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zolass · 1 month ago

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Detectives Attraction CH. 01 Top Male Reader x Male Yandere Harem

I want to say- I have no clue how courtrooms work I was never there, never really paid attention in series or movies or did research.. so if it's not accurate whoops. A few thinks, the reader smokes and drinks from time to time (when working from home) and the clothing style AND some likes and dislikes or hobbies are pushed into, obv if you don't like some and they're not obvious present in the story ignore them, else you can add your likes and dislikes.

This story will probably be completely in third pov. MDNI, if you do not my problem what you consume.

content warnings: Smut, unprotected sex, alcohol, smoking, corrupt lawyer, mentions of trafficking, arson, beating and near death, mentions of corrupt justice, If there's more that I didn't mention I'm sry.

1.4k words

When was something considered good or bad? It is a thin line, everyone is balancing on every single day. When were you considered a good or bad person? When you simply helped someone, followed rules– you were good. If you robbed someone, broke rules you were bad right?

But what if you did something bad.. in the name of doing something right– something good? Would you get a punishment or a reward? Would you be held high, or would you plummet to the ground?

While others were scared to cross the line– some people used the exact same line as a jumping rope.

Grunts, groans and moans reverberated in the space of the office, two figures were pressed flush against each other. Their bodies were lined with sweat and cum was sticking to their abdomen, harsh thrust as skin hit skin repeatedly. “The next time I’m ruining you– fuck, it won’t be your hole,” M/N grunted, as he gritted his teeth.

The man who clenched around his cock tightly, was none other than Adrian Sinclair, a well known lawyer— a cunning one, with a lot of dirty soiling his oh so expensive patent leather shoes.

Half lidded green eyes, glazed by lust and satisfaction, a low chuckle combined with whiny moans left Adrian, “You would love– to do just that–” a loud moan left the green eyed man, as the dick thrusting into him hit his sweet spot, his blunt nails dragging across M/N’s nape, “But you don’t– have proof– god-” Adrian’s head lolled back in pleasure, as his body came closer to his sweet relief.

M/N had his grip on the lawyer’s hips, his thrusts relentless. He found himself a few times already pounding the lawyer in the office against the table or the window– even when he told himself he wouldn’t let it happen again– Adrian somehow manages to rile him up, and M/N can’t lie, that the sex wasn’t bad.

Groans left M/N, as he lifted Adrian’s leg further up his hip enlightening the pleasured sounds of the other, as he pushed both of them closer to their orgasm. Adrian felt his orgasm approaching, as he clenched tightly around the cock pounding him against his desk, loud whiny moans rippled from his throat as he looked at the focused yet hungry look M/N gave him, sending him over the edge.

Adrian’s back arched as he reached his climax with a gasped moan, his eyes rolled back, as he clung to M/N who held tightly onto the lawyer’s hips, his cock sheathed inside as his own orgasm rolled over him. Ropes of white spurted out of his tip, into the velvety walls, while cum splattered on both their abdomens from Adrian’s cock.

Seconds turned into minutes as they both catched their breath, “I’ll get my proof soon, and then I’ll ruin your pristine image as the perfect lawyer,” M/n breathed out, his words made the chestnut haired male chuckle. Leaning forward Adrian brushed his lips against M/N’s, “I’ll love to see you try, my dear,” he mumbled as he looked up into the e/c eyes.

Tension sparked between the two men, before M/n scoffed and pulled his limp cock out of Adrian’s hole, grabbing some of the tissues from the box on the table M/n cleaned himself, before putting his button up shirt and coat back on, after he tugged his dick back into his pants, “You will–” M/n stepped back from the desk, before he turned swiftly around, “You can clean yourself alone– right?” his voice was cold.

He pushed the door open, before they closed automatically behind him again. Green eyes stared at the closed door, before a low chuckle erupted from Adiran, “He really is fighting for a lost cause,” he couldn’t help the slight churn in his chest, the world they lived in was corrupted. Money ruled it and M/N was fighting against something that was rooted into the bones of this place.

M/n b-lined through the staff walking around the high end law firm, before he finally stepped out onto the busy streets of Noxhaven. Grabbing a little packet from his trench coat, opening the cigarette box M/n picked one out with the lighter stuffed in the half empty packet.

As he started to walk, he put the end of the addictive and toxic petiole loosely between his lips, before he lit the bud of the cigarette up, taking a drag before putting the packet with the lighter back into the pocket. Blowing out the smoke, M/n stared straight ahead, not even bothered to look at the people around him.

For two years, he danced around the parquet of the courtroom with no other than Adrian Voss. Always when M/n was close to solving a case of a victim putting the criminal behind bars– none other than Adrian stepped in as representative lawyer who always came out on top, getting his clients acquitted while M/n had to watch.

They had verbal battles, which often turned into something more.

M/n came to a stop in front of his apartment complex, fishing the keys from his pants pocket, M/n pulled the cigarette from his mouth and pressed the last bit of the lit bud against the concrete wall, before he finally heard the jingling of his keys. As he stepped through the door into the stairwell, he overstepped two steps quickly making his way up, instead of using the elevator that funnily enough, dinged behind him just as his feet hit the ground of the first floor.

Rolling his e/c eyes M/n kept going, with the simple excuse of having to stay fit for his work as detective. When he reached the third floor, M/n walked down the hallway past the other residential apartments. He switched the key, to open up the third door, which led into his own four walls.

The moment he stepped in, the wood underneath his boots creaked, he pulled his coat off, and hung it up, before kicking his shoes off. Walking further into his home, M/n passed by the kitchen to grab a glass then continued on towards his study. As the door opened, he put the glass down on his mahogany desk that was littered with the investigation on his newest case.

He sat down on the seat behind the desk, as he grabbed a bottle of liquor filling the glass half way before closing and putting the bottle away. E/c took in the words on a document that laid over the case file, assumptions of arson, robbery with a kidnapping of a twenty two year old woman, which led to trafficking, who was later found in the outskirts of Noxhaven, half beaten to an inch of her life.

Alicia Wallace, was M/N newest case. After what happened it took some time, until he was able to talk to her– he didn’t put pressure on her. Even if it was a serious matter in which he had to follow the lead while it was hot– it wouldn’t have been of any use if the victim blocked up completely.

M/n was so close to getting justice for the woman, figuring out who exactly targeted her. But each lead he had led him into a deadend. It frustrated him, and the victim, Alicia and her family already gave up on finding the perpetrator. Which brought him to the one man he knew that knows what shady business is going around– after all Adrian was the one defending them in court.

Said lawyer only acted as if he didn’t know anything, riling M/n up which ended up in the frustrating distraction of sex, three rounds of sex on the desk, in which he hoped Adrian would spill any information, but the man only moaned from his cock and kept teasing him.

It made him want to ruin the man, in more ways than one and one day he’ll pull the high and mighty off of his silver throne. Rubbing his temples, M/n took a swig from the beverage in the glass, getting ready to dive back into all the little details he could find.He will make sure that at least one more person would get what they had coming– one way or another.

#Detectives Attraction - zolass #zolass writes #male x male #male reader #mlm #gay #x male reader #top male reader #yandere #sub yandere #yandere harem

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theweewooshow · 11 months ago

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“Mmm,” Evan says after Tommy slips back into bed after cleaning them up. “We should get married.”

He’s still laying face down, pillow smushed against his face, so Tommy thinks he mishears it the first time around.

“What?” he asks, because there’s no way those words just came out of his mouth. They’ve barely been dating for six months.

Evan turns his head to the side and says clearly, “We should get married.”

“Yeah, okay, I thought I misheard you. You're not serious,” Tommy says, but his heart speeds up all the same.

They have keys to each other’s places, they’ve said I love you (maybe a little soon, maybe after a tough call, maybe because the feeling was too big to ignore even if it had only been a handful of months), Evan’s floated the idea of moving in when his lease is up.

So it’s not like marriage is something that Tommy thought was a total impossibility for the future.

Evan sighs and says, “I just really want to see Gerrard’s face if I put in a request to get new turnouts and shirts and new name pins because we got hitched.”

Tommy grins despite himself, but then schools his face into his patented Evan face, and says, “I’m not letting Gerrard steal an important moment from us just because you want to give him a heart attack. I do love this vindictive streak of yours though. It’s very sexy.”

He’s heard from both Chimney and Eddie that Evan has been a menace at work, literally carrying around the rule book hoping to catch any infractions Gerrard makes. He’s been yanked forward as Evan has tried to eat his face when Tommy picked him up after a shift, Gerrard looking on with a scowl. He’s heard from Evan himself about the judgment calls he’s made on calls just to be able to throw it back in Gerrard’s face (and save some lives while he’s at it).

And it’s all done nothing but turn Tommy on. He didn't know sticking it to Gerrard would be so fucking satisfying even if he has to live vicariously through Evan to do it.

“But not sexy enough for you to marry me,” Evan says, his lips pouty.

“Afraid not,” Tommy says, stroking a hand down Evan’s sweaty back. “Is that—is that something you would want, though?”

His palms feel clammy as the words come out of his mouth. They haven't talked seriously about what the future looks like for them because it’s still pretty early even if Tommy knows that this is kind of a once in a lifetime love for him.

Evan turns onto his side and props his head up on hand. “Marriage? Yeah, I want to get married one day.”

Tommy nods, a little too quick to be nonchalant. “I’d also like to get married one day.”

The words come out breathless and it’s too telling, showing all of Tommy’s cards, but he can’t find it in him to be afraid of this.

“What a coincidence,” Evan says, ducking his head and smiling bashfully. “Maybe one day we’ll both be married.”

Tommy can feel his face getting hot. “Maybe,” he says, his hand sliding down Evan’s arm so he can lace their fingers together.

#bucktommy #911 abc #911 fic #evan buckley #tommy kinard #janai.doc

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rabidpotatoe · 4 months ago

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In the 1980s, new laws and court rulings made it easier to patent seeds, which are now owned by companies like Monsanto and DuPont. Farmers who save and use patented seeds can be accused of patent infringement.

https://grain.org/en/article/5142-seed-laws-that-criminalise-farmers-resistance-and-fightback

#america #agriculture #fuck capitalism #us politics #eat the rich

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wanderingchaos · 8 months ago

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...that isn't true. One can license out your copyrights (and corporations license out their rights to various holders which is how artists can make merchandise of a character from a show and not get a cease and desist/sued) AND you can also trademark a specific "trade mark", a specific object you use in commerce that represents your business or idea, and that is license-able as well. Trademark and copyright are two different things, they sometimes overlap, they can both be licensed. So the tie-in novel and fanfiction difference is the publisher paid a license fee to the rights holder so they could have someone write a story, but that license might be a copyright license, a trademark license, or both, depending on if they have a recognizable logo, but definitely the copyright one. fanfiction is writing using characters (which are copyrightable) and a world and setting (which are copyrightable) and telling other stories with them (which is a right that is protected under the copyright act). fair use basically says you aren't taking money from it, you aren't taking that much of the original work, and it isn't going to interfere with the market of the original author (this is a paraphrase, i'm not actually quoting the factors or going over them in depth, and not touching parody.) also, your fanfiction is copyrightable! It's might also be infringing on someone else's copyright! That's why it's an affirmative defense, and what the original post is talking about.

it's fine that this is really confusing! usually only lawyers that specialize in intellectual property get the difference. There's a whole separate bar for patents, and patent and trademarks and copyrights are all in the same part of the federal code.

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids. You won’t like what happens next.

