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sissikellicaptions · 4 months

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sissikellicaptions

May 2

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Learning the Sissy ABC's of Diaper Domination - "B"

You had given up everything. You left your home, quit your job, and gave ownership of everything to Mommy Grace and Daddy Mick. With no control of your money, no cell phone, no drivers license in their state along with no car, and not a single item of clothing to your name, you were at their whim completely. You'd asked for this, and now you were getting it. And as promised, they were going to ensure you learned your place by teaching you the ABC's of being a Sissy Diaper Sub.

Lesson 2, Week 2, B is for Big

Quickly you will learn that as a submissive Diapered Sissy, everything in your life is set to bigger. In more than just the obvious ways. And things weren't going to do anything but keep growing.

The obvious things are always going to be as large as possible. The size of your diapers will be as thick as possible, the more room to swell and expand, keeping them unable to be masked by any form of fabric. Speaking of, your outfits (when allowed to be worn) will be ever expansive in several ways.

More and more clothing options fill your closet, an ever growing collection of things for you to be dressed in. And the frills on them will of course be as ultra feminine and poofy as possible. The newest arrival was a ball gown that featured a built in petticoat so large that you'll barely fit through the door without them rubbing on the wood.

Not only will your diapers be keeping your knees forever apart, but the messes contained in them will be titanic in size. Big bowls of special foods for Sissy, and Big Bottles will make a big tummy and lead to multiple Big Messes that will find their way into your diapers and eventually create a large amount of discoloration. Though as with everything, the amount of time to do that even is pretty big.

Another Big thing you will find is the amount of shame and humiliation you'll be subjected to. Such as having to earn a nightly diaper change with a big gesture. Crawling on all fours outside in the backyard during a rainstorm oinking like a pig. Serving Daddy and his Friends while they watched sports and showed off your Big Assets. Or what you did night 3 of the lesson, putting on a big show for a big audience online as you and your big teddy got extra personal.

But as a Diapered Sissy, not only will you find excessive size in your Diapers, Messes, Curves, and humiliation opportunities, but also in the list of tasks expected to be completed by you. You are just a big object designated for use. And you'll learn that no task is too big for you. That includes Big plans in the future, likely involving the Big training tools, Big Plugs, and other Big toys taken down to what you're told is quite a Big basement that has yet to be revealed to you yet.

So enjoy your time tonight. Be sure to give a big reaction for the crowd. Otherwise you'll learn that despite everything here being Big, Mommy and Daddy aren't afraid to make 1 thing very, VERY, small.

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Photo is not mine, credit goes to original owner. Contact me if you would like credit for it, and if you would like me to remove it from the page.

So tumblr had a "human" review and claimed this post was "sexual" in nature, likely because of the photo. So challenge. If this post can get 150 notes by July 4th 2024 I will recreate the previously used photo myself and also use 3 other photos specially taken of myself diapered for this ABC series. Previous photo was a clearly soiled diapered person laying on top of a teddy bear.

So if you want me to heavily mess a diaper and photograph myself in a dominant position over a plush toy, get to liking and reporting. 1 month to get 150 notes.

#ab/dl caption #diaper captions #humiliation captions #original caption #sissi caption #sissy diaper #diaper humiliation #diaper play #diaper stories #diaper sub

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sparksinthenight · 7 months

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Have a Heart Day 2024

This is a letter I wrote to the Canadian Government for Have a Heart Day 2024. I am asking the government to stop discriminating against First Nations children, to stop giving them inadequate services, education, and support, to stop treating them unequally compared to non-Indigenous children, and to stop taking them away from their loving families. I really hope that you read my letter and that you either copy paste it or write your own, and email the Canadian government yourself.

Hello. Our names are ____ and we are people from various parts of so-called Canada. We are writing to you to ask that you ensure the government stops discriminating against First Nations children, by signing a Final Settlement Agreement on Reform that meets and goes beyond the Agreement in Principle on Reform, and by following the Spirit Bear Plan and enshrining it into law.

First Nations children and families on reserves are being discriminated against in many ways. Most communities do not receive the same amount of and access to social services that non-Indigenous people receive. Most communities do not receive as good quality social services as non-Indigenous people. While there has been progress, Jordan's Principle, which is about meeting children's needs, is still not being properly applied. Most children don't have access to an equal quality of education as children off reserves, and many children receive very inadequate education services. And, very horrifyingly, children are being separated from families who love them and want to take care of them. This all needs to stop. We need to make, follow, and enforce laws that stop this discrimination.

First of all, let's talk about the fact that social services are inadequate on most reserves. As you know, the federal government funds services on reserves that the provincial or municipal governments fund elsewhere. The government generally funds services on reserves far less than services are funded off reserves. These include education, water infrastructure, housing, financial assistance, transportation, basic infrastructure, utilities, healthcare, mental healthcare, addiction support, job training, childcare, youth programs, cultural programs, recreation programs, libraries, child welfare, and more. These services are human rights and should be well-funded for everyone. It's not fair that non-Indigenous people have better services to better meet more of their fundamental human rights and basic needs while people on reserves don't.

The fact that people don't have access to the services they need is part of why there are high levels of poverty on reserves. Ongoing and historical racism, trauma, and discrimination have caused a lot of people on reserves to be poor. And this lack of services is part of that discrimination that is causing people to be poor. If people had the healthcare, education, housing, childcare, mental healthcare, addiction support, cultural support, job training, basic food and water, disability support, and other things they needed, they would be able to have the peace of mind, mental strength, knowledge, support, and resources necessary to pull themselves and their communities out of poverty. Also, since there is so much poverty on reserves, these communities need even more services to help meet their basic needs and human rights.

Services delivered need to be good and effective for the communities they are delivered in. This means that services need to meet each community's different needs. Because each community has different needs due to different connectivity to the outside world, poverty levels, local prices, etc. Service providers need to first see what services people need and how to best deliver them, then work out how much money is needed. Money should be the last thing considered. What each person, family, and community needs should be the first thing considered. And of course, services must all be culturally sensitive and relevant.

And part of why services are so low quality, as well as part of why so much discrimination and cruelty happens, is because Indigenous Services Canada has biases in its systems and people, and must be reformed. Indigenous Services Canada doesn't listen to experts about what communities need and how things should be done. They don't try to do their actual job, which is ensuring good services are provided to Indigenous people. They need to be reformed and communities need to lead their own service provision.

The Spirit Bear plan must be properly implemented and properly followed. It must be enshrined in law and the law must be completely enforced. The Spirit Bear Plan is the following:

"Spirit Bear calls on:

CANADA to immediately comply with all rulings by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ordering it to immediately cease its discriminatory funding of First Nations child and family services. The order further requires Canada to fully and properly implement Jordan's Principle (www.jordansprinciple.ca).

PARLIAMENT to ask the Parliamentary Budget Officer to publicly cost out the shortfalls in all federally funded public services provided to First Nations children, youth and families (education, health, water, child welfare, etc.) and propose solutions to fix it.

GOVERNMENT to consult with First Nations to co-create a holistic Spirit Bear Plan to end all of the inequalities (with dates and confirmed investments) in a short period of time sensitive to children's best interests, development and distinct community needs.

GOVERNMENT DEPARTMENTS providing services to First Nations children and families to undergo a thorough and independent 360° evaluation to identify any ongoing discriminatory ideologies, policies or practices and address them. These evaluation must be publicly available.

ALL PUBLIC SERVANTS including those at a senior level, to receive mandatory training to identify and address government ideology, policies and practices that fetter the implementation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's Calls to Action." This information is from the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society.

Another huge factor contributing to the inequality faced by many First Nations children is the fact that Jordan's Principle isn't being properly implemented.

The federal government, not the provincial government, typically pays for the services on reserves. But many times disputes arise about who should pay for a service, and the children don't get the services non-Indigenous children would get as a matter of course. Jordan's Principle is named after Jordan River Anderson, a young disabled boy from Norway House Cree Nation who passed away in the hospital after the provincial government and the federal government couldn't decide which one should pay the costs of his healthcare. The Principle states that if a First Nations child needs something for their well-being, they need to be given that service first and payment disputes should get addressed later. This includes medical, psychological, educational, cultural, disability, and basic needs support. Non-Indigenous children get these supports without having to ask because they have access to many more and better services. These supports are human rights that everyone deserves, especially children going through generational and contemporary trauma.

Jordan's Principle is not being properly implemented, and this is hurting kids. Though there has been much progress, Jordan's Principle requests, which are for things children need, are often denied, which goes against children's rights. Indigenous Services Canada, which runs the Jordan's Principle approval process, doesn't have an adequate complaints mechanism to hold to account its provision of the Principle. The government isn't making data available on whether they're meeting children's needs. Many children have delays in getting help, including time-sensitive medical, psychological, educational, and development help.

