#Percent-Decimal Conversion

[recsspecs]

Source: Cracking the GRE Premium Edition with 6 Practice Tests, 2020 All the best to everyone for your upcoming exams

[tellmemoreabouttesl]

99Math

June 11th, 2023 Hi there, everyone, How’s it going? There are only 2 days left before the exam session, and I’m so happy; I think I’m growing tired of seeing the same students, and I’m pretty sure the students are tired of seeing my face too, haha. Today’s post will be weird: it’s going to be about math rather than English, and I don’t think this will really be something that you can adapt to…

[infinitymathcreations]

Percent Fraction and Decimal Conversions Wall Art

Elevate your math space with Percent, Fraction, and Decimal Conversion Wall Art. A visual and educational masterpiece for mastering conversions with ease.

[strangebiology]

How wrong words become wrong numbers

There's a viral video of nurses saying "this is me 12 hours before my shift" looking nice, then "this is me 12 hours after my shift," looking haggard and tired.

The implication is nonsense--12 hours before and after your shift is when you're in bed, at the grocery store, or on another shift. Why are you looking so tired if your shift ended 12 hours ago?

OK, I understand, I know what they meant, I get it! They meant to say "before and after my 12-hour shift." That is the only logical explanation. It's fine! I get the joke! No hate!

I know some people do not care how numbers work and want to tell me "you must be fun at parties! You and your technicalities! Those two sentences mean the same thing! You can't expect regular people to know the difference between two sentences that have most of the same words in them!"

But like...I...think you generally should try to understand numbers...

Imagine if you're on a dose of a medication that is 100 milligrams/day. Through reasonable testing and logic and...however medical professionals decide these things...it is decided your dose should be increased by 25%. Great.

Imagine one of these nurses wrote down that your dose should be 25 times what it was. Now you're taking 2500 milligrams or 2.5 grams per day.

And now you're dead.

Or it could be something even simpler.

"OK Mrs. Fancy Pants!" says the hypothetical innumerate nurse. "It's not my fault the pharmacist is too dumb to know what I mean when I say 25 times! Fine, I'll write the new dose should be 25 percent of what it was! Happy?"

Now your dose is 25 milligrams per day. It was supposed to be 25% more than 100 milligrams/day, which is 125 milligrams/day. You're dead again!

"But I'm not a doctor so it doesn't matter!"

It might matter to you one day. What if you're the one taking the pills? The doc says one pill every two days, and that sounds like the same thing as two pills every one day, right? Nope! DEAD AGAIN!

There are also many examples of scamming people because they don't understand numbers. It would be pretty unwise to sign a lease agreement that simply said "rent is 900." If my friend told me that, I would assume they mean "rent costs USD$900.00 per month." I understand the implication between trusted friends and casual conversation!

But in a contract with someone sketch? Maybe they mean 900 Bitcoins per minute. Some things have to be specific.

There is actually a whole scammy-ass company, ClickaSnap, that banks on the idea that their audience doesn't understand the difference between a dollar and a penny. It sounds like a mistake that no one would make, but they are fairly sneaky about it. In this video, the videographer says, "They're going to pay you 90 cents per view per photo." Wow, that's a lot!

The image on the screen says, "up to 0.90 cents per view." The "up to" has a lot of qualifications, including paying them a monthly subscription, and they don't say why anyone would go to that website to look at pics anyway. And what's that decimal doing there? Does a decimal...change a number?

It's not 90 cents per view. It's .9 cents per qualified view. That is 9/10ths of a penny. (The same mistake is here and there were a bunch more but I think TT took some down.) I understand it's probably because 90 cents is sometimes written as $0.90--yes, those are the same--but that dollar sign is important! 0.90 DOLLARS is different than 0.90 PENNIES.

Anyway! Just wanted to warn you to be careful of the interactions between numbers and words, especially when it's important!

[couchsterfield]

i am very guilty of reading american psycho solely on the text/surface level stuff, like how i focus alot on characters and relationships like with McDermott and Price, when the whole point of those characters are to be part of this shallow and uncharacteristic culture, that they actually shouldn't even HAVE any charm to them at all, and obviously-- they are yuppies!! they are racists, misogynists, homophobes and its shown multiple times how they tease and humiliate homeless people.

so obviously i dont "like" these characters in the same way i like.. idk vash the stampede or whoever, because actually they can all go fuck fheirselves!! Im actively MISSING the POINT by focusing or being entertained by the people around Bateman since they are supposed to faceless interchangeable characters that dont matter

but still, i cant help but be entertained by all of their social interactions and i dont know WHY 😭 even the scenes that are meant to showcase how boring shallow and materialistic they are fails to bore me and im instead gigglimg at everything

like van patten constantly saying "we have like zero point zero zero zero zero one decimal percent of getting aids" or whatever is so funny cus girl shut up and eat ur food😭😭

and you cant sit here and tell me craig mcdermott's being so insanely funny as someone interchangeable LIKE SORRY but bob farrell cannot start chanting red snapper pizza like craig mcdermott can ✋

biggest example is the chapter "another night" where they spend like 4 hours trying to get a reservation. ITS SO FUNNY IMNSORRY..!! like the ridiculousness of it all just makes it so hilarious, like guys its never that serious.......

And i could write SO much about the depth of tim price as a character?? like hes just supposed to be this guy of higher status that patrick looks up to but all that is implied characterizes him alot !!??

I dont know.. again, i dont have that media literacy to read the subtext , (i mean OBVIOUSLY i can figure out the story being the critique of the overconsumption and materialism of yuppie culture and bateman being a result of it ) and it does sorta guilt me to be giggling over an interaction or a relationship between characters especially since everyone disregards these characyers as just faceless nothingness in batemans life, like no im not supposed to read the dialogue so literally they are meant to be filler empty conversations that mean nothing

But yeah i still love reading about these characters, idk what my main takeaway is, i guess tldr: i understand the point of these characters, i dont condone any of them actually but i still enjoy them

[mariacallous]

THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.

On Valentine’s Day 2025, heavy rains started to fall in parts of rural Appalachia. Over the course of a few days, residents in eastern Kentucky watched as river levels rose and surpassed flood levels. Emergency teams conducted over 1,000 water rescues. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were displaced from homes, and entire business districts filled with mud.

For some, it was the third time in just four years that their homes had flooded, and the process of disposing of destroyed furniture, cleaning out the muck, and starting anew is beginning again.

Floods wiped out businesses and homes in eastern Kentucky in February 2021, July 2022, and now February 2025. An even greater scale of destruction hit eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina in September 2024, when Hurricane Helene’s rainfall and flooding decimated towns and washed out parts of major highways.

Each of these events was considered to be a “thousand-year flood,” with a 1-in-1,000 chance of happening in a given year. Yet they’re happening more often.

The floods have highlighted the resilience of local people to work together for collective survival in rural Appalachia. But they have also exposed the deep vulnerability of communities, many of which are located along creeks at the base of hills and mountains with poor emergency warning systems. As short-term cleanup leads to long-term recovery efforts, residents can face daunting barriers that leave many facing the same flood risks over and over again.

