#I have been practicing law for over 25 years

[married-to-a-redhead]

I have seen a few people post this on their Tumblr. So with all due respect, I am going to do a quick PSA.

That’s not how this works. That’s not how any of this works.

Posting this quite literally does absolutely nothing. Please stop.

I am not sure what legal counsel provided this advice, but they should be immediately disbarred. And publicly ridiculed.

[loserbigsis]

Help a trans woman continue her life in spite of medical transphobia.

Hey, I've been putting off making a post like this for a while now, but I really need help paying for DIY HRT after having been entirely cut off from official transitional healthcare in my country (Denmark) and new laws on prescription refills making me unable to share meds with my girlfriend anymore.

I've almost died from blood clots twice in the last 3 years due to a V-Leiden blood mutation, in 2021 I was admitted to the ER with over 15 small clots in my lungs, pulmonary infarction (lung tissue necrosis) and pneumonia, because I'm trans the doctor they sent to look at me was a "hormone disease specialist" who took one look at my chart and instantly decided my half decade long medical transition was entirely to blame for the clotting, without consulting a thrombosis specialist, or doing any bloodwork or testing whatsoever (technically medical discriminations). After getting prematurely discharged by said "specialist", who basically just told me to stop transitioning and fuck off, I had to fight for over 3 months with doctors to get a blood screen done with an actual thrombosis specialist, here they found the actual underlying cause, which is that I'm a V-Leiden carrier with an 8 to 12 times higher clotting chance than a non-carrier, but made the decision to not keep me on blood thinning treatment after the initial 6 month period post discharge, causing another pulmonary episode + DVT on my girlfriend's birthday in 2023 where I again almost died due to 25+ more clots having formed in my lungs (the largest pressing on my heart) and both legs. Following this episode I was put on blood thinners (Eliquis) for life.

After this, I went to consult with the gender clinic (we only have 3 which are all part of the same institution, and private practices are banned from providing any form of transitional healthcare in Denmark, even just blood tests for hormone levels) where they gave me an arbitrary weight loss goal to get my hormones back, causing me to backslide intensely into anorexia and lose 50kg in 1 year. Then after I had finally reached my goal late last year they took it up on conference and decided even after losing all that weight, being put on blood thinners permanently, quitting smoking and restructuring my entire diet and life around minimizing my condition that they still couldn't justify putting me back on my estrogen spray or an anti-androgen "due to the risk factors", completely disregarding both my bodily autonomy and the fact that HRT is 100% necessary for minimum quality of life for me, and because Denmark has no forms of medical informed-consent combined with the inability for me to get a second opinion within our medical system, this effectively permanently ended my access to transitional healthcare, forcing me to medically detransition.

The consequences of all of this has been disastrous for my mental and physical health to say the least. I don't leave my apartment more than once or twice every 2 months. I've had to cover all the mirrors in my home because the constant reminder of all this has made me more suicidal than ever. It's made it nearly impossible to find the will and motivation to keep up my life style changes like not smoking, I'm afraid to exercise at the risk of potentially masculinizing myself further. I can't maintain a job or education or any sort of social life anymore. My transition has cost me every single meaningful connection I had pre-coming out, and now it feels like the rug has been pulled out from under me, and all of those sacrifices where for nothing. Every day i have to force myself to take my blood thinners because a part of me wants to just stop in the hope that the next clotting episode will kill me.

I need HRT, I can't continue like this and I can't accept life without transitioning. I know the risks, but those are my risks to take, it's my body and my life, and I would rather live 10 years being happy and me than another 50 as a ghost like this.

My Paypal: @LoserBigSis My GF's Paypal: @QueenSizedDonger (in case something happens to mine)

[doobea]

I CAN MAKE YOUR BED ROCK - RIN ITOSHI

synopsis: You're a famous online smut author, married to an international superstar athlete, and everyone around you thinks you have the perfect sex life. What they don't realize is Rin sleeps in the guest room and you're still very much a virgin.

contents: fem!reader, arranged marriage, suggestive themes but nothing too explicit (read with caution), characters are all in their mid/late-20s, reader has a small supportive friend group of other smut authors, mentions of alcohol, sex toys, and lots of failed attempts to seduce an oblivious (?) husband, mdni word count: 2.4k a/n: you guys already know that this is gonna be a wild one. is this my debut attempt to write smut but make it a romcom? maybe. this is gonna be a four-part series!!

一 : Oh baby, I be stuck to you like glue ->next.

To say that you’re infamous on the internet isn’t an exaggeration but a truth. No, you haven’t posted anything controversial regarding your marital status and haven’t gotten yourself into a crazy D-List influencer scandal; you’re infamous solely because of your erotica literature and, surprisingly, your in-laws were fine with it.

“Whatever brings home the money.” Your father-in-law would always chime. 

You weren't ashamed of your career, and it practically all started in college when you wanted to pass the time writing for your favorite fandom. In a short amount of time, you had gained a small devoted following on your blog that made a lightbulb switch go off in your head - what if I could do this for a living? And so you did. Fast forward three years, now you are making a comfortable living working from anywhere with a wifi signal available and have over 950k followers on your socials, all under your alias 'YN Finalis'. With that many followers, most people would feel worried about their personal life being breached, but you're not dumb; you like to keep your personal life on, what you like to call, "low battery" mode.

Here's what your near million followers do know about: you’re 24 pushing on 25, you've come from a rather wealthy background, you’re married to an athlete, you’ve written well over 40 original explicit stories, and you have a plethora of sex toys and contraptions in your master bedroom.

What they don't know is: you're in an arranged marriage with Rin Itoshi for the past year, he only sleeps in the guest bedroom, and you're a virgin with a really creative mind.

Crazy, right?

But it's not like you're alone in your thoughts, today was the day when you decided to finally vent to your close fellow internet authors about your sexual frustrations.

"My in-laws keep asking me the same thing every time they call," Your voice reaches your laptop where your weekly meeting was set up on the kitchen counter. "I mean just how do they expect us to have a kid when my own husband doesn't even touch me?" You finish the remaining wine in your glass in dismay as sudden gasps were heard from the laptop's speakers.

"He hasn't initiated sex with you in these last few months?" Chigiri gasps.

"More like in the entirety of our relationship." You cry as you pour out another glass. You pick up your laptop, frowning seeing everyone's solemn looks, and make your way to your living room couch. "I'm still a virgin for crying out loud, like who's still a virgin at 24?"

Probably a lot of people but this is about you, not them!

"Oh my god," Hiori looks like he was going to cry for you. "Maybe your husband's just shy? Could it be he hasn't found the right time for it?"

"But a whole year?" Bachira is next to speak. "No wonder your stories have been popping off, you've been super horny."

You try to hold back your drunken sniffles. "I just don't understand! It's not like I'm ugly or anything, plenty of people wanted to date me back in college! He comes home to a clean house, I make fantastic meals that aren't just a ham and turkey sandwich, and for his past birthday I even gifted him an all-paid trip to Okinawa!"

"Shit," Shidou whistles, "I'd fuck you if you made me a ham and turkey sandwich."

"Not now for jokes." Hiori scolds and his tone softens when he speaks to you, "Outside of sex, has your husband been good to you?"

You pinch the bridge of your nose in frustration. "God, yes. He's so good to me you have no idea."

It wasn't like Rin was neglecting you in other forms of intimacy. Hugs and brief kisses were frequent both in and outside of the house. He loves holding your hands, shopping for clothes with you, giving you forehead kisses, and kissing you 'good morning' and 'good night' every day. There was absolutely nothing wrong with him, other than the occasional 'I'm irritated and I need my space' phase that required a whole evening to himself - but that was beside the point.

"Have you guys even talked about it?" Hiori continues.

"Oh god, absolutely no, it's an arranged marriage for fuck sake. What if I come off too strong and he doesn't even see me like that? Then the whole marriage will just be awkward!"

"But he's willing to do all those other things you listed down, maybe he is just shy." Bachira retorts.

"You think maybe he swings the other way?" Shidou asks but it's genuine this time.

A long period of silence falls over everyone as they try to figure out what they could help you with. But ultimately this was your husband to figure out, Rin wasn't married to them and they don't even know who Rin Itoshi was.

“Ah, whatever!” You swirl the wine in your glass around, frowning at your sullen reflection. “Maybe we’ll just end up adopting a baby instead of having one, maybe his parents won’t be able to tell the difference. And maybe I’ll just have to resort to reading other smut to satisfy my lack of intimacy. Chigiri, when is that next chapter coming out?”

A few clicks are heard from the other side of the screen before he says, “You’re in luck, I’m about to have my friend beta read this and it should be up by tonight.”

Perfect, you thought.

Chigiri, whose online username is RedPanther, has the third most followers on the adult website that everyone in the group was a part of. He's known for his works centering around the tropes 'forced proximity' and 'enemies to lovers', often the smut he writes will include a steamy threesome that has some sort of pegging involved - but that's always towards the second to last chapter.

"Oh!" Bachira calls out your name with a smile, "Aren't you working on a new story yourself?"

“Remind me again,” Shidou leans forward, "what's this one about?"

You find yourself feeling slightly lighter now that you've vented and the topic has shifted to something you're more confident speaking about. After a few seconds of rummaging through your Word documents, you drag the file labeled "I CAN MAKE YOUR BED ROCK - rough outlines & ideas.doc" to the group chat. Rarely do you ever share your creativity flow with other people but, after your unwarranted trauma dump, you figure it was better than nothing.

"Funny enough, it's loosely based on my marriage." You confess sheepishly, "This is my way of coping with it, I guess."

"Nothing wrong with that." Hiori chimes in, "It's free compared to having a shitty therapist!"

"Damn woman," Shidou's pink eyes dart back and forth from the screen, eyebrows furrowing up and down as he makes his way through your well-detailed outline. "you need to get laid, ASAP."

You click open your story file to follow along. In the tags section, you listed: Arranged marriage, unrequited love/one-sided, brat tamer, BDSM, choking, spanking, spitting, breeding kink, cum slu–

Okay, maybe Shidou is right (which is a surprise), you do need to get laid. But it's also okay to get slightly defensive for the sake of your ego, right?

You playfully roll your eyes at your group mate. "Ok ok, no need to judge that hard coming from the person who literally writes degradation kinks for a living!"

"Well, I think this story will be your best one yet!" Chigiri and Bachira both flip you a thumbs up over on their end of the call.

