#and in a financial and existential crisis

[engardeitsme]

hhhh i struggle sm with telling ppl why i quit doing art professionally. like how do you get them to *comprehend* if they never felt what it's like to have your entire being tied to your frickin job lmao

[mint-ty]

can someone kick me in the butt

I have so much to do yet I've been playing tetris for 3 hours already

[randomnerd737]

damn life is loonnng

[the-prophecy]

N: wake up im gonna do something stupid

me: im scared

N: im cutting my hair

me: OMG BITCH DONT DO IT YOURSELF

N: OFC NOT ILL CUT MY EAR INSTEAD OF MY HAIR

me: ok good

*1 hr later*

N: so uhm

me: WHAT DID YOU DO

N: i paid 1k for a haircut instead of 100

me: YOU BITCH GO GET YOUR MONEY BACK

N: they said theyre gonna return it next week

me: NO DO YOU SEE WHY I WAS SCARED????

WHO THW FUCK PAYS 1K FOR A HAIRCUT ME LADKI HOKE BHI ITNA NAI BHARTI HELLO UR DADDY IS RICH KYA-

[ryansquill]

I don’t know how to stop thinking,

and it’s killing me.

But.

What if this is the only chance to think that I have?

[omgthatdress]

What made France/Paris known as The fashion capital of the world?

Okay, sorry I took some time getting to this, but it's a pretty big question. It's a very, very, very long history of artisanship and finery coming out of France, but really it all comes from three men: Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Charles Fredrick Worth, and Lucien Lelong (and to a certain extent Christian Dior).

Louis XIV sought to build Versailles as a symbol of France's (and his own) prestige. It was to be the biggest fanciest palace in Europe, fuck the cost. In order to make the building of Versailles financially viable, the Minister of Finance, Jean-Baptiste Colbert, declares that nothing will be imported to Versailles than can be made in France, kick-starting an absolutely massive industry of artisans making luxury goods. These skilled artisans keep their skills in France and pass their skills on to other generations. I mean look at this motherfucker:

All that luxury was made in France.

Next guy is Charles Fredrick Worth. Basically, he invented the couture house, and he did it in Paris. It changed the nature of designing and buying clothes. Rather than having a dressmaker come to you and make a dress according to your specifics, the designer (who is more skilled in art and design rather than your average society lady) makes their own designs, and you go to the couture house to have a dress made for you. More couture houses sprung up around Paris, meaning that wealthy women would travel there twice a year to buy an new wardrobe.

Beyond that, Worth founded the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture, des Confectionneurs et des Tailleurs pour Dames et Fillettes. It's sort of a worker's union and governing body for couturiers that basically means everyone gets a fair cut and nobody can undercut their competitors or screw each other over.

Finally, you have Lucien Lelong. He owned a couture house, but he wasn't a designer- he hired designers to design for him. He was a businessman, and a very skilled one. The German occupation of Paris and wartime rationing and deprivation shut down the French couture business almost entirely. The only people who had the means to buy fine ball gowns were the wives and mistresses of Nazi officers. A lot of couturiers shut down rather than serve Nazis, but some made the dresses as a means of survival. Christian Dior had the pressure of his sister being incarcerated in Ravensbrück, so he continued to design for Lelong.

Anyway, when the war ended, there was literally not enough fabric in all of France for every couture house to make a full collection. It was a full on existential crisis, French couture very well might not have survived. Rather than only a few houses making their collections and the others being forced to shut down, Lelong had the idea of dolls. Using the remaining fabric, the members of the Chambre Syndicale de la Couture made an exhibition of fantastic miniature couture on two-foot wire dolls. Tickets were sold, and it was called Théâtre de la Mode. The exhibition was a massive hit and generated so much revenue that the couture houses were able to recover.

The next year, Christian Dior opened his own couture house and released his "New Look" collection. It firmly re-established Paris as the world capital of fashion. Last year, they made a TV show The New Look about all of this and it is so good! I highly recommend watching it!

Anyway, that's why fashion is a French thing.

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[astrolook]

When & Where Will You Meet Your Spouse? 💍💫 Locations, Connections, and Fate ✨

Note: This post fits both Western and Vedic systems. Take what resonates with you more and leave the rest. Lemme know in the comments if it hits home!

Look at where your 7th house ruler is placed; the opposite sign of your 7th lord’s placement can show where and when you might meet them. You might meet your spouse under the zodiac sign opposite to your 7th lord.

7th lord in Aries → opposite sign Libra

7th lord in Taurus → opposite sign Scorpio

7th lord in Gemini → opposite sign Sagittarius

7th lord in Cancer → opposite sign Capricorn

7th lord in Leo → opposite sign Aquarius

7th lord in Virgo → opposite sign Pisces

7th lord in Libra → opposite sign Aries

7th lord in Scorpio → opposite sign Taurus

7th lord in Sagittarius → opposite sign Gemini

7th lord in Capricorn → opposite sign Cancer

7th lord in Aquarius → opposite sign Leo

7th lord in Pisces → opposite sign Virgo

If the opposite sign is Libra, you’re likely to meet your spouse at a wedding, your mother's or a younger sibling's birthday month, through business partnerships, during legal proceedings, at a courthouse, networking events, contract signings, social mixers, collaborative projects, or even a photoshoot or fashion-related event. Since Libra rules one-on-one connections and “the other,” there’s a strong chance you’ll be introduced by someone else, like a friend, colleague, or mutual contact.

If the opposite sign is Scorpio, you might meet your spouse through spiritual circles, taboo interest groups, chat rooms, the dark web, at a car dealership, during a major life event like a birth (someone close to you) or a funeral (death of a loved one), or in moments involving deep emotional or financial transitions like getting insurance, paying taxes, or receiving an inheritance. The meeting is likely to feel sudden, intense, or completely unexpected, happening in a place or situation you’d never imagine.

If the opposite sign is Sagittarius, you’re likely to meet your spouse while studying in college, during higher education abroad, on a long-distance trip, at an airport, could be a foreigner or someone from a different background. You might also cross paths in places like a church, temple, spiritual retreat, or support group. Other possibilities include meeting through publishing, broadcasting, the internet, TV, radio, a casino, a club, or anywhere involving a sense of risk, exploration, or adventure.

If the opposite sign is Capricorn, you could meet your spouse through your father, at work, during career-related events, a business meeting, through mutual friends, colleagues, at a railway station, chain restaurants, historical buildings, museum, concert, weekend gathering, bar, comedy show, award show, or even outside the city or town limits. The connection may come in structured, goal-oriented settings or when you're focused on responsibility and long-term plans.

If the opposite sign is Aquarius, you could meet your spouse online, through an activist group, social cause, NGO, while caring for the elderly, in a gaming chat room, while protesting, through friends, acquaintances, or community events for a social cause. Your spouse may live far away or come from a different cultural background.

