#for every moment you cited i can guarantee i have a similar one

[dearweirdme]

[matsbarzal]

can you please do fluff #15 with Jamie Oleksiak???

15. "i can't wait to see you." - jamie oleksiak

word count: 1.6k pairing: jamie oleksiak x reader

Jamie had left for Seattle the day he got the call from his agent.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t upset about how quickly things were changing. One second, he was a fan favourite of the Dallas Stars, next he was being left unprotected and easily getting swept up by the Seattle Kraken in the midst of the expansion draft.

He had promised you things wouldn’t change too much, that the two of you would be able to work everything out and figure out what you were going to do, whether you were going to follow him to Seattle or try to make it work from miles away. He had promised you that you guys would figure it out before engulfing you up in his arms, his body wrapping eagerly around you as you pressed yourself as close to his as you could.

Jamie bid you goodbye with an eager press to your lips, his body ducking down while your lips moulded against each other, the unspoken words flowing through before he pulled away, a quick press of his lips to your forehead and one last hug before he had to make his way through the airport.

That was three days ago, and you were already starting to lose it a little on the inside. Jamie was busy, you knew that it was inevitable, but the two of you had barely had the opportunity to talk, the Kraken hoarding him and his teammates during the short week they had with them before they let the players loose for the summer.

Every time your phone vibrated, or your watch dinged, or you felt even the slightest movement of your phone, you were pulling it up to your face and trying to figure out if it was Jamie messaging you or calling you, but it never was. Especially in the middle of the day.

Except for this time.

The FaceTime request shined bright on the screen in front of you, Jamie’s contact name evident at the top of the screen as the FaceTime sound made its way throughout the small deck you found yourself on. You were still in Jamie’s Dallas house, agreeing that he’d meet you there the moment Seattle let him go free for the summer.

His face appeared on the screen, a wide toothy grin crossing his face when he made eye contact through the screen.

“Look at that beautiful damn face, baby. I’ve missed you.”

Sticking your tongue out at him, you could feel your cheeks start to warm as his compliment. “Don’t go getting all sappy now, Big Rig, I still have almost a week until I get to see your handsome face in person.”

“What if it was… less than a week?”

Quirking an eyebrow at him, urging him to continue as you didn’t let any words pass your lips.

“I’ve been thinking. We have a lot of free time in Seattle, I’ve just been spending it with the boys, but Ebs is bringing his wife up on Thursday, and Tanev said he’s flying his girlfriend up tomorrow. You wanna come? See the city I’m going to beg you to move to?”

The immense joy that burst inside of you at his words was incomparable. That was the last thing you were expecting Jamie to say, you didn’t even let a thought cross your mind before you were nodding your head eagerly, a large grin taking over your face as you looked at your boyfriend through the screen.

“Oh my god, yes. Obviously yes, one hundred times yes.”

A wide grin took over Jamie’s face as he watched your excitement play out. He had barely given it a though when his teammates said they were bringing their wives and girlfriends to go house-hunting with them, citing the fact that it would be a better idea to get started now than at the end of the summer and right before training camp.

Jamie quickly jumped on the idea, knowing full well that there was no guarantee you were moving from Dallas to Seattle for him, but after all of the houses he had the opportunity to see in his few days here, he knew it would be easy enough to convince you how worth it the move would be. He just didn’t know how right he was.

“Glad you said yes, your plane ticket should already be sitting in your email. See you tomorrow at 10am, babe.”

Mock groaning at the early flight time, all you did was pout as Jamie continued to grin back at you.

“I can’t wait to see you, baby.”

“I can’t wait to see you either, lover.”

Your arms barely wrapped all the way around his body, your frame tucked happily against his own large one as the both of you ignored the hordes of people walking past. Solely focused on each other, Jamie whispered sweet nothings in your ear, telling you how much he’d missed you, and how happy he was to see you, and how excited he was for you to see Seattle.

The cool air of his rental car greeted you kindly, the warm Seattle air unexpected. You couldn’t deny that Jamie was right, Seattle was beautiful, and you did love it practically the moment you saw it.

His hand was pressed gently against the exposed thigh above your knee, eagerly pressing a kiss to your lips at every stoplight, squeezing your thigh with every laugh that passed his lips. You had missed him so much, and this was why. He was attentive, and kind, and just a constant figure, he constantly made his presence known and apparent, constantly made sure you knew how loved you were and how obsessed with you he was.

“I feel like we’re going the complete opposite way of the hotel?”

“How would you know where the hotel is, nerd? You’ve never even been here before.”

Pursuing your lips at him, you turned your head slightly to look out the back window, the downtown core of Seattle highlighted in the view you were currently looking at. Forcing your body back around to glance at him, you quirked an eyebrow in response.

Rolling his eyes playfully, all Jamie did was squeeze your thigh again and grin. “I’m showing you something that I think you’ll love. Brought you out here for a reason, didn’ I?”

Shrugging your shoulders with a smile, you grabbed his much larger hand and entwined your fingers with his. His response: a light and gentle squeeze before pressing the back of your hand to his lips and then moving your entwined fingers back to the top of your thigh.

The house began to appear, the downtown core slowly dissipating as Jamie made his way more and more towards the suburbs of Seattle. The houses were all beautiful, the minimalistic and cottage core-like aesthetic flowing through the area the deeper and deeper Jamie found himself driving.

It took a few minutes for Jamie to find the parking lot he was looking for, a playground parking lot the most vacant lot he could find in the area. Curious, you followed his lead, unbuckling your seatbelt and following him out of the car. His arm easily wrapped around your shoulder as he directed you on where to walk, the conversation flowing lightly between the two of you.

The area was quiet, there were some families on the playground, couples walking their dogs, but it was quiet, and homey. Similar to the area you and Jamie lived in, in Dallas.

Pointing with his hand that wasn’t attached to the arm wrapped around your shoulder, you averted your eyes to gaze at the object. Your eyes met the bright right of a ‘sold’ sign, the beautiful mint-coloured home behind it staring back at you.

“Jordan Eberle and his wife bought this house before they even looked at it. Ebs and I went yesterday, it’s so gorgeous in there. You’d love it. Open-concept kitchen, the living room couches won’t be pressed against the wall, the master bedroom has two walk-in closets. You’d be so jealous.”

You couldn’t deny the jealousy that creeped up inside of you at the sounds of what he was describing. Four things ticked off your list for the future house Jamie and you would one day hopefully inhabit, almost immediately? Sounded too good to be true.

The two of you continued, before stopping in front of a second house, just steps away from the previous one you had eyed.

“This house is almost identical. Except for the colour, obviously. But the baby blue and white are cute, no?”

Nodding your head at his words, you couldn’t deny that the house was cute. Minimalistic, a nice white porch, a swing prevalent just steps away from the front door. Just the outside alone was everything you had always dreamed of and more.

“Almost the same setup inside, except one of the walls on the main floor may have to be torn down to accommodate an open concept kitchen,” quirking an eyebrow at his words, you turned to him with a questioning look in his eyes.

“I want you to move to Seattle with me, I’m prepared to put an offer in for this house in 25 minutes if you say you like the house and that you’ll move here. I’ll even let you decorate it to your heart’s desire, be our own little interior designer or whatever.”

You could barely contain the smile of glee at his words, you had been on edge about following Jamie to another city after getting situated in Dallas for the second time, change was hard, but when it felt like change kept occurring every two years… well… it made things even more difficult.

It was like Jamie could sense your worries as he started again, “Seattle’s in it for the long-run. The contracts five years. I think here is it for us, baby. I think you’d love it here, and I think you’d love this house.”

“Show me our future house then, Mr. Oleksiak.”

note: I hope you enjoyed!!! thank you for requesting one <3

[black-coffee-and-sugar]

Fair warning: it's a long post. Let's examine some of the reasons that Kara has cited why she didn't tell Lena the super secret:

1. She wanted to protect her

Now, this one has some legs on it as Kara specifically mentions it in S3 during a conversation with James and Mon-El. And there's definitely some truth to it. But it's also bullshit. Lena was in constant danger and put herself at risk to save/protect Kara who didn't actually need it. In fact, the first time Lena's mentioned (not shown just mentioned) it's in regards to the venture explosion - something that happened because Lex was trying to kill her. People have been trying to kill, kidnap, manipulate, threaten Lena since minute one. Knowing Kara = SG would not have severely worsened any of that. In fact, it might've helped ease Lena's anxieties and resulted in her taking less risks with her life. In fact, I'm surprised Lena didn't think that Kara's association with her was putting Kara at risk (a far more likely thing).

The 100th episode addresses this to some degree in one of the AUs. Lena tells Kara that she wouldn't have had to risk her life dealing with Sam/Reign alone if she'd known the truth and she's absolutely right. And sure, Lena could've told SG and the DEO when she pieced Reign = Sam together but ask yourself, why would she? What assurance did she have that the DEO would not have treated her BEST FRIEND like a hostile instead of someone in need of help? The DEO is guilty of this and they have a history of locking up aliens indefinitely and on occassion straight up murder. After Reign nearly killed their biggest asset (i.e. SG) why in the hell would Lena trust them with helping Sam? She wouldn't nor should she have. She didn't know that she could go to SG because remember, Lena doesn't think of her the same way she does of Kara. SG is not her best friend. She doesn't have a personal, humanized relationship with her (at least not that she knows of). And obviously she's not going to tell Kara the human reporter with the DEO agent sister about it either. And the kryptonite? SG lost her shit over it even though she's been working with the DEO who stockpiled the stuff until SM left with it (a dumbass move that would've bit them so hard in the ass with the WK situation if it weren't for Lena's kryptonite!). Plus, Kara didn't have an issue with Oliver having a kryptonite arrow, J'onn having a sword. But Lena? How dare she!

So yea no. I get that "I kept my secret to protect you" is a popular thing in the hero world but in the case of Kara and Lena, it doesn't make sense and it did make situations unnecessarily harder.

2. She didn't trust Lena

This is mentioned by Kara to William in a deleted scene from S5 but I think it's worth exploring. I'm not sure to what extent Kara means with this but it could be referring to the moments as SG where she did display a distrust of Lena's intentions and she used Lena's personal relationships against her (i.e. asking James to break into Lena's lab). I mentioned the S3 shitshow with the kryptonite which is where a lot of this started but there's also other scenes in that same season where SG pretty much calls into question the so-called trust she has in Lena despite claiming otherwise. The switch was so abrupt the minute she learned Lena not only had but knew how to make kryptonite. Did anyone ever consider why Lena would bother learning how to make kryptonite? I'd hazard a guess that it was something she was looking into even before Sam/Reign. I think she happened to find Lex's stock and she decided to learn how it works and why it affects the Supers like it does. That would explain how Lena seems to be the ONLY ONE able to make an anti-kryptonite suit and other viable forms of the rock (i.e. Harun el). But no, SG and others immediately jump to the worst conclusions and associate the endeavour with Lena's last name, something SG KNOWS Lena is sensitive about it. And then the harun el. SG was suddenly fine with Lena making it when it was to split Sam from Reign and save Argo from extinction. But when it was used for something else that Lena didn't clue her in on (and what do you know, Alex, Brainy and James didn't either and they KNEW what Lena was doing with it) she got back on her high horse and the distrust became front and centre. You can't trust Lena as Kara and then immediately distrust her as SG and expect her to be accepting of this dichotomy. I'm surprised the woman managed to retain her sanity.

And still, this reasoning doesn't quite hit the mark in comparison to every other insistence of Kara believing in Lena (from day one she even told Clark that she believed Lena after meeting her for the first time). But the contrasting opinions and actions must have given Lena pause. I don't blame her to call into question which version of the truth was real and choosing to believe the worst. It's what SG and the SFs have been doing to her.

3. She was wary of Lena

This isn't an explicitly given reason but I do think it's how the secret keeping started in S2. Frankly, I don't even blame Kara for not showing her full deck in the beginning because she (and even us as an audience) didn't know much about Lena beyond wanting to do good and not be like her family. So no, Kara not telling Lena in the beginning actually makes sense to me (though she told Nia in a split second but that's neither here nor there). For me, I started to seriously take Lena at her word after the Medusa episode. That would've been the perfect opportunity for her to show the true "xenophobic" colours some parts of the fandom accuse her of having and she didn't do it. I don't think she even got so much as a thank you for it. People praise SM for getting Lex arrested but ultimately it was Lena's testimony that got him thrown behind bars. Same thing with Lillian! And yes, the daxamite invasion was facilitated by Lena unwittingly working with Rhea but she fixed it with the lead dispersal bomb, a device she allowed SG the privilege of using or not. So Kara and the SFs being cautious about Lena really should've evaporated halfway through S2 (and it did for Kara at least). In fact, the daxamite invasion may not have happened if Lena knew exactly who Rhea was and her relation to Mon-El because they would've warned Lena about it. Lena did want Kara's advice on Rhea and she would've waited for it if she knew what was going on (i.e. Alex being held hostage) and hell, might've been able to fix it in typical Lena ex machina fashion.

4. She didn't want to lose her

This is probably as close to the truth as we've gotten and it's actually part of her confession in 5x01 (something her outburst in 5x19 tries to undo). But the thing is, Kara KNEW this was a possibility and yet, continued walking towards the deadly cliff with her eyes wide open. The probability of losing Lena got higher and higher as time went on and it was always inevitable. There was always this spotlight placed on Kara telling Lena or Lena finding out on her own but there was always a HUGE chance that Lillian would've told her. Or Lex, which is exactly what happened. And Kara knew that they knew and yet she did nothing about it. The minute kara found out Lillian knew she should've taken action, what guarantee did she have that Lillian wouldn't have gotten bored of waiting for Lena to piece it together? How can they just leave Lillian with dangerous knowledge like that is beyond me. When Alex in particular has made such a big deal about people knowing, didn't want Kara telling Lena, only allowed Kara to tell Lucy to save J'onn and yet, letting Lillian amble about with this info is okay??? Nothing was stopping her from telling Lena or it slipping during one their chess games and definitely nothing stopping Lex from dropping that bomb.

The 100th episode AUs showed us that each time it was Kara telling the truth, no matter how hurt and upset Lena rightfully was, she was ultimately fine with it. And Kara ends up losing her to death, not because Lena walked away. How this wasn't the takeaway message for Kara after that adventure, idk. It was Kara's hesitatancy in telling Lena that allowed Lex to weaponize this secret and twist it into something it never was. And yes, Kara doesn't owe a damn soul her secret and has rarely ever been given the chance to tell anyone on her own terms (James - told by SM, Alex, J'onn, Brainy, Mon-El, the Legion - always knew, Lex & Lillian, Lord & Cat - found out somehow). She only ever got to tell Winn, Lucy and Nia and I'm sorry but none of those people have ever proven themselves trustworthy at the time of the reveal the way Lena has.

So while Kara is every right to keep her secrets, she was wrong to insert herself in Lena's life if she never had any intention of telling her and let's be honest, it really didn't seem like Kara had any timeline on that front.

5. She was selfish

Similar to the above and also mentioned during the confession but this is even deeper. Lena was something of an outlet for Kara, a way to feel completely normal, something she hasn't been able to experience with anyone, even Mon-El. Can you imagine being a cub reporter who knows powerful CEO Lena Luthor and having said CEO choose to spend time with you? Choose to let you interview her when she's wary of the press (remember her interactions with Clark in 2x01 and her family history)? Choose to treat your problems as important and valid and human? I don't blame Kara at all for being selfish with Lena, for wanting to keep Lena all to herself like that. But to not share the other aspects of herself was seriously wrong too and resulted in this imbalance in their relationship. To Lena, it looks like she was giving all of herself when Kara was not. It looks like she put all her trust and vulnerabilities out there when Kara didn't. It looks like Kara was using her (which let's be real, she kinda did a few times in S2 with the fight club and bs article to get info on Lillian and then ofc the CatCo-Edge problem she visited Lena for after ignoring her and proceeding to continue the rejection after Lena said she'd look into it).

You think post-reveal Lena didn't think back to all those moments and have those kinda thoughts? Even called into question what might've been the real reason James dated her and Kara was so insistent on befriending her? Were there perhaps times were she figured it out and can't remember and what's why she chose not to see it? Why do we think she still showed up game night in 4x22 instead of confronting Kara? Because these thoughts amongst others must've been swarming her mind and the only way to keep the upper hand is to continue playing dumb. So yes, Kara made the conscious decision to be selfish with Lena because of the unexpected connection they forged and I get it totally. But Lena has never been selfish and she's always made hard efforts to be a damn good friend (and she was idc what others might think on that) and open herself up to Kara despite how difficult and frankly foreign that is for her.