After a few more exchanges of small story updates in everyone's life, you all decided to end the call since it was getting rather late in the afternoon and you have yet to get started on dinner. You briefly thank Chigiri for his upcoming update and hop off, just in time before you hear the familiar sounds of the front door opening.

"I'm back."

"Welcome back, Rin!"

You can't help but feel slightly embarrassed and guilty that you were essentially gossiping about your husband's lack of sex drive to your friend group, which he hardly knows about, when he comes home with a large bag of takeout and your favorite coffee order. Rin is dressed in his typical workout outfit, which consists of a black form-fitting t-shirt and grey sweatpants that were just loose enough that you can still make an outline of his 'magic jewels', as Bachira likes to write.

"Baby, you didn't have to." You quickly grab the items from his hands so he can set down his gym bag.

He hums in response, briefly kissing your forehead before making his way into the kitchen to fetch a tall glass of water. "You've been cooking all week so I wanted you to take a small break," Rin says with a smile.

Your ears go warm and mimic the smile back, “Thanks, how was practice today?”

He sighs through his nose and wipes away the remaining sweat-covered bangs sticking to his forehead. “Rougher than usual but nothing too crazy. Isagi was more annoying compared to yesterday.” Rin says with a small pout.

“Boo,” You stick your tongue out in agreement, “how dare he annoys my one and only husband?”

“Oh, shut up.” He flicks a finger to your cheek and lets out the slightest fake scoff.

After hydrating, Rin announces quietly that he’ll come back to eat as soon as he takes a shower and darts to the guest bedroom. And with that, you’re reminded of your odd predicament.

He is a good husband and knows that you care for him and vice versa. When both sets of parents first introduced you two, it was awkward and you knew from reading his background that he wasn’t the most sociable of people but you were, and still are, patient. This arranged marriage was more or less a business deal between fathers; your father held the CEO title at a top entertainment company in the nation and Rin’s father wanted to secure the spotlight for the growing star athlete. Rin didn’t say much during that meeting, and neither did you.

Your first kiss with him was also on your first date. It was at his apartment, both of you shared the same hobby of playing horror games, and you were sitting thigh to thigh on his two-seater couch. You were dying multiple rounds in, fingers bruised from button-mashing and mind-busied with inappropriate thoughts as you kept stealing glances at your painfully attractive fiance. It didn’t take long for Rin to notice because it was stupidly obvious. He sat his controller down, took one look at you, and asked, “Do you want me to kiss you?” with a weird little smile that was seemingly almost out of character from what you knew of him. And the kiss was … awkward to say the least. You remembered him leaning down and you were leaning up, mashing lips and a little bit of teeth together. No amount of research that you had done days prior could’ve prepped for that. And it was almost as if it was his first time kissing too, but you fixated on your inexperience than pay any mind to his mysterious relationship track record. 

One year later and you’re still stuck at first base.

As if on cue, you feel your phone give out a series of buzzes in your back pocket, already knowing that it’s from your online penpals. You break out from your thoughts and scroll to the top of the messages:

Bachira M. [BluntBangs] “You should try seducing him tonight!” Hiori Y. [ChoppyCyan] “You remember reading Chigiri’s fan favorite short story - “Till Death Do Us Part”? There was this one scene where the characters had to share one bed because the other bedroom got ruined by a leak! Maybe you can “accidentally” make that happen too?” Chigiri H. [RedPanther] “I remember I had a fun time writing that scene. You should definitely try and flirt with him, y/n.” Shidou R. [HornyDemon] “And if your husband won’t fuck you then I will /jk” Hiori Y. [ChoppyCyan] “Shut up you’ll fuck anything that has a pulse”

They weren’t necessarily wrong. You didn’t want this dynamic to potentially go on for another year or even for the rest of your life - trying wouldn’t hurt anyone, right? 

You quickly fill up a pitcher of water then peer into the spare guest room and notice warm lighting bleeding through the cracks coming from the bathroom door and the sounds of running water. With Rin still busy washing up, you take the liberty to start messing around for your impromptu operation. You weren’t exactly sure when or who suggested sleeping in separate bedrooms to start but, to your knowledge, this is the first time that you’ve actually sneaked around in his room.

You start with the closet, opening its double doors and seeing his clothes all hung in order and by color. His sneakers and cleats were all stored in separate clear cases in the bottom corner while there is a small center shelf in the middle that holds his cologne, deodorant, and moisturizer. He’s neat, you think to yourself before deciding that it’s probably best to leave his belongings alone and focus on ruining something in the room that was less personal. Next is the carefully made bed with extra fluffed pillows, then the freshly well-kept plants on the window sill, followed by the small framed photo of your wedding day on the bedside table. Guilt immediately rushes over your consciousness.

“No, this won’t do either.” You groan, suddenly feeling like this is the dumbest thing on earth now. “I should just give up.” 

“y/n?” Rin’s voice calls out and you snap your head towards his direction, soon to be met with a series of incoherent sputtering from the male as you realize that he’s completely wet and naked.

“Oh my god!” Hands and pitcher fly to your redden face as you try to come up with an excuse but nothing comes out the way you want it to, “I-I uh–water! I thought you needed more water–I’m sorry!”

You hear him scrambling around the room, most likely searching for a towel to cover up his impressive lower half. “You’re fine,” Rin’s voice sounds flustered and unusually high pitched, “just give me a second–”

“N-No I’m sorry! I don’t even know why I’m standing here I should just go and–” Closing your eyes might’ve been the worst choice all day because soon your body meets the wall and soon the floor, spilling the pitcher’s contents all over you in the process. 

Your phone vibrates again, text reading:

Bachira M. [BluntBangs] “Did it work?!”

[reasonsforhope]

Version that doesn't require sign-in.

"Hot Labor Summer just became a scorcher.

[On August 25, 2023], the National Labor Relations Board released its most important ruling in many decades. In a party-line decision in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific, LLC, the Board ruled that when a majority of a company’s employees file union affiliation cards, the employer can either voluntarily recognize their union or, if not, ask the Board to run a union recognition election. If, in the run-up to or during that election, the employer commits an unfair labor practice, such as illegally firing pro-union workers (which has become routine in nearly every such election over the past 40 years, as the penalties have been negligible), the Board will order the employer to recognize the union and enter forthwith [a.k.a. immediately] into bargaining.

The Cemex decision was preceded by another, one day earlier, in which the Board, also along party lines, set out rules for representation elections which required them to be held promptly after the Board had been asked to conduct them, curtailing employers’ ability to delay them, often indefinitely.

Taken together, this one-two punch effectively makes union organizing possible again, after decades in which unpunished employer illegality was the most decisive factor in reducing the nation’s rate of private-sector unionization from roughly 35 percent to the bare 6 percent at which it stands today...

“This is a sea change, a home run for workers,” said Brian Petruska, an attorney for the Laborers Union who authored a 2017 law review article on how to effectively restore to workers their right to collective bargaining enshrined in the 1935 National Labor Relations Act, which was all but nullified by the act’s weakening over the past half-century. Taken together, Petruska added, last week’s decisions recreate “a system with no tolerance for employers’ coercion of their employees” when their employees seek their legal right to collective bargaining...

Since the days of Lyndon Johnson, every time that the Democrats have controlled the White House and both houses of Congress, they’ve tried to put some teeth back into the steadily more toothless NLRA. But they’ve never managed to muster the 60 votes needed to get those measures through the Senate. The Cemex ruling actually goes beyond much of what was proposed in those never-enacted bills."

-via The American Prospect, August 28, 2023

--

Note: I didn't include it because the paragraphs about it went super into the weeds, but the reason all of this is happening is because of the NRLB's general counsel, Jennifer Abruzzo, who was appointed by Biden. In fact, according to this article, this "secures Abruzzo’s place as the most important public official to secure American workers’ rights since New York Sen. Robert Wagner, who authored the NLRA in 1935." Voting matters

[pixydustworld]

The clock above the fireplace read 11:35pm. 25 minutes until midnight. They had exactly 25 minutes to consummate their marriage.

Hermione wondered how the ministry would know if her shiny new husband didn't come inside her.

She drank more champagne.

“It doesn't have to be painful.” Malfoy said, staring above her head at the wall, seeming eager to over analyze the wallpaper, “There are ways for it to be.” He took a deep breath. “Enjoyable.”

“I’ve had sex before.” Hermione said.

“You have?” His voice was a touch surprised.

Hermione narrowed her eyes.

“Loads of times.” Hermione scoffed (three times, to be specific, and it had been almost a year since the last time) “I’m an expert.”

Malfoy had the audacity to look relieved. “Good.” He said, “I’m glad you’ve had pleasurable experiences. When — when, we, consummate — ”

“Fuck.” Hermione said at the same time as him.

“— fuck,” Malfoy practically hissed, “Just. Just think of them.”

Hermione nodded. “Right.” She said, “Sure.” He was staring at her. Waiting for something; her permission, perhaps. “You can think about other people, too.”

The first time she’d had sex, Harry had been soft, if not a little too gentle. In the tent, surrounded by darkness and the ever present promise of death, their fumbling hands had met. It hadn’t been painful, but it hadn’t been overly pleasant, either. It just had been them.

The second time she’d had sex, Ron had been eager to please her, but it had felt off. Like a sneeze that wouldn’t come, like an itch just below her reach — overall, it had been unremarkable and unfortunately for her and Ron’s budding romance, a little unsettling.

The third, and subsequently final time, Hermione had decided that she needed to stop having sex with immediate members of her very small friend group, and Seamus Finnigan had been happy to oblige her.

In the middle, he’d gotten a leg cramp and accidentally headbutted her.

She’d gotten a bloody nose, and Seamus still wasn’t able to make eye contact with her without cringing.

Then, the marriage law had been announced, and Hermione had been too swept up in writing motions and testifying in court to worry about the elusiveness of her own sex life.

“Did you ever think you’d get married?” Hermione asked to rupture the silence that had stretched on for a bit too long. It seemed like a fitting question to ask, given their predicament. “I was never sure.”

Malfoy smiled and Hermione felt her stomach twist. This would all be much easier if he wasn't so handsome. “It was never my choice.” He said, “I always knew I’d marry someone my father chose for me. Perhaps that’s why I accepted all this — the lack of choice, that is something I’m familiar with.”

“You, however, fought to the bitter end.” He continued, “very valiantly, I might add. As is your nature.”

“It didn't work.” Hermione said softly. Admitting defeat to Draco Malfoy never seemed possible before — but now? It felt almost inescapable, the partnership that was materializing between them. Like the golden thread of fate was tightening around their wrists.

