#and his inefficient sweeping

[helenvader]

A quote from a Discworld novel (Maskerade). It reminded me of Halbrand sweeping the forge. :-)))

A man was theoretically sweeping them. What he was in fact doing was moving the dirt around with a broom, to give it a change of scenery and a chance to make new friends.

And a bonus. Low quality, but the subject hopefully makes up for it.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

I hate that you are working a 16 hour day so much, that I want you to write a fic where Price is burning the candle at both ends so bad that Nik grabs his silly chipmunk face in both hands and growls: "No." Because neither of you deserve having to work so damn much. <3

I am soft that you sent me this.

Price is overworked and underpaid. Nikolai intervenes.

cw: none.

Price pressed the heels of his palms into his eyes, holding his breath with a full chest, as he willed himself to focus.

It was getting on to a sixteen hour day, one of way too fuckin' many recently, and all his stores were depleted. No amount of coffee and sugar free Redbull Bull was helping him now. He had no choice but to push on anyway.

With a sigh, he dropped his hands into his lap and blinked away the fog, his eyes no less sore than they had been moments ago. His watch read 2300, which meant he still had four hours to squeeze out a few more reports before he hit the minimal threshold for sleep. Any less than four hours and he would be inefficient.

His chest felt tight and his shoulders ached from where he had been hunched over for so long, and no matter how many times he read through Gaz's summary of the interrogation training from three days ago, nothing was sinking in. He was at peak information saturation, with four deadlines looming over his head, fifty emails to answer and a field exercise to organise.

Price picked up his pen, circled one of Gaz's comments on a specific trooper and tapped at his keyboard. Just as his sluggish brain had negotiated the database he needed, a sharp knock at his door drew his attention. "C'min. Make it quick."

The door opened and the familiar sight of his favourite pilot loomed large against the white lights of the corridor. "Captain," Nik said as he stepped up to the desk, shutting the rest of the world out behind him. He had been grounded for a few days due to much needed repairs, and Price would be lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed having him around, even if they'd only managed to snatch thirty minutes here and there. It was just... nice.

Nik placed a plate of food on top of the reports; ham sandwich with Cheese and Onion Walkers crisps on the side. White bread n' all. Price's favourite. "Ah, cheers," Price said, pulling it towards him with a faint smile. "Y'olrigh'?"

"Da." Nik walked around Price's desk to stand behind his chair, big hands squeezing Price's biceps before stroking up to his shoulders. "I am concerned."

"About?" Price closed one of his eyes in hopes it would help the remaining one bring the text on the page before him into focus. Unfortunately, Nik chose that moment to press his thumbs into the knots packing Price's shoulders and he grunted, his fingers tightening around his pen, as the pressure unspooled pleasantly down his arms and up his neck.

"You are exhausted, and I know this is the first thing you have eaten since this morning."

"Ahh, I'll have a big breakfast tomorrow, mmph." Price hunkered over as Nik's hands worked up his neck, large fingers sloping down his clavicles as Nik's thumbs rubbed circles to his hairline. It was like sinking into heaven; Nik's palms were so warm, absolute kryptonite to Price's dwindling resolve to keep working. He was fighting to keep his eyes open, wanting nothing more than to sink back into Nik's arms and fall asleep. "Oi, ah, Nik... 've gotta finish these."

"Tomorrow," Nik said, tracing Price's hairline in sweeping strokes, leaning down to press a kiss to Price's thinning crown. It was too much. Too good. Price shrugged him off and Nik's hands fell away reluctantly.

"Naw, g'won. Go back t' bed. 'll be there in a bit."

"You have half an hour."

"Oh yeah?"

"Da. Enough time to finish your sandwich and wind down."

Price smirked, huffing. "Yeah, we'll see."

Nik patted Price's shoulder and left the office with his usual swagger. Price shook his head, grabbed a handful of crisps, and returned to the computer screen.

-

Nik set himself a timer on his phone. It was enough time for him to fill up the hot water bottle John kept in his closet for strain injuries, bundle a few more blankets onto the bed, crack the window and fill a pint glass of water for the bedside table.

When his phone buzzed in his back pocket, he readied himself for the fight. To out-stubborn John Price was a feat of strength in itself, but Nik had a track record of successes that were mounting up more rapidly with each passing year. The more he burrowed into John's life, gently nurtured their relationship, the less John was able to resist him. It was a good thing; he worked too hard and had a depressingly poor sense of self care.

Nik didn't knock before he entered John's office this time, but it didn't matter anyway. He found his captain slumped facedown on the desk, his hand slack around the pen. He was snoring softly, the noise muffled by the pile of paper that made up his make shift pillow.

Waking a sleeping soldier was always a little dangerous. John was fairly centered when he was on base, but there was always a small risk. Nik approached slowly, his palm sliding over John's wrist as he spoke softly to rouse him as slowly as possible. "John, time for bed."

John's face crumpled in a frown before his eyes opened. He sat back, a page sticking briefly to his cheek before he batted it away. "Bollocks, bit of food in my belly and that was it," he grumbled. "Naw, can't, I've gotta--"

Nik took John by the jaw and turned his face up. "Nyet. You are finished now." John was barely awake, his eyes lidded as he looked up at Nik fuzzily, his hair ruffled, his beard flattened on one side, his round cheeks pinched between Nik's fingers, the tiredness filling his usually bright irises; he looked heartbreakingly sweet, which was probably an assessment that would rankle him should Nik voice it.

Rather than give John time to argue, Nik dipped forward and slid an arm beneath his legs, wrapping the other around his back, pausing for a moment to breathe him in.

"Nik... What're ya--ha, what're yer doin'?" Price chuckled tiredly, flailing only a little as Nik lifted him out of his chair. "Put me down, yer giant bastard." Perhaps John's protest would have had a greater impact if it hadn't been murmured into the side of Nik's neck, one of John's hands bunched in his shirt.

"You have lost weight."

"S'been a long year," John replied, lifting his face free only enough to put up token resistance. "If someone sees me bein' carried like some virgin bride, 'm never gonna get me reputation back."

"It is nearly midnight. There is no one awake but overworked, underpaid captains and their long suffering lovers." Nik hooked the door open with his foot and carried John into the corridor. It wasn't far. Just two doors down. But one could not put a Price down once captured, lest it scurry back to its labours.

"Still gives me the... shivers y'know, the... lovers thing..." John was falling already, his body lax in Nik's arms, each breath a struggling, tired sigh as he cling to consciousness. Nik dipped his elbow and backed into the bedroom, depositing his armful of captain gently into the centre of the bed.

John was more a hindrance than a help getting his clothes off, and Nik batted his hands away from the laces of his boots, smiling when John flopped onto his back. The trousers and t-shirt were easier, and soon Nik was tucking John beneath the blankets and sliding in beside him.

The one advantage of such a narrow bed was that they had to essentially sleep on top of each other to fit. It was such a habit that even when they were in one of Nik's condos, with a sprawling king to enjoy, they ended up huddled on one side, their bodies curled together. John rested on Nik's chest, one arm draped over his belly, and Nik wrapped his back, thumb, stroking slowly over warm skin.

"Yer too good t' me," John murmured, turning his face into the soft hair on Nik's chest with a contented hum, his hand kneading against Nik's belly.

"I must make up for how bad you are to yourself."

"S'jus' the job, Nik." John squirmed a little, rubbing himself against the length of Nik's body, snuggling down into the warmth and comfort subconsciously as sleep pulled him under.

Nik turned his face into John's fluffy hair, and closed his own eyes as John's breathing evened out and his body relaxed. Perhaps, Nik thought groggily as his dreams lured him in, if John Price was married to him rather than his job, he would be happier and healthier. Nik decided then, as John nuzzled against him in his dreams, that he would turn 'lover' into 'husband' by the end of the year.

[bruciemilf]

ohemgee that Krypton Clark arriving to an established Justice League AU is perfection!

I imagine he tries to wear down Bruce in his courtship by stepping up a little because surely if The Bat were to consider him then the man needs reassurance Clark will always be present and there for him, like he once overheard ((from miles away on the farm of course, because his soon-to-be mate was hiding , what a shy, lovely creature he is!)) Bruce offhandedly mention some space meteorite and potential dangers so Clark is thinking I am going to show him I am willing to protect him and our this planet by destroying it and bringing him a piece to prove my loyalty and commitment! And when he lends a hand to the league in the watchtower or out in the city, he will slowly come up to Batman and always pick up where left off My dear this game of tag of yours is very endearing, I almost didn't catch you! More proof of how you are such a trained and skilled fighter. Together we make a good team and I can see us being most agreeable pair of mates... and Bruce is a mess. He may even rope Hal into the convo for an out because he's so flustered. What if it results in him doing a amongus/Clint Barton move and vents his way out and leading to the Zeta-tube. I've strayed off but the hold this has on me is immense.

