#Literally these people do not even like reading and they are determining the market.

[undead-moth]

Btw these are the people the current market is catering to. These are the people determining which books get published right now.

Do they know that reading is not mandatory? Nobody is forcing them to read?

[visenyaism]

genuine question why are charter schools to blame for decreased literacy in your opinion? Because of the remote learning aspect or smth else also?? I went to one & honestly did better with it than traditional hs but I had very high reading comprehension already, had no busses in my area & no parent that could drive me to school so it was a pretty specific situation where that environment worked out better for me

Well I’m glad it worked out for you but institutionally charter schools are so detrimental to public education. Let me explain why:

The principle behind charter schools, that increased competition will force public schools to be better, frames education as a product rather than a public utility. If education quality is determined by the free market, the winners and losers are children, which is just a morally unacceptable outcome to me.

Shouldn’t ignore that the school choice movement started as a way to advocate for the perpetuity of segregation. On average charters are more racially segregated than publics.

The way in which public schools receive funding varies state to state, but most states do some amount of funding per pupil. What that means is that when students switch from public schools to charter schools they take that per people funding with them if you’re leaving an underperforming public school that’s underperforming because it’s underfunded you are making the problem worse. Not everyone can leave.

Charter schools can legally kick students out if they want to. This means if students stop performing well, or if disabled or english-language learner students need extra support, they can just be removed. A lot of “charters have higher test scores” is just charters only admitted high-performing and low-need students, which puts even more of a strain on public schools.

They are really unregulated. Many “charter-friendly” states have minimal accountability measures for charter schools in a way that leads to many running the gamut between negligence to committing literal fraud instead of providing free and appropriate public education. Charter networks are multibillion dollar businesses this system gets exploited by private equity all the time.

That lack of regulation or accountability also shows up in disciplinary outcomes. The school to prison pipeline is already unforgivably bad in a public environment, but unregulated charter schools often implement draconian “zero tolerance” policies that result in black and brown students getting treated like they’re in a police state. Public schools can’t suspend or expel you or call the cops on you for how you wear your hair. They can’t escalate to dramatic consequences as quickly or do a 3 strikes demerit system. There are no legal guardrails against this in charters.

Often exist to circumnavigate teachers’ union contracts and other labor laws. This means teachers at charters are often overworked, underpaid, micromanaged, and have EXTREMELY high turnover. The additional strain on teachers and overrepresentation of first-teachers who burn out in the system and get replaced makes for bad educational environments in a lot of places.

All of these are even more of a problem because of the way that charter networks like KIPP were marketed as a way to fix public schools in black and brown areas, and have just kneecapped public schools while providing students with subpar educational outcomes instead.

[jessica-problems]

Seeing @thydungeongal constantly wrestling with people interpreting her posts about D&D in ways that seem completely alien to me has convinced me that there are actually multiple completely distinct activities both being referred to as "playing D&D" Before we begin, I want to stress that I'm not saying one of these groups is Playing The Game Wrong or anything, but there seems to be a lot of confusion and conflict caused by people not being aware of the distinction. In fact, either one works just fine if everyone's on the same page. So far, I think I've identified at least two main groups. And nobody seems to realize the distinction between these groups even exists. The first group of people think of "Playing D&D" as, well, more or less like any other board game. Players read the whole rulebook all the way through, all the players follow the instructions, and the gameplay experience is determined by what the rules tell each player to do. This group thinks of the mechanics as, not exactly the *whole* game, but certainly the fundamental skeleton that everything else is built on top of. People in the second group think of "Playing D&D" as referring to, hanging out with their friends, collaboratively telling a story inspired by some of the elements in the rulebooks, maybe rolling some dice to see what happens when they can't decide. This group thinks of the mechanics of the game as, like... a spice to sprinkle on top of the story to mix things up. (if you belong to this second group, and think I'm explaining it poorly, please let me know, because I'm kind of piecing things together from other people saying things I don't understand and trying to reverse engineer how they seem to be approaching things.) I think this confusion is exacerbated by the fact that Wizards of the Coast markets D&D as if these are the same thing. They emphatically are not. the specific rules laid out of the D&D rulebooks actually direct players to tell a very specific kind of story. You can tell other stories if you ignore those rules (which still counts as "playing D&D" under the second definition, but doesn't under the first)And I think people in both groups are getting mad because they assume that everyone is also using their definition. For example, there's a common argument that I've seen play out many times that goes something like this:

A: "How do I mod D&D to do [insert theme here]?" B: "D&D is really not built for that, you should play [other TTRPG] that's designed for it instead" A: "But I don't want to learn a whole new game system!" B: "It will be easier to just learn a whole new system than mod D&D to do that." A: "whatever, I'll just mod D&D on my own" And I think where this argument comes from is the two groups described above completely talking past each other. No one understands what the other person is trying to say. From A's perspective, as a person in the second group, it sounds like A: "Anyone have some fun inspirations for telling stories about [insert theme here]?" B: "You can't sit around a table with your friends and tell a story about that theme! That's illegal." A: "But we want to tell a story about this theme!" B: "It's literally impossible to do that and you're a dumb idiot baby for even thinking about it." A: "whatever, jerk, I'll figure it out on my own."

--- Whereas, from B's perspective, the conversation sounds like A: "How do I change the rules of poker to be chess, and not be poker?" B: "uhhh, just play chess?" A: "But I already know how to player poker! I want to play poker, but also have it be chess!" B: "what the hell are you talking about? What does that even mean. They're completely different games." A: "I'm going to frankenstein these rules together into some kind of unplayably complex monster and you can't stop me!" ---

So both people end up coming away from the conversation thinking the other person is an idiot. And really, depending on how you concieve of what it means to "play D&D" what is being asked changes considerably. If you're only planning to look through the books for cool story inspiration, maybe borrow a cool little self contained sub-system here or there, then yeah, it's very possible to steal inspiration for your collaborative story from basically anywhere. Maybe some genres are kind of an awkward fit together, but you can make anything work with a little creativity.

If, however, you are thinking of the question in terms of frankensteining two entire board games together, then it becomes a massively difficult or even outright nonsensical idea. For example, for skill checks, the game Shadowrun has players roll a pool of several d6 at once, then count up how many rolled above a target value to see how well a character succeeded at a task. The whole game is full of specific rules about adding or removing dice from the pool, effects happening if you roll doubles, rerolling only some of the dice, and all sorts of other things that simply do not translate to rolling a single d20 for skill checks. On a basic level, the rules of the games work very differently. Trying to make them compatible would be much harder than just learning a new game from scratch. Now, neither of these approaches is exactly *wrong*, I guess, but personally, I find the rules of TTRPGs to be fascinating and worth taking the time to engage with all the weird little nuances and seeing what shakes out. Also, the first group, "TTRPG as fancy board game" is definitely the older and more widespread one. I kind of get the impression that the second group largely got into D&D through actual play podcasts, but I don't have any actual data to back that up. So, if you're in the second group, who thinks of D&D as basically a context for collaborative storytelling first and a game second, please let me know if I'm wildly misunderstanding how you approach D&D. Because I'm pretty sure it would save us a whole lot of stupid misunderstandings.

[ka2ki2]

Chrysos Heirs

people who play both hi3 and hsr are WINNING rn

anyway. i've determined likely flamechaser parallels for a majority of the chrysos heirs. most of them do not actually look like their flamechaser counterparts, which makes me think they're not direct expies but merely parallels.

I also sprinkled some minor analysis of what little lore we have on these guys. Amphoreus is massively inspired by greek mythology.

watch this before reading!

Aglaea = Eden (both associated with gold)

Eden owned the Elysian Realm previously, but at that time it was called the Golden Courtyard

Eden is also called the Bearer of the Gold Signet

Aglaea is called the Goldweaver

You're not going to believe this-- Aglaea is named after the Charis called Aglaea.

The mythological Aglaea basically runs errands for Aphrodite, which would explain why HSR Aglaea bears the Coreflame of Romance.

HSR Aglaea is from the city of Okhema. In greek thought (plato I think?), Okhema is an intermediary between the body and the soul. I did as much research as I could and the best I could figure out is "it carries the soul through rebirth". SORRY IF THAT'S WRONG-

HSR Aglaea has the "divine authority of mnestia". After lots of research, I think mnestia can be loosely translated to Remembrance, so perhaps that's the Amphorean way of saying she's a pathstrider of Remembrance?

Aglaea's drip marketing references the myth of Prometheus, where Prometheus stole fire from the gods and returned/gave it to humanity.

Tribbie = Vill-V (multiple 'selves')

Tribbie is called the "three-faced messenger"

We see Tribbie adopt multiple personas in the video. She can even take multiple forms at once

Vill-V has partitioned her personality into 8 different segments

Anaxa = Su (both associated with knowledge/enlightenment)

Anaxa is said to have "enough knowledge to refute faith, and to stir up a torrent capable of slaying gods."

Su is called the Enlightened of Bodhi, Enlightened One, and other similar titles.

These two have lots of physical similarity

Anaxa's namesake has some interesting connections with Nous actually

Hyacine = Griseo (both Asleep)

In the video, when Hyacine is on-screen it says "let the sky become the slumbering cot from which she wakes".

Due to the 8th Honkai Eruption, Griseo fell into a deep sleep.

Could be named after Hyacinthus

Mydei = Kalpas (fire in battle)

In the video, Mydei is seen in a post-battle poise surrounded by fire.

Kalpas is constantly surrounded by fire during battle.

Both characters constantly seek out fighting/strife.

Mydei is likely related to the greek god Deimos

One of the unnamed people has a mask too though, but these guys are too similar in aesthetic and personality

Cipher = Pardofelis (...come on.)

Cat girls.

Same eye and hair color

Castorice = Aponia? (butterfly theming)

Castorice is pictured with butterflies both in the video and in the twitter art. These butterflies look highly similar to the butterfly motif in Aponia's design

Aponia is very strongly associated with butterflies. Her dress is patterned like one and she has butterfly wings in her ult

Both seem to have devastating levels of power

IDK about the greek origins for this one. Castor? Kratos (who is actually a child of the Styx)?

Phainon = Kevin (deliverance)

Yeah they're both related to deliverance. They literally outright said deliverance in the video, and Kevin bears the Deliverance Signet.

Also they look EXACTLY THE SAME

Also both seem to be the 'leader'

In mythology, Phainon is the star of Cronus/Saturn (cuz they thought saturn was a star)

Cyrene = Elysia (...COME ON.)

They look identical and have almost the exact same personality

i have yet to figure out the two unnamed ones, Hysilens, and Cerydra. nor can i find their name origins... the closest i found, after ages of digging, is this for Hysilens

the remaining flame-chasers are Kosma, Sakura, Fu Hua, and Mobius. only one of the unknown people seems to be male ("unknown 2"), so that one's probably Kosma.

And yeah that's the culmination of me losing my mind for the past 6 hours. lucky you, you didn't have to watch me try and fail to decipher what the 12 titans might be connected to. (greek titans, 12 olympians, and HSR aeons all didn't line up easily waaaaaa)

here's the failed attempt to figure out the aeons if anyone else gets ideas from this

OK thanks for reading. normally I post my loredumps in discord servers with my friends. this is my first time posting it anywhere abfiushdliueh

[messrsrarchives]

Let me scream this, fanfic is the only form of literature that is divorced from capitalism

oh how i wish this were true 😖 i literally JUST wrote about the politicisation and capitalisation of fanfiction for an essay comp with my uni (i won :3) and UGH.

theoretically? yes! and being separate from capitalism is so important,,, not just for fanfiction but for literature as a whole? to be separate from this idea of profit, of your voice and ideas being profitable and marketable, of having to fit into a predetermined box for your voice and experience and words to be heard? capitalism ruins literature. it ruins freedom of voice when we see the demographic of those getting published (and like,,, that historically) but also it limits creativity and ideas when your focus is now on what's marketable and what's trending, and we go through waves of the same tropes/story being told over and over and over again until the next big trend hits. capitalism prohibits creativity. and theoretically,,, fanfiction is devoid from that, right? because we aren't profiting from it, we aren't buying it, and theoretically everyone's voice holds the same power and we aren't restrained by what's marketable and who's louder.

BUT realistically:

i mean obviously the first point - people selling binds. instantly bringing capitalism into fandom. fanfiction becomes capitalised on a monetary level.

but money isn't everything here i think! i think we have ideals in fanfiction/fandom that aren't necessarily about profit, but still uphold capitalist values.

especially over on tiktok, we see the same ideals through followers, likes, 'influencers'. we see it when cosplayers call themselves actors and want to use fanfilms for portfolios, we see it when fanfilms ask for money *before* content, which goes against the whole "fandom content is shared with you, not made for you" ideal, we see it when people start gatekeeping their ideas rather than sharing like we used to, etc etc - ideals of capitalism infiltrating. we start developing this hierachy of those at the "top" with more influence and more power and whose ideas we follow more, and those at the "bottom" start becoming more like consumers than enjoyers. fanfiction - and in turn, fandom as a whole - becomes a market. (and we see the same concept with hits and kudos on fanfics and how this determines what ones people think are worth reading)

we see it when people start criticising fics - again, not monetary but rather the same ideals - and determining which voices and which experiences can be heard, whilst the others are pushed aside. "no you can't write about this because i think it should be done this way and xyz and therefore your voice is irrelevant and we're going to cancel your fic online". people start determining whose voice can be heard and what the "right way" to do something is, the exact way they do in tradlit which is obviously dependent on capitalism now (which is a big part of why there's been a rise in selfpub recently)

we see it in the puritanical view people take towards fandom and characters - in the way certain ideals are restricted as being "too immoral" to write about and we end up, again, cancelling people (see here: period typical misogyny = the author being misogynistic and thus getting cancelled??) - we start, again, determining right and wrong ways of doing things and turn this sharing of ideas for fun from a hobby based mindset to more of a "i am a consumer and i am unhappy with the product i have received" type of mindset, which then leads to people making their ideas and works more "marketable" to the "consumer", and suddenly these capitalist values have changed the very way we produce content. are we doing X this way because we want to, or because people will get mad at us if we do Y?

we see SO many capitalist ideals in fandom that even if binds weren't being sold and fanfilms weren't taking extortionate amounts of money,,,, i still wouldn't say fanfiction is divorced from capitalism. i'd say we definitely have signs of the hierarchy, the restriction, the consumer x producer dynamic, and i'd argue that likes/followers/"the next big fic" etc etc are all signs of how fanfiction is infact not divorced from capitalism.