If the opposite sign is Pisces, you might meet your spouse in a hospital, foreign country, foreigner, secluded or private setting, while hiking, trekking, during outdoor activities, end of the month or year, near water bodies, at a spa, meditation center, spiritual group, or retreat. The meeting could also happen during a period of emotional low, an existential crisis, or when you feel like you've hit rock bottom, when you're most inward or seeking deeper meaning.

If the opposite sign is Aries, you could meet your spouse when you find a new social circle or group of friends, during a glow-up, in your birthday month, while starting a new hobby, the first week of the month, Mondays, when graduating, changing jobs or locations, or while traveling by road. The meeting could happen when you're taking bold steps or embracing new beginnings.

If the opposite sign is Taurus, you could meet your spouse at local shops, while shopping, at seminars, in a bank, through family connections, coworkers, or business partners. You might also meet in the countryside, on a farm, near agricultural land, at office spaces, during a promotion, or while getting a job, or through charity work.

If the opposite sign is Gemini, you could meet your spouse on social media, dating apps, through your close friends circle, siblings, at restaurants, during local trips, while on the phone, with lots of people around you, in a crowd of young individuals, at university, workshops, during your daily commute, tourist attraction spots, or in your own neighborhood or town.

If the opposite sign is Cancer, you could meet your spouse while it's raining, during a hurricane or storms, near water bodies, at a bar, under clear blue skies, in the evening, introduced by a woman you know, at birthday parties, birth of a child (someone close to you), weddings, or at a cafe.

If the opposite sign is Leo, you could meet your spouse when you're feeling fun, lighthearted, on a close getaway, at a zoo, during outdoor activities, on a family or friends' trip or vacation, in movie theaters, at concerts, while partying and enjoying yourself, or by following them on social media.

If the opposite sign is Virgo, you could meet your spouse while you're busy with daily tasks, at a vet clinic, during a promotion, at the gym, while jogging, working, or caught up in routines that feel mundane. It may take time to realize they’re your person, as you're caught up with other things in your life.

Wanna dive deeper into your chart's layers? ✨🔍 DM me for a full astrology reading, a 5 or 8-year marriage report, detailed synastry, or a kundli matching breakdown 🌙💬 Check out my pinned post for pricing and more info 💫💸

Let’s decode your cosmic chaos together ⭐💖

[linkcharacter]

I feel like many people are too focused on what Curly could've 'done' instead of what he 'thought' about it, how he saw and processed it in his head. As I see it, the point isn't that he did nothing, it's that he keeps shoving away and downplaying Jimmy's bullshit in his perception, which would then lead to inaction from Curly's side. That if he could've, we don't know if he would've. Action is very much needed in cases like Anya's, though it wouldn't make things better in the Tulpar situation, BUT that's just the horror of it and it doesn't remove Curly's faults outside of that. The point is that Curly is human and isn't exempt from trying to avoid the issue at hand in his head because of who he is as a person and the environment they're in, the condition Curly's in. He knows it's BAD with Jimmy, yet due to either or both, prolonged conditioning of their toxic friendship and Curly's stunted mental state, it doesn't click in his head properly.

If Anya didn't end up pregnant, if Jimmy didn't crash the ship, would Curly have seriously contemplated about Jimmy or rethought their friendship after finding out he's a rapist? Would anything have changed between them? I would imagine if Curly want half-delirious half-conscious and not going through an existential crisis, then I would give it a very stretched "maybe", and it still would've taken time to detach yourself from a close friend (with possible emotional abuse benefits). But we don't know what COULD'VE been, we just know he DIDN'T. And that is behavior of an enabler, not ill-willed or inconsiderate, but it's human to be afraid of change and be attached. Still ended in upkeeping his friend's harmful behaviors, not due to lack of wanting him to change but that's just how things are. It's realistic, there's no inherent 'morality' attached to Curly's actions, they were simply actions, what matters is the result. Good intentions don't mean much in face of a horrific outcome.

Would Curly keep attempting to give Jimmy help to be better, in vain like he was suggested to have done before? Very possible. "We said tomorrow will be different. Today would be the last day."

Would Curly report Jimmy to the authorities if he could? We don't know (I'm leaning towards a no though). It's not a bad thing to want your friends to be better and believe in them, nor do I think cutting them off is always the best course of action. Rehabilitation is a good thing (though we don't know exactly how Curly tried to help Jim) and having a support system as friends can make it more effective especially if it's a person struggling financially and mentally in life like Jimmy. Yet Jimmy still has to take accountability and be handled in a proper manner for what he did, not just be let go off the hook, only hoping he will improve like Curly does. At some point Curly had to stop making Jimmy's actions his responsibility but never did, until the end.

The conditions of the Tulpar themselves are very lackluster, the system is unfair and harsh with what we know about Mouthwashing's world. The companies are uncaring and scummy as they are in real life, Pony Express especially being cheap and has no regard for the safety and well being of their employees. It all creates a systematic environment for the worst human traits to fester in unchecked, no one single individual could've "fixed it".

So realistically I don't see much that could've been done in the environment they were in and no matter what Curly did, the outcome would never be good. In any course of action Curly could've gone with, the situation isn't changing, Anya was assaulted, Jimmy is the Co-pilot, the duration of the flight is more than the pregnancy term, conflict within the crew will be punished financially by the HR, they were fired. It's horrible and irreparable no matter what. That is the situation.

But

Curly still downplayed it, that's the point. It's not about the potential actions we imagine he could've taken, it's about all the things he didn't take into account and lacked proper judgement towards his friend, which ended up festering a destructive parasite called Jimmy.

Not to mention that Mouthwashing is such a multifaceted game in terms of its themes, it cannot be defined by ONLY this one Curly idea. There's so much more to the story.

[s-soulwriter]

Creative misfortunes for characters

Identity Crisis: Have your character lose their memory, forcing them to rediscover their true self and past.

Betrayal by a Loved One: A close friend or family member betrays the character's trust, leading to emotional turmoil and inner conflict.

Physical Transformation: Give your character a physical ailment or transformation that they must come to terms with, such as sudden blindness, a debilitating illness, or turning into a different species.

Unrequited Love: Make your character fall deeply in love with someone who doesn't reciprocate their feelings, causing heartache and a quest for self-discovery.

Financial Ruin: Strip your character of their wealth and privilege, forcing them to adapt to a life of poverty and face the harsh realities of the world.

False Accusation: Have your character falsely accused of a crime they didn't commit, leading to a desperate quest to clear their name.

Natural Disaster: Place your character in the path of a devastating natural disaster, such as a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami, and force them to survive and rebuild.

Loss of a Sense: Take away one of your character's senses (e.g., sight, hearing, taste) and explore how they adapt and cope with this profound change.

Forced Isolation: Trap your character in a remote location, like a deserted island, and make them confront their inner demons while struggling to survive.

Haunted Past: Reveal a dark secret from your character's past that comes back to haunt them, threatening their relationships and well-being.