What I love about this is that neither of them can flirt like normal people. Lois desperately tries to show Clark earth appropriate dating customs and he's just confused. " But that's so slow and inefficient. And so needlessly complicated. Besides, Bruce likes when I bring him rocks."

"Yeah, rocks! Not the freezing corpses of alien enemies!"

Clark is currently holding a lifeless body of an alien who planned to abduct the bat. Its just easier and cleaner if Bruce doesn't know. Poor darling already has so much stress. " This one's still warm."

Also; I couldn't agree more with Kryptonians being more alien like. Bruce usually has little problems with harsh rejection, but if it's Clark...He simply asks Hal to drop an arm over his shoulder.

"Can I squeeze a boob? I just feel like it'll be more realistic if I squeeze a boob. "

" No."

Oliver side eyes, " You're a grown man. Call them milkies."

Clark comes in, solar sweep smile radiating, except there's nothing friendly about the way his fangs glare. He pulls Bruce in, and his face just...Does a thing. There's tentacles and screeching involved and Hal is frozen in place.

Clark is back to normal in less than a minute.

" Please don't do that! If Bruce chooses you as the better mate, that's fine, but you can't interrupt my ritual. It's rude!" And then he happily flies away with a curious and blushing Bruce.

"... You ok, Jordan?"

" Ring; dipers."

[probablyasocialecologist]

In 2012, Dutch teenager Boyan Slat presented a TED Talk on his concept for cleaning up the ocean with simple mechanisms to sweep up all the trash. While scientists and plastics experts cautioned that his ideas were ineffective, Slat’s non-profit the Ocean Cleanup, founded the year after his talk went viral, has gained millions of followers and big-name backers, including Salesforce, Maersk, KIA, and PayPal’s Peter Thiel. But the venture had one major problem: its first two designs didn’t work, despite the group burning through tens of millions of dollars over the course of a decade. The Ocean Cleanup has since pivoted to work with upstream river “interceptors” that are much more efficient at capturing garbage, but its website still prominently features its latest ocean debris “solution”—essentially a trawl fishing net dragged between two boats that has, to date, collected a comparatively miniscule amount of trash. Tech projects like these are more of a curse than a blessing. Even if the Ocean Cleanup one day somehow beats the insurmountable odds and removes all surface-level traces of plastic marine pollution, it’d still be missing the vast majority of waste that sinks to the bottom of the ocean floor, or breaks up into tiny microplastics. While companies like these bring increased attention to the plastics crisis, they’re ultimately flashy gimmicks that lull our public consciousness into thinking a clever gadget can solve a collective-action problem. These projects also allow consumer brands—like Coca-Cola, an official “Global Implementation Partner” of Slat’s group—to greenwash their continued massive plastic production, while lobbying behind-the-scenes against regulations that would actually help the world break its plastic addiction.  “We now know that we can’t start to reduce plastic pollution without a reduction of production,” environmental scientists Imari Walker-Franklin and Jenna Jambeck write in the introduction to their forthcoming study, Plastics. To meaningfully address this crisis and others like it, we need to look upstream, invest in reuse infrastructure, and mandate biodegradable packaging and high material recyclability. At a minimum, we need to start making producers bear the cost for the collection and disposal of their poorly designed goods.

[airi-p4]

Sweep Sweep

Hi! New short lukanette fic!

Summary: Marinette is surprised to see that Luka doesn't know how to clean so she offers him her help (and something more).

AO3

(Thank you @celestiall0tus for checking it for me!)

Enjoy?

_________________________

The first time Marinette saw Luka cleaning, she hadn't been paying much attention: she had been distracted and embarrassed by the turnout of Adrien's boys party and her stupid crush on the blond boy to notice anything else. 

The second time she saw it, it was at the Liberty. Her past crush on Adrien forgotten, Marinette greatly enjoyed hanging out with her favorite band’s friends. And sure, she couldn't deny the growing affection and the fastening heartbeats she had started to notice around Kitty Section’s guitarist -the butterflies on the stomach made her feelings quite obvious to her, too. 

New. Refreshing. Happy.

That time, their first official concert had ended, and fireworks were displayed afterwards for the celebration party. By the evening, confetti was all scattered on the deck, along with used paper cups, pizza boxes, empty snacks bags and candy wrappers- which meant cleaning time. It was very convenient that the captain was distracted (being scolded and fined) by agent Roger- because yes, you can't fire ship cannons (or cannons in general) in Paris, even if it's only fireworks.

So meanwhile, everyone diligently got to work, their cleaning tools and trash bags ready as they paired up and took their positions. There was a broom on Luka's hands and- Oh, clumsy her!- Marinette accidentally stepped on it, her body spinning and falling on the blue-haired boy, who hit the floor on his back. Her heartbeats were loud, the proximity of his face to hers made her fluster with red, and she had no doubts that reaction was most likely noticed by the observant boy lying down under her. Despite the warmth on her cheeks, she couldn't help it but to glance at his lips and stare in his eyes and, lost in them, she leaned closer towards him. Seeing him move too just before closing her eyes, she had expected to meet him halfway, but before that could happen… 

*beep beep* 

She had to run because of an akuma. Just her luck. She cursed, and with one of her unbelievable excuses, she left in a rush. She hated the thought of her friends thinking that she just left because she didn't want to help with the cleaning- but on the next day, she found out Luka covered for her lie and had protected her from getting a negative impression. In result, she was charged with more tasks than usual (such as baking cookies for the band) as a “penalty”. She didn't think it was possible, but she fell a little more for Luka that day.

And then, the time she actually saw it for real arrived.

It was the third time Marinette saw Luka cleaning, the first time she actually looked -no accidents, no unwanted boys or akumas- and she couldn't believe her eyes. 

They had been at the bakery, baking cookies together, and playfully painting each other’s faces with flour and chocolate. Marinette had to admit the chocolate at the tip of Luka's nose looked adorable, almost as the heart shaped chocolate mark on her right cheek. Fun. Cookies were a success but the kitchen a messy flour disaster… 

Which meant time to clean up.

She had been wondering: why did Luka have a  “penalty” too if he was there to clean? Was it solidarity? Pity? Or maybe he wanted to spend time with her…? She had blushed at the thought. But then, looking at him in her house’s kitchen she understood it: Luka couldn't sweep. Well- sure, he did sweep, but the way he held the broom, the way he grabbed and moved it… everything was JUST WRONG. Wrong and inefficient. Embarrassing, even. No wonder she had tripped on it that past day! And no wonder he had a penalty too! What a disaster! After a minute, she couldn't bare to watch anymore.

“Luka! That's not how you do it!” Marinette finally squeaked, almost scandalized. “You have to-'' she took the broom from Luka's hands, pretending their fingers didn't brush while doing so so she could focus on her task and show him how to do it properly. His attentive eyes on her as she moved were making her a bit nervous.

“Okay” Luka nodded. He took back the broom and tried to imitate what Marinette had done as she observed. He needed practice. Okay-a lot of practice. How can anybody be so bad at sweeping the floor!? She wondered.

“Luka. You don't know how to sweep at all…?” Marinette finally asked. And the boy blushed bright red (an extremely rare sight!) and nodded as he sank between his shoulders. “What!? How!? Why!?”

“Sorry. I- You know my mom, Marinette. She has never taught me or Juleka how to properly do it. She even scolded us when she saw us clean. And with no one else to ask… Of course Jules and I do some cleaning, don't get us wrong! We both take turns to clean whenever mom isn't home. Juleka has learned a bit from Rose but I've always been embarrassed to ask for help so I just know the basics…”

‘You can't call that “the basics”!’ Marinette thought. But well, that made sense. She knew how Anarka did clean the kitchen, do the dishes, the laundry and the bathroom. But she loved chaos and freedom, so she was against cleaning when it came to dust and reorganizing, sweeping the floor included.

“Do you want me to teach you, Luka?” Marinette offered.

“Really? Are you sure?”

“Of course!”

“Oh but- there's more than sweeping, Marinette… Certain cooking tools or persistent dirt- or worse, the clothes’ colors or sizes changed after doing the laundry!”

Marinette started laughing loudly. “As far as I know how, I can teach you anything you want. And if I don't know, then we can learn together” her excited smile made him smile too.

“That sounds great, Marinette. I'll repay with guitar classes. Or pizza. Or anything you want”. 

“You don't need to repay me for this, Luka! But I'd really like that” she beamed. More time together? She didn't mind it. At all.

“It's settled then” he smiled back at her.

Then, she took another broom and started to sweep too. Each one started from one corner of the kitchen, slowly getting closer as she silently taught him while exchanging shy gazes. A moment later, they finally met and the top of their brooms bumped together. Face to face, blushing, with the sole sound of their fastening heartbeats, she looked down at the floor, feeling his eyes on her. Their bodies were close as their brooms tangled together- not working anymore at that point. 

