#and this corporation owns half of the hospitals in the city

[renee-mariposa]

I’m ready to walk out of my job.

The last straw was, this week they cracked down on overtime. This was the last straw for two reasons:

1. Normally (pre-COVID), our patient volumes are lowest in summer. This year, we’re having winter-flu-season patient volumes (flu season is always the busiest time in the hospital). We now have the second busiest ER in the metro, seeing hundreds of patients per day (we’ve reached a thousand per day several times this year!!!) in a 25-bed ER. This is coupled with the fact we’re operating at 30-50% (a third to a half!!) normal nurse staffing, and have been doing so since 2021. There isn’t a staff member in the hospital who is twiddling their thumbs for a second. I heard tonight that the hospital is trying to end all their contracted labor early (and I assume we’re relying heavily on contracted nurses to fill staffing shortages!)

2. Because of this patient load vs low staffing, it is literally impossible for us to finish all the tasks we are assigned each day. But we still have to meet our metrics and are chastised/penalized when we don’t meet them! Worsening the situation: instead of asking each ‘problem’ staffer why they’re always clocking out late, my department management emailed all the problem people with “suggestions on how to leave on time”. Suggestions that are bullshit because they don’t address the actual reason the person gets overtime consistently.

So this whole perfect storm is coming together to convince me that corporate expects us to work off the clock. Which I’m about 95% sure is fucking illegal.

[abbysimsfun]

Sims In Bloom: Generation 2 Pt. 55 (Major Mom Guilt)

Heather waited to tell Malcolm about Ash's accident until they returned from the hospital the next morning. She usually texted, but this time she phoned.

She fidgeted through several anxious rings before he picked up. "You never call. What's going on?"

Her heart jumped into her throat. "It's Ash," she choked out. "He's okay, but he...he had an accident."

"What kind of accident?" Malcolm surprised himself with how quickly he lost track of his surroundings, toppling a stack of papers he'd been meaning to ask someone to file for over a week. "Where is he?"

"He's at home. He was playing at daycare yesterday and hit his head, but doctors cleared and discharged him this morning."

Malcolm was quiet. "Why didn't you call me last night?"

"It wasn't on purpose. I couldn't think straight about anything. It was late when the doctor said he'd be fine, so Conrad and I stayed at the hospital all night and we got back five minutes ago."

"I...I had an interview but I'll get one of the other reporters to cover it. I want to come see him."

Heather didn't expect Nancy and Malcolm to drop everything and drive all the way from San Myshuno, but later that day they came to see for themselves that Ash was okay.

He'd been cheerful and talkative before they arrived. But in front of his father and grandmother he whined about his head and said he was hungry, even though he'd just eaten.

Nancy chastised Heather while she and Conrad tried to make dinner. "He doesn't eat. He spends all day at a cut-rate daycare in this half-baked town that almost left us planning a funeral, and you work all day, every day, at the clinic you love so much. Maybe if you cut the asparagus spears smaller, Ash could eat them."

"He eats," Heather insisted. "He's testing boundaries and he knows you and Malcolm will both give him what he wants if he whines."

"My son and I discussed transferring him to a private preschool in the city on the way here. They're much more exclusive and have better childhood educators than the glorified nannies at his little daycare."

"They need the same qualifications in Brindleton Bay as they do in San Myshuno," interjected Conrad, continuing the meal as Heather's stress level forced her to temporarily step away from her knives. "It was an accident."

Nancy ignored him. She liked Conrad a lot less now that he was with Heather, but she didn't have it in her heart to hate him outright. "We started the application but we can't submit it without your signature," she said, placing the coiled booklet on the kitchen table in front of Heather. "We think it would be good for his education."

Heather said nothing, getting up to check the food Conrad had placed on the stove while he tidied the kitchen.

Malcolm could feel the tension when he came down the stairs. "Ash went down a lot easier than he does at the penthouse."

"Thanks for helping get him back to sleep. The hospital bed wasn't the most comfortable for him," said Heather. She braced herself, glancing at the onions she was chopping to add to the meal. "Did you and Nancy want to stay for dinner?"

Malcolm shook his head. "I'm glad to know he's okay, but we should head back. My mother can still make her corporate ski trip in Mount Komorebi if we get on the Simmerloop before rush hour."

He glanced at the table and spotted the half-completed preschool application. He looked up again to find Heather studying his expression.

"What are you thinking, Malcolm?"

He glanced between his mother and his ex, both headstrong in their own ways. "I want what's best for my son."

Heather waited until he left with his mother before she tossed out the application with the trash.

"I swear I could fight her, but I feel horrible enough already."

"I know she's...intense. But I think she's as shocked as you are," said Conrad.

"Nancy has a right to be upset? I have a right to be upset!"

"Of course you do! I just mean, don't pick a fight with her over the application. It's gone now, right? Hopefully she'll calm down and won't bring it up again."

Heather scowled. "Private preschool! The second Nancy gets her hands on my son's education, she'll ship him off to boarding school in Champs les Sims, just like his father. I'll never allow it!"

"I love you, and I'm only saying this because I love you, but maybe Ash needs to go back to his old daycare. It was a freak accident, no one's fault."

"They weren't watching him!"

"They were, but they looked away for one second. Do you know how many cases I've dealt with where something happened in the blink of an eye that changed everything? Ash is lucky, but you can't dwell on what might have been."

"I'll take him to work with me for a while, until I know Dr. Serra was right and he's okay. He loves the animals."

Conrad shook his head. "It's not going to be stimulating enough for him and you know that. And you can't do your best work watching him over your shoulder all day."

"I have to keep him safe!"

"You do keep him safe. No one keeps him safer than you, but if you hold on too tight now you'll end up holding on too tight forever. Like Nancy."

That was all she needed to hear to force her to swallow her pride. Despite her fears after his accident, she knew he needed to spend his days with kids his own age and made plans to send him back to daycare.

Heather's busy work life would continue to compete with the needs of her family, but she was determined to find a way to manage both. ->

<- Previous Chapter | Gen 2 Start | Gen 1 Summary | Gen 1 Start

[rj-jinye]

a study on ghosts for hyyh jihope

(so you are tired by sufjan stevens)

hoseok is a vision of sunlight and smile, a summer hallucination. he conducts false memories and plants them in his own head. he treats himself like a trick of the light. half the time he pretends to be here, he is somewhere else, trapped in vocalizations over the hills and in the ripples the wind makes in humid heat. he still blooms orange in their little group, sun at his core that makes him look like arms wide open to them, splayed and unabashed and glimmering.

jimin and hoseok dance around each other like ghosts. sometimes jimin has a hard time telling which one of them exists. sometimes they are both there, albeit rarely, when hoseok feels solid against the press of jimin’s fingers, or when he really smiles, with his heart on his lips. but most of the time they’re both half-gone, corporeality traded for the poltergeist cities they’ve built in their own brains, brick and mortar derived from old memories. they never make it past the county lines. it’s like orpheus and eurydice; a death for a death. they find each other on the doorstep of eternity, exchanging death like cards. taking turns. there are times jimin almost begs to stay, to be left in the darkness, if only to not have to face the walk up the stairs to life for the millionth time. orpheus and eurydice, one or the other, never together, when neither want to stay and neither have the strength to make the climb. so they remain as ghosts, as translucent as white sterile sheets when they are stroke by sunlight.

jimin walks the coast, feeling himself so fragile the wind would snap him if it tried. he’s never been able to hide his thoughts from his face, thoughts he wanted hoseok to know. it’s impossible. hoseok knows everything, knows every debt, knows every flaw. jimin wonders if he counts them like pills. if he takes them the same way, as a reminder of what he can’t admit, a reminder of what tethers jimin to him. if maybe, in some unfeasible way, he had loved jimin. once, before. although involuntarily, he had loved him. even if it had died long ago on a hospital bed, hooked up to a heart monitor. seized and flatlined.

if there was any possibility, he would have freed hoseok from his binds. he would’ve, he swears, despite what it could meant for him. if he could leave hoseok to his pills and his meandering over hilltops—but he can’t. it’s a singular flaw, one he knows hoseok counts, one he knows he is resented for. the kind that stands out like a gaping wound, ugly and infected and unable to heal. but he still finds himself lingering at the apartment even after hoseok disappears. finds himself being the one hoseok comes home to, when he’s wholly tired of being saved, tired of jimin’s fingers around the neck of a bottle, tired of jimin’s mouth on his collarbone, tired of love. jimin wishes he was hooked up to a monitor. seized and flatlined. but death is death and if he was asked to, he would’ve become orpheus. chosen as orpheus had. made the bargain. left hoseok behind to flicker in his ghost mind, addled and slipping. and at least then hoseok would not be a remnant, if the only thing holding him back had let go. at least his light would become real. at least only one of them would remain a hallucination. a mere conjuring from the memories of what was lost and what would never return.