#sorry to be pedantic #but patents trademarks and copyrights all have different rules #and the fair use works different for all of them #and this got really long #i'll shut up now because someone is going to come in and cite the USC on me #and ill deserve it

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liberalsarecool · 1 month ago

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Here's Trump's next target — according to the tyrant's playbook | by Robert Reich

Trump is following Putin’s, Xi’s, and Orban’s playbook. First, take over military and intelligence operations by purging career officers and substituting ones personally loyal to you.

Next, subdue the courts by ignoring or threatening to ignore court rulings you disagree with.

Intimidate legislators by warning that if they don’t bend to your wishes, you’ll run loyalists against them. (Make sure they also worry about what your violent supporters could do to them and their families.)

Then focus on independent sources of information: the media and the universities. Sue media that publish critical stories and block their access to news conferences and interviews.

Then go after the universities.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Last week, Trump threatened in a social media post to punish any university that permits “illegal” protests. On Friday he cancelled hundreds of millions in grants and contracts with Columbia University.

This is an extension of Republican tactics before Trump’s second term. Prior to Trump appointing her ambassador to the United Nations, former Representative Elise Stefanik (Harvard class of 2006) browbeat presidents of elite universities over their responses to student protests against Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, leading to several presidents being fired.

Senator Josh Hawley (Stanford class of 2002 and Yale Law class of 2006) called the student demonstrations signs of “moral rot” at the universities.

But antisemitism was just a pretext.

JD Vance (Yale Law 2013) has termed university professors “the enemy” and suggested using Victor Orban’s method for ending “left-wing domination of universities.”

I think his way has to be the model for us: not to eliminate universities, but to give them a choice between survival or taking a much less biased approach to teaching. [The government should be] aggressively reforming institutions … in a way to where they’re much more open to conservative ideas.”

Trump is also targeting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs on university campuses.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

But of all Trump’s and Republicans’ moves against higher education, the most destructive is the cancelation of research grants and contracts. The destruction is hardly confined to Columbia and other suspected left-wing bastions.

Research universities depend on funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Trump reportedly aims to slash the budget of the National Science Foundation by up to two-thirds. And he’s instructed the National Institutes of Health to no longer honor negotiated rates for “indirect costs” on grants that it administers — money that universities use for laboratory space and research equipment.

In defiance of court orders, Trump has largely maintained a freeze on NIH funding.

As a result, many of America’s great research universities have stopped hiring and are cutting Ph.D. programs — in some cases rescinding offers to accepted students.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Trump’s moves are consistent with the tyrant’s playbook, but they’re also jeopardizing America’s national security and competitiveness.

Trump speaks of putting America First, but his attack on the nation’s great research universities is ensuring that the U.S. comes in second — to China.

Although America has long been the global leader in scientific output, China is now surging ahead. Even before Trump’s cuts in research funding, China was projected to match U.S. research spending within five years.

China has already surpassed the U.S. as the top producer of highly cited papers and international patent applications. It now awards more science and engineering Ph.D.s than the U.S.

Tyrants close universities. Fascists burn books. Trump is destroying America’s most important asset — its innovative mind.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.

#robert reich

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weaselandfriends · 1 month ago

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Kill la Kill (anime)

So, twelve years on, did Trigger save anime?

Existing in the present will invariably inundate one with lifeless, disposable, trend-chasing pop media, no matter the medium. Not only do moneymen like to imitate whatever made money before, but artists like to imitate the art they enjoy. The current moment will always seem bloated by dreck, while the past, filtered via the sieve of time, will always seem to contain only gleamingly original works of greatness. Were the 1980s not a golden age of blockbuster cinema, with Aliens and Indiana Jones and Ghostbusters? Please ignore the 1,000 shoddy E.T. knockoffs, thank you, or the million formulaic action hero flicks aping the Schwarzenegger formula.

Anime in 2013, when Kill la Kill began airing, was no different. The past two years had seen Puella Magi Madoka Magica, Hunter x Hunter, Fate/Zero, Stein's;Gate, Kuroko no Basket, Nichijou, Nisemonogatari, Psycho-Pass, and Attack on Titan, all popular and well-regarded shows both when they released and today. So the memetic idea in the anime community that Trigger was "saving anime" with Kill la Kill is patently ridiculous. (If you don't believe how widespread this idea was, two of the three top reviews for the show on MyAnimeList, written the same day the show finished airing, allude to it.)

It's easy to see how the idea became so popular, though. Trigger was a brand new studio formed primarily by staff from debt-stricken Gainax, the legendary studio that in 1995 revolutionized anime with Neon Genesis Evangelion. Eva's main creative figure, auteur director Hideaki Anno, wasn't with Trigger, but many of the people behind Gainax's other popular shows like Gurren Lagann and Panty & Stocking were, so the studio had a new-look fresh-start feel while drawing on a proven lineage of success.

At the same time, Kill la Kill itself promotes its revolutionary nature. Its plot revolves around a lone rulebreaking badass taking on an entrenched system defined explicitly by its aesthetic uniformity. It's not a difficult leap to read this storyline metaphorically, Trigger battling the waves of copy-paste seasonal anime.

However, what is most striking, most obviously eye-catching and unique about Kill la Kill, what hits the viewer with the immediate sense that this show is something different, something new, something like nothing you have seen before, is that it looks like nothing you have seen before. Kill la Kill is brimming with unique and memorable images, from the gigantic red block text used to introduce every new character and concept, to the bizarre ship-like architecture of Honnouji Academy, to the blend of fluid sakuga with choppy PowerPoint animation for comedic effect, to smaller iconic moments like Satsuki clicking her heel. It's always in-your-face about it, too. The opening scene sets the tone when a dry history lecture gets interrupted by Gamagoori squeezing through a door like a behemoth, utterly ignoring any rules regarding on-model consistency.

It's this devotion to the unique image that sets Kill la Kill apart from most of the other 2011-2013 shows I listed previously, shows that, while they might have a consistent aesthetic sensibility (such as Stein's;Gate's washed-outness or Fate/Zero's glimmering post-processing effects), are often conforming at their core to ideas of what anime "should" look like in terms of character design, setting, and animation. (The two Shaft shows I listed are an exception, but by this point Shaft's Akiyuki Shinbo had been doing his idiosyncratic visual style for over a decade, and wasn't exactly a fresh face.) Trigger's staff previously created Panty & Stocking, a show imitating the look and feel of western cartoons; Kill la Kill advances that idea into a wholly unique fusion of western and Japanese animation traditions, allowing it to break free of the insular anime landscape and its expected visual signifiers.

Obviously the counterpoint lurking beneath this preamble is that, under the unique visuals and tone, Kill la Kill isn't all that innovative at all, even painfully standard at times. Battles are decided by the power of friendship or the power of staying true to oneself (Don't Lose Your Way!), the hero is mind controlled and her friends call out to her until she breaks free, the one-dimensionally evil villain has a big end-the-world plot that everyone teams up to defeat. Even within the parameters the story establishes for itself, Ryuko proceeds linearly, starting out by fighting small fry club captains, then the Elite Four student council, then Satsuki the student council president, and finally Satsuki's mother who owns the school, with only a few speed bumps along the way.

But Kill la Kill makes the argument that aesthetics are too intimately interwoven with content to be disentangled that way. It's the crux of the conceit of the show, which is founded on a series of puns. "Fascism" sounds like "fashion," so in the world of Kill la Kill those concepts are now entwined. "School uniform" ("seifuku") and "conquest" ("seifuku") are homophones, so uniforms are the method by which Satsuki exerts her intra-Japanese imperialism. (Early on, Satsuki delivers a monologue in which she remarks on how Japanese school uniforms are aesthetically modeled on military uniforms, making it natural for her to militarize her school.) The title is itself a tripartite pun, combining words for "kill," "cut," and "wear." (Notably, this is a pun that blends the English and Japanese languages, much like the blended animation style.) Despite the visual, slapstick nature of Kill la Kill's humor, puns abound throughout. Some are obvious even in translation, such as the "Naturals Election" used to choose the new student council, while others can be difficult to catch. Nui, for instance, apes Dio Brando's catchphrase of "muda, muda, muda" (useless, useless, useless); later, when her arms are cut off, she screams "ude, ude, ude" (arms, arms, arms).

youtube

The core idea of most of these puns is that superficial similarity indicates similarity of content. Sometimes, this is an insightful observation, such as with the pun between fashion and fascism. Fascism is notoriously difficult to define rigidly in relation to other forms of dictatorship, but what is easy to define about it is its aesthetics, to the point that films like Star Wars are able to use aesthetic signifiers of fascism to define the politics of its villains even when withholding any actual explanation of those politics. Star Wars never has to show what the day-to-day rule of the Empire is like, because its army looks like the Nazis, so the audience gets the idea. Fascism as a political ideology and fascism as an aesthetic are, effectively, the same thing.

And if aesthetics are equivalent to meaning, then doesn't that mean that Kill la Kill looking new in fact makes it new? That its plot, generic in dry summary, is elevated by the distinctive way it's depicted? One pun, delivered upon the revelation that parasitic alien clothes have influenced humanity's evolution for the purpose of harvesting them for food (a story beat itself derivative of Puella Magi Madoka Magica), is that "the clothes make the mankind." The common refrain of Satsuki and Ragyo that people are "pigs in human clothing" hammers the point home: Aesthetics are everything. There is no meaning without aesthetics, just as people without clothes are unevolved animals.

Ultimately, though, Kill la Kill rejects this statement. Clothes are the enemy, literally, and the heroic organization fighting against them is Nudist Beach, whose members fight naked. At the end of the show, all clothes are destroyed, and the final image before the credits is of the entire cast in a giant, naked, triumphant huddle, an assertion of the inherent value of humanity even without aesthetic adornment. Isn't that the point behind all those power-of-friendship, power-of-believing-in-yourself speeches that Ryuko, Mako, and Senketsu use to turn the tables and win the battle? An appeal to a hidden inner nature that one must remain true to (Don't Lose Your Way!!!), that can overpower superficial displays of strength? Ryuko's mind control arc depicts this idea most overtly. She is controlled by having clothes sewn to her skin -- having an aesthetic forced onto her -- but Mako manages to dive into Ryuko's inner world to bring her back to her "true self."

This kind of undermines Kill la Kill as a work, though. What does a "nudist" Kill la Kill look like, stripped of its unique visual language? Certainly not something that would stand out from the waves of high school battle shounen that have been a fixture in the anime landscape since time immemorial. Kill la Kill's thesis might assert that there's a reason these power-of-friendship cliches endure (a sort of, if you'll allow me to become a parody of myself for a moment, post-postmodern reclamation of a narrative mode tarnished by irony and cynicism), but it contradicts the unique visual style that Kill la Kill developed to convey that idea.

In some ways, Kill la Kill does strip down to a nude, or at least semi-nude, state by the end. Many of its earlier concepts, including the connection between fashion and fascism, vanish as the story progresses. Satsuki and her fascist system are revealed to have been a deception while she secretly worked to betray her mother (playing on Ragyo's mistaken belief that aesthetics mean everything by Satsuki looking compliant while not actually being so), and once the twist occurs, the entire fascism plotline goes out the window. It's never really mentioned again; even when Ryuko gets on Satsuki's case for her past misdeeds, she only calls her out for "Looking down on people from on high," a general and ideologically-agnostic call against elitism. The 1-episode OVA set after the series briefly touches on the fascist system Satsuki enforced, with the episode's villain accusing Satsuki and the Elite Four of generating real, actual terror and abuse despite their ultimately pure motives (an assertion, once more, that aesthetics mean everything, that looking fascist makes you fascist no matter your true beliefs), but Mako quickly dismisses the claim with another power-of-friendship speech. Satsuki and the Elite Four have grown as people, she says. They're no longer bad like they used to be!

