#in fact just over a year ago since this was done in January according to my file name LOL | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

what-is-your-plan-today · 4 years

Text

Real Life Tasks With Ransom Drysdale

An Advent Calendar of 24 Normal Human Tasks As Performed By A Huge Man Baby.

Day 1: The Case Of The Mysterious Shrinking Sweater.

Warnings: Bad Language words

Pairing: Ransom Drysdale x Reader

A/N: So this all came about as myself, @sweater-daddiesdumbdork and @jennmurawski13 saw a post about Ransom doing everyday things…and yeah, it kinda spiralled. The series will consists of one-shots and drabbles, all light hearted…and the occasional little bit of smut thrown in for your pleasure and we hope a nice countdown to Christmas after what has been an utter shit-show of a year.

We will be taking it in turns to alternate posting so keep your eyes peeled for the next instalments as they arrive. I’ll be re-blogging and tagging my list.

Series Masterlist.

People say that being pregnant was an enjoyable experience, that you glowed and bloomed. But right now the only thing blooming was the feeling of nausea in the pit of your stomach. You lay still, hoping that it would go away, but as usual it didn’t. Swinging your legs off the side of your huge bed, you hurried barefoot over the plush carpet of the bedroom you shared with your husband before dropping with a thud to the floor of the en-suite, emptying the contents of your stomach into the porcelain bowl of the toilet. You repeated the motion again and again until you were retching dry air, your eyes watering, throat stinging and you let out a little sob.

At almost 22 weeks pregnant, this was ridiculous. The whole morning sickness was supposed to have eased off by now, but not for you. Oh no. Mind you, what else were you to expect given that you were expecting his baby.

The spawn of Satan…

“Y/N?” your husband’s deep baritone hit your ears and you turned to look up at him as he stood in the doorway, clad only in his boxers. Strong thighs gave way to a tapered waist, a flat yet slightly soft stomach ran into the hard planes of chest muscle and sculpted arms from years of playing polo (God forbid the asshole do any other form of manual exercise, well apart from the obvious one that got you into this mess in the first place that is). Broad shoulders stretched either side of a strong neck which supported that damningly handsome face with the jawline that could cut glass and those deep blue eyes that had ruined your panties the first time you’d seen them.

Hugh Ransom Drysdale was a beautiful bastard. And he knew it.

“You ok?” he asked. You narrowed your eyes before a fresh wave of nausea hit you and you retched once more.

“Do I look ok?” you shot back, sinking back onto your heels, wiping at your face. You felt Ransom move from the doorway and then heard the tap running.

“Here.” One hand settled between your shoulder-blades, the other handed you a glass of water as Ransom knelt besides you, his blue eyes bearing the warmth that he reserved only for you. You took the drink without a thanks, the usual sarcasm he would display at such an action remained unsaid as you drained the glass and passed it back. “Can I do anything else?”

“Fast forward to January next year so the baby’s here?” you grumbled “I can’t take another damned 4 months or whatever of this, Ransom!”

“Sorry Princess.” He chuckled, “I can’t help you there.” “I hate you.”

“So you keep saying.” He shrugged “But the fact you’re pregnant with my son…kinda proves that you don’t.”

“We were drunk. Besides, hate fucking is a thing.”

“Is hate marrying?”

“Yup.” You nodded. “I only married you so I could divorce you for your money.”

“Well that was almost 2 years ago so why you still here?” he drawled back and you looked at him, snorting as a smirk spread across his face before he tossed his head slightly to throw back the strands of his hair that had fallen forward over his forehead “Thought so.”

“Asshole.”

With a roll of his eyes Ransom helped you to your feet, glancing down at your chest, your swollen breasts visible down the front of your camisole top. His eyebrow arched a little as he raised his head to meet your eyes and you snorted.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“Oh come on baby!” he whined, his hands falling to your hips, pushing up the silk of the top you were wearing, his thumbs skating over the curve of your bump “You know what seeing you like this does to me.”

“Seeing me like what? Red faced with puke in my hair?”

“Yeah the puke not so much.” He wrinkled his face, “But I can think of an arrangement here that could potentially eliminate that particular issue.”

“You’re not fucking me in the shower.” You shook your head.

“But…”

“No buts Ransom.” You looked at him as he glared back, his face now wearing the usual petulant expression he bore when he didn’t get his own way “Stop being a brat. I’m up now and I got stuff to do.”

“Yeah? Like what?” he folded his arms. You gave a groan of exasperation.

“I have a conference call with my boss at midday…”

“It’s a Saturday.”

“I know that, but we have a big case…”

“You don’t need to work, tell him to fuck off.”

As usual you ignored Ransom’s dig about your job. He could never understand why you insisted on keeping your role as a Legal Secretary, but then again what was to be expected from the trust fund Man-Baby who had never worked a day in his life. “And there’s a pile of laundry to do.”

“I don’t know why you won’t let me hire a maid….”

“I don’t WANT A FUCKING MAID!” you exploded. Ransom’s eyebrows shooting upwards slightly was the only reaction to your shouting that he gave. “This is our home...”

“Well with the baby on the way, maybe you might want to reconsider that stance.”

“Or maybe you could start pulling your weight.” You jabbed him in his chest. He glanced down at your finger, his eyebrow arched as he looked back at you.

“Pulling my weight?”

“Yes.”

“Exactly how?”

“I dunno…how about you start performing those little real life tasks that normal people do Ransom? You know, the laundry, cleaning the bathroom, loading the dishwasher, making the bed, cooking breakfast or dinner…”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He scoffed and you groaned “You know I can’t cook.”

“How do you think I learned?” you shook your head, before rubbing at your temple. “I practiced.”

“Yeah, not gonna happen Princess.”

“What a surprise” you shrugged “God forbid Hugh Ransom Drysdale get his hands dirty.”

“Don’t fucking call me that.” He snapped and you snorted. Of all the names you called him, it was his actual name that riled him so much. It was ridiculous, but also too good an opportunity to pass up. He was an asshole at times, and you took none of his shit. You never had done, not since that fateful day you met in that lecture hall at Harvard some 10 years or so ago. Truth be told, he’d often admitted it was the fact you gave him nothing but shit, called him out and basically ignored him for 6 months, despite the fact that you desperately wanted him to do very rude things to you. Your ambivalence provided him with a challenge and he pursued you with a dogged determination which you eventually gave in to towards the end of your first year of Study.

“Why not?” you shrugged, deciding to poke the bear a little more because, well, you could…that and you kind of enjoyed watching that vein pop in his neck when he was pissed “Isn’t that what the help call you? I mean I might as well be your help all things considered.”

“You’re my fucking wife.” Ransom spoke through grit teeth, his jaw set, neck strained (ah, there was that vein!)

“Well here’s a novel idea.” You smiled up at him “Why don’t you start acting like I am instead of some glorified housekeeper that you fuck and keep in your bed.”

“Ok, I’m gonna let that slide due to hormones.” Ransom’s hands fell to his hips.

“You’re gonna let it slide?” you scoffed

“Yes.”

“Whatever.” You took a deep breath “Now get out I need a shower.”

“So….just so we’re on the same page, you don’t want me to-“

“NO RANSOM!” you growled, shoving his chest. He sniggered, stepped back with his hands up, palms open as he backed out of the door, closing it behind him.

*****

Ransom could hear Y/N’s voice as it drifted softly through the closed door of the study into the hallway and he rolled his eyes. Her boss was a jerk, making her call in at midday on a fucking weekend, all because he was too incompetent to cope himself. She should be curled up on the sofa, watching junk, eating crap, wearing nothing but one of his sweaters. She’d been looking for her favourite one before, cursing when she’d realised it was in the laundry hamper and mumbling about how she’d pop it into the machine later.

“How about you start performing those little real life tasks that normal people do Ransom? You know, do the laundry…”

Ransom paused by the stairs, before he smirked a little. “Oh you’re gonna eat your words, Princess.” He mumbled, before he bolted upstairs and into their bedroom, through to the en-suite. Tipping the hamper up on its side he looked down at the pile of clothes and frowned. Y/N normally sorted them into separate piles, but he wasn’t sure how…or why now he thought about it.

Fuck it, there was nothing google couldn’t solve.

He soon found out, thank you Housewives Online, that they needed to be sorted according to colours. Whites, brights and darks. So, as his sweater was blue it could go in the colours pile. He nudged the other two piles to the side of the room with his foot before he gathered the one he wanted in his arms, wrinkling his nose at the fact he actually had dirty clothes in his hands and made his way downstairs. He wandered through the kitchen and into the utility room at the back, before he stuffed the items into the machine and then looked around for the detergent. He found it on a shelf over the back of the room along with the fabric softener. Grabbing them both he then paused as he realised he didn’t actually know where it went.

Okay, so this had to be a process of elimination. He pulled open the little drawer on the front and smirked as he noticed the sections were labelled.

“Piece of cake.” He poured in what he deemed enough of each and then shut it, before he looked at the digital dials on the front.

“For fucks sake…” he grumbled, punching a few buttons. Eventually the display kicked in, offering him a one hour-thirty hot wash.

“Well, who washes clothes in cold water?” he shrugged, pressing the green button. As he stood back the machine kicked into life and Ransom nodded, congratulating himself, before he decided he’d earned himself a beer.

****

“Son of a…” you heard the curse as you opened the door to the study and frowned. Whilst your call had lasted a little longer than it should have, surely Ransom couldn’t have gotten himself into that much trouble in the space of two hours. You followed his string of expletives down the hall, through the kitchen and into the laundry room to find Ransom holding what looked like a smaller version of his sweater in his hands.

“What are you doing?” you frowned.

“Singing a duet with Beyonce, what does it look like I’m doing?” he snapped.

“It looks like you’re doing laundry.” You ignored his shitty comment and arched an eyebrow, one hand falling to your small bump.

“No shit, Sherlock.”

“Where did you get that little…” you trailed off as you realised that it wasn’t a smaller version of his gorgeous navy blue, soft woolly number in his hands, it WAS his gorgeous navy blue, soft woolly number “You shrunk your sweater?” He glared at you as you started to laugh “Oh my god, you dumbass!”

“It wasn’t me it was that fucking shitty machine.”

“There’s nothing wrong with the machine.”

“Well why did it shrink then?”

“What programme did you put it on?”

“Programme?” he frowned “I just turned it on.”

With a sigh you rubbed at your temple “There are different settings depending on what you’re washing.” You stated “That’s wool. It should have been on a cool cycle.”

Ransom looked at the item in his hand and you watched as his shoulders sagged a little. “I wanted it to be nice and clean for you to wear later.” He sighed as he peeked up at you, a strand of hair falling over to his brow. Your heart instantly melted, little gestures like this from him meant the world as it was his way of showing he cared. He could buy you all the expensive shit in the world but these were the little things you craved.

“Oh baby!” you chuckled as you stepped forward, leaning up to kiss his cheeks. “It was a nice thought…” you took the sweater off him and looked at it “But even I don’t think I’ll fit into that. It’s tiny.”

Ransom looked at it before his face suddenly curled into a smile “Baby boy tiny?”

You let out a laugh “Maybe not baby boy tiny, but little child boy tiny, sure.”

“We’ll save it for him then.” He said, tossing it down into the basket of wet items that needed to be dried. “His first hand-me-down.”

You smiled as his hands dropped to your hips and pulled you closer. “You’re a big softy really, aint you?” you reached up to brush that stubborn strand of hair back of his forehead and he shrugged before he grinned, rocking his pelvis forward.

“I won’t be soft for long.” His head dropped and he nipped at your ear “Let me show you what Husband chore I’m actually good at.”

#real life tasks with ransom drysdale #ransom drysdale x reader #ransom drysdale x you #ransom drysdale fic

361 notes · View notes

lailoken · 3 years

Text

“Elder (Sambucus nigra), also known as boor or bour tree.

Elder is one of the most enigmatic plants in British folk tradition. On one hand it is feared and associated with WITCHES and on the other it is valued for its protective qualities, as a fly repellent, and for its use in many herbal remedies.

The whole plant hath a narcotic smell; it is not well to sleep under its shade. [Withering, 1776: 186]

[In Leitrim, Waterford and the south of Ireland] the elder or 'bore' tree is believed to have been the tree from which Judas Iscariot hanged himself. The proof of which is the fact that its leaves have an 'ugly smell', and, moreover, that its fruit has since degenerated from its original size and excellent flavour, and become worthless both as to size and taste. [Anon., 1916: 425]

It was said at Beckley that if you burn elder wood you will become bewitched. You never cut it down. In Wootton they say that the elder is a witch tree. You should not mend a wattle hedge with it, as it will give the witches power. If you cut it, it will bleed. [Oxfordshire Women's In- stitute groups, 1950s]

Unlucky to burn Tramman [elder], it is the FAIRIES’ tree. [Lezayre, Isle of Man, c.1975; Manx Folklife Survey]

Normally in the Isle of Man elder is the fairies' tree which is unlucky to cut down, or burn when fallen. I was told in 1992 by a forestry worker of his pleasure that a large elder had blown over into the field adjoining his garden and thus relieved him of the need to find someone willing to remove it. [Union Mills, Isle of Man, October 1993]

Elder flowers—it is alright to pick the flowers for wine or culinary use, but the tree is a friend of witches and the wood should never come into the house. [Ashreigney, Devon, July 1983]

Elder—unlucky to bring either flowers or wood into a house: (a) because it is the witches' tree, (b) because it was believed that Judas Iscariot hanged himself from an elder tree, (c) because if you fall asleep under elder flowers the scent will poison you or you will never wake up. [Driffield, Humber- side, March 1985]

Collecting firewood from the hedges surrounding the cottage and returning happily laden, but being accused of bringing bits of elder into the house—it was considered unlucky to use these to light a fire. [Bow Street, Dyfed, October 1984]

The only unlucky plant which I have heard of is the elder tree, which the old people looked upon as unlucky. As I have heard the old people say, it was unhealthy to have an elder tree growing near the house as it was often noted the inhabitants seemed more prone to TUBERCULOSIS or 'Consumption' as it was known in Ireland in the old days. However, as TB was rampant all over the country at that time, I don't know if the belief would have any significance. My own people however would not cut down an elder bush or burn it no matter how old or rotten it was. Nor allow an elder stick in the house, and it would be an unforgivable act to strike a child or even an animal with one. [Kill Village, Co. Kildare, October 1984]

The family name dies out on the property where the elder grows in the kitchen garden. [Skibbereen, Co. Cork, January 1993]

Do you know the Rollright Stones in Oxfordshire? You can't count them; you never get the same number twice. In the next field there is a big stone called King Arthur, and there are various stones called after his Knights around. There are some elder bushes nearby. We used to go there as children on our bicycles and try to count the stones. We were told that if we picked a flower or a berry from these elderberry bushes we would be turned into stone. We used to dare each other to pick a berry or a flower, but no one ever did. [Mitcham, Surrey, May 1986]

However, in the early part of the nineteenth century:

On Midsummer Eve, when the 'eldern' tree was in blossom, it was a custom for people to come up to the King Stone and stand in a circle. Then the 'eldern' was cut, as it bled 'the King moved his head.' [Evans, 1895: 20]

Sometimes it was thought that wood, berries, or flowers could be safely taken from an elder only if the tree's permission had been sought first.

Hearing one day that a baby in a cottage close to my own was ill, I went across to see what was the matter. Baby appeared right enough, and I said so; but its mother promptly explained. 'It were all along of my maister's thick 'ed; it were in this how: t'rocker cummed off t'cradle, an' he hedn't no more gumption than to mak' a new ’un out on illerwood without axing the Old Lady's leave, an' in coorse she didn't like that, and she came and pinched t'wean that outrageous he were a'most black i' t' face; but I bashed 'un off, an putten an' esh 'un on, an' t'wean is as gallus as owt agin.' This was something quite new to me, and the clue seemed worth following up. So going home I went straight down to my backyard, where old Johnny Holmes was cutting up firewood—‘chopping kindling,' as he would have said. Watching the opportunity, I put a knot of elder-wood in the way and said, 'You are not feared of chopping that are you ?' 'Nay, he replied at once, 'I bain't feared of choppin' him, he bain't wick (alive); but if her were wick I dussn't, not without axin’ the Old Gal's leave, not if it were ever so'.. . (The words to be used are): 'Oh, them's slape enuff.' You just says, 'Owd Gal, give me of thy wood, and Oi will give some of moine, when I graws inter a tree.' [Heanley, 190I: 55]

If you chop an elder tre e or fell it, you should bow three times and say:

Old Woman, Old Woman, Give me some of your wood And when I am dead I'll give you some of mine. [Whitwick, Leicestershire, August 1983]

[Staffordshire, 1930s:] my mother said it was the thing if one wanted blossoms or fruit from an elder tree to say 'Please Mother Elder may I have .. .' [Ponsanooth, Cornwall, November 1993]

In addition to records of elder being inauspicious, there are many rec- ords of it being a beneficial, protective tree.

[In Northumberland] an old man told me that his aunt used to keep a piece of bour tree, or elder, constantly in her kist (chest) to prevent her clothes from malign influence. [Hardy, 1895: 325]

In south Wales it was deemed very dangerous to build any premises on or near the spot where an eldertree stood. In the past an elder planted before the door of a cow-shed or stable protected the cows and horses from witchcraft and sorcery. [Trevelyan, 1909: 103]

[In Scotland elder was] often planted near old crofts and cottages as protection from witches. [Webster, 1978: 342]

[In Guernsey elder] had to be planted as near as possible to the back door, the most used entrance, since it was a sacred tree and a good protection against witchcraft. [McClintock, 1987: 33]

[In Ireland] it is considered lucky to have an elderberry bush grow near your house, especially if it is "self-set'. [Bracknell, Berkshire, August 1984]

Mother used elder leaves to make a pattern on the floor-bricks. Painting around them with red paint. Making the cross with elder leaves. This was an old custom, going back to her grandmother's time, so the custom had to be continued despite the time-consuming nature of the work. [Bow Street, Dyfed, March 1984]

Elder: this was called Boortree... The leaves were boiled and the water used to dose pigs. For this purpose, and because it was supposed to be a protection against LIGHTNING, there was a tree of it at every house. It can still be seen growing in places where there are no houses now, but where houses were years ago. [Lenamore, Co. Longford, April 1991]

Family folklore passed on to me includes . . . one should plant a ROWAN and elder tree and never cut them down, in order to keep witches away. [Parkstone, Dorset, June 1991]

I can remember as a child elder growing around the wooden bottom-of-the-garden 'lavvy' at my uncle's farm near Brentwood, Essex, and many other similar loos with elder adjacent. I was told that the elder would live 'almost for ever', as if one root died off another would spring from a fallen branch or twig. They were treated with 'respect' as they kept away bad magic—no one used the word 'witches'—but the inference was there. [Yafforth, North Yorkshire, January 1990]

More usually elder trees were planted around toilets and other build ings to deter FLIES.