Time Travel Consequences: Send your character back in time, but make them inadvertently change a crucial event in history, leading to unintended consequences in the present.

Psychological Breakdown: Push your character to the brink of a mental breakdown, exploring the complexities of their psyche and their journey towards recovery.

Unwanted Prophecy: Have your character be the subject of a prophecy they want no part of, as it places them in grave danger or disrupts their life.

Loss of a Loved One: Kill off a beloved character or make your protagonist witness the death of someone close to them, igniting a quest for revenge or justice.

Incurable Curse or Disease: Curse your character with an incurable ailment or supernatural curse, and follow their journey to find a cure or accept their fate.

Sudden Disappearance: Make a character disappear mysteriously, leaving the others to search for them and uncover the truth.

Betrayal of Morals: Force your character into a situation where they must compromise their ethical values for a greater cause, leading to moral dilemmas and internal conflict.

Loss of a Precious Object: Have your character lose a cherished possession or artifact that holds sentimental or magical significance, setting them on a quest to recover it.

Political Intrigue: Place your character in a position of power or influence, then subject them to political intrigue, manipulation, and power struggles.

Existential Crisis: Make your character question the meaning of life, their purpose, and their place in the universe, leading to a philosophical journey of self-discovery.

Remember that misfortunes should serve a purpose in your story, driving character growth, plot development, and thematic exploration.

[houseofbrat]

Bernie Would Have Won

By Krystal Ball

There are a million surface-level reasons for Kamala Harris’s loss and systematic underperformance in pretty much every county and among nearly every demographic group. She is part of a deeply unpopular administration. Voters believe the economy is bad and that the country is on the wrong track. She is a woman and we still have some work to do as a nation to overcome long-held biases. 

But the real problems for the Democrats go much deeper and require a dramatic course correction of a sort that, I suspect, Democrats are unlikely to embark upon. The bottom line is this: Democrats are still trying to run a neoliberal campaign in a post-neoliberal era. In other words, 2016 Bernie was right.

Let’s think a little bit about how we got here. The combination of the Iraq War and the housing collapse exposed the failures and rot that were the inevitable result of letting the needs of capital predominate over the needs of human beings. The neoliberal ideology which was haltingly introduced by Jimmy Carter, embraced fully by Ronald Reagan, and solidified across both parties with Bill Clinton embraced a laissez-faire market logic that would supplant market will for national will or human rights, but also raise incomes enough overall and create enough dynamism that the other problems were in theory, worth the trade off. Clinton after all ran with Reagan era tax cutting, social safety net slashing and free trade radicalism with NAFTA being the most prominent example. 

Ultimately, of course, this strategy fueled extreme wealth inequality. But for a while this logic seemed to be working out. The Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended. Incomes did indeed rise and the internet fueled tech advances contributing to a sense of cosmopolitan dynamism. America had a swaggering confidence that these events really did represent a sort of end of history. We believed that our brand of privatization, capitalism, and liberal democracy would take over the world. We confidently wielded institutions like the World Bank, IMF, and WTO to realize this global vision. We gave China most-favored nation trade status.

Underneath the surface, the unchecked market forces we had unleashed were devastating communities in the industrial Midwest and across the country. By the neoliberal definition NAFTA was a roaring success contributing to GDP growth. But if your job was shipped overseas and your town was shoved into economic oblivion, the tradeoff didn’t seem like such a great deal.

The underlying forces of destruction came to a head with two major catastrophes, the Iraq War and the housing collapse/Great Recession. The lie that fueled the Iraq war destroyed confidence in the institutions that were the bedrock of this neoliberal order and in the idea that the U.S. could or should remake the world in our image. Even more devastating, the financial crisis left home owners destitute while banks were bailed out, revealing that there was something deeply unjust in a system that placed capital over people. How could it be that the greedy villains who triggered a global economic calamity were made whole while regular people were left to wither on the vine?

These events sparked social movements on both the right and the left. The Tea Party churned out populist-sounding politicians like Sarah Palin and birtherist conspiracies about Barack Obama, paving the way for the rise of Donald Trump. The Tea Party and Trumpism are not identical, of course, but they share a cast of villains: The corrupt bureaucrats or deep state. The immigrants supposedly changing your community. The cultural elites telling you your beliefs are toxic. Trump’s version of this program is also explicitly authoritarian. This authoritarianism is a feature not a bug for some portion of the Trump coalition which has been persuaded that democracy left to its own devices could pose an existential threat to their way of life. 

On the left, the organic response to the financial crisis was Occupy Wall Street, which directly fueled the Bernie Sanders movement. Here, too, the villains were clear. In the language of Occupy it was the 1% or as Bernie put it the millionaires and billionaires. It was the economic elite and unfettered capitalism that had made it so hard to get by. Turning homes into assets of financial speculation. Wildly profiteering off of every element of our healthcare system. Busting unions so that working people had no collective power. This movement was, in contrast to the right, was explicitly pro-democracy, with a foundational view that in a contest between the 99% and the 1%, the 99% would prevail. And that a win would lead to universal programs like Medicare for All, free college, workplace democracy, and a significant hike in the minimum wage.  

These two movements traveled on separate tracks within their respective party alliances and met wildly different fates. On the Republican side, Donald Trump emerged as a political juggernaut at a time when the party was devastated and rudderless, having lost to Obama twice in a row. This weakened state—and the fact that the Trump alternatives were uncharismatic drips like Jeb Bush—created a path for Trump to successfully execute a hostile takeover of the party.

Plus, right-wing populism embraces capital, and so it posed no real threat to the monied interests that are so influential within the party structures. The uber-rich are not among the villains of the populist right (see: Elon Musk, Bill Ackman, and so on), except in so much as they overlap with cultural leftism. The Republican donor class was not thrilled with Trump’s chaos and lack of decorum but they did not view him as an existential threat to their class interests. This comfort with him was affirmed after he cut their taxes and prioritized union busting and deregulation in his first term in office.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Party put its thumb on the scales and marshaled every bit of power they could, legitimate and illegitimate, to block Bernie Sanders from a similar party takeover. The difference was that Bernie’s party takeover did pose an existential threat—both to party elites who he openly antagonized and to the party’s big money backers. The bottom line of the Wall Street financiers and corporate titans was explicitly threatened. His rise would simply not be allowed. Not in 2016 and not in 2020.

What’s more, Hillary Clinton and her allies launched a propaganda campaign to posture as if they were actually to the left of Bernie by labeling him and his supporters sexist and racist for centering class politics over identity politics. This in turn spawned a hell cycle of woke word-policing and demographic slicing and dicing and antagonism towards working class whites that only made the Democratic party more repugnant to basically everyone.