So are Kara's reasons valid? To a point, I would say yes but their validity waned over the seasons to the point where the secret keeping didn't even make sense anymore.

So was Lena's anger valid? Yes! 100% it was and honestly, I'm surprised she managed to keep it together for so long. I couldn't. But her anger doesn't justify her actions (mind control, manipulating Kara, threatening Russell, holding J'onn's bro captive, putting Hope inside Eve) and how she went out of her way to hurt Kara back. However, I get why she did it though it's worth pointing out that this is the only instances of a betrayal in her life where Lena has gone this far. Bitch straight up spiralled where previously she would cut ties and move the fuck on with life. But with Kara, that doesn't even seem to manifest itself to Lena as an option. Will the show ever address the obvious WHY for this and for Kara being so so terrified of losing Lena (like honestly I have never seen Kara look more distressed).

Maybe, maybe not but regardless I'm not buying this platonic friends nonsense because no one is that devastated over a friendship. Many of us (myself included) have experienced falling outs with very close friends and breakups. Which one do you think the Kara/Lena rift in S5 felt like? It was full on heartbreak, loving someone in complete torment and not being able to stop despite wanting to because even though it's painful, the alternative is infinitely worse.

MB and KM's acting choices aside, these idiot showrunners have brought us to this point with their own narrative and the only logical next step is to make them canon.

Lol okay I'm done.

[warsofasoiaf]

The Celtic Tiger - A Kaiserreich Ireland AAR Chapter 1: Black Mondays, Black Clouds

6 January 1936 - Economic Committee Meeting, Dublin, Ireland.

It was a new year. 1936. Michael Collins had convened his cabinet on that first Monday to outline his plans for the new year. Ireland had mostly been treading water, feeding off the riches of trade with the Kaiserreich while rebuilding after the Ulster Uprising. The Union had demanded that Ireland pay land annuities that had been guaranteed to Great Britain in the Anglo-Irish treaty. Collins had refused, citing the abolition of the British government had effectively caused the United Kingdom to cease to exist. Uninterested in negotiation, the Union had levied a 20% tariff on Irish goods, and Ireland itself responded by cutting the purchasing of English coal, under the Swift slogan: “Burn everything English except their coal.” It had certainly stung the Union, the economic devastation wrought by the war and the subsequent collectivization wrought unbelievable havoc on the agricultural sector, but Ireland had suffered as well. Farmers and cattle ranchers had counted on the sale of their goods to Britain, roughly 90% of all trade went across the Irish Sea. With the Depression in the United States, incomes dried up and problems abounded in the rural sections of the country. Coal prices had skyrocketed and unemployment had risen, as had rates of illness due to hunger. Emergency food aid hadn’t worked as well as the Irish cabinet had hoped. It was a small famine, but this one stung because every Irishman that hungered had in some way the Irish leadership to blame.

“We need to mechanize our agricultural sector. We’re still working by hand. Farm industry exports are our biggest source of income, but if we don’t modernize we’ll be left behind. The US is stuck in an economic depression, we have a real chance to capitalize on foreign sales.” Patrick Hogan, Minister of Agriculture, had advised. 

“We’re still not selling to the Union, not until they rescind the demand for land annuities, and they were our prime source for grain exports. We need to focus on our industrial sector. That will drop unemployment and bring more foreign money in. Once we have it, we can use it to expand the Agricultural Credit Bank, perhaps even producing farm equipment domestically. Germany is looking to invest, and the Austrians want to diversify their holdings to branch out from Italy.” Patrick McGilligan, the Minister of Industry, had countered.

Both men had merit, and that was the difficult needle to thread. It had been easy to lead in wartime. Thwart your enemy and lead your men to success, but success was a lot harder to see when running a country instead of fighting for one. A far-reaching economic bill had been the goal of the 1936 cabinet, but what shape that was in needed to be hammered out. The farm sector was probably the most in need of help, but the industrial sectors could probably provide the most return. Both needed serious thought, but there was only so much money in the treasury, and printing too much would completely erode its value. The last thing an Irish farmer needed on top of an empty belly was their savings being rendered worthless so they couldn’t even attempt to buy food. Collins, for a moment, wondered if that what is was like to be drawn and quartered, to be stretched so thin

“We need rifles, too. All of our equipment is running to rust.” Tom Barry, ground forces commander of the Irish Republican Army, made sure to make his opinion known. “Our navy is nothing but a few destroyers from the Weltkrieg. They won’t amount to much of anything if the Union decides to force the issue with more than words. We don’t have much in the way of anti-aircraft guns, let alone an air force. When there’s a fight, we can’t contest the landings.” Barry was sure that the Union was going to attack. Perhaps not this year, but not far off either. 

“Let’s get the basics of the bill drafted, I want outlines for the industrial and agricultural sectors in thirty days and the final bill ready by March. Connacht will be the focal point for now, the figures are worst there, but I want us to be able to take successes to the national level quickly.”. If there was a mistake here, it could be years before the damage could attempt to be repaired. “Look toward seeing if we can get something started with the Americans to revitalize the steelworks in Dublin, God knows Hoover needs to find anything he can sell as a win. If Barry’s right, we’re going to want to make sure we have domestic steel production in place and we’ll look to establishing small arms under contract.” 

No one was really happy at the meeting’s conclusion and little got accomplished, but at the very least, they were walking in the same direction. The flying column days were long behind him, acting on his own initiative and trusting his others to do the same. If he made a mistake or a miscalculation, he’d die, and the men under him would die. But that wasn’t the same as a nation. And he’d be damned if he fought to create a Republic only to have it die off from mismanagement.

29 February 1936 - Emergency Dail Session, Dublin, Ireland

It had been constant news all month, every single piece of it bad. The German Stock Exchange had collapsed on the third, Black Monday as they called it, and the worldwide economy was in crisis. Mitteleuropa Countries had been convening emergency meeting after emergency meeting to no avail, no unified policy could be ordered, and the last session had ended with half the delegates walking out. German banks were failing, German businesses were closing, and nations were seizing German companies across central and eastern Europe in an attempt to salvage their own economies. Austria had withdrawn from the Republic of Italy, the Legation Cities had openly feared the collapse of the Deutsche-Asiatische bank. The United States was facing a stark double dip depression. Deutsche-Mittelafrika faced severe problems as their colonial masters were unable to send them the financial and military support, and the Deutsche-Ostasia colonial holdings would undoubtedly suffer a similar fate. Latin America was positively ravaged by the stock market collapse, with the governments in Argentina and Brazil struggling to stay afloat. The entire world was suffering, and few knew how to claw their way back to prosperity.

The future bore similar dark stormclouds on the horizon. In France, the Jacobins had successfully seized power, calling for a centralized state focusing on industrial growth and military capacity, all necessary to continue the spread of the world revolution. The voters in France had been dissatisfied at the Travailleurs, citing their detente with Germany as a betrayal of the Syndicalist raison d'être, and now France had been thrown into domestic unrest as the Jacobins fought with the Travailleurs and the Anarchistes. If the Jacobins were successful, it would be war with Germany; not this year, but not far off either. Foreign analysts had predicted South America would be wracked with war before too long. China had already erupted into civil war with the collapse of the League of Eight Provinces. How long would it be before it came here.

Ireland had not been spared. Unemployment jumped as foreign companies laid off workers or closed up shop entirely. Prices fell, wrecking havoc among the rural community. There were protests in every major city, demanding action from the government. Some had demonstrated against German businesses, a few had even degenerated into mobs, assaulting German emigres and business owners. The Gardai would have to take care of it, if Collins couldn’t protect his citizens, what right did he have to lead them? Some of the protests, primarily in Ulster, but surprisingly in other provinces as well, were demanding a realignment back toward the Windsors in Canada. Still others, most certainly underground members of syndicalists, had decried it as the failure of capitalism, that Ireland must adopt the syndicalist model. The crowds grew larger every day, especially in the cities.

The Irish Economic Advancement Act looked like a tiny paper caught in a hurricane, increasingly endangered. Collins had hoped for time to select a strategy, but the German stock market had seemed to force his hand. He had looked to float the Irish pound and had cut his own salary and those of his Cabinet while largely preserving the salaries of lower-ranked workers. It was largely a dog-and-pony show, but the country was boiling and any cold water would be welcome. He needed money to come into the country; if cash came in, that would solve a lot of problems. Few were buying anything, especially not foreign goods, and that made a new influx of cash difficult to discover. 

“We’ll focus on industry.” Collins resolved, looking out the window at a large group of Irish protesters, calling for action and holding signs that he couldn’t quite make out. “We need the money that can come in for that. If we can work on getting a few places producing, that will increase economic activity, and heavy industry can easily make farm equipment. Make inroads with the Republic of Italy if you can, now that the Austrians have left, they might be willing to broaden their trade agreements. We’re such a small nation; we won’t frighten the Sindicalistas in Torino.” 

“Anything else?” A voice came up from behind him. Collins wasn’t even sure who it was, and for a moment, wondered if it mattered.

“Pray.”

23 April 1936 - Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, Ireland

“The World Revolution cannot wait while its enemies conspire to destroy it from the shadows. The victory of 1925 was a cause for celebration, but we let it become a lullaby to lull us from our course of action. Black Monday was the crowing of a rooster to rouse us to action. We have seen firsthand the failures of capitalism and the urgent need for us to continue our revolution. We must not fall into the decadence that so defined the aristocrats and bourgeoisie, and we must not blind and deafen ourselves to the millions who still struggle under the slavery of capital. Every man and woman in Britain is a vital part of the revolution, and it takes every Briton to rise up and strike as one. Break the chains! Break the chains! BREAK! THE! CHAINS!” -Oswald Mosley, Victory Speech

Everything had kept getting worse with every passing month. The Irish Economic Advancement Act had passed, mercifully, but Collins was getting nervous that any recovery might be too late to be useful. The focus on industry had certainly won over people within the cities, and the Catholic Church, under its new Pope Stephen X, had provided some relief measures. It was still not enough, but the Irish people were sticking together. Workers in Donegal and other northern counties had even made a great show of admitting Protestant Unionists in their acts of charity and communal gathering; that had certainly robbed the fire out of Unionist demonstrations; Collins himself couldn’t have asked for better PR. It wasn’t a success, though, to say that things weren’t as bad as they could be.

What troubled Collins was striking much closer to home; a speech on the radio that had chilled him to the bone. The Trade Union Congress of the Union of Britain had finished their next election. Phillip Snowden had retired, and Oswald Mosley had seized power. His inaugural address had seized upon the need to centralize the nation to become the true architect of world revolution, citing the example of the Jacobins in France. He cited the need for military readiness to crush counter-revolution, which meant an end to the militia system and the establishment of the Union Navy as the greatest blue-water force on the planet. It would be a means to protect Britain and to show the superiority of the Internationale over the Kaiser. “His place in the sun is a light from fool’s gold. In the Union of Britain we have lit a fire that the ages will not extinguish.” The fervor in which he spoke it showed it was no metaphor. There would be fire soon enough.

Ireland would certainly feel it. Mosley’s movement depended on strength. Either Ireland or Iceland would have to be his first start to demonstrate the strength of his army and navy, and Ireland was closer. Collins wrote down to see what the Ministry of Foreign Affairs could do regarding this development when the Oireachtas re-convened. Any allies he could find would be a good one. 

“You wanted this, Mick.” Collins mused to himself, and poured himself another ball of malt. “Never forget that.” Holding the glass in his hand, Collins smiled faintly, he might have just found the solution.

24 August, 1936

“The Saorstat Brewery is the first, but not the last expression of the New Ireland. Irish traditions with modern technology.” A smiling crowd had turned up to the opening of the breweries in Munster. It had been surprisingly easy to get the business started. Most distillers had the equipment and the experience, but they were small, family establishments. Instead of starting from scratch, the most highly rated brewers and distillers were hired for the new company, producing their own under the Saorstat label, which benefited from a larger marketing budget and partnership with the venerable Guinness Brewery. Irish beers would be sold all over the world, already cities in the United States, despite the economic crisis, had seen bulk orders. Hogan had been put out a bit when Collins had decided on industrialization, but there had been benefits to the agricultural sector as well. Increased purchasing of grain had raised prices, and Collins had instituted a tax break in the difference of pricing to continue food aid to people still out of work. Everyone had won out, if ever so little, and alcohol was the architect of their good fortune.

The master brewers had come together to create a signature Irish blend of the top whiskeys manufactured in 1925, to be released in 1937 in a limited release “Acushla na hÉireann,” celebrating 12 years of Irish Independence. Wealthy collectors in Europe and the United States, particularly those with Irish heritage, had sought to pay to ensure that they received this limited run batch. Even Japanese whiskey enthusiasts had expressed interest, with several paying large sums of money to ensure that one of the rare bottles would be theirs. 

“Acushla represents the spirit of the Irish people.” Collins thundered to uproarious applause. “As strong as the first drop to hit your tongue, as warm as the fire that lingers long after. When Black Monday came to our shores, the Irish people did not give into despair. We attacked as we did any other, with intelligence and tenacity, and we are already seeing the effects. Unemployment is down, standard of living is up, and we are well on the way to recovery.”

Ireland had been the talk of the international finance world in 1936 for its rapid recovery. The rapid industrialization program had been the toast of the developed world. There were plenty of Titanic jokes when Collins revitalized the Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast, but Collins knew that employed Unionists complained a lot less than unemployed ones did, and the world was going to need ships soon enough. Ireland would need them soon enough, and once the economic crisis was over, he had planned to ensure a solid fleet of destroyers and U-boats. “It’s the flying columns all over again, just under the waves.” Seamus O’Muiris agreed, and had trained what ships he had in patrol and spotting techniques. If the destroyers could find them, the subs could sink them.

Economic figures, even impressive ones, were not very newsworthy outside of the business press. This windy day, journalists had flocked to Saorstat Brewery for the official announcement of the Cairdeas bottles. With Mosley agitating across the Irish Sea, Saorstat had designed commemorative bottles to be gifted to foreign heads of state. One to Kaiser Wilhelm II for the support the German Empire had shown Ireland during its struggles for independence, one gifted to US President Herbert Hoover in recognition of taking in Irish refugees during the diaspora and the long cultural ties between Ireland and the United States, and one on display in the Dail. Unionists had lobbied that one should be delivered to King Edward VIII as well in Canada. Collins wanted none of it, but to mollify them, Collins had instead ordered a bottle crafted with a message of condolence for King George V: “A lion heart beat within his breast, for nothing less noble could seek out peace and decry injustice. We mourn, as the world mourns, for the loss of a great man, just as we celebrate that such a great man existed.”

If a few bottles of whiskey could buy Irish freedom, there would have been no need for a Michael Collins. But alas, the world had need for brewers and soldiers, for it never had a shortage of thirst and war.

16 October 1936 - Áras an Uachtaráin, Dublin, Ireland

The papers had called it the Celtic Tiger. Collins didn’t mind that. Some had called it the Luck of the Irish. Collins minded that one quite a bit. It hadn’t been luck, it had been a lot of wrangling and hard work to bring about economic recovery. Nothing like hiding money in American banks to fund the IRA, it had taken a lot of risk to get to where they were now. If the Saorstat Brewery had failed, if the agricultural sector collapsed and caused a famine, even the popularity he enjoyed wouldn’t save him. They’d gun him down on the street, like any old G-Man a generation ago. 

Instead, he was the toast of the political and economic world. Ireland had recovered from Black Monday in less than a year. The German Empire was still languishing in the throes of economic depression, Italy was decrepit, and the less said about America the better, but where all those mighty nations, with massive populations and tracts of natural resources, were laid paralyzed as they clawed toward daylight, plucky Ireland had been able to shake off Black Monday. Quarterly GDP had recovered, and unemployment figures were down to where they had been in February.

It wasn’t the end of it either. Just getting back to where the world was before was an insufficient goal, if Michael Collins had anything to say about it. Ireland wasn’t content with going back to the way it was when he fought for liberation; it wouldn’t be content with being a backwater. Already the rest of Europe was looking at Ireland for its success, they might as well make the most of it. In the field, infamy had been Collins’s ally, and plenty fled when they heard he was lurking. Now, they sought him out, to marvel at his accomplishments, and hope that perhaps some secret wisdom he could impart would save their own countries.