Exposing a Housing Crisis

For the past nine years, I have been conducting research on rural health and poverty in Appalachia. It’s a complex region often painted in broad brushstrokes that miss the geographic, socioeconomic, and ideological diversity it holds.

Appalachia is home to a vibrant culture, a fierce sense of pride, and a strong sense of love. But it is also marked by the omnipresent backdrop of a declining coal industry.

There is considerable local inequality that is often overlooked in a region portrayed as one-dimensional. Poverty levels are indeed high. In Perry County, Kentucky, where one of eastern Kentucky’s larger cities, Hazard, is located, nearly 30 percent of the population lives under the federal poverty line. But the average income of the top 1 percent of workers in Perry County is nearly $470,000—17 times more than the average income of the remaining 99 percent.

This income and wealth inequality translates to unequal land ownership—much of eastern Kentucky’s most desirable land remains in the hands of corporations and families with great generational wealth.

When I first moved to eastern Kentucky in 2016, I was struck by the grave lack of affordable, quality housing. I met families paying $200 to $300 a month for a small plot to put a mobile home on. Others lived in “found housing”—often distressed properties owned by family members. They had no lease, no equity, and no insurance. They had a place to lay one’s head but lacked long-term stability in the event of disagreement or disaster. This reality was rarely acknowledged by local and state governments.

Eastern Kentucky’s 2021 and 2022 floods turned this into a full-blown housing crisis, with 9,000 homes damaged or destroyed in the 2022 flood alone.

“There was no empty housing or empty places for housing,” one resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me. “It just was complete disaster because people just didn’t have a place to go.”

Most homeowners did not have flood insurance to assist with rebuilding costs. While many applied to the Federal Emergency Management Agency for assistance, the amounts they received often did not go far. The maximum aid for temporary housing assistance and repairs is $42,500, plus up to an additional $42,500 for other needs related to the disaster.

The federal government often provides more aid for rebuilding through block grants directed to local and state governments, but that money requires congressional approval and can take months to years to arrive. Local community coalitions and organizations stepped in to fill these gaps, but they did not necessarily have sufficient donations or resources to help such large numbers of displaced people.

With a dearth of affordable rentals pre-flood, renters who lost their homes had no place to go. And those living in “found housing” that was destroyed were not eligible for federal support for rebuilding.

The sheer level of devastation also posed challenges. One health care professional told me: “In Appalachia, the way it usually works is if you lose your house or something happens, then you go stay with your brother or your mom or your cousin … But everybody’s mom and brother and cousin also lost their house. There was nowhere to stay.” From her point of view, “our homelessness just skyrocketed.”

The Cost of Land—Social and Economic

After the 2022 flood, the Kentucky Department for Local Government earmarked almost $300 million of federal funding to build new, flood-resilient homes in eastern Kentucky. Yet the question of where to build remained. As another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts told me, “You can give us all the money you want; we don’t have any place to build the house.”

It has always been costly and time-intensive to develop land in Appalachia. Available higher ground tends to be located on former strip mines, and these reclaimed lands require careful geotechnical surveying and sometimes structural reinforcements.

If these areas are remote, the cost of running electric, water, and other infrastructure services can also be prohibitive. For this reason, for-profit developers have largely avoided many counties in the region. The head of a nonprofit agency explained to me that, because of this, “The markets have broken … We have no [housing] market.”

There is also some risk involved in attempting to build homes on new land that has not previously been developed. A local government could pay for undeveloped land to be surveyed and prepared for development, with the prospect of reimbursement by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development if housing is successfully built. But if, after the work to prepare the land, it is still too cost-prohibitive to build a profitable house there, the local government would not receive any reimbursement.

Some counties have found success clearing land for large developments on former strip mine sites. But these former coal mining areas can be considerable distances from towns. Without robust public transportation systems, these distances are especially prohibitive for residents who lack reliable personal transportation.

Another barrier is the high prices that both individual and corporate landowners are asking for properties on higher ground.

The scarcity of desirable land available for sale, combined with increasingly urgent demand, has led to prices unaffordable for most. Another resident involved in local flood recovery efforts explained: “If you paid $5,000 for 30 acres 40 years ago, why won’t you sell that for $100,000? Nope, [they want] $1 million.” That makes it increasingly difficult for both individuals and housing developers to purchase land and build.

One reason for this scarcity is the amount of land that is still owned by outside corporate interests. For example, Kentucky River Properties, formerly Kentucky River Coal Corporation, owns over 270,000 acres across seven counties in the region. While this landholding company leases land to coal, timber, and gas companies, it and others like it rarely permit residential development.

But not all unused land is owned by corporations. Some of this land is owned by families with deep roots in the region. People’s attachment to a place often makes them want to stay in their communities, even after disasters. But it can also limit the amount of land available for rebuilding. People are often hesitant to sell land that holds deep significance for their families, even if they are not living there themselves.

One health care professional expressed feeling torn between selling or keeping their own family property after the 2022 flood: “We have a significant amount of property on top of a mountain. I wouldn’t want to sell it because my papa came from nothing … His generation thought owning land was the greatest thing … And for him to provide his children and his grandchildren and their great-grandchildren a plot of land that he worked and sweat and ultimately died to give us—people want to hold onto that.”

She recognized that land was in great demand but couldn’t bring herself to sell what she owned. In cases like hers, higher grounds are owned locally but still remain unused.

Moving Toward Higher Ground, Slowly

Two years after the 2022 flood, major government funding for rebuilding still has not resulted in a significant number of homes. The state has planned seven communities on higher ground in eastern Kentucky that aim to house 665 new homes. As of early 2025, 14 houses had been completed.

Progress on providing housing on higher ground is slow, and the need is great.

In the meantime, when I conducted interviews during the summer and fall of 2024, many of the mobile home communities that were decimated in the 2022 flood had begun to fill back up. These were flood-risk areas, but there was simply no other place to go.

Last week, I watched on Facebook a friend’s live video footage showing the waters creeping up the sides of the mobile homes in one of those very communities that had flooded in 2022. Another of my friends mused: “I don’t know who constructed all this, but they did an unjustly favor by not thinking how close these towns was to the river. Can’t anyone in Frankfort help us, or has it gone too far?”

With hundreds more people now displaced by the most recent flood, the need for homes on higher grounds has only expanded, and the wait continues.

[jellogram]

I object to the idea that Fahrenheit is only preferred by Americans because we're used to it. I can concede that most of the metric system is way better than ours but I will defend Fahrenheit, at least for everyday layman's purposes.

My reasoning is that most cultures use percents in some capacity. 100 on a percent scale is a lot, 50 is medium, 10 is low, etc. This roughly matches Fahrenheit and how the weather relates to human comfort levels at that temperature. We don't have to use decimals, and if a Celsius-user isn't familiar with Fahrenheit they can imagine that number as a percentage of hotness and get a general idea.

So no, I don't think I'm being biased here. Meters and kilos and such are definitely better but Fahrenheit is way better for daily conversational use, get over it.

