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marleneoftheopera · 9 months

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Holiday Audio/Video Gifts!

For the holiday season, here are some audio gifts from various shows and one Phantom video! The link to them is here and the info is below the cut:

Happy holidays and I hope you are all having time for some rest!

Audios

POTO

Jon Robyns, Paige Blankson, Joe Griffiths-Brown, Kelly Glyptis, Matt Harrop, Adam Linstead, Francesca Ellis, David Kristopher Brown, Maiya Hikasa August 22, 2023; London

Tim Howar, Harriet Jones, Nadim Naaman, Lara Martins, Nicholas Garrett, Arvid Larsen, John Ellis, Valerie Cutko, Kelsi Boyden March 19, 2023; Greece

Josh Piterman, Corinne Cowling (u/s), Danny Whitehead, Katy Hanna (u/s), Ross Dawes, Kris Manuel (u/s), Sophie Caton (u/s), Paul Ettore Tabone, Georgia Ware October 17, 2019; London Matinee.

Jeremy Stolle (u/s), Samantha Hill, Greg Mills (u/s), Michele McConnell, Richard Poole (u/s), Tim Jerome, Ellen Harvey, Christian Sebek, Kara Klein, Scott Mikita (u/s) March 9, 2013; Broadway Matinee performance.

John Owen-Jones, Deborah Dutcher, Matthew Cammelle, Bruce Montague, Charles Shirvell, Margaret Mary Kane (u/s), Janet Murphy, Jeremy Secomb, Lucy Middleton January 5, 2002; London

Love Never Dies

Tam Mutu, Celia Graham, David Thaxton, Daniel Dowling August 25, 2011; London Tam Mutu's last performance.

Les Miserables

Christopher Jacobsen (u/s Jean Valjean), Stewart Clarke (Javert), Katie Hall (Fantine), Will Callan (Marius), Lulu-Mae Pears (Cosette), Amena El-Kindy (Eponine), Luke Kempner (Thenardier), Claire Machin (Madame Thenardier), Dejan Van der Flyert (Enjolras), Alex Shaw (Gavroche), Clohe Sullivan (Little Cosette), Tom Hext (Grantaire/Majordomo), Adam Pearce (Bishop/Claquesous), Ellie Ann Lowe (Factory Girl), Jordan Simon Pollard (u/s Foreman/Bujon), Matt Dempsey (Bamatabopis/Lesgles), Annabelle Aquino, Hazel Baldwin, Emily Olive Boyd, Ben Culleton, Matt Hayden, Sam Kipling, Anouk Van Lake, Harry Lake, Ben Oatley, Jonathan Stevens, Phoebe Williams, Ollie Wray September 28, 2023; London 15,000th show in London and the 5th show for the new company.

Sunset Boulevard

Nicole Scherzinger (Norma), Tom Francis (Joe Gillis), David Thaxton (Max von Mayerling), Grace Hodgett Young (Betty Shaefer), Ahmed Hamaad (Artie), Tyler Davis (Sheldrake), Charlotte Jaconelli (Johanna), Jon Tsouras (Cecil B. de Mille) September 28, 2023; London

Rebecca

Laureen Jones (I), Richard Carson (Maxim de Winter), Kara Lane (Mrs Danvers), Sara Harlington (Beatrice), Neil Moor (Giles), Piers Bate (Frank Crewley), David Breeds (Ben), Alex James Ward (Jack Favell), Shrley Jameson (Mrs Van Hopper), Nicholas Lumley (Colonel Julian) September 27, 2023; Off-West End

POTO Video

Ian Jon Bourg, Olivia Safe (u/s), Kyle Gonyea 2001; Hamburg, Germany VOB files. One of the most legendary Phantom's opposite one of the youngest Christine's!

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wildrangers · 9 months

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Say Don't Go // Ryan Lindgren

Word Count: 2.4K

Summary: Your situationship with Ryan devolves

{For my 1989 Vaults Track Challenge}

Warnings/tropes: unresolved angst, allusions to sex but no smut (like PG-13ish), cursing, cliffhanger

As your eyes slowly opened to the bright morning light filtering through your windows, you had a blissful moment of ignorance. Where you didn’t remember last night or the previous six months, or think of him at all. But when your phone vibrated on the night stand, your traitorous mind thought ‘Is it Ryan?’ and it all came rushing back.

I’ve known it from the very start

We’re a shot in the darkest dark

Oh no, oh no, I’m unarmed

To Ryan’s credit, he’d been honest from the beginning. When you met him at a bar and had immediately gotten lost in his blue eyes, he’d been up front that he couldn’t commit to anything serious. He was entering the last season of his contract and didn’t know what the next year would bring—all he could focus on was playing his best to maximize his next deal.

And that was fine for you, really. You’d been in a long-term relationship that had been fizzling out for some time before you’d pulled the plug a few months before, so the excitement of a fling was exactly what you’d wanted. You’d gone home with him that night and, even though you’d exchanged numbers earlier in the evening, you assumed that was that. But when he texted you the following weekend to come over, you figured what was the harm? You were both on the same page—it was simple.

The pattern repeated for the next few weekends, until one night, as you lounged in his bed before gathering the energy to head home, he spoke up.

“Would you want to come to this dinner at my friend’s house?” he questioned and you turned to face him, brow furrowed. “What’s the face for?” he chuckled.

“Last I checked, keeping it casual and meeting friends is a bad combination.”

“I mean, you don’t have to, I just…they keep busting my balls that I’m making up that I’m seeing someone” he replied, face turning pink.

And that sign of embarrassment, of vulnerability, had kept you from pushing further. Were you seeing each other? Why was he talking to his friends about you? Did inviting you along change things between you?

“Sure, I’ll go” you shrugged, placing a kiss to his cheek before rising from his bed. “They’re going to adore me though and then you’re done for.”

And they had. You had immediately begun teasing Ryan with Adam, clicked with Adam’s fiancée Sam, and enjoyed goofing around with the few other teammates there. You’d been surprised by how seamlessly they pulled you into the fold. Alexis had invited you out with them the next weekend and Sam had insisted you join them for brunch the day after. When Ryan had simply shrugged when you looked at him for approval, his blue eyes twinkling in amusement, you’d agreed to them both.

I’m standin’ on a tight rope, alone

I hold my breath a little bit longer

Months later, you were completely enmeshed in his life. You’d joined the group at bars to celebrate wins, partied with his friends, brunched with the significant others. You’d desperately wanted to revisit what you were to each other, what you were doing at this point. But you loved hanging out with him and his friends, bonding with the girls, and getting to see more and more of his world. You were afraid to upset the precarious balance you’d somehow found with him.

Tonight though, you were nervous. You’d joined Sam and other significant others at her house for a couple of games at this point but this was your first time going to the Garden.