[antaxzantax]

Umbrella Pharmaceuticals - Chapter 52

Summary: Start of construction of the underground laboratory in Raccoon City.

The model was carefully assembled. Every door, nook, cranny and corner were visible to the naked eye. The architects had fulfilled their last order: a clandestine underground laboratory. Avant-garde, gigantic, a complex worthy of the new millennium. The two presidents did not talk to each other as each of them had focused their attention on the complex.

The intention was to divide the projects between the different labs: T-Virus in Arklay, G in the new underground lab in Raccoon City and T-Nemesis in Paris. In parallel, they had acquired Sheena Island for the mass production of the most sought-after biological weapons: Hunter, zombies and, they hoped, Tyrant. Failed bioweapons, on the other hand, would be temporarily stored in the abandoned Training Centre for destruction. The prototypes would remain in the clandestine labs, and he had recently arranged with the director of the Raccoon City General Hospital to use their facilities for lower-level projects involving human test subjects. The combat-ready biological weapons were to be distributed from Rockfort Island, an islet owned by the Ashfords and given to the company by Alexander to compensate for the destruction of the Antarctic base.

The complex was scheduled to open in March 1991. Michael Warren promised secrecy and the construction of a road connecting the abandoned factory to the Umbrella branch in Raccoon City. At the same time, a train was procured for the underground laboratory, although Warren was responsible for the tracks and their layout. Implementing improved self-destruct systems and computerizing the Umbrella industrial complex and its security. As part of the latter, two unique master cards were manufactured, one for each president. The cards would serve as keys to unlock all the corporation's secrets and control all its systems. But for the time being, patience. Construction of the underground laboratory was estimated to take half a year.

[angeart]

ok ok fine i suppose i can share a little bit of the ANGST!!! so essentially, the basic premise of this very self-indulgent danger days knockoff au is that our boys live in a vaguely post-apocalyptic world made up of mostly desert and a few, scattered cities beyond, most of which are run by this massive corrupt corporation called (you guessed it) watcher media. most of the population is fine living under their control guidance - or at least, they stay quiet, for the sake of their own safety (the desert surrounding the city isn't hospitable, after all, and there are whispers that those who question the corporation too much are "disposed of" or are forced to flee into the endless sand). and, to be fair, in the beginning, watcher media seems like a fairly standard, run-of-the-mill company - they're supplying food and entertainment and cars and medical devices and all sorts of other things! but then they start getting involved in politics, involved in the government of all of these cities, and then almost overnight...they're everywhere, with their big ugly logo plastered across everything. and then their experiments, their research starts to become more and more sinister, more and more greedy... in this world, grian is an avian (one of the few left, a dying species) and mumbo is his best friend, a low-level researcher at watcher. at the time of our story, watcher has just started up an "avian conservation program", to study the avian species and figure out/prevent them from going extinct. there's an interest check put out for volunteers, one that promises a lot of money in exchange for just a couple hours of their time, and both of grian's siblings (pearl and jimmy) take the bait (despite grian's protests/suspicions). and then they're gone, just like that - they don't come home that night, and grian's about to storm the headquarters himself until mumbo turns up on his doorstep, panicking and saying something about how it was a trap, that the avian conservation program was a trap, that he'd left the second he found out and come directly here to save grian before they started taking avians by force. grian doesn't want to leave - he wants to go save his siblings, it was his fault they'd been taken in the first place, he should have fought harder to keep them from going - but mumbo eventually convinces him that if they're going to rescue them, they need allies, they need time, they need resources. and so they flee, together, into the dark expanse of sand, hoping and praying that there's something out there for them. and there is! after a few days of wandering around, they stumble upon an abandoned diner to lay low in for a while - or, er, they thought it was abandoned, but...there's two men there, looking equally as surprised and nervous to see them. the two men in question are, of course, scar and cub, having freshly fled from the city themselves when scar had been deemed a threat/a rebel by watcher media, and cub (also a former researcher) had discovered the depths of the company's evils for himself. and then... shenanigans ensue. daring rescues are made. people die. new allies are made (bdubs and etho, at one point, also trying to survive out in the desert, then tango and joel later on). they're captured, they're hurt, they're tortured, time and time again. they're forced to turn against each other. promises are made. promises are broken. and yet, love is found, and maintained, despite it all. it's all very dramatic and very self-indulgent and very fun! and there's half a million words of it across probably thousands of discord messages. whoops. (this went on for way longer than i intended i am SO sorry for throwing an absolute NOVEL in your asks thank you for letting me yap at you <3)

YESS THE AU THE ANGST! it sounds very sinister for the watcher corp to be everywhere almost overnight, and for people to have no choice but to go along with it because the surrounding lands mean almost a certain death. (or do they?? 👀)

i do enjoy stories that are based on the premise of avians being rare, and this leading to secret kidnappings and experimentation and stuff :3c NICE.

i need my discord emoji of cat spinning on a roomba here. (it's an excited spinning okay.) (just imagine it right here.) i LOVE the mental image of grian worried sick for jimmy and pearl when they don't come home, and mumbo just showing on his doorstep, panicked and dishevelled and a little bit out of breath, sounding absolutely anxious and urgent.

they didn't get to protect jimmy and pearl—it's too late, too late, they need to go—but at least mumbo managed to get to grian in time! (and he must've been so desperate to get there and get grian out of the town! <3) (good feels!! hehehe)

and of course they meet scar and cub! woo! 🎉🥰🎉

i am so so very ferally interested in everything left unsaid. in all those "they're captured, they're hurt, they're tortured" bits. AND EVEN MORE SO about the "they're FORCED TO TURN AGAINST EACH OTHER" i am shaking you pls if you want to talk about this??? 👀👀👀👀 also broken promises!! love somehow thriving like weeds!!

self indulgent aus are the best they're so fun

thank you for sharing!!

[cloudbattrolls]

Shattered

This is the beginning of the plot More to Lose, and followed by Picking Up The Pieces.

What’s happened has already happened. There is no changing it. 

You know how Ullane Wistim is. She will martyr herself on her own spear every time. 

Considering what she did, perhaps she deserves it. 

–

Here lies the city of Block 136: Crown Clinic’s second home, after the first facility was destroyed during a conflict with a gang. 

Crown Clinic itself was once owned by QPIN, that galaxy-spanning corporate entity that is run and maintained by trolls with very large guns in very nice suits.

Ullane Wistim once worked for them, after being approached and recruited at the age of nine sweeps, right before conscription would have struck. She took the offer, for QPIN does not discriminate by caste; she could be a full medic there, and expand her knowledge of biotechnology.

She rose in their ranks, going from maintaining their helms and fixing their wounds to returning to Alternia for two purposes.

Assigned to monitoring and maintaining her employers’ interests, in return she was finally able to fulfill her dream of opening a clinic specifically catered toward handling lowblood medical needs at reasonable costs.

