#Plasterer in Edinburgh

[plasterersedi]

Before you paint or wallpaper your home, make sure the plaster underneath is in tip-top condition or the bumps and holes may show through your wallpaper.

For people living in Edinburgh or the Lothians, William Bain & Sons can plaster skim your walls and ceiling, making them smooth and ready for decoration.

[dlyarchitecture]

[painted-kneecaps]

If you are feeling lonely in your support of Palestine because of where you live, or because the internet is an echo chamber, i have something to tell you !!!

I am traveling in Europe right now, a trip that i have saved for for over a year, that i have grieved and felt guilty for the privilege of having- and i want to share with you some things that have stuck with me so far, as someone from rural Texas who knows very few people who care about Palestine.

In Paris, the wall across from my lodging is plastered with posters. I don’t speak French- the only word I can read is Gaza. I walk past a cafe, and a woman inside sips her coffee as she sits across from her lover, a keffiyeh draped around her shoulders. I pass a school, and a girl breezes past me. I can see the Handala cartoon on the back of her T-shirt as she passes. On the drive back to Germany, I crane my neck as we pass an old brick barn set against fields of green grass and yellow flowers. The Palestinian flag is painted across the side, larger than life, visible to everyone that passes.

In London, I share the sidewalk, only briefly, with an old man in a tweed suit, a ceasefire pin fastened to his lapel. In the subway I walk beneath a sticker calling for a free Palestine, fastened to the concrete above me. I walk to a restaurant with my friend after dark, and a delivery boy sits outside on his bike, a keffiyeh wrapped around his head. I yell, “I like your keffiyeh!” he grins as he pedals away, and calls “I like you!”

As I hurry through the airport, a woman passing me notices my own pin, fastened to my bag, and tells me she likes it. I grin and thank her. When my plane lands in Scotland, and I am rushing around Edinburgh, backpack heavy with everything i currently own, i pass a group of old ladies all in a row, dressed in brightly colored overalls. I stop to admire their outfits, only then to notice the string of hand quilted pennants they hold between them, altogether reading “Ceasefire Now!”

You are not alone. We are all listening.

The whole world sends its love.

Free Palestine.

[puffein]

EPILOGUE | late spring [xii.]

summary: all you have left is hope as you board a trip back to new jersey. pairings: wanda maximoff x fem!reader warnings: none word count: 2411 a/n: its finally the eeeeend!! i hope you enjoyed this series! thank you!!!

series masterlist playlist!

Edinburgh, Scotland

Late-May 2027

The sharp chilling air of the early mornings of Edinburgh rouses your sleepy form from its slumbers. The bright sun waking its warm light to cascade through the open gaps of the windows made you forget the fading breezy air you felt a minute ago. Blinking through the sudden illuminating light of the sun, you felt the moving car come to a complete stop. 

Your eyes watch the forwarding move of each stranger, the crowds moving like waves crashing through their destination, their luggage trailing behind them with the sounds of its wheels gliding through the pavement. 

You let out a breath, pushing the door open and taking the heavy suitcase out of the car. You heard a door closing in hard and a set of rush footsteps gliding towards you. 

"Y/N, wait– this.." Kate's staggering timbre of voice made you whip your head towards her, an eyebrow raised at a box she was carrying. "This is for you." Pushing the box forward into your arms, you gave her a confused look. 

"What is this? I told you I do not need a parting gift, I'll be coming back here." you huff.

Her dark hair moves swiftly as her head shakes, "No, no, I know you're coming back. It's, um, remember like years ago you told me about the letters, just the story behind that, um, well, you see– I didn't throw her letters away, I have kept them." 

Your heart thumps, eyes flickering downwards– into the box your arms securely carried, "Kate, why.."

"I don't know, it's just, it felt weird to throw it away. If what you have said is the truth, that you are now okay and breathing then it wouldn't be so hard to read the letters she wrote years ago, right?" 

Your heart wobbles lightly, a smile taking its place right at your place, "Alright, thank you for keeping this."

Kate beams, her body giddy at taking in your gratitude, her hands moving awkwardly as she points at you, "Can I hug you or is that too weird, I mean I know we are busi–" 

You bark out a laugh, wrapping your hands in her wrist to pull her flush into your body, hugging her. "Be good here, Bishop."

"I will!" she chirps, leaning away to give you her wide smile. 

You step back, the box in your arms suddenly heavy, you give Kate one last smile, and as soon as your back faces Kate, your smile falls. You feel the weight of the letters, clutching the box tightly, and your steps wobble as you try to navigate your way through the airport. 

The distinct smell of the airport wraps you in quickly, with each stranger having its own destination, you have come into a thought of what stories each of them carries and then your story came in like a bucket of ice-cold water, splashing into you without a warning. 

You have healed. But the heavy weight of the letters doesn't settle right into your being. You are afraid opening such things would make you backtrack all the progress you have gotten, but then again, healing is not linear, it never will be.

So, when you successfully seated yourself in the window seat of the plane, you took one letter out of the box. Eyeing the familiar handwriting plastered through the piece of paper, your breath catches in sharply as your eyes scan the contents of a piece of paper that holds such delicate words. 

My dear Y/N,

      How are you? I don't know what letter this is, this might be my 10th, I don't know. I just kept on writing and writing, it's the only thing that has brought me comfort. I hope you are doing well, I kept on thinking and thinking if I have made a different choice, a different action, would this be just another alternate version of our life?

     I'm sorry, Y/N. For everything. I know the words I have said don't justify how wrong my actions were. It didn't dawn on me how my simple actions of ignoring you— the problems— my problem, would cause you such great pain. It didn't occur to me and I was being selfish and prideful. I was so blind, I was so scared of what I was feeling for you that I completely broke you. I didn't mean that, I was just scared and I wanted that feeling to vanish, so I did what I thought was the best plan. To be blind and avoid problems.

      Sorry, I'm sorry.

      I hope Edinburgh is treating you well. All I can do is hope, Y/N. I hope Edinburgh is fixing things for you that New Jersey never fixed. You don't need fixing, though, you have always been perfect and I never treasured that. 

      I love you, Y/N. I really do. I was just scared of many things, the thoughts were bad, and it did not help at all. I'm sorry. This doesn't make sense. Everything doesn't make sense. You are the only one grounding me, Y/N. 

      I hope when the time comes, you and I can talk. I will be hoping for that day.

Sincerely,

Wanda

You try to take in whatever words Wanda has written and along the lines of her painful words, your heart thumps lightly. This is a letter she wrote years ago and yet, it perfectly consummates the current emotions you are feeling. And without a single doubting thought, your heart blooms that one word she always wrote. 

You will be hoping.

༻༺

"I can't believe I have to get married for you to finally come home." Natasha greets you with a teasing voice, the ends of her tone are tender and warm as she pulls you in quickly for a tight embrace. 

You let out a surprised squeal at her tight grip, choking out a laugh, "Get off, please. I can't breathe."

"Oh shut up, you missed this." 

You smiled against her body, pulling her closer and taking in the familiar scent of her perfume. Natasha's grin widens when a familiar hand pulls her away gently. 

"Maria, finally nice to meet you." your hand reaches forward for the brunette to take. The woman with a posture so straight gave you a winning smile, pulling you in again into a tight hug.

"What is with you two and tight embraces, oh god, I feel like my lungs are crushed." 

Maria chuckles, "Okay, you are dramatic." 

Natasha swiftly moves beside you, hanging her arms around your shoulder, "So.. tell me about this Gray woman, does she make your life vibrant contrary to how monotone her name is?" 

You let out a nervous laugh, "Nat, I told you we are just friends. I don't think it's a great idea for me to date, I don't want someone to get stuck up with someone like me."

Natasha completely stops, her face is ready to fight the words you just have stated, "Like you? What the hell are you talking about?"

"I just don't think I'm ready for anything," you stated, mouthing a small thank you to Maria as she easily carries your suitcase into the car. "I wanna focus on myself, that's literally it."

Nat leans her body on the car, her arms crossing right at her chest, "And we love you for that. Apologies for my remarks." she declares, the corners of her mouth twitching in a wide grin, proud of what she's hearing from her precious best friend. "Now get in. My fiancée and I will take you for a wild ride."

Your smile widens at her silly words, playfully slapping her arms as you duck down to sit in the back seat. 