The application process, though easier than before, is still difficult and many families don't have adequate help and guidance through it. As well, most doctors don't know which children are eligible for Jordan's Principle supports, 40% don't know which services are covered, and ⅓ don't know how to access funding through it.

Long term reform is needed. An Agreement in Principle on long term reform has been drafted by the government and First Nations advocates, and it looks promising. It talks about increasing funding for Jordan's Principle services and trying to root out prejudice in the system. But the Agreement in Principle is not legally binding. It's not something the government has to follow, or is following, but rather what they claim they might do eventually. Negotiations for the creation of a Final Settlement Agreement based on the Agreement in Principle were underway but have been on standstill for months. A Final Settlement Agreement would be legally binding and would if done right increase the chances of achieving change.

The school system is also horribly unfair. Many First Nations schools on reserves get less funding than schools off reserve, with an average of 30% less funding per school. They don't have adequate funding for computers, software, technology, sports equipment, field trips, labs, lab equipment, extracurriculars, cultural learning, job training, and the list goes on. They don't even have enough money to have adequate heating, good quality infrastructure, adequate and safe ventilation, enough textbooks, and reasonable class sizes. Many schools don't have a safe and appropriate learning environment. All children, including First Nations children, deserve good education.

There is no clear plan to eliminate education and employment gaps.

The government claims it's negotiating with Indigenous groups but there's no evidence that they're actually doing anything to lower inequality. They also claim that they're funding education on reserves equally but all the evidence says they're not. You need to actually, genuinely fund education on reserves adequately and equitably, and make sure that children on reserves are actually receiving a good and equal and equitable quality of education.

A lot of communities don't have self-determination over their own education systems, meaning they can't teach about the history of their people and other important cultural knowledge. First Nations children need and deserve to learn about their culture, about the ecosystems their people are connected to and how to interact with those ecosystems, their history, their language, their traditions. And if communities have self-determination over their own education systems, and they have adequate resources and funding from the government, they'll be able to teach these things so that children grow up proud of who they are.

And what is perhaps the most horrible thing is that so many children are being separated from families who love them. This is the most traumatic thing that can happen to a child, and all children deserve and need to be with the families who love them.

At the height of residential schools, many children were separated from their families. Currently, 3 times as many children are in foster care, away from their families. One tenth of First Nations children have been in foster care. Children in foster care experience higher rates of physical and sexual abuse and do not get as much cultural immersion. Not to mention, even in the best circumstances, they're away from their families.

Most Indigenous children in foster care have loving families that try their best to take care of them, who they want and need deeply. But their families are poor or mentally ill or disabled, or have other factors that make it hard for them to meet their children's needs. Preventative support like financial, housing, health, and mental health aid could keep many families together. If child and family service agencies have the resources and the empathy to help families with what they need so that families stay together, that would be a great relief. Child and family service agencies need adequate money, infrastructure, and personnel to give families real help instead of taking children away. Most agencies do not have these. Programs that help the wider community such as healthcare, financial aid, housing services, mental healthcare, parenting classes, food support, community programs, youth programs, cultural programs, pregnancy support, and others would greatly decrease the number of children taken from their homes. Most communities do not have adequate levels of these programs.

Child and family service agencies need to be completely reformed, and should be led by First Nations communities themselves. Most child and family service agencies are not. This is especially important since there is bias against First Nations people in many agencies. Some communities are getting the opportunities to start their own child and family service agencies, but most communities do not have this opportunity. Canada needs binding laws to ensure child and family service agencies are led by First Nations communities and are based in the unique culture of each community, which they often aren't. Each community has unique needs depending on local prices, remoteness, poverty levels, and other factors. The way child and family services should be funded is by first seeing what services the children truly need, then seeing how to best deliver them, then determining how much money will be needed.

There is a promising Agreement in Principle on Reform, created by the government and First Nations advocates. It discusses increasing funding for child welfare services and trying to root out prejudice in the system. However this is not a legally binding agreement that the government has to follow. It's just something that they claim they'll maybe do in the future. A Final Settlement Agreement based on the Agreement in Principle would be legally binding. It would, if done right, enact more funding and reform. But negotiations for this have been on pause for months. Canada needs to implement evidence-based solutions to keep kids with their families. This means creating a legally binding and well-enforced Final Settlement Agreement on Reform that meets and goes beyond the Agreement in Principle on Reform.

Some communities are trying a new funding model for child and family services that may give more funding, allowing them to do more preventative services instead of taking children away. However, the results of this new funding model are not clear yet, and most communities do not have the opportunity to be funded by it. And there is no guarantee that the new funding model will be applied to all communities if it indeed does work. There is no guarantee that enough funding for prevention services will be given to all communities, whether or not the new funding model works.

The government often promises to create reform or adequately fund things, but they don't follow through on those promises. If the government does make progress, safeguards need to be in place to stop them from backsliding.

So here are our asks for you:

-Implement the Spirit Bear plan and adequately fund all social services on reserves.

-Make sure all services are available de facto just like they are off reserve.

-Fund cultural services and make sure all services are culturally-rooted.

-Eliminate all discrimination and bias in service providers.

-Listen to experts such as doctors and teachers, the community, and community-led service providers.

-Allow and help First Nations communities to lead their own social services rooted in their own cultural values.

-Keep funding flexible and adaptable to changing needs.

-Have adequate accountability measures for all service providers.

-Make a binding law to adequately fund all social services and have communities lead social service provision.

-Create a binding law to ensure that once you start adequately funding social services you don't stop.

-In a reasonable timeframe, reach a Final Settlement Agreement on Long-Term Reform that meets and goes beyond the Agreement in Principle.

-Make sure all Jordan's Principle requests in the best interests of children are accepted.

-Give presumptive approval for Jordan's Principle requests under $250.

-Support organizations and communities already providing Jordan's Principle services.

-Accept urgent requests within 12 hours and non urgent requests within 48 hours.

-Don't require more than one document from a professional or elder for making requests.

-Make data available on Jordan's Principle provision effectiveness.

-Make sure all supports are given in a timely manner without delays.

-Make it easy and convenient for families and professionals to make Jordan's Principle requests.

-Fund schools on reserves as much as schools off reserve. This includes funding for computers, libraries, software, teacher training, special education, education research, language programs, cultural programs, mental health support, support for kids with special needs, extracurriculars, ventilation, heating, mold removal, vocation training for students, and more.

-Make sure all schools have the resources, funding, and support necessary to teach culture.

-Make a clear joint strategy to eliminate the education and employment gap.

-Make sure all school staff are non-discriminatory.

-Make sure communities have self-determination to create culturally rooted education.

-Adequately fund child and family services on reserves, and make sure they can hire enough people and have good infrastructure.

-Stop discrimination within child and family service agencies.

-Allow and help all First Nations communities to lead and run their own child and family service agencies that are based on their cultural values.

-Enact evidence based solutions to keep families together.

-Don't take children from families that love them.

-Have and fund adequate preventative services so families can take care of their children and no child is taken away.

-Keep funding for child and family services flexible and responsive to each community's needs, and listen to communities to learn what their needs are.

-Have adequate accountability in child and family services so that any underfunding, discrimination, or failure is stopped and remedied.

-Family support needs to start at or even before pregnancy.

-Fund culturally-based healing of people who have been harmed and are being harmed by the government's discrimination.

———

Find your MP here: https://www.ourcommons.ca/en/members

justin.trudeau(at)parl.gc.ca- Prime Minister Trudeau

chrystia.freeland(at)parl.gc.ca- Deputy Prime Minister Freeland

patty.hajdu(at)parl.gc.ca- Minister of Indigenous Services

gary.anand(at)parl.gc.ca - Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations

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m0r1bund · 9 months

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"Lore, where have you been?"

In hell, probably. I remade M0R1BUND.com.

“For the love of god, why?”

Short answer: to save time and money.

Long answer: Sharing art was getting burdensome. Neocities hosts static websites built with html, css, and javascript—which is awesome for its mission, to encourage people to create future-proof websites. But this also means that every page is created and maintained by hand. I handle every little link and file and bit of code, and if I want to do site-wide changes, I have to push those by hand, too. This takes time, and so does writing image descriptions and cross-posting art to other websites. It became normal for sharing art to eat up an entire day.