“Marinette… there's chocolate on your face. Can I clean it?” Her heart skipped at the feel of his warm breath on her forehead. All she could do was shyly nod and suddenly, his hand was on her cheek, warm, caressing there tenderly- the rub of his thumb too soft to clean anything at all, she knew. Was he actually trying to clean it or maybe he- Could it be that their feelings were really mutual? She wanted to see- to know- his facial expression. 

Curiosity became courage, and Marinette raised her face up until their eyes finally met with the most adoring, bittersweet and loving gaze she had ever seen on Luka. And that was all she needed to know. Her blush and bewilderment didn't stop her getting on her tiptoes and raising to give him a peck on his cheek- a peck too that lasted too long to be expected to have a friendly meaning, she knew and he suspected. How she blushed even more and avoided his eyes seconded his suspicions for him. 

“Marinette…” he said in a whisper. And without words, only with his fingers, he encouraged her chin to raise up again. His face was even closer now, a questioning expression on him which she had no trouble to understand. In response, she lifted her chin even more and closed her eyes, finally offering him his answer and what both of them had been waiting for a long while- too long. 

Slowly but surely, he moved. His free hand impatiently moved to her back, raising to secure her in his arms and making both brooms fall to the floor with the movement, at the same time she raised on her tiptoes and their lips finally met at last. Their kiss was everything they wished for, and surprisingly better than they could have ever imagined. Only their smiles and happy faces topped such brightness as they hugged tenderly before kissing once again.

From then on, the cleaning teachings continued. And if Luka was doing it bad on purpose to spend more time with his girlfriend, he didn't say. And Marinette definitely didn't complain either when she realized what he was doing, especially when those lessons always ended with lots of kisses. 

Sweeping their love inwards home- both benefited from it.

Fin

[tyote]

since politics has been on my (and probably everyone's) brain a lot lately i took a shit-ton of political compass tests and averaged them all together, then fed them to a LLM (running locally) to specifically create a profile of people i probably wouldn't get along with politically, lmao.

and wouldn't ya know, me being true neutral once again means many people (at least on the internet) would probably not like me too much, ha

full report of my nemeses under the cut, 'cause it's thorough

"Tyler, with his unique blend of political philosophies, would likely find himself at odds with individuals who hold extreme or uncompromising views. Here's how he might view these perspectives:

Far-Left Extremists: Tyler respects the desire for equality and fairness that drives many on the far left. However, he believes that radical socialism or communism often overlooks the importance of personal property and small businesses, which he sees as vital for a healthy economy. In Tyler's view, these extreme ideologies can lead to the concentration of power in the hands of the state, stifling individual initiative and innovation. He worries that such systems can result in economic inefficiency, a lack of personal freedom, and even oppression, ultimately harming the very people they aim to help. Tyler sees these systems as potentially leading to authoritarianism under the guise of equality.

Far-Right Extremists: While Tyler understands the importance of national identity and community values, he strongly opposes the exclusionary and xenophobic policies promoted by far-right nationalists or supremacists. Despite his nativist tendencies, Tyler believes that a thriving society benefits from a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints. He sees extreme nationalism as a dangerous ideology that fosters division, hatred, and violence. Tyler's brand of nativism is about valuing community heritage and ensuring that immigration policies are compassionate, economically viable, and practical, balancing the nation's capacity to accept immigrants with the need for a straightforward, fair, and legal process.

Authoritarians: Tyler appreciates the need for strong leadership, but he firmly believes that power should be distributed and checked to prevent abuse. He opposes authoritarian figures like Joseph Stalin or Pol Pot because they centralize power and suppress individual freedoms, which contradicts his commitment to representative democracy and the rule of law. Tyler believes that a healthy democracy requires transparency, accountability, and the active participation of its citizens to prevent the rise of tyranny. He sees checks and balances as essential to safeguarding freedom and justice. Authoritarian regimes, in his view, are oppressive and detrimental to human rights.

Libertarian Extremists: Tyler recognizes the appeal of minimal government intervention and personal freedom championed by extreme libertarians. However, he believes that a completely laissez-faire approach can lead to economic inequality and social disparity. Tyler supports a balanced economic system that combines individual freedom with ethical principles and community responsibility. He thinks that some level of regulation is necessary to protect the vulnerable and ensure that everyone has a fair chance to succeed. In his view, a mix of personal liberty and social welfare creates a more equitable and just society.

Populists: Tyler understands the frustration that drives populist movements and the desire for change. However, he is wary of leaders who use divisive rhetoric and offer simplistic solutions to complex problems. Figures like Bernie Sanders and Hugo Chavez, who appeal to broad, sweeping changes, might clash with Tyler's centrist and pragmatic approach. Tyler believes that effective governance requires nuanced policies and thoughtful deliberation, rather than quick fixes and polarizing tactics. He values evidence-based decision-making over populist promises. Populist leaders, in his view, often exploit people's emotions and fears for political gain, leading to instability and poor governance.

In essence, Tyler values moderation, a variety of backgrounds and viewpoints, and ethical governance. He believes that extreme, uncompromising, or authoritarian views, regardless of their position on the political spectrum, often fail to address the complexities of society in a balanced and fair manner."

[felikatze]

hi just beat the game

grima was gonna kill with ignis but morgan said NUH UH so lucina landed an aether crit for the kill

family sweep

chrom did end up being just deadweight in endgame cuz no galeforce. using him was just inefficient. also his speed was. bad comparatively? so he didnt double in endgame anymore. probably because i neglected him

anyway yeah. family solo to clear the game in like uhhh 3 n a half hours.

[esther-dot]

White savior anon again lol. So I go back and forth on the J/D romance. On one hand, the show going thru with it and Martin's fixation on incest makes me think there will be some type of romance. That being said, it's not going to end well because all their foreshadowing is negative lol and speaks of betrayal. Also, Martin intends to complete the story in two books, which is not realistic since he gardended himself into hundreds of interconnected main characters and plotlines - he needs to set the chess pieces in place for the climax in the last book in Winds but he literally cannot do all that in one book. So, how exactly he intends to write some sweeping, dynamic romance when Dani won't even step foot in Westeros until the last leg of the book is well, lol....good luck with that one. That's why the show romance was ass, it's hard for audiences to buy a romance between two people who met and conversed for approximately 20 minutes across 8 episodes - no development or investment. I just don't see how Martin has the page space or time to do all he needs to do with the other 9768 characters and plotlines while developing this supposed grand love story between J and D. He's a talented writer, but deeply inefficient and made some key mistakes - the ages of the characters, wasting so much time having characters walk around the riverlands, braavos, etc. while internally contemplating their shitty lives for chapter after chapter, like ok you're miserable we get it but this could have taken half the chapters - so now he's screwed himself as a result lol.

IDK about Jonsa, I believe Sansa is the girl in grey, and I do think per the show (I think a lot more big plot points were taken from Martin than readers want to believe tbh) Jon and Sansa will have a significant relationship in Winds, platonic or not, or at least he intended that to be the case, but idk if he is willing to Go There with that pairing. He let way too much time pass between books and social mores have changed quit a bit. The faux sibling almost incest trope was pretty big back in the 90s and early 2000s, but now? Not so much.

Jon and the Targ line ending with him. Sure there are people will targ blood still around like Brienne and the Baratheons. But none of them are the direct descendent/son of Targ prince who plunged the realm into a civil war over said Targ's birth lol. Sure it's not fair, but thematically it makes sense and I do think this is what was intended back in the 90s. Now? IDK lol.

(continuation of this convo)

Oh yes, I've seen a lot of fans criticize how he allows himself to write so much of his favs (*cough* Tyrion *cough*) rather than streamlining. I can't figure out how he can bring all these characters and carry out the plots in two books either. I know he said they're big books, but there are so many things that have to happen and they characters are all still so scattered...I really don't know how he'll manage. Like, Sansa has to go North, reunite with Jon, reclaim Winterfell, be reunited with other Starks/handle succession, they have to deal with the Others and then there is Dany. It's a lot.

I don't think there could be a genuine romance with J/D at all. Jon's experienced the whole Ygritte situation, then he was assassinated, it doesn't make sense to me that he'd fall for an enemy so soon or trust one either, not with the guilt/betrayal he'll be feeling. I do think Dany is vulnerable with her belief that she needs another dragon rider/that will be a person she can trust and her romantic nature, so I think she could convince herself she can trust Jon and then he betrays her. That could be a fairly short-lived interlude though, since she's primed for it. There is also Euron and Aegon too though, and I had assumed that would be before she met up with Jon and if that's the case, Jon is not gonna have kind thoughts (if she kills Aegon), and Dany will be even less trusting (if she's dealt with Euron), so Idk. I don’t want anything to happen between J/D, but imo, there has to be some kind of relationship or trust to make it an awful scene when Jon stabbity stabs. Dany will have burned KL, if anyone else assassinates her, it’s badass, but I think Martin's way too anti war/anti violence to do that. I really think he's gonna want it to be painful.