BUT!! my final point is that:

as a concept, absolutely it is! and in most instances, yes. fanfiction is divorced from capitalism - fanDOM is where it gets a bit trickier. but i think the big transition from more anonymous and communal ideas of fanfiction to a more interactive social media based one (esp platforms with high traction like tiktok) has meant that a lot of capitalist values (which are prevalent on SM in general) start infiltrating fandom so naturally because it's what we're used to! we're so used to the traction and the power and the hierarchy and the cancelling etc etc that we don't even notice it really. but fanfiction starts becoming more mainstream, people want traction, they evaluate the "market" and determine the best way to go about "selling" their fic, jump on the more "profitable" trends, etc etc etc. capitalism. hinderance of individual exploration and expression to appease the masses.

so theoretically and ideally? yes, fanfiction is divorced from capitalism. but realistically and in practice? no, because fanDOM isn't, and it affects fanFICTION

[the-writing-mobster]

Because I constantly get hate for WDYW Chapter 49,

(I get it, it's polarizing) allow me to like,,, explain why I went with the plot point? I don't really owe anyone an explanation, and literally fuck any of my haters, they're ants, but I think my readers/people who actually like my writing would like to know the lore behind my choices.

So, context, in chapter 49, Frisk is drugged into obedience by Muffet and Muffet, being the money hungry cunt that she is, sells Frisk's body on the black market. It's a really uncomfortable concept, and when it happened it caused a lot of readers to drop the fic or rant at me in the comments, talk shit about my fic in private forums behind my back, or even imply a bunch of horrible things about me as a person lmao.

So why did I decide to go with this plot?

Well, for one, it all stems from two books: The Hunger Games, Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and the Empress by S.J Kincaid.

In both of these books, there is a pivotal character who is drugged, manipulated and used for political gain by a dastardly authority figure. In The Empress, this plot point was ESPECIALLY devastating, because it completely changed and corrupted the character into a horrific shell of their old self to where they were actively antagonistic and irredeemable!

This plot device has intrigued and fascinated me ever since. Drugging a protagonist to make them wholly dependent on their abuser/villain, manipulating them, having them at rock bottom is, in my opinion, one of the worst things that can happen to a character... And seeing how the character can overcome it is the greatest triumph!

Ever since reading these books, this plot device has buzzed in the back of my mind and there is a part of me that always tries to recreate it, but I can never come close to perfecting it.

Either I always miss on the addiction part of the manipulation, or I can never commit truly to character corruption. Either way, the closest I've ever gotten to scratching this itch has been in WDYW part 3, but even then, I barely came close to getting it right.

My second reason for choosing the route; In WDYW, Frisk's whole arc is about having control over her own agency/autonomy/fate. What happens to her in Part 3 is the culmination of everything she's ran away from, fought against, and her greatest nightmare come to life. It was the lowest point I could bring her character, and make her face her past demons in a horrifically evil way. But my plan had obviously been that despite all of the torture she survives, that she not only survives but fucking WINS!

That was the whole point, but when I wrote it I was like,,, 17/18 😅, so there was definitely things I wasn't as graceful about.

With that said, would I change anything? Yes. If I could change anything I wrote about part 3, I would do a couple things:

1. Take out that obedience spell Muffet puts on Frisk. The reason I made that was because it was like a catch all spell to keep Frisk in Muffets clutches? But it was pretty OP and seemed like a hand wavey excuse to brush aside plot holes. I should've just simplified the spell to where she was simply tethered to Muffet's soul so Sans couldn't kill Muffet, or teleport Frisk away.

2. Frisk's "obedience" to Muffet should've been entirely addiction based, which would make the plot point of Frisk using determination to burn out her addiction in Part 4, and then eventually Determination becomes the addiction instead, (because overcoming addiction is really fucking hard actually and a constant struggle) a lot stronger.

3. I would probably be much more careful with my word choice in chapter 49. Some of it comes off as sexualization. Not my intention, but it was because I was writing in the creepy photographer's pov and he was objectifying her. In my head I was like, "surely people can read between the lines right???" (They can't. Only a select few fanfic readers have media literacy apparently)

So, TLDR, No chapter 49 was not some author's barely disguised fetish (that's honestly a really gross way to think about my writing and about me as a person) it was my genuine worst nightmare as a woman, and one of my favorite plot devices from two of my favorite books 😭 Please lay off me about chapter 49, and Part 3.

Last but not least... Some art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed.

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[caleris-library]

It Starts With H

You can also read also on AO3!

Summary: Reth was on his way to deliver a “cake” in Bahari Bay when he stumbles upon a bittersweet love letter to “T.” Who else could it be other than his dear sister, Tish? Well, whoever this person is better prove themselves if they want to get back with her. There’s no other way to determine it except by investigating all the villagers whose names starts with “H.”

Author's Note: This may possibly be out of character for most, if not all, of the characters that show up in this fic. I do hope that you will still enjoy this!

What a coincidence their names both start with T.

Can’t blame Reth for accidentally messing it up. There were only a few people he knows their names that start with T and one of them is his sister. A love letter? Who would it be for if it weren’t to his sister? If he wasn’t the most wanted person, then that title would’ve gone to Tish. There was nothing to not love about her. She was the village’s sweetheart.

Just as there were only a few people he knows their names that start with T, there were only a few people he knows their names that start with an H. But, who the person writing the letter was more obvious than anything. It was an open secret.

It was Hodari.

.

.

.

Jel’s face falls flat at that conclusion. “You couldn’t be anything more than wrong,” he says, voice dragging out the last word.

It was a warm, busy evening, despite the season getting colder as if shifts from summer to fall. There were preparations being made with the Maji Market, furniture being made for the Watcher, the humans’ upcoming Acceptance Ceremony... A lot to do. Reth was busy enough already having to make food for literally all three events.

Yet, here he is.

The Tailor was small and quiet shop, fitting for the lanky melancholic man that works the place. Reth always makes his way after his shift to Jel’s store. All he has is three hours to spend time with Tish, his little sister, and Jel, his little sister’s best friend. However, it was only the two of them today.

Tish was working overtime at her shop for the Watcher. The materials needed were hard to come by. From what Reth remembered about Tish’s rambling, they required palium ore.

And, Hodari is a miner.

“How could I be wrong?” Reth asks flabbergasted. “If it’s not Hodari, who could it be?”

Because, without a doubt, it was certainly meant towards Tish. Who wouldn’t want Tish? Well, next to the furniture was the library. And, guess who stands in front of the library.

Reth gently smacks his palm on the table. “Hekla!” But that doesn’t sound right.

Jel rolls his eyes and chuckles.

“Then, who could it be?!”

At the same time, both Reth and Jel lean over the table to look at the letter. Reth found it while making a delivery in Bahari Bay. The words were sickeningly sweet — Reth is sure that Sweet Tooth would eat this up if he were to show them. However, he can’t reach out for their help right now as they were busy.

Reth huffs a little and slides the paper towards Jel while he rests his head on his palm. Jel takes the paper in between two of his fingers and rereads it again, over and over, through his tinted lens (how can he read through that?).

“How about you ask Tish?” Jel suggests. He leans on the table with his other hand and swings his other hand with the paper in it. Everything about him just exudes elegance.  “She’ll tell us whenever she’s ready. It is her letter after all.”

Jel was right. Whatever happened between Tish and her secret partner — ex-secret partner — is between them. There was probably, obviously, a reason she kept it a secret. Even though the thought of his little sister keeping a secret from him hurts a little, Reth knows that he has more secrets that he has never told her before either.

How something like ours was never meant to last. Did Tish say that to them? Was it something about her health? Was she getting worse? Is that why they both broke up? Is that why Tish was keeping it a secret?

Clearly, whoever wrote this letter to her cares about her. And, whoever they are, Tish must’ve really trusted them to tell them about their health first before her own brother. Reth would do anything for her — even if it meant going in debt to the cartel. Still, Reth wants to see himself if the person Tish broken up with was really a good person. If they would do anything for her, they gotta prove themselves they could do more than him.

It was nearing 8 pm. Reth stands up from his seat, some of the paper falls off the table, and stretches his arms. “Well, looks like my time is running short,” he says. “I think I’m gonna stop by Tish’s before I head back to the Tavern. I have to make sure she gets her dinner.”

“You’re gonna ask her?” Jel asks lightheartedly, offering back the letter.

Reth takes the letter off his hands and slides it in his apron pocket. “Nope,” he answers, popping the ‘p.’ “Like you said, this is Tish’s business.”

Jel raises a brow at that statement. “And, what does that mean?”

“Nothing you should worry about.” Reth winks. “Don’t tell Tish about this. If she stops by later, I was helping you come up with ideas.” He waves as he departed from the store.

Jel sighs and pushes his glasses up his nose. His eyes wanders to the floor and spot the fallen sheets of paper. As he picks them up, he realizes they were sketches for his new clothing line and he gasps. “Oh, right. I need to talk to Hassian about the fur.”

Jel quickly gathers all the paper up and places them on his desk neatly. There was a small closed box where Reth was sitting at, taped with words “Fragile! Zeki’s Special Cake Delivery! Keep Refrigerated.”

“Oh dear, did he forget to take this?”

Well, he’ll just put it in his fridge until Reth comes back. It would be awhile until Reth is available and he doesn’t want the cake to spoil.

Very rarely does Reth and Tish have a full day together.

Tish doesn’t know how Reth did it, but she assumes that he got a human (Sweet Tooth, he calls them) to do his work. Nothing wrong with that. It’s fine to slack off for one day or two. Despite what the other villagers may think of Reth, she knows that Reth works hard. She could never blame him for getting some help. Tish is grateful that he has a friend, maybe more, he can rely on.

But, it was a very strange day.

It was early when the two of them set off from their house. The morning was chilly. After all, it was very important to get some clean fresh air. Kilima Village had that rural essence that a city can’t achieve. It was a quiet village yet it was noisy in it’s own way. Everyone pretty much knows everyone. Mostly.

They made their way straight to the Mirror Pond Ruins. The plan was to have a picnic first thing in the morning. Leafhopper Hills was usually a nice place to have one — lots of land and grass, a good amount of trees, and a nice view of the beach. Reth suggested that they should try a new scenery.

That wasn’t the strange part though.

It was when he invited Jina and Hekla over to their picnic.

“Are there any dishes I can make with mushrooms?” Reth asks casually. He’s sitting criss cross applesauce while holding a bowl of his world’s famous lettuce soup. “I’m trying to expand my menu and Sweet Tooth complains about having too much mushrooms.”

Jina lights up and leans forward. “I know one that fits right in your expertise!” she answers excitedly, but she coughs a bit as she regains her composure. “Have you heard of cream of mushroom soup? It’s a simple recipe.”

Tish doesn’t mind the company. In fact, she considers herself and Jina to be good friends. She often goes to Jina to ask her about the ruins for some craft ideas and it’s fun learning new stuff. Old human civilization had some creative choices. Thinking about it, maybe she has some sort of magnet that pulls Water-type personalities towards her.

“Oh, right, Hekla, didn’t we discover what brightshrooms could do?” Jina asks, facing towards her Galdur partner.

Hekla’s head bobs and tilts before answering, “Brightshrooms get their glow from absorbing flow. Because of this, brightshrooms have some healing properties.”

In the corner of Tish’s eye, Reth glances at Tish then back at Hekla. His face was slightly scrunched. He had one hand rubbing his chin while another on his bowl of soup. In front of him was a small notepad. Tish remembers him writing on it earlier when Jina shared the recipe. She leans in a bit. There were some doodles that looked like Hekla and... was that Hodari?

Reth places the bowl of soup down, on top of the notepad. Gosh darn it. “So, basically, you’re saying is that we can make an immortality potion out of that,” he jokes and Tish giggles.

“The flow intake is too little to cause any change when consumed,” Hekla finishes. “Most of the flow is used to make it glow, so when it is cooked, the flow is transferred somewhere else. Flow cannot be destroyed.” Her head sinks back into her body. “The only thing it adds is an umami flavor, as humans describe it.”

“It would be really cool if someone figures out how to make medicine out of that.” Tish claps her hands together and smiles brightly. “Maybe Kenyatta knows more about that! When I visited her at the City Hall, she suggested that I put some heat root when I got injured while I was crafting.”

Jina nods her head. “Brightshrooms have a lot of alchemical purposes and...”

And, the entire time, it was about mushrooms. Tish had a lot of fun conversing with Jina and Hekla. It wasn’t every day she talked with them when they were always on some sort of adventure together. Just whenever she leaves her store and sees them at the library does she give them a small chat. Maybe suggest a few books on architecture or such. It was a nice experience.

It was just strange. Reth’s a social guy, but he wouldn’t try to get interruptions during their hangout. Even though he invited Jina and Hekla, he was overall quiet with the exceptions of a few jokes. It was mainly her and Jina talking with Hekla making some more commentary.

After Jina and Hekla left to head to the temple, Reth was writing something in his notepad before packing all the stuff up. He sighs contently, brushing his hands off after putting all the bowls into a backpack. “That was fun. Maybe Jina and Hekla will come around more often at the Tavern once I put that recipe in the menu. What’s your opinion on them?”

“Well... Jina’s a good friend and I would like to know more about Hekla.”

Reth nods his head quicky and stares at Tish expectantly.