“Don’t worry, the girls will meet you right inside the venue when I drop you off” Ryan offered, soothingly rubbing the back of your hand with a calloused thumb.

“I know, this just seems like a big deal, actually coming to a game” you hedged, gauging his reaction.

“You’ve wanted to though, right?”

“I mean, yeah I want to support you” you replied and watched as the corner of Ryan’s mouth turned up just before he lifted your hand to place a kiss to your palm.

“You’re the best” he said, the sincerity of his words making you ache.

Before you could respond, Ryan pulled over to the curb and placed a quick kiss to your lips. “Have a good game, Ry” you smiled, stealing another kiss before opening the car door.

“Are you down to go out later if it’s a good game?”

“Of course. Now, go before you’re late and have to do bag skates next practice” you teased, butterflies soaring in your stomach at his deep chuckle.

Several hours later, you were waiting with a few others girls down the tunnel following a Rangers win. Everyone had been so wonderful and welcoming, making sure you were comfortable and taken care of while you were in the suite. It made you feel like you could belong here, like these could be your people.

“There she is!” a familiar voice called, and you smiled as Sam ran to meet Adam halfway. Ryan came out seconds latere and you waited in place, unsure of what to do. Did you greet him with a kiss or keep it casual, since that’s apparently what you were to one another?

“Ryan Lindgren!” you heard a voice call from beside you and confusion flooded your system at the mischievous look in Vincent’s wife’s eyes.

“What?” he asked nervously, hand settling on your lower back.

“Why have you been hiding your lovely lady from all of us? She’s just the best! Much better company than your grumpy self—you’re lucky she puts up with you” she teased and Ryan threw his head back in laughter. You were taken aback, having just met the woman a few hours beforehand, but Ryan didn’t seem surprised by her outspokenness.

“Trust me, I know how lucky I am” he smiled, wrapping his arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side. “I just had to make sure she wouldn’t flee once she met you crazy lot.”

Everyone laughed, yourself included, as you turned your gaze to Ryan. He grinned down at you for a brief moment before placing a gentle kiss to your mouth, taking you by surprise. This was the first time he’d been physically affectionate with you while you were with his friends, beyond an arm around you or a hand in yours. You felt something shift between you in that moment and something like hope fluttered in your chest.

Why’d you whisper in the dark?

Just to leave me in the night?

Now your silence has me screamin’, screamin’

That night was different in every way. As the whole team and their partners overtook their local spot, Ryan never left your side. His hand was always somewhere on you—your shoulder, waist, hip, wrapped in your hair as he pulled you in for another deep kiss. The public affection was such a drastic change it was dizzying.

As people began to trickle out, you were giving Adam and Sam parting hugs. “Make sure you keep him in line, Y/N, he’s definitely hit his drink limit” Adam teased earning a playful push from his friend.

“You should know by now there’s no keeping this man anywhere he doesn’t want to be” you joked back, earning a parting laugh as they left the bar. You took another sip of your drink, turning to face Ryan when you felt his eyes locked on you. “What?”

“You should have warned me that I’d end up adoring you too” he said simply and your blood started roaring in your ears.

“What can I say? I’m irresistible” you teased and he smirked before pulling you into him, his mouth easily locking with yours.

When you two ended up in your bed shortly after, even that was different. Sex with Ryan was always good, as he was attentive to your wants and needs. But there had always been a barrier set between you, only allowing so much vulnerability while you were wrapped together.

Tonight, you were breathless from his near constant eye contact, his reverent kisses placed all over your body, his far gentler than normal pace. He was taking his time in a way he never had before, like he didn’t want this moment to end—and neither did you.

So, when you found yourself catching your breath beside him you took a risk, “Could you stay tonight?” you requested quietly, keeping your eyes closed to avoid his intense blue gaze.

“We agreed…” he started but trailed off.

You forced yourself to open your eyes after a heavy moment of silence. “We agreed on a lot of things that don’t seem to apply anymore” you pointed out and he gently moved a strand of hair from your face. “We’re already doing everything a couple does. I’m friends with your friends, I’m going to your games. Can you please just stay tonight?”

His eyes continued searching your face before he finally nodded, settling farther into your bed and pulling you into his side. As you settled on his chest, your breathing became synchronized as sleep approached. Just as it overcame you, you found yourself believing that this meant things were finally going to change between you.

Despite these thoughts, when you awoke early the next morning you weren’t all that surprised by the coldness that met your outstretched hand rather than his warmth beside you.

Why’d you have to

Make me love you?

I say I love you

You say nothin’ back

The next week was the whiplash following a car wreck. You didn’t see Ryan, he ignored your calls, answered via text in one-word answers. You’d had enough of it, which is how you found yourself pounding on his door on a night you knew he had off work.

He finally opened the door, eyes widening when he realized it was you. “Y/N…I didn’t know we had plans.”

“Oh, fuck you Ryan, you know we don’t have plans and you know exactly why I’m here” you angrily retorted, breezing past him into his apartment. You refused to have this conversation on his door step.

“Enlighten me then” he replied and the coldness in his voice made you stop short.

“You’ve been ignoring me all week!”

“I’ve been busy.”

Rage and hurt roared through you as Ryan refused to engage with you, even though you were within feet of him.

“What are we?” you demanded.

“Y/N” he said, forced patience in his voice. “We both agreed from the beginning this was a casual thing.”

“It was so casual you introduced me to your friends?” you demanded and he refused to meet your gaze. “It was so casual you invited me to a game? So casual that you said you adored me that night, called me the best?”

“Adam was right, I’d had too much to drink.”

You stepped closer, taking his hands in yours, desperately trying to make him look at you. “Ryan, please, don’t say that.”

Only silence met you. “I think I’m falling in love with you” you admitted quietly, all the fight leaving your body. His only response was to remove his hands and take a step away.

The roaring sound of nothingness surrounded you two as you desperately waited for him to say something, anything, or at the very least look at you. “You don’t even have the guts to tell me to leave” you laughed bitterly, shaking your head. “You’re a coward, Ryan, that’s what you are.”

And with that, you stormed out of his apartment.

I would stay forever if you say

“Don’t go”

But you won’t

You fought with yourself before finally reaching over to your nightstand to grab your phone.

Can we talk?

He had some fucking nerve. You shook your head angrily, quickly rising from your bed. You didn’t bother to answer his message, instead directing your pent-up energy on removing any trace of him from your apartment, your life. You stripped the bed, tossed the snacks you kept on hand for him in the trash, placed any random objects he’d left behind in a box you’ give to Adam’s fiancée at some point soon. But you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away the jersey he’d given you just a week ago—so you threw it in the back corner of your closet, tossing random items on top to bury it.