[epacer]

Cuts Begin

DOGE cuts target Department of Education research

DEI training grants and 169 research contracts have already been terminated.

Nearly $1 billion in cuts have been proposed for the Department of Education.

The measure, announced on X by the Department of Government Efficiency, targets DEI initiatives and research.

DEI training grants and 169 research contracts have already been terminated. The Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), a nonpartisan research arm of the Department of Education, is taking the hit.

"A lot isn't clear, but it's very possible that the IES in its present form will not continue to exist," said Robert Siegler, a professor of psychology and education at Columbia University. "We think this is a version of throwing out the baby with the bathwater, that, yes, there are some problems that need to be dealt with. But it does support a lot of excellent research."

Siegler noted the critical role that the IES plays in tracking student progress and developing evidence-based recommendations for educators.

"Something I was very sad to see had been zeroed out as part of their proposed cuts for IES is what's called the 'What Works Clearinghouse'. And this is an organization within IES that tests what works," said Siegler.

The "What Works Clearinghouse" evaluates educational programs and provides resources and data. Perhaps equally important, it also identifies what doesn't work, said Siegel.

"We try all kinds of things and we squander a lot of money trying things where there's no reason to think it's going to work," said Siegler.

It's what spurred Siegler and co-author Nicole McNeil, professor of psychology at the University of Notre Dame, to publish an article with The Conversation.

Siegler pointed out the efficacy of educational strategies hinges on data-driven decisions, and losing this resource could lead to misinformed practices in classrooms nationwide.

The IES is one of the largest funders of education research in the U.S. which could mean a significant loss of public knowledge about America's schools.

IES research covers an array of topics from helping students with fractions to addressing high school drop-out rates.

The National Center for Education Statistics, which produces the nation's report card, is not facing cuts.

The budget for the IES accounts for less than 1 percent of the Department of Education's overall budget. The Department of Education itself added up to 4% of total federal spending for the year 2024.

Advocates emphasize that while some reforms might be essential, decimating crucial research initiatives could hinder progress in educational outcomes for students across the nation.

The potential loss of data, insights, and effective educational strategies poses a significant challenge for schools striving to improve student outcomes. *Reposted article from 10News.com by Jennifer Glenfield and Simon Kaufman on February 12, 2025

[alexthegamingboy]

Toonami Weekly Recap 01/06/2024

Attack on Titan: The Final Season Part 3 (The Rumbling Arc) EP#30 - The Final Chapters (Part 2): Chapter 3: The Battle of Heaven and Earth: The Scouts and Warriors lands on Eren's rib cage, and incapacitate the Beast Titan realizing that it is just a shell with Zeke nowhere to be found. Before Armin has a chance to transform, he is captured in a Titan's mouth. Suddenly, countless versions of the Nine Titans of the past appear on Eren's back, created by Ymir Fritz to defend him. Just as the Scouts and Warriors are nearly defeated, Annie and Gabi appear on the back of Falco's new flying Jaw Titan. Meanwhile, Armin discovers Zeke in the Paths.

Chapter 4 - A Long Dream: Armin and Zeke have a conversation about the meaning of life and Armin convinces Zeke to share his viewpoint and the two call on the deceased Titan shifters throughout the series to help the alliance. Zeke then materializes on Eren's Titan and allows Levi to kill him, which stops the Rumbling. After Armin is rescued, he uses the power of his Colossal Titan to destroy Eren's Founding Titan, releasing the centipede-like organism, the source of all Titan power, from Eren's nape. Falco flies down to the Liberio refugees, but the reunion between the Warriors and their families is cut short when the source turns the nearby Eldians, including Jean, Connie, and Gabi, into Titans to help defend it. Reiner, Annie, and Pieck engage the Titans and the source to prevent it from reconnecting with Eren while he transforms into the Founding Titan once again to fight Armin, leaving Mikasa and Levi the only ones left who can take Eren down. Jumping off of Falco's back, Levi uses a Thunder Spear to destroy Eren's Titan's mouth exposing his human form within and Mikasa beheads Eren. Ymir is thus freed from the Paths allowing her to pass on, and the Titan powers, along with the source, disappear from the world, turning all the Eldians permanently back into humans.

Final Chapter - Toward the Tree on That Hill: After Eren's death, Armin (and the others) recall a conversation with him prior to his death where he reveals his true motive was to ensure his friends statuses were elevated to the saviors of humanity to the rest of the world, alongside giving them the long, fulfilling lives he wanted them to have in a world free of Titans. After mourning their friend, Armin decides to take credit for killing Eren, Mikasa leaves to lay Eren to rest on Paradis, and the Scouts and Warriors are hailed as heroes by the survivors of the Rumbling. Three years later, with eighty percent of humanity decimated, the Jaegerists strengthen Paradis' military to prepare for a potential future attack from the rest of the world, while the remaining Scouts and Warriors become the world's ambassadors for peace negotiations with Paradis. Mikasa buries Eren's head under a tree that he would frequently rest under as a child and continues to visit his grave throughout the rest of her life. Many generations later, a futuristic Paradis is bombed from above and destroyed in a war. Over time, Paradis is reclaimed by the wilderness, and within this wilderness a lone boy and his dog approach the tree Eren is buried at, which has since grown to resemble the original tree that contained the source of the Titans' power.

IGPX: Immortal Grand Prix EP#07 - Spring Has Come: It is time once again for the IGPX All-Star Festival. Though only an exhibition, Takeshi and Team Satomi are out to prove they deserve to be in the big leagues. Meanwhile, Mark gets some unexpected news regarding his mother's health.

[xtruss]

XII Reasons Roman Numerals Are Better Than Arabic Numerals 😂😂😂

— By Eli Burnstein | August 3, 2023

Photograph From Getty

What’s up, patricians? It’s your boy Jasoninus Titus Clearianus, comin’ at ya live from Ephesus with not VI, not IX, but a whopping XII reasons why we should be ignoring those newfangled Arabic numerals and sticking to the I, II, and III of our forebears. So, without further ado, let’s dive in. [IV-minute read.]

I. What Even are Arabic Numerals?

2? 3? 54? What are these stupid symbols? I’m confused. I, V, X, and L, on the other hand—they’re familiar. That’s nice.

II. Addition is a Cinch.

To those who argue that adding Roman numerals is hard: you’re dumb. Wanna combine X and V? Just mash ’em together. XV—boom. How hard was that? As for longer numbers, like XLV and VIX—that’s easy, too. Just carry the L and subdivide according to the tables provided by your local proconsul.

III. Multiplication and Long Division.

Multipli-what? Long divisi-who? Who needs those fancy formulas, anyway? Maybe you losers should spend less time playing with numbers and more time threshing grain and/or chiselling marble.

IV. Elegance in Speech.

Roman numerals are elegant to throw around in conversation, e.g., “I’ve asked you vee (V) times not to keep the priestesses waiting,” or, “I’ve slept with eye-eye (II) people in my entire life.” It’s more natural.

