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rauthschild · 1 year

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Once you realize that our Autochthonous American Government was substituted for and impersonated by British Territorial "State of State" business organizations and Municipal Corporations acting in the chaos after the so-called American Civil War, you will realize that so far as the rest of the world knew, our Government was "silent, presumed to be in interregnum" for many years.

Our Autochthonous Government wasn't called back into Public Session because those responsible for doing so were murdered, burned out, ambushed, forced to flee or simply cowed into submission. Most people were fooled by the substitution scheme and were not aware that their own government was Missing and being represented by foreign Municipal Corporations acting as Federal Subcontractors instead.

This resulted in those same Federal Subcontractors taking many gross liberties in breach of trust, service contracts, and treaties owed; but, there were some things that they simply could not do or even pretend to do, because they were never "federal" duties to begin with.

One of those "can't do it" tasks was enrolling new States into our Union.

Only the actual States that existed prior to the Civil War could vote on that issue, and those States were not in Session.

So as new States were formed after the Civil War and our country expanded westward, the British Territorial United States Government took temporary possession of each new Territory as it was formed in the Western United States, as provided for under the Northwest Ordinance.

Then, to keep up appearances, when the new States were due to be enrolled as States of the Union, the same British Territorial Government offered Territorial Statehood as a substitute status--- without a word of disclosure or explanation.

Most of our Western States existed for many decades as what I call, "States in Waiting", never actually enrolled as States of the Union.

This amounted to the Territorial Interlopers writing themselves a service contract couched as a State - of - State Constitution, for example, The Constitution of the State of Nevada, and settling in to milk their new corporate franchise.

These so-called "statutory states" exist only on paper, while the actual assets of the nascent States were left in the physical custody and under the regulatory authority of the foreign British Territorial Government Subcontractor --- the American Raj.

This is the mercenary government that has been terrorizing Americans in the Western States, and these are the False Presumptions under which these operatives have been acting when they have done things like laying an ambush for LaVoy Finicum, his friends and family members.

I received this brief synopsis of part of the resulting situation from a contributor today, and I quote:

"STATUTORY “citizens” or STATUTORY “nationals” born on federal territory are “foreign” and “alien” in relation to a CONSTITUTIONAL state. The same thing applies to Indians living on reservations.

[The "federal territory" being referenced applies to all the Territorial "States" formed in lieu of being enrolled as actual States, as well as people born in the District of Columbia and other actual federal enclaves.]

".... the reverse is ALSO true: Those born in CONSTITUTIONAL states are “foreign” and therefore “alien” in relation to STATUTORY “States” and federal territory.

That’s where the idea comes from to call state nationals [that is, average Americans born in one of the nation-states of the Union] “nonresident aliens” under 26 U.S.C. §7701(b)(1)(B) in relation to a tax that only applies on federal territory within the STATUTORY but not CONSTITUTIONAL “United States” under 26 U.S.C. §7701(a)(9) and (a)(10) and 4 U.S.C.§110(d)."

Those people living in the primarily western Territorial States that formed after the Civil War, were in the above referenced "Statutory" status with regard to and in contrast to people living in one of the Constitutional States formed prior to the Civil War.

This is because they weren't actually living in the States of the Union or under the provisions of the Constitution(s). They were in the custody of the British Territorial Government owing to the fact that their States were not actually enrolled as States of the Union.

Once the American Government came back into Session in 2019, we were able to take care of this long-overdue housekeeping.

By roll call vote of the State Assemblies in the States that were enrolled prior to the Civil War, the Territorial States including most of the Western States and West Virginia, were accepted as full-fledged States of the Union as of the First of October 2020 and retroactive to the day when they unknowingly accepted Territorial Statehood.

This action lawfully converted the presumptive political status of all people living in the former Territorial "States" to their intended political status as American State Nationals.

As fully enrolled States of the Union, all land and soil and other physical assets owed to each State of the Union naturally devolves upon the people living in each nation-state effective with the date that each of these States entered Territorial Statehood. The presumed-to-exist Territorial Trust was finally dissolved.

The bulk of the people living in, for example, Utah, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Minnesota, etc. and all other States formed during and after the Civil War, are in fact now incontrovertibly presumed to be nationals of their Constitutional States, unless proven otherwise. Those who have declared, recorded, and published their natural birthright political status are grandfathered-in and have absolute substantive rights, Both species of Federal Employee and their Dependents are presumed to be present under the provisions of the Residence Act.

Action to reform the presumptions of the courts and amend the jurisdictions under which they have been operating is required by Operation of Law, as is return of control of the assets owed to the people living in each State.

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billionairesitgirl · 4 years

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Do you have any tips to help someone who keeps failing? I have been trying for several years now to get started and feeling more and more hopeless every year. I have attended $$$ events, lost weight, moved closer to major cities. Then of course COVID struck and made things worse. Is there something I can do that can help me gain an "in" or are certain things just not meant for some girls.

KEEP TRYING !!!

Yes i screamed it... but that’s because thats the most important thing in succeeding.

Secondly Congrats on taking the steps and trying.....

(THIS MIGHT MAKE MAKE YOU NEUROTIC.... If you already are then DO NOT DO THIS)

The following is also important

1.) Have you asked your self why you keep failing?

Take a pen and paper and spend an entire day by yourself. Think, play things over in your head and Analyze.... This is probably the only time i truly suggested, over analyzing the crap out of your life, decisions, faliures and successes.

(a) What mistakes, do you keep making? or What mistakes do you think you keep making.

(b) what makes them mistakes

(d) who and/or what would this action work on

2.) List your obstacles ... Every single one you could think of...

Make 3 categories

.....Obstacles you have gone through - What caused it? who caused it? (Regardless of who caused it... You owe some responsibility... so still own up to it... But remember BE KIND to yourself...)

There is a fine line between being kind to yourself and completely absolving yourself of any responsibility when owning up to the responsibility of things gone wrong

......Obstacles repeated - How do you NOT repeat this Again?

.......Obstacles Imagined and Obstacles that could still happen (based on different things, character flaws, finances, men’s personalities, race, looks, nature) Get as detailed as needed.

Man plans and God unplans ...

However, as humans we have ability to at least create contingencies... try to come up with possible contingency plan and POSSIBLE action on how to still not stand still when one of those obstacles appear... Basically figure out another way to scale through, wiggle through, swim through... whatever way (As long as there is life, health and will... there is a way.... After all people have clawed out of dungeous using only a stick or even their finger nails)

3.) What have you tried that didnt work? or keeps failing... List it

4.) What ever #3 is that didnt work... What is the alternative that you haven’t tried.

5.) Clearly you see this as an investment if you have lost weight, moved etc... What is missing in the picture? (I don’t know you, nor have I spent time with you or know your thinking process or views... So this is something even if you dont know what is missing... You have to sit and think... Sleep on it, give it time but remain introspective but be mindful to know when clarity presents itself.

Being brutally Honest with yourself is the only way to know what is missing and where you are missing.

Example: I met a gorgeous black girl A few months ago. From the get go, I knew she was hypergamous... The men also knew. But there was something missing and i couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Until we were all talking with the men present.

She carried herself as a pretty girl, sweet and bubbly... But she made the mistake of trying to emulate the white woman’s countenance... So she could be doted on same as a white woman... I can’t explain this in detail.

But while it is good to emulate things noteworthy in other people... She lost her self and her own personal spark. As a black woman... She avoided the pitfalls of a stereotypical black woman (quote on quote)... in the process, she mistakenly lost her goddess quality and blended in with the rest. The men moved on from her.

My Point is: WHAT IS MISSING... Are your run of the Mill? What is your core

6.) Standard -

Do you have set standards? expectations of yourself and of the Men and of your surroundings?

Do you keep it? Do you up hold it or do you switch or lower it under pressure?

Not to give too much information... I refused to live in the poor neighborhood when i moved off college campus. I lived in a condo and lived Smack in the center of the wealthy part of the city. I was not in this lifestyle then... But it was simply my standards... And even though it meant staying on campus longer till i got it... I did that.

Example 2: I have friends who do not care what hole they enter to get entertained (granted you can meet people anywhere)... But I am not the type that goes out very often... So why will i waste my few outings in some frat boys bar or club. So I go to high end places.

Example 3: I met a man who recently sold his company with upwards of $80 Million... I wasn’t told... I was aware of the process and listened to him through the proceess complain about delay in the closing and trying to avoid tax etc

He was deperate to meet me in person. As a matter of fact the day he closed. He flew me to his city (I went cause i was bored). Long story Short... He is the type of man that got lucky... There isn’t much in terms of comparison... Thinks he knows everything, thinks himself black people’s savior and makes comments such as “If there were black women like you”... Has some racists views he doesn’t think is racists... I met his friends... I liked one (But he just recently got remarried and was the smartest of the bunch). They had pissing games who had thr most rolex collection etc... He was crazy about me... Still is even without so much as a kiss and i spent a weekend there. (Had my own hotel room)

But, I knew while the money was there, he was generous and was crazy about me... It would drive me nuts being with him and interacting with his friends... My standard here is that I won’t deal with any man who so much as stresses me mentally especially as I am a black woman... I won’t take nonsense.

My Point is : What do you compromise on that you do? It is a long road being steadfast to your standard... But it has been worth it for me.

Do not use anyone’s standard... Create your own and work on keeping it... Men will despise you for it... But respect you all the same.... It is a weird placed to be.

7.) What type of events do you attend. When you attend events, go out etc... What do you do? How do you approach these events? Do you wing it? Do you plan it? Are you fearless and confident or shy or just pleasant enough to exchange pleasantries alone? What vibe do you give off?

How do you dress? Different styles can come across different ways... Some ooze Sexy, some ooze elegance with a hint of sexy, some basic, some regular, some say just another event person

8.) Closer to Major cities : what part of that do you live? Even if you are not in the center of things... Where do you go when you go out? How often to do go to wealthy areas, who do you interact with there?

There is a plethora of questions who have to ask yourself.

With Covid I have met people (but then, I work for myself and have more freedom to move around and also take mini vacation in other cities) And I already have a network... So, I have a leg up -

But, I know girls here and people are also still meeting people.

What is stopping you? What avenues and methods have you tried? Have you thought outside the box?

Hopeless? No... Wrong direction... As you fail you learn things that dont work so that should make you hopeful.

Also, I am a big beliver in manifestation and law of attraction. Feeling hopless will only make things more hopless...It will attract more faliure...

Find ways to think more positively, ways to turn negative things into potentially positive things... In this case you do not have to be rational... Imagine everything negative happening has a positive...

e.g : A man cancelled on you = It wasn’t meant to be... It might have turned into a terrible situation for you... Thank God or the universe for saving you from whatever it is you arent aware of.

eg : Covid happening : Time to make more money, invest. Brush yourself up, level up some more, learn new ways to meet this men and become more resilient so you come out fire when, the world isnt tupsy turvy

e.g : Getting older: Perfect, the more sure and certain you become in yourself, the more you actually find out what makes you stand apart, the more you find out who you are and realize that whatever amount a man was going to give you last year, you’ve outgrown it with age, maturity, acheivements etc.

You get the gist.... NEVER FEEL HOPELESS

You can feel sad... But not hopeless... Dust yourself up and try again...

Maybe one day i will take time out to share some of my own short comings and faliures... Cause i think we share the successes much more; that people think there aren’t mistakes and faliures and short comings... I have had them, and I continue to work and fix them.

The only thing is after my introspection... and brow beating myself and figuring it out...i don’t like to dwell on the faliures... I put my self to work updating myself. Besides I think sharing more good news brings more good news and vibes... But, there isn’t anyone that can claim to not have had obstacles and faliures.

Finally: My sister beleives everyone has a destiny... But everyone is also capable of changing theirs...

With regards to your question... About certain type of girls ...

The Answer is NO...

Some people might find it harder, or lack the resources and know how

But trying, pushing ones self, acquiring knowlegde and doing whatever it takes (of course within reason and comfines of morality ) Is what makes the difference.

As i write... I know women who took their entire savings to go to ST Barts for New Year... (Would I? NO) But some would... My point is.

You will go as far as you are capable of seeing yourself go.

So if you want a change in your pattern... You have to break the wheel... Try something new you haven’t tried yet... And a new approach.

Question for you: “Gain an in?” Into what circle do you want an in? What type of man

#hypergamy, #datingtips #sugardatingtips #sugardatingadvice #levelup #levelupadvice #sugardatingtip #sugardating

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Owning a sports-team is a plute's get-out-of-tax-free card

When Microsoft CEO (and Linux archnemesis) Steve Ballmer retired and bought the LA Clippers, it was easy to assume that the billionaire was engaged in a jolly, buying a major league sports team as a folly.

But far from it: Ballmer made his bones (and his billions) by cheating — lying about free software; secretly funding absurd, crippling, pretextual lawsuits over GNU/Linux; and leading a vast, corrupt monopoly — and his foray into sports ownership was no different.

As Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Ellis Simani document in yet another blockbuster Propublica Secret IRS Files story, buying the LA Clippers allowed Ballmer to evade $140m in taxes from the sale of Microsoft stock.

https://www.propublica.org/article/the-billionaire-playbook-how-sports-owners-use-their-teams-to-avoid-millions-in-taxes

Sports teams, it turns out, are not merely billionaires’ playthings — they’re also a way to launder the earnings of the ultra-rich to reduce their tax liabilities far below the liabilities owed by the minimum wage workers serving pretzels or the millionaire players.

Ballmer’s tax dodge involved ginning up $700m in paper losses for the team by amortizing its assets, including assets that don’t depreciate. It’s part of an old dodge in sports-team ownership, perfected by Cleveland Indians/Chicago White Sox owner Bill Veeck in the 1940s.

Veeck didn’t think that wealthy sports team owners should pay any tax (“Look, we play the Star Spangled Banner before every game. You want us to pay income taxes too?”) and conceived of a “gimmick” (his word) to make this a reality.

In addition to taking a deduction for his players’ salaries, he insisted that he could depreciate the value of his players’ salaries, by acquiring the team and its contracts in two separate transactions. It worked.

As former MLB president Paul Beeston wrote, “Under generally accepted accounting principles, I could turn a $4 million profit into a $2 million loss and I could get every national accounting firm to agree with me.”

Congress and the IRS eventually caught up with this shuck, but in 2004, one-time sports-team owner GW Bush signed a law reinstating the rule, allowing team-owners to amortize everything from TV and radio contracts to “goodwill.”

This is how Ballmer was able to pay 12% tax on $656m in income, while athletes pay 30–40% on far more modest sums. Ballmer’s not the only one who got in on this scam — there’s a whole all-star team of ultra-rich owners who cash in on it.