Of course, she was also expected to quietly develop and research weapons for employers, using the clinic’s legitimate medical services as a cover. 

QPIN has as few friends in the criminal world as they do among the empire; those who deal with them usually only do so out of necessity.

Their enemies are numerous, several bearing the ravages of having their bodies warped and blistered by the things miss Wistim and her employees have made.

Though the clinic has become fully legitimate and ceased its weapons development, owned instead by Chimer Latrai for the better part of a sweep now, those hurt in the past have not forgotten what was done to them. 

Revenge, they say, is a dish best served cold. 

–

SOME TIME PRIOR

Many nights at Crown Clinic are, if not the same, then similar in their frantic bursts of activity followed by quiet and intent concentration; patients come in, patients leave, medicullers decide who to cull and who to save - though only the very worst off are given the former fate. 

The staff all avoid the strange mannequins that populate the place and warn patients to do the same.

A maroon drags a blueblood in, the latter unconscious and near death.  

Help is dispatched. Friday Lovely is called for assistance.

She is the creator of the clinic’s nanotech, a specialized tool based from the extremely efficient repair capabilities of her own cells; for Friday’s psiionics allow her to view and control part of the electromagnetic spectrum, including radioactivity. 

Her body has adjusted so that her own powers do not kill her. She has utilized this capability to synthesize nanites that target the DNA itself to repair nearly damage possible to a troll’s body. 

She also cannot be everywhere, all the time. There are other patients that night, as there always are, on a planet so full of injury and the myriad illnesses of all troll castes.

So it is left with the nurses on duty to administer the nanites, to tend to Calcit Interg, as the blueblood is called.

Roughly half an hour later, Calcit is dead.

Dead, it seems, from the very nanites that were supposed to save his life. 

Ripped apart from the inside, his organs and even bones shredded, his life amounting to a blue stain on his hospital bed, dripping slowly onto the floor.

Phone calls are made. Paperwork is filed. It is not the first time the clinic has lost a patient, of course.

But it is the only known case of its nanotech killing a troll it was supposed to save.

Though the killing weapon is Friday Lovely’s invention, it is the clinic’s tool as a whole.

Ullane Wistim, of course, shields her employee and assumes full responsibility. 

She begins to investigate amidst suspicion and strife.

For she knows, as surely as she knows her own caste, that if she cannot figure out why this happened and prove it was not the clinic’s doing, she will die. Culled as punishment for supposed irresponsibility.

Even if by some miracle she lives, she will never be allowed to practice medicine again, after a highblood died in her own hospital.

Crown Clinic will slip from her grasp, no matter what happens.

All she can do is try to hunt down the truth.

–

Has she not had enough taken from her? You might ask.

Her old friends. Her quadrants. Her own purity of mind, after being possessed by a horrorterror.

I can’t say. I am not an arbiter.

I am a witness.

[robotonthemoon]

Beginning of Learning

I've been meaning to write this for a while. As I have previously mentioned here, I am told that market socialism would be a pretty good fit for me. Learning has been a journey that has taken me from some pretty deeply modern republican and libertarian views. I just wanted to share a bit of that journey. I'll put a break here because this will be long.

I am going to be completely honest here: the rise of Trump and his cult of personality has been a major force in driving me away from the party. I cannot stand the man and have never voted for him, even when he was unopposed in the 2020 primary. I just can't fathom how people can hitch their wagon to a guy who has been bankrupt that many times and couldn't sell alcohol, red meat, and gambling to Americans; as though he were some kind of business genius.

But this isn't about him. My journey started before his rise. And it didn't come from leftists telling me "hey, you should believe XYZ" even if I have since learned a lot from left leaning folks. No, my education really started from examining historical figures from the republican party.

"Labor is prior to and independent of capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration."

Sounds like something a modern union organiser would say, doesn't it? And yet that was President Abraham Lincoln in his First Annual Address (December 3rd, 1861). Now Abe does go on to state that capital is deserving of its own protections, but he started with and emphasised the greater value and importance of labour.

"It is better for the Government to help a poor man to make a living for his family than to help a rich man make more profit for his company."

And this is from President Theodore Roosevelt (brace for it because I will be mentioning him again). These sentiments really helped push me away from notions of corporate superiority. I fully endorse labour rights and unions now, and can certainly understand where the argument for workers owning the means of production would come from.

Not much of a segue here, but I wanted to mention that if it weren't for health problems (and to a degree concerns about being outed as queer back in the late 90s and early 2000s) I would have considered military service. Probably the Coast Guard. I have a lot of respect for the good work the coasties do, especially the rescue services. Repelling out of a helicopter in the middle of a storm to pull someone out of the ocean is just... heroic.

That said, while I think we need to take better care of our service people, my attitude toward the role of capitalism in respects to the military were very much changed when I read President Dwight Eisenhower's Chance for Peace speech (April 16th, 1953).

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

This famous section in particular really struck me. He warns us about the military industrial complex. How our priority cannot be military might at the cost of the citizenry. Then I considered this in light of the Bush/Cheney administration findings (at the time, the current value may be different) that the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP, aka foodstamps) created something like $1.63 in economic stimulus for every dollar spent. A 63% gain on investment is excellent, in addition to helping people! Frankly, I feel like that means we'd do well to just eliminate means testing and give benefits to anyone who asks for it. Reduces bureaucratic overhead and waste while providing more economic benefits. Win win. And on the argument of taxes being put to this purpose:

"Taxes are what we pay for civilized society" Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (supreme court justice, republican)

My father is a bit of a hippie. He raised me with a lot of talk about saving the environment. Some of that sank in, but I must admit to having periods in my life where I thought along the lines of "screw it, just pave everything". Not anymore. I am strongly in support of environmental protections and restrictions on industry to protect nature. Here's where Teddy Roosevelt comes back in.

“We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources. But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil, and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation.”

Now, Teddy was saying this is the very early 1900s, more than a century ago. I wish we had listened more aptly.

“Defenders of the short-sighted men who in their greed and selfishness will, if permitted, rob our country of half its charm by their reckless extermination of all useful and beautiful wild things sometimes seek to champion them by saying the ‘the game belongs to the people.’ So it does; and not merely to the people now alive, but to the unborn people. The ‘greatest good for the greatest number’ applies to the number within the womb of time, compared to which those now alive form but an insignificant fraction. Our duty to the whole, including the unborn generations, bids us restrain an unprincipled present-day minority from wasting the heritage of these unborn generations. The movement for the conservation of wild life and the larger movement for the conservation of all our natural resources are essentially democratic in spirit, purpose, and method.”

How could I not be moved by this? There are many other quotes by Roosevelt that I could share on the subject of conservation, and I encourage people to look into them, but I will refrain from posting them here because I've already gone on at length.

"This country will not permanently be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a reasonably good place for all of us to live in."

One more good Teddy Roosevelt quote to end this with. I hope I have succeeded at least a bit in explaining what started me on the road I'm on now. I'm still learning, and I'm sure I have a ways to go still. I will state, because this is the internet and I know the arguments that could come from this, that I am not claiming these men were perfect. In fact I am quite certain they did plenty of terrible things. I acknowledge that. But that doesn't mean I can't also respect the good they did.

I still consider myself something of a conservative, but my understanding of what that means has changed greatly. Perhaps I am completely mistaken, and I am far more a leftist than I recognise. I believe in slow but steady economic growth and long term outlooks. In building a solid economic base by prioritising workers. In caring for people, rather than judging and discarding those who cannot work. In protecting the environment (the EPA was even started by Nixon) rather than ruining it for next quarter's financial gain.

Not the modern neoliberalism, anti-regulation, profit first thinking that pervades the current right wing. I wonder if Ike is spinning in his grave to see the sort of fascy candidates the party puts forth nowadays, given he commanded forces against their ilk in WW2.

