#always do your research before going to a new nation.

[muk-it-up]

Hi! I love your zigzagoon!! What's it like in Galar?? I hear a lot of people don't like it, but I don't see why... It seems nice like any other region out there. Also would you like to be friends? :D

Galar can be pretty nice, but most people who come here expect it to be like other regions. which it. is not. at all.

the gym circuit is heavily televised, and is a major part of the culture (not that im happy abt it) which can be a major culture shock to people coming here, especially the ones who're noibatshit about it.

the dyna/gigantamax crap is also a big turn off for people who arent battlers, because its loud and really dangerous. gyms have crap in place to prevent accidents, but when pokemon that size are throwing out attacks, theres always a chance you get knocked over by the vibrations. theres a reason that gym buildings and nearby neighbourhoods have earthquake-proof infrastructure.

the region is still lovely in the south though! i always recommend postwick as a place to visit, because you can check out the sick ass woods but most places in the south are nice. be careful around the glimwood tangle though, full of trickster pokemon. a small but significant amount of tourists who dont heed the warnings of locals and go missing.

and sure, we can be friends!!!

[esoteric-goblin]

on worldbuilding, and what people think is going on

there is one facet of fantasy worldbuilding that is, to me, the most interesting and essential but i don't see it come up in worldbuilding guides or writing prompts or anything, and that is the question of:

what do the inhabitants of your world believe about how the world works, and how are they wrong? a lot of fantasy media will set up their cosmology, gods, magic systems, planar systems, concepts of the afterlife, &c., and proceed as though the inhabitants of the world know and understand them.

from someone whose entire academic career is focused on studying human culture in various regions and time periods, with a focus on belief systems (religion, occultism, mythology, folklore): that sort of worldbuilding is unrealistic and missing out on so much fun.

people are always seeking new understanding about how the world works, and they are mostly wrong. how many models of the solar system were proposed before we reached our current one? look at the long, turbulent history of medicine and our various bizarre models for understanding the human body and how to fix it. so many religions and occult/magical traditions arise from people disagreeing with or adapting various models of the world based on new ideas, methods, technologies. many of them are wrong, but all of them are interesting and reflect a lot about the culture, beliefs, values, and fears of the people creating/practising them.

there is so much more to the story of what people believe about the world than just what is true.

to be clear: i think it's fine and important for the author to have a coherent explanation for where magic comes from or who the gods are, so they can maintain consistency in their story. but they should also be asking what people in the world (especially different people, in different regions/nations and different times) think is happening when they do magic, or say a prayer, or practise medicine, or grieve their dead. it is a rich vein for conflict between individuals and nations alike when two models of the world disagree. it is fascinating how different magic systems might develop according to different underlying beliefs.

personally, i think it is the most fun to spawn many diverse models of the world, but give none of them the 'right' answer.

(bonus points if you also have a thriving academic system in the world with its own theory, research, and discourse between factions! as an academic, it is very fun to imagine fictional academic debate over the topics i'm worldbuilding. sometimes i will be working out details for some underlying mechanic of the world and start imagining the papers being written by scholars researching it)

[sakusaur]

rin itoshi ; baby daddy

hcs of rin as a father / sfw !!!

you took the pregnancy test three times to make sure it wasn’t a false line but it’s true; you and rin are going to be parents! on the same day, you immediately went online to purchase a baby sized national team football jersey to surprise your husband rin.

needless to say, you panicked at first but after seeing his reaction to the news, you felt relieved and so full of love and happiness

you told him just as he came home from training, you were already laying in bed relaxing as you rubbed your tummy though there was no bulge yet

just next to you, the tiny jersey was displayed and rin immediately noticed it, confused as to why you put a tiny national team jersey there

“y/n, did my jersey shrink while i was gone?” he asked as he walked closer to your side before noticing a pregnancy test just above the jersey

“wait. is that mine? or yours? wait,” rin starts getting flustered as he grabbed the test and you hold onto him excitedly, “you’re going to be a father!”

rin doesnt say a word as he looked back at you and the positive result and you fear that he might not want a child, especially after the childhood he had.

but NO he’s actually over the moon and crazy happy that a mini you and him will be walking around the house and o h he’s trying not to cry

gives you a very very very passionate and deep kiss while he holds your face because thats how he knows how to express his emotions at the moment

during the pregnancy

rin is the type of father who would read guidebooks and research A LOT on the internet

worries about your morning sickness and he’s always there holding your hair and massaging your back

makes you a nice healthy balanced breakfast after that and doesn’t let you move an inch on the bed as he does the housework, only allowing you to move once you finished your meal and feel better

he WILL bitch about your weird cravings but still go out to buy them

“i want ice cream and pickles right now,” you shot awake and started jerking his arm while he’s half asleep.

he sticks his tongue out in disgust, “together?” and you nod before he groans and gets out of bed to get it for you

(if your cravings are too weird at home he’d still go down to the convenience store to get it or get delivery)

he gets nervous touching your belly but when your baby kicks as they feel rin’s touch, rin is moved to tears but holds it in, and continues to stroke your belly while lying on your thigh

will NOT sing to the baby like you told him to but he will talk to them as if it was a teen

“you have to stop giving your mother back pain, ya hear me?” rin is at your belly eye level as he says it, giving your belly a peck after

during/after the birthing

rin will hold your hand during labour

give you so much forehead kisses

tells you how well you’re doing and how much he loves you

tells the doctor to pass the baby to you first

will finally let some tears shed as he sees how beautiful you look carrying his baby

and his whole life is complete

part 2 to be continued! :)

tag list: @6423btw

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Solar is a market for (financial) lemons

There are only four more days left in my Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

Rooftop solar is the future, but it's also a scam. It didn't have to be, but America decided that the best way to roll out distributed, resilient, clean and renewable energy was to let Wall Street run the show. They turned it into a scam, and now it's in terrible trouble. which means we are in terrible trouble.

There's a (superficial) good case for turning markets loose on the problem of financing the rollout of an entirely new kind of energy provision across a large and heterogeneous nation. As capitalism's champions (and apologists) have observed since the days of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, markets harness together the work of thousands or even millions of strangers in pursuit of a common goal, without all those people having to agree on a single approach or plan of action. Merely dangle the incentive of profit before the market's teeming participants and they will align themselves towards it, like iron filings all snapping into formation towards a magnet.

But markets have a problem: they are prone to "reward hacking." This is a term from AI research: tell your AI that you want it to do something, and it will find the fastest and most efficient way of doing it, even if that method is one that actually destroys the reason you were pursuing the goal in the first place.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/security/engineering/failure-modes-in-machine-learning

For example: if you use an AI to come up with a Roomba that doesn't bang into furniture, you might tell that Roomba to avoid collisions. However, the Roomba is only designed to register collisions with its front-facing sensor. Turn the Roomba loose and it will quickly hit on the tactic of racing around the room in reverse, banging into all your furniture repeatedly, while never registering a single collision:

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2021/04/when-ais-start-hacking.html

This is sometimes called the "alignment problem." High-speed, probabilistic systems that can't be fully predicted in advance can very quickly run off the rails. It's an idea that pre-dates AI, of course – think of the Sorcerer's Apprentice. But AI produces these perverse outcomes at scale…and so does capitalism.

Many sf writers have observed the odd phenomenon of corporate AI executives spinning bad sci-fi scenarios about their AIs inadvertently destroying the human race by spinning off in some kind of paperclip-maximizing reward-hack that reduces the whole planet to grey goo in order to make more paperclips. This idea is very implausible (to say the least), but the fact that so many corporate leaders are obsessed with autonomous systems reward-hacking their way into catastrophe tells us something about corporate executives, even if it has no predictive value for understanding the future of technology.

Both Ted Chiang and Charlie Stross have theorized that the source of these anxieties isn't AI – it's corporations. Corporations are these equilibrium-seeking complex machines that can't be programmed, only prompted. CEOs know that they don't actually run their companies, and it haunts them, because while they can decompose a company into all its constituent elements – capital, labor, procedures – they can't get this model-train set to go around the loop:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/09/autocomplete-worshippers/#the-real-ai-was-the-corporations-that-we-fought-along-the-way

Stross calls corporations "Slow AI," a pernicious artificial life-form that acts like a pedantic genie, always on the hunt for ways to destroy you while still strictly following your directions. Markets are an extremely reliable way to find the most awful alignment problems – but by the time they've surfaced them, they've also destroyed the thing you were hoping to improve with your market mechanism.