This identity politics sword has also been wielded within the Democratic Party to crush any possibility of a Bernie-inspired class focused movement in Congress attempted by the Justice Democrats and the Squad in 2018. My colleague Ryan Grim has written an entire book on this subject so I won’t belabor the point here. But suffice it to say, the threat of the Squad to the Democratic Party’s ideology and order has been thoroughly neutralized. The Squad members themselves, perhaps out of ideology and perhaps out of fear of being smeared as racist, leaned into identitarian politics which rendered them non-threatening in terms of national popular appeal. They were also relentlessly attacked from within the party, predominately by pro-Israel groups that an unprecedented tens of millions of dollars in House primaries, which has led to the defeat of several members and has served as a warning and threat to the rest.

That brings us to today where the Democratic Party stands in the ashes of a Republican landslide which will sweep Donald Trumpback into the White House. The path not taken in 2016 looms larger than ever. Bernie’s coalition was filled with the exact type of voters who are now flocking to Donald Trump: Working class voters of all races, young people, and, critically, the much-derided bros. The top contributors to Bernie’s campaign often held jobs at places like Amazon and Walmart. The unions loved him. And—never forget—he earned the coveted Joe Rogan endorsement that Trump also received the day before the election this year. It turns out, the Bernie-to-Trump pipeline is real! While that has always been used as an epithet to smear Bernie and his movement, with the implication that social democracy is just a cover for or gateway drug to right wing authoritarianism, the truth is that this pipeline speaks to the power and appeal of Bernie’s vision as an effective antidote to Trumpism. When these voters had a choice between Trump and Bernie, they chose Bernie. For many of them now that the choice is between Trump and the dried out husk of neoliberalism, they’re going Trump.

I have always believed that Bernie would have defeated Trump in 2016, though of course there is no way to know for sure. What we can say for sure is that the brand of class-first social democracy Bernie ran on in 2016 has proven successful in other countries because of course the crisis of neoliberalism is a global phenomenon. Most notably, Bernie’s basic political ideology was wildly successful electorally with Andrés Manuel López Obrador and now his successor Claudia Sheinbaum in Mexico, Lula Da Silva in Brazil, and Evo Morales in Bolivia. AMLO, in fact, was one of the most popular leaders in the entire world and dramatically improved the livelihoods of a majority of his countrymen. Bernie’s basic ideology was also successful in our own history.

In the end, I got this election dead wrong. I thought between January 6th and the roll back of human rights for women, it would be enough. I thought that the overtly fascist tendencies of Donald Trump and the spectacle of the world’s richest man bankrolling him would be enough strikes against him to overcome the problems of the Democratic Party which I have spoken out about for years now–problems Kamala Harris decided to lean into rather than confront. Elevating Liz Cheney as a top surrogate was not just a slap in the face to all the victims of American imperialism—past and ongoing; it was a broad signal to voters that Democrats were the party of elites, playing directly into right-wing populist tropes. While the media talked about it as a “tack to the center,” author and organizer Jonathan Smucker more aptly described it as “a tack to the top.” And as I write this now, I have zero hope or expectation that Democrats will look at the Bernie bro coalition and realize why they screwed up. Cable news pundits are already blaming the left once again for the failures of a party that has little to do with the actual left and certainly not the populist left. 

Instead, Trump’s victory represents a defeat of social democratic class-first politics in America—not quite final, but not temporary either. The Democrats have successfully smothered the movement, blocked the entranceways, salted the earth. Instead they will, as Bill Clinton did in the ‘90s, embrace the fundamental tenets of the Trumpist worldview. 

They already are, in fact. Democrats have dropped their resistance to Trump’s mass deportation policies and immigrant scapegoating. The most ambitious politician in the Democratic coalition, Gavin Newsom, is making a big show of being tough-on-crime and dehumanizing the homeless. Democrat-leaning billionaires like Jeff Bezos who not only owns Amazon but the Washington Post have already abandoned their resistance.

Maybe I will be just as wrong as I was about the election but it is my sense that with this Trump victory, authoritarian right politics have won the ideological battle for what will replace the neoliberal order in America. And yes, I think it will be ugly, mean, and harmful—because it already is.

[jq37]

Just to throw my two cents on the Rat Grinder discourse: They weren't worth the Intrepid Heroes' time. We didn't get the full picture of what's going on with the Grinders until the last quarter of the season. Before that they were just this other clique that hate the main characters, so in-character why would the Bad Kids bother giving them so much attention when they've got so much of their own crap going on. Kristens quest to get Cassandra back and her presidential campaign, Gorgugs courseload, Riz's million and one plates that he's been spinning all season, Adaines financial problems, Figs curse and her doubts about what she wants to do with her life. Fabian's the only one who might have had the time, but he had to be Maximum Legend. There genuinely was no time or even an incentive on the IH's side to develop the Rat Grinders characters.

I still think it's fucked up that these teenagers got taken advantage of by adults they trusted, but we didn't learn any of that until we only had two roleplay episodes left. Too little too late to even try anything diplomatic even if they didn't spend all their time after the Last Stand in hiding.

And a thing about Ivy that no one is roasting her about and really should: An elven archer? Really? Wow, never seen that before.

Yeah totally. Like, from a meta level, I see where the players themselves could have been more curious about the Rat Grinders. There are obvious plot threads that could have been teased out there (though, in fairness to the cast, the adult manipulation aspect didn't become clear until way later in the season--the rivalry and foil aspects were more obvious). This final confrontation could look really different if they'd played that all the way out all season.

But in character? The Bad Kids really didn't have a good reason to waste time on the Rat Grinders. They came into this school year already burnt out from their Night Yorb quest and wanting a break. But they don't get that because they immediately are beset by problems they have to deal with--Kristen's god is on death's door from neglect and she's on the brink of expulsion, Riz is running himself ragged trying to boost his resume for college, Fig is having a whole ass existential crisis, Adaine is struggling with money issues she doesn't want to talk about, Gorgug is taking FOUR YEARS of school at the same time, and Fabian is multiclassing and dealing with his empty house/not having parental support (or Cathilda's support) for the first time. They are dealing with SO MUCH high stakes, personal stuff before the plot even kicks in. And, mechanics-wise, this is represented with the downtime system that means that any time they spend on the RG's is time they can't spend on something that matters more to them. IMO, not prioritizing your haters is actually pretty mature. Like, they weren't proactively using their free time to bully them or anything (except for arguably Fig). They were snippy with them when they crossed their paths and that was it. As opposed to the Rat Grinders who literally had to be told by Jace to stop antagonizing the Bad Kids (though they must have been pretty ineffectual at it because the Bad Kids hardly noticed, which I bet stung considering they were so obsessed).

And also, it's not like they didn't try at all with the Rat Grinders. Early Insight checks on Kipperlilly just got, "This is a polished steel orb of a personality" which doesn't sound very worth interacting with in a sympathetic way if at all and then the next big thing they learn is that she had hated Riz since Freshman Year and that she wants Riz and Kristen dead. And that's AFTER we saw her smile and kill her party cleric. In their position I'm not spending further time trying to empathize with this person, I have made my judgement and it's up to the Jawbones of the world to find if there's something in there to be rehabilitated.