This may explain why national sports franchises have increased in value by 500% over the past 20 years — they’re not just a way to earn income, they’re also a way for the ultra-rich to evade taxes.

Propublica’s reporting didn’t stop at Ballmer. They also talk about owners like Leonard Wilf (Minnesota Vikings) and Shahid Khan (Jacksonville Jaguars).

Khan issued a statement in his defense: “In the case of tax laws, the IRS applies and enforces the regulations, which are absolute. We simply and fully comply with those very IRS regulations.”

This is the same excuse that has been offered since the first Secret IRS Files publication in June: Rich tax evaders don’t make the rules, they just follow them. If you don’t like the rules, ask Congress for better ones.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#eat-the-rich

This excuse’s flimsiness is obvious: if there are weak tax rules for the super-rich, that’s not merely because the IRS forgot to close a loophole or Congress didn’t pass a law — the super-rich suborn regulators and lawmakers to create rules that operate to their advantage.

But there’s a subtler, technical reason this is bullshit. Writing for The American Prospect’s Revolving Door project, Sion Bell explains the “Economic Substance Doctrine.”

https://prospect.org/economy/one-weird-trick-force-billionaires-pay-taxes-economic-substance-doctrine/

This is a part of the tax code that excludes transactions “that lacks a concrete purpose beyond reduction of tax liability.” The language in the tax code is very broad, and does not define key terms like “transaction,” “trade or business,” or “economic position.”

On the one hand, this gives the IRS broad latitude to go after pretextual transactions that create risible fictions like the ones deployed by the team owners. On the other hand, the fuzziness of the standard allows deep-pocketed cheats to tie up the IRS in court for years.

The IRS’s budget was gutted in 2010 (in response to the lie that right-wing groups were being charitable status), and has been lagging ever since, with especially deep cuts to its enforcement budget.

The point of the Economic Substance Doctrine is the backstop the rest of the tax-code. Anything as complex as the code will have loopholes, even without rich people doing everything they can to make sure they’re there.

It functions as a “giggle test” that checks tax avoidance strategies that claim (as Peter Thiel did) that stashing $5b tax-free in an IRA is consistent with a retirement vehicle that allows middle-class people to save small sums for their dotage.

Even absent enforcement, the Economic Substance Doctrine is a rebuttal to the argument that ultra-rich tax cheats are just “obeying the law.” The law — the US tax code — bans the clever fictions they use to pay lower tax rates than the rest of us.

Sports team owners’ double-dipping amortization scams are not consistent with the tax code — it’s just that the part of the law they’re breaking is expensive to enforce, and there’s no budget to do so.

Image: Eric Garcetti (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Steve_Ballmer_2014.jpg

CC BY: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

#pluralistic

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thevoilinauttheory · 3 years

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The Great Eight

[ In lieu of the Rising event ending tomorrow - and myself, just now finishing it - I had some words I wanted to get out.

I get this type of nostalgia - it hurts, it physically hurts my chest; I feel sick to my stomach, and I just want to cry. I’ve asked others if they ever feel this way, but I’ve never gotten a yes to it.

The Rising always gives me this feeling. It’s be eight years since I first picked up XIV. Eight whole years. That’s a slap to the face, it’s been so long and it feels so short. I wish I could give people the same experiences and feeling I had for this game - the pain and happiness this nostalgia brings me. When I say this game means so much to me, it’s not an exaggeration. This game changed my life - I wish to share it a little bit with you. I touched on some of it in the past, but here I’m laying it all out. ]

[ I first started playing in 2013, when a friend recommended the game to me shortly after the game’s rerelease. They were ecstatic to have another player join them, and I owe them a lot for the experiences they gave me. My very first character was Raramlah Ramlah - she was a paladin, because that’s what I mained in WoW. I realized shortly that a tank probably wasn’t the best way to go, but also that my computer at the time couldn’t handle playing it, due to the graphics.

I gave it another shot in 2014, that’s when I made Danny Harold. He was the first character I ever got to level 50. I absolutely loved the game, when I wasn’t sitting idly for my friends to come online as I had with Raramlah; when I picked it up of my own accord. I remember I was in the hospital when I first picked it back up, when I first made him and leveled him through Gridania. But I was still going intermittedly between it and WoW. I missed the first Rising due to ignorance.

2015 comes around, and I’m in a stressful place. I just started a new job, and I’m finally able to live on my own with little issues from my disabilites. However, my apartment complex didn’t have internet, and so I’d take my laptop to Starbucks and sit there until they closed playing WoW instead. I wanted to spend what little time I had on the internet with the friends I already had grown close to. Year 2 went on without me. But it still wasn’t all bad. Near the end of 2015, Maximiloix Voilinaut was created - and when I started up my XIV tumblr account under “ishgardianscholar”. See, I had made it to Heavensward on Danny when I found out that someone I had met through a friend was starting up a new character for the purpose of RP. I thought to myself “I want an Ishgardian character” - and rolled a new one. It was a new adventure, a clean slate, with a couple of friends I knew from WoW to join me.

Here comes 2016... and WoW had let me down. My disabilites came back full force, and I was left bed bound and reliant on partial disability from my workplace while waiting for SSDI to start kicking into effect. My roommates did little to help take care of the house we were renting, lied to me about their incomes, and forced me to use what little money I was getting to pay for everything myself. I’m short a total of 2000$ because of it. But. But. That was the best year of my fucking life. It ruined me, that year ruined my life, but it was the happiest I had ever been. Lothaire Voilinaut was first conceived and Maximiloix became my pride and joy as a character, I found the class I wanted to keep playing - I made friends, so many of them! So, so many of them! And I loved them, and I still do! I miss them terribly. If I could relive one year of my life... it would be that year. What I would give just to feel that way again - because I had never felt it since. I didn’t realize until Year 3′s Rising came around, how nostalgic just the few short times and experiences were to me. Because I was met with two things... the first song that truly captured me in Final Fantasy games (Prelude), and the first song I ever heard in the game itself (A New Hope). I cried there. Music has always hit me so hard, and I never realized just how much this game meant to me until then. This was how I knew I would stay - that XIV had my heart for good.

2017, during the release of Stormblood, I went homeless. I had wanted so badly to see my first expansion release - and only witnessed second hand “Raubahn EX”. My friends moved on without me, and I was left alone again to start playing. But I told myself already. XIV had my heart, there was no reason to go back to WoW. So I didn’t. I didn’t, and I don’t regret it. This is when I truly started playing Lothaire fully - and when I met my spouse, he became my main. I made it to Year 4, and cried just as much.

2018 - with the loss of friends, did I find new ones. It wasn’t the best time of my life, but I wouldn’t trade the memories for a thing. Year 5 came and went faster than I could blink, but that was it. I heard the music, I remembered my first Rising, I remembered all the times I had before. And I cried.

2019 started off rough. I moved across the country and had a hard time finding a place to live. I got it down, started a new job... and made it to the release of Shadowbringers. I had grown so much since I first started - and the expansion release was everything I wanted it to be, regardless of the issues that came with it (though I’ve been told that it was a far smoother release than the others). I was so excited... and I was not let down. XIV upheld its standards and presented to me a game worthy of pushing onto my friends no matter how annoyed they got with me about it (looking at you @rose-color-boy). Everything about it was a pure masterpiece, people think I’m exaggerating. But this game had done so much for me, that finally, now, I got to witness something I always wanted to. Sure, I didn’t have many friends to start the expansion with... but the story captivated me immediately. Year 6... and I cried.

2020. There wasn’t much to say about it, I was stuck inside all year and I hit a bad patch during the end of it, but... Year 7. It hit me like a truck. It gave me goosebumps, it gave me laughs, and ultimately, it gave me tears. I actually sobbed, this time. Remembering everything I gone through hurt me so badly, the nostalgia was coming in hard. But I knew, in the end, this game would always be here for me. This game had wormed its way into my heart accidentally, and yet I feel like I couldn’t live without it.

This year. Perhaps it didn’t hit me as hard - I still cried. This game means so much to me. So, so much. It hurts, it really and physically hurts how much it means to me. This game made everything in my stressful life so much easier, littered the pain with good memories. I can recall bad places I was in, and associate it with something good that happened to me in the game. 2020 - I got knee surgery... but 5.3 had just released and holy shit. My spouse got a little annoyed at me that the only thing I was listening to was the theme of that last battle (To the Edge). It helped me get through it, the pain and the misery I felt from not being able to walk. 2019 - Work was driving my depression in deep, and I didn’t want to live and continue the pain I was feeling... but I got to the end of 5.0 and only wanted more. I wanted to know what happened next. I still remember that one cutscene, how they got me attached to a minor character so quickly and ripped her away just as fast; and the first dungeon? Experiencing the Trust System, and going through this intense battle on a grand scale with the help of the friends they kept on the sidelines for so long. 2018 - My life was monotonous and I had three other people living with me in my one-bedroom apartment. One of my roommate’s ex’s was now stalking him around my apartment, and work was becoming physically taxing on my legs. But I remember how much fun I had doing maps - and the release of the Tsukuyomi fight? That whole scene there? Oh, wow, it was so bittersweet. The fight was beautiful, the music was haunting, everything about it. Not to mention the ending solo-instances and Ghymlit? The Burn? Omega? The Four Lords? As much as I disliked them (due to my computer issues), even Rabanastre was memorable. 2017 - I was homeless, forced to work a job my body couldn’t handle. I met my spouse, though. I became heavily invested with my tumblr account, doing a full re-write of it all. While I wasn’t much of a fan of the expansion itself, there were some places that really opened my eyes. Azim Steppes? So beautiful - and gotta hand Y’shtola the award for sickest burn. Then I heard my favorite piece of music, and the most nostalgic for me when it comes to SB, Skalla’s theme (Far From Home).

Lastly, I know this has been long. But I thank everyone around me for being so supportive and kind - I may not be in a good place, but know that every good thing that happens will be associated to this moment. I’ll look back on Year 8 and go “my security was compromised, and my anxiety ran high, but there were these people here who supported me on tumblr, that kept my blog running strong”. I will remember my roleplays, I will remember the music and scenery - even now, I’m getting nostalgic about Shadowbringers, and Endwalker hasn’t even come out yet! So thank you. Here’s to year number 8 - 8 whole years of XIV being in my life. It may not have been that long for many of you, some of you, this might be your first year; hell! Some of you, it’s been longer! But know that this community has helped me so much, and I can’t wait to continue being a part of it. Here’s to the eventual tears Year 9 will bring me! ]

#ooc #ffxiv #the rising #sorry for the long post #but there were so many feelings i had to get out before i wrote my prompt #tl;dr #i love you all and thank you for making my experiences with this game the best thing to ever happen to me #thank you for making this game mean so much to me

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qqueenofhades · 4 years

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First of all thanks so much for all your TOG history posts! I have a question specifically about the one where you explained the continuity errors with Nicky being a priest. I like your "second son of a nobleman" Nicky that you use in your fics a lot. But I also really like the idea of a lower-class Nicky; TOG already has wealthy merchant scion Joe and literal queen Andy--i love the idea that Nicky comes from humbler origins. Is there any way to make that make sense in a historical context?

I mean, pretty much anything is possible in history? If it can happen, it probably has happened at some point, and even the broad categories and generalizations that historians apply to things are never always right in all cases, even if they represent the major trends. I obviously don’t want to shoot down people’s headcanons or ideas, even and indeed especially from my soapbox of “cranky historian complains about things on the internet.” I have personally tweaked some aspects of Joe and Nicky’s backstories that I use in my fics, since I came up with DVLA before I knew anything about the comics or any bonus content that had been released about the characters. My feeling is that since a) it’s film-verse, not comics, and b) their backstories haven’t been shown on screen and may be subject to change in adaptation, I can, while engaging in transformative fanworks, create them to suit myself. I obviously keep the broad parameters of what canon establishes, but within that space, I do occasionally nip and tuck and move things around. For example in my new AU fic, I DID make Nicky a priest as in graphic-novel canon, but that’s long since changed by the time he arrives in Jerusalem. For the fics I write for them in canon-verse, I tend to use the backstory I established in DVLA, just because... well, I like it a lot, obviously, and that was what I wrote it for. This is just because I am the aforementioned cranky historian and I rearrange the toys when I am playing with them, but my interpretations don’t necessarily have to be everyone else’s.

On that note, since you did ask for some historical context/plausibility for this headcanon, it depends (again) on how much extra story you want to invent for Nicky and how many gaps you want to fill in. Which is totally fine either way! I talked in this ask about the People’s Crusade of 1096, the involvement of unarmed/unskilled commoners in the crusades more generally, and how that would have impacted on Nicky if he didn’t have any previous training in arms. Once again, as with him being a priest, him being a low-class peasant/freeman of humble status runs into some (not insurmountable, but still extant) problems with where he would have learned how to use a sword and weapons more generally. I also obviously approve of the idea of bringing some class diversity into our historical immortals, but the son of a very poor bondsman (the stereotypical peasant in a cottage or a serf working a lord’s land) is, alas, going to have gotten into trouble in his community if he is training with a sword. (Or at least definitely raised some eyebrows, as well as questions about where he got it and how he paid for it.) As I’ve mentioned, the sword is a knight’s weapon, so if Nicky has been using it at all, he has at least enough status to qualify for that.

Happily, however, there are plenty of ways to make him not be from a rich family. As late as the end of the 11th century, aka around the time of the First Crusade, knights could still be distinguished as “free” or “not free,” and since this was before the rise of chivalry as a major social force, knights and men-at-arms were often (and indeed could be throughout the medieval era) from humble families, minor gentry, or even the working class. Chivalry made knighthood into an especial aspiration for the nobility, but not every man on a battlefield was a nobleman -- far from it. Indeed, the nobleman would call up the families who owed allegiance to him, and they could call up the families who owed allegiance to them, and so on. The definition of “knight” in the pre-chivalry landscape is a little muddy; does it convey prestige or social status, or just that someone was trained in arms? Is there a difference between that and just “man at arms” or “armed man?” For instance, at the battle of Hastings in 1066, the English army under King Harold II was composed of fyrdmen, aka regular working stiffs who had been summoned from the land (and indeed, we know they were of humble status because they had to go back and help their families with the harvest after William the soon-to-be-Conqueror had still not arrived in September), and housecarls, the professional/lifelong soldiers who served in the army as a career and were paid for their service. But we don’t always have the luxury of clear terminology for the many, many kinds of armed men who existed in various social strata in the Middle Ages.