I later created Basedt.net in WordPress, so that I didn’t have to worry about managing link hierarchies, which was a big timewaster on my old webcomic. I liked working in WordPress well enough, and I knew I would benefit from being able to use PHP to manage the sheer amount of stuff that’s on M0R1BUND.com. I was also paying double for webhosting through two different services, when I really didn’t need to…. So… I knew it was inevitable that I would consolidate the two at some point. It was time.

I do really love Neocities and I’m sorry to let it go. I encourage anyone who wants to learn web design and create their own website to start there.

Anyway, that’s how I ended up in hell for 6 months.

“What’s changed?”

Most things. I’m most excited about the quality-of-life stuff, like being able to sort art by character/location/world, or being able to move between individual pieces instead of having to return to the gallery landing page. There are lots of things I want to add, but my soft deadline for this was the new year, so I focused on recreating M0R1BUND.com as it existed before… well… this.

I’ve also edited most of my writing. This site is old, and the art is even older, it felt good to give it some TLC.

There are still a few things missing from the new site:

The Woods and RANSOM. They aren’t really representative of Basedt or Mercasor anymore, and I was not a competent writer in 2018. If I re-share them, it will be in the distant future.

Some of my Those Who Went Missing stuff. I haven’t been playing TWWM publicly, so this is lower priority right now. It will happen when it happens.

Some twines. They haven’t adjusted to the new filepath format yet. Killswitch is here, though :)

If you need them urgently for some reason, I can share them with you? but that seems doubtful haha.

Links to pages on the old M0R1BUND.com are broken and will remain broken until I set up redirections to the new M0R1BUND.com. I have no idea how long that will take! … Hopefully not long, given the new semester is here.

And of course... If you see anything weird, tell me! I test as much as I can, but I only have access to so many devices. Break this website within an inch of its miserable life so that I can fix it.

“How’s Basedt going?”

It’s going. Recreating my website took precedence for the above reasons, but I’ve been working concurrently on it in my spare time. We move like a glacier into the new year. ETA: ???

#look upon my works ye mighty and despair

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isfjmel-phleg · 9 months

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Earlier in the month I reread the AG Christmas stories that I own and they hold up awfully well! It would have been easy to make them generic holiday stories for children, but they have a surprising amount of depth for what they are.

There's a recurring theme of character growth and unselfishness rewarded that makes them particularly memorable.

Felicity has to put her (harmless but rather frivolous) plans to attend a fancy party on hold to concentrate on caring for her ill mother and is surprised in a Cinderella-like climax when her friends have finished making her fancy gown and she can attend after all.

Josefina chooses not to demand back a family heirloom that her sister Clara is keeping from her, the family learns to more intentionally support each other in their grief, and Clara chooses independently to pass on the heirloom to Josefina.

Addy is initially a bit reluctant to give up the money she's been saving for a gift for her mother but ultimately decides that donating it to recently freed/escaped people in need is the right thing to do, and her long-separated father ends up finding them just in time for Christmas.

Samantha is initially hostile to her uncle's girlfriend, who is visiting for Christmas and upending the usual plans, but she comes to learn that Cornelia is in fact a lovely person who genuinely wants to connect with her, and she has to make an adjustment to reflect her change of heart.

Kit's pride gets in the way of her friendship with Ruthie, but working for an irritable uncle gives her the opportunity to reevaluate some things, and she is able to both repair her friendship and find a way to make her family's Christmas a little brighter.

Molly is lamenting her father's absence during Christmas and coping by clinging to trying to recreate how everything was the year before, but she has to learn how to adapt to unavoidable change and is given, along with her sister, the opportunity to help their father give them a wonderful Christmas even from afar.

And then there's Kirsten's story, which doesn't really follow this pattern and is more of a straightforward adventure/slice of historical life story. It's still very good! But there's a reason I have found it less memorable than the others.

(Felicity's Surprise was the very first AG story I was exposed to. I checked it out from the library when I was five and we were staying with my grandparents around Christmas, and my aunt read it to me, and it seemed absolutely magical, and so it has the most Christmasy associations to me of all of these.)

#do I even have a books tag?

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thedailydescent · 17 days

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Hello, I hope you find my message well.🙏

I am Rehab from Gaza🇵🇸

I'm asking you

For a small donation of $20 to Save 🙏🍉Our Lives from Gaza A

Can you donate for me and my family?

Thanks to your donations we can achieve our goal as quickly as possible and thanks to you you will save my children 🥺

Your support and standing by our side in this difficult time is everything to us ❤️‍🩹

I would be very grateful if you would donate to me and my family, thank you for your generosity in our time of need

https://gofund.me/67c82bf4

❤️🙏🍉Donate to help me and my family

This fundraiser has been vouched for by @bilal-salah0 and Rehab's husband can be found @hussein_shamia on Instragram. The couple can also be found @Moooohhhaaa on Twitter.

"Hello everyone, I am Hussein Shamiya and I have a family consisting of 3 members. I myself am 30 years old, and before the war worked as an IT engineer. My wife, Rehab Shamiya, is 26 years old, and before the war worked as an accountant. She is 8 months pregnant, so it is extremely urgent that we evacuate as soon as possible. My son, Ayham, is 4 years old. In light of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, we went through very difficult circumstances. We were displaced several times. We lost our house, which I had paid for with all my savings, to the enemy’s bombs shortly after our first displacement. We lost all the beautiful things that my family and I used to enjoy, and the most difficult beautiful thing we lost was safety in peace, due to the violent bombing that surrounded us in all the places to which we fled. Our days have been difficult, to say the least, for there are no viable sources of work to obtain the money we need to meet our needs. Our situation is especially dire because my wife is pregnant and could give birth at any moment while we are still stuck in a tent where there is no healthy food, no medicine, no water, and no electricity. During the process of displacement, we lost the stable and recreational life that we used to live with me, the family, and the child, Ahim, who lost all of the toys that he loved and played with all the time, and was deprived of the beautiful childhood that he had in the first days of his childhood. And My wife, who suffers all the time from fatigue and exhaustion, and the displacement from one tent to another has slowly slid towards despair. Every nature of life, from a beautiful house to a tent in the middle of the street, a place to sleep in. I need your help in raising money to leave the Gaza Strip."

Rehab and Hussein have now reached $35,356 of the $40,000 goal.

We are so, so close guys to reaching this goal! Hussein and Rehab are asking for a small donation from all of you to help them in the last stretch of their campaign. If each of my followers donated $17.20 to this family's cause, they'd reach it. If you cannot donate that amount, even $5 or $10 would go a long way. Please share this or Rehab's pinned post.

Tagging for further reach: @claudiaeparvier @danlous @aqdromedas @quark4561 @idiotlovesongs

#rehabsh98 #asks

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insignificant457 · 1 year

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Assorted light bringer predictions, just to see how wrong I am later

Pax has the minds eye (or some version of it). He is simply Too Smart, and he fought the obsidians with his eyes closed just like Lysander does in the desert. The secret to the minds eye is probably in Octavias vault, which we know Virginia has access to, and this would fit with her saying she raised him to be as much an ally as a son

Alternatively: the minds eye is somehow related to the figment parasite. Either the parasite is attempting to recreate the minds eye, or Lysander has a parasite himself and doesn’t know it

Oculus is an attempt to create a utopia outside of color—this is where Mickey has been for the last two books, creating an entire new species. By the end of red god, volga, lyria, and kavax will rule over it, fulfilling this line of ozgards prophecy:

Diomedes and his pink lover are working with Cassius/the reformers/possible sons of ares remnant. Honestly this is so widely theorized that it almost feels like it’s already canon

Diomedes’ lover is Evey. I remember seeing a theory about this years ago, shortly after iron gold came out, but I don’t remember where anymore. It was very compelling and it wormed its way into my psyche like the figment forcing itself up lyrias nose.

Lysander kills atalantia for killing his parents. Yes I know he’s awful and he needs to lose, but everyone deserves to kill the person that groomed them as a child so he gets to have this one win as a treat

Related: lysanders mommy issues and oedipus complex continue to get an uncomfortable amount of page time

Sevro comes back with his brain all scrambled. Ideally, for comedy purposes, he comes back a total Normie, and everyone’s just like eww put him back and it causes zero conflict. More realistically, this is the most heart shattering thing to happen in the whole series and part of the reason people with arcs are crying

A Big 5 (Darrow, mustang, sevro, Cassius, victra) death. It’s a miracle these OGs have made it this far, one of them has to be toast. My money would be on Cassius or sevro. Could also be the reason people with arcs are crying.

