#Librarian's Assembly

[sw5w]

I Hate to Say It, But It Looks Like the System You're Searching for Doesn't Exist

STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones 00:34:22

[strandedtoodeep]

oh yeah and i finally saw the Assembled about dp&w i'm so so happy!!! time to watch the movie for the ten (i think??) time!

(but not tonight bc tomorrow i'm ✨back to work ✨) (i'm this close to losing my shit but it's okay hhhhhhh)

[saessenach]

.rook takes crow

hi so I wrote a thing!! it's 1 am and I have to go to work tomorrow, but here is some early-game pining from Rook's POV!!

[silentauthor96]

Truly our world would be a better place if more channels just played Cyberchase reruns 24/7

[Cyberchase (For Real) S1 E15]

[foldingfittedsheets]

My paternal grandmother was a librarian. I only got to see that set of grandparents once a year as they lived out of state. I fondly remember summers spent at their house watching That Darn Cat and The King and I on loop, hunting for water skippers in the back creek, and reading the entirety of the Peanuts comics.

Because my grandma was a librarian she was delighted to foster my love of reading. We made trips to the library every week. One summer when I was seven or so I got really into this kids series about princesses all named after gemstones, each had a unique magic power.

At the end of each book was a puzzle or some extra bit of lore to decode. All of them were easily copied down in some way. Until I got to Sapphire’s book. At the end of the story Princess Sapphire was in peril! She needed a hero to come save her from a terrible fate. And there, on the last page, was a decoder device. It needed to be cut out and assembled.

I had to help save the Princess!!! In the iron grip of a fever of imagination I immediately found scissors and started carefully cutting the page. The page warned only to use scissors with an adult present and I scoffed to think I needed supervision just for scissors! I was a hero!Her plight called to me from the pages, imaginings of how I would daringly rescue the beautiful sweet Princess Sapphire ran through my little brain-

And about halfway up the page toward my goal I froze. This was a library book. I couldn’t cut a library book! What was I doing?! Even now in my memory it stands as a glaring example of the first time I mastered impulse control. Tragically, too late.

I was distraught. My grandma had a sacred duty to books and I, villain that I was, had defiled a precious tome! I wallowed for some time in abject misery, experiencing the greatest amount of guilt my tiny body had ever previously held. I’d probably go to jail. For a crime as monumental as wielding scissors against a book I wouldn’t even get dessert in jail.

Gradually, I processed my way through the grief of my vile deeds. I couldn’t have the decoder, I slowly accepted. That might be punishment enough. And I had only cut the page halfway. So it was only half a crime... It wasn’t illegal to lie when you’d aborted an evil act, right?

I didn’t know but I didn’t want to face my grandma’s potential wrath. I have no memory of my grandma ever yelling at me. I waited until the next day to approach her.

“Grandma? I finished my book and when I got to the end I saw someone had cut the page! They probably wanted the decoder because I also want that but it was very bad to cut a book, wasn’t it?”

My grandma regarded me benignly. She carefully took the book to observe it and nodded. “It’s good to see that they stopped before they cut it all the way out. Let’s go tape this together, and then I can photocopy the page and we can make you a decoder.”

I was ecstatic. Rewarded for my honesty! I created and cracked codes for the rest of summer with the flimsy paper creation we’d made. I genuinely doubt my grandma believed that I wasn’t the perpetrator, but I loved that she acknowledged that the person responsible stopped.

[robertreich]

Trump Is Project 2025

Trump claims he has “no idea who is behind” Project 2025.

Hogwash!

Project 2025’s nearly thousand-page plan for a total MAGA takeover of America was assembled by more than 25 of Trump’s own administration officials.

Trump’s Make America Great Again PAC is running ads calling it “Trump’s Project 2025.”

CNN found that at least 140 people who worked for Trump are involved in the project, including six of his cabinet secretaries.

Trump’s campaign press secretary and his adviser Stephen Miller star in Project 2025’s recruitment video.

If Trump has “no idea” who they are, that’s some serious cognitive decline!

I can see why Trump wants to distance himself from such a toxic plan. Page 5 calls for jailing teachers and librarians over banned books.

