#I have really weak hamstrings

[bloodiedandbattered]

Y'all ever remember something like "knees aren't meant to hurt" or "I had PT for a reason" and suddenly you haven't stretched your hamstrings in years?

No. Never?

[jesuistrestriste]

30s art donaldson tired af from tashi working him to the bone. so tired that he just wants to lay down but is also very horny cuz when is that man not and he asks reader “can you please just sit on my face” in a really quiet whimper or smth idk (i really just want to read about sitting on art’s face lol)

when art showed up at your door, sweaty and tired and flushed all over, you knew that you wouldn't be able to resist his pleas for attention. the exhausted, slightly defeated look in his pretty blue eyes had you weak all over. it was just no use.

he looked like a kicked puppy.

or maybe just a really over-worked man.

but that was beside the point.

you ushered him inside, cupping his face and cooing at him in all the ways you knew that he needed you to. he pouted. he whined. you could practically imagine a tail tucked between his legs. his coach must have really chewed him out during practice. he had been on a downward spiral in terms of his ability to win for the last few months. it had been rough, to say the least.

he kicked off his shoes and stumbled over to your living room floor, sitting down on the carpet where he opted to stretch his hamstrings. you sat in front of him and ran a hand through his damp hair. he leaned into your touch instinctually, and then buried his face into your neck as his hands slid to hold your lower back.

you embraced him and rubbed his back, hearing him let out little noises of contentment as your palms caressed circles over his aching body. you pressed a kiss to his neck. he tasted like salt and self-doubt, which was not unusual for him after he had just freshly come back from the courts.

he moaned softly against you and then his lips were on yours with a tender ferocity that he always carried. his tongue was eagerly slipping past your teeth to lick at yours, and then he was pulling you closer and furrowing his brows.

"Please," he whispered against your lips as he tilted his head to change angles. his dick was already hard. that's how easy it was for you to get him worked up.

"What-" you pause, kissing him deeper, "What is it?"

his hands gripped your hips.

"Can you please just sit on my face?"

you felt your body warm up instantly at the sound of his whimpered plea, like a bucket of hot spring water had been dumped over you, and you nod slowly against his lips.

within thirty seconds, he was laying flat on his back on your floor, and the clothing on the lower half of your body had been removed and tossed aside to unknown places.

you crawled up his form, and he watched your every move with bated breath, letting his fingers ghost over your body as you inched your way up to his mouth.

when you finally hovered above him on your bent knees, pussy just inches away from his desperate tongue, he immediately shuddered underneath you and looked up to your eyes with a look that begged you before he could even get the right words out.

"C'mon, please.." he moaned pathetically, hands now grasping at your torso and trying to pull you down to him.

you smile, biting your bottom lip.

"Ask me again."

his hips lifted up from the carpet, bucking into the air and affectively jolting the both of you. it was an accident; he didn't mean to. it was just that his mouth was watering and he was too fucking aroused to think properly.

"Will you sit on my face? Please?"

and with that, you lowered your wet core down to his mouth and relished in the way that he immediately groaned into you. his hands tightly held the back of your thighs as his lips suckled on your clit and his tongue lathed sloppily over your slick folds. his tongue darted in and out slowly from your hole, trying with everything in him to taste all that he possibly could.

you rocked your hips over his face, smearing his chin and the tip of his nose with your slimy arousal, but he couldn't have asked for anything better. he loved this. he craved this with everything in him. he wanted you to sit on him like this for however long you could stand it. he could die like this and be happy.

your orgasm built quickly thanks to his expert knowledge on what and where you liked to be kissed and tongued, and he let you gush over his face until you were shaking like a leaf. he gulped every drop down.

at the tail end of your climax, you felt his body shake below you, his eyes rolled back into his head as he gasped and murmured muffled words into your sopping cunt. you arch your back and pivot your body to look down at his form, and your eyes are instantly drawn to the wet patch soaking and growing over the fabric of his gym shorts.

he made you cum a second time after that. and then a third. and a fourth. your hands stayed tangled in his hair through each one, and you called out his name every time the waves of pleasure rushed through you.

even though you wanted art to feel better about himself in terms of his tennis career, there were certain.. perks to him feeling down about it. making you cum let him feel like a winner again, so you were going to ride this low-point of his for as long as you could. you knew he wouldn't mind.

[fatal-blow]

hmm i wanna make a proper post about practicing relaxation. lets go

So for some reason, you can't fucking relax

Chronic muscle tension is really, really common, but few people know how to combat it. In that same vein, relaxing the muscles does not come naturally to everyone, and for some it's a skill that must be practiced.

Firstly, the inability to relax is tied to a few things. Obviously trauma, stress, anxiety, and other neurodivergencies contribute a great deal to chronic muscle tension. What most people don't realize, is that chronic tension can also result from an unbalanced body. In particular, it's a major symptom of Morton's Foot Syndrome/Neander foot, which has a HUGE comorbidity with neurodivergency (particularly ADHD/Autism). I've made plenty of posts about it on the ol' blog that y'all can check out, and searching "Morton's Foot Syndrome" (it's frequently confused with Morton's neuroma) will also bring up information.

Secondly, chronic muscle tension also causes just about every symptom under the sun. All those symptoms related to stress, the tension headaches and the stomachaches and the muscle weakness etc? Most of these are a direct result of the physical strain of muscle tension, not some abstract symptom of being mentally overwhelmed.

So how do you know you have chronic muscle tension?

Experiencing the physical and mental symptoms of anxiety pretty much guarantees you have chronic muscle tension. These symptoms feed into each other--it doesn't matter whether the tension began in your head or in the rest of the body, both will be affected in the end. Chronic pain is another sign of muscle tension, but of course not everyone has the same sensitivity or conceptualization of pain.

The most objective way to tell is to simply give your muscles a squeeze. Try around your calves and ankles, your arms, your stomach. Yes, even if you're fat. A proper, relaxed body will be so squishy that you could feel down to the bone, and move the muscles and tendons around with little discomfort. For thinner people, a relaxed muscle will jiggle like fat.

Meanwhile, a tense muscle will have little to no squish, like squeezing a bouncy ball. You may struggle to press deep into the muscle at all. To differentiate from bone, know that bone will have absolutely zero give; compare the hardness of your shin bone to the muscles of the rest of the calf. You should be able to apply pressure ANYWHERE on your body with no pain or discomfort.

Another more objective sign of chronic muscle tension is the inability to sit or lay down comfortably. Constantly changing positions, fidgetiness, or restlessness all point to muscle tension, often because a position rests on or pulls on a tight muscle. The way you sit is a telltale sign of what muscles are too tight: for example, sliding your butt down your chair is a sign of tight hamstring muscles.

How do you unlearn chronic tension?

It's not easy. First, I urge anyone reading this to look into Morton's Foot Syndrome and treat it. This syndrome is extremely common (on my end, pretty much all of my friends, family, and several people who follow this blog have realized they have it!). The reason Morton's Foot causes chronic tension is due to the instability of the foot--in order to prevent the body from toppling over like a tower with a poor foundation, the muscles in the body overwork themselves. Getting the right insoles (insoles sold at the store will not address the problem) will improve your stability, making it easier and less exhausting to stand and walk.

Treatment will only stick once Morton's Foot is addressed! If you feel like all your stretching and exercises aren't cutting it, please PLEASE look into this!!!

Okay, now that I've said my piece of MFS, here are a few things that you can try to help learn how to relax.

Tense and Release. Pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Practice tensing and releasing different muscles while paying attention to the difference in how each feels. It's a good first step to building an understanding with your body. You can easily find videos that guide through these sorts of exercises.

Pay attention to your habits. Strained or unusual posture is a direct result of chronic tension. Think about when you keep your hand in a fist too long, and when you finally uncurl it all your fingers aches. ALL the muscles in your body are like this, but unlike your hands you might avoid stretching those muscles afterwards, because stretching overtight muscles can be unpleasant! Over time, the tension will build up in the form of triggerpoints, which functionally shorten the muscle and cause even more problems down the road.

Stretching and massage. Stretches should target overworked muscles, but massage is necessary to get the full benefits of stretching. If you stretch and feel a pain, you can try to find that pain using the triggerpoint guide in my pinned post--massage that spot indicated in the guide, the stretch will become easier. I'll make a formal post about stretching eventually, but in the meantime I discuss proper stretching technique here.

Stay warm! Heat makes muscles more fluid and easier to stretch. Cold will increase tension, but it also numbs pain, which is useful for sudden cramps or seizing of the muscle.

Practice belly breathing. When you pull in a breath, make sure it's your stomach that moves, not the chest. Chest breathing activates neck muscles known as scalenes--when these muscles are tense, they can cause numbness, tingling, and pain in the hands and arms. Belly breathing is often easier to do while lying down than it is while standing up--mastering it in both situations will make a difference.

Learn to trust your body. Chronic tension means you're fighting your own body. When you begin relaxation exercises, they might feel scary, maybe even giving you the sensation of falling. Whenever I do relaxation exercises, I have so much tension in my own body that the release will cause a jerk or a spasm--but I have to concentrate and allow my body do this instead of instinctively trying to stop it. I always feel better afterwards, but it was disconcerting when I first started. The body generally knows where everything is supposed to go, and learning when to give up the reins to it can give you new insights into what will help you feel better.

Be careful about painkillers. Everyone loves their ibuprofen and acetaminophen, but understand that the pain you feel is very real. If you take a painkiller and then put your body to work, your ability to judge how much damage is happening is hampered. That muscle you're holding tense for three hours straight may not hurt, but it doesn't change the fact that it's accumulating tension. Be extra gentle with your body on painkillers.