“You’ll figure out a way to make them suffer.”

“Not my nature,” Hermione said, finishing her glass of champagne, “That’s yours.”

The clock read 11:40pm. It seemed they could no longer avoid fate.

“If we don’t consummate,” Malfoy was saying, voice sounding far away, “And the punishment is a fine, I can pay it. I won’t pretend I’m not above bribery, either. I — we — have a lot of money. Perhaps we could buy the Minister an island? Do you think he’d like that?”

“Harry said the punishment was prison time.”

“Hm.”

Hermione stood from her chair by the fire and smoothed the nightgown over her legs, fingers trembling slightly. “Thank you,” She said, “For offering to pay a fine for me. And for hypothetically bribing the minister of magic with an island. But I think — I think this is just unavoidable. We’ll be okay.”

He smiled again, soft like the fuzzy clouds at sunrise. Hermione had never really noticed how his smile changed his entire face. “Yes,” he said, watching as she moved across the room, “We’ll be just fine.”

She lay down on the bed, closer to him now then she had been in years. The last time they’d touched had been when he’d clutched her shoulders the day of the trials, fingers tight around her flesh. When he’d apologized to her in that dimly lit hallway, tears tracking down his cheeks, uncaring of who saw.

Hermione found dwelling on the past did no one any good, but for once, she was glad he’d done so; if only for the growth that accompanied him with the passage of time.

Glad, that if this was going to happen, she would face the future with this version of Draco Malfoy.

Malfoy shifted, looming above her, his fingers finding the strap of her nightgown, twisting the fabrics softly before firmly pressing his hands on either side of her body. The mattress refused to creak, the only sound in the room their soft breaths.

“On or off?”

He waited politely for her answer, but his hands betrayed his tension, clutching almost angrily at the sheets, in danger of ripping them. Rich people, Hermione thought, could afford to rip their sheets. They could simply buy new ones.

“On.” Hermione said in a thick voice.

“On.” Malfoy agreed. “I’m going to touch you now.”

“Yes.” Hermione wished she was someone brighter, someone like Ginny or even Lavender. If they’d been assigned Malfoy, the room wouldn’t feel so thick and heavy. They’d be able to smile — they wouldn’t be frozen beneath him, skin as rigid as the bones underneath. “Alright.”

“You’re so much smaller up close.” Malfoy murmured, surprising both of them. “From afar, it’s easy to convince myself you’re a titan, towering above us mortals. But here, I think it’s undeniable.”

“I was taller when we were kids.” Was the response Hermione decided to give him. “Do you remember? I used to be taller than Harry.”

“I remember.” His thumb was rubbing circles against the top of her thigh. Just touching the skin, nothing scandalous, but Hermione felt a bit like a puritan seeing ankles for the first time.

“Do you think our child will be tall?” She asked, “Like you are?”

His touch faltered for a bit, a crack appearing in his perfect facade. For a moment, his eyes were bright, hungry. Then, he resumed his lazy touch, fingers slowly tracing down her legs, beneath her nightgown.

“I hope they inherit all your goodness.” Malfoy said roughly, “And they inherit all my height.”

Hermione had never thought about being a mother, never considered that a possibility — she certainly had never expected to become a parent with Draco Malfoy. But a life with Harry had inadvertently prepared Hermione to adapt to her environment, like those frogs that change genders.

“I’ll need to stretch you a bit.” Malfoy was saying, sliding down her body. Hermione wondered when she should start calling him Draco. Surely, soon, with the home he'd seemed to have made for himself between her thighs. “Please, just try to relax.”

“Right.”

His hot breath on her center was the only warning Hermione received before he was licking her, tongue twisting its way inside her cunt, thumb lazily rubbing her clit. She was wet, not an embarrassing amount, but not enough for him to grunt his approval, the vibration sending a shudder skittering up her spine.

“Oh,” she gasped, hips squirming against his hold, “Wha — what are you doing?”

“Shh,” he hushed her, words mumbled against her cunt, “It’s rude to interrupt.”

Then, he closed his lips around her clit and sucked, his sloppy noises filling the room. Distantly, Hermione heard someone babbling, broken cries and unfinished sentences — it took a moment to realize that voice was her own. Heat, like fire, like a dragon, spread across her body.

He was pressing her to his face, fingers digging into her flesh; each time she withered away from his tongue, his lips, even his teeth, his grip tightened, an arm pressed against the flesh of her stomach.

Finally, finally, finally, she felt one his fingers slip across her folds, sliding through the wetness. Malfoy’s fingers were so much thicker than her own, entering her with a bluntness she wasn’t accustomed to, twisting her open. Fucking her slowly, with no clear intention of quickening his pace.

“After the war,” Malfoy said, licking up her cunt with leisure, “When we were at school, I wanted to be near you every second. It was like waking up and realizing I could actually see the sun.”

She remembered, even now, through her trembling limbs, how he’d looked at her during their 8th year. It hadn’t been a predator's gaze, but one of blatant observation. Like he was truly seeing her for the first time; finally allowing himself to look.

“What a gift it is.” He murmured against her, a second finger sliding to join the first, a pleasant burn beginning to overtake Hermione, bubbling over the surface, spreading across her flesh, “The privilege to bask in your warmth.”

He devoured her until she came with a wail, on an exhale, head tossed back. Hermione twisted and twisted and twisted away, but his hold was firm. It hadn’t been like that with the others, rarely, it had even been like that with herself.

“Will that be enough?” She sniffed.

He pulled his cock out for her to see.

“Three fingers, then.” Hermione said, voice unsteady.

It was 11:53pm by the time he’d stretched her to his liking.

“Hermione.”

Hermione jerked at the use of her first name. “Yes?” She hiccuped.

He squinted up at her, hair falling over his eyes. He really looked like a stupid fairytale prince, even now, with his face glistening, wet with her, it was completely unfair. “Think of someone else. It’ll help this part.”

To her credit, Hermione tried to follow his directions.

Visions of Harry’s eyes morphed into gray, Ron’s arms around her torso tightened, the way she imagined he would clutch her to his chest — Seamus’s moans grew deeper, like his voice.

It seemed all roads led back to Draco Malfoy, and Hermione was too tired to contemplate the importance of that realization.

Earlier, he’d called her valiant. Brave. Said it was part of her nature, woven into her bones. If she had nothing left, she’d still have her bravery. Perhaps, it was time to use the courage everyone insisted she possessed.

“I’m not thinking of anyone else.”

Malfoy looked like someone had shot him. “What?”

“I’m not thinking of anyone else.” Hermione repeated loudly. Maybe he had a minor head cold and was having difficulty hearing her, “I’m thinking about you.”

“But I told you to think of the others.”

Hermione rolled her eyes.

“I’m not a dog.” Hermione scoffed. “I don’t blindly follow your orders.”

She ignored the way he smiled at her.

She felt him then, between her legs. Warm and heavy, a weight on her thigh, a promise for what was to come. “I’m,” Malfoy looked upset, angrier than before with the sheets, “I’m sorry that this happened. That it’s me.”

“I’m not.” The orgasms had loosened her limbs, a crack across a frozen pond; speaking to him seemed easier now, less world shattering. “I’m glad it’s you. I’ve fucked both my friends, it’s only natural that I’d carry on to my enemies next.”

“You think I'm your enemy?”

“No,” She sighed, “I think you’re my husband.”

“Say that again.”

“Husband.” She repeated. “You are my husband.”

“And you are my wife.”

Earlier cowardice forgotten, Hermione smiled up at him, all teeth. Malfoy blinked, like someone had turned on the lights. “ I’ve thought about you fucking me before.” She said softly, “Have you thought about me?”

Malfoy groaned, like he was in pain. “Constantly,” he said. “An agonizing amount. It’s time for me to fuck a baby into you. I’ll fill you up, alright? Will you let me?”

Hermione managed a confident nod.

The feel of all of him, tossed her head back.

Unfair, completely unfair, that this experience belonged to him, when already so many parts of her were his, too. His ownership over her mind had been a subtle acquisition, but this new feeling, the one burning through her, seemed to happen all at once.

“Such a good girl,” Malfoy grunted, “allowing me between your thighs.”

Then, he began to move, and the entire world seemed to tilt off axis.

Everything seemed to melt away, all that remained was Draco, the drag of his cock inside her.

She weakly clutched his arm when his fingers slid to her clit again, rubbing slow, agonizing circles. He smiled at the tears that stuck to her eyelashes, and it was a little mean.

“I won’t last,” he managed to say, “come on my cock, that’s a good girl, let me feel it.”

She felt when he came inside of her, heat spreading across her stomach. Winced slightly, when he kept fucking her, soft thrusts, fucking his cum deeper inside her.

“Have to make it stick.” He slurred.

“We can try again.” Hermione sighed, finally allowing her fingers to drag through his hair. Soft, softer than she thought it’d be — felt him twitch inside of her when she spoke. Wondered if her voice alone had the power to bring him to his knees.

“Has no one ever made you come before?” He hummed, “Does that job only belong to your husband?”

“You’ve never had a job in your life.”

She felt his smile against her skin. “Then I’ll need lots of practice.”

