him. If this was how it was going to be, you clenched your jaw, this was how it was going to be.

He regained enough strength on the way to the bath that you felt confident he'd be able to survive cleaning up at least. You rushed in and around getting the water up to a warm temperature, grabbing a towel, and pushing him the last few steps towards the tub.

“It would be faster to take a shower,” he commented, kicking off his shoes.

“Do you think you have it in you to stand in a shower long enough to get clean?” You retorted with a raised eyebrow. You lifted the glasses from his face and set them carefully next to the sink.

He let you take his glasses with the familiarity of having had you done it a hundred times before. A hundred times might have been a bit off, but you'd maneuvered them off his head a few times when he was nearly passed out over an operating table and when he had blood all over his hands and couldn't wipe them off himself. It was an action not unusual for you two, which is why the tilt of his head came so naturally when you reached for them. Lifting back up, he started unbuttoning his shirt. “Maybe not. I could also faint and drown in the tub.” 

“That’s why I'll stand guard to check on you every few minutes to make sure you haven't inhaled lungfuls of bathwater,” you promised, avoiding looking too closely at his scarred back as he shrugged out of his shirt. You grabbed it up before it hit the ground and set it aside on the counter.

“Because you care about me?” He asked.

If a person could turn to sand and crumble away or deflate like a balloon and fly around the room making a pitiful little whining sound, you'd have done either. It was one thing to say it yourself to nag and scold him for his poor self care practices. It was another to have it thrown back at you in a way where you couldn't tell if he was teasing you or just earnestly asking. Face flushed an deep red, you turned around to give him privacy (and hide your blush) and stood at the door. “Because I care about you,” you agreed, regardless of the embarrassment.

A minute or two passed and you heard the sound of the water sloshing as he got into the tub. 

You held his towel in your folded arms, facing the door intently. “Just make a noise or something every few seconds so I know you're not drowning, okay?” 

He was quiet.

“Any sound,” you insisted, drumming your fingertips over your arms.

He was quiet, the water was not sloshing.

“Jiro?” You called behind you, suddenly very tense.

He didn't respond and all you could hear was your own heart hammering in your ears. He'd passed out and was currently breathing in water and soap. You'd have to haul him out of the tub and try to perform CPR, but would that work? What if you broke his sternum, could he survive that level of damage when he was already so weak? A million visions of Jiro’s untimely death flashed in your head and made your chest tighten.

You spun around, already halfway towards him before you realized he was fine.

He was resting his head on the back of the tub, looking at you with the smallest curve to his lips, his eyes shut slightly in contented amusement. He might have let out a rare bit of laughter if only he weren't so drained.

Your chest tightened and you considered a few choice words to call him for scaring you like that, but they all caught in your throat. As sweet as he looked, that barely there smile on his face, he looked so worn out and fragile sitting in that tub that could barely even fit him. You took a few steps toward him and set the towel down on the counter. “You scared me,” you admit.

“Sorry.” He responded, his smile had started vanishing, less because his amusement faded and more because the urge to sleep was becoming too strong.

You watched him for a second more and he made no move to start scrubbing himself down or washing his hair. With a sigh, you rolled up your sleeves and crouched up on your knees next to the tub. You had filled it with an absolutely absurd amount of soap and bubbles, so there was no chance of seeing much more than the top of his chest and his knees that poked out over the water. “I'll wash your hair, so take care of the rest of yourself, alright?” You pushed.

He nodded.

You filled your palm with a bit of shampoo and foamed it up between your hands before diving into his mess of knotted hair. You had seen dolls at second hand shops with fewer knots and less tangled hair, and some of those had gone through the dryer or maybe a wind tunnel. You took your time, scrubbing down to his scalp with your fingers as tenderly but insistently as you could.

Jiro relaxed into your touch, slumped so fully into the bath that you had to gently lift his head to reach the back of it. He let out a quiet hum of satisfaction when you raked your fingers up the nape of his neck. His eyes were fully closed now, his eyelashes thick and dark and brushing the tops of his cheeks. Without his mask hanging down around his chin, you could see the cute little beauty mark under his mouth. Droplets of water rolled down his neck, over the little star shaped scars, down his chest and-

His eyes opened slowly and he looked up at you. It wasn't particularly different from how he usually looked at you, and maybe that's why it felt so much more intimate than you were used to. If you let yourself get caught in these thoughts, it would recontextualize everything between you and nothing would make sense anymore. You felt paralyzed by him, by your thoughts, by your hands in his hair, by the slow rise and fall of chest and the shifting of bubbles. “You stopped,” he announced, his voice not betraying any real tone of displeasure, but you felt it nonetheless.