Kill la Kill also gets stripped down tonally by its end. The show's opening scene depicts a disobedient student being whipped, seemingly to death; later, his nude corpse(?) is displayed over the school gates. Combined with the title "Kill la Kill," it sets a dark, violent tone that lends weight to the otherwise cartoonish animation style. By the end, though, this dark tone is revealed as a false aesthetic; there is remarkably little killing in Kill la Kill. Stripped of real narrative stakes, the climactic battles diminish to flashy lightshows, action figures bouncing against each other. Worst of all, the blend of "fluid sakuga with choppy PowerPoint animation" I mentioned earlier increasingly tilts toward the latter. This is largely due to the prominence of Nui as an antagonist, since her cartoonishness is part of her character, but given Gainax's track record of running out of money and/or time by the end of its shows and phoning in parts of them, I wonder whether the habit transferred over to Trigger.

In short, as Kill la Kill strips down, it becomes a weaker show. In doing so, it not only undermines its own theme, but undermines itself as a truly new and innovative work, exposing its reliance on superficial aesthetic. The notion that Trigger "saved anime" would depend not only on Kill la Kill's individual success, but on its influence; twelve years out, and the only other notable shows like Kill la Kill were also made by Trigger. Perhaps you can see some influence on Masaaki Yuasa, who also blends high-quality sakuga with deliberately cheaper animation for comedic or stylistic effect, but he had already established himself in 2010 with Tatami Galaxy. Another show with a distinctive "Trigger" feel, Flip Flappers, was a flop flopper that caused its studio to immediately pivot to generic seasonal stuff.

My friend Lurina, when I asked her whether Trigger really had any influence over the larger anime landscape, suggested that Trigger sparked a general desire for more high-quality animation, which can be seen today in shows like Chainsaw Man or Dandandan. I would counter that those shows, while well-made, lack the distinctive blend of high and low, east and west that defines Trigger; if anything, the notion of the high-quality seasonal shounen adaptation comes from My Hero Academia, where Bones eschewed the traditional 500-episode weekly low-effort adaptation style of Naruto, Bleach, and One Piece and set the blueprint for shows like Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen, and so on, which adapt their source material in 12-episode chunks with lavish production values.

At the same time, I question whether Trigger even saved itself. Kill la Kill would be the studio's peak, and much of its subsequent output is a pale shadow of the show. (Its only other megahit, Darling in the Franxx, had an even more disastrous ending.) This culminated in BNA, a show that takes Kill la Kill's themes and iconography but does them cheaply and lazily. Since then, Trigger has rebounded -- but not by being "Trigger." Cyberpunk Edgerunners and Dungeon Meshi were both popular and well-regarded shows, but they were adaptations where Trigger had minimal control over the storytelling or aesthetic; Dungeon Meshi, other than a few sparse sakuga moments, doesn't even look distinctively like a Trigger show. It feels like any competent studio could have turned Dungeon Meshi into a hit. Trigger still exists, and in its partnership with Netflix is possibly stronger than ever, but it is losing its unique identity, becoming more standard, more similar to the crowd. Another conformer. Maybe the upcoming Panty & Stocking sequel can turn it around, but who can say.

Either way, Kill la Kill's moment has passed, without the cataclysmic ripple on the anime industry fans at the time expected or craved. Honestly, though, despite how I opened this essay, I can't blame them for their desire to see anime "saved." After all, the biggest anime of 2012, the year before Kill la Kill aired, did cause a cataclysmic ripple, one undoubtedly felt to this day. Unlike Kill la Kill, the biggest anime of 2012 spawned countless imitators, an endless flood of imitators, imitators that have themselves spawned imitators and imitators of imitators. That anime of 2012 has even extended its reach past anime, coating the current webfic scene; one could say that the site RoyalRoad would not exist if not for it. In face of such an oppressive, daunting influence, perhaps those fans of 2013 were right to clamor for something, anything, that would reveal a new direction, a way out. In such a context, one might even see it as tragic that Kill la Kill failed to deliver, that at the last moment it came up short. If Kill la Kill was the fork in the road leading to sunnier pastures, this anime led the industry into a deep, dark forest.

The name of that anime?

Sword Art Online.

#kill la kill #anime #review

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago

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MIT libraries are thriving without Elsevier

I'm coming to BURNING MAN! On TUESDAY (Aug 27) at 1PM, I'm giving a talk called "DISENSHITTIFY OR DIE!" at PALENQUE NORTE (7&E). On WEDNESDAY (Aug 28) at NOON, I'm doing a "Talking Caterpillar" Q&A at LIMINAL LABS (830&C).

Once you learn about the "collective action problem," you start seeing it everywhere. Democrats – including elected officials – all wanted Biden to step down, but none of them wanted to be the first one to take a firm stand, so for months, his campaign limped on: a collective action problem.

Patent trolls use bullshit patents to shake down small businesses, demanding "license fees" that are high, but much lower than the cost of challenging the patent and getting it revoked. Collectively, it would be much cheaper for all the victims to band together and hire a fancy law firm to invalidate the patent, but individually, it makes sense for them all to pay. A collective action problem:

https://locusmag.com/2013/11/cory-doctorow-collective-action/

Musicians get royally screwed by Spotify. Collectively, it would make sense for all of them to boycott the platform, which would bring it to its knees and either make it pay more or put it out of business. Individually, any musician who pulls out of Spotify disappears from the horizon of most music fans, so they all hang in – a collective action problem:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/21/off-the-menu/#universally-loathed

Same goes for the businesses that get fucked out of 30% of their app revenues by Apple and Google's mobile business. Without all those apps, Apple and Google wouldn't have a business, but any single app that pulls out commits commercial suicide, so they all hang in there, paying a 30% vig:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/15/private-law/#thirty-percent-vig

That's also the case with Amazon sellers, who get rooked for 45-51 cents out of every dollar in platform junk fees, and whose prize for succeeding despite this is to have their product cloned by Amazon, which underprices them because it doesn't have to pay a 51% rake on every sale. Without third-party sellers there'd be no Amazon, but it's impossible to get millions of sellers to all pull out at once, so the Bezos crime family scoops up half of the ecommerce economy in bullshit fees:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/06/attention-rents/#consumer-welfare-queens

This is why one definition of "corruption" is a system with "concentrated gains and diffuse losses." The company that dumps toxic waste in your water supply reaps all the profits of externalizing its waste disposal costs. The people it poisons each bear a fraction of the cost of being poisoned. The environmental criminal has a fat warchest of ill-gotten gains to use to bribe officials and pay fancy lawyers to defend it in court. Its victims are each struggling with the health effects of the crimes, and even without that, they can't possibly match the polluter's resources. Eventually, the polluter spends enough money to convince the Supreme Court to overturn "Chevron deference" and makes it effectively impossible to win the right to clean water and air (or a planet that's not on fire):

https://www.cfr.org/expert-brief/us-supreme-courts-chevron-deference-ruling-will-disrupt-climate-policy

Any time you encounter a shitty, outrageous racket that's stable over long timescales, chances are you're looking at a collective action problem. Certainly, that's the underlying pathology that preserves the scholarly publishing scam, which is one of the most grotesque, wasteful, disgusting frauds in our modern world (and that's saying something, because the field is crowded with many contenders).

Here's how the scholarly publishing scam works: academics do original scholarly research, funded by a mix of private grants, public funding, funding from their universities and other institutions, and private funds. These academics write up their funding and send it to a scholarly journal, usually one that's owned by a small number of firms that formed a scholarly publishing cartel by buying all the smaller publishers in a string of anticompetitive acquisitions. Then, other scholars review the submission, for free. More unpaid scholars do the work of editing the paper. The paper's author is sent a non-negotiable contract that requires them to permanently assign their copyright to the journal, again, for free. Finally, the paper is published, and the institution that paid the researcher to do the original research has to pay again – sometimes tens of thousands of dollars per year! – for the journal in which it appears.

The academic publishing cartel insists that the millions it extracts from academic institutions and the billions it reaps in profit are all in service to serving as neutral, rigorous gatekeepers who ensure that only the best scholarship makes it into print. This is flatly untrue. The "editorial process" the academic publishers take credit for is virtually nonexistent: almost everything they publish is virtually unchanged from the final submission format. They're not even typesetting the paper:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00799-018-0234-1

The vetting process for peer-review is a joke. Literally: an Australian academic managed to get his dog appointed to the editorial boards of seven journals:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/olivia-doll-predatory-journals

Far from guarding scientific publishing from scams and nonsense, the major journal publishers have stood up entire divisions devoted to pay-to-publish junk science. Elsevier – the largest scholarly publisher – operated a business unit that offered to publish fake journals full of unreveiwed "advertorial" papers written by pharma companies, packaged to look like a real journal:

https://web.archive.org/web/20090504075453/http://blog.bioethics.net/2009/05/merck-makes-phony-peerreview-journal/

Naturally, academics and their institutions hate this system. Not only is it purely parasitic on their labor, it also serves as a massive brake on scholarly progress, by excluding independent researchers, academics at small institutions, and scholars living in the global south from accessing the work of their peers. The publishers enforce this exclusion without mercy or proportion. Take Diego Gomez, a Colombian Masters candidate who faced eight years in prison for accessing a single paywalled academic paper:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/07/colombian-student-faces-prison-charges-sharing-academic-article-online

And of course, there's Aaron Swartz, the young activist and Harvard-affiliated computer scientist who was hounded to death after he accessed – but did not publish – papers from MIT's JSTOR library. Aaron had permission to access these papers, but JSTOR, MIT, and the prosecutors Stephen Heymann and Carmen Ortiz argued that because he used a small computer program to access the papers (rather than clicking on each link by hand) he had committed 13 felonies. They threatened him with more than 30 years in prison, and drew out the proceedings until Aaron was out of funds. Aaron hanged himself in 2013:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Swartz

Academics know all this terrible stuff is going on, but they are trapped in a collective action problem. For an academic to advance in their field, they have to publish, and they have to get their work cited. Academics all try to publish in the big prestige journals – which also come with the highest price-tag for their institutions – because those are the journals other academics read, which means that getting published is top journal increases the likelihood that another academic will find and cite your work.

If academics could all agree to prioritize other journals for reading, then they could also prioritize other journals for submissions. If they could all prioritize other journals for submissions, they could all prioritize other journals for reading. Instead, they all hold one another hostage, through a wicked collective action problem that holds back science, starves their institutions of funding, and puts their colleagues at risk of imprisonment.

Despite this structural barrier, academics have fought tirelessly to escape the event horizon of scholarly publishing's monopoly black hole. They avidly supported "open access" publishers (most notably PLoS), and while these publishers carved out pockets for free-to-access, high quality work, the scholarly publishing cartel struck back with package deals that bundled their predatory "open access" journals in with their traditional journals. Academics had to pay twice for these journals: first, their institutions paid for the package that included them, then the scholars had to pay open access submission fees meant to cover the costs of editing, formatting, etc – all that stuff that basically doesn't exist.