Volga Lyria lesbianism

Mustang and Darrow are kept apart for ANOTHER book because Pierce hates us and wants us to suffer

Victras mental health is at an all time low (I’m worried about her, can she please have an easy time just this once?) and it becomes a liability

Volsung fa reaps the consequences of eating the heart of his daughter who was suffering from a dna specific poison and dies without Volga having to face him (pls? She’s too sweet don’t make her be in the same room as that freak)

Alternatively, volsung fa faces no consequences from the above and this is our clue that he’s not actually sefi and ragnars father and is in fact some carved monstrosity

The ascomanni continue to give me the heebie jeebies

Rim politics that make Darrow want to rip his hair out (I’m with you buddy)

Darrow Cassius side quest? Pls?

The abomination runs rampant on Luna but it’s like in the background? Mustangs like yeah we’ll get to it eventually there’s other shit happening

And lastly: I am emotionally destroyed for 5-10 business days after finishing

#red rising #light bringer #light bringer speculation #this started off with some theories of mine that are well thought out and that I have evidence for and then very quickly devolved #may add more to this later if I come up with more

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allie-campbell-bradshaw · 10 months

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Chapter 13: Wait

A/N: I can’t lie, I am not the biggest fan of this Chapter! My writing seems choppy and I was cringing the whole time I was editing this. Maybe it’s the anxiety of writing in Bradley’s POV after Friday night…I’m not sure. I thought about doing away with it, but I felt it was crucial that we start to see Bredley’s determination in wooing Allie. Please know, other chapters are much better than this one! I mention this in my notes for every chapter, but just in case you missed it– I do not give permission for my work to be re-posted without credibility. If you do want to post this story to your page, please be sure that you tag my account or at least mention its original source in your post.

Also: This story is sequential…please go back and read my other chapters, in order, for the best results!

Again, thank you for being here and I hope you enjoy :)

Warnings: Swearing

Chapter 13: Wait

BRADLEY’S POV

I cleared my throat as everyone kept their gaze on me. Even the bartenders were staring at me as they wiped down the counters. The bar wasn’t as full as it was earlier in the night during my whole act, but there was still a considerable amount of military men there.

“Holy shit” I heard an upperclassman, who was sitting at the table next to me, mutter under his breath. I walked over to the piano, grabbed my aviators, and placed them over my eyes.

“Yeah,” I muttered under my breath as I strutted my way out of there, pursing my lips as though I was about to whistle, but nothing came out. I could only imagine what everyone was now saying in there, and what people were going to be told at the Academy.

I slid into my blue ford bronco and made my way back to campus. Javy, Emmett, and Natasha had plans to play poker in the recreation area. It didn’t interest me as much as going to Mission in Acton did, and now knowing what was destined to happen to me there, I’m glad I went!

Before I knew it, I was parked in the student lot. I opted to leave Allie’s sweater in the car to avoid any other rumors. The rec. was packed with students, mainly those under 21 that were too chicken shit to get fakes. Natasha, Javy, and Emmett all had one, and normally they would be down to go out, but apparently this poker game is a big deal! The winner gets a shit ton of money and lots of favors done for them until the next tournament. I walked over to the tables of students playing. Natasha and Emmett were still in, but Javy was standing behind Natasha’s chair, obviously out.

Emmett did a double take between his cards and me, landing his eyes on my own at the third glance, obviously taken aback by the fact that I was now here.

“You’re back early.” Natasha stated. It was true, when I went out to the bar, I would be gone until 1 or 2 in the morning. Today was different. Completely different.

“And you’ve seen some action.” Javy said, eyeing me up and down. That’s when I realized how uncomfortably cold I was as my soaked clothes were drying in the intensely air conditioned room. The adrenaline that I had from talking with Allie masked how uncomfortable I was by the damp clothes up until now.

“Only a little.” I responded to him. All of them looked at each other, making it obvious that they were predicting my actions earlier in the night.

“Allie?” Emmett questioned. I didn’t say anything. Instead, I slightly smirked, turned on my heels, and made my way to the door.

I didn’t see them behind me as I continued to walk, but I did hear the sound of two hands clasping together. In my mind, Emmett and Natasha were shaking hands, as if to congratulate each other on their accomplishments. An accomplishment of getting one for their good friends laid, which hadn’t happened yet, but one could only hope.

I smirked as I exited the rec. room, feeling the stares of students as I left.

***

“Now do you understand!” I panted, frustrated with having to explain myself a second time to this nurse that just wasn’t caring enough to listen to me. It was now Sunday morning, and just an hour ago, I realized that the napkin that contained Allie’s number had been ruined when we were in the water. I figured I would just go to the hospital and see if she was working. Just my luck, she wasn’t. So here I was, explaining myself to one of her co-workers, wanting so desperately for her to understand my plea and give me Allie’s number.

It wasn’t working. This woman was more frustrating and cold than Allie was, and that was saying a lot! She had her cold eyes sinking into me. Her expression was completely stone-cold. I rolled my eyes to the back of my head and let out a deep sigh before returning my eyes to hers. Her deep complexion and light pink scrubs were piercing. I didn’t know what it would take to get me through to this woman!

“So,” I said, taking a calm approach to see if she would let up, “Is there anything you can do for me”?

She just stared at me, her expression the same as it was these past 5 minutes. I’m not even sure she blinked.

I barged into the hospital, not even waiting for the sliding glass doors to open completely before I was fully in the lobby, noticing the two women at the receptionist desk.

I looked at them and gave a wave as I made my way to the doors that led to the right wing, knowing I would have more luck talking with one of her nurse friends than them.

“Hey, you can’t do that!” I heard one of them yell, but I didn’t care. I needed to get her number and I needed it now.

There was only 1 nurse at the nurses station. She had a dark complexion and pink scrubs on. She was wearing a white coat over her pink scrub shirt. The coat had pastel bears, bottles, and binkies on them. Thank God! A nice one. Her hair was up in a bun that was directly behind her head. “Hi!” I said to her, smiling brightly.

“How can I help you?” She said, seeming less friendly than I had imagined, but she was an older nurse, and I know how burnt out they get after doing this job for decades.

“I was wondering if you could give me the phone number of one of your nurses on staff.” I said, getting straight to the point.

This caused her to sit up straight, becoming more attentive to our conversation than before. She crossed her arms and held them tight to her chest. “And who may I ask is the nurse in question?” She asked, with a real attitude.

I hesitated for a moment, knowing full well how she was going to react when I said her name, “Allie Campbell”. I let it slip out, sooner than I would have liked.

She rolled her eyes to the back of her head and let her head fall slightly, before exiting our conversation by uncrossing her arms and going back to her laptop.

“Look, you don’t understand okay.” I snapped back, reaching over and shutting the screen of the laptop. She let out a deep sigh and looked at me, not saying anything, so I knew she would at least listen for a moment, “We had an…amazing time together on Friday night. And she left her number, but it got destroyed in my pocket when we were dancing in the moonlight in the water of Acton Cove”.

She had the biggest ‘what the fuck’ look on her face, not even knowing what to say. “So,” I said, reaching over and grabbing one of the pale yellow sticky notes that was at the front of the station, taking the liberty of also grabbing a pen as well before continuing, “I was wondering if you could write it down for me and just leave it on the desk and I can indiscreetly grab it from you. I won’t tell anybody.”

I looked at her with hopeful eyes but hers were just plain, expressionless, “Boy,” she said loudly, “Are you out of your damn mind!”

This took me by surprise. I thought nurses were supposed to be the friendliest people, doing anything they can to help their patients. Me. “Yes” I finally muttered, quietly, but loud enough that I knew she would hear.

We looked at each other for a moment, neither of us daring to move, “please” I whispered, it was more of a beg than anything…like an owner getting the neighborhood together to look for their lost puppy.

She didn’t budge, but shifted her body slightly, to show that she was growing frustrated. I looked down and nodded a little before looking back at her, “Then I’ll wait here until you leave and steal her file”.

Her eyes grew wide at my threat, and I immediately sunk into my insecurities, knowing full well that that was the wrong thing to say. “Then you must think I’m a damn fool if you believe I’m going to let you out of my sight for one second”.

“You’ll leave here eventually”, I said, matching her tone.

“I am 10 minutes into a 24 hour shift. I have a record of going 8 hours straight without using the bathroom, and lucky for you, I have an aid that comes and brings me my meals which I get the ‘privilege’ to enjoy at the nursing station so I can monitor the newbees that are hired here on base, and when I’m not here there are always 2 more nurses that are monitoring the area, to make sure moronic dipshits like you don’t steal any patient information…or in this case, employee information”.