Elder bushes are invariably to be seen outside the dairy windows on the north side of old-fashioned farmhouses in the Midlands. This was done because elder-leaves are supposed to be very objectionable to flies, wasps and other insects, the tree thus provided both shade and protection. For the same reason a switch of elder with leaves on is used when taking or driving a swarm of bees. [N &Q, 11 ser. 12: 489, 1915]

When inspecting a slaughter house [in Cornwall] a summer or two ago, I commented on the absence of flies, and was told that this was due to a large elder bush growing some feet away and that branches of elder in any building would keep flies away. [Peter, 1915: 123]

An elderberry tree was always grown near the house—I think it was to keep flies away. [Didcot, Oxfordshire, February 1991]

According to some friends of mine elderberry bushes were planted by water butts and outside privies so that the smell would keep the flies away. [Horseheath, Cambridgeshire, April 1991]

As a youth my late father worked on the land...Often handling horses it was common practice to tie bunches of elder leaves to the harness to ward off flies. [St Osyth, Essex, February 1989]

My wife, who comes from Northumberland, tells me that her mother used to make up a concoction with elder flower when she was a child. All the family washed their faces in it to keep virulent Northumbrian midges at bay. She remembers it smelling not too pleasant, and tended to keep other children away as well, so she would take the first opportunity to wash it off! [Hexham, Northumberland, June 1988]

About twelve years ago in Girton, Cambridge, a small swarm of bees (apparently known as a 'cast') settled on a plum tree in our garden, about six feet up. A neighbour, Mr C. G. Puck (now 84 years old), a retired shepherd and lifelong beekeeper, came to collect the bees. He removed the queen bee from the swarm and placed her under a small open wooden box inverted on the ground under the tree. He then asked for a sprig of elder and laid this about nine inches above the swarm, saying that the smell of it was disliked by bees, and by the early evening all the bees had moved into the box . . . He had learned of the use of elder in this fashion from his beekeeper father, in his native village of Thriplow, south Cambridgeshire. [Girton, Cambridge, May 1988]

On the Isle of Man:

Each old cottage has a 'trammon', or elderberry tree, outside the door. This is used by the 'Phynodderree' to swing in. He is a kind of faun who can bring much luck, and even helps materially in outside work. [Daily News, 27 January 1926]

[Fairies] liked most of all to swing and play in the elder trees, and these were always thought of as fairy trees in the Isle of Man. There wasn't a house or farm that didn't have its 'tramman' tree planted by the door or in the garden 'for the fairies'. Many of them are still to be seen; the single tree will soon have grown into a thicket, hiding the old ruined house, but a sure sign that a house once stood there . . . When the wind was blowing the branches, it was then that the fairies were believed to be riding the tramman trees, but it was said that they would desert a house or a farm where the trees had been cut down. This must have happened only very rarely: no-one would cut a branch of the tramman, let alone the tree itself, but if it was done the fairies grieved. [Killip, 1975: 35]

Regardless of whether elder is considered to be malevolent or protec- tive, most of the folk beliefs associated with the tree appear to be con- cerned with its protection and preservation. Two quotations from herbalists writing in the 1940s demonstrate the value of the elder tree.

[According to my [g*psy] friend] the healingest tree that on earth do grow be the elder, them sez, and take it all round I should say 'twas. [Quelch, 1941: 78]

[Elder has] the unusual distinction of being useful in every part. [Ransom, 1949: 55]

Thus it is possible that the various folk beliefs associated with elder were due, at least in part, to efforts to protect a valuable resource.

The period when elder flowered was sometimes considered to be a time when the weather was poor. In the Basingstoke area of Hampshire this time was known as the elderbloom winter [Maida Hill, Lon- don, December 1982], while in Cheshire:

Weather prophets say that if the weather breaks while the elder-flowers are coming out, it will be soaking wet (in Cheshire parlance, drabbly) until they fade. [Hole, 1937: 49]

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) recorded: 'They say' WARTS can be removed by rubbing them 'with a Green Elder Sticke and then bury- ing the Sticke to rot in Mucke' [Bacon, 1631: 258]. Similarly:

A 15-year-old girl, writing in 1954, says that her grandfather told her to pick a small twig of elderberry, touch her warts with it, chant the words, “Wart, wart, on my knee, Please go, one, two, three” and put it 'down the toilet'. [Opie, 1959: 315]

Elder is, perhaps, the wild plant most widely used in folk medicine.

Queen of all Forest [of Dean] remedies was 'ellum blow tea'...The flowers were gathered in the spring and hung up to dry in closed paper bags ... in the kitchen ... You dared not sneeze in the winter or down came the bag, a good handful was put in a jug, covered with boiling water, covered with a tea towel, and left to infuse. One had to force this evil-smelling brew down one's throat willy-nilly. I loathed it, and to this day can recall that smell of cats which emanated from it. Poultices of the mixture were used for SPRAINS, aches, etc., in joints, also for boils and 'gathered' fingers—whitlows and so on. It seemed to be a universal panacea; the only use it didn't have was for constipation . . . Elder berries were favoured too; they were boiled up with sugar, the resulting syrup strained, bottled, and used in winter for coughs and colds . . .There is not a Forester alive over the age of 70 who does not know ellum blow tea. [Cinder- ford, Gloucestershire, November 1993]

Elder berries when fried with mutton fat are used for BOILS and ULCERS. [IFCSS MSS 414: 43, Co. Clare]

Elder root when boiled and the water drank supposed to cure RHEUMAT- ISM. [IFCSS MSS 700: 35, Co. Meath]

An infusion of elder flowers in boiling water will alleviate PILES. [Horsted Keynes, West Sussex, February 1991]

A green ointment could be made from the leaves, based on mutton fat, and the creamy white flowers made Elderflower Water for the complexion. The flowers, dried in the sun and stored in a paper bag make a good remedy to break a hard COUGH and bring up phlegm. I always pick and dry some when they are in bloom, put the full of your fingers (one hand) in a mug, pour boiling water over and let it infuse for ten minutes. A little milk or fruit juice can be added. [Lenamore, Co. Longford, April 1991]

For flus and FEVERS

40 oz whiskey bottle. Pick, clean, weigh, one pound ripe elder berries. Delete the strings (most strings anyway) using a fork, and put berries into empty bottle. Add 4 lb sugar. Top up with a bottle (or most of a bottle) of whiskey. Seal well. Store for 3 months and strain. Use strongest spirit. Dose—Strong glass of this 'Elderfire'—add hot water (as hot as possible) and drink. Take 2 or 3 spoons of honey with drink. Repeat each night (or more frequently)–usually two nights is sufficient to clear the flu/fever results guaranteed. [Killarney, Co. Kerry, September 1991]

[My mother, who was 94 when she died in 1987] used to collect elder-flower in the spring, and dried it. In the winter if we had colds or flu, the elderflower was put in a jug covered with boiling water and put on the hob to stew. At night we were given this (strained) with sugar and a few drops of peppermint oil added. We were given a teacup full of this at night, and in the morning we had to drink half a cupful of this cold mixture. It was supposed to sweat out the fever. She used to tell me how she pulled me through PNEUMONIA by poulticing with hot flannel and sips of elderflower tea, day and night. [Hill, Worcestershire, October 1991]

When my three children were small and we had wintery weather (and it can be very cold up here at the foot of the Cairngorms), I made elder-flower wine, and when it was time for them coming from school I had three cups, bowl of sugar, bottle of elderflower wine and the kettle boiling, and I gave them a tody; they never had colds or flu. [Boat-of-Garten, Inverness-shire, November 1991]

Elder flowers and berries are widely collected by makers of homemade wines. The flowers can also be used in cooking [Ó’Ceirin, 1980: o1), and the fruits have been recommended as a substitute for currants [Ransom, 1949: 55]. Elder leaves have been used as a TOBACCO substitute.

Myself, my brother and a friend always smoked elder leaves when money was not available for tailor-made cigarettes. We spent much time in the woodland of Thetford Chase, where on our regular walks we would break down, but not completely snap off, small sprigs of the elder. We found that if we severed the supply of sap completely the leaves on the sprig would dry out resulting in a hot strong smoke. We found that if the leaves remained just slightly damp they were a quite pleasant smoke. It was obviously trial and error, sometimes they remained too wet to burn properly. We would stuff the leaves very lightly into the stems of various umbellifers...We actually prefered these cigarettes to the tailor-made, but they were not available during winter. [West Stow, Suffolk, November 1992]

Elder wood is characterized by its pith, which can be easily removed.

[On Colonsay] boys aspiring to be pipers made chanters of the young branches [of elder], which are full of pith and easily bored. [McNeill, 1910: 130].

Haw-blowers are made by scooping the pith out of an elder branch. Haws are blown through these. [IFCSS MSS 700: 338, Co. Meath]

The people of the parish were able to make toy guns. They got an elder stick about one and a half feet long and scraped out the inside. Then they got a stick about the same length and made it fit into the hole and then the gun was made. [IFCSS MSS 867: 132, Co. Kilkenny]

At the the beginning of the century children in parts of Devon used to make pop-guns' out of elder: they would force a hole through the pith, and then fashion a ram-rod out of HAZEL WOOD. Chewed paper would be rammed down the hollowed elder sticks, and pressed out with considerable force. Great sport ensued. [Lafonte, 1984: 35]

There was another use for the Boor tree in olden times. A suitable length was cut and seasoned, then the white pith in the centre was scraped out, lead was then melted and poured in. When set, this made a good weapon for protection on a journey or out walking at night...My aunt who was born in 1894 remembered one man who had such a stick. [Lenamore, Co. Longford, April 1991]

[In Horsefield, Cambridgeshire] for winter feeding one beekeeper used to make little troughs out of elder wood; he cut pieces about the thickness of a finger and five or six inches long, tapered off one end and removed the pith, and used them for replenishing the bees' honey by inserting this end in the exit hole. [Parsons MSS, 1952]”

—

Oxford Dictionary of Plant-Lore

by Roy Vickery

#elder #elder tree #elderberry #elder mother #plant lore #herbcraft #folklore #Roy Vickery #Oxford Dictionary of Plant-Lore

106 notes · View notes

natromanxoff · 3 years

Text

Queen live at Brendan Byrne Arena in East Rutherford, NJ, USA - August 9, 1982

(x)

This is an eventful US Hot Space show played to an arena that is far from full. In fact, a second night in East Rutherford was originally planned for August 10, but later moved to New Haven due to the low ticket sales.

Roger's voice is uncharacteristically hoarse tonight, and he struggles on some of his backing vocals in Somebody To Love.

Towards the end of his vocal exchange with the audience after Save Me, Freddie tells them, "I'm gonna make you sing like Aretha Franklin", like he did during Now I'm Here in Milton Keynes a couple months back. But this time he doesn't succeed, as he gives up after only one line. "I knew you were from New Jersey. You had to be. I mean, I've been listening to Gilda Radner. She's right!"

Brian starts Get Down Make Love (which segues into his solo spot) with his John Birch copy. A bit over three minutes into his solo spot he breaks a string, and soon turns off the analog delays, trying to make the best of the situation for a brief while (the other five strings go out of tune when you break a string on an electric guitar with floating tremolo, so one must hold the whammy bar down in a specific place for the guitar to remain in tune - not an easy task!). But he ultimately gives up, and takes the guitar off and hurls it over his stack of Vox cabinets (the one and only time he did this), snapping it in half. Some audience members watch in bewilderment as they have witnessed the normally gentle and soft-spoken May lash out in frustration. Others cheer the 'coolness' factor. A roadie, visible to the audience, picks up a piece of the Birch guitar and holds it up for a brief moment. The beleagured axeman then switches to his Flying V, and he and Roger (barely) finish the segment, not before that guitar, too, goes out of tune.

The next song is Body Language, and the front of house tech switches on Mercury's harmonizer a verse too early, giving "you got red lips" a bit too much redness.

Brian (who hasn't spoken much on stage on this tour since Love Of My Life was his usual speaking spot) says a few words after Under Pressure. "People of New Jersey, we seem like good friends. I tell you, we've seen you a lot of times. We've been around quite a while and we've done some strange things here and there. And now and again we've done a song which actually means something, and I think this is one of them. This is a song Freddie wrote for the last album. This is called Life Is Real." Queen performed the ballad only a few times.

After the song ends, Freddie asks, "How are we doing with the guitars?" He tells the audience, "I think tonight's the night we're gonna break as many guitars as we've got. If anybody in the audience has a spare guitar, bring it over here!" Someone in the audience replies, "I've got three!" He continues, "OK, we're gonna do a song that requires everybody on their feet, because I mean, you gotta... I know you guys are very cool and laid back, this is a really dirty song. You know, it comes from here." No doubt a crude gestitulation follows. "It's from the c*nt. It's called Fat Bottomed Girls!" Brian lets out a lot of aggression in the last couple minutes of the song, even playing some heavy syncopated lines before the final few bars.

Frustration abounds in Freddie as well, as he responds to a drone he (and everyone else) is hearing. "Before this next song, we'd like... what is that fucking noise? It's been driving me crazy all fucking night. I bet it's not doing you guys any good, either."

It takes a little while for the Red Special to be restrung, so Brian plays his Flying V for a few songs, according to a fan who attended the show (although Brian stated in a January 1983 interview that he acquired the Flying V *because* of this incident - but this claim is questionable, as pictures from last week's concert in Toronto reveal his Flying V on a guitar stand side stage). These few songs sound different with this new guitar tone - particularly the Bohemian Rhapsody solo. He would return with his beloved home-made guitar for the hard rock section of Bohemian Rhapsody, but he wouldn't fully regain his composure for the rest of the evening.

In the second verse of We Are The Champions, a flippant comment from Mercury sums up the evening: "It's been no bed of roses, I can tell you!"

A fan wrote to Brian at his Soapbox about this night:

"During the show you had problems with The Old Lady and came out with the Birch copy. Then the birch copy had some problems and you threw it and your roadie missed it I think because he held up something that looked like a broken Birch Guitar. You then played a good part of the concert on a Flying V. I remember wishing I had a camera to see you playing on the V. You played Life Is Real while repairs were being done. Freddie even joked if someone had an extra guitar to please bring it up. After the break in BORHAP you came back with the Old Lady."

Brian's reply:

"You evidently saw a special night ... the only night when I ever threw a guitar off stage in despair ! And, yes, I did hit the ground behind the stage - I'm pretty sure I thought I was throwing to someone, but evidently I misjudged it. And, yes, its neck snapped clean through. I kept it for a while, intending to get it fixed. But we decided it would probably never be good at staying in tune, because it wasn't a very rigid instrument. And not being able to get it in tune was what drove me to distraction that night, and this was what led to its demise! As I remember, this was on top of having problems with the Red Special in the beginning - in the heat of the moment, this was the final straw ! I imagine your bootleg of the show will reveal the problems I was having. These things usually make me feel ashamed, frustrated, angry, in the moment... I don't like giving people less than the best. So this picture really does tell a story ... a unique story. I wonder what happened to the Flying V ... As for the Birch guitar, well, we lent it to Guild, to compare, while they were making their Red specials under license in the 80's. Then we all forgot about it for many years. Then it turned up, and thanks to a friend (I think I told the story here) it now resides back with me. We have decided to keep it as it is, in pieces, just for historical interest, for the same reasons as before."

Brian has since reunited with the guitar, apparently after it was purchased on eBay. Its story and a couple pictures of it can be seen at Brian's website. It was repaired by Andrew Guyton, although it wasn't a complete restoration as Brian wanted to see exactly where he broke it.

The photo above was taken by Gary Gershoff. Here are a few pro photos from the show:

These photos were taken after the show, at a party in New York:

(x)

Fan Stories

“Queen played a great show, but when Brian started his Brighton Rock solo, he broke a string on "The Old Lady" and you could tell he was not happy. He actually threw that guitar at the stand and it fell over and me and my fellow RS/Brian/Queen fanatic buddy looked at each other in astonishment. He quickly was given the John Birch copy by his guitar tech and continued his solo. Well about two minutes go by and you could tell he was not happy with the Birch and then a string breaks on that guitar. He was on Deacons side of the stage and he runs over to his side towards his wall of Vox amps and hurls the guitar over the stack. His guitar tech brings out the Gibson Flying V and Brian finishes the solo. At the end of the solo the tech brings back "The Old Lady" restrung as Queen kicks back in. I believe at this point Brian was doing the solo in the middle of Now I'm Here. Some time between one of the next songs the Tech emerges from behind the stack to show Brian and the entire audience the result of Brians outrage as he holds up the two pieces of The John Birch. My friend and I looked at each other and knew we had just seen a bit of Queen history. From what I remember it was a case of the neck snapping off from the body. I remember a few months ago somehow the John Birch had turned up and Brian was curious about where and when it happened.” - Todd

#queen #queen band #roger taylor #freddie mercury #brian may #john deacon #queen concerts

44 notes · View notes

deepperplexity · 4 years

Text

Happy Birthday Snape!

Title: Happy 61st Birthday Severus!

Summary: Severus had spent many birthdays alone and giftless. Rarely was he congratulated nor acknowledged on the 9th of January - his birthday. For many years he endured it, hid his birthday and refused to tell anyone about it. Some already knew of course but he never received anything that told him they remembered. But then you came along, the new assistant at Hogwarts and you just couldn't help but fall in love with the dark man. But it took a birthday and a gift for him that burned a figurative hole in your pocket for a day before you had enough reason and courage to speak with him out of your own accord. Little did you know that that one birthday in January of 1988 would turn into 12 more birthday with him by your side, and beneath you...

A/N: For this day, this wonderful day that our dear professor Snape was born, I have done my best to create something I hope will appeal to most of you. We start off with young Snape and a rather gloomy birthday at Hogwarts while he is a student (just Snape), we head on over to adult Snape and a rather lovely birthday at Hogwarts while he is a professor (Snape x Reader) and then we finally arrive at older Snape as he works as a potioneer (self-employed) and a rather smutty birthday (Snape x Reader) at Spinner’s End! ;) <3

The three fics/chapters follow one another and show Snape’s journey so I do recommend reading all three to get the full experience ^^ The first one is rather short but to the point, while the second is a bit longer and the third one his looong. xD

I hope you all will enjoy this and join me in wishing a happy birthday to our beloved Severus who turns 61 today! <3

+A/N: I believe I mentioned a cake, and messy bed @blog4snape a while ago, so here you go. And, @m0thgutzz, here is the fic you wanted me to link you, I BELIVE YOU THREATHENED ME WITH A WATERGUN IF I DID NOT TELL YOU AND I DO NOT WANT TO BE ATTACK SO HERE! ;)

Setting: Hogwarts -> Your home

Pairing: Snape x Reader

ABBR.:│(y/n) - Your Name│ (y/h) - Your House Of Choice │

Word Count: 9432

Warnings: Fluff, Angst, Kissing, Sexual Content, Nudity, Messy Messes...

Masterlist page // Masterlist post // AO3

Chapter 1: No such thing for a Snape

1977; Last year at Hogwarts, 17 Years

Christmas was over, a new year had begun and it was his birthday. 17 years and free to wield magic when and where he pleased. No longer bound to the confines of Hogwarts; even if he was there. But, despite the fact he was soon an adult and would be thrown into the big world to fend for himself as he longed for, he was still rather gloomy.

Severus didn’t want to celebrate his birthday nor would he. It wasn’t as if anyone else remembered the day or celebrated it so why should he? It was the day he was born and there was simply nothing else to it. At least, that was how he felt. A rather mundane and regular day for the world and there truly wasn’t anything he felt were special about having been born. Some days, he even wished he hadn’t come to the world.

His mother, a broken witch, had stopped wishing him happy birthday as soon as he were off to Hogwarts. Before that, he would at least get one little congratulatory wish in the morning. His father, the irredeemable abuser of a muggle, more often than not pretended Severus truly did not exist and so the day he was born went unnoticed by the man he barely could call a father. His classmates, housemates and professor seemed as oblivious as a stone to his date of birth.

So, as he got up and dressed he wasn’t expecting the day to be any different than any other day. And, he was right. He went through it as if it was just another Monday. Which it was. Another week, more classes, more homework and idiotic people to endure. Such a waste of time, he thought as he walked away from the Great Hall after having had his supper.

The day truly had gone unnoticed just as he thought it would. It felt both good and bad, he felt content and sad about it too. But as he turned a corner heading for the common room of Slytherin he was met by Argus. The man who he had, actually, bonded with during his time at Hogwarts. His lips perked up in a tiny smile as Argus spotted him and headed straight for him with Mrs. Norris hot on his tale.

“Congratulations lad,” he said with a smile that was more of a sneer that showcased his yellowing teeth. “Thank you, Argus,” Severus said as they both came to a halt in the gloomy corridor. “Had a good day?” Severus shrugged his shoulders. “Potter exploded a cauldron in potions, he got an extra set of ears for a few hours. That was fun,” he answered the man and Argus snorted. “Serves him right, awful boy that one. Sneaking about, harassing and disrupting the others. Nasty boy,” Argus muttered in that annoyed tone of his and Severus nodded.