Academics started putting "preprints" of their work on the web, and for a while, it looked like the big preprint archive sites could mount a credible challenge to the scholarly publishing cartel. So the cartel members bought the preprint sites, as when Elsevier bought out SSRN:

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/05/17/disappointing-elsevier-buys-open-access-academic-pre-publisher-ssrn/

Academics were elated in 2011, when Alexandra Elbakyan founded Sci-Hub, a shadow library that aims to make the entire corpus of scholarly work available without barrier, fear or favor:

https://sci-hub.ru/alexandra

Sci-Hub neutralized much of the collective action trap: once an article was available on Sci-Hub, it became much easier for other scholars to locate and cite, which reduced the case for paying for, or publishing in, the cartel's journals:

https://arxiv.org/pdf/2006.14979

The scholarly publishing cartel fought back viciously, suing Elbakyan and Sci-Hub for tens of millions of dollars. Elsevier targeted prepress sites like academia.edu with copyright threats, ordering them to remove scholarly papers that linked to Sci-Hub:

https://svpow.com/2013/12/06/elsevier-is-taking-down-papers-from-academia-edu/

This was extremely (if darkly) funny, because Elsevier's own publications are full of citations to Sci-Hub:

https://eve.gd/2019/08/03/elsevier-threatens-others-for-linking-to-sci-hub-but-does-it-itself/

Meanwhile, scholars kept the pressure up. Tens of thousands of scholars pledged to stop submitting their work to Elsevier:

http://thecostofknowledge.com/

Academics at the very tops of their fields publicly resigned from the editorial board of leading Elsevier journals, and published editorials calling the Elsevier model unethical:

https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2012/may/16/system-profit-access-research

And the New Scientist called the racket "indefensible," decrying the it as an industry that made restricting access to knowledge "more profitable than oil":

https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24032052-900-time-to-break-academic-publishings-stranglehold-on-research/

But the real progress came when academics convinced their institutions, rather than one another, to do something about these predator publishers. First came funders, private and public, who announced that they would only fund open access work:

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06178-7

Winning over major funders cleared the way for open access advocates worked both the supply-side and the buy-side. In 2019, the entire University of California system announced it would be cutting all of its Elsevier subscriptions:

https://www.science.org/content/article/university-california-boycotts-publishing-giant-elsevier-over-journal-costs-and-open

Emboldened by the UC system's principled action, MIT followed suit in 2020, announcing that it would no longer send $2m every year to Elsevier:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/12/digital-feudalism/#nerdfight

It's been four years since MIT's decision to boycott Elsevier, and things are going great. The open access consortium SPARC just published a stocktaking of MIT libraries without Elsevier:

https://sparcopen.org/our-work/big-deal-knowledge-base/unbundling-profiles/mit-libraries/

How are MIT's academics getting by without Elsevier in the stacks? Just fine. If someone at MIT needs access to an Elsevier paper, they can usually access it by asking the researchers to email it to them, or by downloading it from the researcher's site or a prepress archive. When that fails, there's interlibrary loan, whereby other libraries will send articles to MIT's libraries within a day or two. For more pressing needs, the library buys access to individual papers through an on-demand service.

This is how things were predicted to go. The libraries used their own circulation data and the webservice Unsub to figure out what they were likely to lose by dropping Elsevier – it wasn't much!

https://unsub.org/

The MIT story shows how to break a collective action problem – through collective action! Individual scholarly boycotts did little to hurt Elsevier. Large-scale organized boycotts raised awareness, but Elsevier trundled on. Sci-Hub scared the shit out of Elsevier and raised awareness even further, but Elsevier had untold millions to spend on a campaign of legal terror against Sci-Hub and Elbakyan. But all of that, combined with high-profile defections, made it impossible for the big institutions to ignore the issue, and the funders joined the fight. Once the funders were on-side, the academic institutions could be dragged into the fight, too.

Now, Elsevier – and the cartel – is in serious danger. Automated tools – like the Authors Alliance termination of transfer tool – lets academics get the copyright to their papers back from the big journals so they can make them open access:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Unimaginably vast indices of all scholarly publishing serve as important adjuncts to direct access shadow libraries like Sci-Hub:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/28/clintons-ghost/#cornucopia-concordance

Collective action problems are never easy to solve, but they're impossible to address through atomized, individual action. It's only when we act as a collective that we can defeat the corruption – the concentrated gains and diffuse losses – that allow greedy, unscrupulous corporations to steal from us, wreck our lives and even imprison us.

Community voting for SXSW is live! If you wanna hear RIDA QADRI and me talk about how GIG WORKERS can DISENSHITTIFY their jobs with INTEROPERABILITY, VOTE FOR THIS ONE!

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/2024/08/16/the-public-sphere/#not-the-elsevier

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thydungeongal · 10 months ago

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Anyway so my whole thing with Paranoia 1e is that it basically takes the idea of "hey these games could empower someone in the GM role to act like an arbitrary tyrant, what if we lean into that and use it to enhance the point we're trying to make about authoritarian institutions powered by paranoia"

'cause like taken at its own word Paranoia can seem like just a gonzo little game but idk it feels to me like the absurdity is there to enhance the point. Sure, it's patently ridiculous that one of the conspiracies is basically Disney Adults gone RETVRN, basically a group that harkens back to an imagined past that only exists in popular culture. But there's literally a whole genre of guys online who have made "harkening back to an idealized version of the past that only existed in advertisements and TV shows" into their whole personality. I don't think Paranoia predicted those guys, but because it's actually well-written satire it's likely that the writers probably saw similar types of guy around them or they were simply able to identify the fact that a lot of "we used to be a country" type of nostalgia is actually based on a set of myths instead of any kind of real past.

Anyway, Paranoia puts the GM in the role of a bureaucrat that expects people to conform to an impossible set of rules and encourages its players to play their characters against each other because it actually serves to accentuate its themes. Good game.

(and I say Paranoia 1e because that's the one I've read)

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batboyblog · 1 year ago

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Things Biden and the Democrats did, this week #10

March 15-22 2024

The EPA announced new emission standards with the goal of having more than half of new cars and light trucks sold in the US be low/zero emission by 2032. One of the most significant climate regulations in the nation’s history, it'll eliminate 7 billion tons of CO2 emissions over the next 30 years. It's part of President Biden's goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2030 on the road to eliminating them totally by 2050.

President Biden canceled nearly 6 Billion dollars in student loan debt. 78,000 borrowers who work in public sector jobs, teachers, nurses, social workers, firefighters etc will have their debt totally forgiven. An additional 380,000 public service workers will be informed that they qualify to have their loans forgiven over the next 2 years. The Biden Administration has now forgiven $143.6 Billion in student loan debt for 4 million Americans since the Supreme Court struck down the original student loan forgiveness plan last year.

Under Pressure from the administration and Democrats in Congress Drugmaker AstraZeneca caps the price of its inhalers at $35. AstraZeneca joins rival Boehringer Ingelheim in capping the price of inhalers at $35, the price the Biden Admin capped the price of insulin for seniors. The move comes as the Federal Trade Commission challenges AstraZeneca’s patents, and Senator Bernie Sanders in his role as Democratic chair of the Senate Health Committee investigates drug pricing.

The Department of Justice sued Apple for being an illegal monopoly in smartphones. The DoJ is joined by 16 state attorneys general. The DoJ accuses Apple of illegally stifling competition with how its apps work and seeking to undermining technologies that compete with its own apps.

The EPA passed a rule banning the final type of asbestos still used in the United States. The banning of chrysotile asbestos (known as white asbestos) marks the first time since 1989 the EPA taken action on asbestos, when it passed a partial ban. 40,000 deaths a year in the US are linked to asbestos

President Biden announced $8.5 billion to help build advanced computer chips in America. Currently America only manufactures 10% of the world's chips and none of the most advanced next generation of chips. The deal with Intel will open 4 factories across 4 states (Arizona, Ohio, New Mexico, and Oregon) and create 30,000 new jobs. The Administration hopes that by 2030 America will make 20% of the world's leading-edge chips.

President Biden signed an Executive Order prioritizing research into women's health. The order will direct $200 million into women's health across the government including comprehensive studies of menopause health by the Department of Defense and new outreach by the Indian Health Service to better meet the needs of American Indian and Alaska Native Women. This comes on top of $100 million secured by First Lady Jill Biden from ARPA-H.

Democratic Senators Bob Casey, Tammy Baldwin, Sherrod Brown, and Jacky Rosen (all up for re-election) along with Elizabeth Warren, Cory Booker, and Sheldon Whitehouse, introduced the "Shrinkflation Prevention Act" The Bill seeks to stop the practice of companies charging the same amount for products that have been subtly shrunk so consumers pay more for less.

The Department of Transportation will invest $45 million in projects that improve Bicyclist and Pedestrian Connectivity and Safety

The EPA will spend $77 Million to put 180 electric school buses onto the streets of New York City This is part of New York's goal to transition its whole school bus fleet to electric by 2035.

The Senate confirmed President Biden's nomination of Nicole Berner to the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. Berner has served as the general counsel for America's largest union, SEIU, since 2017 and worked in their legal department since 2006. On behalf of SEIU she's worked on cases supporting the Affordable Care Act, DACA, and against the Defense of Marriage act and was part of the Fight for 15. Before working at SEIU she was a staff attorney at Planned Parenthood. Berner's name was listed by the liberal group Demand Justice as someone they'd like to see on the Supreme Court. Berner becomes one of just 5 LGBT federal appeals court judges, 3 appointed by Biden. The Senate also confirmed Edward Kiel and Eumi Lee to be district judges in New Jersey and Northern California respectively, bring the number of federal judges appointed by Biden to 188.

#Thanks Biden #Joe Biden #Democrats #politics #US politics #climate change #climate crisis #student loans #debt forgiveness #shrinkflation #women's health #drug prices

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abbysimsfun · 21 days ago

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Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 166 (Here's to the Birthday Girls!)

Cousins Lavender Gordon and Betta Bell were born just days apart, and they turned five together while Betta stayed with her mother, Holly, and grandmother, Daisy, at the Gordons' home in Brindleton Bay.

To commemorate their shared growth spurt, they posed for a silly selfie in the front yard. As it should be, the family was together. Even Ash was home, and this was perfectionist Lavender's favourite gift of all.

She didn't even mind that they didn't have a bigger party - Lavender thought parties created anticipation, and too much anticipation might lead to disappointment. But her family was too preoccupied with Ash's custody issues and preparing for the arrival of her baby brother to throw a party, anyway.

Cheerful Betta talked excitedly about her cousins coming to stay at her family's loft in the city for a sleepover, but this weekend they were content to stay home and spend time together.

A light spring rain filled the breeze with the mossy scent of petrichor, and they gathered outside to take in the fresh air of Sable Square. When the baby kicked to join the family festivities, Betta curiously felt her Aunt Heather's growing stomach.

"Are you going to have another baby, too, Mommy?" Betta turned to Holly with curious eyes.

"If you want a little brother or sister, you and Tetra might have to convince your father. He's really happy with the two of you."

"But when great-uncle Karl and great-uncle Mortimer move to Willow Creek, we'll have more room for a baby!"

Holly laughed. "You don't have to convince me, kiddo. Talk to your Dad."

"So, how is life in the city for you?" Daisy asked her grandson, trying not to show her distaste for the Landgraabs while she made conversation.

"It's fun, Grandma. I don't like some of the kids at my school, but I don't have to talk to them. Nan and Papa make us feel safe there. Papa's engineering firm is even working on time travel with biometrics so criminals like Marco Peralta won't be able to use it!"

The adults looked between one another with stunned glances. Heather silently fumed; Judge Marlow had told them to avoid discussing ghosts or time travel with their son, but the Landgraabs, as ever, thought themselves above rules everyone else had to follow.