If you have read this far, I thank you for your patience. I know this may draw some people's ire. If you are on the right and feel the need to shout at me, I ask that you learn and consider more of our past. And if you are on the left, I ask you to remember that an imperfect ally is not the same as an enemy.

Have a wonderful day, genuinely. Thank you for your time.

[arizonaconservativegal]

Hi there. Californian desperately looking to flee this coming summer. Was once considering Arizona but I’m concerned that the election chaos of CA is in AZ too and now you have a Democrat governor. Is this still a place I can safely flee or is AZ lost like Cali now? Honestly asking. I don’t want to absorb the work and expense of relocating just to be in the same place.

I might give it a year and see how much Katie Hobbs is able to bypass or bully the legislature. I think they'll be able to keep her in check but they have an unfortunate habit of being certifiably insane so I hate to put all my hopes on them. In general, I don't expect the next four years to be super fun here but I wouldn't say the fight is over yet. Our state party doesn't know what the fuck it's doing but if they get their shit together, the state is very winnable. We may have had a big influx of Californians moving here since covid but this is still a slightly right of center state.

I'll give you my usual warnings about moving here:

If you're renting, you should know that housing prices in the cities / larger towns have shot up about 50% in about four years and show no signs of slowing. Be ready for that. I don't know offhand what the trend has been for the more rural areas, but I imagine it's gone up a fair bit too. Still much, much cheaper than California though.

If you're buying, you need to very thoroughly dig into the water rights where you buy or you might find yourself in a lot of expensive trouble very quickly. This is especially true if you are looking at a rural area but several unincorporated areas on the edges of Phoenix have learned the hard way recently that hiring water haulers isn't cheap.

In most of the state, illegal immigration tends to be more of a political issue than a daily life issue but for areas on the border and along major drug corridors, it is a very serious problem. Good luck getting into a hospital in Yuma - they're overflowing with illegal immigrants. I also personally know people who cannot go outside on their own property at night because the cartels use it to traffick all sorts of things and they will shoot you if they see you.

We did manage to hold on to the corporation commission, which regulates the power companies, so I'm not too worried about this unless the legislature does something dumb, but we do need a new power plant soon or we may be looking at rolling blackouts in the not super distant future... I think it'll be okay but it would have been good to have a Republican in the governor's office to smooth that process a bit.

We have a very low income tax and property taxes tend to be low for primary residences. People think this means we are a low tax state. What they forget is that we have a very high sales tax - nearly 10% in some areas. All said and done, we're fairly average for total tax rates when compared with other states. It's still a lot better than California, but I don't want you to be surprised.

You need a car to get around here. Public transportation exists but isn't very functional and nothing is close enough to walk. Make sure you get a new Arizona plate (you only need one) because otherwise everyone will see your Cali plates and automatically hate you.

And the last warning I have is that yes, it really does get fuck-off hot here in the summer. Expect temperatures to never fall below 100 for the entire month of July. If Phoenix doesn't get a straight week of 115+, that's a mild summer. If you're from LA, you probably know what to expect. Otherwise, make sure you have a good AC system - and you want AC, not a swamp cooler. Trust me.

All that said, it's really a great state to live in. It's raining today and that's a rare enough event that everyone gets excited for it. There really is nothing like a southern Arizona sunset. Jeans and a button down shirt count as formal attire in half the state, especially when paired with cowboy boots. Most of the population is from somewhere else so you can find restaurants with quality food from anywhere you like. In most of the state, you will literally never have to shovel snow or scrape ice off your windshield. We have all the major sports franchises so you can go to big games when you want and they don't totally suck but none of the teams are good enough that anyone really expects you to root for them over your home team. We have more biomes here than any other state in the country so whatever kind of environment you want, you can get. Natural disasters don't happen in most of the state - the worst thing is forest fires in the north which are usually manageable. We have a weirdly huge historic car community because our climate is so dry that the cars don't rust. People put Christmas lights on cacti. Haboobs look like the apocalypse is rolling in but are really just a funny word for the newscasters to say a lot. You will see people wearing a bolo tie unironically. I once saw a woman put a tumbleweed in the back of a minivan. I love it here.

[ruvviks]

here is your opportunity to yell about some intricate backstory. also. if cassidy was an animal. what one would he think he would be. and what do You think he would be. i need to disect his brain

EHEHE THANK YOU >:^)

so the thing about cassidy is that he is an assassin (as of early 2077) which is basically exactly what he never wanted to become. wasn't necessary a pacifist when he was younger or something but he did just NOT understand the excessive amount of violence people in night city would use to get what they wanted. he had vastly different plans for himself and his future and most of it was focused on Healing and Nurturing in a way

when he was still very young, he wanted to become a baker :) but this idea was VERY quickly struck down by both his parents, who hated the idea and cassidy was so embarrassed about it that he never brought it up ever again. it's a thing that always stuck with him though, and he still loves baking to this day

after he pushed those feelings aside relatively quickly for. what. a five year old. he decided to focus on animals instead :) wanted to move out of the city because of the significant lack of animals there and maybe work on a farm or at a shelter or something like that. would often play pretend with his plushies (mostly animals) that they were sick and he was the "plushie doctor" taking care of them

after he lost his family and ended up in the orphanage, he simply just wanted to become a nurse. wanted to help out in the hospital to make sure people wouldn't die (+ he would get to wear one of those cool long coats and also maybe little plastic bags over his shoes. he's always wanted to slide down a hallway on those) and he was very insistent about this career path. despite being like ten years old

he mainly wanted to become a nurse because he wanted to be useful. wanted to have a job that would revolve around being there and at the ready to help out- because he believed that his family was dead because of him, because he didn't do anything, because he wasn't there for them. he didn't want to feel like that ever again and thought that maybe if he could make up for it somehow, one day he wouldn't have to feel bad about it anymore :(

but then the orphanage collapsed in an attack and cassidy was buried under the rubble, ended up in a coma for half a year and when he woke up most of his bones were replaced with cybernetics, causing him to barely be able to stand on his own legs for several years to come. he could also barely keep his hands still and very quickly gave up on wanting to work in a hospital (also because he was a little bit scared for it by then, having to continuously go back in there for bone replacements because he was still growing)

during those years, he lived with his adoptive dad ryu, an ex member of the gang that caused the orphanage to collapse. ryu taught cassidy everything he knew, and cassidy learned to be cautious of corporations and to be able to pick out mercenaries and gang members on the street, in order to keep himself safe. the little neighborhood they lived in wasn't safe at all, an easy target for gangs but also militech recruiters or shady arasaka figures looking for a new abandoned place to grab for unofficial corporate business- but ryu made it a safe place, for cassidy, but also their neighbors, and cassidy wanted to become just like him when he would be older

but after ryu's death, cassidy basically just saw no point in anything anymore. everyone he ever cared about had died and he ended up letting himself get recruited by militech, to then continue to work for several megacorporations for give or take a whole decade. and for what, really? to rebel? to prove a point? or simply to try and find comfort in the one place that he was so desperately steered away from most of his life, to get the full picture and be able to judge for himself what it was all like?

and now (in 2077. i'm not yet going to talk about what comes after) he's an assassin, one of the people he was taught to look out for. used to be scared of many things, and has now familiarized himself with several of those concepts so intimately that it no longer bothers him. something something becoming the monster under your bed something something

anyway if cassidy was an animal he would be a bear. in his opinion. in My opinion he would be a cat i'm diagnosing him with catboy

[flyinghome-againstthewind]

I posted 1,381 times in 2022

That's 660 more posts than 2021!