He had barely been able to contain his laughter at his bully, James Potter, as he pulled on the extra ears that sat right above the others. That, well that had been the highlight of his day, to be honest. Some justice in the universe. “Good evening my lady,” Severus said as he smiled a little wider as he thought of the memory and saw Mrs. Norris peeking up at him with her blood-red eyes. She purred out a meow and walked over. He scratched her under her chin and she then took a lap to stroke around his legs.

“Well, we best be off. Got floors to sweep and paintings to dust,” Argus said and the cat returned to his side. Severus nodded. “Good night lad,” Argus continued with a smile that vanished as he started walking away from the boy. “Goodnight Argus, and my lady,” Severus said to their backs before he continued on his way to Slytherin a little ways away.

As darkness settled outside of the castle Severus was sat, cross-legged, on his bed with a potions book in his lap and his wand in hand to give light. He read and read, allowed his mind to drift away from the day and time as his nose leaned ever closer to the pages of the book. It wasn’t until little circles of water marked the pages that he realised he was actually crying. The salty fluid leaked from his eyes, ran down his cheeks and dripped from his chin.

He raised his hand to wipe them away but more tears just kept on coming. He snivelled ever so slightly and even though the dorm was empty he was grateful the curtains around his bed were pulled shut. It gave him at least some sense of privacy as he wept in solitude and near silence. His chest hurt as his stomach felt filled with tiny knots that turned into bigger knots. His lungs felt too tight and it was hard to breathe without shuddering.

What is wrong with me? It’s just another Monday for Salazar’s sake! Stop this infernal crying! His thoughts screamed at him but no matter how hard he tried to convince himself that he did not care, that he was truly not bothered - he couldn’t stop feeling the pain or shedding the abominable, infernal tears.

Argus’s words came back to him and Mrs. Norris's slight purr. They were his only friends. They were the only ones who had remembered. How sad was that? A janitor and a damn cat were the only two who had wished him a happy birthday. But, they remembered, they cared enough to remember and say something. Thoughts of his parents entered his mind and rage replaced the sad ache in his chest.

He wished, desperately, that they had not been his parents. He wished he had not been born into such a family; if you could even call it that. Wished, oh how he wished he had been loved by someone in his life. How he wished there was someone out there in the big world who could love him, cherish him and maybe make his birthday something other than gloomy and filled with tears. A card, a wish or even a gift. Just, someone who did something to celebrate that he had in fact been born and were part of the world. Even if everyone seemed to think of him as much as they thought of a common housefly buzzing about with no meaning. He just wished there was someone out there, just for him. Someone that would care and perhaps love him.

But alas, he had no actual hope for such a person. No hope for such a thing as love or friendship. He had, for his entire life, been taught that there was no such thing for a Snape. There was no such thing as true friendship for a Snape. There was no value for a human that was a Snape. There was no such thing as happiness or joy for a person with the last name of Snape. Such an ugly word, such a horrendous word. Such a useless, despicable name. Snape. Snape, Snape, Snape, Snape, Snape. Despicable name…

He abandoned the book and killed the light from his wand before he huddled under the covers, still fully dressed, and hugged his pillow to his chest. His hooked nose buried into the soft green fabric as he tried his best to suffocate the snivels and sobs that escaped him without his consent. It was, truly, an awful birthday. A lonely birthday. A worthless birthday for a worthless person…

Chapter 2: A stirring of hope

A/N: Here we go, the second chapter and this is where you come in as an assistant that provides help to several professors with grading papers, assisting in difficult classes etc.!

1988; Professor at Hogwarts, 28 Years.

The little box wrapped in green paper with a black string woven into a bow at the top rested in the pocket of your coat. It was terribly chilly at Hogwarts this particular day, this lovely day, this amazing day. You had butterflies in your stomach as you marched from the (y/h) common room as you had been busy grading papers for professor McGonagall after classes had ended for the day and you enjoyed doing it in the common room where there were movement and sound to accompany you.

You had, unfortunately, not sen Severus all day long. Not even in the Great Hall and you found it a bit odd. He was a scheduled man, punctual and precise in his everyday life. Yet this day, this fantastic day you had longed for since you first found out about it, he was nowhere to be found.

So, you had to go to him. The little gift had been burning a hole in your pocket the entire day and you, frankly, just wanted to hand it over and get rid of the fluttering butterflies that swarmed inside you. You hoped he would accept it, that he would open it and be pleased. But with Severus, you never knew.

Truly, you never knew where you had him. You had been flirting with him since late September and sometimes he sneered, sometimes he glared, sometimes he huffed and sometimes (although rare) he smiled and averted his gaze. You had no clue if he understood your affection for what it was. Or, if he even remotely felt anything like what you felt for him. Perhaps you were just a nuisance to him?

Nevertheless, you had decided to purchase him a gift - even if you were likely to receive none in return. You didn’t mind though. You just wanted to make him happy, make him smile. As you thought of his stoic face with the distinct features and his deep onyx eyes heat swirled in your stomach and a light blush crept over your cheeks. Your hand slid down to your pocket and felt for the gift. Yupp, it was still there. Burning a hole with nerves in your pocket.

You arrived outside his private quarters and knocked on the door. You waited, listened, and waited a little more. You didn’t need to knock a second time as Severus always answered his door on the first round of knocking. If he didn’t, he wasn’t there. So, you sighed as the door remained shut and headed to his classroom. Your nerves prickled and made you shiver slightly as you truly did not know how the dark and closed off man would react. But, you’d find out in a minute.

You knocked on the door as you had arrived and it swung open. Your breath hitched as you saw him over by a cauldron in the far corner. Brewing a potion that made aqua coloured smoke slither out and up from the cauldron he hunched over in a focused stance.

You had to take a moment to catch your breath as he had removed his billowing cloak and stood in the tight frock coat that hugged his form and accentuated his waste as it flared out ever so slightly around his hips. Images of popping buttons ran through your head as you were already too aware of how many there were - having counted them too many times to ever be able to forget.

“(Y/n), what gives me the pleasure?” he murmured without looking over at you. You took a steadying breath. You could never get used to that thunderous voice of his that could be heard so clearly even if he spoke with a rather low tone. “Oh, I thought I’d come by,” you said as you suddenly hesitated regarding wishing him a happy birthday. No, I bought a gift, it is his birthday and I don’t think anyone has congratulated him so I shall do it. Yes, yes I shall do it. Move your legs! Come on, go up to him!

You scolded yourself into moving with hesitant steps. Your shoes clicked against the stone floor as you moved closer. “Well, as much as I enjoy your company, (y/n), I am in the middle for brewing a draught of peace. It’s a rather-” “Complicated potion, I am aware.” He arched a brow at you, possibly surprised but it was hard for you to tell. His expressions were shown with small little shifts and more often than not they were hard to decipher. So you simply smiled as you leaned a little closer.

“I see you’re adding powdered porcupine quills, I’ll just wait until you’re finished then.” He arched a brow at you as you sat on top of a desk, that the students used, to wait. You smiled at him and he focused on the potion again. You knew he’d have to stir until it turned white and then allow it to simmer on low heat before adding seven drops of hellebore. He would be finished soon so it wasn’t really a bother to wait. And, it would allow you to look at him unhindered if you stayed and waited in the secluded classroom. “As you wish,” he simply grumbled out and you folded your hands in your lap as you propped your feet up on the bench in front of you.

It took exactly 14 minutes until he was done. For 14, wonderful, minutes you could just look at him. Study his features, the curves of his body and the long black hair he had fastened behind his ear on the side closest to you. He had cute ears, large but peaked and rather narrow with gentle little earlobes. For a moment you wondered how he would look with pierced ears. You found the idea rather intriguing. Perhaps, a silver ring? Oh, that would look rather sexy on him, he could totally pull that-

He straightened and you smiled hastily as your thought stopped n its tracks before it had ever reached its endstation. “Done,” he stated flatly and you lowered your feet to the floor. “Great, may I have a moment of your time now then?” He turned towards you. His face stoic but his eyes looked rather puzzled. You simply kept smiling as you honestly couldn’t stop as he was close by. He always made you smile despite the stoic face, the command of respect and the glaring eyes that sometimes, but rarely, had a gentle shine to them.

“You may,” he said as he clasped his hands behind his back and remained utterly still. You often wondered how he did it. How someone could be so still as to be more of a statue than a living being. You truly did not want to know the answer, but you still wondered. “Well,” you started as you rose from the desk, “I would like to congratulate you if I may?” “Regarding what?” “Your birthday of course!” you giggled out as you shook your head gently on a small sigh.

“I do not celebrate it,” he simply stated and you gaped at him. “But, it’s your birthday, Severus. It’s worth celebrating.” “Not to me, it isn’t.” His words were cold, flat. They weren’t growled or shouted or even said with sadness. They were just empty. Utterly void of emotion. Your heart stung as he seemed so far away and almost lost. I will have none of that nonsense.

“Well I think it’s worth celebrating that you were born, so suck it up.” His brows rose as you spoke, definite surprise in the dark pits that were his eyes and you rummaged in your pocket to retrieve the gift that you now wanted to give not because you wanted to get it over with but because you truly wanted him to feel some form of happy emotion on his birthday. Perhaps he wouldn’t, but perhaps he would.

“Here,” you said as you reached out your hand with the little gift, “and happy birthday Severus.” He stood still for another moment before he slowly unclasped his hands from behind his back and reached his left hand out. His movements were slow yet steady, his fingers graced your hand as he grabbed the gift.

“You, bought me a present?” “Mhm,” you smiled out with a nod as he looked at you, “that is what one does on another person’s birthday you know.” He nodded ever so slightly before his gaze went to the gift that looked even smaller in his larger hand. “Well go on, open it.” At your words, he reached out with his free hand and tugged on the string that released the little bow. He unwrapped it slowly; as if he almost didn’t want to do it or didn’t want the unwrapping to end. You couldn’t quite figure out why. The whole point of getting a gift was what laid hidden beneath the wrappings - not the actual wrappings. You had never seen anyone do it so slowly before.

He finally revealed a little black box that was labelled ‘Brelixion’ with silver-coloured swishy writing. It looked quite elegant and the store was perhaps not well known to the regular magician but you knew Severus was well aware of the little shop that only housed expensive, exquisite and potions exclusive things. You had to be a highly skilled potioneer to use the items as they were not for ordinary magicians. They were for those who understood, commanded and ruled over potions with the utmost understanding of the art that was potion-making.

Severus, you knew, was such a magician. He was an excellent potion creator, a true Potions Master. So, it was the only place you even considered to buy him a gift from. And it appeared you may have been right in your decision. He looked stoic, yes, but there was an odd softness to his sharp features as he looked at the box. Okay, first we unwrap for an eternity and now we just look at the box? Ooookey, well, it’s his birthday, his choice.

You stood across from him, silently smiling as you waited as patiently as you could for him to open the box. But he didn’t. He just held it in his hand and looked at it. You knitted your brows together. “Aren’t-, Aren’t you going to open it?” Severus jerked his head up at your voice; as if he had been deep in thought. “What? Yes, excuse me,” he muttered under his breath as he slowly lifted the lid and peered inside.

For a tiny fraction of a second, you were afraid you had done something wrong as he frowned at your gift. It, well it hurt, to be honest. You had really given thought to the whole thing as it was about a month and a half of your salary that went towards that little gift he so gently held in his hands while his face seemed to show displeasure.

You entwined your fingers in front of you as you looked away from him and down at the floor. “Do you, do you not like it?” you asked with a low voice and you felt disheartened by your own words. You heard him move but you didn’t dare to look up at the dark man. You just bit your lip and nervously wrung your fingers.

“It’s perfect,” he said and you could not believe the softness his voice vibrated through you with. Slowly, ever so slowly, you looked up and found him looking right at you. His eyes were shiny, his mouth gently curved up in a smile and he seemed full of life rather than the statue-like state he seemed to always be in. “Really?” you asked feebly, he nodded. “Truly.”

Your shoulders lowered as you relaxed a bit and let go of the tension that had stiffened you. “Tell me, (y/n), why have you done this?” You tilted your head, now your eyes were the puzzled ones. Had he truly not seen your efforts to get closer? Had he not noticed the fondness and desire you had for him? You thought you had made it quite clear numerous times yet it seemed to have gone over his head, how in the world that was possible when Severus was such a clever man you could not fathom.

It took you a moment to order your thoughts and he waited with curious eyes directed at your own. “I-, I thought you knew?” “It’s my birthday, yes, but that does not warrant such an extravagant gift as this.” You bit your lips and lowered your gaze. Do I have to spell it out? Gosh, I-, I-, oh I don’t want to spell it out. Why can’t he just understand I’m in love with him? Is it really that strange of an idea?

You took a breath and searched for your courage. “I, I am very fond of you.” It wasn’t a lie but neither was it the full truth. Silence lowered over you for a few seconds but then you heard him take a breath and speak - in the nick of time as you wanted to run for it. “Is that so?” Was, was that a purr? In his voice? No, I, I must have misheard him. “Yes,” you whispered as you lowered your head even more, “I am very fond of you and I just, just wanted to tell you, or show you. And, wish you a happy birthday. Not that my efforts will make a difference but-” “It makes all the difference in the world.”

You stiffened as his voice rumbled around you, vibrated through you and made heat swirl in the pit of your stomach where the butterflies had been all day. His voice, his lovely voice was gentle yet firm, measured yet liberated. It was an odd combination but you loved it. Something about it felt private, personal.

He stepped up to you and you saw his hand come in under your chin before you felt it. He tilted your head up and his cold skin against your own, slightly warmer, made you shiver. It felt good. “All. The. Difference,” he stated with pressure on each word. You blinked as he gazed into your eyes and you couldn’t help how your knees weakened, how your heart pounded and your lungs felt too tight to breathe with.

“Thank you,” he said and his breath warmed your face, “for making my birthday something, other than void.” It seemed as if it were the only words he could give you at that moment and you took them with joy. You would forever remember and cherish them. “You’re welcome.” “But, I do have to ask…” “Yes?” you said as you tried to decipher what was hidden in his eyes. “Do you, perhaps, feel something other than collegial friendship and fondness for, me?”

You blushed at his words as he still had your chin in his grasp. You were sure he could feel warmth radiate from your heating skin and it felt as if your heartbeat echoed out around the both of you. “Yes,” you finally stated on a hitching breath, “yes I do, Severus,” you continued as your mouth went dry. “Good,” he said with that thunderous yet soft voice before he nearly gave you a heart attack as he leaned in and planted a gentle yet firm kiss against your lips. It happened so fast it took you a second to react. But when you did, your body softened, your thoughts went silent and all you could feel was his lips on yours for a few amazing seconds as the taste of him and peppermint overtook you.

As you broke apart you drew a deep breath. Air could finally fill your lungs again. But your heart pounded harder and you blushed a deeper shade of red as he smirked at you. “Why, (y/n), I do believe you might have a fever.” It was cruel of him really, to tease you, but at the same time you had never seen or heard him make such a remark and his voice was not harsh. It was gentle and inviting. “Well, I think I might be struck by a sickness,” you said as you looked at him. He arched a brow at you. “I do believe my heart has been struck by sickeningly sweet affection and it does make me suspiciously hot and bothered at times,” you continued and blushed even more as the words were outrageously revealing and never had you dreamt of speaking in such a manner with Severus. “My oh my, perhaps there is a cure for this sickness of yours?” “Oh there definitely is a cure. As long as I get my daily dose of Severus I’ll be fine,” you said with a shy voice as you really felt quite audacious and you had no idea what to do with your hands, how to stand or even how to look at him without wanting to hide from the embarrassment of your words.

But Severus, well he just smiled ever so slightly towards you. “My my, we do have an audacious mind,” he hummed with a gentle thunder to his gruff voice, “I must say, I never imagine you to say such lovely things, (y/n). Feel free to keep surprising me,” he said as he set the gift down on a nearby desk. He took your face in both of his hands, ever so gently, as he looked down at you from his towering position.

His eyes were still harsh, his face still stoic, his lips thin and his jaw so tense. Yet at the same time; he had a light swirl in his gaze, a slight tug at the corner of his mouth, a sort of sensual harshness to his face and jaw that utterly captivated you and spurred on the heat that gathered in your stomach. Your breath shook as you lost yourself in his eyes. As you truly lost yourself to the blooming love that glowed inside of you.

“Severus, I was afraid you didn’t feel like-, that you didn’t like-, that you didn’t-” “Hush,” he said as he leaned in to kiss you again. But his lips never came. He cursed violently and in the next moment you were hidden by him, pressed to his warm chest and you were so shocked you failed to smell the smoke in the room. But there was no missing the sound of an exploding cauldron and, certainly, no way of missing Severus’s hiss as the ruined potion rained down over him as he protected you from the liquid that was heavy and white.

You started to giggle, you tried to stop as he swore and hissed while potion covered him from head to, well to his butt really, but you simply couldn’t help it. He looked so cute as he whipped his arms and shook his head so potion splattered about from his long black hair. You were fortunately still close to his chest so none rained down on you.

He swore a few more choice words. You tried to quiet your laughter as he spluttered and glared at you. “I’m sorry Severus, it’s just, we forgot and you don’t-, you never-” “No, I do not. Apparently, audacity is not your only surprising gift. You’re quite the distraction as well. Obviously.” You blushed again and lowered your head at his snarled words. “But, I do enjoy the way you distract,” he murmured ever so gently as his fingers yet again tipped your head back from where he held them under your chin. “It’s, audaciously distracting to be in your presence like this. With no boundaries of courtesy or distance of caged emotions.” You looked at him with widened eyes, so you do feel as I do? Truly? You thought but you did not dare to utter the words aloud.

“Can I expect you to distract me again soon?” he asked on a deep rumble. You blinked and then swallowed. “If you wish, if, if you allow me to,” you stuttered out with a shy voice and your knees shook a bit. He was the Severus Snape after all. Not only was he a busy man but he was also quite private and closed off. Not to mention feared and even loathed by some students and you had noticed he always avoided spending his free time with anyone. So as he nodded in agreement to your question you could not help but to smile so widely your cheeks hurt and all you wanted to do was to kiss those lips again.

But in that precise moment, a few drops of potion ran down from his hair, down his forehead and then down his nose. You giggled yet again before you stroked away the liquid as he nearly crossed his eyes to watch the movement of your finger and that only made your giggle turn into laughter as he looked adorably ridiculous. Nothing like the notorious dungeon bat of darkness.

“A sweet laugh as well,” he grumbled on a snorting chuckle and you tried to suffocate the laughter. “Well, I’m sorry, you’re just so adorable,” you laughed out and he arched a brow at you while his face hardened to near stone. “Be glad I’m fond of you...” he huffed out as his eyes turned darker. Okay, note to self, do not call him adorable unless you want to make him pissed as the hornets of a kicked hornet’s nest. Even, even if he is adorable. You whipped out your wand to clear away the potion and the hardened lines of his face softened as you smiled at him. He nodded and you flicked your wand. He was clean but your thoughts were dirty as he gazed into your eyes and a warm shiver travelled down your back...

Chapter 3: A line of chocolate

A/N: This fic has a section that is split and marked male gender and female gender - I wanted to give at least a little more explicit content and to do that I felt it was best to do two sections (one for female genitalia and one for male genitalia) so I didn’t have to be so vague and could write a bit more freely. I hope you are okay with this setup! Everything is still GN in the sections except the physical aspects of you and the sections are almost identical except what Snape does to your body.

2000; Potioneer, 40 Years

You were being as silent as you could while you prepared breakfast for the birthday man. Forty years, I can’t believe he’s turning forty. It’s, it’s insane. Where did the time go? You thought as you ordered the table with a firm whipping of your wand. Plates, cutlery, cups and the food gently floated into place. You pointed your wand at the coffee pot and it swayed towards the table before it sat itself down on a little holder with an everglowing flame underneath to keep it warm.

You rubbed your hands together, a slight smile across your face. Your husband was sleeping upstairs with no clue about what you had planned for the day. Well, he did say I was audacious, even if it was quite a while ago now. You chuckled to yourself as fond memories of the first birthday you had celebrated him on floated through your mind. It had been a mess of emotions and potion. But everything had turned out alright in the end as you had now spent twelve years together.