By the time you rallied yourself enough to sit down with your phone, hours had passed. You took a deep breath and opened up your photo album, tears stinging to your eyes as you began selecting any that included Ryan to delete them. Halfway through, a new text popped up

Y/N, please, just say something

You scoffed at his nerve and replied only with a middle finger emoji. Your phone screen quickly lit up with his name before you slammed the side button to decline the call. Within seconds, he called back again and you repeated the process, this time shutting your phone all the way off. The digital detox could wait until later.

You shook your head to yourself as you switched into leggings and a crew neck, pulling socks onto your feet. You weren’t normally a huge runner but the nerve he had to demand a response from you after his stifling silence the night before had flooded your body with too much energy. So, you laced up your sneakers and left your apartment hoping to lose yourself in the movement of your body, the crowds of people in the city.

And it worked, mostly, anyway. You knew you couldn’t go back to him—couldn’t let him continue to have his cake and eat it too all while making you feel like shit. Making you feel like you’d imagined what had been developing between you these past months. The worst part was, if he had just acknowledged you last night, asked you not to leave, you would have stayed. Maybe forever. But that clearly was never going to happen.

As you trudged up your apartment steps, legs aching and desperately wanting a shower, you stopped short at the blonde man sitting beside your door. You were frozen, the air stripped from your lungs as his blue eyes rose to meet yours. You took a step back without thinking, unsure where you’d even go.

“Please, don’t go again.”

A/N: Okay, so this was my attempt at unresolved angst which I have never done. Honestly...kind of want to do a part two but only if y'all would be interested lol. More from my self-imposed challenge and the Winter Fic Exchange coming soon

#ryan lindgren #ryan lindgren x reader #ryan lindgren fic #ryan lindgren blurb #ryan lindgren imagine #nhl fic #nhl blurb #new york rangers #new york rangers blurb #new york rangers fic #Taylor's 1989 Vault Track Challenge

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beevean · 2 months

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https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.comingsoon.net/tv/features/1352249-castlevania-nocturne-interview-kevin-kolde-and-adam-sam-deats-on-season-1s-ending%3famp

Good morning! Have a feast!

oh joy.

I think the Abbott is a great character, and a gray and complex character. [...] With the church, priests were being guillotined and everything else. [...] he’s reacting and doing what he must to survive and what he genuinely thinks is right, but it’s obviously so messy.

Guys, there is a difference between being complex and messy, and not making any sense. A priest who denounces the Revolution because it's "godless" but then allies himself with cruel murderous vampires with plans of making a queen vampire ascend to goddess status is not complex, he's a giant idiot.

"we we look at the French Revolution from our perspective" it was barely a footnote. Stop promoting Nocturne as this amazing fantasy story set during the French Revolution when you guys couldn't even be bothered to realize bread was nearly unaffordable and thus Tera, supposedly a common woman, couldn't offer it to guests.

One of my favorite parts of the series, honestly, is Richter having to come face-to-face with a possible future for himself is obviously a hallowing experience for him and is a big part of his character growth.

Juste is kind of a mirror for Richter because it’s where Richter may end up if he loses himself and becomes defeated.

...

....................

Juste exists solely for Richter to be like "eww no I don't wanna be like that".

Juste exists solely as a warning. Don't be too traumatized, or you'll become a nihilistic hateable fuck.

Juste. Juste Belmont. The Successor of Fate. The man who first grappled with the weight of his legacy. You killed off Maxim and Lydie without any thought just to shoehorn him into the "cynical mentor" stereotype regardless if it fit his character, instead of truly building up from the harrowing worst ending. He was included in the show to be shat on, for Richter to get over his trauma in one episode - or, to quote the article, "finally get his mojo back".

... yeah I'm just going to move on before I explode. "I love HoD" my entire ass.

"This was our chance to actually harmonize some of the things that were developed later with Harmony of Dissonance" oh you think you're so funny aren't you

an opportunity to show something that we didn’t really get to see that much in a lot of Castlevanias, which is that Juste is the first Belmont that can use magic, right?

Oh, is this why Juste is completely useless in unlocking Richter's magic, and he has to remember the woman who mocked him for not being able to use magic to have his badass moment? Huh uh. Please, you just admitted Juste's narrative role was to be pitied and looked down on as a warning to never become like him.

"[Alucard's return] was built in as we laid out what the first season was going to be. It was always there." I had no doubts.

The path of him finding himself when he’s in this totally new, different distorted form is really interesting. I think there are also some elements that speak back to Castlevania Season 3 and some of the conversations that Isaac has with his night creatures.

Season 4, actually. You're referring to Isaac's speech about how Night Creatures don't have to be tools of destructions just because they were made for that purpose. Which is not a bad scene in theory, but the problem is that Night Creatures in Nocturne are not the same as in NFCV. In the latter, they are truly mindless, except for FlysEyes because he used to be a philosopher so he's much more intelligent than the other souls (whatever, this is the canon explanation) - Isaac was, what else, mostly talking about himself allegorically. But in Nocturne, probably because they were created with a stupid DEVIL FORGING MACHINE, it's clear that the Abbot has little control over his own creatures. Like, Edouard is not particularly special in that regard, it's the Abbot that sucks lmao.

anyway I'm going to speedrun HoD, bye

#anti netflixvania

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wip · 1 year

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because the notes and reply button on a post bring you to the same place, do you ever intend to get rid of the reply bubble? my post footer is so full I can't see how many notes a post has (note: I have the quick queue labs feature on. I don't want to turn this off, because I use it frequently)

Answer: Hey, @prettyfuckinhot!

So, we can say that we are not planning to change this and remove the reply button. But we are aware that the post footer is crowded, and we might make modifications in the post footer in the future.

It can also be said that we will be experimenting with post footer changes, and hope to update you with the results of these as we can. But the reply option will be staying where it is. We will, of course, keep you posted with all the latest updates here or at @changes

Thanks for your question, and have a lovely day.

