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namjoonchronicles · 4 years

Text

rough | sj

↳ pairing seokjin x you

↳ genre domestic, fluff, slice of life, heir!seokjin, husband!seokjin, established relationship

↳ words 2.7k

↳ summary again seokjin’s conglomerate family comes in between your marriage, but this time, seokjin will not stay silent

↳ song lauv ‘love like that’

↳ author’s note the 7-day writing challenge continues with seokjin! <3

Blanket rustling. A hand clamored on the vibrating alarm. A silhouette of a broad shoulder of a man sat awake on the edge of the bed, clicking his neck right and left. Seokjin rubs the back of his neck. He slid the indoor slippers on, walked wobbly around the king-sized bed, leaving the striped curtain down for his wife to sleep longer. Hand on the knob to the bathroom, he splashes water on his face. With the tips of his hair wet, he brushed his teeth. The morning always begins the same way from Seokjin. He is up by 6am, he does all his morning necessities, plants a kiss on the wife’s cheek and checks out the daughter in the next room. Once he has gotten a good look and the situation is unalarming, he proceeds to the kitchen. He looked at a post-it note placed on the fridge door, and today, his wife wanted to take kimchi fried rice with egg to the office for lunch.

Easy. I can do that. He thought.

Lily, his 7 years old daughter is still asleep. Overnight yoghurt is ready for her. For his wife, she would have something warm. So he took out a bowl and poured a cup of oats inside, meanwhile the coffee was brewing as it was set to start brewing at about 6:15am in the morning, everyday. Coffee is the most important beverage to start the day. Without it, civilization might not even exist. Seokjin thought as his lips embraced the warm hug of the energizing liquid, downing a sip, cascading down his parched throat. He let out a satisfied sigh. The curtain in the living room is drawn open even before the sun is up. The cold air of the morning had fogged the glass window but with a click of a button, it cleared. Seokjin begin fluffing the cushion on the sofa, fix the runner on the coffee table and cleared the kitchen counter ready for breakfast. It’s almost 6.45am. You’ll be up and you would wake Lily right after. But before that, you will steal his coffee mug.

“Morning to you too,” he monotonously said while you grab his mug from his hand.

“I hate Mondays…” You grumbled.

“But today is Tuesday…” he corrected you, glancing at the digital calendar on the fridge.

“A second monday is no different,” You placed the mug down, and leaned on his arm.

“What time did you sleep last night?” he asked, shaking his arm sporadically to keep you awake because it seemed that you snoozed on them.

“Late, late…” you muttered.

Because of that, Seokjin offered to wake Lily this time around. But only today. Lily is draped over her father’s able body as he walks around, getting the laundries to run so he could dry them on time before the noon drama begins. You are in the shower, still whining about having to leave for work, trashing and sighing and whatever adults do when they have to work to get the bills paid. Sitting in your bathrobe, Seokjin had your oatmeal ready. Lily is on his lap while he fed her overnight yoghurt. She has school this morning, online classes. Lily always had a soft spot for her dad. Technically, he’s mom. He’s the one at home while the mom works. He teaches vocal lessons online after the virus decided to return to the community. He doesn’t really prefer online classes, literally no one does. It’s just not the same. You on the other hand, would have preferred working at home instead. If only you could bring those machines home. The vaccine development is in its pilot state, and there are so many things to be done. Your present is required in all the meetings.

Yesterday, you were up late to decipher the most recent problem your team encountered. The DNAs are denatured when it is transferred into the carrier and no matter how much you argued, (how impossible it was to happen) since there was no presence of heat at all to have caused the denature, it happened anyways.

“Phones off the table please, mummy…” Seokjin warned.

Typing frantically a few more sentences, your phone is taken away by your husband and set on the side table, mere an arm length away. Lily watches in silence and while you wretched in silent agony.

“What’s happened?” Seokjin asked. Telling him everything, explaining it in simple words. Your animated way of telling stories comes in beneficial today, even Lily is engaged. Then the shoulders dropped. The tone mellows and your lips begin to mumble when you hit the no-answer part of the story, the part where it leaves you stuck.

“And I don’t know what to do to fix that particular mishap…”

Seokjin pursed his lips. That’s when Lily reached her little arms out to you.

“It’s okay, mummy. You’ll find a way to do it today…” She even pats your knuckle while at it. You switched your palm upward and held her hand. Seokjin smiled proudly at her, and kissed her hard on the head. You both shared a look across the kitchen counter, and you know you both are thinking of the same thing; Lily surely is an angel. She may be 7, but she doesn’t know just how much that meant to you. You will walk the headquarters today, a lot more confident than you did yesterday, and when you are confident, you are able to look through windows that are otherwise shut. That reminds you of Seokjin truly. He just always had so much faith in you that even if you don’t have it in you, you would think you do just because he believed so.

He hands you your lunch by the door. A hug for a minute every day, therapists say, would be good for the mind, body and soul. Sometimes it drags longer than that, depending on the severity of the situation. But he smells like bed and toothpaste in the morning, with his little bed hair that you wouldn’t mind doing it for an hour. Lily leans down for a kiss on the cheek and she hands you a facemask before you leave while Seokjin hands you the car key. Usually he would drive you to work and fetch you home but since both of his classes and Lily’s are online, there’s no need to go back and forth, exposing themselves to the virus even more while being out. You would like it better if they never had to leave home. Lily waves you goodbye from the door and Seokjin watches you leave with a smile stuck on his face. And you looked back thinking, the year may have taken a number of things, but they’ve also strengthened the little family you have.

Walking in with a comfortable glide by the lounge of the already bustling office, wait… Bustling? Everyone rushed in and out pushing carts of files and trays. Even the decors are being moved about. What is going on? You tilted your head to one side and looked for a familiar face. But seeing no one you know, you opened the door to your office and dialled Yoongi, your trustee alliance in the building. He answered with a cocky huff, “You don’t know? The investors are coming in today!” Yoongi can be all kinds of things, but lying isn’t one. It was not impossible for investors to come in without a proper walkthrough towards the manufacture of the vaccine but, isn’t this way too early?

“I think they’re antsy, the economy is at its lowest this time of day and they want profit… Capitalists,” Yoongi swings in with his coffee mug.

“I thought this would be on Friday, I would have had everything ready on Friday,” you fussed, shifting papers and files, frantically typing on last modifications on the presentation you had prepared.

“That, you could blame your rookie assistant, the new boy, what’s his name,” Yoongi clicked his tongue, proceeds to think hard.

“Yeonjun?” “Yes, Yeonjun. He got the time zone all wrong…”

You shut your eyes in agony. Noticing your silence, Yoongi took a seat in front of, swivel in the chair in the behaviour of an heir to a convenient store chain, before stopping dead in front of you, voice deeper than the sea.

“Mrs. Kim,” he said, “Aren’t you afraid? “Of what?” “The investors that are coming are Astra Pharmaceutics…” “So?” “They’re linked to your in-laws medical centres… before your marriage with Kim Seokjin.”

Astra Pharma. It is a joint company orchestrated by your father-in-law, their first ever attempt to venture into the medical line. How could you forget the name of the company? Astra Pharma is owned by a powerful chaebol Kim clan, one of which Seokjin grew up with. They have a daughter that they wanted Seokjin to marry with. That was 10 years ago, which means that that daughter is going to pioneer the company now, and her name is Kim Yoojin. Every year she sends a bouquet of flowers to Seokjin’s family restaurant on New Year's. She never missed any stores that Seokjin family opens.

Yoongi searched her name on Naver for you. She is standing on the patio, giving out speeches. It most certainly didn’t help that she is elegant, stunning and charismatic. Even as she walked into the meeting room right now, with her entourage. She really wants to talk business. And you know nothing about that. Your defenses are science, your core is pharmaceutical and your strength is knowledge. If she begins a financial jargon with you, you will be making a fool out of yourself. Somehow, knowing that she is the preferred daughter-in-law, makes it even worse.

No room for mistakes.

Dial tone, and again, unanswered.

“Where could mummy be…” Seokjin hums. “A meeting probably…” Lily replied.

Seokjin gapes his mouth open to have his daughter feed him a biscuit. Lily, being a little rascal refuses to give up her biscuits.

“That’s right, that’s how I raised you, don’t share unless you get something too,” Seokjin joked around. Seokjin might have left the stove running when he answered a call from his mother. Lily was drawing on the dining table, waiting for her next online class. She is to take pictures of her drawings and send them to her teacher. Seokjin returns to the kitchen, placing the phone sandwiched between his shoulder and ear.

“Son,” she began, “Why don’t you take your wife to a resort this weekend so Lily could spend the weekend with her grandparents here in Hannam… wouldn’t that be nice?”

Seokjin squeezed his eyes, and set down that spatula.

“Mom….” he warned, “Is there something else you would like to tell me?”

After hearing what his mother had to say, Seokjin rushed out the door along with Lily, driving down the white Palisade to Hannam mansion where his mother was waiting outside. Seokjin drops Lily and rushes inside the mansion to grab a few more things. But before he leaves, he locks his eyes on his mother and says with utmost firmness, “You and I will have to talk after I get this settled.” His mother gave him a stricken smile while Lily smiled wickedly at her father. Blue Lamborghini, Aventador S engine roars as it sped out the garage door. Seokjin pulls down the window to speak to his daughter, “Behave, or else…” Lily gave out an ‘OK’ sign with her fingers.

The luxurious car then sped out into the street.

There weren’t any mistakes. Any investors coming would have been persuaded by the way you carry the presentation. The marketing strategy and pilot scale up plans are concise and rectified. The points are delivered extensively and with proper explanation. However, when you were prepared for scientific questions and whatnot, you come to realise that the CEO of Astra Pharma was interested in anything but science.

“How is Kim Seokjin?”

Everyone else in the room was taken aback by the strangely intimate question posed on a vaccine presentation. It was out of line and obviously, out of place. Even as a person as wealthy as her. Not only was it a deliberate display of her unprofessionalism, she was also bringing down her company’s image. It’s like she is ready to overturn the hard work her parents put into raising her, for a man who is married to someone else.

“He is… perfectly well, though I am not sure what’s that has got to do with our topic of discussion for today…”

You mumbled the last few words to yourself. What is she doing? What is she thinking of doing? Steal Seokjin back? If that’s her intention, then it's the worst strategy she could ever come up with. Not only would it fail her immensely, Seokjin will literally drag her and her family’s face down in the dirt for even trying to tear his family apart. You know him enough to know that he would fight the world for his wife and kids. Hence, that’s why you couldn’t understand Yoojin’s motive to bring this all up, ten years after. Is she trying to embarrass you? In the middle of a presentation filled by scientists who care nothing about the personal lives of one of their own? She is only making a fool out of herself, despite her money.

“You must have been so confused… as to why I brought up your husband in this…” she stood up in her Swarovski studded heels. She made her way to you around the table, enticing everyone in the room with her walk and her words.

“No, I am confused as to why a company like yours is interested in investing in the same exact study your own university is working on. It’s like buying the exact same cows doing the exact same thing, producing the exact type of product with twice the price,” you tracted.

“I guess that’s why he liked you,” she looks down to the floor and up the ceiling with a cunning smile, “You’re a sheep in the pack of wolves.” She locked her hyena-like eyes to you. The hair in the back of your neck stood up. You have no idea what she meant by that.

“I am investing for you to stop. Your formula is bound to fail anyways. So before the company suffers any more losses due to your incompetence, I suggest you halt all activity and let the high rollers play the game. This field is not for amateurs.”

“I think you might have forgotten that I am a scientist, not a businesswomen. Your concern is not mine to worry. My job is to get to my vaccines and make sure it works, and that’s what I’m paid to do. Whether or not you invested, is none of my concerns.”

You collected your things on the desk. And she smiled wickedly,

“Well then, you leave me no choice, I will have to sue you for forging the templates my company has patented…” “How do you sue me for fraud if I don’t do any forging?”

“You’re surely a meek girl… Seokjin will have to cushion the blow with an expensive legal fee now don’t he?”

Was there a mole in the company? Yoongi walks in. Along with Seokjin.

“Tell them what you did,” Seokjin said, and then, “Tell them what you did!” He thundered.

Yoongi confessed to stealing the documents and making it seem like it was forged. He also sent the emails and had them edited so the dates were wrong. He was paid handsomely by Astra Pharma to send all updates on the formula which then led the pharma company to imitate the make-ups protein-by-protein. He used the friendship he had established with you to gain all access to your files. He also confessed that he refused to continue doing it and when he decided to pull the plugs from Astra Pharma, Astra Pharma threatened him. He had no choice but to abide to the play Yoojin wanted orchestrated. When it was clear what Yoojin actually wanted (to spill dirt on your name so she could feel above you for once in her life after she lost Seokjin), Yoongi decided to come clean. He came to Seokjin’s mother and begged for forgiveness, because it was through her that he had gotten a job in your pharma company.

. . .

Seokjin leans on his blue lamborghini, waiting for you to come outside. He has his Raybans on and a black bomber jacket over a white tee.

“Are you mad at my family?” “Won’t you be?”

The car door lifts up and you climb in.

“You should have just married her and this all could have been avoided.” “Where’s the fun in that?”

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casmoments · 4 years

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Marriage of Convenience; part 7

Prompt: “Arranged Marriage” - Certain factions of heaven are on your tail, the consequence of your death a trigger to greater destruction. In order to protect your life and others, you agree to an old custom that prevents any heavenly agent from harming you. The basic ritual? You have to marry an angel. Final part in the series. Reader Gender: female Word Count: 5640 Warnings: technically reader death but only the aftermath, not the process (cause/time of death is ambiguous). flashbacks to when the reader was first captured by angels, though. some true form!castiel as well.

part one ; part two ; part three ; part four ; part five ; part six

“Oh my god,” you say, mere moments after dying—sitting in heaven and you already blaspheme. Something like fondness curls in the film of his being, slithering down every wisping stem of his essence. The sensation tickles the underside of two faces, a curl of a smile on one head.

“No,” he says, the sound on the tips of his wings as he brushes them over you, “just me.”

You’re very small next to him. A human soul is no bigger than the human that was, but yours is blown wide, augmented by his grace. It has melded into your being like something that always belonged there. Your soul is thus small and not miniscule in comparison. If he was human and you a subject, you’d look like a doll in his hand.

But neither of you are either thing. He’s chaos and light and sound, rendered to something tangible in this odd dimension, with three heads and two arms and two legs, and blinking eyes running the length of every limb. Two vast wings stretch behind him, greater versions of what he showed you long ago on earth. The winding blue flames which circled ivory wings now cover the expanse of his back. It licks around him and sometimes looks more like water than fire, and you might swear it reflects starlight like quiet waters under open sky.

You are warmth and sound, golden and soft next to his whirling blue fire and white light. You best resemble a single flame, yellow and flickering, but your own being slowly bleeds through, even in this divine place. Your soul begins to manifest to a human face.