[txttletale]

nothing about ai art is new

[we’re sitting in a taco bell drive through and ive abused my control over the aux cord to make you listen to indie rock classic apollo 18 by they might be giants for hours on end]

so there’s been a lot of yammering on about stable diffusion and how it will revolutionize/destroy/democratize/annihilate the world of art, depending on which impassioned twitter thread you read. what they all have in common though is (incorrectly) treating this as some radical new shift, an unprecedented leap forward caused by cutting-edge technology. this is wrong: nihil sub sole novum.

this post is not about:

ip law

whether ip law is a good thing (no)

whether ai art is Real Art (what is this girls 1917?)

how AI art actually works (as far as i can tell, like this)

this post is about

karl marx babeyyy

so in a sexy little number called wage labour and capital, carlos marx lays out some of the foundations of marxist theory. these include the labour theory of value (that the value of a thing, whether expressed in the use of something or in its exchange for other things, is only created or increased when a human being performs labour. e.g. fabric + hours of human life = clothing, which is both more useful and more valuable in exchange terms than the fabric) and the division of labour

to make a long and well-written argument short and poorly formulated (seriously, read the original, it’s like 25 pages), the price of a commodity* rises and falls around a base price that’s based on the cost of production. ‘wages’ are simply the term for the price of the commodity of ‘labour-power’, or hours of human labour**--and therefore, they rise and fall around the cost of producing human labour.

now, how much does that cost? pretty simple. first there’s the basic costs of the labourer continuing to survive day to day. then there’s the costs of them having children who can grow up to be labourers and keeping them alive too. finally, there are the costs of the labourer’s training, and these can far outstrip the first two. it’s expensive for a capitalist to hire a digital artist because the cost of producing digital artists (the survival of a human being + years and years of practice) is high--so the commodity of their labour power is priced highly.

however, marx also succintly explains supply and demand--concepts everyone’s probably semi-familiar with. when there are many sellers of a commodity, they compete for buyers by offering their commodities at lower and lower prices.

bearing in mind that ‘wages’ are just the price of the commodity of human labour-power--this means that technological development in production has a twofold depressive effect on wages: not only are less people employed (if a capitalist can produce twice as much of a commodity, they’re not guaranteed twice as much of a market--so they will instead tend towards producing the same amount at half the cost), but more people are capable of doing the work. so for the same process of production, there are more people capable of doing it, and less people needed to do it. as marx puts it:

“The greater division of labour enables one labourer to accomplish the work of five, 10, or 20 labourers; it therefore increases competition among the labourers fivefold, tenfold, or twentyfold. The labourers compete not only by selling themselves one cheaper than the other, but also by one doing the work of five, 10, or 20; and they are forced to compete in this manner by the division of labour, which is introduced and steadily improved by capital. Furthermore, to the same degree in which the division of labour increases, is the labour simplified.

The special skill of the labourer becomes worthless. He becomes transformed into a simple monotonous force of production, with neither physical nor mental elasticity. His work becomes accessible to all; therefore competitors press upon him from all sides. Moreover, it must be remembered that the more simple, the more easily learned the work is, so much the less is its cost to production, the expense of its acquisition, and so much the lower must the wages sink – for, like the price of any other commodity, they are determined by the cost of production. Therefore, in the same manner in which labour becomes more unsatisfactory, more repulsive, do competition increase and wages decrease”

when marx wrote this, he was talking about artisan craftsmen who made goods by hand in small workshop. since then we’ve seen this exact process sweep across every industry, devouring the manufacturing sector, now creeping second by second into the white-collar service economy. now, we are seeing this on the horizon for artists--there’s far more skill in creating AI artwork than some people give credit for, but it is ultimately in terms of time and accessibility easier and broader to do--it will have these effects if it is able to produce output on par, or even just slightly worse than, professional photographers and artists, for a fraction of the cost of labour-power.

so, like, why have i just written all this? to point out that the phenomenon people are scared of wrt AI art driving already precarious working artists into poverty is not some new and endemic technological horror. it is a social process that’s been ongoing for centuries--and the productive forces are not going to roll back, because capitalism demands ever-rising profits which demand ini turn ever-lower costs of production, including (especially) lower costs of production of skilled labour. if you are trying to stop stable diffusion AI tech from being used then you are trying to stop the horse by pulling on the reins of the cart. 

if you are scared that AI art is going to make your passion and profession economically worthless, the tools themselves are not your enemy--it is the system that decides how these tools will be used, that art becoming easier to make is a vector by which to divide and precaritize working artists instead of to broaden access to the joy of creation--in the same way that industrial production has been used to create the system of wage-slavery instead of providing for all, in the same way that will repeat over and over again until the system that allocates resources and labour to maximize profit instead of human welfare is toppled and replaced

[the drive thru employee politely clears their throat. i turn to them and say ‘oh i didnt want anything i just like the smell out here’ and drive away directly into a lake]

*in marxist terms, a commodity is anything that: 1. has use value, as in, someone wants to have it and use it--eat it, wear it, play with it, watch it-- 2. has exchange value, as in, it can be exchanged for other commodities (price is a reflection of this exchange value through money), 3. has value through the application of labour power (someone has worked to produce it. even raw materials count--coal power plants don’t buy coal that’s still in the ground)

**engels explains the distinction between labour-power and labour in the introduction to the 1891 edition:

 “What the economists had considered as the cost of production of “labour” was really the cost of production, not of “labour,” but of the living labourer himself. And what this labourer sold to the capitalist was not his labour.

 At the most, he could sell his future labour – i.e., assume the obligation of executing a certain piece of work in a certain time. But, in this way, he does not sell labour (which would first have to be performed), but not for a stipulated payment he places his labour-power at the disposal of the capitalist for a certain time (in case of time-wages), or for the performance of a certain task (in case of piece-wages). He hires out or sells his labour-power.”

[carriesthewind]

i know very little about law, but im gonna be honest, i feel a bit bad for the loduca guy. is it a good look to sign a coworkers work without looking? absolutely not, they are paid to be anal about this stuff. but it feels like such a human thing to do, if you worked with someone for 25+ years, and never had a significant reason to doubt their work, to just kind of visually skim over the thing, and then sign and stample, bc you trust the guy.

and yeah maybe you saw he was having some issues with this case, the opposite side/judge asking for some documents they cant find and therefore think are fabricated, but again, you trust your coworker, trust that they did the job and this is a mistake not on his part, and you probably have your own workload to worry about, your own cases, so you think little of it. idk, while a bit lazy (bad look) it feels like something that would happen at an office, you know?

that being said ive got a feeling those people are not going to be practicing law quite soon. more so i dont recall if the law firm was one of theirs, but i assume even if it's not, it will have a very hard time recovering from this

A bit of a long and rambling answer here on just my own thoughts on the matter, so I'm putting it below the cut!

I do feel some sympathy for him...for the first opposition brief. My sympathy vanishes once he submitted the fake "opinions" to the court.

Because I absolutely get trusting your colleague, especially if you have worked with him for so long. And as lawyers, it is a really serious thing to sign a submission to the court that you haven't at least read - but it is also very a very human thing to do. People, including lawyers, cut corners and make errors all the time.

But part of his problem isn't just that he was skimming and signing something - when you sign a submission as an attorney, you are making a very real (and legally binding - that's the point of Rule 11) promise to the court. LoDuca is still listed as Mata's counsel of record (and his only counsel of record in this case). He told the court that he was representing this dude, and he never really was.

I saw someone - I think on twitter? - say he was covering up for Schwartz practicing law without a license. Which is technically true! But it's also - come on, there is (usually) a practical, if not ethical, difference between letting some random pretend to be lawyer by signing and submitting their documents without supervision, and signing and submitting documents for a colleague in a jurisdiction they aren't admitted to without going through the steps of having him formally act as local counsel, when you know the end result would be the same if you walked through the formal steps. I want to be clear - the second thing is not okay at all, and is very much against the rules. But, I am also 100% confident he's not the only person doing it, and I can the the way that someone would feel like it was a justifiable bending, not breaking of the rules.

But even then, the problem is that as attorneys, we are (supposed to be) held to a high ethical standard. I said this in an earlier post, but when an attorney makes representations to the court, the court takes those very seriously, because we are assumed to be following those ethical standards. If I make a legal or factual representation in a courtroom, there can be immediate and real consequences for people's lives.

It's a self-licensing and a self-policing profession, and we what we do has very serious consequences both on a societal and individual level. Even in a simple case like this originally was, a personal injury negligence case brought by an individual - the complaint says the plaintiff suffered serious, disabling injuries and has been prevented from working, and he is seeking compensation for his medical care and his inability to work. If that's true, this case is about (should have been about) who paid for that needed medical care, the necessities of life.

And I think this case is an example of why those rules can matter - sure, most of the time, someone doing what LoDuca was won't get caught, and maybe it won't matter practically. But part of the reasons we have those rules is to try to prevent - well maybe not this bullshit precisely - bullshit like this from happening. "Other people break the rules too and don't get caught" isn't an excuse.

But again, it still is a very human kind of error, so I still have sympathy. The real problem, for me, is the submission of the fake opinions.

Because once he got the order from the court ordering him to provide copies of the opinions or the case would be dismissed, he must have known something was wrong. That is not a normal order to receive. That order means the court (which has access to all the legal research tools he doesn't) thinks something is very seriously wrong. If he did not read that order and immediately go "Oh fuck" and a) read the defendant's reply and b) realize the cases seem to have been fake, he is not competent to practice law. And I mean that in a very serious way - he has no business practicing in the field with such serious consequences for people's lives if he didn't immediately recognize the problem.

So once he got that order, he has no excuse. At that point, he either consciously perpetrated a lie upon the court; or he is too incompetent to practice.

[cringetownusa]

The Warner Tax Rant.

Being “So far below the poverty line, they’re off the graph”, doesn’t seem to be a statement only true in the movie after all. This is almost 1k words. Sit tight.

OG RANT DATE: 3/22/2023 We know the Warners pay taxes. We know they pay income tax from the “We pay tons of income tax” line from the 90s intro. Tons is subjective, but we also know based on many instances of the Warners gaining some sort of monetary wealth(even to be immediately taken away) that money is something they care about(1). There’s been jokes(2) about how little they’re paid by the studio, one of which from a cut song about tiny things where the smallest thing of all was their paychecks. We know in the comics they also just. Don't have money to treat themselves to nice outings and so they have a separate thing they call “The Cute Fund”(3) where the Warners allow people to pay to pinch their cheeks, and they use that money for things like trips. Not only are the Warners like wicked underpaid and taken advantage of for being children, but since they were originally from the 30s, when they were released from the tower for the 90’s show they didn't know what the base wage was at the time. 

So even with all their fame in the 90s (on the level that would make it a cultural phenomenon, eg: clothes, games, theme park partnerships, school supplies) they were not fairly compensated for it.

But even with them being such a household name, if they had to talk over their own contracts, they were likely tricked into thinking they were getting a better wage just by holding it up to what they were paid for their very few paychecks for their 30s films, even if they’re smart kids, they’re just kids, and between desperation and relief of being released, their judgement may have been clouded on their own contracts. They were probably also just thankful to be getting the opportunity to get them at all because it meant that they would get time outside the tower for the first time in 60 years Anyway these thoughts brought me to thinking about Yakko having to calculate their paychecks and do taxes every year since they have an income.

But based on how little the three of them make together and how expensive California is, i assume tax season is pretty stressful for poor Yakko.

In the 90s when there wasn't a ton of tech going around it meant he'd have to do all their taxes by hand with a calculator and a bunch of notes and i am thinking of this poor boy pouring over then at like 12 in the morning after Wakko and dot have gone to bed under the guise of practicing his lines.