You watch them interact with each other, how Maria holds out her hand for Natasha to take, how your best friend can't seem to take her eyes off the brunette, how the brown-haired woman has a smile permanently plastered on her face. As you watch them carefully, something gnaws in the deeper ends of your chest, slowly clawing its way out to let you know that this feeling, the feeling of envy, the feeling of being wanted to be loved, is still present, alive, even after shoving in and crushing it to pieces.

It somehow mends itself and it's now clawing wildly out of your chest, making you look away and focus your sights on the moving scenery laid out of the clear window.

Westview is still the same as when you have left it, the tree-lined streets stand beautifully, the proud sun sets itself onto the blue sky, its rays peeking in between the leaves of the trees, making it look like a scene out of a postcard. 

When the moving scenery finally comes to a stop in a very familiar neighborhood, Natasha quickly hops out of the car to open the door for you, her head tilting as she gives you a cheeky grin, opening her arms as she points at a house.

"What do you think?"

You gape at her, "You brought a house?"

"Me and Maria thought it would be nice to have a house before the wedding and this, woman right here," pulling Maria closer to her, Natasha kisses her cheeks loudly, "She surprised me with a house!" 

Your eyes flicker at the brunette whose face is turning red, "That's great, Maria, wow. You are in deep."

"Oh, shut up. I'm saving you money here from checking in a hotel." Maria's stoned voice made you laugh loudly, shaking your head as you carried your suitcase with ease, letting out a silent huff at how heavy it is. 

Letting yourself breathe in the sight before you, the couple's house screams cozy and homey. You can picture them starting a family with this house, little Natasha running around, Maria's stoic face as she scolds their child, and family pictures scattered all over their house. Their future unfolds before your eyes, and you badly want to see what the future holds for you. 

Will it be just like them?

"Hey, Nat." your hand grips Natasha's wrist, "I wanna see something, is it okay if I meet you two at dinner?" 

"Sure, want me to drive you? Where are you even going?" Natasha quips, arranging your suitcase in the corner of the room she had pointed out. 

You shrug, "I just wanna walk around, it's been so long. I wanna see if something has changed." 

"Call me if you need a drive back home, yeah?" The redhead's smile was contagious, making you give her a grateful smile.

That's how you found yourself walking aimlessly on the sidewalks of the neighborhood, each house feels familiar yet different and strange. It's like watching something out of a picture you have hidden in a box that has a label of 'memories'. 

It doesn't feel real, how you are walking to the very place you have run away from. Nothing would have prepared you for what happened years ago, the final conversation you had with Wanda was eye-opening. It did help you get the closure you wanted but not the ending of what you had hoped. Despite that, you chose yourself, you chose what you needed instead of what you wanted. 

It is hard, to choose between a want and a need but you knew what weighed more. Even if it left you on a lonely journey of self-healing, it was the very first time you have chosen an option that does not revolve around her.

Life shouldn't revolve around her and yet you had caught yourself standing outside the coffeehouse, eyes gazing at the empty building, despite the day not being done, the lights were off, and dust forming inside the clear window pane.

Thank you for your patronage. This coffeehouse has permanently closed.

You blinked away the sudden bitterness pooling at the tip of your tongue, gulping the remaining dejection crawling out of your throat over a closed coffeehouse, you looked away.

Westview did change, if it's the same as what you have left, the coffeehouse would still be here, not an abandoned building sitting with its bleakness seeping out of its clear windows. 

The grimness you have felt for something that seems so insignificant to others made you feel petty, but maybe you were just holding on to something that needed to be let go of. 

Hearing the sudden whipping of the wind and the yapping of a fast little dog running right at your ankle, you look down and instantly crouch to take the dog. 

Brows furrowing, you tried to look for a collar.

"Sparky– I swear to god. I am so sorry—" a hoarse voice comes next.

Your head whips fast. 

"...Y/N," she says breathlessly, her soft tunes sounding like she's running out of breath, catching it.

Wanda. 

It shouldn't bother you.

If you had moved on, it really shouldn't.

But it did. The look on her face sits gorgeously, she gapes at you wild like a fish out of water, trying to make sense if you are real or just another delusion of hers. You blink, your heart is calm but your mind says otherwise.

"You–you're back?" 

You nod. "Yes, I– uhm, just today."

The nibbling of her bottom lip made you turn your gaze away, softly setting down the dog on the ground, the cute pup instantly ran towards the frozen woman. 

"They, they closed months ago." she suddenly declares, watching as your eyes linger on the building. A tense silence ensues, making you clench the quiver of your chest. 

"It was nice to see you, Y/N. I hope you will enjoy your stay here," she mutters, you turn at her, watching as she struggles to clasp the collar back on the puppy, her hands are visibly trembling. 

With one last final glance, she smiles at you, "Sorry again, he always likes to run away from me. Okay, I— I want to—" she struggles.

Then settle for a simple, "Goodbye, Y/N."

You let her walk away, her long chocolate brown hair sits beautifully at her shoulders, then it hits you. A memory replaying right in your eyes, watching her walk away, steps heavy on the pavement. This is so familiar. 

"Wanda!"

The turning of her head was fast, the hope pooling in her green eyes made you waver. 

"What time is it?" you asked. 

Her shoulders fall, looking down at her watch, "Eight-forty-nine," she replies. 

"Would you like a coffee at nine?" 

fin.

general masterlist ◄

—୧ taglist: @esposadejoyhuerta @sokovianbaby @vivs46 @kyaraderuwez

[mostlysignssomeportents]

To save the news, ban surveillance ads

Tonight (May 31) at 6:30PM, I’m at the MANCHESTER Waterstones with my novel Red Team Blues, hosted by Ian Forrester.

Tomorrow (Jun 1), I’m giving the Peter Kirstein Lecture for UCL Computer Science in LONDON.

Then it’s Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

Big Tech steals from the news, but what it steals isn’t content — it steals money. That matters, because if we create pseudo-copyrights over the facts of the news, or headlines, or snippets to help news companies bargain with tech companies, we make the news partners with the tech companies, rather than watchdogs.

How does tech steal money from the news? Lots of ways! One important one: tech steals ad revenue. 51% of every ad dollar gets gobbled up by tech companies — primarily the cozy, collusive ad-tech duopoly of Google/Facebook (AKA Googbook). If we can shatter the market power of the concentrated ad-tech industry, news companies would go back to getting 80–90% of the ad revenue their reporting generated, which would pay for more reporting.

There’s lots to like about fixing ads. For one thing, a fair ad marketplace would benefit all news reporting, not just the largest news companies — which are dominated by private equity-backed chains and right-wing billionaires who have repeatedly shown that any additional revenues will go to pay shareholders, not more reporters. Fair ads would also provide an income for reporters who strike out on their own, covering local politics or specific beats, without making themselves sharecroppers for Big Media.

One way to fix ads would be to break up the ad-tech “stacks.” Googbook both operate impossibly conflicted ad-placement businesses in which they bargain with themselves on behalf of both advertisers and publishers, with the winners always being the tech companies. The AMERICA Act from Senator Mike Lee would force ad giants to divest themselves of business units that create conflicts of interest. It’s popular, bipartisan legislation — and I do mean bipartisan; its backers include Elizabeth Warren and Ted Cruz! I wrote about the AMERICA Act and the role it will play in saving news from tech for EFF’s Deeplinks Blog last week:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-shatter-ad-tech

This week, I’ve got a followup on Deeplinks about another important way to unrig the ad market: banning surveillance ads:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

Even if we break up the ad-tech stacks, ads will still be bad for the news — and for the public. That’s because the dominant form of digital ads is “behavioral advertising” — the ad-tech sector’s polite euphemism for ads based on spying. You know these ads: you search for shoes and then every website you land on is plastered in shoe ads.

Surveillance ads require a massive, multi-billion-dollar surveillance dragnet, one that tracks you as you physically move through the world, and digitally, as you move through the web. Your apps, your phone and your browser are constantly gathering data on your activities to feed the ad-tech industry.

This data is incredibly dangerous. There’s so much of it, and it’s so loosely regulated, that every spy, cop, griefer, stalker, harasser, and identity thief can get it for pennies and use it however they see fit. The ad-tech industry poses a risk to protesters, to people seeking reproductive care, to union organizers, and to vulnerable people targeted by scammers.