You took a moment to check everything before you nodded to yourself, checked the time and saw it was nearly eleven in the morning as you strode off to wake Severus from his deep slumber. You tipped as quietly as you could through the little house and upstairs, opened the bedroom door and stepped inside of the cosy little bedroom with a bed that was frankly too big for the room; which made the room look smaller than it actually was.

Your heart skipped a beat as he laid on his back, his black hair spread out across the pillow and his chest gently rose and sunk in the midday sunlight that seeped through the little windows. The cover was bunched up at his waist, his upper body on display for you to drool over. He truly was gorgeous. His dark chest hair dusted with greying hairs, his tummy a little softer than a few years ago; but his skin was as pale as ever. You smiled at the sight. You adored him, His body, heart, soul and mind. All of him.

You gave yourself a moment to just appreciate what you had, what was yours. Who you belonged to and lived with, who you were growing old with and made memories with each day that passed. He made you whole. Made life beautiful and heaven felt useless compared to your life. I’m so lucky to have you darling, you thought as you stepped closer to the bed.

You stroked his shoulder, kissed his cheek and whispered to him that it was time to wake up as you giggled out a ‘sleepy head’. For he was. He would sleep the days away if you allowed it. Nights, not so much. He never came to bed before midnight and rarely rose before ten in the morning unless you woke him up - or he had a meeting with a customer or company provider of one sort or another.

He grumbled and groaned as he turned his head away from you. “Come on darling, it’s time to wake up,” you said a little louder and petted his shoulder a little harder. “No,” he groaned out and you rolled your eyes. “Always such a fuss to get you out of bed,” “It’s warm and comfortable,” he grumbled and you smiled. “Well, I made breakfast, your favourite.” His head jerk back towards you and his eyes were suddenly wide open. “Really?” “Really,” you said on a nod and he smiled at you.

You both ate, drank coffee and enjoyed the silence. Severus truly weren’t a morning person and you had learned through the years to be quiet for the first hour after he woke up. It made for a more pleasant day and a happier husband so you really didn’t mind. Truthfully, you had come to be rather fond of the silence as he allowed you to just look at him. The first few months he had been rather annoyed by this little habit of yours but he had come to accept it, as you had done with the silence.

When the table was cleared, the dishes put away and Severus had finished his third cup of black coffee, as he read the news seated by the kitchen table, you turned towards him. “Darling,” you said to get his attention and he looked up, “happy birthday.” He smiled at you while he folded the newspaper and placed it on the table as the clock struck twelve. “Thank you, love,” he said and the difference between this birthday and the first struck you in that moment of time.

“Still think your birthday is not worth celebrating?” you asked and you saw in his eyes that he immediately understood what you were referring to. He shook his head. “No, not anymore. I’m rather, rather fond of it now.” You giggled and went over to him, he opened up his arms and you stepped in between his legs as he embraced you around your waist and you kissed the top of his head.

His hair smelled like sage, copper, smoke and sheets. He needed a shower. Not that it smelled bad, but it smelled of work and you didn't want to be reminded of that on his birthday. “Come on, let’s take a bath,” you mused and he leaned his head back to look at you. His black hair hung down behind him and you ran your fingers through it. “I showered two days ago,” he said with a furrowed brow. You sighed. “Take a bath with me.” You stepped out of his seated embrace and he rose without any further remarks.

The water was warm and felt gentle to your skin as you snuggled into Severus’s chest and his arms folded around you. You hummed in delight as the gentle scent of honey and vanilla filled your nose from the soap you had poured into the water earlier. “I love you, (y/n),” he whispered before his lips graced your head. “And I love you,” you breathed out. He hugged you tighter and his naked skin against your own felt utterly delightful.

You took a moment to just enjoy it, enjoy the cuddling and closeness. But thoughts of his birthday came and you felt a small, slightly wicked smile tug at your lips. You allowed your hands to stroke his legs on either side of you. Up and down, up and down. Gentle movements yet your intent was clear. He grew behind you, hardened and you felt a sense of pride that such simple touch from you could arouse him so hastily.

You turned around as the water sloshed around your body and some spilt over the edges of the tub. Your mouth started tracing kissed over his shoulder, his neck, his throat and eventually your lips joined with his as you straightened and straddled him. You silently thanked yourself for installing such a large tub and then you silently thanked him for allowing you to decorate and remodel your home through the years however you wanted.

He purred against your lips and you silently moaned as his strong hands grabbed your hips. You wiggled a tad and he groaned as you were pressed against his hardening erection. “Happy birthday,” you whispered. “Happy indeed,” he purred back with that deep voice of his. You shivered and heat made your toes curl.

He nibbled on your bottom lip as your hands cupped his face. Your tongue darted out and licked his upper lip as you ground against him again. You felt a hunger so strong you could barely contain a growl, he did that to you. Still. After twelve years of love and making love, growing and changing, evolving and finding yourselves he still made you ache with want. Still made you boil with lust. Still managed to turn you on so badly you feared you had gone mad for him sometimes.

Your hand stroked its way down over his chest, his stomach, until you reached his cock. You scooted back a bit and grabbed him with desperate movements. You began to stroke him, he moaned into your mouth and as you stroked a few more times his lips left yours as his head tilted backwards. His eyes closed in bliss produced by your hand.

He was beautiful, handsome, perfect. Your perfect ideal of a man. That he had a few years on you did truly not matter. That you had been a mere assistant at Hogwarts when the two of you met didn’t matter. That he was so much more than you could ever hope to become did not matter either. All that mattered was that he loved you and you loved him.

“(Y/n),” he breathed out as you continued to stroke him and your mouth left harsh kisses along his neck and jaw. You nearly came by the sound of his voice uttering your name with such need and want. “I love you,” you moaned against his skin and he shivered beneath you. You stroked harder, used the tempo he loved and panted into his ear as you asked him to come for you.

He groaned, tensed, and by your hand, he came undone. You felt such pride, such joy at seeing him unravel beneath you as his face was strained with pleasure and his lips gently parted as he sucked in air to calm himself. “You’re beautiful when you cum,” you whispered as you kissed his cheek with pure love.

He chuckled and raised his head as his eyes locked with yours. They were such beautiful pits of swirling darkness and gentle stardust that spellbound you without fault each time they gazed into your own. You kissed his thin lips and he moved his hand from your hip to your groin. You shivered with delight as he stroked and graced your aching sex with his harsh hand.

~Female Gender~

He encircled your clit, stroked it and made you squeeze your eyes shut in delight. His hand and fingers felt so good against your pussy you could barely take the pleasure. “Look at me,” he said gruffly and you did. You looked at him as his fingers danced between your folds and eventually pushed inside you only to be greeted with hot, wet warmth. You moaned in delight as his thumb stroked your clit while his fingers pumped in and out of your opening. Just how you wanted it.

You bit down on your bottom lip as his eyes held you captive. He wanted to see you, wanted to see all things you felt and enjoy all things he made you feel. He was dominant in his ways with you and you marvelled at his stern command no matter what situation you were in. He made you feel safe and because of that, he could do whatever he pleased with you.

He pumped you harder, pushed another finger inside as his thumb never relented on the onslaught of your clit. Your muscles were tensing, your hands on his shoulders hardened as you felt your climax arrive with a flurry of moans and gasps. Your body shook as he gently eased you of your high with measured pumps and strokes before his fingers glided out of your clenching pussy and he looked too pleased with himself as you panted and shook where you sat, still straddling him, in the tub.

~Male Gender~

He encircled your cock, stroked it and made you squeeze your eyes shut in delight. His hand and fingers felt so good against your hardened flesh you could barely take the pleasure. “Look at me,” he said gruffly and you did. You looked at him as his fingers surrounded your erection and started to pump you ever so gently as your heat radiated against his cool palm. You moaned in delight as his thumb stroked your tip while his fingers held a firm grasp of your most delicate body part and stroked you tenderly. Just how you wanted it.

He pumped you harder, pushed down and pulled up as his thumb never relented on the onslaught of your cocks peak. Your muscles were tensing, your hands on his shoulders hardened as you felt your climax arrive with a flurry of moans and gasps. Your body shook as he gently eased you of your high with measured pumps and strokes before his fingers slipped away from your softening cock and he looked too pleased with himself as you panted and shook where you sat, still straddling him, in the tub.

~Gender Neutral~

You both were dressed in soft clothes and thick robes after the enjoyable bath. Severus sipped on another cup of coffee while reading a book on the newest potions to hit the market as you sipped on a cup of tea and read a rather outrageous book of love and lust. It was quite enthralling, so enthralling in fact that you forgot about the time.

It was past three in the afternoon before you looked up from the crisp pages only to see that Severus’s armchair was empty, the book he had been reading laid on the little side table and the sound of cooking were heard from the kitchen. “Shit!” you hissed out as you threw away the blanket you had at some point pulled over your legs and discarded the book only to hurry to the kitchen.

“Severus, darling, it’s your birthday,” you said as you stepped in and found him busy by the stove. “And?” “You shouldn’t do the cooking,” you said as your arms wrapped around his waist and the delicious smell of boiled chicken with herbs wafted up your nose. He merely chuckled and kept on adding spices to the boiling pot before him.

“Seriously, I can-” “I’d like to survive this birthday, thank you very much.” You pouted at his words, it’s not like I’ve tried to poison you! He arched a brow and you growled at him. He could sense your annoyance with him. “Last time you almost burned the house down, the time before that you nearly flooded the kitchen, the time before that you almost covered yourself in boiling water and the time before that you tried to serve me some sort of concoction that could probably have killed the devil himself if she consumed it and the time before that-” You threw your hands up in the air. “Alright, alright, I get it. I’m a hazard in the damn kitchen Mr Master Cook!” you spat out with a slight hiss to your voice. But yet again, he merely chuckled. You had to do your darndest not to crack up at his little devil joke either. It was clear the devil was a male by popular opinion but Severus firmly believed the devil had to be a woman - even if neither of you believed in such muggle things. You had had a long discussion on the whole thing though, and you actually agreed with him as he had said 'hell has no fury like a woman scorn and if hell can't compete then the only logical thing is that a female rules it, a woman is the devil'.

“Honey, love, you are an excellent baker - as long as it doesn’t involve the stove, so just stick with that. I can cook just fine-” “No, you are not just able to perform the task of cooking just fine, you’re fucking brilliant at it and I’m not as good as you, I am well aware Mr Look At Me Cook Like I’m a Master Chef, so don’t-” But you interrupted yourself as he looked at you with a puzzled look. “What?” you spat. Annoyed at his cheerful features. “Well, I think you might have mastered the art of spiteful compliments, love,” he said on a shrug and you had no words after that. He was infuriating at times but by Merlin how you loved him for all his perfections and imperfections. As he did with you.

“Fine, I will stay out of your hair. Do your swish-swash-stirring in peace.” He laughed at you, a rumbling sound that cushioned your heart in clouds of bliss, and gave your forehead a quick kiss before you muttered some choice words under your breath and left the kitchen behind you.

You ate a while later and Severus poured you a glass of wine before he poured one for himself. It had become somewhat of a tradition. You shared a bottle of wine on his birthday, shared a bottle of cider on your birthday and a small bottle of brandy was shared during Christmas and New Year. Other than those three occasions, you never consumed any alcohol.

Some found it strange, but you both had your reasons for it. Severus’s father had been a drunk, your (relative) and (relative) had been drunks as well. It ruined families, useless overconsumption of alcohol. Neither of you wanted that so you had your three bottles per year and that was all. In all honesty, it only made the stuff taste better to have it so rarely.

You clinked your glasses and took a sip each. You handed over a little gift to him as you had placed your glass on the table. His eyes widened and a slight smirk covered his thin lips. The gift looked exactly like the one you had given him the first time you ever presented him with such a thing. Only a little bit larger. You blushed ever so slightly as he smiled widely at you with soft and warm eyes.

“Happy birthday, Severus,” you said and grabbed your glass. He tore open the wrappings, such difference compare to the first time. Perhaps, I have managed to make him confident in the fact he will always receive gifts on his birthday. Perhaps he feels safe in that, perhaps he truly does enjoy his birthday now. Well, no, that’s not a perhaps. I know he does.

Your thoughts raced through your mind as he was yet again, after twelve years, met with a black box with silver lettering on top that spelt ‘Brelixion’ . The exclusive, expensive shop for potion-making. Not that you had a low income or anything like that anymore. No, both of you could buy most of what you wanted with your own firm doing so well. But still, it was an expensive shop and the object was worth some awe.

Severus opened the lid and peeked inside. His eyes softened and you felt a gentle warmth curl its way through your veins. He was happy. That was all you wanted. “Love, thank you,” he said gently with that deep voice of his that you loved so much. You were the only one to ever be so fortunate as to hear that gentle sound from between his lips. “Do you like it? It goes with the first one,” you said and he nodded. “I do,” he stated as his eyes went from yours and back to the gift.

“I shall take it with me at all times,” he stated and you knew he meant for work. It pleased you to hear as you already knew he always had his first gift with him in that leather bag of his that could fit more things than logically possible. Thank you undetectable extension charm, you thought on a light smile. Your mind wandered and in the silence, you pondered on the next little gift you had planned. Well, it wasn’t so much a gift, more like an experience but still.

The day passed gently, there were a few cards that arrived by owl from around the globe addressed to Severus. Customers, potion masters and old colleagues - old friends even - and you were thrilled for him as he had been such a lonely man a few years back and had so low hopes each time January and his birthday came around. But not anymore. It was all different now. Not only the birthday but he and you as well. Different, the same, but different.

Darkness had crept in nearly three hours ago and you felt a slight tingle in your body as you gathered your courage to try something new. Something Severus would no doubt find audacious. He’d most likely call you wicked and you truly hoped for that as it was a word he rarely used to describe you, actually, it was only uttered by him if you did something wickedly delightful to him that also surprised him. And you hoped, that this evening, would be such a thing so as to garner such praise.

“Darling?” you said to get his attention, he hummed a little. “Come to bed with me.” He looked up from his book. “Love, it’s only seven.” “I know,” you smiled out with sparkling eyes and a slight blush across your cheeks. His eyes widened ever so slightly as he raised his brows. He was most likely thinking about the bath you had enjoyed together in the late morning already. But he nodded and you both got up. You ushered him upstairs, saying you’d only be a minute.

He went upstairs to your bedroom while you headed for the kitchen. In the fridge stood a chocolate cake topped with whipped cream and a few strawberries. ‘Lovely Forty’ was swirled across its top in white chocolate sauce. You grabbed it and put it on the counter. You shed your clothes right there in the kitchen as beneath you wore, well, nothing. “Either he’ll die of laughter or this will go hella good,” you whispered to yourself as you took a steadying breath and placed twelve candles on the cake - one for each birthday you had celebrated with him.

You walked gently through the house with the cake in your hands, all the candles lit and the light danced across your naked skin. With your foot, you pushed the door open just as Severus had removed his shirt. His socks and slippers were already in a heap on the floor. He stood in only silky, black pyjama pants before you and the sight was quite something.

“Happy birthday,” you said again and your voice was slightly low as shyness took over for a moment. He arched a brow, his eyes harshly roved over you and the cake for an eternity before a hint of a smile curved his lips and the dark pits that were his beautiful eyes swirled with want. “Happy indeed,” he said for the second time that day and confidence unfurled and bloomed within you as all shyness melted away under his loving gaze.

There was chocolate everywhere. Literally. In your hair, on your nose, between your legs, on your feet, your elbows and tummy, your shoulder and fingers and knees. Everywhere. You were a chocolate covered mess along with the sheets and Severus seemed to be more than happy to continue making you a complete mess with the cake you had worked hard on. But you had other plans.

As he was busy licking cake off your inner thigh he did not notice you had reached for your wand, the wand you had cleverly hidden beneath the cake as you walked up many moments ago. You smiled as you flicked your wand, a belt came flying from the nearby wardrobe and in the next moment Severus was bound beneath you with his hands above his head and a look of surprise covered his face. “(Y/n), what in the world are you-” Your messy finger covered his lips as you smiled at him with warmth and yearning. “My turn,” you simply stated and he breathed out harshly through that gorgeous hooked nose of his.

You had never bound him before, he had bound you but never the other way around. Well, we haven’t ever played with food in the bed before either so, some firsts being crossed. Still, after twelve years we have firsts, the thought made you excited and you removed your messy fingers from his lips that were messy as well. You giggled as he had chocolate on that pretty nose of his and all around his cheeks. You bent down and licked it off.

With your finger dipped in chocolate from the centre of the cake you began to draw a line, from his chin to his cock. You had to take some new chocolate a few times but in the end, you had a nice little path to travel. “Oh, such a messy mess,” you said as you splattered some extra chocolate over his chest and stomach. He chuckled and sighed at your mischief. “Oh we are wickedly audacious today,” he said and vibrations shot through you from his nearly hoarse voice. The words made you purr. “Guess I’ll have to clean you up, my birthday man…”

You lowered yourself, your lips graced his jaw and you nibbled between soft kisses. He hummed in delight as you worked your way down. Licking, lapping, kissing and nibbling. “You taste good paired with chocolate,” you purred out against his chest as you ground against his cock that you were sure was nearly painfully hard beneath you as you straddled him. “But it’s nearly a shame to pair such a lovely flavour with something so simple,” you breathed out to take a deliberate pause as you knew your words were ambiguous, “as mundane chocolate.” He took a shaky breath and you gave one of his nipples a hard lick. He bucked and you moaned.

“I love you,” he whispered as you continued your journey down his stomach, licking and loving him every bit of the way. “And I love you,” you breathed out against his pale skin as you continued to press your tongue against it. You were devouring the chocolate and consumed him fully in your mouth as you arrived at his erection where the line of chocolate ended. “(Y/n).” You smiled as you licked and sucked. His thundering voice that articulated your name was all you needed to hear at that moment.

You were consumed by lust and love. He was consumed by you until he reached his highest point and released himself with a loud growl of adoration for you and your mouth. It was, for him, one of the greatest birthdays in history. Not because you loved him so audaciously wickedly with cake and licks but because you simply loved him. Fully, wholeheartedly and completely. That was the greatest gift, you by his side through life and you knew it before he ever had to utter the words.

Masterlist page // Masterlist post // AO3

Thank you for reading! Thank you for your time and commitment, I hope you feel it was worth it! :D <3

Let's wish Snape a Happy Birthday once more and I hope you all have a lovely day celebrating with Snapedom! ^^ <3

Taglist: @lizlil @snapefiction @darkthought15 @monstreviolet @flowerdementia @marvelschriss @morphineisouthoney @setsuna-meiou31 @meteoritewolf69 @bionic-otp @elizabeth-baelish

Want to be tagged? 💚 You can tag yourself HERE! Or tell me and I’ll gladly tag you! 😍

[Jan:2021]

#snape's birthday #happy birthday snape #snapedom #snape fic #snape x reader #writing #my writing #deepperplexity #deepperplexity fic #smutty writing #fluffy writing #cake in bed #I have no idea why I made them bathe BEFORE they got all messy but oh well

155 notes · View notes

feuilletoniste · 4 years

Text

Yeah so this is obviously some transphobic bullshit on its own, and normally I’d just block the op[1] and move on, but something stuck with me. “Tumblr [...] is a primarily female space”? That doesn’t seem right.

Unfortunately it’s not exactly easy to find demographic statistics including gender for Tumblr, since the site doesn’t ask for that information upon signing up, and there aren’t really any site-wide polls with reliable information. This report states that: “Tumblr does not ask for gender information when a user signs up. Furthermore, although it does ask for user age, no independent verification is done, and Tumblr believes that the age information is unreliable. Therefore, it is a challenge to create ground truth labels” (Large-scale Gender/Age Prediction of Tumblr Users, Zhang et. al., 2015).