I looked down, completely put in my place. She kept her stare on me as I thought about my next move, glancing over at the empty lobby, “I guess I’ll wait then.” I said to her, as I made my way to a chair in the lobby, plopping down and looking over at the nurse whom I just had the ‘pleasure’ of getting to know. She kept her eyes on me as the beige colored doors to the wing of the hospital closed between us. 24 hours. Here we go!

After sitting in the chair for some time, lost in thought, I glanced over at the clock behind my left shoulder, “9:15”. Fuck! It had only been 30 minutes.

I resumed my thoughts, thinking about the most random of things, letting my mind drift in whatever direction it wanted to go. No matter what I was thinking about, my thoughts always went to Allie.

Around 10:30, I approached a receptionist and asked for a paper and pen, doodling at my chair, making patterns of diamonds-shading in every other one. I filled 3 more papers with random shapes and patterns until the pen ran out of ink. After noticing the looks I got from the receptionists (obviously now filled in with what me and the Black nurse talked about), I didn’t dare approach them and ask for another pen.

It was now noon, and I was starting to wander around the waiting room. A few people had now occupied some of the other chairs, watching me like I was a crazy person. After a few minutes, I started to do some pushups. My goal was to be able to do 100 by the end of the year. I got to 36, easily, when I noticed some whispers of other people in the lobby, so I aborted my plan.

At 12:45, the nurse in pink came out to the waiting room, eyebrows raised but face still emotionless. I could tell she was surprised to have seen me still there. I looked at her with a “war-like” expression, making it clear that I was not giving up. She shook her head and rolled her eyes as she grabbed some clipboards from the receptionist desk and made her way back to her nursing station.

The two women at the desk must have felt bad for me, because after sitting around doing nothing for another hour and half, they put out a box of trinkets and toys. I found a paddleball game and decided to work on my motor skills with that. After about 45 minutes, I had mastered the objective and put it back in the box.

It was then that I excused myself to take a restroom break in the bathroom on the east side of the waiting room. When I came back out, I noticed there was a plate of food and glass of milk on the table. It was from King Hall, steak, potatoes, and mixed vegetables, all covered in brown gravy. I looked over at the receptionist desk, which was empty. It took me a second, but I finally managed to put the pieces together…realizing it was from the nurse that I talked to this morning. I accepted it gratefully and ate every bite, not noticing how hungry I actually was until the contents were melting on my tongue at the first bite.

The rest of the evening was spent people-watching. One man came into the emergency room with blood gushing from an injury on his stomach. The nurse in pink was one of the ones that ran over and tended to him, looking at me and taking notice of my presence on her way.

About 20 minutes later, she came back from the left wing and looked over at me, like the way a babysitter looks at a child that comes out of their room after bedtime. I hadn’t moved, determined to do this the right way. She had a look of doubt on her face as she walked back over to her station on the right wing. She examined her area and had a shocked/impressed expression on her face when she saw that nothing had been moved or manipulated. Truly, I didn’t even notice that the nurses station was unguarded and unoccupied until just now.

I gave her a smirk as the doors closed, making us drop our gaze on each other.

The lights eventually dimmed and I pulled a chair over so I could recline my legs. Before I knew it, I was waking up from my slumber. To my surprise, I found that my head was resting on a white pillow, and a fleece navy blanket had been placed over my lap. Damn Martha (I unofficially named her)!

I looked over at the clock. It was 2:00 in the morning, only 5 more hours to go!

I drifted off again and woke up to the sunlight shining brightly on my face. The doors to the right wing of the hospital opened and ‘Martha’ came out, carrying a black purse on her shoulder. I groggily looked over at the clock and saw that it was 6:00am. “They let you off early?” I asked her in a tone that was way too friendly to match our true relationship status.

“I gotta give it to you Bradshaw, I’m impressed”.

“How did you-” I was about to ask how she knew my name before I froze, assuming the answer to my own question. I’m sure everyone in this hospital knew my name.

I rubbed my eyes, feeling the soreness and stiffness radiating from my whole body. I made a face that was a mixture of exhaustion and pain as I moved my muscles around, adjusting from the uncomfortable position I was in.

“You’re maybe a little too good,” she said, smirking at me. “I’ll let Allie know you stopped by.”

I furrowed my eyebrows, my eyes still adjusting to the light. “Well, isn’t she coming”?

“She doesn’t work today. She isn’t a full-time staff member during the school year” Martha said as she made her way to the door.

“She isn’t-” I muttered to myself, realizing what that bitch Martha had just said. “Why didn’t you say something!” I yelled to her as she made her way out the door

“Have a good day!” She yelled back from outside, smirking as she turned the corner.

Are.

You.

Fucking.

Kidding.

Me.

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nazmazh · 11 months

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Not that I speak for my whole generation, let alone GenZers too, but man...

My parents and their friends are such fuckin' Boomers(TM) about certain generation differences.

It's all "Nobody wants to work", "People want too much money for too little effort and that's why nobody likes hiring them."

And, like. Just... Ugh.

Trying to explain things to them from the point of view of someone who gets lumped in as "one of them damned Millennial socialist-types" (which, I mean, I am, but still - my points don't stop existing because of that) or what have you, would be like trying to explain particle physics to a brick.

They just utterly cannot wrap their heads around the idea that things have changed in significant ways.

That even with consumer goods being cheaper, the costs of living, especially establishing yourself when you're young have gone way up - Rent/housing, vehicles, food, maintenance, loan payments, etc. - God forbid you actually want to start a family on top of all of that.

While wages effectively decrease more and more, especially relative to the amount of actual productivity generated.

And that with that, a lot of the "stay late, put in 110%" mentality (while being toxic and fundamentally just being free labour for employers, which we're all more conscious of as being, well, shitty for us workers) - That stuff isn't a nicety that'll make you stand out and look good for an employer come promotion-time. It's just expected or outright demanded of you. And when it comes time to promote or at least give raises? Nah - They'll nickel and dime and hem and haw about giving their own workers more money or less duties - They'll just bring in someone who feels more exploited somewhere else - And then turn around and complain about disloyalty when their employees leave for greener pastures in the same way.

And we're all a lot more conscious of the ill-effects of too much stress and poor work-life balance, so we try to push back against being overworked and burnt out where we can (That being said I absolutely do know people my age and younger who willingly get into that "grind mindset" and I worry for them. Like, are they actually getting enough money to meaningfully get ahead? Or are they just working themselves into an early grave for no real benefit?)

It's no longer the "just walk in, shake the manager's hand, work in the same place until retirement and comfortably make enough to buy a house and raise your kids through university with your partner being a SAHP." world anymore.

Like, the Boomers just don't get that we're in a situation where working harder doesn't translate to meaningful improvements for our lives.

To the point that it feels impossible to meaningful get ahead and achieve "milestones".

And when you're stating that down, expecting it to only get worse because of policies Boomers voted into place and by-and-large continue to vote into place. And that this is the expectation of how your life is going to be for the next 40+ years- It does lead to a sort of crushing, existential despair.

And if that doesn't break you just a little bit, well you're probably doing a lot better than a lot of people.

So there's two approaches that emerge from that (and they're not mutually-exclusive):

The first is just to check out. "If this job isn't gonna pay my bills no matter how good I do it, I'm just gonna do enough not to get fired."

And honestly, there's always been people like this in the workforce. The Olds are just mad because "How dare someone young not hop-to when they ought to!" They'll complain about useless coworkers of the same age too, but not with the same vitriol. Not with the same disdain. And they won't dismiss the whole generation as "lazy" or worse because if them.

The second strategy is to embrace what you can - Enjoy our many frivolous things. Toys (including recreational vehicles), games, computers, phones, streaming services, makeup, clothes, good food, whatever floats your boat. Because, as I said, those sorts of things are relatively less expensive these days.

Because if you're gonna never really be able to get a house, no amount of cutting back on avocado toast is gonna change that. And there's no point in denying yourself little joys indefinitely to aspire to it.

And this offends The Olds, because, 'how dare you have conspicuous consumption of any kind of you complain about not being able to afford rent or a mortgage?!". And back in the day, maybe you could save a meaningful amount if you cut back on little luxuries, and it would make enough of a difference to get you into a house/whatever your goal was notably sooner. And it'd only mean tightening your belt for a pre-determined amount of time - Not in perpetuity.

And of course, that's assuming you have the luxury of disposable income at all. I know I'm relatively privileged with an MSc (even if disability means I can't work, myself), let alone any university, so my friend circle is largely similarly privileged. There's plenty of people - Both younger and older than me - That can't even cut back on luxuries to save, because there's no money going to luxuries, period.

I guess the shift is that even things that used to guarantee you a "good, middle-class life" aren't really guaranteeing that anymore.