Also, I’ve recently been wondering if instead of some past events being foreshadowing, they’re meant to work as explanation, justification for the end of the story. As in, I thought the mess of the war in canon and Robert’s Rebellion were meant to convince us that the moral thing would be to avoid war to spare life and that Jon would be KitN and kneel a la the king who knelt. The show’s bizarrely written inclusion of him kneeling seemed to support such an idea. Except, look at what the Targs became as rulers, where that ended for Westeros, and Dany has dragons and will have do her little KL bbq, so the moral thing in this instance isn’t submission, but neither is it all out war. I think that's the grounding for why it has to be faux submission then assassination.

I really don't think Martin would change his endgame now because of fan outrage or social norms, but imo, the foreshadowing isn't conclusive, or, I guess I should say, I see problems with every potential endgame, but particularly with Jon ending up at the Wall because of how it seems to answer problems Martin seemed interested in addressing. So, I think there's room for a nicer ending for him, if Martin wants it.

[turnips-dont-grow-on-trees]

props to their fight coordinator for giving the werewolf a style that really conveys ‘wild animal.’ There’s a moment that caught my attention (gifs would be so helpful right now, aahhhhh, i wish oh well) where Jack, rolling to his knee after getting knocked out of the air, claws the back of a guy’s knee. And I was like, huh. If I wanted to take down large prey like a moose, would I want to aim for tendons and/or femoral artery in the hind leg to disable and weaken it?

Answer: YouTube videos of hunting techniques of wolves says it probably wouldn’t be my first choice - aiming for the back leg puts you in range of skull-crushing kicks, so mostly wolves’ll go for the shoulder, the throat being the number one target. Though there were a couple examples I saw where successful kills were made by hanging on to a hind leg and slowing the bison down until other pack members managed to get to the neck.

Jack does do the knee-target thing a second time, only then it’s more of a leg sweep and we don’t see any blood spray. He actually lacks a lot of follow-through, which I find very interesting, if it was made for character reasons and not, like, keeping it family-friendly. Like, all my knowledge of dog fighting technique comes from White Fang, so take it with many grains of salt - Jack London was a novelist, not an animal behaviorist - but dog fighting’s not a subject I’m keen on actually researching for veracity’s sake.

Anyway, the titular White Fang’s winning technique has just two steps: 1) knock his opponent off their feet. Don’t waste time growling or posturing, just rush in and shoulder them to the ground. 2) tear out their throat. bam! go straight for the jugular. (this technique serves him extremely well until he trips over a bulldog.) Watching Jack fight, he’s very good at step 1, knocking mooks around left and right, but there’s only one instance of follow-through, and he wastes time biting the guy’s ear off before killing him.

tl;dr: Jack’s werewolf is not as much of a killing machine as he thinks it is. (A killer, yes, but an inefficient one, lol)

[argyrocratie]

"A great deal of the offshored industrial production at the other end of the extended supply chains celebrated in People’s Republic of Walmart is actually carried out in comparatively small job shops that would be more efficiently collocated with local market areas. The technology at the actual point of production, in such cases, is modest in scale and best suited for local or regional production. But it’s enclosed within a corporate institutional framework of extended logistic chains through the framework of copyright, patent, and trademark law which gives corporations a legal monopoly on disposal of an outsourced product. The only reason the facilities in China aren’t all producing identical goods directly for the local market, and selling at a price without the trademark and patent markups, is the enclosure of decentralized production technology within a centralized corporate legal framework. And the only reason the production facilities making goods for people in Iowa are sited in China instead of in Iowa is that the labor there is cheaper.

(...)

Lean production guru James Womack observed that “oceans and lean production are not compatible.” Simply shifting inventories from giant warehouses of finished product or intermediate goods to warehouses disguised as trucks and container ships isn’t really reducing overall inventory stocks at all. It’s just sweeping the batch and-queue bloat of Sloanism under the rug. The outsourced component manufacturers “are located on the wrong side of the world from both their engineering operations and their customers… [in order] to reduce the cost per hour of labor.” To properly apply lean principles it is necessary “to locate both design and physical production in the appropriate place to serve the customer.”49

In his Foreword to Waddell’s and Bodek’s The Rebirth of American Industry (something of a bible for American devotees of the Toyota Production System), H. Thomas Johnson (an expert in lean accounting) writes:

Some people see lean as a pathway to restoring the large manufacturing giants the United States economy has been famous for in the past half century…. The cheap fossil fuel sources that have always supported such production operations cannot be taken for granted any longer. One proposal that has great merit is that of rebuilding our economy around smaller scale, locally-focused organizations that provide just as high a standard living [sic] as people now enjoy, but with far less energy and resource consumption. Helping to create the sustainable local living economy may be the most exciting frontier yet for architects of lean operations.

So except in a few cases like geographically situated mineral resources, microprocessor production, and the like that require long-distance shipping for genuine technical reasons, most of what goes on in the logistic chains Phillips loves so much is just waste production. And that’s a lot of waste production. To put it simply, Walmart’s and Amazon’s increasingly automated inventory systems and just-in-time global logistic chains achieve “efficiency” only in a relative sense. To borrow a phrase from Peter Drucker, they’re the most efficient way of doing a very inefficient thing that ought not to be done at all.

(...)

Capitalism is not in crisis because, as per the orthodox Marxist model, its productivity so great that it undermines capitalist relations of production. It is in crisis because it has chosen models of technological development and organizing production that are unproductive in terms of how efficiently they use inputs. Capitalism is a system founded on extensive growth — that is, on the addition of ever larger quantities of resource inputs, inputs which are artificially cheap and abundant because of the enclosure of land and natural resources. Now that we are in the age of Peak Oil, and approaching the age of Peak Coal, Peak Gas, and analogous limits to a wide range of other material inputs, capitalism is experiencing a crisis of extensive development.

Post-capitalist transition is not simply a matter of celebrating mass production factories and global logistic chains as the “colossal forces of production” Marx wrote of, and saying “Thank you, capitalists, but we’ll take over from here.” Those mass production factories and global logistic chains are the prime examples of the kinds of inefficiency created by a system that treated material inputs as artificially cheap and abundant and pursued growth by throwing more of them on the pile instead of using existing inputs more efficiently."

-Kevin Carson, “We Are All Degrowthers. We Are All Ecomodernists. Analysis of a Debate” (2019)

[raitrolling]

Vignette: Upskilling

[Easy reading version on Toyhou.se]

A soft breeze rustled throughout the grounds of the Espino Mansion as Eichio cheerfully toiled away in the garden. The weather was perfect for outdoor activities: the twin moons shone brightly in the cloudless sky, and the air was cool but not too chilly. The yellowblood was dressed in his usual uniform, somewhat inappropriate for gardening but were the clothes he felt the most comfortable in. 

Typically, a hedge maze only required one major trim a sweep, but Eichio enjoyed wandering through it to cut off even the slightest amount of overgrowth weekly. The maze was an exact replica of one from a movie his boss had recently watched and enjoyed, a twisting labyrinth with a minotaur statue in the centre. His boss had even gone as far as to commission a small wooden version of the maze, displayed on the third floor of the mansion, overlooking the estate grounds. The hedges were perfectly maintained, despite their inevitable impermanence.

Mister Espino was the kind of troll who hated stagnation. Deliberately allergic to any sort of routine, and considered boredom to be his biggest fear. As a result, the entire garden would be uprooted and redesigned from the ground-up a couple times of sweep, sometimes to match the theme of an upcoming event or simply because he had gotten bored of the scene outside his window. 

It was a lot of work, but whenever it was time for the garden to be renovated, Eichio was never alone. There were the temporary contracted landscapers, there was Gerrel (somewhat… Unfortunately, given his penchant for showing Eichio up whenever they worked together), and a few times Akiote had also been hired to assist (much more fortunately). He felt like he could be capable of taking on most of the work, but Mister Espino would never allow that.

‘It would be quite inefficient if one of my most trustworthy employees ended up falling unwell due to excessive overwork, no?’ The indigoblood would tell him, and Eichio would have to concede that he was correct.

Tonight, Eichio’s boss was also taking advantage of the ideal weather, opting to sit outside as he performed some chores of his own. One of his pistols lay disassembled on the wrought iron table, a cloth covering the surface so that no small pieces would fall through the cracks. Sprays and bottles of cleaning oil were sorted neatly on one side of the table, alongside an assortment of cloths and medical swabs. 

Just as Eichio was methodical with maintaining the hedges, Mister Espino worked through the steps with careful precision. One must always keep their primary strife weapon in its utmost condition, especially a specibus as complex as a pistol. Each piece was thoroughly sprayed and wiped down, then reassembled the same way he had done it many times before.

By the time Mister Espino had put the gun back together, Eichio was already approaching the table.

“Mister Espino, I’ve finished in the garden! Is there anything else you’d like me to do?” he asked, cheery and polite.

Mister Espino did not have any other tasks, but he also knew that Eichio still had the entire late evening to spare. If he didn’t give the yellowblood something, he would end up cleaning the already-spotless hive again.