And that should cover it. If anything sounds strange or doesn't make sense, I'm always happy to elaborate and answer questions! Go onwards and try to feel a little bit better today.

[alotofpockets]

Every scar has a story | Lucy Bronze x Reader

5k celebration prompt: “Your scars don’t make you weak, they show you how strong you are.”

Woso masterlist | Words: 700

-----

You had known Lucy since you were kids, the two of you instantly becoming friends in school. Lucy had been your closest friend from the very start, and even a year on the other side of the world to study in the U.S. couldn’t change that.When Lucy returned to England and joined you at Leeds University, your friendship deepened in ways you hadn’t expected.

At Leeds University your friendship with Lucy turned into a relationship. Despite countless people telling you that your relationship from such a young age wouldn’t last, the two of you have been going strong for over ten years now.

You had both grown a lot since your university days, but were always able to grow together and adjust where necessary.

The growth you've seen Lucy go through with her career has been incredible. You watched her play with the boys back home, and join her first all girl’s team. You watched her go pro. Win with both club and country. Earning more trophies than could possibly fit in your apartment, or the new one when you’d move when she joined a new club.

But you've also watched her get injured more times that you'd like. Minor muscle injuries, but also hamstring injuries, and her worst enemy, knee injuries. Over the years, she had more surgeries than you could count on one hand. 

Lucy was a tough one though. Of course she was, tough was literally in her name. Even during her many recovery periods, she kept a smile on her face for the most part.

But you also knew that beneath all that toughness, she struggled sometimes. Whether it was physically or mentally, no injury really went without struggles. By now you had learned what she needed when she was struggling with her injuries, and you could always be the person she needed in those moments.

She could have been doing well for months and then out of nowhere she’d have a night where she was struggling again. 

Tonight was one of those nights.

Lucy said she was going to change and be right back, but she had been upstairs for almost thirty minutes now. You went up to check on her and found her sitting on the edge of the bed. Her eyes were unfocussed, and her finger was absentmindedly moving over the scars on her knee. She didn’t look up when you entered the room, but she knew you were there.

 “Sometimes I hate looking at them,” She spoke barely above a whisper. “They make me feel weak.”

Hearing her say that broke your heart a little. She was the strongest person you knew, and she thought she looked weak?

You crouch down in front of her, placing your hand over hers, stopping the tracing she was doing. “Your scars don’t make you weak, Luce. They show you how strong you are.”

You give her hand a soft squeeze. “Every single one of them has a story. A story that shows the proof that you fought, healed and came back even stronger.”

Lucy searched your eyes, trying to figure out if you were just saying that to make her feel better, or if you actually meant it. So you kept going. “You’ve overcome so much, and you’re still out there playing at top level. You’re still winning. Luce, you are the strongest person I know.”

The only thing she could find in your eyes was sincerity. She stayed silent for a moment until her lips curled up slightly. She pulled you closer and pressed a kiss to your forehead. “You always know what to say, don’t you?”

You chuckled, “Part of the job description, remember?”

Lucy let out a soft chuckle. “Right, I forgot I was talking to my personal therapist. How much for the session?” She jokes.

You pretended to calculate in your head. “I think a kiss and a cuddle should cover today’s session.” She smiled and kissed your lips. Then she pulled you in even closer and let the both of you fall back onto the bed. 

“Thank you.” She said into the otherwise silent room. You pressed a loving kiss to her cheek. “No need to thank me, I’ll always be here for you.”

-----

💗 If you enjoyed this fic, please consider liking, commenting, and reblogging! You can also support me by leaving a tip 💗

[lavylu]

Line Girl

Steve is a cocky performer who decides to help stretch out one of his line girls.

Warnings: literally just fingering

Steve watched as the girls warmed up around him. Several were chatting with each other and fixing their hair. A few were reapplying lipstick and mascara to their lashes. You on the other hand were stretching out your legs.

Every line girl needed to have high kicks and their splits. That’s what you were working on now. You were doing kicks on one side and made a quiet pout. Steve had no idea what for so he decided to wander on over.

He was wearing his spandex and if the sight didn’t make your mouth water you would be lying. The outfit hugged his pecs and you could still make out the lines of his abs.

And then the bulge.

The suit left nothing to the imagination.

His little guy (who wasn’t so little) constantly strained against the fabric and it made you wet. You had no idea how the other girls could focus when Steve was there.

A voice like butter hit your ears, “what’s wrong?”

Steve had snuck up on you when you were spaced out. He gave you a soft smile that made your stomach do flips.

“Nothing really, just I can’t get my hamstring to stretch out.”

Something ignited in his eyes and he gave you a devilish glare. “Can I help?”

You gently nodded your head causing Steve to smirk. He pulled you closer to him, by your hips. His huge hands nearly causing your skirt to ride up.

He lifted an eyebrow at you as he spun you around so your back would be to his chest. “Lift your leg up.”

You quickly obliged and Steve wrapped one of his huge hands around your ankle. He quickly pulled your leg up to your ear and held it there.

The sudden movement caused you to start to tumble. He quickly grabbed around your body and rested his hand on the thigh of your raised leg.

He essentially had you in a locked position where anyone walking by could see your underwear. He smirked as your face reddened.

“Do you like that? The fact that anyone can see how naughty your being.”

That’s when you felt it, his bulge. He pressed against your ass and you felt it press in between your cheeks.

You let out a whimper as his one hand let your leg drop. He firmly held your thigh in his hand and spinner you so your leg was pressed against his chest. He dropped one hand down to your ass and squeezed.

His other hand went in between the two of you and rested on your panties. He scoffed when he felt how wet you were.

“Such a little slut, I bet you’ll leave a mark on my suit.”

He hooked his finger in the loop and smirked.

“As much as I like the blue they need to go.”

In one quick motion he pulled away ripping the thin material from your body. You gasped as the cold air hit your core.

Slick started to drip down your leg but Steve sensually pushed his finger right into your hole. He circled it around, looking for that spongey spot, and when he found it he found it.

Your eyes started to role back as a pornographic moan left your pretty lips. Steve’s bulge only seemed to grow. He roughly kissed your neck as he added a second finger.

He used his thumb to draw circles on your clit. The sudden pleasure made your knee give out. Steve only laughed.

“Baby you got to stay standing.”

He didn’t slow his pace though. Instead he quickened his thrust and circling of that sensitive little bud. The bud that made you moan his name.

“Stevie—stevie, oh.”

“What is is baby?”

“I’m gonna— I’m gonna— oh.”

“Baby you got to use your words.”

Words seemed impossible in your state of mind. Every thought had disappeared besides Steve’s fingers. You gripped onto his neck and arched back as another moan left your mouth.

“Oh I’m gonna cum.”

Steve smirked down at you as he continued moving his fingers.

“Cum. Now.”

And you did. A wave of euphoria shot through your body as you felt your muscles go weak. You slumped into Steve’s chest and he slowly brought your leg down. You honestly had forgotten it was up the whole time.

Steve slowly removed his hand from under your skirt and brought it to his mouth. He licked it slowly as he made eye contact with you.

Your entire body was flushed as you felt a line of sweat forming on your collarbone.

Steve patted you on the butt and leaned into to whisper: “You’re all stretched out now.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Billboard at Walthamstow motorway, north London

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

March 13, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Mar 14, 2025

Stocks fell again today.

The S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of 500 of the biggest companies that are listed on U.S. stock exchanges and is the world’s most widely followed stock market benchmark, dropped 77.78 points, or 1.39%, ending the day more than 10% off its record high of less than a month ago and entering into “correction” territory. A market correction is a period of rapid change that drops the value of stocks by at least 10%.

Other major indexes have also fallen into correction as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and tariff threats, along with dramatic cuts to federal funding and federal employment, are hobbling the national economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 537 points, or 1.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2%.

In the wake of the dropping markets, Trump announced on his social media platform today that if the European Union did not drop its 50% tariff on whiskey, imposed as retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and steel, he would impose a 200% tariff on all “WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES.” He added: “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

In fact, journalist Dave Infante, who covers drinking in America at Fingers, noted that while it seems counterintuitive, such a tariff would “crush the US wine industry. Booze gets to market on distributors' trucks,” he posted. “These fleets need volume to run efficiently. Subtract EU wine from the equation & it no longer pencils out. Any gains from less competition would likely be paid back out in margin loss.”

Kai Ryssdal of the radio show Marketplace posted: “I'm honestly running out of words I can use on the air to describe what's happening in and to this economy.”

There is a grim fascination in the 1929 stock market crash, when Americans watched with horror as the bottom fell out of the economy. In our memories, reinforced by jerky black-and-white newsreels, that crisis shows businessmen aghast as fortunes disappeared in heavy trading that left the ticker tape that recorded prices running hours behind only to toll men’s destruction when it finally reached the end of the day’s sales.

But the stock market crisis of 1929 came from structural imbalances in the nation that created a weak economy in which about 5% of the country received about one third of the nation’s income. What really jumps out today is that, in contrast to 1929, the national economy is strong—or was just a month ago. In fact, before Trump took office, it was the strongest of any economically developed country in the world.

The blame for the falling market in the United States today can be laid squarely at the feet of the new presidential administration, with the tariff war it has instigated and the sweeping cuts it has made to United States government employment. President Donald Trump and his staff insist that the pain he is inflicting on Americans will pay off in long-term economic development, but they have deliberately thrust a stick into the wheels of a strong economy.