Worse, the Landgraabs were probably responsible for the biometric device used by the slippery time thief Felix and Lilith had gone to 1920 to try to find.

"What's wrong, Mom? Isn't it a good thing to make time travel harder to use?"

She nodded quickly to hide her frustration. "Absolutely. Of course."

Conrad turned his attention to the dogs. He dressed warm to take them out to run around, bringing his phone to update Felix on the latest developments with a video chat.

"I thought you'd want to know it looks like Landgraab Engineering is already working on a biometric device, according to Ash."

"Of course they are. I'll look into it, see if they're breaching the patent. If they are, I'll hopefully be able to shut them down. Oh, by the way, you're on speakerphone. Lilith's haggling with the wedding venue over email right now."

"Hopefully? Hey Lilith."

She called back warmly as the newly-engaged attorney sighed. "I know I'm good at what I do, but the Landgraabs are the Landgraabs."

Conrad frowned. "So, what else is going on in your part of the world?"

"I'm still trying to find a charger that will work on this phone Maude left for us. We wanted Emit to take it to the future, but he said their tech is too advanced and the phone won't work in his time, either. They got rid of cell phone towers centuries ago, apparently."

"I ran a search through the police database for Robin Banks and didn't find anyone matching your description."

"I didn't think you would. I think she's from the future. Maybe not too far into the future if the Landgraabs are already working on biometric time travel."

"Maybe Banks is an alias, or a married name," Conrad brainstormed, as another idea dawned on him entirely. "I think I know who you could talk to about getting into that phone..."

When he returned home, he grabbed a piece of birthday cake while Lavender played with Mayor Whiskers in the kitchen. "Are you going to have a piece of your own cake?"

Lavender shook her head, pulling a piece of leftover cheesecake from the fridge, instead. "This one has no icing, Daddy."

That night, Ash braved a chilly evening at the chicken coop in the yard, helping hatch a new chick he decided to name Coolbeans. He never had opportunities like this is San Myshuno, and he missed listening to the sound of crickets in the brush lining the walking paths around the square.

Wanting to be responsible like her big brother, the next morning Lavender went outside in her pajamas to tend the insect farm. But she ignited a spigot of biofuel, and I legitimately thought I was about to lose my Gen 3 heir but the fire went out thank goodness!

She calmed her nerves from the rapid flames by listening to music from the Grimophone in the living room, and this encouraged Heather to pass down a gift she'd carried in her inventory for decades. Watcher knows why - perhaps Lavender was always destined to be a violinist, and when her dad Neal dug up this child's violin way back in Gen One, he just knew Heather should hold onto it.

"I know how much you love sounds. This might be a sound we all have to get used to, but I hope you enjoy making beautiful music with this one day. Hopefully, it keeps you away from the insect farm for at least a few more years."

Perfectionist Lavender was excited to focus on mastering the instrument, but her early attempts were squeaky and wrought with missed notes. She couldn't grasp everything as easily as her brother, but she was determined not to fade into his highly accomplished shadow.

Undeterred by the noise in the backyard, Lavender's Aunt Holly could still find a way to break into a meditative yoga pose just feet away. In truth, Lavender sounded awful, but Holly liked violin, and she liked supporting her niece's burgeoning interest even more.

With instrument in hand and hours of practice quickly under her belt, Lavender dreamed of being an artistic prodigy.

But would her perfectionism and drive to follow in her genius brother's footsteps help or hurt her along the way? ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 2.1 Summary

Gen 1 Start | Gen 1 Summary

NOTE: With Ash and Lavender fully five years apart, I do have a height preset for Ash but I'm sort of afraid to use it. I know, why download it, etc. But it's there for side sims who need to be tall or short for the plot, for the most part, and I don't want to get too reliant on the preset for storytelling because from what I can tell once it's applied and I save, I can't take it back without removing the cc itself. All that to say that's why they're the same height at ten and five years old at the moment!

NOTE 2: Every age up trait the heir gets comes from the In Bloom Challenge guidelines (the freedom I have is when they gain those traits), but I've tried to show toddler Lavender both into music as well as books, hence the violin skill she must master. She's also the type to get deeply disappointed when the perfect plan she has in mind plays out differently (like finding out she's getting a baby brother instead of a sister). Perfectionism being a bit of a response to her accomplished brother felt like a great base to build Lavender's character on!

FUN FACT: Lavender aged up twice - once for real and once because I had to reshoot Betta, who initially aged up during a stay over and I couldn't edit her randomized look (a medieval cc peasant nightgown and some gumboots!) without cancelling the event. The fun fact is, both times, Lava aged up randomly with lavender-coloured hair - once with an EA swatch and once with cc. I love this because it's been my plan to have her dye her hair when she's older like her namesake grandmother (Conrad's mom) since she aged up to infant and got Heather's hair colour. It's like the game just knew.

#sims 4 #sims 4 gameplay #sims 4 screenshots #sims 4 legacy #sims in bloom #ts4 #ts4 gameplay #ts4 legacy #ts4 screenshots #sims 4 story #ts4 story #legacy challenge #sims legacy #ts4 legacy challenge #gen 2 #brindleton bay #felix psyded

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theoutcastrogue · 7 months ago

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"The majority of high-tech patent lawsuits are brought by patent trolls—companies that exist not to provide products or services, but primarily have a business using patents to threaten others’ work. Some politicians are proposing to make that bad situation worse. ...

The Patent Eligibility Restoration Act, S. 2140, (PERA), sponsored by Senators Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Chris Coons (D-DE) would be a huge gift to patent trolls, a few tech firms that aggressively license patents, and patent lawyers. For everyone else, it will be a huge loss. That’s why we’re opposing it, and asking our supporters to speak out as well.

Patent trolling is still a huge, multi-billion dollar problem that’s especially painful for small businesses and everyday internet users. But, in the last decade, we’ve made modest progress placing limits on patent trolling. The Supreme Court’s 2014 decision in Alice v. CLS Bank barred patents that were nothing more than abstract ideas with computer jargon added in. Using the Alice test, federal courts have kicked out a rogue’s gallery of hundreds of the worst patents.

Under Alice’s clear rules, courts threw out ridiculous patents on “matchmaking”, online picture menus, scavenger hunts, and online photo contests. The nation’s top patent court, the Federal Circuit, actually approved a patent on watching an ad online twice before the Alice rules finally made it clear that patents like that cannot be allowed. The patents on “bingo on a computer?” Gone under Alice. Patents on loyalty programs (on a computer)? Gone. Patents on upselling (with a computer)? All gone. ...

PERA’s attempt to roll back progress goes beyond computer technology. For almost 30 years, some biotech and pharmaceutical companies actually applied for, and were granted, patents on naturally occuring human genes. As a consequence, companies were able to monopolize diagnostic tests that relied on naturally occurring genes in order to help predict diseases such as breast cancer, making such testing far more expensive. The ACLU teamed up with doctors to confront this horrific practice, and sued. That lawsuit led to a historic victory in 2013 when the Supreme Court disallowed patents on human genes found in nature.

If PERA passes, it will explicitly overturn that ruling, allowing human genes to be patented once again. ...

“To See Your Own Blood, Your Own Genes”

From the 1980s until the 2013 Myriad decision, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted patents on human genomic sequences. If researchers “isolated” the gene—a necessary part of analysis—they would then get a patent that described isolating, or purified, as a human process, and insist they weren’t getting a patent on the natural world itself.

But this concept of patenting an “isolated” gene was simply a word game, and a distinction without a difference. With the genetic patent in hand, the patent-holder could demand royalty payments from any kind of test or treatment involving that gene. And that’s exactly what Myriad Genetic did when they patented the BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene sequences, which are important indicators for the prevalence of breast or ovarian cancer.

Myriad’s patents significantly increased the cost of those tests to U.S. patients. The company even sent some doctors cease and desist letters, saying the doctors could not perform simple tests on their own patients—even looking at the gene sequences without Myriad’s permission would constitute patent infringement.

This behavior caused pathologists, scientists, and patients to band together with ACLU lawyers and challenge Myriad’s patents. They litigated all the way to the Supreme Court, and won. “A naturally occurring DNA segment is a product of nature and not patent eligible merely because it has been isolated,” the Supreme Court stated in Association for Molecular Pathology v. Myriad Genetics.

A practice like granting and enforcing patents on human genes should truly be left in the dustbin of history. It’s shocking that pro-patent lobbyists have convinced these Senators to introduce legislation seeking to reinstate such patents. Last month, the President of the College of American Pathologists published an op-ed reminding lawmakers and the public about the danger of patenting the human genome, calling gene patents “dangerous to the public welfare.”

As Lisbeth Ceriani, a breast cancer survivor and a plaintiff in the Myriad case said, “It’s a basic human right to see your own blood, your own genes.” "

#information wants to be free #theory #I fought the law

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two-white-butterflies · 9 days ago

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slowburn

Description: Harvey refuses to take a sick leave. You teach him the importance of staying home and resting while unraveling feelings towards each other that have been kept hidden for ten years.

Pairing: harvey specter/reader

There were a million adjectives that you could use to describe Harvey Specter. Dedicated was one of those adjectives. He is the type of person to put in more work than he was getting paid for - oftentimes, it gets him into trouble but the fucking genius always finds a way out.

You suppose that is half the reason why you hate his guts.

His actions never have any negative consequences. He just marches into the room with a self-absorbed smirk and wiggles out of trouble. Matter of fact, you are surprised to see that he hasn't been sued for any workplace-related incidents before. You can think of at least three charges off the top of your head.

"He stole another one of my clients. I've been buttering up Mr. Pritchett for three months now and he just swoops in and finds his missing dog!" Phoebe rants while pacing back and forth, her heels clicking against the marble floors in a manner that you pray does not leave marks. Phoebe was hired at about the same time as Mike. She's been working as your associate for about half a year now.

Phoebe was at the top of her class at Harvard. She marched to Pearson Hardman with a laminated copy of her recommendation letters, all the professors were singing praises about her, almost as if they kneeled on the ground which she walked upon. On paper, she is leagues better than Mike Ross - but in reality, it seems like Harvey's associate is too much like him. Thief, you thought to yourself.

"There will be other clients," you reminded.

"We need Pritchett's Closets!" Phoebe sighs.

"- and Blinds." You gave her a teasing smile.

You have been trying to build this marketable image to your clients, opting to stay on the side of paperwork when it comes to technical cases mostly concerning patents, copyright claims, and all those boring things that actually bring the most money. After that case with Montgomery Co. with the missing ballerina and the murdered grandmother - it had all been too much, leaning more towards the black than the usual grey that you were suited with.

Phoebe knew that Pritchett's Closet's (& Blinds) endorsement would mean cementing that newfound niche that you've burrowed into, but with Harvey grabbing into Mr. Pritchett's proverbial golden tits. He is making that very difficult for you.

"I don't get it, why do they always steal our clients? Louis always gets the second most interesting cases." Phoebe regains her composure, opting to sit on the chair in front of you - watching as you drafted through a thousand-paged contract about some thingamajink. Phoebe just couldn't understand why Harvey of all people was hellbent on stealing your clients.

He is renowned for the storm, not the calm rivers.

"Our cases bring in the most money," you answered. It is very difficult to remain composed in front of your associate, but Jessica emphasized the fact that you were here to teach Phoebe about law. Rule #1 - never show any emotions. The first to react is the first to lose. "I don't think that Harvey is that desperate for money," she says.