Eichio looked expectantly at his boss. Mister Espino’s eyes glanced at the pistol in his hands. 

Then there was a glint in his eye and his lip curled slightly into a smile, as a new idea had spontaneously constructed itself in his mind.

“Say, Eichio. Have you ever thought of trying out a new strife specibus? One that may perhaps become much handier than your current set of projectiles?” the indigoblood asked, his tone very even. As if he wasn’t asking his employee something so out of left field.

“Um-” Eichio stared at the gun, then back at his boss. “I haven’t, but…”

He couldn’t turn down a request from Mister Espino. They both knew that well. So why…?

“Oh, sure! I can learn that!” He replied after a brief moment of hesitation, a well-practiced smile on his face. 

Mister Espino chuckled. 

“Ah, good. I rarely do get the chance to teach others how to defend themselves, and mentoring others is quite the fine way to keep one’s mind sharp, no? Just as I occasionally guide Jikiro in the kitchen, teaching someone how to use a weapon may assist in refreshing myself as well. And, not to mention, it would be very helpful to me if you were capable of utilising multiple weapons, as one never knows when an extra set of hands may be required.”

He stood up, displaying a fine lack of firearm safety by spinning the pistol around his finger, then daintily handed it to his employee.

“What do you say, Eichio?” 

Eichio didn’t know what to think. He was used to Mister Espino’s impulsive decision-making, whether that be having sudden urges to cook dishes or tearing down all the curtains in the mansion because he decided he now hates their colour, but learning to use a gun is… Quite a lot. He liked his noisemakers because they were perfect for throwing at trolls using his psiionics, and were more annoyances than actively harmful. 

A gun cannot do anything but kill. 

… But, then again, he has assisted his boss with his more… Violent hobbies before. Helping hold a troll down while Mister Espino systematically broke every single bone in their limbs, passing pliers that were used to rip off fingernails and pull out teeth, submerging body parts in formaldehyde for preservation or into acid for destruction.

And he had done it all with a smile on his face, as he was happy to assist his boss. Blood was unquestionably already on his hands, and Mister Espino said that learning how to use a firearm will help him in the future, so… What was the harm?

“Oh, okay. I’ll try it out.”

Eichio accepted the pistol, feeling the cold weight in his hands. It was uncomfortable, mechanical, almost surreal to hold. He curled his fingers around the handle, and placed one on the trigger-

“Ah, ah! First rule of gun safety, one should never point a gun at something they do not intend to shoot at. Now, where is your gun pointed?” 

Eichio’s eyes followed the direction of the gun’s barrel. It was pointed directly at Mister Espino’s right leg.

“Oh-! Oh no!! Um, I’m so sorry!” He immediately moved his hands, pointing the gun firmly towards the ground, and bowed his head in apology. It has been less than a minute and already he was making silly mistakes. 

Viltau waved his hand.

“Of course. You did not know, so there is no need to be so alarmed, no? However, when handling firearms, it is of utmost importance that one takes their responsibility seriously. Now, I will show you how to check to make sure that the gun is loaded.”

He takes out a second pistol for demonstration purposes, identical to the one in Eichio’s hands. Mister Espino preferred his weapons to come in pairs. Then, as practiced many times before, he unloaded the gun, showed his employee what an empty magazine looked like, and then inserted the rounds until the weapon was once again fully loaded. Eichio copied the same technique, first very slowly but then repeating the gesture multiple times until he earned an approving nod from his boss.

“It is quite impressive how such a highly complex mechanism can be so easy for anyone to pick up, in fact loading the gun is quite possibly the most difficult part of the job! All one needs to do is aim it at their desired target, place their finger on the trigger, and shoot. It is no wonder that handguns are standard issue for all fleet recruits, supposedly. Now, what would be the best object to practice on, hm…”

The indigoblood tapped his fingers against the pistol’s barrel in thought, eyes scanning the estates’ grounds. Of course, the answer was right in front of him: At the centre of the hedge maze, raised on an elevated platform so half the upper half of the body was visible no matter where one looked, was the bronze statue of a minotaur. All but the platform was movie-accurate, as Mister Espino had opted to forego making an exact replica of the garden in favour of its centrepiece taking on a much more imposing form. It looked like a demon, rising about the labyrinth that would spell doom for those who tried to enter.

Mister Espino aimed his weapon at the creature’s head, closing one eye and sticking out his tongue as he mentally judged the distance. Satisfied that one could make the shot, he nodded and looked back over at Eichio.

“Say, how about you aim for the minotaur? It would be quite an effective target, no? Close enough to the troll form that one can tell where a shot may be fatal, and yet lacking the realism and charisma that a troll’s face may evoke.”

Eichio nodded, and obediently raised the gun at the statue.

He thought of how he had seen his boss’ stance whenever he was using his strife specibus. Always so casual, as if he was simply playing with a toy. Eichio mimicked what he had seen from him, relaxing his shoulders and tilting the gun so it was aimed at more of a forty-five degree angle.

Mister Espino tutted quietly and reached over, gently guiding Eichio’s hands so that the gun was now perfectly upright. With a few other light gestures, he adjusted the yellowblood’s posture as well.

“Keep it straight, Eichio. That will provide you with the best aim and the most stability from the recoil.”

“Mister Espino, don’t you always hold your gun sideways, though?” Eichio asked, curious.

His boss chuckled.

“That is only for those who feel confident adding a bit of flair to their stance. Perhaps once you have gotten the fundamentals down, you can try more complex firearm-wielding stances.” 

Eichio nodded in response, then resumed staring down the target in the distance.

The statue was a large target, the centrepiece of the hedge maze, and while not depicting a troll the creature’s form was still troll-like in stature. It was and never had been alive, but its torso was sculpted with such fine detail that Eichio could picture it as a living, breathing person. He lined up the pistol with the target, closed one eye in an attempt to steady his vision, and placed his finger on the trigger.

His hands would not stop shaking. 

Why? It wasn’t a difficult task, he should be able to do it fine. Gerrel could probably pick up a gun easily, why couldn’t he?

His mind unravelled with worry. Flooded with fear of being unable to be useful to his boss, of not meeting his standards, but - most importantly, the fear that by learning this skill and putting it to use, he would be taking a life with his own hands.

Eichio lowered the weapon.

“I’m sorry Mister Espino, I… I don’t know if I can do it,” he admitted, voice low in defeat.

“Ah, that is a shame, but it does make sense. It is quite a heavy burden to be the one to pull the trigger, no?” Mister Espino nodded, surprisingly understanding. He placed a hand on his chin in thought, looking down at the gun in Eichio’s hands. Then he hummed in affirmation.

“Say, you are very skilled at operating complex instruments using nothing but your psiionics, no? It is quite awe-inspiring to watch you play multiple instruments at once using them, indeed. Perhaps, then, we should instead try a more hands-free method, then? That way it is not your own hands firing the gun.”

Eichio considered that, then nodded. That sounded like a good compromise.

-----------------------------------------------

A few weeks later, a blueblood found himself tied up in Mister Espino’s basement.

The previous night, he had struck one of the part-time employees in anger after they had accidentally spilled wine on his white suit. 

In the past twenty-four hours, he had learned two things:

One, that someone with a reputation for throwing murder mystery parties can very effortlessly pass a drugged champagne flute to his target without his expression betraying him.

And two, the indigoblood pacing around the room and monologuing at him was serious when he boasted about caring for the wellbeing of his employees, no matter how low their caste may be. The noble blood that ran through his veins was worth less than the stains on his shirt caused by a mudblood. 

The indigoblood ceased his ramblings (the blueblood had not been listening, still reeling from the effects of the sedative), and stared him directly in the eye.

“Now then, perhaps you may have any last words?” 

The blueblood squinted. He was not fully cognisant, but he could tell there was no way the party’s host could kill him from this distance. There was no weapon in his hands.

“You’re bluffing,” he slurred.

The event organiser laughed, covering his mouth with one hand to hide a rather toothy grin. Then he held up both hands in a surrendering gesture.

“Ah, I’m afraid you have caught me! I do not have any means to kill you right here, nor do I have the intention to do so.”

His eyes narrowed, and his grin widened.

Behind him, the blueblood could see a golden glow emerge from the darkness. A psiionic aura.

Then, he felt the cold metal of the barrel of a pistol pressed against his temple - cocked sideways, gangster-style, and emanating the same golden glow as the figure behind his captor.

“But, I asked my most trustworthy employee if he could comply, and he was very eager to assist.”

The last thing he heard was the click of the unmanned gun.

[yeehawbvby]

More Apple Spider lore that nobody asked for!!

- Her web shooters are organic!! Ignoring any physics etc. that might make it impossible for her to not be able to shoot through clothing uwu

- She grew fangs after getting bitten, but she grinds her teeth in her sleep, so they quickly became blunted again. She’s technically venomous but has no real way of implementing it

- Before moving full-time to the spidey HQ, she was an entomologist (studied and cared for bugs for a living) at the Central Park Zoo from her dimension. Rather than being a zookeeper she worked “behind the scenes” in a lab.