It is an astonishing thing to watch a single man hamstring the United States economy. It is also astonishing to watch Republican senators try to convince the American people that a falling stock market and contracting economy is a good thing. “Our economy has been on a sugar high for a long time. It’s been distorted by excess government spending,” Montana Senator Tim Sheehy told Fox News Channel host Larry Kudlow today. “What we're seeing here from this administration and what you're gonna see from this Congress is re-disciplining to ensure that our economy is based on private investment and free-market growth, not public sector spending.”

In fact, until a brief spike in spending during the coronavirus crisis, government expenditure in the United States as a percentage of gross domestic product has held relatively steady around 20% since the 1950s.

Today, Trump met with Secretary-General Mark Rutte of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who was eager to get Trump to reiterate U.S. support for NATO. Trump told Rutte that the United States needs control of Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland “for international security, not just security—international—we have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful.” Asked about whether the U.S. would annex Greenland, he answered: “I think that will happen.”

At that same meeting, Trump talked about his order to release water from two California dams in January allegedly to deliver water to Los Angeles after the devastating wildfires in that region, although water managers in Los Angeles said they had plenty of water for firefighting. A February 3 memo from the Army Corps of Engineers, obtained by Scott Dance and Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, makes it clear that officials knew that the 2.5 billion gallons they released in response to Trump’s order “could not be delivered to Southern California.”

In fact, as Ian James explained in the Los Angeles Times, water releases are usually carefully considered, and local water managers and lawmakers thought the sudden plan was potentially “ruinous,” worrying that an abrupt surge of water could damage the lands and people downstream while wasting water that would be needed during the hot growing season.

That’s not how Trump portrayed the sudden release of water. After talking to reporters about the upcoming congressional budget fight, he suddenly pivoted to Los Angeles, and from there to water. "I broke into Los Angeles, can you believe it, I had to break in,” he said. “I invaded Los Angeles and we opened up the water, and the water is now flowing down. They have so much water they don't know what to do. They were sending it out to the Pacific for environmental reasons. Ok, can you believe it? And in the meantime they lost 25,000 houses. They lost, and nobody’s ever seen anything like it. But, uh, we have the water—uh, love to show you a picture, you’ve seen the picture—the water’s flowing through the half-pipes, you know, we have the big half-pipes that go down. Used to, twenty-five years ago they used to have plenty of water but they turned it off for, again, for environmental reasons. Well, I turned it on for environmental reasons and also fire reasons but, ah, and I’ve been asking them to do that during my first term, I said do it, I didn’t think anything like could happen like this, but they didn’t have enough water. Now the farmers are going to have water for their land and the water’s in there, but I actually had to break in. We broke in to do it because, ah, we had people who were afraid to give water. In particular they were trying to protect a certain little fish. And I said, how do you protect a fish if you don’t have water? They didn’t have any water so they’re protecting a fish. And that didn’t work out too well by the way….”

Today, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that federal agencies must immediately offer thousands of probationary workers purged from the government in the early weeks of Trump’s administration their jobs back. Mass firings from the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments did not follow the law, Alsup said.

The government declined to make witnesses available to the court although Alsup had ordered the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management to appear today. Alsup told lawyers from the Justice Department that he believed they were hiding how the firings had taken place and who was responsible. “You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth…. I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.… I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth.”

Tonight, U.S. District Judge James Bredar ordered the administration to reinstate thousands of probationary workers in the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the General Service Administration, and the Small Business Administration.

Bredar said it was “likely” that “the Government has engaged in an illegal scheme spanning broad swaths of the federal workforce.” The government claimed it did not have to give advance notice of the firings because it had dismissed the probationary workers for “performance” or other individual reasons. "On the record before the Court, this isn’t true,” Bredar said. “There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[rikomoriyama01]

🗣️ (also sorry this got long, turns out i have thoughts) so like riko is one of the weirdest fandom cases i've ever seen. i've been in fandoms where characters who commit actual war crimes and genocide are badass babes or uwu soft bois, and even spoiled mafia brats who commit terrible crimes against the heroes for daddy's attention that get love and redemption. it's so weird to see just how isolated from all that riko is to me.

i do think it's partly how aftg is written, and that's also partly because niel's pov is not at all forgiving of riko, while is entirely forgiving of people like andrew. but i also think it's because of how riko himself is written. he's one of these characters that's better on paper than he is in the book to me. because he's never presented as smart enough to fall into the magnificent bastard trope where everyone applauds how devious his plans are, but he's not outright hammy enough to just be a fun read, he doesn't even get the same stupidly dramatic flare as andrew. and while we're told he's powerful and doing dangerous stuff, he's presented on page, more often than not, as a petulant child that neil is just done with or a guy who likes to torture people who neil is also done with. neil is never actually scared of riko, or even particularly threatened by him, and i think that hurts him and makes his position in the narrative weaker. especially when nora is trying to play him as a villain and a threat in a mafia story rather than a good old fashioned rival in a sports drama. for example, his first impression on the kathy show should live up to the hype of this imposing charismatic villain who broke kevin's hand, but instead loses him temper, forgets all of his media training and lets a nobody like neil goad him into losing control of the interview, and then his payback, things like shoving neil around and seth's death, are basically brushed off because neil doesn't really care that much. it's not given the weight to be a seriously omg this guys a threat first impression. and this isn't uncommon, lots of media hamstrings their villains at the start by making sure we know the main character is too sassy for them and can humiliate them, without thinking about how weak that can make the villain seem. it feels sometimes like nora wanted riko to be this chess master villain or tragic child who's lashing out at the world, without committing to it fully to either, or was just not an experienced enough writer to have known how to write either of those things in the pov of someone who hates riko's guts, which is understandable, writing is hard and that sort of nuance takes practice, especially if you just go by the books and not the extra content, and i do wonder how differently nora would have portrayed riko if she rewrote the main trilogy now with presumably a lot more practice under her belt. in the end riko ends up in this weird grey area to me where i understand why he's not popular, given he has none of the usual obvious traits that fans like to latch onto when redeeming a villainous character, and even the ones that are there are glossed over pretty quickly because of neil's pov, and a lot of his more interesting pieces are on paper not actively presented in the book, and not everyone reads super deep, but i also don't understand the amount of hate. i have literally never seen a character in any other fandom i've been in have this much fandom wide hatred.

See I have nothing to add here because you single handedly dropped the best analysis of Riko's character in the series I had pleasure to read so far and summed up all my feelings about why and what of the fandom. If the goal was to write a character that is impactful yet easy to hate then that goal was achieved but for me it real takes away form the magnitude of feelings Riko could evoke in reader and questions he could provoke in narrative if he was given bit different presentation that woudl still align with the lore we already have.

[misfitwashere]

March 13, 2025 

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

MAR 14

Stocks fell again today.

The S&P 500, which tracks the stock performance of 500 of the biggest companies that are listed on U.S. stock exchanges and is the world’s most widely followed stock market benchmark, dropped 77.78 points, or 1.39%, ending the day more than 10% off its record high of less than a month ago and entering into “correction” territory. A market correction is a period of rapid change that drops the value of stocks by at least 10%.

Other major indexes have also fallen into correction as President Donald Trump’s tariffs and tariff threats, along with dramatic cuts to federal funding and federal employment, are hobbling the national economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 537 points, or 1.3%, and the Nasdaq Composite fell 2%.

In the wake of the dropping markets, Trump announced on his social media platform today that if the European Union did not drop its 50% tariff on whiskey, imposed as retaliation for Trump’s tariffs on aluminum and steel, he would impose a 200% tariff on all “WINES, CHAMPAGNES, & ALCOHOLIC PRODUCTS COMING OUT OF FRANCE AND OTHER E.U. REPRESENTED COUNTRIES.” He added: “This will be great for the Wine and Champagne businesses in the U.S.”

In fact, journalist Dave Infante, who covers drinking in America at Fingers, noted that while it seems counterintuitive, such a tariff would “crush the US wine industry. Booze gets to market on distributors' trucks,” he posted. “These fleets need volume to run efficiently. Subtract EU wine from the equation & it no longer pencils out. Any gains from less competition would likely be paid back out in margin loss.”

Kai Ryssdal of the radio show Marketplace posted: “I'm honestly running out of words I can use on the air to describe what's happening in and to this economy.”

There is a grim fascination in the 1929 stock market crash, when Americans watched with horror as the bottom fell out of the economy. In our memories, reinforced by jerky black-and-white newsreels, that crisis shows businessmen aghast as fortunes disappeared in heavy trading that left the ticker tape that recorded prices running hours behind only to toll men’s destruction when it finally reached the end of the day’s sales.

But the stock market crisis of 1929 came from structural imbalances in the nation that created a weak economy in which about 5% of the country received about one third of the nation’s income. What really jumps out today is that, in contrast to 1929, the national economy is strong—or was just a month ago. In fact, before Trump took office, it was the strongest of any economically developed country in the world.

The blame for the falling market in the United States today can be laid squarely at the feet of the new presidential administration, with the tariff war it has instigated and the sweeping cuts it has made to United States government employment. President Donald Trump and his staff insist that the pain he is inflicting on Americans will pay off in long-term economic development, but they have deliberately thrust a stick into the wheels of a strong economy.

It is an astonishing thing to watch a single man hamstring the United States economy. It is also astonishing to watch Republican senators try to convince the American people that a falling stock market and contracting economy is a good thing. “Our economy has been on a sugar high for a long time. It’s been distorted by excess government spending,” Montana Senator Tim Sheehy told Fox News Channel host Larry Kudlow today. “What we're seeing here from this administration and what you're gonna see from this Congress is re-disciplining to ensure that our economy is based on private investment and free-market growth, not public sector spending.”