V. Elegance in Writing.

“Our quarterly flax earnings are up LXVI percent, down XIV from MDXXVII.” Clean, clear, professional.

VI. The Bigger the Number, the Longer It Is.

4,708 sounds small. Puny, even. But MMMMDCCVIII? That shows me how big this number is. Maybe the biggest?

VII. No pesky Decimals.

Decimals are for scribes who have nothing better to do than make up things like 7.5 aqueducts or 3.25 wars. But if you’re a general, senator, or magistrate, like most of us, that’s getting a bit too in the weeds.

VIII. Order Tells You Whether to Add or Subtract.

VI is V+I while IV is V-I. Now try that in your stupid math. 21 is . . . 2+1? No! 12 is 1-2? False! See, it just doesn’t work.

IX. Zero is Easily the Stupidest Thing I’ve Ever Heard of.

“Hey, guys, you know what we’re missing? A number that represents the absence of numbers. You know, like, something, but it means absolutely nothing?” What?

X. VII Symbols are More Efficient Than IX Symbols (X If We’re Counting Zero LOL).

I, V, X, L, C, D, M. See? That’s all you need to create every number under the sun (all the way up to MMMMDCCVIII). 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 . . . I’m bored already.

XI. Plagiarism, Methinks?

People think that these squiggly-ass digits are sooo original. But take a closer look and you’ll see good, old-fashioned Roman ingenuity at work. 1? Clearly a ripoff of I. 3? Backwards “E,” for real. 5? Yeah, that’s an “S” trying to cover its tracks. They even rip themselves off! Turn a 6 upside down and you’ll have all the evidence you need.

XII. Numbers are Letters, and Letters are Numbers. End of Story.

We’ve already got the alphabet. It gives us everything we need. But no—not good enough for these fancy-pants mathematicians who need their own set of characters just to feel special. What’s next, a sign that means “is equal to”?

Conclusion:

I could probably come up with another DCCCLXXXIX reasons why Arabic numerals eat Neptune’s you-know-whats for breakfast, but you get the idea.

Ditch the fad, folks. Rome always wins (Not True Idiot Eli Burnstein). ♦

[cleoenfaserum]

JUDY GARLAND, a communist driven to suicide according to Harriet Fraad. Listen to what MsHarriet has to say...

This is what Ms Harriet Fraad said, "(The) anti-communism Joseph McCarthy and the house on  American Activities Committee deported jailed  and had fired millions of American Communists and  socialists some of the Fallout of persecuting Judy  Garland was that she committed suicide under  their pressure." (Minute 16:14 of her speech).

15:18 at the  end of World War II in the late 1940s, communism and socialism were  household words and were very common  every family read an article that had a stat  that one in every four families had an active  con Communists who talked about his her or  their activities and family gatherings that  was an accepted reality that socialists  Communists were part of the conversation that had to be stopped in order to stop the left  which was responsible for the social benefits   people got by pushing further for regular people  they had to throw out the left which they did with  

16:14 anti-communism Joseph McCarthy and the house on  American Activities Committee deported jailed  and had fired millions of American Communists and  socialists some of the Fallout of persecuting Judy  Garland was that she committed suicide under  their pressure other people were just deported  or jailed and they were jailed because being  a member of the Communist party or of the left  somehow intimated a violent overthrow of our  country you contrast that with January 6th   where they were violently trying to overturn an  election and they get maybe six months or a year

17:13 very interesting and unfortunately  the head of the AFL-CIO at the time  agreed to throw the left the Socialists  and the Communists out of the unions   well the spark of the unions were those  who had a vision of worker control of   their own production they were the Socialists the  Communists and the left so when they were ousted well the union movement began to die and  so until the recent influx of organizing   instead of being at 35 percent which it was  right after the war it was down to nine percent  big drop and not particularly militant  either that's beginning to change  

18:13 and I will talk about that as very hopeful  a little later how did they get away with  decimating the union movement which went from  35 percent unionized at the end of World War II  to about between seven and nine percent how did  they do that well anti-communism was the tool   Joseph McCarthy the house on American Activities  Committee found being on the left unamerican  they decided that being a communist or a socialist  or a leftist meant believing in the violent  overthrow of the United States and therefore  people were deported and jailed their employers  were found and told that they were hiring  evil Communists and they ought to be  fired their lives were destroyed sometimes  literally in Judy Garland is still famous  she was in the Communist party and was  hounded to the point where she killed herself   there was terrible persecution of leftists who  were part of the American scene in fact their   slogan was communism is the new americanism. (19:43)

[live-infographic]

Percent, Decimal, and Fraction Conversions via @ http://www.liveinfographic.com/ Matlabguru, May 18, 2020 at 09:53AM

[zalrb]

Imagine {The Setup} Pt. 1

As the title suggests, this is a setup to the next part, an establishment of Stefan and Elena without humanity and getting into their mindset in this fic. Hope whoever reads it enjoys it ;)

The Grill was busy tonight and Stefan enjoyed the energy of the crowd, the excited chatter, the beating of dozens of hearts, the sound of blood... it was intoxicating. He was at the bar, sipping a drink, enjoying the buzz of the restaurant and how it dizzied him, even the simple things, like the man carving a steak next to him, the woman nibbling on pretzels. He didn't know if he was going to feed here. It wouldn't be smart to, but more importantly, he wanted to indulge in the atmosphere: it was all so urgently, deliciously human and he could take it all away in a second if he wanted to, the power of that was its own high.

He understood the vampiric urge to stalk, to hunt, the thrill of it, but truthfully, Stefan didn't have to stalk prey, didn't have to seek out game, he could draw them to him simply by sitting at the bar. Now that he was free from the burden of his conscience and all of the hangups and anxieties that came with it, he could be honest with himself: he had an effect on women. A thrall.

And that was all he needed. When he didn't shirk from it or ignore it, he was irresistible. He could feel the attention, the eyes on him, the curiosity, it was only a matter of time before someone made the unfortunate mistake of making a move on him.

Hell, he could sense someone coming now.

"Leave."

It was Elena. He looked at her, in the knee-high boots he remembered wrapped around him the day he took her on the counter in her parents' cabin,

the jeans, the low-cut tank top. She looked good.

He raised an eyebrow at her. "What?"

"We can't both use the same hunting ground. You're sloppy and careless, a liability," she said, her tone matter-of-fact. "I don't want to deal with the attention you'd bring, so go to one of your other haunts, that dive bar you spoke about, whatever."

"What makes you think that I'm hunting?"

He smiled when he said that and something about it made Elena want to snap his neck. "Don't patronize me," she said. "You're a ripper, Stefan, hunting is what you do."

She turned around to look out to the rest of the restaurant and scanned the room of humans, quickly studying each one, and tilted her head at a brunette in the corner, eagerly watching the people around her having conversations, desperate but too shy to join. Suddenly, she heard Stefan laugh and she was forced to bring her attention to him, taking eyes off her mark.

"You doing Damon's little trick?" Stefan assumed character and started waggling his eyebrows. "'Find the weak one and separate them from the herd'." He snorted into his glass as he took a drink.