(Source: “Percentage of U.S. internet users who use Tumblr as of 3rd quarter 2020, by gender,” Statista)

As you can see in the above graph, around the same number of Americans who identify as male use the site as those identifying as female, according to this particular online panel with over 2000 respondents above the age of 15.[2] Web traffic from the US only makes up a little under half of the total accounts on Tumblr (a little over 47% as of Jan 2021 according to SimilarWeb), but it’s by far the largest percentage (the second-greatest percentage of traffic comes from the UK, accounting for only a little over 5.6% of the total hits); the remaining approximate 52% is scattered between 251 countries.[3] Because of this significant gap, I think it’s safe to say that the US data can safely act as a rough stand-in for the total demographic makeup.[4]

(Source: Quantcast report on Tumblr demographics, 2011)

The Quantcast analysis, once again, only reviews US data, and is fallible, but in this report we can clearly see that male-identified users constitute a slight majority.[5] An article from the Pew Research Center again supports the argument that Tumblr users are approximately equal in terms of gender,[6] stating that, “Unlike other social media platforms, Tumblr users are equally divided between men and women. Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest all are more popular among women; men are slightly more likely than women to use Twitter” (5 facts about Tumblr, pewresearch.org, 2013). This also opposes the claim in the original post that “most other social media” is male-dominated in terms of percentage of users.[7] (A similar report from Business Insider in 2015 also supports my argument.)

And finally, an article from TechJury once again corroborates the idea that the gender demographic makeup of Tumblr is approximately split evenly: “According to a survey from January of 2019, 27% of canvassed male internet users from the US stated that they are using, or have used Tumblr. [...] Tumblr gender statistics from January also found that 14% of female internet users from the US are familiar with Tumblr” (TechJury.net, Statista).

Anyway, I don’t have a good way to wrap this all up, but in conclusion: I don’t think the actual statistics support your claim that Tumblr is a “primarily female space,” so even setting aside the transphobic bullshit of the rest of the post... yeah, you’re wrong.

[1] Which I did anyway, I just also screenshotted the post and went hunting for more information. [2] Age demographics are an entirely different beast. [3] All of which contribute individually between 0-5% of the total traffic. [4] Which, let me remind you, does not exist. We do not have those data. [5] These data are from 10 years ago, mind; a more recent Quantcast report from 2013, allegedly surveying a representation of the entire website, found a 56-44% divide in favor of female-identified users. [6] Excluding those who don’t identify as either male or female, but that’s a topic for a different post. [7] In terms of loudness or prolificacy, that’s another story.

#mine #statistics #sorry this post is pretty long but unfortunately #I love statistics and I buy all my clothes from there #hell site #transphobia #debunking #mathematics

50 notes · View notes

ethrenisnotthehero · 4 years

Text

@hogwartsmystory is a predator (part 2)

If you haven’t read the first part of the callout, I encourage you to do so here. As before, the normal tags are not included in this post in order to allow this to reach as many people as possible. Potential triggers are listed below, and the main content is hidden to keep sensitive individuals from being unintentionally exposed. TW: Pedophilia, Abuse, Gaslighting, Sexual Assault, Self Harm, Suicide, NSFW Topics, Faked Illness, Faked Mental Illness, Faked Death, Victim Blaming

Ren met Jill sometime between December of 2013 and January of 2014. At the time, he was dating another staff member of the website who will be referred to as Buttercup from now on. Jill was vulnerable in some of the most classic ways a CSA survivor often is. Her home life was chaotic and difficult. She was just finishing middle school. Depression had started to surface, and, worst of all, she had just been diagnosed with a life-altering chronic disease that would require her to change significant aspects of her daily life just to survive. She just wanted a place to fit in and be welcomed, and fell into Ren’s lures without ever considering the danger that lurked behind the screen.

Up until now, it could be understandable to argue that Ren may not have been purposely grooming young girls. Creating a mature themed website might be creepy and inappropriate, but that doesn’t necessarily make someone a predator. No, what made Ren a predator were his motives, his goals, and his solicitation of vulnerable youth into grossly exploitative relationships. What remains the most disturbing to me is that his behavior consistently fits with the profile of an egomaniac desperate to have power over someone dependent on him, fitting textbook descriptions of the methods abusers employ in order to coax their victims in and trap them there.

The Act of Grooming, Part Two: Approach

Even though common luring methods of child predators are well-known within advocate and legal communities, the average person typically has neither heard of them nor is likely to recognize them as they happen. Some behaviors attached to common lures are easily identifiable: a stranger somehow uses a young child’s name to create familiarity and abducts them, or convinces a child that there are prizes to be had if they come along. Methods like these have names, and Ren is guilty of utilizing at least four to his advantage.

The Authority Lure

When Jill first told me about her first interactions with Ren, she was quick to note how starstruck she was with that fact that he wanted to talk to her at all. “I was surprised that admins even RPed down with their peasants on this site,” she told me. Interacting with staff on the site made her feel special and seen, and Ren was quick to start chatting with her. He had a particular interest in her character. Someone of great importance and authority on the site, going out of his way to interact with her out of all people. He held power over her (over most users on the site) and that was something he was keenly aware of. More sinisterly, not only did Ren himself have power over younger users, but he increased his reach and control through the creation of alternative identities. Ren’s main identities were Aaron, Seth, Carter, and Lauren, all of whom he used to form relationships with and manipulate different individuals on the site.

Seth and Carter’s accounts have since been deleted, so unfortunately I was not able to see what kind of people Ren made them out to be. However, he clearly made users believe that these were all existing people, and used their identities to build his authority. When everyone on staff is the same person, it doesn’t leave very much room for dissent.

As for Lauren? Lauren was Ren’s real identity, and the mastermind behind all of it.

As you can see in this post, as of November 11, 2013, Ren was 17 years old. Not only that, but he was in a position of power over children in real life, too. There’s no reason that Ren would not have known better; no one in that position would be able to have a relationship with a small child as a “mistake.” Frequently, Ren claimed to be a babysitter for kids as old as 14, which means that children were fully exposed to him on all fronts. Ignorance is not a viable excuse for him; there’s no way he didn’t realize what he was doing was wrong.

A person might argue that there’s no substantial proof that these identities are fake. That would be a valid question at this point. One of Ren’s supporters (and self-proclaimed partner) has admitted themselves that these “alternate personalities” did not exist. In an attempt to explain away Ren’s toxic behaviors, they offered up a Dissociative Identity Disorder diagnosis as a defense:

However, there’s one glaring issue with this claim. According to the DSM-5 classification of mental disorders by the American Psychiatric Association, amnesia must occur for a diagnosis of DID. Amnesia is defined by the DSM-5 as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events. Ren never experienced amnesia associated with the “switch” of an alter; in fact, he claimed that he and his friends would regularly do activities together, and would even communicate back and forth online with each other during the same lengths of time on AS as he switched between accounts.

I understand that everyone has different experiences with mental illness, and that illness does not have the same symptoms for every person. Regardless, Ren was clearly aware of his actions and the way he used his other accounts to lure/hurt users. Mental illness is not an excuse for hurting children, ever. Ren knew it then, and I can guarantee you he knows it now.

The Affection Lure

Another way predators appeal to their victims is with affection. Pedophiles take advantage of rocky home situations or difficult experiences to abuse the trust a child has placed in them. Jill came to know Ren well through their role-plays. They talked often. Ren made himself available to her, gave her comfort that she desperately needed, and even offered other friends who could be an ear or a shoulder to her. When Ren learned of Jill’s chronic illness, he connected her with Seth, another of his personalities. He coaxed Jill into trusting him, and their relationship became inappropriately intense. Most children are exploited by people that are close to them, by people who they trust and rely on.

At the time, Jill may not have realized how difficult her situation was for her. To her, the chaos of her family life may have seemed normal. Having to compete with siblings and neighborhood kids may have seemed normal. Falling into severe, deep depression may have seemed normal. The truth of the situation is that a vulnerable young woman was falling through the cracks, and Ren saw an opportunity to place himself as the most important person in her life. She needed to belong, so he made sure that she felt like she belonged with him. She needed to be heard, so he made sure that she felt like he was the only one who heard her. She needed friends, so he made sure that all her friends were him.

Not only did he use her trust in him to groom her for a relationship, but he used it to isolate her. If everyone she knew was him, then he would be the only positive feature in her life. If everyone else was an enemy, then she would have nowhere to turn to but him. If he convinced her that she was his world, and that he was hers, she would never believe anyone trying to warn her about him and his behavior. Ren took advantage of a 14 year old child’s insecurities and sickness to insert himself as the most important aspect of her life.

There’s plenty of evidence that this wasn't the first time he’d thought of something like this, either. Ren had an obsession with themes of abuse, torture, and child slavery in his stories and role-plays. Much of his content centered around taking advantage of vulnerable people.

It wasn’t just his role-play ideas that crossed the line. His behavior toward other members of the site was hair-raising at best. His supporters try to paint him as someone affectionate and well-meaning, but he had habits of talking to young users in a manner that borders on profiling.

These aren’t things that someone a few months short of their eighteenth birthday should be saying to children on the internet. His behavior also delved into the realm of victim blaming, too; when a minor on the site was posting about their father going out of his way to make custody as complicated and as disruptive as possible, Ren had this to say:

A man, who would have been 18 at the time, with the audacity to imply that a child was to blame for the controlling behavior of their father. That their father only loved them, and that they might have done something to make a grown man act like a petty child during a divorce.

Ren’s idea of love was as toxic as his need for power.

The Hero Lure

This is, perhaps, the lure that Ren is mostly guilty of. An egomaniac soothed by his own words, Ren saw himself as a hero. In his own mind, he was a faultless deity who deserved no less than the complete and undivided affections of his subjects, but who fabricated false identities at every opportunity. In Ren’s mind, he is the hero. The survivors of his abuse are turned to abusers, those who dare question him are nothing but petty liars, and anyone not completely enthralled by him is nothing but an extra in his story. That’s what Ethren was created to emulate.

Ren has not grown. Someone who has grown would take ownership of their mistakes and apologize for the pain they had caused. Someone truly sorry, truly changed, wouldn’t dare to trample on the feelings of people they had hurt. Ren is no different now than he was six years ago, when he made the decision to change Jill’s life. Instead, he’s turned a survivor into the villain of his world. Instead, he faked his own death so that he could start over with his reputation on AS intact. He never accepted what he did, and instead continues to paint Jill as someone who needed to be “fixed.”

Wanting to be with someone because it feeds a need to “fix” or “help” someone isn’t love. It’s an adult man putting the weight of the world on the shoulders of a little girl. A girl already struggling to adapt. A girl already struggling to fit in. A girl who spent her second week of high school hospitalized because of a sickness that would change her life forever. Jill is a person; she’s a person who’s had to learn to live with restrictions that mean the difference between life and death. She’s a person who’s had to walk alone through the past six years battling depression and trauma completely unheard and unseen. She’s not a character in Ren’s world. She’s not some fixation to help him feel better about himself.

Jill is a real, living, breathing human being with thoughts and feelings and a future: a future that Ren has done him damn best to make about himself for the past six years.

Ren never wanted to help anyone. Ren needed to feel important to other people to have some kind of meaning to himself. His obsession with playing hero went so far that he would torment his victims just so that he could swoop in and be what they needed. He would pretend to be sick or injured. He would go from having a cold, to strep, to pneumonia in under a day.

He would suddenly need a nebulizer for breathing treatments for his false illnesses.

His friends and loved ones would suddenly have life-threatening medical conditions and need to be taken to the hospital.

He pretended to have cancer.

He would use his identities to threaten self harm or death. He used Seth to tell Jill that he was going to send someone to kill her, making her scared for her own life. He made her a part of a world where he was the only one who could help her to satisfy his own sick need to be the most important thing to someone else.

When life caught up to him, he pretended to die.

He knew what he was doing was wrong. He asked Jill to lie about her age and told her that if anyone ever found out about them, he would get in trouble. He used his status as her hero to solicit sexual content online. He knew her age, knew how vulnerable she was, and knew how desperately she needed to fit in. He took advantage of that to fill his own desperate need to be the hero.

The legal age where a person can consent in Jill’s country is 16. When they officially began dating, she was 14. Ren was 18. He was an adult four years older than her, who would have faced charges of child abuse in his own state for their relationship. They had a sexual relationship online, which would be equivalent to soliciting child porn in his state. She never cheated on him; he was her world, because he made every effort to make sure that he was.

She never even saw his face.

She never even knew his real name.

She grappled for years afterwards with trauma, and he wouldn’t even give her the decency of having peace when they finally split. Instead, he came here with his stories. He wrote up fantasies where he was the hero, and she was the one who abused him. Jill was still a minor at the end of her relationship. When I asked her if she’s gotten help, she didn’t think a therapist would take her seriously. Ren took her ability to trust her own voice from her. He took her ability to believe that her own problems were valid. He took six years of her life and made it hell for the sake of his own ego and vanity. Pedophiles will often lie about their age, but most of them make it clear that they’re adults. Their true age might vary by four to five years (like in Ren’s case of claiming to be 21 at 17), but they always make it very clear that they’re adults. Predators know what they’re doing. They’re master manipulators. They’re adept at communication. They seem innocent on the surface, until everything they’ve done is laid out where it can be seen for what it is. Predators rely on persuasion, not coercion (Abrams 2016).

Someone I know asked me if I ever considered, even briefly, that Jill wasn’t telling the truth. I answered back without hesitation that I never did, not even once, because I hadn’t even touched one of the most important parts of my research.

Like other predators, Ren had a type. Buttercup was his first victim. When she and Ren met she was only 13-- Just like Jill.

Continue to Part 3

43 notes · View notes

cathkaesque · 4 years

Link

Why is supernova – the explosion and death of a star – an apt metaphor for what could now be about to unfold? Why could the coronavirus, an organism 1000th the diameter of a human hair, be the catalyst for such a cataclysm? And what can workers, youth and the dispossessed of the world do to defend ourselves and to ‘bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old’, in the words of the US labour hymn, Solidarity Forever?

The first stage of a supernova is implosion, analogous to the long-term decline in interest rates that began well before the onset of systemic crisis in 2007, which has accelerated since then, and which fell off a cliff just as coronavirus began its rampage in early January 2020. Falling interest rates are fundamentally the result of two factors: falling rates of profit, and the hypertrophy of capital, i.e. its tendency grow faster than the capacity of workers and farmers to supply it with the fresh blood it needs to live. As Marx said, in Capital vol. 1, “capital’s sole driving force [is] the drive to valorise itself, to create surplus-value… capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, only lives by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.”

These two factors combine to form a doom loop of awesome destructive power. Let us examine its most important linkages.

Many things both mask and counteract the falling rate of profit, turning this into a tendency that only reveals itself in times of crisis, of which the most important has been the shift of production from Europe, North America and Japan to take advantage of the much higher rates of exploitation available in low-wage countries. The falling rate of profit manifests itself in a growing reluctance of capitalists to invest in production; more and more of what they do invest in is branding, intellectual property and other parasitic and non-productive activities. This long-running capitalist investment strike is amplified by the global shift of production – boosting profits by slashing wages rather than by building new factories and deploying new technologies. This enables huge mark-ups, turbo-charging the accumulation of vast wealth for which capitalists have no productive use – hence the hypertrophy of capital.

This, in turn, results in declining interest rates – as capitalists compete with each other to purchase financial assets, they bid up their price, and the revenue streams they generate fall in proportion – hence falling interest rates. Falling interest rates and rising asset values have created what is, for capitalist investors, the ultimate virtuous circle – they can borrow vast sums to invest in financial assets of all kinds, further inflating their ‘value’.

Falling interest rates therefore have two fundamental consequences: the inflation of asset bubbles and the piling up of debt mountains. In fact, these are two sides of the same coin: for every debtor there is a creditor; every debt is someone else’s asset. Asset bubbles could deflate (if productivity increases), or else they will burst; economic growth could, over time, erode debt mountains, or else they will come crashing down.

Since 2008, productivity has stagnated across the world and GDP growth has been lower than in any decade since World War II, resulting in what Nouriel Roubini has called “the mother of all asset bubbles,” while aggregate debt (the total debt of governments, corporations and households), already mountainous before the 2008 financial crash, has since then more than doubled in size. The growth of debt has been particularly pronounced in the countries of the global South. Total debt for the 30 largest of them reached $72.5tn in 2019 – a 168% rise over the past 10 years, according to Bank of International Settlements data. China accounts for $43tn of this, up from $10tn a decade ago. In sum, well before coronavirus, global capitalism already had ‘underlying health issues’, it was already in intensive care.

Global capitalism – which is more imperialist than ever, since it is both more parasitic and more reliant than ever before on the proceeds of super-exploitation in low-wage countries – is therefore inexorably heading to supernova, towards the bursting of assets bubbles and the crashing of debt mountains. Everything that imperialist central banks have done since 2008 has been designed to postpone the inevitable day of reckoning. But now that day has come.

10-year US Treasury bonds are considered the safest of havens and the ultimate benchmark against which all other debt is priced. In times of great uncertainty, investors invariably stampede out of stock markets and into the safest bond markets, so as share prices fall, bond prices – otherwise known as ‘fixed income securities’ – rise. As they do, the fixed income they yield translates into a falling rate of interest. But not on March 9, when, in the midst of plummeting stock markets, 10-year US Treasury bond interest rates spiked upwards. According to one bond trader, “statistically speaking, [this] should only happen every few millennia.” Even in the darkest moment of the global financial crisis, when Lehman Brothers (a big merchant bank) went bankrupt in September 2008, this did not happen.

The immediate cause of this minor heart attack was the scale of asset-destruction in other share and bond markets, causing investors to scramble to turn their speculative investments into cash. To satisfy their demands, fund managers were obliged to sell their most easily-exchangeable assets, thereby negating their safe-haven status, and this jolted governments and central banks to take extreme action and fire their ‘big bazookas’, namely the multi-trillion dollar rescue packages – including a pledge to print money without limit to ensure the supply of cash to the markets. But this event also provided a premonition for what is down the road. In the end, dollar bills, like bond and share certificates, are just pieces of paper. As trillions more of them flood into the system, events in March 2020 bring closer the day when investors will lose faith in cash itself – and in the power of the economy and state standing behind it. Then the supernova moment will have arrived.

During the middle two weeks of March, imperialist governments announced plans to spend $4.5 trillion bailing out their own bankrupt economies. An emergency online summit of the G20 (the G7 imperialist nations plus a dozen or so ‘emerging’ nations, including Russia, India, China, Brazil, and Indonesia) on 26 March, declared “we are injecting over $5 trillion into the global economy.” These are weasel words; by ‘global’ they actually mean ‘domestic’! The response of the ‘left’ in the imperialist countries is to clap its hands and say, we were right all along! There is a magic money tree after all! – apparently not realising that this is exactly what happened post-2008: the socialisation of private debt. Or that, unlike post-2008, this time it will not work.

Some highlights of John Smith’s excellent article on the economic crisis induced by the coronavirus. The pandemic has popped the bubble that has been keeping our imperialist system coherent since the 2008 crisis. In order to keep that bubble going, Central Banks have been undertaking unprecedented financial measures which they are attempting to repeat again. The result will be a reckoning, as the bad debts of the system pass from the private banks and become concentrated in the Central Banks that are core to our monetary systems. We need to use this crisis to begin building a rational system based on the using resources for human need rather than the exploitative anarchy of capitalism.

#socialism #capitalism #coronavirus #revolution

380 notes · View notes

conradscrime · 4 years

Text

Winnie Ruth Judd: The Trunk Murderess

March 11, 2021

This is one of my all time favourite true crime cases. I first heard about Winnie Ruth Judd, also known as “the Trunk Murderess” a few years ago when my grandmother let me borrow a book she had read about it. The book I read was written by Jana Bommersbach and was truly amazing, she did an incredible job telling the story and did not skip a detail. This is a long case and I will not be covering everything in this short post, however I encourage everyone to do their own research and read the book!

Winnie Ruth McKinnell, also known as Marian Lane later in life, was born on January 29, 1905 in Indiana to parents Rev. H. J. McKinnell who was a Methodist minister and his wife Carrie.

Winnie met and married Dr. William C. Judd in 1922 at the age of 17. Dr. Judd was 20 years older than Winnie and a World War I veteran and their marriage had various problems. Dr. Judd was a morphine addict who had a hard time keeping down a job thus making the couple move around a lot and face financial struggles. Winnie was unable to have children and this further strained the marriage.