Page 455 calls for “abortion surveillance” and stripping Americans of reproductive freedom.

Pages 587 and 592 have plans to gut overtime pay rules.

Page 489 demands the government prioritize “married men and women” over any other type of family.

Page 371 proposes privatizing nuclear waste disposal. What could go wrong?

Trump has promised to be a “dictator” on Day One. The Supreme Court has given their blessing. Project 2025 is the how-to manual for Trump’s dictatorship.

Trump is Project 2025. He cannot escape it.

[possesseddesiress]

Switch Up: First Level

CONTENT WARNING: This story includes themes of transformation and body control with a suggestive approach. If this type of narrative is not to your liking or you do not meet the recommended age, we suggest you do not continue. All images used (if any) belong to their respective owners. I claim no authorship over them and they are only used for illustrative purposes.

If you decide to go ahead, welcome to Possessed Desires, where mind and body are never completely under your control.

Switch Up: First Level (English Version)

My name is Ethan, I'm going to finish high school in a few months and I feel like I didn't live that experience like I was supposed to. I always hung out with my two usual friends, didn't go to parties, didn't even have my first kiss, I hung out in the shadows, like a ghost.

With nothing in particular to be remembered, a zero to the left.

Very different from other guys at my school: popular, muscular, handsome, a hit at parties. I envied them.

I wanted to be one of them with all my might.

To go beyond being a shadow that blended in with the wall in the hallways, to be like one of those big jocks, popular guys, even those “badass” looking guys who seemed to be all the rage because of that.

— This sucks - I muttered in the library, accompanied by my friends: Logan and Miles.

Logan was a chubby guy, with a few pimples on his face and a comic geek, just at that moment he seemed engrossed in everything as he had his head hidden inside a new hero tome.

— Being in the library? - Miles asked. Thin, pale and with thick glasses that made his eyes look like binoculars, he was a genius, although he had a strange hissing sound every time he spoke.

— Yeah, what about the parties? It's high school, we should be doing other things than being confined to a library like rats.

— We're not popular for that sort of thing - Logan mused, barely peeking his head out of his reading.

— Plus no one notices us - Miles complemented, making what appeared to be doodles in his notebook.

— And doesn't that frustrate you? Don't you wish that we could have more? To have more experiences, more fun, guys at our feet.

Something I forgot to mention, all three of us are gay.

— And does it help to imagine that?… You're not going to change anything by yearning for more - Logan whispered in a pessimistic tone.

I sighed, I knew he was right. I just kept quiet, with a silence between the three of us until Miles stood up suddenly, a smile on his lips.

— Eureka! - he shouted with the notebook in hand, a loud ‘Shhh’ was heard from the librarian, to which he sat back down, but without erasing that smile.

— Do you feel good? - I asked. To which he interrupted me, speaking quickly because of his excitement.

— Better than ever, I've been feeling what you describe for three years now, it's been trial after trial, failed experiments trying to find a way to get it, but I finally got it.

— What the hell are you talking about?

— This! - he held out his notebook, showing me the contents on it. What I saw as scribbles before, now made sense: they were blueprints. There was a detailed outline of some kind of rectangular box, with formulas, calculations and other symbols that I couldn't quite understand.

— A… box?

— It is a remote control. Or so it seems - he detailed, pointing to the schematic - it is a bioelectric control, it is designed to launch a double signal that exchanges neural pulses between two individuals and-

— In English, Miles.

— It is a control that would allow consciousness to be switched between two bodies.

I thought about what he was saying. But it was impossible, wasn't it? What he was describing sounded perfectly like something from science fiction movies.

— But you'd still have to assemble it, design the parts, the wiring…

— No - he said, rummaging in his backpack to pull out a small remote control, it looked like something from a garage. With two buttons: one green and one yellow - I just had to complete some calculations.

On one side, it seemed to have a knob, around it were different numbers. Miles lifted the lid to move a couple of wires or join them together, then closed it and moved the knob, looking for a frequency, I guess.

— Still, I don't think it's something possible, I mean…. I believe in you, dude, no doubt you are a genius but I think this kind of thing is beyond….