That means, therefore, that Nicky can very easily be a poor knight, a man-at-arms of humble status who has just his sword and his armor and is subject to the vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-vassal-of-a-lord, or other armed man of unclear rank who definitely doesn’t have money or come from a rich family. Despite the unavoidably classist nature of many medieval history chronicles, the ranks of society weren’t only king, duke, earl, and nobleman. It was a patron-and-client society, and while the king was the ultimate patron, plenty of lords of middling rank or lower would have vassals who owed allegiance to them, and vassals who owed allegiance to those vassals in turn. The word feudal, which has been so misused and turned into an (incorrect) shorthand for constant petty territorial violence, basically just means this hierarchical society of mutual rights and obligations, where (unless you were the king) you both owed fealty to someone higher in rank than you and had people lower in rank who owed fealty to you. That would only end with the serf/bondsman, who wasn’t patron to anyone. But within that, there is plenty of wiggle room to make Nicky non-noble.

This would raise the question, however, of how he was going to pay for his journey to Jerusalem. Crusade financing was a perennial problem even for kings and lords with deep pockets, and the cost of a journey to the Middle East was far, far beyond most ordinary people’s ability to cover, which is why the commoners’ crusades kept ending in disaster. (That and obviously the fact that they weren’t trained in war.) When you are traveling for months and months and have to provide all your own food, shelter, arms and armor, transportation, upkeep, etc., you would either have to have a wealthy lord paying your maintenance, have substantial private financing of your own, have sold most of your property to go (which then implies that you had property to sell), made good with a religious house who had advanced you the cash, etc. We can really go down a rabbit hole here about Duke Hugh of Burgundy making a deal with Genoa in 1192 to provision King Philip and the French army on the Third Crusade. (This is helpful since it deals with Genoa, i.e. Nicky, even if not for the First Crusade.) This covered 650 French knights and their squires and came out to nine marks a knight, which is about £6, for an overall bill of 5,850 marks.

To give you an idea of how much this is in comparative terms: in 1380, a poll tax of twelve pence per person was considered so extortionate that it helped kick off the 1381 Peasants’ Revolt. And this was two hundred years later, when wages had risen and exchange rates had increased. One pound was worth 240 pence, so if twelve pence was an exaction for your average laborer, you can see that they’d get nowhere close even to one pound. A gift of £4 to William the Conqueror in 1066 was also considered a wildly high sum. And this was all on the extremely cheap end of crusading ventures. Frederick Barbarossa, who went on the Third Crusade at the same time as Philip and the French, had expenses coming close to 100,000 marks. Crusading, in other words, was wildly expensive (often ruinously so), and either Nicky would have a wealthy patron (meaning that he was somewhat closer to the top of the heap, even if below the first rank of noblemen) or money of his own or some way to finance his journey. Which again means that he has to have some kind of background that enables him to do it. The issue with the ordinary people who went on crusade (and they absolutely did, despite various attempts to forbid them as not militarily useful) is that, as noted, they weren’t trained in arms and they didn’t have money, and when you’re trying to travel from Europe to the Holy Land under 11th-century conditions, that becomes a big problem.

So yes. Basically: you can absolutely make Nicky a person of lower rank, down to a humble man-at-arms, who doesn’t have a rich family and doesn’t come from money. But if he’s going on crusade all the way to Jerusalem -- and if he’s successful at it, i.e. we’re assuming he didn’t get killed until Joe did it the first time -- then he has to have at least enough social status that he is the direct vassal of a wealthy lord or can make some financial arrangements on his own, has been able to train with a sword, knows what he’s doing with it, etc. You are obviously welcome to invent whatever details or backstory you want for him, but alas, crusading was often the provenance of knights, noblemen, and kings for brutally practical reasons, whether economic, social, military, or pragmatic. So the further you go down the social rankings, the more logistical details you’ll have to think up for him (at least if you want to be historically nitpicky, and it’s fantasy, so you frankly don’t even have to, but hey, what do you people come to me for if not historical nitpicking?) as to how he would have trained in arms, paid for his journey, been able to go on crusade in the first place, etc. So yes.

Thanks so much for this question! It was a lot of fun.

#the old guard #the old guard meta #medieval history #history of warfare #long post #emotionallycompromisedrobots #ask

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sorry-apsalar · 4 years

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See You in a Bit Chapter 1/4: I’ll Be Fine

On my Frender Drabbles Fic on Ao3, I finally got a request, it ended up being much more than a drabble though, 4 chapters long in fact. The request was: “Can you do Bender getting himself killed to save Fry?” So...

Content Warning for Major Character Death.

In hindsight perhaps Fry should’ve predicted that going on a mission without Leela was a dumb idea. But he’d been so excited by the thought of it just being just himself and Bender for once, like a date but not because they were working. Also, it had been a chance to prove that he was a competent pilot and capable of being in charge of a delivery mission. He’d even promised Professor Farnsworth and Hermes when they’d expressed doubts that he’d partake in no funny business; he’d just fly to the destination, deliver the package and go home. He’d done his best and truly had intended to keep that promise, even going so far as to say ‘no’ to Bender when he’d suggested they go off on a joyride with the ship before going to deliver the package. But alas, no matter his intentions, doing his best wasn’t good enough.

This was far from the first time he’d been arrested and imprisoned for unknowingly and/or accidentally breaking the law on an alien planet but it was without a doubt one of the more painful and scary instances. They’d beaten him black and blue, thrown him in a rusty jail cell and told him he was going to be publicly executed as soon as they had everything for it was ready. They’d lacked the decency to tell him anything about how long that would take.

Despite that looming over him, he’d managed to get some sleep – more like succumbed to unconsciousness – but not enough to make him feel even mildly rested. And now that he was awake everything hurt too much to let him drift off again. They hadn’t even bothered to take off his manacles off; a bit too tight, they chafed painfully against his wrists. His left forearm was broken and hurt worst of all which was saying something because he’d taken quite the beating and hurt all over as a result. At least his nose and mouth were no longer bleeding, right? Not that that made any of this much better. There wasn’t anything he could do about any of it except lie there, staring through the cage bars at the sandstone wall on the other side, and try not to move too much.

If Leela had been here she would’ve been the one who’d volunteered to deliver the package to the Monarch since only one person was allowed in to see them at a time. And she would’ve been smart enough to not mistake them for a potted plant and then piss on them. In hindsight, that was pretty obvious; they were plant aliens living in a desert, what would a random potted plant be doing in a room he’d been pointed to as if it were the throne room? He’d really had to go though. And now, it was looking like he was going to die for it.

Ugh, he was such a dumbass. After all the years he’d had this job, one would think he’d eventually learn to be more careful in general, especially on alien planets, but nope. If he somehow got out of this alive, he was going to…

“Psst, Fry.”

“Bender?” Fry gingerly pushed himself up and looked all around the now suddenly darker room. It was empty. …

“Up here.”

There was a small barred window on the rear wall of his cell, up out of reach and the only source of light in the room; Bender’s face was now blocking it.

“I’m so glad to see you!” Fry was almost always glad to see him but never had he been gladder. “I was starting to think they were really going to execute me.”

“Nah, I wouldn’t let them do that. It just took a while to find you because I had to be sneaky about it after they kicked me out and told me to never come back or they’d kill me. Whatever you did really pissed them off, so it better have been something good enough to warrant all this trouble. If it’s because you got caught trying to steal something valuable, I’m proud of you for trying but disappointed in you for failing so miserably after having me as a role model all these years.”

If only it had been that, it would’ve been less embarrassing. “Uh… I’ll tell you about it later.” He wasn’t in the mood to be laughed at and had more important things to think about like… “How are you going to get me out of here?” Even if Bender removed the bars from the window completely, there was no possible way Fry could fit through even if he could reach it.

“Here.” Bender extended an arm through the bars towards him. In his hand was an old-fashioned metal keyring with two keys jingling on it. “I pickpocketed them off the security guard while they were ‘escorting’ me out after they were done dealing with you. If they don’t work I guess I’ll have to break you out the old fashioned way.”

Fry carefully grabbed them and with a little bit of effort managed to get the small key into the lock on his manacles. Thankfully it not only fit but also turned. Freeing himself of them completely hurt, especially his broken forearm, and revealed just how horribly chafed his poor wrists had become in the hours he’d been locked in them, but it was a relief to be free of their weight at last. Next, he tried the big key in the cell door and again, it worked.

“Thank you!” He turned to look at Bender again. “You’re the best.”

“Yep, I know!” Bender grinned smugly.

“How am I going to get past the guards though? There are some like right outside the door I think.” Fry couldn’t fight them at his best, but bruised, tired and with a broken arm, he stood a negative chance.

“Let me take care of them. I’ve scoped the place out, they got a lot of guards but a big enough commotion should draw most, if not all of them away. Give me like five minutes and you’ll be free to just walk out.”

“Uh… all right, wait a bit and then leave, got it. You going to be okay though? There are a lot of them and they’re pretty scary.” They’d certainly beaten up Fry real good and it hadn’t seemed to tax them much if at all.

Bender scoffed. “They’re plants, how tough can they be? I’ll be fine, I’m not some fragile meatbag like you. You owe me for busting you out though. The next ten dates or so are all on you, got it?”

“Yep, totally fine with me.”

“Cool. I’ll met up with you back on the ship in like… an hour probably. Have it ready to fly before I get there in case I bring company.”

“Okay! Love you and good luck.”

“Eh, back at you meatbag, see you in a bit.” With that Bender pulled away from the window, allowing the moonlight to shine in uninterrupted once more.

The next few minutes were torture. Waiting wasn’t pleasant even at the best of times which this was far from. There was no way to know what was going on with Bender or immediately outside the door and Fry desperately wanted out in general, making time crawl by. There wasn’t even anyway to know how long it had been since Bender had left, one minute, five, more? But at long last, just when Fry was sure he was going to be driven mad by all the waiting, there was a muffled commotion on the other side of the door followed by silence.

He waited a bit longer before venturing over to press his ear to it. … Nothing. So, taking a deep breath, he cracked open the door – thankfully it wasn’t locked – and peeked through the gap at the other side. A mid-sized room with a large table in the center; chairs surrounded it and the abandoned remnants of some kind of boardgame were splayed out on top. No guards though and the exit door hung open. Fry was free to go.

Holding his injured arm close, he made sure to pull the jail door closed behind and to disturb nothing as he headed for the open door. On the other side was an empty hallway. Having been dragged here half unconscious, he didn’t exactly know the way back out so… he went left just because.

By some miracle, he managed to stumble his way through only four or five hallways – all empty by some other benign power – before happening upon the entrance hall. He wasted no time making a break for it, going as fast as he dared when each jostle sent a bolt of pain through his broken arm.

He paused as he stepped outside. The air reeked heavily of smoke and more of those weird plant people were hurrying by on their weird creepy root feet. Presumably they were headed to help put out the fire, judging based off the buckets they carried. Thankfully if they even noticed Fry at all, they paid him no mind.

Pulling a bit further away from the palace entrance gave him the room to look back and spot the source of smoke. One entire side of the palace and several of the buildings next to it were on fire, the flames big enough to light up the night and silhouette the folks bustling around, trying to put it out. Yep, that was a pretty big commotion all right and would require everyone available to put it out before it spread too far. … With a grimace, Fry quickly moved on. Hopefully the damage it caused wouldn’t be too terribly bad and no one would be severely injured by it.

He encountered a few more plant people on his way out of the city but thankfully they were all too busy running to deal with the fire to notice his retreat. Once finally outside the city walls, the air was clearer, making it easier to breath. He wasn’t quite home free yet, but he was close. All he had to do was head for the ship, hidden amongst the sand dunes not far from here, and he’d be good to go. Hopefully Bender would be joining him there shortly because he was so done with this particular adventure.

#my writing #futurama #frender #Established relationship #upcoming main character death #See you in a bit

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josiepugblog · 5 years

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On The Shelbys and Education

One thing I’ve noticed is that I think we, as a modern audience, struggle to get our heads around just how differently education was treated a hundred years ago and it’s an important part of who the Shelbys are.

It wasn’t until the Education Act of 1944 that secondary school (11-15+) was officially made free in the UK. That meant that any family who wanted their child to go to school past the age of 10 (!) had to pay for it. Now, it wasn’t necessarily expensive in the same way that a private education would be today, but it was a cost that would be totally out of reach for a family like the Shelbys.

Added to that, it was only in 1899 (for the sake of argument, I’m guessing Tommy was born in 1890) that children were even required to go to school until the age of 11. Even then, in poor communities, it wasn’t really enforced. Essentially, at this point in time, school was for learning to read...and that’s about it.

The Shelbys, probably with the exception of Finn (since Tommy could have afforded to send him to secondary school), only got max 3-4 years of, probably pretty patchy, almost certainly rigorously Catholic, schooling.

For me this recontextualizes moments like Grace making fun of how bad Arthur is at maths. Grace was almost certainly privately educated and taught how to manage money (probably in the assumption that she would manage a wealthy household’s finances) while the odds that Arthur was even taught long division seem pretty low.

Tommy covers extremely well, but I do think he feels like he’s covering a lot of the time. Things like running the odds on the horse races and calculating import/export taxes are skills he almost certainly just picked up. And of course, this was long before he would have had access to a calculator to check his work. In Parliament, I imagine Tommy does an awful lot of background reading to get up to speed with the Oxbridge level obscurity of his colleagues’ references. And Alfie, good God.

Also, I think this is one of the things that makes Tommy’s relationship to the war really complex. On the one hand, he is very aware that he and men like him were used and abused by the government. On the other hand, he would have learned way more and been exposed to more cultural variety than he ever would have had he stayed in Small Heath. While the war destroyed him in a lot of ways, it also benefited him. Thus, these new skills (that go far beyond shooting a gun) are constant reminders to Tommy of the debt he owes to these people he hates (and who also put him in this situation in the first place). Like I said, it’s complicated.

Anyway, this getting long, so I’ll leave it here for now, but just to say that education is another manifestation of class in Peaky Blinders that is hard for us to even conceptualise. The gap was so much more extreme than the high school/college educated gap that we see today. And this doesn’t even get into those nuns.

Has anyone else had thoughts about this or considered how like four years of formal education plays into the way the Shelbys interact with the world?

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders meta #tommy shelby #classism

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jesatria · 3 years

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Fic: Simple Pleasures, Chap 9

Title: Simple Pleasures Fandom: Kushiel’s Legacy Characters: Isidore d’Aiglemort, Anne Livet Pairings: Isidore/Anne Word Count: 5,130 Rating: NC-17 Summary: The story of Isidore d’Aiglemort & the gardener’s daughter of Lombelon. WIP. Disclaimer: I do not own Kushiel’s Legacy. This is only for fun & no profit is being made from it.