“Oh!” You got back to scrubbing, carefully working through the knots, carefully controlling your breathing. “Sorry,” you mumbled. You rinsed out the shampoo, dumping little rinse cups of water over his head, your hand over his eyes now both to hide his near unblinking watch and to prevent soap from getting into them.

You rushed through conditioner, getting as much of his hair as saturated as possible (you had no clue when he'd use it again, after all), and pulled your hand back to stand up. “Okay. Just finish cleaning up and then rinse that out and you'll be right as rain,” you lectured as robotically as you could. The bubbles had started to pop and dissipate and any glances down at him were revealing more that you thought appropriate to see at the moment.

He wrapped his fingers around your hand as you retracted it. His hands were wet and his fingers slightly wrinkled from being under the water for so long. He pulled your hand inward just slightly, enough to indicate he was asking you to come back, but not enough to force you or pull you down.

You settled back on your knees in front of him. He looked pitiful, in the cutest way possible. His hair dripped water down his cheeks, his entire body barely fit into this tub and still he was cramped down into it, reaching up for you like he could pull you in with him.

His lips parted slightly and the pins and needles feeling in your calves erupted.

“Jiro- AAARGG!” 

You shot up, Jiro's hand slipping from yours as you turned to see Yuri pointing at and screaming at you. 

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO HIM?!” Yuri demanded, expression crazed with suspicion.

“I was washing his hair!” You insisted, guilt tinging your tone, and then realized you weren't at fault here. He was the culprit. Plus, he'd interrupted whatever moment you were about to have with Jiro. His second major offense. You clenched your hands into fists. “Which he hasn't done in four days since you never give him any time to take care of himself!” You snapped.

Yuri withdrew in indignation, “How dare you speak to me that way, worm!” His hand pressed to his chest, over his heart. “Jiro has 24/7 care from the world's best doctor and foremost researcher on anomalous medicine. He should be grateful!”

You were ready to throw hands when Jiro spoke up. “Yuri, I'll finish up here in a few minutes and bring you tea after.” If only he knew the amount of blood he just prevented from being spilled.

Yuri bristled and rearranged his lab coat. “You do that. I'll be in the lab and you,” he pointed at you again with distaste, “will be going anywhere but here!”

Waving an annoyed hand at him, you retorted, “Let me just wash my hands and I'll be on my way.”

Yuri glowered at you and opened the door to leave, “Don't forget my tea,” he commanded, slamming the door behind him

You positively steamed while washing your hands in the slightly cool water of the sink. You couldn't even ask “who does he think he is” because he had to announce it every five minutes. Dr. Yuri Isami, genius and visionary. Best doctor ever, blah blah blah. Distracted with frustration, you almost forgot Jiro was soaking in the tub behind you until you turned to dry your hands and leave and caught him sitting up and staring at you again.

He was running a washcloth down his shoulder and arm when he spoke, “I'll let you help me again.”

You snorted. It seemed so flippant a conclusion, and yet… you weren't ready to walk away without one last question. “You're capable of doing this yourself. Why would you let me help you?”

He considered this, wringing the washcloth out over his chest, sending a cascade of soap bubbles and water down his skin that you watched with nothing more than scholarly interest. He didn't even look at you when he answered, his voice as cool and apathetic as always, “It must be because I care about you.”

[sayruq]

Immediate international action must be taken to investigate the hundreds of mass and random graves in the Gaza Strip containing the bodies of thousands of Palestinian victims since the start of Israel’s genocide, ongoing since 7 October 2023. Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor field teams have closely observed the recovery of hundreds of dead bodies from these mass graves, some of which were found in the courtyards of different Gaza Strip hospitals. The significant number of graves and bodies is concerning and calls for rapid international action, which should include the immediate creation of an independent international investigation committee to look into the circumstances surrounding the creation of these graves and the deaths of the victims buried in them. This is especially important given that a large number of the victims were directly subjected to premeditated murder and arbitrary and extrajudicial executions while handcuffed. A technical committee of experts is needed to investigate the burial circumstances and determine the cause of death of the victims that have been recovered. Additionally, a system for future identification ofdeceased victims’ identities must be developed.