— Your mental capabilities, Miles - and out of nowhere, the speaker seemed to be Logan. With the only detail, that it wasn't really Logan, it was me.

I found myself looking at cartoons, heroes saving the world and things my friend was reading earlier. I felt heavier, but there was something weird about it all too… I felt a different weight in my pants.

I spread my legs a little, feeling something thick fall against the chair - damn, Logan sure had something hidden between his chubby legs!

I looked up warily, finding my reflection checking my pecs. He looked at them curiously, running his hands over the flat surface as he smiled.

— Were you saying something, Ethan? - Miles said with a smirk on his lips. I looked at my new hands, completely surprised by the experience. They were very different from mine, a little more pigment on them, bigger and bulkier, with small, stubby fingers. It certainly wasn't the best body but there was something about me that sent a load of blood down there. And yes, “it” was big.

— Did you just use us as guinea pigs? - My old voice rang out, it was strange to “see” me there, clearly it was me, my same face, clothes, complexion, absolutely it was all me. But the stance, the body language, the way he spoke… it was definitely Logan.

— It was a risk he was willing to take for us, besides. I had already calculated the dangers, nothing would have happened.

— And why didn't you try it on yourself?

— And what my conscience would have ended up in the air who knows where? No thanks.

I felt a little annoyance towards Miles. But all that was… spectacular. If it had worked on us, then anything could. I could been any athlete! A class rep, one of those artsy kids or the welcoming committee, a teacher, some sexy parent. Whoever!

— And now?…

— First let me try something - Miles pointed at each of us again, first at Logan, pressing the yellow button, and finally at me, pressing the green button.

I didn't feel anything. It was just from one moment to the next watching me and the other, watching Logan. I touched my body again, feeling a little more relief at finding my correct measurements. There was one detail though, my manhood was undoubtedly stiff, almost rock hard.

I looked at Logan in confusion, to which he just shrugged his shoulders.

— It was exciting to lose almost all my weight in less than a second, sorry.

There was silence between us again. Not because of discomfort, but because of all that this implied.

— And now?

— Now you choose what to do, of course - Miles settled back in his seat, almost looking like some kind of CEO proposing a new business strategy - To continue in our bodies and the miserable life we lead, or find some body we like.

There was a bit of silence. And the first to break it was Logan.

— Let's do it.

— Great, I'm glad you're both joining me in this - a smile loaded with confidence emerged from Miles - I think we have the plan, but now the million dollar question remains. Who?

There were at least three hundred of guys in the entire high school, all grades, all clubs. Tall, muscular, thin, stocky, exchange, local, wealthy, middle class. It was like walking into a buffet.

— Do you have someone in mind for you…?

— Oh, yeah, sure. Blake Jones.

— Fuck, are you kidding?! The major captain of the sports team? - Logan was unduly surprised.

Although I partly understood. Blake was good at almost every sport, he'd been the captain of at least 4 different disciplines, king of the prom, made almost every girl nervous, teachers and moms included. He was like a god walking on earth, his plan felt like taking the body of Hercules.

— Who else? - Miles raised his eyebrow, as if the question was silly - I want him, I want that greatness.

There was something in his gaze that chilled my skin, though I understood the sentiment... Miles had been in the shadows of many things just because of his looks and the way he spoke, it was clear he wanted the perfect “vehicle” to go with his brain.

— So… I want Caleb Hawks - Logan said.

Miles let out a laugh.

— Don't make it up, it's a joke, right? - But Logan was silent - The brainless guy in school with the worst smell of all, is it for real?

Miles was right, Caleb was known for his idiocy, his bad smell and for being relatively “unpleasant”. There was something about him that could be striking, he admitted, though he didn't quite know what that something was.

— Can it or can't it? - Logan said seriously.

— Yes, yes. It's your decision, chill, man - Miles said. To which it seemed to calm down Logan, so he went back to hiding behind his comic book - And you, Ethan, who will be your prize?

My mind was working like crazy, going through all the grades, all the sports and art clubs, student associations, exchange programs, teachers? It was an endless menu of options. But then I thought of him: Ruben Hernandez.

Part of the art committee, good actor, influencer and with attributes to die for, despite not being part of any sports team, he certainly had a perfect body.