Previous Chapters:

1. The Visit

2. Desire

3. The Harvest Festival

4. Triumph

5. Gifts

6. The Eagle Unbound

7. Lighting the Candle

8. The Longest Night

Chapter 9: The Final Parting

I didn’t mind being with child.

Other women hated it, I came to understand. Between the monthly courses brought on by lighting the candle and the many pains and discomforts childbearing women were forced to endure, I understood why some wished Eisheth would close their wombs. Mayhap I would feel that way in time, after I’d borne more than one child, but not now. That isn’t to say I enjoyed the vomiting or back pain, but those things were not enough to detract from my happiness. I had chosen this. I wanted this child, our child. Early summer couldn’t come soon enough.

It was extremely difficult to bid Isidore farewell when he left. Spring was in the air, a time when I’d normally rejoice at the first green shoots to poke through the thawing ground. This time I’d spent the better part of the winter with him and thus it was much harder to see him go. War was coming. We did not speak of it; I sensed he was reluctant to do so. At first I thought he didn’t want to spoil the occasion of our first Longest Night together, but it continued for the duration of his visit. I came to suspect his reluctance was due to my condition, never mind that I was hardly some delicate flower to faint at the mention of war. I suppose he meant to spare me the stress that was sure to follow if I knew the details. Regardless, he told me enough that I understood this was far more serious than the usual border raids. The Skaldi found a leader to unite them and they meant to invade. I’d learned enough from Isidore over the years to know he kept the border forts well-garrisoned and watched the passes closely. Surely that would be enough to hold off an invasion along with the Royal Army. Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of apprehension that rose in me whenever I thought of Isidore on the border. It was the only thing that spoiled my happiness.

Bit by bit I grew used to my new status. I didn’t miss the more tedious of my chores, such as cleaning the manor. No longer being responsible for my share of that meant I could pursue other things. The quilt was one of them. It was my first time making one entirely on my own—my previous experience had been working alongside the other women making quilts for the household. It was true that I hardly needed to make one myself for our child, who wouldn’t lack for blankets, but I wanted a child of my body to have somewhat made with care by me. I’d made shirts for Isidore for the same reason. In time I would make clothing for our child too.

With the arrival of spring, I returned to the gardens. It was the first time I’d done so since becoming lady of the manor. I could’ve hired a gardener to tend to the gardens according to my specifications, but I chose not to. The gardens had been my father’s charge for as long as I could remember and I was not about to give them over to another.

“Are you certain you ought to be doing that in your condition?” a familiar voice asked. I looked up from the lavender bed to see Marcel, evidently deciding to stop for a chat on his way to the orchard.

“Thank you for your concern, but this is hardly taxing.” I was far enough along now that my condition was quite apparent. I’d even had to make myself some new dresses and alter others to accommodate it.

“You’re sure? Because I doubt d’Aiglemort would want you overexerting yourself.”

“I’m quite sure, Marcel. I’ll stop if I feel tired or ill.”

He knelt down until he was level with me. “Do you think you’ll have much time for gardening once he makes you his consort and you’re a mother?”

“I certainly intend to make time, whatever happens,” I replied. Mayhap I could tend to the gardens at the townhouse Isidore offered to buy me. That would be my one requirement—I certainly didn’t need anything fancy. The prospect of being able to design and plan my gardens, not merely choose what I planted in plots laid out by someone else, was an exciting one.

Somewhat softened in Marcel’s face. “I’ll miss you once you’re gone, you know.”

I smiled. “I know, and I’ll miss you too. But you know I won’t be gone all the time. I love this place too much not to spend a portion of my time here.”

“That’s good to know. Still, I’ll miss you.”

After Marcel left, I let my thoughts wander. They were wont to take familiar paths these days. I couldn’t help wondering what our child will be like. Isidore wanted a son he could teach Camael’s Arts, but I had no preference. Boy or girl, I meant to teach our child to appreciate growing things as I did. Mayhap our child might even join me when I worked in the gardens. I would make sure the L’Agnacite heritage wasn’t lost beneath the Camaeline. I hoped the child would have Isidore’s beautiful hair. In my mind’s eye, I could see a girl who looked like me but for the silver hair or a boy who was the spitting image of his father.

The first buds were just opening on the trees when Isidore returned to Lombelon. I could tell right away that he was not himself. He was tense, though his face brightened at the sight of me. “Somewhat’s bothering you, I can tell,” I said once we’d settled into the privacy of the master suite. “Care to tell me?”

He looked away. “It’s nothing, Anne, just the impending invasion. Soon enough the passes will be free of snow and the Skaldi will be upon us. I cannot stay here long, but I had to see you again. You are well, I hope?”

“Yes, aside from the common complaints of a woman with child.” I laid a hand on my stomach. “I’m managing just fine, though I have to admit I’m quite ready for the birth.”

“We are into spring now. The start of summer is not so very far away.”

“No, and yet time moves so slowly. Have you thought much about our child, what it might be like?”

He pursed his lips, considering the question. “I have, yes.”

“Personally I’m hoping it has your hair.”

An amused expression came over his face. “Have you now?”

“Of course. It’s beautiful.”

“I’ll freely admit it’s my only vanity. So yes, I’ve also imagined our child inheriting my hair,” he answered, grinning.

“Blessed Elua let it be so,” I said with a smile. “You are still hoping for a son?”

“Yes, though I’d be willing to teach our daughter Camael’s Arts if she’d a mind to learn. Truth be told, I can’t see any child of mine not being drawn to the sword.”

“Is that how it was for you?”

He nodded. “I started learning around the time I was learning to read. I can still remember how it felt, the first time I picked up a practice sword. Somewhat inside of me cried out in happiness at how right it felt.”

“That’s quite young to begin, is it not? I imagined you started at age ten, as the Cassiline Brothers do.”

“Not in Camlach. I don’t know how it is in the other provinces, but it is common for Camaeline peers to begin training at such a young age,” he replied. I suppose that made sense if you were born to wield a sword.

“Is it the same for the girls?”

“I cannot say. I never had a sister, or indeed any close female friends until I went to the Shahrizai. If I had to guess, I’d say they begin later. Camaeline women don’t take to the battlefield, but they are expected to defend themselves.”

Try as I might, I had a hard time picturing a noblewoman, even a Camaeline one, wielding a sword. “Do they carry swords as men do?”

Isidore chuckled. “Some of them might. They certainly own them and bear them as needed. Camaeline noblewomen will defend themselves and their castles at need.”

I’d never heard of any D’Angeline woman doing such a thing. It certainly wasn’t done in L’Agnace. “Would I be expected to do that?”

He was quiet for a moment before answering. “Camael willing, there will be no more Skaldi attacks for some time after I deal with them and you’ll not need to concern yourself with such matters. The Camaelines won’t expect a gardener from L’Agnace to know how to defend a castle.”

I let out a big sigh “Well that’s a relief!”

“You are no Camaeline. They’ll notice that, as surely as everyone here can see I’m no L’Agnacite.”

“I could tell the moment I set eyes on you, though I was quite preoccupied with how beautiful you are.”

“Were you indeed?”

“I was.”

“Well, I wish I could say I noticed you when I first arrived, but I didn’t. There was much to take in. You only caught my attention when you brought me that first bottle of pear brandy.”

“We owe a debt of gratitude to Thèrese, for choosing to send me up with that brandy,” I replied, leaning my head against his shoulder.

We spoke of names for the first time that night. I lay propped up in bed, a stack of pillows behind my back, while Isidore rubbed oil onto my belly. The motion of his hands soon soothed me so much that I began to doze.

“I had a thought about names.” His voice startled me into alertness.

“Oh?” I hadn’t given the topic much thought, for all the time I’d spent imagining what our child would be like.

“If we should have a son, I’d like to name him Maslin.”

“A pretty name. I like it.” He gave me a small smile in response. “Maslin was your father’s name, was it not?”

“Yes. I thought we might follow tradition.”

The babe moved at his words as if in agreement. “That would be good. If we have a daughter, we could name her Louise after my mother.”

For a moment I thought he might insist a daughter be named after his mother, but he didn’t. Instead all he said was, “Louise d’Aiglemort? That does have a certain flow to it.”

“Well, there’s that decided. Maslin for a boy; Louise for a girl,” I remarked. He continued to massage me and I closed my eyes in contentment. He’d rubbed my feet earlier in the evening, which I greatly appreciated. Any relief from the aches and pains that came with my condition were quite welcome.

“You look as content as can be,” Isidore observed.

“I am. The only thing that could make me happier would be you staying here until the birth.”

“You know I cannot do that, much as I wish I could.”

“Yes, but I can’t help wishing it was so,” I replied.

He ceased his rubbing and moved to lie beside me. “I will do whatever I can to be here for the birth,” he said gently, black eyes softening as he met my gaze. “I cannot promise more than that, and there is a real possibility that I will fail.”

My hopes deflated at his words. Every time I’d imagined giving birth he was beside me, despite knowing he was needed to deal with the Skaldi. I’d held that hope since I discovered I was with child and it died hard. Isidore saw the disappointment in my face and laid a hand on my belly. “I will not make false promises to you, Anne. All I can promise is that I will try. The Skaldi will be defeated by then, Camael willing.”

“Camael willing.”

We spoke more about the future the next day. Isidore was due to leave the day after that and we were determined to spend as much time together as we could. Despite his assurances, the impending Skaldi invasion lingered in my mind. This was rather more serious than the border raids he’d spoken of previously. What would happen if the Skaldi were able to breach the border defenses? I shuddered at the thought of a horde of barbarians raping, pillaging, and plundering their way across Terre d’Ange. These fears I mostly kept to myself, not wanting to mar our time together. It was the last time I would see him before the invasion, and I did not want it filled with talk of coming war.

It was a chilly spring day, cold enough to warrant wearing a cloak when walking outside. We walked together in the orchard, where the laborers who tended the trees could be seen here and there going about their work. It was chilly enough that the sun peeking through the clouds gave little warmth. Beside the buds on the trees, here and there green shoots poked their way through the earth. I’d always loved spring. It was heartening to see the first bits of green coming up after months of winter. Yet I did not feel that way this spring, rare for a L’Agnacite and unheard of for a gardener.

“I’ve been giving some thought to matters of inheritance,” Isidore began, “I know very well how deeply you love Lombelon and it seems fitting that our child should inherit it.”

“Elua willing, our child will love Lombelon as much as I do.” The babe was half-L’Agnacite, after all, and surely that wouldn’t all vanish beneath the Camaeline heritage.

“Indeed, I cannot imagine any child of ours not inheriting your L’Agnacite love of the land,” he replied, amused.

“Neither can I,” I said with a grin, “for I do not mean to let our child be ignorant of that part of its heritage. What of your other estates? Would our child inherit them as well?”

He took a moment to consider the question. “Mayhap. We shall see.”

“Because politics may demand you marry some noblewoman?”

“Yes. You do understand that such a marriage would not mean me casting you aside?”

I nodded. “I know well enough how you feel about me to be certain that wouldn’t be the case.”

He took my hand in his and ran a calloused thumb over it. “You are first in my heart, now and always. No future wife of mine will ever come between us. And if it transpires that I need not marry for politics, I would be pleased to have our child succeed me as Duc or Duchese d’Aiglemort.”

My child, ruling a province. “That would be… a great honor.” In truth I cared very little about such things. Our child inheriting Lombelon meant more to me than becoming a Duc or Duchese. That a child of my blood would inherit the home I loved was so much more than I’d ever dreamed. With that inheritance, my child would be a peer of the Realm. I smiled a little at the thought—not bad for the grandchild of a gardener.

“We shall see but Lombelon, that is certain. I’ll see it done once the babe is born and officially acknowledged by me,” he said. “It is easy enough to change my will and dispose of my estates as I see fit.”

“Do you think you’ll still want to come here often once I am living with you as your consort?” I asked. All this talk of estates had me wondering how much time I’d be spending at Lombelon in the future.

“We can come here as often as you like,” Isidore replied, “and you would be welcome to come here without me if you so desired. I’ll not expect you to remain at my side wherever I go. I doubt you’d enjoy the border fortifications.”

“No, I daresay I would not. I recall you once telling me there were almost no women to be found there, not even Servants of Naamah.”

“There’s little in the way of comfort to be found. Hardly a place I’d take my consort, even with the border perfectly quiet and peaceful.”

This talk of the border brought the fears I’d tried to bury back to the surface. “Will it be a long campaign, do you think?”

He looked away, taking time to consider his answer. “I am hopeful that it will be. The combined might of the Allies of Camlach and the Royal Army should suffice to drive back the Skaldi.” There was a note of tension in his voice that hadn’t been there before; I suspected he was more worried about the battle to come than he was letting on, not wanting me to worry overmuch. Well, it was too late for that now. My worry must’ve shown on my face, for he gave my hand a squeeze of reassurance and stroked my cheek gently. He said nothing; there was nothing to say on this matter that hadn’t been said already.

Did I know, then, what was to come? I did not. All I had was a nagging worry, born of what he’d told me of the Skaldi. I suppose many women have felt the same when their lovers have gone off to war. It is my own misfortune that those worries would prove to be horribly correct, and in ways I couldn’t have begun to imagine. That last day we spent together became all the more precious. I was for enough gone with child by then that long walks tired me, so we returned to the manor after a short walk through the gardens and nearest orchard. Instead we retired to the manor, where we passed the rest of the day in quiet companionship, savoring each other’s presence. Things had progressed to the point where simply being together was enough. That being said, we were certain to make good use of what we both knew would be our last night together for some time. It would indeed prove to be our last together, but for a far longer time than either of us anticipated.

We took our time that night, hands exploring each other’s bodies as if for the first time. The feel of his calloused hands on me never failed to stir my desire, and this was no exception. Isidore took the lead, as he’d done every night of this visit, and I was content to lie on the plush pillows and let him pleasure me. He moved slowly with the languisement, licking and sucking until I thought I might die of pleasure. With me now so far gone with child, he insisted that I relax and let him take over. I was more than happy to do so. That never lost its appeal for me, who’d been a servant for so long, being serviced by another.

The Trois Milles Joies lists positions considered most comfortable for a woman with child. We’d already sampled a few on this visit. After he brought me to the peak of arousal for a second time, I turned on my side and spread my legs. My foot came to rest on Isidore’s shoulder as he situated himself between my legs. He moved as slowly as he had with everything else that night. I closed my eyes and savored the feeling of him inside me, of his hand gripping my thigh. I almost didn’t want my climax to come so I might remain in that moment. But come it did, for I could not preserve the night forever. Later we lay closely together, both of us spent and satisfied. I lay on my side, with him pressed up close against my back, one arm thrown protectively over my stomach.