Tish tilts her head. “We’re not gonna stay around here a bit more?” she asks. Typically, they would stay in one spot and catch up with each other since it’s not every day the see each other despite being family, until it was the end of the day or until they were busy. Regardless, she helped carefully place the bigger pots in another bag.

“Nope,” Reth answers as he takes the picnic blanket. “I had another idea planned. We’re gonna go to Bahari Bay.”

“Bahari Bay?” Tish squints her eyes as she picks up the basket. “Why?”

“Heard from a certain Sweet Tooth you were eyeing some Palium Ore to make the furniture for the Watcher. So, I thought, maybe we should go mining together!”

“Mining.” Tish slowly nods her head and squints her eyes. “Reth, uhm,” how does one say this kindly, “we don’t have pickaxes.”

Reth clicks his tongue and points a finger gun at her. “I already asked some human friends to lend me some of their old pickaxes. Had to mend it a little since it was getting worn out. It’s a great chance to go sightseeing and get a little bit more exercise.” He mimics a quick run. “Don’t worry. I’ll do all the work.”

For some reason, Tish was convinced.

Najuma’s breakfast was interrupted when her dad unexpectedly came back with the village’s cook and carpenter following after him. Her mouth was opened, the spoon in her hand halfway into her mouth. She couldn’t even take her first bite. Her dad stops at the table where she was eating her fried eggs and diced tomatoes and says, “These folks have some worn down picks. I’m gonna head back to the workshop and grab them some better ones. You don’t mind talking to them, right?”

Yes, she does very mind it, but she doesn’t say that out loud. Najuma didn’t say anything as her dad already left off to head to their workshop. Well, there he goes.

Fortunately, Tish was good at making small talk. Sure, it just the regular ol’ “the weather is lovely here” type of small talk, but Najuma admires Tish for being so friendly and welcoming. She’s, like, one of the few people who always greet them and check out what they have whenever they are in town.

It wasn’t long until Hodari comes back with some two picks and his own. “Now, considering that I have never seen you two ever hold a pick, do you folks know where to mine?” he asks.

Najuma sighs in relief that it wasn’t very long that she had to keep a conversation up.

“Nope,” Reth answers, popping the ‘p.’ “Just kinda figured, as long as we hit a rock, it would give us something, right? That’s what Sweet Tooth’s tells me at least.”

In other words, they have no idea what they are doing at all.

Najuma recognizes the opportunity and stands up from her seat and exclaims, “I can show them around Bahari Bay!” This is her chance to check out the mines.

“No can do,” Hodari immediately denies.

But, those two don’t even know what they’re doing! she wanted to yell, but that would be embarrassing to argue with her dad in front of someone. She certainly doesn’t want to drag them into it either.

Tish raises a hand and suggests, “Maybe, she can come with us?”

Reth nods his head. “You’ll be with us too, aren’t you?” he asks, glancing at the three picks. “I figured you would show us a spot with that question.”

Hodari glances at the two siblings before he sighs. He didn’t plan on taking the two into any dangerous mining spots, so it would also be safe for Najuma to also come along. Plus, as long as he is with them, he can keep an eye out on Najuma.

He looks at Najuma. Her eyes were sparkling with hope. She already knew the answer after the first sigh.

“As long as you stay outside the area,” he grumbles, crossing his arms. “I don’t want you to be getting into any accidents.”

.

.

.

They were around Hideaway Bluffs, it’s not a cave but it’s a safe place to mine. There were always ores around the cliffs so it’s no wonder why her dad picked this place out. Najuma kicks her prosthetic leg as she watches Hodari teach Tish how to hold a pickaxe. Her dad swings the pickaxe at the ore, then tells Tish to copy after him. Reth was a bit in the back and watched the two closely.

What’s strange though was him suspiciously inching closer each time they hit the ore.

“Do you need something?” Najuma asks hesitantly.

Reth pulled out a notebook with a pen in his hand and asked in a hushed tone, “Say, Najuma, do you know anything about Hodari and Tish?”

“Do I know anything about my dad... and Tish?” Najuma asked back flabbergasted. She squints her eyes. A question worded like that could be misinterpreted in such a way. “Are you trying to imply something here? And,” her eyes dart to the notebook, “and, what’s with the notebook?”

“It’s a book of notes,” Reth answers plainly.

He wasn’t wrong there.

Najuma fidgets around with her hands. What else more can she say? There’s still that first question that needs to be answered but the only answer she has was that she’s only seen her dad and Tish only have small talk. She respects Tish. The young woman has always made an effort to welcome everyone.

“Well, she would make a great... business partner?” Najuma answers hesitantly. “Though, I think she wouldn’t be as interested since it’s more... mechanical stuff. She has great ideas though.” Her hands try to grasp at something. Being around the mines for the first time in a long while, she feels empty without a pick in her hands. “May I ask why are you asking?”

Reth pulls out a sheet of paper and answers, “There was a letter I found with no names except T and H.” He passes the paper to Najuma. At least her hands are less empty. She doesn’t know what to do with them. “I was wondering if you know anything about it.”

Najuma skims through the letter. The letter was so romantic and so... sad. She’s glad it wasn’t advice on like “do you think I wrote this letter good” or “how should I respond to this?” She was never good with her words, so giving emotional advice really wasn’t her forte. Especially when it comes to the sappy stuff.

Najuma replies slowly, “You think... my dad and Tish were dating at some point?” So, that’s the whole reason why they’re here in Bahari Bay. And, Tish doesn’t know anything about this.

Reth nods his head dumbfoundedly.

She giggles a bit at the idea. “I think you got the wrong people. My dad can’t write words like that. Plus, they really are nothing more than acquaintances, like everyone else.” Najuma passes the letter back to Reth. “Are you sure, though, that it’s to Tish?”

“Positively,” Reth answers and folds the letter back in his pocket. “There’s no one else who’s name that I know that starts with a T. Well, maybe a few. But, it’s most definitely Tish.”

Najuma wasn’t sure what made Reth so confident, but she was convinced that it could really be Tish with the way he declared it. It never crossed her mind that maybe it could be the other two people that lived in Bahari Bay besides her and her dad.

“Do you know anyone else’s name that starts with H—”

Their short conversation ends when Tish finally manages to mine out an iron ore. “Look, Reth! I got sapphire! This is Jel’s starstone!” she cheers. “He’s gonna be so happy to see this.”

Reth smiles brightly. “That’s great!”

Najuma’s mouth agapes. “Do you guys know how rare that is?!”

They both were running up to her, Hodari yelling in the background, “Be careful!” to Najuma, as the previous topic was long forgotten.

It was nearing the end of the day. The skies were a pretty red-orange with some clouds in the sky. As they were heading back to Kilima Village, there were humans using their gliders and jumping off carelessly off the cliffs. Surprisingly, Tish was still pretty energetic compared to Reth and was carrying all their treasures that they earned today. Then again, she probably has carried heavier stuff than Reth ever had.

Tish was humming happily, her hands behind her back as she carried a small but heavy satchel of ores. Even Najuma said that they were pretty lucky today to be finding so much starstones. That’s all Tish’s luck, honestly.

Reth sighs tiredly, swinging his shoulder around to ease the pain.

“Today was nice, wasn’t it?” Tish cheers. “I’m so excited to use these ores. I can just feel the inspiration flowing right now.”

Reth laughs. “What do you plan on making out of them?” he asks.

“Well, for Jel, I was thinking with the sapphire I got, maybe a chair that has the jewel at the top...” Tish talks about all the ideas she could make. “..with the quartz I got for Najuma. Then, with this citrine, I think it would be nice to make a bracelet for you.” They stopped at the front of her store. She takes a small breath and glances at Reth. “You know, despite how strange today was, I had lots of fun.”

Reth scrunches his face. “Strange?! How was I acting strange today?” he asks dumbfoundedly.

“Well, for one, we went to a picnic—”

“We always have picnics when we hangout! Was it the change of scenery?”

“Yeah, no, yeah, but you invited Jina and Hekla to sit with us!” Tish answers quickly. “I had no problem hanging out with them. The more, the merrier after all. Then, we went mining which was a very, very outlandish idea.” She fiddles with her fingers as she was carrying her satchel. Her voice goes more quiet as she says, “It makes me worried, you know? It felt like you were checking out a bucket list with me. Trying to get me close to Hekla ‘cause she used to be a caretaker. Trying to mine because maybe that’s something that you always wanted to try before you... You’re not gonna disappear on me, are you?” At the end of her question, her voice shakes a little.

When their parents disappeared, Tish was really young where it was hard for her to remember their voices. Despite that, she was still affected by their disappearance. She only had Reth to rely on. Her shelter, her clothes, her meals, her medicine. As her older brother, Reth did everything, sacrificed everything for her to grow up well. He deviated from his path in order to get money and food on the table. Reth pretty much raised her.

“I’m not gonna disappear, I promise,” he says gently. “It’s just...”

This is going to sound stupid.

“There was this letter I found at Bahari Bay. To T, Love H.” Reth sucks in a deep break. “I thought it was meant for you and I tried to figure out who it was from.”

Tish furrows her brows. “What type of letter?”

Reth pulls out the letter from his pocket and unfolds it before he hands it to Tish.

“Oh my dragon, this is so sweet!” Tish exclaims. “Oh, I hope it works out for them, whoever they are. This is so romantic... But, this isn’t for me, you know. I would tell you if I was courting someone.” Tish lightly punches Reth on the shoulder. “I tell you and Jel everything! You guys are the closest family I have. Did you think I was dating Hekla or Hodari?” 

Reth looks away. “No...?”

Tish laughs. “Of course not, silly!” She returns the letter back to Reth. “I think you should return it back to where you found it. I’m sure someone has put it there for that person to read it. Maybe it was their meeting spot, or something.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” Reth replies as he takes back the letter. “I probably should go do it now while I still have my day off.”

Tish does a shooing motion with her hand. “Go, go! Stay safe, Reth! I had fun today!”

Reth waves back and makes sure that Tish entered Jel’s store before he walks all the way back to Bahari Bay again.

Reth was in a bad situation.

A very bad, bad, bad situation.

Maybe what Tish was worried about earlier, him disappearing, might come true.

Reth was walking back to Bahari Bay and accidentally dropped the letter. It so happened to fall in front of a certain plumehound. As he was about to pick it up, someone’s shoes were in front of him.

Hassian sharply glares at him as he snatches the paper out of Reth’s hands. “Where the hell did you get this from?!” he asks angrily. The paper crinkles in his tight grip. “You didn’t read this, did you?”

Well, what’s the right answer to this? Yes, how else would he figure out the names, then Hassian gets angry at him for reading it. No, he’s never read it, then Hassian gets angry at him for lying. Then, Reth will get—

Will get what? Punched, slapped, choked? Reth knows Hassian isn’t like that.

Reth swallows dryly and as he stood up straight. He knows what the right answer is. “I... I did read your letter and I’m sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck and kicks his foot. “I found it in the ground at Bahari Bay. I didn’t realize it was you who wrote the letter.”

Hassian was still staring at him, eyebrows furrowed. Tau, which also starts with a T, was standing between them, his tail tucked between his legs as he worriedly looks at his partner.

Reth takes a deep breath. “Listen, I’m not going to question who’s it for or anything about it. I just want you to know that I don’t have any bad intentions with it.”

“... Did anyone else saw it?” Hassian asks, voice low and deep.

Reth shakes his head immediately, pauses, then nods. “Only three people. Jel, Najuma, and Tish. They don’t know that it was you though and I was only asking for help to figure out who it belonged to.” He’s definitely going to leave out the part where he thought it was meant for Tish, before he learned that it wasn’t meant for Tish. “I was planning on returning it back to where I found it since I figured that whoever wrote it, or you, have purposefully left it there or something...”

Imagine if he learnt that it was Hassian before Tish told him it wasn’t for her — he could only imagine how many ways it could’ve went and how all those ways will result in embarrassment. Reth is grateful the world didn’t set him up for that. How Reth didn’t think it was Hassian in the first place however was one heck of a wonder though. It’s an open secret about Hassian’s interest in romance stories, so it’s no wonder his writing is on par of one.

“I apologize for raising my voice,” Hassian calmly says, resorting back to his usual stance. He coughs before he stands up straight and crosses his arms. “It’s... a sensitive issue for me. I appreciate that you will not bother me further about it. Thank you for returning it to me. I will take my leave now.” He waves his hand at Tau and the two started continuing their walk back to Bahari Bay.

Well, Reth didn’t exactly returned it to him, but he didn’t have the chance to say that.

.

.

.

Reth steps out of his storeroom and enters the Underground. There was already a bunch of humans all surrounding themselves at the tables. One certain table has soup spilling out all over as the group were yelling at each other and laughing loudly. Some of their friends surrounded them, arms hung over each other’s shoulders as they were cheering.

Great. Now, he’s gotta stay longer after his shift to clean up the mess.

Reth ties his apron around his waist as he makes his way to the bar. As he enters the hallway, a door creaks open. Zeki steps out of the office and adjusts his suit. His four ears perks up as he spot the familiar business associate. 

“Hey, kid. I haven’t seen you all day!” the ginger cat exclaims with a sharp smile that closes his eyes. It turns into a threatening grimace when he asks, “Have you finished your little cake delivery to Tamala, yet?”

Right. The package. The “cake delivery.” The whole reason why he was in Bahari Bay the first place yesterday. Reth groans, sliding a hand down his face. “I’m really sorry, Zeki. You see I was already delivering the package to Tamala when—”

Reth pauses.

Tamala... T... Bahari.

Oh.

Author's Note: There are were some things I wanted to include and fix with this fic, but it's been so long that I have wrote something properly that I feel a little rusty. I appreciate constructive criticism. I still hope that you enjoyed this fic!

[sarahowritesostucky]

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Bucky Barnes

Tags: Fresh AU, dark rom-com, dark!Bucky, pre-serum Steve, cannibalism, kidnapping, yandere/basement wife, meet cute-ish, gay sex n' stuff, dub-con

Summary: Steve is so tired of the meat market that modern dating has become. Just when he's deleted all the apps and given up on ever finding Mr. Right, he meets the perfect guy at the grocery store.

