#old stock canadians

[captainreecejames]

Fired by a... wag? || my ex is a footballer lh44

summary mercedes admin gets fired?

pairing lewis hamilton x reader faceclaim bruna marquezine

warnings curisng, google translate for multiple different languages

notes the much anticipated part 2 to lewis hamilton my ex is a footballer, also i couldn't resist at the end so if brocedes talk to eachother this season just know i predict the future

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ynusername posted--------

liked by pierregasly, charles_leclerc and others

ynusername first 3 are canadian gp and the last is lewis catching me off guard as I'm on the phone

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username1 I just know she's on the phone with toto complaining about the admin ↳ username2 the power she holds >>>

roscoelovescoco moms protectings dad ❤️ by ynusername

username3 lewis confirming that yn was yelling at toto via roscoe's instagram, not what I was expecting.

username4 god she is actually the most stunning woman in the world

lewishamilton meu anjo ↳ ynusername eu te amo

username5 the aura in the first picture, unmatched ↳ username6 yeah, but she's also just really fucking hot ↳ username5 lewishamilton can you fight ↳ lewishamilton yes ↳ username6 LOLOLOL

carmenmmundt linda!!! ↳ ynusername no you

username7 why does she look like kendall jenner in the last photo

username8 fan's creating beef between lewis and george meanwhile their wags are calling each other beautiful ↳ username9 the guys leave it on the track, why would carmen and YN need to bring it up on instagram comments

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ynusername posted--------

liked by carmenmmundt, georgerussell63 and others

ynusername lewis I know I've only known you for a few months and you've accomplished so much before but to see you on the podium knowing how much work you put into this is awe inspiring. Hope you always know how loved you are

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lewishamilton I love you yn

lewishamilton these last two months have been amazing and your support through this time means so much to me. I wouldn't want to be here without you

username10 bro i can barely get a text back after 2 months and they're over here telling each other they love you

username11 don't you guys think it's a little fast ↳ username12 don't you think it's none of your business

username13 I know she sent the sabotage email, she really is ride or die for him.

alexandrasaintmleux can't wait to have you in the ferrari garage next year! ❤️ by charles_leclerc ↳ username14 CHARLES WHEN SILVIA SEES THIS YOU ARE GETTING YOUR PHONE TAKEN AWAY ↳ ynusername eu te amo alex

ynusername posted--------

liked by mercedesamgf1, roscoelovescoco and others

ynusername to see you finally on that top step of the podium in Brazil, lewis I don't think you understand how much I love and cherish you. With this season almost done I am so grateful for everything that brought me you and I can't wait to start out next chapter together.

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sebastianvettel congrats you two ❤️ by ynusername, lewishamilton

charles_leclerc congrats happy couple ❤️ by ynusername, lewishamilton

username20 I'm fucking screaming, what???

username21 imagine a year ago you told yn fans that she'd be engaged, we would have said thank go kylian got his head out of his ass ↳ username22 bro it hasn't even been a year since they broke up ↳ username21 yn knew what she wanted

useranme23 lewis really bagged himself a baddie

mercedesamgf1 congratulations to both! hope admin gets an invite to the party ↳ ynusername of course you do adminuser, you're a gem ↳ adminuser omg love you so much yn

scuderiaferrari can't wait to see yn ln-hamilton in the garage next year ↳ username24 ferrari just rubbing it in that they get the goat next year, have to respect the hustle

scuderiaferrari yn do we also get an invite ↳ ynusername stay on my good side babe ↳ scuderiaferrari we promise to always have amarena gelato in stock ↳ ynusername sold 😍😘

username25 further proof that yn got the old mercedes admin fired because why are the admin's getting invited to the wedding??

maxverstappen1 gefeliciteerd voor jullie allebei ❤️ by lewishamilton, ynusername

pierregasly félicitations à toi ❤️ by lewishamilton, ynusername

valterribottas happy couple !!! ↳ ynusername valterri, it's yn. thank you! 💞 ↳ valterribottas 🙄🙄

georgerussell63 congratulations lewis and yn! ↳ carmenmmundt we love you ❤️ by ynusername, lewishamilton

fernandoalo_oficial felicidades a los dos ❤️ by ynusername, lewishamilton

nicorosberg congratulations yn and lewis! much love to you both ❤️ by ynusername, lewishamilton ↳ lewishamilton thanks nico ↳ username26 NICO???! ↳ username27 ENGAGEMENT SO GOOD IT GOT BROCEDES BACK TOGETHER

[sun-snatcher]

Hey!! Just wondering if you do headcanons? If so can we get some hcs from We Lucky Few about Deadpool and the Gang™ being a domestic happy family 🥲🥲

#WELUCKYFEW | Headcanons galore !

i. —— THE FIRST DAY IN A NEW UNIVERSE means Wade has to break it to Blind Al that there’s gonna be 3 more strays that’ll be staying over at the apartment for a while (in tragic addition to Mary Puppin’s and Logan).

The old lady agrees (very vehemently disagreed, actually, but she knows Wade already made up his mind) only because she’d hoped he meant stray cats this time, to which she’d been disappointed with: “Say hello to Logan’s hispanic feral cat-daughter, your local homeless war veteran with a PhD and a dash of PTSD, and Amateur David Blaine—! But if he was born in the South.”

Regardless. It’s only, like, for 2 weeks! As long as they don’t touch her cocaine. Anywho, Vanessa’s already pulling strings to get you and Remy an apartment; Laura’s first instinct was to seek out the Professor and Logan’s… a drifter. Vagrancy is nothing new to him. He’ll figure his things out one way or another.

ii. —— GROCERIES COST TENFOLD during the time everyone was still crammed in that little house. Dogpool is in the trolley seat having a good time. Wade and Laura stock up on junk food and Logan’s dumped an armful of canned goods that “will actually last for the fuckin’ week.”; Meanwhile Gambit’s been banished to trolley-pushing ever since he’d admitted to stealing Skittles, M&M’s and small tidbits from the candy aisle without anyone noticing.

And you— well, you were on breakfast duty, which means bread, jams, cereals; but it’s all just a tad bit overwhelming. I mean, why is there a need for this many flavours? You can’t remember the last time you had much of a choice when it came to food since the war.

(It’s Wade who finds you. He gets it; 10 years serving Canadian military/the JTF2 means he’s seen just about every other middle-eastern country that’s a battleground— And then suddenly he’s discharged and thrown into civilian life with zero assimilation and the expectation of exercising autonomy after living his whole life under orders and the threat of damn a bullet in his head. So. Yeah, he gets why you kinda just… Blank out.)

“You can roulette it,” Wade advices. “Or pick one with your favourite colour. That’s how I did it my first few years out. Just don’t even fucking think of picking Special K or I’ll prune your ass back to the Void mys—”

iii. —— MOVIE NIGHTS ARE ON FRIDAYS. That means Gambit’s on permanent popcorn duty ever since Laura accidentally destroyed the microwave (she insists it’s Logan but the 2 holes say otherwise). And by popcorn duty I mean: having Remy shake the bag and generate enough kinetic energy to heat and pop the kernels. “Mais, if it works, it works, mes amis.”

iv. —— EVERYONE ROTATES TAKING Dogpool out on a walk. Remy uses the opportunity to have you tag along and tell him about New York when really he just likes spending time with you.

Logan has to be convinced to walk her; though he usually relents because it puts his mind to work and it helps that he can map out the city again. Sometimes Laura joins him, too. If she’s lucky, she’ll hear an X-Men story or two when Logan’s feeling particularly nostalgic. (Half of them are him shitting on Scott, but hey, she’ll take what she can get.)

v. —— LOGAN DOESN’T SLEEP. Can’t is a better way to put it, and neither can you and Remy at times; you figure maybe it’s because everything feels a little too.. fine.

Almost perfect. Too good to be true. Logan always loses all that’s close to him and as much as he hates to admit it: all of you are beginning to matter. Family, dare he even think. And it terrifies the absolute shit out of him.

Meanwhile, you get night terrors, and you’ve already alarmed everybody approximately five times now (Closing your eyes now means facing an apocalyptic warzone and the weight of life and death. You don’t talk about it. Everybody knows not to ask) so sleep is just an option to you if you could help it.

Remy stays up just out of pure habit. They used to alternate shifts back in the Void (which was why he sometimes caught Laura wide awake in the kitchen at weird hours of the night, too) because the Hideout became too vulnerable with their dwindling numbers. Losing Daredevil had been the catalyst.

Fortunately, sleep still does happen: You’re curled in the loveseat with Gambit’s coat over you as a makeshift blanket— you must’ve lighted out first. Remy and Logan are dead asleep on the ratty, squeaky couch; Laura half-melted beside them, legs hanging off the pleated sofa arms with Dogpool asleep in her arms. Love Island drones from the outdated home TV.

vi. —— WADE TAKES A SELFIE when he catches the scene.

He’s used it as the icon of the groupchat he created (lovingly titled: LIMBO LOSERS CLUB!) once he made sure everyone got some means of communication for when they moved out.

Not that Logan will ever use it.

Or Blind Al— “I mean, she doesn’t even text Wade, why is she in the chat?”

[fishenjoyer1]

Fish of the Day

Today's fish of the day is the muskellunge!

The muskellunge, also called a musky, lunge, ski, and scientific name Esox masquinongy, is known for being the largest species of pike. Muskellunge can be found around the rivers of Michigan, specifically the Great Lakes region, Canadian waters, St Lawrence River, and around the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. Outside of their natural range, they can also be found around the Tennessee river, South Carolina rivers, and as far South as Upper Georgia, where they are kept stocked intentionally for recreational fishing. They live around clean and clear waters with little silt, preferring to surround themselves with aquatic vegetation and weeds. This is because they tend to lurk near weedy shores and rocky outcroppings, although they can be found in deeper waters during the summer.

The diet of the muskie is made up primarily of other fish, although they will also eat: frogs, water birds, rats, and other animals that can be found in and around their environments. On rare occasions, muskellunge have been reported attacking dogs and children They attack other animals in an ambush, where the muskie will swiftly bite and swallow, not allowing any time for prey to fight back or escape. They can get as large as 50 inches in length, but there are claims of fish getting as large as 6ft. They have few predators, only large birds, such as bald eagles, other larger muskellunge or pike, and human fishing. With human fish thought to be the cause of their declining numbers.

Similar to other pikes, the muskellunge form small schools, and will claim territories that they fiercely defend, only becoming more aggressive during the breeding season. They spawn in the spring, like other pike, finding clean rocks or sandy bottomed rivers to lay their eggs. Spawning is only around a week to two weeks in length, and eggs are abandoned almost immediately. Once born, juveniles are only a few cm in length, but can get as large as 12 inches by their first year of life, and can get as old as 12-18 years.

That's the muskie fish, have a good day, everyone!

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Social Security is class war, not intergenerational conflict

Today, Tor.com published my latest short story, "The Canadian Miracle," set in the world of my forthcoming (Nov 14) novel, The Lost Cause. I am serializing this one on my podcast! Here's part one.

The very instant the Social Security Act was passed in 1935, American conservatives (in both parties) began lobbying to destroy it. After all, a reserve army of forelock-tugging plebs and family retainers won't voluntarily assemble themselves – they need to be goaded into it by the threat of slowly starving to death in their dotage.

They're at it again (again). The oligarch-thinktank industrial complex has unleashed a torrent of scare stories about Social Security's imminent insolvency, rehearsing the same shopworn doom predictions that they've been repeating since the Nixonite billionaire cabinet member Peter G Peterson created a "foundation" to peddle his disinformation in 2008:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I.O.U.S.A.