Ad-tech maintains the laughable pretense that all this spying is consensual, because you clicked “I agree” on some garbage-novella of impenatrable legalese that no one — not even the ad-tech companies’ lawyers — has ever read from start to finish. But when people are given a real choice to opt out of digital spying, they do. Apple gave Ios users a one-click opt-out of in-app tracking and 96% of users clicked it (the other 4% must have been confused — or on Facebook’s payroll). The decision cost Facebook $10b in the first year. You love to see it:

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/02/facebook-says-apple-ios-privacy-change-will-cost-10-billion-this-year.html

But here’s the real punchline: Apple blocked Facebook from spying on its customers, but Apple kept spying on them, just as invasively as Facebook had, in order to target them with Apple’s own ads:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/11/14/luxury-surveillance/#liar-liar

The thing that stops companies from spying on us isn’t the strength of their character, it’s the discipline imposed by regulation and competition — the fear that they’ll get fined more than they make from spying, and the fear that they’ll lose so much business from spying that they’ll end up in the red.

Which is why we need a legal ban on ads, not mere platitudes on billboards advertising companies’ “respect” for our privacy. The US is way overdue for a federal privacy law with a private right of action, which would let you and me sue the companies who violated it, even if no public prosecutor was willing to go to bat for us:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/01/you-should-have-right-sue-companies-violate-your-privacy

A privacy law that required companies to get your affirmative, enthusiastic, ongoing, specific, informed consent to gather and process your personal data would end surveillance ads forever. Despite the self-serving nonsense the ad-tech industry serves up about people “liking relevant ads,” no one wants to be spied on. 96% of Ios users don’t lie.

A ban on surveillance ads wouldn’t just serve the public, it would also save the news. The alternative to surveillance ads is context ads: ads based on what a reader is reading, rather than what that reader was doing. Context-based ad marketplaces ask, “What am I bid for this Pixel 6 user in Boise who is reading about banana farming?” instead of “What am I bid for this 22 year old man who recently searched for information about suicidal ideation and bankruptcy protection?”

Context ads perform a little worse than surveillance ads — by about 5%:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/29/taken-in-context/#creep-me-not

So presumably advertisers won’t pay as much for context ads as they do for behavioral targeting. But that doesn’t mean that the news will lose money. Because context ads favor publishers over ad-tech platforms —���no publisher will ever know as much about internet users as spying ad-tech giants do, but no tech company will ever know as much about a publisher’s content as the publisher does.

Behavioral ad marketplaces have high barriers to entry, requiring troves of surveillance data on billions of internet users. They are naturally anticompetitive and able to command a much higher share of each ad dollar than a contextual ad service (which would have much more competiition) could.

On top of that: if behavioral advertising was limited to people who truly consented to it, 96% of users would never see an ad!

So contextual ads will show up for more users, and more of the money they generate will land in news publishers’ pockets. If context ads fetch less money per ad, the losses will be felt by ad-tech companies, not publishers.

Finally: publishers who join the fight against surveillance ads won’t be alone — they’ll be joining with a massive, popular movement against commercial surveillance. The news business is — and always has been — a niche subject, of burning interest to publishers, reporters, and a small minority of news junkies. The news on its own is a small fry in policy debates. But when it comes to killing surveillance ads, the news has a class alliance with the mass movement for privacy, and together, they’re a force to reckon with.

My article on killing surveillance ads is part three of an ongoing, five-part series for EFF on how we save the news from tech. The introduction, which sets out the whole series, is here:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/04/saving-news-big-tech

The final two parts will come out over the next two weeks, and then we’re going to publish the whole thing as a PDF that suitable for sharing. Watch this space!

Catch me on tour with Red Team Blues in Manchester, Edinburgh, London, and Berlin!

[Image ID: EFF's banner for the save news series; the word 'NEWS' appears in pixelated, gothic script in the style of a newspaper masthead. Beneath it in four entwined circles are logos for breaking up ad-tech, ending surveillance ads, opening app stores, and end-to-end delivery. All the icons except for 'ending surveillance ads' are greyed out.]

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/2023/05/31/context-ads/#class-formation

Image: EFF https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/05/save-news-we-must-ban-surveillance-advertising

CC BY 3.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

[atwubis]

One aspect of Bloodborne that I’ve been thinking about is how, at least for me, it takes the “madness” of Lovecraft’s cosmic horror and actually makes you experience it.

The horror of the shadow over innsmouth is built from the fear of an eldritch being and, of course, thinly veiled xenophobia and racism. The fear of something so grand and alien and “unknowable” is coupled with the fear of a different race of people with different a different culture. The cherry on top, the final twist that creates “madness” for the main character in that story is him finishing out that he might have a familial tie to the gross evil fish people of Innsmouth. I’m like, simplifying a lot, but that’s the gist of it.

Bloodborne takes the imagery and intended feelings there, and removes them from Lovecraft’s xenophobic nonsense, and then actually imbues the experience of madness to them. I don’t mean the mechanic of frenzy. I mean, Yharnam is built from the wealth of blood ministration. It’s built on the exploitation of the old ones, and it’s that same exploitation that’s responsible for the nightmare and the hunt. It’s easy to blame Laurence, to say he should’ve feared the old blood, but then you come across him in the dlc, splayed out in a pose mirroring Jesus in The Pietà, or the plaster Cast From Nautre in the Edinburgh Surgeons Hall Museum. When you fight him, his body breaks apart and he pathetically flails around the cathedral floor, lava or maybe burning blood pouring out from him. In this way, the game creates empathy for Laurence. He wanted to use the blood to heal people, after all.

Almost every character in the game is like this. Gehrman, Lady Maria, Gascoigne, Gilbert, Iosefka, Imposter Iosefka, Ebrietas, thé Brain of Mensis, Flora, Kos, the Orphan, the Doll. The pain and suffering caused and endured by all these characters is absurd. And if you, the player, see this pain and then try to unravel the mysteries of this world, try to understand why it happened and how it could be averted, healed, judged, you fall narratively in the same trap. The world isn’t exactly knowable, and there isn’t any way to fix anything. This is the madness that I’m talking about. I’ve been thinking about the characters in this game incessantly for years now, and, because Bloodborne is a tragedy that has already unfolded, there is nothing I can do for any of them.

You can consume 3 thirds of an umbilical cord, kill gehrman and flora and transcend your human form, but you’re such a fundamentally different being at that point, who knows if you’ll even remember or care to do anything for this world.

It creates this kind of feeling, this kind of horror for me.

[bomberqueen17]

my personal hell

LOL ok so. I've been in buffalo for a week now. And i bought a car, which wasn't nothing. But I've had like. a small to-do list. We had every window in the house replaced (except for one, hilariously, which will remain as a testament to the original state of the house; it was enclosed by a three-season porch and so is a window from an interior room to an, effectively, seasonally, interior room, so we opted not to change it. we do open it in the summer. the cat loves it.) so all of the furniture was stacked against interior walls and, the house being from 1950 and having plaster walls, everything was covered in a fine layer of plaster dust. so i was gonna clean up and then put the furniture back. Simple, right? Dust things, shove things. No problem.

But like. there were shelves from the bathroom stacked in the office and I realized the contents of the shelves were untouched dusty things we'd forgotten about, so I took everything off those shelves first. Had to get those sorted, and back into the bathroom, before we could rearrange the office furniture, yeah? So I sat down Saturday morning to start on that, so we could rearrange the office furniture in the afternoon.

uh it's Wednesday my dudes, and I'm still working on that. It turns out there were depths of despair there and in the linen closet, things untouched for a decade, silted-in. I found jewelry I took off while traveling in 2012 and left in the travel toiletries organizer, and then have spent a decade looking for and pining after and trying unsuccessfully to replace. I found a very sentimental ring in a ziploc baggie in a box, lost for at least nine years. I found countless cosmetics and toiletries that dated back as far as 1998. (I haven't quite thown out that lipstick I used to wear clubbing and for sloppy lesbian makeouts in bathrooms in Edinburgh. It's no good anymore and it has to go, but. Oh man. That was this lifetime and that was me. Really???? I never did figure out how to wear lipstick without it looking really stupid after the first drink/kiss etc, I don't think there's actually a trick I just think everyone else is more patient with reapplications than my ronald mcdonald ass.)

I went out yesterday, big outing in my new car, and bought new storage bins, hopefully to corral and sort things. But it turns out my personal brain holes are myriad and vast and deep when it comes specifically to sorting and categorizing items. It's tiny decisions I simply lack the capacity to make. Every single item I pull out and try to sort into a pile and I wind up with not discrete piles of categories, but rather a single flat layer across the entire surface, with each object in its own pile because I do not know how to sort it.