Which brings me back to solar, as practiced in America. In a long Time feature, Alana Semuels describes the waves of bankruptcies, revealed frauds, and even confiscation of homeowners' houses arising from a decade of financialized solar:

https://time.com/6565415/rooftop-solar-industry-collapse/

The problem starts with a pretty common finance puzzle: solar pays off big over its lifespan, saving the homeowner money and insulating them from price-shocks, emergency power outages, and other horrors. But solar requires a large upfront investment, which many homeowners can't afford to make. To resolve this, the finance industry extends credit to homeowners (lets them borrow money) and gets paid back out of the savings the homeowner realizes over the years to come.

But of course, this requires a lot of capital, and homeowners still might not see the wisdom of paying even some of the price of solar and taking on debt for a benefit they won't even realize until the whole debt is paid off. So the government moved in to tinker with the markets, injecting prompts into the slow AIs to see if it could coax the system into producing a faster solar rollout – say, one that didn't have to rely on waves of deadly power-outages during storms, heatwaves, fires, etc, to convince homeowners to get on board because they'd have experienced the pain of sitting through those disasters in the dark.

The government created subsidies – tax credits, direct cash, and mixes thereof – in the expectation that Wall Street would see all these credits and subsidies that everyday people were entitled to and go on the hunt for them. And they did! Armies of fast-talking sales-reps fanned out across America, ringing dooorbells and sticking fliers in mailboxes, and lying like hell about how your new solar roof was gonna work out for you.

These hustlers tricked old and vulnerable people into signing up for arrangements that saw them saddled with ballooning debt payments (after a honeymoon period at a super-low teaser rate), backstopped by liens on their houses, which meant that missing a payment could mean losing your home. They underprovisioned the solar that they installed, leaving homeowners with sky-high electrical bills on top of those debt payments.

If this sounds familiar, it's because it shares a lot of DNA with the subprime housing bubble, where fast-talking salesmen conned vulnerable people into taking out predatory mortgages with sky-high rates that kicked in after a honeymoon period, promising buyers that the rising value of housing would offset any losses from that high rate.

These fraudsters knew they were acquiring toxic assets, but it didn't matter, because they were bundling up those assets into "collateralized debt obligations" – exotic black-box "derivatives" that could be sold onto pension funds, retail investors, and other suckers.

This is likewise true of solar, where the tax-credits, subsidies and other income streams that these new solar installations offgassed were captured and turned into bonds that were sold into the financial markets, producing an insatiable demand for more rooftop solar installations, and that meant lots more fraud.

Which brings us to today, where homeowners across America are waking up to discover that their power bills have gone up thanks to their solar arrays, even as the giant, financialized solar firms that supplied them are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy, thanks to waves of defaults. Meanwhile, all those bonds that were created from solar installations are ticking timebombs, sitting on institutions' balance-sheets, waiting to go blooie once the defaults cross some unpredictable threshold.

Markets are very efficient at mobilizing capital for growth opportunities. America has a lot of rooftop solar. But 70% of that solar isn't owned by the homeowner – it's owned by a solar company, which is to say, "a finance company that happens to sell solar":

https://www.utilitydive.com/news/solarcity-maintains-34-residential-solar-market-share-in-1h-2015/406552/

And markets are very efficient at reward hacking. The point of any market is to multiply capital. If the only way to multiply the capital is through building solar, then you get solar. But the finance sector specializes in making the capital multiply as much as possible while doing as little as possible on the solar front. Huge chunks of those federal subsidies were gobbled up by junk-fees and other financial tricks – sometimes more than 100%.

The solar companies would be in even worse trouble, but they also tricked all their victims into signing binding arbitration waivers that deny them the power to sue and force them to have their grievances heard by fake judges who are paid by the solar companies to decide whether the solar companies have done anything wrong. You will not be surprised to learn that the arbitrators are reluctant to find against their paymasters.

I had a sense that all this was going on even before I read Semuels' excellent article. We bought a solar installation from Treeium, a highly rated, giant Southern California solar installer. We got an incredibly hard sell from them to get our solar "for free" – that is, through these financial arrangements – but I'd just sold a book and I had cash on hand and I was adamant that we were just going to pay upfront. As soon as that was clear, Treeium's ardor palpably cooled. We ended up with a grossly defective, unsafe and underpowered solar installation that has cost more than $10,000 to bring into a functional state (using another vendor). I briefly considered suing Treeium (I had insisted on striking the binding arbitration waiver from the contract) but in the end, I decided life was too short.

The thing is, solar is amazing. We love running our house on sunshine. But markets have proven – again and again – to be an unreliable and even dangerous way to improve Americans' homes and make them more resilient. After all, Americans' homes are the largest asset they are apt to own, which makes them irresistible targets for scammers:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/06/the-rents-too-damned-high/

That's why the subprime scammers targets Americans' homes in the 2000s, and it's why the house-stealing fraudsters who blanket the country in "We Buy Ugly Homes" are targeting them now. Same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks: "That's where the money is":

https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/11/ugly-houses-ugly-truth/

America can and should electrify and solarize. There are serious logistical challenges related to sourcing the underlying materials and deploying the labor, but those challenges are grossly overrated by people who assume the only way we can approach them is though markets, those monkey's paw curses that always find a way to snatch profitable defeat from the jaws of useful victory.

To get a sense of how the engineering challenges of electrification could be met, read McArthur fellow Saul Griffith's excellent popular engineering text Electrify:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/09/practical-visionary/#popular-engineering

And to really understand the transformative power of solar, don't miss Deb Chachra's How Infrastructure Works, where you'll learn that we could give every person on Earth the energy budget of a Canadian (like an American, but colder) by capturing just 0.4% of the solar rays that reach Earth's surface:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/17/care-work/#charismatic-megaprojects

But we won't get there with markets. All markets will do is create incentives to cheat. Think of the market for "carbon offsets," which were supposed to substitute markets for direct regulation, and which produced a fraud-riddled market for lemons that sells indulgences to our worst polluters, who go on destroying our planet and our future:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/14/for-sale-green-indulgences/#killer-analogy

We can address the climate emergency, but not by prompting the slow AI and hoping it doesn't figure out a way to reward-hack its way to giant profits while doing nothing. Founder and chairman of Goodleap, Hayes Barnard, is one of the 400 richest people in the world – a fortune built on scammers who tricked old people into signing away their homes for nonfunctional solar):

https://www.forbes.com/profile/hayes-barnard/?sh=40d596362b28

If governments are willing to spend billions incentivizing rooftop solar, they can simply spend billions installing rooftop solar – no Slow AI required.

Berliners: Otherland has added a second date (Jan 28 - TOMORROW!) for my book-talk after the first one sold out - book now!

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/2024/01/27/here-comes-the-sun-king/#sign-here

Back the Kickstarter for the audiobook of The Bezzle here!

Image:

Future Atlas/www.futureatlas.com/blog (modified)

https://www.flickr.com/photos/87913776@N00/3996366952

--

CC BY 2.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

J Doll (modified)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_Sky_%28140451293%29.jpeg

CC BY 3.0

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

[lionesses-lover]

Planned to Perfection - L. Williamson

The one where she knows what she wants but you’re afraid of ruining things for your best friend.

Word Count: 2.1k

Victoria was your best friend. You two had grown up together and you were so proud of her for everything she had achieved. So, when it was announced that she was moving to Arsenal you jumped for joy. Finally, you were going to be back in the same country as her.

You had moved to London two years ago for work. You were an in-house lawyer for a big finance company, which was wonderful but quite stressful at times. So, the idea of having your best friend living in the same city as you was a dream come true. You couldn’t wait to see her and watch her play the sport you both loved.

Football had always been something you enjoyed watching, but never something you enjoyed playing. When you and Vic were 11 you were always in the stands supporting her at matches, and later when she started playing for the national team you were there with your Dutch-orange Pelova shirt shouting loudly how proud you were.

You couldn’t wait to do the same thing in a red Arsenal Pelova shirt.

———

You did every possible thing you could to ensure that everything was perfect for Vic when she moved over to England. She was very nervous about fitting in with the group, telling you that many of the players were quite intimidating, especially the two captains - Leah and Kim - so she didn't want to do anything wrong. But soon enough, she started sounding a lot brighter when she called you after training everyday, telling you about the stories people had told her and what she got up to in training.

When Vic finally finished unpacking all the boxes in her house, she decided that it was time you met her teammates who she was quickly becoming very close to. She was desperate to show off her new house and equally as desperate for you and a certain someone to meet. But you didn't need to know that.

So, she decided to invite you and all of her Arsenal teammates round to her house one night for dinner, as she couldn't throw a big party because the season was very much still in progress. You were the first to arrive of course, making sure to be there to help her cook, making sure she didn’t burn the house down trying to use the oven. Vic was a wonderful footballer but you had been cooking most of her meals since she moved to London, because she was a chaotic chef.