—Adam and Maxime

#features #reply bubble #your suggestions

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allay-j11no · 5 months

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𝚄𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚖 𝙽𝚎 𝙸𝚕𝚕𝚞𝚖 𝙽𝚞𝚖𝚚𝚞𝚊𝚖 𝙲𝚘𝚗𝚜𝚙𝚎𝚡𝚒𝚜𝚜𝚎𝚖

𝓘𝓯 𝓸𝓷𝓵𝔂 𝓘 𝓱𝓪𝓭 𝓷𝓮𝓿𝓮𝓻 𝓼𝓮𝓮𝓷 𝓱𝓲𝓶. . .

this is a lil drabble about my OC's backstory, hope you enjoy! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ summer in Manchester was always beautiful. warm. calm. You always had your friends to share it with, no matter how stupid they may be, you always had your older brother to look after you is mum, dad, and your eldest brother said they were busy, that you were being a baby. . . "Rory...you got into a scrap with the neighbor boys again?" "Si n'done nothin' to em' yet they always pick on em'..." "Simon's a big boy, he can handle himself...bet Adam and Ezra were surprised to be beat by a wee lil lass like you huh?" Timothy never got mad. he saw your worth. he saw what you could do. he encouraged this, encouraged you to stand up for yourself. It was no surprise to him when Simon suddenly jumped at the chance to join the military, and you joined in after. Simon and you served together for a bit before he was accepted to the special air service. You joined the marines. "You joined the Military?" Maxim stated, the elder brother who despised your existence. "Marines dipshit." "Jarheads, dumbasses!" he snapped at you. "at least I don't get a full ride from our uncle!" 3 summers ago, you figured out your uncle was playing your father, and that your father has an identical twin. Michael. You met your father the day you graduated basic, one summer after the big reveal, Samuel. Maxim was your asshole uncles golden boy, you and Tim were frowned upon for even being related to him. Both results of drunken hook ups with the same woman. Samuel loved you and Tim dearly, During one of your returns to home, he took you to his club in America. "How's...everything been Rory?" "I got promoted to 2nd Lieutenant last week" You shared everything with him, glad to have your father back three years after this, you were called in by someone Laswell mentioned you to. John Price, you weren't surprised, Laswell looked out for you like you were her own spawn, she was aware of your lack of a mother figure, she filled that role in. "Rory Elizabeth Wright, More known as Wraith, your skillset is for stealth missions, master of infiltration missions, biological mother was Russian, Mila Wright, formally Mila Zhdan. From her you learned to speak Russian, her mother-tong. Biological father was a wealthy Brit, something he and his sibling inherited from their father." you were being asked to join 141. A joint multi-national special operations task force and counter-terrorism military unit, you do the dirty work others don't, your aren't complaining, over the years of being in it, 141 became a dysfunctional family, what made it better to you is, you found Simon. He was better known as Ghost now, but he never complained when you called him Simon, but that was when it was just the two of you.

2216 words, this is a small drabble, if any of you wants me to go into detail about each of the events, I gladly will! what I was doing with the bold Italics was something similar to how Jake Sully narrated Avatar, but made it seem like it was YOU who was telling the story, with any other drabble/story it'll be in Rory's POV

#cod mw2 #cod original character #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #john soap mactavish #john price #price #kate laswell #laswell mw2 #laswell cod #call of duty laswell #Callsign: Wraith #Father price #ghost x oc #drabble #oc backstory #oc brainrot

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cakerybakery · 5 months

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I’m avoiding things like packing for my trip tomorrow, studies for my final exam on next Friday, cleaning the house and getting things ready for tomorrow, and uploading Commitment to A03.

I re-added the epilogue, write 2,000 and some more words, wasn’t done, added several chapters and went. No. This is definitely its own story. The end of chapter 14 is the end of this series. Everything else is set in the same universe but the over arching plot is completed.

As per usual when I talk about what I’ve writing, have some bit of, actually I’ll do stuff from each of the stories set in the Consent universe.

- commitment

“So he probably has a massive army of souls forced to do his bidding right? And there’s,” Angel counted out loud, “five of us now. I’m checking the math and the answer is we’re about to get our asses handed to us.”

“Yeah, well, I’m pretty shitty at math.” Adam jumped down, using his wings to slow himself down.

- Ready?

“I wanted to fuck you. God, I wanted to fuck you so bad. I wanna fuck you so bad now.” Lucifer turned around in Adam’s lap and pushed him into the mattress. “You didn’t know what you were doing but if I gave you the fruit you would know and I could fuck you.

It that what my baby wanted to hear? That I’ve been lusting after your ass practically since you named me. Since I named you, Atom. Since you called me your partner and I fell in love with you. Pride might have made me disobey orders but lust is the sin that made me fall. Fall for you.

Now, what exactly are the chances daddy is going to get to fuck you? On a scale of yes to you doomed all of humanity for my ass and you’ll never get permission to touch it again?”

- untitled Lilith x Eve

She made her way into the master bedroom ensuite and sat down next to Adam who had dismantled the whole closet and was scrubbing the underside of a shelf.

“Want a hand?”

Adam stopped scrubbing and sighed, “no. You won’t do it right.”

“Okay, ow. Just going to chalk that up to nesting.”

I have zero idea what the lead up to that in the untitled fic is. It was a scene that popped into my head of Eve going to ask Adam for some relationship advice since he seems to be doing something right if he managed to land Lucifer.

I’m thinking plot wise that since they tightened security in heaven Eve decides to move in with Lilith down in hell for awhile. Help her best gal pal and friends with benefits out and showing her how to navigate the single life and maximize her fun. But it gets weird because someone had assumed they were dating and Eve for the first time in 10,000 years realizes that maybe that Lilith is less interested in just being gal pals and more interested in a happily ever after and Eve isn’t sure if she’s ready for the next chapter in her afterlife yet. She settled down once before. Did she really want to do it again?

#writing #adam x lucifer #hazbin hotel adam #adamsapple #hazbin hotel lucifer #lilith x eve #hazbin hotel eve #hazbin hotel lilith

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grison-in-space · 1 year

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Still listening to 1632, and honestly I forgot how much I like its narrative choices.

Okay, we have the climactic battle scene where the giant marauding mercenary army of pikemen and arquebusiers menaces the brave little 2000s era West Virginia town, right? With the substantial benefit of an M60 machine gun someone smuggled home from Vietnam and buried out in the back of his property. ("look, I'm not like a survivalist weirdo or anything. It seemed like a prank more than anything else at the time!") That did happen sometimes, but that sure was a lucky stroke, yeah? And of course our ragged band of hillbilly heroes, armed with their deer rifles, slaughter the shit out of the giant experienced army of seasoned veterans. Sure. Everybody cheer: remember, this is the army we first encounter raping and killing the shit out of civilians for maximal earnings. The ranks of men begin to fall like a glacier cleaving flesh rather than ice: what an image. Everyone sit back and bask in American technological superiority. USA! USA!

Except.... er, we just took the time to humanize one of the soldiers in that army a couple of scenes ago. He's just joined up to protect his family. His big sister's a camp follower; their family got attacked a year or two ago, and she's pretty, so she got picked as the kept woman in their band. He's just gotten old and big enough to be useful as a soldier, so he's been taken on as a recruit, and he's drinking the crap out of anything he can keep down so he can always be mysteriously too drunk to participate in the looting.

He's pretty sure he's in hell. And then he marches off into that scene of technological carnage.

So this does a bunch of things. One: it's real hard to surrender into treating that slaughter as a total victory when you know that Hans is out in it. We like Hans. He's doing his best and we really hope he lives, okay? (Spoiler: he does live.) Two: it forces you to think about everyone involved--we get a lot of POV from his sister Gretchen next--is experiencing and perceiving these American loons from a specific context that exists beyond them.