And I know what happens if I sort things into a cute storage basket: it will sit there, untouched, until some calamity makes me haul the entire thing out and upend it.

So, I don't really know what to do, and I have achieved nothing else of note in the last four days. I have made an unholy mess of the office, where the furniture is still stacked, unusable, against the non-window wall, and now the floor is covered in shit. I've hauled out two big trashbags (ok, one big and one small trashbag) of things that are unequivocally expired and unusable, things I well-meaningly filed in the memory hole in 2012 or so when I bought that shelf and then never touched again, things I've just learned to do without, forgetting I owned them.

So anyway I'll probably die here, RIP.

But at least I got to use the nifty cargo net that came with my new car to hold the overpriced clear plastic storage bins I bought at TJ Maxx in place in the trunk of my beautiful new car, so that's now going to get filed and never used again but at least I used it once. It's so fancy! Bye.

[titleleaf]

Experiments In Early Victorian Skincare: Unguentum Resinosum

(Note: since Tumblr seems to be making text posts deliberately inaccessible to anyone not logged into a Tumblr account, I'm still crossposting these posts to the Gallipot Project stand-alone blog over on Wordpress.)

This element of the project I stumbled upon while reading about Royal Navy medicine chests — even in all the excitement and anxiety of the recovery of Erebus and Terror, with plenty of discussion of the potential to glean information from what the crew left behind, it slipped my mind that among the relics recovered from the final Franklin expedition there might be actual medicaments (or at least their residues) left behind. My brain is a thick sludge right now due to a spicy range of events, but I wanted to give a little more detail about this chapter in my experiments.

Unguents Of Historical Significance

The original item that served as the springboard for this was a component of the Victory Point medicine chest recovered by Lt. William Hobson with the McClintock expedition of 1857. The medicine chest and its contents are now in the Royal Museums Greenwich collection. For more on the chest, I recommend this series of posts by S.L. over at 70 North Beset, which includes a wonderful guide to the chest’s cryptically-labeled contents and their uses.

The item we're discussing is by all appearances mislabeled, or rather stored in a repurposed container with a label indicating its previous contents. (If you've ever kept Band-Aids in an Altoids tin or safety pins in a medicine bottle, you're carrying on a proud tradition.) There's no image of the container by itself on the RMG's website, but I believe it's the round black container with the octagonal paper label on the bottom left here, just above the sticking-plaster box.

Image © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London

(so what the fuck is that supposed to be?)

Franklin expedition research frequent-flier Richard J. Cyriax’s “A Historic Medicine Chest”, published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in 1947, describes the box and its contents as follows:

a circular metal box said on a label to contain ground ginger but actually containing what seems to be an ointment, now dried up almost into a ball. McClintock’s inventory mentions a box containing shrunk ointment, and no other article in the chest agrees with his description. The ointment is of a light yellow colour and possesses no definite odour; it may be “unguentum resinae”, which was very often used in surgical practice.

Okay, great, but wtf is unguentum resinae? I took this recipe from the 1830 Edinburgh New Dispensatory, compiled by Andrew Duncan, professor of materia medica at the University of Edinburgh.

Presto, salve plus resin.

So yeah, there are a lot of different salves in play in this era, some of them damn close in formulation. As much as I like making funky little unguents, making a full slate of these recipes might be overkill. This same text contains a whole mess of recipes for other liniments, ointments, cerates, and plasters, including a half-dozen variations on the theme of “some proportion of some kind of fat + some proportion of wax, white or yellow”. Duncan’s description continues on the next page:

THESE [presumably meaning the preceding recipes], which are varieties of the basilicon ointment, are commonly employed in dressings for digesting, cleansing, and incarnating wounds and ulcers.

(Basilicon ointments supposedly achieved this effect by, uh, causing pus production. Thanks, I hate it.)

Side note: If a salve is oil-based, how can it dry up, like the sample in the ginger container? This is how my dumb ass learned that oils can indeed evaporate over time. Presumably the inclement weather conditions at Victory Point didn’t help, but it’d be an interesting experiment for a long-haul-minded Franklin enthusiast to keep a tin of this stuff around over the course of years to see how it responds.

What is this salve for? Why carry it all the way to Victory Point? Why abandon it there? Honestly, I find these questions pretty confounding, starting with the first — the use of unguentum resinae appears to have been so wide and unremarkable that I’m not getting a lot of detailed information about how they were meant to be applied, and the information I am getting is very much framed like you (the presumed-medically-trained reader) should know this shit already. The recovered medicine chest also contains a stockpile of materials used for bandaging and dressing wounds: bandages, lint, sticking plasters, and cotton wool. So wound care definitely seems like a focus of this set, and I’d wager this salve’s use fits right into that mix.  One interesting thing that both Cyriax and the writer over at 70 North Beset remark upon is that the Victory Point medicine chest is unlikely to have been a government article issued to the ships’ officially recognized medical personnel; even to my eye, it lacks any obvious broad-arrow branding. Was this some random officer’s personal supply? Was it carried to supplement official medicine chests or perhaps salvaged from a late officer’s belongings? I’m looking forward to more news from the wrecks to see if they shed any more light on the material culture of medicine aboard Erebus and Terror.

I encountered a source remarking that “unguentum resinae” was simply a drawing salve by another name — this assertion gave me pause since I’m used to “drawing salve” itself being another name for black salve, a whole category of corrosive salve used in bogus cancer cures that you should absolutely, absolutely not use on any part of your body. But drawing salves are a whole category of their own in folk medicine (including folk veterinary medicine) and were very much in use during the 19th century, without necessarily entailing the corrosive effect of sanguinarine and its eschariotic sisters.

In turn, what kind of salve did I make? I made two batches, one plant-based salve with more similarities to ceratum resinae, and one pork lard salve more closely replicating the Edinburgh formulation for unguentum resinae/resinosum. The recipe for either salve is pretty damn straightforward, so I didn’t feel driven to document all the double-boilering and pouring here; the only tricky element was sourcing my pine resin. Lots of people go out and wildcraft their own tree resins, which is fully possible but not something I have access to; I bought my resin from a Canadian retailer selling food-grade pine resin for wax wrap-making.

For my first non-lard rendition of this salve (sort of an “inspired by” version) I took cues regarding the proportions of liquid oil:butter:beeswax:resin from modern salving. Folk medicine practitioners still use similar pine resin salves as a topical treatment for minor wounds, an anti-inflammatory joint rub, or a reliever of chest congestion — it’s also a pretty basic emollient for dry skin and these are the uses I focus on when I make salves for myself/my loved ones, rather than dressing more serious wounds. If you tweak your ratios, you can also use the same basic elements to make reusable beeswax wraps for food storage; this is actually the stated purpose behind the pine rein I sourced, since I’d feel some qualms about using resin earmarked for specifically holistic purposes in my silly living history project.

For my second batch, I used the same resin and beeswax but paired them with a pork-derived lard. I put this round off at first due to hesitation around how to best source a non-hydrogenated rendered lard. Since concerns about shelf-stability were the motivation behind my first oil-based batch, I didn’t want to go about rendering my own pork fat au naturel or buy the $25/lb impossibly-bougie Epic lard aimed at keto/paleo people who have Whole Foods $$, but I also didn’t want to go with your Armour lard in a shelf-stable brick — I ended up tracking down a local butcher shop that renders their own.

Honestly this version came together even more smoothly than the previous version — I crushed my resin into smaller pieces rather than waiting for big old rocks to melt down, and the lard gave a more slick, less “tugging” consistency to the resulting balm. It doesn’t smell meaty or pork-like at all; there’s a faint odor of wood resin, but that’s it, and if I didn’t care for that it would be pretty easy to doctor up with essential oils. I will say that at room temperature the consistency seems a little firm for use in a plaster, but I might need to glob it on more generously and allow body heat to soften things up. A little bit of a raw deal for those dealing with polar weather extremes, but maybe unavoidable.