You’re perched before him in a garden which revolves underfoot. You sit on a branch—it’s the only thing that sits still.

“Oh, Castiel,” you say, “there is nothing just about you.”

Golden colours slip around you like a translucent gown as your body takes shape where you sit. You tip your head and look at him quizzically, glowing gold eyes roaming his form. You look directly at his middle head. “Is there a face under there?”

“No,” he replies, that same fondness slipping through him. “That is my face.”

“Oh.”

His middle face appears to have a veil draped over it, a vague shape of a human head beneath it. Of course, there is no beneath or atop, that is simply his entire face. On its left sits the face of a bird. It’s no specific bird as it seemingly changes at every angle. On the right sits the head of some wild cat, something like a panther with thicker and coarser hair, though coloured brightly as the rest of him, and likely softer than it looks. Other than the endless eyes, his arms and legs extend as a human’s might, albeit connected to a much bigger and stronger body shape. It must be to support those wings.

“Do I please you?” he asks. He moves onto one knee in genuflection, and even though you sit at a very high vantage, it only just puts you at eye level.

Your body has taken its full shape now, its outward age the same as the day you married. The translucent gold sheet still wraps around you and the iris of your eyes remain gold in colour. Other than that, you are familiar where he knows he is not.

But you smile and lean forward, looking him over.

“Yes,” you say, “very much.”

He lifts a hand to where you sit, placing it against the tree and not you. It’s a timid offering for you to touch him if you like. Considering he could easily crush something your size in one hand, he knows better than to suddenly grab at you like a plaything. He won’t hurt you, but it could startle you.

You stare at his fingers for a moment. His hands are somewhat human-shaped, and the eyes running down his arm end at his wrist, but something fiery seems to run over his knuckles, and his nails are more claw-like than any human. For a moment, you just stare, then tentatively reach out and lay your whole palm against him. When you make contact, wires of gold shoot up beneath your hand, running along his form like veins. You snatch your hand back with a yelp, looking at him in concern.

“It is all right,” he says, inching his hand closer. “That is how we are.”

He sees your understanding. As his grace fills you, so does your soul fill him, bound from the celestial consummation which marked you as husband and wife.

The golden threads fade and you place your hand to him again. There is a faint pulse where they show again, but it disappears even as your hand remains. You smile, running your hand back and forth.

“You sound different here,” you say, looking up at him. “But it’s pretty.”

Pretty is probably an understatement. He shifts so he kneels completely before your tree, each head fixated on you.

“This is how Enochian should sound,” he says. You look bemused again.

“Are you speaking Enochian? It just sounds like—” You don’t continue; you can’t continue. Sound is just sound, as redundant as that thought is. You shrug. “Am I speaking Enochian?”

“No. You can if you wish.”

“That’s good to know. I guess.” You are not capable of blushing here. There is no blood in your body-like form to alter it. But he wraps his second hand beneath the branch you sit on, and there is open affection in his many gazes.

“Your cheeks pinken often,” he says. You touch your face as if a blush sits there.

“What? No, they don’t!” You smile before the protest ends. “Yes, they do,” you confess. You’re thoughtful for a moment, looking away. You look at him when you speak again. “You told me I would be scared of your true form.”

“I thought it might frighten,” he says. “I am pleased it does not.”

“Me too,” you say with a warm smile. “But I don’t think I could ever be scared of you.”

“I thought you were,” he says, one of his head ducking in shame, “once.”

“What?” You have never heard this story and you look at him confusedly. There are traces of amusement on your face, however, as you see him recoiling with embarrassment. Angels should not feel embarrassment—but then, they should not feel many things he does. “What do you mean you thought I was scared of you? When?”

“In the beginning.”

“Tell me.”

He does.

He remembers the warehouse where he first found you. Until that night, he had not even realized a new prophet existed. A gang of corrupted seraphim must have activated one, their dark purpose immediately clear as Castiel followed their trail.

Though he never received a clear explanation of how he came upon their trail at all. They had quieted your prayers, preventing you from reaching anyone no matter your efforts. But a whisper somehow reached him, transferred across cosmic wavelengths without explanation, planted right in his head so he might find you.

Castiel set on the mission by himself. He would not burden the Winchesters with an endeavour beyond them. They were already crippled by an obvious misery, memories of past failures. Castiel felt much of that, feeling it beneath the skin of his vessel as it bled into his very being. Responsibility, disappointment, heartbreak, and a terrifying despair if he failed that day.

Such unending chaos, unending hurt.

Only two angels held you in captivity, awaiting a summons from their superiors. Castiel easily vanquished one but released the second, not wishing for more bloodshed. The angel taunted him for his sentimentalities, but even then Castiel ignored him. Only when he saw how you had been treated did he reel. When the angel came at him again, he finished the mutilated shadow of divinity. He mentally recited but one lament, that for the human vessels not spared.

Then he was at your side, helping you from your frightened position. You had curled in on yourself, protecting your body from further injury. The damage done looked worse than it was, though the shock of it all had broken you. Castiel touched you very carefully, even then you cried out in protest and tried to break from his arms.

“I won’t hurt you,” he promised, though his gruff voice may have startled you. He slid his hands past your protesting fists and cupped your cheeks, allowing a remedy to spread through your body.

Your panic settled, bliss falling with the physical relief. When he touched his hand to your mouth, healing the sensitive injuries more directly, you groaned into his palm—a very pleased moan that rumbled down an unfamiliar nerve.

“Is that better?” he asked when it was completed.

You slumped against him, all but collapsing in his arms. He remained on his knees, your body slanted against his, but he looked down when you looked up.

“Thank you,” you said, spoken with such sincerity. He felt a thrum of something like affection. You had placed unabashed trust in his presence. It felt good to feel the embrace of someone who thought him unremittingly pure of character, a protector as he should have been. He had failed in many regards but your gaze perceived someone who had not.

But it did not last.

Time saw these sentiments flitter away. And for the best. It was wrong of him to indulge in good feelings for the sake of their simplicity. Nor did he deserve it, anyway.

Castiel observed your nature in the bunker, your demure character giving way to someone more boisterous once you were comfortable. But you were never comfortable around him. While you welcomed Sam and Dean into your circle, Castiel read your distance as fear. A wall stood between you and him so he remained dutifully behind it, even if a bitter and jealous sting affected him. He had found you and helped you, had been the first to hold you, but it was others who reaped the benefit. But he quickly quelled those thoughts; you were an individual and deserved greater respect than such crude thinking. It was not his place to gain anything.

And, truly, it pleased him to see you so happy. To see the Winchesters so happy.

He recalled a particular visit to the bunker, early in your stay. He materialized in the library but found it empty. There was a scuffle echoing down the corridor, laughter and shouting and iron clattering. Curious, Castiel ventured forth. He followed the sounds to the kitchen where he stopped in the doorway. His eyebrows lifted as he looked on in surprise.

The room was completely upside down. Pots and pans were littered across the floor while dishcloths were suspended from lighting rigs. Vials of food colouring stained the floor in multi-coloured patterns and it looked as though a bakery had exploded at the centre table.

You were in the middle of it, the Winchesters as well. You were hurling flour at one another, forgotten dough sitting on a cutting board. All three of you were washed in white flour. Castiel turned the corner just in time to witness Dean pouring a bowl of chocolate mix over Sam’s head.

“Dean!” Sam hollered.

You were beside yourself in hysterics, draped over the table and laughing. The brothers became occupied with wrestling each other, smacking one another with flour and bits of dough while you watched and laughed to your heart’s content.

Though Sam and Dean were vastly amusing, Castiel found his gaze straying. He looked at you though you had yet to notice him. Your smiles always compelled him to watch longer.

He admitted there was a race to his bloodstream, albeit beyond control. A warmth spread across his chest and for a moment he remained there, standing in the doorway and looking at you. Your hair fell from its messy up-do, caked in sugar and flour, your cheeks powdered white and a streak of pink icing across your forehead.

It was incredible to think you were the same girl once curled on a basement floor, a stranger to all three of them. How much had changed and yet how much had not. You were still more stranger than friend despite the growing desire to change that completely. He wished to speak with you, wished to make you laugh as you laughed now, and because he was an unfettered excuse for angel, a patchwork creature felted of heaven and human, he could not help but admire your smiling lips and kicking legs, the wiggle of your hips and curve of your figure as you bent over the table.

It was the first time his thoughts of you wandered to carnality—but not the last.

As he relates this chapter of his story, you slide to the edge of your branch to look at him better. His wings have wrapped completely around the tree, one hand gripping your branch and the other holding the trunk. He pauses in his account to asses you, wondering of your intentions. You look at the ever-changing ground and then at him.

“Can you hold me?” you ask.

He eagerly offers his hand, having been waiting for you to ask such a thing. You drop into his hold, not even blinking as you let yourself fall. He catches you then sits back, allowing you to walk over his hands. You move onto your hands and knees, bending over to look at the eyes on his arm. Then you sit back in his palm and look up at him, smiling.

“Continue,” you say.

He does so, perhaps with a greater strain now that you are in proximity. And, of course, his story unfolds with more decadence than any angel should hold.

One day he happened to appear in the kitchen just as you bent right over, unwittingly flashing him a sudden view up your dress. He didn’t move for a moment, taken back. He hadn’t braced himself for that. When he realized what was happening, he panicked, flying from the room. He aimed for the library and succeeded—at the cost of smashing right into the table. He toppled a chair and almost took himself down.

You came running into the room, the skirt of your dress billowing.

“Castiel,” you said, already flushed. You seemed embarrassed. Did you know? Did you know that he invaded your space and then remained there while you unknowingly revealed your more private attributes?

“Y/N,” he said after a moment. “Are Sam and Dean here?”

He knew they were not. He meant to check on you. You had been alone in the bunker for over a week.

You shook your head, looking at him a bit strangely. You were too polite to question his odd behaviour.

“No, they’re—”

“Oh,” he said quickly, “I apologize.”

He promptly fled the scene.

He fought to return to his previous state, a simpler state. He liked to hear about you. He liked to see you. He liked the things he learned, your stories and habits, and there were other things he wished to discover. Granted, he learned these things second-hand, through Sam and Dean. But he enjoyed them nonetheless. It was a fond acknowledgement, a tender affection. An innocent curiosity. Nothing more.

And then he joined the Winchesters on a hunt, waiting in their motel room while they dined elsewhere. He turned on the television, idly flipping stations. He momentarily thought of you, wondering if he should check on you. Perhaps not. He continued surfing the television instead, always a bit curious to see what he might find.

He froze after flicking to a pornographic channel, blinking at the screen. His usual reactions were absent, a derisive glance or quirked eyebrow. His first foray into pornography had been baffling, to say the least. He understood the concept of intercourse but the details of certain partnerships escaped him. Those details were clarified but didn’t make particular sense. After that, he had a low regard for most of it.

It was still quite farcical but his vessel grew taut, human senses overpowering his angelic ones. It was a faint sensation, gradually evolving. It was difficult to reverse. Especially with his eyes locked on the screen.

It just—it so happened to be that this particular actress resembled you in a certain fashion. His thoughts would not have strayed had the scenario been different. But this unfortunate coincidence was very difficult to shake.

The woman tossed her head back, a cry of ecstasy on her lips. Castiel thought of laughter, another human response, and suddenly matched the two expressions. A poor development, honestly. He could now imagine such an expression on your face, lips pink and upturned with a delirious smile. Ecstasy—

He turned off the television when the Winchesters stumbled back in. They didn’t notice anything but Castiel excused himself, reappearing a block away. He felt the evening breeze, his vessel alerting him to every sensation. He peered through a narrowed perception, down at his own body. This was not the appropriate time to become aroused. And certainly not the appropriate reason.

After that night, it did occur him that he should better understand these responses and ideas if he wanted to overcome them. And he really needed to overcome them.

The next time he visited, he recalled his previous thoughts and felt something like shame. You would be appalled if you could hear his musings. Not only did every thought once exist but they lingered.

He may have tuckered through a moment with you, had you not wandered into the library wearing nothing but a long t-shirt. You clearly just rose from sleep, something so natural and human, your body rolling through its cycles. A body which made him very aware.

Needless to say, a whole slew of thoughts piled on him at that one moment—your skirt lifting as you bent over, a breathless moan on your lips, your head thrown back in ecstasy, and you nestled in your bed with a simple garment wrapped around your body.

“Castiel?” you asked. “What are you doing here?”

“Looking for Sam and Dean,” he lied, careful to stand behind a chair. The last thing he needed was you seeing was his traitorous cock protesting at its material confines. He stood very still, breathing. Not breathing in any particular fashion, but breathing.

“They went out,” you replied.

“Oh,” he said. “I’m sorry if I disturbed you. Goodbye.”

“Uh, bye—”

He tried to detach you from his thoughts as he researched humans and their oh-so vast sexual escapades. You may have inadvertently encouraged this venture, but he only embarked upon it so he could better understand it. The more he knew, the easier it would be to divest himself of it.

He actually thought himself a decent success, not once debasing himself to any human level. His vessel didn’t enjoy his purposeful avoidance, but he learned to control its urges.

At least until visiting yet another day. Sam and Dean were gone and he was checking in, but he couldn’t find you anywhere. He strolled the halls and paused as he neared your bedroom. He would not just waltz in, obviously, though he did freeze when he heard noise inside. He stepped a bit closer to the door, brow furrowed. For a moment it sounded like you were in pain and he almost knocked.

Then he realized.

He stood still, feeling a physical drop as his vessel tightened around him. You were moaning in pleasure, bedsheets rustling beneath your moving body as you so clearly pleased yourself on the other side of that door. Castiel leaned against the wall, suddenly feeling very heavy. He furrowed his brow and looked down, almost groaning at how quickly his vessel had hardened. Was he so weak a creature after all?

He pushed away from the wall, moving to the other end of the corridor. He leaned back, flexing his fingers. He contemplated leaving, perhaps going to heaven, but he couldn’t find the willpower. His blood was pumping hotly and it all moved south, his cock almost hurting with how desperately hard it was, trapped in his clothes. He did eventually manage to fly, but he only made it to a bathroom on the other side of the bunker.

He all but collapsed against the counter, with a ragged groan submitting himself to the habits of humans. He opened his belt and then his pants, breathing out in relief when he pushed his hand down and freed the frustratingly needy erection which waited there. He clutched the edge of the counter, panting but otherwise keeping his volume down. He made a few half-hearted attempts to clear his mind, moving his hand over his cock in the appropriate fashion.

It was no use. When he came, your image was plastered everywhere in his mind. He recalled you moaning into his hand that day you met—morphing into a mental image of you sprawled beneath him, similar noises tumbling from your lips as you spread your legs and called him to you.

After cleaning up, he simply flew from the bunker and did not return. He didn’t visit you when you were alone anymore. Clearly, he had to keep his distance.