For assistance programs that exist for humans that the warners making so little money might qualify for, e.g. food stamps, would they even be approved?

Maybe toons get rejected for that since "they don't need to eat" regardless of toons like wakko who are designed differently to eat more and always be hungry and also hypoglycemic(4). (5)So in the 30s, minimum wage was .25 an hour, which translates to a little over $4 an hour now

In 1990, the minimum was was 4.75 ($9.19 as of 2024)

HOWEVER

We can assume toon labor laws would be different since they didn't even have the right to vote until 2020 bc of Dot, and the way animals are paid for their “acting” in 2020s.

So for the sake of this exercise in taxing we’ll assume that they were convinced being paid $1 an hour for each of them was a really REALLY good deal because it was 4x the wage in the 30s.(during the great depression)

This next part was calculated with help from my friend allowing me to use his California pay stub. Thank you Mickael. <3

Toons are probably paid less because they "have less necessities" and get rigorously overworked because their bodies “don't work like humans”. If we assume that they've been tricked in this way and calculate this off a 4 week paycheck, while also saying that they're pulling 40-60 hour work weeks due to overwork, with no overtime pay, that puts their GROSS pay for a MONTH at around ($480 for 40 hours) ($720 for 60 hours). 

Taking out California and Federal withholding, and healthcare on through the studio all together at around 12%, net take home would be ($422.40 at 40 hours) ($633.60 at 60) Now let’s assume the Warners get the tower as free room and board. That includes rent, electricity and running water ONLY, so we still have to calculate their wifi and phone bills (since we know for a fact that it’s relevant in the reboot. For the state of California, I used Mint unlimited at $60 a month since all three of them have phones. ($64.35 after tax) Internet needing to be somewhere around 100mbps for all their device’s wifi in the Burbank area, the least expensive option with wiggle room for Wakko(the Gamer) would be Starry Internet ($32.18 after tax). Yakko would be able to get a (LIFE) LA Metro tap card for low income, which would also give him a certain amount of free bus rides per month,after that each metro ride is $1.75 one way, and each bus ride is $1 one way. Let’s give all three Warners together a Budget of $50. This leaves them at ($275.87 for 40 hours of work) ($487.07 at 60) Much, if not all remainder would go to food or clothes depending on your headcanons for that. It’s no wonder they can’t afford expensive picture frames! ---

I'm sure there was more stuff I could have linked back to like the amounts and how I got them, and if people want more info they're welcome to dm me, but I've been impatiently wanting to share my thoughts lol.

Back in march of last year, I first spoke to my friend @help-the-lesbian in DM's about the warner's monetary situation. As I made more friends, I roped more of them into listening to me and now it's kind of an in-joke, but I just like thinking about Yakko getting stressed out about taxes and doing them because he cares about his siblings and he needs to take care of their family.

1[Animaniacs "Temporary Insanity" 1993] 2[Rob Paulson, “Animaniacs in Concert”, 2023] 3[Animaniacs Comic #2, 1995] 4[Wakko Warner Wiki] 5[Department of Industrial Relations, state of California] 6[California state tax is x1.0725]

[eskawrites]

okay i’m officially obsessed with robin’s high school band experience (i say officially, i’ve been thinking about this for a while and now i’m finally caving and writing about it), so here are my Robin Buckley Band Geek(TM) headcanons for you to enjoy or ignore at your leisure

Robin is actually surprisingly into basketball. did you see her at that game? yeah, she’s there to shred the melody line on 25 or 6 to 4, but she’s also here cheer on/laugh at the Hawkins High team

you bet your ass she has had a crush on like half the girls’ basketball team btw

some of her first jabs at Steve were actually about some of his worst moments on the court. until she saw that those actually hit kind of hard, and then she laid off and started mocking his inability to talk to girls instead

once she and steve become friends, he’s actually surprised when she can keep up with his and lucas’s basketball chats. they ask her to practice with them exactly once, and it goes as terribly as you’d expect. but she still hangs out sometimes and gives lucas pointers when steve isn’t there

her favorite pep band song is Sweet Caroline. it just is.

sweeeet carolliiiiiiine. dun dun DUNNNNNNN

she is not supposed to be standing next to Vickie during Lucas’s game (seriously what even are their lines?? trombone trumpet clarinet? a random baritone row behind them? @ hawkins pep band wtf is going on here)

but she’s a senior and she can do what she wants

Vickie lets her, which is very cute imo

she has a vendetta with the percussion line

this is band kid law. you have to have a vendetta with either the percussion line or the trumpet section, and since she plays trumpet, she only has one option

she’s actually not bad at marching band. she has the discipline, she can think on her feet, she can focus on her steps and the angle of her trumpet and the set list and everything all at once with no issue. it takes her a while to stop stumbling over her feet freshman year, but once she has the fundamentals down, she’s absolutely fine

she took a french horn solo to state contest her junior year and actually ranked pretty high. but between the stress and the ptsd, she just didn’t have the motivation to do it again her senior year

it’s just as well. contest would’ve been after the events of spring break, and even if hawkins high had the resources to send a group of band and choir kids to contest after the “earthquake,” she definitely would’ve backed out

speaking of spring break, the first time she tries to play trumpet again after facing vecna hurts. that’s a lot of air to get through a throat that’s been nearly crushed by upside down vines. she fakes a lot of her playing for a few weeks, and by the time graduation rolls around, she’s mostly just going through the motions

it’s another thing the upside down has taken from her, and it makes her livid

Nancy absolutely understands why Robin is pulling away from band, but sometimes she thinks back on her vague memories of Robin in the bleachers--the crisp jacket, the clean white gloves, the sharp angle of her shoulders as she snaps her horn to attention--and she wishes she’d paid more attention to her back then

Will joins band his sophomore year! he wants to try something that’s just for him. he asks Robin for advice and she tells him how to get on the director’s good side as well as which kids to avoid. she also tells him that if he joins percussion she’ll never forgive him.

i think he’d play sax personally--lots of melody, great for solos, but also not the center of attention and really good at blending in

Robin finds herself going to a lot of hawkins high games during her gap year, which is completely unexpected but also a lot of fun. she and Steve sit in the stands and cheer Will and Lucas on in equal measure

(Will being there for all of Lucas’s games, too <3 it’s what he deservessss)

Robin’s parents are broke and she never ever spends any of her money on herself, so she doesn’t actually own any of the instruments she’s played. which means after high school, she has no access to any of it even if she wanted to keep playing

Nancy, Steve, and all the kids pitch in to get her a really nice trumpet a couple years after high school. we’re talking King brand, silk-lined case, the works. she cherishes that thing like it’s the fucking crown jewels

if/when Robin goes to college, she won’t join band but she’ll befriend a lot of the band kids. they’ll find out she used to play a couple different brass instruments and encourage her to pick it up again, even if it’s just in her free time

she does, and she joins some small groups--not class related, just having fun and performing with her friends

(steve goes to every single performance, even if it’s not even a show or anything. he’s been known to sit in on practices and grin at her with the proudest, dorkiest look on his face)

(Nancy also goes to every performance she can. she surprises Robin once, flying in at the last minute to go to one of her concerts. she shows up with a bouquet of flowers and it takes all of Robin’s willpower not to fall to her knees and propose right there)

[purpleajisai]

Madara Week Day 2 - Christ/Antichrist

The Saviour of this World and the Christ: A comparative analysis of Madara Uchiha and Jesus Christ

It’s Christmas time. Christians all over the world are preparing themselves for what they consider one of the most joyful holidays in the year: the birth of the Messiah, He who came to redeem the world. Meanwhile, the Madara enthusiasts are making a countdown for the birthday of the man who tried to save the ninja world by sacrificing his very self. In this meta, I intend to explain the connections, similarities and differences between Madara Uchiha and Jesus Christ that I’ve found over the years. I would also recommend to read “Is Madara our Lord and Saviour?” by @al-hekima-madara-blog for another very interesting meta on the topic. This is my contribution to day 2 of Madara Week, hosted by @uchiha-event.

A quick note before I start my rambling: I will be using the Douay-Rheims translation of the Bible (Roman Catholic translation), but there shouldn’t be any problem for readers of Protestant background as the difference between the Bibles used by both denominations are in the Old Testament and our focus will be the New Testament.

“I am here to save the world”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 677

For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him.

John 3:17

What is the purpose of Madara in this story? One would be tempted to say “because every shonen needs a villain”, but I think his purpose as a character was to expose the flaws within the shinobi system that ultimately corrupted a man who desired peace into someone whose sense of reality became so warped by the situations in his life that he started a war to achieve said peace. Madara didn’t make the Eye of the Moon plan to be evil and act dramatic, he made it with the final objective of launching an eternal dream that would guarantee no more conflict and the ideal life for anyone within it. He’s already been past judging the world, he wants to save it at the expense of himself. This is similar to how God is presented in the Old Testament compared to the New Testament: we first see a God who insists that his law is followed and that chastises those who trespass and disobey in several ocassions. But once we reach the New Testament, he becomes a loving figure that intends to save people from eternal doom in hell (”reality is hell”, anyone?). The point is that we have a man whose purpose in the world is to cleanse all forms of evil thorugh his being and who wants to bring salvation to anyone, regardless if the world agrees or not.

“I come here to bring you light and joy in a life that’s beyond this reality”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 626

Jesus said to her: I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live.

John 11:25

What does Madara mean when he says that “you can’t see it”? After following the storyline we conclude that he’s talking about the Eye of the Moon plan. Let’s add some tangents here, the people who were directly involved in the plan and helped Madara one way or another. They had no clue about what would happen exactly but they were convinced by the prospect of a peaceful life free of their struggles. In a certain way, they believed in Madara. The exact same thing can be seen with Jesus, who promises eternal life beyond the death of the physical body. Nobody knows how Heaven looks like but the believers trust him on that promise.

“I bring peace”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 661

These things I have spoken to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you shall have distress: but have confidence, I have overcome the world

John 16:33

Notice how Madara refers to the current state of the shinobi world as “Hashirama’s world”? In Christianity and the Bible, it is a common practice to separate “the world” and “the believers” as entities with entirely different mindsets and values. Madara sees the world as direct consequence of his nemesis, Hashirama, just as Christians see the evil in the world as the direct consequence of the sins of Lucifer. To “overcome the world”, when applied to Madara, refers to how he intends to use a power whose source is unknown (the power of the Sage of Six Paths) in order to end the paradox of Hashirama’s world. He is going to achieve peace to overwrite the current world and install his own world where the paradox is solved.