In fact, until a brief spike in spending during the coronavirus crisis, government expenditure in the United States as a percentage of gross domestic product has held relatively steady around 20% since the 1950s.

Today, Trump met with Secretary-General Mark Rutte of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who was eager to get Trump to reiterate U.S. support for NATO. Trump told Rutte that the United States needs control of Denmark’s autonomous territory of Greenland “for international security, not just security—international—we have a lot of our favorite players cruising around the coast, and we have to be careful.” Asked about whether the U.S. would annex Greenland, he answered: “I think that will happen.”

At that same meeting, Trump talked about his order to release water from two California dams in January allegedly to deliver water to Los Angeles after the devastating wildfires in that region, although water managers in Los Angeles said they had plenty of water for firefighting. A February 3 memo from the Army Corps of Engineers, obtained by Scott Dance and Joshua Partlow of the Washington Post under the Freedom of Information Act, makes it clear that officials knew that the 2.5 billion gallons they released in response to Trump’s order “could not be delivered to Southern California.”

In fact, as Ian James explained in the Los Angeles Times, water releases are usually carefully considered, and local water managers and lawmakers thought the sudden plan was potentially “ruinous,” worrying that an abrupt surge of water could damage the lands and people downstream while wasting water that would be needed during the hot growing season.

That’s not how Trump portrayed the sudden release of water. After talking to reporters about the upcoming congressional budget fight, he suddenly pivoted to Los Angeles, and from there to water. "I broke into Los Angeles, can you believe it, I had to break in,” he said. “I invaded Los Angeles and we opened up the water, and the water is now flowing down. They have so much water they don't know what to do. They were sending it out to the Pacific for environmental reasons. Ok, can you believe it? And in the meantime they lost 25,000 houses. They lost, and nobody’s ever seen anything like it. But, uh, we have the water—uh, love to show you a picture, you’ve seen the picture—the water’s flowing through the half-pipes, you know, we have the big half-pipes that go down. Used to, twenty-five years ago they used to have plenty of water but they turned it off for, again, for environmental reasons. Well, I turned it on for environmental reasons and also fire reasons but, ah, and I’ve been asking them to do that during my first term, I said do it, I didn’t think anything like could happen like this, but they didn’t have enough water. Now the farmers are going to have water for their land and the water’s in there, but I actually had to break in. We broke in to do it because, ah, we had people who were afraid to give water. In particular they were trying to protect a certain little fish. And I said, how do you protect a fish if you don’t have water? They didn’t have any water so they’re protecting a fish. And that didn’t work out too well by the way….”

Today, U.S. District Judge William Alsup ruled that federal agencies must immediately offer thousands of probationary workers purged from the government in the early weeks of Trump’s administration their jobs back. Mass firings from the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments did not follow the law, Alsup said.

The government declined to make witnesses available to the court although Alsup had ordered the acting head of the Office of Personnel Management to appear today. Alsup told lawyers from the Justice Department that he believed they were hiding how the firings had taken place and who was responsible. “You will not bring the people in here to be cross-examined. You’re afraid to do so because you know cross examination would reveal the truth…. I tend to doubt that you’re telling me the truth.… I’m tired of seeing you stonewall on trying to get at the truth.”

Tonight, U.S. District Judge James Bredar ordered the administration to reinstate thousands of probationary workers in the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, Transportation, Treasury, and Veterans Affairs, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the General Service Administration, and the Small Business Administration.

Bredar said it was “likely” that “the Government has engaged in an illegal scheme spanning broad swaths of the federal workforce.” The government claimed it did not have to give advance notice of the firings because it had dismissed the probationary workers for “performance” or other individual reasons. "On the record before the Court, this isn’t true,” Bredar said. “There were no individualized assessments of employees. They were all just fired. Collectively.”

—

[ruinedmefic]

Chapter 4 - Step On Me

Chapter summary: it begins. Masterlist ✦ Ao3 Read this fic on Ao3 (Chapter 6 out now!) Mojo Pin - Jeff Buckley Prev

CW: sexual harassment/brief non-con (in flashback towards the end), also, the Spanish was written with the help of Google translate, please if there's a better way to write it let me know and I'll fix it up ASAP!!!!

Clementine is convinced Simon hates her.

February 1st 2024 | 05:30am

“What th’hell?” Clementine squinted against the overhead light, sluggishly moving to cover her head with her comforter. “What time is it?”

“Zero five thirty hours,” Simon grunted, “get up. We’re going on a run.”

Clementine was sure she’d just lost her mind—this couldn’t be real. “Goodnight,” she said, pressing her face deeper into her pillow.

Then he started clapping his hands, “up Miss Watson. I expect you ready and outside your door in five minutes.”

Daring to move her blanket, she peered out from the warmth, squinting at risk of a headache, “am I dreaming?”

“I’m no dream man Miss Watson, move your arse.”

“I’m not going on a fucking run at five thirty in the morning you psycho!”

He scoffed, “yes you are. I need to see if you know how to run.”

“This is our first week of rest! I should be sleeping right now!”

“I honestly do not care Miss Watson. Get the fuck up.”

With little else choice—certain that Simon would drag her out of beg by her ankle if necessary — Clementine found herself watching her breath puff white on a random street in Newark as she stretched, tugging her beanie lower over her ears, sniffling already. “Why are we—doing this again?” It’d been a while since she went for a run, a couple of months at least. Marquette felt like it existed frosted over half the year. She was built for the debatably more bearable lows in New Orleans.

“If I tell you to run,” Simon said, lifting his heel to his backside. An early-rising woman gave him a wide berth on the sidewalk as she went on her own morning run, cheeks already flushed a splotchy vermillion. Whether or not Simon noticed the wide-eyed look she gave him didn’t matter, Clementine did, struggling to withhold a laugh. “I need to have confidence you at least have a chance of escaping.”

“I think that’s an oxymoron,” she muttered, grimacing at the sting in her hamstrings as she reached for her toes.

“You’re a bloody oxymoron,” Simon grumbled beside her and this time she couldn’t help her laugh.

It had to be the delirium of the hour that had her so susceptible to his weak humour.

“Right, I’ve scouted the block, we’ll go five rounds. Keep up.”

That was all the warning she got before he took off.

— ✦ —

“What the fuck did you just say?” Simon scoffed, flushed where the mask didn’t cover.

“I said—” she gasped, clutching the post outside the motel for dear life, dim sunlight illuminating the sweat on her forehead, “I win.”

Simon laughed, slightly choked as he coughed, his hands clasped behind his head as he stretched, opening his lungs for more air.

Clementine’s legs were burning, but it was a phantom pain—she could keep going if her lungs weren’t a factor. She hadn’t felt like this since her high school track meets. If she gave into the urge to let her knees buckle, she might never get up again.

“How’d you work that one out?” He indulged her, sighing as he dropped his arms back to his sides. She had thought he looked silly in his trackpants, but she was basically wearing leg warmers and mittens. She couldn’t really judge.

Taking a second to remember to breathe, she held up a hand, coughing slightly, “I stretched past—the post—first.”

“I was judging by the tree,” he said, leaning against the silvered-oak tree, frost-nipped.

From where she was, slumped against the concrete pillar outside of their accommodation, heaving for oxygen, the tree (no more than ten paces away) couldn’t have been any farther from her. “Fuck off. I’m going back to bed.”

“No can do,” came his terribly gravelly voice. If her guess was right, Clementine thought he sounded a little smug. “You’ve got a flight in one hour. We’re off to the airport.”

“No,” she groaned, eyes closing against the blue-grey sky.

“Yes.”

“No.”

“C’mon.”

“Fine.”

— ✦ —

The days had been passing like the ticking of a clock. Monotonous, repetitive, and promising something different with the next chime of the hour, but it was cruelly something that’d happened before.

The call came on the 3rd of February, Mom, flashing across the screen with a picture from last Christmas.

“Hey sweetpea, been a little quiet lately,” she said, her voice soft over the phone.

It was just going past ten, and Johnny sat a bag beside the corner seat in the hotel room—"you’re not sleepin’ alone in a room that has easy access like this” Simon declared, not allowing Clementine to get a word in. “Johnny’ll take watch tonight.”—she didn’t even get the chance to say butbefore the door was closed in her face with her standing out in the hall.

“Hi ma,” she murmured, glancing at Johnny smoking on the balcony. She’d seen everyone in her security detail smoke so far, except for Gaz. Although, he could just be exceptionally secretive (she doubted it). “Got caught up with all the travel, sorry.”

She fiddled with the plastic of her vocal nebulizer abandoned in her lap.

Despite her run with Simon early that morning—dreadfully early, yet again—which resulted in more deliberation of who was the winner of the unspoken race around the block, this phone call would likely be the most talking she’d do all day. She was really trying to take advantage of the break until the next performance on the 8th in Birmingham, AL.

“How’s it going? Pat’s been sending me all the videos ever recorded by the looks of my messages,” she said with a soft laugh, static in the phone, “you plan on stopping by when you’re here?”

“Of course,” she smiled, but it dropped far too quickly. “I’ve missed you.”

Her mother merely hummed, “there’s an easy way to fix that, y’know. I understand why you left L.A. but you didn’t have to hole up in Marquette like the plague’s following you. You could’ve come back home—you know how quiet it can get ‘round here.”

“You’ve got Patty, you don’t need to miss me.” Besides, it wasn’t the plague following her. It was something arguably worse. “Don’t you think the distance makes it that much better when we see each other again?” she tried, not believing herself for a second.