“I can’t believe you never told me that,” you say now, sprawled across his hand and looking up at him. His heads have turned aside but he directs them to you, eyes likewise blinking in your direction.

“I thought it might embarrass you,” he says, a cord of blue flame twining from his wing, teasing at your body. You laugh, squirming as you roll away. He holds you carefully.

“It would have then,” you admit, “but I think I would have liked it.”

“I know,” he says, a second strand of his grace dancing over you. This time you lean toward it, humming contently as it caresses you. “I know very well the things you like.”

You would be blushing again if you could.

“What about when we married then?” you ask, laying on your stomach. You prop your chin in your hand and kick your legs, tipping your head as you look at him. “Were you happy when you found out we had to get married?”

“If I ever was, it caused guilt.”

“Guilt! Why?”

“I thought you disliked me,” he replies. “I thought you feared me. It would be selfish to feel happiness at the arrangement if it would upset you.”

“It made me happy,” you say softly. You rest your head when more of his grace rolls over you, covering you sweetly.

“A fact I soon realized,” he says.

He remembers your wedding night very well. He had been so concerned with hurting you, and then you revealed you were a virgin he felt even worse for intruding on your potential life. It was not until he had you beneath his hands did he begin to wonder if he had been a fool. Your body responded keenly to his touch, and he saw you fighting to stifle your gasps. It could not be contained for long, your hips lifting so he would slide his hand beneath you, a tremble in your body as he touched you and felt how you desired him.

Then you were on your back, willingly spreading your legs as you encouraged his advance. He settled over you and wondered. He recalled your reactions the first day you met. You were rattled from your ordeal so he never blamed you for your hesitancy. But as he looked at you then, pink-cheeked and shy and embarrassed, unable to meet his eye as you shifted beneath him, he wondered if that held true once before. Perhaps you did not move away in fear, perhaps you did not avoid his gaze in worry. Perhaps his own infatuation had commenced that day. Perhaps you reciprocated.

Perhaps was a heavy word, saturated with so much possibility, yet he found its use persistent. For perhaps it was preposterous to imagine any sort of infatuation rooting so early in a story, yet he supposed everything had to start somewhere.

He was so used to chaos and catastrophe, to the sinister and ugly. He knew all about small problems snowballing into cataclysms of unmatched proportion. He never thought something which in itself was quiet and affectionate could begin somewhere even smaller and blossom softly. He wouldn’t know how to proceed much further. In heaven, there was only the Will and the Way. On earth, there was only pain and, if not pain, worry for the next mission. He was the perpetual soldier.

It was unusual to feel himself falling into something brighter.

As his body had almost entirely overcome his senses, he had mere scraps of grace on the surface of his being. The deeper levels would be breached at the celestial consummation, one that would bind you to him for eternity. Of the outermost remains, he used all of it to make the experience more comfortable for you. He carefully aligned his body to yours as he filled you for the first time. He offered to leave the consummation at that—but you brought an end to his wonderings and hooked your leg around him, with a smile inviting he continue.

He did, of course, thinking how happily he would continue for however so long you wanted him. And it seemed you did want him, as mere hours later you were rolling back into his arms, requesting he make love to you. He had lain behind you for hours, not sleeping but watching, touching your hair, your skin, careful not to wake you, content to be with you. And then he had you wrapped around him again.

It all felt so good until morning came. Uncertainty returned as you woke hazily, seeming almost frightened again. Instinct kicked in, the same which had always protected him, and he retreated with pitiful shame, thinking he had pushed himself to the outskirts of your affection again.

Until your emotional confession in the evening. When he had you in his arms again, he was certain to pry every secret from your lips, confirm your wanting of him, and swear to himself that he would love every inch of you and never again allow petty insecurities to stand between you.

“You did a very good job of loving me, you know,” you speak again now, sitting on the edge of his hand. You cling to him as he moves, laying on the spinning earth-like ground. Your feet touch the grass and he remains on his side, watching as you roam in a circle near to him. “Where are we?” you ask, looking up at his wing as it folds at his side, the tip reaching you. You stand on your toes and touch it.

“Your heaven,” he replies. “You have two. Prophets are blessed with an awareness of all heaven; you can come and go as you please. This is a place for you to roam, but you have a personal space which resembles an earthly memory.”

“Oh,” you say. A flash of gold moves through him when you sidle alongside him, pressing into his torso. His wing slides further over you, gently keeping you against him. You remain there for a moment, smoothing your hand over him as his grace likewise touches your hair. It’s difficult to measure time in this place, but you linger for quite a while. Then you sit up, touching his wing. “Can we see the other heaven?”

“Of course.”

He stands in mere seconds, lifting you off the ground and holding you in front of him. His wings seem to explode around him, flying up and spreading wide, so wild and bright it’s almost blinding—even here where you have nothing to properly blind.

You close your eyes anyway. When you open them, you feel something flat beneath your bare feet. You look around and realize you’re in your bedroom at the bunker.

“Home,” you murmur. You shiver when you hear the flap of wings, much smaller and very familiar. You turn around and see Castiel, standing in the shape of his vessel. The gold thread which draped over you before remains, but as material now. Likewise is he wrapped in something sheer and blue. Though you don’t think you have a beating heart, you swear it races as he approaches you.

He doesn’t say anything and you don’t need him to. He takes your face in his hands as he did the day you met and he kisses you. You feel the fabric fall from your body and then his. Every sensation is heightened to the extreme, a tremor running through your entire form as his hands slide down your body. You lean against him as he kisses down your neck, hands smoothing over your backside. You squeak, smacking his chest when he squeezes your bottom.

“Cas,” you giggle. He nips at your shoulder then lifts his head, smiling fondly. “Always such trouble,” you say in Enochian.

In reply, he lifts you off the ground. Thinking of his true form, all that strength makes sense. You wrap your arms around his shoulders, your legs his waist, and you hold onto him when he lays you back on the bed. His mouth moves down your body while his hands settle under your thighs. He pushes them apart, breaking your hold on his waist. You tremble and start to breathe when his lips scour your inner thigh, tracing familiar paths.

“Castiel,” you breathe his name, lifting your hips as he teases you. You moan with blissful relief when his mouth moves where you need it. He brings you to climax quickly and, as usual, you expect a breather. As usual, that doesn’t happen. You make a high-pitched noise as he continues his assault, your body bending as you partly lift off the bed with your second orgasm. “Cas,” you moan raggedly, because he isn’t stopping. He turns you over and lifts your hips, and then his mouth returns. “Ugh, this isn’t different—” you say, but you say it with a smile.

Your smile is broken with surprise when you feel him slide inside you, fingers still swirling over your throbbing and sensitive clit. You finish in seconds, pulsing around him and listening as he breathes and grunts with every thrust. He holds your hips with both hands, pitching almost erratically against you. You clench around him and he comes, fingers digging into your hips. You slump forward with hazy delight when he pulls away. You slide onto your stomach, laying there for a moment. You turn your head to look at him and you anticipate a tired, content look.

But it still blazes with desire, his hand running down your back.

Your body recovers quicker here. You suppose it does for him too. He rolls you onto your side and, still a bit delirious, you grab at him messily. He doesn’t seem to mind, hoisting your leg around his waist as his cock presses at your entrance. You take hold of him, aligning him, mimicking his low sound when he fills you again. You have each other in that position and then he rolls you onto your back. His thrusts fill you differently, almost better, but he swallows your sounds with a hard kiss.

He makes you come again, following moments after, and you swear you see white for a moment.

Then you’re settled in his arms. His wings, scaled to a reasonable proportion again, unfold around him as he lays on his side. He draws you against him and you nestle your head against his chest, breathing in as his wing slides over you.

“So how do you think you heard my prayer?” you ask, thinking to the beginning of his story, how he heard your prayer when you were taken captive.

He kisses the top of your head then breathes out.

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly, that familiar rough voice sounding in your ears.

“Can we go back to that other place for a bit?” you ask. As much as you adore this form, you’re almost starting to miss his other one.

No sooner has his wing moved do you feel yourself standing. Gold wraps around you again, a part of your essence here, and you stand while he waits on one knee before you. He still towers over you. You lift one hand and he takes that as indication, picking you up.

Before long, you’re sitting on his shoulder. You felt a bit ridiculous at first but you adjusted quickly. You touch one of his faces and he makes what must be a pleased sound.

“Do you think you were sent to save me?” you ask, sliding off his shoulder and into his hands as he lays down again. You curl up on his chest, his wings folding around you. The flame is bright blue, amplified by the white beneath it.

“Cherished wife,” he says, all his phrases a bit different in pure Enochian, but the compliment no less welcome. You shudder when you suddenly feel much more, a whirl of emotion beneath his chest as a thousand different feelings unfold beneath you. Most of them are unpleasant and you wonder why he shares them, but they soon bleed into something much warmer, and then it blisters hot in the most wonderful way. You think of his story, beginning with worries and fears, ending here. You understand, the essence of your soul almost completely bleeding into his grace. Gold flickers in his wings above you like stars in the blue. “You can see,” he says, “who was sent to save whom.”

castiel x reader masterpost

#castiel x reader #castiel imagine #castiel x y/n #casreader #castiel

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thespottedcreature · 5 years

Text

Little one - Thranduil

Warnings: - Word count: Requested: No.

This was originally posted in my Wattpad in two parts, that’s why there is a long time skip in the middle. I have never posted a oneshot here, I’m still learning to use Tumblr as it is, so please don’t hate me if there is something funky about this. English isn’t my first language, so there might be some issues.

If you are interested in reading some of my other oneshots, I recommend checking my Wattpad account: TheSpottedCreature. I post there pretty regularly. I might transfer some of my other favorites here as well, but we’ll see.

You sneaked around the kingdom, trying to be as quiet as possible. You wanted to see the dwarves that your brother had found in the woods, the ones you were forbidden from seeing. So naturally, you wanted to see them even more. You had never seen a dwarf before, your father wouldn't allow you to, and you were curious. Were they truly so short that ada told that they were? You sneaked down the stairs that you knew took you down to the dungeons, you knew that they whould be kept there. This was the perfect night to do this, everyone was up, enjoying themselves, it was the feast of starlight. You had thought it was boring so you sneaked down, knowing that there whould be no guards down tonight. You had tried this before but you couldn't sneak down without being seen, so you just had stayed higher up, listening to them talking in their gruff, and low voices. But now, you made your way down, making sure that your steps were silent. You were a little nervous, your father had warned you about them many times, not to go close them.

Meanwhile, Thorin was sulking in his cell, cursing the elves in his head. He heard the light patter of feet, the stone made them more audible, and he got up, thinking it was one of the guards yet again. "What do you want?" He bellowed and marched to the door, ramming his hands against it and making it rattle, only to see that the hallway was empty. He frowned and looked around, not seeing anyone. "What are you doing, Thorin?" Balin's voice came from a few cells from the left and Thorin could sware he could hear someone snickering. "It's nothing, I thought I heard something." He grumbled and sank back down, resting his head against the stone wall when he saw someone walking on the stone path. "Hey!" He yelled and the figure jumped into the air and disappeared behind a corner.

You were breathing heavily, having gotten spooked by the sudden yell. You were evening out your breath, a part of you wanting to run to your father or your brother, and let him comfort you, but most of you was too curious and you pushed the fear aside, peeking behind the corner yet again. There were so many of them, nearly all the cells were full. They were all at the gates, and they looked so ... funny. They were short, and all of them had some sort of beard. They were not fat, but they were a lot bulkier than you. You couldn't control your curiosity, you slowly inched closer. You were in the shadows, so none of them could see you, but you could see them clearly. Most of them looked quite scary, but some of them looked kind. You were so curious, your head full of questions. What did dwarf children do for fun? Was a beard itchy? Was it hard to fight when you were stocky?

You just stood there, thinking about what you should do, when the same voice made you jump slightly but it didn't scare you away this time. You inched closer to the border between light and shadow, pondering what you would do. "I can see you standing there." The voice rang yet again, and you decided to step into the light, walking so you were in front of the cell. You stared at him, his hair was dark and the beard he had was short, and his face was a little stunned. You took a tiny step forward and tilted your head, not sure what to do next, your curiosity rising. You decided to see who was in the next cell, so you shifted to see what did that dwarf look like. He had a long white beard and nearly no hair at all. You looked from one to another, they looked so different, yet somehow similar. The latter smiled and leaned to the bars. "What are you doing here, little one?" His voice was gentle and you thought for a moment before you answered. "I wanted to see a dwarf. Ada wouldn't let me so I came on my own." You declared and looked around.

- - - -

The small elfling was talking with Balin, having moved on from Thorin, who kept a close eye on her. She was very young, and her hair was done half up and her eyes shone as she was watching Balin's every move. "What is your name?" The elfling didn't answer straight away but after a little while of pondering. "Y/N." She stated simply and shifted her feet. "What is yours?" She asked Balin, who answered her nearly instantly. "Balin." "That is a funny name." She giggled and Balin huffed. "I suppose." She shifted her weight to see who was at the next cell, only to be met with Dwalin's gruff voice. "What do you want, leave me alone." He banged the bars but the young elf didn't' even flinch, she just giggled and moved on, walking past a few cells before her steps halted.

"I like your hat." She was standing in front of Bofur's cell, then. "Why, thank you little one." His voice was gentle, he was good with kids. "Can I ask you a question?" She was still standing in front of Bofur's cell, who answered her, a little hesitantly, but for nothing, because the question she asked was quite sweet. "What do dwarf children do for fun?" She was staring at Bofur with bright eyes, clearly wanting to know the answer. "Well, they play with wooden toys and they play tag and hide and seek and other games." Bofur listed, and she huffed. "Huh. So the same things as I do." She shrugged and pressed herself to the wall, and suddenly pushing herself off of it and jumping over the gap between the two stone paths that ran in front of the paths of the cells, landing on the other side with the agility of an elf. She jumped up to the candle holder and swung back and forth on it for a while before letting go and landing with steady feet, not wobbling at all. She turned to the dwarf that was in the cell that she was now next to.

- - - -

This cell had a young-looking dwarf in it with light brown beard and hair. "Can you say something in dwarvish? I would like to hear some of it, ada always says it sounds funny." The dwarf stared at me for a moment but did indeed say a sentence in dwarvish. You giggled. "It sounds like you have a sore throat but you still want to speak." You tilted your head. "But I kind of like it. It's different, but not as horrible as ada described it as." "Who is this ada you talk about?" Another dwarf, this one with dark hair and the smallest of all the beards, was looking at you. He had warm, brown eyes that reminded you of your father's elk. "Ada is my father, it's just funny to call him father when there is a shorter and more convenient word to it." "Your father doesn't sound very pleasant," Thorin growled from his cell, and you turned to him. "No! He is the best. But he might get a little boring sometimes, he doesn't allow me to do many of things, such as..." "Visit the dungeons alone?" You froze at the sound of your father's voice but turned around to face him. "Hi, ada." You greeted him with a quiet voice, knowing that he would be angry.