“I intend for you to acquire new identity within me”

Naruto Shippuden, chapter 665

If then any be in Christ a new creature, the old things are passed away, behold all things are made new.

2 Corinthians 5:17

And I live, now not I; but Christ liveth in me. And that I live now in the flesh: I live in the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered himself for me.

Galatians 2:20

I picked two of the letters in the New Testament in purpose, you may have noticed that the previous quotes come from the Gospel of John. Because the Gospel of John is a retelling of what Jesus did and said, whereas the letters (mostly from the apostle Paul) are reflections of the lives of the apostles after Jesus was gone. Similarly, Obito becomes Madara once Madara dies in the cave and walks in his shoes. Yesterday, I wrote a bit more about how Madara decomposed his humanity for the sake of his dream of peace. Here, we have Madara giving up his identity to anyone who embraces his goal, similarly to how Jesus signifies a brotherhood of believers. Madara also never writes down his autobiography or gets a space to present his POV, just as how all of what we know from Jesus is from the people close to him, not by his own word. In a sense, both become an entity for like-minded people to work towards a certain goal.

Thank you for reading this far, if you have any questions please use the ask box. It’s always a pleasure to have discussions and to talk about my favourite anime emo man.

[bestworstcase]

As far as your willow example goes, it’s possible she didn’t want to run the company and give it to Jacques back before she learned what’s prick he was. We aren’t really given a lot of indicators as to whether or not she has any affinity for or interest in running the SDC.

gently: no.

And so entered Jacques Gelè. Having married into the family, Jacques decided to take the Schnee name over his own. He was... a lot of words I shouldn't repeat. But most importantly, he was a cunning businessman. Jacques managed to convince Nicholas that he was the perfect man to run the SDC in his place. 

i know its trendy these days to be like “unreliable narrators show! everything the characters say is meaningless!” but the text does actually matter and there are specific techniques the narrative uses to help the viewer sort out what’s reliable information and what isn’t. the most important of those techniques are 1. conflicting perspectives from different characters (eg: like ten answers to “what does salem want?”) and 2. statements contradicted by on-screen action (eg: “summer rose telling lies! first time for everything” vs summer’s well-practiced emotional masking).

neither of those techniques, nor any of the smaller ones, are used with regard to the SDC: everything weiss says about her father and the company adds up with the narrative presented in WOR. everything we know about jacques’ behavior and about willow lines up too. there’s no reason to be skeptical of the events described in the WOR episode, which is completely unambiguous about this discussion having been between nicholas and his (future/current depending on how long the persuasion lasted) son-in-law.

if willow had been meaningfully involved she would have been mentioned at all. you don’t even need to establish what her name is, if it’s too cumbersome to introduce her properly: you’ve just explained that jacques married in to the schnee family so you just say “jacques managed to convince his wife and nicholas that he was the perfect man to run the SDC” or leave nicholas out altogether if you want to suggest that willow is the one whom he tricked. there is no reason to exclude her from this narrative if she had a say in the decision to sign over her inheritance to jacques.

given that she’s also clearly had combat training but has never at any point been described as a retired huntress, and that we know nicholas was himself a warrior who personally escorted deliveries around the world? the implication there is that willow was training to follow in her father’s footsteps before her fiancé/husband convinced nicholas to leave the company to him instead.

add on that jacques does the exact same thing to both his daughters, in weiss’ case going as far as apparently spinning it like she chose to relinquish her claim to the company willingly? (with zero repercussions, implying that whatever he did was legal and there wasn’t anything weiss could do even with ironwood’s help—remember that jacques was running an election campaign in v7, if weiss could’ve returned to atlas and gone public about her father committing fraud to force her out of the company and imprisoning her at home, she undoubtedly would have had ironwood’s full support.)

like the most charitable reading of nicholas here is that jacques straight up lied to him, or forged nicholas’ signature, but that requires willow to have basically no agency (why wouldn’t she question this? why wouldn’t she kick up a fuss if jacques literally stole her inheritance against both her and her father’s will?—we know from weiss that willow didn’t shatter until weiss was ten, the way willow is in the present isn’t reflective of who she was 25+ years ago when all this happened)

it’s a lot simpler to take the text at face value that nicholas disinherited his own daughter because his son-in-law talked him into it.

[scintillyyy]

so i want (finally after months of this sitting in my drafts) to say some things about dana winters-drake, because she, along with jack and janet fascinate me. and i'm going to preface this and say: yes, i know she was created and written by terrible sexist writers, a lot of her more negative traits are because terrible sexist writers don't understand or care about how to write women and write them as laughably wtf, and none of what i'm saying means that i think she deserved her ultimate fate (she definitely did not, and i am mad about it). but! she is more complex than just a generic good mom and she has some really interesting negative characteristics to me. and i'm gonna put this under a read more, because this is probably going to get long

#1 dana as the worst physical therapist in the world:

so i'm going to start with my main point of contention(? i don't know, maybe not that strong) with her: her introduction. she's introduced as jack's physical therapist, and i will not lie, this comes very, very close to absolutely ruining her completely for me and the only reason is doesn't is because i'm aware of who created her, so it's not her fault. i'm am absolutely biased about this, i will admit it. i find this personally abhorrent on every level due to personal reasons, and there is no way anyone will ever convince me that this is not that bad. there is no situation in which dana is not a total monster for this. and i am correct about this. i promise you i can argue every "but" you have about it. i'm sorry. (unless, of course, your argument is 'but this is comics and we don't ascribe that much real life morality to comics', in which case: fair. that's true.)

because i want to make it clear: jack sucks, but dana is the one in the wrong here when it comes to them getting in a relationship. i see a lot of "but she was way younger than him" kind of framing her as an innocent young ingenue to jack's older, predatory ways and i'm over here like...that's not how this works at all.

because dana was the professional in the patient-provider relationship. jack shouldn't have been weird or flirty with her, absolutely, please don't harass your health care professionals (but it also tracks! a survey of physical therapists showed that 84% reported being sexually harassed at work from a patient during their career. so yes, of course jack, a man in his 40s-50s would absolutely try to flirt with his PT, 100%) but the thing is...there's nothing actually stopping jack from trying to flirt with his PT. it's annoying and he shouldn't, but there's no laws against it. dana is the one who has the moral, legal, and ethical obligation to maintain a solely professional relationship with jack (yes, even if she is younger than him-also, i promise you, she was at least 24-25 even being introduced in the 90s. at that time physical therapy was largely a master's program following a 4 year bachelor program. she has a fully developed frontal lobe. she's old enough to know her responsibilities. you don't graduate from school for physical therapy or any other rehabilitation job knowing anything but getting with a patient is the #1 no-no, go directly to jail, do not pass go, etc). she is the healthcare provider in this relationship. jack can flirt with her until the cows come home and it's her responsibility to shut him down every time.

because!! there's a little thing called a practice act. it governs what a licensed professional is and isn't allowed to do. and look, i found new jersey's. highlighted just for you. no amount of ~but they're in love~ will help here. no excuses dana!!

i just live in a world where she loses her license to practice after she gets together with jack, okay. like, tbf, she doesn't get shown actually going on dates with jack until after he can walk again in robin #15, but this is nowhere near at least 3 months after he's done with his rehab. like. it's heavily implied that their relationship basically started while she was actively treating him. like. is he even done with his rehab at this point? he mentions he's almost there wrt his walking so is she still his physical therapist? it's never made clear when she stops. dana starts sleeping with him a few issues after this, so god, i hope so.

anyways, even if she had waited three months after terminating their patient-provider relationship, there's various other reasons why her choosing to get together with jack at all after being his physical therapist is a little morally sus even if technically legal. because here's a list of things that dana would technically probably have access to/know about jack as her patient:

does jack have erectile dysfunction issues as a result of his neurologic damage from the poison? she has access to his medications, so she knows.

does jack have depression/other mental health issues from the loss of his wife/is he getting therapy/is he on anti-depressants? it's probably in his chart as a part of coordination of care. is that mental health stuff relevant to his care at all? in this case probably, given the fact that his quadriplegia is wrapped up in the incident that also murdered his wife.

has she worked with jack at all about modifying sexual positions on account of his impairments? pts will discuss this with patients if it's relevant to their care. they actually learn in school on how to educate patients with quadriplegia on how they might have to modify their intimacy with their partners in case it's relevant to care.

patients tend to confide in their PTs a lot. a lot. since they tend to see their rehab providers a lot more than other providers, patients are far more likely to confide a lot of really personal stuff to them because of the rapport/trust that builds between them over time. has jack cried over janet in his sessions with dana? has jack talked about his insecurities about how things will never be the same for him or his mobility and how that makes him feel? has he discussed his frustration at his progress or lack thereof? i cannot stress how much dana has probably gotten to know jack over the course of their rehab together, really sensitive stuff, and then to turn around and get into a relationship with a patient after having been entrusted with that sensitive information about them? would be extremely sus on the part of that provider. would you feel comfortable if that was your dad? you shouldn't.

like, this is fundamentally a very intimate and delicate patient case given everything that jack has been through. which makes it even more important that a clear line of professionalism is drawn and maintained. and dana didn't do that, clearly.