The Euro-Med Monitor field teams previously documented the recovery of dozens of bodies from the mass graves in Al-Shifa Medical Complex’s courtyards, belonging to handcuffed victims, otherindividuals who were wounded but not provided withmedical care, and those who were executed despite their health conditions. The victims’ decomposing bodies were found in several places, with some having been run over by Israeli bulldozers which left their bodies torn into pieces. The presence of urinary catheters or splints, whichwere found to be still attached to some of the dead patients’ bodies during the exhumation process, as well as medical files that were buried with them in Al-Shifa Medical Complex, confirm the execution of ill and injured people. Due to the extended period of time in which the bodies were left in the mass graves—as Israeli forces had impeded their recovery for the past few months—most of the bodies were in a state of decomposition when recovered. Some of the corpses had also evidently been mauled by cats and dogs. Dr Moatasem Saeed Salah, a member of the Ministry of Health’s emergency committee, told Euro-MedMonitor that after the withdrawal of Israeli forces, 30 bodies were found to have been buried in two makeshift cemeteries in Al-Shifa Medical Complexduring the Israeli siege of the medical facility. One of these cemeteries was in front of the reception and emergency department, and the second was in front of the industrial department. Salah said that only 14 of the victims had been successfully identified, with the rest being patients or injured individuals who had been receiving treatment in the hospital.

[soon-palestine]

Palestinian Territory - The Israeli authorities continue to enforce their ongoing arbitrary blockade of the Gaza Strip, refusing to allow humanitarian aid and necessities that are essential for survival—such as cleaning and personal hygiene supplies—into the Strip. This comes amid the spread of infectious diseases and on top of the precarious living conditions faced by the approximately 2.3 million Palestinians in the enclave, constituting a perpetuation of Israel’s comprehensive crime of genocide, which began on 7 October 2023.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor emphasises that the consequences of Israel’s intentional worsening of the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip, by blocking people’s access to cleaning and personal hygiene products, medical equipment, and sterilisation supplies, are dire. Nothing justifies subjecting the population to conditions that can cause widespread death, including by causing the spread of serious skin diseases and and infections, including hepatitis.

Israel continues to systematically and arbitrarily deny hygiene supplies and equipment to all Gaza Strip residents, exacerbating the catastrophic health crisis that Israel has caused there. This crisis has been made worse by the population’s forced, widespread, and repeatedly occurring displacement, as well as the lack of personal hygiene supplies and disinfectants in shelters and camps housing hundreds of thousands of displaced people. Israel continues to prevent and obstruct the entry of the most basic supplies into the Strip, creating conditions that are ripe for the spread of infectious diseases, water pollution, and the absence of sanitation services, as Israeli army forces have destroyed these facilities.

Since the beginning of the genocide nearly, Israel has arbitrarily closed crossings into the Gaza Strip, blocking the entry of humanitarian supplies and the flow of food and water. These actions have resulted in a dangerous accumulation of crises that directly threaten the lives and health of the Gaza Strip’s residents, most notably due to their lack of access to food, clean water, medicines, medical supplies, sanitary tools, and cleaning supplies.

Aya Kamal Ashour Abed, a 20-year-old displaced mother of two at the Deir al-Balah Preparatory School for Girls in the central Gaza Strip, spoke with the Euro-Med Monitor team. “We are more than 30 people living in this classroom for about nine months,” she stated. “A few months ago, we numbered roughly 70, but after some of the displaced individuals relocated to tents outside the school, our numbers dropped somewhat.

“We only receive cleaning and personal hygiene supplies in small quantities every two or three months, despite the fact that our number is very high and we require them constantly,” Abed continued. “Sanitation supplies, like tissues, soap, and shampoo, are extremely expensive [or] even nonexistent in the markets.”

Added Abed, “A bar of soap, for instance, now costs 30 shekels (roughly nine USD) while a bottle of shampoo costs 90 shekels (roughly 25 USD). We do not have anything to eat, so how can we afford these amounts for basic hygiene?”