Collins stretched his legs, and decided to take a quick walk through Phoenix Park, but business never slept. Far from the stern, stoic soldier that most men knew him as, he couldn’t hide a small grin.

“Something funny, Mick?” Richard Mulcahy asked, seeing the President in an uncommonly good mood.

“I’m the most wanted man in the world, but this time, I made a bunch of money instead of stealing it. They wanted to cut off my head, now they want to shake my hand.”

The two men shared a laugh. “Our time has come. The weather is nice, let’s get some air.”

17 December 1936 - Debate Floor of the Dail, Dublin, Ireland

“Most of these countries are still mired in Black Monday. They won’t be willing to open subsidiaries in Ireland. Especially not while we’re part of Mitteleuropa.” Frank McDermont, head of the National Centre Party, had come with the usual objection. 

Collins hadn’t been worried. He had been practicing for this tactic for days with his secretary, looking for angles that the democratic opposition would utilize in their attacks. McDermont would try to angle to leave Mitteleuropa and align themselves with the Entente. Cathal Bruga would say that it would enrich foreign corporations. Even his own cabinet had disagreed with him. Eoin O’Duffy wanted instead to nationalize and establish a corporate state to align toward a military build-up in confrontation with the Union, not have them waltz in under the false flag of commerce.

“We’ve already seen individual companies taking a look at Ireland. They need cash to ensure liquidity, and their nations need money from stable currencies to fix their own economies. They open subsidiaries here in Dublin, employ Irish workers, and we both enjoy the profits. The heavy industrial companies can help with our efforts to mechanize the farming sector. We’re back to running a surplus in the budget, the time for investment is now.”

“Should we really be wasting our time trying to build up civilian sectors?” Eoin O’Duffy had countered. “We’ve seen success with our mobilization efforts, and we’re seeing new ships in Belfast. We need to build our industry to manufacture rifles, artillery, and armor.”

“Then lets extend the offer to foreign arms companies.” Tom Barry had fired back. “Nothing makes profit like the arms industry.” Eoin had little to counter that, and the man sat down, humbled and silently fuming. 

“What do you have to say about those who say you’re inviting the same treatment we had under the British businesses stealing our labor, that you’re inviting a new commercial colonialism. There are those who are saying the Open For Business Initiative will just be another Chinese conession” A Sinn Fein MP, one that Collins was sure had close ties to Jim Larkin, had waited patiently 

Collins hadn’t prepared for this, but off-the-cuff, had said: “Jim Larkin’s words. I don’t need to take advice from someone who hid in America while Irish men and women fought for their independence. I’ll follow accomplishment over vague promises any day.”

The Dail erupted in a shouting match that the Master of Arms had to wait to call to order. Truth be told, the debate was a sham anyway, he had already started to send missions out. If enough of them bore fruit, then Dublin would be larger, and that would be enough to get started on the road ahead.

It wasn’t going to get any easier, after all.

---

State of the Republic, 1936

IEAA National Focus Portion

Black Monday

Jacobins Elected in France

Black Monday hits Ireland

Oswald Mosley Elected Chairman

Saorstat Brewery Opened in Munster

Harland and Wolff Shipyard

Black Monday Ends

Promoting Dublin as an Economic Capital

---

Alright, that’s the first chapter which covered 1936. Let me know what you think.

-SLAL

[golbrocklovely]

the chosen daughter // colby brock - chapter nine

A/N: hey yall sorry it’s been a hot minute since i posted a new chapter of this story. i’ve been really unmotivated to write but i’m finally in the mood again and so i finished this chapter and i plan to write out some more of some of my other stories too. so hopefully i can post another chapter soon, no guarantees tho. hope you enjoy this chapter! let me know what you think :)

story description

taglist: @far-to-many-bands , @idfk-tbh-oops , @muted-mayham , @ughwhyislifesohard , @justtanerd , @ashyoungxblood ,  @cmburgos

trigger warning: cursing, mentions of: wound, fighting, vampire powers, blood

word count: 1594

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the Caleb incident, it was hard to get back to my regular life. Staying at the Trapp Haus became a nuisance: not being able to sleep between the hours of nine P.M. to two A.M., the constant cases Sam, Colby, and Jake would take caused them to really never be home, my job being far enough away that commuting was a bitch, and the fact that Kat was staying over more frequently since her and Sam had gotten together.

I wasn't sure why but Kat was extremely standoffish towards me. Ever since we both felt that spark or shock, it's like she's tried her best to stay clear of me, which is hard to do in such a small apartment.

Plus, I've been having dreams about her. In them, I see her using powers, but not the one she has. She's almost like a witch, casting spells and saving us. We're always fighting something, but I can never tell what it is. It's always just a black blur but it kills us off, one by one, leaving me last.

So... moving out of the Trapp Haus was probably the best decision for me.

After a week of not seeing everyone, I decided I had to go back. I needed to know what was happening with Cyrus. I hadn’t seen or heard anything about him so I wondered if maybe he left, or disappeared for good.

As I entered the apartment, I saw Colby and Mike sitting on the couch. They both looked up at me, Colby standing up first. “Oh good. We were just talking about you.”

“Don’t you know when you speak of the devil, she appears?” Mike deadpanned.

I sent a glare towards Mike, turning my attention back to Colby. “What do we need to talk about?”

“Mike and I were talking, and we believe that you might be in danger.” Colby’s voice lowered.

“Like more danger than before?” I gasped.

Colby sighed, nodding his head. “Yes. There has been an overall spike of killings in the city, particularly in areas that Cyrus used to hang out in. The difference is… the bodies aren’t drained.”

“Couldn’t that just be a regular killer than and not a vampire?” I questioned.

“It’s highly unlikely. Mike checked out one of the cites earlier today and the body was torn to shreds.” Colby remarked.

“Nothing a human could do,” Mike hid a devilish smirk. “But a vampire… easily.”

“So, it has to be Cyrus. Why though?” I crossed my arms uncomfortably.

“Vampires don’t kill for the hell of it, and to waste that much blood would be stupid. So, most likely, he is putting himself into a bloodlust state. When a vampire barely feeds but keeps killing, he will begin to lose his mind. Once he picks a target and attacks, he’ll be almost unstoppable.” Mike informed.

I sputtered. “He’s doing this because of me.”

Colby moved closer to me. “He’s getting ready to kill you. So that’s why we gotta teach you how to defend yourself. How to fight.”

I took a step back. “Wait, if Cyrus is getting ready to attack me, why hasn't he yet? I've been home for over a week.”

Mike grinned, walking towards the apartment’s front door. “Colby's been watching over you. Like an emo guardian angel.”

My eyes widened, turning to Colby. “What?”

Colby glared at Mike quickly, clearing his throat. “I-um. Sam told me to. Besides, I don't really sleep at night anyway.”

“Whatever you say brother.” Mike responded, opening the door and starting down the stairs.

“Like... every night?” I whispered, glancing at Colby.

“C'mon lovebirds! We're burning daylight.” Mike laughed.

~ \/ \/ ~

“Is there a reason why you guys had to take me to an abandon warehouse?” I questioned.

I glanced around at the dirty building, some windows were smashed out or boarded up. Surprisingly there were lights in the place, but somehow the warehouse was still dark. As we walked into the center of the open space, a table with stakes and needle-less syringes sat next to a punching bag that was badly dented and taped up. Laid out on the ground was a wore-out mat.

“The apartment is too small to fight in. This is where we go to fight and practice.” Colby explained.

Mike flexed his muscles, flashing his fangs at me. “How you think we got this ripped?”

I rolled my eyes. “Right.”

Colby grabbed a stake from the table and tossed it to me. “I want you to square off against Mike. He’s extremely good at fighting, very similar to Cyrus.”

“And… you’re just gonna stand there?” I sassed.

“I’m gonna coach you. Watch what you’re doing and tell you what you can do better at.” Colby stated.

“Alright.” I took a deep breath and walked towards Mike, gripping the stake in my hand. I raised my hands up, staring Mike down.

Mike chuckled. “Come on Jade.”

He began to run at vampire speed, appearing at one random spot of the warehouse and moving to the next, slowly getting closer to me. Finally, he stopped back in front of me, smirking.

“Let’s go.”

For the next hour, Mike and I fought on and off. I would throw as many punches and kicks as I could, but Mike always had the upper hand. Being as fast as he was, it was easy for him to see my next move before even I could. I was getting more and more pissed off, I could feel my heart banging in my eardrums.

I think to some degree this was my advantage.

Mike originally was very playful in how he was fighting, seeing me as an easy target, but as we kept fighting, I could tell something was starting to get off with him. I wasn't sure what it was, but his eyes were dark. Intense.

He looked lost in thought for a moment, and this was my chance to take him.

I elbowed him in the ribcage as he wrapped his arms around my body from behind. I took my foot and put it behind his ankle, pulling him over my shoulder and flipping him onto the ground. With the stake shoved up against his chest, I stared down at him angrily.

"There!" Colby exclaimed. "You got it!"

I turned my head to Colby smiling. I exhaled deeply as I tried to catch my breath, my stance still over Mike. As I glanced back down at him, he yanked the stake out of my hand abruptly, shoving it forward into my side.

I shouted out in pain, covering my side. I fell to the ground as Mike jolted up.

"What the fuck Mike?! What was that for?" Colby hollered.

Mike shrugged. "She needs to learn to keep her eyes on who she's fighting."

"You didn't need to... hurt.. her." Colby trailed off, his voice falling to a whisper.

I stared up at the both of them, their bodies turning towards me. Mike's face changed suddenly. His eyes became crimson in color, veins slowly pulsing down from under them. His fangs extended, his mouth watering. Colby gulped, his eyes slowly doing the same.

I looked at my hand that was clutching my side, blood covering it. The slice from the stake had become a large gash, blood soaking my shirt without me even realizing it.

Mike took one step towards me. Colby grabbed his arm. "Don't."

“What do you mean 'don't'? Aren't you curious?” Mike hissed.

“About what Mike?” Colby glared at my wound, unable to move himself.

Mike retorted. “Why she smells so much better than any other human? Why her blood made Caleb stronger that night? Don't you wanna try some? Don’t you wanna know?”

Colby shook his head. “No, Mike. We're better than that.”

“Yeah but I'm really hungry. And so are you.” Mike grunted.

“Please don't.” I whimpered, trying to back away.

“Why don't we do it? Together?” Mike grabbed Colby by the shoulders. “We don't have to drain her dry, we can leave her alive and just keep getting stronger and stronger whenever we want. Come on, Colby. I know you crave her.”

Mike whipped around towards me again, smirking as he sauntered over.

"No Mike please! Stop!" I pleaded.

Colby jumped in front of Mike, his voice a demonic growl. "Snap out of it!"

He swung at Mike, fist landing into his jaw and launching Mike half way across the warehouse. Mike’s body slammed onto the ground, the noise echoing off the walls. Mike jumped up, staring Colby down.

"Leave. Get something to eat from someone willing." Colby demanded, guarding me.

Mike glanced at me for a moment and then disappeared.

I breathed heavy for a moment, unable to calm myself.

Colby suddenly moved, walking over to the table and grabbing a first aid kit. His eyes landed on mine. His face was normal again, no signs of hunger anywhere.

"Do you want me to patch you up or do you think you can do it?" He asked quietly.

"I-I can do it." I stuttered.

He nodded his head. He stepped towards me again and lightly placed the kit on the ground.

"I'll wait outside for you." Colby motioned.

"Okay." I mumbled.

A silence fell over as neither one of us moved. I exhaled and grabbed the kit as he began to walk away. As I opened it, he spoke again.

"I'm sorry. I wouldn't... have hurt you." He admitted.

I gazed up towards him, my breath suddenly gone. Then in a flash, so was he.

<< CHAPTER 8 || CHAPTER 10 >>

[wainwrightjakobshammerlock]

finally. i decided to do this. anyways hello there, i am jake and today i want to talk about something; you see, if you are in the tf2 fandom, you probably know about heavymedic. Wherther you are a hardcore gamer who resents f2p’s or a person that never played the game but has trillions of notes on their art- you know heavymedic exists and most of all you probably ship it.

And I find that weird. In the few fandoms in my life I have been in I had never seen a single ship be so widely if not shipped, then accepted. Sure, maybe everyone in the GF fandom knows what Billdip is - for better or for worse. Sure, maybe the HS fandom is 70% shipping.

But I have never ever seen such a phenomenon in a prominent multiplayer game fandom. A fandom, sadly, oftentimes filled with toxicity. Overwatch is very similar here - yet ships are either a hot topic of discussion or straight up ignored. But TF2? In here for whatever reason we ship these two mercenaries. And in this essay I will try and find a reason or two why is that.

Apologies for any mistakes or incoherency. English is not my first language, I need to ramble, and my vocabulary is all over the place.

Content warning: mentions of homophobia, blood, death, mentions of WLW fetishization, nsfw mention. Also MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR THE TF2 COMICS.

Part 1: Canonical Evidence and Interactions

Let’s be honest: I could ramble about this one for days on end. But I’ll try and keep it short.

First and foremost we have the official videos. And of course the first thing that comes to mind is Meet the Medic.

At the very start of the part where Medic himself appears, we see him telling a joke about a particularly gruesome situation to Heavy.

He laughs along with him, visibly enjoying his company. He even smiles as he waits for another joke. Heavy only shows genuine fear a lot later.

And of course this damn scene always cracks me up. Medic slightly pinches Heavy’s cheek and strokes his lip gently (the other part is almost not noticeable unless you play the video at slow speed).

Of course we all know about the Hand Hold that happens somewhere halfway in the vid. I don’t think I have to explain the gayness in that. The fact their hands stay interlocked even after Medic helps Heavy up. The deep breath Medic takes because even he cannot handle the emotions. That few seconds is unresolved sexual tension manifest.

Overall the short shows a strong feeling of trust between these two. Medic confides in Heavy and reverse. Yeah he puts a baboon heart into his friend’s chest cavity but the fact (as proven at the end of the video) that Heavy was the first one to have an Ubercharge implanted into him shows that Medic at the very least considers him a lab rat.

I treat End of the Line as non-canonical, as do many others, and as such won’t discuss it here. But it will forever crack me up that Valve endorsed such levels of homoerotic subtext.

These two have some short moments in other videos, like for example in Invasion Heavy helps Medic up (CINEMATIC PARALLELS) but it’s nothing major so I guess I’ll skip forward.

Second is their interactions ingame. You might call me a weirdo for trying to find stuff in there but holy shit I have things to say and I’m going to say them.

You thought I was going to fanboy over the “i love this doktor” voiceline huh? Well not really. I wish these two had unique lines if they assist one another.

Heavy is literally listed on the official wiki as the “ideal medic buddy” and multiple pages on that exact wiki say some pretty interesting things.

I have to say something about the Gentleman’s Ushanka and/or Pocket Medic. They are both community cosmetics - but the fact they both got accepted by Valve says a lot. Above is text snipped from the actual wiki.

Last but not least: The Comics. Darned comics. The pair of mercenaries has basically no interaction - unless you count issue 6.

Heavy getting absolutely PISSED when Medic is killed by Ch*avy. Their reunion. Medic referring to Heavy by “my friend” in a totally straight way. Kind of sad Valve wasted an opportunity for them to hug. Maybe they knew their comic artist ships them and wanted to avoid having to answer the Question™.

Part 2: Dynamics

This part’s a bit trickier, mostly due to the reason that I’m new to this whole dynamic analysis thing. Yeah I’m good at spotting canonical evidence but very specific shipping dynamics often escape my gaze.

The most obvious one is Big Guy, Little Guy. Quoting the TVTROPES page:

[…] This trope describes a pair of guys who always fight together, are best friends forever, and quite often have a very obvious hierarchy: The little guy is often in charge […] The little guy is usually listed first, since he’s the leader, and they are always listed together, as if they are one entity. In fact, some episodes may center on the fact that they can’t live without each other. […] If this is a case of Brains and Brawn, the Big Guy is usually the Brawn, and the Little Guy the Brains. It’s almost never the other way around, but in some cases the Big Guy can be rather smart too. […]

A sub-type of this, a common favorite here on Tumblr is known as “small chaotic big calm” and hoo boy if that isn’t these two. I don’t really have much to say here - again I am not an expert.