33 posts created (2%)

1,348 posts reblogged (98%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

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@walkinginland

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I tagged 1,004 of my posts in 2022

Only 27% of my posts had no tags

#outlander - 429 posts

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Longest Tag: 139 characters

#i also like to joke that i technically have a psych minor bc i met all of the requirements for it i had just transferred schools in between

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Beside the Seaside: Ch 3

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1944

Claire Randall had been to France when she was young, had seen the lush green countryside and walked the streets of Paris, but she had long since been unable to reconcile her memories of another world with this one. She stood in the heart of what had once been a bustling city but was now reduced to rubble. The British army had set up a field hospital within the ruins of a cathedral, and Claire had grown accustomed to the way the steady sound of distant gunfire echoed off of its remaining half-walls. She lifted her head from tending to a soldier to see one of her fellow nurses, Marion, shuffling a wounded man into the tent.

“Have you seen him out there?” Claire asked. Marion shook her head and turned her own attention to her patient.

“You looking for your boy?”

Her gaze returned to the soldier, who was grimacing through the question. Corporal Thompson would be alright, she thought, but there was little she could do for his pain while cleaning and stitching up his wound. Besides, perhaps, a bit of a distraction, which he seemed to be looking for. Claire gave in, though it was the last thing she wanted to talk about.

“He’s not my boy, he’s just…”

He was Fergus, eight-year-old charmer and perpetual pain in her arse. As soon as she got her hands on him, she was going to throttle him.

“Maybe not,” Thompson conceded, “but you look out for him, don’t you? Everyone always sees you two together, anyway.”

The man’s assessment of her and Fergus brought her up short. She paused in her treatment and stared at him, the urge to defend the young scamp rising steadily to the surface. “He needs a little looking after, whether he wants it or not. He doesn’t have anyone.”

There were few who came through this camp without learning Fergus’s story. The boy was already an orphan before war broke out, but when his city’s inhabitants evacuated, including the staff and wards of the Catholic orphanage where the boy was said to have been a resident, Fergus was left behind. Some said he stayed behind on purpose, for Fergus truly was the life of the camp and ran wild through it without the supervision of the nuns, but most believed he’d just been overlooked in the chaos. By Claire’s estimation, Fergus had been here with the army for at least two years now, moving with them in the encampment, and living off of the kindness of others. He’d been ��stationed” here longer than Claire had, and even with the entire camp as his personal playground, she saw very quickly that no one was really caring for Fergus. Even the details of his story had become a bit muddied without someone there to safeguard it; for instance, she was never clear on whether this very city had been his home or if the army had picked him up on their way through to it. Fergus himself was squirrely on the details, in no hurry to return to the nuns.

“Funny kid, that Fergus,” Thompson went on, hissing on occasion but otherwise quietly bearing the pain. To some of the soldiers, Fergus was nothing more than a pet, a source of entertainment, as though they couldn’t see the humanity in a small, lonely child. Claire was starting to get the distinct impression that Thompson fell into that category and grit her teeth as she neared the end of her stitching. “I wonder what will happen to him when this ends. If this ever ends…”

Claire felt her stomach churn. Where would Fergus go when the army left and no one returned to the rubble of his former home? “There’s got to be another orphanage somewhere that would take him.” But even as she spoke the words ‒ for a perfectly reasonable solution ‒ she hated the thought.

A bomb blast echoed in the distance and Claire’s eyes shot to the entryway again.

“So where’d he run off to?”

Claire bit her cheek to keep from screaming. She could be sympathetic to the man’s need for distraction, but this conversation was starting to make her want to pull her hair out. She was already worried sick over Fergus, and Thompson’s careless questions weren’t helping.

Mercifully, she caught her name being spoken and her gaze flitted toward the voice. It was Sergeant Harris, whom she was friendly with. He was a bit older than the rest and one of the few men Claire didn’t feel like she needed to keep her guard up around to ward off unwanted advances ‒ apparently a wedding ring didn���t mean much in wartime to most people.

“Fergus?” she asked, unable to keep her voice from wobbling. Just yesterday the boy had said he wanted to be a real soldier, and when he’d gone missing this morning…

“Yes, come see, Nurse Randall. He’s alright, but he’s all shook up.”

She ran out of the medical tent, quickly scanning the area for him. And when her gaze rested on him, the vice grip on her heart finally slackened. “Fergus!”

He looked up as she approached him, his expression a little dazed, and he seemed at that moment so much younger than his eight years.

“Oh, Fergus, you little wretch!” She clasped the boy to her heart and heaved a sigh of relief. He became boneless in her embrace, sinking into her.

“Milady,” he murmured. It was Fergus’s teasing nickname for her ‒ after their introduction at the camp, she’d ruthlessly dressed down a soldier for not paying attention to her presentation on preventing trench foot and Fergus had witnessed it. He had said she’d looked the part of nobility in that moment for her command over the men, and so he’d called her Milady ever since, always with a devilish glint in his eyes ‒ or at times he said it sarcastically when she turned her attention to fussing over him.

But just then, he sounded so small, so lost in the dark, and Claire didn’t know what else to do but clutch him tighter to her. “Are you alright?”

She pulled back just enough to look at him, framing his dirt-smudged face in her hands. God, she hoped that was only dirt.

“I k‒ I killed a German soldier, Milady.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Don’t tell me that,” she said in a breathless whisper.

“H‒h‒he was not with the others. I thought he might be a spy. He didn’t see me and I‒ I had a knife. I struck him.”

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65 notes - Posted November 6, 2022

#4

chapter 26: the best by far is you

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Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 26 

“Do you think it’s strange,” Claire asked him while Brianna was tucked against her breast as she nursed, “that Murtagh hasn’t once held the baby?”

Her tone suggested that she did think it was strange, regardless of Jamie’s thoughts on the matter. “Och, I’ve told ye before, mo nighean, he’s scared o’ bairns when they’re that small. Thinks they’re too fragile and likely to fall apart in his arms.”

Claire’s brows furrowed together. “Well, sure, he didn’t go near Faith until she was at least seven months old, but I thought… I mean, he’s been wonderful with her ever since.”

“Aye, she’s no longer a wee babe now is she?”

Claire rolled her eyes. “So, he won’t go near Brianna until she’s hearty enough that he’s not scared to hold her? When she’s half a year old? Is that what you’re saying?”

He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “Sassenach… he loves our bairns. He’d protect them with his life. Ye ken that well. And aye, someday when Brianna is hearty enough as ye say, I’m sure he’ll hold her, if that’s yer worry.”

She shook her head, exasperated by the notion, and glanced down at the baby in her arms. Brianna’s arms and legs flailed as soon as Claire looked at her, wriggling with joy. Jamie’s heart melted at the sight. Such a sweet wee thing, their Brianna.

Claire’s finger traced the contours of the babe’s soft, round face. “Well, that simply won’t do, will it, Bree?”

----------

Claire cornered Murtagh with the baby while he was in the sitting room, lounging in one of the chairs and none the wiser to her scheming. Jamie sat nearby and watched the event unfold with nothing short of amusement, as Claire simply lowered the baby into Murtagh’s lap before there was an opportunity for the older man to escape.

Murtagh went rigid with fear, his arms stiff and awkward around the baby. “Nay‒ I‒ Claire!”

“Don’t make such a fuss. She’s sleeping.” Claire straightened, settling her hands on her hips, surveying the two unlikely companions with a smile. “There, see? Nothing to be afraid of.”

Murtagh looked as though he might argue that point, still holding Brianna with a delicateness as though she were a loaded pistol, poised to go off at any moment.

And with that, Claire spun and walked to the other side of the room to help Fergus with his lessons. Murtagh turned sharp eyes on Jamie. “What the devil is all this about, then?”

Jamie’s gaze flitted over to Claire but she wasn’t looking. He suspected she would be stealing glances this way, though. “I think,” he began softly, “that she worries ye won’t… bond with Brianna, if ye dinna hold her.”

“Christ,” Murtagh muttered under his breath.

Jamie held a hand up placatingly to his godfather. “She sees how ye are wi’ Fergus and wee Faith, I think she just wants to make sure ye care the same way about the bairn, too.”