You sat on one of the stools in her new kitchen, giving clear instructions on how to turn off the oven, when there is a loud knock at the front door.

"I'll get it!" Vic shouted, jumping up excitedly and running to the door, leaving you to just laugh and make sure the oven was actually turned off.

You were then suddenly bombarded by about a dozen women who had just walked into the kitchen, all eager to introduce themselves and get to know you. It was very intense but they were all very friendly and you were so happy that they seemed to love and care about Vic.

However, there was one person who greeted you slightly differently. You knew exactly who she was, having lived in London for two years and having done extensive research into the Arsenal women's team the second Victoria told you that she was signing for Arsenal. It was Leah Williamson. The English captain greeted you with a warm smile, immediately pulling you into a hug. Then, she pulled away and slowly looked you up and down, her beautiful eyes taking in every part of your body.

At first you thought you were imagining it, but then she caught you looking back at her and gave you a small wink. Leah had checked you out. This realisation made you quickly turn around to check that Vic was plating the food in the correct way, eager to hide the pink blush that was spreading across your cheeks.

———

As the evening progressed you were more than happy to see that each one of the Arsenal girls absolutely adored Vic. Viv, Lia and Kim helped her wash up the dishes from the meal, before taking over completely when she was swept away by Jen, Steph and Beth to play FIFA on the TV. They all cared for her so much and it warmed your heart to see each player looking after her in their own little way.

The only person who didn't seem to want to spend all of their time with your best friend was Leah. This wasn't because she disliked Vic, because you could tell very early on into the evening that the blonde had a soft spot for your Dutch friend after she helped her choose the perfect outfit for an event later in the week. The reason that Leah wasn't crowding around Vic as she showed everyone her new football boots was because of you. Leah was determined to spend as much time as possible getting to know the gorgeous girl that Victoria had been telling her about.

The pair of you had been quietly chatting on Vic’s sofa for a few hours, watching the chaos of over a dozen girls hanging out in the same house. She asked you question after question and carefully listened to your answers before replying to the question you had asked in return. You found yourself becoming obsessed with her beautiful eyes and stunning blonde hair. She seemed completely different to the intimidating captain you were expecting to meet.

Little did you know, Leah was also finding herself obsessing over you. She had been looking forward to meeting you for a while. Ever since Vic had mentioned her best friend, Leah had found you on Instagram and found herself entranced by your beauty. She needed to meet you. Luckily, she now had the opportunity and she wasn't going to let it be wasted.

As the evening progressed she became more and more flirty, making you more and more flustered. Leah knew what she wanted and she was making that crystal clear.

You were more hesitant. There was no denying that you found yourself drawn to the blonde who you had spent the evening with. You wanted to get to know her more but you were worried about the consequences. What if something went wrong? What if you broke up? What would happen to Victoria?

Your best friend was finally beginning to feel at home in London and with the Arsenal team. What would happen to her if you started dating one of the captains?

However, you tried to ignore your worries and your growing feelings for the Englishwoman. You focussed on just enjoying chatting to her and watching your best friend mess about with her teammates. Maybe all Leah wants is someone to flirt with?

———

Leah did not just want someone to flirt with.

At the end of the night, everyone slowly began to leave, some on their own and others in groups. Your personal favourite exit was watching Beth, Viv and Kim escort a slightly-more-than-tipsy trio of Gio, Katherine and Laura back to their respective homes.

When Leah finally decided it was time to return home, you walked her to the door because Vic was busy saying goodbye to Caitlin, Steph and Lia. She leaned in slowly and gave you a long, caring hug, allowing you to get lost in her embrace. When she eventually tore herself away from you, she looked you up and down once again slowly and asked the question that had been on the tip of her tongue all evening.

"Can I take you out on a date tomorrow? Or on Monday, or whenever really I just really want to take you out."

You looked into her her beautiful eyes when she said this. Oh no, you thought to yourself, what were you going to do? But your hesitation only lasted a second, because you were suddenly interrupted by your mad best friend running through the door with Lotte as they laughed about something Lotte had said. Victoria looked so happy with her new friends. You knew what you had to in that moment, as much as it broke your heart to do so.

"Leah," you said slowly, not wanting to disappoint the blonde, "I'm so sorry but I don't think that's the best idea."

———

"So, what was happening with you and Leah last night?" asked your best friend as you walked over to sit next to her, handing her the breakfast you had made.

Last night you had stayed over at Vic's to help her clean up and re-organise her house after having dozens of tipsy Arsenal players round.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, I saw you both chatting all night and she's definitely your type, so what happened."

"Nothing," replied, eager to reassure Vic that you weren't going to ruin her career at Arsenal, "we were flirting a bit and she asked out but I said no don't worry."

"What? You said no!" Vic gasped, "You idiot, why did you say no?"

"Why are you annoyed," you protested, "I did this for you. I don't want to be responsible for something going wrong with the team dynamics at Arsenal if it doesn’t work out."

"You are so stupid," repeated you best friend, "Did you not realise that no one came to interrupt you both? Did you not realise that no one ever sat on the same sofa as you both? I told everyone before they got here that I wanted to introduce you and Leah because I think you guys would be perfect for each other. You are both hard-working, kind and determined."

"Wow," you said, in shock at this new information. You genuinely thought you had been doing the right thing by saying no to Leah. Maybe you should have said yes?

As if she could read your thoughts, Vic asked, "So what are you going to do now?"

"I don't know, I really messed up," you answered, feeling disappointed at the thought that you had potentially ruined your chances at a date with Leah.

Vic looked at you, feeling utterly confused at how someone who was so clever could be so stupid at the same time.

"You could call her?" she prompted.

Once again, you sighed at your stupidity. Of course you could call her.

"Can I have her number please," you asked your best friend, eager to call the blonde as soon as possible in order to try and fix your stupidity.

Laughing, Vic gave you Leah's number before ushering you into the kitchen so you could have some privacy to make your phone call while she watched TV.

You felt very nervous as the phone began to ring and you realised that you were actually going to have to speak to Leah and try and explain everything.

"Hello?" she said when she answered the phone.

"Hi Leah it's y/n," you said, "Vic gave me your number.

"Oh, hey y/n," she answered, feeling a bit shocked to hear your voice so soon after you had rejected her, "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm fine don't worry I've just realised how much of an idiot I am and I'm so sorry."

"What do you mean?" asked Leah, chuckling at the way all of your words seemed to rush out at once.

"You asked me out and I really wanted to say yes but I was scared of messing things up for Vic and her career so I said no even though it’s not what I wanted to say."

"It's okay, I get it you just want to be a good friend," she said sadly, "We can just pretend it never happened don't worry."

"No I don't want that," you said quickly, realising Leah still thought you were rejecting her, "Vic wants us to go out, she planned for us to meet."

"Oh I understand now," she said, before finding the same confidence she found the previous evening and asking: "So does that mean you want to go on a date tomorrow?"

Smiling widely at the thought of going on a date with Leah you replied, "I'd love to Leah."

When you walked into the living room after chatting to Leah for about 20 more minutes, you proceeded to tell Vic everything and she was over the moon.

It had taken a little longer than she had hoped but her plan to set her best friend up with her teammate had eventually worked out perfectly.

———

[burnedwriter]

Hiiii, I sae your last post and I was thinking... What about a s/o who talks a lot and is very loud and likes to make small talk whit everyone but as soon as they get in bed they are really shy and quiet :>

You can do the characters you want but I was thinking about al,ayato or cyno ☆ tyyyyyyyy

A/n:i decided to do all 3 of them bc i couldnt choose sooo,i hope you like it!

warning:mild spice but not too much,overall fluff,petnames,!gender-neutral reader

🌱al haitham

🌱he's the type of person to only talk when its necessery or to get the information that he needs for his research.Al haitham is very calm and collected unlike you who were all over the place and very extroverted person who has created friendship all across sumeru city.

🌱Al haitham was glad to have you though,your energy always brings a smile to his face,as you broke the boredom and akwardness that sometimes started to form when you two were sitting and collecting intel for research.

🌱After the two of you were finally in a relationship he came to realize that having a loud s/o had it's advantages from meeting new people and forming new friendship to making it easier to collect information since you already know the right people and everyone trusted you.

🌱but what really striked al haitham was how the sudden shyness you had when the both of you were left together,unlike how you were in the morning,it made him think that you were in reality only energetic and loud when you were aroud people.

🌱the first time you tried to cover yourself while you had a red blush run across your face.

''i'm sorry''said al haitham seeing that you pulled away and tried to cover yourself.

''i didnt mean to''he continued thinking he might have overstepped a boundary but after seeing you slowly uncover yourself with your hands,looking at him like a sheep ready to be devoured by the big bad wolf al haitham immediatly got it and came to realize why you became shy all of a sudden.Recollecting himself he spoke again.