Abed, who was displaced from her home in the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip following its bombing last October, said that her two sons had become afflicted with allergies and bacteria, for which she is unable to provide ointments because they are unavailable in UNRWA clinics. “I showed my son to the doctor, and he told me that his entire body is seriously infected with bacteria due to poor hygiene,” Abed told Euro-Med Monitor.

Obtaining sanitary pads—which are pricey and hard to find in local markets—is one of her biggest challenges. “Even though my children’s diapers are completely unusable, I have to cut them into tiny pieces and use them as sanitary pads,” Abed explained. “During my period, I also have to use a single pad for the entire day, which has led to numerous infections and rashes.”

Approximately 680,000 women and girls in the Gaza Strip are of reproductive age. These individuals lack access to menstrual pads and other essentials, and also face other challenges such as inadequate access to water, toilets, various hygiene products, and privacy. Additionally, they must use contaminated or unsterilised materials, which puts them at risk of developing infections that can lead to infertility and uterine cancer.

Since Israel has cut off electricity to the Gaza Strip, there is a growing risk to all residents caused by waste accumulation and sewage flooding of roads and markets due to the inability to drain it. Israel has destroyed most of the Strip’s vital infrastructure, including sewage networks, and forced over two million people—the majority of whom have been displaced more than once—into shelters and tents that lack the basic necessities of life, personal hygiene, and health care.

Forty-two-year-old Mohammed Saad Abu Haitham said that his family of eight, which resides in a tent in the Mawasi neighborhood of Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, is severely impacted by the lack of cleaning supplies, laundry detergent, and bar soap. Due to its scarcity, soap is unusually expensive and therefore difficult to purchase.

“We do not have the money to buy enough meals for our children, so we cannot buy cleaning materials and soap in light of their high prices and the lack of availability,” Abu Haitham told the Euro-Med Monitor team. “My spouse and kids’ hair has been infected with lice, and we all have skin diseases as a result of not washing and not using enough soap and shampoo.”

Food dyes are used instead of traditional dyes for making liquid soap and sterilisation products, which have not entered the Gaza Strip in months due to the Israeli closure of the crossings and the imposition of an arbitrary siege. These alternative and primitive cleaning products are made locally, are unsafe, and are generally insufficient in both quality and quantity when sold in the markets of the central and southern Gaza Strip.

Tens of thousands of cases of skin diseases, including eczema, have been reported to medical facilities as having cropped up in shelters and camps for displaced people living in tents. This is particularly concerning for women, as eczema often appears on the hands of people working to clean food utensils using antiquated and dangerous materials. Meanwhile, reports from the United Nations indicate that skin rashes and skin infections, especially among children, are sharply increasing in the Strip.

The Israeli authorities have placed an arbitrary and oppressive siege on the Palestinian people there, squeezing them into a tiny area with exceedingly limited resources; denying them access to food, clean water, and other necessities; and leaving them exposed to extreme heat.

The right to dignity is an internationally recognised human right that protects people from humiliation, among other forms of unethical treatment. It is meant to ensure fairness by providing the means for people to live in dignity, as well as other fundamental needs and rights, like the right to health and the right to water and sanitation. These rights are essential to maintaining human dignity and preserving the lives of the populace.

The only way to guarantee the rights of Gaza Strip residents is to put an end to Israel’s crime of genocide, lift the arbitrary siege on the Strip, and rescue what remains of the currently uninhabitable region. Delays will either cause the region to irreversibly deteriorate, or incur significant costs in terms of civilian lives and health.

The international community is required to guarantee the entry of humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, including the entry of non-food essentials needed to respond to the dire circumstances faced by the Strip’s entire population. Euro-Med Monitor stresses that swift and effective action must be taken to safely deliver aid to civilians across the entire Strip, including the northern section, which is particularly isolated right now. Additionally, the international community must prioritise providing adequate supplies of personal and family hygiene products, as well as products for menstruating individuals, plus sexual and reproductive health care services to prevent and mitigate further harm to women and children in particular, and the entire Palestinian population in general. These actions are mandated by international human rights law and relevant international obligations.