There has also just been an absolutely delightful scene where a couple of 2000s-era American doctors are proposing a joint practice with a local Sephardic doctor and he casually suggests they check over everything in Avicenna before they prescribe that in case it works. He's mildly startled when they gape at him like a fish and essaying "uh, you can read Arabic, right?" and when it becomes clear that the answer is definitely no, adds "oh, well, you're in luck, I have a Greek translation!" One of the Americans asks, very cautiously, how many languages he speaks, and he rattles off nine that he's fluent in, another four he's proficient in at least enough to read, and a fifth he's currently picking up for political reasons.

At which point the high school history teacher wanders into the room and asks what's going on, to be told by the Sephardic man's daughter "ah, it turns out my father is a more accomplished linguist even if he doesn't know some things":

"Well, of course!" Melissa snorted. "Americans are ignorant louts when it comes to language." The schoolteacher planted her arms akimbo and gave Nichols and Adams the same glare which had cowed thousands of students over the years. "What?" she demanded. "Did you think you were actually smarter than these people?"

God I love Melissa.

#1632 #Eric Flint

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blueblueberryjam · 2 months

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100 CHAPTERS. 450k WORDS.

At the Garrison, Shiro flashed his ID to get them clearance onto the launch pad.

"Don't touch anything," he warned both of them, leading them onto the ship. He showed Keith his bunk and introduced him to the mice. ("That one is designated Alpha-B, so we call her Abe.") Finally, he showed Keith to the pilot's controls.

"And this is where the magic happens."

It looked fairly complicated, but Keith felt like he understood the basics of what things did. "Cool," he remarked, looking marginally more engaged.

Shiro showed Keith the controls for artificial gravity, thrust, and rotation, explaining how he would use the last two to get them out of atmosphere and on course to Mercury.

Keith paid attention to what Shiro was saying. Hey, he'd have to know this at some point, right? Well, assuming he actually got in. It was entirely possible he wouldn't. Probable, really. There were so many way better candidates.

Shiro checked his watch and ushered them out of the ship. Technically, they weren't supposed to be in here.

Outside the ship, he waved to Lieutenant Reyes and Commander Holt. Matt was there, too, with his sister, Katie. Shiro checked his watch again. "I only have a few minutes before we're supposed to start pre-launch checks."

"Oh." Keith wasn't sure how to react. He didn't know what he was feeling. He wished he understood himself, but he didn't.

Adam hugged Shiro tightly, pressing a kiss to his cheek and dropping his head onto his shoulder.

"I'll miss you," he said. He looked into Shiro's eyes. "And remember- don't hide anything from me this time. I want to know."

"I promise." Shiro nodded. Adam stepped away, and Shiro opened his arms to Keith for a hug.

Keith hugged him, a little stiffer than normal. Logically, he should be trying to maximize what time he had with Shiro, but.... it was weird. It was like his brain was just preparing him to... to be left. Shiro hugged him tightly anyway.

"I'll send messages, I promise," he said. "And I'll be back before you know it." He pulled away slightly, brushing Keith's hair back from his face. "I love you."

"Ensign Shirogane!"

Shiro looked up. "I have to go," he said again. He waved over his shoulder as he walked away.

#lost and found abs #chapter 66 #voltron #vld #voltron legendary defender #broganes #shiro #adam #keith #adashi #shadam #fic #fanfic #fanfiction

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chiss-ticism · 11 months

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hiiiii can i ask more about percy's pack? 🥺👉🏻👈🏻 what's the group dynamic like, what do they love and hate most about each other? or anything else you wanna share about them! i wish to perc(y)eive

Oh, yeah, of course! tysm for taking an interest 😭

A Not-So-Brief Introduction to the Pack :)

Sir Percival [Ventrue Antitribu] [Templar] [Pack Member]

Art beautifully crafted by @/belthegore - Survivor of the Week of Nightmares, Percival ["Percy" to friends and allies] is feverishly devoted to seeing the Sword of Caine's goals brought to fruition - his near death experience at the proverbial hands of the Antediluvian in conjunction with ~general~ Sabbat propaganda frying his brain in that regard. - He's principled in the sense that he's dedicated to Dominique Touraine's philosophy of 'Absolute freedom demands absolute responsibility.'. The Sabbat, in his eyes, are never going to achieve their goals if everyone is letting their base/Beast's desires control their every whim. There's a time and a place for indulging in such things and it isn't while they're actively fighting a war. - Doesn't necessarily understand the wanton violence some of the sects members engage in but is far from a stranger to violence himself. - Holding every Cainite in the highest of regards - seeing them as brothers, sisters, and siblings in Caine, he will willingly put his life on the line for any of them or even die for them if the situation calls for it [NOTABLY DOES NOT INCLUDE: Camarilla, Tremere, Giovanni, Setites, or any of the others on the Sabbat's laundry list of enemies]. More fanaticism. yadda yadda. - Adamant about sticking to preferred titles/epithets. "His excellency" for the Archbishop, "Grand Inquisitor/Reverend Sister" for the Grand Inquisitor, "The Dark Father" exclusively for Caine, so on so forth. - Kind.

Judith Margolis [Brujah Antitribu] [Ductus] [Black Hand]

- Also referred to as "Judy", "Moody Judy", or "M.J." - A member of the Black Hand. - A scholar of the Convention of Thorns even before she defected, Judy had always been Sabbat sympathetic - even during her nights of holding fairly decent sway within her domains' local Anarch Movement on account of her Bloodline and how much of a vocal proponent of direct action she was. Convinced that the Anarch Movement wasn't doing all it could to combat the Camarilla, she took the fight directly to them: finding herself being bloodhunted out of town for having made attempts on the Brujah and Ventrue Primogen's lives. She diablerized the Brujah Primogen directly, but the Ventrue got away one haven and a handful of bodyguards shorter. - - The Brujah was probably a set-up: having taken advantage of their good will/willingness to hear out members of the clan. Have a trusted insider set up a meeting, go in their place, profit. Conspirators didn't know she was planning on diablerizing them - maybe Final Death'ing to make a point but not diablerie. They balk at the idea, turn on her, and report the crime to one another. The Ventrue would've probably been an attempt to maximize the damage on the way out of town, eventually ending up as a failed break-in attempt that resulted in the haven getting torched but not the Primogen themselves - I rather like the idea that, during modern nights, she ingratiates herself with the local Anarch communities and scouts them out for potential recruits when such a thing is feasible/allowed - She's just as focused on taking out the Camarilla as Percy is, though tangibly less… [gestures vaguely at how willing Percy is to take one for the team]. - Dresses like evil Jesse Pinkman. Baggy pants, beanies, and hoodies galore. All variations of red and black - 5'5'' - Brown hair, dark brown eyes - Physically Late 20s, early 30s