''i want to hear what you want''his voice serious and commanding,he was going to have so much fun with you pushing your limits,to start making you talk or more specificly making you moan.

💧Ayato

💧Ayato loves your outgoing personality and ass the s/o of the yashiro commissioner,is a requirement to be a very talkative,he can always rely on you when it comes to taking to guests or other higher ups from other nations that came to visit since every possible person knows you in inazuma.

💧He was so happy to see you organise the festivals and do such a fantastic job that he dedicated that job to you.he also learns a lot from you during your small talks that happen after you come back from your little shopping sprees,he gets to know how things are going and if there are any things he has to take actions to or things that you like.

💧he really enjoys your company and how you keep the conversations constantly going as you jump from topic to topic,so you could imagine how shocked that you were in reality shy when it came to the bedroom,seeing your shyness unlike the person you were before,it made him smirk to himself.

''what happened dear~cat got your tongue~''he teased seeing your bushfull expression when his hand started to slowly glide up your inner thigh

''oh...oh i see~''he said as you were shaking like a leaf to his slightest touches and not responding to what he said,trying to focus your gaze somewhere else ayato realized what was going on.

dont expect the teasing to stop anytime soon,he wants to hear your pretty voices and he will do anything in the book to hear you beg for him.

⚖cyno

⚖Cyno is not a people person at all he prefers to stay alone or sit in silence most of the times as well as avoiding with people as much as possible,now a lot of people wondered how you two are together,both of you are the definition of night and day,unlike cyno are very loud and talkative person that loves constantly socializing and never seem to sit in one place.

⚖he enjoys passing your time with you when hes off duty and play games of tcg together ,he thinks that you make the game more entertaining,when he sees you get cocky as you are about to win just for you to loose.He also loves it when you let the most heart felt laugh when he tells you his cheesy jokes.

⚖So he was more than suprised that you were always loud like that and you changed to a more quiet person when it came to bedroom activities.Cyno was concerned the first time you did that seeing you all shy and quiet all of a sudden it made him think that he did something that you didnt like and accidentally made you uncomfortable with his touche.

''i didnt mean to''he said with reget in his voice,getting quickly off of you but he was quickly stopped by your hands as you pulled him back to his original position as you wrapped your legs around his waist

''please cyno i need you''you said your voice almost like a whisper,with red blush running across our cheeks upo realizing what you said.

''oh''suprise in his voice,collapsing any questions he had before about what he was doing,maybe thats how you were behind closed door and thats why it was so sudden,he will make sure to take good care of you and try to push you to see how flustered you can get as he loves seeing you like that,he could almost feel himself smug every time he turns you into a moaning mess and removing all that shyness you had before

[ancientstone]

Okay Brits I need you to start paying attention.

We are likely in a General Election year.

We are going to be voting which political party we want to govern us the next five years. As of yet we don't have a date (the latest it could be held is January 2025, though it's probably going to be in 2024), but you need to start listening to what's going on so you can be ready and make an informed choice.

In the last General Election, the turnout was 67.3% across the UK. People often say they didn't vote because they didn't understand the politics or "they're all the same anyway."

When a General Election is called, Polling Day will be 25 days later. If you're working, busy, or just have life stuff happening, you may not have time to do the research you want. This is why it's important to start doing things now.

1. Are you Registered to Vote?

You can register to vote here.

You can check if you're registered by going here.

You must 18 or over on Polling Day to vote in a General Election.

You must also be one of the following:

A British, Irish, or qualifying Commonwealth citizen. (You can check here if you're a qualifying Commonwealth citizen)

Be resident at an address in the UK (or a British citizen living abroad who has been registered to vote in the UK in the last 15 years)

Not be legally excluded from voting

According to the website, while registering, "You’ll be asked for your National Insurance number (but you can still register if you do not have one). After you’ve registered, your name and address will appear on the electoral register."

There is also an option to register to vote anonymously "if you're concerned about your name and address appearing on the electoral register for safety reasons." The link to that page is here.

You can register to vote by post by going here and printing out the forms.

If you would like a step-by-step guide to registering to vote, here is a page that has a pdf doing just that. It is also available in Welsh.

2. Get a Photo ID

We now need to show a photo ID when turning up to the polls.

Here is a list of valid forms of photo ID.

Make sure you give yourself plenty of time to get a valid ID, otherwise you will be turned away from the polling station.

If you vote by proxy, you need to "take your own ID when you go to vote on someone else’s behalf. You do not need to take theirs."

According to the website, "The name on your ID must match your name on the electoral register. If it does not, you’ll need to:

register to vote again with your new details

take a document with you to vote that proves you’ve changed your name (for example, a marriage certificate)

Small differences do not matter. For example, if your ID says ‘Jim Smith’ instead of ‘James Smith’.

If you do not have a type of photo ID that allows you to vote, you can apply for a Voter Authority Certificate."

3. You need to apply to vote by post

You can apply here.

You need to be registered before applying.

To apply you need:

"The address where you are registered to vote

Your National Insurance number or other identity documents, e.g. a passport

the specific date of the election or referendum you want to make a postal vote, if you only want a one-off postal vote

You’ll also need to upload a photo of your handwritten signature in black ink on plain white paper.

If you cannot provide a signature or one that always looks the same, you may be able to apply for a postal vote signature waiver within the service.

You might be asked for extra documents to identify you."

The linked page has an option for downloading an application form to send in by post.

4. Start Researching!

Think back to the last few years.

What did you like, and who did them? What about the opposite?

Is there something local happening in your area, and who is pushing for/against it?

Look up the parties' social media - what do they promote, promise, and call out?

Here are some resources:

An overview of the political parties

BBC News page for current politics

How many MPs are in which parties

Information on General Elections/when ours will likely be held

The other key political events in 2024

General info around voting, elections, boundary changes, etc.

TL;DR

2024 Will likely be the year the UK votes for the next political party in charge.

You need to register to vote.

You need a photo ID to take with you.

You need to apply to vote by post.

The best time to start looking into the parties and what they do is now, so you can be informed later on.

The rest of the world is welcome to share this!

[kustas]

Do you have reccs for "ugly" art (manga, comics, movie, etc.)? Thanks for the Tekkon recs btw I really liked it

That really depends on your own personal media landscape and what your definition of "ugly" is! As a random example, I've seen many people call ONE's art ugly because of the wobbly linework when I think it's lovely. Ugly could also mean something a bit shocking/crass in its themes. Etc, etc... I'm going to go with the definition of "something that's a bit jarring to look at or go through" here :)

Disclaimer: a lot of these tackle sensitive topics, sometimes for fun and not always tastefully. If there's themes you really can't handle in media, do your research before looking into them.

Manga

I keep recommending yes because it rules but Dorohedoro and its scratchy messy art and gore galore. talking about the manga exclusively here the anime is too polished for my taste

God's Child (Kami no Kodomo): tbh this one is for the art only I hated the writing. very gruesome & unique looking short story

I hesitate to recommend this one because it's edgy as hell but I shan't lie I had a lot of fun with Hellsing. it's "bad" in the same areas as something like berserk but unlike that one it does not take itself seriously

if you liked Tekkon i strongly suggest trying out more stuff by its author (saying this with immense biais). the most ugly/messy thing i've read of his, which isn't a lot because i find his work very delicate, is No. 5 which i would less describe as "good" than "very compelling to me". i also recommend this wonderful essay tearing it down

Comics (non JP)

FLEEP: a short story about a man who wakes up in a phone cabin seemingly encased in concrete. one of the comics i always recommend for its length and storytelling. (link leads to the artist's website where you can read it for free!)

The Astonishing Exploits Of Lucien Brindavoine: a young artist gets drafted in the first world war and goes through a series of almost supernatural adventures. beyond the adventure book aspect, a harsh criticism of nationalism/patriotism that's still awfully relevant

Animation

Ruben Brandt: Collector: a psychiatrist suffers from strange art related nightmares ruining his life. his clients, a bunch of high profile criminals, decide to help him fight off his demons by organizing one long vacation where they steal every painting involved. extremely unique visually, a fun heist movie with thriller elements.

Junk Head: goofy post apocalyptic movie about a man on a quest to save, who keeps losing sight his goal because cartoony violence episodes have his head tumble into new lows, literally. this is, perhaps, one of my favorite animated films ever, it's earnest and fun and lovingly crafted. very unique of a watch

The Apostle: freshly escaped from prison, a thief is on a mission to find treasure hidden by his old cellmate, and finds himself stuck in an ancient village who's strange looking elderly inhabitants are way too insistent on his stay. classic spooky folktale with its millennial curses and foreboding warnings, it's also a nice peek into the culture of Galicia and old world medieval weirdass catholicism. you can buy a DVD on their website

MKFZ: dumb as hell high adrenaline animated B movie with excellent animation. there's a plot about alien living undercover in fantasy california but you don't watch this kind of film for the plot. fair warning this is adapted from a french comic so of course, it's crass and racist

Blow to the Head - Lightning bolt: awesome music video (YT link)(warning for flashing/strobing lights if you're sensitive to that!)