Thranduil stared at you for a moment and the dwarves were silent, observing the situation and settling with the thought that you were the daughter of the king, the king that they hated. You were looking at the ground, not wanting to look at his face, you couldn't see the disappointment in his eyes. Suddenly, you felt hands around you as Thranduil picked you up and hugged you to his chest tightly, taking long breaths. "Y/N, I was so worried, I was sure that a spider had eaten you." You buried your head to his chest, muttering out words as you clutched his robes in your hands. "I'm sorry ada, I just really wanted to see the dwarves."

"Ada, I searched everywhere, I don't understand where she..." Your brother had arrived, speaking with a nervous tone until he saw you. “Where did you find her?" Thranduil handed you to him, and you wrapped your hands around his neck as you clung to him now. "She was down here, talking with the dwarves," Thranduil answered, sounding a little bit displeased and you shrunk down into Legolas's chest. "Talking with the dwarves, why whould you do that Y/N?" He asked you and you lifted your head from his chest. "I was curious, you whould never let me go down there so I went alone. And the party was boring." Your father just huffed, and took you from Legolas, heading downstairs. "This elleth is going to get a bath and then go straight to bed." "Noooo!" You squealed and went totally limp in his arms and slipped off and ran back towards the cells. "Y/N." Your father's voice was calm, but it had a slightly sharp edge to it as he looked at you. "I am not in the mood for games." You smiled mischievously and shifted your weight from one leg to another. "That's too bad because I am." You stormed over to the path in front of the cells. "Y/N, please. Let's go. I'll read you a story afterward." Your brother tried, slowly inching to his left. But your mind was set, and you weren't about to change it. "No." You stomped your leg to the ground.

The next thing you noticed was that your father was at the other end of the path, and your brother was at the other. "What to do now?" You pondered, and as they moved towards you, you allowed your shoulders to slump. "Let's go and end this foolishness." Your father approached you and you let your head to sink down. "Okay." But just as he was going to grab you, you jumped up as hard as you could and grabbed the edge of the path that was running above. You hoisted yourself up, and peeked over the edge, smiling yet again. "Did you really think that I would come that easily?" You didn't wait for the answer, you got up and ran off, giggling, leaving Thranduil and Legolas shaking their heads. They made their way up after you with small smiles on their faces.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

You are hiding in the wine cellars, you and Legolas are playing hide and seek and it was your turn to hide. Fifth time in a row. You were very good at persuading others to get what you wanted and you had your big brother wrapped around your finger. So here you were, hiding behind a shelf that held wine and you waited for your brother to find out. You had insisted on playing one more game, as it was bathtime and you didn't want to. He wasn't going to alter his mind, so you chose the second-best strategy. Stalling.

Soon, you heard steps coming down from the stairs and you pressed yourself deeper towards the wall but the steps were too heavy to be Legolas'. There were multiple of persons walking down, so you hunched over and listened to the sounds coming down, they were spoken in haste and in a low tone. "I can't believe it, we're in the cellars." "You were supposed to be leading us out, not further in." The speakers sounded angry and you peeled out of your hiding place, trying to see who was talking. "The dwarves!" They were here! How they did that, you had no idea, but they were here. You were pretty sure they weren't supposed to be, after all, even you weren't allowed to be down there, so you decided to ask.

"What are you doing here?" You stepped from behind the shelf and faced the dwarves. They jumped and turned around, but froze as they saw you. "Y/N, what are you doing here?" Balin took a step closer, extending a hand to stop a bald dwarf from getting close to you. You didn't answer, you just tilted your head as you watched the dwarves. "We are... Thrand... Your father let us go." He spoke to you, sounding like he was in a hurry but he was trying to hide it. You frowned, the answer sounded like a lie. "Ada let you go? And told you to come ... here?" You asked, suspicious, and the dwarves nodded. "Yes," Balin told you, and you shook your head, knowing that he wasn't telling the truth. "He would never do that, only a few are allowed down here. Even I am not allowed to come here." You threw your hair behind your back and shifted your weight from one leg to another. "She made us, we have to do something or she will alert the whole kingdom." The bald dwarf spoke again in a whisper to the rest, and you took a step back as you realized that they might do something to you.

You swallowed and took a step closer to the stairs, only there was someone in your way. "I can't let you go." The dwarf that was standing in front of you had a red beard, and his voice was low, almost threatening. You glanced at the two guards that were passed out on the table, but you knew that they couldn't help you. If you tried to wake them, the dwarves would notice and possibly hurt you. "What will we do with her? We can't let her go, she will alert everyone." The bald dwarf asked the one with silver streaks in his hear, the one your father had interrogated personally. He shook his head and glanced at you. "We could knock her out?" The bald one suggested, and you winced at his words and took a step back so you could try and hide behind the shelves.

Your bottom lip started quivering, and you tried to stop it, but you were so scared. You wanted away from here, now. "Be quiet, Dwalin, you are scaring her." The one with a hat hissed and glanced at you, looking worried. "Then what do you want me to do, Bofur? You come up with an idea then, one that doesn't hurt her precious mind." The bald one, that you knew now was named Dwalin, scoffed and walked away. You felt a tear roll down on your cheek, and you wiped it away as the one with a hat walked closer.

You backed away until you back hit a wall, and another set of tears ran down your cheek as he stopped. "I'm not going to hurt you, I promise," Bofur spoke calmly, but you shivered lightly and pressed yourself tighter against the wall. "I'm going to speak to you from over here, is that okay?" You stared at him, trying to see if he was lying. Another figure approached, and as you winced, it lifted it's hands up in surrender. "I promise, no one will hurt you." He was beardless and shorter than the dwarves, and even in your terrified state, you were curious. What was he? And where had he come from? He must have noticed your expression as his face melted into a kind looking smile that helped you relax a little. "I'm Bilbo Baggins, I am a hobbit from the Shire." He nodded to you and you fiddled with the sleeves of your dress. "I-I didn't see you in the c-cells." You mumbled, and his smile faltered. "Oh, I wasn't in one. I snuck in." You tilted your head, now slightly impressed. "How did you do that?" He hesitated and glanced behind his back at the dwarves who were now climbing into the barrels. "I am a hobbit. We are light in our feet." He lifted his leg up for you to see, and you lifted your’s up, comparing your small one to his, much bigger one. Bilbo smiled lightly and you relaxed a little bit as it seemed they truly didn't want to hurt you.

You giggled lightly and placed your foot down while Dwalin made his way back to you and you squeaked and pressed your back against the wall, scared. "Bofur, Bilbo, we need to go now." They nodded and turned back to you while you lifted your gaze up and listened to the voices coming from upstairs, the guards have noticed that the dwarves are missing. "You should hurry, they know you are out of the cells and they going to be down here soon." You muttered to Bilbo and Bofur, knowing that your father would be quite angry at them if he found them here without permission. Unfortunately, Dwalin heard you too and came barreling in. "Are you threatening us?" He asked and slammed his hands at both sides of you, causing you to shriek and sink to the floor. "I-I j-just heard the g-guards upstairs, t-they realized that you a-are not i-in the c-cells." You squeaked, covering your head with your hands while tears made their way down your cheeks again. "Dwalin, stop it." You heard rustling and few thumps and angry muttering and the shadow looming over you disappeared and you lifted your head. Bofur was standing in front of you with apologetic eyes. "Sorry about him. We really need to leave. Promise me one thing. Do not move from there until we have gone, okay?" You just nodded, and huddled into a tiny ball, wanting this to be all over. The next sound you heard was the hatch being opened and scared yelps and thumps as the barrels dropped down. You lifted your head to see all the barrels and dwarves gone, only Bilbo was standing there. You stared at him, shivering and tears running down your cheeks, and he nodded to you, speaking softly. "Go." You didn't hesitate, you stormed up the stairs, away from the cellars.

You nearly collided into Tauriel as she was making her way down with a few guards. Before she could say or do anything, you slipped past them and ran towards the throne room. You threaded through the guards who were running in the other direction while yelling out orders. As you stormed in the throne room and saw that he wasn't there, you let out a cry and stormed away but you tripped, scraping your hands and knees in the progress. That did not make you feel any better, and you were crying twice as hard as you made it to the meeting room. You normally avoided it, knowing that ada got angry when you got in and interrupted, but you just wanted him now.

As you searched the hallway, the two guards blocked the door with their spears to keep you from entering but as you reached them and they saw your tear-streaked face and bloody hands, another one of them knocked on the door and pushed his head inside. Your father's annoyed voice sounded from inside. "This better be important." The guard glanced at you and answered him. “It is." He gestured you to get in, and you stormed past him into the small room. Your father was sitting at the end of a long table, all of the elves sitting across it were staring at you. This caused you to freeze and Thranduil sighed as he saw you enter. "Y/N, haven't I told you that I am not to be disturbed -." He stopped talking as he saw the condition you were in, your knees and hands scraped and tears running freely down your cheeks. "Y/N, my little lokte (blossom)! What happened to you?" He got up, knocking the chair down in the process and you stormed to him, tears streaming down your face. "Ada!" As soon as you reached him, he picked you up and pressed you to his chest tightly as you cried into his shirt, wetting it completely. "We will continue tomorrow." He spoke shortly to the elves around the table before turning away and making it to your room. He sat down on your bed and smoothed his hand over your back, trying to calm you as you cried your eyes out.

Your cries reduced into hiccups and you buried your head into his chest, listening to his calming heartbeat. He still smoothed his hand on your back while holding you close to his chest with the other. He reached to your pillow to grab the stuffed moose you loved. He handed it to you and you hugged it tightly into your chest as you snuggled closer to Thranduil. "Do you want to tell me what happened?" He asked gently, and you sniffed and looked up to his familiar icy-blue eyes. "I was playing hide and seek with Legolas." You sniffed again and hesitated to continue. You knew that you weren't supposed to be down at the cellars. "Keep going, darling, you will feel better when you are finished." He encouraged, and you pressed deeper into his chest, hoping that he would not get angry. "I hid down in the cellars because I didn't want to take a bath." He hummed lightly and ran his hand through your hair. "Then what?" His voice was gentle as he moved you lightly so he could see your face better. "The dwarves came down there." You felt him tense as he grabbed your hands gently and inspected them. "Did they do this to you?" His voice was shaking from the anger he was trying to hold in. "N-no, I tripped when I ran to find you." You whispered and he breathed out, calming down slightly. He smoothed his hands on the small wounds. They didn't bleed nearly at all but still his heart pained, it bothered him to see you hurt and so scared.

"Let's find a healer to get these cleaned up." He stood up, holding you tight, only to have you wail in his lap and try to squirm off. "No!" He frowned and sat back down as you squeezed his robe tightly. "Why not?" He smoothed his hand across your cheek and you sniffed as tears returned into your eyes. "It hurts." You whined, and he wiped the tear off your face and lifted your head so you were looking at him. "Only for a short while. The cuts will get much worse if we don't get them cleaned." He spoke gently and you nodded a little. “You are a big girl already, you can survive a little sting." He tickled your sides lightly, and you giggled and pressed onto him. "I can."

- - - -

After you had visited the healer, you had stopped by at the kitchens to see what they had to offer. You were now eating a piece of lembas with a thick layer of jam on it. Thranduil usually never allowed you to have jam, as it contained much sugar that caused you to jump into the walls and ceiling (literally) but today he had made an exception. "Feeling better?" He asked as he finished the report he had been writing and looked at you. You had calmed down and you were sitting on a bench, swinging your legs and looking out a window into the forest."Yes, ada." You chomped down the last piece of your bread and smiled at him as he sat down next to you and moved your hair off your face. You yawned and he pressed a small kiss on your temple. "I think it's time for you to go to bed, little one." He stood up so he could sweep you up into his arms but before he could do that, a knock sounded from the door.

Legolas stepped in and you squealed and ran to him, wrapping your arms around him tightly and squeezed hard. He lifted you up and spun you in a circle, causing you to giggle wildly. Thranduil shot Legolas a warning look but he ignored it and threw you into the air, causing you to shriek in delight. He grabbed you and threw you again, and you giggled wildly as you returned to his arms. Thranduil clicked his tongue and both of you turned to him, you still giggling. "She was ready to bed before you got her all riled up again." He sounded slightly annoyed, but Legolas didn't flinch as he placed you down on the floor. "I thought she needed a little cheering up. I heard she had a rough day." Thranduil stared at him for a moment before he returned to his papers, stacking them up neatly.

You yawned again and pulled Legolas's sleeve, making him turn to look down on you from your father. "Will you read me a story?" You preferred Legolas to read you a story. Not that your father was bad at it, but Legolas did all kinds of funny voices for the characters and you loved it. He shook his head and your shoulders slumped, and he ran his hand in your hair. "Sorry, Y/N. I have to go on extra patrol tonight." You nodded but still looked down, it had been a while since he had read you a story. "Don't worry Y/N, I will read you one." Thranduil looked up from his papers and you glanced at him, smiling before turning back to your brother. "I'll see you tomorrow, seler'. Good night." (sister) "Good night, toror'." (brother) You waved at him, and he left the room after nodding to Thranduil. You ran on the bench and grabbed your elk off of it, squeezing it tight into your chest. Next, you ran to your father and you tugged at his sleeve. "Let's go ada."

- - - -

"And then the elven prince rode his horse into the sunset and they lived happily ever after. The end." Thranduil finished, closing the book and placing it on the table next to your bed. You yawned and smiled at him before placing your elk on top of his head. You giggled as its legs hung off from the sides of his head. He lent down to kiss you on the forehead and your elk fell down from his head and he grabbed it and handed it to you. He blew the candles out as you squeezed the elk into your chest in addition to the other animals you already had; a fox, a wolf, and an owl. Tauriel had made them for you and you loved all of them, but the elk was by far your favorite. "Good night, little lokte." (blossom) He kissed your cheek one last time and you held the elk up for a kiss too. You looked at him with begging eyes and he kissed it as well, causing you to smile. as you snuggled it tightly into your chest. "Good night ada." You yawned and squeezed the elk tightly into your chest as you closed your eyes. Thranduil tiptoed to the door and closed it but couldn't fight the urge to peek in one last time. You were already sound asleep and Thranduil smiled as he pulled away from the door and closed it as quietly as he could.

Thank you so much for reading! And happy Valentine’s day!!