Peterson's go-to tactic is convincing young people that all the Social Security money they're paying into the system will be gobbled up by already-wealthy old people, leaving nothing behind for them. Conservatives have been peddling this ditty since the 1930s, and they're still at it – in the pages of the New York Times, no less:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/26/opinion/social-security-medicare-aging.html

The Times has become a veritable mouthpiece for this nonsense, publishing misleading and nonsensical charts and data to support the idea that millennials are losing a generational war to boomers, who will leave the cupboard bare:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/27/opinion/aging-medicare-social-security.html

As Robert Kuttner writes for The American Prospect, this latest rhetorical assault on Social Security is timed to coincide with the ascension of the GOP House's new Speaker, Mike Johnson, who makes no secret of his intention to destroy Social Security:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-10-31-debunking-latest-attack-social-security/

The GOP says it wants to destroy Social Security for two reasons: first, to promote "choice" by letting us provide for our own retirement by flushing even more of our savings into the rigged casino that is the stock market; and second, because America doesn't have enough dollars to feed and house the elderly.

But for the New York Times' audience, they've figured out how to launder this far-right nonsense through the language of social justice. Rather than condemning the impecunious olds for their moral failing to lay the correct bets in the stock market, Social Security's opponents paint the elderly as a gerontocratic elite, flush with cash that rightfully belongs to the young.

To support this conclusion, they throw around statistics about how house-rich the Boomers are, and how much consumption they can afford. But as Kuttner points out, the Boomers' real-estate wealth comes not from aggressive house-flipping, but from merely owning a place to live. America's housing bubble means that younger people can't afford this basic human necessity, but the answer to that isn't making old people homeless – it's providing a lot more housing, and banning housing speculation:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

It's true that older people are doing a lot of consumption spending – but the bulk of that spending isn't on cruises to Alaska to see the melting glaciers, it's on health care. Old people aren't luxuriating in their joint replacements and coronary bypasses. Calling this "consumption" is deliberately misleading.

But as Kuttner points out, there's another, more important point to be made about inequality in America – the most significant wealth gap in America is between workers and owners, not young people and old people. The "average" Boomer's net worth factors in the wealth of Warren Buffett and Donald Trump. Older renters are more rent-burdened and precarious than younger renters, and most older Americans have little to no retirement savings:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/teresaghilarducci/2023/10/28/the-new-york-times-greedy-geezer-myth/

Less than one percent of Social Security benefits go to millionaires – that's because the one percent constitute one percent of the population. It's right there in the name. The one percent are politically and economically important, but that's because they are low in numbers. Giving Social Security benefits to everyone over 65 will not result in a significant outlay to the ultra-wealthy, because there aren't many ultra-wealthy people in America. The problem of inequality isn't the expanding pool of rich people, it's the explosion of wealth for a contracting pool of rich people.

If conservatives were serious about limiting the grip of these "undeserving" Social Security recipients on our economy and its politics, they'd advocate for interitance taxes (which effectively don't exist in America), not the abolition of Social Security. The problem of wealth in America is that it is establishing permanent dynasties which are incompatible with social mobility. In other words, we have created a new hereditary aristocracy – and its corollary, a new hereditary peasantry:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/19/dynastic-wealth/#caste

Hereditary aristocracies are poisonous for lots of reasons, but one of the most pressing problems they present is political destabilization. American belief in democracy, the rule of law, and a national identity is q function of Americans' perception of fairness. If you think that your kids can't ever have a better life than you, if you think that the cops will lock you up for a crime for which a rich person would escape justice, then why obey the law? Why vote? Why not cheat and steal? Why not burn it all down?

The wealthy put a lot of energy into distracting us from this question. Just lately, they've cooked up a gigantic panic over a nonexistent wave of retail theft:

https://www.techdirt.com/2023/10/31/the-retail-theft-surge-that-isnt-report-says-crime-is-being-exaggerated-to-cover-up-other-retail-issues/

Meanwhile, the very real, non-imaginary, accelerating, multi-billion-dollar plague of wage theft is conspicuously missing from the public discourse, despite a total that dwarfs all retail theft in America by an order of magnitude:

https://fair.org/home/wage-theft-is-built-into-the-business-models-of-many-industries/

America does have a property crime crisis, but it's a crisis of wage-theft, not shoplifting. Likewise, America does have a retirement crisis: it's a crisis of inequality, not intergenerational conflict.

Social Security has been under sustained assault since its inception, and that's in large part due to a massive blunder on the part of FDR. Roosevelt believed that people would be more protective of Social Security if they thought it was funded by their taxes: "we bought it, it's ours." But – as FDR well knew – that's not how government spending works.

The US government can't run out of US dollars. The US government doesn't get its dollars for spending from your taxes. The US government spends money into existence and taxes it out of existence:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/14/situation-normal/#mmt

A moment's thought will reveal that it has to be this way. The US government (and its fiscal agents, chartered banks) are the only source of dollars. How can the US tax dollars away from earners unless it has first spent those dollars into the economy?

The point of taxation isn't to fund programs, it's to reduce the private sector's spending power so that there are things for sale to the public sector. If we only spent money into the economy but didn't take any out of the economy, the private sector would have so many dollars to spend that any time the government tried to buy something, there'd be a bidding war that would result in massive price spikes.

When a government runs a "balanced budget," that means that it has taxed as much out of the economy as it put into the economy at the start of the year. When a government runs a "surplus," that means it's left less money in the economy at the end of the year than there was at the beginning of the year. This is fine if the economy has contracted overall, but if the economy stayed constant or grew, that means there are fewer dollars chasing more goods and services, which leads to deflation and all kinds of toxic outcomes, like borrowing more bank-created money, which makes the finance sector richer and the real economy poorer.

Of course, most governments run "deficits" – which is another way of saying that they leave more dollars in the economy at the end of the year than there was at the start of the year, or, put another way, a deficit probably means that your economy got bigger, so it needed more dollars.

None of this means that governments can spend without limit. But it does mean that governments can buy anything that's for sale in their own currency. There are a lot of goods for sale in US dollars, both goods that are produced domestically and goods from abroad (this is why it's such a big deal that most of the world's oil is priced in dollars).

Governments do have to worry about getting into bidding wars with the private sector. To do that, governments come up with ways of reducing the private sector's spending power. One way to do that is taxes – just taking money away from us at the end of the year and annihilating it. Another way is to ration goods – think of WWII, or the direct economic interventions during the covid lockdowns. A third way is to sell bonds, which is just a roundabout way of getting us to promise not to spend some of our dollars for a while, in return for a smaller number of dollars in interest payments:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/08/howard-dino/#payfors

FDR knew all of this, but he still told the American people that their taxes were funding Social Security, thinking that this would protect the program. This backfired terribly. Today, Democrats have embraced the myth that taxes fund spending and join with their Republican counterparts in insisting that all spending must be accompanied by either taxes or cuts (AKA "payfors").

These Democrats voluntarily put their own policymaking powers in chains, refusing to take any action on behalf of the American people unless they can sell a tax increase or a budget cut. They insist that we can't have nice things until we make billionaires poor – which is the same as saying that we can't have nice things, period.

There are damned good reasons to make billionaires poor. The legitimacy of the American system is incompatible with the perception that wealth and power are fixed by birth, and that the rich and powerful don't have to play by the rules.

The capture of America's institutions – legislatures, courts, regulators – by the rich and powerful is a ghastly situation, and to reverse it, we'll need all the help we can get. Every hour that Americans spend worrying about their how they'll pay their rent, their medical bills, or their student loans is an hour lost to the fight against oligarchy and corruption.

In other words, it's not true that we can't have nice things until we get rid of billionaires – rather, we can't get rid of billionaires until we have nice things.

This is the premise of my next novel, The Lost Cause, which comes out on November 14; it's set in a world where care and solidarity have unleashed millions of people on the project of maintaining the habitability of our planet amidst the polycrisis:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865939/the-lost-cause

It's a fundamentally hopeful book, and it's already won praise from Naomi Klein, Rebecca Solnit, Bill McKibben and Kim Stanley Robinson. I wrote it while thinking through and researching these issues. Conservatives want us to think that we can't do better than this, that – to quote Margaret Thatcher – "there is no alternative." Replacing that narrative is critical to the kinds of mass mobilizations that our very survival depends on.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/intergenerational-warfare/#five-pound-blocks-of-cheese

This Saturday (Nov 4), I'm keynoting the Hackaday Supercon in Pasadena, CA.

[seat-safety-switch]

There is a secret war happening in the heart of our world, friends. Combatants strive for absolute supremacy, a way to force their onerous new rules on regular human beings just like you and me. You only need to go to the cereal aisle at your local grocery store to see it for yourself.

When I was a kid, there were thousands of breakfast cereals. It was big business: fill kids with sugar laced corn byproducts. Quick breakfast, get them out the door. That was before the Carb Panic, which is not related in any way to carburetors, which remain a perfectly valid form of fuel metering and injection. Suddenly, breakfast cereal wasn't "cool" anymore. Sales dropped. MBAs freaked out. And a huge portion of our shared cultural history evaporated, just like that.

Even now, people of a certain age still have these brands woven into their sense of identity. You will lumber through the rest of your life, sleeper-like, until abruptly activated by a series of names that industrialists tattooed onto your prefrontal cortex. Post Oat Flakes, your brain will screech, we remember the titan it once was. A gentle frisson of nostalgia, followed by a haunting void and an awareness of the irreversible march of time.

Reduced competition means an easier time making money, right? Not so: as our civilization slowly looks down, Wile E. Coyote-like, and realizes that we actually stopped doing anything at all a couple decades ago in favour of moving some numbers around in Excel, people are cutting out things like Fruit Loops in favour of "eating actual food" and "paying my rent." This time, though, the cereal pushers learned their lesson. If the grocery stores don't want to stock their cereal because of low demand, they can simply hike the prices so that everyone gets their respective beaks wet. Seven bucks a box! Sir Grapefellow would have been ashamed.

Don't worry, though. I've got a plan. You see, the Canadian government stocked a bunch of anti-nuke bunkers with food and water and other supplies way back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. In the 80s, they had kind of gotten used to the whole idea of being obliterated in a millisecond and largely stopped caring as much. All that cereal is still perfectly good. If you bring your dad's old bolt cutters, we can probably sneak out a couple boxes before the Mounties figure out we're there. Might be a little stale, but that's better than living under the whip hand of Bob Kellogg's. I swear to whatever deity is listening that I will once again sup of Count Chocula.

[operafantomet]

My friend and I have a wager; I say that there have been 20-25 complete Red Deaths (not just pieces) made for replica productions since 1986, she says there have to be many more than that. Can you weigh in?

I don't have any exact numbers, but immediately I feel that sounds a bit meagre? It does of course depend on what you mean by "complete", as many of the costumes tend to share pieces - say, cloak, maybe hat - while they have separate main costumes. Sometimes doublet and breeches are also mixed and matched. Would that count as one or two?

Trying to count the different costumes seen around the world, I do see a high degree of re-use. These costumes are expensive and takes forever to build, hence there's few of them, and they rarely go on display. It also means re-use is high.

I remember talking to the head of costumes for the previous World Tour, and he told me how they worked endless hours on one of the original Australia Red Death costume between each show, to keep it fit for yet another performance. But I think it was also sentimental reasons for it, because it was WILDLY well made, they simply don't make 'em like that anymore. Jonathan Roxmouth got a new Red Death costume for his last Phantom run, which was well made in all aspects but more theatrical than splendid compared to the old one. The old one was a class act in costume making:

But I'm digressing. One thing to have in mind is that each replica production needs to have at least two operative Red Death costumes at all times, because one is used by the principal when first decending the staircase, and one is used by the double appearing shortly afterwards. They simply cannot share a costume.

Seeing how the first couple of productions around the world ran simultaneously, in West End, on Broadway, in Tokyo, Vienna, Stockholm, Toronto, Hamburg, Scheveningen, Melbourne and Basel... As well as the early US sit-down productions as well as the US, Canadian and UK Tours. That means a minimum of 30 costumes alone. Likely some of these had more than one costume for their various principals, due to different size. So let's say 35. And that's an absolute minimum.