Canon Fodder: from the Memories omnibus film. little slice of the life of a fantasy war obsessed industrial nation

with its new movie on the horizon, it's a great time to get into Mononoke, despite traditionally pretty visuals its got a unique style and gets pretty offputting

Live action cinema

7:35 in the morning: short film about the fear in improvised musical numbers where you don't expect any. it's on youtube in bad quality

The Draughtsman's Contract: an artist is hired by a Lady to draw several vistas of her house, in exchange for money, good drawing condition, and the Lady. follows a good hour of cunts in powdery wigs being awful to each other for their own gain. if you're into dark humor it's a good test, otherwise it has a really satisfying murder mystery to follow too.

Three Kings: during the gulf war, a group of US soldiers decide to steal Hussein's gold for themselves under the mighty standard of kuwait's loot repatriation. extremely caustic take on good ol murican international politics. i was shocked at how far it goes and it's express, low budget treatment which i did not expect from a hollywood film. the movie tires itself fast and becomes less good in its second half but the it's opening acts are interesting

Delicatessen: a sliver of humanity survives in an old timey stone building in the middle of nothingness on top of a functional butcher's shop. gossip follows the arrival of a new roommate. how does one even maintain a butchery in a no man's land? weird film with a unique(ly goofy) take on the post apocalyptic genre

Other

For traditional artists, I like the works of Beksinski (<3), Schiele, Giger. For modern artists Oleg Vdovenko (heavy gore warning for that one), Jeff Simpson

I'm less a fan of the MV and live performances they got infamous for than their music proper but I really like the band Cardiacs, who's judged by many of my friends to be extremely hard to get into lol.

[didalexiabreakupwitholgayet]

for your confused anon re: tourist protests

my rent basically doubled in the last year and half bc of the influx of tourists/digital nomads who are willing to pay whatever is asked without doing even a little research on the actual prices. I'm not even going to touch the groceries and inflation bc they are also connected, but rent is brutal.

locals are being pushed out of their neighborhoods, homes they've lived in for years bc they can't afford the skyrocketing rent, and for the most part, the new renters don't care to assimilate/respect the local culture and traditions, people and their habits, call it way of life, if you will

it's like, they come here to have a taste of the local culture and then fucking end up building their own gated community replicating their place of origin bc our reality may be a little too foreign or exotic (🤮) for them

my guy, you're a guest. fucking act like it. or deal with the people's anger. it's that simple

thank you for sharing! i'm currently living abroad, but this is the common sentiment that i hear from my family and friends and it's especially bad in barcelona. when i come back to visit for the summer, it's very noticeable. especially because there seems to be this post-pandemic travel boom that is making things even worse. 😔

no offence taken! plus, catalans love a good protest! 😅 we have seen our fair share of violent protests throughout our history and this is something quite tame in comparison, but still gets the message across.

hi anon - you should still visit barcelona! believe me, we get thousands of cruise ship passengers who are not stopping anytime soon.

however, what i would encourage you to do is engage in ethical tourism and just understand the situation before the visit. when you come to barcelona, try and support the local economy. don't eat at multi-national corporations like taco bell owned by american or foreign orgs. and when you book your accommodation, please do your due diligence and try not to book these short term rentals that are at the heart of the housing crisis.

and i love the fact that you are learning some words in catalan and spanish. english is widely spoken here, but i always appreciate when someone tries to make an effort and say a few words in the local language. 🫶

and if you go, you should do a mini-tour of all the barça sites like plaça sant jaume!

[chiptrillino]

How the hell do you find every accurate representative culture fashion for the avatar gang? Like it pains me the hell how people this good and hardworking can find these gorgeous cultural clothes and accessories and draw them so well and detailed like you- TELL ME YOUR SECRETS (Please)

idk about accurate. at the end it is still a fantasy world inspired by real life cultures contrasting or soothed out to fit a charakter personality and traits. listen if i spot an option to have a older fire lord zuko with his titts chest out i will go for it and nothing can stop me not even accuracy i say this as if i didn't already do it in private with seethrough material hahah

there is not much secrets behind it though, sorry its research, fact checking. often even the most random things. at least that is my method. you go to google and type in what you need and would like to know. read the wikipedia article for some general understanding on the topic but them go to the source part and check these out. or like double check these. if reading is not your thing there are lots of dedicated youtubers or ticktockers that love to share and explain parts of their culture or tradtions (clothing included. depends on what you research.) contemporary to that or after that you build up your visual library by collecting images on pinterest, or google or websites covering the topic you are researching. make your own folders or pin boards.

an amazing blog for atla real life culture sources is of course or beloved: @atlaculture blog!

https://www.tumblr.com/atlaculture who recently began to dedicate some post in flashing out more water tribe and air normad cusine, also instruments. its a delight to read through.

of course you have an easier time with some research than with other. some things are clear others a contradicting some are barley documented. it is also necessary to have an occasional reality check. like reread your sources see if there is something new. replace what you misunderstood before. don't always go for what looks pretty and aesthetically good to you. there is a reason why things looked like they did. was it the material, was it protection, was it culture.

a part looking at contemporary photography i personally preffere to look at how people liked to depict themself at that time. Statues, wall painting, illustration, old fotos from that time and compare them to current pictures to see how they used to stylize this element or to see what was essential to them. thats probably my old art-history phase flaring up again though hahah. at the end it is also how you Interpret and headcanon the atla world for yourself. before i were able to redesign jet i had to figure out how i want to draw fire nation armor. because to me jet repuporses a lot of the armor from the enemy. a shin guard will be used as an arm protection. the red shirt he wears is fire nation, a shoulder guard that fits will just be used as it is. i just assume that FN armor is better in being fire resistent than earth kingdoms ones.

but fire nation armor is a chellenge on its own again. because is it tang dynasty? is it song? but the collar protector is a typical thai armor element. how do i combine that? is there a history behind it?

speaking about armor what would be the southern water tribe one? if it is lamellar ivory armor, how and why does it look so different by season 3 at the day of the black sun? did the southern water fleet separated form their home begin to adopt EK styles. switching out kuspuk and parkas in for sleeveless wrap shirts and armor with inside plating like they have in ba sing se? because that what was aviable to them?

(appart everything the talk of armor is in general really curious because... what do you wear when you go in to fight against fire??? in the poles you can argure that it is not a concern. if you burn you roll in the snow but in the EK... hm.. they dont have fancy heat resistand clothing like fire fighters have now.... armor is ment to cushion off impact and or slicing. our standard armors conzept can work well against earth-, water- and air bending (to some degree) but fire burns what do you idealy do against that? leather helps to some degree)

while the southern water tribe is clearly circumpolar people inspired (although lacking lots of world-building which you can kind of excusing it with... the war destroyed everything but also... uh.... its a nearly 20 year old show.... ) the northern water tribe shows korean or even mongolian elements. so what do you want to focus on? i personally like to make things connect because these characters live in one world togheter and trade and exchange happens. (yes even during a 100 year war or at least there had to have been a time of influence and the lack of exchange froze(*snorts*) this culture in time) you know... migration? and transition of style and life through out history.

maybe i overthink things to much for just drawing some clothes... -srugs-

[boozenboze]

Male reader x T’challa

Side note-Reader is a Top and is Dominant

-This is based off of the Black Panther movie -M/n = You

Females She/Her and She/They DNI

Imagine

Digging your way out of the debris of the fallen building. The same building you and your boyfriend had been in, where his father was giving a speech. You struggled to stand up due to the pressure that was once bestowed on your legs. Your eyes jolted from one place to another, trying to find the prince of Wakanda. The sound of debris being moved immediately caught his attention. A feeling of relief went through him as he saw his lover pushing himself up from the rubble. He used whatever energy he had left in him to pull him up, to which the male gripped onto him.

“Are you okay?” The e/c eyed male asked as he cupped the princes face. T’challa muttered something before his eyes widened.

"I-i'm fine...wait where is my father?!” T’challa responded with sudden concern in his tone. The both of you turned to where the King had last been seen, and there he was. Laying there with no signs of survival being shown.

T'challa stumbled towards his now deceased father and began to hug him, rocking back and forth after realizing he was gone. M/n didn''t know what to do, all he could do at the moment was wrap his arms around T'challa as they both mourned the loss of the king.