Ida Obertus [Former Revenant, Tzimisce] [Pack Priest] [Children of the Dracon - scholarly wing (Akoimetai)]

- Shortest member of the pack at a solid 5'2'' - Born and Embraced in Montreal - She and Percy are both on the Path of Honorable Accord - Former Revenant, upon being Embraced she kept the Revenant Weakness [OCD] in addition to the regular clan weakness. - While she's perfectly capable of defending herself or reveling in sanguine succor if the situation calls for it, Ida is probably the only member of the pack that isn't on a martial bent. She prefers the time she gets to spend locked away with ancient tomes or helping prep for the Sword of Caine's festivals to, say, engaging in War Parties or the Wild Hunt. - Barring Noddism, of which she and Luther have [good naturedly] debated one another about the semantics of for hours on end, her expertise in life veered toward [supernatural] quirks of the blood: Ghouls, Revenants, trying to figure out what on earth a changeling is and why their blood is allegedly fucked up when they aren't visibly distinguishable in the slightest from everyone else, etc. etc. It would've been to help with the family's whole [gesturing vaguely at usurping humanity] even if she doesn't care about any of that now. - She would love to get her hands on a Lupine's corpse for study but, for a plethora of reasons, it's extremely Unlikely. The handful of times the pack has been Dog tagging they trend towards leaving the damnable creature where they found it - Ida, without fail, asking a one (1) time if she can bring it back to the haven. M.J., without fail, will pretend to humor the idea and put a pin in the conversation with a resounding "No." - She's significantly younger than Luther in age, but also lower than him in Generation [9th]. Both of them are ancillae. - She shut off her nerves via Vicissitude. Pain tolerance is through the roof - She has a personal "Grand Library" in her Montreal haven that she's left in the care of some of her former mortal family. While she keeps the volume entrusted to her from the Library of the Forgotten with her at all times, any books of note she can't cart around with her from domain to domain she sends back to them. - She has a singular Obertus revenant that she brings w/ her from domain to domain. He mostly tend to the haven's cleanliness (barring her own room which she insists upon doing herself) and aiding her in her studies. - - A distant cousin of hers, his name is Colin. - - Percy is polite but noticeably more distant than he is with other Cainites, Luther refuses to engage with him on grounds of his Path, and M.J. orders him around like a Pack Member with none of the benefits. - She knows [Latin, Byzantine Greek (For studying Constantinople), and French (She's from Montreal)] - She's friends with @/Styxnbones' Peona. Montreal Tzimisce buddies :) - She has Eidetic Memory, lending to her exceptionally high stats in the Knowledge Category (aided by the Grand Library she owns)

Ritae Ida Knows: - All 13 Auctoritas Ritae - Ignobilis Ritae: [Allegiance, Acceptance, Contrition, Stealth, and one she's developed for the Pack to use] I don't know if you can tell, but Ida is the one currently giving me brain worms :)

Luther 😎 [Lasombra] [Pack Member] [Caine's Goofiest Goober]

- Noddist scholar. Loves Caine^2 & took part of a now-forgotten ritus that marked his forehead with the Mark of Caine. Now has a "twisted form of true faith" from it. He can essentially use Noddist symbols to scare other vampires away :) - As mentioned, devout noddist now. He initially clung to the stories of Caine willingly forsaking the will of God and the Heavenly Host as comforting and growing to sympathize with the tragedy of the First City. He has these theories about Enoch being buried somewhere in the ocean, having been left there without hope of reclaiming it properly after the flood & wants to go looking but lacks support, time, and wet-suit. The Lasombra Antediluvian's vitae vaguely suggesting that he and some of his clanmates spend a little time with the sea/Mediterranean certainly doesn't help dissuade him from his dreams. - He loves a good practical joke, though, odds are that only he ever really finds them more than moderately amusing. Tough crowd the Sword of Caine are. I've likened him to Bugs Bunny before. - A cold draft always follows him wherever he goes. - Wears his sunglasses at night [He may look like a dork but he does have a valid reason to be wearing them :)] - He puts on a front of just being a Silly Little Guy who doesn't take anything seriously save for his pack and other ritae related to Caine himself. - Do not let him drive. - [he has more Tragedy in his backstory but it's not overly relevant atm :)]

Your Questions! :D

What's the group dynamic like?

-It didn't cross my mind when I was initially slotting puzzle pieces together for Ida, but Percy's bloodline ~generally~ started having issues w/ the Tzimisce as a direct result of his Methuselah diablerizing one in Constantinople. It's a complicated mess of pack dynamics/sins of the father/personal philosophies but I think Ida being a Dracon & sharing their general outlook/reverence for the time|domain: --Being the quieter members of their pack, they enjoy one another's company now-a-nights [I find the mental image of them reading their own niche books in the same room of the communal haven to be a nice one.] but those first few months of knowing one another were capital T tense. Ida, through other Akoimetai as study of Constantinople's vampiric history is ~tentatively~ a side hobby of hers compared to her other (k)nightly duties, was made aware of the Circumstances regarding the Methuselah and his bloodlines' general disposition toward the clan. The stress of the Week of Nightmares and the wounds therein would've been still been fresh for Percy as well. --Ida would prefer that the main clan -and everyone who abides by their rulings- would carefully dissect every choice they make and refrain from haphazardly damning the rest of the clan even further (for Percy it'd be dragging the whole sect down w/ them) further than they already are, playing devils advocate like the Children are want to do: make them consider the weight of their actions and consider the responsibility that intrinsically comes with as much sway as they do. Percy, on the other hand, is like. Yeah… Excellent points to make - we don't always have the luxury of deliberation, though. [this would've been less of a point of contention during the Gehenna War, mind, but she's probably started up again now that things have tentatively cooled down a bit.] --Percy + Ida: wanting the best for Cainites 'everywhere'

- ignoring the fact that Judy has considered hitting him with a car before, the pack wouldn't really be the same without Luther. 1 of the reasons he keeps up his funny little guy routine is that he recognizes that they'd all burn out without a little brevity in their unlives - being as overly focused on their individual goals as they are in a world where the Sword of Caine is in a particularly fragile state. He's happy to provide laughs (or someone to be frustrated with) if it keeps them from teetering on the edge.

- As the Pack Priest - and one who takes confession at that - Ida is probably the Cainite they confide in the most. Few secrets of personal relevance being kept between them (faction stuff is another story), she's the person they'd go to for, say, interpersonal advice or a friend to alleviate their mental woes with.

- Percy & Judy are on the war path, but their respective duties tend to take them away from the Pack for long bouts of time :(. Keeping tabs on one another isn't the easiest thing in the world either

What do they love most about each other?