#2. dana prioritizes her position as jack's partner over her position tim's "mom"

now, i don't think this is a bad thing, necessarily! she is, after all, tim's step-mom and she made it clear from the beginning she had no intention of taking tim's mom's place. and she and tim do see each other as family and clearly care about each other. i think she's a very good step-mom, actually! she's willing to listen to tim and she tries to be a mediator between him and his dad/advocate for tim.

that being said, she almost always will capitulate to jack's position in the end. she might try to get jack to ease up, but she never really actively fights against jack's final decision on what to do with tim. remember the tv ripping out of the wall incident? in robin #45?

this happens after dana came in and talked to tim and said she'll talk to his dad about jack hearing out tim's side of the ariana story. she does, because jack comes in hoping to talk things out and when tim is ignoring him he does this lovely move. so what does this have to do with dana? well here's the thing: dana is still only dating jack at this point. she's not married to him, she can leave at any time. if she's over at their house, there's no way she missed this happening. did she wonder why jack came back from his talk with tim with tim's tv at all? did she shrug it off when she heard him start screaming at tim (remember, drake manor is big but it's not that big)? she clearly accepted that jack grounded tim for weeks after this. she's clearly not opposed to staying in a relationship with a man who would do this to his son. which says something about her. no matter how awful jack treats tim (in front of her even) she maintains a very harmonious relationship with the man and continues to want to be in a relationship with him, so as much as she might try to surface disapprove of jack's treatment of tim, in the end she'll shrug and accept it because she won't implode her relationship with jack over his treatment of tim. she definitely prioritizes her place as jack's partner. see robin #66, jack yelling at tim for running away back to gotham city right in front of dana. she's still not married to him!! this could be a deal breaker for her and it's not!!

here's her being clearly fine and going with jack on a vacation to blizzard central chicago, il right before the holidays in the dcu holiday bash iii.

here she is being more concerned about when jack is going to ask her to marry him when he's sending tim to boarding school as punishment for no man's land in robin #74:

like none of this is mutually exclusive with her being a pretty nice step-mom to tim. just that is she's okay and is a person who wants to be in a very good relationship with jack drake, she has to be someone who accepts jack's treatment of tim. she doesn't want to actually rock the boat with jack in a way that would actually jeopardize her relationship with him, as much as she tries to soften his treatment of tim.

she's clearly okay with jack just calling tim in robin #78 to tell him they're getting married. she's popping toasting to celebrate as he does this. she never said, hey jack, maybe we should tell tim in person?

#3. dana is kind of judgemental about tim's girlfriends in defense of tim/lowkey a little sexist and she's a fair representation of a republican woman.

now, this one is fair to ignore because it was written mainly by dixon and willingham, but also the sexist things she's said/implies about them is actually fairly realistic imo because the republican older women i know have said things along the vein of things dana has said. in robin #45 she says this weird thing about ariana

by saying she is implying that she knows that ariana is actually the one at fault for this entire mess and tim has to protect her reputation and saying that ariana would have a "reputation" if it came out that she was actually the one at fault. which. maybe in the 90s, but also this is a very old, conservative viewpoint on women so.

and then in robin #124 where she defaults to blaming stephanie for corrupting tim (also, she's like "jack we shouldn't do this" but then. like. doesn't actually fight him and stop him from doing this she let's him do this. then is like sigh, guess i'll make tim's favorite lasagna rather than actually fight and stop jack from doing this).

which yea, willingham. but given that dana has defaulted to defending tim over his girlfriends in the past re: ariana, i actually think it's quite in line for a more conservative woman like dana to be super nice to their son's girlfriends up until their son potentially looks bad and then immediately turning their backs on them because or the idea that their sons ~could never~. like. i hear the following things from conservative women at least 3x/week (paraphrased):

oh, well, girls you know. they're so much more drama than boys.

my boys were so easy, but my daughter? oh god, i can't even begin with her

girls are so catty. boys are so much easier to deal with.

my son has this girlfriend. i just. i. hmmm. i just don't know about her. she's. she's. she's okay, i guess. i have some concerns.

as for how i know she's a conservative woman? she's happily and harmoniously married to jack and she's a PT in bristol township. i am 110% certain she's a registered republican. with her moral ambiguity and slighy sexism she reads as a fairly realistic conservative to me.

anyways in conclusion, i think she's actually a lot more complex than just generic good step-mom! she has a lot of failures and negative characteristics that makes her more interesting to me than just good sainted woman who puts up with jack and tim. she has her own faults. we do have to remember that she had a very good relationship with jack and saw how he treated tim and was largely okay with it. maybe jack was someone she thought she could change. maybe she agreed with him on a lot of things. jack and dana have the harmonious relationship that fandom wants jack and janet (a very volatile and ultimately ill-matched relationship) to have had!

anyways here's one final panel from robin #100 of dana saying that tim could just get a job and help out with the family finances after jack lost the company that i couldn't think of where else to put it (like, she's probably joking. but clearly this is something both she and jack find funny to joke about.)

[sygneth]

I had this idea for a while now but I didn't really have time to go shoot photos, so finally I just digged through my old photos and found something I could use.

Postcards from Revachol vol. 1

The technique is digital painting on photos (photos are mine as well), don't worry I didn't paint all that

The thoughts behind this project (or a deep and thorough analysis of Revacholian [suppposed] architecture and urbanistic, long):

Ever since I played the game I have been thinking of how Revachol reminds me of my birth city (where I have been living for past 25 years) and I couldn't really get why. But then I started to think. And oh boy, not in a long time was I this happy to be an actual architect.

I know we have never seen any of Revachol besides Martinaise but what we know is that Revachol have been founded around 380 years ago. If the cultural/architectural periods in Elysium are comparable to what happened in our world, that would mean the city's beggings were in something baroque-ish, and it's golden age was probably at the turn of baroque and classicism. What is important is that Revachol is not a medieval city. There is no old downtown with a city wall and narrow, curvy streets. Baroque and classicist cities were all about good planning, composition, wide streets, representative buildings in strategic places, and later also good functional layout and generally being a good-to-live place. We know the city must have been a great, rich place, very representative, as it was said to be the capital of the world. It was a monarchy until the communist revolution some years ago, before the events from the game. What this pattern reminds me of, is actually the history of Saint Petersburg. Also a baroque/clacissist city, also a capital, also got through a communist revolution.

We also know that Revachol, or at least it's parts were based on a mashup of Paris and Tallin (the latter I don't know much about, unfortunately) with some 90's post-communist CEE climate sprinkled on top. Paris has been re-built at some point of its history (around 1850), the streets have been widened, the city structure got more organised, the facades of the buildings gained a characteristic style (there was an actual law how they should all look but it didn't work very well honestly, but still gave the city a more consistent style)

Okay. That was about St. Petersburg, Paris and Tallin. Where is my city in all this mess?

Let me explain.

My own city isn't one of those cities with old boulevards and medieval centers. It was a small city until 1820, when somebody noticed its potential and started to build factories. With the factories, there came workers and with the workers, a need for places to live in. The city developed quickly, but at that time the cities didn't really grow in an uncontrolled manner, it had to be planned. And those plans were mostly inspired by Paris and Saint Petersburg. The tenement houses in my city were practically copied from those one in Paris and the whole urbanistic design of the city was based on the urbanist laws in St. Petersburg. So now you can see why that was important.

Another thing is that both Revachol and my city are cities of immigrants. My own city at some point was said to be "a city of four cultures", are there was a similar number of Jewish, German, Polish, and Russian inhabitants. People came here to work in the factories from all over the country (or rather what have been the area of our country before the annexation, as there was no country of Poland in the XIX century) and they stayed, started families, and started to be from here.

And then, after WWII my country fell behind the iron curtain. In the communist times there have also been major architectural changes in here. Some of the buildings in city center were knocked out, some typical socialist architecture started to appear. In the pretty much city center there is a high-rise residential area of concrete blocks that are 20-something floors high. And looking at those blocks in the distance here really, like really reminded me of this part of my own city. And here we come to another point of this ridiculously long essay, but I guess that is the last of the important ones.

There are no modern-looking skyscrapers in Revachol. Taking the technological level of development on Elysium seems similar to the ~90s in our world, there should be technologies to build high. The thing is, there is either no money for that or no need (or both). I know this is a general tendency of European cities (Paris, Stockholm or Amsterdam doesn't have any modern American-style skyscrapers too), but this was something I noticed about my own city a long time ago before I even considered studying architecture. The highest buildings are those high-rise multi-families, churches, and chimneys. In Revachol we see the chimneys of the power plant as the most prominent thing in the city panorama.

One more thing is the socio-economical aspect of my city. The golden age of the city passed with the XXth century. The city was poor, neglected, and dirty, the city center was a place where people were actually scared to go in the night. There still are parts of the city where I would rather not go after dark. Times have changed, but the renewal of the city takes time, and what we still have, are tones of half-empty tenements, with closed or barely-alive little shops on the ground floors, tired people, and a lot of graffiti everywhere. And especially hearing of Jamrock, I just couldn't take the visions of familiar places I walked myself thousands of times off my head.

(The last one teeny-tiny detail. Unimportant. But if anybody got here, I have to mention it. Remember how I mentioned the industrial character of my city? It was actually mostly the fabric industry.

And we know Precinct 41 has its seat in the old silk factory. That's all. That's all I had to say).

Even though Łódź is not nearly as big as Revachol, I feel like there are particles of her. They are hidden under the roofs of tenement houses, in the abandoned shops, in the smoke of the cigarettes of strangers at bus stops. They are not easy to find and most people will pass by not even noticing. But if you know where to look, maybe they will let you find them.

Or maybe she will find you.

[howtofightwrite]

I'm trying to write some old fighters in my story (just plain normal humans) though I've heard of all the old people are vastly more experienced than younger fighters, but how about when the old fighters in fact started learning late (and how late?)? Is there a difference with a 25 year old with 5 years experience and a 60 year old with 10 years experience? I keep hearing it's never too old to start, but isn't that just recreational and fitness purposes?

It's not just recreational and fitness, but this start to run into some serious issues. Physically, you'll hit your peak sometime between your late teens to early twenties (this varies from individual to individual, but even at the latest, you'll peak in your mid-twenties), and will all be down hill after that. In fact, for a martial artist, that decline is going to be more significant because martial arts (and combat) put extraordinary strains on the body.

Someone who is in their sixties and has maintained a healthy exercise regime, is likely to be in better health than I am. I've had bone-on-bone contact in my knees since I was in my late twenties. And, yeah, that's not normal for a martial artist, but that's kind of persistent injuries you'll start to see.

So when we're talking about experience, a lot of times the sheer volume overcomes that damage. Someone who's 60 years old, and has been practicing martial arts for 55 years, is going to be far more dangerous. Even with the damage they've done to their body over the years, they're simply to be more effective than someone in comparatively good health, but with limited training and experience.

Starting at twenty and training for five years isn't a lot of experience. Now, there are very significant possibilities here that could radically alter that calculation. Particularly if they've been trained in a practical martial art, with the intention of using it on other people. Some potential examples would be military Krav Maga, MCMAP, even the version of Judo practiced by law enforcement agencies. Someone who is 25, and has been training to kill people with their hands since they were 20, can be a legitimately dangerous foe.

Beyond that, starting at 50 is unusually late for a practical combatant. That's well past the point where age is taking a toll on your body, and by that point in your life, you're going to need to be very careful with the fights you commit to. Ten years of combat experience is going to further amplify that. Again, ten years isn't a lot of martial arts training, particularly for someone in their sixties. It's not weird for a recreational martial artist who entered later in life, but it is unusually late for someone to start combat training that late. Most practical combatants would have started much earlier in life (probably in their twenties, like the other example you gave.)