How would you make a natural preparation using approximately 1840s ingredients that remained soft and spreadable at colder temperatures? Honestly, I don’t know if this is something people planned for, since abandoning ship wasn’t anyone’s first choice, but it would have been relatively easy. Increasing the proportion of fats/oils to beeswax is one way to adapt any fat/wax recipe for colder weather use, but another option I can think of could be using fats/oils that solidify at lower temperature points. Some useful data there you probably know off the cuff — if you put olive oil in a cold fridge, it’ll solidify into a chunk; if you keep your coconut oil out at room temperature, you can tell the weather’s warming up when it goes fully liquid in the jar — but for better suggestions than that I had to resort to Modern Science.

I’m based in the US and use Fahrenheit most often but this is a pretty clear case where Celsius is superior. The Franklin expedition crews were dealing with outside temps of -40° and lower, and while interior temperatures (as long as the ships’ heating systems held out) weren’t nearly as nippy, they might well have been in the “your Costco coconut oil remains firm and opaque” range. If they wanted emulsified oil-based salves with maximum spreadability at ambient temperature, something runnier from the low end of the freeze/melt temp scale might have been handy.

[For a table listing different values here, head over to the blog!]

Not all of these are suitable for salvemaking (linseed oil, my old enemy) but castor oil is feasible, for instance. I might make up some compare-and-contrast salves to explore this but uhhhh not any time soon, because I already have so many fucking salves. The plant oil-based salves are up for sale on my Bigcartel site now -- would you be interested in buying a beef tallow-based salve? Speak up in the comments and let me know!

Overall I’m very pleased with the result of my salve-making, and the smaller or nonexistent amount of butter ingredients like cocoa butter should hopefully prevent the slight granularity that some of my other creations have developed in cooling. I like the tallow-based salve a little better and its emollient consistency is lovely.

How skin-safe is this product? The biggest issue is that pine resin is a well-known trigger for dermatological issues like contact dermatitis. If you know you’re allergic to it, please don’t make this recipe or buy salves containing it! You have way better options for wound care than a stranded Victorian sailor.

How vegan is this product? Well, not at all vegan, in either variation, due to the beeswax. I have gotten my hands on some vegan waxes, so sound off if you’d be interested in a purely plant-based version of this recipe too, or another exploration of Early Victorian receipts adapted to modern methods.

Meanwhile… I get to figure out what I’m going to do with the rest of this lard.

[pwlanier]

Salvador Dalí, Lobster Telephone, 1938

This iconic sculpture is one of the most instantly recognisable masterpieces of Surrealism, the art movement that emerged in Paris in the 1920s, which explored the world of dreams and the subconscious mind. It consists of an ordinary, working telephone, upon which rests a plaster lobster, specially made to fit directly over the receiver.

The Surrealists loved the idea of unrelated objects coming together to create a new kind of reality, which subverted the rational and tapped into the subconscious. The bizarre combination of a phone and a lobster is at once absurd, repellent, fascinating and menacing, yet it is nevertheless a fully functioning phone.

Lobster Telephone was made in 1938 for Edward James (1907-1984), Dalí’s main patron in the 1930s. Eleven of the plaster lobster receivers were made to fit to telephones at James’s house in Wimpole Street, central London and at his country house, Monkton, in West Sussex. Four of the lobsters were painted red, and seven were painted white. The Lobster Telephones are now almost all in museum collections around the world: the Tate in London has a red version on a black telephone.

This white version remained with the Edward James Foundation, in West Sussex. It was recently sold at auction and would have left Britain, but in view of its artistic and historical importance, it was subject to an export license deferral. Issued on behalf of the Secretary of State, this allows UK museums the chance to match the auction price. Thanks to the Henry and Sula Walton Fund, which was established to help the National Galleries acquire major works of modern art, and a grant from Art Fund, the work was saved and goes on show at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh for the first time today.

Edward James was born in 1907 at his family’s summer house, Greywalls, in Gullane, near North Berwick in East Lothian. His family was immensely wealthy, owning a vast estate at West Dean, near Chichester in West Sussex. Edward came into his inheritance in his twenties and used much of it to support the arts: he is best known as the patron of Salvador Dalí and René Magritte in the 1930s. He met Dalí in 1934 and the two became close friends. Dalí visited James in London on several occasions and James bought many of the artist’s greatest work, straight off the easel, hanging them at his houses in London and West Sussex.

From the mid-1930s, James had both residences redesigned and given Surrealist makeovers. Dalí designed furnishings including the celebrated Mae West Lips sofas, which were shaped in the form of the Hollywood actress’s lips, tall lampstands in the form of stacked champagne glasses, and the famous Lobster Telephones.

The idea for the Lobster Telephone dates back to a drawing Dalí made in 1935. The plaster lobsters were commissioned by James from the London design firm Green & Abbott (which also fabricated the Mae West sofas) in the summer of 1938. Dalí and James visited Sigmund Freud in Hampstead in July and this may have given them the idea of actually making the objects. Cast in plaster, hollowed out underneath, and with a hole in the tail to take the telephone flex, they fit perfectly over the standard receivers of the period. The Surrealists’ love of the irrational was instantly and brilliantly embodied in a household object in daily use.

The Lobster Telephone is the most iconic of all Surrealist ‘Object Sculptures’: these became a craze in the 1930s, with Man Ray, Miró, Magritte, Giacometti and Roland Penrose among the many who made them. Instead of making a traditional sculpture by modelling with clay or carving in marble, the Surrealist artists took pre-existing objects, put them together, or changed them slightly, and then exhibited them. It was like 3D collage. From a practical point of view, it allowed artists with no training in sculpture to produce sculptural objects. From an artistic point of view, it enabled artists to produce bizarre objects which instantly challenged conventional notions of reality and normality.

The National Galleries of Scotland has one of the world’s greatest collections of Surrealist art, including major paintings by René Magritte, Joan Miró, Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, Toyen, Yves Tanguy, Max Ernst, Leonora Carrington and others, and sculptures by Alberto Giacometti. However, until now there has been no major Object Sculpture in the collection: they were quickly assembled for exhibition at the time, and were often simply discarded - so they are rare.

Although Edward James amassed an unrivalled collection of Surrealist art, much of it was sold off in the 1970s and 1980s. The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art’s summer exhibition of 2016, Surreal Encounters, was partly based on Edward James’s collection.

Courtesy Alain Truong

[your-queer-dad]

Hi!!

Sorry. Idk if you remember me, but this is a bit of a follow up to my last ask where I was freaking out over the Edinburgh Tattoo and shit.

First off, thanks for the response 💖 It really made my day :)

Second. The Tattoo's been going great!! :D

I've been having literally so much fun doing it :). Especially in the finale. We play this really fun song and the audience really gets into it and waves their flashlights around and they look like stars and it's all I can do to not have just the biggest smile plastered on my face :).

I am still struggling with some of the Massed bands tunes. But I'm there for the most part, and what I'm struggling with, I've got 11 other bands there to help lol :)

Thank you!! 💖

Hey kiddo!! Of course I remember you!! I'm really glad it's going well, and I wish you all the luck in the world and I hope you have an amazing time!!

- dad x

[plasterersedi]

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[callsign-owl]

Birthday Celebrations

Edinburgh, Scotland - June 2007

The grand ballroom of Archibald‘s estate glittered under the light of numerous chandeliers, their brilliance reflecting off the polished marble floors. The room was filled with the soft hum of polite conversation and the clink of crystal glasses as guests mingled, their laughter mingling with the strains of a live string quartet playing in the background.

Owl stood near the edge of the room, his bright red hair a striking contrast to the dark suit he wore. He stood out sharply against the more conservative attire of the other guests. Owl fiddled with the cuff of his black shirt, feeling distinctly out of place amid the grandeur. His eyes wandered to the elegant spread of hors d'oeuvres and the towering birthday cake that seemed more a work of art than something edible.

Archibald, tall and imposing even in his late years, approached his grandson with a rare smile. His neatly groomed hair and traditional suit were a testament to his timeless style and conservative values. He placed a hand on Owl’s shoulder, his grip firm yet surprisingly gentle.

“*redacted*,” he began, his deep-set eyes meeting the green ones of his grandson. “I’m glad you’re here. I know this isn’t quite according to your taste, but it’s important to mark these milestones properly.”

Owl nodded. The party might not be to his taste, but the gesture behind it, and the respect and affection from his grandfather, made all the difference. “Thank you, Grandfather. I do appreciate the effort. It’s… quite something.”

Archibald chuckled softly. “Yes, quite something indeed. You’re eighteen now, a man in your own right. It’s time you start thinking about your future, about the legacy you’ll leave behind.”