And that's not the only case. Adaine straight up saved Ruben from disintegration during the Frosty Folk battle when she easily could have saved the spell slot, but that didn't soften him towards the Bad Kids any. Adaine also was really keen to Scry on the Rat Grinders to find out what was happening at their meetings. But, in scene at least, she was never able to do that so we never got a scene of them, huddled together, clearly unsure about the path they're on but not feeling like they can walk it back or say no to the authority figures in their lives. She didn't get anything humanizing that would cause her to rethink their position on them the way that she did with Aelwyn for instance. So why would they think they're anything but gleeful co-conspirators?

Hell, the one RG Adaine was even slightly curious about was Oisin and now we know that he was feigning interest in her which, man, can you imagine how much worse that would have felt if she'd actually taken the bait and pursued him beyond just thinking he was cute? Of course, it's possible that her interacting with him more along with some good charm rolls could have changed the narrative in some way but we can only go off of what we know to be true in canon and those facts are (1) He tried to get closer to Adaine while actively planning the downfall of her and her friends, (2) he (along with Ivy) was mean to Buddy behind his back while tricking him into a plan that would force him to go against his religious beliefs, and (3) he called his KVX related dragon ancestors to try to kill the Bad Kids and endanger the entire student body population. Three strikes, you're out. If I'm a Bad Kid I'm not super interested in whatever else is going on with him. And again, literally all of Adaine's friends (except Riz) gave her help to do an Insight check on him during their confrontation in the hallway so she was looking for something there worth engaging with, but she didn't get much.

Fig was fully doing CIA, MKUltra, Fantasy Geneva Convention violations on Ruben to try see if she could get information or flip him. I think she did it in an objectively insane way so I'm not entirely shocked that it didn't yield the exact results she was looking for. But she never found the smoking gun (or whatever the opposite of that is) in his head that would absolve him/show the Rat Grinders were being controlled and her messing with his dreams never flared his conscience enough to make him try to break free (as far as we know) which is what I assume she was going for. If I was Ruben looking for a way out but scared of the repercussions, I might go to Adaine who saved me from certain death earlier the same year and has helped saved the world 3 times with her party and their friends in high (and low) places. Maybe that's what Fig thought might happen but it didn't so from Fig's POV? Gave him a chance. Time to start blasting. And again, at that age, if I walked in to the first day of class and the first thing this random boy does is sneer at me and flaunt his musical success, I'm popping up on his Nemesis Alert at that moment. Doubly so after he tries to trick me and my friends into doing drugs so we get expelled. I'm surprised she tried at all with him.

Fabian absolutely tried to interact with Ivy--in large part for self interested reasons of course, but that doesn't change that he did it. And she came across as callous and unkind from the jump. Their final conversation before the latest episode is the one where she talks about wearing Mazey like a sweater and then says that Fabian missed his chance with her before stalking off. That's a pretty open and shut interaction. No way 17 year old me is like, "Hmm, but why is she acting so mean? Perhaps I should examine that more closely to further understand her." Nah, I've decided she sucks.

And Kristen has tried with Buddy literally up until the last moment. She rolled an Insight check on him right before the fight started and she got a 1. She got nothing from him.

Mary Ann is actually the only Rat Grinder who hasn't done anything to make a bad impression on the Bad Kids--the only thing she did was have a really good Bloodrush tryout. So no reason to hate her specifically (and, in fact, she is also the only Rat Grinder that at least half of them are positively obsessed with), but no reason to explore her further. And Kristen still tried giving her a stuffed animal and her response was that she already had that one and that she was going to give it away. What are they supposed to do with that?

Even when they tried, they didn't get information that was worth chasing when they were so busy and had to manage their free time. Gorgug didn't even slot in downtime to talk to his bio parents when they visited. Why would he spend any time on Mary Ann to figure out her deal? Maybe if they were given more explicit opportunities to interact with them in passing. If Mary Ann was shown at Bloodrush Games. If during class time Oisin tried to interact with Adaine. If Kristen ran into Buddy and Bucky talking. If any of their forays into talking to them or looking into them yielded anything actionable or that piqued their interest--they opened the door for Brennan to give them something more than once. But they never got anything that was worth investing more of their limited time into.

(And also, they didn't learn that Porter was involved until WAY into the last quarter of the episodes. Which absolutely could have changed things since, as far as they knew the RG's were working alone to raise this god which isn't crazy for them to think because Kristen literally did that last year and it was of her own free will. If they knew early that the RG's were smaller players in Porter's plot then maybe they would have been in more of a rescue mindset--especially since Fig has always mistrusted him--but that's not information they had and by the time they got it, the RG's were in deep hiding, like you said.)

And so, coming into the last few episodes, that's who the Rat Grinders are to the Bad Kids. A group of kids who they first heard about in the context of, "they famously hate you," even though they'd never interacted before. A group of kids who they already thought sucked even before they tried to kill the entire study body an hour ago. A group of kids who are trying to doom all of Elmville to eternal rage and who are willing and ready to kill them to do it.

With that context, yeah I think their actions are pretty understandable.

(Also, lmao. Yeah, I think calling Ivy basic would probably hurt her more than most things you could say to her.)

[backtothedrawingboard]

Baby Bun (Pt3)

Summary: After being stuck with babysitting Jax, you play with him and learn new things about yourself.

CW: Reader experiences an existential crisis and a crisis of remembering their past.

TW: A brief bit of content may be interpreted as child abuse, although it is unclear due to the reader's confused emotions and memories.

AN: The last few parts of the story will involve the reader struggling with amnesia and memories that are resurfacing. During mentions of clear memories of who and what Y/N misses, it is left ambiguous so you can decide what it is.