A dark, cute, funny, fucked up, and very tasty love story.

It's a Fresh AU. "If you can't handle the cannibalism, get out of the kitchen"--or something like that

3. Hors D'oeuvre

Wait! I haven't read the previous chapter(s)

James winds up apologizing profusely for the insanely bad bite.

Steve’s a little disturbed that the guy would do something that rough on their first time together, but he chalks it up to the heat of the moment and forgives him,` telling James that: it's okay, he’s always been a freaky-fast healer anyway.

“S’my superpower,” he quips, making light of it when it's obvious James feels terrible.

“I’m still sorry,” he insists, thumbing carefully over the mostly-healed skin two days later. He stares at it like he stares at everything else—intensely. “I got carried away. Won’t do it again.”

Steve believes him.

Within a week, it’s pretty obvious that they’re dating. Steve kind of feels like the other shoe has got to drop at any moment, but that just keeps not happening. James is like, the perfect guy.

“He’s a doctor?” Clint says, on the third day after Bite Night. It’s movie night and he and Steve are rewatching Midsommar, because Clint’s a movie nerd and is convinced there are still hidden themes he can pick apart in the freaky-ass film. Right now the screen is paused at the exact second where they hammer the old guy’s head into paste. Clint really is a savant with a remote control.

Steve looks the gore over critically and stuffs more chips in his mouth, crunching. “Um, yeah,” he says distractedly.

He wonders how movie people make it look so real. How would they even know what to make it look like? Did one of the movie people see somebody’s head collapse in real life?”

“Earth to STEVE,” Clint waves a hand in front of his face and Steve blinks.

“What?”

“I said: what kind of doctor is he?”

“A surgeon,” Steve says, feeling warm and tingly even as he remembers it. He’s not only met a smart, sexy and funny older guy— he’s met a surgeon. Which automatically means he’s rich, too. Nobody is that fucking lucky in love, certainly not Steve.

“Of what?” Clint prods. “Like, hearts and brains? or boob jobs?”

Steve pauses with another handful of chips. Hm. That’s a good question. “I don’t know,” he says. “What’s it matter?”

“It matters because it’ll determine how much I esteem the guy,” Clint insists.

Steve snorts. “What? If he's a plastic surgeon he doesn’t deserve your respect?”

“Are you kidding? I’d respect him more if that’s what he was.” Clint grimaces. “I respect the hell out of anybody who can pull people’s skin off and rearrange it and unnatural shit like that. S’way more horrible than operating on a regular old heart or whatever.”

Steve makes a face as he considers that. “Yeah, I guess so. I heard once that when they do a nose job they literally like, pull the nose up off the face first.”

Clint gags. “Dude! No. My brain can’t unknow this now!”

“And yet you can watch shit like this.”

Clint presses play and the film resumes, the frame shifting from pasted-guy's head, to Florence Pugh's horrified face. “That's different," he says. "It’s movie magic, dumbass.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re a dumbass.”

James tasks Steve with picking an actual date activity for them to do next. “No pressure,” he teases him over the phone, “but I hate stereotypes.”

Well. So much for mini golfing or the movies.

The place is called Bad Axes, their logo is a butt with an ax lodged in it, and the only two things to do there are drink beer and throw axes. Steve doesn’t reveal what they’re headed for when they meet at the subway, so James doesn’t know what's in store until they’re standing right outside the business' doors with the logo on them.

He stares for a long, long moment, and then busts out with the loudest, most sudden laugh. He looks over at Steve with a pained, almost hysterical expression.

Steve laughs. “What?”

“Nothing!” James squeaks. “This’ll be fun!”

Steve spends the rest of the date preening over the fact that he’s impressed his boyfriend.

(He only calls him that in his head, so far. He knows they’re not ‘boyfriends’ yet. They’re still feeling each other out, trying on the idea of being boyfriends. It’s just hard for Steve to remember that, when everything feels so natural between them.)

They grab drinks and get the safety and throwing tutorial from the unimpressed girl whose job it is to supervise drunk businessmen throwing sharp objects after work. It’s an over-the-head kind of deal, and Steve is prepared to nurture his manly pride and leave feeling a little bit like a Viking.

“Want to bet on who wins?” James asks, where he stands beside Steve in their little throwing area, a devilish gleam in his eye.

Steve considers it. The Axe Girl had told them it’s not so much a strength thing as a technique thing, so he’s not worried about being at a disadvantage. “Sure," he decides. "What are we betting on?”

“Hmm, how about … loser has to tell a secret about themselves,” James says. “First to stick the target twenty times wins.”

Steve’s stomach jumps at the look in James' eye. He grins. “You’re on.” Steve doesn’t have any good secrets anyway, so losing won't be a big deal (even though he fully intends to win).

They throw.

There’s a certain amount of body memory to it, Steve discovers after about fifteen minutes of fruitless throwing, his axe cracking off the plywood and thunking pathetically to the ground each time. He winds up getting the hang of it, but not in time to win the bet. James’ axe sticks on the first throw, and the second, and most of the times after.

Steve sulks about it as they take a break at one of the high-top tables, drinking their second round. “You’ve done this before,” he pouts, accusing. “Admit it.. You're a secret lumberjack.”

James looks at him fondly, like he thinks Steve’s reaction is cute. “Not exactly. But I've chopped enough to know my way around an axe.”

Steve grumps playfully at him. “Fine, cheater. I’ll think of a secret to tell you.” Bucky chuckles while Steve sips his beer and tries to come up with something juicy enough to be a ‘secret’ but not so juicy that it reflects badly on him. “I used to get in fights a lot."

James rolls his eyes. “Like as a kid? That doesn’t count.” He shoots him a sly look. “Adult secrets, Steven.”

Steve flushes at the use of his given name. There’s something oddly domineering about it that he likes. “Um, well … I've been arrested?”

James’ eyes light up. “Oh, do tell.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“Of course not.”

“It wasn’t!” Steve laughs, shoving James’ shoulder. “It was a bar fight, basically. Some asshole bothering this woman he didn’t know, not taking no for an answer.”

James’ smile softens to something fond. “Aw, Steve. I should'a known. That's you then? Always trying to be a white knight?”

Steve scowls at the term but doesn’t try to deny it. “Well somebody had to do something,” he mutters. “I wasn’t the one who threw the first punch.”

“Why the arrest, then?”

“The charges were dropped. But I guess the jerk had some friends backing him up when the cops came, so I got rounded up too.”

James hums in understanding. “Well, I suppose that’s sort of a secret. But I have to say, I was really hoping for something a little more intriguing from you, Steve. A little more naughty.”

Steve snorts. “Why? You planning to blackmail me?”

“No.”

“You just like bad boys, then,” he jokes. He’s about the farthest thing there is from a bad boy. “Sorry. You’re outta luck with that one.”

“I’m not,” James says quietly, looking him in the eyes. “I actually like the sweet ones.”

Steve colors, he knows he does. “Oh.” He’s a sweet one. He chuckles and looks down at his beer bottle, turning it in little circles. “Thanks. I guess.”

James hums. “Hey, why don’t I apologize for my non-disclosure of my axing abilities, huh? I’ll tell you one of my secrets, too.”

“I’m all ears. What’s your secret?” In his head, Steve sarcastically imagines James saying something like, “I’m actually married and have two point five kids,” or, “I’m addicted to piss and shit porn.”

That’s not what he says.

“I’ve eaten human flesh.”

Steve blinks. “What.” He waits for the punchline, the second part of that confession that’ll make it funny, but there isn’t one. James just sits there and nods somberly. Steve laughs. “No, you haven’t. You have not.”

“I was just out of med school and interning at a center for pediatric reconstructive surgery in Shanghai.”

The smile drops right off Steve’s face. So he is a plastic surgeon, he thinks. He'll have to tell Clint. "The fuck?" he breathes.

James' mouth twists. “Yeah. That's what I said, when I realized."

"You're making this up," Steve says weakly, even though he can tell he's not, because James is sitting there looking completely serious and nodding grimly.

"We'd gone out to a rural village, to assess a few kids for cleft palate correction. There was a mud slide on the only road out of the valley, and we wound up stuck there for a few days."

“What—” Steve realizes he’s nearly whispering. He firms up his voice. “What happened?”

“I was served a meal from a local family, already cooked.”

“Oh." Steve exhales in relief. "So then, you didn’t actually see—”

“No.” James cants his head. “But it wasn’t any meat I’d ever had before. It was …” He trails off, eyes going distant as he thinks about it. “It was so different.”

Steve stares at him, shocked. “But … but that's a big leap. I mean it could’ve been anything. Dog or ... or tiger. Don’t they have tigers in China?”

“Not in that part of the country.” James watches Steve closely for a moment, gauging his reaction. Eventually he looks away, frowning. “And you could tell there was something going on. There was ... At the time, I didn't understand, but it was the way the villagers acted. There was something off about them, something about the way they skulked around, the way they looked at us. How gaunt they all were ..." He shakes his head, deep in thought. "I did some research once I got back. There are some recorded accounts; those soccer players that crashed in the Andes, the Donner party. An anthropologist in the thirties who ate with a tribe in Africa. He wrote a very detailed account of how the different cuts of the meat tasted, what it looked like, what it smelled like.” He inhales deeply, as though pulling himself out of the memory. When his gaze lands back on Steve, it's dead serious and shockingly nonchalant. “It all matched up to what I’d eaten.”

Steve gapes, horrified. He can’t believe that it was a … a human that James had been served. It was too awful. People wouldn’t do that. ... Would they? “It wasn’t,” he says, as if he can make it so by saying it. “They wouldn’t have.”

James still doesn’t seem bothered, though he has pity in his eyes for Steve, apparently able to see how shaken he is by it. “You gotta understand, it was a bad situation. A dead, closed off valley where nothing ever grew. The Chinese government had banished these people out there for some slight, blocked off their access to food. It was like a gulag. These people were living in extreme poverty: cold, sick, and halfway starving. Animals'll do anything when they’re starving."

"Animals ..."

He shrugs and sits back in his chair. "At the end of the day, that’s all we really are. Some very big, overly-clever animals.”

Steve swallows thickly, his throat suddenly dry. He reaches for his beer and takes a hasty swig. “How do you, um, how do you deal with it, then?” he asks. “If you really think that’s what it was?” He’s a little bit stunned by how calm James has remained through telling the whole story.

“It doesn’t bother me,” James says easily. “There’s no way I can know for sure that’s what I ate that day, and I didn’t do it on purpose.” He shrugs and waves it off. “It was so long ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Wow,” Steve says, stunned. “I mean, just … no. And wow.”

“Pretty big secret, huh?”

“Yeah,” Steve mutters, trying to lighten up. James isn’t dwelling on it and he probably doesn’t want Steve to, either. “Yeah, you have, um. Much juicier secrets than me.”

James tips his bottle back for the last dregs of his beer, then clacks it firmly down onto the table. “So,” he says, eyes regaining their challenging, sly glint. “Now that you know my deepest, darkest secret; want to throw another round?”

A few days later, at precisely 11:30 am, Steve receives a text:

Weird Meat Guy: Hey you. I’m starving. Want to grab lunch with me?”

Steve looks down at his dirty work clothes. Yikes. Knowing himself, he figures there's a good chance he also has paint in his hair or on his face, or both.

Steve: yeah sounds good. In 30 or so? Gotta wash up.

Weird Meat Guy: see you soon, handsome.

James texts him an address that's in Park Slope, followed by a cartoon ‘nom-nom’ eating GIF. Steve holds his phone with gesso-crusted fingers and beams at the screen. James must like Steve just as much as Steve likes him, because he’s thinking about him during the week. He’s texting him and sending stupid GIFs and asking him out on lunch dates.

This is going incredibly well.

It's nothing fancy, which Steve appreciates. They meet inside a Panera by Prospect Park. They order drinks and find chairs to sit in by the windows while their sandwiches are made. “Don't you work in Midtown though?” Steve asks, confused. “This is a bit of a hike for a lunch break.”

James stares at him for a long few seconds, blinking repeatedly. “... Oh! Well … I had a big gap between clients today.” He smiles winningly and covers Steve’s hand with his own on the tabletop, giving it a squeeze. “There’s nobody I’d rather make the hike for.”

Steve tries not to let his smile overtake his face, but it’s hard.

Their food arrives, and they eat while trading stories about themselves. Steve tells James how he lives and works alone, but doesn’t mind it one bit. He tells him about his family, or at least, what family he used to have.

“So, nobody?” James asks. “You’re all alone?”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, thinking that James might be feeling pity for him. “I miss my mom, but it’s been a long time. And I’ve made a couple friends. They help.”

“Oh yeah? Who're your friends?”

“Oh. Well there's Clint. We met back in college. And Natalie. She’s the one I told you about.”

“Your patron.” James nods. “I remember.” He leans forward. “So do they know about me?”

“Yeah.”

“What did you tell them about me?”

Steve smirks. “Oh I dunno. Just that I met a really good looking weirdo at the grocery store. Haven’t called the police on him yet.”

James laughs. “That’s all?”

“Pretty much.” Steve shrugs and takes another bite of his sandwich, unconcerned with it. “Clint says he respects you for being able to—and I quote—‘pull people’s skin off and rearrange their outsides’.”

James’ lips quirk. “Well, it is a skill.”

Steve shivers theatrically. “Uck. Power to you. I guess somebody’s gotta do it."

"Alas, yes. The meat market. Demand is only ever growing."

Steve snorts. "Well hey, at least it means you’re, ah … intimately familiar with anatomy.” He winces before he's even finished saying it. Ew, what a lame joke.

But James’s eyes crinkle in amusement anyway. “Yes," he says, reaching for his sandwich again. "I certainly am.”