Pressure needs to be put on Israel, as the occupying force, to maintain sanitation facilities and services in the Gaza Strip, as well as to guarantee the safety of the technicians charged with repairing and renovating water lines and their various sources. The main water pipelines that enter the Strip need to be restored, particularly those that enter it from the north.

In addition to ensuring the entry of enough fuel to operate the Gaza Strip’s water and sanitation infrastructure, including desalination plants, water wells, and mobile toilets, it is crucial to exert pressure on Israel to permit the entry of materials required for repair work and rehabilitation of civilian infrastructure. These services are essential to the civilian population’s survival in the Strip, and will protect them from the threat of further health disasters.

[thestarryeyedadmirer]

In my head, these four are brothers. Allow me to explain…

Tom:

Tom is the oldest of the bunch—the responsible one. An honest, well-mannered fellow, he’s spent his whole life having to look out for others, so he’s gotten pretty used to being the guy who speaks up and calls the shots. It doesn’t matter where he is, or who he’s with, he moves through life with a presentational sense of confidence and behaves as though he’s the top dog—in charge of everyone—which is something that stems from some deep-seeded childhood trauma. As far back as he can remember, he’s been second in command to his parents’ authority… the one that would handle his brothers’ petty disputes and emotional outbursts when his parents weren’t in the immediate vicinity. If something went wrong, he had to handle it… and when he couldn’t get things in order, he was the one who took the fall. Everything was his fault… and everything was his problem to fix. Each of his brothers’ actions were considered his actions, and every single one of his actions were seen an example… a precedent for his younger siblings. Somehow, the shame and paranoia that used to haunt him transformed into an unhealthy form of pride. These days, that natural tendency to overpower every other voice in a room tends to bite him in the butt… but it’s not totally a bad thing. With endless experience in being a mediator, Tom has grown to be an incredible problem solver and people-person, who values rationality and above all else, and possesses exceptional emotional intelligence. What’s right is right, and what’s wrong is wrong. There is no gray area or leeway… only reasonable explanations, that sway toward either side. These days, he’s still parenting his brothers in many ways—keeping them from making bad decisions, lending them money whenever they need it, and breaking up their petty fights. That’ll never change. He’s a successful author—who’s written several bestselling motivational, business, and self-help books in his career—the co-owner of a small chain of coffee shops on the west coast, and he’s invested in several local businesses all over the state. Even though that may sound like a lot… and it is… Tom isn’t exactly rolling around in millions—just one or two. Living by himself, in a big house by the beach, just a few hours away from his childhood home and immediate family, he’s pretty comfortable. He’s got no spouse to compromise with, no children to chastise, and nobody around to put any kind of pressure on him, and him feel like he’s doing something wrong. It’s just perfect.

Jordan:

Jordan is the second oldest—the bad boy. Growing up with Tom as his big brother, micromanaging his every move, and constantly filling his head with arbitrary concepts of right and wrong, Jordan has always enjoyed the thrill of breaking rules. Even as an adult, he hates having to answer to anyone, and will go out of his way to defy the wishes of any authority figures that he encounters. He’s not dangerous, by any means, but more of a petty pest—the kind of guy who pokes the bear for fun, until it mauls him to death. He doesn’t go overboard with the things that he does to spite people, or purposefully put anyone in danger… but he’s still an asshole. An asshole who, deep down, has a good heart… though he tries his best not to show it. Jordan flunked out of college because he stopped going to class, after spending an entire semester causing disruptions in lecture halls and cheating on assignments. He got kicked out of his parents’ house because he kept rigging all of the electronic appliances to shock whoever used them. He’s even been to jail a few times, for a handful of stupid non-violent crimes that he committed in his early twenties. Nothing serious. Jordan is such a dick, he can’t keep a job, or a partner, or even a roof over his head. He lives fast, breezes through his life like a speeding train—one thing after another, after another—and now he’s so far down the wrong path, he’s hit a dead end. In his late twenties, he wants nothing more than to get his life on track, and find some sense of stability… but old habits die hard, and abrasive personalities don’t change overnight. Having not spoken to his family for years, he’s recently reconnected with his brothers, CJ and Stephen, and is trying to make up for the lost time. As far as reconciling with Tom and their parents goes, it’s still a work in progress. Tom sends him money every now and then, and checks in on him from time to time, but they haven’t really spoken in ages. Aside from his brothers, Jordan has no other family to rely on—no serious partners, or any kids… that he knows of—so it’s important to him that he un-burns those bridges as soon as he can. These days, Jordan is either living out of his car or crashing at CJ’s apartment. He makes his money via Onlyfans, Fansly, and a wide selection of cam sites, just so he can get by. Seeing the wonders that it’s done for others—like CJ—and feeling as though he has no other legal options, he’s only testing the waters of the porn world while he waits for something better to come along, but the money is looking good, and the job prospects are thin. Maybe he’ll ride the wave a bit longer.