— Ruben.

— The Latino?

— Will you also give me a but?

— Not at all, I'm just surprised at your choices, folks. I thought you would pick captains and jocks, but I respect your choices.

Logan looked up, finally closing the comic book.

— So when do we start?

— Easy. Everyone hunts for what they want.

Then Miles extended the control to us, waiting for whoever would take it first.

To be continued.

----

I hope you enjoyed this story as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you liked it, don't forget to follow it and share it so more people can discover it.

I'm always open to suggestions and ideas, so if you have any fantasy or scenario in mind, let me know in the comments or in messages.

This is the first part of “Switch Up”, a new series for the blog, I hope you like it, I know this first episode was a little short, but the next ones will certainly be longer to follow the whole adventure of Ethan and his friends.

See you in the next story… Who knows what body you'll occupy this time?

----

[mr-asa-jones]

You have come across Charlotte one of the naughtiest girls here at Saint Helena High School for Wayward many times....

Well she finally got trusted with a role other than being known as one of the naughtiest girls in school. She was made an Assistant Librarian, and has done the job very well for two weeks.

Until she realised how many hidey holes for naughtiness there are in a library!

The Head of English seen here, Miss Arbuckle, is in charge of the library and has four members of staff. These are backed up by girls from the Upper Sixth, not good enough to be perfects. She had been a lunch time door monitor but was caught selling cigarettes and got nine of the best from me for it!! I duly sacked her from the role and put her in the Library here at Saint Helena High School for Wayward Girls, much to Miss Arbuckles dismay.

We have had a School Inspection and to be honest it was not our best. They went into the Library with Miss Arbuckle, and we’re impressed until Miss Ramsbottom a junior examiner shrieked upon finding Charlotte riding a suction dildo, on a study table, in the dark little aisle between Latin, and Physics.

That was yesterday.

Today, Miss Arbuckle who is also Head of the Fifth year has assembled all the girl if the fifth year together in the main hall.

“QUIET, ALL OF YOU, SIT STILL AND FACE THE FRONT!” She coughs importantly and waits for the murmurs and shuffle of feet to subside

“Now listen carefully….it does matter what age you are! At this school, even at eighteen like Charlotte here, if you are naughty…you get your bottom spanked! Let this be an example…You all know of my clothes brush, ‘Little Miss Sting-a-lot’, today Charlotte is going to get thirty of my hardest fastest whacks I can deliver, ON EACH CHEEK!!!… then she is walking the corridors, skirt pegged up, red bottom on show, to Miss Kenworthy’s Study for Six of the Very Best. She is then going home with a note for her parents, saying exactly what she has done!”

There is a general snigger….everyone knows.

“Quiet! I am sure that she will be dealt with at home! So, in conclusion, do not think you ever grow out of a spanking! Not here!”

She takes her dramatic gaze from the clothes brush to Charlotte’s wiggling bare bottom, and…

WHACK WHACK WHACK….it begins hard and very very fast.

“Owwwwwwwww! OooooooOOOOOOOoooh! Yeeeeoww!”

and on…

[stickandthorn]

Beau’s character traits according to Bells Hells: Abs, Librarian, Even more abs oh my god oh wow

Caleb’s character traits according to Bells Hells: dirty (not actually not that dirty we change our mind), assembly?, not the one who turned into a lens (orb[he died |very sad| ])

[nicklloydnow]

“About a decade ago, I ventured my opinion that the adult multitudes queueing for superhero movies were potentially an indicator of emotional arrest, which could have worrying political and social implications. Since at that time Brexit, Donald Trump and fascist populism hadn’t happened yet, my evidently crazy diatribe was largely met with outrage from the fan community, some of whom angrily demanded I be extradited to the US and made to stand trial for my crimes against superhumanity – which I felt didn’t necessarily disprove my allegations.

Ten years on, let me make my position clear: I believe that fandom is a wonderful and vital organ of contemporary culture, without which that culture ultimately stagnates, atrophies and dies. At the same time, I’m sure that fandom is sometimes a grotesque blight that poisons the society surrounding it with its mean-spirited obsessions and ridiculous, unearned sense of entitlement. Perhaps this statement still requires some breaking down.