Steve has James over to Netflix and Chill. He’s not sure if this counts as their sixth date or seventh, but they’ve been seeing each other steadily for the past three weeks, calling and texting daily, so it’s definitely not too soon to start thinking about the “R” word. That’s where it feels like this is headed, but Steve is too chickenshit to speak up and ask if they’re officially in a relationship.

He researches how to make eggplant parmesan and mostly doesn’t screw it up, and James seems touched that he went through the trouble of cooking something vegetarian for him.

“It’s delicious,” he reassures Steve. “I even like the crusty black bits.”

He asks Steve what he does for fun, and Steve is once again left feeling like a boring dolt when he can only answer, “I mean, I really just paint or draw, or watch tv. Clint tries to drag me out for bowling or karaoke once in a while.” He fights not to wince at himself. Jesus god is he boring. He thinks again about joining a gym, maybe getting into boxing or Krav Maga or something. “What about you?” he asks. “What do you do when you’re not carving people up?”

“Hardy har.” James thinks about it. “Well, I do love to do stuff outdoors. I work out ...”

“Yeah you do,” Steve teases, leering a little. James laughs him off.

“I read some, usually have two books going concurrently.”

Steve imagines James having a big, expensive library, complete with those nifty rolling ladders.

“And I’m a pretty good cook,” he adds. “I enjoy it. Working on being an amateur cuisinier, as I said.”

Steve pointedly looks at both of their plates of semi-burnt eggplant slop. “Then why am I the one making us dinner?”

James chuckles, leans across the table to kiss him on the cheek, and promises he’ll cook for Steve sometime soon.

After dinner, Steve pulls up his Netflix queue and scrolls through for something that looks good but not too good, since they’ll probably start fooling around partway through and miss half of it.

They watch a documentary about Richard Ramirez, which Steve apologizes for. (“I know, I know. Me and every other basic white girl likes the true crime stuff.”)

Halfway into Ramirez’s fucked up childhood, Steve says, “Man, what would you do if your kid turned out like that, huh?”

“Question my parenting choices, that’s for sure.”

“I know, right?" Steve shudders. "I feel so bad for Jeffry Dahmer’s mom.”

“Why? She’s alive and kicking. Feel bad for Ed Gein’s mom: pretty sure she’s a lampshade now.”

“Christ.”

James looks over at Steve. “Do you want kids?”

Steve freezes, the unexpected change in topic throwing him for a loop. “Um …” Not ones that'll turn me into a lampshade, he doesn't say.

This is something they haven’t done yet; asked each other what they want for their lives long-term. Because such questions naturally infer that they might be considering each other for a starring role in said life.

Steve swallows heavily and works up the courage to softly admit, “Yeah, one day I do.” He dares to meet James’ eyes, and is relieved when he doesn’t see any rejection there. “I want what most people do, I guess. Get married, have kids.” He shrugs. “The American dream, right?”

“What? No white picket fence and a dog named Fido?”

Steve deflates a little. “Don’t make fun.”

“I wasn’t.” James scoots closer and puts his arm around him. “Hey. No, Honey. I wasn’t making fun of you. I want that stuff too.”

“You do?”

“Mmhm.” He kisses Steve's cheek. “I’m glad you told me,” he says. “Makes you even more of the perfect catch.”

Steve snorts. "Yeah. Sure."

James is the perfect catch, Steve is just incredibly lucky.

James has to go on a sudden work trip, and it's a solid week that they're apart.

The next time he comes over to Steve's place, he’s barely in the door before Steve is slamming it shut and pushing him up against the wall. He sinks to his knees and looks up at James, whose eyes have gone from widened to heavy-lidded in seconds. "Hey."

James smiles lazily and cups his cheek. “Hey there.”

Steve touches him over his jeans, starts rubbing slow and purposeful. After a moment or two, James gets hard enough that he can feel it through the denim. He knees in closer, pushes his face into his groin and rubs his cheek along the bulge of his dick.

James’ hands migrate to his head, running through his hair, over his scalp. “Mm,” he hums, amused. “Did you miss me, Sweetheart?”

It’s been little more than a week apart, but Steve has missed him embarrassingly much. He makes a plaintive noise against James’ crotch and nods. “Yeah.” He’s barely heard from the other man. He doesn’t want to complain though, because it’s still early for them and he doesn’t want to seem too needy.

James had warned him he’d be very busy working and mostly unreachable. He'd had to take a flight out for a surgery consult somewhere—Steve can’t remember where. It doesn’t matter. He’s just glad James is back. He looks up from his spot on the floor, batting his eyelashes and reaching for the front of James’ pants. “Can I?”

James grins and relaxes back against the wall. “All yours,” he says, watching Steve like he’s ready for a show. Steve flushes in a heady mix of arousal and shyness. He tucks his lips in as his fingers find the button at James’ fly, pop it open and pull down the zipper. He curls his fingers over the waistband at James’ hips and pulls, until the jeans are halfway down his thighs. He stops.

James is wearing briefs today—white, and with a waistband that has black lettering: Calvin Klein. Steve grins as arousal hits him harder, his own dick stirring in his sweats. “Tighty-whities, huh?” he teases, and when he looks up, he sees James looking down at him, amused.

“What? You don’t approve?”

“Oh, I approve.” He presses his face against the front, against the hardening line of James’ dick beneath the fabric. What he really likes is to see it get hard from the very start, and he's already making a plan to have James naked for this from the get-go, next time. He palms the soft weight of James’ balls through the fabric while placing kisses along the length of his stirring dick. “Been wanting to do this since that first night,” he murmurs. He rubs his other hand over him, circling the wet spot just by the head. “You've got such a nice cock.”

James makes a pleased noise. “Why don’t you get it out, then?” he says softly, one hand cupping Steve’s chin. His thumb pulls down on Steve’s bottom lip. “I want to see your pretty mouth stretchin' around it.”

Steve moans quietly and nods, fingers hurrying to pull his underwear down. James’ cock bobs obscenely in the air once it’s released, still angled downward from the weight of it and from only being half hard. Steve licks his lips, excited at finally getting to really appreciate it up close. He hasn’t had much chance yet, but he’s seen it, knows that it's beautiful.

James is big—as big a top can get before it becomes counterproductive, in Steve's opinion. A respectable length, with a truly mouth watering girth. His balls are soft and warm in Steve’s palm where he holds them. James is shaved there, while everything else is trimmed down short. "Sir," Steve teases, fondling the smooth weight of his balls. "I may just have to wind up sucking on these."

Above him, James chuckles lowly. "Gotta do what you gotta do, Steven. I won't hold it against ya."

Fuck. What is it about James saying his given name like that? It's so hot, feels almost dirty. Steve can't hold back anymore. He takes his cock in hand and explores it with the gentlest of touches, tracing a prominent vein that runs underneath and up along the side, circling his finger on the wet head that’s peeking out, just barely pressing the tip of his thumb into the slit. He bites his lip as it twitches and jerks. Fuck. It’s fucking beautiful.

Above, James makes a sound in his throat, and when Steve looks up he sees him looking darkly amused. “You sure are taking your sweet time with that, Princess.”

Ooh, Princess. That’s a new one. Steve smirks. “I can take all the time I want.”

He says that, but in the next few seconds he’s already lost his patience, too eager for more. He wants to feel it on his tongue, wants to taste it. He sucks the head into his mouth and is rewarded by James’ quiet groan.

“That’s it,” he praises. “Mm.”

Steve sucks him, swirling his tongue over the head and pulling gently with his hand, jerking him off a little while he sucks. He keeps it up, feeling James twitch and grow in his mouth, until he’s fully erect, and Steve just has to pop off to see. His own hand looks tiny and pale on James' dick. He jerks him softly and groans at the sight of the foreskin sliding over the weeping, fat tip. God, Steve loves uncut guys.

James is watching him with heavy eyes, his lips slightly parted, enthralled at the sight of Steve exploring down between his legs. Steve smirks up at him and looks him in the eye as he kisses along his thigh, hipbone, pelvis; all the way up to his stomach and belly button and back down. He rubs his cheek on the hot juncture of his groin and returns to stroking his cock at a languorous pace. “You’re so pretty,” he murmurs. “Could do this all day.”

“Oh yeah?” James cards a hand through Steve’s hair—a hand that Steve is very smug to note is trembling the tiniest bit—and leaves it there, caressing his scalp. “Can you go deeper?” he asks quietly, offering it up rather than demanding it.

Steve appreciates the concern, but he’s eager to show off. “‘Can I go deeper’,” he mutters, scoffing. “Hold onto your dick, Honey. This is gonna feel really good.” He sucks James’ cock back into his mouth, only this time he keeps going, taking it all the way until it's in his throat and his nose is buried in the short hair at the base.

Above him, James finally loses his composure, his breath stuttering out in a stifled, “Oh, fuck.”

Steve hums eagerly. He grabs onto the back of James’ thighs and squeezes, uses the grip to yank him even closer. He slides his hands up and grabs at his ass, able to feel the muscles tensing and relaxing as James tries so hard not to thrust into his mouth. Steve pulls off and meets his eyes. “You want to fuck my face?” he asks, eager to give James whatever he wants. “You can.”

James looks utterly smitten. He hooks his thumb in at the corner of Steve’s mouth and pulls gently. “Sweet boy,” he murmurs. Steve’s about to take that as a ‘yes’, but then James tells him otherwise. “Another time,” he says. “Right now I just want to watch you work for it.”

Steve’s belly flips in arousal. Fucking hell. He reaches down to squeeze his own dick, which is painfully constricted in his sweatpants by now. He mostly ignores it though, wanting to put all his focus into pleasing James and pulling more wrecked sounds of pleasure from him. This is a relationship Steve really wants to go the distance in, okay? So he shoots James his best sultry look while wettings his lips, and then sinks right back down with eye contact, prepared to give this man the best head of his life.

They shower together, after coming from each other’s hands and mouths. It’s an intimate experience, standing naked and sated together under the spray of the water, touching each other’s bodies without intent. It’s almost more intimate than the sex they’ve just had.

Steve shivers and luxuriates in it as James stands behind him and runs water-slicked hands over his body, not speaking, just enjoying what he’s touching. He kneads the meat of Steve’s ass, his thighs, draws soapy-slick circles down his ribs and across his belly. He kisses and mouths at his neck as he touches him all over. “Beautiful,” he murmurs, and that’s the only word uttered between them for the entirety of the shower.

Later, when they’re sitting together on the couch, drinking wine and talking lazily with nothing but towels wrapped around their waists, James describes his apartment in Manhattan. It’s centrally located but small, because “real estate in the city is sickening.”

“Tell me about it,” Steve murmurs, giving his own shoebox of an apartment a onceover.

James insists that he spends as little time in the city as possible. His preferred residence (because of course he has multiple) is “in the wilderness.”

“Jersey?” Steve asks, lip curled in a sneer.

“Oh no! A little more wild than that,” James laughs, pouring more wine into the glass Steve’s holding out. “It’s out in the Catskills," he confides. "My secret cabin."

"The Catskills?" Steve frowns, trying to think of how long of a drive that must be. “I’ve never been."

“Oh you’d love it,” James insists. “It’s gorgeous out there. Miles and miles of trees. Peace and quiet, no neighbors to bother you.” He smiles wistfully. “It’s the one place I can really let go and relax, be myself. It’s my retreat.”

“It sounds wonderful,” Steve says. James looks so happy when he talks about it, it makes Steve want to go there with him. “Will you take me there someday?” he asks. He’s very aware that the question implies that they’ll still be together down the line. That this thing they have, whatever it is, will continue.

James considers him thoughtfully, though, eyes soft and mysterious, not seeming to mind that Steve is envisioning them in the future. He peers at him in that intense, evaluating way that he has. ���Well,” he says. "I mean why not? That'd be fun. Let’s do it.”

“Wait, what? Do it?” Steve repeats, surprised. “You mean like a trip? Like, now?"

“Yeah!" James laughs. “We can go for a few days. I’ll drive us out there and we can just relax together. Cook, watch movies. There’s hiking around the area. And I have a hot tub.”

Steve gasps. “I love hot tubs!”

James laughs and holds out his arms for Steve to climb into his lap. He wraps his arms around him and kisses him. “Okay then, it’s settled. When do you want to go?”

Steve tries to remember his work schedule for that next week, but his thoughts are a little slowed by the warm and gooey feelings he’s got filling him up. James wants to spend a weekend with him. He wants to take him away, show him his favorite place. Steve squirms happily in the other man's lap and tucks his face into his neck, inhaling the rich, clean scent of him and pleased as punch, because this means that James really likes him, and maybe even wants to make him a part of his life.

Jesus Christ, maybe Steve's actually, finally done it. Maybe he really has managed to scoop up the last remaining, non-married, high-value homosexual who actually wants to be in a serious relationship.

It's too good to be true!

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[goosegoblin]

hello, this might be inappropriate but saw your post about determining that you are Not autistic and wanted to potentially offer some food for thought as an autistic woman who rationalised that I /wasn't/ autistic many, many times before I accepted it.

I couldn't relate to the framing of my life experiences or struggles as they're set out in the diagnostic criteria (communication deficits, restricted interests, impairment at school/work), because many of the things that are described as deficits are areas where I, on paper, don't struggle, and I wondered if that might apply to you too.

I didn't initially feel that my communication was a deficit and put a lot of things down to social awkwardness. For instance, I struggle to know when to speak or how much to say when in a group (although I may still enjoy the experience of seeing multiple people at once!), I have trouble speaking up in meetings where there isn't a designated point for me to speak like there is in one-on-one conversations, I tend to practice what I'm going to say ahead of time when ordering food or coffee or other short interactions, and I sometimes "go blank" when I'm trying to chat with someone in a light way once we've covered all the expected points of small talk. I don't struggle with sarcasm or metaphors – I recognise the tone and syntax that suggests sarcasm, and I'm an editor and avid reader. I think reading into language literally actually means that I can really appreciate a well-crafted metaphor and look for the patterns in that. I generally come across as very geeky, and have been called weird many, many times.