Elena suddenly felt inexperienced and childish then irritated for feeling anything at all. "Well, I suppose it's not as subtle as decimating entire towns on Christmas."

Stefan's eyes flashed, amused. "Look at you, sticking up for your Sire."

"Don't call him that."

"Oh, are you two not into labels?" Stefan raised his eyebrows. "My mistake."

Elena glared at him and he felt rather pleased with himself, with the way he could needle her.

"So, what's your game then," said Elena, noticing both the covert and blatant glances he was getting. "Just waiting for one of these bimbos to throw herself at you?”

Stefan looked around at his admirers. "Why do you care?"

"I don't,” she said with a conviction she wished she’d felt more. “I don’t care about anything, not anymore."

“Mm.”

Elena watched him drink. "I hope you're not here to watch me."    

The thought of that didn't annoy her nearly as much as she wanted him to think it did.

"About fifty percent."

"What?"

"That's how certain I am that you would literally die from shock if I told you that not everything is about you."

Elena rolled her eyes. "This isn’t vanity. You moved here and at nearly two hundred years old, enrolled in high school just to be with me. I was your whole fucking world."

"Not anymore.”

Elena looked at him, unable to hide her indignation.

“What can I say, I'm a new man now,” said Stefan. “My world expanded."

"Then what are you still doing here?"

"This was my home way before it was yours.”

“It’s Mystic Falls, not New York. There’s nothing for you to do here.”

Stefan shook his head, amused. “Only because you lack imagination.”

           “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

"Elena, you're out of your depth. Just add another streak to your hair and call it a day.”

Quickly, she grabbed the steak knife, about to drive the end into Stefan’s throat, but he used one hand to grab her wrist, keeping her hand in place. His strength excited her. He held her gaze.

“This bar alone. The things you and I could do in this bar. The things I could..." He licked his lips and then grinned, taking another sip of his drink rather than continuing his sentence.

Elena was nearly breathless. "Go on. Like what?"

Stefan looked at her intently and she felt something within her begin to shift. Since her emotions switched off, she felt the urges that came naturally to any vampire with a clarity that was usually muddled with remorse and regret but what Stefan stirred now, what that knowing look, that glint in his eye roused within her, it was something even darker than that, something primal, something almost ... inspired. He leaned forward and Elena found herself leaning forward with him, hungry and curious, almost panting with the desire to know…

"I'm not going to tell you."

He smiled. She hated him.

He made her drop the knife onto the floor and then let go of her wrist.

"Hi."

Elena’s annoyance flared when someone else, a blonde, came up to them and interrupted their conversation. She took a step forward, slightly in front of Stefan.

"We were talking."

Stefan moved her back. "And now we're not."

The girl had a small smirk on her face as she glanced at Elena before looking back to Stefan.

"Good because I wanted to buy you a drink."

"Afraid I already have one."

She took the glass from Stefan's hand and drank it in one shot. "Not anymore."

He narrowed his eyes, intrigued.

"Desperate," said Elena.

The girl looked at her and Stefan smiled, shaking his head. "I think you're supposed to fake cough when you do something like that," he said.

"No, she's desperate and I want her to know," said Elena.

“I think she’s bold,” said Stefan, chuckling at the expression on Elena’s face.

            The blonde looked back at Stefan. "So, you wouldn’t think it’s too bold if I told the bartender we're having another round of bourbon?"

He kept his eyes on her, shaking his head slightly. "We're not going to be drinking."

She blushed, pleased. "Let me tell my friends I'm leaving. Meet you at the door." She handed him the glass back before heading to her table.

Stefan put the glass back on the bar and then moved to leave but Elena spoke.

"You're only taking one? What, are you on a diet? Ripper Anonymous? One body a day?"

He leaned forward and whispered in Elena's ear. "Like I said, I'm not hunting."

And then he was gone.

*

Elena withdrew from the brunette, blood dripping from her mouth, down her throat. 

After Stefan had left The Grill, she'd walked over to the girl and struck up a conversation, following Damon's teachings as some sort of odd defiance, and compelled the girl to follow her to an alley. She bit the girl right away, feeding from her wound but without any relish or sense of appetite. She was distracted.

"What do you think he meant by that?" said Elena. "'He isn't hunting'. And then he just left with that blood bag. Ugh."

The girl swayed on the spot, blinking rapidly, trying to orient herself amidst massive blood loss.

"Well?" said Elena impatiently.

"Oh, um. You know how guys are, they love playing games. I bet he was just trying to get a rise out of you, you know?"

Elena scoffed. "Well that's stupid, I don't have any emotions. There's nothing to rise."

A look passed over the girl's face. Elena cocked her head.  

"What was that?"

"N-nothing," said the girl.

Elena slammed her against the wall so that she cried out in pain. "Don't lie to me," she said through clenched teeth, compelling her as she spoke. 

The girl was gasping in pain ."I don't know, it seems like it really bothers you that he left with someone. Like you're jealous or something."    

Elena looked at her dangerously. The girl's eyes widened.  "No, no, I didn't mean--"

Elena snapped her neck and the body fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

Elena stared at the corpse for a few seconds before throwing her head back, sighing. "He ruined my night and now he ruined my dinner? Asshole."

Elena bent down and draped the girl's arm over her shoulder and heaved, standing her up when she heard shouting.

"Hey! Hey!"

She turned around and saw two guys at the end of the alley, looking at her and the brunette with concern. "You OK?"

Elena adopted a desperate tone. "My friend, she passed out! Oh God, I hope she's breathing! My battery died so I can't call for help but I think she drank too much! Can you help? Please!"

They started walking briskly over. "Yeah, no problem. We're calling an ambulance. What's your friend's name?"

The instant they made it to Elena, she threw the brunette to the ground and bore her fangs, pouncing on the two guys, tearing through their necks, and gorging on their blood as they screamed.

*

 Elena could hear the screams from two blocks away. Not screams of terror, as she’d hoped, screams of pleasure. She used her speed to make her way through the Salvatore Mansion, getting to Stefan’s room right away to eavesdrop, expecting the door to be closed, only to find it open. Stefan and the blonde were visible, his movements eliciting moans and yelps and guttural exclaims from her as she buried her face in the bed, gripping the sheets, begging for more.

Elena watched them calmly and with the same clarity she experienced all her other urges, she had the urge to kill that girl and at least try to kill Stefan. She wouldn’t yell or cry, she wouldn’t curse, she would just go in and execute them,

if only for the quiet --- those moans, which would almost sound performative if Elena didn’t know firsthand that Stefan could make you reach places, grated her ears.  

Suddenly, veins darkened her face, and Elena felt severely inconvenienced by her reaction, the fact that she was having a reaction at all. This wasn't how it was supposed to go. Having no humanity, no emotions, it was supposed to be freeing.  Sure, she still had her memories. And she could still understand the feelings she once had attached to those memories, their presence didn't disappear but she could just leave them be, like they belonged to someone else. What she had now was want and impulse. She acted on desire -- if she was hungry, she fed without guilt, draining bodies of all blood, all life with no qualms, if she wanted to party, to drink, she indulged without limit.  Her urges weren't curbed by any sense of shame or propriety, she did exactly what she wanted when she wanted it. She did.