In 1930 Winnie and her husband were living separately but still communicated quite frequently. Winnie moved to Phoenix Arizona and began working as a governess for a wealthy family.

It was in Phoenix where Winnie met John J. Halloran, also known as “Happy Jack” by the media. Happy Jack was a very well known businessman and extremely good looking and though he was married him and Winnie began an affair.

Winnie found a job working as a secretary at a medical clinic and this where she would meet her two best friends, Agnes Anne LeRoi and Hedvig “Sammy” Samuelson who were roommates having moved from Alaska to Phoenix due to Sammy contracting tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was extremely common back in the 1930′s and it was known that areas of warmer climates helped those with TB get better, so Phoenix being an extremely hot and sunny place was ideal.

Anne and Sammy also knew Happy Jack and it seems as though they were very flirty with him as well. Jack apparently was the ladies “meal ticket” they relied on him heavily financially and emotionally and he had made a connection with all of them.

The three women hit it off and soon became fast friends, with Winnie even moving in with Anne and Sammy for a brief period in 1931, though she soon moved out in her own apartment as there was some differences among them. I’m assuming these differences were very minor, they just seemed to have differences about running a household because the three remained besties even after Winnie moved out on her own.

On the night of October 16, 1931 an alleged fight broke out between the three women and Winnie Ruth Judd murdered Anne LeRoi and Sammy Samuelson. Winnie shot both women with a .25 caliber handgun in their bungalow and what she did with the bodies is extremely disturbing.

Two days later on October 18, 1931 Winnie boarded the train on her way to Los Angeles, California and had two trunks of luggage with her. However, one of the baggage handlers said the luggage smelled really bad as well as he could see some kind of “fluid” escaping from them. He notified the district baggage agent thinking that what was inside the trunks was just deer meat. How wrong he was.

The trunks were then tagged to be held for inspection and when asked for the key to open the trunks Winnie Ruth Judd claimed she did not have a key for them. The trunks were sent to the police station where the police finally opened them and what was found inside was extremely disturbing.

The dismembered body of Sammy Samuelson were found inside of the trunks, while Anne LeRoi’s body was found stuffed into a trunk but completely intact; she had not been dismembered. Winnie was not there when the police discovered the contents in the trunks, she had actually gotten her brother to pick her up and drop her off somewhere in L.A. When the contents of the trunks were discovered Winnie Ruth Judd had disappeared though she eventually turned herself in a few days later on October 23, 1931.

Of course Winnie became the prime suspect right away since she literally was attempting to travel with two trunks full of her best friends dismembered bodies. She was dubbed “The Trunk Murderess” “Tiger Woman” and “The Blonde Butcher” and the media had an absolute field day with it.

The main motive people suspected was obviously jealously. The prosecution believed that Winnie had murdered her friends because they also had feelings for Happy Jack and that the women were fighting over him when they were killed.

When police visited the bungalow where the murders took place on October 19, 1931 they made some shocking discoveries. According to police it did not appear as if the women were shot during an enraged fight at all, it appeared as though they were actually shot and killed in their sleep.

The strange part was that both of the women’s mattresses were not found in the house when police went. One mattress was found miles away in a vacant lot with no blood stains on it and one mattress was never found at all.

Winnie Ruth Judd’s trial began on January 19, 1932. She was only being tried for the murder of Anne though, not Sammy, therefore the dismemberment aspect was never brought up in court because Anne had not been dismembered.

They argued that the murders were premeditated and that Winnie had planned this due to the fact that the women’s friendship was deteriorating with jealously over Jack Halloran. Winnie herself had a gunshot wound on her left hand which they believed was self-inflicted; her attempt to take the blame off of herself.

Winnie Ruth Judd was charged with first-degree murder on February 8 and was sentenced to hang on February 17, 1933. They figured a death sentence would make Winnie confess who her accomplice was because a lot of people found it impossible that a small woman like Winnie Ruth Judd would have been able to kill, dismember, and get the bodies in the trunks all on her own.

However, Winnie’s death sentence was overturned after they found her mentally incompetent and she was sent to the Arizona State Asylum for the Insane on April 24, 1933.

Jack Halloran became under suspicious when it was found that he had been having an affair with Winnie. Lots of people believed that he was Winnie’s accomplice in the murders and had helped her dismember them. Winnie testified against Jack in mid January 1933.

Winnie claimed that on the night of the murders she had gone over to Anne and Sammy’s place to hangout and play bridge with them. At one point she said the three women began fighting because Winnie had told them that another woman Jack had been seen hanging with named Lucille Moore had syphilis and was being treated for it. Supposedly the women began telling Winnie that she needed to let Jack know about the syphilis but Winnie told the women she could not tell Jack about Lucille’s medical history because of her job and the risk of losing it plus according to her Jack and Lucille were just friends.

Anne and Sammy did not believe this and Anne threatened Winnie telling her she would tell Jack about Lucille’s syphilis. Winnie fighting back told Anne that if she told Jack, Winnie would go around and tell everyone that Anne and Sammy were lesbians which I think was a rumour going around considering the two women lived together and were unmarried at their age, and back in the 1930′s that was insane.

Winnie said the women started physically attacking her and she killed them in self defence. I just want to say the above information about syphilis and lesbianism is from one source I found and there is probably no way of knowing if this is exactly what started the fight between the three women.

Jack’s team argued that Winnie was crazy and that this was the story of a crazy person and Jack was freed from the case on January 25, 1933 though his reputation was still ruined and he eventually fell out of business and died in 1939.

Winnie escaped from the asylum a total of 6 times, with the longest time being from 1963 to 1969 when her identity was finally discovered in California and she was taken back to Arizona.

Winnie Ruth Judd was paroled on December 22, 1971 and in 1983 she was issued an absolute discharge meaning she was no longer considered a parolee. Winnie Ruth Judd died at the age of 93 on October 23, 1998 in Stockton California.

Winnie had written a confession in 1933 stating that she had planned to murder Anne due to her fighting for Jack’s affection with Winnie. Winnie claimed she had not intended to kill Sammy, but when Sammy walked in on Winnie and found Anne dead she began to fight with her. In this confession Winnie said that everything had been done by her alone, she had not had an accomplice, not even to help her transport the trunks.

Some people do not believe that this is a true confession, they think that Winnie just wrote this in an attempt to keep going with an insanity plea. So what do you guys think? Is Winnie guilty of murdering her friends in cold blood, did she really just mean to kill Anne or did she kill both women in self-defense? I’d love to hear what you guys think about this one!

I barley scratched the surface of all of the interesting information about this case, I 100% recommend you all look further into this one because it’s insanely interesting to me and there’s so much more to it.

I don’t think we will ever truly know what happened on the night of October 16, 1931, but after almost 90 years this case still haunts America.

#winnie #ruth #judd #trunk #murderess #truecrime #true crime #unsolved #solved #1930s #arizona #california #Crime

13 notes · View notes

ceaseless-enemy · 3 years

Text

TURNTABLES AU: THE KRIEGHAUS CORRESPONDENCE LETTERS

CONTENT WARNINGS: mentions of torture methods, evil RHM content, death, corpses, trauma, very vague descriptions of medical procedure

you have been warned

February 27th, 2014

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

I’m surprised you decided to contact me. I was under the impression the Toppats were an “every man for himself” sort of group.

That said, I think you were right to be concerned this time around. The impression General Copperbottom gives off is of someone that believes Toppats are tantamount to war criminals.

I’ll talk with The Lieutenant soon and try to assure things remain as civil as possible in this situation, although I can’t exactly guarantee he’ll be receptive. He seems to be very irritable since Canterbury’s arrival.

April 2nd, 2014

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

He wasn’t very receptive. In fact, he got angry at me for even suggesting that we try for more peaceful resolution. I didn’t expect him to agree with something fully nonviolent of course, but it was like he couldn’t fathom a solution where it wasn’t required.

He went as far as to mention the idea of enhanced interrogation. I reminded him that people are debating about it right now; that a majority of people in the US find it barbaric, and him enacting it would cause unneeded controversy.

Usually The Lieutenant is a very practical and logical man, but I’m worried that what I told him won’t be enough to sway him.

May 17th, 2014

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

He enacted the first set of interrogation techniques that I mentioned in my last letter. I didn’t exactly expect him to do it, but now that he’s crossed that line, I’ll have to shift my goal.

I can’t prevent him from breaking ethical codes, but I’ll try to dissuade him from going into more physical interrogation methods. I don’t have much else to say.

I can barely register it all.

January 23rd, 2015

To: Lieutenant R. H. M.

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

I read what you’ve written down. Your recent activities, and your thoughts behind them.

What’s wrong with you?

I’m serious. I never expected all of this to come from you. Sure, you’ve never been the most expressive person, but you’ve always had a good core. You’ve always cared about people.

The way you talk about it is all I can think about. Like you’re doing menial housework. Like you’re cleaning a window. You hate it, but once you’ve done it, you sound so proud.

I can’t believe that you’d just do that. There has to be something I’m missing. We need to talk about this as soon as you have time off.

February 7th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

I talked with The Lieutenant again the other day. I’m a little out of sorts. I’m sorry if this isn’t as succinct or formal as usual. I failed at dissuading him from more unsavory ideas again. It’s like he’s determined to do this.

What does he even have to gain? What does he want from the Toppats? Do you know? Is there even anything specific, or does he only have venom for you because he’s General Copperbottoms sycophant?

I’m sorry. You don’t even know what I’m so upset about. Next week, he’s incorporating more barbaric enhanced interrogation techniques. I can’t guarantee Canterbury’s safety (mental or physical) anymore. If there’s anything I can think of that I can do aside from giving you updates, I’ll let you know.

February 15th, 2015

To: Lieutenant R. H. M.

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

You haven’t come by my office lately. I assume it’s over our disagreements? Look. I don’t want our friendship to end over political differences.

I may not agree with you, but why is that a problem? Please consider: If you understand my perspective, and I understand yours, it can be beneficial to the both of us. As people, as friends, and as military workers. Just food for thought.

I don’t think having only the general as company is good for you.

April 3, 2021

February 29th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

The more time passes, the more this escalates. From what I’ve heard, Canterbury’s jaw is broken. There isn’t much I can do for him at the moment. I have no way to access him.

This entire situation; The Lieutenant, The General, having to lie to the higher-ups, having to see my colleagues lie for their own sakes: It’s FUBAR.

This surpasses the legality of what you do. This surpasses legal jargon in general. This sort of thing is ethics.

The most I can do is document, although I don’t know how helpful that is right now. I’ll keep you posted if anything new comes up.

To: Lieutenant R. H. M.

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

I’ve been thinking about the Canterbury situation, lately. More specifically, about his broken jaw. I don’t think he’ll be able to confess anything in that state.

I know it’s pointless to ask you to stop the enhanced interrogations, but may I suggest stopping the waterboarding? It’s impractical.

I just want you to think about it.

May 27th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

This will be brief. Not much new has happened, just more torture. It brings me no pleasure to write that so flippantly.

Today, though, was a lot. Several hours ago, everyone in the camp heard screaming. Not just yelling, or your standard screams of distress we’d almost grown used to; this was different. It was inhuman shrieking.

I asked The Lieutenant what happened, but he just shrugged and said “nothing”. He’s never lied about what he’s done before. I believe him.

… What was that, then?

June 28th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

Canterbury’s brother was threatened, according to the Lieutenant’s logs. I would recommend checking on him, or keeping an eye on him in general.

The Lieutenant hasn’t crossed that line yet, but I don’t know how long that will last.

[12:23 AM]

July 20th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

The Lieutenant has become unrecognizable to me at this point. I never thought he’d go this far. At this point, he’s stopped caring whether or not Canterbury ends up dead.

At first I thought he was never this type of person. A big part of me desperately wanted to believe that General Copperbottom took something small in him and twisted it into something horrible.

The fact of the matter is, The Lieutenant was like this all along. He just never got the opportunity to show it until now.

September 7th, 2015

To: Hubert Galeforce

From: Wilhelm Krieghaus

The Lieutenant came into my office today. He looked so tired. There wasn’t anything else there. He announced: “I killed him.” And sat in front of me in silence for an hour, before leaving.

After an entire year of torture, horror, lying and corruption:

This can’t be how it ends.

The Final Canterbury Log

-Wilhelm Krieghaus

September 9th, 2015

This is the last I’ll write or speak of the matter. After this, I’m done, I’ll wash my hands of this affair, and strive to get court-martialed. Two nights ago, Thomas Chestershire brought H.J. Canterbury’s corpse to me.

I asked him what for, and he told me “The body’s our best chance of getting those two in trouble”. He seems more tired of them than I am. I never really noticed how he felt before I guess. It never mattered.

On top of the conditions Canterbury had been subjected to for a year, rigor mortis had already set in quite a bit. There wasn’t much chance of being salvaged, but dammit I was tired of the constant stress.

So I did what I could.

There was so little left of him at the end of the day, but there was enough. All you really need is a brain; who you are, how you feel, and all your memories. I could have had nothing but a brain.

I had his brain functioning pretty early on, but most of his organs, all his limbs, and his mess of a bottom jaw had to be replaced with advanced augmentations.

It cost me two nights of sleep and basic self-care, but that’s a given.

I have him strapped to the bed currently, for his (and my) safety. His condition is stable but I don’t know when he’s going to wake up.

When I’ve sufficiently explained the situation, I’ll need to find a way to get him to the Toppats undetected and unsuspected (pardon the rhyme.) That is, assuming he will even be able to function that well.

It’s also a possibility that he’ll wake up, with very heavy physical and mental impairments.

I’ll need to make a plan for that.

#turntables #turntable au #turntables au #turntable toppats #turntable government #turntable wilhelm #turntable Lieutenant #turntable Canterbury #etc etc

9 notes · View notes

96thdayofrage · 3 years

Text

Media Rediscover Afghan Women Only When US Leaves

Just as US corporate news media “discovered” Afghan women’s rights only when the US was angling for invasion, their since-forgotten interest returned with a vengeance as US troops exited the country.

After September 11, 2001, the public was subjected to widespread US news coverage of burqa-clad Afghan women in need of US liberation, and celebratory reports after the invasion. Time magazine (11/26/01), for instance, declared that “the greatest pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage” was occurring, as “female faces, shy and bright, emerged from the dark cellars” to stomp on their old veils. In a piece by Nancy Gibbs headlined “Blood and Joy,” the magazine told readers this was “a holiday gift, a reminder of reasons the war was worth fighting beyond those of basic self-defense” (FAIR.org, 4/9/21).

The media interest was highly opportunistic. Between January 2000 and September 11, 2001, there were 15 US newspaper articles and 33 broadcast TV reports about women’s rights in Afghanistan. In the 16 weeks between September 12 and January 1, 2002, those numbers skyrocketed to 93 and 628, before plummeting once again (Media, Culture & Society, 9/1/05).

Suddenly remembering women

Now, as the US finally is withdrawing its last troops, many corporate media commentators put women and girls at the center of the analysis, as when Wolf Blitzer (CNN Situation Room, 8/16/21), after referring to “the horror awaiting women and girls in Afghanistan,” reported:

President Biden saying he stands, and I’m quoting him now, squarely, squarely behind this decision to withdraw US forces from Afghanistan, despite the shocking scene of chaos and desperation as the country fell in a matter of only a few hours under Taliban control, and the group’s extremist ideology has tremendous and extremely disturbing implications for everyone in Afghanistan, but especially the women and girls.

This type of framing teed up hawkish guests, who proliferate on TV guest lists, to use women as a political football to oppose withdrawal. Blitzer guest Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R.-Illinois), for instance, argued:

Look at the freedom that is being deprived from the Afghan people as the Taliban move into Afghan, or moving into parts of Afghanistan now, and you know how much freedom they had. Look at the number of women that are out there making careers, that are thought leaders, that are academics, that never would have happened under the Taliban leadership…. The devastation you are seeing today is why that small footprint of 2,500 US troops was so important.

Sen. Joni Ernst (R.-Iowa) gladly gave Jake Tapper (CNN Newsroom, 8/16/21) her take on the situation after CNN aired a report on the situation for women:

As you mentioned, for women and younger girls, this is also very devastating for them. The humiliation that they will endure at the hands of the Taliban all around this is just a horrible, horrible mar on the United States under President Joe Biden.

‘America rescued them’

Charity Wallace claimed in the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21) that Afghan “women and girls…made enormous progress over the past 20 years.”

Such analysis depends on the assumption that the US invasion and occupation “saved” Afghan women. In the Wall Street Journal (8/17/21), an op-ed by former George W. Bush staffer Charity Wallace ran under the headline : “The Nightmare Resumes for Afghan Women: America Rescued Them 20 Years Ago. How Can We Abandon Them to the Taliban Again?”

Two days later, a news article in the Journal (8/19/21) about the fate of women in Afghanistan explained: “Following the 2001 invasion, US and allied forces invested heavily to promote gender equality.”

The Associated Press (8/14/21), in a piece headlined, “Longest War: Were America’s Decades in Afghanistan Worth It?,” noted at the end that “some Afghans—asked that question before the Taliban’s stunning sweep last week—respond that it’s more than time for Americans to let Afghans handle their own affairs.” It continued, “But one 21-year-old woman, Shogufa, says American troops’ two decades on the ground meant all the difference for her.” After describing Shogufa’s experience for five paragraphs, the piece concludes with her “message to Americans”:

“Thank you for everything you have done in Afghanistan,” she said, in good but imperfect English. “The other thing was to request that they stay with us.”

Perhaps the most indignant media piece about Afghan women came from Caitlin Flanagan in the Atlantic (8/19/21), “The Week the Left Stopped Caring About Human Rights.” Flanagan argued:

Leave American troops idle long enough, and before you know it, they’re building schools and protecting women. We found an actual patriarchy in Afghanistan, and with nothing else to do, we started smashing it down. Contra the Nation, it’s hard to believe that Afghan women “won” gains in human rights, considering how quickly those gains are sure now to be revoked. The United States military made it possible for those women to experience a measure of freedom. Without us, that’s over.

Flanagan pointed to Afghan activist Malala Yousafzai, whom she accused “critics of the war” of forgetting, saying Yousafzai “appealed to the president to take ‘a bold step’ to stave off disaster.”

Next to last in women’s rights

Such coverage gives the impression that Afghan women desperately want the US occupation to continue, and that military occupation has always been the only way for the US to help them. But for two decades, women’s rights groups have been arguing that the US needed to support local women’s efforts and a local peace process. Instead, both Democrat and Republican administrations continued to funnel trillions of dollars into the war effort, propping up misogynist warlords and fueling violence and corruption.

Contra Flanagan’s insinuation, Yousafzai didn’t ask Biden to continue the occupation. In an op-ed for the New York Times (8/17/21) that most clearly laid out her appeal, she asked for humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and for refugees fleeing the country. In fact, her take on the US occupation’s role in women’s rights (BBC, 8/17/21) is much more critical than most voices in the US corporate media: “There had been very little interest in focusing on the humanitarian aid and the humanitarian work.”

As human rights expert Phyllis Bennis told FAIR’s radio program CounterSpin (2/17/21), Malalai Joya, a young member of parliament, told her in the midst of the 2009 troop surge that women in Afghanistan have three enemies: the Taliban, warlords supported by the US and the US occupation. “She said, ‘If you in the West could get the US occupation out, we’d only have two.’”

Things did get better for some women, mostly in the big cities, where new opportunities in education, work and political representation became possible with the Taliban removed from power. But as Shreya Chattopadhyay pointed out in the Nation (8/9/21), the US commitment to women was little more than window dressing on its war, devoting roughly 1,000 times more funding to military expenses than to women’s rights.

Passive consumers of US corporate news media might be surprised to learn that Afghanistan, in its 19th year under US occupation, ranked second-to-last in the world on women’s well-being and empowerment, according to the Women, Peace and Security Index (2019).

As the Index notes, Afghan women still suffer from discriminatory laws at a level roughly on par with Iraq, and an extraordinarily low 12.2% of women reported feeling safe walking alone at night in their community, more than 4 points lower than in any other country. And just one in three girls goes to school.