Part 3: Fandom Impact

So you don’t think Red Oktoberfest (as Heavymedic is sometimes called) is super popular on anywhere else than Tumblr? Wrong.

It’s hard to find TF2 fics on Archive of Our Own not tagged with Heavy/Medic. Of course most of them only contain hints to their relationship but go in the main tf2 tag and I can guarantee you, you’ll gonna see “implied heavy/medic” all the time.

But these two go further than AO3 or Tumblr or Instagram or whatever. They are recognized even within the wider circle of the fanbase. Take this SFM, for example. (I am using the Saxxy Awards version of Secret Lives here mostly due to the fact that the Heavymedic moment is much gayer. In the normal version, the dialogue isn’t changed, but they simply hold hands.)

But it gets deeper. (WARNING: THE GAY MOMENT IN THIS ONE IS NSFW. NOT EXPLICITLY SO BUT JUST A HEADS UP TUMBLR PLEASE DO NOT FLAG ME)

And the best part? The comments are extremely positive. You’d expect hoards upon hoards of homophobes screeching but no, the comments are supportive. Even on places such as Reddit or Youtube, comments like “yeah they’re gay and in love” do not get downvoted/disliked to hell; in fact the opposite.

Part 4: Canon Status

Let’s be real. Most ships are shipped because people want to explore the dynamics in fanfic, fanart or something else. But Heavymedic is shipped because… well, I have no idea.

Actually, I kind of do - but only theories. You see, while the canonical evidence is here, the creators have never said anything about them. No confirmation, no disproval, no hinting, nothing.

But the ship is so prominent! There has to be something causing this!- you say. And to that I present you 2 theories on why Heavy/Medic is so popular.

Theory number 1 states that we simply all choose to interpret their interactions as homoerotic. And this is very easy to disprove - there’s simply no way we just collectively agreed on these matters out of nothing. There has to be something bigger.

And theory 2 states that, well, our interpretation is the desired interpretation. But this is even more ridiculous than theory 1 for a number of reasons. If they are in fact gay, why hasn’t Valve made them canon yet?

A Theoretical Scenario

I am going to ramble big time on this one, so buckle up lads. I’ll discuss a theoretical scenario in which, well, if that was not obvious, Valve confirms Heavymedic as canon. Maybe then we will see why they will probably never do so.

TF2 is considered by typical capital G, alt-right Gamers as a “non-political” game. This means no women (in the game itself, at least, and if even, sexy women only), no queer folk and no minorities (for some reason they accept Demoman but throw a fit if someone draws any other merc as not being pearl white). Team Fortress 2 was around before Gamergate and other things like Gamers Rise Up. It’s a classic and Valve is regarded as the good guy to Epic Game’s bad guy. If Valve did anything to confirm doubts, wherther it be clearing up popular fanon or confirming ships, these people would throw hands. (Although they seemed to ignore when one of the writers confirmed Miss Pauling is a lesbian. Huh.) Even those that don’t play TF2 would come to the aid of their bros.

Let me illustrate with two very similar examples. In both cases these confirmations were the first made by the company as a whole, both are fairly recent and both confirm a character as gay.

First we have the confirmation of Tracer from Overwatch as a lesbian. It was done in one of OVW’s comics. Tracer is the FACE of Overwatch as a whole and while most of the fanbase accepted it (thankfully the Gamers are reluctant to infest ow), some people threw what I can only describe as a hissy fit. At least her girlfriend’s a background character.

Second is Neeko from League of Legends. Unlike Tracer she was added a while before it was confirmed she was gay. LOL is much more toxic and filled with Gamers than OW and holy shit people smeared LOL so much.

Of course these are not accurate to Heavy/Medic. In both of the cases I listed it was girls being wlw and we all know how much cisgender heterosexual gamers LOVE yuri porn. Apparently only girls can be gay because they can jack off to it - if it’s two guys then it’s disgusting. Nevertheless I think these are good approximations - in every case the company gets “shat on” on social media and other sites. With the community that Valve has, I think even if they wanted them to be gay, they would never ever confirm it.

Conclusion

I’m sorry for that ending. I had to theorize a bit. Regardless I’d love if you shared this on other sites, reblogged or whatever - I wasted at least 1 and a half hours of my life on it. Feel free to cite this as a source if someone asks you why you ship the big heavy weapons expert and the feral battle medic.

[dxmedstudent]

From the total female populations of London and Cambridge – the cities between which he split his time – Seagull selected those roughly his age and up to 10 years younger. Then he reduced that group to the proportion that were likely to be university educated, to reflect the reality of his networks, as a school maths teacher and doctorate student.Then came a harder parameter: what fraction Seagull might find attractive. After going through his Facebook friends list, he found 1,200 women who met his criteria for age, location and education – and of one in every 20, he says he thought that he “could imagine us, in another life”.

I find these kinds of things interesting. The formula makes sense - there’s a finite number of people in your geographical area who might meet your criteria, and  you’ll probably like a small number of those; some of whom might like you back. He decides only about 70 or so people meet his criteria. Which seems... a little low. A lot of commenters found his age criteria problematic. Would a 22 year old woman really have as much in common with him as a woman a couple of months older? People often try to cite pseudoscience on this count; that men want young and fertile women, but most women are fertile and interested in having kids well into their 30s and often 40s. In reality most people end up with a partner of a similar age to them, and there’s a lot of variation between people. I have to admit, I was wary of guys who refused to date women even a little older than them, and those who refused to date women their age were a definite ‘no’ - can any man actully tell that a woman is  2 or 3 years older than him by her looks or actions? No, so why would it be something that prevents attraction or compatibility. There’s something sexist behind thinking like that which I can’t get behind. Most of us want people at a similar life stage to us, but to me, if someone has a very fixed idea of what they find attractive, that inflexibility is itself a problem. I’m not going to be in my early 30s forever, and I want a partner who doesn’t feel that only women in a narrow age range are interesting. Likewise, I’m not obese, but I wouldn’t want  a man who can’t see bigger women as attractive. I’d want to know that if I gained weight, he would love me for who I was; I know I’d do the same. And also if a man stated he’s only into caucasian women; I’d be wary. I wanted to be with someone who would consider and value others for who they are and who can see beauty in all sorts of people, not just conventionally attractive young women, even if I happen to be one. I don’t want a partner who doesn’t see other women as people. That said, it drives home that even if you’re on a dating site with thousands of people, the ones that meet your criteria will be a small proprotion. That’s why it’s important to consider your criteria carefully. Are they reasonable? Are they really non-negotiable? For example, I can’t stand smoking and wouldn’t date someone politically conservative, but didn’t really think about height and weight. Yes, I think it really is a bit too picky to only date a guy if he’s tall or well-built. Yes, people have preferences, but the less we let ourselves be blinded by preconceptions, the more likely we are not to miss someone special because they didn’t meet a criterion that doesn’t really matter. Pick your criteria carefully.

This is where optimal-stopping theory can come into play, identifying the point in a process at which to stop for best results – and here the magic number, says Seagull, is 37%. Say he wanted to be in a relationship by the age of 40, and was prepared to commit to going on two dates a week, for 50 weeks of the year, for five years: 500 dates total. Optimal-stopping theory would have Seagull go on 185 dates – taking him the best part of two years – then, armed with the insights he gained along the way, pursue the woman he liked best from the 186th on.“You don’t know at what stage in these 500 dates you will meet your most suited person, and you’re probably going to miss them – but mathematically, this is how you can settle better.“This is where you really need to trust the maths – you might think that the first person you meet is amazing, but you’ve got to get through the first 185. If we simulated our lives a million times, the person that you would date best would still be after 185.”

But where do these numbers come from? Optimal stopping theories basically suggests you need to work out how many people you want to date before you settle down, then dating X number before you settle on the first one who meets your criteria. Now, that gives you a bit of experience and an idea of what you want, but dealing with people isn’t like picking dice out of a bag. You can’t tell when someone nice will come up. In real life, some people spend happy 50 year marriages with the first person they dated, or the 5th, or the 27th. You aren’t guaranteed to find a good date after 185 that you liked as much as date 1 - maths suggesting you’d be likely to make a statistically good match can’t necessarily factor in that you might miss better matches in your earlier dates. So it makes no sense to throw over dates you like early on in the hope that later on you’ll probably like someone else just as much, or they might be better. By the time you reach your number, anyone you liked from the previous 185 dates will probably have paired up and moved on, so it’s not like you can always go back to people you thought were nice. It seems more sensible to treat each person as a person; if you like them, stick around and see.

Now 35 and still single, Seagull has continued his investigation into “making the maths of love work for you” in his book, The Life-Changing Magic of Numbers, as well as on dates....

I am surprised to learn that he has only been on seven or eight dates since doing Drake’s equation a few years ago. Maybe his mum was right when, on seeing his formula, she told him he was being ridiculous, and “to go out and meet people”.“I’m terrible,” he admits. “I leave a long gap between dates. After a date, if you didn’t have a good time, you feel despondent. I had another date, where I liked her and she didn’t like me. As a human, you get upset. That’s why scientists trust the maths: keep going.”

Lots of commenters point this out, and are a little cruel about the fact that even with his formula, he’s still single. OK, it’s pretty obvious that if your entire strategy is ‘go on lots of dates’ and you don’t then you will fail. But I’d like to propose that there needs to be a balance between quantity and quality. On the one hand, talking to a few people at a time means that he wouldn’t get so despondent if one person didn’t fancy him, because it would take the pressure off any one particular prospective date. When you go on few dates, it’s easier to feel rejected. And dating has a lot of rejection; because the odds of hitting it off with any one particular person are low. So you need to try to meet more people to increase the likelihood of finding someone with whom you share chemistry. Dating experience is very useful; it teaches you a lot about what you like and what you don’t, and what chemistry feels like. It’s fun. When I was dating around, I had some criteria I wouldn’t compromise on, but if a guy seemed decent and could hold an interesting convo, I tried to meet them. I had interesting conversations with all of them; I can’t really say I had any awkard or ‘horrible’ dates’; I guess  I selected for men who seemed smart and able to hold a conversation. After a date, I’d reflect before deciding I wouldn’t meet them again. Not only to make sure I wasn’t rejecting someone I got on well with, but also to see what I’d learned. I’m not always a ‘lust at first sight’ person, so the idea of rejecting people quickly seemed harsh. Sometimes you grow to like people after getting to know them a little. With the guy I’m currently seeing, I knew I’d want to see him again from the moment I saw him, but our first date almost didn’t feel like a first date because our messaging went really well. That was the only date I was nervous before, because I liked him before we met and I really hoped there’d be something there. Which is partly why I think people should engage with the process earnestly; if I’d just sent a couple of cursory messages before each of my dates before meeing, I feel I’d have had much less interesting converstions, and felt less attracted to people.

Like the Drake equation, online dating can present you only with a pool of suitable partners you could potentially meet. Attraction must be assessed in person, “and there is no formula for that”, says Seagull. Or at least not yet, he adds; he is confident that machine-learning technology will eventually be able “to read your mood, your mind … and detect bits of our personality” to predict the presence of that elusive spark.In decades to come, it may even be possible to simulate dates the same way that it is football matches now, modelling every variable – although, Seagull says, probably not soon enough to be of any use to him.

Oh, this is depressing. Would I really want AI to decide who I might be attracted to? Can we really trust an algorithm to predict who we’d feel chemistry  for? I mean, research suggests some of the chemistry is biological (see: BO and attraction). It’s frustrating when you go on a date and there’s no chemistry, but part of the fun is knowing you’ve picked someone yourself, and that they picked you. Sure, using criteria to help you sort can be useful, but you don’t want to be too prescriptive.

Honestly, I just found engaging anyone who had an interesting profile and was fun to chat with was the best way. The only way to meet people is just to start and see how it goes.

[kkintle]

The Art of the Good Life by Rolf Dobelli; Quotes

Is it better to actively seek happiness or to avoid unhappiness?

Living a good life has a lot to do with interpreting facts in a constructive way.

That money can’t buy happiness is a truism, and I’d certainly advise you not to get worked into a lather over incremental differences in price. If a beer’s two dollars more expensive than usual or two dollars cheaper, it elicits no emotional response in me whatsoever. I save my energy rather than my money. After all, the value of my stock portfolio fluctuates every minute by significantly more than two dollars, and if the Dow Jones falls by a thousandth of a percent, that doesn’t faze me either. Try it for yourself. Come up with a similar number, a modest sum to which you’re completely indifferent—money you consider not so much money as white noise. You don’t lose anything by adopting that attitude, and certainly not your inner poise.

The most common misunderstanding I encounter is that the good life is a stable state or condition. Wrong. The good life is only achieved through constant readjustment.

As the American general—and later president—Dwight Eisenhower said, “Plans are nothing. Planning is everything.” It’s not about having a fixed plan, it’s about repeated re-planning—an ongoing process.

The truth is that you begin with one set-up and then constantly adjust it. The more complicated the world becomes, the less important your starting point is. So don’t invest all your resources into the perfect set-up—at work or in your personal life. Instead, practice the art of correction by revising the things that aren’t quite working—swiftly and without feeling guilty.

First: constantly having to make new decisions situation by situation saps your willpower. Decision fatigue is the technical term for this. A brain exhausted by decision-making will plump for the most convenient option, which more often than not is also the worst one. This is why pledges make so much sense. Once you’ve pledged something, you don’t then have to weigh up the pros and cons each and every time you’re faced with a decision. It’s already been made for you, saving you mental energy.

The second reason inflexibility is so valuable has to do with reputation. By being consistent on certain topics, you signal where you stand and establish the areas where there’s no room for negotiation. You communicate self-mastery, making yourself less vulnerable to attack.

So say good-bye to the cult of flexibility. Flexibility makes you unhappy and tired, and it distracts you from your goals. Chain yourself to your pledges. Uncompromisingly. It’s easier to stick to your pledges 100 percent of the time rather than 99 percent.

Very few people simply accept reality and analyze their own flight recorders. This requires precisely two things: a) radical acceptance and b) black box thinking. First one, then the other.

“Nothing is more fatiguing nor, in the long run, more exasperating than the daily effort to believe things which daily become more incredible. To be done with this effort is an indispensable condition of sure and lasting happiness,” wrote mathematician and Nobel Prize winner Bertrand Russell.

Accepting reality is easy when you like what you see, but you’ve got to accept it even when you don’t—especially when you don’t. 

By themselves, radical acceptance and black box thinking are not enough. You’ve got to rectify your mistakes. Get future-proofing. As Warren Buffett’s business partner Charlie Munger has observed, “If you won’t attack a problem while it’s solvable and wait until it’s unfixable, you can argue that you’re so damn foolish that you deserve the problem.” Don’t wait for the consequences to unfold. “If you don’t deal with reality, then reality will deal with you,” warns author Alex Haley.

A basic rule of the good life is as follows: if it doesn’t genuinely contribute something, you can do without it. And that is doubly true for technology. Next time, try switching on your brain instead of reaching for the nearest gadget.

“There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no bold old pilots.”

Pros win points; amateurs lose points. This means that if you’re playing against an amateur, your best option is to focus on not making any mistakes. Play conservatively, and keep the ball in play as long as possible. Unless your opponent is deliberately playing equally conservatively, he or she will make more mistakes than you do. In amateur tennis, matches aren’t won—they’re lost.

disease, disabilities, divorce. However, countless studies have shown that the impact of these factors dissipates more quickly than we imagine.

It’s not what you add that enriches your life—it’s what you omit.

Because our emotions are so unreliable, a good rule of thumb is to take them less seriously—especially the negative ones. The Greek philosophers called this ability to block things out ataraxia, a term meaning serenity, peace of mind, equanimity, composure or imperturbability. A master of ataraxia will maintain his or her poise despite the buffets of fate. One level higher is apatheia, the total eradication of feeling (also attempted by the ancient Greeks). Both—ataraxia and apatheia—are ideals virtually impossible to attain, but don’t worry: I’m not asking you to try. I do, however, believe we need to cultivate a new relationship with our inner voices, one distanced, skeptical and playful.

So take other people’s feelings very seriously, but not your own. Let them flit through you—they’ll come and go anyway, just as they please.

People are respected because they deliver on their promises, not because they let us eavesdrop on their inner monologs.

Two thousand years ago, the Roman philosopher Seneca wrote: “All those who summon you to themselves, turn you away from your own self.” So give the five-second no a trial run. It’s one of the best rules of thumb for a good life.