The kicker is that they too complain about life being shitty, work sucking, etc.

But then when anyone proposes that maybe the whole system is broken and we could rethink it?

Well, now that's outrageous! "How dare you be so ungrateful and not just pull yourself by your bootstraps you lazy slacker?! And why bother trying to change things? Just get sloppy drunk every night at the bar after work or something like that. That's how we've always coped as a society!"

I don't know if I ultimately have a point or solution to any if this, beyond, like, a total societal shift in the way we approach labour compensation and property commodification.

I just needed to get this ranting out of my system after holding my tongue at the table, several hours ago at this point.

Because as much as I disagree with their whole approach, down to their utter lack of empathy for those suffering in a world they helped make, there wouldn't be anything meaningful for me to actually gain by engaging them on their misinformation in the heat of the moment.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to look up the difference between a fermion and a boson for a conversation I'm about to have with a paving stone.

#generation gap #ugh... Boomers #ramblings and rantings

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antizionistrussophile64 · 3 months

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March 16, 2020

Sanctions as an economic booster (interview to TASS).

Andrei Vandenko: We’ve been hit with sanctions because of Ukraine. Vladimir Putin: To hell with those sanctions. According to various estimates, we have lost around 50 billion but we have earned the same amount. Andrei Vandenko: That’s quite a bit. Vladimir Putin: Quite a bit, but it made us use our brains. We spent quite a lot of money on the so-called ‘import substitution’ programme and started to produce such items and technologies that we did not have before or simply forgot about them and lost them. We recreated all of this. And we are undoubtedly benefiting from it. It diversifies our economy. In fact, it helps us address our overriding priority. Andrei Vandenko: But counter-sanctions give the impression that we were deliberately hurting ourselves. Vladimir Putin: Nonsense. Counter-sanctions helped us boost the agroindustry. They freed up our domestic market. In our country, if we look at the past years from 2000s and onwards, everyone here spoke about the agroindustry as if it was a black hole, surely you do remember. Where is it now? I don't even remember how far ahead agricultural production has leaped. I think 2.6-fold. We have always been a grain importer but now we are the world’s top wheat exporter. We have even outperformed the United States, Canada and Australia. They produce more but also consume more. We supply more to the market.

We started to produce enough to meet our basic food needs: dairy, poultry, pork, all staples. We need to work more on vegetables and beef. And we are doing it. Nobody could have imagined that our export was going to total $25 billion last year. This year it will be $24 [billion], I think. Our arms sales are only $15 billion. Nobody would have ever thought that we would become such a major exporter. And we will increase this volume. In this sense – and from the point of view of developing high-tech productions and in terms of agriculture development, import substitution – is it god or bad? On the one hand, it’s good, it has served us well. Another thing is bad – it’s bad that this distorts the entire global and European economic space. This is what’s bad. Competition should be natural without any external restrictions. But the fact is our partners also lose approximately the same. Europe has lost roughly the same, according to their own estimates. They’ve been losing even more sensitive things. Andrei Vandenko: But there are 40 countries in Europe, and we are one country. Vladimir Putin: You see, they are losing jobs. Right now, we have the lowest level of unemployment in history. In this sense we lost nothing. And they are losing jobs because imports have nosedived as a result of a wide range of circumstances, including sanctions.

#putinedit #vladdy daddy #vladimir vladimirovich putin #russian president #i don't know why they had to split the interview #russia #tass #my edits #президент России Владимир Путин #ТАСС

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quill-of-thoth · 2 years

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Letters From Watson, The Noble Bachelor

Case and Themes: For once, no crime has been committed! So let’s talk about Holmes’ manners and those wacky Americans! Fair warning, because this covers the British empire (ongoing) and the early years of United States imperialism, the start of the overview is a little heavy. If you only want to read about Holmes, skip to the end. Victorian Attitudes towards the United States:

Mid and late Victorian attitudes towards the US were pretty weird if you only have a modern context, but in 1880-1900 the US was not a global superpower. We were only a hundred years and change from having been a British colony. Canada was still a British colony in 1880. (Most other British colonies would gain their independence in the wake of either world war 1 or world war 2 - either in the late 19teens / 20′s, or in the 1940′s.) Some people in England, Holmes apparently included, apparently thought there was a distant chance that Britain and the USA would eventually kiss and make up, which would be economically very profitable, given the US’ influence on the majority of Latin America, which was already growing in the late 1880s.

The United States Civil War, 1861-1864, was obviously something of a hurdle when it came to US influence on countries in Europe, or European colonies, because we were fighting ourselves and our government was not seen as stable. But prior to it, the abolition movement in the states had support from British abolitionists: enslaving people in Africa and transporting them across the Atlantic had been illegal in the empire since 1807, but it took until 1834 for the Slavery Abolition Act to be passed. I want to be EXTREMELY CLEAR here that this act only ended the practice of hereditary chattel slavery in the British Empire: they definitely continued to take advantage of things like imprisoned labor throughout their colonies, and their non-European subjects were still often forced to labor under threat of violence and systematically denied basic human rights. From a historic standpoint, many of these situations still count as slavery, they’re just not the same specific type. After the conclusion of the US Civil war, expansion into territories that would later become states sped up: not only was there a lot of post-war infrastructure such as trains, a greater amount of manufactured goods, and ever increasing attempts at food preservation via refrigeration to make it easier, there was economic and social incentive for defeated confederate supporters to start a new life out in the frontier. Former owners of plantations, especially during the first years of the reconstruction era where it looked like we might have a legal guarantee of equal civil rights for black Americans before the 1960s, could go west into areas where there was a much less robust legal and social framework and continue to make money by exploiting people, especially if they had some money to get set up with. Some also moved to central and south American countries to continue a lifestyle of plantation farming with enslaved labor: every time a section of Latin America freed itself from Spanish rule in the 1800′s there was immediately a flood of grifters and hucksters trying to install themselves as a new elite or a new government there. For people with less money to recreate a system of opression for themselves, the ongoing government programs of giving away land for white Americans to settle, as a means of pushing out the native Americans that already lived there, there was a lot of alleged economic opportunity in what would eventually be known as “The Wild West.” There was also a lot of danger, as we see in Francis Moulton’s story. US policy towards native Americans was a system of genocides, and native American groups often fought back. Although the United States is objectively huge compared to what is now the UK, it is unlikely that the British, who had global imperial holdings, were too impressed by the sheer size of the country, especially when it only legally owned all of the land that is today the contiguous, or “lower 48″ states by the 1850′s. To the Victorians, the United States must have seemed like an imperial wannabe: an imitator of themselves.

Attitudes towards the American people: The similarities to the British colonial system during this period would have been fairly obvious to the average English writer: people would go to a place that was not heavily populated by Europeans and their descendants in the hopes of making a fortune. The successful ones would obviously prefer to come back to “civilization” at some point, and to a British Victorian, “civilization” was Europe, ideally England. All the tropes about brave young men seeking their fortunes in the colonies would easily apply to Americans, especially for Victorians with only cursory geographical and social knowledge of the United States. But at the same time, as we will see time and time again in these stories, Americans were stereotyped as being just a bit less “civilized” than actual members of the British empire. For example, Quincey Morris, Texan landowner of Dracula fame was never intended to be a serious contender for Lucy’s hand in marriage (because it would obviously be more correct for Lucy to marry an Englishman - any Englishman, though a member of the nobility is obviously a better match than a doctor). In the portion of A Study in Scarlet that we skipped, which concerns Utah in the late 1840′s, early 1850′s, we see a good dash of exoticism in the Victorian attitude towards the American west, where even the white European settlers they would normally approve of are rendered titilatingly dangerous by their distance from the social mores of “civilized” society. San Francisco of 1888 is closer, conceptually and practically, to “civilization” than Utah in the 1870-something, because of the high volume of oceanic trade. But Hattie choosing Francis is still conceptually a double insult to St. Simon: he has no title, and he’s an American, so whatever class his new fortune entitles him to in England, an equivalent Englishman would always be better. While obviously, since Hattie and Francis are already married, there’s no possibility she could chose otherwise, if they’d simply been engaged I have no doubt that it would have been much harder to convince St. Simon that he was simply a victim of chance. Bonus: Holmes’ reputation for Rudeness

I have no doubt that new readers of the series have seen a Sherlock Holmes adaptation before, or at least heard of the most recent television and film adaptations, which present Holmes as overall a much ruder person than he is in these stories. Whether that’s BBC Sherlock continuously trying to shock the audience, or the Guy Ritchie films playing into any bizarre circumstance that Holmes and Watson could possibly find themselves in, it may be a surprise to read this far and find that Holmes is a socially competent member of his community! Watson is not primarily there to do damage control as he pisses off everyone he meets! Holmes has been demonstrated to be thoughtful of both Watson and his clients, and to be careful to make his revelations in the privacy of his own drawing room so that the parties involved can make their own decisions before the entire rest of the world knows what’s up. Holmes is, however, immediately reactive to snobbery. 1) He’s perfectly civil to St. Simon until St. Simon drops that little dig that Holmes’ prior clients could not possibly have been as important as himself. Holmes’ response is instant one-upsmanship: his latest client of this sort was a king, and you can’t challenge that assertion without impugning Holmes’ professionalism. If you impugn Holmes’ professionalism, he probably will not take your case. 2) He’s almost joking around with Lestrade, dropping hints that the man has gone off down the wrong course, until Lestrade, who does NOT have the leisure to sit around and be amazed by Holmes, gets snappish and dismissive of Holmes’ capabilities, so Holmes doubles down. If Lestrade is going to be aggressively wrong, Holmes will save everything up for an “I told you so” later.