Wrong kind of ‘help’

In 2015, a 27-year-old Afghan woman named Farkhunda Malikzada was killed by an angry mob of men in Kabul after being falsely accused of burning a Quran; US-backed Afghan security forces watched silently (Guardian, 3/28/15). The shocking story spread around the world, but the only US TV network to mention it on air was PBS (7/2/15), which offered a brief report more than three months after the murder, when an Afghan appeals court overturned the death sentences given to some of the men involved.

FAIR turned up no evidence of Caitlin Flanagan ever writing about Malikzada, either—or about the plight of any Afghan woman before last week.

According to a Nexis search, TV news shows aired more segments that mentioned women’s rights in the same sentence as Afghanistan in the last seven days (42) than in the previous seven years (37).

The US did not “rescue” Afghan women with its military invasion in 2001, or its subsequent 20-year occupation. Afghan women need international help, but facile and opportunistic US media coverage pushes toward the same wrong kind of help that it’s been pushing for the last two decades: military “assistance,” rather than diplomacy and aid.

For more than 20 years, US corporate media could have listened seriously to Afghan women and their concerns, bringing attention to their own efforts to improve their situation. Instead, those media outlets are proving once again that Afghan women’s rights are only of interest to them when they can be used to prop up imperialism and the military industrial complex.

2 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 3 years

Text

New X-Men Xtrospective Part 2: Germ Free Generation (Annual, #117-120)

Hello all you happy mutants! And welcome back to my look one of my faviorite runs of one of my faviorite super teams by one of my faviorite comic book writers!

For those of you just joining us.. it’s been a while. I did the first instalment of this retrospective back in early January as a present to my friend for christmas, as he had never read E is for Extinctoin and what with this run being vital to the current, utterly brilliant Krakoa era of X-Men. But with both Black History Month and Valentine’s day, February had no real room for this one and march ended up being just as crammed with me doing essentially the entire della arc of ducktales in one month. I didn’t mean for this retrospective to get pushed so far back, but since I gave up doing weekly coverage of Final Space I had some room on the schedule so this retrospective is back with a vengance with two entries this month and hopefully at least one a month afterword to keep it at a decent clip.

Last time I covered the background of this run and didn’t really find much for the issues after, so I won’t have to spend as much time on background.

So since i’ts been a few months, a refresher is probably in order

PREVIOUSLY, ON X-MEN: Our merry mutants enterted a marvelous new era. As Charles redidciated to the dream with new equipment and a new uniforms our hero encounter a new villian: The Mysterious Cassandra Nova, a powerful telepath who used an uwitting patsy from the trask family and a defucnt sentinel factory to slaughter the mutant nation of Genosha, killing 16 million mutants in the most horrific act of genocide against mutants ever known. And the fact there has been more than one genocide against mutant kind MIGHT, just MIGHT be the reason they blackmailed for peace with life saving drugs instead of helping willingly and freely in the current comics. Just maybe.

Cassandra was captured by the X-Men soon after but escaped and nearly got a hold of Cerebra only to be stopped thanks to a combination of former enemy, genoshan resident at the time of the genocide, and that bitch Emma Frost who snapped her neck and Charles himself who uncharacteristically shot Cassandra in the head. That night Charles took a bold step over that would change the X-Men forever and told the world on live tv:

While all of this was going on we got caught up on the team’s personal struggles, currently consisting of Cyclops, Jean Grey, Beast and Wolverine with Emma joining as of the issue we’re about to cover. Beast is grappling with a secondary mutation that makes him look like Aslan, the jesus of narnia and all lions. Meanwhile Scott and Jean are grappling with their non existant sex life as Cyclops possesion by Apocalypse shortly before this story has severely rattled him and caused him to close himself off emotionally.

So that’s where we pick up. Our heroes are now no longer hiden saftely in the shadows from a world that hates and fear them but are out front and center with the world watching. And we’ll see both how that helps their cause and how it puts them directly in the cross hairs under the cut. Content Warning: This review discusses Transphobia and a scene involving a school shooting. If either of these are a trigger for you or something you do not want to read about please skip this part of the retrospective for your own well being. Thank you and have a lovely day.

The Man From Room X:

We have three stories today: an annual that introduces our final team member and the main villians of our next arc, a one off that moves the main plot for the first 12 issues along, and a three part arc about said villains. Before we get into the Annual, I have to talk about it’s weird gimmick: The issue is entirely sideways. I don’t mean it’s bad though some parts are problematic I mean when bought it’d be on it’s side and in my trade I have to flip the whole thing over on it’s side to read it. It’s just a .. weird choice. Not the weirdest thing about this issue somehow but not unexpected from Grant as they like to play with the formula.

We open in said Room X, a location in China where a mutant named Xorn is kept and showed off to a mysterious group of dickweeds in suits representing “Mr. Sublime”. His jailer, General Aao Jun,, shows him off as most bad guys would : By undoing his helmet and thus disntegrating two innocent children just by looking at them. Sublime says they have a deal.

Meanwhile also in China the X-Men are there for a funeral and Emma and Scott trade insulting questions back in forth: She mocks him about his lack of sex with Jean lately and he brings up her criminal past. As for why Emma’s still with the x-men.. it’s out of pragmatisim. WIth Genosha gone, the x-men are the saftest faction to throw in with.

As for why the X-Men are in China, Charles has rapidly expanded his operations now he’s public by setting up X-Corps, a multinational humantarian aid organization dedicated to helping mutants in need wherever they sprout up. He’s set up offices in Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Mumbai and Melborne.

He’s also half assed it, at least for the Hong Kong office and only gave them two employees: Domino, who those of you not as familiar with the comics may remember from deadpool and Risque.. who I honestly had never heard of before New X-Men and frequently forget existed. I just looked her up for the first time and she’s a minor mutant who was an associate of X-Force and Warpath’s love intrest. She could compress matter causing it to implode. My assumption here is that Morrison simply picked a minor mutant at random for the job.

But yeah naturally with only two mutants charged with, according to domino “All of asia” went horribly and the x-men are there for Risque’s funeral and to find out what happened. Unsuprisingly it’s tied into our cold open: Risque had found evidence of a mutant trafficking operation and died fighting them off and Dom is naturally f eeling in over her head since said operation involves the chinese goverment, who according to her exccute most mutants at birth and John Sublime and his cult.

We soon see a press confrence from this asshole and find out what his deal is: Sublime is the head of the U-Men, a group that belivies they are a “third species” of mutants trapped in human bodies that deserve to have the surgery to make them into mutants, and thus wear weird suits until the world is pure and allows them to have surgery for it.

Yeahhhh this.. this is really fucking uncomfortable and is going to be present throughout today’s piece so let’s just go ahead and rip that band-aid off: The U-Men come off as HIGHLY transphobic. They use terms similar to trans people call themselves trans species and are trapped inside a body they don’t belong in. It’s VERY uncomfortable to read as a result and something that hadn’t really sunk into till thsi reading but once it had.. oh god does this not age well.

The one thing that keeps this from runing the run and Grant Morrison as a whole for me.. is that I do not think for one second it was intentional. Grant themself is genderqueer, nonbinary and a cross dresser. None of this means they CAN’T be prejudice, being Queer does not magically make you immune to being prejudiced. But before this Grant had the genderqueer sentient street Danny the Street over in doom patrol and a trans main character in his book the invisibles, Lord Fanny. And given New X-Men’s biggest flaw as a whole is clumsy early 2000′s unforutnate implications such as a good chunk of the things about Cyclops affair with Emma, we’ll get to that at the right time, Angel in the next arc and Dust, who was introduced as from afganastan wearing an outfit not seen in the country and speaking a language not spoken in the country. Grant didn’t make these mistakes TWICE, it’s why I still have respect for them, and this won’t be the first or last comic i’ve forgiven for being stupid for it’s time. But I will still call Grant out when I see it. Just because I respect an author just because they changed my life does not mean I won’t call them out when they fuck up. And if they prove to be truly vile, have harmed someone or what have you I will cut them the fuck out of my life. I’ve done it with JK Rowling, Warren Ellis, Brad Jones and Joss Whedon. I would do it with Grant if I truly belivied they were transphobic and instead didn’t just write something very stupid without thinking the metaphor through 20 years ago.

So anyway back to the comic book bollocks as Wolvie and Dominio prepare for an infiltration and flirt a bunch. We also find out Jun is a mutant himself with a power only Grant could dream up: his skin, hair and what have you that falls off him turns into a naked golem for a bit before expiring. And if you hadn’t read this issue before reading this review, yes that actually happened. While the first arc had a BIT of Grant’s trademark batshit insanity, the series REALLY starts to pick it up from here: This issue has a mutant with functioning star for a head, a poorly thought out bucnh of sci fi new age organ theives, and a general whose power is “makes naked clones out of his dandruff”. Oh and his fondest wish?

I just... I don’t know how to respond to that. I don’t know how you respond to an old man’s weird murder fetish that he tells a somehow even creepier cult leader while said cult leader is paying him to buy a star man, and their both surronded by the creepy old guy’s skin golems that weirdly look like mudokons. Look i’ve read Grant’s entire utterly bonkers run on doom patrol. I’ve seen a man who looks like a question mark use a bicycle that makes everyone high like their on LSD for president. And THIS is what breaks me.

So while.. THIS is going on, Dom and Wolverine plan to do it all night long on the professor’s credit card, no really he gives all his professors carte blanch to use school fun, and inflitrate, Dom through the elvator this horrorshow just took place in and Wolvie james bond style. Also I gotta say I REALLY love how Morrison writes Domino. She’s wittiy, entertaining and her power is as awesome as always, super luck if you didn’t know. It’s a real shame he didn’t add her to the team: She wasn’t on any other x-teams, with X-Force having been rebranded into X-Statix by this point. She would’ve been a fun addition to the cast.

Naturally wolverine is found out.. but that was the entire plan, for him to serve as a distraction then cut his way to domino while she steals something from the vault. As for the rest of the X-Men, Cyclops, Beast and Emma are all downstairs in the parking garage and find a secret entrance. Jean is not on this trip and that’s a major plot point for this run. This is where Risque died.. and it only get’s worse when Hank goes inside, finding a bug like child, basically htink a giant caterpillar but with tons of human arms inttead of legs with her wings cut off.

Thankfully as Logan and Dom escape above, the U-Men are dumb enough to storm down bellow.. and while they incapacitate beast with some launched tiny knives, designed to incapcicate but leave them in tact for harvest, Emma beats the shit out of them and get the info out as only she can....

Granted she could’ve just turned back to normal and used her telepathy.. but what fun would that be? Plus they have blockers and you know CUT UP A FUCKING CHILD. SO yeah fuck them, let emma have her fun.

Thanks to her they find out the U-Men are a front for illegal organ harvest, and while they can’t prove sublimes attached Emma suggests killing him. Good idea but Scott suggests the lighter approach and we find out what Dom stole, a key, something Emma can psychcially scan. She warns it might take her a bit to get something.. only to be flooded instantly and we find out who the man in the box was. Shen Xorn... i’ll let emma tell you more herself.

It’s stuff like this why, despite some serious flaws like the U-Men debacle and some stuff to come, some I mentioned above other that’s just with the plot that i love this run. Morrison just gets how to really tell an x-men story and the real tragedy of being a mutant. That just for being diffrent, you get shut out, or in this case thrown into a box when you could’ve and should’ve been something more. As emma turns herself to diamond to deal with the psychic backlash, Beast has some solemn words to share.

That night Scott rests in his bedroom while presumibly hearing some truly horrific and sexy things next door while talking to jean before clocking out.. only for Emma to head in in a sexy dress with champagne. What happened? Well we won’t know for sure for most of the run.

The next day the U-Men prepare to load and we get some scrap of what the idea was supposed to be: John talks to Ao Jun about his procedures. We see wings crudely sewen to his back and his throat implaants hurting “But one day I will fly”. THe IDEA is their supposed to be lunatics, people who envy mutantkind but don’t actually respect their culture or their sense of personhood. It’s not the worst idea and had Grant not used trans termnology for htis, it would’ve been a great one. I think he INTENDED for them to be coopting the idea of being trans and what not to maks their true intentions.. which is problematic due to debates like the ones on bathrooms where a lot of transphobic asshats make the bad faith argument a bunch of people are going to pretend to be trans to assault people.

We’re.. we;’re not even to the main storyarc yet.

But things soon go wrong as Xorn’s starhead starts to collapse into a black hole, with no solution as the x-men took the key to his helmet.. and assault the compound. Turns out the star collapse thing is Jun’s revenge on humanity for lockig him down here and he gets his neck snapped. Scott has a solution though.. and it’s stuff like this why I fucking love Scott Summers and get annoyed when people call him “boring”: He realizes Xorn is comitting sucicide.. so he’s going to talk him out of it. Not just for everyone else but he deserves to live. And while Emma points out only logan among htem knows chinese and she can’t get through to Xorns’ head due to the way his brain works, Scott has a simple workaround: Use the nearest chineses speaker to teach Scott chinese. So.. with that he talks to Xorn.

And that my friend is Scott Summers. A man who faced with powerful man whose given up, whose lost all hope... convinces him he can still go on. That living’s better than dying.. and that it does get better. The issue closes with Xorn basking in the sunlight for the first time in decades while Domino sweats having an extremley powerful unknown mutant out in the world. Scott’s already thought of that.. and signed him up with the x-men. Granted it won’t be until our next article that he actually fully joins the team, but w’ell get to that next time.

This issue is great... while the U-Men stuff is pretty bad and isn’t going to get better, the tale of xorn is excitiong, Aao Jun is an intresting antagonist and the sideways gimmick suprisingly works. So now we’ve finshed our apitizer let’s get on to the main course.

Danger Rooms:

We open in well.. the Danger Room with Beast training a new student.

This is Beak. Beak is my faviorite character Morrison came up with and one of my faviorite X-Characters. Beak is a bird like boy who can fly, it’s just a struggle and due to looking diffrent and not having the most impressive power has very low self esteem. It’s also part of something Morrison took a concerted effort to do: introduce more mutants with genuinely odd apperances and drawbacks. Like we saw with Ugly John last time and Aao Jun in the previous issue, Morriosn really likes adding weird mutants but he also uses it to give a genuine downside to being one. While this isn’t NEW to x-men, Morriosn upped the scale and number of characters like this with weird powers and apperances. We see a bunch of human passing ones too but the backgrounds just jammed with all sorts of unique designs and students. It’s also the point where the school became far more crowded like the movies, a good call on my part both to help those coming in from the movies, and to help sell the mutant baby boom going on. After all it wouldn’t make sense if the school was just about 5-7 students and a bunch of grown adults doing superhero stuff like usual would it.

But we get to see that Hank is a good teacher, as he reminds the boy that he’s getting better and won’t be an x-man overnight, and worries about him to the professor, wanting the boy not to slip through the cracks, figuratively, and not to feel like an outcast.. especaily here. But Hank dosen’t feel blue for long, metaphorically he was blue long before he became the lion minus the witch and the wardrobe, as he has a date to night.. and so does Charles.

Or rather he did.. his girlfriend trish, a long time love intrest of his and a reporter.. breaks up with him. Over voice mail. While in washington. And the reasons she gives are not great

Yes Hank’s transformation is radical.. but not only was it not his choice... she’s being a coward, sending the message it’s okay to dump someone because hteir a mutant or because they happen tobe diffrent and that efffects your career. Again it’s moments like this that make the run soar over the more awkward bits.

Meanwhile Logan’s off doing logan stuff, i.e. gazing at a deer. Wow. Jean followed him. Both notice a space ship: Despite recently outing himself as a mutant, leading to an increased number of students and a bunch of rioting morons at the gates, Charles has decided NOW’S a good time to take a vacation to the Shiar empire. As for why Jean’s really out here, her marriage to Scott isn’t doing so good and while Logan encourages her to stay it’s just not that simple: Her telekenisis is coming back, stronger than ever. She feels the most alive she’s been while he’s shutting her out and feeling his deadest. She tries to turn to logan for comfort but he shuts her down. Just wait two decades jean... he’ll open up to a threesome. In all seriousness though having Jean try and come onto Logan .. will backfire slightly on later storylines. But we’ll get to that eventually.

In the basement Hank is studying Cassandra or rather a virtual version of her since her body is naturally in storage. And he’s found out something disturbing: She’s Charles Genetic Twin.. oh and it gets way worse. The Professor’s weird behavior? Barely staffing the hong kong office, leaving suddenly with rioters t the gates, outing himself? About that...

Cassandra tourtures Hank with the possiblity he’s devovling and then tries to mind controlli him into cleaning himself with his diploma when Beak enters. The good news is this allows hank to shake off her control and tackle her, showing off why hank mccoy is fucking awesome in the process.

That is the Hank McCoy I know, love.. and miss dearly. The one we’ll probably never get back sadly after what others did and what Percy’s had to do to reconclie with all they did.

Unfortunately beak being around means cassandra can force him to beat beast into a coma with his bat. She plans to tear Charles dream down around him and make him watch.. and cryptically says he tried to kill her. She then cheerfully leaves Jean in charge.. and talks about just how much damage one could do with an entire interstellar empire in the wrong hands....

This issue is also excellent and sets up the next two arcs nicely while giving us a nice peak in hank’s head. Great stuff. The artist also hid the word sex in a lot of the images see if you can find them.

Germ Free Generation Issue 1:

So now we get into our main story for today. This story and the one before it were drawn by Ethan Van Sciver whose a talented artist.. but also highly contrversial for being a conservative. I myself.. don’t know what he’s said or did, though calling himself “Canceld Superstar’ on twitter really isn’t a good sign. So I really can’t comment on it but I also know someone would mention it if I didn’t bring it up and if you know what he did please enlighten me.

So we open with a school shooter who also scooped out a guys eyes and is part of the U-Men. He get shot by the swat team while making his speech> it’s an effective opening but one that’s become more uncomfortable to read with each passing day due to school shootings going up and up in number. And mass shootings in general and I... I need a second. I need something to relax me

Thank you Stoopy. Your doing Odd’s Work.

So the news reports on this and we soon see how Jean watches the news.. by using Cerebra to read the minds of every person on the planet. Neat. Everyone’s talking about them. We also get a hint for later as we hear on the suicide of one martha johanson who wrote the note in her own blood. She’ll be important later.... and I mean that both in the context of this retrospective and for the fact she’ll go on to be part of x-men in perpetuity.

This is also where another great concept of Morrison’s pops up: Mutant culture. After all mutants are a minority, they should have their own culture. It’s something Hickman’s era has taken and ran with, but it’s a damn good idea and one that it shoudln’t of taken almost 20 years for someone else to use given Decimation was undone way back around 2012 in Avengers Vs X-Men, aka that event half hte articles on the mcu around the fox sale used as either their image for the article or asked about happneing. And yes that is a pet peeve of mine: while I do think like Civil War AVX could use a movie version to make it better, I don’t think it’s an event that could be done right away and would have to be almost entirely redone anyway given the context for AvX is entirely couched in decimation i.e. something NO ONE wants in any x-adaptation.

So it turns out while watching the news in a next level way Jean is also talking to Logan. “Stay out of my personal fantasies”. Yeah I .. I don’t think your ready for a hairy canadian dry humping a transformer.. specifically killbison. And yes.. that is an actual transformer and why yes, I have been waiting to bring him up.

And he is , and I am not making any of this up, part of a group of decpticons known as the breastforce. Your life is better for knowing that and you are welcome.

Anyway as you’d imagine a genocidal old woman in her brothers’ body leaving the X-Men to fend for themselves after having a teenager bludgeon one into a coma after publicly outing them with a rabid bunch of bigoted morons at the gates has not gone great. Henry is still out and despite the short staffing Jean needs logan to stay where he is as he’s close to an emerging mutant and within range to go get her.

Emma of course has never been so fucking irate in her whole life and is plotting various forms of psychic tourture with the help of her proteges the Stepford Cucokoo, 5 teenage mutants who functoin best as a unit and are easily some of MOrrison’s most prominent additions to the x-cast. Unlike a lot of the x-kids, they’ve been featured prominently in every era of x-men after this including the current one.