The sigh on the other end of the line was answer enough. “I miss my Clem. And Lucky and Linc and D—y’know, that boy visits me more than you. My own child.”

Her heart stuttered. “I know,” she whispered, shame flushing high on her cheeks. D’Angelo was why she knew her mother was alright, sending her the odd update or two every month. “I’m sorry.”

She didn’t expect an “it’s okay, sweetpea, I get it.” But it still stung when it never came.

They chatted a little more, discussing work at the grocers, old Luther the neighbour who seemed to be perpetually sixty-five, and making plans for when she’d be home next Saturday.

The last show before they left for Europe. She had been a little excited about the travelling just a month ago, but now?

Johnny came in from the balcony nearly the moment Clementine put her phone on to charge. She only then realised he’d been giving her privacy.

“Ye alright?” He asked, roaming around the room and checking the windows and door locks before settling into the plush corner seat, stealing the blanket over the foot of the bed.

She nodded, sighing at the heavy feeling engulfing her chest, “just my ma wondering if I still love her,” she huffed a laugh.

A smile tugged at Johnny’s lips, “aye, I ken. My ma reckons I stopped lovin’ her the day I moved out.”

“Tell me about it,” she murmured, her smile wavering as she tugged the comforter higher to cover her, bringing her knees into her chest as she sat in bed, hugging them.

She worried her lip between her teeth and Soap didn’t miss it, “wha’s wrong?”

“I…” hesitation caught Clementine’s tongue, she couldn’t look him in the eye, “I don’t know if I want to see her.”

If her words shocked him, he didn’t let it show through, “ye dinnae have to.”

Her sigh was something long in the making, “it’s not like I don’t love her,” she continued on as if he’d never spoken. “But…wouldn’t it be safer if I just…didn’t? She would be fine if she didn’t see me—we only really see each other at Christmas anyway,” she shrugged, “she doesn’t need to see me.”

Soap didn’t say anything. Her gut churned.

“But I still will,” she said quickly, swallowing thickly. “Everyone wants to see her—and I do miss her…she just—she doesn’t really know me anymore, I think. Like, she still sees me as the girl with a band in high school that set up at the open mic nights every Friday down at Barry’s Grill.

“And—and everyone else is still the same but I’m the one that’s changed—I’m the one that’s all fucked up—”

“Ye’re no’ fucked up, Clementine,” Soap interjected, a frown creasing the skin between his brows as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Ye’re just copin’ w’everythin’ tha’s been thrown at ye. D’ye hear me?”

It took a second for his words to sink in, but they struck deep, burrowing into her chest until they forced out a soft, “oh.”

“Ye should get some sleep hen, Ghost has ye wakin’ up with the birds these days,” he said, his expression softening slightly before he relaxed back into his seat.

Safe to say, on some level, Soap was growing on her.

— ✦ —

In less than a week, Clementine was standing on her childhood home doorstep, fingers tugging at the inner seam of her hoodie pocket as she stood in the cold. She studied the scratches around the doorknob, the slight lean it had in the frame from age and little care.

There was a chip in the second step of the stoop and the potted plant she stood beside now was protesting the cold, shivering in the wind, not meant for this kind of weather.

The door swung open, revealing an older woman, a replica of her shifted just askew. (Minus the blue hair of course.)

“Hi ma,” Clementine grinned, stepping forward quickly into the open arms stretched her way, “how are you?” a formality. She’d grown awkward even with her own family.

“I’m…good?” her mother cast a frown over her shoulder, leaning slightly to peer around and see who lingered behind on the sidewalk, “can I help you?”

Leave it to Monique Watson to give Simon Riley attitude in lieu of a greeting.

Clementine was quick to fill her in, “he’ll just be waiting in the car,” she said, casting him a glare, to which he narrowed his eyes but finally relented. Sighing, he sank back on his heels and pivoted, climbing back into the driver’s seat. “No harm there, right?”

“He looks like a war criminal,” Monique muttered, her expression pulled into something akin to disapproval, “and what’s with the mask?”

Clementine could only shrug and follow her mother inside, closing and locking the front door behind her.

“So, tell me, what’s the love life looking like?” In all honesty, Clementine shouldn’t have been surprised. It was a triumph that the topic hadn’t been brought up over the phone last week. “You’re thirty this year, you know, and I’m not getting any younger.”

She let loose a strained laugh, sitting gingerly on the edge of the couch, “I’ve been pretty busy with the tour prep, getting back to my writing, you know,” she trailed off, wringing her hands together in her lap like a schoolgirl, “I’m just not really looking for anything at the moment.”

“It’s been how long now? Aren’t you a little lonely?”

Clementine felt that it was rather hypocritical of her mother to ask such questions, when her own love life was rather dismal itself. Patty—or rather, Patrick McArthur, the guy that worked at the library—was rarely brought up by her mother without being prompted first.

“Two years of being single isn’t even that bad.”

Mark undeniably had his faults and their relationship behind closed doors steadily grew miserable but—there was a time when Clementine really did love him; on those rare mornings when their teams weren’t knocking down their door and they had a moment to just have breakfast together. But that was��rare, they’d been in the very busy years then, focused on doing as much and getting as much new stuff out there as possible.

Pushing so much of themselves out and away, left little of themselves to share by the time they came back home at night and conversations quickly became trite and callous.

Though, that had never been conveyed in the pictures, had it?

Her mother sighed, and Clementine already knew what she’d say; I just don’t want you to end up like me, “your father and I wanted things to work out for your benefit, but,” it was better for us to be  apart, you didn’t deserve to grow up with that relationship to model your love life after. “I think this tour would be really good for you,” she added, “you’ll get to broaden your horizons,” and see exactly how much you’ve been missing.

You’ll see some sense. “I’ve always thought, those who hide from the public arer hiding something from the law—imagine what your litttle fans would think of you if you keep going like this?” They’ll think; “why is she still alon? Where are her kids? Maybe there’s something wrong with her,” but her mother always had a swift backpedal ready to go, “but I know there’s nothing wrong with you, sweetpea, I just worry.” That there might be, always followed but went unsaid.

All in all, she did not look forward to being back here for dinner with the band, pretending like this conversation didn’t exist and hadn’t taken up a shelf in her mind.

— ✦ —

February 10th 2024 | Belfast 05:30am

Unknown number, 03:07am

] My little Borreguita, I’ve missed you dearly.

] Nice to see you leave the house.

Clementine had stretched with a long sigh when she first woke up, slow to adjust to her morning run time, slapping her hand down on the bedside table for her phone, effectively waking up Simon who had been sleeping in the corner of her hotel room. At the distressed look on her face when she turned her phone on, Simon had stood up, “what happened?”

She nearly threw the damn thing at him.

“Borreguita,” he murmured, a note of distaste in his voice. “Do you know who might have sent this?”

“A woman—” tears flooded her eyes as she whispered the name, “Valeria.”

“You’ve met her?” His gaze was so heavy on her face, it felt like she was the pinboard he was struggling to break through. “When?”

“A m-month after Mark was locked up.”

— ✦ —

June 27th 2022 | 03:02am

San Clemente, CA The master bedroom of the Bradley-Watson beachfront home

“You know, El Sin Nombre doesn’t love all these trips I’ve been taking as of late. All because of your little boy-toy.”

Clementine tried to flinch away from the cold fingertips that skimmed over her jaw, propped open with a thick rope— which was what had woken her up to begin with—but her body moved like a boat still in the water, a nauseating rock to and fro in her mind. Hands had hauled her out of bed, binding her to a chair. She hadn’t known anyone had been in her house the night before, hadn’t noticed any change in her last drink of water.

Her blinks were slow as she looked up at the woman before her, drool pooling in her bottom lip. The woman swiped at it with her thumb, smearing a cool streak across the skin of her jaw, “Mark never mentioned just how beautiful you are to my boys,” she tutted, bending at the waist to look at Clementine at eye-level. Her Spanish was like satin to Clementine’s ears, a slight rasp in her tone as she lowered her voice, “pero eres muy hermosa. Es una pena no haberte conocido primero, ¿eh? No tendrías toda esta angustia, mi estrellita.”

Clementine only blinked slowly up at her, a doe-ish look glazing them over as she struggled to process what was happening. “Who are you?” She tried to ask, but her words sounded lewd around the rope, her tongue gone slack.

The woman’s smile was dreadfully amused. She looked over her shoulder at the man behind her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, Clementine recognised Gabriel. “Como una puta, ¿eh?” They laughed a moment before she barked at him to get out of the room, the change in her mood like whiplash. “Look at me, estrellita, your boyfriend has been driving me so fucking mad. Him and that whore he was fucking— they lost my money. D’you know that?”

Clementine found the strength to shake her head no, but she accidentally began leaning closer as she did— nearly toppling with the lean of her chair. The woman’s hands were back on her suddenly, one on her thigh, one cupping her lower jaw, forcing her to focus all her straying attention on the crouched woman. “No?” she sighed, brushing her thumb over the curve of Clementine’s cheekbone, “that’s okay, that’s okay—we can still work this out.”

The notion of “we” made Clementine’s stomach roil.

She tutted as a tear rolled down her cheek, cooing, “don’t cry,” before she lifted the tear with her thumb, licking the salt off her fingerprint with a grin. With a palm on the back of her head, she pulled Clementine close, kissing away the matching dew drop on her other cheek, licking the skin with the flat of her tongue. Clementine could smell a cigar on her breath. “I used to catch little stars in my back yard as a girl—fireflies,” she said, “I’d put them in a jar or slice their stomachs open.