(…)

Quite liking comics, aged 14 I thus became a comics fan with my discovery of British fandom, which was then still gummy-eyed and fresh out of the egg. The first convention I attended in London, in the basement rooms of a Southampton Row hotel in 1969, was tiny and inspiring. The attenders barely totalled a three-digit number, almost all of them some few years short of legal drinking age. The comics companies, having no monetary interest in a handful of penniless teenagers, went blissfully unrepresented, and the only industry celebrity that I recall was the sublime and sweetly unassuming genius Frank Bellamy, passing Dan Dare or Garth originals around, appearing wonderstruck that anyone had heard of him. The only thing uniting the assembly was its passion for an undervalued storytelling medium and, for the record, the consensus verdict of the gathered 15-year-old cognoscenti was that costumed musclemen were the main obstacle preventing adult audiences from taking comics seriously.

Of that hardly-a-hundred schoolkids, office boys and junior librarians, the great majority were actively involved in their pursuit, publishing or contributing to a variety of – for the most part – poorly duplicated fanzines, or else going on to work professionally in the field, such as Kevin O’Neill, Steve Moore, Steve Parkhouse or Jim Baikie, all of whom were downstairs at the Waverley hotel that weekend, keen to elevate the medium that they loved, rather than passively complain about whichever title or creator had particularly let them down that month. Of course, this was the 1960s and the same amateur energy seemed to be everywhere, spawning an underground press, Arts Lab publications and a messy, marvellous array of poetry or music fanzines that were the material fabric of that era’s counterculture; flimsy pamphlets as important and innovative today as they were then, although considerably more expensive, trust me.

Soon thereafter, caught up in the rush of adolescent life, I drifted out of touch with comic books and their attendant fandom, only returning eight years later when I was commencing work as a professional in that fondly remembered field, to find it greatly altered. Bigger, more commercial, and although there were still interesting fanzines and some fine, committed people, I detected the beginnings of a tendency to fetishise a work’s creator rather than simply appreciate the work itself, as if artists and writers were themselves part of the costumed entertainment. Never having sought a pop celebrity relationship with readers, I withdrew by stages from the social side of comics, acquiring my standing as a furious, unfathomable hermit in the process. And when I looked back, after an internet and some few decades, fandom was a very different animal.

An older animal for one thing, with a median age in its late 40s, fed, presumably, by a nostalgia that its energetic predecessor was too young to suffer from. And while the vulgar comic story was originally proffered solely to the working classes, soaring retail prices had precluded any audience save the more affluent; had gentrified a previously bustling and lively cultural slum neighbourhood. This boost in fandom’s age and status possibly explains its current sense of privilege, its tendency to carp and cavil rather than contribute or create. I speak only of comics fandom here, but have gained the impression that this reflexive belligerence – most usually from middle-aged white male conservatives – is now a part of many fan communities. My 14-year-old grandson tells me older Pokémon aficionados can display the same febrile disgruntlement. Is this a case of those unwilling to outgrow childhood enthusiasms, possibly because these anchor them to happier and less complex times, who now feel they should be sole arbiters of their pursuit?

There are, of course, entirely benign fandoms, networks of cooperative individuals who quite like the same thing, can chat with others sharing the same pastime and, importantly, provide support for one another in difficult times. These healthy subcultures, however, are less likely to impact on society in the same way that the more strident and presumptuous fandoms have managed. Unnervingly rapidly, our culture has become a fan-based landscape that the rest of us are merely living in. Our entertainments may be cancelled prematurely through an adverse fan reaction, and we may endure largely misogynist crusades such as Gamergate or Comicsgate from those who think “gate” means “conspiracy”, and that Nixon’s disgrace was predicated on a plot involving water, but this is hardly the full extent to which fan attitudes have toxified the world surrounding us, most obviously in our politics.

Elections that decide the fate of millions are conducted in an atmosphere more suited to evictions on I’m a Celebrity …, in which contestants who are insufficiently amusing are removed from office. Saleability, not substance, is the issue. Those who vote for Donald Trump or Boris Johnson seem less moved by policy or prior accomplishment than by how much they’ve enjoyed the performances on The Apprentice or Have I Got News for You. And throughout the UK, we’re now familiar with what a Stephen Yaxley-Lennon fan convention looks like.