Imagine

Wrapping your arms around T’challa, as you both admire the beauty of Wakanda. The mission you had been on was relatively easy, but T'challa was still worried. Either way, he was glad that they both came out all right. Nakia was also doing well, and you were both happy to see one another. Their was a comfortable silence between the two of you as Okoye announced that you were home. Going through the illusion that covered your nation was something that had never gotten old to the T'challa. The loss of the previous king still weighed heavy on their hearts, but that was all part of grief. It was time to look forward now and see where this change would bring you. M/n took a glance at T'challa's face, seeing how he looked lost.

"You know, if your so nervous about becoming the King I could just challenge you and take that place." M/n said with devious smirk on his face, as the Prince looked back at him with an unamused expression.

"Oh please, you wouldn't be able to handle it..." T'challa said in a sarcastic tone of voice. Nakia and Okoye listened in on their conversation as they approached the Citadel.

"Well...even if that is the case there's always one thing that I know how to handle." The h/c haired male said with a smug look on his face.

"Oh? And what would that be?" T'challa asked in curiosity as the other man looked him up and down before winking, proceeding to walk towards the exit. T'challa froze again like he did not so long ago, he felt his face heating up at his lovers comment before following close behind him. He held his head low to cover the look of embarrassment on his face. Nakia and Okoye gave each other a look before following the two, both wondering how T'challa met someone like you.

Imagine

Being in the lab with Shuri, helping her with T’challa’s new suit. He had became King, and you were very proud for him. Although, it did feel like hell having to watch him get stabbed by M’baku’s staff. Shuri had brought up the new suit for her brother to test out to which he did. When his attack was absorbed Shuri had started recording which led to T'challas confusion.

"M/n ,....why is she recording..?"

"Research purposes...?"M/n replied in faux confusion. T'challa squinted and eyed the both of them before striking the suit in the same spot. The release of the kinetic energy sent the king flying, which caused the two who were preasent to laugh.

“Delete that right now!” T’challa demanded as you and Shuri laughed at the footage that had been recorded. You helped him stand up but he gave you a fake glare. You couldn’t help but kiss him on the cheek which caused him to push you away with a smile on his face.

“Ah come on you can’t stay mad at me~.” M/n teased as T’challa looked away in embarrassment.

“Aw..my brother is blushing.” Shuri said with a wide smile as T’challa rolled his eyes.

“Shut up Shuri....”

Imagine

Sharing a heated kiss with T’challa, which led to him being under you. His hand was buried in the h/c haired males scalp as he moaned at the feeling of M/n’s lips being against his skin.

“You enjoying yourself my King~?” M/n asked as he slowly palmed his hardening cock through his pants. The dark skinned male could only whimper in response as the s/c skinned male began to play with his nipples. The King arched his back in response which made him moan. M/n pulled away to which T’challa stared at him through lust filled eyes.

“W-why’d you stop.” T’challa asked as he watched M/n grab a small bottle of lube.

“Well....I don’t think either of us would enjoy seeing you in pain.” M/n said softly as T’challa stared up at him with a softened expression, the once heated moment turned into something more gentle. T’challa used one of his free hands to place it on M/n’s cheek, pulling the male into a short but meaningful kiss. He gave him a droopy smile before M/n guided one of his hands towards the other mans penis. M/n began to give the Kings cock long strokes before using the thumb technique, while his other hand grabbed the small bottle.

T’challa’s hands gripped onto the sheets, breathy moans escaping his mouth as M/n poured a generous amount of lube onto his fingers. He slowly circled T’challa’s rim before pushing a finger into him. The man beneath him hissed at the intrusion as M/n stared down at him.

M/n held T’challa’s cock in a gentle grip as he began to thrust his finger in and out. The stinging sensation turned into something blissful as the King moaned in pleasure.

“More...-ah! Please...?”

“Patience my love, you'll get what you want.”

Imagine

Wakng up early in the morning, the sun not even being out as the moonlights rays shined. T'challa's head was laid on your chest, his steady breathing indicating that he was in a deep sleep. You smile and checked the time seeing that it was barely 2 am. Your session lasted for about 4 rounds before T'challa had to tap out. Despite you being the dominant one of the relationship, it seemed that he would be using his title as King to give you orders of what to do. You stretched for a moment, leaving T'challa to lay on one of his many pillows. M/n sighed and was about to stand up when he heard a grunt behind him.

"Where are you going....what time is it..? T'challa questions as M/n ran a hand through his h/c hair.

"I was gonna go take a walk, didn't expect you to wake up." M/n said with a nervous smile making its way upon his features. T'challa sat up and pulled M/n by the arm, signalling for him to lay back down.

"I didn't feel your warmth anymore so I couldn't sleep." T'challa explains as he turned so that his back was facing M/n. The male that was mentioned smirked and pulled the covers over the both of them. He wrapped his arms around T'challa's waist and pulled him closer to him. The king hummed in content as he closed his eyes, now being able to bask in his boyfriends warmth once again.

[the-rainbow-lesbian]

Hi @menalez, you know I thought I was being courteous by keeping quiet about my grievances with you and not airing them publicly but I guess that isn't mutual, if you really wanted to have a conversation with me you could've talked to me on discord, you're not blocked there.

when October 7th first happened I was unwell tbh and very confused, I thought the world went mad when a massacre against the Jewish state and Israelis (both Jewish and Arab but the majority were Jews and they were targeted for being Jewish) somehow made them hateful against Jewish people, even the diaspora, I was also very confused when the "feminists" of the world even the radical feminists remained silent on the mass rape used as a weapon against Israeli women or tried to deny and minimize it. This is gonna sound dramatic but I haven't been the same person ever since because I lost my trust in people, I don't trust anyone who has no sympathy for others based on their ethnicity and nationality.

and when I went to tumblr I saw that you were also sharing content from antisemites, although you tried to distance yourself from it, sure Hamas did kill babies and rape women, but it wasn't as bad as the media is making it out to be, as if there is a number of raped women and murdered babies that needs to be met before we recognize this as a genocidal act by Hamas? I tried to read what you shared and honestly the people you tried to refute (badly) made more sense to me.

I spent a huge portion of my time watching content about the conflict even when I am working, reading about it, talking to my friend about it, I sought out another friend of mine who is retired professor who has visited Israel multiple times to learn from her, I listened to Jewish people and Israelis and also to Palestinians, I shared articles from Palestinian authors and a Muslim woman about the war, I am reading a book by Mosab Hassan Yousef, the son of one of Hamas' founders, I didn't listen to the ones who cheered on October 7th which is fair, terrorists and their supporters don't have integrity. so even though you said I "admitted I don't know shit" and I am "willfully ignorant" I am really not, I am not an expert, I wish I could read and learn more than what I am already doing but I work full-time on 5-6 hours of sleep then travel on the weekends to see my girlfriend, so I am sorry I didn't know much about Christian Zionists? I'd rather not run on my mouth over something I don't know much about, it doesn't make all of my other opinions invalid somehow. I've always been the type of person who tries to do at least some research before forming an opinion and being outspoken about it.

you also said I am brainwashed by my country's antisemitism and I am "rebelling" (which is so fucking condescending I am not a child trying to prove a point) but actually I never agreed that the holocaust was good and that Hitler was a hero like the majority of people around me did, even if I had problematic beliefs I would never agree with genocide. it's also interesting that you refer to this rightfully as propaganda but do you know which news channel was funneling this and playing in my house? it was Aljazeera, and you share from them all the time without a hint of scrutiny, of course anything Israel says must be met with scrutiny but anything coming out of Hamas and Qatar is trustworthy even though both are islamofascist that don't allow any freedom of press, very interesting.

so mena, as an Arabic speaker why don't you look into Aljazeera's Arabic websites and articles where they don't sugarcoat the antisemitism for the western audience and share them with your followers? or anything from Hamas' leaders? are you intentionally misleading them or just lazy? not sure which is worse.

I do have sympathy for middle eastern women and that includes Israeli women! Which is why I'll never support an Islamic state, they are the worst for women. There is more going on in the middle east than just western imperialism, not everything is the west's fault and even if it was we should have more accountability and not just overlook terrorism and other problems we have, prophet Mohammad didn't need Zionism or western imperialism to massacre the Jews of Banu Qurayza, which was so horrific I decided to fully become an ex-muslim after reading about it and I was questioning my faith for two years at that time.

You accused me of supporting genocide which is..... wow there is a lot to say about that, but I won't get into it now, you said this isn't in character for me as an "empathetic and intelligent woman" you're right, maybe the genocide accusation against Israel is blood libel and unfounded, because why would I support genocide? have you tried to read anything besides Qatar and Hamas approved propaganda? have you listened to other opinions in good faith without plugging your ears calling them Zionists (as if it's a bad thing to want self-determination and not be a dhimmi anymore) and blocking them?