“You see, Estrellita, I wanted to see how they worked, what made them tick—to know if they had a heart and mind just like me. And they did, but it did not matter if they were the same inside—outside, they were so weak and small all I had to do was catch them and I had control, or they were dead on impact.”

Clementine whimpered as the woman kissed her cheeks, straddling her lap as she was bound to the chair, “I’d catch them—kill them—and I thought to myself, even as just a little girl, that it would be so much better if I could do the same to all the little nuisances in my life. Don’t you think?”

The woman trailed a finger down her jaw and neck, down to the cut-out vee in her tee-shirt she’d worn to bed—a top far too thin to offer any kind of barrier from her touch. “El Sin Nombre…I will take back our photos of you,” Clementine’s stomach sank, “and they may decide to be lenient to my favour. I will ask for you to have two years to collect the money they’re owed— ah, but with the house included,” she thought for a moment, chewing her lip, “house, drugs, car, it’s around six…no, seven million were owed.” For a moment, Clementine felt quite familiar with death. “If you cannot do that, there will be two options, you either suffer Mark’s fate and I kill you, or you work for El Sin Nombre—and I much prefer this option,” she hummed, Clementine felt herself stiffen as a knuckle brushed over the pebbled peak of her nipple through her top, “because you’ll work under me.”

Clementine shook her head no, trying to say it, but the word was sloppy in her mouth, just whimpering helplessly. The woman cooed, “Este coño sería todo mío. Suena bien ¿eh?” she grinned, “¿Te gusta cuando digo eso? ¿Cuando no puedes distinguir la izquierda de la derecha?” a warm, delightfully amused laugh poured from her lips. “When you have your money, you wait for me, okay Estrellita? You don’t give your money to anyone else—you wait for me. You wait for Valeria. That’s my name.”

She carefully reached around Clementine’s head, the swell of her breast pushing into her turned face, undoing the thick rope wound around her head. Dumbly, Clementine rolled her partially numb tongue around her mouth, licking her lips, the ground still wavered under her feet, and her blinks were still slow and disoriented, but Valeria had her full attention as she blinked up at her.

“Say it,” she whispered.

“Valeria,” it was lazy to fall from her mouth, heavy and dull, but the woman lit up, coaxing it from her lips once more with a thumb tugging at her bottom lip. “Valeria.”

“I will be back for you—for the money. Two years Clementine,” she murmured, leaning in far too close—too close for Clementine to rear back any further. “¿Un beso de despedida cariño? ¿Por favor? Solo uno pequeño?” she mumbled before smashing their lips together, prying her mouth apart with her own, her tongue delving inside like she was searching for a sin much lower. She moaned, bright, and needy, and entirely indulgent, like she’d just tasted the sweetest wine. “You wait for Valeria.”

— ✦ —

Clementine has never felt the blood drain from her face before, but she could now. “She was just waiting for me to leave the country,” she murmured, her voice quiet as the sluggish memory replayed over and over in her head. “I—I had just donated a lot of my money days before she came, I was moving to Marquette within the week,” the panic was welling in her chest, “I could never have saved it all.”

Simon studied her for a moment, “you were never going to pay her?”

“Never,” she shook her head, clasping her shaking hands together. “It’s the one thing I’ll do for myself before I die.”

“Take a stand against Valeria?”

“Against El Sin Nombre,” she said, skittish eyes darting up to his face. “I’m not paying. I couldn’t even if I wanted to.”

“Alright,” Simon grunted, a deep frown between his eyebrows, “we’ll…look into this Valeria and her connections. She won’t get to you.”

Her lip trembled, “promise?”

“Just focus on the tour and follow my orders,” he grunted, “I need to discuss this with the team,” he gestured with the phone before heading out the door, closing it softly behind him. Clementine stared after him with rapidly blurring eyes, hastily wiping them away. God, did she hate crying.

As she showered, dragging herself into the ensuite after a pitiful attempt at calming herself (the hot water did wonders to ease her trembling, at least), she realised that Simon didn’t promise anything.

[remindingpersephone]

Healthy Summer 2024

My magical, mystical, incredibly beautiful and generous friend @ohhelloholly and I are doing a thing. We're going to be accountability buddies as we each try, in our own way, to get healthier this summer.

We're tagging this project Healthy Summer 2024. The idea is we each have different health goals, and we go about achieving those goals in different ways. But we want to support each other in a positive way. So every few days we will post what we're up to, talk about the struggles and the successes, and just be there for each other in general.

If this idea resonates with anyone else, we welcome you to join us. If you want to tag your post Healthy Summer 2024, you'll be able to find anyone who's joining us. The key to this is low-stress; this is not one more thing to make you feel overwhelmed and anxious. We may adjust what and how we post based on changes we encounter as we go along.

One of my starting goals is to make small adjustments to my diet. I'm not pressuring myself, because I've done that in the past and failed. So I might have 3 (mini can) Dr. Peppers one day, and the next day none. Same things with sweet treats like cookies and candy. I'm also trying to cut down my portion sizes so I can still eat my favorite foods, just not quite so much of them. Veggies don't always love me, so I'll be attempting to increase them as well, but I've got to follow my tummy on that one.

I'm also aiming to workout 5 days a week. I am really weak and out of shape, so this goal might be adjusted here in the beginning. I did a 20 minute, easy-for-beginners, YouTube cardio workout on Saturday and my hamstrings are still mad at me. But yesterday I did an upper body strength routine to give my legs a break. Today is an "active" rest day: no workouts but I did climb the stairs at my office (14 outdoor steps) 7 times.

I'm not sure what form these posts will take. They might be wordy, they might be bullet lists. The biggest rule here is that there are no rules. Do what works for you, when and how it feels right, and stop/leave/come back as often as you need.

Whatever you do, I hope each and every one of you has a fantastic summer!

[magicalmanhattanproject]

MCC Teams for QSMP Guys

Disclaimer: These aren't official teams or even official predictions or anything. I have no idea if the QSMP guys who aren't in MCC already want to play or even know it exists. I'm just autistic.

RED RABBITS: HBomb94, Philza, Forever, Cellbit

This was the first team that came to me and it all spiraled out of control from here. H is the master of teaching new players, which is good if it's not a whole event of new people (spoiler alert: it is). Philza is also a solid player who knows the Brazilians well enough to teach them how to do MCC and also hold his own just fine. I expect Forever would hold his own just fine. A lot of the games that are hard for newcomers are hard because a lot of MCC guests aren't Minecrafters. I expect Forever to be able to handle himself with an elytra, for example, and H is the SOT king and also a Buildmart enjoyer so he can pick up the slack for the rest. Cellbit may be an unexpected popoff in Parkour Tag with his Esconde-Esconde experience. I'm not sure if he's ever touched an elytra.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Cellbit. He can have red puzzle too though, as a treat. And the rest of the spawn puzzles will actually get solved for once!

ORANGE OCELOTS: Roier, Tubbo, Quackity, Punz

Roier is Good At Minecraft but he's also shy about the fact that he's good at Minecraft and not particularly interested in tryharding. He would most likely be looking for a team that isn't throwing on purpose, but also doesn't mind if he's not doing homework for the video game. Pairing him with known goofball Tubbo and good buddy Quackity makes sense for that. Punz is a very versatile S tier. He's fully capable of being a sweaty little bastard, but he's good at not being toxic about it and especially at not getting toxic towards his teammates. I think he could do well with just hanging out with a couple old friends and making sure a new one has a good time.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Quackity is the best choice as the full bilingual and least likely to survive in the tunnels.

YELLOW YAKS: Shadoune, Etoiles, Aypierre, Baghera

The French Team. Frankly, I think the chance of Etoiles getting into MCC is pretty slim. He is simply too powerful. Scott has talked before about having enough S tiers and needing more mid and lower tier players and Etoiles would Not help with that. Adding Shadoune and Aypierre to that is honestly a bit ridiculous. Baghera is not a nerf to this team either. She doesn't have nearly as much Minecraft experience as the others but she is learning very quickly. I did nearly switch her out to try and balance this obscenely powerful team. Their big weakness though is their MCC inexperience. Shadoune is the only one who has played MCC before and he hasn't even been in a handful of events yet. Late games with high learning curves could seriously hamstring them.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Pierre. I was super super impressed with Pierre's comms with Foolish when they broke into the Federation and I want to see him do comms more.

LIME LLAMAS: Illumina, Spreen, Slimecicle, Mariana

Yeah, okay, this is Pink17 with a twist. This is the only chance we're gonna have to pair Spreen with another S tier though so we gotta take it. To be fair, I don't actually know how good Mariana is at Minecraft. That being said, I do know he's not super comfortable in his English abilities. This is essentially two teams speaking two languages wearing a giant trenchcoat, so I figured it would be best to give them Illumina, king of minding his own business and showing up at the end of the game with half his team's coins.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Slime. The Spanish speakers know more English than the English speakers know Spanish and asking someone to sandkeep in their second language in their first MCC is cruel.

GREEN GECKOS: Jojo, Vegetta, Maximus, OllieGamerz

The Spanish Team. I really tried so hard to pair Vegetta with Foolish, but ultimately I think he would just be most comfortable with people who all speak his own language. This is another scary powerful team, by the way. Jojo and Ollie were half the team that got the first canon team with two new players a win since MCC 6 and Vegetta is widely considered to be a Minecraft god. I'm not sure his skills transfer to MCC, but it can't hurt! Maxo is here instead of Mariana despite being more comfortable with English because I couldn't deprive the people of their Slimeriana crumbs, however he's another one whose MCC skill I'm not sure of. He's known mostly for his RP like Quackity Slime and Wilbur, but he also has an extremely dope Create mod house so he's definitely more cracked at the craft than them.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Ollie. He's trained for it and studied for it before his first MCC and Vegetta and Maximus should both be able to at least survive dungeon conditions.