It’s called the focusing illusion. “Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it,” as Daniel Kahneman explains. The more narrowly we focus on a particular aspect of our lives, the greater its apparent influence. 

Take the longest possible view of your life. Realize that the things that seemed so important in the moment have shrunk to the size of dots—dots that barely affect the overall picture. A good life is only attainable if you take the occasional peek through a wide-angle lens.

By focusing on trivialities, you’re wasting your good life.

As you can see, if it’s the good life you’re after then it’s advisable to show restraint about what you buy. That said, there is a class of “goods” whose enjoyment is not diminished by the focusing illusion: experiences.

Material progress was not reflected in increased life satisfaction. This revelation has been termed the Easterlin paradox: once basic needs have been met, incremental financial gain contributes nothing to happiness.

Money is relative. Not just in comparison to others, but in comparison to your past.

Buffett’s life motto: “Know your circle of competence, and stick within it. The size of that circle is not very important; knowing its boundaries, however, is vital.” Charlie Munger adds: “Each of you will have to figure out where your talent lies. And you’ll have to use your advantages. But if you try to succeed in what you’re worst at, you’re going to have a very lousy career. I can almost guarantee it.”

“Expect anything worthwhile to take a really long time”

What matters is that you’re far above average in at least one area—ideally, the best in the world. Once that’s sorted, you’ll have a solid basis for a good life. A single outstanding skill trumps a thousand mediocre ones. Every hour invested into your circle of competence is worth a thousand spent elsewhere.

“You don’t have to be brilliant,” as Charlie Munger says, “only a little bit wiser than the other guys, on average, for a long, long time.”

“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous break-down is the belief that one’s work is terribly important,” wrote Bertrand Russell. This is precisely the danger of a calling: that you take yourself and your work too seriously. If, like John Kennedy Toole, you pin everything on the fulfilment of your supposed vocation, you cannot live a good life. If Toole had viewed his writing not as his only possible calling but simply as a craft for which he happened to have a special knack, he would probably not have ended up as he did. You can pursue a craft with love, of course, and even with a touch of obsession, but your focus should always be on the activity, the work, the input—not on the success, the result, the output.

So, what to do? Don’t listen to your inner voice. A calling is nothing but a job you’d like to have. In the Romantic sense it doesn’t exist; there is only talent and preference. Build on the skills you actually have, not on some putative sense of vocation. Luckily, the skills we’ve mastered are often the things we enjoy doing. One important aside: other people have also got to value your talents. You’ve got to put food on the table somehow. As the English philosopher John Gray put it: “Few people are as unhappy as those with a talent no one cares about.”

So liberate yourself. Here’s three reasons why you should. First, you’ll be spared the emotional roller coaster. In the long run, you can’t manage your reputation perfectly anyway. Warren Buffett cites Gianni Agnelli, the former boss of Fiat: “When you get old, you have the reputation you deserve.” You can fool other people for a while, but not a lifetime. Second, concentrating on prestige and reputation distorts our perception of what makes us truly happy. And third, it stresses us out. It’s detrimental to the good life.

That’s why one of my golden rules for leading a good life is as follows: “Avoid situations in which you have to change other people.”

Without memory, the experience is perceived as entirely valueless. This is surprising, and it makes no sense. Surely it’s better to experience something wonderful than not—regardless of whether you remember it. After all, in the moment you’ll be having a fabulous time! And once we’re dead, you and I will forget everything anyway—because there’ll no longer be any “you” or any “I.” If death is going to erase your memories, how important is it to schlep them with you until your very final moment?

So don’t be surprised when somebody else judges you “incorrectly.” You do the same yourself. A realistic self-image can only be gleaned from someone who’s known you well for years and who’s not afraid to be honest—your partner or an old friend. Even better, keep a diary and dip back into it every now and again. You’ll be amazed at the things you used to write. Part of the good life is seeing yourself as realistically as possible—contradictions, shortcomings, dark sides and all. If you see yourself realistically, you’ve got a much better chance of becoming who you want to be.

I’m sure you recognize the sentiment: “When I’m on my deathbed, looking back on my life…” A magnificently lofty idea, but rather nonsensical in practice. For a start, almost no one is that lucid when they’re on their deathbed. The three main doors into the afterlife are heart attack, stroke and cancer. In the first two cases, you won’t have time for philosophical reflection. In most cases of cancer, you’ll be so stuffed to the gunnels with painkillers that you won’t be able to think straight. Nor do those afflicted with dementia or Alzheimer’s achieve any new insights on their deathbeds. And even if you do have the time and wherewithal in your final moments to reminisce, your memories won’t (as we saw in the previous three chapters) correspond fully to reality. Your remembering self produces systematic errors. It tells tall tales.

“If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.”

Not getting bogged down in self-pity is a golden rule of mental health. Accept the fact that life isn’t perfect—yours or anyone else’s. As the Roman philosopher Seneca said, “Things will get thrown at you and things will hit you. Life’s no soft affair.” What point is there in “being unhappy, just because once you were unhappy”? If you can do something to mitigate the current problems in your life, then do it. If you can’t, then put up with the situation. Complaining is a waste of time, and self-pity is doubly counterproductive: first, you’re doing nothing to overcome your unhappiness; and two, you’re adding to your original unhappiness the further misery of being self-destructive. Or, to quote Charlie Munger’s “iron prescription”: “Whenever you think that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it is actually you who are ruining your life… Feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life.”

Plato and Aristotle both believed that people should be as temperate, courageous, just and prudent as possible.

The circle of dignity draws together your individual pledges and protects them from three forms of attack: a) better arguments; b) mortal danger; and c) deals with the Devil.

Is it worth the price? That’s the wrong question. By definition, things that are invaluable have no price. “If an individual has not discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live,” said Martin Luther King. Certainly not to live the good life.

If you don’t make it clear on the outside what you believe deep down, you gradually turn into a puppet. Other people exploit you for their own purposes, and sooner or later, you give up. You don’t fight any more. You don’t hold up to stresses. Your willpower atrophies. If you break on the outside, at some point you’ll break on the inside too.

Your circle of dignity, the protective wall that surrounds your pledges, can only be tested under fire. You might lay claim to high ideals, noble principles and distinctive preferences, but it’s not until you come to defend them that you will “cry with happiness,” to paraphrase Stockdale. 

Say you’re in a meeting and somebody starts going for you, really getting vitriolic. Ask them to repeat what they’ve said word for word. You’ll soon see that, most of the time, your attacker will fold.

For most people, the circle of dignity is not a matter of life and death but a battle to maintain the upper hand. Make it as hard as possible for your assailants. Keep the reins in your hand as long as possible when it comes to the things you hold sacred. If you have to give up, then do so in a way that makes your opponent pay the highest practicable price for your capitulation. There’s tremendous power in this commitment. It’s one of the keys to a good life.

One: fetch a notebook and title it My Big Book of Worries. Set aside a fixed time to dedicate to your anxieties. In practical terms, this means reserving ten minutes a day to jot down everything that’s worrying you—no matter how justified, idiotic or vague. Once you’ve done so, the rest of the day will be relatively worry-free. Your brain knows its concerns have been recorded and not simply ignored. Do this every day, turning to a fresh page each time. You’ll realize, incidentally, that it’s always the same dozen or so worries tormenting you. At the weekend, read through the week’s notes and follow the advice of Bertrand Russell: “When you find yourself inclined to brood on anything, no matter what, the best plan always is to think about it even more than you naturally would, until at last its morbid fascination is worn off.” In practical terms, this means imagining the worst possible consequences and forcing yourself to think beyond them. You’ll discover that most concerns are overblown. The rest are genuine dangers, and those must be confronted. Two: take out insurance. Insurance policies are a marvelous invention. They’re among the most elegant worry-killers. Their true value is not the monetary pay-out when there’s a problem but the reduced anxiety beforehand. Three: focused work is the best therapy against brooding. Focused, fulfilling work is better than meditation. It’s a better distraction than anything else. If you use these three strategies, you’ll have a real chance of living a carefree life—a good life. Then perhaps even in your younger years or, at least, in middle age, you’ll be able to chuckle over Mark Twain’s late-in-life insight: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

The Greek and Roman philosophers known as the Stoics recommended the following trick to sweep away worry: determine what you can influence and what you can’t. Address the former. Don’t let the latter prey on your mind.

Not always feeling like you need to have an opinion calms the mind and makes you more relaxed—an ingredient vital to a good life.

First: accept the existence of fate. In Boethius’s day, people liked to personify fate as Fortuna, a goddess who turned the Wheel of Fortune, in which highs and lows were endlessly rotated. Those who played along, hoping to catch the wheel as it rose, had to accept that eventually they would come down once more. So don’t be too concerned about whether you’re ascending or descending. It could all be turned on its head.

Second: everything you own, value and love is ephemeral—your health, your partner, your children, your friends, your house, your money, your homeland, your reputation, your status. Don’t set your heart on those things. Relax, be glad if fate grants them to you, but always be aware that they are fleeting, fragile and temporary. The best attitude to have is that all of them are on loan to you, and may be taken away at any time. By death, if nothing else.

Third: if you, like Boethius, have lost many things or even everything, remember that the positive has outweighed the negative in your life (or you wouldn’t be complaining) and that all sweet things are tinged with bitterness. Whining is misplaced.

Four: what can’t be taken from you are your thoughts, your mental tools, the way you interpret bad luck, loss and setbacks. You can call this space your mental fortress—a piece of freedom that can never be assailed.

Stop comparing yourself to other people and you’ll enjoy an envy-free existence. Steer well clear of all comparisons. That’s the golden rule.

So wisdom isn’t identical with the accumulation of knowledge. Wisdom is a practical ability. It’s a measure of the skill with which we navigate life. Once you’ve come to realize that virtually all difficulties are easier to avoid than to solve, the following simple definition will be self-evident: “Wisdom is prevention.”

The fact is, life is hard. Problems rain down on all sides. Fate opens pitfalls beneath your feet and throws up barriers to block your path. You can’t change that. But if you know where danger lurks, you can ward it off. You can evade all sorts of obstacles. Einstein put it this way: “A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it.” 

Wisdom is prevention. It’s invisible, so you can’t show it off—but preening isn’t conducive to a good life anyway. You know that already.

if you want to help reduce suffering on the planet, donate money. Just money. Not time. Money. Don’t travel to conflict zones unless you’re an emergency doctor, bomb-disposal expert or diplomat. Many people fall for the volunteer’s folly—they believe there’s a point to voluntary work. In reality, it’s a waste. Your time is more meaningfully invested in your circle of competence, because it’s there that you’ll generate the most value per day. If you’re installing water pumps in the Sahara, you’re doing work that local well-diggers could carry out for a fraction of the cost. Plus, you’re taking work away from them. Let’s say you could dig one well per day as a volunteer. If you spent that day working at your office and used the money you earned to pay local well-diggers, by the end of the day you’d have a hundred new wells. Sure, volunteering makes you feel good, but it shouldn’t be about that. And that warm Good Samaritan glow is based on a fallacy. The first-rate specialists on site (Médecins Sans Frontières, the Red Cross, UNICEF, etc.) will put your donations to more effective use than you could yourself. So work hard and put your money in the hands of professionals.

you’re not responsible for the state of the world. It sounds harsh and unsympathetic, but it’s the truth. Nobel Prize winner in physics Richard Feynman was told much the same thing by John von Neumann, the brilliant mathematician and “father of computing”: “[John] von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann’s advice. It’s made me a very happy man ever since.” What Feynman means by “social irresponsibility” is this: don’t feel bad for concentrating on your work instead of building hospitals in Africa. There’s no reason to feel guilty that you happen to be better off than a bombing victim in Aleppo—your situations could easily be reversed. Lead an upright, productive life, and don’t be a monster. Follow that advice and you’ll already be contributing to a better world. The upshot? Find a strategy to help you cope with global atrocities. It doesn’t have to be one I’ve suggested here, but it is important to have a plan. Otherwise getting through life will be tough. You’ll be constantly torn between the things that still have to be done, you’ll feel guilty—and ultimately you’ll accomplish nothing with that burden.

Four: be aware that focus cannot be divided. It’s not like time and money. The attention you’re giving your Facebook stream on your mobile phone is attention you’re taking away from the person sitting opposite. Five: act from a position of strength, not weakness. When people bring things to your attention unasked, you’re automatically in a position of weakness. Why should an advertiser, a journalist or a Facebook friend decide where you direct your focus? That Porsche advert, article about the latest Trump tweet or video clip of hilariously adorable puppies is probably not something that’s going to make you happy or move you forwards. Even without an Instagram account, the philosopher Epictetus came to a similar conclusion two thousand years ago: ‘If a person gave your body to any stranger he met on his way, you would certainly be angry. And do you feel no shame in handing over your own mind to be confused and mystified by anyone who happens to verbally attack you?’

What does focus have to do with happiness? Everything. “Your happiness is determined by how you allocate your attention,” wrote Paul Dolan. The same life events (positive or negative) can influence your happiness strongly, weakly or not at all—depending on how much attention you give them. Essentially, you always live where your focus is directed, no matter where the atoms of your body are located. Each moment comes only once. If you deliberately focus your attention, you’ll get more out of life. Be critical, strict and careful when it comes to your intake of information—no less critical, strict and careful than you are with your food or medication.

Avoid ideologies and dogmas at all cost—especially if you’re sympathetic to them. Ideologies are guaranteed to be wrong. They narrow your worldview and prompt you to make appalling decisions.

When you meet someone showing signs of a dogmatic infection, ask them this question: “Tell me what specific facts you’d need in order to give up your worldview.” If they don’t have an answer, keep that person at arm’s length. You should ask yourself the same question, for that matter, if you suspect you’ve strayed too far into dogma territory.

imagine you’re on a TV talk show with five other guests, all of whom hold the opposite conviction from yours. Only when you can argue their views at least as eloquently as your own will you truly have earned your opinion.

think independently, don’t be too faithful to the party line, and above all give dogmas a wide berth. The quicker you understand that you don’t understand the world, the better you’ll understand the world.

In several studies, Dan Gilbert, Timothy Wilson and their research colleagues have shown that mental subtraction increases happiness significantly more markedly than simply focusing on the positives. The Stoics figured this out two thousand years ago: instead of thinking about all the things you don’t yet have, consider how much you’d miss the things you do have if you didn’t have them any longer.

Speculation is more agreeable than realization. As long as you’re still weighing up your options, the risk of failure is nil; once you take action, however, that risk is always greater than zero. This is why reflection and commentary are so popular. If you’re simply thinking something over, you’ll never bump up against reality, which means you can never fail. Act, however, and suddenly failure is back on the cards—but you’ll gain new experiences. “Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted,” as the saying goes.

the next time you’re about to make an important decision, mull it over carefully—but only to the point of maximum deliberation. You’ll be surprised how quickly you reach it. Once you’re there, flick off your torch and switch on your floodlight. It’s as useful in the workplace as it is in the home, whether you’re investing in your career or in your love life.

No matter how extraordinary your accomplishments might be, the truth is that they would have happened without you. Your personal impact on the world is minute. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are—as a businessperson, an academic, a CEO, a general or a president; in the great scheme of things you’re insignificant, unnecessary and interchangeable. The only place where you can really make a difference is in your own life. Focus on your own surroundings. You’ll soon see that getting to grips with that is ambitious enough. Why take it upon yourself to change the world? Spare yourself the disappointment.

Not believing too much in your own self-importance is one of the most valuable strategies for a good life.

The upshot? There is no just plan for the world. Part of the good life is to radically accept that. Focus on your garden—on your own everyday life—and you’ll find enough weeds to keep you busy. The things that happen to you across the course of your life, especially the more serious blows of fate, have little to do with whether you’re a good or a bad person. So accept unhappiness and misfortune with stoicism and calm. Treat incredible success and strokes of luck exactly the same.

“There’s an infinite number of winners,” Kevin Kelly has said, “as long as you’re not trying to win somebody else’s race.”

The upshot? Try to escape the arms race dynamic. It’s difficult to recognize, because each individual step seems reasonable when considered on its own. So retreat every so often from the field of battle and observe it from above. Don’t fall victim to the madness. An arms race is a succession of Pyrrhic victories, and your best bet is to steer clear. You’ll only find the good life where people aren’t fighting over it.

As Warren Buffett says, “It’s better to be approximately right than precisely wrong.”