Owl shifted uncomfortably, glancing around the room at the unfamiliar faces. “I know, but I’m not exactly the legacy type.”

Archibald’s eyes softened, and he gave Owl’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “You’re a part of this family. We all have our roles to play, but that doesn’t mean you have to follow the same path as everyone else. I’ve always admired your intelligence and your unique way of seeing the world. Use that to your advantage and forge your own path.”

Across the room, Bartholomew stood near a cluster of business associates, his eyes occasionally flicking towards Owl with a look of mild disdain. He was there in body, but his mind was clearly elsewhere, more focused on maintaining appearances than celebrating his son’s milestone. Percival, ever the charming and sociable one, was engaged in conversation with a group of politicians, his laughter ringing out occasionally.

Archibald followed Owl’s gaze and sighed. “Your father and brother have their own ways of showing they care. Even if it’s not always obvious, remember that.”

Owl nodded again, despite not really believing his grandfather’s words. “I will.”

Archibald smiled, a rare, genuine expression that softened his stern features. “Now, let’s get you a drink. Eighteen is a significant age, and it deserves a proper toast.”

He guided Owl through the throng of guests, navigating with ease through the clusters of people. Owl couldn’t help but notice the way everyone seemed to part for his grandfather, their respectful nods and whispered acknowledgments a testament to Archibald's influence.

As they reached the bar that had been set up in a corner of the room, the bartender, a well-dressed man with a courteous smile, quickly poured two glasses of champagne. Archibald handed one to Owl a, his expression serious but warm.

“To your future, *redacted*,” Archibald said, raising his glass. “May you find your own path and leave a mark that is uniquely yours.”

Owl clinked his glass against his grandfather’s, feeling a surge of emotion he wasn’t entirely comfortable with. “To the future,” he echoed, taking a sip of the champagne.

As they stood there, sipping their drinks, Owl noticed Percival making his way towards them, a charming smile plastered on his face. “Well, if it isn’t the man of the hour,” Percival said, clapping Owl on the back. “Eighteen, huh? Feels like just yesterday you were running around causing trouble.”

Owl smirked. “Still causing trouble, just on a larger scale now.”

Percival laughed. “I wouldn’t expect anything less from you, little brother.”

Archibald chuckled at the exchange, his eyes twinkling with a rare warmth. "You two are quite the pair," he said, his voice carrying a note of pride.

As the three of them stood together, a hush fell over the room, signaling that a speech was about to begin. Bartholomew stepped forward, commanding the attention of the room with a mere raise of his hand. The murmur of conversation ceased, and all eyes turned towards him.

"Thank you all for joining us this evening," Bartholomew began, his voice steady and authoritative. "We are here to celebrate my son *redacted*'s eighteenth birthday, a significant milestone in his life."

Owl felt a mixture of anticipation and dread. Public attention was never something he relished, but he steeled himself, knowing his father’s speeches were always about appearances and not about genuine sentiment.

"*redacted*," Bartholomew continued, his gaze settling on his son, "you have always marched to the beat of your own drum, and while that has often caused... challenges, it has also shown your unique strengths and capabilities. As you step into adulthood, I hope you will find a way to harness those strengths for the greater good."

There was a polite round of applause, and Owl forced a smile, nodding in acknowledgment. He knew his father’s words were merely for show, a carefully crafted performance for the assembled guests. The empty praise and formal compliments were devoid of genuine sentiment, a façade that did little to mask the underlying indifference.

---

As the guests began to mingle once more, Archibald’s sharp eyes never left Bartholomew. He saw through the polished facade of his son’s speech, understanding the disapproval that simmered just below the surface. With a nod to Owl and Percival, he excused himself and made his way towards Bartholomew.

“Bartholomew,” Archibald said, his voice cutting through the chatter, “a word, if you please.”

Bartholomew turned, a flash of annoyance crossing his features before he masked it with a polite smile. “Of course, Father,” he replied, excusing himself from his companions. He followed Archibald to a quieter corner of the grand ballroom, away from prying ears.

Once they were alone, Archibald fixed Bartholomew with a steely gaze. “Your speech was well-received,” he began, his tone measured. “But you and I both know the truth behind your words.”

Bartholomew's smile faded, replaced by a cold, impassive expression. “Father, I don’t know what you’re implying. I simply wished to acknowledge *redacted*s achievements and encourage him to think about his future.”

“Spare me the pleasantries, Bartholomew,” Archibald snapped, his patience thin. “I’ve known you all your life. I see the way you look at *redacted*, the contempt in your eyes. Your disapproval of him is not as much of a secret as you might believe.”

Bartholomew's jaw tightened, but he remained silent, allowing his father to continue.

“*redacted* may not fit the mold you’ve crafted for him, but he is still your son. He deserves respect and support, not disdain and constant criticism.”

Bartholomew's eyes hardened, a stubborn glint appearing in them. “*redacted* is a disappointment, Father. He has no ambition, no drive. He refuses to conform to the expectations placed upon him, and that is unacceptable. Our legacy demands more than his half-hearted efforts and unconventional behavior.”

Archibald took a step closer, his voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. “And what has your treatment of him accomplished? Have your harsh words and rigid expectations shaped him into the man you want him to be? Or have they only driven him further away?”

Bartholomew’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I do what is necessary to uphold our family name. If *redacted* cannot rise to the occasion, then he will face the consequences of his actions.”

Archibald shook his head, a mixture of frustration and disappointment in his eyes. “You may be able to fool those around you with your public displays, but I see the damage you’re doing. *redacted* is more than capable of greatness, but he needs support, not condemnation.”

“Father, *redacted*'s behavior is a liability” Bartholomew insisted, his tone cold. “He needs to be shaped, molded into someone who can contribute to the family’s success.”

“And at what cost?” Archibald demanded. “Will you sacrifice his spirit, his individuality, just to fit him into your narrow vision of success? You’re pushing him away, Bartholomew, and you will regret it.”

Bartholomew’s expression remained unchanged, his resolve unshaken. “I will do what I must.”

Archibald sighed, a weary look crossing his face. “You may be set in your ways, but mark my words, Bartholomew: you are driving a wedge between yourself and your son that may never be repaired. Think on that before it’s too late.” With that, Archibald turned and walked away, leaving Bartholomew standing alone in the corner.

----

Owl watched as his grandfather and father moved to a quieter corner of the room, their serious expressions indicating a conversation he was certain he'd prefer to avoid. Percival, having fulfilled his brotherly duties with a few laughs and back pats, had wandered off to charm more guests, leaving Owl to his own devices.

Owl eyed the champagne in his hand with mild disdain. The bubbly liquid wasn't exactly his drink of choice, but it was what was available. Owl was no stranger to alcohol, despite the pretense of tonight's "coming of age" celebration.  He drained his glass and placed it on the bar, nodding to the bartender for a refill. The bartender quickly obliged.

Owl took the new glass and sipped it slowly, his eyes scanning the room. He watched the guests, their practiced smiles and polite conversations, the way they maneuvered through social interactions with ease. It all felt so foreign to Owl, like watching a well-rehearsed play where he didn't know any of his lines.

The celebration's lively atmosphere began to feel stifling for Owl. The constant hum of conversation and the pressure of maintaining appearances weighed heavily on him. With a sigh, he glanced around, ensuring no one would notice his departure, and slipped quietly out of the room, making his way to the one place in the estate where he felt a semblance of peace: his grandfather's library.

Owl walked through the grand hallways of his grandfather's estate, the sounds of the ballroom fading behind him. The walls were lined with portraits of stern-faced ancestors, their gazes following him as he made his way to the library. He pushed open the heavy wooden doors and stepped inside, breathing a sigh of relief as the quiet, book-lined room welcomed him.

The library was a sanctuary, filled with the rich scent of aged leather and old paper. Shelves lined the walls from floor to ceiling, housing a vast collection of books on every subject imaginable. A large, ornate desk sat near a tall window that overlooked the manicured gardens outside. Owl crossed the room and sank into a deep leather armchair near the window, feeling the tension ease from his shoulders.

He lost track of time as he sat there, the distant sounds of the party fading into the background. His thoughts wandered to his mother, May, and the stories he’d pieced together about her. He often wondered if she had ever felt as out of place in these grand settings as he did.