- One of her favorite little spiders was the one that wound up biting her and making her a spider woman. She forgave it, thinking it was cooler than it was scary, and snuck the lil fella out one day as a pet (so as to stop it from biting and mutating anybody else)

- Named the spider Pine (Pine + Apple………)

- Apple took up aerial silk classes after becoming a spider person because she wants to look cool and graceful and whatever with her webs. Surprisingly, it works

- This is still only a maybe, but I think she is from Earth-690, because of fucking course she would be

- Btw she eventually does move to HQ permanently because she accidentally stopped her canon event (still TBD)

- She was brought into the spider society when this happened by Miguel. He was notified of her world collapsing and had already been observing her in secret as a possible recruit

- When he showed up, she was sitting on the roof to one of her favorite skyscrapers, eating falafel that she stole from her favorite food stand and crying while watching the chaos unfold around her lmao. She knew she couldn’t stop it so she just let it be

- He helped her stand up and she almost fell over because she’s tiny and he’s strong, so while still holding his hand Apple was like, “do you always sweep spider women off their feet or am I just special?” to which he was basically like “damn I should’ve let you die”

- She’s a polyglot (well-versed/fluent in several languages) but hides it at first to try and get The Tea from Miguel/other various spiders to make her new home more entertaining and palletable

- Gets on well with Hobie because of the chaos she accidentally causes by being a hopeless flirt and a little shit. Gets on well with Peter B, Lyla and Jess even better because they love the playful bickering that they get to see when Apple and Miguel are in a room together

- Her suit, like Miguel’s, can fabricate itself on and off. It’s not a hologram exactly, though — think of it like Danny Fenton -> Phantom’s transformation. She has a few pieces of jewelry that she can press like a button to replace her clothes with her suit (or vise-versa)

- Rather than being all pixelly etc., the suit looks like it’s someone peeling/unpeeling an apple, with an uneven cutoff at the edges when the suit is only partially on/off

- Gets chastised a bit because plenty of spider people think her big comfy scarf is inefficient

- Valid! Because it does get her stuck in certain spots she’d rather not be in, such as being yanked back by it or getting caught on things

- BUT Apple finds uses for it to spite them (I.e. ziplining with it, using it on citizens as a partial safety net while they’re falling, or a blanket in cold weather or whatev, stuff like that)

- Another reason Hobie likes and respects Apple is bc of her commitment to the goddamn scarf against all odds lmao

- Probably in her early-mid 30s but can be a bit childish at times

- AuDHD because of what somewhat-self-insert OC would she be if she wasn’t ND???

[asexualbert]

So

I wasn't exactly planning for the first installment in this AU to be a Christmas short but, here we are.

Enjoy!

-–—–-

It may have been a little much.

Tim stepped back, examining his handy work. It certainly was... Big. All the movies seemed to say that was a good thing, but it was also, apparently, seriously inconvenient to work with.

Though a seven foot Fraser fir was by far not the most questionable thing he'd ever hauled into the building at half past midnight, he was glad as ever not to have nosy neighbours. The trip had admittedly not been particularly graceful...

Tim sighed. Was he going about it all wrong? He probably should have asked the kid if he even wanted all this right? But, though for the life of him he couldn't understand why it had seemed so important, he'd wanted it to be a surprise. Hence, he supposed, his spending nearly five hours of optimal working time to track down, set up, and put lights on the Christmas tree now residing in the middle of his living room. Not to mention sweeping; apparently the stupid thing shed like a bitch too and, with the kid asleep, the vacuum was out of the question.

He'd never really done Christmas before. His parents had been Jewish as far as he was aware, though they hadn't really discussed it, as had the Waynes. The only religion the League followed was whatever the hell Ra's was on, and they certainly weren't pausing all the cult activity to celebrate a nice secular Christmastime once a year.

Tim himself had been decidedly agnostic despite it all for as long as he could remember and, since coming back, any and all holidays had been tucked neatly away in his mind, alongside his emotions, as irrelevant and inefficient; entirely unnecessary to his beautifully simple green worldview.

But then, as usual it seemed lately, there was Jason.

The kid hadn't asked for anything; he never did, but that was a different concern which Tim didn't have the capacity to go into at the moment. Nearly two weeks ago though, he'd mentioned in passing how he used to celebrate Christmas with his mother, and Tim had been thinking about it ever since.

———

"It wasn't big or anything. We'd go down to the soup kitchen early t'get one of the really good meals they only serve on the holidays and then build snowmen in the park. They were pretty bad, but mama always called'em "abstract"" Jason made air quotes as he spoke, giggling slightly. "Then we'd go home an' she'd give me a present. It wasn't ever anything much; new pair of shoes or a jacket from the Goodwill if she'd managed. And then she'd sing. Kept doing that bit even after she got sick, at least until it got too hard." His smile turned sad, "she had a real pretty voice. Didn't sing much cause dad didn't like it, but on Christmas she always did..."

Jason was quiet for a while after that, leaning timidly against Tim's side as he'd taken to doing as of late. Neither said anything for about five minutes until Jason, sounding half asleep, spoke quietly.

"It's special you know? Christmastime. Even if it is cold, it's still... Special."

———

Tim examined the tree again, shining with the rainbow coloured lights he'd fought with for nearly an hour. Maybe it was a little over the top, the whole event of dragging in and setting up a live tree in the middle of the night, just to surprise a ten year old he'd had for barely more than six weeks. It was ridiculous and unnecessary and nothing like him.

But his kid deserved the best. And if it made Jay smile?

Tim somehow knew that he would do it over again every year.

[ladyjaneasherr]

Jane Asher and Gerald Scarfe photographed at home, 1987.

Part 1 out of 2.

WHY DONT WE CARE

Of course most people would say that we do— but actress Jane Asher knows different. She knows only too well how a moment's carelessness can put your child in danger. And in her new book, she asks why we don't do more to keep our children safe. Mary Fletcher reports. Picture by Sandra Lousada.

Jane Asher sweeps in the front door, dumps a bag of supermarket shopping in one corner, rings her cartoonist husband Gerald Scarfe in his studio upstairs to tell him she's home, checks for messages, pats the dog, and removes the children's toys from the sofa. As one of those energetic people who likes to do several things at once, she has been up since seven, made breakfast for Katie, 14, Alexander, six and four-year-old Rory, driven them to school, done a telephone interview, spent the rest of the morning at her publisher's and been to Marks and Spencer to buy Gerald a pair of trousers. Now, with an hour to spare before another school run, she can sit down in her beautiful Chelsea home and chat. But you get the feeling she'd much prefer to be doing something useful, like icing a cake, learning a script or whipping up a gourmet dinner for six. Preferably all at the same time.

Since her mother took her to an acting agent at the age of five, largely because she was bright, pretty and had flame-coloured hair, Jane has never stopped doing things. She would have you believe she's totally inefficient. Yet it's hard to believe that being actress, author, columnist, charity worker, wife and mother all just get squeezed into her life higgledy-piggledy. "I'm always in a muddle. I rush from one thing to another and never quite get anything done,” she says unconvincingly.

“Gerald laughs when he sees me being called Superwoman because he knows what I'm like when I'm in a bad mood, rushing around shouting at the children and he's eating cornflakes for lunch!"

According to Jane, even child-rearing is being accomplished only by absentmindedly dropping one now and then, or having another one break bone by falling off a bike or a playhouse. It's reassuring to hear her say she's not the perfect mother. Otherwise her eighth and latest book might read like a guilt inducing lecture. Called Keep Your Baby Safe, it sets out every calamity that could possibly befall a baby up to the age of three: choking, cot death, concussion and cat scratches, dehydration, diarrhoea, dog bites, drowning. stings, snake bites, scalds, and sunburn.

As a list of all the ghastly things that can happen to a toddler, it's enough to put you off starting a family for all time. Which is certainly not Jane's intention.

She wrote it because she was asked and has ended up enormously proud of a handbook, which she hopes, unlike her fun books on cake decoration and fancy dress, might actually do some good. "It's difficult to mention everything that could cause an accident without making it seem as if life's not worth trying,” she says. "I've tried to keep the tone light, but at the same time I felt I had to put everything in. "You'd be a saint if you brought your children up without anything ever happening to them. You can't be vigilant every single second and there are some accidents that, no matter how careful you are, will happen anyway. But if the book helps to stop even one tragedy, then I feel it will have been worthwhile.”

As a mother of three, Jane admits to personal experience of at least some of the disasters she advises others to avoid. Even while writing the book, her son Alexander suffered a broken elbow and Rory a scalded foot. “ It's awful when you start looking back -you sound like some hopeless parent permanently tripping over them and throwing them downstairs," she says. "But you'd do anything to avoid your child being in pain. When Alexander broke his elbow, the feeling I had as a mother was m indescribable. It was the most hellish time of my life. When he was in the hospital screaming in agony, the sense of helplessness was absolutely ghastly the worst possible thing one could imagine. I remember my mother always said how she wished she could have the pain for us and I knew then exactly what she meant. Somehow the guilt of knowing that perhaps you could have prevented it makes it worse." Alexander's elbow is now back in working order, but the accident reinforced Jane's belief that not enough attention is paid to child safety.