So why couldn't she storm into his room like she wanted to?

Why couldn't she just go in there and break every bone in that girl's body?

It had nothing to do with morality.  It had to do with ...

…Him.

She felt nothing for him. Not anymore. Yes, he had meant something to her once, something unquantifiable, she could admit that, but now he was just a guy, no different from a stranger she passed on the street. There was no love, no affection, no intimacy, no -- there was nothing between them. Not now. Not anymore.

But if she stormed in there, it would be admitting that he made her feel something. And Elena didn’t feel.

           As if he were privy to her thoughts, Stefan looked away from the woman beneath him to Elena, and the moment they locked eyes, he intensified his motions, bringing about even louder mewls, his groans now mingled with hers, his eyes clouding with a lust she hadn’t seen seconds before and she felt something in her … break. And rise. At the same time. His expression was smug but full of what she thought could be yearning,

there was mischief and carnality, as if he were taunting her, telling her: Imagine … how good this feels. Imagine … what she’s experiencing now. Imagine …  if it were you here. As if he were imagining her with him for the both of them.  She couldn’t look away from him. Was this arousal or rage, she couldn’t be sure.

Finally, she left and could hear his triumphant laugh morph into a moan as she walked downstairs into the living room. She didn’t move from the couch, listening to them, knowing she wasn’t putting on a show but he was. After a few hours, the girl stumbled down the stairs, dishevelled and satisfied, then left. A few seconds later, Stefan walked down the stairs too and Elena found herself move from the living room to the bottom of the stairwell.

“Why is she still alive?”

Stefan blinked at her. “How many times do I have to say it, I wasn’t hunting.”

“So, then you like her.” Elena had meant to state it as a fact but she could hear her accusatory tone.

“Nicole? For tonight at least.”

“She has a name now?”

“Well, I think she always did.”

“Why bother learning it? Are you going to carve it into a closet wall?”

He smiled. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

           “You have no idea what I’d like.”

           “My mistake.”

           He headed to the door.

           “And where are you going now?” said Elena.

           He glanced back at her. “Hunting.”

           Stefan left

and after a few seconds, Elena went back upstairs to his room. She walked over to his bar and poured herself a drink, then searched his desk. When she found what she needed, she drank a bit of the bourbon, then emptied the rest of the bottle onto the bed, setting it on fire, watching it engulf the mattress, the frame, as she continued to sip from the glass, the reflection of the flames dancing in her eyes.

*

When Stefan woke up, it was to find the bloodied body of a blonde woman in his new bed. He sighed then laughed. This had been the sixth one in a week. Not of his doing.

He had gone out of town for his dinner, gorging on an entire bachelor party, compelling them to choose who should die first then doing the opposite, allowing a couple of them to try and escape before chasing them down and ripping out their throats, nearly decapitating them from his frenzied feeding.

No, this was Elena. Ever since he’d brought home Nicole, Elena had been feeding on women who resembled her even slightly, leaving their bodies outside the door of the bedroom he now stayed in, in his bed, propped against the dresser --- tokens of her ire, tokens of her... affection. He enjoyed it, the passion he inspired in her.

Some of the girl’s blood had gotten on his chest and Stefan swiped his finger through it, licking it off, before leaving his bedroom and walking into hers.

“Got your latest gift.”

           Elena was lying cross-legged on her bed and didn’t look up from her phone. “It’s not a gift. I’m trying to get you to move out. That’s why I burned your bed.”  

           “Right.” He nodded. “You know you could’ve chained me to it, or tried anyway. Start the fire in the hallway, let me struggle to break free the closer the flames got.”  

Elena looked up from her phone and spoke without thinking. “And if you died?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Oh OK, I didn’t know that you cared about that.”

She moved suddenly and pushed him against the wall, the wood splintering from the force of it, her hand gripping his chin so he could look her in the eyes.

“I don’t care about you.”

He didn’t try to move, he just stared at her, seeing through her, into her. She was suddenly aware of his bare torso, how her body was pressed against his, how it made her burn. She had him against the wall but she was the one who felt pinned. 

She released him.

           “I’m having a party later,” said Elena.

           “Why?”

           “A celebration. The house is still standing.”

           “You’re the one who almost burned it down, a theme with you.”

           “Fine. I’m in need of distraction.”

           Stefan looked at her innocently. “From?”

           She narrowed her eyes. “Just clean up your mess before then.”

           “You mean the mess you left me,” said Stefan.        

Elena gesticulated. “Whatever.”

“Fine,” he said. “Then I’ll be on my way.”

She pursed her lips. “You’re not staying?”

Stefan shook his head. “A little too predictable for me.”

*

Everyone was dancing, everyone was drinking, Elena had drifted through the party, feeding on one person, pouring a drink into the mouth of another, laughing, dancing, revelling in the human buffet she catered to herself. 

And then she saw him. Across the room. With yet another girl. Laughing. Flirting. She’d put a hand on his chest. Elena sighed.

She didn’t know if this one was prey or another hookup and the lack of clarity bothered her. She decided to investigate.

“Look who decided to join the party.”

Stefan watched her approach and then turned to look at the girl who was glaring back at her.

“Thought I’d check it out.”

The girl watched Stefan and Elena stare at each other, watched how they sized one another up, pulling the other into their gaze,

and then linked her arm through his. Stefan didn’t seem to notice. Elena did.

“Is there something you need?” said Elena.

“That’s so funny, I was going to ask you the same thing.”

Elena laughed without humour. “This is my party.”

“And it’s a rager.”

She still didn’t move her arm from Stefan’s.

Elena compelled her. “Who do you think I am?”

“Clearly, his ex.”

“And what do you want to happen with him tonight?”

“I want him to take me home so I can ride him until he calls out my name.”

Stefan coughed out a laugh. Elena made a face. “You think?”

“I know.”

She released her from the compulsion and she blinked rapidly, trying to piece together what had just happened.

“OK,” she said. “I don’t know how you got me to say all of that but you’re clearly a toxic person, a crazy ex that needs to let go of the past and let him move on with his life.”

Elena’s vampirism started bleeding through and when the girl saw her eyes redden, her veins darken, her face contorted in horror and Elena smiled, relishing the shock.

“Trust me,” she said, closing the gap between them. “You haven’t even imagined my crazy.”

Stefan smirked.

[the-fiction-witch]

Little Birdy P1

Media Lewis

Character Adam Douglas

Couple: Adam X Reader

Rating: Sweet AF

Concept ‘my Little Birdy’ 

"So… you going to explain, everything of the last like six months" Lucy asked sipping her prosecco in my dorm room 

"I guess I probably should" I laughed "I guess it's started with Aphrodite" I smiled 

I was six miles deep into the library scouring the dewey decimal system the library employed desperate for the book I needed on Aphrodite and Eros. I had to do a report on the variations of their statues though time for my understanding artist difference unit of my artist theory class so I desperately needed the book. I moved down the endless lines of books looking for the one I needed. I quickly spotted it grabbing the top of the spine but as I did someone else grabbed the bottom.