The soft creak of the library door brought Owl back to the present. He looked up to see his grandfather, Archibald, entering the room. Archibald's presence, though commanding, was softer here, away from the crowd and the facade of the celebration.

"*redacted*," Archibald said, his voice breaking the silence. "I thought I might find you here."

Owl straightened in his chair, feeling a mix of surprise and apprehension. "Grandfather," he replied. "I just needed a break from the party."

Archibald nodded, his expression understanding. He walked over to one of the shelves and ran his fingers along the spines of the books. "It can be overwhelming, all the socializing and expectations. This room has always been a haven for me as well."

Owl watched his grandfather, noting the weariness in his movements. "I didn't mean to leave the party so abruptly. I just... needed some space."

"I understand," Archibald said, finally turning to face Owl. "You are not obligated to fit into a mold that doesn't suit you. But you should know that your presence was appreciated, even if it felt uncomfortable."

Owl nodded, feeling a mix of relief and guilt. "I just don't belong in that world. I'm not like them."

"No," Archibald agreed, "you are not. And that is not a failing, *redacted*.  You see the world differently, and that perspective is valuable. It's something I admire about you."

Owl looked down, absorbing his grandfather's words. "It's hard to feel that way when everyone expects me to be something I'm not."

Archibald walked over and placed a hand on Owl's shoulder, his grip firm and reassuring. "You are a *redacted*. But more importantly, you are yourself. Find your own path, and don't let anyone, not even your father, tell you what you should be."

Owl looked up at his grandfather, seeing the sincerity in his eyes. "Thank you, Grandfather. It means a lot to hear you say that."

Archibald gave a rare, warm smile. "You're welcome. Now, shall we return to the party? Or would you prefer to stay here a while longer?"

"I think I'd like to stay here for a bit," Owl admitted.

"Very well," Archibald said, patting his shoulder before turning to leave. "Take all the time you need."

[hypersonic04]

Aaaaaah just so you know, I love you so much and you are an exceptional writer.

I’ve been thinking about teacher! ross and reader going on Duke of Edinburgh with their students 😭😭😭 I don’t know if it’s just me but I absolutely hated DofE

i love you too!! that is the loveliest compliment, thank you so so much for reading what i post, it means so much. people on the internet that use their precious time to read the delusions i write in my bedroom! you're the best!

Oh, I love love love this. I never did DofE, but my brother did, so I'm going to use that as my references. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong lol (i definitely will be wrong). I'm pretty sure I also would've hated it, anon.

The weather is a bit shitty, you've got walking boots on that you hate, and you're not exactly the biggest lover of a long walk, but having Ross there makes it all the more bearable. When he was sorting his stuff out that morning, he packed two of everything - another flask with tea in it, a snack bar of sorts, maybe some plasters because you were complaining about how your work shoes were rubbing your heels the other day. He's smiling to himself as he remembers you hopping around with one shoe on to your resource cupboard, almost hearing the way you were laughing at your own clumsiness (something you hate, but he finds so endearing).

Anyway, I think you've set off and you're on the walk, and you're just talking about anything and everything. Similar to the school trip, it's ended up with the two of you behind all the kids. He brings up music and you end up talking about your favourite bands and whatnot, which makes him fall even more in love with you when you both realise you have very similar taste. I think maybe you stumble a bit and he catches your elbow, a hand on your shoulder too, steadying you. You thank him graciously, cheeks a bit pink.

You get to where you're pitching your tents up, and I think he's having a bit of a mare. The kids are giggling at him as he struggles with it, so he's grateful when you're to the rescue.

"Thought you didn't like camping, hm?" He teases, nudging your side with his elbow as you hammer the spike into the ground (he finds it very attractive, like yeah he knows you're an independant, self-sufficient woman, but he's still flustered).

"I don't!" You giggle, him shaking his head as you expertly pitch the tent.

Fast-forward to the evening - all the kids have made their meals and are in their tents, exhausted after a day of walking, and it's just you and Ross up. You're sat in those pop up camping chairs, your heads essentially touching as you both look at something he's showing you on his phone. Maybe it's a video of his nephew and you're both giggling, and it's like an insight into your future life. It's very wholesome, the light of the campfire and the blankets wrapped around you both as you talk in whispers, trying not to wake the kids up. You share a bag of sweets, him leaving you your favourites, and it's just so cute <3

[busyinsnips]

On Angel Wings Mylands Emulsion, Plaster Bandage, Acrylic & Crayon on Found Wood (Block – Granton Harbour Driftwood – Seafield Beach, Edinburgh) H: 39 x W: 12 x D: 12 cm (approx) | 2 March 2024

© www.busytinsnips.co.uk

@busytinsnips

[blukrown]

A Night To Remember - Soap/Gaz

GAZ WEEK 2023 - PUBLIC SEX

Soap and Gaz decide to go out when they meet up during their leave. Intending to go out and support each other in finding someone to take home with them . . . but they decide there is another way to enjoy each other's company.

Or read on AO3

Contains: Use of alcohol (tipsy), public sex & voyeurism

Gaz and Soap had decided to meet up while they were both on leave.

Gaz had three more days on his, visiting his parents and dropping by Edinburgh to see an old friend. And Soap had just landed and was taking some personal time before heading up north to visit his family.

Soap, having escaped to the city often since his teens, said he had to take Gaz to his favorite gay bar downtown.

“Ye’re tellin’ me ye haven’t hooked up at all while ye’ve been away?” The Scot had asked, not hiding his genuine shock.

“Try not to rub it in, would you.” Gaz said with a sigh of disappointment. “I tried goin’ on apps but got nowhere. Figured I’d go dry.”

Soap had grinned then, promising they’d go out and he’d make sure they both got their dicks wet. Gaz was skeptical but could never deny an invite from his friend. 

So, the two had dressed in their best clubbing attire and met outside the venue. Gaz was in tight black pants with a handsome purple short-sleeve button-up, all his chest on display until the last button before it was tucked in under his belt and pants. And Soap wore ripped and torn jeans, tightened to his waist with a thick black belt. His chest pretty much bare except for the thin mesh black top. 

“Dressing to impress me, are you?” Gaz had smiled as they waited to get inside.

Soap had smirked then, “Yes. Is it working?”

Gaz let his eyes linger on his hairy chest and stomach, muscles defined and skin warm and tan. “Very.” He said simply with a sly smile.

Soap had looked chuffed, sticking close by Gaz’s side for the rest of the wait, shoulders often brushing.

The two sergeants had hooked up in the past, mostly because of lack of ass on base but also pure boredom. They were nothing serious and weren’t planning on being anything more than friends who sometimes slept together. They just got a kick out of it. Flirting, toying and playing with each other. Trust, arousal, and amusement make a very enjoyable combination. 

Gaz had a suspicion he was getting laid tonight, whether it was a random clubgoer or Soap remained to be seen. Either way, he was excited to get into the club.

The bar was loud and dark except for flashing disco lights. Already crowded with people either milling to talk or swaying away on the dance floor. Shots and drinks were quickly skulled until Gaz and Soap were both drunk with liquid courage and took to the dance floor.

The next few hours were a lot of fun, the music was good and the company wonderful. Even with the lack of interesting people surrounding them. That was not to say Gaz and Soap were not being hit on, but none of them were particularly attractive or charming enough to get more out of the sergeants than a quick dance or acceptance of a free drink.

Once there was a lull in the music, the two retreated to a quieter section of the bar. Sitting close on a worn, leather couch that was pushed to a far wall.

Soap had dropped down on the couch and sighed, “Ah’m starting to believe there isn’t any stunners in here except for us.”

Gaz nodded with sad agreement. “I know, ‘bit of a downer really.”

Soap snorted, nudging Gaz, “Don’t act too disappointed. Ye got me after all!”

Gaz looked Soap up and down for what was surely the tenth time tonight. Soaking in the view of Soap’s sweat-glistening body. His hair plastered to his head and the mesh of his top clinging to his chest. He was still out of breath from dancing but it looked effortless. And there was that glint of excitement in his eyes that always had Gaz on his toes.

Gaz grinned. “You’re right you know, I do have you.”

Sick of waiting for someone else to make a move on either himself or Soap, eyes having often stared at Soap as he danced, grinned and laughed. Gaz thought there was nothing wrong with going with the familiar option.

He leaned over and, with one hand holding Soap’s chin, kissed him. It was a simple, hungry press of lips. Offering but not demanding.