They're all potently driven in their chosen fields of expertise, being able to talk about their interests for hours on end and provide one another with valuable insight they might've missed. Percy & Judy's combat practice, for example, can be expanded upon by Ida's occult knowledge when they're doggtagging. Luther [through adherence to the faith] & Ida [through being as well-read as she is] provide one another with new perspectives on Noddism anytime they talk about it, etc. etc.

What do they hate most about each other?

- That Percy and Judy are taken away so often [Ida never comments on it but it certainly doesn't feel Good when it happens]

- Judy's taste in music [Percy & Ida do not understand how people listen to Industrial metal. She introduced Luther to the Sisters of Mercy so he doesn't care all that much]

- Percy's staunch adherence to formalities. [Judy has asked him time and time again to just call her by her name]

- That Judy seems to place very little emphasis on the more secular aspects of the sect. [Luther -> Judy. She does believe in Caine, but she mostly joined up for a better chance at dealing with the Camarilla properly]

#My OCs #Percy Tag #Luther Tag #Ida Tag #Moody Judy Tag #Percy Pack Tag

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borderlineseaweed · 1 year

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OKay! so I'm not dead,, yet-

So, I decided on the future of "One Day At a Time."

so far...

I will continue writing and expanding on it and the relationships/dynamics of the characters. (yippie)

The main point of view will still be in the eyes of Lizzie and Raz because I gravitated toward Lizzie once I saw her interactions with other interns and towards Raz. Although she is an overall jerk, she lightens up to Raz and the others later.

(Of course, she still teases him, calling him "pooter" and the confrontation with Cassie as the Green Needle Witch.)

More interestingly, Lizzie even later admits her true feelings towards her sister

"I just want to beat my sister, okay?!"

"I love my sister! There! I said it! I know she's a pill, but I love her anyway!"

Also, why did she sign up as an intern for the Psychonauts? Did Lizzie tag along because of her sister or because of something else?

I mean, everyone else has a reason:

Sam is already tied to the psychonauts with Compton Boole and family recognition.

Morris has a connection to Millia as a guardian/parental figure

Adam is a big psychonaut nut and the "big dog" of the group.

Gisu is a genius engineer working with Otto on dreams and psychic material.

Norma is an (egotistical) glory seeker seeking high recognition and a sense of accomplishment.

So yeah, just wanted to explore this character a little more.

Overall, this will be an add-on to my intentional one-shot

The setting is still around 1982-early 80's and will feature implied locations from memory vaults or ones already established. I do this because I love the lore and scraping everything I can from characters' dialogues.

Things might be expanded on:

Characters

Relationship building

Delugionists

Anti-psychic propaganda

International spy missions (MISSIONS! FUCK YEAH!)

Turmoil of elites and power

I will still make my art to coincide with my writing. I want to enrich my storytelling and aid as a visual guide. My guided style seems to lead into a graphic novel type and I suppose it is very fitting with the original idea of the fic. That, and I love maximalism art and I can sprinkle in Easter eggs.

I will open my ask box if you want one scene in particular to be drawn. I will gladly do so! :)

Given my circumstances as a (busy... Currently looking at my schedule, Jesus Christ-) student, updates will be sparse and few in-between.

However! Not all hope is lost because the Psychonauts 2 Art Book is close to finalization! The world of Psychonauts will be further explored, and more concepts will be covered! (double yippie)

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pazodetrasalba · 3 months

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Vae Victis

Dear Caroline:

Just finished reading yesterday this recommendation of yours. It wasn't bad, but if I am to be sincere, it is up to now the least interesting of your 5 star choices. I imagine this comes as a result of my absence from the world it depicts: what might have been personally relevant for an (ex)finance bro like you is mostly irrelevant for me.

Yes, the book is a bit slow and rambling, and yes, it does accelerate and get more thriller-like once the bids are out (title gives away the resolution, though, if for some reason you had never heard of the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout in the first place). The cast is too big - I actually benefited from watching the movie adaptation before finishing the book so that I could at least make a clear mental picture of the, say, 10 or so main characters.

One way of reading this book (and the popular narrative at the time of the events) is as a story of greed, with stereotyped and villainous figures (the film is much less nuanced than the book, and really goes full-hog in this direction: Ross Johnson is a a snake charmer wallowing in luxury who'd sell his mother for the right price, and Henry Kravis is literally Count Dracula - nobody does 'slightly creepy old dude' better than Jonathan Pryce), the worst of which are Wall Street bankers and lawyers who are out to make a catch with complete disregard for the well-being of businesses, shareholders, workers and public. This is how I would have read it many years ago, in my Marxist years. Now that I have become attuned to the fact that capitalism and markets are (mostly) good and the financial sector is necessary for keeping our social machine well oiled and running, I'd be inclined to make other readings as well.

On a side note -actually, it's not that much in the sidelines-, schools do a very poor job at pushing forward what is an extremely anti-intuitive but truthful view, first espoused by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations, and expressed in your own review as "You think about market participants each trying to maximize their profits, and everyone acting in their own interest ends up maximizing total welfare, and that makes sense in a zoomed-out way, and as far as I can tell is not a crazy model of the behavior of companies". But this really beggars belief until you actually see it: it feels no less stupid and false to a smart teenager than religious dogma. On the contrary, the same teenager who reads The Communist Manifesto will find a very believable narrative of the moral and economic progress of History through class conflict, and if he further pursues some basic readings (and remains, as we mostly do, economically illiterate), will also find the theory of surplus value scientific-sounding and a good basis for accusing all capitalists of being exploiters and thieves.

It is, indeed, nothing short of miraculous that individual egoisms actually end up creating a quasi-optimal arrangement for the most part, but I feel Barbarians at the Gate is mostly showing you the scenario when this doesn't actually happen. That is to say, for RJR Nabisco under Johnson's leadership, and through the LBO, it does indeed appear that (quoting you again):

- there is a CEO, who is a guy - there is a board, consisting of a bunch of guys who are friends with the CEO - they all have fiduciary duties and if they fail to meet them they will get yelled at by a judge in Delaware - ??? - shareholder value gets maximized

Love the ???. Actually, if one goes back to those dull, first chapters at the beginning of the book, we do get a glimpse of how companies manage to turn individual egoisms into positive enterprises. The book dwells a lot on the first years of Nabisco and Reynolds tobacco, on how founders made all the right choices of wise investment and expansion, use of local knowledge, ethics, hard work and know-how, treating workers and shareholders well, taking advantage of rising opportunities... It really reads like a guide on what to do, as contrasted with the relative vacuity of what Ross Johnson actually ends up doing. Does he actually create any positive value? Perhaps his best contribution is his rejection of stability and routine, a chaotic undermining of conformity which might help against the inevitable stagnation of consolidated companies, but that appears to be all he does. Yes, he charms board members and presidents, parties hard and lavishes wealth on executives and board members (including himself). on the face of it, all this doesn't seem at all better than its opposite.