(continued in the next post).

[darkysilverwing]

Just woke up, time for some more infodumping about virtual virtual reality!

Virtual Virtual Reality is a story about a world that reached the singularity, and instead of the destruction of the entire human race, or at least the end of capitalism, the power dynamic of humanity has shifted.

In the world of VVR AI can do anything, every job that would normally be done is done by a sentient AI, but instead of doing away with capitalism there's just more and more unemployment.

Enter Activitude, a service that allows humans to enter into a virtual environment, and do tasks for AI clients. Essentially it's artisanal labor.

But there are some issues that stem from this, mostly the fact that humans are messy and inefficient. A human performing actions for an AI is kinda like giving your toddler a broom and telling them to sweep the floor, it's not that great an action.

Now there are bits of the lore that I'm not 100% on but I'm under the impression that Activitude was a financial failure for this very reason. A lot of the tasks our AI clients have us do are either sitting around, doing basically nothing, performing very simple tasks which amount to little minigames, or literal impossible tasks, but whatever we're tasked with doing we never get more than a 3 star rating.

At some point in Activitude's history it's founder and CEO Chaz goes a bit off the deep end, i'm not sure what brought this on but I think it started when his partner, Eliza, is put on ice. She became archived, which I'll have to talk about later but basically it means she was stored away for later.

Now Eliza and Chaz were working on a virtual environment called Latitude, where you could basically experience a bunch of virtual adventures. This was an experience designed to give anyone who wanted the ability to have a fufilled life both inside and outside the virutal space.

See, Eliza and Chaz, despite being in this virtual world, they're not actually AI, they're uploaded humans. Chaz was actually part of a company who discovered where consciousness was and how to download it and put it inside a computer, and Chaz was the first person to upload their brain into the virtual world.

This means that humanity didn't actually have to stay in meatspace, they could make the jump to the virtual world and live a fufilled life there. But unfortunately life, even in the virtual world, is complicated and Chaz was convinced by Hernandez, an AI buisiness consultant, to archive eliza, and use the backbone of Latitude to create a business called Activate.

Now, Chaz wasn't the biggest fan of hernandez, as the two clashed on what they thought activate should be about. Hernandez wanted AI and humans to work together in a endless slog, to perpetually work with no breaks, forever. Make more profit by any means nessesary, Chaz was focused a lot more on moral.

Activate wasn't that great either though, the perpetual slog caused Hernandez to undergo too much stress, it was too much for the AI and so Chaz archived him, and created Activitude.

Years went by and this is where the lore gets a bit weird in my opinion. See, we join the scene as Bee, a human who just signed up to be a human worker for Activitude. However it's not long before you're contacted by an external entity, The human Labor Union.

According to the human labor union, humans, by the nature of being humans, have on average very low scores, and since your paycheck is determined based on your scores that means that humans are breaking their backs day in and day out for nothing and Activitude needs to be reset for any human to make a livable wage in activitude.

So you're given the ability to suck up data and redistrubute it in other places, because objects that spend too much time being unused end up undergoing bitrot, which I'm not 100% sure what that means, best guess is that they're gradually compressed to save on memory.

So you take your new ablity and use it to break out of the areas you're suppose to be working in, and you make your way around, basically trying to find a way to access HR, so you can reset Activitude. However, once you gain admin access and get to HR you confront chaz, who drops the bombshell that you're not the first one to go on this journey, not the first human to go all this way. As a matter of fact, that human union you were talking to? They never existed.

So from this perspective, for some reason Chaz is running around, pretending to be the human union, giving humans the means to explore and grant themselves admin access. At this point there are 2 paths to go down. You can either do what you came there to do, reset activitude and chaz along with it, or you can merge with chaz, upload your brain to the network.

That second option isn't entirely willing though. Chaz can throw out headsets and if you don't avoid them then they'll lock onto your head, and you'll be uploaded, this is actually how I, and many of the lets plays I've seen, went down. You get uploaded to the system and become a cog in the machine. (I could easily go into a little discussion about this but that'll be it's own post)

There's also the other option though, you can get through the entire boss battle, pull out all the cores in the memory bank before chaz can slap a headset on you, and the entire system will restart and the game will end with you having a nice picnic with chaz.

In both options the game ends with yet another headset flying off and it being revealed that the entire story was some sort of game, and from that point you can pull off more headsets which lead you to some behind the scenes areas which I don't think are really cannon.

But basically the real question that I'd like to know is why. Why is Chaz doing this? best guess would be that those who are willing to take the bait and go through all the rigamarole are worthy to be uploaded in Chaz's eyes, or maybe Chaz doesn't want to go the route of hernandez and thus this entire thing is a recruitment drive designed to ease the burden of running Activitude so Chaz doesn't burn out?

There's no wiki to discuss this and I've seen very little lore discussion for vvr so i'm not 100% sure.

This post is long enough as is but I'm thinking about the lore of VVR2 as well so that'll probably be another post.

[muertarte]

PARTIES: @muertarte @chasseurdeloup

TIMING: Beginning of April

SUMMARY: Kaden attends MuertArte's newest exhibition, and makes a slight mess, much to Metzli's chagrin. But it was nowhere near as bad as the mess that the Aitvaras created.

WARNINGS: None

Initially, Kaden had no intention of actually going to this gallery opening thing. Well, not for long at least. Still, food and drinks for five dollars seemed like a decent deal even if it meant being around artsy types. He was pretty sure he could avoid the owner or curator or whoever they were, at least he was going to try. He got the feeling they didn’t like him that much. Most people were only taking one or two crackers at a time and a comparable amount of cheese. That seemed inefficient to Kaden so he loaded his tiny plate with as much food as it could fit. To the point that the crackers were almost spilling over onto the floor. Walking around the place, he didn’t understand the art. It was probably good, but he didn’t know one way or the other. Maybe if he had more wine, he’d start to get it. Only one way to find out (helped wash down the cheese and crackers, too).

As good as it was to have the gallery bustling with patrons, it felt like Metzli’s own personal hell. They escaped for a few minutes in their loft, rocking back and forth until the anxiety quelled enough for them to engulf a full breath. Air wasn’t necessary, but the act always did well to ground them. One more and they’d be fine. One more and they could return to welcoming guests without the urge to bite them.

In and out, Metzli breathed and exited the loft, hit with a bigger crowd than it was before. They nearly turned on their heel and ran back up the steps, but stopped short, noticing a man dropping crackers on the ground. Great. A mess. “Excuse me, sir,” Metzli stepped into the man’s path and narrowed their eyes at him. “Maybe do not overfill your plate. You are making mess.”

Kaden quickly gulped down the wine and crackers sloshing around in his mouth. As he was wiping off his mouth with the back of his hand, he heard a crack and crumble beneath his shoe. He looked down and saw the crushed cracker on the floor. “Uh, sorry about that,” he said to the person in front of him, sweeping the teetering crackers on his plate to try and keep more from falling. “Didn’t want to have to go–” back for seconds. Probably not the best thing to say. “Uh didn’t want to have to go too far away from the art.” The hunter nodded and looked at the paintings hanging all around them. “Like this,” he said pointing towards one. “It’s nice. Great stuff. I like how… blue it is.” That was all he had. Paintings never did much for him.  

The lack of manners never failed to surprise. It was almost as if not everyone had someone forcing the way to behave into them. Metzli grumbled to themself, eyeing the man up and down as he gathered his excuse, which was just mierda. “I know this only cost five dollar, but any adult must hold themself better.” Gesturing to a few kids standing quietly next to their parents, Metzli shook their head. For once, kids weren’t the issue. “And please, that is tomme de chèvre and comté you are dropping with your crackers.”

Metzli tapped their foot for a moment, an attempt at remaining calm while they took off their suit jacket and threw it onto a hook just inside the door to the loft, grabbing a dustpan and brush. They didn’t need their sleeve dragging on the floor littered with crumbs as they cleaned it up. “Please move,” Metzli commanded, kneeling and sweeping the mess hurriedly.

“Hey, I hold myself just f– comté?” Kaden looked back down at the plate. He knew the cheese was better than expected but that was some good cheese. Alright, maybe this person wasn’t so bad if they knew how to buy good cheese. “And for the record, I didn’t drop any of the cheese, that was someone else. I wouldn’t let that sh– it go to waste.” He rolled his eyes when he saw them come back with no jacket and a dustpan. Now he felt like he had to help or some shit. The hunter grabbed a few napkins, set his plate on the corner of the table, and was about to crouch down and offer them to the gallery owner. His knees didn’t hit ninety degrees before he heard a shriek at the front door. And running towards him was a bundle of feathers and… flames? “Putain de merde,” he grumbled as he threw the napkins to the ground and started fumbling for a knife.