And then cases where we KNOW new costumes were made. They made one for Peter Jöback when he first joined the West End production, as per info and photos he shared:

We know they made a new one for Jonathan Roxmouth in the World Tour, as per info and photos shared both by him and UK costume maker Jane Grimshaw:

We know they made at least three brand new ones for the Las Vegas production, as shared by costume maker Lindsay Kleinmann. This is not her photo, but shows three of them together, along with an especially made dog costume for charity:

Eventually, many of the late 1990s and early 2000s production could inherit their costumes. It means Belgium got their from Switzerland, Denmark got their from Sweden, the German costumes got a lot of the Dutch ones etc. But whereas some costumes has traveled a lot, for example the Red Death costume used in Moscow, Madrid, Sao Paulo etc, it was at one point new. Its origin seem to be Mexico, where brand new UK costumes were made, and mixed and matched with inherited Canadian costumes. But one or two were made new for them when they opened 1999. There's also been new costumes made in Japan. And definitely in West End, even if they mix and match a lot from stock.

That leaves us with at least 45 Red Death costumes. Probably more. Even with mix-and-match, and even with the hand-me-down practice. Which unfortuneately means your friend is right... Sorry!

Rarely photographed, here's the Red Death double costume in the World Tour, as a pendant to the first photo above:

(definitely not the same costume as the principal)

[nikethestatue]

A Match Baked in Heaven

Chapter 4 Here

Part V

My Girl

Nuala W. Raith.

27 years old. A cyber security senior analyst at the New Scotland Yard. Graduated from the London School of Economics. First job was with Accenture, but was quickly recruited by the government due to her phenomenal computer skills. Fairly successful modelling career in her teens and early twenties. Longest relationship was with a Canadian hockey player. Their engagement broke up when he was photographed with a scantily-clad stripper whose head was buried in his crotch. 

Hobbies: gaming, football, rugby, cooking, live concerts

Competitive swimmer throughout her uni studies

Elain printed out the profile and placed the page in her bag. She slid her IPad into it as well and then went on to put on her coat. 

She just received a message on her phone stating ‘come out, matchmaker!’ That was exactly what she expected from her wild and untamed client.

Piglet was freaking out at the door, snorting and grunting and giving a few pathetic little barks, while he clawed at the door, impatient to leave.

“Will you calm down?” Elain muttered, and opened the door for him and he sprinted out like his arse was on fire.

There was a Bentley idling at the curb and the moment Piglet rushed out, the car door opened and Azriel Night stepped out.

Elain Archeron paused in the doorway, watching her client and marvelling at his ungodly handsomeness. Unlike his usual uniform of jeans, boots and some kind of basic shirt, today, he was wearing a dark suit, which hugged his tall, slender, muscular form to ridiculous perfection. The white shirt that was open to the chest didn’t hurt either. The dark tattoos that snaked from under his shirt and spilled over his neck and his hands made him look dangerous and desirable. It was the dichotomy of his whole being in a handsome dark package–he was a combination of dangerous and damaged, aggressive and gentle, thoughtful and mannerless, inelegant and stylish.

Suddenly, he squatted right on the sidewalk, and opened his arms wide, while Piglet leapt at him, nuzzling at him wildly, and Azriel hugged him and stroked him. 

“I missed you too, my little matey. How are you doing?”

Piglet stood on his one hind leg and placed his paws on Azriel’s shoulders, going in for a full body hug.

“How’s our girl? Is she wearing purple today, since you are rockin’ your purple tie?”

Azriel already knew the drill–outside, Piglet wore coats, ties or scarves. Today, he had on a Burberry jacket and a purple scarf that matched his coat. At home or inside, he wore his stylish bows.

At that moment, Elain stepped out of the house, and Azriel looked up and whistled loudly.

“No...she is wearing a trench coat…nice touch. I hope there is nothing underneath it…”

“Mr. Night!” Elain snapped at him, blushing profusely. “You are being scandalous and utterly inappropriate!”

He laughed, watching her, as he stroked Piglet’s back.

Elain seemed to look rather sensible, in her camel knee-length trench, a large leather tote over her shoulder, and sexy brown leather booties, but somehow, she made it all look incredibly elegant, and dare he say, sexy. Elain never went for ‘sexy’, but somehow, she made all her pristine, somewhat old-fashioned outfits look alluring. The fact that she was wearing subtle, nude fishnets didn’t hurt either. Azriel always found himself intrigued by what she was going to wear, and so far, he distinctly recalled each and every one of her ensembles. Now, he was actively pondering if the fishnets were stockings? 

“She is mad at me already! I think it’s our record time,” he whisper-shouted to the dog. “Is it my fault,” he addressed her, “that trench coats look good on sexy women and make me wish that there was nothing beneath them. It’s every man’s fantasy, you know.”

“I am not here to fulfil your fantasy,” she cut him off. “I am simply wearing a coat.”

“Mmmm.” 

He waited for her to come down the stairs and then extended his hand to her. She shook it reluctantly and he smiled brightly at her, his expression teasing.

“Did you watch the game?” he asked immediately.

“Hello to you too,” she said, while Azriel opened the car door for her and Pinky leapt in eagerly, ready for a new adventure.

“Well, hello then Ms. Archeron,” Azriel murmured, leaning so close to her that his nose almost skimmed her cheek. ”Allow me to help you inside.”

She frowned at him, as she slid inside the car, and Azriel followed her right after. 

“Good afternoon, Miss,” the driver greeted her.

She greeted him back and then looked at Azriel, a bemused expression on her face.

“Where is Mr. Night? What did you do with him? And who are you?”

He laughed, throwing his head back and she looked at his thick throat, swallowing audibly.

“I mean, a car, you are being almost polite, dressed in a suit…that’s not the Mr. Night that I know. Usually he curses, argues and taunts me relentlessly.”

“Aw, Ms, Archeron,” he ran his index finger over her long lock. “Day is still young. There is time for all that.”

“Oh, phew,” she pretended to wipe her brow. “I was getting worried.”

“You shouldn’t. The arsehole is still here and happily present. So, back to my previous question?”

“Which is?”

“Are you wearing anything under the trench?” he teased and she seethed at him as usual, crossing her arms on her chest and glowering at him. 

He raised his hands in mock surrender and said, “Okay, okay. I’ll behave. But…are you?” he whispered quickly.

“One more word, and I am leaving,” she warned.

“Dev, drive fast,” Azriel ordered and the driver smiled, as he sped down the road. 

Meanwhile, Pinkly crawled over Elain and landed on Azriel’s lap, totally disregarding Elain’s displeased hiss. Azriel chuckled, while Pinky pressed his flat face against the window. 

Elain reached into her bag and took out a pretty box with a scowl on her face. She pushed the box into Azriel’s lap without saying a word and then turned to the opposite window.

“What’s that?” he pondered.

“For you,” was all she answered. 

Curious, very, very curious, he opened the box, while Pinky tore his attention away from the window and was now panting with anticipation.

“Is that for me?” Azriel gasped, but it was genuine surprise, and not mockery. Surprise and utter delight.

The box was filled with biscuits of all kinds. Homemade.

“I said it was for you,” she shrugged like she didn’t care.

“You baked? For me?” he whispered in disbelief.

“Well, not just for you,” she argued quickly. “We had Sunday lunch at my sister Feyre’s. She served some very dodgy salmon,”

“How dodgy?” he smirked.

“Dodgy enough that we mostly ate mash and these biscuits that I brought. I had baked entirely too many. So,”

“I am getting the overflow. Thanks, pretty matchmaker!” she elbowed her gently. “I can’t believe you thought of me and made me a box!”

“Well, these are lemon,” she began pointing at different varieties of biscuits in the box. “These are almond horns. Those are orange and hazelnut,”

“Oh my god,” he marvelled in appreciation.

“Chocolate and coffee nibs. And plain shortbread.”

He looked at her. Really looked at her. Her old-fashioned, picturesque beauty, the enormous eyes, the beautiful hair, and for once, he saw someone special. Someone who didn’t fit any moulds that he was familiar with, and once again, he was at a loss. He didn’t know what to make of her.

“Elain…” he said softly, and then immediately corrected himself, “Ms. Archeron. This might be the most thoughtful and kind thing anyone’s ever done for me. I thank you. Truly.”

“You are welcome. It’s not a big thing, but you seemed to enjoy them.”

“More than you think. You baked for me. Made something with your hands…That means a lot.”

“Well, enjoy it,” Elain said gently, while Pinky was growling with impatience.

“Can I give him one?” 

“Just the plain shortbread,” Elain allowed, and Azriel fed one of the biscuits to the overexcited dog, who chomped on it noisily and messily. “He is perpetually hungry and if he could, he’d eat the whole box. He climbed onto the chair and then somehow got on top of the table and ate a whole bowl of raspberries. That was yesterday. A couple of days before, he somehow snuck into the open drawer of the refrigerator, stole a bag of sausages, ate them all, and promptly got diarrhoea…So there is that.”

Azriel was laughing silently, his whole body shaking. 

“Oh no. Why did he get the shits?”

“Because he ate like 7 or 8 sausages. He is a smallish dog. It would be the equivalent of me eating maybe 15-20 sausages. I’d get diarrhoea too!”

“Valid. What else?”

“He ate three bananas, peel and all, again by way of stealing. Then, when I wasn’t looking, he grabbed half of my cheese and onion sandwich, and ate all of that too.”

“What about the dodgy salmon?”

“Even he wouldn’t eat that!” Elain laughed. “He did eat a good heap of mash and gravy, a bread roll with butter, then proceeded to steal my sister Nesta’s steamed tofu,”

“Jesus Christ,” Azriel gasped in horror.

“Immediately spat it out,”

“Not blaming him at all. I’d spit it out too!”

“And then went to my father and cried fake pug tears to him because he was so upset that he stole and ate the wrong thing. Of course my father then had to feed him cheese and ham. As compensation of some kind. Emotional distress I am assuming?”

“My god I love him!” Azriel groaned. “I might have to steal him from you.”

“Well, then you’ll die,” she warned placidly. Azriel was laughing loudly now, considering her nonchalant tone. When he finally came to, he prodded,

“So?”

“I watched the game,” she confirmed. “You did well–one goal and two assists.”

“What about Pink?”

“Piglet watched it too. Now I can show him reruns of football games–he seems to enjoy watching things run.”

“And I am a thing that runs?” Azriel chuckled.

“You certainly are. You have incredible stamina,”

His mouth quirked and he crooned, “You have no idea…”

Elain gawked at him, and then realised what she had said, and rolled her eyes.

“You do remember, Mr. Night that I am not the one who is auditioning to be your potential wife?” She reminded him primly. “I am not the match. I am the matchmaker.”

“How can I forget? Unless you finally change your mind and just go for it,” he proposed. “You already know what you’d be signing up for with me. I have a pretty good idea about you as well. I don’t know why you are fighting this so hard?”

“Yes. I wonder why indeed.”

They were driving through the city and Piglet was panting with enjoyment, looking out the window.

Azriel gently rubbed the dog’s furry neck, relaxed against the back seat, manspreading widely. Elain threw inquisitive glances when she thought he wasn’t watching, and they mostly landed below his waist. As was his usual manner, Azriel let her look as much as she wanted. The car was big enough–even with his height and spread, there was plenty of space. So it was her choice to look, and it would be rude of him not to let her.

“I don’t want you to get so close to him,” Elain said suddenly.

Azriel looked at her quizzically.

“Piglet,” she clarified. “He is getting attached to you. He waits for you at the door,”

At that Azriel smiled, but Elain continued, 

“He thinks of you as a friend.”