Constantly distinguish between “I have to have it,” “I want to have it” and “I expect it.” The first phrase represents a necessity, the second a desire (a preference, a goal) and the third an expectation.

Seeing desires as musts will only make you a grumpy, unpleasant person to be around. And no matter how intelligent you are, it will make you act like an idiot. The sooner you can erase supposed necessities from your repertoire, the better.

A life without goals is a wasted life. Yet we mustn’t be shackled to them. Be aware that not all your desires will be satisfied, because so much lies beyond your control.

The Greek philosophers had a wonderful expression for the things we want: preferred indifferents (indifferent here in the sense of insignificant). So I might have a preference (e.g., I’d prefer a Porsche to a VW Golf), but ultimately it’s insignificant to my happiness.

Bearing Sturgeon’s law in mind will improve your life. It’s an excellent mental tool because it “allows” you to pass over most of what you see, hear or read without feeling guilty. The world is full of empty words, but you don’t need to listen. That said, don’t try to cleanse the world of nonsense. You won’t succeed. The world can stay irrational longer than you can stay sane. So concentrate on being selective, on the few valuable things, and leave everything else aside.

Recognize bullshit for what it is. Oh, and one other rule, which in my experience has proved well founded: if you’re not sure whether something is bullshit, it’s bullshit.

One: self-importance requires energy. If you think overly highly of yourself, you have to operate a transmitter and a radar simultaneously. On the one hand, you’re broadcasting your self-image out into the world; on the other, you’re permanently registering how your environment responds. Save yourself the effort. Switch off your transmitter and your radar, and focus on your work. In concrete terms, this means don’t be vain, don’t name-drop, and don’t brag about your amazing successes.

the more self-important you are, the more speedily you’ll fall for the self-serving bias. You’ll start doing things not to achieve a specific goal but to make yourself look good. You often see the self-serving bias among investors. They buy stocks in glamorous hotels or sexy tech companies—not because they’re solid investments but because they want to enhance their own image. On top of this, people who think highly of themselves tend to systematically overestimate their knowledge and abilities (this is termed overconfidence), leading to grave errors in decision-making.

If you stress your own importance, you do so at the expense of other people’s, because otherwise it would devalue your relative position. Once you’re successful, if not before, other people who are equally full of themselves will shit on you. Not a good life.

As you can see, your ego is more antagonist than friend.

Stay modest. You’ll improve your life by several orders of magnitude. Self-esteem is so easy that anyone can do it; modesty, on the other hand, may be tough, but at least it’s more compatible with reality. And it calms your emotional wave pool. Self-importance has developed into a malady of civilization. We’ve got our teeth into our egos like a dog into an old shoe. Let the shoe go. It has no nutritional value, and it’ll soon taste rotten.

definitions of success are products of their time.

Once you’ve attained ataraxia—tranquility of the soul—you’ll be able to maintain your equanimity despite the slings and arrows of fate. To put it another way, to be successful is to be imperturbable, regardless of whether you’re flying high or crash landing. How can we achieve inner success? By focusing exclusively on the things we can influence and resolutely blocking out everything else. Input, not output. Our input we can control; our output we can’t, because chance keeps sticking its oar in.

“Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

Whichever way you look at it, the truth is that people desire external gain because it nets them internal gain. The question that suggests itself is obvious: why take the long way round? Just take the direct route.

“It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.” (Munger, Charlie: Wesco Annual Report 1989.)

authors Minkyung Koo, Sara B. Algoe, Timothy D. Wilson and Daniel T. Gilbert write: “Having a wonderful spouse, watching one’s team win the World Series, or getting an article accepted in a top journal are all positive events, and reflecting on them may well bring a smile; but that smile is likely to be slighter and more fleeting with each passing day, because as wonderful as these events may be, they quickly become familiar—and they become more familiar each time one reflects on them. Indeed, research shows that thinking about an event increases the extent to which it seems familiar and explainable.” 

“Charlie realizes that it is difficult to find something that is really good. So, if you say ‘No’ ninety percent of the time, you’re not missing much in the world.” (Otis Booth on Charlie Munger, In: Munger, Charlie: Poor Charlie’s Almanack, Donning, 2008, p. 99).

“You’ll do better if you have passion for something in which you have aptitude. If Warren had gone into ballet, no one would have heard of him.”

They were all things that were simply a matter of deciding whether you were going to be that kind of person or not… Always hang around people better than you and you’ll float up a little bit. Hang around with the other kind and you start sliding down the pole.” (Warren Buffett quoted in: Lowe, Janet: Warren Buffett Speaks: Wit and Wisdom from the World’s Greatest Investor, John Wiley & Sons, 2007, p. 36).

“If you want to guarantee yourself a life of misery, marry somebody with the idea of changing them.”

Buffett: “We don’t try to change people. It doesn’t work well… We accept people the way they are.”

If social change is your mission, you’ll end up tangling with thousands of people and institutions who are doing everything they can to uphold the status quo. Ideally, you want to keep your mission narrowly focused. You can’t rebel against all aspects of the dominant order. Society is stronger than you are. You can only achieve personal victories in clearly defined moral niches.

“‘Don’t worry, be happy’ bromides are of no use; notice that people who are told to ‘relax’ rarely do.”

Mark Twain: “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them have never happened.”

Howard Marks: “I tell my father’s story of the gambler who lost regularly. One day he heard about a race with only one horse in it, so he bet the rent money. Halfway around the track, the horse jumped over the fence and ran away. Invariably things can get worse than people expect. Maybe ‘worst-case’ means ‘the worst we’ve seen in the past.’ But that doesn’t mean things can’t be worse in the future.”

“Then at dinner, Bill Gates Sr. posed the question to the table: What factor did people feel was the most important in getting to where they’d gotten in life? And I said, ‘Focus.’ And Bill said the same thing. It is unclear how many people at the table understood ‘focus’ as Buffett lived that word. This kind of innate focus couldn’t be emulated. It meant the intensity that is the price of excellence. It meant the discipline and passionate perfectionism that made Thomas Edison the quintessential American inventor, Walt Disney the king of family entertainment, and James Brown the Godfather of Soul. It meant single-minded obsession with an ideal.”

“Our happiness is sometimes not very salient, and we need to do what we can to make it more so. Imagine playing a piano and not being able to hear what it sounds like. Many activities in life are like playing a piano that you do not hear…” (Dolan, Paul: Happiness by Design, Penguin, 2015, E-Book Location 1781.)

Should you find yourself in a chronically-leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.” (Greenwald, Bruce C. N.; Kahn, Judd; Sonkin, Paul D.; van Biema,

As you age, change your modus operandi: become highly selective. There’s a lovely anecdote from Marshall Weinberg about going to lunch with Warren Buffett that’s worth repeating here. “He had an exceptional ham-and-cheese sandwich. A few days later, we were going out again. He said, ‘Let’s go back to that restaurant.’ I said, ‘But we were just there.’ He said, ‘Precisely. Why take a risk with another place? We know exactly what we’re going to get.’ That is what Warren looks for in stocks, too. He only invests in companies where the odds are great that they will not disappoint.”

Even the notorious U curve of life satisfaction is connected to false expectations. Young people are happy because they believe things can only ever improve—higher income, more power, greater opportunity. In middle age, between forty and fifty-five, they reach a low point. They’re forced to accept that the high-flying aspirations of their youth cannot be realized. On top of that they have children, a career, income pressures—all unexpected dampers on happiness. In old age, people are reasonably happy once more, because they’ve exceeded those unrealistically low expectations.

John Wooden: “Success is peace of mind, which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to do your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.”

from Epictetus, the Stoic: “A life that flows gently and easily.”

“Why, my dear friend, do you do it all? If I had all your millions, I’d spend my time doing nothing but reading, thinking and writing.” It wasn’t until I was on the way home that I realized, oddly startled, that that’s exactly what I do. So that would be a definition of the good life: somebody hands you a few million, and you don’t change anything at all.

[newbuildsurvey-blog]

What sort of survey should I have?

On the off chance that you've had an offer acknowledged on a property, you'll be pondering whether you need a house survey and if so which one. We take a gander at various kinds of home surveys, home survey expenses and which sort of survey is directly for your property, where to locate a decent surveyor and - in particular - how to take advantage of your survey.

house survey

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What is a survey?

A property survey is a point by point examination of a property's condition. The surveyor assesses the property and lets you know whether there are auxiliary issues like shaky dividers or subsidence. They will feature any real fixes or adjustments required, for example, fixing the rooftop or fireplace chute. The report from the surveyor likewise gives master discourse on the property, from the sort of divider to the kind of coating.

What is a home loan valuation?

A home loan valuation isn't a survey – it is only a quick take a gander at a property to evaluate how much the property is value. It is required by your home loan bank to guarantee the property is adequate security for the credit. Your moneylender will demand utilizing an organization they trust and you should pay for it. The expense of a home loan valuation differs relying upon the size of the property (from around £350). A few banks toss in free valuations as a component of a home loan bargain; yet don't let that influence you. An arrangement with a lower financing cost is probably going to spare you unquestionably progressively after some time, regardless of whether you do need to pay more for the home loan valuation.

Who does a survey?

Property surveys ought to be done by qualified surveyors

Most qualified surveyors are individuals from the Imperial Establishment of Contracted Surveyors (RICS)

We prescribe utilizing a RICS qualified surveyor since they convey proficient repayment protection

On the off chance that you can get a nearby surveyor they are probably going to have a superior information of market esteems in the region

Similarly, on the off chance that you are purchasing an uncommon house, similar to a beacon or a stronghold, get a surveyor with involvement in that particular field

Survey expenses differ from organization to organization, and rely upon the size and area of the property.

In a flash find and think about statements from nearby qualified surveyors utilizing our discover a surveyor instrument

Do I have to get a survey?

No a property survey is discretionary. However, they can enable you to stay away from costly and undesirable amazements, similar to a sudden overhauling work, just as giving you significant serenity by disclosing to you that those hairline splits don't mean the house is tumbling down. Given the a huge number of pounds it expenses to purchase a property, a couple of hundred pounds on a survey to have the consolation of an autonomous, master surveyor investigating it feels like a wise speculation.

With the data from the survey you may reevaluate whether to purchase the property or utilize the fair-minded data you need to renegotiate the cost. In the event that you find for instance it needs £15,000 of rooftop fixes, it is sensible to request £15,000 off the cost. Then again, you may request that the dealer fix the issues before you purchase.

We would especially suggest a survey if:

you have a particular stresses over any piece of the property

you feel uncertain about what kind of condition the property is in

you are hoping to purchase an old or unordinary property

the property has a covered rooftop or is timber surrounded

the building is recorded

What kind of survey would it be a good idea for me to get?

There are various kinds of survey. What you pick relies upon the profundity of survey you need and your spending limit.

Condition Report (survey level one – £300 or more)

A Condition Report is the most fundamental survey you can get, and the least expensive. Expenses are £300 or more.

The report doesn't really expound so may leave you needing more:

It is intended to supplement the home loan valuation

It gives 'traffic light' signs with regards to the condition of different pieces of the property. Green methods all is well, orange is some reason for concern, and red methods genuine fixes are fundamental

It additionally furnishes you with an outline of the property's imperfections and potential dangers influencing the home

It does exclude any counsel nor a valuation

HomeBuyers Report (survey level two)

A HomeBuyers Report is a progressively point by point survey and the most prevalent choice as indicated by RICS. There are two choices in this classification – you can have a survey with or without a valuation:

HomeBuyers Report (survey just – £350 or more)

A HomeBuyers Report will reveal to you any undeniable serious issues – evident decay, subsidence, and so forth.

The expense of a HomeBuyers Report begins at £350.

Yet, the surveyor is non-nosy: they won't look behind furnishings, nor lift up wood planks or drill any gaps, so any report they draw up is restricted.

HomeBuyers Report (survey and valuation – £450 or more)

The HomeBuyers Report with survey and valuation incorporates the majority of the above highlights, in addition to a valuation and a protection restoration esteem (the amount you would get were the building to burn to the ground).

The expense of a Homebuyers Report with survey and valuation is £450 or more.

Home Condition Survey (£400-£900)

Offered by the Private Property Surveyors Affiliation (RPSA) as opposed to RICS, Home Condition Surveys are:

led by masters in private surveys and created in a predictable, purchaser well disposed organization

incorporate reasonable data, for example, broadband speed, moist appraisal and limit issues for the conveyancer to consider

reports are autonomously checked to guarantee consistency and quality

Home Condition Surveys cost between £400-£900 relying upon estimation of property

Building (survey level three – £500 or more)

Building surveys (by RICS surveyors) are progressively costly, however can be a beneficial speculation:

The cost of a building survey ranges from under £500 to about £2000 relying upon the size of the home

They are broad surveys and you will be given a point by point report toward the end

The surveyor will get into the storage room, check behind dividers, and look among floors or more roofs

It incorporates counsel on fixes, and gives evaluated timings and costs, and will disclose to you what will occur on the off chance that you don't do the fixes

Except if indicated, it likely wo exclude a protection restoration worth gauge, or a market valuation.

Get moment cites from sanctioned surveyors with our locate a neighborhood surveyor apparatus

Survey costs by sort of survey

Sort OF SURVEY ESTIMATED COST

RICS Condition Report (survey level one) £300 and upwards

RICS HomeBuyer Report (Survey just – survey level two) £350 and upwards

RICS HomeBuyer Report (Survey and Valuation – survey level two) £450 and upwards

RICS Building (survey level three) £500 and upwards

Home Condition Survey (offered by the Private Property Surveyors Affiliation (RPSA) as opposed to RICS £450 and upwards

New-build catching report £300-£600

Do I need a survey for a new build property?

For new build properties, we prescribe an expert catching survey is done. A catching survey will recognize imperfections or issues which need fixing before you move in. An expert catching survey should spot minor issues like an entryway that is skewed and getting on the floor covering to something increasingly genuine that could influence the structure of your home. These normally cost somewhere in the range of £300 and £600.

On the off chance that the new build you are purchasing is manufactured and prepared, you would in a perfect world do a catching survey before trade. On the off chance that it's off-plan, at that point attempt to do the survey pre-culmination when you will have all the more arranging capacity to get any issues fixed. This is expecting the engineer lets you on location, which frequently they don't, in which case get a catching survey completed at the earliest opportunity in the wake of moving in.

Given the quantity of protests and calls for assistance we get from guests to our site, the Mortgage holders Partnership is glad to have collaborated with a standout amongst other known catching reviewers in the UK, New Build Investigations. Not at all like numerous other catching organizations, they never work for engineers or builders so can hold their freedom. Get a free, no commitment quote from new build overseers here.

How would I locate a decent surveyor?

Going with the surveyor suggested by your bank, bequest specialist, contract loan specialist or other property master can wind up costing you more.

Get cites from a couple of nearby firms and look at.

We regularly hear protests that survey reports accompany such a significant number of provisos that it is hard to tell how to react to them; inquire as to whether you can see duplicates of past reports – will that kind of report be valuable for your circumstance?

Check your surveyor is an individual from the Imperial Organization of Contracted Surveyors (RICS) – the individual in question will have the letters MRICS or FRICS after his or her name. The RICS guarantees that every one of its individuals keep up proficient guidelines in their work. check my blog New Build Survey

In a flash find and look at statements from neighborhood surveyors utilizing our discover a surveyor instrument

How might I take advantage of my survey?

When you delegate your surveyor let them know whether there are a specific concerns you have about the property

Stroll through the house with them – ensure they take a gander at everything, move furniture and have a decent jab around

Pose inquiries – bring up things that stress you and ask over them. It's your home so you ought to comprehend everything

[wolfpawn]

When Ghosts Come For Us

Chapter 32

NOTE This is based on the movie Crimson Peak, so if any of the subject matter in that was uncomfortable for you, you will find this similar. I will *NOT* be describing incest in this, it will only be implied, same as the movie.

As I have stated already, my laptop is broken at present so please excuse grammar mistakes and the lack of GIFs and pics.

Also, I do not own any image or gif used in this story.

HERE is the link to Chapter 1 on Ao3

Rating - Mature

Charlotte groaned. Of late, she was feeling slight pains every so often. “False Labour Pains” Mrs Robinson had called them. They were irritating but she endured them.

She found the child was growing rapidly, more so than she had ever thought would be possible. As it stood, she was unsure how it was still fitting inside her. But according to Mrs Robinson, she had time to go yet.