An enthusiasm that is fertile and productive can enrich life and society, just as displacing personal frustrations into venomous tirades about your boyhood hobby can devalue them. Quite liking something is OK. You don’t need the machete or the megaphone.

Candidly, for my part, readers would have always been more than sufficient.”

[svnnyd4ys]

The Leftenmost Window characters in a (modern) British school

(this is based off of my school, so yk might not be accurate for everywhere ofc)

SALLY XAVIER - she is one of the netball girls (PE teachers love her) - "You going shops at break?" - in year 10 (9th grade) - took PE, Food Tech, Art and Geography GCSE (a lot of coursework) - she and her netball gang basically occupy one of the girl's bathrooms in the geography block every break and lunch - very good at maths/sciences, doesn't try but still manages to get good results, so even when she isn't paying attention, the teachers don't really get mad at her - has about 5 Victoria's Secret or So...? body sprays in her bag at all times - always accidentally leaves her food tech ingredients at home - always gets called Samantha by teachers (even though they don't really look *that* similar) - nice when she's not with her netball friends, but will ignore you if she is - spends a lot of time in her head of years office because she gets overwhelmed by everything very easily, and her HOY is her biggest support system - her school tie is criminally bad (it starts off good but as soon as she gets into the school building, she gets 'swot-knotted' and gives up) and she never wears her blazer

SAMANTHA XAVIER - used to be a netball girl, but quit in year 11 (unlike Sally, she wasn't close with the people on her netball team) - "Who took my lanyard?" - in year 13 (final year of high school) - took English Literature, English Language and Biology for her A-Levels - suffers from migraines and spends a lot of her time in the medical office/listening services because they're the quietest places in school - building on that, she has an LSS pass which means she can take breaks from lesson if she needs and the teachers aren't allowed to stop her - passed all of her GCSEs apart from German (she took Computer Science, German, Drama and PE) - has been going out with Egbert since year 10, because they were in the same GCSE Drama group - pretends not to know Sally in the hallways, but will go into Sally's classrooms to drop off bags and any books that she forgot by loudly announcing it and embarrassing her - applied to be head girl, but got rejected because of her attendance - has at least 5 hair bobbles on her person at all time, because her biology teacher gives them a lot of practicals and goes mad if you don't tie your hair back - absolutely despises assemblies

EGBERT BABB-DAILEY - used to be a roadman, but pulled his act together at the end of year 11 and managed to pass all of his GCSEs (everybody was very proud of him) - "You're actually such a beg." - in year 13 and took German, Maths and Economics A-levels - student librarian because he feels bad for the amount of chaos he used to cause to the actual librarians - his teachers chose his GCSEs for him, because he really just didn't care and got good grades in everything anyways (ended up in RE, Drama, German and Triple Science) - pushes in line in the canteen because he's a sixth former and therefore priority /hj (the teachers love him, so he doesn't get in trouble) - gets in trouble for being on his phone in the lower school - has at least 5 hair bobbles of Samantha's all the time, just in case she loses hers - his mum is an ICT teacher so he always goes and hangs out in her classroom - lives next door to Peter Stephen and is always late because he has to walk Peter to school, and Peter is always late

ALEXANDER XAVIER - Economics/Woodwork teacher and year 8 tutor - "If you swing on that chair you'll fall backwards and smash your head open. I saw it happen!" - strict, but most of the students love him - when he has to give an assembly, he mysteriously goes off sick - whenever Egbert comes over to see Samantha, it turns into a tutoring session - never immediately tells people the answers, and will stare at them until they at least say something - comes into school very early to set things up, and Sally usually goes in earlier with him

THOMASIN XAVIER - part time drama teacher (has dizzy spells which means she has to take time out) - "Uh, girls! This isn't a salon!" - loved by students who have her for A-Level/GCSE but those who only have her because they're forced to despise her lessons - lets you eat in her class as long as you have brought enough for everyone and are actually doing work (she will check) - takes note of which students are comfortable performing vs those who aren't and acts accordingly - comes into school later than her husband, and Samantha drives her in

[princess-glassred]

Imagine if Mike got asked to go give an assembly on reading at Derry middle school because he's a librarian, and while he's there he sees these kids who look disturbingly familiar. They're a friend group of seven, ones fat, ones jewish, ones black, ones a girl, ect. And they're even being harassed by some dumb ass bully with an ugly hair cut. It really trips Mike out but he finds it oddly heart warming, so during the assembly Mike kind of indirectly calls out that bully kid and humiliates him a little, and the kids are all shocked an adult actually stood up for them for once and Mike just winks at the kids like it's a secret.