“I am his friend,”

“But this is all temporary. You understand that, don’t you? Once you are matched with the right person, our relationship will end. And I don’t want Piglet to think that you’ll be around, coming to play with him or be present in his and my life,”

Azriel chewed the inside of his cheek for a long while, thinking about what she said.

“It doesn’t have to end,” he said at last.

Please don’t.

Don’t end it. 

“You are a client, Mr. Night,” Elain added, “I can’t imagine you’d have time for me once you are getting to know your future wife and getting married.”

“That’s it then?”

“Couple of months, maybe three, at most,” she confirmed. “That’s how long most of my associations with my clients last. One lasted a year, but that’s highly unusual. Besides, you are under a time constraint. I imagine that by January, we will be done.”

“I am sorry, but I disagree, Ms. Archeron,” Azriel said firmly. “Perhaps this is how things have gone before, but I cannot accept it. Let’s come up with a new agreement then…a new plan,”

“What sort of plan?”

“Something that would allow us to keep in touch beyond this initial agreement,”

“Like what?”

He shrugged, scrubbing his hand over his chin.

“Teach me manners?” he proposed. “Proper manners. Like a gentleman.”

Elain laughed, “I am not a miracle worker, Mr. Night. I am not sure I have the capability to do something like that.”

“You aren’t giving yourself enough credit. But for now, why don’t we just leave things as status quo. Three-four months is a long time. Lots of things could happen in that timeframe. Meanwhile, I’d like to keep meeting with you and Pinky.”

“Yes, I suppose,” she agreed, somewhat reluctantly.

“Do you not like me, Ms. Archeron?” he queried, no hesitation in his question.

“No, I wouldn’t say that,” she admitted. “But you are an usual client for me, and I struggle with reigning you in,”

“Perhaps you shouldn't try? And just let things be as they are?” he suggested. “Maybe I am not meant to be reigned in?”

“It’s beginning to look like that,” Elain sighed. “Now, where are we going? Why couldn’t we meet at my office?”

“Where is your sense of adventure?” he smiled. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Hmmm…Very, very marginally.”

“Aw, you wound me, Ms. Archeron! But I will take you to a place you’ll undoubtedly enjoy.”

Elain looked outside the window and suddenly felt Azriel’s large, heavy palm cover her hand. He was silent, but he threaded their fingers together and held her hand firmly in his.

She turned her head and breathed, ‘Mr. Night’.

He looked straight at her, his face emotionless as usual, but said just as softly ‘Ms. Archeron’. He almost dared her to say something, or tug her hand away from his, but he wouldn’t allow it, and just kept her in place. To her credit, she didn’t attempt to either.

Piglet turned his head and looked at them, assessing the hand-holding. Then, bouncing with a surplus of excitement, he jumped on Azriel, bucking and shimmying wildly, before rolling onto Elain’s lap, waiting for a belly scratch, and then slithering back on Azriel.

“See, he is on our side,” Azriel chuckled, scratching the supple rolls of fat on the pug. “He is team Elriel.”

“Team what?”

“Elriel,” 

“I don’t know what that means.”

“El–for Elain, and Riel for Azriel. Duh? Do I have to teach you everything?!”

“Where do you even come up with this nonsense?” she looked at him, perplexed.

“Elriel is not nonsense, Ms. Archeron. It’s our ship name. Pinky is the first shipper.”

“My god. You’ve read too many romance novels, Mr. Night.”

“Yeah, well, it gets boring on the road,” he shrugged. “So I read.”

“Romance novels?”

“Fantasy. Dark romance. Romantasy. Whatever.”

“Romantasy?”

“Are you judging me?”

“No, no. Not at all,” she shook her head, stifling a laugh.

They crossed the river, and Elain looked around, trying to figure out where they were going.

At last, she exclaimed, “Borough Market?”

“Nope,” he popped his lips.

“Where then?!” she whined.

“Patience.”

“I want the apple crisp!” she begged.

“You always seem to want some kind of apple crisp,” he teased. 

“It’s my favourite. This one has bruleed custard on top. It’s so goooddd,” she moaned.

“Maybe next time,” he promised, smiling to himself.

The appreciation that he had for Elain’s unabashed love for food and eating was hard to describe. All the other women he ever went out with insisted on salads, pretended like they weren’t hungry, opted for tofu and seaweed, and in general, avoided eating as much as possible. Elain was about tea, and custard, and cake, and hearty stews.

“We are here,” he said at last. The car parked and he went to open the door. Pinky hopped out first, and then Elain climbed out and threw her head back.

“We are going to the Shard?” she asked.

“We are!” He curled his arm offering it to her and she took it. 

Elain seemed surprised, but she followed him nevertheless, while Pinky stepped in front of them with his usual self importance, like he knew where he was going. Azriel could only dream of having this dog’s confidence!

The three of them took the lift up to Shangri-La hotel and were immediately greeted by an obsequious female hostess, who looked at Azriel like he was a dick-on-a-stick.

“Mr. Night, please follow me,” she flitted about, swaying her hips, as she paid no attention to Elain, and ushered them to a table in front of the windows, which overlooked the stunning vistas of London. It felt as if they sat right on top of Tower Bridge. Piglet plastered his face against the window, snorting with amazement. Whatever he was seeing, he was very impressed. 

“He is a support animal. We have all the documentation,” Azriel told the hostess, but she waved her hand at him.

“Of course, Mr. Night. That wouldn’t be a problem.”

“He is very well-behaved,” Azriel assured her, while observing Elain’s pinched little face. She wasn’t liking what was happening here.

Finally, the woman left, and Elain muttered, “Why even ask me for help? You have a ready-to-go wife right here. Wives on tap, I am sure.”

Azriel laughed at her.

“If I didn’t know you better, I would’ve thought that you were jealous, Ms. Archeron.”

“Jealous? Hardly,” she scoffed. 

“Phew, I was beginning to worry that you were developing feelings for me and my company,” he snickered. “Allow me,” he offered to take her trench–something the hostess should’ve done, but apparently, she was too star struck.

Elain unbelted and shrugged the coat off and Azriel looked her over with interest that he wasn’t even trying to hide. 

“Blimey,” he exhaled. 

Elain wore a form-fitting nude jumper and a knee-length skirt with brown and purple abstract pattern. Frankly, he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the round pair of glorious tits that the jumper did all kinds of favours for. He even liked the one strand of fat pearls around her neck. 

“None. Don’t worry. But,” she looked around, “this is nice. Thank you, Mr. Night. I appreciate the thought. Imagine–I’ve never been here before. It’s been on the list of places to go, but we never could make it. So, thank you! I’ve just checked an item off my bucket list.”

“The pleasure is mine, Ms. Archeron,” he included his head. “Care to share what else is on your bucket list?”

“No,” she told him immediately, as she pulled out her IPad from her bag. “We are here to talk about you.”

He held the chair for her and she sat down.

“And here I thought that this Pink Afternoon Tea will thaw you a bit! Champagne at least?”

“I’ll have a glass,” she agreed graciously.

“You are not pregnant or anything like that, right?” he goaded her. 

She rolled her eyes and told him, “Not that I am not aware of.”

“So. There is someone in your life to get pregnant by?” he pressed.

“I’ll be asking you a series of questions,” Elain said, ignoring him and his probing. “Please answer truthfully. I am building your profile. There are no right or wrong answers.”

“May I tell you something meanwhile?”

“Sure.”

“You look sexy as fuck, matchmaker. It’s dangerous.”

She sucked in her breath and nervously picked at her pearls.

“Mr. Night…”

“Ms. Archeron. I see what I see.”

At that moment, their champagne was delivered, followed by waiters with the tea service. Elain exhaled a relieved breath. 

It looked spectacular–Reuben sandwiches, Truffle Egg and Cress, Smoked Salmon, Coronation Chicken–all done in various shades of pink. There were chicken liver parfaits, and tiny burgers. Pink scones, clotted cream and strawberry jam. And a variety of little architecturally-impressive pastries–a layer cake with pistachios and cherries, raspberry plum cake, something called shang mont rose, and the Pink Sphere. 

The Pink Afternoon Tea at the Shard (Shangri-La Hotel, London)

They even brought a bowl of water and a bowl of whipped cream for Piglet. 

“It’s beautiful. Almost too beautiful to eat,” Elain commented, inspecting all the offering.

“Almost,” Azriel raised his champagne flute. “But not quite. To us, Ms. Archeron. To our tenuous friendship. Maybe it will grow into something more.”

Elain glanced at him and whispered, “maybe,” before sipping her champagne.

“I won’t be able to train properly after all this,” Azriel commented, as he bit into one of the sandwiches, “but you only live once, yeah?”

“Your first concert?” Elain asked, looking down at her IPad.

Piglet already polished all the cream off, and was now snoring softly under the table. 

Azriel thought for a second, and said,

“Eminem. I was fourteen. Cass and I snuck out and slept outside all night, but we got in. It was incredible.”

She smiled and whispered, “that must have been amazing…”

“It really was.”

“Favourite movie?”

“Fight Club.”

“Favourite singer or band?”

“Led Zeppelin.”

“I could’ve guessed. You seem like the type.”

“Oh, and what type is that?”

“Old-fashioned, but rebellious.”

“What about you? Tay Tay? Adele?”

Elain wrinkled her nose.

“If we are talking singers, then it’s Amy Winehouse,” she said. “Band–it’s always the Rolling Stones.”

“Ahhh…well, that’s to be expected.”

“Why?”

“You like the classics.”

“Look at us, figuring each other out.” Her tone was vaguely sarcastic. Then she asked the next question, “First celebrity crush?”

Azriel took a while to think about that one, sipping his tea, and finishing up his little burger.

“Brad Pitt.”

“Oh?” Elain smiled. “Really?”

“He is a beautiful man. What can I say? In ‘Troy’ I think.”

“First thing you do when you wake up?”

“Think about football,” he told her instantly. “I am dedicated to my game, my team, my city. I work hard for what I do.”

“What was your dream job when you were young?”

“I didn’t think I’d have one at all,” he told her honestly. Elain didn’t know how to follow up on that statement. “Thought I’d be in a gang, or something. Maybe in prison. Maybe dead,”

“That’s…very grim,” she frowned.

“That’s the reality of those lads who I grew up with. My reality. I just happen to run well with a ball.”

“How do you think others view you?”

“They either like me or hate me. I am good looking, so some respond to that. Others cannot abide my character. I don’t care, to be honest. I only care about the opinions of very few people.”

“Who?” she asked quickly, though he suspected that it wasn’t part of the questionnaire.

“Cassian, I suppose. Rhys. My team. Coach. You.”

“Me?”

“Yes.”

Elain hid her face behind her cup, aimlessly picking at her sandwich, but Azriel watched her closely. 

“You can’t ask questions like these and not expect uncomfortable answers,” he reminded her simply.

“Why me though?”

“For a posh, prissy bird, you are surprisingly accepting. I suppose I appreciate that, so I don’t want you to think of me…badly.”

“I don’t, you know.”

“I do. And that’s what’s so surprising. You are a nice sort of person.”

Elain adjusted her hair, trying to make herself comfortable, and asked,

“What do you not tolerate?”

“Disloyalty. Random cruelty.”

Her eyes fell on his scarred hands, while he spread some jam on his scone and popped it in his mouth. Despite the scars, his hands were attractive. Big and strong and sure.

“Where do you want to live?”

“London. It’s home. It understands me.”

“Biggest fear?”

He didn’t say anything for a while.

“I’ll tell you,” he drummed his fingers on the table, “but we say it together. You say yours, and I’ll say mine.”

“Mr. Night,” she began, but he interrupted her.

“No, Ms. Archeron. This is the way we do it. If you don’t like it, move on to the next questions.”

Elain sighed and murmured ‘fine’.

“On three then…One, two, three.”

Loneliness.

Both of them blurted the same word at the same time.