Sighing, she looked at the locked chest in her art room, the one with the hidden area in the base. There is where she had taken the medications that Edward had left in the drawer close to Lucille, knowing that his sister would find them there. There were two keys, one she kept around her neck, the other she had hidden in a book she had placed on her art table. The spine was able to hide it, giving her the opportune hiding place.

Thomas insisted that Charlotte explain all of the medications and their dosages to him, citing that with her only going to get bigger with the baby, he needed to know what would be needed also. She instructed him accordingly.

She slowly made her way, with the assistance of the elevator to his workshop in the attic. She hated that room and could not comprehend for the life of her why Thomas insisted on using it. It was the scene of his childhood abuse yet of the two of them, she disliked it more.

When she knocked on the door, there was silence inside for a moment before Thomas answered. “Lottie?”

“Hello.” She toyed with her hands sheepishly.

“Is everything alright? Is it the child?”

Since all the truth was revealed, Thomas and Charlotte had not spoken to one another with the same frequency. As a result, Charlotte, now felt lonely and isolated outside of the times that Mrs Phillips was present. That caused her current situation, standing outside her husband's workshop, yearning for his company.

“Yes, I just...perhaps…” She bit her lips together. “I apologise for disturbing you, you are obviously busy…” She turned and began to leave.

“Lottie?” Since Edward pointed out he had ceased calling her the pet name, he made point of referring to her as such again. “You came all the way up here for a reason, what is it?” He asked, his voice soft so to not make her feel he was irritated by her.

“It is irrelevant.”

“No, you do not do irrelevant things, what is it, tell me?” He took her hand in his. “Your hands are warm.” Thomas looked down, showing slight dislike, having never liked overly warm hands.

“Sorry.” She pulled her hand back.

“Are you ill?” He asked worriedly.

“No, just nervous.”

“Whatever for?” She looked up at him. “Lottie, what is afoot?”

“I just would like…”

“What Lottie?” He pressed. “What would you like?’

“You.”

He frowned. “I…”

“Nevermind, forgive my intrusion.” She dismissed.  

Thomas looked sadly at her, not understanding fully what she was trying to say. He looked at her rotund stomach, it was startling to him to see his child growing so greatly within her. “Lottie…” She looked sadly. “Please, speak to me.”

Her nostrils flared at his words as there was nothing she wanted with greater intensity. “How is... are…oh!” She rubbed where the baby had given a strong movement before hissing as it moved again.

“What...is it…?” Thomas's face was filled with concern for her wellbeing as well as the terrifyingly daunting idea of the child actually arriving and all the stresses that would incur. As she leant against the wall, Thomas held onto her. “Lottie?”

“It's fine, don't worry yourself, it is only moving and finding there is no room to do so.” she dismissed. “It will be a large child, I think. Or am I smaller than I thought?” She huffed a slight laugh.

Thomas gave her a small smile. “Perhaps a mixture of both.” He urged her to come into his workshop. “How much longer does Mrs Robinson think?”

“A month, perhaps. A first child is apparently unpredictable.” She sat down and sighed, elated to have her feet not bear her weight for a few minutes. “This room is still quite cold.” She noted. “I thought it was fixed?”

“The men fixed the draughts, yes, but it seems it does not heat even now.” Thomas looked around before finding a blanket to put on Charlotte but noticed she was looking curiously at the model on the table that he had been working on. “I...”

“What does it do, is it new?” She asked.

Thomas eyed his wife for a moment, thinking over everything, her keen interest in his work but also the deceit though one statement remained with him, the one she made regarding how one could not feign interest to the extent she had with his work and recalling her ability to recall certain smaller details even after a time, he felt perhaps, she genuinely was interested in his work. “I was seeing about perhaps upgrading the current machine.”

“How does it differ?” She tried to rise to her feet but Thomas indicated for her to remain seating and he brought the current and the potential upgrade models to the table by her, her keen face showing him her genuine interest. “It's more...compacted, is it not?”

“It is.” He smiled, seeing her be interested made him feel all the better. “It will be capable of greater output in smaller areas and use less coal.” He explained.

“So it is cheaper in the long term to run, but at what initial cost?” Charlotte questioned.

“Therein lies the issue, with a machine like this, it would be the first of its kind at this reduced scale, so all parts would be unique and custom made to order.” He explained, noting how she nodded.

“What of the idea to open that other shaft farther over the land? Is that part of the plan with this, of having two machines?”

“That will require more involvement with the notorious Mr Brown.”

“Ah, our lovely Mr Brown.” It was clear from Charlotte's tone her dislike for the other man, something she no longer had to give any form of pretense of naivety to. “We could always just buy him off, he is not exactly adverse to such things. If it is only paperwork, four thousand would secure it. If the mineral is as rich as you say, we will profit to the tune of double that in the first three years. The concern becomes the digging of it. What is the plan for that? Is it dependant on man power and if so, what can we do to prevent a collapse?”

Thomas simply looked at her in almost a state of shock for a moment having never thought she could think in such a calculated manner regarding Mr Brown and the insight she seemed to have to the concerns of said new venture. “Well...is Mr Brown one to…?”

“Thomas, Mr Brown is, in layman's terms, unscrupulous to say the least. He is as crooked as they come and for that sum, he would sign his wife and bastards to you too if you wanted them. Anything we want will be ours for that. He would do it for three thousand, but four...four will guarantee no issue of any form with paperwork.” She rubbed her stomach as she spoke.

“How do you know this?”

“William and he had dealings in my presence before.” She explained. “It should not have been possible for one family to hold such stakes in the Indian market, yet the Hamiltons did, thanks in many ways, to Mr Brown. William told me everything I needed to know of him, hence my wariness of him.”

Thomas felt a jealous clenching in his stomach at the mention of the other man. “So you had experience of his actions?”

“I had.” There was a sly smirk on her face as she spoke causing Thomas to become confused. “You recall his little gathering we attended?” Thomas nodded. “I put a sedative that reacts badly with drink when he started badgering you for cards. He planned on five thousand, myself and Lucille that night.” Thomas was startled by that. “The Hamiltons had his number in that manner.”

“I see.” Thomas stated, not saying anything further on that manner.

Charlotte gave him a look of understanding. “So, what are the plans regarding opening the mine?” Seeing that referencing the Hamiltons bothered him, she altered the conversation back to her previous, still unanswered question. “How will it be done? Can we minimise human interference in that aspect? Surely that is the most dangerous part and should be avoided if possible?”

“I can use the machines to open the mines with minor adjustments.”  

“Okay, that looks like it is a plan.” She smiled contentedly, her hand gently placed on her large stomach.

Thomas looked at her hand, noting his mother's ring was no longer on her hand. “May I ask, where is my mother's ring?”

“I gave it to Lucille again. My fingers no longer fit it and being honest, I could think of no safer place for it.”

Thomas swallowed at the realisation that Charlotte knew of the ring being Lucille's. “Can I ask you something?” She nodded. “Do you like that ring?”

“If I am honest, no. It is big and heavy. I only wear it because I want to declare my marriage, nothing more.” She looked at her husband to gauge his reaction, wondering why he was smiling. “May I ask why?”

Thomas smiled and walked to his desk, moving the papers around until he found what he was looking for. “I planned on giving this to you when the child was born, but I feel now is as good a time as any.” He walked over and handed her the box. “If I had done this right, proposed to you correctly and truly gotten to know you beforehand as I have done in our marriage, I would have had this made and going forward, I hope you would wear this in the stead of the other ring.” He opened the box. “I know you cannot wear it at present but after the child is born…”

Charlotte was flabbergasted at the ring she was looking at. It was not big or overly extravagant but it was beautiful, more beautiful than she felt a piece of jewelry could be. “Thomas…”

“Do you like it?”

“It is beautiful.” She could barely whisper the words. “Perfect.” She looked at Thomas's smiling face. “Thank you.”

“I just wanted to be proud of your wedding ring.”

“I only need to be proud of my husband, the piece of metal that signifies our marriage means nothing in the greater scheme of things. I would wear a ring of lead or copper if it was all we had, so long as you are the one I call my husband.” She leant forward and kissed him, an act they had not shared much since everything occured. Thomas leant I'm and kissed her back. “I have missed you, I have missed this and our talking.”

“As have I.” He confessed. “Lottie?” She pulled back slightly to look at him. “I am sorry, I am sorry I ever was dishonest and untruthful to you.”

'And I am sorry for such also.’ She declared. “I love you so dearly, Thomas.” She looked at the ring again and smiled. “It is clear that you love me enough to notice my likes and dislikes and for that, I love you all the more.”

Tags:

@ilovekingt @lokiloveheart @sigridlaufeyson @texmexdarling @lokilover9 @wolfsmom1 @whovianwookie86-captainxev

[forsetti]

On Defending Misogyny: Ross Douthat Edition

Ross Douthat’s latest nonsense in the New York Times is quite the pile of crap, even when compared to other piles of crap written by Douthat.  Here is my take on the article (Douthat’s article in bold.) One lesson to be drawn from recent Western history might be this: Sometimes the extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world more clearly than the respectable and moderate and sane. All kinds of phenomena, starting as far back as the Iraq War and the crisis of the euro but accelerating in the age of populism, have made more sense in the light of analysis by reactionaries and radicals than as portrayed in the organs of establishment opinion. Not one single person with an ounce of credibility thinks that extremists and radicals and weirdos see the world clearly because SEEING THE WORLD CLEARLY IS ANTITHETICAL TO BEING AN EXTREMISTS, RADICAL, OR WEIRDO.  The ONLY way Douthat's statement makes any sense is if he thinks people with enough common sense to know invading Iraq on bogus reasons with zero plan on what to do after the initial invasion was a fucking horrible idea, were extremist, radical, weirdo.

This is part of why there’s been so much recent agitation over universities and op-ed pages and other forums for debate. There’s a general understanding that the ideological mainstream isn’t adequate to the moment, but nobody can decide whether that means we need purges or pluralism, a spirit of curiosity and conversation or a furious war against whichever side you think is evil.

For those more curious than martial, one useful path through this thicket is to look at areas where extremists and eccentrics from very different worlds are talking about the same subject. Such overlap is no guarantee of wisdom, but it’s often a sign that there’s something interesting going on.

A classic Douthat move-lay out a completely bogus claim right out of the block and then construct a whole argument on top of it.

Which brings me to the sex robots. People having opinions about the Iraq war and the European Union logically leads us to sex robots because of course it fucking does.

Well, actually, first it brings me to the case of Robin Hanson, a George Mason economist, libertarian and noted brilliant weirdo. Commenting on the recent terrorist violence in Toronto, in which a self-identified “incel” — that is, involuntary celibate — man sought retribution against women and society for denying him the fornication he felt that he deserved, Hanson offered this provocation: If we are concerned about the just distribution of property and money, why do we assume that the desire for some sort of sexual redistribution is inherently ridiculous?

If you use “libertarian,” you don't get to follow it up with “brilliant.” Never....fucking ever.  As crazy as that juxtaposition of terms is the casual acceptance by Douthat of what “incel” means is even more disturbing.  The idea that women in society have to have sex with men is repulsive on every level.  That someone gives voice to this notion and give it its own term is fucked up beyond reason. Sorry men, women are not here for you to have sex with.  Here's a thought, if men want to have sex with women, then maybe, just maybe, they should behave in ways that women deem appropriate enough to where they will give up their bodies willingly to them.  Anything short of this is misogyny at the least and rape a the most. After all, he wrote, “one might plausibly argue that those with much less access to sex suffer to a similar degree as those with low income, and might similarly hope to gain from organizing around this identity, to lobby for redistribution along this axis and to at least implicitly threaten violence if their demands are not met.” Let me de-fuckify this statement because it is a Ceasar's Word Salad of nonsense.  “Men who don't get as much sex as they want, think they deserve, need to band together to find ways, even through violence, to get women to fuck them against their wills.”

This argument was not well received by people closer to the mainstream than Professor Hanson, to put it mildly. A representative response from Slate’s Jordan Weissmann, “Is Robin Hanson the Creepiest Economist in America?”, cited the post along with some previous creepy forays to dismiss Hanson as a misogynist weirdo not that far removed from the franker misogyny of toxic online males.

I can't understand why the “mainstream” would find the unionization of violent, horny men hell-bent on making women their sexual subjects offensive.  But, see what Douthat has done.  He has already constructed his argument where the mainstream is the ones who don't “see the world clearly.”  Since the mainstream has been pigeon-holed as not seeing reality for what it really is, then it logically follows for Douthat that their view cannot be correct.

But Hanson’s post made me immediately think of a recent essay in The London Review of Books by Amia Srinivasan, “Does Anyone Have the Right To Sex?” Srinivasan, an Oxford philosophy professor, covered similar ground (starting with an earlier “incel” killer) but expanded the argument well beyond the realm of male chauvinists to consider groups with whom The London Review’s left-leaning and feminist readers would have more natural sympathy — the overweight and disabled, minority groups treated as unattractive by the majority, trans women unable to find partners and other victims, in her narrative, of a society that still makes us prisoners of patriarchal and also racist-sexist-homophobic rules of sexual desire.

There is a lot to unpack here.  First, Douthat uses a philosopher, in order to bolster the credibility of his argument.  As someone with two degrees in philosophy, I can tell you that there are a lot of batshit crazy people with philosophy degrees who throw out outlandish arguments for no other reason than to be controversial and get their shit published in order to placate the Publish or Perish Gods. Second, having sympathy for how a culture views and treats groups outside the accepted norms like “overweight,” “trans,” “disabled,”... who have a difficult time having sex for a host of reasons is, to quote Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction, “...ain't the same fucking ballpark. It ain't the same league. It ain't even the same fucking sport.” Third, Douthat, a devout Catholic who has carried water for the patriarchy, for misogynists, for homophobes...for years now doesn't get to pretend he is worried about the very structure he helped build.

Srinivasan ultimately answered her title question in the negative: “There is no entitlement to sex, and everyone is entitled to want what they want.” But her negative answer was a qualified one. While “no one has a right to be desired,” at the same time “who is desired and who isn’t is a political question,” which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday. This wouldn’t instantiate a formal right to sex, exactly, but if the new order worked as its revolutionary architects intended, sex would be more justly distributed than it is today.

Not only did Douthat use a philosopher to bolster his argument, he completely misused their words in order to do so.  Notice how he uses Srinivasan's comment, “who is desired and who isn't is a political question,” and dovetails his own comment “which left-wing and feminist politics might help society answer differently someday,” as if they were one and the same statement.  Every culture has their own ideas of what is/isn't sexually desirable.  It has nothing to do with “left-wing” or “feminist” politics.  Some cultures sexually value heavier companions, those with smaller feet, those with longer necks, those with fairer skin...  We can argue the rationality of all of these but none of them are based on leftist or feminist beliefs.  In fact, left-leaning and feminists would argue the fuck against these arbitrary sexual values.

A number of the critics I saw engaging with Srinivasan’s essay tended to respond the way a normal center-left writer like Weissmann engaged with Hanson’s thought experiment — by commenting on its weirdness or ideological extremity rather than engaging fully with its substance. But to me, reading Hanson and Srinivasan together offers a good case study in how intellectual eccentrics — like socialists and populists in politics — can surface issues and problems that lurk beneath the surface of more mainstream debates.

By this I mean that as offensive or utopian the redistribution of sex might sound, the idea is entirely responsive to the logic of late-modern sexual life, and its pursuit would be entirely characteristic of a recurring pattern in liberal societies.

Shorter Douthat: “Smart people reacting honestly to the arguments of a libertarian nut job don't know what the fuck they are doing but I, a dyed-in-the-wool social conservative does because of some magical reason that is never explained.”  If you think placating angry, resentful, horny men is the way to utopia, I'm pretty sure you are either stupid as fuck and/or just about the most intellectually dishonest person I've ever read.

First, because like other forms of neoliberal deregulation the sexual revolution created new winners and losers, new hierarchies to replace the old ones, privileging the beautiful and rich and socially adept in new ways and relegating others to new forms of loneliness and frustration. Douthat's use of “neoliberal” was done on purpose and as meaningless as the term itself.  What Douthat really means by this statement is, “In the past, men could do whatever the fuck they wanted to women, whenever they wanted and women had to take it because that is the fucking way it was.  Now men can't do this and they are having a sad about it so we need to blame the women and those who support them instead of the fuck wad misogynists who were morally wrong 50, 100, 200... years ago for their behaviors.”