"Ohh excuse me" I said moving back

"No no I'm sorry I didn't see you there" he says I looked and it was a tall thin boy I a red patterned button down the sleeves rolled to his elbows with a plane red shirt under it, a pair of rather tight well worn blue jeans with a leather belt and tattered half broken red converses. 

We both looked and saw there was only one copy of the book on the shelf

"It appears we are at a stalemate"

"It would appear so"

"Why do you need it?"

"For the statues and dates for my artist theory class"

"That's fair that's very needed"

"What do you need it for?" 

"I have a Greek god and goddess paper for classics"

"Ummm this is troubling"

"When's yours due?"

"First period Thursday"

"Ahhh you see mines due tomorrow"

"Ohh dear"

"Yeah. So-"

"But mines sixty two percent of the unti grade"

"Damn mines only twenty" he says "but I have to use this book it's specifically on the paper print out so I have to reference it"

"It's on mine too"

"AHH… likely why there is only left left now all our classmates probably have them"

"Yeah" 

"Uhhh how about we share it? Go sit in the study room and we can both use it" he suggested

"You wouldn't mind?"

"Not at all" he smiled "I like having someone to chat to while I work anyway stops me procrastinating so much" he laughed taking the book so I happily followed him though the library to a study room which he headed into so I flipped the little in use sign on the door and headed in sitting at the table getting my space set up to work and he sat on the other side of the table setting himself up too

 "I uhh I don't even know your name"

"Ohh right yeah. Adam, Adam Douglas" he smiled offering his hand 

"Y/n y/l/n" I smiled happily giving his hand a shake 

"That's a very pretty name" he smiled giving my hand a kiss 

"Awww your sweet" I blushed before we both began our work flipping through the book each for references we needed he typed away on his laptop and I wrote away with my favorite pen 

"Artist theory you said?"

"Ummm hum had to take it as part of my sculpture course"

"I see. I guess you're one of those down in the art department throwing clay around"

"Kinda yeah" 

"You interested in Greek statues and history then?"

"I am very much, I find it fascinating the level of detail"

"Me too." He nods 

"Classic lit did you say?"

"No classics"

"Ohhh your one of those"

"Yes in one of those cunts"

"No no-'

"It's okay I get it alot."

"The shining example of the school"

"immo sumus" he chuckled

"Ummm?"

"Sorry Latin. Have to use it alot in classics" he chuckled 

"It's okay, it's cute"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah you must be very clever"

"Awww aren't you sweet" he Cooes leaning in his arm "tuum pulcherrimum" he smirked 

"What does that mean?'

"I said your very beautiful" 

"Ohhh thank you" I blushed 

"bellus tuus cum erubescis, libet cum loqui tibi latine, parum birdy" he smirked 

I had no clue what he was saying but I turned as red as a strawberry making him smirk more "venerabile" he Cooes taking my hand and giving it a kiss

"I uhhh I take it you're on the Latin debate team?"

"Oh god no. I would happily be on the team issue is its less of a Latin team and more a old boys club for wanking each other off"

"Fair enough" I nodded 

"Plus it would take up an awful lot of my time I prefer having the free time" he says 

"Understandable" I nodded as we soon finished up our work returning the book to the shelf 

"I uhh I really liked working with you" 

"I did too" 

"I wouldn't mind sharing a book with you again or even a study room"

"Me either"

"Maybe we could work together some other time?"

"I'd like that Adam"

"Could you think maybe I could get your number?"

"Really?"

"Yeah, if that's okay"

"Sure" I smiled getting a bit of my spare paper and writing my number down on it with a little heart and handing it over to him 

"Great I'll text you as soon as I get back to my dorm" he smiled taking my hand giving it a kiss "pleasure working with you y/n" he says before heading off out the library, immediately I grabbed a romance book and slightly fanned myself trying to bring down my blush.

[ilcaeryx]

Vanguard [Gojo Satoru/Reader]

Summary: You attempt to kill a spider and Gojo helps... kind of.

Tags: Gojo Satoru/Reader, Fluff, Domestic, Cute, Humor, Banter, Gojo Supremacy

Author’s Note: Gojo supremacy all the way.

---

Your first week moving into the Gojo estate could be described either as traumatic or eventful, depending on your mood. According to Satoru, your introduction to the household had roused family squabbles. Whatever was said in these supposedly heated conversations was unclear, since Satoru did not divulge more information than he had to – yet he promised you that you would be safe there, whether it be from curses or humans. In return, you had promised that you would make him and his family proud of having you around. Because of this exchange, you were in a bind.

See, like most of humanity you disliked spiders. Your fear increased exponentially with their size, so when you entered your bedroom to retrieve your sweater and a huge, eight-legged monstrosity was casually resting on said sweater you fled. While you previously did not have the sense to shut the door in your bedroom facing the garden, you shut the one connecting to the living room with shaking hands. You remembered how amazing walking around the miniature zen garden together with Satoru had been and now that you knew that this creature had lurked beneath all the branches and flowers you would be hesitant to return outside.

You did not want his family to know you were quite afraid of spiders, which meant you had to solve this problem by yourself. Because you were no sorcerer or had any hand-to-hand experience at all, you gathered your courage and scouted your wing of the Gojo estate for anything that might be of use before settling on a shovel. Lashing out with the shovel at an imaginary bug, you tested its speed and accuracy. Your movements were inelegant and sluggish that way, but if you straight up crushed the spider with the flat side it could work.

Marching down the hallway with your new weapon made you feel like a badass until you perceived Satoru walking by your side in your peripheral vision. He did this often enough that you no longer screeched or jumped. Today, he greeted you with a loving pat on the head, his fingers trawling through your hair as he followed the line of your skull down to your neck.

“Hey, sweetie. Are you having an excavation in your new home?”

You recovered your badass bitch façade, keeping a straight face. “There’s a spider in our bedroom and I’m going to kill it.”

He leaned forward, his mouth gaping into a huge smile that covered his teeth. It really annoyed you, so you just looked forward. Here you were, trying to protect yourself and your boyfriend and the first thing he does is mock you.

“I finally get to see your wild side,” he said. His breath hitched in his throat and he drew his head away from you. “That’s kind of hot. I’m looking forward to judging your fighting style.”

“Could you just… not do that?”

“No?” he imitated your questioning tone. “I could not?”

You lazily stuck out your tongue at him. Once you arrived to the temporary arena, you jutted the shovel handle towards your bedroom door. “Watch me decimate it, dude.”

“You’re awfully confident for someone who is terrified of spiders.” Satoru leaned on the wall, hands hidden in his pockets.

“I’m getting used to them from seeing you, daddy long legs.”

“I’m not that bad – I’m 90 percent torso. Anyway, I’ll do you a favour: I’ll breach the door and you kill it. Sounds good?” He extended one hand in front of you, inviting for a handshake.