Loneliness. 

Elain stared at him. A little shocked. Azriel only chuckled. 

“Well then…”

He smiled again. 

“I might need more Champagne.”

“I'll ask lighter questions,” she promised quickly, not commenting on their shared fear.

“Please do, before I get black out drunk at Afternoon Tea at the Shard. Do they have whiskey here?”

“Mr. Night, you aren’t drinking whiskey!”

“Not yet. But I might soon. Are you eating your burger?”

“No. You can have it.”

She typed something in her notebook and he meanwhile ate her mini burger in two bites.

“Do you wear pyjamas to bed?” came the next question, and Azriel huffed at it.

“No. I sleep completely naked.”

She cleared her throat and went on,

“Boxers or briefs?”

Azriel grinned and leaned back in his chair, as was his manner when he got comfortable and amused. 

“Well, well…Boxer briefs, Ms. Archeron,” he answered with a wink. “I normally like everything to be tucked in there, and not flop in the wind.”

Elain snorted a laugh.

“You see,” he continued. “The Lord hath endowed me well in that region. There is much to hold in place. It’s like wrestling a python into my poor drawers every morning…”

“Oh, how tragic. It must be very difficult for you,” she mocked.

But Azriel didn’t miss the lovely blush that spread on her cheeks. 

“It is a struggle, but one that I accepted humbly. Wouldn’t be surprised if they could see it all the way in America. Makes our American cousins all kinds of edgy seeing a British cock in all its glory.”

“Oh my god,”

Leaning towards her, he whispered conspiratorially, “don’t tell Cassian. He gets a bit…competitive.”

“Your secret is safe with me,” Elain promised.

“Hardly a secret. Anything else you’d like to know, matchmaker? Or see?”

“The most significant of your tattoos?” she hopped over his proposition just like that.

He rubbed his chest, and said, “A Churchill quote: It is the time to dare and endure.”

“Is that something that helps you?”

“Something to keep me grounded when things get tough. I also have this one,” he pointed to his forearm. “Arsenal crest. And a Union Jack on my shoulder.”

The next question was Azriel’s favourite. Elain asked,

“Maradona or Pele?”

“Diego Armando Maradona,” he said at once.

“Do you believe in god?”

“No.”

“Can you change a tyre?”

“Yes.”

“The first thing you look at in a woman?”

“Her gaze. Her look.”

“Have you ever been in love?” she asked quickly, without raising her eyes from the tablet.

“No. Never. Have you?” he asked quickly.

“This isn’t about me,”

“Answer the question,” he ordered.

“No, Mr. Night. I have not been in love. Do you want to marry?”

“Seems like I have to.”

“If you didn’t need to.”

“Marriage changes little, but if the woman wants it, then yes, I would marry.”

“And children? Would you like to have children?”

“Yes. Four.”

She glanced at him and repeated, “Four?”

“Yes. Four.”

“What do you know how to cook?”

“Steak. Only the best eggs you’ve ever eaten. Really good lamb stew. A bacon sandwich. You won’t go hungry with me, pretty matchmaker. Don’t worry.”

“Is this another proposal?”

“Always!” he grinned at her. “Now that you know everything about me, am I making a more appealing candidate?”

“I am sure that you are, for others. I am not looking for a husband, Mr. Night,” she reminded him dryly.

“Why hasn’t the ginger bloke closed the deal?” Azriel started on the pastries, popping one of them in his mouth whole. That solicited a frown from Elain, but he only smiled at her. “What’s he waiting for?”

“Why do you think it’s the man, and not me?”

“You are a fucking matchmaker, princess. Of course you wanna get married. Come on now,” he bubbled his lips. “It’s like saying I am a footballer, but I don’t want to win the Ballon D’Or. Of course I do. Probably no chance of it, but nevertheless, the dream is there.”

“Maybe, hypothetically, I want to get married. But it’s nothing and to no one specific,” she finally relented. 

“Well, that’s a start,” he smiled. “Anything else? What do you want to know? My favourite colour? It’s cobalt blue, by the way. Funny how you wore a skirt in that colour the first time we met. You think it’s a sign?” he winked at her.

“No. I do not.”

“You are so hard to impress,” he complained jokingly. “Tough little cookie. But I’ll break that hard exterior and will get to the soft, gooey inside, the delicious centre.”

“Mr. Night, please remember that ours is a professional relationship. You aren’t breaking me in or whatever it is you just said. It definitely sounded wholly inappropriate. 

“I, however, must ask you more personal questions…Which, honestly, I am dreading,” she added sombrely.

Azriel stretched his very long legs under the table and crossed them at the ankles, before lacing his fingers on his stomach and smiling like an asshole at her. 

“Come on then, pretty matchmaker. Bring it on! I won’t put the moves on you–unless you want me to–and I will behave,”

“Why am I doubting everything you just said?” she whispered with a heavy sight.

“Oh, don’t. Come on, ask away!”

“I preferred you when you were reluctant and a moody arsehole, like you were at our first meeting.”

“Oh, I am still that. Don’t worry. But I am making an effort here and want to make your life a bit easier.”

“How are you in bed, Mr. Night?” she blurted out. “Any specific preferences that a prospective match should know about? Dominant? Submissive? Rough? BDSM? Any fetishes? Any musts? Any hard limits? And how do you feel about fidelity?”

“Well, fuck me that’s a lot of questions! I think I will have that whiskey after all.”

They waited for his whiskey to be delivered and Azriel took a sip, smacking his lips with appreciation.

“You are a bad influence, Ms. Archeron,” he told her. “You make me want to live.”

She looked at him and his declaration with surprise.

“And you don’t live otherwise?”

“I dunno. With you, things seem…easier. Lighter? Like I don't have to worry about my form constantly, or think about the game, or training, or restrict myself. It’s nice, you know. It feels like there is more to the world, and to my life than what I am used to. I can have a drink, and have some pastries, and wear a suit…Not just trainers that sponsor me, or salads and leafy greens and lean protein.”

Elain smiled, “You sound like my sister Nesta. She is a dancer. She is very careful about what she eats,”

“Hence the tofu that makes Pinky sick.”

“Indeed.”

He resumed his position, with his hands on his stomach and then said,

“I am rough. As a lover.”

Elain stopped typing in her IPad and stared at him, clearly not expecting this nugget of info to drop on her lap.

“Rough?” she repeated at last. “As in…violent?”

He chuckled.

“Nah, I ain’t violent, pretty girl.”

“Mr. Night,” she snapped.

“Sorry, sorry. Ms. Archeron–where I come from, fucking is quick, hard, rough and unromantic. There ain’t no flickering candles, soft music, gauzy curtains,”

“I am impressed and a bit alarmed that you just used the word ‘gauzy’,” Elain commented.

“All, I’ve been hitting the dictionary every night. Picking up fancy words to impress you with!”

“You should be impressing your future matches,” she reminded him with a meaningful look, and he nodded in acquiescence. 

“Yeah, I remember. The matches.”

“So, you are rough,” Elain repeated. 

“Listen–on and off for a few years, I didn’t even have a place to sleep when I was a teen. Three months with one family, six weeks with another, four days with another…Stretches of time in between where Cass and me had to fend for ourselves. But you know…needs must and all. My dick was a teenage dick regardless of what my family situation was, so I had to get it where I could.”

Elain listened without commenting, her face expressionless. Azriel wasn’t sure if she was shocked, or repulsed, or judging him. That damn poker face of hers was on point.

“And where could I get it? Against the wall near the chippy, or on a park bench, or in a stairwell. That doesn’t bode well for lengthy sessions of tender lovemaking.

“So I go in pretty rough. I’ll make you come–a lady, I’ll make a lady come–but if she is looking for prim and proper that ain’t me.”

He scrubbed his hand over his face. 

“I ain’t mean, Ms. Archeron. I am an athlete–I am controlled and powerful. Before I took up football, I used to box. There wasn’t much else to do where we lived, and because Cass and I were so big, we joined the local church’s boxing club. It taught me how to control my strength, my physicality, and my size. There ain’t ever been a need to be physically rough with the girl. Why? What’s she gonna do against me, you know?”

“Anything else?”

“All that other stuff you’d mentioned–BDSM, dom and sub–I don’t have any interest in that. I don’t particularly like inflicting pain, especially not on women. But if you’d like me to spank you or tie you up, I’ll tie you up. Whatever you fancy, Ms. Archeron.”

Elain blushed violently and adorably, as she scrambled to pretend to type something.

“So you do like to be spanked?” he grinned at her. He knew that she was fake typing right now.

She squirmed in her chair, and woke up Piglet, when she poked him with her foot. He snorted his disappointment and then emerged from under the table and immediately looked at Azriel with a pleading gaze. 

“I saved you a sandwich,” Azriel chuckled, tearing a piece of the sandwich and feeding it to the pug. “Coronation chicken, no less.”

Piglet began chomping on the sandwich with delight, finding a kindred spirit in Azriel. 

“I am still waiting for an answer, Ms. Archeron,” Azriel teased. “Spanking? Tying up? Are you a dom? Or do you like to submit? And before you tell me that this is not about you, I’d still like to know.”

“Well, this is not about me,” she hissed.

Azriel cocked his head to the side and looked at her with a humoured look in his eyes, asking,

“Are you a virgin?” 

“For god’s sake, Mr. Night! Why are you asking me this?!” she demanded, scandalised.

“No shame in that,” he said lightly. “If you are, I mean. I am not judging.”

“Well, I am not, Mr. Night. I am a grown woman. And not a virgin. Are you the one who is going to be asking questions now?!”

“Yes, now I am kind of into it. What’s your favourite colour?”

“Pink!” she snapped.

“How about favourite food?”

“Sushi!”

“Cold raw fish–yum. But like I said before, no judgement.”

“Feels like judgement,”

“What else can I ask?”

“Nothing!”

“Do you find me handsome?”

“No!” she cried out.

“No? But I am a handsome footballer, what’s wrong with me?”

“Your gigantic ego.”

“Ego just corresponds to other parts of my anatomy,” he shrugged innocently.

“Oh lord. We are quite finished here, Mr. Night. I think we should get the bill.”

“I think I’d like another whiskey,” he argued.

“Well, you’ll be drinking it alone.”

“Naw…Pink is staying here with me. I am feeding him sandwiches and you know he ain’t going anywhere. Sit that pretty plump arse of yours down, Ms. Archeron. We’ll go soon enough.”

She pouted, but her traitorous dog was only proving Azriel correct, as he slurped his water and chewed on the sandwich that Azriel kept feeding him.

“My arse isn’t plump,” she muttered.

He glanced at her and smiled, “I’ll be the judge of that,” he decided. “Hope the ginger bloke appreciates your arse and worships it the way it deserves to be worshipped. It’s a hella nice coupla buns. Sorry and all…but I noticed,”

“No. More. Whiskey.” Elain ordered, wiping her brow. She was going to lose 10 kilos by the time all of this was going to be over. This man needed to be in some special institution. 

“I know what kind of a wife I want!” he suddenly declared, rubbing his hands excitedly.

“Oh you do, do you? Please tell. I am…well, scared, but also intrigued.”

“I want the kind of girl who kisses me at red lights.”

“That’s actually…kind of romantic,” Elain agreed, surprised. He made no sense this man, but he definitely kept her on her toes.

“Yeah, kind of like she can’t even wait to give me a hot and sloppy one. So she waits until we are at a red light and goes for it.”

Meanwhile, Piglet finished his sandwich and ambled towards the massive wall of windows, looking out with great interest. Because he was wearing his Burberry jacket, and now stood in front of a window overlooking the Gherkin, the Tower of London and the Tower Bridge, charmed tourists and other guests began pointing at him and oohing and ahhing with delight, completely awed by the stylish pug.