Second, because in this new landscape, and amid other economic and technological transformations, the sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening between them and not only marriage and family but also sexual activity itself in recent decline.

“The sexes seem to be struggling generally to relate to one another, with social and political chasms opening up between them.”  Holy Both-Fucking-Siderism!  NO!!!  The “sexes” are not having a problem.  MEN caught up in an archaic belief system are having a problem-a big fucking problem.  Douthat doesn't get to lay the responsibility and consequences of men not adapting to women's rights on the doorstep of women.

Third, because the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian, despite certain revisions attempted by feminists since the heyday of the Playboy philosophy — a message that frequency and variety in sexual experience is as close to a summum bonum as the human condition has to offer, that the greatest possible diversity in sexual desires and tastes and identities should be not only accepted but cultivated, and that virginity and celibacy are at best strange and at worst pitiable states. And this master narrative, inevitably, makes both the new inequalities and the decline of actual relationships that much more difficult to bear …which in turn encourages people, as ever under modernity, to place their hope for escape from the costs of one revolution in a further one yet to come, be it political, social or technological, which will supply if not the promised utopia at least some form of redress for the many people that progress has obviously left behind.

There is an alternative, conservative response, of course — namely, that our widespread isolation and unhappiness and sterility might be dealt with by reviving or adapting older ideas about the virtues of monogamy and chastity and permanence and the special respect owed to the celibate.

So let me get this straight, the problem with sex in America is because of feminists and leftists but, “ the culture’s dominant message about sex is still essentially Hefnerian.”?  I've never known a single feminist or leftist who was not only okay with the views and attitudes about sex espoused by Hugh Hefner but who used them as the basis of their sexual ethics.   In fact, it has been the direct opposite.   Douthat's view of feminism and left-leaning is comical and beyond conservative stereotyping.  

But this is not the natural response for a society like ours. Instead we tend to look for fixes that seem to build on previous revolutions, rather than reverse them.

In the case of sexual liberation and its discontents, that’s unlikely to mean the kind of thoroughgoingly utopian reimagining of sexual desire that writers like Srinivasan think we should aspire toward, or anything quite so formal as the pro-redistribution political lobby of Hanson’s thought experiment.

By defacto argument, the sexual revolution was bad so men trying to come to terms with how to really treat women as equals would be a misguided approach to the problem.  We need to go back in time to when women had limited rights and almost none with regard to their bodies, their sexuality, and start from there in order to build a more perfect union where men get to get laid when they want by whomever they want.

But I expect the logic of commerce and technology will be consciously harnessed, as already in pornography, to address the unhappiness of incels, be they angry and dangerous or simply depressed and despairing. The left’s increasing zeal to transform prostitution into legalized and regulated “sex work” will have this end implicitly in mind, the libertarian (and general male) fascination with virtual-reality porn and sex robotswill increase as those technologies improve — and at a certain point, without anyone formally debating the idea of a right to sex, right-thinking people will simply come to agree that some such right exists, and that it makes sense to look to some combination of changed laws, new technologies and evolved mores to fulfill it.

Whether sex workers and sex robots can actually deliver real fulfillment is another matter. But that they will eventually be asked to do it, in service to a redistributive goal that for now still seems creepy or misogynist or radical, feels pretty much inevitable.

So, for Douthat, the need to address and placate incels is important but we shouldn't do it with legalizing prostitution or other means.  What Douthat is really saying is, “If men cannot dominate and be in control of women, then any sexual solution won't be acceptable.  Not legalized prostitution. Not sex robots.  Nothing short of actual, real women being subservient to men will do.”

At no point in this entire article by Douthat are men held responsible for their beliefs, for their actions.  NOT ONE SINGLE FUCKING TIME! “Feminists” and “left-leaning” people are the real reason behind backward thinking, immoral. egotistical men for behaving the way they do towards women. GTFOH!

[tridelcompany]

Could a solitary individual bear to buy a spot in Toronto?

On a new evening, I was looking through certain pictures of George Nelson divider sconces on my telephone. (In case you're going to Google it, I ask that you not appointed authority my extreme taste).

I was fantasizing about how incredible they'd look adjacent to my bed — however goodness definitely, that would require boring into the divider. What's more, as a leaseholder, I need to consider whether they'd be commonsense in the format of my next place, not to mention whether I'd even be permitted to bore there. Enquire now for the best condo in the Toronto.

In the event that I claimed a condo I wouldn't need to consider stuff that way.

Honestly, I'm getting somewhat fretful. I need similar advantages mortgage holders appreciate. Nothing unexpected, at that point, that I woke up on my birthday a year ago pondering: am I really going to manage landowners and flat mates for the remainder of my life?

Certainly, my apartment has its charms — worked in cabinetry, shockingly extensive rooms, vicinity to both a pizza joint and a wine store — however consistently on my approach to work, I pass a pristine condo working with huge fold over solid overhangs; that is something my turn-of-the-century apartment building needs. I feel a twinge of jealousy.

There's a huge load of pressing factor in Toronto's real estate market (where I desire to buy) to get in — and get in rapidly. Why? Since lodging costs have been going up consistently.

I woke up on my birthday a year ago pondering: am I really going to manage landowners and flat mates for the remainder of my life?

In any event, lodging specialists are urging individuals not to pause.

"Eventually, the set of experiences shows that all things considered, the market will go up later on. in the event that you need to buy you should do it quickly," Louis Phillipe-Menard, overseer of home loan items at National Bank, revealed to me when I hit him up for his expert assessment.

The thing is, I'm single.

In light of the measurements that banks consider, it's more outlandish that a family with just a single pay would have the option to support a home loan for a Toronto property.

Home loan moneylenders will commonly just loan clients a home loan sum that is worth multiple times their yearly compensation (the greatest sum Canadian banks are permitted to advance you).

As per the 2016 registration, the middle complete family pay in Toronto is around $65,829. In December, the Toronto Real Estate Board announced that the middle deal cost of a condo was $594,381 up 11.4% from the prior year. (Disregard buying a house in the city — the normal cost for a withdrew home was $1.15 million.)

There's a huge load of pressing factor in Toronto's real estate market (where I desire to buy) to get in — and get in rapidly

On a compensation of that size, it's impossible you'll fit the bill for a home loan — except if you have $100,000 set aside as an up front installment.

Furthermore, that is only the deal cost. There are loads of different components that could represent the deciding moment your fantasies about turning into a condo proprietor.

The measurements moneylenders take a gander at to choose if you're advance commendable incorporate the gross obligation administration proportion, which estimates the level of your pre-charge pay expected to pay your lodging costs on top of the home loan (like duties, protection, utilities, and condo expenses). They additionally take a gander at the all out obligation administration proportion, which estimates the amount of your pay will go to covering existing obligations.

In this way, regardless of whether you make a better than expected compensation, on the off chance that you have huge obligations, you will most likely be unable to get a home loan.

Those are a ton of costs for one individual to convey. Clearly, two livelihoods in such a situation are superior to one. Now, I'm imagining that my odds for homeownership are thin.

Yet, in spite of those marvelous costs, I continue to discover individuals who demand that there are singletons out there living my fantasy.

I continue to discover individuals who demand that there are singletons out there living my fantasy

Megan Sheppard, a real estate specialist in Toronto whose client base incorporates loads of single individuals, cautions that consistently you avoid the market, you pass up your home's appreciation.

"On the off chance that you take a gander at the cost of what you're paying [for rent] and the [price and] enthusiasm for a condo, [the contrast is] like a tip at an eatery for a decent dinner," says Sheppard.

Expecting the estimation of a condo worth $450,000 goes up in esteem by 6% every year, that is an enthusiasm for $27,000 per year. Or on the other hand, as Sheppard puts it: "Consistently you lease, you're losing the $27,000."

Obviously, past execution doesn't approach future returns. Also, presently buying any property has become significantly harder after the government forced new standards on contract moneylenders a year ago. The new "stress test rule," brought to you by the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institution, became effective in January 2018.

The new principle implies that any individual who needs a home loan should have the option to show they can manage the cost of installments that are two rate focuses higher than their cited rate, or their bank's five-year normal rate — whichever one is higher.

At this moment, you can put just 5% down when buying a home. Doing that additionally implies you'll need to buy protection from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., which can add a huge number of dollars yearly in installments to the all out cost of your home loan.

Unexpectedly, you're bound to get a lower contract rate from your loan specialist when you put 5% down. Why? Since your home loan is guaranteed — by the government. Which means, the public authority's given the shaft on the off chance that you default, not the bank.

When you get into a home loan, a bill consistently appears to crawl up when you wouldn't dare hoping anymore

Despite the fact that it's difficult to say without a doubt where the market is going, both Phillipe-Menard and Sheppard foresee that at Toronto home costs, the solitary route is up. "Everybody needs to be here," says Sheppard. Furthermore, except if that transforms, you can wager that Toronto costs will remain costly.

In any case, buying a spot prompts expenses that leasing doesn't — things like interest installments, legal counselor's charges, home protection expenses, upkeep and redesign expenses, and to wrap things up, property charges.

At the point when you're all alone, you're on the snare for those things. Your home loan bank couldn't care less in the event that you lose your employment.

That is perhaps the greatest dread, so to mitigate them, I set out to converse with another single lady who got her own place. 31 year-old Janelle (who mentioned her last name not be utilized) gotten her first house in a rustic town without help from anyone else 10 years prior. She knew since early on that being a property holder was imperative to her. To meet her objective, she worked while going to secondary school and afterward school.

When she graduated school, she had an up front installment of 20% on a home that cost generally $120,000.

Buying a house with an up front installment more modest than that is unfathomable to her — and me as well, honestly.

"It bewilders me that you're paying your home loan for 25, 30 years. In case you're just paying 5% into it, that is another $20-25,000 in revenue toward the finish of your home loan," she says.

[basburrry]

The Benefits of Commuting via Bicycle

Some people may see cycling as a boring or dangerous activity, and there is definitely a stigma to being a cyclist, but in this post I will show the many benefits of cycling. Before I begin, I will state that I love bicycles, and have a pretty sweet one that I ride around Davis. I also have a road bike that I use for exercise, but that one is not relevant to this post. In my opinion everybody should have one, since they are fun to ride. That being said, I have a lot of research about why cycling is good for personal health and the environment, so I hope that this post can help convince some people that cycling is pretty cool.

A pic of me with my helmets

My bike. Her name is Brandy

I’m going to start with the physical health benefits of commuting via bicycle, since they are some of the most immediate and important factors that affect individuals.In “Health effects of Active Commuting to Work: The Available Evidence Before GISMO (Schafer 2020),” it is emphasized that sedentary lifestyles are a major risk factor for a myriad of chronic illnesses, and that 150 minutes of exercise per week is the standard for maintaining a healthy level of fitness. This journal included a study where there were 305 sedentary subjects in four different test groups, who were all tasked to commute via bicycle instead of driving or using public transit. It was concluded that, “When synthesizing statistically significant results, measures of VO2max increased in all four studies (Schafer 2020).” VO2 max is a relevant measure for this study, since it is the measure of how efficiently your blood transports oxygen through your body during exercise (AKA a direct show of heart strength). With cardiovascular disease becoming a large problem in American health, this development has the potential to extend many people’s lifespans. Commuting will not turn you into a world class athlete, but it is proven to have fitness benefits.

Both of these people are raising their VO2 max, just at different speeds

Along with the physical health aspect, mental health and stress relief is a commonly stated benefit of riding your bike. It is a common sentiment that physical exercise is a great way to relieve stress and improve one’s mental state, but the truth of these claims is sometimes disputed. Personally, I enjoy exercise very much when I am stressed, as it is a solid release of the nervous energy that builds up in the body. Commuting by bike is a solution to two major problems that arise when driving a car. First off, being stuck in traffic can be very stressful to some people. In the paper, Why are Cyclists the Happiest Commuters? Health, Pleasure, and the E-Bike (Wild, Woodward 2019)” It is stated that driving in high-traffic areas can lead to the driver becoming overstimulated and quite stressed. Drivers more often than not describe their commute as stressful, while cyclists are more likely to enjoy their commute. Some of the central reasons for this are described to be “a high degree of commuting control and  ‘arrival-time reliability,’” “enjoyable levels of sensory stimulation,” and “The ‘feel better’ effects of moderate intensity exercise,” among other factors. These three factors are the holy trinity of reasons that people generally enjoy cycling to work more than driving. The freedom and control of not having to deal with traffic is a big deal to many people, let alone the physical health aspect of the commute. 

This could be you if you rode your bike more

Now we have passed through some of the personal benefits of riding a bike around if possible, but now we will cover how much it can benefit the environment. While people know that cycling is better for the environment than driving, it is important to highlight how much better it is. To start, one must burn fuel in order to drive, while cycling uses none. In an article on bayareabiketowork.com, it is stated that “each car produces another 1.3 billion cubic yards of polluted air” in its lifetime among other pollutants. Along with this, the brake pads produce pollution. Bicycles use a similar braking system (if you have rim brakes on), but they do not produce as much force, and therefore wear down less pad material per stop. If you were to not have a car and only own a bike, then you would be cutting many of the environmental effects of producing a car as well. The average automobile weighs roughly 2,800 lbs according to Google, while a cheap road bike will run under 25 lbs. This would make a heavy road bicycle 0.89% of the weight of an automobile. Along with this, bicycles are much easier to maintain, and one could reasonably ride a bike until the frame breaks if they take good care of it.  Although there is not very much research on the benefits of commuting by bike, many people have compared the environmental downsides.

One of the larger points to focus on when it comes to this topic is how much a car emits versus a bicycle. According to Frances Stevenson in the article, How much does Cycling impact your carbon footprint? And how much?, producing a car emits 313 grams of CO2, and it would emit 271 g of CO2 per kilometer driven. This is much more than a bike, which costs 16 g of CO2 to produce, and 16 g of CO2 to ride for one kilometer (food costs). These stats show that bicycles are much less costly to produce and operate, the CO2 saved over time would be a huge number. If you were to replace a 1 mile drive out and back every day with a bike ride, one would save more than 299,482.5 grams of CO2  from being put into the atmosphere. I say more, since I subtracted the total yearly cost of driving a car 2 miles per year by the total cost of riding a bike 2 miles daily per year, but one has to take into account that most of the cost of operating a bike is from food which is a cost that drivers also partake in, but was not accounted for. Obviously there are certain trips that cannot be made by bicycle, but it would be easy for anyone to replace a mile trip in the car with a bike ride, barring a physical disability. 

All calculations done by me

Now, I need to get to the scary part of cycling. I’m going to be honest and say that cycling is inherently dangerous. I have been hit by a car and had to spend time in the Intensive Care Unit, albeit this is a very rare experience. There are some things that you can do to be a little safer on the bike, though. For starters, one of the best ways to stay on your bike when riding aroud town is to stay away from parked cars. The left side of the bike lane is much safer than the right, since people love to swing their doors open without looking and obliterate cyclists when they are parked on the street. Secondly, you should always look out for cars who might turn into you at any moment. The person who hit me turned without using their blinker, and many other people do. These two situations area majority of car on bike accidents, so doing these two things may save you a lot of pain. Oh, and most importantly, WEAR YOUR HELMET. I ASSURE YOU THAT YOU DO NOT WANT TO GET BRAIN DAMAGE BECAUSE OF AN IDIOT IN A CAR. That is all I have to say about safety.

This is the silver 2010 Honda Accord that hit me. That dent was made by my hip. This happened over 6 months ago and my hip still looks fucked up. I am blessed that it didn’t shatter into a million pieces though.

 Action shot. Sorry for not wearing a helmet

In conclusion, commuting on a bike is pretty beneficial to the user. It has a chance to lower stress, increase heart health, and lower the burden that people have on the environment. Reductions in stress and increases in VO2 Max may prove to be very valuable to people in the long term in regards to heart health, and the reduced carbon emissions speak for themselves. While some people may not be able to ride their bike to work, there are many areas in which gas can be saved, such as other short drives. Although it can be dangerous, the guarantee is that if you get hit, you get a fat settlement from the driver’s insurance company. I’d say that it evens out in the end. 

Works Cited:     https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ii_9tTRSUcxUPBNUrJfxLmIJVGAiQL1AvxshjMIfPuE/edit?usp=sharing

Pushing. Peep the Nike Zoom Monarchs on my footsie wootsies