#thranduilxreader #readerinsert #thranduil imagine #thranduil imagines #legolasxreader #child!reader #elvish #myfirstoneshothere #transferredfromwattpad

188 notes · View notes

tanadrin · 5 years

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Notes toward an MMOCKSPP(SO)RPG

i.e., “a moderately multiplayer offline crusader-kings style pen and paper (sort of) roleplaying game”

Provisional Title: Terra Vetus, bc Latin makes things Cool and Medieval Sounding (better suggestions welcome)

Design goal: Something that can be run either in an in-person multiplayer session, or (more realistically) online via a subreddit or Discord server; that satisfies the itch for diplomacy and strategy and cooperation; while encouraging roleplaying; and that supports a large number of players--say, well north of a dozen. A secondary design goal is to make most elements of the game publicly tracked and recorded; because I expect a large number of players, the potential for disputed outcomes the GM(s) must resolve, and a degree of complicated gameplay, it’s important that GMs and other players can go back and check if something feels off, whether due to malice or simple player error. However, if an error is discovered, especially if it’s a minor error more than a couple of turns in the past, it’s not necessarily important to ensure it’s corrected even if that would greatly disrupt the flow of play. More major errors, and things like intentional cheating, should be corrected or punished at GM discretion.

The major gameplay elements are character building and roleplaying; empire management; warfare (mostly strategic, some tactical); personal combat; laws and religion; and, of course, diplomacy.

The following notes do not constitute a complete ruleset. All numbers are extremely tentative, where given. Suggestions, comments, criticism, and other forms of constructive feedback welcome.

1. Game world

The game world is the physical representation of all the lands players control, the locations of their armies and important characters, and of big political organizations like realms and organized religions. There is not a single fixed map: rather, I envision that either the organizers of a game (”GM(s)”) or the players as a whole will discuss and decide on what kind of map they want. It could be a hex grid map, or a map divided into PDS-style “provinces.” These rules should work equally well with either.

[a simple hex map via http://hextml.playest.net/blank.html]

[the eastern Mediterranean in EU4]

At the start of the game, after players have created their characters and decided on how many holdings (i.e., provinces or hexes) they’ll start with, they should take turns selecting their starting holdings on the map. GMs can and should encourage players to start close to one another, to encourage interaction and to leave any blank spaces at the edge of the map for later-joining players, if that’s a thing you want to happen. More on character creation in a bit.

After starting positions are worked out, there is a “free” round of diplomacy, where players work out what the starting configuration of realms will be. During this round, players who want to cooperate as one kingdom or empire can swear fealty to a common overlord; vote on what they want their realm laws to be (more on Laws later); choose their realm’s official religion (more on Religions later), and so forth. When this round is done, the game is ready to start.

2. Basic gameplay

Each round of play represents 1 month of in-game time. Three months are one season; four seasons are one year. The seasons, in order, are spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Whether in-person or online, I recommend simply ending a round at a fixed time; say, one day of real life is equal to one round; or twenty minutes, or whatever length of time is convenient for players and for the setup you’ve chosen.

At the beginning of a turn, if it’s the first turn of a new year, every player gets their annual income from rents and taxes on land they own directly. They can then take basic actions.

There are two kinds of actions: military actions (troop movement and the like) and diplomatic actions (deals and discussions between players). Diplomatic actions can take place at any time. Any deals or negotiations between players resolve as soon as players want them to: instantly, or at the end of the turn, or at some agreed-on date in the future. The exception is any deal involving the transfer of land.

Military actions resolve at the end of the turn (only after military actions have resolved do land transfers take effect). Military actions involve ordering armies to move around. They also involve player movement (every player has a position on the map). Armies can move 3 provinces/hexes a turn; 2 if they cross a major river or enter or move through hills; 1 if they enter or move through mountains. If 2 hostile armies are in the same province/hex at the end of the turn, then under normal circumstances a battle will be fought between them.

Only when all movement is resolved, all battles are over, and all other recordkeeping actions for the turn are over, does the next turn begin.

3. Holdings

Holdings are lands you administer, not through any vassal, but as direct owner. Your peasants and serfs work the land; you tax the surplus they generate, and use it to fund your various activities. You can give land to vassals, improve it to improve your economic situation, or conquer it from other players.

Each holding is one map hex or province. Holdings have 3 main statistics: size, population, and efficiency. Size is the maximum productivity of the holding, an abstract measure of land under cultivation and other useful economic activities like cottage industry and resource gathering. Population is the measurement of the available workforce of peasants/serfs/commoners. Efficiency is a measure of any bonus or malus to production from any source (default 100%).

In addition to the actual population, each holding has an ideal population. The ideal population is the size*100. If the size of the population is less than the ideal population, the holding can’t produce its full amount of income. Holding population increases by 2% per year (applied in spring, after rents are paid), up to a maximum of twice the ideal population. Ideal population can also be temporarily increased by “labor costs,” which denote labor being diverted to things like holding improvements. These are represented by a temporary increase in the holding’s ideal population, usually for a set number of years. Labor costs can’t increase a holding’s maximum population.

Holdings can be improved by investing money and/or labor (usually labor, sometimes both). Improvements can increase the efficiency of holdings, their rate of population growth, the quality and number of levies you can raise from holdings in times of war, and so forth. A full list of holding improvements should be made in an appendix.

As the source of the mostly-untrained fighting men in your armies, you can raise the population of a holding as a levy. Levy units require 100 population each. You can’t raise more levies than a holding has Size (a pop 600 size 4 holding can only raise 4 levies normally, despite the surplus population). Raising any levies during autumn or winter will cause a -10% penalty to your holding’s income efficiency for that year. You also have to pay upkeep for levies. If you can’t pay the upkeep, your levies disband. The amount of money it costs to keep a levy raised for a month should be around 20% of the base income of a holding, to encourage careful planning of military campaigns. Right now I assume that you earn about 100 livres a year from a size 1 population 100 holding.

The formula for holding income is:

Size of holding * ( Population of holding / ideal population ) * Efficiency

with the middle term being capped at 100%.

If a military unit is destroyed (not merely defeated, but eradicated in battle), the holding it was raised from loses 100 population.

As a rule of thumb, military holding improvements should be quite expensive; even modest holding improvements probably aren’t a positive sum investment until a few years after they’re built.

4. Knights

Knights are a kind of NPC resource. They represent petty feudal subjects, who form the core of highly-trained elite fighting forces, both cavalry and men at arms.

Knights are created in holdings you control. To create a knight, you grant them land; this has the effect of reducing holding size by 1 (and therefore ideal population by 100), so you can’t do it in a holding of size 1. Knights provide less income--10% of the ordinary amount, so 10 livres a year--but in return they allow you to raise 1 unit of elite soldiers. By default, this is a unit of men-at-arms. You can improve knights’ estates, to change the kind or improve the quality of these units, and maybe mitigate some of the loss of income further.

Knights have their own persistent identities and traits. When you create a knight, you’ll roll up one or two personality traits. You can name your knights. They earn XP: every battle they’re on the winning side of nets them 1 XP, and you can use this to buy military traits for them (up to 3 traits). If a Knight’s unit is destroyed, instead of losing population, the Knight in question is captured by the enemy. You can’t raise the unit again until you ransom the Knight.

If a knight is killed, the land either reverts to you; or you can install a successor of the same line, with new personality traits and no XP. Lists of possible traits for Knights (and other minor NPCs) to come.

5. Battles

Combat is designed to be fairly simple, although still interesting on a tactical level; right now terrain is not a major factor, but I’m open to including that later. Combat is also designed to minimize random elements, to make strategic choices more important, and to minimize the possibility of disputes about how it should be resolved (which I think is important, given I envision lots of players, and GMs being kept busy).

Every unit--knight or levy--has three statistics: its strength, its morale, and a bonus Skirmish value. Strength is ordinary combat effectiveness in a pitched battle. Morale is a defensive value: how long the unit can remain in combat while suffering casualties. Skirmish normally functions as a flat bonus to Strength; but if the unit is ranged (like Archers), it can use its Skirmish value to attack without the possibility of retaliation, if defended by another unit.

Units are grouped into armies for movement on the map. Armies are organized into lines, which are divided into rows. The first row is units in the front line; the second and following rows are units held in reserve. When an army isn’t in combat, you can rearrange it freely. When an army enters combat, its arrangement is normally fixed.

In battle, the armies are centered on each other; each unit can ordinarily attack only the unit directly across from it (unless they’re Maneuverable). Units have three abilities: Harass, Engage, Retreat. A front row unit with a greater Skirmish value than the unit it’s attacking can Harass that unit. This deals damage equal to half the Skirmish value rounded down (so a difference of 1 Skirmish is useless), to the morale of the enemy unit, without the possibility of retaliation. Engage means two units enter combat at close quarters. They deal their full Strength value in damage to the enemy unit’s morale. If at any time a unit’s Morale hits zero, it enters Retreat. A unit that’s Retreating, if it has any unit behind it in the line, moves to the back of the line; all other units in the line move up 1 row. When a unit has been retreating for 2 turns, it’s removed from the battle. If a unit is dealt full Morale damage again while retreating, it is Destroyed. It is removed from the game; if it’s a Knight unit, that Knight is captured. If it’s a Levy, the Holding from which it was raised loses 100 population.

Battles have three repeating phases: harass, engage, regroup. All units that can, harass; all units that can engage, engage; then you put units into retreat that have lost their morale, remove destroyed units, and begin the next harass phase. Units will always attack the facing unit, unless there is no facing unit and they can attack units to one side. If they can attack units to one side, they will attack the inner unit first, and then the outer unit if there is no inner unit. Ranged units on the second row attack using their Skirmish value, and take no damage in return. Ranged units further back can’t attack.

The exception to the deterministic nature of battle is if an army is commanded by a Player Commander. Player Commanders are physically present on the battlefield. They are represented by a special unit Players can always raise, their Personal Guard. Various player traits can affect the combat effectiveness of their Personal Guard, or even entire armies. Player commanders can 1) choose to alter the attack priorities of maneuverable units, and during the regroup phase 2) move units side-to-side along the same row, if space is available, 3) switch the order of two adjacent units in a column (a unit can only be moved in this way once per turn), or 4) order a unit or units to enter Retreat prematurely (this still makes them vulnerable to being Destroyed). Otherwise, as stated, the way an army is arranged can only be changed out of battle.

Units can have special abilities, like Ranged or Maneuverable; Knights who have earned military traits will increase the effectiveness of the units they command. All relevant traits should be provided in an appendix.

6. Laws

Players can group together into Realms. Realms usually have 1) a monarch, and 2) a number of Laws. Laws, created by the valid legislature of the realm (the monarch, the privy council, the Estates, or some other body), govern how the realm is organized. They create obligations for vassals in the realm. Vassals can violate those obligations, and the game doesn’t automatically enforce adherence to the Laws, but this is where roleplay comes in. Loyal vassals and the monarch might band together to punish disloyal vassals. Monarchs might demand a vassal be imprisoned for their crimes. Even executed, to force a succession.

Realms can contain other realms. If you have, say, four players organized into a Duchy, with one player Duke and three player Counts, that constitutes one Realm with its own laws. The duchy might be part of a Kingdom, with several other Dukes and Counts, and a ruling King overseeing them. The Kingdom will have its own laws. Vassals of the Duchy by default have the right of appeal to the Duke’s superior; and the Kingdom’s laws supersede the Duchy’s if there’s any explicit conflict between them.

Laws control how titles pass from one officeholder to the next; how taxes are allocated; what obligations in times of war might be; who the valid legislating body for the kingdom is; and so forth. This is essentially a nomic minigame, but many suggested laws will be provided in an appendix. A default setup for a standard feudal kingdom might look like this:

Elective succession: the next king is chosen by the immediate vassals of the king when the old king dies.

Privy council: the kingdom has a Privy Council, consisting of powerful vassals. The King can make laws, but the Privy Council can veto them by a majority vote.

Taxation: All nobles pay a tax of 10% of their income to the kingdom’s coffers.

War: Feuds between nobles are disallowed; immediate vassals of the king can’t go to war with each other (they can still declare war on outside powers).

Laws can also carve out explicit privileges for certain nobles or certain officeholders or certain holdings.

At the start of the game, when organizing player Realms, the default legislature is the Estates, a general gathering of all the nobles of the realm where simple majority rule prevails.

Minor nobles, even independent ones, controlling 2 holdings or less, start with a default set of laws, under which they cannot change succession and most other laws without the approval of a superior lord, or their religious head (if one exists). If they have no superior lord, they’ll be stuck with the default laws for the forseeable future.

7. Religion

Religious principles are a little like Laws, but in addition to organizing your religion, they also cover dogmas (general metaphysical beliefs that usually have little impact beyond roleplaying) and ethics (guidelines of behavior that should have big importance for roleplaying). Purely organizational laws are called Canons.

The available religions and their features can be created in advance by the GMs; or players can invent their own during setup. Religions will have a head (who may or may not be a major landholder in their own right), and may have internal organization like autocephalous churches, ecclesiastical provinces, bishoprics, and so forth. Much of this will be down to how you organize your religions. Some player traits and qualities interact with religion. If, for instance, you’re playing an avowed heretic, other players can and should treat you differently, especially if they are playing very pious characters. Some religious traits can have impacts on how your armies fight; can grant bonuses to your holding income; and can grant you other personal bonuses. Religious principles with a gameplay effect should cost points, and be chosen at game start via a point-buy system.

8. Player Character

Last but not least! Your in-game agent, for which you should develop a name, a background, a political and social position, and for which you should choose a number of positive and negative traits. At character creation you can also invest in additional holdings for more points, or higher starting wealth.

All players have a rank. Your starting rank will be determined in part by how players choose to organize their realm--you might get lucky and be elected King at the start of the game, for instance. Rank is a fairly abstract quality, though: as in history, a nominal Emperor might not control that much land; a Duke might rule the territory of a King. A general rule of thumb here is that Duke or better titles generally have to be legitimized by a nearby superior, like a King or Emperor, or by a religious head. You might be claimant to a title you don’t possess; the legitimacy of that claim will be determined by other players, not by specific mechanics. Coming up with flavorful in-character variations on noble titles within a realm might be a good way to add color to the game world: as in the real world, a French Comte was equivalent to an English Earl or a German Graf.

Players can purchase equipment to improve their personal combat effectiveness. One-on-one player combat (duels) is governed by the system outlined here. Certain traits may improve or reduce how good you are at dueling. It may also be desirable to let players improve their Personal Guard through equipment they can purchase directly.

Players can earn different kinds of XP. Winning battles gives you martial XP you can spend on making yourself a more effective commander. Fulfilling religious goals (determined by your religion’s Ethics) gives you a religious XP you can spend on related traits--or which you can use to found new heresies. (Religious heads can use them instead to reform religious doctrines, if the religion allows for that sort of thing.) Administrative XP is earned by completing administrative tasks in your holdings that increase income efficiency and population growth, and reduce the cost of improvements. Even if you are (say) a landless character who starts pretty poor, it should be possible to make yourself useful to other players as an experienced commander, administrator, or advisor.

Of course, you will eventually die. You will lose all your traits, you may lose some titles depending on the Laws governing them, and you may lose holdings associated with those titles. But your wealth, independently held holdings, and your remaining titles will go to your heir. Your heir can be another player, but usually it will be someone in your family: your family being a collection of NPCs that act as a kind of resource, like Knights, but for the domestic political side of things.