“They gonna start taking photos of him.” Azriel whispered to Elain, and she smiled, nodding, while she quickly snapped a pic of her own.

“Going on his Insta?” he joked, while the waiter brought another whiskey. Azriel figured that he might not be leaving here any time soon. He hadn’t felt this relaxed in god knows how long. 

“Obviously!” she tapped something quickly on her phone and in the next minute, showed it to him.

It was an amazing photo, considering that she barely even moved to take it–but Piglet looked like he was floating above the city, his expression pensive, his jacket on point, every landmark below him captured with crisp precision. 

Enjoying London Town #puginthesky #whenpugsfly #puglyfe

“How do you even come up with these so quickly?” he shook his head, but then quickly requested, “send it to me. I want to have it. Also, it’s a gorgeous pic!”

“Thank you.”

Elain reached for her bag and then withdrew a folder, which she lay on the table, between the two of them.

“What’s that?”

“Mr. Night, I wanted to mention this before we go further.”

“Sounds ominous,” he huffed.

“Are you currently…sexually active?”

He cocked his brow at her and chuckled, “what a question, Ms. Archeron! Why? Are you interested?”

She ignored the suggestive quip and said, “It’s just that it would be preferential if you maintain a certain amount of abstinence while being matched. You can certainly decide to engage in sexual relations with the match when the two if you are ready, but I would ask you to treat it as you would a normal relationship…”

“I’ve never been in a relationship,” he sipped his whiskey. “So I am no expert. But I think I can manage it.”

“You truly haven’t been in a relationship?”

“No. Not really.”

“And yet you can abstain?” she confirmed.

“Matchmaker,” he sighed, “I am almost 30, I have some self-control. It’s been a while since I’ve lost control over pussy,”

“Mr. Night!”

“Sorry, sexual relations. Listen, I’ve made a lot of mistakes in my youth. Nothing too terrible, but I should’ve done better. Now I am the Captain, and the younger lads look up at me. I want to do right by them, make sure that their careers don’t blow up, that they are careful with their money and the women that they are with. With us–you can get one injury, and it could be career ending. Everything you’ve been counting on, planning on, expecting, working for a decade towards–poof, gone! All because someone made a bad tackle, or you ran wrong, or a ligament snapped. And you are left with nothing, all the contracts and games and endorsements are gone just like that,” he snapped his fingers. “Everyone thinks they’ll be a Ronaldo, or a Messi, or a Zidane, but that’s untrue for most players. 

“So now, I feel a sense of responsibility. Look at me–I am an old fucker,” he laughed. “But it’s true. So yeah, I can abstain. When we travel, I don’t party all that much. After dinner, I usually go back to the hotel and play Candy Crush. Or read dark romances.”

At that, Elain giggled, “you do not read dark romances!” she argued.

“Yeah I fuckin’ do!” he insisted.

“Such a liar!”

“Telling you,”

“Okay, so what are you reading currently?” 

“Shantel Tessier’s ‘Carnage’,” he reported immediately. 

“What?”

“Yeah, it’s super smutty,” was the verdict.

“You do not read Shantel Tessier!” Elain gawked at him adorably, completely taken aback.

“You’d be incorrect. Listen, I had an injury a couple of years ago and was in rehab for two months. I was bored out of my mind. The nurse who was taking care of me got me hooked up on dark romances. I fuckin’ love that shite!” he admitted excitedly. “You ladies write some bloody crazy shit. Never read anything like that written by a man!”

Azriel glanced in Pinky’s direction and smiled widely. The pug was legitimately posing for photos and creating a mini stampede around him. He was even giving over the shoulder looks, not to mention all sorts of side and front poses, knowing exactly what needed to be done to gain the most reaction. 

“Hey mate, you can photograph him, but don’t touch him,” Azriel said protectively, when some guy wanted to pick the dog up. “He doesn’t like anyone but me and my girl touching him. He bites.”

Maybe the truth was stretched a bit, but whatever. It worked, because the bloke stepped back cautiously and didn’t attempt to touch the dog anymore.

‘I am not your girl,” Elain said quietly, crimping the napkin on her lap.

“No. But you could be. Nothing’s stopping you,” he said simply.

With that, Elain pushed the folder towards him and explained,

“Your first match”.

[my-vanishing-777]

Major book retailers are now stocking a memoir written by a 60-year-old Canadian man who identifies as a 6-year-old girl.

Stefonknee Wolscht claims to be a victim of transphobia despite having threatened to burn his family's house down after "coming out."

put him in men's prison

[darkmaga-retard]

Canadian vaccine providers have been ordered to return their COVID-19 mRNA vaccine stock to the government and destroy any remaining vials of the old batches as a matter of urgency.

According to Health Canada, the old batches of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines must be destroyed “to assist with the implementation of the newest COVID-19 vaccine formulation (KP.2) for the fall.”

However, the unprecedented directive by Heath Canada to urgently return or destroy all existing vaccine stock, including used vials, has left vaccinators in a state of shock. “Why would you get rid of something that is still good?” asked Toronto pharmacist Fady Salama.

Medical professionals investigating the link between the COVID-19 vaccines and excess deaths have urged pharmacists and vaccinators to reject the government directive.

According to investigators, the vaccine vials must not be destroyed under any circumstances. Instead, they must be preserved as evidence.

“There is right now an attempt to cover up and destroy evidence of a very serious crime,” said leading Canadian oncologist Dr. William Makis.

Dr. Makis has urged vaccine providers across the country to refuse the government order to return their vaccine stock and destroy remaining vials of Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

Writing on X, Dr. Makis said: “DO NOT RETURN OR DESTROY any Vaccine vials, they are priceless. Hide them.”

[happyk44]

Look. I know that like. Pluto is not the god of business and that wealth is not equivalent to business but like 1) the meaning of wealth has changed over time and differs among people and I'm pretty sure now when you think of wealth and wealthy people, you think of people who own fortune 500 companies and know what stocks are, and 2) I love the concept of tired businessman Hades/Pluto who just wants to spend a quiet day with his spreadsheets and a pencil, and not have to deal with whatever nonsense is currently being drummed up by his employees

Anyway -- Nico's wealth being generational due to his grandfather (and I want to assume that politics was a family thing so likely also before him) vs Hazel's wealth being hard earned, which, at least in the current age, means business know-how and being able to file a tax report and reconcile a balance sheet sheet and understand excel (I might be slightly projecting here lol)

Hazel being almost an obsessive accountant, monitoring bills, income, every single expense and penny off the street vs Nico who knows the value of things, like antiques, stuff with history. He can do surveys of property, anything that has the potential to be passed on. He's good with valuing a will - splitting assets between family members. Or managing a trust, devising different funds for the future. I think he's probably very good at looking at the long-term. And thus pretty good at noticing when someone is scamming another person with the whole "it'll be cheaper in the long run" thing, or "it'll increase in worth over time".

And since generational wealth is mostly familial, I don't think all of it has to be specific to monetary value either. Emotional wealth, the value something carries emotionally, is also something he can sense. A cheap wedding ring passed down from generation to generation could be more valuable than a standard cut diamond bought today.

Like he could look at old vase on sale at Goodwill for $2 and know it's monetarily cheap, but emotionally it's valued in the thousands. I think it could be kind of cool for things that carry high emotional value and were a part of a family's lineage for generations, if he could touch them and see the history behind it - but that doesn't really fit in with the scope of his current powers or the general theme of the Underworld so :/

They're both good at investments as investing is kind of the core of wealth management and plays a big part in building generational wealth these days, although, I'd gather that Hazel is probably better at it.

Nico, however, is very good at being able to calculate future value of a long-term investment (at least 20+ years).

Hazel can calculate future value of any kind of investment - short term fixed deposits, long and short-term investments, property changes (she absolutely hates house flippers, especially when they change or cover all the older original work, because it cuts the value down so much more than they realize), other stuff that has slipped my mind because my brain is stalling, etc.

Hazel's your go-to for reviewing the split of assets during a divorce. She's extremely meticulous and can track down even the most hidden of accounts. She's also the one you want to talk to about getting the most out of filing your taxes. She will go through every single one of your purchases, no matter how minor, to find a loophole she can work with to shave even only a couple cents off.

(disclaimer: bermuda does not have income tax so i have no idea how filing taxes actually works, other than the two canadian tax classes i took over five years ago as part of my degree)

Hazel can also assess depreciation somewhat automatically. Someone trying to choose between types of equipment can go to her and be like "which one will depreciate in value faster if I do X with it" and she'll look and point and if you ask her why, she can sprout off some nonsense at the top of her head without thinking - like percy with sailing, or my hc about jason/thalia and their inherent diplomatic schmoozing skills.

However, unlike them, she maintains understanding of what she's said when she's exited the environment, either because the power just does that or because Hazel is an amazing busy lady. if you casually said "hey hazel, between X brand and Y brand, which will drop in value faster" she'd have to think about it because it's not really "business" related.

In that sense she's also REALLY good at noticing trends. most of it is subconscious - what brands are becoming more popular, what clothing styles are losing touch. I put this in a previous fic, but she's very receptive gemstone trends. She can tell which stones are moving up in popularity and which are going down. In my headcanon about her business with Walt, this is very useful.

Her ability to notice trends, especially from a monetary standpoint, also helps with her managing stocks, and allows her to invest in high interest but riskier equities with very minimal loss (trends aren't set in stone, you know? Sometimes things happen and everything sudsenly shifts)

Plus back to the whole wealth is conflated with succesful business these days concept, putting Hazel in charge for just a day can boost a business's ability to turn a profit. In just a few hours, she can have all major flaws analyzed.

In New Rome, if someone is opening up a shop or whatever, they'll ask Hazel to review their plans because she can immediately point out all the issues and devise a better way to go about things. A couple times she's just taken them gently by the shoulders and said in the kindest voice ever, "This is going to fail. Do not put money into this." Sometimes it's the business concept, sometimes it's the person behind the concept. They either listen or they don't and if they don't, Frank is there to listen to all her complaints about them going against her advice.

Also - as an U-turn back to the splitting assets in a divorce concept, I'm not sure about pre or post-nuptial agreements. I think pre-nuptials are pretty straightforward in a "this is what im bringing in and want to keep separate from marriage" kind of thing, which Hazel could handle easily. I know in both cases it's important to declare all assets - which again Hazel could easily handle.

Post-nuptials are probably more of Nico's thing because at that point the assets in question have become merged and become familial, and much of generational wealth is in the idea of building wealth to leave behind to your family so they may have a better opportunity to build wealth to leave behind, etc, etc. Especially since post-nuptials, I think, are typically created after children are born, and those are the people who wealth is supposed to be left behind to.

This also kind of plays with my idea that the underworld is inherently familial/communal - as a person cannot bury or perform the proper funeral rites on themselves. Plus the Cocytus is the river of lamentation (aka grief and sorrow) and I imagine some of that comes from the people left behind, crying over their lost loved ones.

Also I think the idea that children of Pluto are resistant/immune to monetary greed. Since Hades was never technically the god of wealth, and was only conflated with him over time (to which, I would imagine some things and behaviours began to pop up, like they'd always existed and then becoming Pluto in the Roman era just solidified that conflation), his kids don't really have this innate resilience, but their dad is also rich and loves them, so their ability to fall prey to it is lower.