I don't know where you get the audacity to say that I am ignorant and should do the "decent thing" and shut up, do you have any Jewish loved ones? do you worry about them on a daily basis because of antisemitism and how antisemitic hate crimes have increased to an insane level? I can't go a day without seeing new incidents reported, which you have ignored of course, because the only good Jew to you is a Jewish person who just affirms your beliefs so you can delude yourself into thinking you're a good person, but after that you don't really care, do you think antisemites ask Jewish people if they're Zionists before they harass and assault them? get off your fucking high horse, I don't owe you shit and you have no right to judge me, if anyone should shut up it's you, the rhetoric and the blood libels you share is the same fucking rhetoric inciting the increase in hate crimes, sincerely fuck off :)

[copperbadge]

Current Events Reading Reccs

I had a couple of people asking me about my “current events” reading in general (news aggregators, podcasts, etc) so I figured I’d just list them off here. 

I don’t read any tumblrs that are specifically focused on current events, I just kinda get news from various people I’ve followed, but I’ve found in general it helps to find people for whom the news is a hobby, not a consuming habit. I have communists and anarchists and prison abolitionists on my dash, but they aren’t people who have made that their identity, which removes the “You are insufferable” factor. So I guess find fandom weirdos with strong political views and follow ‘em. 

Also I want to state at the top that part of why I’m on top of shit that I get through Tumblr is that I have a policy of never reblogging or reacting to anything until I have 1. read the article being linked and 2. done my own research. This has saved me a vast deal of embarrassment, because sometimes I’ll save something outrageous to research and before I can even research it, it’s been rebutted. I cannot stress how important the process of reading and research is -- you can’t get your news from headlines and particularly not clickbait you see on Tumblr. 

As far as I know there’s no single tumblr clearinghouse for good high-level current events reporting and analysis (the analysis I think is a vital part) but if folks have resources they use, drop ‘em in the comments or reblogs.  

Anyway, some mailing lists I belong to are:

Quartz Daily Brief: finance and tech, mainly. Back when they were for-pay I paid for them, this newsletter was that entertaining. I believe they’ve now gone fee-free but they sometimes link to paywalls. I get it as an email newsletter, that’s just a link to the web version. 

Breakfast with ARTNews: Obviously a bit niche but I really like keeping up with the art world and they cover art crime too. The link is to the all-newsletters signup page, I only belong to Breakfast. 

The Futurist: This is the most insufferable nonsense masquerading as news ever. The ads are indistinguishable from the content. But it does help me keep a finger hard on the pulse of what irritating tech bros are into. Watch scams unfold in real time! 

I also follow a number of local interests -- community centers and neighborhood organizations primarily -- in Chicago, so those are always good to hunt up. Most major cities have a “citycast” podcast (just search “citycast [your city]” in your podcatcher) that is also good for local news.  

Some websites:

Longreads: Since longform.org went under, the best place to find the current longform pieces that everyone’s talking about.  

Brand Eating: Extremely niche, but I really love reading about “brand” food trends. It covers new food releases and sales and such in the areas of packaged food (potato chips, candy, etc), fast food, and casual dining. It’s also great as a resource for cheap eats. 

I stopped reading Bon Appetit recently (they ran this appallingly sympathetic story about a dickhead hiring manager) but like, honestly, if you want to track food trends, the BA email newsletter is kinda the way to go. If you’d like good food news in podcast form, I recommend The Sporkful (it’s in the podcast list). 

I used to read the Chicago Tribune, New York Times, and Fortune Magazine (which mostly scraped the not-awful stuff from Forbes) but I’ve cut it down to just the Trib; I don’t really need Fortune to keep me current and the NYT has morphed into a creepy proto-fash nightmare. The Trib has pretty good national/international coverage so if you don’t have a decent local paper it’s not bad, but I don’t know how much access you get as a nonpaying reader (I subscribe). 

Podcasts:

Quartz has a podcast, Quartz Obsession, which is off-and-on in terms of when episodes come out but very interesting when they do. 

Planet Money is a once-weekly podcast about economics, and has a daily show called “The Indicator” which is daily “small bites” current events coverage. 

The Late Show and the Daily Show both have an “ears edition” podcast that’s just the show audio; I’ve stopped listening for the most part but if you want good cultural commentary, that’s the place to go. 

The Journal by the Wall Street Journal is a weekly podcast focusing on one or two news stories, generally pretty relevant. 

Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me is a panel show but it’s a fun way to get bite-sized news you can look up later in more detail if you want. And it’s taped in Chicago! If you listen you can hear me in the audience laughing. :D (I’m going to another taping in a few weeks!) 

Behind The Bastards is actually a history podcast but if you’re listening current he does a bit of current-events commentary, and also I just really like it as a podcast.

Stuff You Should Know is a trivia podcast but they occasionally do current-events stuff.

The Sporkful is pretty good about current food news, although I run hot and cold on it.

I used to listen to a really good “professional” medical podcast, but it went full paywall when it started to offer certain forms of professional credit, so I found The House Of Pod as a very good free replacement. It’s not really for non-doctors, but as a non-doctor I still find it accessible and informative. (For medical history and curiosity, I do highly recommend Bedside Rounds, but I wouldn’t call it a current events cast.) 

So that’s how I get my news -- it’s not what I would call fully comprehensive but it’s reasonably informative! 

[mtchacffinz]

Hello! Noticed your blog was relatively new looking and you were taking requests.

If you're interested in writing this, maybe do some fun fluffy stuff with a tall/strong fem reader? Feel like I don't see enough of that around.

Wish you the best of luck with your blog!

here we go! a little late, but here it is 🌟

content!! fluff, reader is strong n tall, physical intimacy, words of affirmation etc.

characters!! Heizou, Kaveh, Albedo, Xiao (of each nations)

note!! thank you, anon (⁠ ⁠ꈍ⁠ᴗ⁠ꈍ⁠)

HEIZOU. "Anatomically Strong" reader

"Quit teasing already, (y/n)!"

"I'm not. For the last time, I'm heavy."

Heizou seems to be extremely adamant about you sitting on his lap. Brows scrunched, he crossed his arms huffing. Yadda, yadda, yadda! Apples are red, the grass is green, 'I'm heavy!!1!1!' HE KNOWS YOU ARE FULL OF MUSCLE MASS. So what?

"oh, boohoo. I am but a frail detective who cannot withstand such a refined lady that is before me— pft!"

You huff at him, shoving a book in his face. It's not that you're embarrassed, you really just wanted to mess with the red head. His pouting face is so cute, impatiently tapping on his lap so occasionally everytime you would meet eyes— hoping that he'd receive atleast your heart to finally let him hold your waist and relish in your presence.

Fortunately, he caught you in a good mood. Your face was just freshly painted by the soft rays of sunlight, eyes still droopy signifying your recent wake. Heizou had a cheeky smile on his cheeks as he sees you strut slowly towards him.

It was hard to wipe his smile off. Even as you gently lay yourself in his lap, his arms snaking towards your waist giving them a secure hug— you can feel the upward tinges of his lips in your back. His face lay on your back whilst you close your eyes, both of you sharing an intimate morning.

"See? This isn't so bad."

"This will be the first and last time."

"Oh c'mon!"

KAVEH. "Unexplainably Physically Strong" reader

"Oh, please? Just one last time!"

"No! No more!"

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. Due to your unexplained physical prowess and your adornment with your romantic blond, Kaveh has always been the target of your amusement. Out of random periods of time, you would intertwine your arms below his knees and waist and hoist him up the sky.

His reactions would often be a yelp, or a full on lecture about how you should give warnings and ask if hes okay. Ultimately, Kaveh just holds on to your figure and flow freely with whatever you'd like doing. Sometimes you'd pepper his face with your kisses endlessly, then you'd put him down gingerly with a smile.

He's not too vocal about it, but he does find comfort in your arms. Kaveh also doesn't say this, but he's also terrified of those arms!

One time, a scholar caught the two of you fooling around. Said scholar has the unfortunate choice of reprimanding how childish and 'unfitting' it is to be carrying around a man like he's a princess!

You only put Kaveh down, hoisted up the Scholar into your strong arms and put him down at the roof of Al Haitham's house.

"Look! You're at the top of the world!" You cheerfully exclaimed.

"Let him down!! You're gonna get apprehended!!!"

"I can throw him on top of Surasthana, if you'd like."

ALBEDO. "Low Temperature Resistant, Nerves of Steel" reader

"What's on your mind, Albedo?"

"I'm not sure you'd like to know."