You glance up from your laptop, an eyebrow raised in intrigue.

The way that her lips are curled right now. She's thinking about something unorthodox (which is not the appropriate adjective to use but you cannot think of another word to describe her mischief).

"I don't have time for this," you groaned hearing her giggles.

"Do you ever think that maybe Harvey is doing this to get your attention?" She leans a little closer, her eyebrows wiggling insisting that a connection existed even though it wasn't there. "Why would he want my attention, huh?" You asked expecting no decent answer.

"- because you are the third most fuckable woman in this office." She says in a hushed whisper. If there was water inside of your mouth, you would have spit it out by now. "Who's the first and the second?" Your voice comes out louder than you anticipated.

"I mean this with absolute adoration, but Jessica and me, respectively." Phoebe shrugs and a laugh forces its way out of your lips, for someone who answered her interview with professionalism, Phoebe is not acting very professional right now. "Jokes aside. I understand why Harvey would want to want you." She points out.

"You seriously have to stop reading those books," you roll your eyes.

"Remember that time when you brought me to the company gala? You were wearing that random dress from an atelier in Paris. It wasn't even a revealing gown, cloistered nuns wear clothes more revealing than that gown you wore but Harvey was staring at you with hearts in his fricking eyes." Phoebe exaggerates with her grand hand gestures. You suppose that you didn't exactly pay mind to Harvey during that gala - he did try to speak to you before leaving, but at that point you were far too tired - you just got into a cab.

You didn't even stop walking to hear what he was saying.

Oh, don't let Phoebe's words get to you. You thought to yourself.

She's nothing but a fresh graduate student who (swears) that she has never had a boyfriend her entire life. What does she know of love?

You pried your attention away from your laptop, staring at Phoebe straight in the eyes - in a tone that you have used with witnesses. "Even if Harvey Specter likes me in the way that you're pointing out, it doesn't matter because I don't care." You lied.

"- and you should go back to work." You pointed at the door.

And she stands up with a huff.

"Close the door on your way out!"

"Whatever!"

Goddamn, Phoebe!

Her words echoed in your mind, memories of that gala keep repeating - it was three months ago for Christ's sake. You still remember every detail albeit a little blurry.

Harvey was trying to reach out to you, but at that point, you had already drunk too much whiskey, everything was happening in slow motion. It was raining, your car was nowhere to be found and Phoebe already called a cab to get you home - at that time, you didn't have the capacity or sanity to discuss a case with Harvey, so you just left.

You prayed that Harvey would just think that you didn't hear him. It would hurt his ego, yes, but he always deserves a little humbling.

But now your mind is just repeating that scenario.

What if he wanted to talk about something else?

What if he wanted to be friends? More than friends?

"What the fuck am I talking about?" You mumbled to yourself while fishing for the car keys inside of your purse. It was already twelve midnight. You were probably the last person inside the damn building. A yawn escapes your mouth as you walked through the dark corridors of Pearson Hardman, but to your surprise the lights to Harvey's office are open and his door was slightly ajar.

Phoebe's words come crashing towards you again. There is only one way to know, and that is to ask. Well, not ask but most certainly try to feel around, you argued with yourself.

Your feet taking you towards the direction of his office.

"Harvey, are you still there?" You knocked on his door.

"What is it?" He inquires while blowing his nose.

You paused for a second. Your eyes trailed back and forth between Harvey and the tissue in his hand presumably filled with snot. You have been working together for ten years and this is the first time that you've seen him sick. "I was about to leave but I saw that you were still here, so I'm just giving a heads up." You informed.

He sneezes once more, and you tilt your body towards the side - dodging the pathogens. "Are you sure that you're capable of going home?" You inquired with concern. He probably has a driver...

"Why wouldn't I be?" He shakes his head, his tone a little kinder.

"You look like you're about to die." You answered bluntly.

His eyes were puffy and his nose was red. On top of that, he was pale as a ghost - haunting you with his whiteness.

"You would like that, wouldn't you?" He chided.

You began to march in his direction, placing a hand on his forehead. The sudden proximity a little intimidating but still somewhat normal.

"You're going down with a fever," you said with certainty.

Your eyes trail towards his features, watching as his lips press into a thin line and his eyebrows merge together in frustration. It must feel horrible being sick during Q3 (which was the most important quarter in Pearson Hardman as all of your clients seem to get sued this season of the year). "You should take the day off tomorrow," you advised, almost surprised to hear these words escape your tongue.

You haven't had a decent conversation with Harvey for years. Well, you haven't spoken to him at all beyond business.

"As far as I'm concerned you're not Jessica and you can't tell me what to do." He shoves your advice down the drain, opting to return to the piles of paperwork sitting on his desk.

Oh yeah, stubborn is also a word you would use to describe him. Once he has his mind focused on something, it takes unstoppable force to pry him away. Heck, Phoebe calls him an immovable object referencing a reel that Donna sent to her. God, reels are awful.

"Suit yourself," you shrugged while turning around to leave.

"Goodbye," his voice is surprisingly soft.

No, this is just my mind playing tricks on me!

"Bye," you forced yourself to reply before shutting the glass doors behind you. Hopefully, he'll be better tomorrow - or else Jesicca will begin to realize that you aren't doing that much in the office.

You chuckle at the thought.

It was a stressful Friday in Pearson Hardman.

All Fridays are stressful in Pearson Hardman.

It was the last week of the month which meant that the accountant was going to come and audit the entire firm. Of course, the firm wasn't doing anything illegal per se but the accountant's presence did rattle Louis who would otherwise not be bothering you. "You didn't tell me that the check bounced," Louis barges into your office.

Jesus, you should really hire a secretary.

"I told you that we received an NSF Check but the client came and paid their dues in cash." You groaned. He isn't even the company accountant and he's going crazy over these small details. "You should have listed that down with the bookkeeper." Louis reminds.

"I did, that was two weeks ago!" You argued.

"Wait, two weeks ago?" Louis halts in his tracks.

"Yeah, and they sent me an email to confirm." You confirmed.

"I'm talking about the Fulgencio case," Louis repeats himself.

Oh right, that case that you made in collaboration with Harvey. It was about the inheritance of his illegitimate child yada yada. "Harvey was the one who handled the payments." You informed. Those checks should have been cashed in yesterday.

Normally you'd be the one dealing with the financial aspects of the case, but given the fact that Harvey was paired up with you - you threw those responsibilities to him. "Which means that you have to talk to him or I'm making Jessica write up a memo," Louis says.

"Why do I have to talk to him? You're the one dealing with the financial things." You complained. Seriously, Louis? Right when I'm about to start writing another contract with fucking Microsoft?

"You're the one who's supposed to co-sign the checks. You carry half of the blame." Louis reminds, and for someone who is Junior Partner - he sure as hell drives a good argument.

"Yeah, sure. I'll get it done Louis." You reassured.

Two things were for sure. You needed to talk to your co-workers with more decorum and that Harvey is seriously in trouble for not cashing those checks in. A groan escapes your mouth, already imagining all the paperwork that you were about to do - on top of that Mr. Fulgencio was probably sipping margaritas in Brazil, unreachable.

[email protected] Did you forget to cash in Mr. Fulgencio's checks? 11:29 pm

[email protected] We have to cash those in because we already recorded them in our books. Please reply with an electronic receipt ASAP. 12:00 pm

[email protected] Good afternoon, just messaging to check in with Mr. Fulgencio's checks. Cash them in ASAP before the weekend. 12:11 pm

"Harvey," you knocked on your co-worker's door.

After dealing with three back-to-back meetings, you expected at least a reply from Harvey, but he hasn't even seened your messages. "Come in," he replied hoarsely. For some miraculous reason, Donna was nowhere to be found in her desk.

It was a little uncharacteristic, concerning even...

"I sent you messages about the checks," you waltzed inside of his office. Momentarily taken aback by the sight of him. He looked bad yesterday and he looks horrible now. He looks like he hasn't slept the entire night - he was basically sleeping on his desk. It's a miracle that an associate has not stumbled upon the sight of him. Well, then again they probably already have. "I'll check it," he mumbled.

"Harvey," you said in a voice that was a little firmer.

You're not a sweet person. You're not the type of person who speaks in a concerned tone, catering to each and every problem that your co-workers face, but Harvey's was a different case. Ten years ago, he marched back into this office as an associate with his own legal secretary and he set the court ablaze. You were going to lie if you said that you didn't feel a tinge of attraction towards him - it was there, flickering like an almost dying star.

Nope, actually, not a dying star because that would mean that the attraction would have blossomed into something else and then died. More like a seed planted on loamy soil - and then someone trampled on the saplings before they grew into fully-formed trees.

Harvey was an almost, an almost turned rival but now he's a maybe?

Again, what the hell are you talking about.

Putting it in simpler terms, you simply cared about Harvey.

"Harvey," you repeated his name again, the realization beginning to settle. You're not the type of person who cares easily, so why do you care about Harvey so much? A real workplace rival would have rejoiced at the sight of him being this sick during the most important day of the most important quarter. But you weren't.

"I'll fix it, whatever it is." He says with certainty, his attention straying.

"You know that resting is not a bad thing, right?" You asked rhetorically. "I'm alright, I'm not sick," Harvey argued while fighting through the sneezes that threatened to make their way.

"Yes, you are," you replied bluntly.

"I have to work, I need to get these papers finished." Harvey rambled.

"It isn't selfish to put yourself first," you told him, taking another step closer until you were standing in front of him, leaning over his desk. "- and let's face it you're not getting any work done. You're only putting the people of this workplace in danger of infection," you persuaded, using words that you knew he'd be persuaded with. He stares at you.

Harvey wouldn't hurt a fly.

He wouldn't even dream of putting anyone's life in danger.

Harvey is a good person. (Bam, another adjective!)

He keeps staring at you, the sunlight casting a glow on his blue irises, and for a moment, you contemplate risking it all... He looks so handsome, basked in the warmth of the sunlight, that you forget everything that happened before. There are only thoughts of him. Harvey's golden curls were kissed by the gods of the sun and his aquamarine eyes proved to be beautiful in contrast to his lips...

His lips that you once dreamed of pressing kisses upon (in the caprice of your youth). Harvey looks like he's thinking of you too, but that thought is snapped away from your mind when he reaches for the telephone on his right, pressing a number that would connect to the phone on Donna's desk. "Yes, Harvey?" You hear Donna's voice from the other side of the call. "I'm going home," he informs.

A smile paints your lips.

How easy he was to persuade.

"Hi, Ray, please take Harvey home." You helped a very sick Harvey into the backseat of his car.

"Of course miss...?"

"(Your Name), oh here's my number - just call me if you need anything." You reached for your pocket, handing him a call card.

"Goodbye, safe driving." You waved.

It was already early morning when Ray Benghazi called your phone. "Hello, who is this?" Your voice was hoarse and your throat felt dry. Your eyebrows merged together in confusion, this was your personal phone number and not a lot of people knew about it.

"Atty. (Your Name) this is Ray Benghazi. I'm Harvey's driver, and I just called because Mr. Specter hasn't replied to my texts. He's supposed to attend a conference in the Hamptons, but his car needed some repairs, so I'm tied up in the mechanics. I was wondering if you could check up on him? I'm sorry, I just don't know the phone numbers of Harvey's other friends." Ray rambled off.

From his tone, you could make out his embarrassment and concern.

"Oh sure, just send me his address." You agreed.

"Thank you so much, I will text it to you, ma'am." He responded.

Harvey Specter, the things I do for you.