<<Previous| Beginning |Next (Coming soon)>>

~~~~~~~~~~

Your thoughts jumbled together in a cacophony of confused images and words. You stared down at the book Jax was trying to read in your lap. You occasionally gave him a nuzzle like your mom used to do for you. Or was it your mom? Was it an aunt? A grandmother? A friend? It was fuzzy. You thought it was your mom, but...you couldn't remember.

"Did I read good?" You flinched as you were brought out of your contemplating. The bunny was looking up at you with wide eyes and a proud grin. You patted his head.

"You did read well," you corrected. "You're a smart one, aren't you?"

Jax's fur floofed a little and he closed the book with a confident Snap! "Yeah! I'm the smartest!" he declared. You couldn't help but chuckle at his boldness. It was a nice contrast to his timidity.

"How about you get started on that other book, bun?" you recommended. The boy nodded his head eagerly and opened a big picture book about a little boy and his family and friends. You tried desperately to squash your emotions while he fumbled over words, but they seized you viciously. You had trouble remembering so much besides your financial strife. How? Ragatha, Kaufmo, Kinger, and Queenie had been here so much longer and still remembered their lives. So why could you not remember the details of your life?

You closed your eyes and set your chin on Jax's head. At least you remembered the thing that mattered. It was clear as day in your mind...

"Slo-slooowwww...and st-steed...stead-y wins the r...race!" Jax looked up at you with wide eyes and a smile. You blinked in confusion from the jump back to reality. The bunny looked expectant.

"O-oh. Good job, bun," you praised. You rubbed his head.

"Thank you! Mommy always said I'm a fast learner..." He sniffled a little. Oh boy.

"Erm, yeah...You're not alone in that, ok? I miss mine too, and I'm here for you," you quickly reassured. Jax nodded, and just as fast as he nearly started crying again, he noticed some dinosaur toys and hopped out of your lap with a squeal. You stared into space. Did you miss your mom? Ugh. The clear memory of what you missed disappeared. It could have been your mom, but it could've been someone else entirely. But telling him that you missed yours too helped calm him, so it was gonna be your go-to if it meant he'd stop crying.

You shook your head clear of thoughts. The bunny had a couple of dinosaur toys in his hands and had them fighting while making little growling and roaring noises. You smiled a little and crawled over to him.

"Mind if I join?" you asked.

Jax squealed and nodded vigorously. "Yes, please!" Perfect. A distraction. You settled across from him and picked up one of the toys.

"Rawr! The t-rex is gonna get you!" you said, unable to hold back a giggle. The bunny scowled disapprovingly, but he was too cute for it to really look threatening.

"No! That's an allosaurus!"

"Oh. It is?" You looked down at it. "How can you tell?"

Jax reached out and pointed at the toy's head. "Look at the ridges above its eyes. It's an allosaurus," he insisted.

You scratched the back of your head. "Ehe. I'll take your word for it. The allosaurus is gonna get you."

He looked up from the dinosaur to you. "By the way...what's your name? You didn't tell me before." He sounded so unjudgemental for such a big mistake. You blushed and rubbed your mouth uncomfortably.

"Um...Yeah. Sorry. It's Y/N," you mumbled in embarrassment. The bunny nodded.

"Y/N...Ok!" He got back to playing with his dinosaurs. You walked your dinosaur with his. He put down one of his toys and reached his free hand out to search around for something. After a moment, he looked down at the empty space and then up at you with wide and teary eyes. "My teddy bear...!"

You looked around for it. It wasn't there. He must have left it at the table during breakfast. You stood up with a grunt and brushed yourself off.

"I'll be right back," you said with a pat to Jax's head. "Stay put, ok?" The rabbit whined anxiously.

"You're leaving?" he whimpered.

You sighed and ruffled between his ears. "It'll only be a second, bunny. I'll be back as fast as I can." You hurried away so you could find the bear faster. Once you left the daycare, you looked around a bit to orient yourself. Seems like it's...to the left of the stage. You jogged over to the long meal table and checked the bunny's chair. His teddy bear sat on the floor beside the chair. You picked it up and jogged back to the daycare. You could hear Jax crying and whimpering before you even stepped through the door.

You knelt down next to the boy and held his bear in front of him. "Look! I got the bear!" Your voice was strained from trying to sound happy. Luckily it went unnoticed by Jax. He looked up, rubbed his eyes, and then grabbed the bear and hugged it tight. You sighed in relief and sat down next to him. He sniffled a little but stopped crying and pet and patted his bear. He crawled over and leaned against you, cuddling up under your arm.

Your feelings welled up faster than you could stop them. The feeling was familiar. Except you were the one under someone's arm. Was it your mom or dad's? Did they hold you? You...couldn't remember. You vaguely remembered a hard slap. But it was unclear who the aggressor was. Or if it was malicious. It could have been a friend playing around. You once again recalled a tender caress by someone. You closed your eyes as you remembered who it was. The memory was nice...But painful since you could never experience it again...

"Hey!" You flinched and looked down. The bunny was pouting at you with his ears flat.

"O-oh!" you stuttered. "Um. Sorry. What was that?"

Jax huffed and headbutted you lightly. "I was asking if we can play hide and seek!"

You smiled. Hide and seek was always fun. You nodded. "Of course, bun. Do you want to hide first or seek first?"

The little rabbit hopped to his feet excitedly, his puffy tail waggling. "Hide! Hide! I wanna hide!" He giggled and scampered away.

You smiled more and covered your eyes. "Ooone! Twoooo! Threeee!" You could hear faint scuffling and giggling as you counted up to thirty.

Once you yelled, "Thirty! Ready or no, here I come!" you moved your hands from your face and glanced around. At a quick once-over, you didn't see him. You smiled and started stalking through the room.

"Wheeere is he?" you asked yourself teasingly. You heard a muffled giggle somewhere on the right side of the room. You smiled and tiptoed over towards a play set.

"Is he over heeere?" You heard more muffled giggles. As you searched, you noticed his big ears peeking over the top of the play house counter. You rolled your eyes in amusement and crept over.

"RAH!" you roared. Jax squealed and laughed as you scooped him up off the floor. He hugged his teddy bear close and clung to you so he couldn't fall.

"You got me! You got me!" he laughed. His little tail thumped against your arms. You smiled and held him out in front of yourself.

"I sure did!" you giggled. He hugged you and then squirmed himself free.

"Your turn! Your turn! You hide!" He covered his face and started counting. You jogged off and hid in a cabinet.

When he started looking for you, you couldn't help but smile. Sometime, back at home, you played this with someone. It may have been a little sibling, a cousin, a nephew, or a niece. Whoever it was, you saw them in the little bunny. The boy was alone. And so were you.

[willowscreativespace]

AEACUS/AIAKOS/EACUS HEADCANONS!!

regular headcanons .

stories from styx by : @imcasperfox

tagging: @squipio , @literallylink--who-tf-is-ravioli

(scheduled post)

• Considering he built the walls of Troy with Poseidon and Apollon, his hands are probably very calloused.

• Cerberus loves him. Like, refuses-to-move-from-his-side level of love. Aeacus has tripped over one of Cerberus' heads multiple times, but he just accepts it.

• He once rigged Minos’ throne to creak dramatically every time he spoke. Minos responded by making all of Aeacus’ scrolls burst into flame whenever he tried to read them.

• He gets extremely flustered if someone flirts with him. The idea of being romantically pursued makes him panic, and his default response is to start listing random Underworld laws until the person gives up.

• Even in a modern setting, he talks like he's still in ancient Greece. "Hail, brother, wouldst thou pass the salt?" "Aeacus, we are in a Taco Bell. Please stop."

• If you tell him he’s doing a good job, he will physically short-circuit. "I—I, uh, merely do what is necessary! STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT."