You can marry an NPC--either a specific NPC in your realm, or a randomly generated NPC. Every month you’re married, you have a chance to have a child. You can change succession laws like any other law; but by default, your oldest child is your heir. The chance of children goes down based on how many children you already have, your age, how many spouses you have (if your religion allows some form of polygamy), and based on traits. Mothers can’t bear more than 1 child in the same 12-month period.

9. Wanted rules

Naval combat

Sieges

Marrying or hiring other players’ NPCs

Making Knights of family members

Other minor NPCs (monks and priests? advisors?)

Treaties to conclude wars

Ways of declaring war (possibly unlimited?)

Detailed army movement; how they’re affected by forts

Plots and murder

Rules for landless player characters

Rules for dynastic extinction

Rules for non-dynastic succession (optional, use only if you are really sure you want a player to, for instance, always play as a religious head or the leader of a republic)

Special resources and commerce (n.b., all money in this game is a unit of account representing the value of revenues paid in kind; not sure whether this should even be added, though it should add an element of map control that could be fun)

Castellans: knightlike NPCs or PCs, who pay 90% (instead of 10) (player castellans pocket difference as salary) and whose traits can be used to boost holding income or levy quality or w/e

Privy council offices you can stick minor NPCs or PCs in that can give you realm-wide bonuses, & can give those characters XP increases they can spend on traits.

Challenging people to duels

Extramarital affairs & illegitimate children

Blood feuds, court cases (outlawry??)

10. Wanted lists

Purchasable items

Special items (e.g., religious relics); ways of distributing them

Holding improvements

Peasant levy types

Elite unit types

Knightly estate improvements

Personal guard improvements

Laws

Religious principles

Player character traits

NPC traits (for knights, spouses, children)

Terrain modifiers (optional)

Naval levies (require directly owned harbors; you can hire other players’ ships)

Special resources (if included)

Poisons

Combat stances and ability cards (for duels)

#terra vetus #v rough draft

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fallquilt54-blog · 4 years

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Evacuations are a medical care location's task. They typically operate on a rigorous spending plan. But despite this, an excellent chair could be incredibly important to a client. A typical chair has cushions that can help reduce the rate of blood stream loss. Clients need to also fit sitting in a chair as it creates all of them extra responsive to therapies.

There are actually lots of conveniences to possessing a fire evacuation chair. The very first benefit is actually that they create the clinical setting easier to operate in. This is due to the fact that they supply a much higher amount of comfort than a normal workplace chair. The chair is actually likewise made with padding that assists to avoid soft cells trauma.

One more benefit is that the canisters make it possible for patients to maintain their heads over the floor when they are actually stagnating. This eliminates accidents coming from sliding or tripping, which may take place during the course of the training course of a typical shift. It is actually additionally effortless to shut down the chair, so they do certainly not maintain the individual also long in one placement. This is terrific when patients are transferred to another system or even standing by location.

Making use of a typical workdesk chair is bothersome for people and also may trigger soreness or painful shoulders. The chair may supply a lot of conveniences. The cushioning also lowers the possibility of sliding or tripping.

Various other perks of possessing a chair are that it could be made use of for simple personal injury assessment and therapy. As a matter of fact, it can also be actually utilized to lessen pain in the higher body system. The chairs can easily additionally be a valuable technique to always keep the patient warning in the course of the procedure.

One major perk of the chair is actually the noticeable one. Lots of people can't envision the ache a chair can help relieve. If they had a comfy chair to rest their head on for some time, they might find relief from vertigo, fatigue, and even nausea. For intense scenarios, a chair may be very beneficial in relieving signs and symptoms of tummy lesions or even stomach tract infections.

Comfort is actually an additional variable that creates a chair useful. Folks carry out incline being settled in chairs as long as they experience relaxed and also secure. This may be particularly vital when they hold your horses in a health care resource, as they may be sick as well as wanting high-quality treatment.

Other features of the chair are actually the ones that could likewise profit the individual. The seats could be adjusted as though it may be more comfortable. They can be positioned at a setting that is actually ideal for youngsters and also grownups alike. They may also be gotten used to adjust to the person's needs.

This also produces the chair simpler to relocate from one site to yet another. They are available in a selection of measurements, coming from small to huge. They can be easily wheeled in and out of vehicles, and also in wheelchairs. This creates them a hassle-free product to utilize.

The fire evacuation chair may be a fantastic furniture. They are actually useful, comfortable, and also can easily offer a step of comfort for any person that could require it. They likewise have actually the included benefit of being affordable. They may be actually tiny in measurements, but they supply a bunch of comfort as well as advantage to a client.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT NEED TO OPERATE THE EVAC+CHAIR? For stairs descent, the 300H, 500H, 600H, as well as Power 800 require merely one operator to assist the chair as well as the person seated in it down the steps. the EVAC+CHAIR does 90% of the work itself. It is actually highly recommended that when moving a bariatric individual making use of the 500H that a 2nd operator aids to direct the chair utilizing the handles situated at the face.

CANISTER THE EVAC+CHAIR GO UPSTAIRS? Yes. The EVAC+POWER 800 is an electric/battery powered stair climber that allows for quick and easy as well as risk-free stair ascent and also descent. It could be used in emergency discharges, electrical power failures, as well as regular patient transport to properly and effortlessly relocate a traveler back and forth a flight of stairs.

The EVAC+CHAIR style, 600-H is furnished with front and also back lift handles for this reason. Nevertheless, so as to rise up stairs or over challenges, 2 operators are called for to raise the chair. The footsteps can easily not be used to go upstairs.

Our IBEX 700H are going to go each up and also downstairs without any holding or elevating. The footsteps never leave the stair nosing and also help 90% of the guest's body weight.

EXIST ANY SPECIAL ACCESSORIES NEEDED TO HAVE ON THE STAIRS? The EVAC+CHAIR is the only thing that is needed. It utilizes general principles of gravitation as well as friction, not gizmos. There is no installation. Its regularly prepared for prompt on-the-job protection.

CAN THE PERSON SEATED IN THE CHAIR FALL OUT? No. She or he is actually settled within a wallet seat that cups the body system safely and securely. The rider is strapped in and rests simply ins coming from the incline of the measures. All weight is held by the stairs, not the sifting arms of volunteers.

HOW STRONG PERFORMS A "PAL" HAVE TO Be Actually TO RESOURCE EVAC+CHAIR? Our company suggest that assistants at first experiment a person that has a weight of about their very own body system weight. When the physical sense of function is actually knowledgeable as well as relying on the operators own strong point and speed, better variations in weight can be handled.

IS THE EVAC+CHAIR ADVISED FOR THE HANDICAPPED INDIVIDUAL IN THE HOUSE? The EVAC+CHAIR Electrical power 800 as well as the IBEX may be highly recommended for make use of for the impaired at home as they have each ascent as well as declination capabilities. Our experts would certainly not suggest the 300H, 500H, as well as 600H for this situation (other than the high-rise apartment resident) because of the diverse and also non-standard room and stair arrangements of the private house. These styles use one-way transport only, a lifeboat feature positively vital for a structure however not useful for the individual looking for day-to-day help up and downstairs.

For How Long DOES IT NEED TO LEARN TO USAGE EVAC+CHAIR? By complying with the directions that feature the system (theyre likewise imprinted on the seat) the common person need to excel along with an individual his or her personal weight within 5 mins. Its that straightforward!

CAN I FIND A DEMONSTRATION? Certain. VISIT HERE for an internet video. Our company can easily also come to you for an online demonstration. Simply CONTACT US to establish a consultation.

The Amount Of EVAC+CHAIRS DO I REQUIRED? It depends on the measurements as well as ability of your area. Feel free to call some of our emptying specialists to better determine your necessities.

HOW STRONG DO I REQUIRED To Become TO WORK THE EVAC+CHAIR? Given that the chair operates the Patented POLY MATIC-V WAISTBAND system, stamina is much less of an issue than using proper method. When using the chair to deliver someone downstairs, it is very important to keep in mind that you need to be lowering towards your toes, certainly not drawing back. Don't forget, to avoid accident to drivers and/or the traveler, operators should certainly never seek to transport traveler lots higher than what they can easily lift.

BE ACTUALLY THESE CHAIRS REQUIRED? As described in the NFPA Lifespan Safety Recommendation as well as due to the ADA it is actually required that each structure is to have accessible means of egress (ADAAG 4.1.3( 9 ), 4.3.10), yet does certainly not define a remedy. Throughout many emergencies, the favored procedure of egress escalators are out of company for safety main reasons. The EVAC+CHAIR serves as an effective ways of exiting a multistory structure for handicapped or incapacitated individuals. EVAC+CHAIR CAN BE YOUR SERVICE!

Email Address [email protected]

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Fire Evacuation Chair Unit 3 Newberry Cross industrial estate Newberry Mallow Co. Cork P51 Y622 Ireland Phone: 00353214508588

#best fireevacuationchairevac chair #best evacuation chair #fire evacuation chair types #Buy evacuation chair for stairs #buy emergency stair chair

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catholicethics-blog · 6 years

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Wedding Photography - Tips for Amateur Wedding Photographers

t's an inquiry that has been asked a couple of times in our gatherings throughout the most recent couple of months so while I'm not a Pro Wedding Photographer I thought the time had come to share a couple of tips on the theme of Wedding Photography.

I'll leave the specialized tips of shooting a wedding to the professionals – however as somebody who has been approached to photo various loved ones weddings – here are a couple of recommendations.

1. Make a 'Shot List'

A standout amongst the most supportive tips I've been given about Wedding Photography is to stretch the couple to ponder the shots that they'd like you to catch on the day and accumulate a rundown with the goal that you can verify them. This is especially useful in the family shots. There's nothing more awful than recovering the photographs and acknowledging you didn't photo the cheerful couple with grandmother!

2. Wedding Photography Family Photo Coordinator

I discover the family photograph some portion of the day can be very distressing. Individuals are going all over, you're uninformed of the diverse relational peculiarities at play and individuals are in a 'happy soul' (and have regularly been drinking a couple of spirits) to the point where it tends to be very riotous. Motivate the couple to assign a relative (or one for each side of the family) who can be the 'executive' of the shoot. They can round everybody up, help get them in the shot and keep things moving with the goal that the couple can return to the gathering.

3. Scout the Location

Visit the areas of the better places that you'll be shooting before the enormous day. While I'm certain most Pros don't do this – I discover it extremely supportive to realize where we're going, have a thought of a couple of positions for shots and to know how the light may become an integral factor. On a couple of weddings I even visited areas with the couples and stepped through a couple of examination shots (these made decent 'commitment photographs').

4. In Wedding Photography Preparation is Key

So much can turn out badly on the day – so you should be very much arranged. Have a reinforcement plan (if there should arise an occurrence of terrible climate), have batteries charged, memory cards clear, consider courses and time to get to places and get a schedule of the entire day so you realize what's going on straightaway. In the event that you can, go to the practice of the function where you'll accumulate a ton of extraordinary data about conceivable positions to shoot from, the lighting, the request of the service and so on

5. Set desires with the Couple

Demonstrate to them your work/style. Discover what they are needing to accomplish, what number of shots they need, what key things they need to be recorded, how the shots will be utilized (print and so forth). In case you're charging them for the occasion, ensure you have the assention of cost set up straightforward.

6. Turn off the sound on your Camera

Blares amid talks, the kiss and promises don't add to the occasion. Turn off sound before hand and keep it off.

Wedding Photography

7. Shoot the little subtleties

Photo rings, backs of dresses, shoes, blossoms, table settings, menus and so on – these assistance give the end collection an additional measurement. Flick through a wedding magazine in a news represent a little motivation.

8. Utilize Two Cameras

Ask, get, contract or take an additional camera for the day – set it up with an alternate focal point. I endeavor to shoot with one wide point focal point (incredible for real shots and in tight spaces (especially before the function in the readiness phase of the day) and one longer focal point (it very well may be convenient to have something as huge as

9. Think about a Second Wedding Photographer

Having a second reinforcement picture taker can be an incredible procedure. It implies less moving around amid service and discourses, takes into consideration one to catch the formal shots and the other to get real shots. It likewise takes a little weight off you being 'the one' to need to get each shot!

10. Be Bold however Not Obtrusive

Hesitancy won't get you 'the shot' – once in a while you should be striking to catch a minute. Anyway timing is everything and thinking ahead to get in the correct position for key minutes are vital so as not to upset the occasion. In a service I endeavor to move around no less than 4-5 times yet attempt to time this to correspond with tunes, messages or longer readings. Amid the formal shots be intense, recognize what you need and request it from the couple and their gathering. You're driving the show now of the day and need to keep things moving.

11. Figure out how to Use Diffused Light

The capacity to skip a blaze or to diffuse it is vital. You'll see that in numerous houses of worship that light is low. In case you're permitted to utilize a blaze (and a few houses of worship don't permit it) consider in the case of ricocheting the glimmer will work (recollect whether you skip off a hued surface it will add a hued cast to the image) or whether you should need to purchase a glimmer diffuser to mollify the light. In the event that you can't utilize a blaze you'll have to either utilize a quick focal point at wide openings and additionally knock up the ISO. A focal point with picture adjustment may likewise help. Become familiar with Using Flash Diffusers and Reflectors.

12. Shoot in RAW

I realize that numerous perusers feel that they don't possess the energy for shooting in RAW (because of additional preparing) candid wedding photography is one time that it tends to be especially valuable as it gives quite a lot more adaptability to control shots subsequent to taking them. Weddings can give picture takers dubious lighting which result in the need to control presentation and white equalization sometime later – RAW will help with this extensively.

13. Show Your Shots at the Reception

An extraordinary aspect regarding computerized photography is the instantaneousness of it as a medium. One of the fun things I've seen an ever increasing number of picture takers doing as of late is taking a PC to the gathering, transferring shots taken prior in the day and giving them a chance to turn as a slideshow amid the night. This adds a fun component to the night.

14. Think about Your Backgrounds

One of the difficulties of weddings is that there are frequently individuals going all over – including the foundations of your shots. Especially with the formal shots scope out the zone where they'll be taken early searching for good foundations. In a perfect world you'll be needing uncluttered zones and shaded spots out of direct daylight where there's probably not going to be a meandering distant auntie meander into the back of the shot. Peruse more on getting foundations right.

15. Try not to Discard Your 'Oversights'

The allurement with advanced is to check pictures as you go and to erase those that don't work promptly. The issue with this is you may very well dispose of a portion of the additionally intriguing and useable pictures. Remember that pictures can be trimmed or controlled later to give you some progressively aesthetic/unique looking shots that can add genuine enthusiasm to the end collection.

#Wedding photographer in delhi #candid wedding photography #wedding photography

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humansofoz · 6 years

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October 30th, 2018

“Knock me down 9 times, but I get up 10.” -Cardi B

Cliff-Simon Vital. 20. SUNY Oswego Senior.