However, I don't struggle with one-on-one interactions, most of the time. In my line of work, there are likely many undiagnosed neurodivergent people – I think having language/linguistics/grammar as a special interest makes for a strong editorial eye – and most of my conversations at work aim to achieve something: let's organise X, here's my feedback on Y, what are your predictions for this market based on your analysis of this year's publishing? etc. People appreciate the fact I always have a detailed view, I ask questions to clarify information, I point out inaccuracies and my feedback to authors, designers, senior editors etc is generally honest but direct. One of my special interests is language so I can "decode" what people mean very easily. I don't perceive these things as a deficit or an impairment to my work. However, outside of this environment, it becomes a deficit. I spent a very long time being lonely because of it. Most of my friends are ND because as it turns out, most people don't really want to hear in depth information about my current special interest. Most people think it's pedantic to ask clarifying questions in daily life, and I get sighs and "why are you like this" when I correct factual inaccuracies that are part of an ongoing conversation. To me, it makes no sense at all to have a conversation that's based on false information. To many NT people, that makes me disagreeable and unpleasant, even though my intention is not at all to laugh at the other person – it's to make the conversation more accurate and therefore more interesting. I've followed you for a long time and I know you don't struggle with humour, written language or nuance – but that nuance can actually be part of the perceived communication deficit since it's "too detailed".

I have never perceived my routine or interests to be restrictive or repetitive because they broaden my world. I rewatch my comfort shows, because I enjoy it and it gives me a sense of safety and peace after interacting with people all day. I might eat the same meal 2 weeks in a row, but that's because I like it. I like doing my food shopping late evenings so there won't be many people about. Most of my outfits are variations on Big Jumper Tiny Skirt and that's because it's comfortable and predictable. My special interests genuinely fascinate me and might be the reason I've gone on a trip or tried a new experience – so that doesn't feel restrictive, but to NT people, it's repetitive and overly intense.

Lastly, I do have sensory issues – mostly sounds – but always figured that was its own thing. The more I've taken an interest in unmasking, the more sensory issues I've discovered I was covering up, like having major issues with food textures but just Not eating those kinds of foods. Issues with bright lights, but only having lamps in my flat etc etc etc.

Anyway this has been a very long message and don't by any means feel as though you need to respond. I just wanted to share that the official language doesn't really feel that relatable for a lot of autistic people (though it will, of course, for some), plus sometimes it feels like the NT way makes less sense (WHY be imprecise and unclear and then get annoyed when asked to clarify??), and you may simply have found your people and your systems for navigating the world in a way that means it doesn't feel like an impairment. Or you may genuinely just have social anxiety and be a little quirky, and that is, of course, okay too. Whatever the truth may be, you're very cool and bring a lot of joy to my dashboard.

With gentle love and kindness, it is frustrating to state "I am not autistic" and be told that I am not correct about my own experiences. This is an experience that seems to happen every time I say that I considered that I'm autistic and eventually decided that I'm not.

I understand that you're trying to help and I'm absolutely not angry at you at all!!!!!!!!!! I'm really genuinely, truly not. I am genuinely touched that you reached out to share your experience with me, and I appreciate your compassion and desire to help, but please believe me about my own experiences. Thank you <3

[mostlysignssomeportents]

SVB bailouts for everyone - except affordable housing projects

For the apologists, the SVB bailout was merely prudent: a bunch of innocent bystanders stood in harm’s way — from the rank-and-file employees at startups to the scholarship kids at elite private schools that trusted their endowment to Silicon Valley Bank — and so the government made an exception, improvising measures that made everyone whole without costing the public a dime. What’s not to like?

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

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/15/socialism-for-the-rich/#rugged-individualism-for-the-poor

But that account doesn’t hold up to even the most cursory scrutiny. Everything about it is untrue. Take the idea that this wasn’t a “bailout” because it was the depositors who got rescued, not the shareholders. That’s just factually untrue: guess where the shareholders kept their money? That’s right, SVB. The shareholders of SVB will get billions in public money thanks to the bailout. Billions:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

But is it really public money? After all, the FDIC payouts come from a pool of funds raised from all of America’s banks. The billions the public put into SVB will be recouped through hikes on the premiums paid by every bank. Well, sure — but who do you think the banks are going to gouge to cover those additional expenses? Hint: it’s not going to be the millionaires who get white-glove treatment and below-cost loans. It’ll be the working people whom the banks steal billions from every year in overdraft fees — 78% of these are paid by 9.2% of customers, the very poorest, and they amortize to a 3,500% loan:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/22/ihor-kolomoisky/#usurers

As Adam Levitin put it on Credit Slips:

They will pass those premiums through to customers because the market for banking services is less competitive than the market for capital. In particular, the higher costs for increased insurance premiums are likely to flow to the least price-sensitive and most “sticky” customers: less wealthy individuals. So average Joes are going to be facing things like higher account fees or lower APYs, without gaining any benefit. Instead, the benefit of removing the cap would flow entirely to wealthy individuals and businesses. This is one massive, regressive cross-subsidy. It’s not determinative of whether raising the cap is the right policy move in the end, but this is something that should be considered.

https://www.creditslips.org/creditslips/2023/03/the-regressive-cross-subsidy-of-uncapping-deposit-insurance.html

The SVB apologists display the most curious and bizarre imaginative leaps…and imaginative failings. For them, imagining that regulators will just wing it to the tune of hundreds of billions in public money is simplicity itself. Meanwhile, imagining that those same regulators would say, “Not one penny unless every shareholder agrees to sign away their deposits” is literally impossible.

This bizarrely inconstant imagination carries over into all of the claims used to justify the SVB bailout — like, say, the claim that if SVB wasn’t bailed out, everyone would pile into too big to fail banks like Jpmorgan. This is undoubtably true — unless (and hear me out here!), regulators were to use this failure as a launchpad for public banks, and breakups of Jpmorgan, Wells Fargo, Citi, et al.

This is a very weird imaginative failure. America operated public banks. It had broken up too big to fail banks. These weren’t the deeds of a fallen civilization whose techniques were lost to the mists of time. There are literally people alive today who were around when America operated nationwide public banks — a practice that only ended in 1966! We’re not talking about recovering the lost praxis of the druids who built Stonehenge without power-tools, here.

The most telling imaginative failure of SVB apologists, though, is this: they think that people are angry that the government saved the janitors at startups and the scholarship kids at private schools, and can’t imagine that people are angry that America didn’t save anyone else. If you’re a low-income student at an elite private school, there’s billions on hand to save you — but not because the government gives a damn about you — saving you is a side effect of saving all the rich kids you go to school with.

Likewise, the startup janitors aren’t the target of the bailout — they’re overspill from the billions mobilized to rescue the personal fortunes of tech billionaires who supply VCs’ investment capital. If there was a way to bail out the startups without bailing out the janitors, that’s exactly what would happen.

How do I know this? Well, first of all, the “investors” who demanded — and received — a bailout are on record as hating workers and wanting to fire as many of them as possible. As one of the loudest voices for the bailout said of Twitter employees, in a private message to Elon Musk following the takeover: “Day zero: Sharpen your blades boys 🔪”:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/21/tech-workers/#sharpen-your-blades-boys

But there’s even better evidence that the bailout’s intended target was wealthy, powerful people, and every chance to carve out working people was seized upon. When regulators engineered the sale of SVB to First Citizens Bank, they did not require First Citizens to honor SVB’s community development obligations, killing thousands of affordable housing units that had been previously greenlit:

https://calreinvest.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Community-Benefits-Plan-SVB-CRC-GLI.pdf

Tens of thousands of people wrote to regulators, urging them to transfer SVB’s Community Benefits Plan obligation to First Citizens:

https://www.dailykos.com/campaigns/petitions/sign-the-petition-save-affordable-housing-keep-the-promises-silicon-valley-bank-made

As did Rep Maxine Waters, the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee:

https://democrats-financialservices.house.gov/uploadedfiles/318_cwm_ltr_fdic.pdf

But First Citizens — a bank whose slot in America’s top-20 banks was secured through a string of exceptions, exemptions and waivers — was not required to take on SVB’s obligations to carry out loans to build thousands of affordable housing units in the Bay Area and Boston, including a 112-unit building for people with disabilities planned for a plum spot across from San Francisco City Hall:

https://www.levernews.com/regulators-stiffed-low-income-communities-in-silicon-valley-bank-bailout/

All those people who wanted SVB’s community development obligations to carry forward vastly outnumbered the people calling for billionaires portfolio companies to be saved — but they merely spoke on behalf of people who sought the most basic of human rights — shelter. No one listened to them. Instead, it was the hyperventilating all-caps “investors” who spent SVB’s no-good weekend shouting on Twitter about the fall of civilization who got what they wanted, with a bow on top, and a glass of publicly funded warm milk before bed.

The US finance sector is reckless to the point of being criminally negligent. It constitutes an existential risk to the nation. And yet, every time it gets into trouble, regulators are able to imagine anything and everything to shift their risks to the public’s shoulders.

Meanwhile, everyday people are frozen out. School lunches? Unaffordable. Student debt cancellation? Inconceivable. Help for the hundreds of thousands of NYC schoolchildren whose schools are facing a $469m hack-and-slash attack? That’s clearly impossible:

https://council.nyc.gov/joseph-borelli/2022/09/06/nyc-council-calls-for-mayor-adams-doe-to-fully-restore-469m-in-school-funding/

When it comes to helping everyday people, American elites and their captured champions in the US government have minds that are so rigid and inflexible that it’s a wonder they can even dress themselves. But when the fortunes and wellbeing of the wealthy and powerful are on the line, their minds are so open that some of their brains actually leak out of their ears and nostrils:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/15/mon-dieu-les-guillotines/#ceci-nes-pas-une-bailout

Every bank merger is supposed to come with a “public interest analysis.” But these analyses are “perfunctory.” They needn’t be:

https://openyls.law.yale.edu/bitstream/handle/20.500.13051/8305/Kress_Article._Publication__1_.pdf

First Citizens got a hell of a bargain: it paid zero dollars for SVB’s assets, its deposits and its loans. Any losses it incurs from its commercial loans over the next five years will be paid by the FDIC, no questions asked. The inability of regulators to convince First Citizens to assume SVB’s community obligations along with those billions in public largesse speaks volumes.

Meanwhile, SVB’s shareholders continue to claim that their headquarters are a relatively unimportant office in Manhattan, and not their glittering, massive corporate offices in San Jose, as part of their bid to shift their bankruptcy proceeding to the Southern District of New York, where corporate criminals like the Sackler opioid family have found such a warm reception that they were able to escape “bankruptcy” with billions in the bank, while their victims were left in the cold:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/18/2-billion-here-2-billion-there/#socialism-for-the-rich

Contrary to what SVB’s apologists think, the case against them isn’t driven by spite — it’s driven by fury. America’s “socialism for the rich, rugged individualism for the poor” has been with us for generations, but rarely is it so plain as it is in this case.

There’s only two days left in the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, a post-cyberpunk anti-finance finance thriller about Silicon Valley scams called Red Team Blues. Amazon’s Audible refuses to carry my audiobooks because they’re DRM free, but crowdfunding makes them possible.

[Image ID: A glass-and-steel, high-tech office building. Atop it is a cartoon figure of Humpty Dumpty, whose fall has been arrested by masses of top-hatted financiers, who hold fast to a rope that keeps him in place. At the foot of the office tower is heaped rubble. On top of the rubble is another Humpty Dumpty figure, this one shattered and dripping yolk. Protruding from the rubble are modest multi-family housing units.]

Image:

Lydia (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vicroft_Court_Starley_Housing_Co-operative_%282996695836%29.jpg

Oatsy40 (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/oatsy40/21647688003

Håkan Dahlström (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/93755244@N00/4140459965

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[practicalmagicintuitions]

HC+NV catch up

DISCLAIMER: If you will send me an Anon, I will answer in the same tone as your ask, opinion is written.

All information and statements made in this reading or any other post of mine are all alleged until proven to be fact and for entertainment purposes & usage only. All information stated is based on my intuition and my tarot cards. Opinion only. The readings have no intention to cause any harm to the individuals, people featured in it.

I pulled the cards on 05/26, Monday evening. 8 pm London time 

In general, this was a chaotic reading, it was so chaotic I literally asked the tarot why this reading is like this. I will talk about this later.

The structure of this reading is a little different from my usual style but I felt this is the way I had to do it. I did a 3x3 tableau with a few additional cards, so I will talk about the rows, the columns, the whole etc, which is not my usual method. 

My question was What are the big changes and new chapters HC mentioned in his IG post? What changes are coming? 

The first card (Justice) comes out immediately, and the next two (The Emperor, 4 of Wands) come out very easily as well. 

Justice obviously can relate to legal matters but on a different level, it shows you are at a point where you deserve to be because of your past actions. This could be a good place but this can be a bad place. With the next 2 cards, I think HC is very determined for the next chapter, being a husband, a father, having a domestic life etc. He worked for this, he wanted to have all of this. As I remember the Emperor and the 4 of W appeared in their latest reading too, so this aspect hasn’t changed. Justice also means contract, law etc, and a marriage is a legal contract basically. This could very well mean a prenup and with the Emperor that this relationship or marriage’s legal “force” is on HC’s side. He is the one who rules this aspect. He is the one who has the last word. 4 of W also means celebration, fame, VIP/celebrity status, and family gatherings, so their shared appearance will be more and more common on the red carpet. I stopped following them closely but as I know NV hasn’t had a red carpet with his family there too, which is interesting, so maybe, that is on the table too, for the Witcher premiere for example. ( EDIT:  I started to type the reading the day before The Witcher premiere and I was right about this.)

The Emperor is a father figure and if this doesn’t represent HC and who he wants to be, this very well could be his father. Some legal, contractual business with him in order to secure a nice home and domestic life (4ofW)

The next row has the 8 of Pentacles, 7 of Pentacles rx and The Wheel rx

This is where the shuffling started to be chaotic, cards flew, and I even damaged one of my cards, I started to feel some resilience. 