• Aeacus never lets things go. If Minos screws up a ruling, Aeacus will remind him every single time they argue. “Oh, I’m being unreasonable? At least I didn’t send that one guy to eternal damnation for stepping on your foot—REMEMBER THAT, MINOS? BECAUSE I DO.”

• Whenever someone gets off topic, he’s so done. Like, if a guy is going “Bro please I didn’t mean to commit tax fraud” and starts sobbing, Aeacus just looks at his notes and sighs. “You’re literally here because you scammed orphans.”

• He runs the best spreadsheet in the Underworld. Hades once just found a file named “Don’t Touch This Unless You Want to Ruin My Life.xlsx.”

• His brothers call him “JP” (short for Judge’s Pet) because he’s the one who actually follows the rules. Aeacus hates it. “JP, just stamp the soul and let’s move on.” “For the last time, STOP CALLING ME THAT.”

• Minos and Rhadamanthus have an ongoing bet to see how long it takes before Aeacus has a full-blown existential crisis. They just push his buttons and watch. “But what if we just… let one slide?” “WE. DO. NOT. LET. ONE. SLIDE.”

• He corrects Minos and Rhadamanthus’ grammar mid-sentence. They actively try to use the worst grammar possible just to annoy him. “Me and Minos was thinking—” “MINOS AND I WERE—”

• He absolutely hates modern slang. Minos and Rhadamanthus use it incorrectly on purpose just to watch him suffer. “This one’s going to Elysium, no cap.” “STOP.”

• He can hear one of his brothers slacking off from a mile away. It’s a sixth sense.

• He gets way too into board games. Monopoly nearly destroyed the Underworld’s balance once.

• He keeps an emergency stress ball in his robes. He has popped several.

• He gets stuck with ghosts arguing over who actually invented olives or which poet was truly the best. "Sir, I do not care if Archilochus insulted your mother. You’ve been dead for 3,000 years. Move on."

• His brothers force him to watch shows just to see him complain about the inaccuracies. "That is not how sentencing works!"

• If a particularly good dog arrives in the Underworld, he bends the rules a little to let it stay in Elysium.

• “Yo, JP, pass the chips." "I have sentenced kings to Tartarus for less."

• “Okay, but I say this guy deserves Elysium.” “Objection. Look at his financial records.” “Gods, here we go.”

• He likes reading ridiculous excuses from the other souls “‘I only robbed him because Hermes told me to in a dream.’ Gods, I love this job.”

• If a lost soul is looking for their loved ones, he will personally track them down. “I found your sister. She’s in the Asphodel Meadows.” “You what?” “Go on, go see her.”

• If a child’s soul arrives scared, he takes extra time to explain things to them gently. “You don’t have to be afraid. It’s just like starting a new journey.” “Will my dog be here?” “What was his name?” “Cerberus.” “…” “Fine. Let him pet Cerberus.”

• If a married couple is supposed to be separated, he’ll “accidentally” assign them to the same region.“Whoops. Guess you’re together forever. What a shame.” “You can’t just—” “I can, and I did.”

[bookshelf-in-progress]

Because I'm undergoing a mild existential crisis about how long I've had the idea for the Arateph Princess and the Pea retelling without getting past the first act, I'm going to outline the idea here, so at least I'll have done something with it.

This story takes place about five or six years before the revolution. Auren is about nineteen years old. He's already gone through his coming-of-age naming day, and the People's House rebels, aware that they're running out of time before the twenty-five-year deadline declared by their founder at Auren's first naming day, are getting bolder in their assassination attempts.

Their most recent assassination attempt was a bombing at a speech the king was giving. Auren and his father were unharmed, but Marastel's leg was badly injured. Auren was sent away to an obscure royal residence in the middle of a forest to keep him safe until the danger died down. Marastel went with him, hoping to keep a close eye on him and to take the opportunity to recover from her injury. Marastel is shaken by this close call, and is finding it difficult to balance her motherly protectiveness toward her son with an understanding that he's an adult and needs to be trusted to take care of himself.

Our other point-of-view is Alovia. Alovia is the illegitimate daughter of a Great Lord and the singer he made his mistress. Throughout Alovia's childhood, her father was a fairly regular presence in her life. He'd make frequent visits to her mother and always came with presents for his daughter.

In her younger teenage years, her father's visits suddenly ceased. His payments stopped coming, too, so when Alovia's mother got sick and died, there wasn't much money to pay for treatments and the funeral.

As the story begins, Alovia goes to her father asking for money. She suffers from moontaint, a genetic disorder that runs strongly in his family and leaves her a frequent victim to nighttime attacks that leave her badly bruised and in extreme pain. She wants some financial support to pay for treatments that will help to stop the attacks and extend her life.

Her father doesn't show up to the meeting. He sends a secretary, who informs her that Lord Eckler is unable to help. At the urging of the king, he rededicated himself to the pursuit of virtue. For the past several years, he has been faithful to his wife, and has deemed it best to put his youthful indiscretions behind him, because staying involved would displease the king, who values marital fidelity.

Alovia leaves in a towering rage. She knows now that all this "virtue" talk is just a way for the upper classes to retain power and oppress the lower classes. Her hatred of her father and the king leads her to follow the example of some of her friends and join the People's House.

The People's House is more than willing to help provide some of the medications that Alovia needs.

Because of her ties to a Great House, Alovia isn't quite trusted by the rebels, but she has a friend who vouches for her, and assures her that in time, she'll show herself loyal to their cause and the other members of the party will trust her with more intel.

One night, Alovia leaves a rebel meeting, displeased that she's not trusted with information about greater efforts to fight against the nobility. As she drives through a forest, a storm picks up, and a falling tree wrecks her car, leaving her stranded.

She wanders through the wind and the rain and seeks shelter at a huge house nearby.

This house happens to be the royal lodge where Prince Auren and Queen Marastel are staying. The storm has knocked out the power, taking down their security and communication systems.

Auren's guards are pretty suspicious of this random stranger who approached the palace when all their defenses were down.

Desperate to hide her People's House connections, Alovia declares she is a daughter of House Eckler and demands shelter from the storm.

Marastel doesn't recognize this girl, but Eckler was known for his philandering, and she hasn't met all his children. With the power down, there's no way for her to confirm the girl's story. If she is a daughter of Lord Eckler, refusing to help her or treating her as a prisoner would damage the fragile relationship between the royal family and this this Great House. If she isn't, they could be sheltering a terrorist.

Marastel would prefer to play it safe, but Auren convinces her to treat the girl as a guest. Auren seldom gets to see people his own age, and besides, they can't leave the girl out in the storm.

In his enthusiasm, Auren pulls out all the stops for hospitality, including giving the girl a traditional bed that uses a whole pile of mattresses and needs a ladder to get into.

Alovia is scornful--she assumes the giant bed is royal showing-off--but she does her best to keep her head down and make it through the night.

The storm and the stress of the crash bring on one of Alovia's moontaint attacks. In the morning, she's so severely bruised she can't move. She has to be lowered from her bed by several servants and placed within a healing bed.

This seems to confirm the girl's story. A royal doctor declares he's never seen a moontaint case so severe outside of House Eckler.

Alovia is too sick and injured to leave the house, so she has to stay as a royal guest. She hates the royal family's guts, but to her surprise, Auren is extremely kind and attentive to her, and she finds that the royal family lives much less luxuriously than she'd assumed.