Later on the kid who kinda looks like a younger version of him talks with him after the assembly to thank him and Mike gives him a book he likes. He also gives him so advice on taking care of your friends since not every adult in Derry will be so kind to help them. When the kid asks how you should deal with a bully Mike just goes "I don't know. Me and my friends threw rocks at ours. Maybe do that.".

[nightscalestudio]

We've posted all the Carcharodon Librarian tutorials on Patreon. Now you can find both tutorials on individual elements of miniature for a subscription, and buy a fully assembled tutorial in PDF format. Join for creative success. We are waiting for your feedback and suggestions. painting tutorials: https://www.patreon.com/Nightscalestudio

[mathildeaquisexta]

Why did Fouché feel the need to leave the Oratory in order to enter politics ?

We know that he left the Oratory at the end of the 1791-1792 school year, thinking about entering into marriage. According to his Mémoires, he also thought of making himself a lawyer, but as we all know, this idea did not last long:

“I married in Nantes with the intention of exercising the profession of lawyer, more analogous to my inclinations and to the state of society.”

It was probably his time spent at the Société des Amis de la Constitution de Nantes that later determined his desire to become an elected member of the Republic. Appointed elector to the Saint-Clément section of Nantes in August 1792, after several rounds of voting, he was elected to the deputation on Saturday September 8, 1792. Sixty-one other members of the Convention Nationale were members of the clergy, including Thomas Lindet. Being a member of the church was therefore not a prohibitive condition for sitting at the Assembly.

In his terrible biography, Zweig theorizes: “He allowed himself the freedom of retreat, the possibility of changing and going elsewhere. To the Church he gives himself only temporarily and not entirely” and ”Immediately he leaves the cassock, leaves it to nature to cover his tonsure and makes political speeches, no longer to teenagers, but to the good bourgeois of Nantes. [...] He too wanted to become a bourgeois quickly and completely, at a time when, as he already understood, the Third Estate was going to take first place, the place from which one governs”.

Fouché's choice would therefore be purely a strategic decision, having assessed the political climate and deduced that by marrying a bourgeois woman from Nantes as quickly as possible, he would be part of this caste and have the best chance of being elected.

Except that Zweig doesn't mention a detail of the utmost importance: the conditions required to be elected deputy to the Convention Nationale.

During the session of September 29, 1789, the Assembly had defined what an “active citizen” was, so who had the right to vote and to be elected:

“The committee [in charge of writing the Constitution] proposes that the necessary qualities to enter, as an active citizen, the primary assembly of one's canton, are: [...] not to be at the moment, in a servile state, that is, in personal relationships, too incompatible with the independence necessary for the exercise of political rights”.

However, servitude has been legally non-existent since August 4, 1789, with the decree abolishing feudal rights.

During the session of October 27, 1789, this problem of definition came back to the heart of the debates. Pétion de Villeneuve proposed replacing the term “servile state” with “state of domesticity”. He explains:

“By domestic, we mean commensals, such as schoolteachers, secretaries, librarians, etc.”, which he differentiates from servants, especially valets.

Fouché would therefore not have been threatened in the exercise of his rights because he was a member of the Oratoire, but because of his status as a public schoolteacher, since he was professor of physics.

The definition finally adopted by the Assembly was: “not to be in a state of domesticity, i.e. a hired servant”, which further blurred the distinction between domestics and servants.

The conditions for election to the National Convention are almost identical:

“Art. 2 - The distinction of French citizens between active and non-active citizens will be abolished, and, to be admitted, it will be sufficient to be French, aged twenty-one, domiciled for one year, living on one's income and the product of one's work, and not being in a state of domesticity.”