The 8 of P is hard work, being busy, financial security etc, and since Justice is above it I think he wants to protect all of those things with the help of the law. Especially since 8 of P is not the risk-taking card. So he wants to secure his finances. He wants to have good money and a really good life but with the 7 of P rx he cannot wait. He is rushing into investments, he wants to have a lot of money fast. And not because he is willing to take risks ( like risks on a stock market) but because he is impatient and not willing to wait. It’s like when you want to eat your favourite fruit so you cannot wait for it to be ripe, you just harvest it half-ripe. And you’ll get sick. And with the Wheel rx this is where everything is starting to turn sour. The start was so great with the first 4 cards, but because of his impatience and anxiety, the Wheel is turning and again, for the worse. ( Just like in my reading where I said he will lose his most important roles) It’s almost like he isn’t willing to start from the bottom, to take every step on the ladder, he wants to start on the top. 

For me, this shows he will make bad investments. Maybe the house is too much but I more likely feel this has something to do with movie projects. Maybe they will properly start a company together, buying rights of stuff to adapt etc, and they will spend too much too soon with no success in the end. Especially because 8 of P also means learning new skills, new career paths or working towards something better but 7 of P rx undermines this. He thinks he has the formula for how to make movies, be a producer, maybe even a writer who adapts, but all of those creative things don’t work like that. And I think this will cause a lot of anxiety, that things won’t work in the way he expected and imagined.

The third row was the most chaotic to pull and I think this is the most distant future. This is the chain of events that definitely can be changed and if this were a real, face-to-face reading I would say to him be careful, not to behave like just what I explained above, you have to turn the Wheel again to avoid this. However, if he is too stubborn to make changes this can happen. 

We have the Knight of Wands rx, 3 of Swords, 9 of Cups rx and we have a card very aggressively shot out, this is the 4 of Swords and this landed on the knight and the 3 of S. 

So… because of the 4 of swords, I definitely think this outcome is on a pause and can be avoided. This is the future that hasn’t manifested yet, the one that hasn’t awakened yet ( on the card we have a sleeping, resting figure)

The rx KofW is the one whose fire is out. He is not fast-moving anymore, he is still, stuck etc. He is settled down, but with this, he lost his personality. He lost his passion and creativity. 3 of Sw is a heartbreak obviously (one of the most obvious cards in tarot). 9 of C rx is truth and errors. If it’s upright this is the wish cards, if it’s rx this is the be careful what you wish for. I think he will get his wish (family life, business, a certain image he always wanted) but he won’t be happy about it. The unpleasant truth will be revealed. For example, having a wife and a family don’t mean automatical happiness or having a flourishing movie business requires great effort and being an actor for X years doesn’t mean he will be a great producer. Or working with his partner or family members is a potential source of fights and disagreements. He will realise his errors by the time he reaches this card, but maybe this will be too late. He will be stuck and unhappy. But as I said I feel this is the most distant future, the one he can change the easiest. 

Check the columns quickly:

4 of W, The Wheel rx, 9 of C rx 

Family life and marriage, the new house will be a letdown to him. First, it will be happiness and celebration about it, but as time passes this alone won’t bring happiness. And this emotional state is kinda devastating when you got the very things you wanted but they don’t bring happiness. This could lead to serious self-esteem problems, a relationship whose only glue is sex and maybe the shared “possessions” ( house, money, kids etc)

The Emperor, 7 of P rx, 3 of Sw

I think he at the moment feels good himself, the Emperor sitting on a throne, he feels he controls things in his life, and everything seems good until it’s not. Because he is impatient and this will lead to heartbreak. For me, this is more about his potential business or image. How he wanted to be seen. He will be hard to deal with as a boss, but this wouldn’t be a problem if he were willing to work. This is where his businesses will have shaky ground. I am not saying his work ethic is not there, he obviously can push his own body limits, but he is a “my way or the highway” type of person and unless you are some Stanley Kubrick level of talent, this is not how you operate creative businesses.  This also can be that at the end he will be too authorative, conrolling in a relationship. loosing temper and that will lead a heartbreak. When money is not enough to keep someone or keep the image. 

Justice, 8 of P, KnofW rx

He will be simply burned out and stucked. Especially if he will be some kind of a boss, he cannot walk away like he did with The Witcher or his other business partnerships. If he wants to be a producer, he has to make that work and if he leaves because of disagreements, he won't have a career in that field. So this is a real danger for him, not handling the situations properly and don’t know how demanding this task is. 

Under the deck: 4 of Pentacles

I don’t know why but I heard tax reasons… Have no idea why, but this reading is very work and pentacles-heavy. 

This card again is money, saving, investments, greed etc.

I don’t get this couple… Again, no love cards at all. 4of Wands can be marriage, but “simple” celebrations too. This relationship’s foundation is so money heavy… I swear I am trying to be positive and give them the benefit of the doubt but based on ALL of my readings on them ( and that is a lot) never ever got card combinations which suggest true love. This still doesn’t mean they won’t get married etc, because Hollywood is weird and we have a bunch of Hillsong-like arranged couples. But I am just confused. 

So… on the card a man holds his pentacles like his dear life depends on it. He obsessed with them, with money, and possessions. He won’t ever think this amount of money I have is finally enough. What is his is his, he doesn’t share. ( this is like Joey Tribbiani and his food situation) He is very rigid with money, especially since we have The Emperor as well. With the rx KnoW this is also jealousy. New career prospects, jobs, new companies etc. I can go on, but I think you got the idea behind of this card. 

During this explanation, I mentioned only him. Because I feel in this matter, whatever it’s coming NV doesn’t really have a word. Except for the Justice card, we don’t have a single female card. On every card we have males. This is a money and male-heavy reading. On the 4 of W we have a couple, but they are distant. I won’t count that as a woman. 

We have a prominent presence of number 4. The Emperor, 4 of Wands, 4 of Swords, 4 of Pentacles and even the 8 of Pentacles ( 8= 2x4) And all of them are upright.

4 is stability, and this should be a moment of stillness. Not the time to radically new things, more like secure what you already have. This should be the time when you can have a break after a period of work or planning. And this is where I think he could fail. Not to give time to things to flourish naturally. 

I feel this reading has very stable energy, in a way that I am sure most things will definitely happen. I felt the same when I did his career reading. That was stable too and 1,5 years later it become true that they scrued him over and lost Supes and Geralt. 

I mentioned how chaotic the reading was, I had to pull cards because of this. Asking why this reading is like this. 2 cards felt off, the Knight of Swords and ( I kid you not) The Tower, this card is chaos itself. I think it is very possible that they had a nasty fight at the moment when I did the reading because this combination suggests me emotional abuse. Both cards are quick and sudden, so maybe this argument comes out of nowhere or broke out because of a minor thing or some secret was revealed. It’s a rattling experience, testing how strong the foundations are. 

I could go on but is already SUPER long, I am sorry. 

I hope you enjoyed it.

Stay safe. 

[wouldntyou-liketoknow]

Cruz Freitas

To whoever is reading this: I hope whatever holiday you happen to celebrate this time of year is going fantastic for you! Best wishes, and Happy New Year!!!

I personally celebrate Christmas (and even if I didn't, gift-giving would still be my primary love language to friends and family), so I figured it would be fun to create a fanego as a present for my amazing buddy @sammys-magical-au! Just a little something to show my gratitude for all the times they've helped me brainstorm for my stories!

(I might try to do this for more of my Tumblr friends next year; I'll admit that this instance was kinda last-minute 😅)

[Edit: I've since added a few more lore-bits to Cruz as a character, but they're in different posts. For more info on Macaroon, Cruz's pet outer-creature-cat-thing, go here. For more info on Cruz' mask and ritual equipment, go here.]

[Edit 2: mine and Sammy's buddy @inkbedou has created  some fantastic artwork of this guy! Please go follow them and show them some love!!!]

So, since this character is for Sammy, he's obviously a LixianEgo

Cruz is basically my headcanon name for the character that Lixian voices in Late Night Mop. (I actually brought up the idea of making said character into an ego in an ask I sent to Sammy a while ago.)

When I watched the Let's Plays of LNM roll out, I grew attached to the theory that the whole last-minute cleaning job was actually just a trap/long-con to appease the demon that had been summoned.

So. . .yeah. Cruz may not be part of a cult, but he's still what most wannabe cultists like to pretend they are. As for why Cruz chose to make a hobby out of summoning horrific abominations. . .well, I'm not really sure, but I know he's not gonna explain himself anytime soon.

I won't say Cruz isn't a bit of a misanthropist, but he still knows how to interact with others. I.e., how to put on a personable facade in order to "make friends" until he's gained enough of their trust to lure them into his escapades. You can't just mingle with outer monstrosities without making a sacrifice or two, after all.

On the other side of the coin, Cruz has a shocking knack for taking mind-melting eldritch vibes in stride. Honestly, he's way more casual and collected when hanging out with atrocities against nature than he is around his fellow humans.

He's grown a decent collection of occult books/artifacts over the years. Most things in this collection have been acquired through less-than-legal means, because duh. Cruz has long-since learned to navigate the more paranormal side of the Dark Web/Black Market.

He's picked up several languages in order to translate for his projects. Some are human (such as Latin/Pig Latin). Others. . .not so much (the pronunciation is difficult for someone without multiple forked tongues, but Cruz is nothing if not a determined bastard, so he manages).

He's also musically-inclined (inspired by the fact that there's a violin hanging on the wall in LNM's master bedroom). The majority of summoning rituals don't require music, but he'll be over the moon whenever he manages to find one that does.

If LNM didn't make it obvious, Cruz isn't phased by gory stuff. Hell, the bloody mess in that game is small potatoes compared to some of the other offerings/rituals he's set up in the past (and in the future. . .😈)

That demon from LNM wasn't the first ungodly creature Cruz has summoned, and it certainly won't be the last, either. In fact, his latest schemes may or may not involve. . .ah, what's his name again? Oh yeah! The terrifying EldritchPlier himself, as well as Lunky and Co.

Thanks to all the surreal shenanigans he's experienced, Cruz has developed a literal sixth sense. Though it takes concentration/mental strength, he can see/hear/feel/smell/taste all kinds of things that most people are better off not being aware of.

While Cruz operates with little regard for his own sanity or the well-being of other people, he still has enough morals to not sacrifice babies/kids.

Happy Holidays, Sammy!!! I know this isn't much, but I hope you like this guy! Please feel free to write about him whenever you want! (No pressure of course, but still!)

[seiya-starsniper]

10 fandoms/10 characters/10 tags

FUCK YEAH LET'S GO BLORBO LOVING HOURS

Tagged by the amazing @sans--seraph and @verminetroglodyte

Loki from MCU He is single-handedly responsible for my descent into madness with the MCU. None of my friends could get me to watch a single movie until the bestie one day said, "Hey you should come watch Thor with us, there's a character we think you'd like" and it was OVER after that.

The Corinthian from Sandman A lot of people probably think my favorite character must be Dream or Hob because of my ship but nope, it's The Corinthian. My beloved serial killing, eyeball eating, just needs a hug and some validation baby, I love you so. Also, it helps that he'd played by Boyd Holbrook, who I was OBSESSED with as a teen when he was a twinky model lmao.

Hawks from My Hero Academia I know Hawks is a pretty polarizing character in the fandom, and I think that's part of the reason why I love him so so much. He's technically one of the "good guys" as a hero yes, but he has done so many questionably things in the name of corrupt hero society. He's the type of character I'm not sure I'd like if he were a real person, but I think that's part of what makes him so interesting. Absolute sweetheart on the outside, but will gut you like a fish if he thinks it's for the greater good.

Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh MY OG BLORBO I LOVE YOU SO 💖💖💖 What else is there to say about this iconic boy? He's a dick. He's rich, screw the rules he has money. He's a meme. He is absolutely over the top and tries to insist he has no friends but he's been adopted by the heroes as a bestie. Love him forever.

Sara Lance from DCTV/Arrowverse I've GOTTA include my White Canary queen because she was my bisexual awakening. I had always known I had some attraction to women, and even had gone by pan for a little bit, but lord my attraction to women came alive with Sara. I may not longer care for Arrowverse, but Sara Lance will always have a special place in my heart.

Hiccup Haddock from How to Train Your Dragon Hiccup holds a special place in my heart for bucking the trend on traditional protagonists. He's a little weakling. People underestimate him. He doesn't always get things right! But he loves fiercely, he's determined, he's smart, and he believes the best in everyone. One of my favorite blorbos ever.

Roy Mustang from Fullmetal Alchemist Smarmy bastard with a heart of gold. He will go the distance to protect those he loves, and he's not afraid to burn people to a crisp to do it. He knows his weaknesses and tries to push past them anyways if he needs to protect someone he loves. Best boy, I love him so.

Harley Quinn from DC Comics Another important character in my bisexual development ahahha. I know Harley's kind of over saturated the market as a Strong Female Character but she's still so important to me for so many reasons. She came out on the other side of an abusive relationship. She's funny, she's silly, she loves life, no matter how many wrenches get thrown at her, literally and figuratively. And her relationship with Pam is SO IMPORTANT to me ahhhhhhhhh.

Jyn Erso from Rogue One Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeee. I love her. She's a grump. She's a survivor. She's a tragic figure drawn into a war she never asked to be a part of and she dies for a cause that never knowing how important her impact truly was. I have read a million fix-it fics and AUs of her and the whole Rogue One crew and still love her to this day.

Q from James Bond (Daniel Craig Movies) My nerdy baby. He's so smart and so awkward and so endearing it hurts. I love him so. He has two cats and a mortgage. Bond takes too much advantage of his goodwill and Q lets him because he's in love a good friend.