The morning came too soon.

Since being relieved of my servant duties, I’d taken to lingering longer in bed than I would have otherwise, even when Isidore wasn’t there. This morning was no exception. If I remained in bed, perhaps the day wouldn’t begin and Isidore wouldn’t leave me. I wondered if he felt the same, for he did not rise as early as he usually did. After some minutes had passed, I felt him move off the bed. I turned to watch as he dressed, fixing the image of his perfect body in my mind. I never tired of looking at him, especially when he was unclothed. He was well-aware of it too, and I swear he would deliberately take his time dressing for my enjoyment. This was not one of those times, much to my dismay. There was naught for me to do then but rise and don my own clothes.

Isidore handed me a small wooden box once I’d finished dressing. “A gift for you. Since I’ll not be here for your birthday, I thought I might give it to you now.”

I opened it to find a delicate snowdrop pendant on a silver chain. The white flower was inlaid with pearl and the green stem set with emeralds. “Oh!” No one had ever given me such a valuable gift, and I found myself at a loss for words.

“You told me you’d like to see snowdrops.” His voice was soft. “This will have to do until I can take you with me to Camlach.”

I slipped the necklace over my head. The chain was long enough that there was no need to undo the clasp. It came to rest just above my breasts. “It’s beautiful. I will wear it and think of you until we are reunited.”

We left the bedchamber and walked into the sitting room. A meal waited for us on the table. I immediately spread jam on a thick slice of baguette and took a bite. I was well-accustomed by now to the increases in appetite brought on by my condition. Even so, I was a bit surprised to find myself still hungry after finishing my meal. Indeed, the meal passed all too quickly and there was no more delaying the inevitable.

I met Isidore in the courtyard to bid him farewell, as was our custom. A few other members of the household were present, as were his men in their familiar black-and-silver livery, but we might’ve been alone for all the attention I paid them. It was a clear spring day, with a hint of winter’s chill yet in the air. He pulled me into his arms and kissed me softly. “Return to me,” I breathed once we’d separated, resting my head against his chest, “return to me and see our child born.”

“I have every intention of doing so,” he said, stroking my hair with a gloved hand. “If I should not return… I left you enough coin to keep you and the babe for a while. You will name it as we discussed?”

“Yes. Maslin for a boy; Louise for a girl.”

“Very good.” I leaned my cheek against the rich velvet of his doublet; his hand moved to rest on my back. “Anne, I want you to know that though it is unlikely I’ll be able to write much, you will be in my thoughts every day we are parted.” His voice was thick with emotion. “Every soldier knows there’s nothing quite like the promise of returning home to loved ones to keep him going through the hell of war. I want you to know that I’ll carry the memory of you with me along with the promise of our child and hope they will see me through.”

Tears slid down my cheeks, soaking into his doublet. “Anne.” I lifted my head to look up at him. His black eyes were filled with a terrible love. “Anne, love, please don’t cry. I don’t want my last sight of you before I go to war to be with tears running down your face.” He removed one of his gloves and gently brushed the tears away. That he called me “love” was enough to show the depths of his feelings. He rarely did that.

“That would hardly be a memory to sustain you through the hardships of war,” I replied, giving him a small smile.

He brushed the last of my tears away. “Indeed it would not.”

I stroked his beautiful hair and gave him another kiss. “I trust that will be a better memory.”

“Rest assured that it will.”

We kissed and embraced for a little while longer until the parting could be put off no longer. “I love you,” he said as we separated. “Sometimes I think I haven’t said that as often I should have.”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ve known it in my heart, as you know I love you.”

We parted truly then, and I watched as he mounted his horse, waved to me, and rode down the path to the gate with his men following close behind him. I remained where I was until his distant figure vanished from sight.

I never saw him again.

It is an unfortunate thing that the mind will retain the memories of the worst moments of our lives when we’d much prefer to forget them if we could. I would gladly do without the memory of the day my world came crashing down around me. Spring had come in earnest by then and the pear trees were fully leafed out. Many flowers had already started to bloom. A few weeks had passed since Isidore’s departure and I wondered how he was faring. Surely the mountain passes were open by now and the Skaldi invasion had begun.

I was now in the last weeks of my term. Early summer, the priestess had told me, or mayhap late spring if the babe was minded to come early. With some reluctance I had to cut down on my time in the gardens, as I tried easily. The birth really couldn’t come soon enough. This was my mood, then, when the news arrived.

Lombelon was never starved for news. Close as we were to the City, we heard things. Couriers passed by frequently and would often share news with us. It was one such courier who brought the news that was to devastate me. I was in the upstairs sitting room when he came, working on the quilt. It was very near to completion. The noise downstairs was clearly audible with the door to the room open. I set the quilt aside and rose from my chair, awkward as I now was. I’d made it halfway down the stairs when I heard the news the courier brought.

“The Duc d’Aiglemort has turned traitor to the Crown!”

The words were a dagger to my heart. I gripped the railing tightly as the room seemed almost to spin around me. Isidore, a traitor? Surely not! He always was mindful of his duty to protect the Realm from the Skaldi. I wouldn’t believe it, I couldn’t believe it…

“The Skaldi have invaded through the passes of Camlach, a horde such as has never been seen in recent times!”

He’d been preparing to fend off the invasion by making sure the passes were well-defended. How many times had we spoken of this, and how it was his duty to protect the Realm from the Skaldi. “No,” I heard myself saying, “no. He wouldn’t do that. The Skaldi must’ve broken past the border defenses. They have a strong leader…”

But the courier shook his head. “You are mistaken, Madame. I have just come from the front and heard the news from those who were there.”

“Then they must be mistaken! He’d never let the Skaldi through the passes intentionally!”

“D’Aiglemort left the southern passes lightly defended so the Skaldi could pass through. He meant to use them to claim the throne for himself.” A small crowd had gathered around the courier by now. “But the Skaldi turned on him, and he fled with his army into the mountains.”

I didn’t want to believe it. It was too awful a thing to contemplate, that the man I loved could betray our nation in such a way. Yet the rational part of my mind pointed out that a courier riding to the City had no reason to lie about such a thing. What purpose would he have in making up things about Isidore? It’s true, that part of my mind insisted, otherwise why carry such news to the City? This I understood, even as the rest of me rebelled at it. I was lover to a traitor, carrying a traitor’s child…

My legs seemed to be made of jelly. I clung to the railing so tightly my knuckles were white and sank to my knees, mind reeling. Footsteps sounded on the stairs as some of the crowd noticed me and meant to see that I was unharmed. Hands grabbed my arms and carefully lifted me up; I couldn’t have said whose they were.

“Anne!” someone cried out.

“Quick—she might lose the child!”

I could not say what exactly happened next, only that my head was spinning and the shock of the news rendered me unable to focus on anything else. The next thing I can recall clearly is lying on my bed. I turned my head to see Thèrese sitting in a chair at the bedside, watching me intently. “Thèrese?” I asked, sitting up.

She held up a hand and I settled back down on the pillows. “You’re in shock from what you just heard. You need to rest and steady yourself.”

My hand came to rest on my stomach. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, indeed the babe moved as if in response to my apprehension. I breathed a small sigh of relief. Had I fallen down the stairs, the worst might’ve happened. Thèrese’s gaze moved from my face to my stomach. “I’m so sorry, Anne.”

Everything was a haze. All I could think of was the revelation that Isidore was a traitor. He’d never said anything to me indicating he coveted the throne, not once in the years we’d been lovers. The only time I could recall him showing any sort of ambition when he told me about the triumph he and Baudoin had been grated by the King. Yet it had clearly been growing inside him for years and he’d kept it from me. I had to wonder—how well did I really know him? What else had he kept from me? “Oh Isidore, how could you?” I whispered, turning away from Thèrese. After a few minutes passed, I heard her chair scrape across the floor followed by the sound of her shoes as she walked out of the room. The tears flowed then, as if a dam holding them back had burst.

#kushiel's legacy #simple pleasures #isidore d'aiglemort #anne livet #jesatriafic

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write-like-you-mean-it · 4 years

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A Hunter’s Prey: A Young Boy’s Trauma

Killua arrived in 4 weeks. The countdown of Killua’s return made learning Nen even more difficult and taxing than previous attempts. Rather than learning at my own pace, I had to speed through training that might take years to complete. The closest I ever got to this level of training was when I trained with Illumi. However, Gon’s training was relentless. We would always awake at the crack of dawn, followed by a small run around the forest, and lastly Nen training until I collapsed from exhaustion.

My only solace has been the heartache of missing Illumi finally dulled to a painful throb only felt when I had failed once again to hold Nen in my body for the full time. The two hour mark became a pain in my ass. I’d barely been able to break over 30 minutes within the past week that we’d been training.

“C-can we take a small break?” I asked after collapsing for the third time of the day. Gon had taken a seat on a moss covered rock that overlooked the sea and myself. He wasn’t paying attention to me. Even his childlike mind had too much stuffed into the time he’d been alive. I sighed while taking a seat next to him. “Gon?” I questioned in hopes of gaining his attention.

The boy finally turned to look at me with the plastered smile on his face. This time it didn’t reach his eyes. “Oh, yeah a break is fine.” With his untampered arm, he handed me my water bottle.

We looked out at the crashing waves far from the shore. A small tension filled the air as I wondered if I should ask him about what took up so much space in his mind. My hands absentmindedly played with blades of grass as the ocean breeze fluttered through my hair.

“Gon, what might be on your mind. You seem distracted today.”

His eyes never left a far off point in the sea. They were like a wandering traveler who was only here as a stop and knew the better and bigger world that awaited him beyond the shore; yet, he couldn’t go. “Yeah, I’m alright. Watching you use Nen makes me miss my own power.”

“What type of Nen did you have?”

“I am an enhancer. I use a rock, paper, scissors thing called Jajanken. It is so cool. I can demonstrate it for you,” said the boy with excitement returning to his demeanor. He stood up on top of the rock before he realized what he was doing. The physical manifestation of realization followed by sadness took over his small frame. “Or I could if I did have Nen. I am lucky though. I’m still alive.”

“What happened to make you lose your Nen?” I asked. Gon stepped off of the rock and sat back down onto it.

“I’ll tell you once you get to an hour,” he said before pulling out the timer once again. “You’re at 45 minutes. You’ve had a break for long enough.” His tone had sharpened like a knife. The awkward tension returned and fluttered with the ocean air.

I stood up and returned to my state of Ren. “I’m sorry,” was all I could say.

--------

Soon it was only 3 weeks until Killua’s return. I hadn’t made much more progress. Every single day felt like my body was splitting into two separate pieces. What was even worse was that Gon was refusing to help me as much as before. I don’t know what I said that ticked him off so much.

At this point in training, I’d been able to hold my Nen for 55 minutes. Too short for any explanation and long enough that I didn’t have as much time in the day. With sleeping, I had at most 7 hours to practice.

The morning runs became more difficult as Gon didn’t let me catch up to him anymore. He began sprinting through the forest; however, I did not have his experience. Unlike him, I did not grow up in the forest. I was stuck following in his footsteps rather than matching pace. Once arriving at the same mountaintop, we’d practice Nen.

Today, I was determined to hit that dreaded 1 hour mark. I had to or I would never get close to meeting the goal set by Gon. For hours, Gon would sit on the rock overlooking the ocean and watch the timer. He did nothing else for he was lost in his sea of thoughts.

Part of him reminded me of Illumi. His quietness reminded me of Illumi and I’s first meeting. Illumi was always so quiet and lost in his own thoughts. It wasn’t until he finally opened up to me that I could actually love him.

Illumi’s words of how no one has ever loved him before filled my heart. Because of everything that happened after we consumed our love, I forgot to digest the words. The pain sent a sting straight to my heart. Illumi only ever wanted love and I was the first person to give it to him.

My mind wandered to him sitting on that boat in the middle of the ocean. Was he alright? Was he still alive? How is Machi and Chrollo doing? During these weeks, I started to get nightmares about the events that had happened. Machi and Chrollo blame me for not being stronger. If only I had a way to control my power then Hisoka wouldn't have… No. I can’t blame myself for actions that happened in the past.

“One hour,” remarked Gon.

“Huh?” I questioned while dropping Ren.

“You’ve made it to a full hour. I’m a little surprised.”

“Oh. It’s already been an hour?” I looked out over the sea to see the sun had dramatically lowered in the sky. “I hadn’t noticed.” I took my seat next to Gon.

“I could tell.”

He, once again, handed me my water bottle as I took a full sip. I, also, hadn’t realized how thirsty I had become. While finishing the full bottle I remembered our conversation from a week ago. Would he want to discuss his past with me? Should I bring it up? I decided to try with a small “so…”

“I lost my Nen when I almost died. Alluka saved me from myself. If Killua hadn’t been there for me then I would’ve lost everything.” His words fell from his lips as if he was an adult recounting a time in his childhood. Gon continued, “A close friend of mine died because I wasn’t strong enough. His name was Kite. When he died, it was the second time he’d saved me. I owe Kite and Killua everything.”

“Kite? I’ve heard that name before,” I said while thinking back in my memory. “I think he was a contracted support for my work many years ago. I don’t remember much of him because I didn’t see him after the initial meeting. He’s a stoic quiet guy. My old boss never said anything bad about him. I’m sorry he lost his life.”

“Yeah, Kite was a good man.”

“You have a lot of good people in your life, Gon.”

Gon finally turned to look at me. He sniffed a bit while wiping his eyes with the unbroken hand. “You’re right.” I instinctively, wrap my arms tightly around this crying child. I hold him as he sobs deep, emotional trauma. From the cries, I could tell these were all emotions that had yet to be processed in his mind or he was still going through them.

“It’s okay,” I say, still holding him in my tired frame. “Everything will be alright.”

“Killua has always been there for me and when he needed me the most, I was too busy with my own thoughts. I hurt him so much and I-I don’t know how to..” His voice cut off back into another sob.

I held this crying child until his sobs turned into the shaky hiccups after a long cry. “Gon, explain what happened.”

“I went after Kite’s killer. She was so powerful that I had to use all the Nen left for the rest of my life. I told Killua that this fight wasn’t with him and that he should leave. So he did. I-I did mean to. I was just hurt and in so much pain and Killua wouldn’t understand. He couldn’t-”

“Gon, it’s okay. Killua saved you. He still cares about you. He’ll return. That’s all that matters. Truly, I’m more upset with the fact they allowed you on such a dangerous mission that could’ve gotten you killed.”

“It’s alright. I wanted to go. I had to save Kite but I should’ve brought Killua along. He is my best friend and I don’t know what I’d do without him.”