You slapped his mocking hand out from your vision with a dull smack. He let his arm hang limply from his body.

“I can't let you help me, much less kill it yourself, because then I would never hear the end of it,” you said through your teeth, half in jest. He would most definitely bring it up whenever he needed something to stroke his ego, which was weird since he already had other accomplishments to brag about.

“I would never do that.” He moved behind you and placed his hands on your shoulders, giving you a few comforting squeezes. “I would crush this bugger in a heartbeat - we both know that. For you, this is a fitting challenge and challenges are invaluable for personal development. I enjoy watching you grow as a person.”

Yes, he was totally doing this for your personal development.

With him behind you, you decided that it was time for the ultimate showdown. You prepared yourself. “Is this how you treat your students whenever you send them off to missions?”

“This is precisely how I treat my students whenever I send them off to missions.”

“Wow… I feel bad for them.” You opened the door in a rush and returned to your battle stance, ready to smash the spider into non-existence. This would 100% have happened if you had seen it. However, your sweater was the only thing on your bed. The spider was MIA.

“This is really bad, isn’t it?” Satoru said in sincere amusement, his feet moving in tandem with yours as you stalked into the room. “Does this mean you’re moving out?”

Just shut up, you thought and surveyed the floor. The spider was either down on the floor or somewhere on a wall, intuition told you.

“I’ll check under the bed,” Satoru said. You peered back at him, admiring his courage. His hands roamed along your spine and down the sides of your legs until he was crouching on the floor. He looked into the darkness beneath your bed for about a quarter of a second before confirming that it was indeed chilling there.

You did not want to be near the spider when you couldn’t see it, so you gingerly took a step over Satoru’s back towards the entrance, with Satoru joining you afterwards.

You huffed and leaned your body weight on one leg. “I can’t kill it when it’s down there. If we lift the bed, it’ll probably go scattering everywhere and I don’t think I can handle that. Do you have any ideas?”

“I could kill it with sorcery.”

You nodded tentatively, prompting him to continue.

Satoru’s head drooped to the side, his canines showing in an apologetic smile. “I could but there would be spider juice everywhere if I did.”

No. Just no.

“Don’t ever say those words in my vicinity again.” You scowled in disgust. “Any other ideas?”

His head drooped to his opposite shoulder. “I’ll kill it in a non-messy fashion.”

You raised an eyebrow. “How?”

“That’s a business secret. However, know that our bed will be safe to sleep in by this evening even if I’m not around.”

His statement touched your heart, warmth radiating throughout your chest. “What do you want in return?”

“Your undying love and adoration, perhaps? I won’t bugger you about this affair if you buy some confectionery on the way home. Deal?” Once again, he extended his hand towards you and this time around you accepted.

“Deal.”

---

I hope everyone enjoyed it and episode 7! I listened to Oh My Girl’s Secret Garden while writing this. Check out more of my work if you’re interested!

[brotheralyosha]

While canon formation has historically been shaped by bigotry it is not a fixed thing and people have been working on canon expansion, particularly with an eye to including underrepresented groups, for decades now. The canon doesn’t exist apart from the classroom, hovering as a celestial sphere from which teachers pluck holy ancient texts. It is—as it has always been—constantly shifting, accommodating new texts and quietly dropping others, as teachers decide what to teach and what to skip. So if today’s students are not, in fact, trapped in the musty archival Hell of a classics-only curriculum—and if they’re not reading only novels, but essays, speeches, and poetry—what is everybody so upset about? And why does the “throw Gatsby in the garbage” stuff get louder every year? I suspect it’s because these arguments are not really about what high school students should read; they’re about how these adults feel about their current reading habits. And because some of these Fitzgerald-haters aren’t simply readers, they are Book People.

A reader is someone who is in the habit of reading. A Book Person has turned reading into an identity. A Book Person participates in book culture. Book People refer to themselves as “bookworms” and post Bookstagrams of their “stacks.” They tend towards language like “I love this so hard” or “this gave me all the feels” and enjoy gentle memes about buying more books than they can read and the travesty of dog-eared pages. They build Christmas trees out of books. They write reviews on Goodreads and read book blogs and use the hashtag #amreading when they are reading. They have TBR (to be read) lists and admit to DNFing (did not finish). They watch BookTube and BookTok. They love a stuffed shelf but don’t reject audiobooks and e-readers; to a Book Person, reading is reading is reading.

Book People tend towards anti-elitism born of the belief that any fiction is transformative and redemptive, flattening YA, Middle Grade, sci-fi/fantasy, romance, and whatever we can agree literary fiction is into a single, unquestionably worthwhile genre: The novel.

But with this commitment to generic democracy comes defensiveness; Book People often feel they’re being demeaned or mocked for liking genre fiction or listening to audiobooks. They also tend to buy into the idea that books are a kind of empathy machine—that reading good books can make you a better person—which makes books that explore ambiguous morality nothing short of dangerous. That’s how you end up with long threads of librarians vowing never to read Lolita due to its offensive content, as though to read the book would be to condone child rape by verbose, smug perverts, as Nabokov allegedly does.

The habit of reading became an identity and culture in response to a growing sense—and fact—that fiction-reading is endangered. Indeed, book reading’s popularity declined over the last few decades; TV decimated reading rates at the end of the last century and the percentage of adults who read at least one book per year has dropped 5 percent since 2011, with fluctuations in between. If reading is threatened by our ever-increasing access to alternate diversions, and if the e-reader and the audiobook lure us away from the physical page, then the book-as-object must be made more precious. The bookshelf becomes a shrine, the book a fetish. This could be why those arguing that classic books alienate young readers suggest 21st Century titles as substitutions: if we want to keep the book alive, we have to read, and more to the point buy, the books being produced now.

But let’s not fool ourselves that these conversations are practical. After all, this latest iteration of the canon wars finds a home on Twitter, where Book People, authors who are required by their agents and publishers to maintain social media presences, and academic Book People-—English teachers and professors invested at both the career and emotional level in the power of the book—go to transmute their anxieties and resentments into discourse. This discourse evinces a conflation of both book-reading and online posting for activism; as has been pointed out, the terrible, embarrassing lure of The Discourse is in convincing us that we’re doing something other than what we’re actually doing, which is posting. Our posts do not, it turns out, affect text selection policy even if it feels like they do.

These complaints represent an outsized emphasis on formal education as bestowing all of a person’s ethics, prejudices, and the breadth of their knowledge. But the properly morally-tuned novel taught at the appropriate age and scaffolded with the optimal lesson plan isn’t a bulwark against teenagers becoming racist or hopeless or violent; after all, students leave the classroom and enter the rest of the world, where they’re influenced by their parents, their peers, their experience and the wider culture. And what a relief! Teachers don’t need that pressure. We just figured out how to do custom breakout rooms on Zoom.

Books aren’t holy, and declaring in capitalized, weirdly baroque curse words that you don’t like certain popular or well-regarded ones isn’t particularly scandalous or interesting. They are, after all, just books. Some are great, some are middling, and six of them are by Chelsea Handler.