HoOz- What was your most memorable childhood experience?

Cliff- I would have to say the day before I came to America. So what a lot of people don’t know, or I don’t advertise it a lot, but I come from Haiti which is a small country in the Caribbean. The night before I came to America, my aunt who took care of me when I lived in Haiti, threw this big going away party for me. It meant a lot because we struggled, so I knew she didn’t have the money for it but she threw me a party anyway. I had a giant cake, I had this huge lollipop. It was one of the rainbow lollipops that has swirls. Any time that I think back about my transition here, or when I’m sad and I’m trying to think of happier thoughts, I just go back to that memory of her giving me this huge lollipop because we went to the market one day, and I saw it there and I really wanted it but it was very pricey and we had to buy other things because, you know, money doesn’t grow on trees. She knew that I wanted it and she bought it for me and it just meant a lot. So that’s probably my most sacred childhood memory. The flights that I was on to come from Port-au-Prince to Florida was the worst flight I’ve ever taken in my life. There was so much turbulence, and the entire time I was clinging onto the lollipop. Hard times. So I always go back to that memory of her giving me that lollipop, throwing me the party, and just having fun.

HoOz- Can you tell me what your childhood was like in Haiti?

Cliff- Here’s a little backstory for everyone that’s going to read this or just to connect the dots. I was born in Long Island. I was born in Mineola and when I was three years old, around this time actually, so when I was about to turn three I was sent to Haiti to live with my aunt because my mom just couldn’t raise me. At that time it wasn’t financially good. So she sent me to Haiti and I lived with my aunt for a couple of years. My mom was getting her education, she was also relatively new to America, so she had to transition herself and raising a child at the same time for her was just not convenient. So she sent me to live with people who could take care of me, who were more better off. I lived in Haiti for a couple of years and I came here when I was about ten years old. Between that time, I had to go back to Haiti a couple times just to figure out the whole immigration stuff. I couldn’t stay in this country for so long because of how the laws were back then. So I had to keep going back and forth. My first full year in America was when I was like twelve if I remember correctly. So I lived there for a while. I don’t have a lot of memories other than the really good ones and the really bad ones. I know that I woke up every day around 6:00 am, got dressed, and went to school. My uncle picked me up from school and then we drove back home, I did my homework, and then I watched TV, and then I went to bed, and repeat. When I lived with my aunt, she lived in like a mountainous area, so it was away from the city, away from people. It’s like upstate New York. It was more isolated, so I had a really boring childhood. I didn’t have sleepovers, I didn’t ride bikes, I didn’t fly kites. I went to school, did my work, and came back home. I think that’s why I’m so structured now because I’ve always lived that structured life. That’s also why I don’t know how to dress because I wore uniform my entire life. Since like pre-k I was wearing a uniform. So.. it wasn’t bad. There are more good memories than bad memories. I was also raised with family, so there was always another guy or girl in the house. So who I thought were my siblings for a while, but I realized were my cousins, I had an older guy cousin and an older female cousin. I was the youngest, I was treated like the youngest, more attention was sent to me, my birthday presents were more elaborate. But I never go special treatment, I still had chores, I still had to get good grades. I lived how any other kid lived, full of innocence and not aware of what’s going on around them. Just doing what they’re told.

HoOz- When you finally came to America for good, how was the transition for you?

Cliff- Oh my. So when I left Haiti I knew two languages, French and Haitian Creole. When I came to America people did not speak French or Haitian Creole. So that was my number one struggle. Oh man did I struggle. Second or third grade, I was bullied a lot. I went to a Catholic school, and nothing against Catholic schools, but I was one of two black people there. I know Catholic schools are more diverse now, but back then it wasn’t, and back then I was this kid who was black and came from an international country that’s known for being poor. When I came to America my mom graduated with her RN, she was well off this time. She had money, enough to send me to a private Catholic school, so I was living life, but in school, I was not. I had to go to extra classes. During my normal 9:00 to 3:00 schedule, around 11:00 or 12:00 I would have to go to ESL class. Back then it was called English as a second language. I think it’s called ESOL now but it’s definitely advanced since then. That professor helped me learn English. I remember always having to defend myself about why I had to leave math class. I remember that sometimes when people had recess I would have to stay inside and do more English work. I think it was actually sixth grade where I stopped ESL, I was speaking more proficiently, but that’s because school didn’t end for me when I went home or when class was over. I got home, I ate, I did my chores, and then I did either homework or I was watching TV. On those days that I had no homework, I was watching PBS Kids stuff where they taught you English in the morning, or more English specific TV shows. I was forced to watch those shows for a while until I passed this specialized English test at the end of the year. So seventh grade was my first normal like “hey I’m a kid. I’m gonna watch Codename: Kids Next Door and hang out with friends.” I lived in Rockaway Beach, and the beach was two minutes from my house, we had parks every couple of blocks. There were things to do as a kid there but I was never able to that because if I wasn’t helping to raise my siblings, I was studying for the English proficiency exam. I eventually transferred schools in fourth grade because the bullying was ridiculous. When I moved from one school to another, the bullying didn’t stop. I was made fun of in class and it didn’t help that the professors were also making fun. Yes, usually teachers are supposed to be helping or guiding or whatever but some of the teachers weren’t supportive. It wasn’t until I got to fifth grade, my teacher backed me up and yelled at the kids who were making fun of me. I’m not gonna @ any names but this kid, and I still remember his name because you always remember the name of your first bully, threw me in the coat closet and then put the broom in the door so I couldn’t get out. It was right before lunchtime, so I was in there crying for forty minutes. When my professor found me, she made a big deal. She was a little Irish white lady screaming her head off, the principal came into the room, I’m sobbing. I was also bleeding because I hit my head on one of the coat hooks. It was a big deal. My mom called, she was screaming, she was threatening to sue the parents about the kid. It was this big thing. The kid got kicked out of school for bullying. That’s just one of the worst examples I could think of about how my transition from Haiti to America was, being in the American school system where the only support you had was your ESL class. Yes, I had two hours of ESL where I learned the language and stuff but I was thrown into those classes and I just had to swim. I was thrown into the pool and told to swim. Imagine not knowing what the teacher is saying sitting in class all day long for like two years. That was me until I really was like I don’t understand. My mom was like we’re gonna put you in this ESL class, we’re gonna go to the library, we’re gonna do all these things to make sure you’re caught up. My siblings who were growing up with me, my younger ones, didn’t have to face all that because they were born in America, raised in America. I was born there, raised here, and when I came back I had to transition all over again. So it was hard. It’s crazy. It’s a lot.

HoOz- Let’s fast forward a little bit. You’re now in college and flourishing, and you’re the president of the Pre-Health Care club. Can you tell me a little bit about how you got involved in that?

Cliff- So, funny story. I was never really the big pre-med person that I came in as. In high school, I was involved in like health care specific organizations but that didn’t really go anywhere once I came to college. I came to college and there were a couple of changes with my major the first year, but as a first-year student I was a Biochemistry major and my goal was to be an OBGYN working in the intensive care unit. Then Organic Chemistry happened, but whatever. I got involved with the Pre-Health Care club as a freshman when the current president Ian Thompson told me about it, and I was like this is a great organization, it’s gonna help me get to where I want to go, and I just joined like anyone else would join. I went to the involvement fair and that’s when they told me about it, I went to their meetings, and now I’m president. So it’s been a journey.

HoOz- What do you hope to accomplish with the club as president this year?

Cliff- This is actually my second year as president, and usually your first term is where you make all of your mistakes. So this semester, it’s been very helpful to know what didn’t work last year in my presidency. What we do for Pre-Health is we bring in medical professionals to come in and speak to the club members and tell them about what they do, how they got to where they are, any advice that they would have wanted to know when they were in our shoes. My first year as president we had a lot of issues with booking speakers. That’s all we did was bring in speakers and we teach through them. Last year it was very hard to get speakers because me being the president, I didn’t really know what I was doing in a sense, but this year we’ve been killing it. We have speakers every single week. We’ve only had to cancel once this semester. Last year I think we canceled five out of ten times, this semester we canceled once just because the speaker was having family issues and couldn’t come in which was understandable. But we have speakers lined up every week to come in and it’s been great. People are enjoying it, I’m seeing a lot of recurring people so people are staying. I get emails every week on LakerLife, “hi I want to join the organization,” and I add them to the email list. So it’s working well. I want to evolve Pre-Health. We were founded in 2011. In 2013 we got our footing in. Like I said I was a member, I was treasurer at one point, vice president at one point, and now president for the past two years. We’ve only been doing speakers. This semester, I’m really excited to announce that we’re using the money that we get from SA to fund group trips. So November 10th, we’re bringing about ten people to Temple University, which is known for their Podiatry School but they also have other programs that our club members are interested in. So we’re gonna go to their open house in Pennsylvania. We have an Airbnb, we’re gonna buy groceries to cook, and it’s gonna be a really fun time. We’re also going to The Mütter Museum that has all these failed experiments and body parts that people have donated to science. It’s gonna be really exciting. We’re also planning an Upstate trip the week after that. So we’re gonna go to Upstate Medical and have a tour and participate in their open house day. Me being president this year we’re trying to do more. We’re trying to evolve to not only do guest speakers but to have events. At one point I want to advertise Pre-Health to the public. I want to table or do a fundraiser or something. I want to give the organization to the next president a bit more developed than it was when I got it. I don’t want them to only be doing guest speakers. So that’s my plan.

HoOz- If you could tell your future self one thing, what would it be?

Cliff- Wow this is a tricky question, it’s always been like your past self. I guess if I could talk to my future self right now, I don’t know what I would tell them, I would ask them. I would tell them to keep pushing. Keep thriving. What I’m currently going through right now, all the stress, all the homework, all the papers, all the on calls, I hope it was all worth it. So just keep pushing, keep thriving, keep surrounding yourself with the people you love, and just keep moving. We’re going through all these hurdles so we can make the end goal of being happy, being successful, being financially stable, so just keep going. There are a lot of times where it’s just like I’m just gonna give up, I’m just gonna quit this, I don’t wanna do this anymore, I don’t have to deal with the stress, if I quit right now I won’t have to deal with this. I don’t obviously because being a student leader you can’t just quit. I think I would just tell him to keep going because you’ve done it already. You’ve jumped through all these hoops because if you don’t keep moving then you’re gonna be stuck in the past, and if I’m talking to my future self then they already got through the things I’ve gone through.

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worklabournewsresearch · 6 years

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LABOR’S LAST STAND

"[T]he Janus decision may have the ultimate effect of moving unions toward “a more activist base.” The same may be true even of workers outside of unions or whose unions are weak. Notice how the recent wave of teacher strikes and protests has taken place mainly in “red states” (West Virginia, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona) with right-to-work laws on the books.”

“It is no accident that the present focus of the right’s anti-labor agenda—in Janus, in Friedrichs, and most notoriously in Governor Scott Walker’s 2011 attack on municipal unions in Wisconsin—is on public-sector unions.”

“Public-sector unions make convenient targets for whipped-up envy, cast as parasites “living off the rest of us,” a role once filled by “welfare cheats.” That most of their members are women and many are women of color probably makes the transference easier.”

“Of course, unions have been under attack in this country for as long as they’ve existed, and for self-evident reasons. “Historically, organized labor is the only movement that attempts to participate in virtually every type of collective action, from hiring lobbyists to shutting down cities,” writes labor scholar Gabriel Winant, a distinction better understood by the Koch brothers and the Trump White House than by many to their left.”

‘“The right wing recognizes the labor movement as a barrier to the achievement of its reactionary goals,’ says Gene Bruskin, who led the campaign to organize Smithfield Foods in 2008. “That’s why they’re going after us so bad. But the progressive forces many times write it off as stodgy and old-fashioned. That’s a big mistake.”The costs of that mistake are increasingly borne by workers. Widening income inequality has kept steady pace with declining union membership.”

“In addition to better wages and benefits than their US counterparts enjoy, workers in union-friendly Europe now have a greater statistical likelihood of seeing their children live more prosperous lives than they do. The United States was once ranked in the top tier of nations for collective-bargaining rights by the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC). There are five tiers, with the fifth consisting of such countries as Mexico and Iran. The United States is now in the fourth tier, with Peru and Argentina.”

The author:“I grew up with the assumption that there was labor and there was management,” I tell him, “and they’d always be locked in this struggle, and sometimes labor would win, and sometimes, probably most of the time, management would win, but they’d be wrestling back and forth, and that’s how it would go on, and in some ways that would be how society progressed. And now I’ve started to wonder whether that’s the right way of thinking about it, whether it isn’t a wrestling match but a fight to the death, and that there are only two possible outcomes. One is that labor, not by itself but in coalition with other groups, prevails to the extent of being able to restructure society in some basic ways. Or management, or whatever you want to call it—the One Percent—will destroy all unions and basically there will be masters and helots.”

Peter Knowlton, President United Electrical Workers(UE): “Granted, a lot of it is brute force, but in terms of being innovative in how to make a better widget, there’s something to be said for competition. The problem is that our form of capitalism, of competition, is cannibalistic. I remember when companies used to compete in quality, service, durability. Then, starting under Reagan, it became profit for the sake of profit. The idea of making a fair profit got tossed aside and was replaced by the idea of making whatever you could make.” The social ramifications are even worse. Knowlton says that former congressman Barney Frank’s call for “capitalism with a human face” is like speaking of “submarines with screen doors. The very nature of capitalism is to ignore the human face, and the human condition, and just to make more profits for the person who owns a particular enterprise.”

“’You don’t need to be a socialist or a Marxist to see that capital today is resulting in absurd inequalities that are also making the system grow less and less able to sustain itself,’ says Héctor Figueroa, the head of SEIU Local 32BJ, whose self-description as ‘a strong, sober, old-fashioned, hostile trade unionist who values social justice’ may be more pertinent to the legacy of the UE than any political label. In the broadest sense, all labor unions are leftist in their implicit acknowledgment of two basic principles: that capital exploits labor and that labor’s only hope lies in collective action informed by class consciousness.”

“In public discussions of labor, capital, and the laws that govern both, what inevitably slips from view is the work itself. What work means and what it might mean. The dignity of it and the degradation of it. We may think we know, but most of what we know is what we’ve been conditioned to think. Capital doesn’t just exploit labor; it defines labor. It uses the law to re-create labor in its own image. When the Taft-Hartley Act stipulates that unions can bargain only over “terms and conditions of employment” (and not, say, over the uses of technology or the control of pollution), it is saying in effect that workers are motivated by the same aims that motivate capitalists. This in turn authorizes the slander that unions care about nothing but money.”