We’ve seen that showing off was part of how Holmes initially made friends with Watson, and that he still manages to overshoot and irritate his best friend occasionally. It’s not a stretch to suppose that Holmes methods of making friends with other potential collaborators, like police inspectors, follows the same pattern with less excellent results, because Holmes is both stubborn in following through with a line of explanation and sensitive to rejection. Police inspectors like Lestrade, especially if they are told they’ve wasted a day’s work or more, do not always take this well. (Note that in The Resident Patient the police inspector was much more flexible: he’d only just arrived on the scene and started assessing it. It’s much less frustrating to have the consulting detective pop up at what you thought was a suicide ten minutes in and tell you that not only does he have case background about people stalking the dead man, but he also instantly turns over physical evidence to support his claims. If you’re dredging a pond for corpses in the rain all day before Holmes tells you that all you’ll ever find is a wedding dress, it feels a lot more like he’s mocking you.) When Holmes met Watson, Watson was both an ideal audience for his chemical discoveries (being familiar enough with the theory to listen and pose questions, but not working in that field, so unlikely to stumble across any flaws or insist upon starting up some competition) and chronically bored from being cooped up in the apartment all winter. Even now, with Watson about to marry and establish a separate household, their pattern has not changed: Holmes returns with the facts of a case, talks it over with Watson’s competent commentary, is praised by Watson, and concludes by retreating into his favorite, non-work-related hobby, the violin. Which, perhaps not so coincidentally, Watson has always enjoyed, especially on days where his chronic pain has flared.

#Letters from Watson #The Noble Bachelor #crimes in context #the context being the crimes of imperialism #No crimes committed by any actual characters #Holmes' manners #Holmes grew up the weird kid and the fastest way to start an argument is to be a snob at him

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countrymusiclover · 7 months

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44 - Mother for a Day

Part 45

Family is More than Blood

@secretdreamlandmentality

Walking up the steps of the old Gilbert house I knocked on the front door hearing it creek open and revealed Elena who had some food stains on the front of her shirt done by her own daughter. “Hey, come on in, Raelyn. I was just giving the kids a snack before you pick them up.”

“Thanks. You didn’t have to do that though. I could have fed them when I got back to the mansion.” I stepped over the threshold and she shut the door behind me while I headed towards the kitchen.

Henrik was sitting at the table with Stefanie just shoving some chicken and fries in their mouths until he saw me. “Mommy.”

“Hi baby.” I waved to him with Elena coming around the corner with the baby bag of extra stuff for the twins. Charming and Rapunzel were asleep on the couch together. “So you’re sure that I can’t pay you and Damon more money. I feel guilty just dumping our kids on you sometimes.”

Elena shakes her head hearing the doorbell ring so she went off to answer it. “It’s no problem, Raelyn. Uh, hang on. Who could that be?”

She answered the door and to both our surprise and joy we were greeted with the sight of the familiar blonde vampire Caroline Forbes. “Surprise! I thought I’d make a quick trip back since there’s a school dance this weekend.”

“You can’t shy away from being Ms. Party planner, can you Care.” Elena joked with her best friend.

She giggled stepping inside, noticing me in the kitchen. “Raelyn, oh my gosh. How have you been since the last time we saw each other with my girls merging and almost dying?”

“I’ve gotten better. Klaus and I have finally agreed I’ll take my magic back when I choose to…thankfully I hope.” I embrace her in a hug and she recreates with an equal amount of love.

The blonde nodded seeing Henrik watching us. “Hey little Mikaelson man. Are you keeping the younger twins out of trouble?”

“Aunt Caroline, yes I am.” He smiled brightly.

Crossing my arms over my chest I eyed the vampire. “So what party did you come home for exactly?”

“I heard it’s something the high school is throwing instead of a decade dance. They are hosting a Masquerade ball type one like the Mikaelson’s hosted when Esther came back.” She exclaimed, taking my hands in hers bouncing with excitement.

I chuckled at her reaction. “So what do you want me to do with this information exactly?”

“I think you and Klaus should let the kids of our school go to their dance. They should get to go to a dance if they want to like we did.” Caroline responded brightly.

Knitting my brows at her. “You don’t think some won’t be upset if they have to hide their abilities?”

“We did it for a fun evening. It shouldn’t be us against the humans of this town.” She explains looking over at her now human best friend. Elena smiles back at her nodding her head in agreement.

Slumping my shoulders, the blonde in front of me did have a point. These kids needed to experience life with the rest of the town and not be separated from them. Otherwise all the work of teaching them to embrace who they are and control the abilities they have would all be for nothing. “I’ll talk with Nik to see what he thinks and I’ll let you know. How long are you staying in town for?”

“Just for a week. But I don’t think I should go.” Caroline sighed through tears that she wiped away. “I’ve been away from my girls for a while. I don’t want to miss more time with them when we know that the only way out of the Merge is for one of them to turn into a vampire.”

“We will figure out when to talk to them about that. For now let’s just focus on living life like normal people.” I met her gaze looking back at my son gesturing towards the front door. “Henrik, grab your bag and take it to the car. I’ll be out with your siblings in a moment.”

“Okay mommy.” Henrik took the bag from Elena after giving her a hug and went out the front door.

Moving over to the couch I picked up Rapunzel in my arms and Caroline helped with Charming. Elena waved bye to us needing to start making dinner before Damon got home. Putting one of my twins in the car seat I glanced back at her. “You should come by the school with me. Tell the students your idea.”

She clicked her tongue to protest. “Rae..”

“Plus I know your girls would like to see you.”

Caroline sent me a playful glare. “Don't pretend to know how my kids feel. In fact I bet your kids have been doing reckless stuff while you were out of the house for Valentine’s Day last week.”

“I'll believe it when I see it. Oh sorry it's Nik.” Feeling my phone vibrate I put it to my ear. “Hey what is it?”

My husband sounds almost frantic on the other side. “Rae, Missy and Ethan went to the lake house without our permission and now she wants to talk with us about turning her boyfriend.”

“Woah slow down. Are they back at the mansion?” I tried to calm him down.

He answers. “In the driveway now.”

“Okay Caroline and I are on our way now. Don't dp anything until we get there.” I hung up the phone opening the passenger front door for her. “Get in the car, Forbes.”

She gasped, not expecting this of me today. “What are you doing, Raelyn?”

“Get in the car because I am making you mother of my daughter for a day.” I said the sentence to her again seeing that she hasn't moved.

The vampire standing in front of me just blinked her eyes a couple of times. She crossed her arms over her chest glaring at me. “How did I get nominated to be your daughter’s mother for a day?”

“I made you the other godmother to my children, didn't I? Cami is away in New Orleans so it’s your job for tonight Ms. Forbes.” Placing my hand on one hip I raised a brow at her with a half glare.

Caroline gasped and then closed her mouth pausing before finally getting in the car. “Raelyn Mikaelson, I - uh fine.” Climbing in the driver's seat we drove back in the direction of the mansion with me thinking back on the day we had returned to this town and reunited with my blonde friend beside me now.

“Matt! Matt, we're coming for you!” Caroline's voice could be heard through the woods when Klaus and I vamped around following her voice.

Finally finding her I vamped forward flinging my arms around her from behind where she nearly screamed till she heard my voice. “Caroline!”

“Rae…Raelyn.” She spun around on her feet when I jumped off her back standing beside my husband, placing a hand on my pregnant belly that was beginning to be visible to the world.

Klaus smiled lovingly at her. “Hello, Caroline.”