Jean decides for a less “Make them hate us even more” approach, but no less pissed off, opening the gates and going out directly to chew out the assembled bigoted morons, pointing out the ones carrying “Mutants Go Home!” signs are especailly dumb as this IS her home. And while she dosen’t point this part out, it’ the same for all of them: most of the mutants are either adults who choose to live here, teenagers who along with their parents choose to live here, or in the majority teens who have no where else to go due to either being abandoned by their families or it being way to dangerous for said families for them to stay due to bigoted assholes like the ones holding mutants go home signs.

A member of the press asks if she’s willing to talk to the media and she refutes most of his bullshit allegations: He asks if their building an army, she and Scott respond they are not and are simply educating mutants and protecting them. When he counters with the fact their living weapons and wearing uniforms... she counters with the fact she’s wearing them to protect herself, rightfully, from people like her, and the x-men are an aid orginzation going where needed to protect the world and while asshole points out no one apointed them.. jean shuts him down by pointing out there are no mutants in goverment and a genocide just happened, so someone has to do the job. Another random asshole tries to pipe up with “Genosha declared war on us” and Emma senses this is just going to go round and round and round and simply presses the assembled mob’s “bliss buttons” in their brains to knock them out. Non violent but honestly warranted: A dangerous part of bigoted assholes is they’l bring up racist bullshit to try and couch it like an actual conversation. None of these complaints really hold water if you looked at the x-men’s history for more than 5 minutes. Yes Charles is training them to fight and yes hte ingial class was an army but every class since has only been trained for self defense: they still got into adventures and what not, but it was usually by their own choice or because they were thrust into them by circumstance. Xaviers is exactly what jean said and endudgling these morons, while good on paper, only makes them seem legit.

Jean retreats to the infirmary where she’s on the verge of breaking down from the sheer weight of everything. Cyclops proves that despite not being the best husband right now... he still loves his wife, offering to go look into Sublime with Emma and hoping Hank wakes up. Turns out his mind for now is a big blank room.

So she can’t get any info off his skull, and neither of the two think what happened with Beak adds up. Something is up here. Their also coming down with colds which will be important later. And just as important.. Magneto is becoming a symbol among people and merch sales with his image are on the rise. We then get this.

So Jean is trying to be a supportive, honest wife, and while the questions incredibly insulting.. his answer is equally so. Spoilers, as mentioned we do get an answer long after this.. and they did not. So Jean is wrong to be suspcious, at this point, but is at least trying to be polite about it and gave him the benifit of the doubt.. and Scott basically said he slept with her without actually saying it despite not having to. You could’ve said “no we did not have sex, we simply talked all night”. It’s not ENTIRELY better given the horrible state of their relationship right now, but it’s still better than HEAVILY implying he rocked her body to the break of dawn for no damn reason.

So we meet our next major addition to the cast Angel Salvador, an abused teen who is a mutant.. and whose abusive and molesting step dad beats her and throws her out over this. The scene’s a bit overdone, coming off like an after school special.. but it’s what happens AFTER that’s truly heartwrenching.

A poor scared teenager clutching herself, finding herself homeless alone and desperatly wishing she wasn’t what she was. It’s just a striking image and shows how well Grant uses the mutant metaphor. I could easily see myself in that position had my parents not been good peopl and had I come out far sooner as bi. The idea of desperatly hoping your not what you are simply becaus eof what hell it brings, despite all the joy it can bring too. . it’s heartbreaking to hear.

Naturally though things don’t get much better as the next morning the U-Men have found her, calling her a freak and successfully kidnapping her.. if only because while she uses acid spit to escape, she flies into a power line.

We then get Sublimes meeting with Emma and Scott and a BETTER use of teh u-men as while Grant made the horrible mistake of calling them “transpecies”, seriously what the fuck were you thinking, the way sublime frames it here is a MUCH better, much less accidently bigoted concept.

The idea isn’t bad: A group of humans jealous of the mutants powers, blatantly ignoring the horrible downsides and mountain of persecution that comes with being one. Grant just made the mistake of couching in in Trans metaphors, clearly trying to have the U-Men steal from Trans People too as a way to make themselves seem legit. And I say if you want superpowers.. fine.. wanting to be a superhero or a mutant is fine, the issue with the U-Men is their copoting a culture, trying to be part of mutantkind without having any of the drawbacks and by actively butchering them. It’s why the concept HAS shown up elsewhere; it’s not TERRIBLE, Grant just made a bad creative choice that’s only gotten worse as Transphobia has ramped up further and further.

Sublime denies it when our heroes bring up Hong Kong.. but naturally he’s simply just keeping them talking long enough to bring out his trump cards, an army of u-men and a brain in a jar he uses to incapacitate them.. and announces his plan to use the school as an organ farm for his third species.

Meanwhile Logan finds the U-Men in their truck preparing to rip angel apart.. and given he snikit’s soon after.. i’ts very clear whose REALLY about to get ripped apart.

Germ Free Generation Part 2:

Part two begins wth Sublime monologoging about how Mutantkind are just cattle to them and reveals the brain is martha’s, her sucicide having been faked and her brain currently being controlled to use as a weapon.

So while Johnny monlogues we find out what happened with Wolverine last issue he didn’t cut up the guys yet as they fired their little flichete guns at him... it was about as useful and effective as you’d expect and the massacre you were expecting occurs. Though in a nice bit of reality the fact wolverine’s soaked in blood and just killed a bunch of blood shockingly does not make the already frighttend teen feel he’s safe and she spits acid on him. Logan pours some stuff on the acid, figuring rightly a black ops murder farmacy would have something to counteract it and tells her she’s safe now .. and tells the guy behind him not to try it. He’s stupid and does anyway and likely gets a claw to the head off panel.

They go to a diner to eat and find a local asshole who threatens them with a shot gun to leave once angel uses her power to digest and goes on a rant about how he snapped his own son’s neck to prevent him being born a freak. Just.. fucking hell this arc is not good for my depression. We get some more angst from Angel and whiel her dialouge is not the best, i’ts a too bit mark millar flavored edgelordy for my taste and if I wanted that i’d go read Ultimates or Ultimate X-Me, her pain is real and Logan helps her through it.

Back at the Mansion the U-Men are on their way to strike, whlie Jean unaware continues to buckle under the weight of all the shit she’s had to deal with, feeling SOMETHING is making them weak with the colds and something worse is going on and thus tries going to Beak’s mind instead and gently helps talk him through it, showing her grace and empathy.. and in return finding out Charles was the one responsible. The alarms flair up and Jean tries calling the police now that’s an option.. but it goes exactly how you’d expect.

Also a second artist took over for this issue and the next Igor Kordey. He’s fine, but not nearly as good as Quitely or Van Sciver and it shows. Meanwhile Beast awakens and heads for the body drawer with Cassandra’s body, and professor’s mind in it.

However Jean’s finally had enough and got her second wind. She’s outgunned, outmanned and left to her own devices. And she’s fucking fed up with it. She steels herself and assembles the students. This is obviously a last resort.. but some of them can defend themselves and their going to need to. But today they won’t be learning.. they’ll be teaching and as the U-Men call them defensless Jeans simply asks “Are you sure about that?”

Germ Free Generation Part 3:

So we come to the finale of this arc. Angel is once again an ungreatful brat to logan and he opts to just leave her there if sh’es going to be like that pointing out being a mutant sucks, it’s going to keep sucking.. and she needs to deal with it instead of lashing out at him and herself over it.

We get back to the U-Men, one of whom is utterly flabergasted they want to him to cut of Cyclops head... only for Emma to awaken.. and take back her regular form meaning she has her telepathy back. The only reason they were able to get her ealier is she was in diamond mode which is stronger but lacks that, a nice way to check and ballance her new powers. She quickly takes them out and disables Martha.

Back at the school we get one of Jean’s definting moments for me and a true chance to show how badass she can be. Before this while Morrison wrote her well, and his version’s still my favoirite, she didn’t really get to do much and was motly in the background. This arc has been her time in the limelight, having trouble grappling with all the stress of running this place by herself.. and emerging from it stronger, more capable and ready to kick some racist weirdo ass. She tries a few diffrent tactics first, having a mutant with a voice power project it to make them think their san invisible army and having the cuckoos fuck with their heads but when both fail, Jean REALLY gets to show off. Thier blade ammo gets turned into a cool looking 3 dimensioinal shape with her telekneisis, and in a cool moment and a wise use of something gross makes the only one of them with useable powers throw up, before issuing a badass boast, wreathed in flames all while she crumples their guns into uselessness. and tears open their suits.

Bad ass.. and logan and Angel arrive just in time for the cecendo as hte u-men flee in terror

The Phoenix has been Reborn. Jean Grey has risen from the ashes and returned to full power.

Meanwhile Sublime is pankcing.. and it gets worse when Emma shows up, fully enraged after all of this and has some words for him.

Iconic. Emma prepares to drop him out of a building but Scott rightly tries to get her to back off, pointing out the pr nightmare it’d create and the fact that they have enough evidence ot shut him down. Martha however has other ideas and gets him to let go of his own accord, falling to his death.. but given he’d aranged a stunt for the press apparently this gives our heroes deniability and Martha her revenge.

So we end this three parter as Jean revels in her new power, and Beast returns with an announcment:

Final Thoughts for Germ Free Generation: This arc is pretty good if forgetable. The struggle of Jean to run the school herself and her rising from the ashes of her own pain at the end with the power of the phoenix at the end is fantastic, finally both giving her a chance to shine.. and a worrying sign for her friends given what her phoenix force copy whose memories she has a copy of, long story, did is awesome. The other parts are okay and ehhhhhhhhh though. Scott and Emma’s investigation into the u-men while having a really good climax, is pretty standard x-men stuff, and Wolverin’es trek with angel is just okay with Angel being highly intolerable during this arc, with Morrison trying a bit TOO hard to make her a “realistic” teen instead coming off as horribly unplesant. She’s supposed to just be lashing out but comes off obnxious as a result. That said this arc does furhter a lot of Morrisons best idea and introduce more, and is a great setup for our next arc, which we’ll get to in two weeks. Soooo

Next Time On X-Men: We find out just what the hell Cassandra Nova is, what her plans are, and what happened with her and charles as our heroes come down with a cold as the might of the shiar empire bears down on them. It’s IMperial in two weeks.

Next Time ON This BLog: Speaking of long Delayed Projects, I finally return to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck as a young Scrooge starts his prospecting career, learning the ins and outs from a rich new mentor, and finding the price tag striking it rich comes with. Raid a copper hill with me tommorow.

If you liked this review, subscirbe for more, join my patreon, and if there’s a comic you’d like me to cover suggest it in the comments or outright comission a review from me via ask. See you at the next rainbow

#new x-men #grant morrison #cassandra nova #shen xorn #beast #hank mccoy #jean grey #cyclops #scott summers #wolverine #logan howlett #angel salvadore #beak #barnell bohsk #the stepford cuckoos #the u-men #john sublime #marthan johanson #ethan van sciver

11 notes · View notes

theculturedmarxist · 4 years

Text

@expatiating

>Literally anyone who lived in a communist or socialist regime: it was terrible..... 16 year old white girl on tumblr: yeah but that wasn’t real communism :///

You mean anyone like this, you stupid fucking asshole?

Oppressive and grey? No, growing up under communism was the happiest time of my life

When people ask me what it was like growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Hungary in the Seventies and Eighties, most expect to hear tales of secret police, bread queues and other nasty manifestations of life in a one-party state.

They are invariably disappointed when I explain that the reality was quite different, and communist Hungary, far from being hell on earth, was in fact, rather a fun place to live.

The communists provided everyone with guaranteed employment, good education and free healthcare. Violent crime was virtually non-existent.

But perhaps the best thing of all was the overriding sense of camaraderie, a spirit lacking in my adopted Britain and, indeed, whenever I go back to Hungary today. People trusted one another, and what we had we shared.

youtube

Learn from Cuba, Says World Bank

The island's economy, which suffered devastating losses in production after the Soviet Union withdrew its aid, especially its oil supplies, a decade ago, has yet to fully recover. Annual economic growth, fuelled in part by a growing tourism industry and limited foreign investment, has been halting and, for the most part, anaemic.

Moreover, its economic policies are generally anathema to the Bank. The government controls virtually the entire economy, permitting private entrepreneurs the tiniest of spaces. It heavily subsidises virtually all staples and commodities; its currency is not convertible to anything. It retains tight control over all foreign investment, and often changes the rules abruptly and for political reasons.

At the same time, however, its record of social achievement has not only been sustained; it's been enhanced, according to the WDI.

It has reduced its infant mortality rate from 11 per 1,000 births in 1990 to seven in 1999, which places it firmly in the ranks of the western industrialised nations. It now stands at six, according to Jo Ritzen, the Bank's Vice President for Development Policy who visited Cuba privately several months ago to see for himself.

By comparison, the infant mortality rate for Argentina stood at 18 in 1999; Chile's was down to ten; and Costa Rica, 12. For the entire Latin American and Caribbean region as a whole, the average was 30 in 1999.

Similarly, the mortality rate for children under five in Cuba has fallen from 13 to eight per thousand over the decade. That figure is 50 percent lower than the rate in Chile, the Latin American country closest to Cuba's achievement. For the region as a whole, the average was 38 in 1999.

"Six for every 1,000 in infant mortality - the same level as Spain - is just unbelievable," according to Ritzen, a former education minister in the Netherlands. "You observe it, and so you see that Cuba has done exceedingly well in the human development area."

Indeed, in Ritzen's own field the figures tell much the same story. Net primary enrolment for both girls and boys reached 100 percent in 1997, up from 92 percent in 1990. That was as high as most developed nations, higher even than the US rate and well above 80-90 percent rates achieved by the most advanced Latin American countries.

"Even in education performance, Cuba's is very much in tune with the developed world, and much higher than schools in, say, Argentina, Brazil, or Chile."

It is no wonder, in some ways. Public spending on education in Cuba amounts to about 6.7 percent of gross national income, twice the proportion in other Latin America and Caribbean countries and even Singapore.

There were 12 primary pupils for every Cuban teacher in 1997, a ratio that ranked with Sweden, rather than any other developing country. The Latin American and East Asian average was twice as high at 25 to one.

The average youth (ages 15-24) illiteracy rate in Latin America and the Caribbean stands at seven percent. In Cuba, the rate is zero. In Latin America, where the average is seven percent, only Uruguay approaches that achievement, with one percent youth illiteracy.

"Cuba managed to reduce illiteracy from 40 percent to zero within ten years," said Ritzen. "If Cuba shows that it is possible, it shifts the burden of proof to those who say it's not possible."

Similarly, Cuba devoted 9.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) during the 1990s to health care, roughly equivalent to Canada's rate. Its ratio of 5.3 doctors per 1,000 people was the highest in the world.

The question that these statistics pose, of course, is whether the Cuban experience can be replicated. The answer given here is probably not.

"What does it is the incredible dedication," according to Wayne Smith, who was head of the US Interests Section in Havana in the late 1970s and early 1980s and has travelled to the island many times since. "Doctors in Cuba can make more driving cabs and working in hotels, but they don't. They're just very dedicated," he said.

youtube

This amazing video and documentary, produced by Neighbor Democracy, details the evolving communal organs within the Rojava Revolution, from security to health care.

This 40 minute video is an in-depth look into the inner workings of the commune system of Rojava and how they work in practice. Rojava is the colloquial name for the Democratic Federation of Northern Syria (DFNS), a multi-ethnic, pluralist, women’s liberationist, and radically democratic autonomous zone that has grown out of the context of the Syrian Civil War. While there is frequent and thorough reporting on the military aspects of the Revolution in Rojava, especially their fight against Daesh (ISIS) and the Turkish State, the social revolution as it relates to the everyday lives of the people living there is rarely given anything more than a cursory overview, even in radical circles.

This video is one attempt to make up for that gap in easily digestible information about the way the day-to-day autonomous organizing affects daily life in Rojava. It also closes with a call for people in the US and elsewhere to build communes along similar lines, while discussing some possible contextual considerations specific to North America.

The communes in the DFNS are birthed out of tireless organizing by everyday people, predominately Kurdish women, in an effort that started clandestinely in the days of the Regime, but has since led to structures that could fill the power vacuum left in the war. The people of the DFNS are working out in practice through trial-and-error the culmination of 40 years of theoretical and practical knowledge built through the Kurdish struggle, and most thoroughly laid out by the imprisoned PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan.

The communes have many similarities to the neighborhood assemblies that were the focus of the late American communalist Murray Bookchin, who was an inspiration for Ocalan. There are an estimated 4,000 communes in Rojava today, run through direct democracy of all the residents (50-150 families). The work of the commune is divided up into committees which anyone can join. The most common committees are explored in-depth in this video, and their timestamps can be found below. Each committee covered in the video can be found in its own short clip on the Neighbor Democracy channel so that these short, easy-to-digest videos can me shared in discussions about specific topics relating to communal approaches to various aspects of life.

Marinaleda: Will 'free homes' solve Spain's evictions crisis?

In the wake of Spain's property crash, hundreds of thousands of homes have been repossessed. While one regional government says it will seize repossessed properties from the banks, a little town is doing away with mortgages altogether.

In Marinaleda, residents like 42-year-old father-of-three, David Gonzalez Molina, are building their own homes.

While he burrows with a pneumatic drill into the earth, David nonchalantly says it "should take a couple of years".

However, when his new house is finished he will have paid "absolutely nothing".

Free bricks and mortar

The town hall in this small, aesthetically unremarkable town an hour-and-a-bit east of Seville, has given David 190 sq m (2,000 sq ft) of land.

He and others are only eligible after they have been registered residents of Marinaleda for at least two years.

The bricks and mortar are also a gift, this time from the regional government of Andalusia.

Only once his home is finished will he start paying 15 euros (£13) a month, to the regional government, to refund the cost of other building materials.

Of course, most people do not know how to build a house, so the town hall in Marinaleda throws in some expertise.

It employs several professional builders and plumbers, a couple of whom work alongside David, to help him construct his house.

HOMAGE TO CATALONIA

This was in late December 1936, less than seven months ago as I write, and yet it is a period that has already receded into enormous distance. Later events have obliterated it much more completely than they have obliterated 1935, or 1905, for that matter. I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and café had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said ‘Señior’ or ‘Don’ or even ‘Usted’; everyone called everyone else ‘Comrade’ and ‘Thou’, and said ‘Salud!’ instead of ‘Buenos dias’. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no ‘well-dressed’ people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.

Together with all this there was something of the evil atmosphere of war. The town had a gaunt untidy look, roads and buildings were in poor repair, the streets at night were dimly lit for fear of air-raids, the shops were mostly shabby and half-empty. Meat was scarce and milk practically unobtainable, there was a shortage of coal, sugar, and petrol, and a really serious shortage of bread. Even at this period the bread-queues were often hundreds of yards long. Yet so far as one could judge the people were contented and hopeful. There was no unemployment, and the price of living was still extremely low; you saw very few conspicuously destitute people, and no beggars except the gipsies. Above all, there was a belief in the revolution and the future, a feeling of having suddenly emerged into an era of equality and freedom. Human beings were trying to behave as human beings and not as cogs in the capitalist machine. In the barbers' shops were Anarchist notices (the barbers were mostly Anarchists) solemnly explaining that barbers were no longer slaves. In the streets were coloured posters appealing to prostitutes to stop being prostitutes. To anyone from the hard-boiled, sneering civilization of the English-speaking races there was something rather pathetic in the literalness with which these idealistic Spaniards took the hackneyed phrases of revolution. At that time revolutionary ballads of the naivest kind, all about proletarian brotherhood and the wickedness of Mussolini, were being sold on the streets for a few centimes each. I have often seen an illiterate militiaman buy one of these ballads, laboriously spell out the words, and then, when he had got the hang of it, begin singing it to an appropriate tune.

youtube

Feel free to unfuck yourself you class cuck.

#communism #socialism #anarchism #you're a fucking moron and should shut your fucking mouth

19 notes · View notes