CYAN COYOTES: Mike, Pac, Fruitberries, Cubfan

Obviously, Tazercraft come as a duo. Do not separate. For them, I wanted people who matched their energy. Specifically, strange, bewildering, and staggeringly competent, while still making the most baffling decisions you've ever seen in your life. Fruitberries was an obvious choice. I think introducing them to Cubfan might be dangerous lest they give each other ideas for projects, but hopefully they'll be too focused on the games for any old projects to come up. I sure hope none of the games resemble any games Tazercraft have previously designed!

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Cubfan. He is like the Only guy in MCC who I trust equally as a runner and a sandkeeper which means that I trust him to sandkeep here.

AQUA AXOLOTLS: PeteZahHutt, Jaiden, Fit, CPK

This is just a pretty regular MCC team. Pete and CPK is a very strong combination and I don't expect Fit to be bad at Minecraft, but given the absolute powerhouses that are the French and Spanish teams, I think this is probably fine.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Fit. Pete has a habit of making risky plays that don't always pay off. I think the scary teacher voice could check that impulse.

BLUE BATS: Badboyhalo, Krtzyy, Smallishbeans, Grian

Here's a PG team for you, king. You've earned it. Yes, Dave can be PG when they need to be. For the record, I'm deeply curious about what Bad puts down on his sign up sheet for his PGness preference. Either way, this is a team of all around strong players without a standout star. We're looking at a repeat of Aqua29 here.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Krtzyy. Everyone on this team can run but Dave enjoys it the least and actually had their first decent time ever playing Sands of Time as a sandkeeper for Aqua29. They've been playing since MCC1 by the way.

PURPLE PANDAS: Scott, Shubble, Foolish, Purpled

This is the part of the teams list when I went "okay I guess I'm making a full ten teams now, so I have to get the guys with standing invitations in". For the record, that's Scott (it's his event), Shubble (she's Scott's bestie), and Wilbur (he was one of the earliest believers). Purpled is here instead of Wilbur because he's Ever So Slightly More Cracked At The Craft, however this team is actually impossible and would never happen in canon. Scott Smajor has made it very clear that he would never put Purpled on the Purple team. Anyway, Foolish is also here!

Sorrel Assigned Sanddaddy: Scott.

PINK PARROTS: FireBreathMan, Felps, AntoineDaniel, Wilbur Soot

Y'all remember everyone wailing and gnashing their teeth about Blue29 because FBM was being unfairly nerfed by being saddled with three "bad" players and it was so incredibly mean to those players he was with and also like they got 6th overall and did Literally Fine? No? Only me carrying that grudge? Anyway, here's a perfectly fair and balanced team that no one would complain about at all. No but for real, this is the team I couldn't switch Antoine and Baghera on because that would break it.

Sorrel Assigned Sandkeeper: Wilbur. Sorry Scott got to the daddy joke first.

[raidante]

As soon as I finished my ask I saw you went to the hospital, Idk what happened but sincerely hope you're doing better now

I am!! Honestly if anyone wants to know it was honestly a really weird out of pocket thing. I'm a disabled person, who suffers from scoliosis and arthiritis and other physical defencicies because genetics and idk, I'm just the unlucky one of my family (immune disorders and bone issues also run in my family).

I already had a struggle at the beginning of August where my muscles became extremely inflammed for no apparent reason (at the time my doctor hypothosized it was perhaps the beginning of an immune disorder forming as a reaction to me getting sick the week prior to it) and it rendered me more or less paralyzed. My limbs were weak, my legs were weak, my entire back was too weak to support my body. I couldn't walk, I could barely stand, and I could not get up if I sat down. I couldn't even open a ziplock back because my hamstrings were just Not responding (I could not bend my arms and grip things). But after 2 days of rest it slowly loosened up and I was like okay. weird. scary. lets hope this doesn't happen again? (also it made me take a week off work and I was paid in pennies for that, so financially it was even a worse issue LOL).

but a month later (2 weeks ago from now), it happened AGAIN. My original choice of action was like ok. I guess Ill try sleeping this off again too. But i ended up falling really hard on my side the next day getting up so I couldn't do anything; even crawling was extremely painful. Called my dad, whos like in his 60s and im over 200 pounds so he couldn't lift me and it ended with me calling the paramedics and getting lifted to the hospital and I was wheelchair bound as they took my vitals and it turns out I was lethally low on potassium which meant my body was paralyzed and if I tried sleeping it off I would have passed away in my sleep bc my heart would have slowed down until it stopped!!! so... a good thing I ended up falling? Otherwise I would have died later that night.

They kept me overnight on ivs to get my potassium back up to par and it hasnt really dipped since then. The weird thing is it was spontaneous; nothing in my diet and in my habits besides like...mental stress (work cut the budget so I literally havent had a shift in a month since today and have been living off my life savings and friends' donations to help me stay afloat w rent.,..its Bad. Ive been trying to get disability stuff filled but they make it REALLY TOUGH even when you are disabled like I am) but that isn't even enough of a factor for such a lethal drop. They said it appeared to be a slow gradual drop in potassium too instead of like a quick sudden one, which was why I was slowly going paralyzed over the course of a few days rather than just it happening suddenly (and if it dropped suddenly I'd have had a heart attack and died, so). Went to my PCP, he has no idea. Got so much blood drawn these past few weeks I now have a permanent needle and discoloration scar from where the IV drip was, lol, and I JUST scheduled with a kidney doctor since potassium is processed through kidneys, so...maybe Ill get an answer. Desperately searching google and the only real thing that comes up is this very rare like 1% disease that just is your body slowly begins to struggle processing potassium on its own and usually medications fix that... but idk how I'd even have that since nothing like that runs in my family.

Needless to say it was very weird, very frightening, and most of all financially FRUSTRATING. My insurance covered everything bc im extremely broke, but not working at all for like a month straight on top of it has absolutely devastated me and sapped out all my creativity</3 THAT SAID! I am trying to stir myself to draw again!!!!! I have ideas!!!!! i wanna DRAW! WRITE! Its just a matter of..getting myself to do it. And also there's a league of legends event so Ive been grinding out the battlepass since Ive been on standby for work shifts for a fucking month, lol.

also as for the cat!! Kitty i kept for 2 weeks and my sister and her husband took the kitty from me saturday because theyre gonna try adopting her! and if it doesnt work out theyre gonna help find a suitable home for her. She was very cute and I fed her everyday played with her gave her baths and slept with her and she definitely helped me feel a bit more Normal during such an abnormal time in my life. Here's a pic I took of her while she was hanging out w me!

she had very big sad eyes and a very squeaky meow

[artist-issues]

Okay what do you think of the idea that Maginifico was more of the Protagonist than Asha was?

Why? Are people saying that? What's the argument for that?

I guess neither of them has a character arc, unless you count Magnifico going from "bad" to "worse." And neither of them is a powerful static character, (like Steve Rogers, who doesn't change much throughout his arc but his strong character traits are an instrument of change to the characters around him.)

I mean. You could try and say Asha doesn't have an arc, but she causes change in the characters around her because all the Rosas people never stood up for themselves before she started singing.

But it wasn't impactful. Because she really didn't do anything except "challenge" Magnifico, and she'd already done that within the first ten minutes of the movie during her interview without it affecting any change. It wasn't her "challenging him" that made the Rosas people change--her challenging him just changed their circumstances a bit because it made him reveal himself as the villain...and then the Rosas people did what they probably would've done whether Asha was on that tower during his villain monologue or not--they just started wishing that he wasn't controlling them. 🤷‍♀️ Oh boy. How powerful.

That's the thing about this movie. Characters just...receive new information and act exactly the correct way in response.

Asha learns the King is doing something wrong? She immediately suggests the exact right thing for him to do and totally stands up to him, despite living her entire life under his seemingly benevolent rule and looking up to him as much as everybody else in her world.

The Queen learns that a handful of side characters are staging a rebellion against her husband of decades? She immediately joins them.

Asha starts to act a little bit defeated because her mom's wish is gone and the King is condemning her family? Her grandfather and mother, who have recently lost everything, are not affected badly enough to keep them from encouraging her to go save the day.

The tower ceiling won't open up? The goat who has never been in the tower nor displayed any intuition about how things work (and sometimes he has even forgotten where they're going or what they're doing) suddenly knows the exact right way to fix the problem just by looking around.

Nobody changes because nobody has flaws. Everybody's just a good person who's a little ignorant.

(sorry, didn't mean to go on another ramble about why this whole movie is bad.)

Anyway. The only "flawed" character is Magnifico. And by "flaws" I mean, "he's the bad guy, so he's wrong."

But that's not usually what we mean by "flawed." Usually by flawed we mean, "has weaknesses in their character that informs their wrong or bad actions and view--and those weaknesses are something they wrestle with." By the end of the story, a "flawed" character either takes steps toward overcoming these weaknesses or loses the wrestling match and the story has kind of a tragic ending. Like Anakin Skywalker at the end of ROS, or Peter Pan.

Magnifico could feel like more of a "protagonist" if he was "flawed" in that sense. But just like everything in this movie, his "wrestling match" with his flaws isn't believable or impactful. Therefore, his flaws aren't "flaws" like we just talked about.

Magnifico is just the stereotypical Bad Guy who doesn't wrestle with who he is, like Ursula or Maleficent--with no believable character arc, and therefore no impact.