Tagging: @rooftopwreck @virgo-dream @nygmobblepot-trash @lyriclorelei @gil212 @valeriianz @valiantstarlights @writing-for-life @two-hands-toward-the-sun @bazzybelle

[appalachianapologies]

I don't want whatever the threat is. I dont eanna live in fear

Your ocs. Hand em over

OKAY i know it has been. weeks. months, even. however, I considered how I wanted to say this because too many characters too little time. but here we go:

A Penchant for the Ordinary

Jamie Caldwell is everyone's favorite character and by that I mean she's chaotic as hell, makes knee jerk reactions, definitely unknowingly has ADHD, extremely low self control, and her stress relief is punching people who (probably) deserve it. She's a gay mess in every sense of the word and has seriously tried so hard to get her life together and it's just. it's not working out for her. so, after accepting that fact, Jamie begins to embrace the chaotic and darker sides of herself. if her life is going to hell, she may as well take a free trip down as well and see what it's all about

Chloe and Gus together, because they're so codependent we quite literally never see them apart except for a single scene near the end where Gus hangs around to say one last thing before following her. As mentioned: codependent as hell. Not romantically involved but they know every single in and out of each other- moreso than most couples. While Jamie feels regret for her sudden reactions, Chloe basks in them and has never once wished she made a different decision. Gus typically has the braincell, but usually not for long- he's as much of an adrenaline junkie as everyone else.

Madison did not sign up for any of this shit. When my dad read my book, one of the things he told me was that it was so not necessary to put her through everything that I did. And although I agree, it was sadly necessary for Jamie's questionable character arc. Sorry Madison- but trust me, you're better off with a different girlfriend

Kat absolutely signed up for everything she gets herself into, even if she claims that she didn't. She goes around saying "I'm not involved with any of these people :|" and then actively hangs out with them and invites them to her apartment. for multiple days. She's the type of person that would claim to want to have a relaxing life but she literally chose not to. girl what

Davy tried his best. kind of. he could've done a hell of a lot better, but he also genuinely tried to do well to fix his mistakes. He's the type of person who will feel genuine regret for what he's done and try to rectify his mistakes, even if it takes uhhhhh a lot of time :)

Evelyn is a bastard. absolutely mad woman and in not a fun sexy hot way. Power hungry, unfazed by hurting anyone else in the process of getting what she wants, and yet she still sees herself as benevolent (she's not). Believes she's the main character of the book (she is not).

James did not deserve any of that. I'm sorry dude. That being said, your coping mechanisms were a little subpar. Sorry we still don't know exactly how you died (it's not a spoiler okay it's happened like ten years ago).

Daniel and Edward are absolutely in love but neither of them realize it and it's not a standard love. think qpr. think: they've known each other since elementary school and have gone through all of life together. loyal to a fault but would change on a hat to keep the other safe.

Obligatory Did these characters interest you? Do you want to read a subpar book but support a young author? You can buy A Penchant for the Ordinary here! Thank you in advanced for your support :D

and now: Paradigm

Delilah's trying her best except she makes about a few wrong turns, which ends up shaping her life for the next decade. Surprisingly little self esteem for a person in her job market, though she acts the opposite. She doesn't have enough of a filter but manages to charm her way past a lot of things that should've ended badly. The queen at pushing things down and pretending it never happened. Is aware that she's pretty much trapped, but doesn't believe she can get out.

Charlotte is still Delilah, but she's determined to change into someone else. A new woman who's better, stronger, more confident than Delilah. She becomes the femme fetal that Marcus had wanted since day one, and embraces it. She likes being the bad guy, relishes the feeling of knowing she's in the wrong, and pretends that she doesn't have a nagging feeling that she is, in fact, in the wrong.

Taylor is still Delilah, and parts of Charlotte bleed through to her as well. A changed woman. Mature, who believes that she's seen so much of life that she's immune to anything else that could be thrown at her. Truly believes that she can't change and was created to be bad. Acts like she couldn't give a damn about other people when in fact the opposite is true and she's just afraid of having weaknesses. Aren't we all.

Marcus is pretty much the worst person you can imagine. Runs a cool home business called "assassins for hire :)" (paraphrased). Although he used to do the dirty work himself, he now has employees that he keeps on a tight leash to do everything. Always has multiple contingency plans in case something goes wrong and the authorities get wind of him. If any employee screws up, Marcus gives them zero chances to fix it, and will round up everyone who fucked up last quarter, shoot them, and give them a shallow grave in the Nevada desert. Has an insanely creepy infatuation with Delilah.

Sid is quite possibly the only employee of Marcus that is somewhat on the genuinely good spectrum. ...or at least the "not actively trying to do bad" one. Ex-military, classic "never really left [insert place of war]." Hates Delilah until he begrudgingly doesn't hate Delilah. He knows that everything Marcus is doing is screwed up, but Sid's just going through the motions of life at this point. What's one more life for one more paycheck?

Lainey's name is still pending, but it'll probably end up as Lainey. Smarter than anyone in the world gives her credit for, and is very calculating. She knows more than she lets on as well, and uses that to her advantage. She's probably more forgiving than she should be, but that makes Lainey who she is. Eventually, the only one who knows the most about Delilah (and that isn't just because she sleeps with her. oops)

Rebecca is the classic TV CIA agent except she's actually real. She has poorly controlled OCD but pretends like she has everything under control at all times. After spending over half of a decade attempting to track and take in Marcus, she's eventually promoted to a higher up position, where she gets to create her own team, to finally, once and for all, bring in Marcus. Is pretty much willing to sacrifice it all for the job with little hesitation.

Carter is somewhere between Rebecca's second hand man while also being the worst (affectionate) gay hopeless romantic there is. He thinks he can juggle a relationship and CIA work but let me tell you. He's never learned how to juggle. Keeps Rebecca sane in every way you can think of, and the two often spend nights at each others' places because that's just what they do. Like Rebecca, he's on thin fucking ice with every higher up in the CIA. However, unlike Rebecca, he's excellent at damage control with their supervisor.

Unnamed Classic Hacker Character is still unnamed because no name has truly suited or worked with her. Trusts literally no one, especially not Taylor. Hates her guts, actually. Probably the only one who's actually confident about things, though she knows the least at any given time because she's a junior agent. Rebecca immediately was like "I want her" despite the fact that she graduated worst in her class. Opinionated and full of spite, in the way that every person in a fandom would fucking hate. Absolutely, without a doubt, a character I would love to write an 11 book series spin-off with

finally: Lou is for Lavender

Lou, originally Louisa, is going through it. The book is a journey on her life- or rather, the three months after escaping somewhere between an abusive boyfriend and being trafficked. With little identity, she finds herself constantly trying to figure out who she is, who she should be, and if there even exists a woman beyond the girl she used to be. She's genuinely trying her best, but fuck if it isn't hard. I love her. I love her so much. She is so lost but she's trying so hard to find her way back on a path. I could write five more paragraphs about her at any given time.

Maria is a six year old with far too much energy for someone her size. Absolutely infatuated with her grandmother and the way she used to read to Maria every single day and night, Maria begged her grandmother and Dana to teach her how to read by herself, which quickly morphed into writing. She'll write pages of six year old nonsense for hours without getting bored, and is absolutely thrilled to have a new friend around the house! never mind that she's an adult- Maria sees Lou as a built-in summer friend.

Dana has been putting on the best face for nearly five years. Although it wasn't her intention, after her mom got sick, she moved back to her family's ranch along with her three kids- Maria and two older boys. After her mom passed, she stayed, unable to bear the idea of leaving once more for good, but she's great at hiding that fact. The youngest of seven, Dana is caught somewhere between constantly feeling the need to prove herself while also knowing that no one's waiting and watching for her to grow anymore. Six kids came before her, and Dana genuinely believes that she simply slipped under the attention of everyone.

The Flowers are how Lou refers to the other women she met along the way. The girls who all had an intimate understanding of what she was going through, and yet nothing at all. The flowers are constantly living inside of Lou, always on the edges of her thoughts, nearly controlling her at some points. They stay with Lou, sometimes causing guilt, sometimes causing pain, sometimes just to remind Lou of the dandelions that used to sprout up in between cracks in the sidewalk.

The Journal that Maria gives Lou (after declaring them best friends forever), isn't technically a living character, but it may as well be. It's where Lou's thoughts reside. Where her fears and regrets and memories live so they don't have to live in her head. The journal is an extension of Lou, and the scariest thing she could think of is losing it, but the journal was never meant to stay against her chest for the rest of its life.

Anyhow, if you'd like to support some of my original work, I have a Ko-Fi! Covers are expensive as h e c k - But also, reblogs support me as well :D a chaotic way to spread the chaotic characters 'round these parts

[my-words-are-light]

I am reading 'The Terraformers' by Annalee Newitz.

So I've been reading this fascinating book lately: The Terraformers by Annalee Newitz. It's set far far far into the future where private corporations can even terraform planets very specifically into anything anyone wants. The specific planet this book is set on is Sask-E (or Sasky), which is marketed by Verdance as a "genuine pre-Pleistocene experience". Which heavily restricts the bodies people are allowed to "wear" there because bodies are extremely customisable and people can even live remotely through perfectly humanoid drones.

That bit about bodies is especially noteworthy because the book also has a lot of different ideas of "personhood". Lifeforms are literally made through a bio-mechanical process and decanted with intelligence. There's something corporations use called the "Intelligence Assessment" rating to determine what constitutes a "person" but everyone agrees it's nonsense and calls them InAss ratings. The main character, Destry, has a partner named Whisper that's a moose who is determined to be a Mount; their decanting process made Whisper only able to say monosyllabic words, which Destry agonises over. There are also "Blessed" who can only speak about their role (like shopkeepers). There are naked mole rats, moose, cows, robots, and more designated to be People because of how they were made to be intelligent. One cow person in the cast is traumatised—and genuinely so; it's not played for laughs in the slightest—by coming across a dairy farm full of cows with all the intelligence of livestock. The characters figure this is part of the "genuine pre-Pleistocene experience" and believe this is morally repugnant to the highest degree to make cows like this.

There's a bit later on where workers are pressured to figure out a train system for the main continent of Sask-E. Given that the world is still being terraformed and the characters are against so much as lighting a campfire in the name of carbon neutrality lest the world be tipped off its delicate balance, they determine that train tracks are unfeasible because the terraforming process means the tracks won't even be consistent let alone finished before the terraforming is done and the tracks will be useless. They come up with an alternative: flying trains that use a gravity mesh to fly.

At the council meeting where this is proposed, one character is against using a gravity mesh on anything that isn't a person. A moose in the meeting is against making anything that isn't a person at all. They decide that only people can truly serve the needs of other people by optimising the routes between cities. Plus, the flying train people can choose to do whatever they like; like the Boring Fleet responsible for carving out chambers for the volcano, they'll find it satisfying to do jobs their bodies excel at. Other characters aren't concerned that the Flying Train Fleet will be averse to designing optimal routes and travelling to hundreds of cities across the globe. Unanswered questions like "How will every city weigh in on their transit needs?", "How will we know when new trains, routes, or stations are needed?", and more can be answered by the train people themselves.

[rayclubs]

I almost forgot to tell you guys about Mike from my workplace. Here's a funny story.

So, I got this job in marketing relations. Basically means I have to call up various sales reps and product support lines, get important people's contact info, send out emails, that sort of thing. There are two other people working in my department: Alex and Rat. Both of them here for over six years, literal veterans in the field. Me, I'm a recent hire.

Last month we got this new project where instead of taking up new brands and businesses we try to get in touch with the ones who left us on "read". It's the same type of job, except before calling someone up we have to go through three-four-years-old logs detailing every method of communication that's already been attempted. That's fine, I like me a bit of environmental storytelling on shift.

So I'm just going through the list one by one, until I get to this one brand that sells some audio tech I don't much care for. The first thing that catches my eye is that the log is way longer than most. So I get reading.

[MM/DD/YYYY] Called [number], asked to contact [generic.email]@[lastname]mike.com. Message sent. (Alex)

That's fine, that's standard practice. Then something exciting happens.

[MM/DD/YYYY] Got a delivery error. (Rat)

[MM/DD/YYYY] Called [number] again, they confirmed email. (Alex)

[MM/DD/YYYY] Message re-sent to [generic.email]@[lastname]mike.com. (Rat)

That's kind of odd. We don't get a lot of delivery errors, and when we do, it's because there was a typo in the receiving address. But "Mike" is a simple enough name, and the rest of the address is generic enough to leave no room for error. But then...

[MM/DD/YYYY] Got another delivery error. (Rat)

[MM/DD/YYYY] Listened to the recordings of both calls. The email is correct. (Alex)

[MM/DD/YYYY] Email re-sent from alternative company address. (Rat)

There's some subtle back-and-forth now. I can only speculate, of course, but I'm guessing at that point both of my colleagues were reasonably annoyed.

[MM/DD/YYYY] Another delivery error. (Alex)

By that point I was completely hooked. On one hand there is a simple computer problem of an undelivered email, on the other hand - a multitude of people convincing my coworkers an address is real while it keeps consistently getting proven otherwise. Are they playing a prank? Are they purposefully misleading us? Is Mike real?

[MM/DD/YYYY] Contacted tech support. There may be a filter or a spam blocker preventing the email from receiving our message. (Rat)

[MM/DD/YYYY] Called [number] again. The address is correct. There are no filters. Sent one last message to [generic.email]@[lastname]mike.com. (Alex)

I actually can't believe Alex called them again. In my experience even one call is often enough to have someone get mad at you for being annoying. Well, third time's the charm, right?

[DD/MM/YYYY] Delivery error. I'm closing this. (Alex)

And honestly, good call. If someone rang me up four times just to confirm a Mike exists, I would probably explode. Myself or the person on the phone - either way, it would have been bloody.

Well, I have to pick this up now, three years later, so, determined to solve the mystery of Mike, I head over to that company's website.

The home page features a giant banner with a close-up of a microphone on it.

They sell microphones.

[MM/DD/YYYY] Message sent to [generic.email]@[lastname]mic.com. (Me)

The end.