CJ:

Cj is the second youngest—the sexy himbo. He’s gone his whole life skating by on his looks alone, and he doesn’t plan on stopping anytime soon. He first knew he was handsome when he was a little boy… when women at the grocery store would stop him and his mother in the aisles and gush over how cute they thought he was. They’d pinch his cheeks, ruffle his hair, and go on and on about how he was going to be a heartbreaker when he grew up. Little did they know that they were creating a little monster. When he got to elementary school, and started to interact with other kids more frequently, he quickly noticed how all of the little girls in his class would fawn over him. They’d bat their little eyelashes and giggle like mice whenever he spoke… and, at first, it made him a bit uncomfortable. He wasn’t used to that kind of attention from kids his age. Most, if not all of his typical admirers were grown women, just being sweet… but, as the years went on, and the girls got more bold, he began to learn how to use his looks to his advantage, and get the better of his peers. CJ wasn’t good at long division in third grade, so he’d always ask the smart girls to do his math homework for him—bribe them with quick kisses, or by inviting them to play with him at recess, and use them like his own personal minions. They were so easy to trick. Middle school was just the same. He got taller, his voice dropped, his teenage features started to take shape, and his lean physique became more muscular… and from the time he entered the sixth grade, all the way up through the end of his eighth grade year, he hardly ever had to try academically. That’s how easy life was for him, up until he graduated high school. Instead of doing things himself, he’d just pass the buck to someone else and take the credit for what they did—whether it was a beautiful, naive girl, or his own brothers—and, by the time he was a legal adult, he had nothing to show for himself. He couldn’t do simple math, or read any books that didn’t have interesting pictures on them. He couldn’t cook for himself, do his own laundry, or drive a car. He could hardly even hold a conversation. Tom tried to help him learn, teaching him how to care for himself—past maintaining his appearance—but he quickly gave up the effort when his career started to take off. Left to his own devices, as an extremely late bloomer, CJ didn’t have any of the skills that it took to make it as an adult… but he did have his amazing body. Using what he had in order to get what he wanted, CJ dove headfirst into the porn industry, taking any job that came his way, and stacking up the money. He did both amateur and professional work—hardcore stuff, fetish stuff, taboo stuff, and vanilla. He slept with guys, girls, and everyone in between, all in an effort to make enough cash to move out of his parents’ house and live on his own… and it didn’t take long before he had the keys to his very own apartment. Now, he’s living by himself, pumping out NSFW content like a peon factory, making thousands of dollars a week, and showing Jordan how he can do the same. Having been in the business for a few years, CJ is a very successful entertainer… and, after years of being a lackluster student, he’s finally discovering the joys of teaching and mentoring someone else, for a change.

Stephen:

Stephen is the youngest—the kind-hearted, awkward geek, who’s just trying to start what will be the rest of his life on the right track. Having idolized his eldest brother, Tom, for pretty much all of his life, Stephen knows that it takes hard work, intelligence, and integrity to be successful in this world, and he wants to build a great foundation for the rest of his life to thrive on. He sees the things that his other brothers are doing, and he doesn’t judge them for it, or see them as any lesser, but he knows that he wants more for himself than what they have. He wants to be like Tom. His only problem is that he’s in his first semester of college, and he still doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life yet. There are so many possibilities, and so many paths that he could follow. He could be a doctor, or an engineer, or a writer. He always did have an interest in biology and anatomy, and he’s got his academic transcripts are outstanding. He could be an architect, or go into the business world. The choices are endless! Just barely nineteen, living under his parents’ roof, he’s a blank canvas with the world at his feet… and he has no idea what he wants to do with it yet.

Maybe I’ll end up writing some story with these characters soon… explore them some more.