[nitewrighter]

So, on the topic of first person narration, I am usually staunchly against it too. While I think compelling narration is better suited as a neutral orator often, I found myself wanting to do a written piece like journal entries recently? A personal account of a guy who is stumbling while he is stuck in it? I know it has been done and redone and perhaps even overdone, but I am hoping that it lends an authenticity and shows a shift as he grows more involved with the circumstances surrounding him. Plus I am writing in old timey vernacular; hiding the fact it is purple prose behind characterization. >:3c

I mean like... I think we're well overdue to bring back more epistolary novels, more novels where the reader has to assemble the story from limited perspectives and other scraps of evidence. Speaking as someone who ends up reading a lot of first person narration because I'm a teen librarian and YA fiction is choked with it, you have to have several conditions running to really pull first person narration off, and a lot of them are structural

The first person narration has to be unique--I'm not just saying this as someone who is now stuck with a permanent, "Ough I'm in YA dystopia but I don't wike kiwwing peopwe" YA female protagonist voice in my head, I'm saying this because this is literally the story's backbone. Voice is what carries your reader AND establishes the level of suspension of disbelief expected from them, and you also have to figure out what impression you want the character to leave on the reader and how reliable they are as a narrator. For example, Brett's voice in The Great Cool Ranch Dorito in the Sky is like, Hella Cringe, Bro, but a significant part of that is by design--he's extremely intelligent and creative but is also actively arresting his own development, and it's this thin veneer of teenage obnoxiousness over a whole Rube Goldberg machine of grief and coping mechanisms and trying to understand his world through a shit-ton of comforting pop culture references. (There are definitely some weaker elements in the story itself, but Brett's voice is one of the strongest parts of it because Galarza was able to give it such a strong teenaged voice while actually keeping the story surprisingly tight despite the story itself basically being about being stuck in repetitive coping mechanism cycles.) But there's also differences between Brett's own narration of the story, and his asides through his journal entries and essays for his teacher. Like there's Brett's interior thoughts, and then there's Brett's thoughts as he's forcing himself to articulate them, so I mean, there is also that self-filtering factor when it comes to journaling/epistolary novel-style writing that I think is something to keep in mind.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Re: the UofT anon, I think it's worth sharing the full email we got. This is the same university whose land acknowledgement talks about how grateful they are to have the "opportunity to live and work" on the stolen land their "private property" occupies. Also note that campus police have arrested members of OccupyUofT while they were holding a peaceful sit-in on campus.

"Dear students,

At this time of heightened tensions, when protests are taking place on many university campuses, I am writing to remind you of the University of Toronto’s commitment to free expression and lawful and peaceful protest, as well as the necessary limits that accompany those freedoms.

Freedom of expression is central to the University of Toronto’s mission of learning and discovery. The University’s Statement on Freedom of Speech notes that “all members of the University must have as a prerequisite freedom of speech and expression, which means the right to examine, question, investigate, speculate, and comment on any issue without reference to prescribed doctrine, as well as the right to criticize the University and society at large.” The statement also makes clear that all members of our community have the freedom “to engage in peaceful assemblies and demonstrations.”

The University respects our members’ rights to assemble and protest within the limits of U of T policies and the law. The University also has a duty of care to our students. Actions that create a health and safety risk, that interfere with the ability of students, faculty, librarians and staff to learn, teach, research and work on our campuses, or that disrupt or impede other University activities are not permitted. 

U of T’s lands and buildings are private property, though the University allows wide public access to them for authorized activities. Unauthorized activities such as encampments or the occupation of University buildings are considered trespassing. Specifically, our Code of Student Conduct prohibits intentional damage to University property, unauthorized entry and use of University property contrary to instructions, disruptions of University activities, and other offenses to property and persons.

Any student involved in unauthorized activities or conduct that contravenes University policies or the law may be subject to consequences. We ask that you engage productively with one another to fulfill our mutual obligation to provide a welcoming and safe community in which all members can express themselves.

Best Regards,

Professor Sandy Welsh

Vice-Provost, Students"

~~~~