The sun was already beginning to shine when you reached Harvey's apartment. This will be your first time seeing him beyond work and work-related events and the circumstances were strangely domestic. Harvey is not the type of person who befriended people outside of work - and yet, here you were. You stopped at the threshold, your hands dancing against the metal button of his doorbell.

Is this a good time? You found yourself asking.

Ding dong! The doorbell echoed from inside his apartment.

Maybe he's still sleeping - or maybe he has company. He's probably fine, I shouldn't have come here. But, he could also not be fine and that would be a bigger problem -

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Harvey's eyebrows merged together. He was wearing a blue Eagles T-shirt paired with red sweatpants. It was seldom that he wore anything other than his silk-pressed suits. "Ray called me and told me to check up on you," you informed while raising your phone to show him the shadow of a text message.

He presses a hand to his face, chuckling. "Sorry, I wasn't able to reply to his messages but I decided to not attend the event. No need to worry," he whispers the last sentence. "I'm not accusing you of worrying about me," he is quick to correct and his phrase makes you laugh. Oh, you wouldn't be here if you weren't worried about him. You wouldn't have even woken up to Ray Benghazi's phone call at 4am if you weren't a bit worried about Harvey Specter.

"Why would I worry about you?" You tease and his face falls slightly.

"Do you want to come inside?" He offers. "- I was sick, so don't come in unless you have a fear of microbes." He opens the door slightly, prompting you to follow after him. "I don't care about that. I only mentioned the infection thingie because I know you'd care," you say.

"Good, I've never seen you wear a mask before." He says sarcastically.

"Please, I've never been sick before." You scoffed while sitting on the stool beside his breakfast nook. "Yep, the sniffling you were doing in January was just allergy season." He rolled his eyes.

"I didn't think that you were the one to keep score, Specter." You bantered while watching him make coffee. Your eyebrows merged together - you don't really drink coffee. You were more of a matcha person (ever since your aunt who had a vacation in Japan came back with matcha, you were hooked). "I don't keep score?" he scoffs.

He places a purple mug in front of you.

"I don't drink coffee," you gave him a polite smile.

"It's hojicha. It's not matcha but..." he shrugs and you freeze. How the fuck does he know about my hyperfixation on matcha? "Jessica brought those back when she came from Japan, but I'm not much of a tea connoisseur." He continues speaking.

"You don't look like the type," you mumbled while taking a sip of tea. "Your ancestors did throw tea on some river, or was it the ocean?" You pretended to be clueless about American history and he replies with an amused chuckle. "Whatever you say," he takes a sip of his coffee. His eyes on the city skyline in front of him.

"I hope that I don't owe you one - for checking up on me." He stops to look at you, his eyes trailing back and forth between your eyes and your lips. He met you ten years ago inside a cramped office in Pearson Hardman, clawing your way to the position that you have now - and he always admired you. Always found you beautiful, educated and interesting but way out of his league.

"Please, you owe me for another thing." You smiled.

You know almost everything about every topic in the world. You're able to connect with Jessica and her love for watching tennis. You're able to connect with Donna and her love for fashion - almost everyone is absolutely engrossed in you, including him.

"Other thing?" He tilts his head.

He doesn't even purposefully do it, but he overhears your conversations with other people, and suddenly, he remembers all your likes and dislikes. Sometimes, he uses that information to tease you - but oftentimes it just sits in his head, stagnant, waiting to be used. He doesn't even know what to call your relationship - more than co-workers but less than friends? More than friends but less than lovers? He knows that he cares though.

"The checks. You forgot to cash the checks in." You lightly remind him of the checks with Mr. Fulgencio. "Oh, shit." He winces.

"How will I ever make it up to you? Patron saint of checks?" He teases. "Hmm," you pressed a finger to your lips.

"- I don't want to cash in that check yet." You winked.

Just as you said that word, it began to rain.

"Oh shit," you cursed, watching the strong blip blop of the raindrops. "Did you walk here?" Harvey asks.

You answer with a nod, mentally cursing yourself.

"I'll take an Uber home, it was nice hanging out with you." You smiled. Goodness sake, who says hanging out? You cursed yourself again.

"No, you should stay," Harvey insists adamantly. "It would be rude to send you home; it's raining cats and dogs outside." He points at his open window. It is pouring heavily, and you are wearing sandals. That sensation, along with the dirty stress of NYC, must be awful.

He forces a thin-lipped smile on his face.

"Just for a little while," he argued.

"Fine," you relented.

The both of you tiptoed in the direction of his home theater. It wasn't a grand home theater per se, but there were about eight couches all sitting in front of a big screen. The room was dark, only illuminated by downcast lights - and the room was cold, like you were inside of a freezer. "I didn't know you were this rich," you teased.

"We have the same salary," he rolled his eyes, both of you sitting down on the couch farthest from the screen. "But not the same bonuses," you argued. "Yes, you get more." He banters, earning a giggle from you. "I do not," you shook your head.

"Louis told me," he reaches for the remote, handing it to you.

"I'm gonna sue him," you mumbled.

"Choose a movie," he says while leaning down on the couch. "If you have a home movie theater that must mean you're real picky in the movies that you watch." You made an observation.

Heck, this streaming platform was the one worth $10k. Does Harvey know anything about fiscal responsibility? "Choose one and see if I'll judge you," he breathes, pulling a blanket over his body - the blanket which he must've accidentally also pulled over your lap.

"I feel pressured," you say.

"Princess Bride?" you asked while hovering over the button.

"Sure," he agrees while opening a pack of chips, offering them to you.

You Hey, thank you so much for today!!

Harvey Specter (cell) I thought I was supposed to say that Thanks for staying in and watching movies with me Seen. 12:22 pm.

Harvey Specter (cell) I was thinking that maybe we should have dinner sometimes? Seen. 11:11 pm.

You And when exactly is *sometimes*?

Harvey Specter (cell) Tomorrow, 5pm. Carrizima's? I'll pick you up. Seen. 11:12pm.

You Sure, I'll give Ray my address.

There were many benefits to having a stable job, one of them included luxury shopping - and boy, did you do that a lot, to the point that your sales associate had you on speed dial for limited edition items. "You're going on a fucking date? We cheered!" Phoebe chided.

"I guess it is kinda a date." You agreed.

You didn't even want to sugarcoat Harvey's invitation, the both of you are grown humans and it would be uncharacteristic to tiptoe like teenagers. But, that didn't mean that you were going to drape yourself all over him, it was just a date - meaning, the both of you want to test the waters. If there's some sort of compatibility.

"I guess that means my shipping days with Harvey Specter are over," Phoebe sighed. Yes, you learned that the word 'shipping' meant creating a romantic pairing of two people in slang. Phoebe says that she has been shipping you with Harvey for quite some time now. When she finds out that you are going on a date with Harvey, she is going to freak out - but, you don't have to tell her.

Phoebe and Donna know everything about everyone. What's the problem with withholding this information from her? It'll be funny and she'll find out about the date soon enough. "Tell me about the guy that you're going on a date with. Is he handsome?" She asked.

"Oh yeah, and he's not like those boys on social media that you like. He has a real job," you teased your associate. "What job?" She continued prying as your sales associate, Georgina, placed a stack of dresses on the clothes rack. "He's a lawyer," you confirmed.

Hoping that Phoebe would be able to piece the two things together.

"Damn, he's handsome and a lawyer. Harvey will be so jealous." Phoebe giggled. "You should wear this dress," she pointed at the white dress that reached past your knees. "- you should be very demure in your attack." She advises.

"Spoken from the mouth of a girl who has never had a boyfriend," you rolled your eyes while stepping inside of the dressing room. Thank you, Georgina for getting me a private room, you say.

"I have read a lot of books!" Phoebe defended herself.

The restaurant that Harvey chose was spectacular. It had the perfect aesthetic of Venice, curated with each decoration in beautiful taste, it felt real and authentic, not like the restaurants in Times Square which were obvious tourist traps.

You wearing a white floral Erdem shirt dress with cute Bresson lace sleeves, merging in with the restaurant's aesthetics. On your right, two young French couples were looking longingly into each other's eyes, and on your left, there was an older couple - doing the exact same thing. Your gaze returns to Harvey.

Where does that leave you and Harvey in this visual metaphor?

"I've never been here before," your eyes trailed against the restaurant's beautiful interior. "- ten years living in New York and not once..." you chuckled, wondering how this beautiful restaurant was able to eclipse your radar. "It's a hidden gem," He replies.

The first time that Harvey visited this place was with Jessica, where she begged him to return back to the firm. After that entire scandal in the D.A.'s office with Cameron Dennis, he hasn't really had the opportunity to revisit this restaurant - the restaurant that marked new beginnings for him. "I'm sorry about forgetting to take care of the checks. I already sent an email to Fulgencio's assistant, and don't worry I already talked to the accountant." He explained.

"Everybody makes mistakes, and you were sick, which meant that you weren't exactly yourself." You comforted, taking his apology.

The waiter places both of your dishes on the table, and you mumble a quick thanks. There was a moment of silence between you, only broken by the sound of jazz music playing in the background.

"I like your dress," he compliments shyly - reminding you of young love. A type of love that you missed out on in your youth due to the pursuit of greatness. The sound of him is refreshing. "Your tie doesn't look so bad," you teased while taking a sip of your merlot.

He places a hand on his tie.

"This is a special tie," his eyebrows merged together in mockery.

"I've never seen you wear that tie before," you scoffed.

"I've never had a special day," he defends himself while twirling the strands of pasta around his fork, taking a bite of bolognese. "- and why would today be a special day?" You raised an eyebrow.

Harvey freezes, but just for a split second.

He has thought about this scenario almost a hundred times. When he's washing his hair in the shower, he can't help but imagine what it would feel like to make this real, to confess feelings of attraction that he has kept buried for the past decade, masking it up with banter and stealing each other's clients. But now sitting in front of you, sandwiched between a young and an old couple - he cannot help but feel taken aback. What if you end up being like his mother? What if he loves you so much, he ends up like his father?

"- because we're having dinner together." He replies automatically.

You are not going to be like his mother. He's spent ten years in an office with you, kept his feelings hidden, settled with banter because he is terrified. Harvey Specter is terrified of confessing his feelings and losing one of the only friends that he has. He's terrified of you feeling the same way and watching you unfold under the weight of his anxiety, and he doesn't know if those fears hold no merit now.

He's scared, overthinking a simple sentence - overthinking this dinner, and on the outside - overthinking is not Harvey Specter's brand. He's confident, smug, aloof, but he is not. He's tired of being called smart, he's just scared. He's scared that without his law degree, without his work in Pearson Hardman, he's just a nobody with divorced parents who'll probably never experience real love.

"Harvey, are you alright?" Your voice suddenly sounded airy.

He takes a deep breath, feeling his chest constrict for a second. He continues staring at your face, allowing the light to lead him to peace. "Yes," he answers with a smile on his face.

He takes another deep breath.

In. Out. In. Out.

His heart is thumping furiously, he cannot think straight, but he knows exactly what he is supposed to do. "I'll be straightforward," he cleared his throat. "Yes?" You raised an eyebrow, the world continued happening beside you - but your attention was only focused on him.

The sound of the jazz band playing, the taste of the wine on your tongue, the casual conversation happening behind you - it all got drowned out because Harvey was the only thing worthy of your attention right now. "The thought of you makes me smile. I wake up everyday anticipating your morning remarks, because I find you funny and beautiful and interesting. I like you." Harvey confessed, he sat tall and confident, not for once second doubting himself.