Oh! Oh! And Hazel can inflict plutomania on people, which is a word I discovered just now that means "the excessive desire for wealth". I don't know how this would be helpful but idk - social wealth is something I found popping up a lot so maybe if Hazel needs information on something that a person won't give, she can utilize plutomania to inflict a desire for social wealth in the person to get them to spill the information

(Social Wealth is about connection and network, having a sense of belonging and trust essentially. Someone with a lot of social wealth will have a lot of connections versus someone with no social wealth)

(oh yeah in my hasty google search to fact check my understanding of generational wealth when I started this post yesterday, I discovered there are many types of wealth. The number kind of varies from result to result, but essentially the 4 mains ones are: Financial Wealth (obvi), Social Wealth, Time Wealth, and Health Wealth (haha, it rhymes). But anyway yeah. Not sure how it could all loop into her without making her too all powerful but like. Hazel is also super cool and deserves to be godlike in consideration so 🤷‍♂️)

I love that when I started this yesterday it was a lot more clear cut and then I came back to finish it and ended on a ramble 😂 I do not have the energy to go and tidy everything up into something more coherent and uniform so this is what it be 👍

Oh, also, Hazel is amazing at gambling and poker. Nico is also good at poker but that's because he's reading people's souls to figure out their tells. Hazel is good at it because she attracts cash money and therefore always wins. That's why whenever anyone plays poker or places a bet with her, money can't be involved.

[felassan]

Edmonton radio station interview with Alex Kennedy, lawyer for the former BioWare employees who are sueing for better severance: [link]

Description:

"Seven former employees of BioWare are suing the Edmonton-based video game developer for wrongful dismissal. They allege they were let go without cause, and that Bioware and its parent company, Electronic Arts, are not offering them reasonable compensation. We talked to Alex Kennedy, their Edmonton-based lawyer."

Transcript of segment:

Host: "Seven former employees of BioWare are sueing the Edmonton-based video game developer for wrongful dismissal. They allege they were let go without cause, and that BioWare, and its parent company EA, are not offering them reasonable compensation. Alex Kennedy is their Edmonton-based lawyer, and joins us on the line this morning. Good morning Alex."

Alex: "Good morning Mark."

Host: "So how did these seven former employees come to be fired from BioWare?"

Alex: "Well, on around August 23rd of this year, 50 people were let go without cause from BioWare. That was about 20% of their workforce. So these were among the 50 people who were let go."

Host: "So what kind of work would they have done for BioWare?"

Alex: "A wide variety of things. One of the people, I'm allowed to share her identity, is Mary Kirby, who's done a lot of writing for BioWare's sort've, central games, and is the creator of a lot of very popular characters. But we have people who did programming, we have people who did sort've, directing of the games, and all sorts of different, different, functions."

Host: "And were these plaintiffs, were they long-time employees of BioWare?"

Alex: "Oh, yes, yes, one of my plaintiffs, one of my plaintiffs was 23 years at BioWare and he started when he was 20 years old, so, most of his life has been at that job."

Host: "Now when the layoffs came here, was this part of an overall restructuring of EA, or was it specifically at BioWare? What happened there?"

Alex: "Yeah, my understanding is that this has to do with the larger restructuring at EA. It's strange, EA is doing pretty well in terms of its profits. I think, if I've read correctly, that they made $400 million last quarter. But they still wanna remove 6% of their jobs for some reason. I'm not, I don't really understand how those decisions are made, to be honest."

Host: "So what amount of compensation has BioWare offered for letting them go?"

Alex: "Yeah, I can't give the exact numbers because, you know, that was offered in an offer to my clients, but we would suggest that the amount that they gave is probably less than half of the amount they would be truly entitled to in court."

Host: "And so, are we talking about just severance, or are there other things that are involved in compensation that you think should be considered?"

Alex: "Well, the issue, part of the issue in this particular case is that what BioWare offered was just based on the base salary that my clients were receiving. But in Canadian law, generally speaking, it appears to be that people who are removed from their jobs, when they receive severance, when they receive notice, it should include all of the benefits, including things like, even stock vesting [?], or profit-participation [?], that a person was engaged in at the time that they were fired. So in these cases, because that was absent, my clients are winding up not only with less money in terms of the amount of time they should be paid, but also less money in terms of the total amount they should be paid."

Host: "Now are these contract workers that have things spelled out, and so wouldn't the contract sort've indicate how much they would get?"

Alex: "Well, there is a contract in some cases, although not all of my plaintiffs' cases, but there is a contract in some cases, but, it has a term that appears to be illegal, which states, as I said earlier, that any severance will be based on the base salary and will explicitly not include any benefits. It seems to be contrary to Sections 57 and 61 of the Employment Standards Code."

Host: "Can you tell us how much your clients are asking for then, in damages, or, then, I guess, in severance?"

Alex: "Yeah, well, I'm asking, in my clients' case, for about 1.5 months of severance for every year worked in service at BioWare. We're also asking for a one million dollar punitive damages just based on the fact that the contract was illegal and that BioWare, despite the fact that this has been drawn to their attention, is continuing to stand by that being the requirement."

Host: "So, why the punitive damages?"

Alex: "Well, again because, when my clients are paid the small amount that they, that BioWare has essentially decided that they're entitled to, that already does not include their benefits. So my clients are put in a situation where, in order to pursue their legal rights, they have to, you know, live on a small amount of money that's been allowed to them. On top of that there have been a couple of cases where, you know, as we indicate in our Statement of Claim, that BioWare has failed to give proper information to new employers, and also that the requirements that BioWare put on my clients are pretty onerous in terms of preventing them from finding appropriate new work."

Host: "What are we talking about there? Are these NDAs, or are they restrictions on where they can work?"

Alex: "Yeah, they're NDAs. And how that applies in terms of people who've done a lot of creative work can be very difficult. You know, my clients worked on a game for about, say, 3, 4, 5 years, game hasn't been published yet. They're not really in a position to be able to say, 'oh, well I created this and that, and this and that', they can't really speak about it, so they have to say, 'well I worked at BioWare for 5 years, and I can't really say what I did'".

Host: "NDA, by the way, is a non-disclosure agreement, for those who don't know about the acronym. So have there been any special challenges for your clients in trying to get back into the workforce?"

Alex: "Well yes, I mean, my clients, you can imagine, a lot of my clients have been doing this for, as I said, majority of their adult lives. They're not sure if they wanna continue this. They are in Edmonton, where, there's a, you know, it's good that we have such a vibrant software industry, but, you know, it's limited in terms of what they can do. 6000 other people have been let go from the computer games industry this year, so it's hardly a wide-open market at this point in time."

Host: "Now these layoffs came in August. Are you anticipating a long haul here for your clients, or what do you hope the timeline is?"

Alex: "Yeah, I mean, we always hope that a matter will settle. But, in reality, BioWare's stance to date has been that there's simply nothing to negotiate, and 'take us to court', so, you know, obviously I hope that BioWare changes its mind, maybe this is a big misunderstanding or something like that, but, you know, as things stand right now, we have to go through the entire court process, which, as you know, can take quite some time."

Host: "Alex, appreciate you coming on to talk about it today. Thanks very much."

Alex: "Thank you."

Host: "Alex Kennedy is a lawyer representing seven plaintiffs who are sueing BioWare for wrongful dismissal. The allegations made in this lawsuit have not been proven in court. CBC did reach out to BioWare for comment on this lawsuit, but we did not hear back from them by deadline."

[source]

[phayz]

pleeease keep talking about toys...i think this is interesting and smth i've never thought too hard about but it makes sense and i like to hear your opinions on modern toys

(ask pertaining to this post)

holy shit okay !! i would love to ramble on so, i shall!

okay im no expert on toy sales history, this is all just observation from my life experiences and i'll try to keep each part i want to go over relatively short!

that being said lets start with a small one that i've personally noticed as a canadian: Kinder egg toys! i remember when they used to come with like 4-8+ pieces, and you needed the included step by step manual to assemble them. they would often come with sticker sheets to decorate them with, and they would often be articulated or be set on wheels or have some sort of fun or movement or general functionality to them:

dont those look awesome? wrapped in 2 kinds of chocolate, and for only like 2$! i remember they would come in all shapes and sizes, all sorts of animals and vehicles and sometimes freaky little abominations, as you can see above, and sometimes even puzzles! they were such a special treat as a kid.

but kinder eggs now? come with a maximum of like 3 pieces that just snap together (usually the front and back of the toy, and then the platform they stand on). and thats all they mostly are now, stiff toys that stand on platforms wahhooooo yippeee

idk just look at the quality difference from the old ones above compared to some of the new ones:

like..... these are..... nothing! literally nothing. just a figure snapped to a pole/platform and thats it! not very interesting for more than 3 minutes max.

now i know what you're thinking: "not ALL of the old kinder toys had to have been bangers" and you'd be right, some were lame as hell, but even the lame ones from before look more intricate than the ones we have now, like can you see what i mean, just detail-wise?

it just feels so cheap and shitty, i could go on and on but more is explained later. point is, it sucks.

anyway that's a very small example and we can move onto bigger and better ones, and maybe even one that everyone else might have noticed by now; McDonald's toys! remember when they were actually toys?

and not just stiff figurines?

(the minions franchise was like CRACK for companies who love making profit off of nothing but stiff rounded plastic. probably the cheapest form of "toy" i can think of)

and yeah, again, its not like there werent figurines back in the day too, there's ALWAYS been lame as hell mcdonalds toys, but looking among many modern mcdonalds toys, you dont see anything as cool as the old ones. literally every major modern movie/franchise right now is nothing but figurines. the most recent actually interactive mcd's toy ive seen is when they collabed with hasbro games

again, companies just seem to be pumping out quantities over quality.

but why?

well, for starters toys are becoming cheaper (both in price and quality) because prices have sky rocketed and stores are forced to only stock cheaper things, therefore the cheap things sell the most, and then more of them get made, and statistics get fucked, etc etc the cycle repeats.

but toy companies know one thing, and that's that things that are "cuter" always sell more. "cuter" being used with vitriol because their idea of 'cute' is 'more glitter and sparkles and rainbow colours and obnoxiousness' oh, and dont forget the huge soulless bug eyes on all of them!

i know that people love these things, but theyre so..... uncanny. their stare is piercing, their stance is so stiff, i always felt bad actually playing with the only one of these i had growing up, and not just because it freaked me out, it just genuinely didnt feel good to play with.

and i knoowwwww people are obsessed with these things, but come on, you have to admit theyre SO unoriginal! theyre just cookie cutter shapes!

these things are horrifying and, at best, belong on a shelf.

these "beany boos" are so woobified and almost feel like a flanderized version of a stuffed animal, and they've completely taken over "beanie babies", which were wonderful soft little things that actually had movement and weren't stiff to cuddle! I also feel like they're almost trying to copy what webkinz was, in a way, as some of those were stiff too (but still loveable and not burdened with an uncanny, vacant stare)

anyway this is getting insanely long and im sorry but i feel like im going insane every time i see new toys nowadays. the like.... "cuteification" of everything is driving me insane, and the fact that they are simply just lower quality than what we used to get, because of prices rising and causing easy-to-make things to become more and more popular.

examples to further prove these points:

extreme woobifying or "cuteification" by almost completely removing all horse anatomy in favour of thin limbs, heavy makeup eyes that are now on the front of her face, and modern influencer eyebrows. on a horse.

and the extreme-simplifying of toys can be seen quite well on those mini polly pocket sets!! see this one here?

almost allllll of those little plastic things could be rotated or rearranged or moved or fucked with in some manner, it was awesome. i loved these miniature houses they always came with so much shit. wanna guess what the newer ones look like?

you guessed it, like shit!!

man even beyblades used to come with like, all sorts of different pieces both metal and plastic alike, and you had to assemble them yourself and you could interchange pieces to obtain a different weight which would affect your attacks against other beyblades, etc etc:

and looking at them now? they seem to be mostly made of- yep, you guessed it, hard cheap plastic.

anyway holy shit i literally reached the 30 image limit on a single post tumblr really said thats ENOUGH !! i cant believe i just spent that long talking about the worlds most pointless thing but at any rate i hope you enjoyed it and i hope you see my vision. because like i said im not insanely knowledgeable on any of this in particular, but its hard not to notice the decline in quality of all of todays modern toys.