His godfather made a disgruntled sound. “If she thinks this is the way to do it…” he grumbled. “Fer Christ’s sake, of course I care about the bairn.”

“I ken that, but…” Jamie’s gaze dropped to the sleeping babe in Murtagh’s arms, so small and helpless, and his heart wrenched. He understood the deeper reason that Claire was so unsettled about Murtagh and the bairn. “Anything could happen, ye ken? We have three bairns now, and with all that happened in the last year, just trying to keep our family together… Claire cannae help thinking about the worst… what would happen to the wee ones if we weren’t‒” He swallowed roughly, shrugging a little. Claire wasn’t the only one who couldn’t help thinking about that. Any parent would.

“Aye, I ken yer meaning fine.” Murtagh looked down at the baby then too, still appearing stiff as a poker as he held her, but the older man’s expression softened. “Christ, though… did she think I would leave the bairn and keep the others?”

“I dinnae think she feels that way now, seeing as ye havenae tried to pass the baby off to me yet,” he said with a grin.

Murtagh grunted his displeasure. “I would if I wasnae so nervous she might roll out o’ my arms when I tried.”

Jamie huffed a laugh. “Ye’re doing fine, a ghoistidh. And while I have ye at my disposal,” he teased, earning another sharp look from Murtagh. “I’ve been meaning to ask ye… what yer plans are from here. If ye want to go back to Scotland or continue on wi’ us.”

Murtagh simply stared at him until Jamie was shifting in his seat under his gaze. “First Claire and now you? Och, ye wound me, Jamie.”

“I didnae want to presume. That’s why I asked.”

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67 notes - Posted March 9, 2022

#3

Beside the Seaside: Ch 1

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Summary: 

The Second World War has ended but returning to their lives from before the war proves difficult for many. For widower Jamie Fraser, the physical and psychological scars he now carries threaten the peaceful life he wants to provide for his young daughter. In an effort to start over fresh, he moves them to a coastal town in the Highlands and buys a seaside inn.

Claire Beauchamp returned from the war with an orphan in tow, intent on adopting the boy and starting the family she and her husband had longed for before the war interrupted their plans. But in gaining her son, she loses her marriage and now must cobble together some sort of life for just her and Fergus. To try and mend their fractured relationship, she takes her son on an extended stay in the Scottish Highlands.

November 1945

He had the car drop him off at the end of the lane rather than Lallybroch’s doorstep. Stood there for a minute with his bag thrown over one shoulder and his uniform growing damp under the steady rain.

It had been raining the day he left Lallybroch, and it gave Jamie a strange sense of no time having passed between that day and this one, even though everything about his life had changed in those five years. Yet Lallybroch looked the same. The heavy stone walls built by his ancestors had stood for two centuries and it heartened Jamie to see the place untouched by the destruction of war. The walls of it, at least.

His feet felt leaden with every step that brought him closer to his home. He wasn’t ready for who he would see. He wasn’t ready for who he wouldn’t see here ever again. And while he’d carried some of these losses for three years now, he hadn’t been home without them yet. It would be real, inescapable, the moment he stepped foot inside.

Jamie had hardly passed under the archway of Lallybroch before the bellowing of several dogs inside the house announced his presence. Ready or not, the front door flew open, and there was his ma. His throat constricted at the sight of her, and he’d all but blinked and she was in front of him, throwing her arms around his neck.

“Oh, my lad! My son,” she sobbed into his neck, her voice nearly drowned out by the heavy rain.

Ye’re a braw lad, son.

The words came to mind of their own volition, a memory triggered by his return. Not spoken by his mother, but his father on the day Jamie left for training. His da had driven him to the train station after Jamie had said goodbye to everyone else, giving Jamie a prolonged moment with Brian Fraser. But the entire drive and all through waiting for Jamie’s train, the two of them hardly spoke. What was there to say in such circumstances? Brian had fought in the Great War, and he’d hoped to spare his own sons from such a fate. That was no secret to Jamie, and he’d already witnessed Brian’s quiet grief when Willie left months before. Knew that his own leaving was twisting the knife further in Brian’s gut. So they’d stayed quiet. When the train pulled in and began to fill with soldiers, Brian had clapped Jamie on the shoulder and, when Jamie moved to hug his father, had kissed his cheek, something he hadn’t done since Jamie was a boy. “Ye’re a braw lad, son,” he had said, giving Jamie’s shoulder a wee shake. When his father spoke again, his voice was thick with emotion. “Make sure ye come back home.”

Jamie felt his chest tighten with the memory and his arms squeezed around his mother. He had done as Brian had told him ‒ he had come home. But not before he could see his father alive again, now dead and buried in the Lallybroch family cemetery. Those words became the last thing his da ever said to him, and among his long list of regrets in life was the hour that Jamie wasted in silence with him on that day.

“Oh, my Jamie,” his mother was saying now. She pulled back to look at him, framing his face in her cold, wet hands. His jaw tensed.

Ellen MacKenzie Fraser had always been the stubborn pillar of strength in their family but in the last six years, she’d had to weather more than a fair share of grief. She looked more frail than he’d ever seen her before, and that left a cold feeling in his chest.

“Jamie!”

His gaze lifted to the doorway to find Jenny rushing down the steps, clutching her round belly ‒ he hadn’t realized she was pregnant again, hadn’t seen word of it come through in any of his letters from home.

He opened one arm to embrace his sister, bringing the three of them together. The unwelcome thought came as he held them; they were the last three Frasers standing, their family gone by half in the space of a bloody war.

“Och, it’s pouring buckets out here!” Jenny fussed. “Come inside and get warm.”

He picked up his bag from the ground and followed Jenny in, his mother’s hand on his back the whole way, like she needed to touch him to know he was real.

Stepping inside Lallybroch felt like stepping back in time ‒ everything exactly as he remembered it from before. He half-expected to see his father and his brothers when he rounded the corner into the sitting room, so inseparable were they in his memories of this place.

Instead, he caught sight of another familiar face. “Ian!”

“Good to see ye, Jamie.” His best friend strode across the room, his gate completely changed from the confident ease with which Ian used to carry himself. Until he saw that, Jamie had almost forgotten. Ian’s prosthetic leg wasn’t visible under his trousers, but to anyone who had known him before, his uneven strides were a dead giveaway.

Jamie embraced his friend ‒ his brother-in-law now too, he reminded himself ‒ and noticed Jenny then corralling a small boy towards them. “This is our wee Jamie,” she introduced with a proud smile. “This is your uncle, mo cridhe,” she said to the boy, “the one you’re named after.”

Jenny and Ian’s son was scarcely more than 3 years old, and he smiled shyly up at Jamie. His namesake. He had known this; Jenny had written to him with news of his first nephew while Jamie was nearly on his deathbed. At the time, it had been a comfort. Another reason to make it home. But now, looking down at the wee boy, all Jamie could think was that if his nephew had been born a few months later, he would be Willie’s namesake instead, or their father’s ‒ as he ought to be. Not saddled with Jamie’s name. Not when Jamie had done nothing for this boy to be proud of.

“Hello, laddie,” he said with a slight nod.

There was a gentle touch at his elbow and he turned to find his mother at his side again. “Someone else would like to see ye.” She nodded towards the doorway opposite them, and Jamie’s gaze flitted over to see a girl of six years of age in place of where he had left a wee babe. His stomach twisted into knots. She looked so much like her mother, it gave Jamie the strange sense of seeing a memory come to life right before him.

He skirted slowly around the others and paused six feet away from where his daughter stood. And lowered himself slowly to one knee.

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76 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

#2

the best by far is you: chapter 25

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Previous Chapter

Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Chapter 25

Jamie didn’t know what hour of night it was when Claire was finally given a chance to rest, after having been helped into a clean nightgown while the bed was stripped. The baby was bundled up and sleeping soundly in her cradle, the exhaustion from the last 24 hours having caught up with both mother and babe. He paused at the door, gaze flickering between the slumbering forms of his wife and their wee lass, heart in his throat.