A smile crossed my face as Gon wiped away a few tears. The sun had fully set at this point. Darkness crept up on us. “Would you like some dinner from Aunt Mito? I don’t know about you but I’m starving.”

“Sure, Gon,” I smiled but after that day, I didn’t look at him like a child again.

--------

Only two more weeks until Killua would arrive. Time was running shorter and shorter. Everything felt like a ticking time bomb. Frustration grew as I couldn’t seem to grasp holding onto my Nen for more than an hour and 15 minutes. I only had such a short time.

After Gon’s confession, he finally was able to open up to me more. He told me about everything that happened with York New and about his friends Leorio and Kurapika. He told me about his adventures at the Hunter exam. He told me about Greed Island and the hunt for his dad. Lastly, he told me about meeting his dad.

The more stories he told me, the easier it was to hold my Nen. Within the past year, Gon held such an interesting life. Part of me wished that he’d tell me about what happened with Kite but I knew better than asking. Instead, I learned more about Gon than any other child.

It was nice to sit and listen to someone else talk. Illumi was never a talker.

“So when’s the wedding?” asked Gon. His question caught me off guard but I was still able to focus on the true task at hand.

“We haven’t picked a date or anything. Truly he asked me less than a month ago. I don’t know when we’ll get a chance. Most likely it’ll be at some place expensive as he is a Zoldyck.”

“Do you know that means you’ll be related to Killua?” asked Gon while jumping up and down.

I laugh and reply, “I’ll also be related to Milluki and Kalluto.”

“Wait, you've met Killua’s other siblings?”

“Yes, I have lived at the Zoldyck manor for a quarter of a year. We had a family dinner once which was a shitshow.”

“How’s Killua’s dad and mom. He rarely talks about them beyond what his father forced him to do as a kid.”

“Oh well his father is domineering and a presence. His mother is a nutcase. She’s a little crazy but so is his brother. Killua’s grandfather is cool though. He helped me with my Nen just like you. With Illumi’s family, it’s no wonder how he ended up the way he was.”

“Are you excited to be a part of the family?”

I’m not sure. They might actually kick us out of the house as Illumi isn’t the one to inherit the Zoldyck name. We haven’t really talked about it.”

“Illumi should inherit it. Killua hates his family. Illumi would be a much better head of the house than Killua anyway. He doesn’t want to become anything like his father.”

“Neither does Illumi. He only wants to be praised and loved.”

Gon looked at me a little strangely. “Same with Killua. Maybe you’ll be able to convince them to finally talk.”

“Yeah, maybe.” I chuckle while thinking how that conversation may go. Finally I released my Nen and felt the same exhaustion as before.”

“One hour and 16 minutes,” said Gon.

“Shit.

-----

One more week. One more week and I only felt weaker than before. At the week deadline, I climbed out of bed only for my stomach to churn and force me into the bathroom. The hotel room had become a new home for me. Throwing up last night’s meal given to me by Mito was disappointing. Mito was almost as delicious of a cook as she was kind hearted. Gon had been inviting me back to his house after training because I’d been here so long.

I knew I’d not felt well the day before but I chalked it up to finally getting within the 1:45 mark on time. Instead, I knew this was a whole new feeling. I hadn’t felt this sick in ages. My head ached and I’d become tired so quickly.

Standing over the porcelain bowl gave me a clarity that I had yet to have in the month since Illumi had vanished from my grasp. I muttered a quiet “shit” before emptying everything in my stomach once again.

I decided to cancel training for the first time ever. Even over the phone, I could hear Gon’s sadness. He asked if he could bring soup over later. I obliged his request.

Instead of staying in bed and trying to sleep it off, I decided to take a quick trip to the drug store. If my suspicions were right, I’d have a new problem on my hands.

My hands grazed over the test that lay on the bathroom counter. I’d only taken it a few minutes ago but my hands were already shaking. I closed my eyes and held up the plastic test so that it was in eyeshot when I opened my eyes.

As expected, the words “pregnant” lit up the screen. “Shit. Illumi got his wish.” I chucked the test across the room before lying back onto the bed with a million questions in my head. All of them falling to one answer, we never used protection.

#illumi #illumi x reader #HunterXHunter #hxh #a hunter's prey #chapter 36

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rauthschild · 1 year

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Once you realize that our American Government was substituted for and impersonated by British Territorial "State of State" business organizations and Municipal Corporations acting in the chaos after the so-called American Civil War, you will realize that so far as the rest of the world knew, our Government was "silent, presumed to be in interregnum" for many years.

Our Government wasn't called back into Public Session because those responsible for doing so were murdered, burned out, ambushed, forced to flee or simply cowed into submission. Most people were fooled by the substitution scheme and were not aware that their own government was Missing and being represented by foreign Municipal Corporations acting as Federal Subcontractors instead.

One of those "can't do it" tasks was enrolling new States into our Union.

Only the actual States that existed prior to the Civil War could vote on that issue, and those States were not in Session.

Most of our Western States existed for many decades as what I call, "States in Waiting", never actually enrolled as States of the Union.

I received this brief synopsis of part of the resulting situation from a contributor today, and I quote:

".... the reverse is ALSO true: Those born in CONSTITUTIONAL states are “foreign” and therefore “alien” in relation to STATUTORY “States” and federal territory.

Once the American Government came back into Session in 2019, we were able to take care of this long-overdue housekeeping.

This action lawfully converted the presumptive political status of all people living in the former Territorial "States" to their intended political status as American State Nationals.

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fleckcmscott · 5 years

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Watch What Happens - Chapter 20

Chapter links: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Summary: Arthur, an aspiring comedian, has struggled to find normalcy and compassion his entire life. Y/N, a hard-working paralegal and transplant to Gotham, has just been put on a case for the Wayne Foundation. When they meet, unexpected sparks fly.

Chapter warning: Angst, Swearing

Words: 2,616

A/N: Special thanks to @ithinkimawriter for beta-ing this chapter! She’s awesome and you should check out her blog if you haven’t already!

The doctor at the hospital met with them in his office. Penny had had an ischemic stroke, which weren't uncommon in women of advanced age, especially if they had a history of smoking. It was unknown if the lobotomy had increased the risk. The left side of her body was experiencing severe paralysis, and she could barely stand. She was also having trouble speaking and understanding speech. But she did appear to know she was in the hospital.

Y/N observed Arthur's face as the doctor rattled through the information. The expression he wore was neutral enough, but she saw his neck tighten on and off, and his eyes remained downcast. He was also chain smoking more than she'd ever seen. When the doctor would pause for a reaction or ask a question, Arthur's responses were curt.

"There isn't a need to keep her here much longer," the doctor intoned. "Her life isn't at risk. She should be discharged by the end of the week."

At that, Arthur closed his eyes. Y/N could guess what he was thinking: that he'd be stuck with Penny, again, except now he'd have to do more for her. That assumption must have hit harder than usual, given what he'd learned three days ago. His posture became rigid the longer they sat there. After he stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray on the doctor's wide desk, the doctor stood and told them to take their time, giving Y/N a soft look as he left. As soon as the door shut, she put her arm around Arthur.

He started laughing humorlessly and rubbed the back of his neck. "It'd be easier if she'd died."

"You don't mean that," she said.

"Yes, I do."

She pressed her lips together. "It's normal to have mixed feelings."

“I don’t have mixed feelings,” he replied.

Kneading his shoulder, she chose her next sentences carefully, not wanting to unduly influence him. But she hoped could lift some of the weight he carried. "There are options for her care."

Lighting up again, he furrowed his brow and stuck his pack of cigarettes back in his pocket. "I don't have any money, Y/N," he said tersely.

"There are programs you can apply for."

He scoffed and looked at her skeptically. "They cut all those."

"Federal programs, not Gotham services. They won't be cut because the Waynes or whoever else in this city doesn't want to pay taxes." That made him smile crookedly. "We should be able to get the paperwork from the hospital social worker - they deal with this all the time. We'll fill it out and you can decide whether to submit it or not." At his nearly imperceptible nod, she leaned into him. "You've taken care of her twenty years, Arthur. You've given her enough."

After speaking with the social worker and completing the applications, they walked by Penny's room. He stopped outside, his grip on Y/N's hand tightening. She watched his narrowed eyes, the way he worried his lip. "Do you want to go in?" she asked gently.

Anger flashed across his face, his nostril twitching. But after a few minutes, he released a long breath and shook his head. "No," he rasped. "I don't need to."

~~~~~

After leaving the hospital, Y/N had gone back to her apartment to get her notes and presentation. A lick of excitement went through her as she walked into Matt’s office. What she was about to go over was the culmination of hours and hours of off-the-books work, and she was relieved she'd no longer have to keep the information secret. With all the evidence she'd collected and put together, she thought there’d be a good chance she'd be heard.

She sat on the other side of Matt's desk, wearing her best skirt suit and modestly ruffled blouse, and explained everything she'd found so far: the properties' lack of disrepair; the corresponding dates of the Wayne Foundation's motions and Renew Corp.'s letters; the matches of employees listed on the foundation's tax returns and registered agents of the corporation; and the ridiculous conversation she'd had with one Anthony Mancuso at the gala.

It took awhile. When Y/N was done, she leaned back against the chair she was perched on, unbuttoning her top collar. "So," she said when Matt didn't answer. "Are you going to stop this shit?" She ducked her head slightly to study his expression. He was squinting. And she thought he looked a little glum.

He continued to peruse his copy of her notes, tapping his pen on each line as though it meant something. "Your work is very impressive, Y/N. You put a lot of effort into this."

She smiled widely and let out a long breath. "Thank you."

"But I already explained that we can't simply drop this case."

The initial resistance didn't come as a surprise, but frustrated her nonetheless. "I'm not a lawyer," she said. "I don't have any duty to these people or their organization or foundation or whatever."

His gaze was weary when their eyes met. "They have us on retainer-"

She leaned forward. "Do you really want the Waynes to be able to own more of this city?” As her indignation grew, she stood and stepped behind her seat. "I've looked it up, Matt. Both directly and indirectly, they're the largest landowners here."

"What do you know about the Waynes?" Matt countered. It was one of the few times he had ever sounded annoyed at her. "You're a transplant. Gotham owes them a lot."

Rapidly, she was losing any hope that reasoning with him would affect anything. But she continued to try. Maybe changing her tack would help. "Let's say it wasn't the Waynes," she started, putting her elbows on the high-back. "It's some other temporarily benevolent billionaire. If we win this case, it's going to set a precedent for property to be seized and shoved into private hands. It'll be easier for anyone to do this in the future, again-"

"Y/N, stop."

"-and again." Y/N huffed, gesturing towards him with an upturned palm. "I've always thought you were a good person, Matt. I can't believe you approve of this!"

"It's not that simple. You're experienced enough to know that," he said, raising his voice slightly. "The Wayne Foundation is our largest client. Without their money, we wouldn't exist.” Counting on each finger, he continued. “They're buying your groceries, keeping you in your apartment, allowing you to dress as nicely as you do."

Y/N felt the hair on her neck stand up at the idea she would be "allowed" to do anything. "You're scared of them."

"No,” he breathed. “I'm being pragmatic."

She folded her arms over her chest. "Yeah, well, your pragmatism is going to hurt a lot of people."

Matt stood and leaned forward onto his desk with his hands. It wasn't a threatening posture, but a tired one. "This was the first Wayne case you were entrusted with. You were so damn happy about it." Shaking his head, he sighed. "The other lawyers here didn't think you were ready, but I knew you were. Turns out you were too ready." He chucked sadly. "I'm sorry."

Y/N stilled, her mouth opened slightly. "Are you... Are you firing me?" As she waited for his answer, she mentally went over her financial situation. A couple months of pay were in her savings account, her checking had about a thousand dollars in it. She thought she'd be able to get unemployment, but there was a waiting period, and-

"No. The work you do on the family cases is excellent. I like you. And Patricia would never forgive me." He gestured towards her with his pen. "But other people in this firm would let you go. If you breathe a word of this to anyone else, you will wind up losing your job. Do you understand me?"

Gulping, she looked down at the floor and nodded. "Thank you," she said meekly. A sense of defeat, mixed with relief at still having work, settled in her stomach. It caused her to feel like the smallest person on Earth.

She exited the office before he dismissed her and sat at her desk. She still had her copy of her notes at home. But she didn't know what do to with them. Trying to distract herself, she dug out the list of upcoming family court dates and corresponding files, sinking into the routine of them until her mind went numb.

~~~~

It had been close to seven when she'd gotten to Arthur's, later than she'd told him. She hadn't wanted him to see her upset, thinking he had enough to worry about. He'd kissed her at the door and frowned when she hadn't responded enthusiastically. After a quick sorry, she'd kicked off her shoes and said, "I had a really shitty day and need some time." Then she went straight to the bedroom and lay down. She'd left the door open, though, not wanting to shut him out.

She hadn't been laying long, maybe fifteen minutes, when she heard him approach. Wondering what he would do, she pretended not to notice he was standing behind her, next to the bed. It only took a couple minutes for him to climb in next to her. "Knock knock."

"Who's there?"

"Amish."

God, she could tell this was going to be terrible. She rolled her eyes, the corner of her lips turning up. "Amish who?"

"Amished you."

Unable to help herself, she chuckled. When he nuzzled at her face, she twisted her torso to look at up him and drew him down to her mouth. One of his arms went around her head as she kissed him deeply, his other hand holding himself up. "Thank you. I needed that," she said. "Was that an old joke?"

"No, it just came to me. It happens sometimes." He stood, then. "Spaghetti's on the stove."

Stretching, she sat up and followed him to the kitchen. He already had a plate out for her, so she served herself, listening as he continued to talk. "I mailed the forms we filled out."

She scooped sauce out of a second pot. "If you change your mind, you can reject the funding."

"I won't," he scoffed as he wrapped an arm around her waist.

Turning around, she looked to see if he had dried parmesan somewhere on the counter. She didn't find any, but what she did see stopped her. There, in his pile of mail on the breakfast bar, was an unopened red letter. That same terrible feeling of disappointment that Arthur had helped her through returned.

She reached out for the envelope, biting her lip. There was no return address, but she recognized the font Penny's name was printed in. It was definitely from Renew Corp. She wasn't ready to talk with him about this, to admit she'd failed everyone, failed him.

But, she supposed, she was being pushed into doing the right thing. She had a seat at the breakfast bar and patted the stool next to her. He followed eagerly, a puzzled expression on his face. She went over a simplified version of the same explanation she'd given Matt. It came easier this time, having had that earlier practice. Mid-way through, Arthur lit a cigarette and rested his forehead on the side of his hand, elbow on the counter. He seemed to understand well enough, but became quieter and quieter as she went on, staring at the letter threatening to kick him out in ninety days.