Yes. He wants to see how you're anatomically composed. But as a gentleman, he can't just ask to conduct self indulgent research on your body, can he?

You're fascinating. Your breaths are recorded through serene huffs of the cold air on your lips. You breathe. You have blood on your nerves, yet you don't find temperatures in Dragonspine all chilling?

Albedo doesn't press any further, only keeping his gaze locked into you. Before he could say anything, you open your mouth. "Do you think i have internal body temperatures?"

His lips pursed, unable to formulate an answer. Instead, observed you. You put up your hand, cueing that he'd hold it. Albedo wastes no time taking off his gloves, locking his hands into yours. Maybe it was the coldness of the air around you, or maybe even his lack of warmth himself— but you lack warmth. You lack the temperature of a human being.

His eyes glint of fascinating sapphires. You're an enigma. How brilliant. The alchemist's eyes steal a glance at your figure, gazing quietly at your arms. The sun starts to rise in the peak of Dragonspine.

The apricity of the atmosphere makes you look like an Angel that isn't quite from the skies.

"Hehe, it's normal for humans to have cold hands, right?"

"..So you say, (Y/n)."

XIAO. "Strong Resistance to Karma" reader

"You delude yourself with fantasies I have nothing to do with."

"Say it while you're looking at me, Xiao."

Dishonesty is often correlated with your body language. Unfortunately for Xiao, his whole body often betrays him.

No matter how he sternly voices out the consequences of bathing amongst his karmic miasma, you would always just stick your tongue playfully at him and he'd immediately be at loss for words.

He dislikes the gentleness of your tone, your tall figure looming behind him, telling him the same thing: of how you're resistant to his karma— of why your foundation doesn't easily absorb anything of the world prescribed above. Xiao doubts this greatly as he sees no vision on your person, nor any protective barrier around your body.

He keeps great distance of where you find challenging to close in. But.. everytime he takes a step back, you always manage to take two forward. It's as if the world is playing tricks on him— with how calm and serene you look everytime you open up a conversation; seemingly unbothered, he starts to think maybe your words are of the truth.. bellowing him to give in.

He knows you're not immune. There is a vast difference in resistance. But...

Xiao stands amongst a field of qingxin, one you have always found fond of. The soft breeze plays with his hair with harmonic rhythm. He picks one off gently, placing a soft peck in the fragility of its petals.

In the dead of night where the afterglow peaks it's way through the cracks of your window, you were surprised to be greeted with a basket of carefully placed qingxin, decorated with a handful of sprinkling crystal cores.

The cores reflect the glowing moonlight, kissing face softly.

You emit a small smile.

[mountrainiernps]

Are you a national park visit planner? Do you research the park before you visit to find out weather forecast, visitor center hours, and trail conditions?

Or are you a spontaneous national park visitor? Do you figure out that you want to drive out to the national park over breakfast? Maybe pick a trail from the brochure or newspaper you get at the entrance? Perhaps just let the road guide you to a new trailhead and see how it goes?

Whether you plan or follow where the wind takes you, there’s one thing you really should be doing before you leave cell phone range; tell a friend.

Yes, please call, text or email a friend with the details of your trip just in case.

Tell your most trustworthy friend where your car will be parked, which trail you’re planning to head up, and when you expect to be back in cell service.

Once you got this done, have fun. Enjoy the park. And hopefully, everything goes as plan, like it almost always does, and you’ll drive home safe and sound at the end of the day. When you get back in cell service, make sure to call, text or email that friend again so they know you’re safe.

Why do all this? Because once in a while, there’s a very small chance that something happens. From time to time, you get delayed or someone gets hurt. Every now and then, a person who starts a hike might need some help to get back to the trailhead.

When that happens, it would be great if you have a friend watching out for you. Someone who will call the park (or other pertinent authorities) to say that you’re overdue and where you were going to be. Knowing the motor vehicle (make, model, license plate), the trailhead, and the trail can really help park rangers if they need to go look.

It’s a small chance and the five minutes to text, call, or email can help a lot. Some times you call a friend, sometimes you text a co-worker, or maybe even email mom or your second cousin twice removed. Next time and every time, please let someone know. ~ams

For more on hiking safety,  please start with this link https://www.nps.gov/mora/planyourvisit/hiking-safety.htm

NPS Photo. Looking up to the sky through the forest on the Trail of Shadows in Longmire. July, 2015. NPS/R. Korf Photo. Mount Rainier with clouds from Silver Forest trail at Sunrise. June, 2019. NPS Photo. Rotary snow plow removing snow at Paradise. Snow banks are as tall as the machine. March, 2009.

[screamingcrows]

bestie if you mayhaps feel up for doing it perhaps i could get rhinedottir wjth a prompt of your choice? if not then maybe a character of your choice for number 28 <3

I'm almost 100% certain this wasn't what you wanted but! /lh

Rhinedottir + 8. "This isn't what I wanted"

Most found it impossible to visualize Gold as anything but the harsh reality of progress. A sharpened blade that cut away at fallacies cushioning truth. There was no room for weakness within her workshop, a fact her students knew she had no qualms enforcing in whatever way she saw fit.

In hidden corners, whispered jests of how she'd replaced every caring bone in her body with unyielding metal might hide a sliver of truth none dared consider. For even though the researcher herself had without doubt been confronted with those rumors, they had yet to be refuted.

For a nation proud of their humanity, would it not be the greatest sin to throw that away?

You, however, shared none of those concerns. There was no doubt in your heart that Rhinedottir cared greatly for you, how could there be, with the way a hand held you firmly in her lap while dexterous fingers combed through your hair.

A chaste kiss was pressed to the nape of your neck, eliciting a pleased sound from your lips. She would often liken you to a precious little animal, far too fragile for the world in which you'd been placed. Guilt always lined those words when spoken, scratching against an unknown wound along your spine.

The shorthand flowing from pen to paper before your eyes halted with her voice, the last dot being placed before you pushed it away for now.

"Seems you've improved doll," a pale finger traced the curves of drying ink before settling atop your thigh with a squeeze, "that little mind of yours certainly has a knack for learning."

Compliments always had you beaming, understanding their rarity even if you were favored, "It's because I have a great teacher."

Her chuckle carried the promise a gentler warmth than the fires she said you'd traversed to get to her embrace. Truth be told, you had no memory of a life before her, 'trauma response' was what you'd been told, after all, a terrible war raged above the calmness of your new home.

Without issue, Rhinedottir turned you to face her, piercing golden eyes capturing your own. The subdued smirk that rested on her lips called for you to lean closer, yet you refrained when fingers tightened around your waist.

A deep breath left her vulnerable and for a moment she looked as worn as the glassware that littered the counters behind her. Crystalline shards lay scattered on the ground, having only bothered to remove any offending liquids before calling you over to record her findings.

"What a little charmer I've got," you leaned into her touch, uncaring of the sharp nails that threatened to pierce your cheek, "how about-"

It was rare to see her falter, but the pause and crease in her brow were unmistakable. Perhaps something had gotten on you? After a minute of rubbing at your skin she seemed satisfied, holding up a finger coated in black sludge for you to see.

Heat flooded your cheeks when she chuckled, "Messy creature" a kiss was pressed to the top of your head, a fond melancholy when she continued, "how about we celebrate your progress with a little trip?"

Even through the blindfold she'd insisted you wear, lest the surprise was spoiled, a dull fear settled beneath your ribs at the feeling of light dancing along your skin. Rhinedottir's arms tightened their hold a little, the familiar scent of her easing your nerves as you pressed into her.

"Just a little further, there's no need to be anxious."

"I- I don't think I want to go topside..."

Sensory deprivation had undoubtedly made the trip seem longer, there was no way she'd risk leaving. So why did the smell of smoke and death linger?

There'd been no clamour either, you couldn't have gone through any of the gateways. They were always heavily guarded these days.

A small sigh left her lips as she rubbed at your collarbone, "This isn't what I wanted-"

It felt a little wet where she'd touched, icky almost, and had your hands moving to blindly inspect it. When had you spilled something? However, you didn't get far, Rhinedottir coming to a halt and shifting her hold to something more uncomfortable.

The complaint died on your tongue as her words sunk in, 'Let me see you one last time' was that what she'd said?

Blinding light pierced your eyes as the cloth was removed, the small tut from her lips doing nothing to soothe the pain as you squinted.

"I like the blue eyes. I think I'll keep them for future creations-"

Before a scream could tear itself from your throat the jaws of a shadowy creature had already parted, swallowing all light as you were enveloped by teeth and tongue, drenched in ichor that felt like home.

The last you saw of Rhinedottir before you became one with the sludge, she'd already turned away.

Send me a character or prompt and I'll write something