Caroline breathed out seeing he was here with me too. “Klaus. What are you guys doing here?”

“Damon informed me that Katerina Petrova has taken a tragic turn.” Klaus answered her question by draping an arm over my shoulder. “And as you know she’ll never let me go anywhere without her.”

Caroline rolled her eyes and vamped away from him. “So you're here to gloat over her corpse to be, to delight in the closure of 500 years of revenge! Great! Now I'm even less interested.”

“Well, then perhaps you'd be more interested in talking about Tyler.” Klaus vamped in front of her holding up a hand.

Caroline paused stuttering off. “Is he… did you…”

“No. I sent him off with little more than a bruised ego. He really does hate me, poor lad. Revenge, it eats at him. I hear you two broke up.” He told her where I hit him on the arm for mentioning their break up that he was the cause of.

Caroline vamped away a second time leaving me and Klaus on our own. “Because I made him choose… me or his stupid revenge fantasy, and he chose wrong. I suggest that you learn from his mistakes and let Katherine die in peace. Dying sucks enough learn as it is. No need to rub anyone's nose in it.”

“Can I just tell her why we are here before you potentially piss her off and she says no.” I glared at him, putting my hands on my hips.

Nik sighed, sending me a half smile. “Don’t worry your head, Rae. She could never say no to you.”

“Maybe you’re right or maybe you’ll be wrong. I’d rather not let it be the second option. So I’d appreciate it if you stopped the teasing of Tyler.” I vamped off in the direction that Caroline had gone off in.

Klaus beat me to reaching her first, holding a hand up and getting in front of her before she could leave again. “Are you not even the least bit curious as to why me and Raelyn are here?”

“Klaus, what did I just say?” I snapped at the hybrid.

“You… you can't do this to me. You can't just show up and distract me while my friend is in danger.” Caroline thought for a moment remembering about her other ex boyfriend besides Tyler.

Klaus waved his finger in her face teasingly. “You know, while you've been vamping off in all the wrong directions, I heard Matt's distant and desperate screams.”

Caroline asked, looking around. “Where?”

“Don't worry, luv. I've got it covered. Trust me. He'll be quite happy with his rescuer.” Klaus smiled at her.

I clasped my hands together and giggled knowing who was going to rescue the human of the group. “You didn’t think Rebekah would miss the opportunity to return to Mystic Falls did you?”

“So the quarterback has been saved. What now?” Klaus drew out his phone seeing a text from his sister saying that she had successfully saved him.

Caroline began walking away from us and I followed after her since it was a beautiful sunny “Don't you have a dying girl to go punish for all of her sins?”

Klaus replied to her. “I do, but I won't for you.”

Caroline sent him a confused smile. “So you came all the way to Mystic Falls just to back off when I ask you to? I didn’t think I had the same control that Rae does.”

“No. I came all the way to Mystic Falls to gloat over a corpse to be, as you so poetically put it, but I will leave minus the gloating in return for one small thing.” Klaus teased her back with her own words making me snort out a laugh.

Caroline paused in her steps. “And what is that?”

“Caroline Forbes, I came back to ask you to be the other godmother to the children we will have in a few months.” I pushed myself in between the pair taking her hands in mine.

The bubbly blonde vampire didn’t verbally respond at first but rather embraced me in a tight hug. Wrapping my arms around her I smiled when she finally answered my question. “Of course I will be their other godmother.”

“See you were worried for absolutely nothing.” Klaus whispered in my ear once we had broken the embrace and I rolled my eyes at the hybrid but the smile on my face never dropped.

Entering through the front door Caroline and I were met with Ethan and Missy both sitting on the couch and Klaus was standing in front of the fireplace but no one uttered a word until I was forced to speak up first. “Somebody want to tell me what is happening or am I supposed to read your minds?”

“Raelyn, Melissa doesn’t want to talk with Ethan about turning him into a vampire until she talks with us first. I don’t entirely understand what the problem is with just turning him if he asks.” Klaus turned on his heels putting his back to the fireplace.

Missy and I spoke in unison to his response. “Because it’s a lot more complicated than he thinks it is.”

“Rae, you know the odds of him remaining human are very slim. If he just turns earlier than he can protect himself instead of always being the one who could need rescuing.” Klaus vamped in front of me and our gazes focused on the other.

I tilted my head to the side, glaring at my husband. “Nik, I understand your logic but this is our daughter’s decision.”

“She doesn’t have to be the one to turn him.” He was tempted to say that to me.

Crossing my arms I shake my head no grumbling under my breath. “He asked her to do it. That means that he trusts her to be his sire more than any other vampire in this school.”

“I don’t see the difference between whether she turns him or it is one of us.” Klaus attempted to say and I rolled my eyes not wanting this conversation to become a fight.

Luckily Caroline stepped around the two of us calling Missy’s attention towards the head mistresses office. “Missy, follow me. We can discuss this together with just the two of us if you’d be comfortable with that option.”

“That would be great, Aunt Caroline.” She got up from the couch and Ethan eyed her as she left and the office door was closed shut. Klaus glanced at me yet I had nothing to say. I was just relieved that I made her one of their godmother’s.

Comments really appreciated ❤️

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smallnico · 6 months

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Loving reading all these Esper answers! For the second part of the Dark Urge ask game: 7 and/or 9 (or any other questions you haven't been asked about yet, but want to answer!)

~ @bardicomen 😊

<33 happy to provide!

under the cut because it's long:

7. Bane once sacrificed all of Bhaals assassins, a mistake that caused a great rift between them. Did Durge ever plan to get revenge for it?

esper personally never saw much of a point. after all, murder is murder, and the only way they would get up and start planning revenge for something from the time of troubles would be if bhaal himself asked them to initiate such a plan. they do feel spite and disdain toward bane and his followers, and refused to work for or with gortash (because it took a while for gortash to get past the paradigm of employer/employee when they collaborated, he kept trying to tell them what to do and was shut out for it) for a while because of an innate disgust stemming from recreating the bhaal/bane service dynamic that once existed.

the vibe between them was weird for a while lmao. neither of them is used to the concept of an equal partner for different reasons. they did figure it out eventually, though.

9. The Feast of the Moon is a Bhaalian ritual where priests told the stories of particularly interesting or unique kills. Was one of your Durges deeds ever discussed, or perhaps even turned into a beloved and often retold story?

i love the bhaalian holidays. esper is, in spite of everything else about them, a fairly natural host -- they're very good at the kind of light connective-tissue conversation that introduces person to person and gets them talking, and they enjoy the process of checking in with people and getting them back involved in the festivities -- and events like the feast of the moon are a good excuse to host. but part of why they're good at it is because they don't like talking about themself as much, they like starting conversations and then listening to them go. they don't really like talking about their murders, either, preferring to let their actions speak for themselves and embrace the lack of glory associated with being a properly silent killer. they need sceleritas to start telling their stories on their behalf, but they continue when prompted.

esper's exploits get repeated by the other bhaalists in the way that stan twitter reposts images of a guy smirking, but the series of murders that led to their being anointed a deathstalker in the classic style (16 deaths in 16 ways, magical proficiency) as well as an unholy assassin in the modern style -- most of esper's magic is self-trained, as they're not really a cleric, but a lot of their abilities intersect handily with the deathstalker abilities -- it's one of the few things they're inclined to brag about. they're an overachiever.

and because you offered, and it's one of my favourite things about esper:

8. Being the head of a temple comes with lots of tedious work, did they truly manage all of it or did they try to outsource the best they could?

esper delegated for sure, but they do take a great amount of pride in their ability to manage the temple rather than just sitting on the big skull throne and giving orders. they're more used to receiving direction, so they do find admin work a welcome escape from being puppeted around in a blood rush by bhaal. plus, a well-run cult is an efficient cult, and an efficient murder cult means more people die and become scared and donate tithes (protection racket money) to the temple, more people speak and spread and respect the name of bhaal, gods damn it.

esper is a lot of things, but they are a type-a overachiever on top of all of it. they have an uncanny psychic ability to detect lies, uncertainty, insecurity, or anything else that gives away that something is wrong, before it even comes to their direct attention, especially if someone is particularly worried about what esper is going to do in response. if someone does something wrong in their cult, they are ruthless and terrifying in re-educating people, or disposing of them if need be (thanks, menzoberranzan upbringing). esper runs a very tight ship and they're not afraid to do things themself if they can't rely on someone else to do it, no matter how small or stupid it is, there's nothing they see themself as "too special" to bother with. they do find something meditative about running cult errands.

#thanks for asking!!#bardicomen #the askbox #ask game #durgeposting

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