[notabeanie]

You know. There are a lot of things you could say about the original scott pilgrim comics, and I find myself profoundly uninterested in saying most of those things. But there is one thing I will say and that is that for all the whatever you wanna say about it I still find the way Brian Lee O'Malley writes women pretty compelling and I think it genuinely changed my life for the better.

Like ok this doesn't mean that much in 2023 because the world is different now. But like imagine it's 2008 and you're 15 years old and you still think you're a girl because you won't figure out that you can be trans for like another decade and a half and up to this point your entire context for gender roles has been the cast of fucking Friends, and someone has given these comics to your brother who is Not A Reader in a desperate bid to get him to Read Something and he remains Not A Reader but you are a voracious little bottomless pit for words and for neat pictures and so you're like ok maybe this mine now.

And you open it up and here are all these girls that are WEIRD. Girls with spiky hair and punky boots. Girls who wear tracksuits almost exclusively. Girls who are surly and don't care if you like them. Girls who have ex girlfriends. Girls who disconsent to sex. This seems normal now, but in 2008??? This was RADICAL.

And not only are there all these weird girls, but the weird girls are DESIRABLE. They're the dream girl. They're the competing love interests. They have exes who are billionaires and movie stars. The main character is melting into a puddle of pathetic goo left and right for all these women who are so decidedly not traditionally feminine. Like these are not Zooey Deschanel "look I have big eyes and brown hair haha aren't I quirky" women these are "we defy the bounds of traditional womanhood and we don't care what you think about it but we will still kick your ass" women.

And like do you know what that can do to to the psyche of a 15 year old whose main gender role model up to this point had been the Totally fucking Spies?? Huge. Enormous. The blasted landscape of gender is unrecognizable as any semblance of what it once was.

Not to mention that thanks to BLOM's art style, people of all genders are drawn basically androgynous and squarish. Sure there's a little tiddy but nobody is stick thin or hourglass curvy or with huge breasts busting out of blouses. It's not exactly body diversity sure, but these are normal ass looking women with completely rectangular legs and they still get to be sexy and wear leather and lingerie and fishnet stockings and be rockstars and dream girls and that was really fucking cool, to me, in 2008.

When I was a senior in high school I got a pair of big fuckin boots and some tights. In first year university I cut my hair like Ramona Flowers' with safety scissors in my dorm room in Toronto. I clomped down Bloor Street past the old Honest Eds and all these hyper local references directly from the books (it was Canadian! Nothing was ever Canadian!) and it felt like I could do this. This was a kind of girl I could be. Scott Pilgrim had opened up whole new vistas for gender expression that I had not previously even known were possible.

Like maybe there was a little roughness around the edges. But there was goodness there. It did good. It helped. It changed me. For a new generation who are looking at those books and can't imagine why they meant so much to someone I just wanted to explain.

[pxmun]

Here's my HO layout again.

I moved it to a different location in my room.

Still need to get the connector cables.

All of my stock is in this pic

1x Bachmann Gordon

1x Bachmann TTTE Rolling Stock coach

1x Unknown old oil tanker (From the antique shop)

1x AHM Cab Forward

1x Athann Great Northern coach

1x Athann Canadian National coach

Gordon will be the testing engine for this track because if something does go wrong it's likely easier to replace a Bachmann Gordon then an HO Cab Forward, sorry Gord 😢

If everything runs well, I'll run a test with Gordon and the Bachmann coach and if that goes well I'll give the Cab Forward a test run.

As for layout bit by bit I am hoping to have the first layout look like my state's state fair.

[handeaux]

Why Did Cincinnati Abandon Cricket To Become America’s First Baseball Powerhouse?

You can blame the Civil War for Cincinnati becoming the home of professional baseball. Well into the 1860s, this was a cricket town with “town ball” and “base ball” taking a distant second place to bowlers and wickets.

The curious researcher can still find references to Cincinnati’s early cricketeers today, but most often as footnotes to the history of baseball. However, it is not too much of a stretch to say that baseball would not have prevailed in Cincinnati without the boost it received from the old-time cricket clubs.

Cincinnati’s cricket clubs were formidable opponents, hosting international matches with Canadian teams and participating in home-and-away rivalries with cricket clubs in Chicago, Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Cincinnati cricketeers were professionals long before the nascent Red Stockings decided to pay their players.

Cricket was most definitely an Englishman’s game and Cincinnati before the Civil War was largely a city of English origins. The Cincinnati Gazette [6 October 1853] summed up the popularity of the “manly old game”:

“Cricket matches are now quite in fashion. We see notice of them in numerous exchanges, East, North and West. Wherever Englishmen are found, there a Cricket Club is found with them.”

Although Cincinnati newspapers carried stories about out-of-town cricket matches as early as the 1820s, local cricketeers didn’t get organized until the 1840s. The Queen City Cricket Club convened in 1843 every Thursday at 2:00 p.m. at “Wade’s Woods” northwest of the intersection of Liberty Street and Central Avenue. By 1845, the Western Cricket Club offered some stiff competition to the Queen City club and the two teams battled it out on grounds located “at the foot of Eighth Street” in the Millcreek bottoms near the Whitewater Canal. It appears that the players were solidly middle-class – salesmen, plumbers, carpenters and shopkeepers – the sorts of folks who could spare a weekly afternoon to indulge in outdoor recreation.

By 1850 the Union Cricket Club, apparently a merger of the Queen City and Western clubs, was the dominant local team. Cricket grounds were hard to come by and the Union Club played variously at the Orphan Asylum lot where Music Hall now stands, on a wood-ringed field off Madison Road in East Walnut Hills, near the canal in Camp Washington and at the back of what later became known as Lincoln Park, location of Union Terminal today. From time to time, reports indicate that adherents of “town ball” or “base ball” also made use of the Union Cricket grounds, but only on days when the cricketeers were otherwise occupied.

Among the Cincinnati cricket stalwarts back in the day was Jonathan Hattersley, born in Sheffield, England, in 1835. Hattersley emigrated to the United States as a young man, arriving in New Orleans and working his way up the rivers to Cincinnati. After a failed start as manager of a weaving operation, he set himself up as the sales agent for a number of British steel refineries. He later joined the firm of Thomas Turner, manufacturer of cutting and slicing equipment. Hattersley married the owner’s daughter, bought out his father-in-law, and set up a saw manufactory with his son, Harry. Before the Cincinnati Fire Department went professional in 1853, Hattersley battled blazes with the Franklins, one of the amateur companies active in the city. He was among the founders of the Western Cricket Club and later became president of the mighty Union Cricket Club. His office in the saw blade factory on Third Street served essentially as the club’s headquarters.

The Union Cricket Club dominated Cincinnati cricket from the 1840s into the 1870s. Its bench was so deep that the club supported two teams – the stars and a farm team both under one roof. While the “first eleven” participated in matches from Chicago to the East Coast, the “second eleven” kept the hometown fans occupied by playing clubs from Northern Kentucky, Lawrenceburg and some smaller Ohio towns. The Union Club even challenged a championship English club then touring the states but couldn’t reconcile schedules. About half the Union Cricket Club players were paid professionals.

It was Jonathan Hattersley who recruited George and Harry Wright to Cincinnati from New York’s stellar St. George Cricket Club. Although the Wright brothers carried the original Cincinnati Red Stockings to baseball glory, they arrived in the Queen City as professional cricket players. Harry Wright was also from Sheffield, born the same year as Jonathan Hattersley. One may assume they had met in childhood. In an interview with the Enquirer [20 August 1875], Harry, by then manager of the Boston Red Stockings, recounted his arrival in Cincinnati:

“I was under contract, and was offered very fine inducements to leave New York. When I arrived in Cincinnati cricket was all the rage, but it finally subsided, and from the club I managed the old Red Stockings of that city was organized. I would like to say in this connection that the uniform I used as the cricketer was adopted by the Base-Ball Club.”

Wright glosses over what specific factors caused the “rage” for cricket to “subside,” but baseball scholars generally point to the Civil War, which brought young men from all over the United States together and gave them a great deal of free time when they weren’t busy shooting each other. Simon Worrall, writing in Smithsonian Magazine [October 2006] describes the wartime conditions that promoted baseball over cricket:

“A year before the Civil War broke out, “Beadle's Dime Base-Ball Player,” published in New York City, sold 50,000 copies in the United States. Soldiers from both sides of the conflict carried it, and both North and South embraced the new game. It was faster than cricket, easier to learn and required little in the way of equipment: just a bat (simpler to make than a cricket bat, which requires sophisticated joinery), a ball and four gunnysacks thrown on a patch of ground, and you're ready to play.”

By the time the war ended, Cincinnati seethed with baseball fever. Even Jonathan Hatterley’s son, Harry, took up baseball, catching for the junior-league Pickwicks in Cincinnati. A group of young executives – many of them Civil War veterans – organized the Cincinnati Base Ball Club on 23 July 1866 and quickly allied with the Union Cricket Club, who already had very nice facilities ready for play. According to Harry Ellard’s 1907 “Baseball in Cincinnati”:

“In 1867 the club moved to the grounds of the Union Cricket Club, with which was made a quasi alliance. These grounds were situated at the foot of Richmond Street. They were used in the summer for cricket and baseball and in winter were flooded and used for skating purposes, where great enthusiasm was manifested in this winter sport, with a series of interesting carnivals.”

Harry Wright and his brother George were convinced to give up cricket to lead America’s first professional baseball team. The rest, as they say, is history. Still, Harry, George and the rest of their team did not totally abandon cricket. It is not often reported that the Cincinnati Red Stockings, during their undefeated inaugural season, actually played a cricket match. In San Francisco, on 28 September 1869, the Cincinnati baseball team engaged the “All California Eleven.” According to Ellard:

“For the sake of variety and amusement they played a game of cricket with the California eleven, in which they showed that they could play cricket as well as baseball.”

The former cricketeers now known as the Cincinnati Red Stockings prevailed 118 to 79.

[desertdollranch]

It’s 1884 in the town of Tombstone, in Arizona Territory. This Wild West town is a popular place for adventurous Americans to strike it rich. The promise of wealth in the silver mines has made Tombstone home to people from all over the world, including many Chinese-American workers, and occasionally their families. 

Ten-year-old Pauline Leung is one of many of Tombstone’s children growing up in a multi-ethnic family. Her Chinese father was determined to find his fortune in the mines. Pauline and her French-Canadian mother do domestic work in the home of a wealthy mine owner. 

On a bright January afternoon, Pauline is on her way home from the post office, having gone to pick up the mail for the household. There were no letters to pick up, and she has been ordered to come straight home. But she does have a big imagination, and sometimes forgets to stay focused on a task when her daydreams begin to run wild. 

At the post office, Pauline overheard two people talking about a house that was destroyed by a fire a few years, and was now rumored to be haunted. Pauline couldn’t help listening. She loves ghost stories, and how exciting to think of having a ghost encounter of her own! She decides to take the long way home from the post office, and walk by the ruined house. 

It isn’t quite as exciting as she had imagined. Only the roof collapsed, but most of the rest of it is still standing. Strangely, though, the house doesn’t seem to have any windows or doors, so Pauline can’t go inside like she had hoped to.

But she spots a pile of brightly-colored things against one of the exterior walls. 

She takes a closer look, and finds a very special piece of treasure. It’s a brand-new porcelain doll!

Pauline has never had a real doll before. When she was much younger she had a doll made out of a stocking stuffed with cattail fluff, but it wasn’t nearly as beautiful as the doll she was holding in her hands. This doll has golden curls, blue eyes, and a white nightgown.

Certainly there’s no harm done if she takes the doll with her, right? Nobody lives at that house anyway, and whoever lived there previously clearly didn’t want the doll, or else they would not have left it there. Pauline hopes the doll is at least a little bit haunted, so that she may have the chance to befriend a little ghost. She tucks the doll safely into her dress pocket and hurries back to the house.