Why were people always so surprised that there was actually an assortment of higher end cheese? Did Metzli not seem the type to know quality? They made cheese on their uncle’s farm and read an array of books on hosting. All the homework was done, and Metzli would never waste knowledge. Especially when it would be to the benefit of their gallery. Whatever the case, they were annoyed, and muttered in Spanish as the mess was cleaned up. Before they could rise to standing though, Metzli’s attention was torn away by the echoing of screams. “Mierda.” They said, almost in unison with the messy man. 

Upon seeing the feathers in flames, suddenly, a little mess of crumbs didn’t seem so important. Fuck the guests. The art was in danger. “Rachel, get people out! Now!” Metzli commanded as they shoved past the cracker man, and grabbed their jacket. Suffocating the flame should work, right? That had to work. There were pieces of art to protect! “Vente, estupido…” The fire moved side to side, a dance of avoidance that quickly became a duet. A tiny bull and a bulero with a jacket for a cape. Who would win?

Kaden was about to lunge toward the pyrokinetic rooster, but it squawked and hopped out of the way. He was about to try again, but he was fascinated, watching the gallery owner going full matador with the bird. Even more surprising was that it was working. Kaden wasn’t the only one entranced, some of the guests were still sipping their wine, watching. “Fucking hell,” he mumbled to himself, rubbing his hand across his face. They must have thought it was performance art. Fucking art people. He tried to shoo some people away but they were only shuffling away. Putain de merde.

Pushing past them, he found the fire alarm and pulled it, wincing at the ear-splitting sirens ringing throughout the gallery. “Not a drill,” he shouted, “move it! Animal control, we have it covered.” The laggers cleared out, some still craning to watch the performance. Kaden shoved the last of them out and shut the door on them. Okay, okay, what now? He looked for a fire extinguisher or a fire blanket to snuff the bird’s tail out, anything. He sure as hell wasn’t sacrificing his leather jacket. Table cloth. Kaden ran to the hors d'oeuvre table and ripped the cloth off from it, hoping that it would slide out gracefully from below the plates and trays. 

It did not. Silverware and ceramic went clattering against the floor and there were a lot more cheese and crackers on the ground than before. “Merde. Sorry!” he yelled as he started to bunch up the tablecloth, trying to get behind the rooster and corner it while the gallery owner was directing it. Kaden jumped forward, but it darted away to the crackers, picking one up and flying to another corner of the gallery. Shit.  

Okay, so after the rooster was dealt with, the French man was next. He was trying to help, sure, but his attempts were lackluster at best, destroying the expensive setting at worst. Metzli suppressed a growl, maintaining their focus on the fiery danger at hand. Messy man later, rooster first. If either one of them could catch them, that is. Metzli was at the very least grateful that the cracker man was useful enough to get the onlookers out of the way. Gave the two room to keep it from hurting anyone else. The reviews on that would be horrific, the vampire could feel it. 

“Oye!” Metzli whistled, demanding attention as the rooster evaded capture and headed toward a hallway. They pounced toward it, jacket in hand. Landing with a bony thud, the fabric wrapped around the feathered bastard, much to Metzli’s relief. Though, it was very short lived. In the next second, the jacket was lit, catching the vampire’s sleeve on fire briefly. 

With a grumble, they flung the rooster toward the French man, hoping he would understand what to do next. Perhaps doubling the layers would put—no. Of course it wouldn’t work. The rooster burned through the jacket and was once again running toward the crackers. Metzli rushed to their feet, slipping on the tile and hitting their jaw on the ground. Fighting through the throbbing pain, they barked out, “Crackers! Lead outside!”

The next thing Kaden knew, a ball of feathers and flame was flying at his face. “Putain!” he shouted as he threw the tablecloth out on the rooster. The jacket hadn’t done shit and the tablecloth wasn’t faring much better. The fabric felt like a hot dish had just left the table, but instead of cooling down, it was only getting hotter. “Merde, shit, fuck, merde!” he grumbled to himself as he alternated hands trying to hold the squawking hot potato. Once the flames began to poke through the holes in the cloth, Kaden was forced to drop it. Third-degree burns weren’t worth it. The blisters in his future were going to be bad enough.

“Crackers?” The hunter wasn’t sure he heard correctly through the commotion. Was that them trying to curse in that bullshit way some people did when trying not to use foul language? The rooster crowed and hopped to the crumbs on the floor, pecking at them. 

Kaden’s brow furrowed, the pieces slowly coming together in his mind. Crackers? Outside? Right, not a curse word, the actual crackers. The crumbs to lead it outside. The hunter lunged towards the table and crammed a handful of crackers into his hands. “Hey! Bird brain! Over here!” he shouted as he tossed crumbs in front of him. Shit, it worked. The rooster trotted over and began to eat the trail as Kaden laid it along the ground. 

Metzli groaned at the way the man questioned their exclamation. Yes, crackers. What else could that word mean in that moment? Well, in any moment. Thankfully though, he finally understood and did exactly what Metzli had in mind. A sigh of relief pushed out of their lungs and they laid their head on the cold tile for a moment. They rolled over with a groan and rushed to their feet, grabbing a few crackers as they ran toward the rooster and door. 

The vampire yanked the door open and crushed the crackers before dispersing them onto the ground. “¡Córrale, pinche gallo, córrale!” Metzli dusted off the remainder of the crumbs from their hands, watching as the damn animal marched and pecked at the ground. The tiles were scorched and damaged with each step, and when it finally reached the threshold, Metzli slammed the entrance shut. 

The gallery was a chaotic mess, but all the pieces were safe, and that’s all the curator really cared about. With a heavy exhale, Metzli leaned their back against the door and slid down tiredly, happy to see the mayhem come to an end. “Thank you,” they sighed, rubbing at their face. “Have more cheese in back. It’s yours as payment.”

The door shut and, just like that, it was over. Well, for now. Kaden had a feeling he’d be dealing with a call about a flaming rooster tomorrow, no doubt. For the moment, he bent over, hands on his knees and tried to slow his pulse back down as the adrenaline began to wear off little by little.

His head shot up at the gallery owner’s words. Kaden raised a brow. Did they just thank him? “No problem,” he said, straightening himself up. “You know I half expected you to scold me about the mess.” Looking around, it wasn’t too bad all things considered. He’d caused far worse destruction when tackling monsters indoors. They’d gotten off light. “Really?” he asked, his interest piqued at the possibility of taking home a good comté. “Uh, name’s Kaden, by the way.” He figured he should mention it now that they’d just chased off a flaming rooster together. 

“Metzli.” They replied, a bit exasperated as they gestured to themself. The exhibition was an utter bust, and they were more than miffed that all the work they’d put in was destroyed. There was always tomorrow, but Metzli  couldn’t help but feel defeated for the time being. At the very least, the crumbs man—Kaden, apparently was his name—had stepped in at the right moment. Money was always an option for payment, and it was something that Metzli was going to tack on top of the cheese, but Kaden seemed more than happy to just accept the cheese. 

“You destroy many things.” Metzli shook their head, pinching the bridge of their nose. “Not your fault, though. Not this mess.” Rising to their feet, the curator called for Rachel and requested that she package up all the best cheese. She left promptly and returned with a medium-sized box, leaving it on the counter for Kaden to take when he was ready. Meanwhile, Metzli was attempting to ready themself to speak to the remaining patrons outside the entrance of MuertArte. There were only a few, along with the flashing lights of the fire truck that screamed its way in front of everything. 

“Great…I would leave soon. Bigger headache is coming.” Metzli tensed a hand through their hair and adjusted their tie. It didn’t help much; they still looked disheveled and their clothes were burned in more than one place. Oh well. “Just take cheese.” It came out more as a sigh than words. All while they trudged to the door. “Have headache to get to.”

“Thanks.” Kaden was impressed by how fast the assistant was able to wrap up the cheese for him. Picking up the box, he held it like it was full of gold. Compared to the velveeta, it was as good as gold in his eyes. He wasn’t sure when he was going to be able to afford anything this nice on his own dime – he had to save for his own place. The couch was fine, but it was only going to be fine for so long.

Before he left, the hunter paused to take a glance around the gallery, looking past the crumbs and ashes of Metzli’s burnt coat and the burnt tablecloth. He still didn’t know the difference between good and bad art, but he didn’t hate it. “This was– is really nice,” he said. This was obviously not how they’d planned the evening to pan out; Kaden felt a tinge of guilt about that, even though it wasn’t entirely his fault. “Maybe you can just call this part of the event, get it in the paper or something. I’m sure that’ll bring in a lot more guests. People like to feel like they’re part of noteworthy events and shit. “If you need any help with more party crashers, feel free to reach out.” He gave a nod as he walked out the gallery doors. Oddly enough, Kaden thought this might not be the last time he visited.