"You're going to keep getting these letters. They're trying to bully you." She felt her patience with the situation slip away the more she spoke. "But what they're saying isn't true. It'll take a long time before they can do anything. It has to go through the cour-"

"Is this why you're seeing me?" he interrupted.

Holding the fork just under her mouth, she stared at him. "No. Of course not," she said as she took her last bite of dinner. "That doesn't make sense. This is a legal issue." It was a logical answer, but apparently not the one he wanted. When she reached to touch his bicep, he pulled away from her, taking her plate and going to the kitchen. "Arthur, I found out your building was involved last week."

He started rinsing her dish. "Before or after we-"

"After." Y/N stood but didn't follow, remaining on the far side of the counter.

He wasn't looking at her when he turned around and took a drag off his cigarette. "You should have told me."

She leaned onto the bar with her forearms. "And give you more shit to deal with? Are you kidding?"

"I've dealt with worse," he bit out, flicking ash into the sink.

Her tone was snappier than she meant it to be. "I’ve been working on it for weeks. It's not like I’ve been doing nothing." She shook her head, knowing she wasn't only upset at his stubbornness and refusal to see she’d been trying to shield him. But also at all the time and energy she had put into caring about this case. She was irritated at her powerlessness. And heartbroken at the whole damn thing. Dropping her head to look at the counter-top, she sighed. "Dammit, Arthur. Why can't our first argument be about what restaurant to go to, or what movie to see, or whose apartment we're spending the night at?"

There was no answer to her attempt at cutting the tension between them. He simply stood, unmoving except for the twitch of his fingers as he fiddled with his cigarette. His voice was low when he finally said the wrong thing. "Penny lied to me all my life. I never thought you would."

The cut of those words went deep. Heat went up her neck and face, and she knew she was turning red. "If I had shown up at your apartment, soaking and in the state you were in, telling you to get rid of a razor, would you have told me?"

He flinched at that, but she continued anyway. "No, you wouldn't have." Stepping to the entrance of the kitchen, she threw up her hand. "And don't act as if you've been completely honest. You must have done more than drop off a letter for Thomas Wayne to tell you about Penny's file."

Arthur nodded stiffly, then narrowed his eyes as he smoked. "I need you to leave," he said. "I have to practice."

She folded her arms over her chest. "You're doing this again?" At his lack of response, she slipped on her shoes and started putting on her coat. "Fine. Be angry at me for trying to protect you." Even as the words left her, she knew she didn't mean them. But his obstinacy pissed her off. When she picked up her canvas bag, he went to her and opened the front door.

As she stepped out she took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. This entire argument was stupid. They were both wrong and right, in their own ways. And they'd hurt each other. She’d been waiting to see him all day and was loathe to end the evening on a sour note. She turned around to face him. "Hey," she said, consciously softening her voice. His eyes bore into hers as he set his jaw. “Arthur, we’re being idiots.” Then she set her bag down and tried to put her arms around his neck. “Let’s not be angry. At least, not at each other.”

He caught her, gently but firmly, mid-embrace and pulled her arms away from him. "Just go," he said, then turned around and closed the door.

Tag list (Let me know if you want to be added!): @harmonioussolve @clowndaddyfleck @sweet-nothings04 @stephieraptorr @rommies @invisiblewispofwhimsey @let-the-stars-fall-in-the-abyss

#arthur fleck #arthur fleck fanfic #arthur fleck x reader #arthur fleck x ofc #arthur fleck x female reader #joker 2019 #watchwhathappens

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ayonde · 4 years

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My journey beyond MBA into Canada (Blog#10)

After graduation we went to Orlando to see Disney/Universal. That trip burned a hole in my pocket. Washington DC was the last leg and luckily the museums in DC are free to public unlike New York. We survived on McDonald's for couple of days as I simply ran out of money.

Signing bonus was a new concept. I had assumed that I would get that money the moment I accept the offer letter. Only to realize that I would actually get it 45 days after joining. I was running dangerously low on cash so I requested Cartesian to give me 50% of my signing bonus upfront which they trustingly did.

Location: Cartesian also gave me options for my location. Boston was too far up north and cold. Philadelphia was tough. New York was costly. Washington DC has nice summer and I was familiar with Northern Virginia due to its proximity to Williamsburg. So I selected DC.

My friend Vipul helped me get a lease at his apartment complex in Herndon, VA. My wife joined me in US to join me while rest of my family left for India. Doing grocery was a problem. Walking to the store and carrying big bags was too laborious. Ever since I drove Chris’s car I wanted to buy a Subaru Forester but as I had no credit history and my income hasn’t come yet no one was ready to give me auto loan. I approached Bank of America but they declined – even though I showed my offer letter with salary information they wouldn’t lend me a single cent unless I agree for 20% APR.

Once again, Vipul introduced me to Digital Federal Credit Union (DCU). DCU gave me the full $20,000 at competitive 2.29% APR. I searched online to shortlist few cars. Hilariously changed 3 buses and a Metro with my wife and traveled to Manassas, VA to buy my Forester. Now I could reach places within minutes – such a big relief!

2015: Luckily my first project was with Time Warner Cable and their office was a mile away from my apartment. I would come back home to have lunch or walk to office.

Life was good.

It became better as I got news from Larry that USCIS cleared my RFE and my H1-B was approved. Huge sigh of relief! The H1-B came into effect in October. I noticed that my take home pay decreased as now I had to pay into Social Security and Medicare.

I felt that this system was unfair. As foreign national working in US I was a non-resident alien but for tax purposes I was a resident alien. I could not benefit from SSN or Medicare but I had to contribute into those programs. Additionally, every time I exit US, I had to get my passport stamped and answer lot of questions at port of entry. Cartesian also had to file paperwork to USCIS whenever I changed apartments as my address of residence was listed in my petition.

2016: Having money felt great but my wife couldn’t work in US. We thought of starting a family but I wanted her to earn and be financially independent. I thought “If I can come to US and get work after US education, my wife and sister can do that as well”. We put our family plans on hold. Raising kids would mean a gap of 5+ years for my wife which could prove insurmountable in rejoining workforce.

She liked William & Mary’s Masters of Accounting. She enrolled in Northern Virginia Community College to get prerequisite credits. My wife and sister took the GMAT/TOEFL and applied to schools.

My wife got admits from George Mason, American University and W&M. My sister got admits from CUNY Baruch, Fordham, Johns Hopkins, American and Bentley for Masters in Marketing Analytics. Even though CUNY was 1/3rd the cost of Fordham and Johns Hopkins is a huge brand name, I advised my sister to enroll in Fordham as it is STEM certified. STEM allows international students to be eligible for 2 years of extended OPT in addition to the initial 1. This provides 3 years to find an employer who would file for H-1B.

For obvious reasons, my wife selected W&M. Since I could work from home, I decided to move back to Williamsburg to lower our living cost and be together. I did not have sufficient money for my wife’s education. Luckily I learned about Mpower Finance. They provided $25,000 without collateral at 11.99% APR both to my wife and my sister. This was a game changer. I took a personal loan from DCU for the remainder amount. I paid my sister’s monthly rent in NYC. By fall both enrolled in their respective schools. I asked Cartesian to apply for my Green Card (GC) but they asked to revisit in 2017

2017: I visited India in Oct and that’s when my mother fell and broke her shoulder. It became clear to me that I need to live together with my parents. I asked Cartesian again for GC but they refused to apply. To be fair I still had another year on my H-1B and could renew it for 3 more years. Usually companies exhaust 6 years of H-1B before sponsoring for GC. The problem is that USCIS puts a cap on number of GC applications per country. Which means that India with a population of 1.3 Billion gets the same number of GC slots as Lithuania – a country of 3 million. This cap puts a wait time of 10 to 15 years for Indians and Chinese to get GC in best case estimate. Worst case puts the waiting period at 45 years!

Even if I received GC, I still couldn’t stay with my parents. I started exploring other options and learned about Canadian Permanent Residency. My wife and I applied to Canada’s point based PR. During application I got to know another Indian applicant. He was 38 years old, had two kids. Worked in US on H-1B for 7 years. (2 renewals + 1 extended year) His company exploited him and gave him $138,000 while his American coworkers made $200,000+ He couldn’t leave his job as his company was filing for his GC, because of his age he scored less points in the Canadian PR process. He was in a pickle.

I decided I didn’t want to be in his shoes after 5 years. By mid-2017, my wife faced rejections at interviews due to companies unwilling to sponsor H-1B. Luckily she contacted Tim who owns La Tienda at Toano, VA and is a W&M Alumni. They hired her for a yearlong internship during the course of her OPT. My sister also found a job at NYC but the hours were killing her. Rampant racism existed in her company. English Hons fresh out of school American citizens are fast tracked into Managers while Indian employees who had considerable experience in SPSS, SAS etc. and had a MS in Marketing / Analytics were made to work at grassroots. I decided to leave US when my wife’s internship and her OPT would conclude in July 2018. By December we had received our Canadian PR.

I owed my parents $80,000 for my MBA. I had little money saved. So I decided to buy a property in India. I would pay the mortgage on it and my parents would rent it out. The rent would provide them additional income to support cost of living.

2018: I was bleeding money from all ends – rent, auto loan, mortgage, education loan and taxes. Additionally, I couldn’t plan for retirement or invest in a property while in US.

Since both of us were earning and our cost of living was low. I decided to use snowball effect. First, paid off my wife’s education loan by making lump sum payments every month. That freed up the money going towards that loan. We used that additional money and attacked the next – auto loan was now repaid. Only mortgage remained as we moved to Canada in July 2018.

In September my H-1B expired. I resigned from Cartesian as a full-time employee and rejoined as independent contractor. This worked in my favour as I was able to get a 20% hike. I was promoted to Manager. I did not miss forgoing benefits like medical etc. as those are provided in Canada under universal healthcare.

We setup base in Toronto and my wife landed a job soon. We used the snowball effect once more to pay off my mortgage in India. After 4 years or so I recouped my Return on Investment on my MBA.

2019/2020: I was debt free and started saving money. Paying rent in the Greater Toronto Area was expensive and paying the same amount in mortgage made more sense. We bought a house and started a family. My sister also applied for her PR and joined us. I applied for my parent’s Super Visa – which allowed them to stay up to 2 years in Canada at each entry. After 6 long years we all were together again.

In conclusion, I feel lucky that I was able to successfully use my MBA to transition into consulting, change geography and attain higher purchasing power.

#find-mba #mpower #dcu #digital credit union #h-1b visa #canada #h-1b #beyond mba

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schroedingersk8 · 5 years

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15. Let Me Draw You A Pie Chart

Or Why I Refuse To Date For Free.

I have written this post as a personal opinion, but I think it would be of tremendous use to my fellow Dommes and International Women of Mystery, as a read and perhaps a thought experiment, too. If you have any questions, please contact me via K8Morgan.com

I have woken up today, and have decided to dedicate my inaugural 2020 dating blog post to what is bound to become a very a prickly subject -- remunerated dating. Thing is, that yesterday, before going to bed, I have posted a three-line response to an anonymous question, and woke up to an anonymous answer in a scandalised line of “how dare I?” :)

And I laughed to myself, but also thought that, in this day and age of #mansplaining and with my work as a Dominatrix shrouded in all kinds of myths, maybe I ought to do a bit of #dommesplaining (I am very proud of this hashtag, btw!) and show exactly how, and why I dare. So, my dear, let me draw you a pie chart:

This is my pie chart of life.

Are you with me so far? Am I condescending enough?

You can read it as a day, month, year, etc -- this is an entire life-flow, and I have organised it, for myself, in in the following manner:

There is “Me time” -- a pleasant tea on a sunny bar terrace, a visit to a SPA, upkeeping my good looks -- manicures, haircuts, meditation, just 20 minutes of quiet nothingness to myself. Then there are “Vanilla Life Obligations”-- doing a food shop, waiting for deliveries, arranging household needs, plumbers, boiler revisions, own health check up, cat health check ups, getting paperwork done, etc. Then we come to “Active Hobbies and Social Obligations” -- things I enjoy doing outside of the house -- maybe an opera visit, a museum stroll, a theatre performance, a gallery opening, gym, walk in the park, an excursion, a friend’s birthday party, or crisis counselling, or just a few beers with gossip et al. We also have “Passive Indoor Hobbies” -- things I usually do in the comfort of my own home -- reading classics by the fireplace, covered in Feline Overlords, watching some telly, taking a bath...you get the drift. And then, there is “WORK”. Want to venture a guess and pick which one is which?

How well did you do? It is, of course, a very rough estimate. But this is how I have arranged my life.

As you notice, there is no pie slice for “romantic relationship” because for me it is not a necessity. I am very happy with my current life, and 2020 will mark 9 years of me being “emotionally single” and “self-partnered”. Would it be nice to have a relationship? Maybe. But at this point it will be coming at the cost of other things. And I am not willing to surrender those things. Should I skip a visit to El Prado because you want your knob polished for free? Should I stop seeing my friends and family, who have been with me for years, because your ego needs continuous attention for the following 3 weeks, every time you come home from work? Should I banish my cats to an animal shelter because your balls need free shining? No? Then the only thing that has to give is my work time allocation.

“Pah, you dedicate too much time to work!” -- I hear you scoff. Now, have you met many self-employed/entrepreneurial people? Do they spend 30 min a day, only, on their projects? Let me remind you that DOMMEWORK IS WORK. S#X WORK IS WORK. If I were doing a PhD, would you whinge about my time allocation to studying?

My work is something that brings me joy, my work is something that I find challenging, stimulating and fun. My work is something that pays my bills. All those things are already more than what I can say about your contribution to my life so far.

And, as any work, it gets even more detailed:

I do not know if you can see it well in the picture, but my work currently consists of seven parts:

Research and Development -- studying marketing and pricing trends, consumer behaviour, strategies, new BDSM fabs, new media tendencies.

Implementation -- with the results of research and development in mind, making website updates, skill updates, new inventory and alike.

Analytics -- establishing what worked, what worked best, and what did not work at all, and changing things accordingly.

Work Admin -- reading and answering all your emails and inquiries, about sessions, pricing, availability, and about chances to date me for free.

Business Admin -- taxes, forms, rebates, etc etc etc.

Social Media Maintenance -- social media is the pipeline from where I get my clients, and no maintenance = no new clients.

Actual Sessions or Tours -- the time actually spent in sessions or preparing for sessions.

This, above, is a VERY rough estimate of what currently goes into my work. This does not even include the work I do for my fan sites. This is just the most basic task allocation in the most basic idea that you might have of my work.