There was another round of silence between you.

His face changes slightly, merging into confusion when you began laughing.

Laughing hard and uncontrollably.

"Is this funny to you?" He returns back to his cocky self.

"No, no, I find it - hilarious." You wiped away tears of joy.

"I planned this entire thing with a helicopter, and I was about to tell you that I liked you too." You professed a shocked smile paints his lips. "Damn," he leans on his chair.

Damn indeed.

GIRL'S GROUPCHAT

Phoebe Ya'll will never guess who (Your Name) is dating.

Donna who?

Phoebe Ya'll will never guess

Rachel You dunno, do you?

Phoebe Uhh no but I know he works in Pearson Hardman She sent me a picture and I swear he was holding a folder A YELLOW FOLDER WITH OUR FIRM'S LOGO

Donna seems like this is a mystery we're supposed to solve

Rachel It's intriguing ...

#harvey specter x reader #harvey specter fanfics #harvey specter x you #suits fanfic #harvey specter #suits #harvey specter fanfic #harvey specter imagine #harvey specter smut #x reader

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intuitive-revelations · 11 months ago

Text

The near future in the Doctor Who universe sure gets dire doesn't it? Especially if Mad Jack / Roger ap Gwilliam is still part of history.

I thought I'd have a bit of fun listing things out, combining as many sources as possible. Turns out he fits in shockingly well with what we know. There's a lot missing here or cut out, and for obvious reasons it's very UK / Europe focused, but nonetheless:

[ID: Scene from The Christmas Invasion showing Harriet Jones on BBC News. The news ticker reads "PM HEALTH SCARE", "Unfit for duty?", and references a "SECRET GOVERNMENT MOLE" and a quote: "BLOOD ON [HER HANDS]".]

2006-2021 (obviously the past now, but still noting for the resulting temporal and political butterfly effect) - In the original timeline, Harriet Jones remains Prime Minister for 3 consecutive terms, presumably 15 years assuming no snap election was called, referred to as a 'golden age' [World War Three]. The Tenth Doctor deliberately changes history to cause her deposal [The Christmas Invasion], leading to numerous disastrous terms in the meantime, including those of Harold Saxon [The Sound of Drums et al.], Brian Green (who tried to appease the 456) [Children of Earth], Boris Johnson (an auton host of the Nestene Consciousness) [Rose (novelisation)], and Jo Patterson (responsible for deploying cloned Dalek defence drones in the UK's streets) [Revolution of the Daleks].

[ID: Scene from Revolution of the Daleks. A 'defence drone' Dalek is used to support anti-riot police in a test, dispersing protestors with mock tear gas.]

2010s-2030s - The European Union gradually integrates further, eventually becoming the European Zone / Eurozone, a global superpower which competes with the USA through the 21st century. The UK eventually forms part of the bloc [Trading Futures].

It's likely that Harriet Jones's deposal led to this and related events being delayed or erased, with Brexit (driven by, among others, one of Jones's successors in the new timeline) reducing european unity. Most notably, Ramón Salamander's rise to power occurs now not in the 2010s [The Enemy of the World], but in the 2030s [Doctor Who and the Enemy of the World]. There are other events that are seemingly delayed by ~20 years by changes to the timeline, including future events like the dictatorship of Mariah Learman [The Time of the Daleks, Trading Futures], and yet also possibly past events like the death of Queen Elizabeth II [Battlefield, The Longest Night et al.], which may suggest something else (eg. the Time War) may be responsible.

~2030 - During a time of rising global tensions [73 Yards], Ramón Salamander convinces a group of scientists in an underground shelter endurance experiment that nuclear war has broken out on the surface. They are convinced to generate artificial "natural" disasters to fight back against the enemy. Between this and ongoing climate change, several global food sources collapse as a result, including Canada and Ukraine's corn and flour production [The Enemy of the World].

2031 - Tensions culminate in the "Great Russian War". Despite posturing, not a single nuclear weapon is fired, at least by NATO [73 Yards]. This may be later considered World War III [Trading Futures].

~2032-2035 - Following the war, tensions rise again, now between the Eurozone and the USA [Trading Futures], possibly in reaction to actions (or lack thereof?) taken by NATO during the war [73 Yards]. Both send separate peacekeeping forces to conflict in North Africa. Meanwhile, Italy is engaged in civil war [Trading Futures].

[ID: Scene from The Enemy of the World, showing Ramón Salamander.]

Over the decade, Ramón Salamander rises in power in the World Zone Authority, using his patented "Sun Store" satellite technology to aid the growth of crops by controlling sunlight over agricultural regions. In the background, he murders and blackmails officials to place loyalists into powerful positions, with the goal of ruling over the World Zone Authority as a dictator. Salamander's treachery is later discovered and he disappears [The Enemy of the World].

2037 - 2042 - Several militia declare wars of Independence from the USA. Notably, Phoenix, Arizona is destroyed in a terrorist attack. While the country largely persists after the conflicts, some territories seem to successfully secede - with, for example, a Montana Republic seemingly being in existence in 2054 [Alien Bodies].

2038 - The World Zones Accord is signed. This is later considered to have reduced the United Nations to a 'joke' compared with the World Zone Authority [Alien Bodies]. Given the extensive power it gives to the WZA, this was likely originally part of Salamander's plan, but due to his disappearance he is not around to reap the rewards [The Enemy of the World].

2039 - A group of Mexican astronauts studying minerals on the Moon go missing [Kill the Moon].

~2030s - 2040s - The Earth begins to experience major climate change effects, including "appalling storm conditions" which harm agriculture [The Waters of Mars]. The ice caps melt and flood much of the Earth [K9] with nations like the Netherlands ending up entirely flooded [St Anthony's Fire]. Some regions experience corrosive acid rain [Cat's Cradle: War Head, Strange Loops]. One summer sees Britain experience a 22 week drought. At this time, the Eurozone closes its borders to millions of North African and Baltic Sea refugees [Hothouse]. This time period may be known as the "Oil Apocalypse" [The Waters of Mars].

[ID: Scene from K9 Episode 13: Aeolian. Big Ben stands in the middle of a colossal storm of wind and rain.]

With Earth's ecosystems collapsing [Davros], humanity begin to realise it's facing extinction [The Waters of Mars]. An artificial cooling agent is spread in the atmosphere to semi-successfully combat the effects, but leads to dramatic side-effects, including freezing some areas of the globe. This is known as the "Great Cataclysm" [K9].

2041 - A three-human team, including Adelaide Brooke, lands on Mars for the first time [The Waters of Mars]. However, with this accomplishment, and increasing turbulence on Earth, Humanity gradually loses interest in space exploration [Kill the Moon].

Before 2045 - Around this time, the UK falls into a dictatorship ruled by the "Director", head of a military council that has allegedly (secretly?) controlled the government since 2028 [Britain Protests]. It is possible that this Director was previously the "Minister of War" for previous governments [Before the Flood].

2045 - The World Zones Authority evolves into a World Government, with Nikita Bandranaik being elected President. The UK is not part of the organisation [This is 2065].

2046-2050s - The Director is overthrown [Down with the Director] and the rest of the government "collapses in shame" [73 Yards]. Some of the revolutionaries celebrate now being "masters of [their] own country" [Down with the Director]. Despite the hopes of the World Government for international integration, this nationalistic streak continues.

[ID: Scene from 73 Yards. Roger ap Gwilliam, with an Albion Party ribbon on his chest declares victory on BBC News, live from Kennington High in London. Headline reads "LANDSLIDE VICTORY FOR ALBION PARTY: Majority of 92 predicted. Roger ap Gwilliam declared Prime Minister."]

Roger ap Gwilliam is elected Prime Minister, with the far-right nationalistic Albion Party gaining a majority of 92 MPs [73 Yards]. While his government does take the step to officially join the World Government senate [Down with the Director], he seeks greater independence from other nations. One of his first actions is to expand the UK's nuclear arsenal, purchasing missiles from Pakistan and withdrawing from NATO. In his term, the world is brought to the brink of nuclear war [73 Yards], likely in the pre-2050s "Euro Wars" [The Time of the Daleks].

In this time, the "Department", a (private?) multinational security organisation is born, based primarily in the UK. They gain broad powers, which they use to control populations with propaganda and use of "CCPC"s: robotic law enforcement notorious for their surveillance and brutality. Despite its recent revolution, the country is rendered practically a police state [K9].

[ID: Scene from K9 Episode 1: Regeneration. CCPCs, hulking police robots, march down a dark alley.]

2049 - The Moon starts to dramatically gain mass, causing massive tides on the Earth, flooding entire cities. In a last ditch at survival, humanity plans to try and destroy the Moon using an array of nuclear bombs. Despite the people of Earth being offered the vote on what to do by turning off their lights, it appears the decision is made on a national level, with lights going off grid-by-grid. Nonetheless, the Moon is allowed to hatch, leaving behind a new less massive egg "moon" with minimal further destruction [Kill the Moon].

[ID: Scene from Kill the Moon. The Moon hatches in the background, as the TARDIS stands by the sea.]

Humanity's interest in space exploration returns [Kill the Moon], starting a new space race. Among these projects, Australia begins constucting a space elevator, Spain a project called "SpaceLink", while Germany and Russia each begin a series of new Moon missions. The Philippines are rumoured to be planning their own landing on Mars [The Waters of Mars].

~2050 - The UK Government (ap Gwilliam's?) is couped once more, by General Mariah Learman. With the King's permission, elections are suspended for at least a couple years, with her ruling over a "benevolent dictatorship". She is later abducted and forcibly mutated by the Daleks [The Time of the Daleks]. Despite the previous description, her promotion of Shakespeare in schools is remembered as the only good thing about her rule [Trading Futures]. (Note: As mentioned prior, it's likely that Learman's rule may have been delayed as Salamander's was. This is suggested by the mention of her in Trading Futures, set seemingly ~2030s or earlier, despite The Time of the Daleks taking place around the 2050s.)

~2050s - The Gravitron is built on the new Moon. This is used to artificially control the tides and weather [The Moonbase]. It likely also is intended to study and monitor the new Moon for future changes [Kill the Moon].

[ID: Scene from The Moonbase, giving an external shot of the base.]

2058 - 2059 - Bowie Base One is established: humanity's first colony on another planet and an international collaboration between the UK, USA, Russia, Germany, Turkey, South Korea, Lithuania, Australia, and Pakistan. One year later, it is mysteriously destroyed in a deliberately triggered nuclear explosion. In the original timeline, there were no survivors. However, after the interference of the Time Lord Victorious, the true story is eventually told on Earth. Regardless "a veil of darkness" sweeps over the planet over the next few years. [The Waters of Mars], as international tensions heat up once more... [Total Eclipse of the Heart].

[ID: Scene from The Waters of Mars, showing an internet news website. Various articles appear focused on the Bowie Base One incident, including "SURVIVORS STORY - BROOKE SAVED EARTH", "THE MYTHICAL DOCTOR", "BROOKE'S HEROIC ACTIONS SAVE EARTH", and "HOW THE COUPLE ESCAPED MARS". The feature image shows the two survivors: Yuri Kerenski and Mia Bennett.]

2060s - The "Great War" breaks out on Earth, involving every country on Earth. This is likely World War IV. Details are vague, but it ultimately ends in a ceasefire, when it's realised the conflict is risking Earth's habitability [Total Eclipse of the Heart].

#Doctor Who #DW Spoilers #Doctor Who Spoilers #73 Yards #DW Theory #Canon-Welding #Long Post

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