Soap gladly took the invite immediately, barely leaving Gaz to wait a single moment more before he pushed back in the kiss. Both of his warm, calloused hands reaching out and cupping Gaz’s face to keep him close.

They moved on the couch so that their faces and chests facing each other while their outer thighs touched. Both of their hands clutching to keep themselves close. Having a taste at just what they had missed for the past few months since their last encounter.

Gaz loved how Soap kissed. Eagerly and unashamed. Tongue pressing to join lips, unabashed to gasp when Gaz bit at his lip or pulled at the back of his mohawk to reposition. He was so reactive, so excepting. Gaz felt himself getting hard quickly as they sat, making out on the couch.

Soap seemed just as aroused. Moving from Gaz’s side to climb onto his lap. Uncaring when he pressed his own clothed erection flush against Gaz’s.

If anything, it encouraged the Scot. Letting out a heedy sigh through his nose, his arms draping over Gaz’s shoulders. His hips then ground down, rubbing the two of them together.

Gaz gasped, letting his lips abandon Soap’s even when he chased after them. “S-Seriously? Here?” Asking as he knew just what Soap was planning on doing if Gaz did not reel him in.

“Why not?” Soap said in a loudened whisper in his ear, smirk ever audible. “Even if someone sees, they should call ‘emselves lucky to see hotties like us havin’ at it.”

Gaz had the thought to object, concerned to be caught or worse asked to leave. But Soap was looking at him with that goading look in his eyes. Ever the Scot’s willing accomplice and fuck, was he so horny now. Just those few brushes of heat against heat getting him to full mast. It would be painful to evacuate, especially in the now achingly restricted pants he wore.

Gaz bit his bottom lip as he took his hands to either side of Soap’s hips. How could he ever even try to resist him? 

“Make it quick,” Gaz said in a low huff.

Soap’s grin was wide and bright, “Oh, don’t worry I won’t keep ye’ waitin’.”

He then rolled his hips, using his body weight to rub their erections together. His mouth smothering Gaz’s lips with open kisses even as they both groaned for the other with each thrust of Soap’s hips.

“F-Fuck,” Gaz grimaced, his hands squeezing at Soap’s waist. “Y-You’re insane.”

“And ye’ like me all the more for it.” Soap said gruffly back. 

Soap quickened his pace, now almost in tandem with the thudding of the club’s music. The base rhythm vibrated through Gaz’s bones whilst Soap ground down onto him with delicious eagerness.

It wasn’t enough. Gaz wanted more. Wanted to touch Soap all over with his fingers, tongue and whatever else. He could feel himself nearing his end but he did not want it to finish here. If he was going to have at it with John ‘Soap’ Mactavish, he didn’t want an appetizer, he wanted the whole damn meal.

“Not . . . Not yet, John. I- ngh, I want more,” Gaz whimpered, his eyes rolling in the back of his head at a particularly good grind.

“What?” John said, holding at Gaz’s chin to steady his face so he was forced to look at him. “Ye’ think this’ll be it? Oh, don’t worry Kyle , the night’s only just beginning.” Gaz audibly whimpered at that, grateful when Soap’s lips were on his, giving him something to focus on outside of the building pleasure with each of Soap’s thrusts.

Part of Gaz wished he could step outside of himself. Imagining how erotic they must look, both sweaty and hungry. Hands feverish as they clutched at the other, their lips a frenzy of kisses and soft bites. God, he knew they looked amazing and he felt himself inching ever closer to release thinking about the other occupants of the club watching them. Seeing Soap grind down into Gaz’s lap like an animal in heat, watching as all Gaz could do was melt from the pleasurable attention.

“Fuck - John, ah- Soap,I’m-” Gaz gasped out a warning, his hands traveling further behind Soap to grope and tug at Soap’s ass. Urging him to quicken, to hurry. 

He was so close he was sure Soap could taste it on his tongue, both not so much even kissing now but gasping into each other’s mouths. Sharing heated, muffled air.

“It’s ok, Kyle,” Soap soothed, his voice harsh from hurried breaths. His pretty blue eyes glittering as they watched Gaz in a crow-eyed smile. “I’m close too. Go on. Hah- wanna see. Wanna see ye’ cum in those cute pants of yours.”

Gaz whimpered and groaned, wriggling his hips. Each breathy word of Soap’s only pushing him closer to the edge.  Gaz could only repeat Soap’s name, growing more pleading with each utterance as he clawed at Soap’s hips for just that little more.

“Ye’ looked so gorgeous out there Gaz. Ah cannae keep mah’ eyes of ye’. Ah’ was half hopin’ no one would approach ye’ just so you’d be stuck with little ol’ me. Ah’m so glad I got my hands on ye’.” Gaz groaned loudly at all this, it all being so overwhelming as he let his head roll back on his shoulders.

“Go on,” Soap goaded, “Lemme see. Yer so gorgeous Gaz, lemme see ye cum. C’mon pretty boy, come for me. Please, Kyle.”

Gaz was already peaking over the edge before this, but his orgasm rocked him all the more. The compliments making the rivulets of pleasure spasm through him all the sweeter as he came hard. Cumming inside his pants and in his briefs, surely staining the front, and would soon be visible for all to see.

But Gaz could not give two shits about that. Even as his end was still wracking waves of ecstasy through him, his hands still tugged and pulled Soap to continue. His warm brown eyes half open, mouth gasping for air as he got to watch Soap finish a few seconds after.

The Scot’s eyebrows furrowing and his jaw clenching as his movements finally stuttered to a halt. A wriggle of pleasure in the back of his mind as he thought about how Soap’s mess would be far more difficult to hide in washed-out jeans.

[scotianostra]

Adam Archibald was born on 14th January 1879 at Leith.

Archibald was awarded the Victoria Croos for an act of bravery during Worlad War One near Ors, France.

Adam was the son of Rennie Archibald,  a Plasterer, and Christina Archibald, of 24 Shaws Street, Edinburgh. He lived at 53 Balfour Street with his wife and four children, and before he joined the Army in 1916 he had been Outside Foreman with Stewart’s Granolithic Co Ltd of Duff Street. In his younger days he had been a keen footballer and had had a trial with StBernard’s FC, an early Football club that rivalled Hibs and Hearts during the Victorian era. Adam aws also a bowler and at the time of his enlistment he had been President of the Eastfield Bowling Club. Another of his hobbies was gardening and he had won prizes at local flower shows. He was a freemason belonging to the Elgin and Bruce Lodge at Limekilns in Fife,

b. 14/01/1879 Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland. d. 10/03/1957 Leith.

Adam Archibald (1879-1957) was born on 14th January 1879 at Leith, Midlothian, Scotland. He was the son of Rennie Archibald,  a Plasterer, and Christina Archibald, of 24 Shaws Street, Edinburgh. He lived at 53 Balfour Street with his wife and four children, and before he joined the Army in 1916 he had been Outside Foreman with Stewart’s Granolithic Co Ltd of Duff Street. In his younger days he had been a keen footballer and had had a trial with StBernard’s FC.  He was also a bowler and at the time of his enlistment he had been President of the Eastfield Bowling Club. Another of his hobbies was gardening and he had won prizes at local flower shows. He was a freemason belonging to the Elgin and Bruce Lodge at Limekilns in Fife.

He enlisted with the 7th Durham Light Infantry before transferring to the 218th Field Company, Royal Engineers during the second battle of the Sambre.  At the age of 39, he was awarded the Victoria Cross for action while his unit was attempting to bridge the Sambre–Oise Canal.  

On 4th November 1918 near Ors, France, Sapper Archibald was with a party building a floating bridge across the canal. He was foremost in the work under a very heavy artillery barrage and machine-gun fire. The latter was directed at him from a few yards distance while he was working on the cork floats. Nevertheless, he persevered in his task and his example and efforts were such that the bridge which was essential to the success of the operations was very quickly completed. Immediately afterwards Sapper Archibald collapsed from gas poisoning.

He received his Victoria Cross from King George V at Buckingham Palace in May 1919. After his discharge he returned to his job with Stuart’s Granolithic Works in Edinburgh, eventually rising to a position as manager of their Duff Street works. He passed away at his home in Leith on 10th Marrch 1957 at the age of 76. He was cremated at Warriston Crematorium, Edinburgh. His name is on the memorial there. His medals are on display with those of Major Waters at the Royal Engineers Museum, Gillingham, Kent.