Yes, I am self employed, but the world these days places same requirements on the one-person-flying-circus as they do on corporations. Everybody expects me to post pretty pictures a few times a day. Everybody expects me to provide customer service. Government expects me to pay taxes. Anyone with a New Year’s Resolution to “date me this year” expects a reply, and then an even longer reply of “why not?” Clients expect me to look my best. To succeed in industry I need to be on top of the tendencies. And to be proud of my work I expect myself to do my absolute best.

And yes, I HAVE to do everything myself. As such, I employ a cat nanny/cleaner so I can spend few more hours per week learning and studying. Yes, I do as well as I do because I DELIVER on most expectations. And I am able to DELIVER on them because of meticulous hard work that I put in, today and every day, into my business. (Tumblr is part of my Business Profile, by the way, otherwise I wouldn’t be spending time on it. For example, I deemed Instagram no longer cost effective after 3 years as it was not worth the time I had to put into it in terms of prospective client growth, so I stopped using it, at 50K+ followers.)

As I hope you understand (I simply cannot draw a more basic pie chart!), any reduction in time I spend doing my work results in less income for me. Now, DommeWork, in terms of my age, and in terms of my looks, is an enterprise limited in time. Whatever I save is my future pension, it is my future cash flow, it is my nest egg, for when I retire. Why should I deprive myself of that, so that you could get your knob polished for free? Why SHOULD I make less money for myself just so you can save YOUR money???

“Oh, you only have dollar signs in your eyes, you do not value me as a person and as just an cash machine!” -- No, my dear, my stance on “free dating” has absolutely NOTHING to do with you, or how I view or value YOU. But it has EVERYTHING to do with how I view MYSELF, how I VALUE MYSELF, and how I VALUE MY TIME. Even to give you, a man from the Internet who thinks I owe him free dating, a try for a month, and dedicate 20% of my work time, to you, instead of work, will result in a 20% reduction in MY income the following month. Now, 20% of my average monthly income is roughly my monthly rent. So, I should give up my ENTIRE month’s rent in order to see whether you are worth it? While you do not think you should be paying for dating?

And, what exactly is “it”? The funny thing is that in the “best case scenario” of us moving in together and living happily ever after, you would occupy at least half of my time, ever pushing for more, costing me a 50% reduction of income (that’s TWO ENTIRE RENTS) to then just have to contribute “your fair share” of HALF THE RENT!!!

So, you are down HALF the rent, while I am down TWO RENTS AND A HALF! And when you yelp “but what about love, love should be free, it is priceless, a relationship should be about two equals!” this is exactly how much YOUR priceless love, by the roughest estimate of the projected loss of earnings based on time allocation is going to cost ME, per month. TWO AND A HALF RENTS. While you insist it should be FREE for you because it is priceless! Show me the equality in that relationship, you equal rights champion you! Where is it? Or is it like in Orwell’s “Animal Farm”, some pigs should be more “equal” than the others? I mean, really???

Do we need another chart to explain to you the “bigger-smaller, up-close or far-away” concepts? Because your parents should have explained it to you when you were about 4 years old...

“Yeah, well, other women do not expect me to pay them to date them!” -- I do not know what to say to that -- maybe they value themselves less. Maybe they have too much free time on their hands and are bored. Maybe they cannot entertain themselves. Maybe they need help watching Netflix. Maybe their rents are so high in relation to their overall income that half a rent or half the mortgage for them is worth the trouble. Maybe the contribution they think you will make to their life is worth it for them. Or maybe they need to take a look at my pie charts themselves? In any case, if free dating is what you want, you should address your needs towards them, not me.

So, my dear, as I dash to my drinks and tapas with friends, as it is a beautiful Sunday afternoon -- and I had to push back my attendance by an hour to finish writing my work blog post to address the topic raised too many times this week alone -- let me give you a word of advice. Before you get your panties in a knot and get thinking of what you can get from me for free -- ask yourself a very hard question: what can you really contribute?

No one, under the penalty of the EU copyright laws, is allowed to use or reproduce my blog or individual posts, or even passages, in any way, shape or form, be it for Netflix series, Amazon books, or anything of the kind, regardless of the credit given. If you have any questions, you may contact me via K8Morgan.com

#DommeSplaining DommeLife #DommeSplaining

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kingmaker-thac0hno · 4 years

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An Expected Journey: Part 1

The journal of Evrin Brazenbrook

1 Pharast, 4710

Today was the day we first set off from Restov, charged with the task of exploring the Greenbelt and to put down any banditry we may encounter. We made it to Nivatka’s Crossing without incident, and though there was not much in the way of conversation, which suits me just fine, my initial sense of Armauk’s and Adnachiel’s suitability for this expedition remains intact. Armauk seems deeply devoted to Erastil, and though I was raised with more of a connection to Gozreh, I admire his apparent conviction. It should serve him well in what I expect to be tough times ahead. Adnachiel is harder to get a read on. Like me, he is quiet, and closed, though not exactly unfriendly. I am most curious about some of his belongings, such as a strange, animated raven that looks like it is made from metal. He also brought two common women, which I found unusual, but he assured us that they would be useful for aiding with some menial tasks in the future. As for Karisathiel, I truly cannot say. Having met him only twice, and including him more because of the tactical loss of Oaken than because of his innate skills, I simply hope that he proves to be different from what I’ve heard about Galtians. In a sense, the four of us are a band of misfits, and while I have spent seven years in Restov, I feel, as the others seem to do, that leaving the city will be a welcome balm to my soul. While on the surface of it, I chose to lead this expedition for “the glory of Restov,” I am not so foolish as to believe that any glory will come from this enterprise. I expect danger and death, but in my heart, I welcome that challenge.

2 Pharast, 4710

The expedition has proceeded without incident thus far, and Armauk has had much success with fishing, noodling for a couple of plump catfish that proved to be surprisingly tasty. Karisathiel has taken to playing his lute quite often, which was initially rather annoying, but has grown on me. While I have never been inclined toward the performing arts myself, seeing them often used as the tools of charlatans, I have realized that few things can help unify a disparate party better than music. By mid-afternoon we found ourselves at Fort Serenko, which was curiously unoccupied. We’d heard that there was usually a garrison of soldiers stationed there, but there wasn’t a soul in sight. I suppose that they may have been dispatched on some pressing business—dealing with bandits, perhaps—but it must be unusual to desert a fort completely, without at least a few soldiers to keep watch. We all found this somewhat troubling, but there was nothing to be done about it, so we pressed on and made camp. If Adnachiel’s charts are correct, we should reach the Greenbelt around midday tomorrow, and Oleg’s Trading Post by late afternoon.

3 Pharast, 4710

Today was eventful, and may have given us a glimpse into the truth of the bandit situation so frequently sensationalized in The Quill. First, we came across a body in the bushes, seemingly looted of all valuables, and missing his ring finger. Armauk showed the purity of his faith by insisting that we bury the body, and all agreed to do so without complaint. Late in the day, we arrived at Oleg’s Trading Post and noticed four unkempt horses outside. As we approached the door, we heard gruff voices talking about taxes Oleg owed to the Stag Lord. This struck us as odd, given that the very nature of the so-called “Stolen Lands” is that there is no government to speak of, and no magistrate to levy taxes. As the situation became increasingly precarious for the proprietors, Armauk bravely entered the trading post, which looked to be a converted fort, and spoke to the four rough individuals inside about their purpose. They insisted that they were collecting their monthly taxes for the Stag Lord, who began the practice one month prior. They seemed to know very little about the purpose of the taxes, nor could they answer any of our questions about the so-called Stag Lord, or indeed, anything else about their purpose. It was clear to all of us by that point that they were bandits, and as Armauk spoke, we slowly advanced, making it clear that we were armed and prepared to act. Tensions were increasing, and weapons were starting to be drawn, when I suddenly lost consciousness. It was a strange sensation, not at all natural, and when I was nudged awake, I saw that all of the bandits were tied up and sleeping. I learned afterward that Adnachiel was able to put people to sleep with a wave of his hand, and while I was quietly infuriated at the personal embarrassment, I was equally grateful that he is of my own party.

When we found that the bandits could give us no further information, we killed and buried them, of course, and talked at length with Oleg and his wife, Svetlana, about their options. We all agreed that more bandits would eventually return, and from information Armauk somehow gleaned from the bandits’ horses, we learned that the main camp was at least a two-day ride away. As such, we figured we had between three and five days before the absence of these bandits (led by one “Happs”) would be noticed, and further bandits would return to investigate or avenge. I proposed that Oleg and Svetlana could abandon their shop and join us, or we could remove all traces of the bandits and have the pair pretend Happs’s crew never arrived, or we could remain at the trading post to shore up defenses and do our best to protect the couple and their livelihood. They chose the latter option, which did seem to make the most sense for us as well. Since Oleg’s Trading Post is within the area granted for our exploration by the charter, it seems like a reasonable base of operations, as it were, and since it is clear that we will need to deal with the “Stag Lord” and his gang at some point anyhow, a fortified position is a strategically sound tactic for the inevitable encounter. We were naturally invited to stay at the trading post, and Oleg and Svetlana were more than grateful for plans to aid with defenses. They seemed surprised that no soldiers had arrived by that point, having sent an acquaintance named Kritoff to Fort Semenko for that express purpose, but we deduced that Kritoff must have been the man we saw on the path earlier in the day. As I put my pen down for the evening, Karisathiel is once again playing his lute—a strange tune about an old woman who is certain that all that sparkles is coin, and who seeks to use said coin to purchase passage to the heavens. It sounds foreboding, and I fear my dreams will be disturbed tonight.

4 Pharast, 4710

Much of the day was spent on bolstering fortifications. Very little of note occurred, other than Adnachiel spending an inordinate amount of time tinkering with broken catapults, and Armauk catching us a sizeable deer for dinner, which Svetlana cooked to perfection. All told, it was a good day.

5 Pharast, 4710

More fortifications. We did, however, have a visitor come from the north. He was quite disheveled, but claimed to be a priest of Erastil who hailed from Galt. Armauk understandably took quite an interest in the man, whose name was Jhod, and had I a lower opinion of the affable half-orc, I might even say he was fawning over the supposed priest. I have mild concerns about him, as he persistently evades questions about his background, save for a repeated assertion that he has been pursuing vivid dreams of a lost temple to his god. According to Armauk, he seems to be highly conversant in the finer points of the Erastil faith, but I remain on guard about possible ulterior motives. Otherwise, we expect we may see more bandits tomorrow, but plan to carry out our expedition’s purpose as best we can while being vigilant.

6 Pharast, 4710

No sign of bandits today. Both Adnachiel and Karisthiel (whom we have begun to call Karis, per his request), sent their “familiars” into the air as lookouts for bandits, while the four of us proceeded to explore and survey the area in the immediate vicinity of the trading post. We found nothing remarkable, save for the beginning of a forested area a few miles due south.

7 Pharast, 4710

I write this entry by firelight, as we are currently camped a few miles to the east of Oleg’s. We surveyed a large swath of generally uninteresting terrain, though came across a particularly surly individual whose name, we presume, is Bokken, based on a description Oleg gave us a few days ago. Bokken had no interest in conversation of any sort, which is his right, and we generally left him alone. While we were setting up camp, Armauk shot a plump boar which he tried to share with the surly hunter, but to no avail. We left him the boar’s head regardless, and have kept a respectful distance. Adnachiel claims to have set several “alarms” that would warn us of any bandit approach, but what exactly he means by that, I cannot say.

8-9 Pharast, 4710

When we returned to Oleg’s yesterday morning, one of Adnachiel’s assistants claimed that she had seen several bandits off in the distance the day before, not far from the tree line. She couldn’t say much about their features from that distance, but she felt they were watching for quite some time. After some brief discussion, Karis and I decided to see if we could pick up a trail…which we did. We followed it for several miles until it entered a forested area that we had yet to explore. The trail was certainly less than a day old, but we were so interested in tracking it as far as we could that we paid little attention to the time of day. By the time the sun was starting to set, Karis and I decided it would be more prudent to make the long journey back to Oleg’s rather than try to camp out in an unfamiliar forest with a presumed bandit encampment somewhere in the unknown vicinity. I cursed my lack of common sense and lack of discipline, and by the time we made it back to Oleg’s early this morning, we were both exhausted. Our fellow party members had been worried about us, though they seemed to understand our reasoning. I slept for the next ten hours, and after an uneventful late afternoon and evening, I write this entry shortly before midnight, trying to will myself to sleep once more. 10 Pharast, 4710

We have decided that it will be more prudent if we refrain from venturing more than a mile from Oleg’s. This means that we cannot do the task we were assigned, but it has given me the opportunity to practice my swordwork for the first time in nearly a fortnight, and also to work with a bow. Fortunately Oleg has a few bows available, and while the weapon was never my strong suit, I expect that it will be useful when there are enemies outside the fort.

11-15 Pharast, 4710

I write merely to note that little has happened over the past four days. A few of the party are getting a little on edge, and Armauk had to forcibly stop Adnachiel from smashing Karis’s lute after he played some song about everyone having “an additional thing arriving” one too many times. Expecting a fight, and the fight not coming does strange things to the mind.

16 Pharast, 4710

Today, the fight came, and I am much relieved to declare at least a temporary victory. I must lack the eloquence of prior writers who can make a battle seem romantic and glorious, because today’s events were anything but. I was grateful to have spent the past few days practicing my bow work, as it was particularly useful today. For much of the conflict I was stationed at the northeast battlement, where I managed to kill at least one bandit and wound another. When the bandits were called to the gate by what seemed to be their leader, I ran as fast as I could in that direction, noticing as I did that Karis was completely out of position, while Jhod was also not where I might have expected. I cannot say what happened during the battle beyond what the others have told me—Adnachiel was able to put the leader to sleep, apparently, and Karis had dispatched her with his magics—but I did manage to slay a couple more bandits with my sword, and from what I could tell, the whole party seems to have availed itself well. If anything, Armauk has won my trust completely, as he was remarkably selfless in helping to heal the wounded, and I heard tell of him preparing to extinguish flaming arrows with his own unique magics. I still can’t quite get a firm read on Adnachiel or Karis, but fighting for a common goal bonds like nothing else—not even music. As I write, we have taken one bandit hostage, while we know that at least two others escaped. We can be assured that more will follow now, perhaps even an insurmountable force, but for the time being we all feel a sense of righteousness that we’ve removed some of the blight that plagues Brevoy, and a sense of relief that we should see the dawn for at least a few more days.

#Kingmaker

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angelicrebelsworld · 5 years

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Tite Photography

What services do you offer?

5 hours ago

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5 hours ago

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