Some small part of him was scared to step outside this room, to leave them even for a moment, lest he find out that the last several hours were nothing more than a dream.

But somewhere down the hall, there was someone waiting up for word of the baby, and Jamie wasn’t so cruel as to make him wait until sunrise.

So he slipped out into the hallway, vacant but still dimly lit with candles along the wall. Not long ago, there had been a flurry of activity in these halls. After the birth, a maid had spread word to the rest of the household that a baby girl had been safely delivered, including ‒ Jamie was sure ‒ to wherever Jared and Murtagh had settled in to drink their whiskey in the tense silence of men unsure of what to do with themselves while a woman labored. And just shortly before Jamie’s trek, another housemaid had helped Mother Hildegarde and Marie to their guest chambers for the night. But even while it was quiet now and the rest of the household seemed to sleep, Jamie knew one person was still up, who had been missed while the joyous news was spread.

They would’ve assumed the children were sleeping, but having been the boy on the other side of this conversation, Jamie was intimately acquainted with the fear that kept a son from sleeping no matter the hour. The relief and gratitude and joy that he got to deliver different news to his own son was almost enough to bring him to his knees there in the hallway. That he should be so fortunate to still have all of them with him…

He opened the door to Fergus’s room and the soft light from the hallway spilled into the pitch black room. Two small bodies were under the covers but only one stirred and bolted upright, expectant of a visitor.

The light caught the tracks of tears on Fergus’s face, his expression already taut with worry. “Maman?” he croaked.

His word landed like a punch in the gut. Jamie should’ve come sooner, should’ve found a way here immediately to put this boy’s fears to rest.

“She's alright. Oh, a balach, it’s alright,” he murmured, moving into the room as Fergus drew his knees up to his chest and buried his face, the sound of his smothered cries filling the room a moment later.

“Dinna fash yerself, laddie.” He perched on the edge of the bed, reaching over to rub Fergus’s back. “Dinna weep, mon fils, it’s alright,” he murmured soothingly, even as he knew Fergus needed the release of those tears for all the time he’d sat here in the dark fearing the worst. He cried for the relief of it all.

“Can I see Maman?”

“Aye, of course ye can. She’s sleeping just now though and we shouldnae disturb her. She’ll want to see ye when she wakes, so how about in the morning?” And maybe Fergus, with his fears put to rest, could find a few hours of sleep himself. The boy nodded half-heartedly and wiped his face with his palm before resting his cheek on one of his knees with a sigh.

“Ye’ve another baby sister,” Jamie told him softly.

“Oh,” Fergus startled, as if he’d forgotten for a moment what all of this was about. “And she’s alright?”

“Aye, she’s bonny,” Jamie beamed, and the corners of Fergus’s mouth curved upward. “She cannae wait tae meet ye.” He smoothed down some of Fergus’s short, riotous curls. “She’s so very wee and all worn out from making her appearance, though, so she’s getting some much needed rest as well,” he added, hoping it would be enough to convince Fergus that he might as well get his own precious few hours of sleep in the meantime.

He tucked Fergus back under the covers, murmuring reminders that he had a papa and maman who loved him very much and two wee sisters now who adored him, and he would see all of them when he woke up. Jamie sealed his words with a kiss to the boy’s head. His gaze went beyond Fergus to where Faith was still curled up under the blankets, snoring softly. A lump rose in his throat.

The greatest joys of his life…

His eyes burned with tears as he turned and quietly left the room, shutting the door behind him. And when he slipped back into the room he shared with Claire, he found her and the babe exactly as he left them. His waking dream was completely undisturbed.

He did fall to his knees then, and on his tongue was a quick and reverent prayer of gratitude to the Almighty that this should be the life that he was given, the life that was restored to him.

 ----------

They slept in fits and starts, fumbling through a once familiar rhythm but with a precious new life. Claire’s eyes squinted open against the early light of morning ‒ the realization that it was already morning had her sleep-addled brain rebelling against the thought ‒ and stared at the empty space in bed beside her.

Her first thought was the baby; she didn’t hear a thing, so why had she awoken?

She shifted in bed and felt every muscle in her body screaming at her in protest. God, it felt like she’d been hit by a car ‒ a thought she’d have to keep to herself when others asked her how she was feeling. Jamie had fetched the baby every time she woke during the night so that Claire wouldn’t have to get out of bed, but even with that consideration, she was still tired and sore all over. It was different than how it had gone with Faith, she realized. With Faith, it had been flashes of terror and a race to save them both. Hardly felt like the labor itself had lasted longer than a minute for all that Claire could remember of it. But with this baby, Claire had labored for almost a full day ‒ and both body and memory could remember every second of it.

Then she heard it ‒ the soft squeaking grunt of a newborn, not quite a cry. Her head lifted from the pillow and swiveled, but the baby wasn’t in her cradle. No, instead, her gaze settled on her bare-chested husband sitting up in a chair with the baby pillowed against him, hardly visible to Claire beneath her blanket. Jamie’s eyes were closed, his head resting on the back of the chair, and she would’ve thought he was asleep if not for the steady rhythm of his fingers gently tapping the baby’s back. He must’ve heard her movement as his eyes opened then and found hers.

A lump rose in her throat, for no other explanation than she couldn’t help the swell of affection for them both, the sight of them so perfect she could weep. “Why are you all the way over there?”

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77 notes - Posted January 29, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

the best by far is you: epilogue

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Previous Chapter

Summary: An exploration of Claire & Jamie’s story if their firstborn had lived and they had the chance to be parents together of wee Faith Fraser before the Battle of Culloden.

Epilogue

June 1750

His wife was still buried under the covers while Jamie moved about the room on quiet feet and got dressed in the soft light of dawn. He reached for his boots, the final article of dress, and caught sight of Claire’s hand rising out of the mess of blankets ‒ reaching out toward him in silent request.

He stopped in his tracks. Straightened back up.

“Don’t get up yet,” she said, her voice still heavy with sleep. “Stay in bed with me.”

His chest tightened and he let out a gentle sigh. “Aye.”

He crawled back onto the bed, fully-dressed save for his boots still, and molded his body against the curve of Claire’s. She let out a sleepy hum when he nuzzled into her wild hair and kissed the back of her neck. There was a time when he might’ve denied her request, felt the need to rush off to the responsibilities of farm life. But he knew now that all of that would keep ‒ for a little while at least ‒ but Claire and the bairns would not.

There was something in her touch, the way her hands clasped tightly over his, keeping his hold on her there, that told him her thoughts were running in tandem with his, reaching the same destination. He held her tighter still, turning his face into the crook of her neck and murmuring all that was in his heart to her, some bits in Gaelic but he thought she knew well enough now to understand his meaning if not the words themselves.

His eyes opened with the soft creak of their bedroom door opening. Of course, he could put off the work of the day for a bit, but the bairns didn’t always give them the same reprieve. “Sleep a little longer, Sassenach,” he whispered against her neck before leaving a parting kiss there. “I’ll get up wi’ her.”

When he rolled over and swung his feet out of bed, he caught sight of the impish wee lass in the doorway, bouncing on her toes already at the prospect of their recent morning routine together.

“Dood morning,” she sung to him, her eyes alight with joy, as he swiftly pulled on his boots and ushered her back through the doorway.

He swung Brianna up into his arms and closed the door behind them. “Good morning, m'annsachd.”

He stepped across the hall and poked his head into the nursery, knowing he would find Faith under the blankets still. Brianna was their only early riser now.

He let Faith be and knocked on Fergus’s door to get him up and moving for the day. Brianna was a warm weight against his chest, waiting patiently until Jamie headed down the stairs with her to the kitchen. A fire had already been started in the hearth, letting Jamie know Murtagh was up and about.