As she spends more time with the prince, she's shocked to find that he's not a spoiled monster or a brainless coward--he's a genuinely kind person who cares about his people. They also have some conversations that make her rethink her hatred toward the philosophy of virtue--just because some people have misused it for their own ends doesn't mean it isn't good.

Marastel still finds this girl extremely suspicious. She has the guards keep a close eye on her and continue to work to find out more about her.

Eventually, the guards find something in her belongings that confirm she's a member of the People's House. My initial thought was that this was some kind of pin that got lost in the pile of mattresses, which initially seemed harmless but had some secret latch that could reveal the rebel insignia, but that does seem a bit too easy (why would she hold onto it?). Another option is that her moontaint medications are the clue--she insisted she needed them for her health, but the guards only give her the dose she needs and hold onto the rest, to make sure she's not carrying poison or something. Further investigation could reveal some clue that proves these pills came from a People's House source.

Anyway, while Marastel is freaking out over the fact that they let a rebel into their house, actual rebels are trying to attack the palace. It turns out that the intel that Alovia wasn't trusted with was that the rebels knew Auren was in residence, and they were going to make an assassination attempt.

The rebels finding Alovia at a royal residence seems to confirm that she was always a royal spy. Alovia could save her skin by giving them info that will help them find and kill the prince, but now that she knows Auren, she can't be part of a plot to destroy him.

The rebels attack and wound Alovia, and Auren risks himself trying to help her. (He's got self-defense skills that keep him safe, and prove to Marastel that he's not a helpless child anymore).

The royal guards are able to overcome the rebels, Alovia is able to get treatment for her wounds, and the day is saved.

Since Alovia specifically hates the king for his supposed insistence that his lords abandon their illegitimate children, I think she's got to meet him at the end of the story. So she can find out that he's just as disgusted by Lord Eckler's behavior as she is, and that he's horrified that such heartless deeds were done in his name.

Maybe she gets a chance to reunite and reconcile with her father.

Alovia renounces her People's House connections, gets pardoned for her involvement with them (and honored for helping Auren), and gets help with her medical bills.

(She and Auren stay good friends, but her moontaint means that she's disqualified as a romantic prospect).

It could be fun to have a framing story of Tanza seeing an artifact from this adventure at a future museum (just like how the pea is put in a museum in the original fairy tale), and getting the story from Auren.

Anyway, as you can see, the later parts of the outline are vague and shadowy, and I'm not sure I can pull it together into an actual story that makes sense.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Leyland Cecco at The Guardian:

Mark Carney, the former central banker who oversaw the response to financial crises in North America and the UK, will become the next prime minister of Canada after winning the race to lead the country’s federal Liberal party. Carney, 59, takes on the role as Canada is locked in a potentially catastrophic trade war with the US, long its closest ally and largest trading partner. Last week Donald Trump announced a 25% tax on all Canadian goods, with a carveout for the automotive and energy sectors. The tariffs have the power to push Canada’s fragile economy in a recession. “America is not Canada. And Canada never, ever, will be part of America in any way, shape or form,” Carney told supporters, laying bare the existential crisis that has outraged Canadians, riven the longstanding relationship with the US, and promises to be the overarching theme in his tenure as prime minister. “We didn’t ask for this fight. But Canadians are always ready when someone else drops the gloves,” Carney said. “So the Americans, they should make no mistake, in trade as in hockey, Canada will win.” Before the announcement, the outgoing prime minister, Justin Trudeau, electrified the crowd by telling Liberals he was “damn proud” of his government’s legacy. [...] It is unclear when Carney, who was governor of the Bank of Canada from 2008 to 2013 and governor of the Bank of England from 2013 to 2020, will assume office. Trudeau and the new Liberal leader are expected to hold conversations in the coming days to determine the outgoing prime minister’s final day in office. With 85.9% of the vote, Carney beat the former finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the former government house leader Karina Gould and the former member of parliament Frank Baylis. Carney has followed an unusual path to power: he will be only the second prime minister in Canadian history without a seat in the House of Commons. While no rule bars this, convention suggests Carney will need to quickly announce plans to run for a federal seat.

He will also be the first Liberal prime minister from western Canada, a valuable identity in a country that is politically divided along geographical lines. Carney spent much of his campaign pitching himself as an outsider, despite years-long ties to the Liberal party, including serving as an economic adviser to Trudeau, the outgoing prime minister.

The Liberal Party of Canada (LPC)/Parti libéral du Canada (PLC) has picked its new leader to serve as the Prime Minister until the next election is called: Mark Carney, who replaces incumbent PM Justin Trudeau, who has served since 2015 as PM and 2013 as LPC/PLC leader.

Carney won the party’s leadership election by gargantuan margins over three other challengers that included Chyrstia Freeland.

See Also:

AP, via HuffPost: Ex-central Banker Mark Carney To Become Canada's Next Prime Minister

[yinyuedijun]

But if reader did tell aventurine that the baby isn't his would he be sad it isn't? Would he still take care of her? And then pass out when the baby is born lol different anon but I really like that idea ahah reader's actual response is great too do they close the door to his face too? Is it bad i want aventurine to suffer? XD what if reader does find another rich blond man ahah

HI ANONNN I didn't get the chance to answer this but I wanted to !!!! I was thinking about this and changed my mind, I feel like it probably depends on the circumstances. I never talked about it in translation, but mc does need to sleep with other people for work (and like, he does too lol) so I think aventurine would just assume the pregnancy was a consequence of that. he does really, really treasure them so yes he would take care of them but without the intention of acting as any kind of father to the child (they wouldn't ask him to be, and it wouldn't occur to him). so consequently yes he does pass out when the baby is born and it is CLEARLY his biological child and then the panic of being a father sets in aggghgldhskdjsj 💀 and ykw maybe reader was playing 4D chess in this situation and trying their best not to make him bolt during the pregnancy... LMAO

on the OTHER HAND though if the reader framed it as like. "I slept with someone because I had feelings for them and now I'm pregnant and want to keep their baby" I think aventurine would COMPLETELY lose his fucking marbles lol. it sets him into a different kind of existential crisis where seeing you start a family makes him realizes how empty he feels without one, and how inadequate he would be as a father, and how he's sure that his accursed luck would somehow kill you just like it did the rest of his kin - so it's just as well that you love someone else and are having their kid. this of course does not stop him from spoiling you with expensive gifts and promises of an easy life for you and your child because he cannot fathom any way to make you stay other than financial gain lol

in this scenario, he STILL passes out when he sees that the kid is his, but this time he's a little relieved? because after being miserable for 9 months that he can't ever have a family, surprise! he's actually getting one! (you know, maybe reader was playing 4D chess with him here too 😰)