Of course, the critical thing about someone who's sixty is, they have sixty years of experience. It may not be combat related, but that experience is there, and, if they're smart, that can dramatically help cover for their lack of combat experience. Everyone is different, and when you're talking about a much older character, like this, it can be very difficult to predict how well they'll handle a given situation, without a full breakdown of the character. That could easily be someone with a lot of experience psychologically assessing and manipulating others, who could easily turn those skills into a significant strategic advantage, or it could be they're exceptional at basket weaving. Like I said, it's hard to judge in a vacuum.

I suppose the short answer is, “yes, there are differences,” but that was always going to be the case. Your characters should be (somewhat) unique from one another, or you should probably start to condense and cull the roster of characters. Someone who started much later in life would need to be a very different martial artist from someone who started combat training at 20.

-Starke

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[autumnslance]

LynMars FFXIV Write 2023 Master Post

This year's challenge completed! Congrats to everyone who wrote anything at all this month, even if just one prompt! Thanks again to @sea-wolf-coast-to-coast for 7 years of this!

Previous Years Master Posts: 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022

Anything wolcred ship-related is marked by an asterisk* as usual. Commentary and stats for anyone interested below the Read More.

01. Envoy: ARR; Aeryn makes her Grand Company choice. 02. Bark: Dark has the wrong pie thief suspect. 03. Free Day! 04. Off the Hook: EW; Lucia & Maxima explore their new HQ. 05. Barbarous: HW; Aeryn's frustrated by the land of her birth. 06. Ring: EW; keepsakes & memories of Aeryn's mother. 07. Noisome: Dark & Iyna contend with ubiquitous seasonal flavors. 08. Shed: EW; Aeryn answers Zenos at the edge of everything. 09. Fair: EW; Azem's brother tries to ensure the future has his aid. 10. Free Day! 11. Once Bitten Twice Shy: ShB Bozja; unwarranted concerns. 12. Dowdy: Backstory; Aeryn's always had Opinions about fashion. 13. Check: Iyna discovers C'oretta's personal business. 14. Clear*: ShB; semi-poetic sweetness of coming together. 15. Portentous: Backstory. Zaine speaks to Tanzel about a decision. 16. Jerk: EW; Aeryn meets an old friend as the Final Days loom. 17. Free Day! 18. Fish Out of Water: Shb: G'raha gets used to his new life. 19. Weal: EW; Vrtra sees to his people and their home. 20. Hamper: In a possible future, Iyna answers academic questions. 21. Grave: Legacy; Zaine Striker returns to his childhood home. 22. Fulsome: C'oretta sorts through her parents' old promos. 23. Suit: ARR; what the Scions wore that most fateful night. 24: Free Day! 25. Call it a Day: Pre-ARR; Iron Summer contemplating his daughter. 26. Last: EW; a final conversation between ancients. 27. Sole*: Post-ShB; Thancred vs the perils of Aeryn's flip-tastic jobs. 28. Blunt: Post-ShB; working with Gaius, like it or not. 29. Contravention: EW; "In from the Cold" violates laws of nature. 30. Amity: EW; Varshahn & Aeryn discuss Thavnair & Garlemald.

Only 2 short shippy prompts all month! All 4 modern girls got a couple spotlights, various family cameos and backstories, a future prompt as is tradition, Zaine had a few posts, a few NPC-only scenes, a LOT of Endwalker, and even Ancient Icarus got a story, tying into 2021's "Destruct" prompt and how/why the siblings' souls have been connected through time and reincarnations.

A few of these are alternate takes on scenes I've touched on before, but it's interesting what a new prompt at a different time can get one to say, how we change as writers in what we focus on and how we say it.

This comes in roughly 300 words shorter than last year, at 18,493. The week of the 18-22 I had off work for my birthday, and that had the most 1k+ prompts, with a word count nearly double the other 3 full weeks. While the longer prompts are good, I'm really happy with how so many of the short ones turned out!

I was again trying to be realistic about my time, energy, not pushing free write days...and also working on an original writing project on the side, so I actually did do more writing over the month, just not FFXIV related!

(Also why some of my responses were in just under the wire...)

But this was a good break and exercise from that other writing, and let me try a few new things.

And comparing to earlier years--especially 2017 and 2018 when I was getting back onto the writing horse and feeling out my OCs--I feel like my growth as a writer, especially to be more succinct yet still evocative when needed, is evident. I've gotten a lot of practice in over time, and this challenge is one of the things that helped me get to where I can write an original story on top of my fanfic!

Breakdowns for funsies: Longest: 21 Grave; 1,652 words Shortest: 14 Clear; 106 words

Between 100-500 words: 1 Envoy; 2 Bark; 4 Off the Hook; 5 Barbarous; 7 Noisome; 8 Shed; 14 Clear; 15 Portentous; 26 Last; 27 Sole. Between 500-1000 words: 6 Ring; 11 Once Bitten, Twice Shy; 13 Check; 16 Jerk; 18 Fish Out of Water; 22 Fulsome; 23 Suit; 25 Call it a Day; 28 Blunt; 29 Contravention; 30 Amity. 1000+ words: 9 Fair; 12 Dowdy; 19 Weal; 20 Hamper; 21 Grave.

I didn't look at the totals until the end; I only checked some of the shorter ones during the challenge to see if they hit my personal "500+ words" cut off for adding a Read More to the posts.

"Grave" honestly could have been a lot shorter; I started the plot too early, and much as I like Zaine making one last visit to his childhood Nana, for the purposes of the challenge, I could have just focused on going to the lichyard to save myself time and energy, and wrote about the visit on my own another time. On the other hand, it's done now!

Not sure which is a favorite; there's a lot I like.

As usual, these will be revised at...some point (some more than others, probably) and added to Ao3, in my various series and threads.

[grandmaster-anne]

An Interview with Royalty

By Jane Robson | Published 25 March 2013

Interview with Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence KCVO CB ADC(P)

An amazing opportunity arose for Castle Court  4R Children to attend an interview with Vice Admiral Sir Tim Laurence at the RNLI Headquarters in Poole, where he is the Chairman of the RNLI Operations Committee.  They had spent the spring term developing their journalistic skills as part of their literacy topics, so a chance to practice them on a member of the Royal Family could not be missed!

Charlotte gave the opening speech and asked the first question – “Thank you so much for allowing us to interview you as part of our English Work”.

“May I begin by asking what your links are to the RNLI and how important an organisation it is to you?”

When I was very small, about three years old, I had holidayed at Dungeness in Kent.  I was taken to the local Lifeboat station where I remember a big shinny boat and thinking I really wanted to go on it.  As you now know, in recent years I have been fortunate to get involved.

Leila:  Please can you tell me what you wanted to be when you were our age?

I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do at your age.  I did know that I DID NOT want to work in London, and due to the interest in the sea  I signed up with the Navy and have just left after 37 years.

Jimmy: Were you ever naughty and if so what punishments did you get? Were you ever grounded?

I actually can’t remember as I only remember the good things about my time at school.   I may have been kept in after school.  My sports did keep me out of mischief as I enjoyed football, cricket  and tennis.

Tenzing: What are your best memories of school and did you have any scary Teachers?

My best memories from my prep school in Kent are the fact that I had plenty of time for sport and enjoying the Countryside.

As for the scary teachers:  the scariest teacher left when I arrived and although there were one or two others, I don’t think they were too bad!

Charlie : What was your favourite sport at school and what is your favourite sport now?

I enjoy all sports.  My favourite is cricket.  I played with some people who went on to play for  their county and England.

I’m too old for some sports now, but I do enjoy sailing and golf.

Joanna: Do you find it strange being a part of the most famous family in the World?

No not strange, I’ve got used to it.  I do live two separate lives.  One is supporting my wife and the other is supporting my own commitments, such as the RNLI.

Charlotte: Did you think you would grow up to marry a Princess and sit down over a roast dinner with Her Majesty the Queen?  Does it ever feel a bit unreal?

No.  If someone had told me some years ago I was going to marry a Princess I would have thought they were rather barmy.  It actually feels very real and comfortable.  I know the Queen as a person, she is warm and friendly,  and to me she is my ‘mother- in-law’

Charlotte Gilmour:  Do you feel part of the Family?

Definitely. I am an extended part of the Family.

Cosmo: When was the last time you rode a bike? What do you think are the simplest pleasures in life?

I rode a bike at school and university, and cycled a lot when I lived in Winchester but I would NOT ride a bike in London – it is too dangerous for me!

I haven’t ridden a bike for a while, however last summer, when we were staying at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, three of our party decided to ride their bikes to a place where we were having a picnic.  They were exhausted  when they arrived, so I offered to ride one of the bikes back.  It was seven miles, and I was definitely out of practice.

As to the simplest pleasures in life: enjoying  the company of friends, the Countryside and getting on with life; doing something interesting.

Taylor: Do you disco dance and what is your favourite music and best dance moves?

It has been a while since I disco danced,  but I do enjoy different types of music. I was recently in the USA and for three evenings I listened to Blue Grass Music. I do enjoy modern popular music as well.

My favourite dance?  Well, I do enjoy watching ballroom dancing and I regret I didn’t live in an era when it was very popular.

Charlie: Do you have any pets and what are they?

I have a lot of dogs: two English Bull Terriers,  four Labradors and two Spaniels

We live on a working farm so we also have sheep, cattle, and pigs.

Charlie: Did you have any unusual pets when you were small?

I had a dog and a Hamster.  I do remember Gerald Durral’s book about animals and he said he kept a scorpion in a match box, but I had nothing as unusual as that.

Geen : What makes you really chuckle?

A good joke, and if you see something that goes a bit wrong, a bit like the situations which occur on the Television programme  ‘You’ve Been Framed’.

Izzy: What is your favourite food and does Princess Anne cook or a Servant?

I like most foods; any good food and I particularly enjoy food from the farm, particularly our meat and vegetables.  However my favourite food is fish.

We do have a cook,  but my wife does cook when the cook is not there.  She also cooks if we are out on the boat together.  II don’t really do any; although I did learn the basic skills of cooking whilst I was at school, so I can cook if I needed to.

Izzy: Do you catch your own fish?

No I don’t.

Mrs Robinson – May I ask if you have been able to train your Bull Terrier, as I could never train mine?

I think you can, we did ours, they are soft and gentle and lovely pets to us.