Actually, they really really hamstring him.

He should have either been totally aware that he was being selfish and power-hungry from the first time we see him and owned it--like Ursula--OR he should've had a much more in-depth backstory, with a noticeable fear issue that causes him to strive for control at all costs, and a fleshed-out story of trying and then failing to fight that urge for control.

But instead of leaning toward one or the other, they just halfway-commit to all directions. One minute, Magnifico is singing a gentle song about protecting others and smiling indulgently at Asha's drawings or listening to his sweet wife--the next, he's making little one-liners or singing a quick verse in a song about how he shouldn't turn evil--and the next, he's casually saying 100% evil things like, "I DECIDE" at the top of his lungs, or "How's that 'taking your wish into your own hands' thing workin out for ya? OH WAIT, I DON'T CARE."

Pick one. If you're going to have him wrestle between good or bad, make him wrestle. Like Stitch or the Beast. If you're going to have him believe he's totally in the right at all times, even when he has to be cruel, make him really believe it's because he's right, through and through, like Frollo or Scar or Facilier. If you're going to have him be all-out nasty from the beginning and totally okay with that, like Ursula, Maleficent, Jafar, Hans, or Clayton, then make him that, through and through. Enough with tell-don't-show half-commitment to all of the above. Pick one, so that you have time to show any progression convincingly.

Rambled again. 🤷‍♀️ In conclusion, no, I don't think he's "more of a protagonist than Asha" because he's exactly as impactful, believable, interesting, and important as Asha—which is not at all.

[bodyalive]

Is Psoas REALLY the cause of our low back pain?

Some say YES; lengthen Psoas when it is short, it’s torquing the spine. TRUE a short Psoas will torque the spine…But does that Psoas test strong? What if it’s locked short due to weakness? Do we still lengthen it?

Some say Psoas is primarily expressive of emotional stress.

TRUE that it activates with the Sympathetic Nervous System SNS. But did emotional stress start the issue or does the torque in the spine create tension in one branch of Psoas and reflex into the psycho-emotional system due to the stress on the spine.

In my experience it can go either way: Emotional Stress can cause expressive shortening of our extensor muscles along the spine (low back and neck primarily and the Psoas simultaneously). But physical torque in the spine can cause subliminal stress resulting in psycho-emotional tension which is often resolved by eliminating the physical tensions without engaging the psychological system.

When people tell me about their psychological issues I have to tell them "not my area of expertise" but anxiety is real and real physical dysfunctional coordination creates stress on the system that creates anxiety.

Have you noticed that people's levels of anxiety go down with the bodywork you do?

Can you see the horizontal branch of the Psoas on the right side that attaches to L5? What do you you suppose that branch does and how would you muscle test it?

We may not get all this answered in Mod 1 NMR July 19 - 21st but we will be well on our way to resolving issues related to the Psoas, Iliacus, Pectineus, Rec Fem, QL, Erectors, Hamstrings etc etc etc.

[Jocelyn Olivier]

[ikram1909]

https://www.tumblr.com/ikram1909/782566473757556736/httpswwwtumblrcomikram1909782562869604679680?source=share

sorry i might be a little technical with this but i'll try my best to explain. it's both tiredness and an "injury" (quotes because it's not a technical injury but it's painful)

so a muscular overload injury happens when you overuse a muscle (in this case, his hamstring) by a lot of repetitive motion and training. it's not, as a previous anon said (in bad faith imo), caused by under use. this kind of injury can't happen because he didn't play and suddenly played.

now, the thing that might be confusing is that gavi hasn't been playing much so how can he overuse the muscle? the easy answer is that gavi has been using his legs a lot for many years through overplaying. his hamstring muscles might have been tight REGARDLESS of the acl injury. as in, if the acl didn't happen, there was a chance he would have a hamstring issue because of how much he's working. that's the simple answer.

the slighly more complicated aspect to this is that gavi had an acl and meniscrus reconstruction which involves taking a graft and rebuilding his knee. there's three ways to do it - autografts, allografts, and synthetic grafts. the autograft is when the knee is rebuild using tissue from gavi's own body. allograft involves tissue from a foreign body. and synthetic is a man made graft. autografts are the most common because they have the least risk of infection etc. so, assuming that's what gavi got, the process would require tissue from either his hamstring or patellar/knee tendon. considering he had a meniscus tear as well, it likely means they took the graft from his hamstring. this is good for one thing which is that his knee is stronger than it would be with another graft but it has downsides because a surgery like that causes permanent hamstring weakness and just leave a permanent level of scarring on his hamstring.

now is this a problem? no. it heals and it won't stretch on forever. it just means that wear and tear will stay on gavi's legs for a significant period. that kind of fatigue isn't easily noticeable because nothing hurts for a while and then it hurts a lot. this doesn't mean gavi isn't fit or healthy because he is, but it just means there's permanent damage that makes recovery complicated (he needs longer rests and longer recovery sessions) and adding on that gavi also probably had muscular damage (just normal stuff) from before the surgery.

considering he was running laps the last match, my guess is that he probably felt the first signs of fatigue a week or so ago and they tried to keep his legs warm as a way to minimize damage. i was thinking that a bit today because i thought he played really well but he had this tightness to his movement for parts that made me curious. it came in and out (you notice it a bit in the first 25 mins). he really does need a long preseason and a rest.

Thank you for explaining it and it really does make sense. I hope everyone here reads the whole thing because it's quite eye-opening.

What I got from here is that he will be needing more time to recover than before both because of the accumulated exertion his body has been suffering way before the ACL and the recovery from the ACL surgery had they taken the graft from his hamstrings. But will this be the case forever from now on or will he free of the pain at some point?

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #462

For the last few days, I've been going to bed relatively on time, and I gotta say... I've been waking up feeling pretty good.

...So... remember when I said I'd show you when I finally mange to defeat the Extreme Measures version of Hades?

Well!!! Wait no longer!!! Here!!!

Physical therapy was at 2:30pm today, and since I went to bed at 11pm-ish, I woke up at around 7am, which meant I had plenty of morning to do whatever with; it was lovely.

The time to go to PT did eventually roll around, though, so off I went! When I got there, K spoke excitedly about the teas I had put in the gift bag for him; there were several that he hadn't tried before, and this seemed to make him very happy. Also, as part of the bag of gifts I gave him, I had folded 8 paper cranes, each one with a wholesome wish written inside. I was very pleased to discover that K had set up the 8 paper cranes I made for him on a shelf in the room he works in, and they looked really nice sitting there together.

...I'm really glad to have had an opportunity to practice folding cranes again. In about 40 days (when the number of letters I've written is 500), I'm going to start folding two cranes per day. I didn't show you the ones I made for K because I want the paper to be a surprise. Each one is going to have a different wholesome wish inside; I've already listed 250 of them, and coming up with 750 more is going to be very easy, because I'm already so full of of good wishes for you that the hard part is gonna be choosing which of them to include.

...I'm not really sure what I'm gonna do with 1000 paper cranes. Or with 1000 letters. A weird parade of paper, I guess. But... I suppose we're gonna find out. Sen no yume watare, after all:

…

...I hope you've gone and engraved some of the lyrics I've sent you up until this point upon your heart.

In any case. K did lots of work on my leg today, some of which was painful, but not nearly as unpleasant as getting long needles stuffed into locked-up muscles. So... with that as my basis for comparison (ahahaha...), enduring today's stuff was, in the words of a popular YouTube celebrity: “super easy; barely even an inconvenience.”

A strength test demonstrated that the muscles responsible for turning the ankle on my left foot are very weak, but after mobilizing the surrounding joints and the other muscles attached nearby (interestingly, the ones in my left foot, too), a non-trivial amount of my strength returned to my ankle after years and years of not really having any. So that was pretty rad! Hopefully walking will be even easier in the coming days!

I was given a couple of exercises to help maintain that strength – one involves ankle rotations, and the other involves activating my hamstrings near my sit bones. So I guess we'll see the results of that. K has, so far, not steered me wrong, so you can bet your cute little tush that I'm gonna be super diligent about doing my physical therapy homework.

I decided to get additional cronchy potato after physical therapy. And a bratwurst, too! Behold!

I went home after that and was mostly non-productive. I had intended to play some Valheim (I think you'd like that one a lot, actually), but I got sucked into derping around on the internet, and now it's almost 9:30pm, and I have to be in bed at 11pm so that I'm not a zombie at work tomorrow, and I know myself well enough by now to understand that if I start playing Valheim now, I'm not gonna wanna stop until stupid o'clock in the morning, which would be very bad. Best not to tempt fate; I'm not sure how much self-control I have at my disposal right now.

...I do have plenty of time for a few Hades runs, though. So maybe I'll do that. Or maybe... maybe I'll just deliberately try to be unbusy for a while – no internet, no activity, no stimulation. Just... sitting for a while in a quiet space with my brain. Maybe near the toasty fireplace, because it's kinda cold outside again. Hm.

...I wish you could sit with me in the warm, quiet place, with soft surfaces and comforting blankets and no expectations or obligations. Just a calm, safe time to breathe and to rest.

...Maybe if I imagine it with enough effort, somehow, you'll feel it, too. Somehow...

…

I suppose that's all for my random musings today; thank you, as always, for listening. I wish you knew just how much I adore and appreciate you.

...I really wish you knew.

I love you so much, so try really hard to be safe while you're out and about out there, wherever you are, okay? Make good choices. Take nice care of yourself and the people around you. Those who love you are counting on you to treat yourself like a good friend should.

I'll write again soon, I promise.

Your friend, Lumine