I am not economically savvy enough, but moving to LBOs, I imagine one could make the case for them in that they judge company value more efficiently than markets (as seemed to be the case with the stagnantly low value of RJR Nabisco shares), and in that the debt and diet they impose on their companies trim out the fat, the redundant, the inefficient and (once the debt is paid), end with a more economically efficient company that can survive and thrive in the market better. Like all tools, though, they can be misused, making some people very rich (CEOs, their cronies and the lenders) and a lot of people quite miserable (workers and shareholders) through financial trickery and assaults orchestrated through 'phoney money'. It is all a matter of trade-offs, I guess. Still, I like some of the anti-LBO voices: even though the book has no heroes (Johnson might be an anti-hero of sorts), Ted Forstmann comes pretty close (and btw, he become a signatory of the Giving Pledge in 2011). It's a pity the way he's massacred in the movie. And crypto doesn't feel that far away from junk bonds...

The book did have some lovely snippets of humor (loved the private jet piloting Mr. G. Shepherd to safety). As for your belief that "it is reassuring that the whole system seems to kinda work anyway", I fear it seems to be the wrong lesson to learn from all of this; in fact, the book seems peppered with quotes that are the absolutely worst possible lessons one could take, most of them from the lips of Ross Johnson, about disregarding protocols, logic, reason and checks and balances. Your final quote about rows of figures with millions of dollars that no one knows the proper meaning of is actually quite an ominous note to end the review with, a precursor to the apparently very lax and chaotic management of vastly superior sums of money in FTX and Alameda.

Quote:

"It all started with a small lemonade stand in Manitoba,” read one Johnson parody. “The next thing I knew I had sold my mother. The rest was easy.”

P.S.: Among the things you mention that motivate you, "making guys think I am attractive" seems particularly ill-phrased. You are incredibly attractive, Caroline (both as a person and as a woman), so there should be little need of persuasion, except we usually find that these truths and feelings are seldom commutative.

#caroline ellison #books #economics #barbarians at the gate

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kattythingz · 1 year

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Apple of Your Eye

Summary: Adam has his eyes on a different Eve.

861 / 31420

It wasn’t particularly bizarre, at face value.

The first rose that Reki had received was thorny; it sat innocently amongst the rest of Oka’s fake plants that he tucked into the hanging flower planters for “good hospitality”. Reki thought it was unnecessary (their dope front door and display window more than made up for any hospitality a skater could wish for) but Oka was insistent. So, Reki was more than a little curious when the planters actually caught his eye for once one Tuesday afternoon.

He snatched it a little too eagerly, and, long story short—Reki’s thereon mystery fan never left him another thorny rose, taking care to de-thorn it for weeks to come.

That was, until yesterday.

Langa cried out a couple feet away, and Reki heaved another sigh.

“I told you, you’re lifting off too late!” Reki said. Langa rubbed his elbow wincingly—did he hit his funny bone? Oh, Reki felt that. “You need to maximize that momentum, not minimize it.”

“This ground is actively working against me,” Langa grumbled, returning to full stand, “so that’s kind of hard to do.”

“Is it?”

Langa glowered at him, and Reki chuckled.

“Kidding, kidding.” Reki waved an apologetic hand. “Obviously, the first time’s scary for everyone. But, if you’re serious about skateboarding, you just gotta learn to suck it up. You know?” He grinned. “It’s way more fun like that anyway.”

Langa’s eyes got that weird look in them again—something equally soft as it was sharp. “Yeah,” he said, a little dazed.

“Yeah, ‘yeah’!” Reki beamed. “Now show me how it’s done!”

Langa nodded in that quietly determined way of his and Reki left him to it as his own mind wandered again.

He’d looked it up after getting home last night—what a blue rose symbolized compared to a red one. But unlike the sweet and simple answer of red’s “passion”, blue was… harder to pinpoint. Some results said mystery or unrequited love, while others, fascination and even true love.

But that couldn’t be it, Reki snorted.

He was surprised this person kept up for this long anyway. It had been, what, two, three months since Reki started keeping a vase in his workshop? Dedication like that, it had to be someone from S that was interested in him. He didn’t think a regular person would find anything in him to be “fascinated” with.

“Ah, Reki!”

Reki jerked at the abrupt call, nearly falling off his perch on the half-pipe ledge.

Langa was beaming from behind the makeshift water bottle barrier. “I did it! I got over the bottles!”

“Y-Yeah!” Reki said, finally noticing the barrier was in one, uniform line. “You sure did! That was awesome!”

Langa didn’t take the praise like Reki expected. Instead, he frowned, deadpanning, “You didn’t see it, did you?”

“What? No, I—”

“You’ve got that look on your face again,” Langa interrupted him. “The one you make when you’re drawing.”

Despite the words, he didn’t sound the least bit upset.

Not for the first time, Reki wondered what planet this guy was from.

(No one was actually this chill about being totally ignored during their moment of triumph!)

“Okay, you caught me,” Reki sighed. “I was totally distracted. Sorry.” He smiled, then. “But I still think it was awesome! I don’t need to see it to know that.”

In the afternoon sun, Langa’s faint blush was downright precious. Reki stifled a giggle.

“If you must know, however,” he continued, sliding down the slope to stand on equal ground with Langa, “I was thinking we should get you some protection gloves.”

“Huh? Why?” Langa tilted his head.

“Well, because you work a lot with your hands, right?” Reki wiggled his fingers emphatically. “Those are like, the one exception you gotta make for not needing protective gear. Especially when you get to the crazier moves that need your hands to guide them!”

“Right,” Langa said. “But you don’t wear any either.”

“Pshhhh, that’s ‘cause I’m practically a pro! And I still wear them for S, you know.”

Langa dubiously eyed the Band-Aids littering Reki’s hand, mostly his fingers. “Uh-huh.”

Those cuts weren’t from skating, actually—but Reki hesitated to tell Langa that. Not even Oka knew about Reki’s mystery person (the benefits of having a manager that always came in late), and after unintentionally keeping it that way for about a month, Reki was loath to change that. Even with Langa.

It felt… nice. Knowing someone out there appreciated him this way. He’d like to savor that feeling for as long as he could.

Even if it did sting him twice now in a row in both shades of blue and red.

Reki scoffed. “Hey! Which one of us has been skating for longer, huh?” He crossed his arms. “I think I know what sort of advice I’m giving and taking here.”

“If you say so,” Langa said.

His expression was passive, but Reki recognized that humor in his eyes.

“I do,” Reki huffed.

“Mhmm.”

“Hey.”

Langa was definitely snorting when he passed Reki to try the bottles again, concern seemingly addressed. Reki let him go with only an eye-roll for that.