“Even the pro-union National Labor Relations Act (also known as the Wagner Act), by excluding supervisors, farmworkers, and domestic workers from its protections, all but defined who does and doesn’t belong to the working class—in imagination no less than in law. Say “working class” and people still picture a white guy with a lunch box heading toward a manufacturing plant. As for those workers authorized under the law to form federally recognized unions, more than 90 percent currently work under contracts with “no-strike clauses” that remain in effect for the duration of the contract. Imagine a truce in which one side is required not only to lay down its arms but to throw them away. This, too, is a matter of identity and definition: the combatant in this case hasn’t just agreed to cease hostilities; he’s agreed to cease being a soldier.“

“James Pope, who teaches labor and constitutional law at Rutgers, might object to the military analogy. ‘One of the terrible words in the English language from my point of view is ‘strike,’ Pope says, ‘because it connotes something aggressive.’ The term actually derives from ‘sailors striking sails on a ship,’ which eighteenth-century sailors did in labor actions that were misnamed ‘mutinies.’ When workers go on strike, Pope explains, ‘all they’re doing is withholding cooperation in their own exploitation.’ They’re using the only asset they have: their labor. In France, the right to strike is codified in law and belongs not just to unions but to all workers. In the United States, the right to strike is on shakier ground than the right to own an assault rifle or distribute hardcore porn. Pope is among those legal scholars who think the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution is “under-utilized” in labor disputes. ‘Involuntary servitude doesn’t only pertain to situations where someone is pointing a gun at you and telling you to work.’”

"Like climate change and pollution, issues of social justice compel unions to act at the gritty level of the workplace. Their frequent failure to do so was underscored by the Trump victory, though labor people differ on how best to interpret the upset. Bill Fletcher Jr., a leading African-American scholar on the labor left, rejects the analysis that the election of Donald Trump was a white-working-class revolt against economic hardship and sees it rather as a result of the way whites “perceive economic issues through the prism of race.” He contends that “if economic issues and the revolt against neoliberalism were the main drivers, then blacks and Latinos ought to have been warming up to Trump. And that sure as hell didn’t happen.”

“In serving as a consultant to the Washington State Labor Council’s recent initiative on racial justice, Fletcher emphasized how race has been used to divide workers. He contrasts his approach with the usual “diversity trainings—singing ‘Kumbaya,’ you taste my food, I’ll taste yours, we’ll hug each other and cry and be friends forever. Which is basically crap. When you really talk about race, you talk about capitalism. It’s why race was constructed from the very beginning. What the union must do is help to build class consciousness.”

Harper’s Magazine, September 2018:”Labor’s Last Stand: Unions must either demand a place at the table or be part of the meal,” by Garret Keizer (please contact the CIRHR Library if you wish to read the complete article)

#unions #inequality #janus

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nancypullen · 6 years

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Searching for Home (Warning: long post about nothing)

That blog title may seem odd since I’ve been in this house since 1999. Mt. Juliet has been home because this is (mostly) where my kids grew up. Sure, they remember Barrow and Fairbanks and living the Alaskan life, but they were little guys when we moved here. Matt was 3rd grade and Tyler was just getting ready for kindergarten. As for me, prior to moving here I’d spent the bulk of my life in Alaska, some of it on Ft. Wainwright, some of it in North Pole, some of it in Barrow, and much of it in Fairbanks.

During my childhood we bounced from post to post as a military family (no complaints, I loved it), and didn’t really settle until Dad retired and I was entering high school in North Pole. We spent a period going back and forth between Ft. Wainwright , Alaska (4th,5th,6th grade, then 9-12th) and Ft. Bragg, North Carolina (K 1,2,3 then 7th and 8th grade). But when you return to a post you don’t return to the friends you once had, they’ve all moved on. You go into different housing, different schools, and make new friends. I was born in Georgia, but have no memory of the state. We lived in Louisiana and I have vague memories of it, none very good. I was more, or maybe less, fortunate than some depending on how you look at it. More fortunate because I sometimes returned to familiar areas, and as the youngest in my family I was the only one who was able to start and finish high school in one place. Less fortunate because my dad had an aversion to putting in for posts overseas - so many of my friends had the opportunity to live in Germany, Italy, Spain, and other exciting spots. When my family was military Alaska was considered comparable to overseas posts, so that’s where we went. My sister was born just as Alaska became a state in 1959. My brother was born there as well, and two years after his arrival I was born 4,284 miles away at Ft. Benning, Georgia. Our family made many trips up and down the Al-Can Highway (through Canada to Alaska) and it wasn’t paved. Three kids crammed into a station wagon that’s pulling a U-Haul (or a camper) on a washboard gravel road for 2200 miles with very little to see...someone give my mother a medal. No doubt that road and its amenities have improved, but at that time it was sparse. I spent seventeen years of my life in Alaska, I stayed well after the rest of my family had fled. By the time I was eighteen I was without parents or siblings in the state but I had Mickey. I was young and in love. My parents had moved to Florida, my sister had followed love to Rochester,New York, and my brother had joined the Army and was in Germany. Alaska is where I started married life, became a mother, and experienced so many of life’s firsts. But I don’t miss it. Fairbanks is kind of a gritty town. Not the Fairbanks that tourists see, but the town that’s there after the snow flies. Perhaps if my roots were in Sitka or Juneau or even somewhere in the Matanuska Valley I’d feel a longing to go back. Maybe not. Everything is harder there. As a mother of two little boys just the logistics of getting to the grocery store and back were a pain. Unplug and start the car (if you don’t have a garage) to warm it up. While the car is thawing, get everyone decked out in arctic gear from head to toe. Load up and slide to the store. Debate whether to leave car running and risk theft, or turn it off and do your shopping as a mad dash. Get everyone inside and unzipped so they don’t sweat to death while shopping. Rush around buying ridiculously priced food and so-so produce and check out. Dress kids again, then give them whiplash trying to pull the grocery cart across the frozen, rutted, bumpy parking lot. Unload into trunk, then sit down on hard as a rock car seat because you turned the car off and everything is frozen. Slide home on icy roads. You see where this is going. The dressing and undressing so that no one gets frostbite. The elements constantly working against you. Did I mention that it’s also midnight dark almost all day and night? Don’t get me wrong, I love winter. I love snow. But I do not love constant darkness and fifty below zero and trying to accomplish every day tasks in weather not meant for humans. Obviously, that wasn’t all winter. Lots of days hovered in the twenty to thirty below zero range. I remember my in-laws coming for a Christmas visit and my father-in-law delighting in tossing a hot cup of coffee into the air to watch it come back down in frozen crystals. Even in the brief but beautiful summers the conveniences that we take for granted here in the lower 48 weren’t available and if they were there was sticker shock. My friends in Fairbanks still complain about prices, conveniences, lack of goods,etc. They take great pride in the moose, aurora, and bone-chilling cold. I don’t want to burst their bubbles and tell them that you can get all of that in Maine, Minnesota, North Dakota, and other northern states AND get Amazon Prime and affordable household goods. You don’t have to prove anything. So where am I going with this rambling blog? I’m looking for home. Most people feel a pull toward home, a place or a state. I don’t. Well, I kind of do...but it’s more for a time and a people. I miss Weiser, Idaho where we lived for a year with my grandparents while my dad was in Korea. We also visited every chance we got, mostly when we were transferring between bases. Those were the safest, happiest, most wonderful times in my life. Grandma and Grandpa’s place was paradise. But that’s all gone now. their house and land was sold long ago and it’s now run down and the big shade trees are gone, so are Grandma’s magical gardens. If I returned to Weiser it wouldn’t be to that cinnamon scented house of love where I slept in an attic bedroom with lace curtains. I do like Idaho a lot, but it wouldn’t feel like home. I’ve mentioned before that I have a real affection for the town of Wamego in Kansas. It’s just right. Situated between Manhattan(about 15 minutes) and Topeka (about 30 minutes) and with Kansas City a bit further east (a bit over an hour) it’s a Norman Rockwell town that takes pride in a charming downtown, a good school system, and being neighborly. It’s the heartland. We’ve visited three times and Wamego always comes up when we talk about where we’d like to be. I confess, I love the prairie. Always have. The politics of Kansas are a hot mess. I don’t mean that they’re red and I’m blue, I mean that the Kansas GOP has basically bankrupted the state. I can live in a red state, though I’d love to live in a blue one, but I can’t live in a state devoid of services, money for schools, roads,etc. I’m keeping a watchful eye on their governor’s race - will they elect Laura Kelly, a woman and democrat who has been a four term state senator and fought Brownback’s destructive policies...or Kobach, Brownback’s right hand man? I met Brownback at a Wamego 4th of July parade before I knew who he was and every cell in my body screamed DANGER. You know how sometimes your gut tells you before your brain has a chance to figure things out? That. If Kansas votes Kelly, my faith will be restored. But it’s not home. We also love Keene, the town in New Hampshire that hosts the fabulous pumpkin festival. We always walk the towns we like, checking out libraries and other spots, and we always go into grocery stores and compare prices. Keene ticks all of my boxes for a sweet, interesting, walkable, smart city. Their library was beautiful! That tells you a lot about a population. If the library is active it speaks highly of a town. Property taxes were a little high in Keene, and it’s really not close to any decent airports for Mickey. Manchester’s small airport is about an hour and twenty minutes away and Boston is almost 2 hours (probably more with traffic). Granted, we’d probably be retired so maybe that’s not as big of an issue. Still, we’ll want to see family and that makes it harder for everyone involved. Keene is beautiful, and it is surrounded by New England’s best - sugar maple farms and covered bridges, and has four beautiful seasons. Keene is Mickey’s number one choice, but.....you guessed it, it’s not home. I like so many of the small towns outside of Minneapolis (and it’s a blue state!), and the state of Minnesota ranks sky high in just about every way that matters - great health care, great education system, great economy, and so on. They’re smart cookies up there. Admittedly, the biggest draw is that Matt lives up there, but there’s no guarantee he’ll stay. He’ll be off wherever the scariest diseases live. Minnesota is at the top of my list though, I really like the people there. I like coastal Maine, not so much inland Maine. Sadly their economy is in such a downward spiral that the state is in a depression with no end in sight. I think they’re ranked 47th in the nation for economic growth and their numbers are stagnant. It’s weird, Maine’s neighboring states are thriving while their governor sticks to his guns and guts the coffers. I’ve read article after article showing that the Portland area of southeast Maine is recovering and growing but rural Maine is being left behind. Businesses are closing, services are being cut, there’s no job creation, and no one seems to be taking action. Towns are shrinking and doctors, dentists, teachers, and other important services are lost. So...we could probably pick up real estate for a song, but living there might be hard for a retired person. I think I’ll just visit and eat their lobster. We could just stay put. Life in Tennessee is certainly affordable. No state income tax, though we do have a hefty sales tax (here in Wilson County we pay ten cents on a dollar). Real estate is still affordable - though again, here in Wilson County it has skyrocketed. If you don’t mine living deep, I mean deep, in Trump country where the religious hypocrisy runs high and tolerance is low - this might be your place. I didn’t pick it, but I’ve made the best of it for over twenty-five years. I reached my limit years ago, but the mister has recently started complaining about the heat so maybe we’ll get out after all. Nashville is twenty minutes and a whole world away. Maybe if we were young people living downtown we’d see a different Tennessee - Davidson County usually goes blue, a small dot in a deeply red state. Here in Mt. Juliet one of the first things people ask you is where you go to church. Two weeks ago I went to get my mammogram and the woman who took my information was very chatty. I engaged and we were yukking it up. As I left her desk to sit down and wait to be called, she said, “You are just precious, where do you go to church?” When I answered that I don’t belong to a particular church her face fell and that was the end of her friendliness. No doubt she needed to know which part of the hierarchy I belonged to...the large population of Baptists and Church of Christ followers seem to have a running battle to see who can out holy the other and who can recruit the most new members. Methodists are pretty cool and there’s even a handful of Lutherans here who won’t bother you at all. Tennessee is growing by leaps and bounds and has one of the hottest real estate markets in the country thanks to it being a retirement haven. Low prices, low taxes, low standards. Ahahahaha! We have all the services we need at our fingertips, and we can be at the beach or in the mountains in just a few hours. Definite positives. We don’t have four nice seasons though - we have an excruciating summer, a beautiful but quick fall, a gray,wet,ugly winter, and a soggy, tornado-ridden spring. Actually, I’m not complaining about spring - I love big thunderstorms and severe weather. As long as the power stays on it can thunder and lightning for days and I’m okay. So what do we do? Stay? Go? Keep looking? We both liked what we saw in a week in South Dakota. Do we look until we’re too old to move? If we could snap our fingers and just live where we’d like, we’d both go to The Netherlands. We feel at home there, pretty sad when I feel like a visitor in so many places in the U.S. My soul feels at home in Salem. I feel at home when I stand on the prairie and look at the huge sky and rolling hills. I guess it all comes back to not being FROM anywhere. In Maine, there are Mainers and outsiders. It’s very clear. In Minnesota they’re warm and welcoming, but there are customs, foods, traditions, and basic traits that make one a Minnesotan - I don’t possess any of them, though I don’t think they’d care. I’d just always feel like a visitor. I didn’t feel that in Kansas, they’re good salt of the earth people, not nosy enough to ask where you’re from or where you go to church. New Hampshire was the same way. There didn’t seem to be a divide between born here and moved here folks. I’ve been in Tennessee since ‘93 and I’m still not considered a local. I’m okay with that. Not having picked up the customs and quirks of a state or even a region, I can’t really claim a “home”. If pressed I’d probably say Alaska because that’s where I experienced everything from childhood skinned knees to birthing a baby. But I can’t say that if I stepped off a plane there tomorrow I’d take a deep breath and say, “Ahhh, home!” Moving to a new home every two to three years during my formative years made me resilient, it made me friendly. I make friends easily, but I don’t get too attached - and getting me to really open up, well...

It also gave me a good attitude toward not-so-good places. Even if you can’t find something positive, hey - you’ll only have to endure it for a couple years, right? (twenty-five years later...) It gave me the gift of curiosity and of emotional self-sufficiency. It just didn’t give me a hometown. So I’m looking, always looking. I spend hours scouring real estate and then looking up information on citydata.com and other sites. If I ever move I’ll know more about the place than the folks who already live there.

Thanks for listening to my scatter-brained ramblings today. There’s no point to any of this, really. I yearn for a place that doesn’t exist. I long for home, but I suppose it’s all in my mind - some magical place that fits and feels right. I wonder how many people actually have that. I wonder how many need it? I’ve spent a lifetime blooming where planted, and I think that’s a crucial skill. I’m certainly not knocking it. I just wonder what it feels like to be the plant who gets placed in the perfect environment for growth and health. Please don’t mistake this post for sorrow or a cry for help - it’s not. It’s really more of a thinking out loud sort of thing. Just pondering, trying to work out whether it’s safer to stay put or make a leap. Will any place be better than the last? Who knows? I do know that there are places where being authentic is easier than others. Guess I’ll just keep looking...any hints?

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arianaapeyton · 3 years

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Cash App Direct Deposit Enable, Failed, Pending, Time, Limit, Set-Up, Unemployment Pending

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