“I can make the parritch, Papa?”

Papa. That was who he was to Fergus, and to Faith, he was simply Da, but Brianna was growing up hearing both names for Jamie and used them interchangeably. Jamie didn’t mind — she’d likely settle on one or the other eventually, and it had never really mattered what his children called him, only that they were his to raise and love and guide.

“Aye, we’ll make it together.” He kissed her soft cheek still flushed from her sleep, and moved about with only one hand free to start on breakfast. His wee Brianna encumbered the process more than helped, but no one else in the household possessed Brianna’s early morning cheerfulness ‒ besides perhaps himself, as Claire often pointed out in mild annoyance ‒ so he got on just fine with the lass as meal preparations were started.

Jamie finally set her down just as Murtagh walked in through the kitchen backdoor.

“Murtagh!” the wee thing cheered and ran to him, throwing her arms around his legs. It was the kind of reaction that would make one think she hadn’t seen her beloved Murtagh in ages. It had been only a matter of hours, most of which she’d slept through. The older man grinned and reached down to smooth her hair, still wild from her sleep. She turned her face and kissed his trouser-clad knee before letting him go.

“Come eat yer parritch, Brianna, and let poor Murtagh come inside.”

“Och, she’s fine,” Murtagh protested, but still herded Brianna towards the table.

With a certain knack for timing his entrance at the moment food was ready, Fergus stumbled out into the kitchen then, silent and sullen and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. He sunk into a chair at the table and Jamie wordlessly passed him a bowl, smothering a rueful smile. They’d learned not to engage Fergus too heavily in the morning during this season of his youth.

Claire appeared too, dressed and hair up in place, though a weariness beyond physical exhaustion still lingered in her eyes. She bent to kiss the top of Fergus’s head and then joined them at the table.

There was only one Fraser missing, so Jamie headed up the stairs for the nursery.

“Up ye get, Faith.”

She was still sleeping, but she’d stay in bed all day if they let her. So he scooped her up and carried her down to the kitchen. She was getting older ‒ six already ‒ but Faith was still such a slight thing that Jamie didn't think twice about carrying her around as he always had.

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87 notes - Posted May 19, 2022

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[punishingangel]

nurse. Lonnie gives JPV company in the hospital?

loud & deafening silence

Working at West Mercy Hospital was nice. The busted fluorescent lights on the third floor inpatient wing had become a strange, liminal comfort. The soft drone of machinery and the smell of staff room coffee were a symbol of stable mundanity; a reminder that, though a "normal" life was something Jean-Paul had given up, he could still enjoy the pleasures of living like a person. His coworkers — the type of middle-aged women and bright-eyed young men attuned to the same gossip — were a welcome change from his usual crowd, and being needed by his patients felt good. Of course, helping was his calling as a man of faith. It was something he’d nurtured for years and uniquely his. It was more important than his night work, or so he liked to think.

Sometimes.

Being a patient himself, however, was different. Always had been. Memories flashed and coalesced: the sheen of a silver syringe in the dark, piercing veins in his arm and injecting him with something that made his 10-year-old belly turn flips. Strangers shining lights in his eyes, raking their own over his vulnerable parts — his beating heart, his jugular vein, the softness of his abdomen. Poking, pushing, and prodding at someone who, half the time, felt half-corporeal. And then he was dying, numbers and figures spelling out his mortality. He could fend for himself, he could heal faster than any man. Being at the mercy of a doctor made him feel as though his body could be harmed.

It had taken him a bite to the leg to find out that whatever had caused his blood disease had chewed up the strands of DNA that helped close his wounds. It was a bad bite, oozing and fresh, with pain enough to render Azrael unconscious. He'd crawled to Brian Bryan's door leaving a shiny, crimson trail, and he had no power to fight back when he was loaded into his friend's van. At least Brian had the decency to unmask and redress them. Now, there was Jean-Paul, registered nurse, in a bed he had sprayed down just last week. A scratchy blanket covered all but his head, arms, and leg, which was elevated and wrapped tightly in gauze. He couldn't sleep.

Inaction was maddening. It was painful to remain in the same four positions, in the same room, for hours. Then, it was torturous to move. His books helped for a time but quickly lost their magic. Visits from Brian and his coworkers and Leslie were nice until they weren't. The more Jean-Paul gazed out his window, the more some part of him longed to be sweeping through the city streets. It was agony to remain here when secret sin beckoned for Azrael's blade. He focused on the same twinkling signs, honing in on the bat signal shining in the sky.

A brighter flash, bursting next to his bed, made him jump and rattle the contents of his tray table. As his vision returned and came into focus on the red-cloaked figure in its place, his mouth hung dumbly open.

“You —!”

[stoxboxindia]

Loss-making Samhi Accommodations to check lukewarm checklist on bourses, insist analysts

Samhi Accommodations is susceptible to check a flat checklist on bourses on September 22, given lower retail investor hobby at some stage within the e book constructing job and unpleasant monetary performance within the old couple of years.

The grey market top price (GMP) that Samhi Accommodations commands is between 3-6 percent over the inform price of Rs 126, sellers active within the unlisted market said. This skill that merchants could per chance additionally honest mild no longer quiz a bumper beneficial properties on the first date.

“Samhi Accommodations is a loss-making hospitality firm and its monetary performance has been unpleasant for the final three years,” said Anubhuti Mishra, Fairness Learn Analyst at Swastika Investmart. “On the different hand, the firm is making development on reducing losses, and the sales more than one is 3.7 cases, which is below the commerce moderate.”

ALSO READ: Zaggle Prepaid Ocean Products and services, Samhi Accommodations to debut in T+3 timeline on September 22

The initial public offer (IPO) obtained moderately lower applications from merchants – seeing a subscription of 5.57 cases, largely thanks to licensed institutional merchants (QIB). The problem has no longer obtained ample assist from excessive web-price folks and retail merchants, who subscribed 1.22 cases and 1.11 cases, respectively.

Samhi Accommodations, a eminent branded resort ownership and asset administration platform in India, raised Rs 1,370.1 crore from the general public inform on the upper price band. It comprised a recent inform of shares price Rs 1,200 crore, and an offer-for-sale (OFS) of 1.35 crore shares price Rs 170.1 crore by three promoting shareholders.

The firm, backed by world merchants Fairness World, ACIC Mauritius and Goldman Sachs, will utilise the web contemporary inform proceeds for repaying debt price Rs 900 crore, and the comfort for usual corporate applications.

Samhi Accommodations, which acquires or builds essentially industry accommodations, owns a portfolio of 4,801 keys across 31 operating accommodations in key city consumption centres in India as of August.

Astha Jain, Senior Learn Analyst at Hem Securities, said she expects Samhi Accommodations to checklist at 3-5 percent top price to inform price. She told to e book partial earnings and retain partial half for long interval of time because the firm’s skill to plan dislocated accommodations and demonstrated monitor file to re-price resort performance thru renovation and/or rebranding is infusing optimism.

“Firm’s portfolio’s scale and diversification extra enhanced by sector tailwinds alongside with the firm’s monitor file to tackle a watch on accommodations successfully is additionally having a peep certain. Firm’s skill to assemble operating efficiencies and long-interval of time performance the utilize of analytics instruments and proper governance and seasoned administration team makes this inform a correct one,” she said.

A mountainous temporary damaging is that it has been a loss-making firm as per the financials on hand for the final three years. The web loss narrowed to Rs 338.59 crore within the yr ended March FY23, from Rs 443.25 in FY22, but earnings from operations more than doubled to Rs 738.57 crore, from Rs 322.74 crore at some stage within the identical interval.

“With the Samhi Accommodations IPO receiving a moderately subdued subscription of about 5.6x in comparison with the excessive subscription complications that hit the markets lately, we quiz a tepid checklist for the inform when it lists on the bourses,” said Anushi Vakharia, Learn Analyst, StoxBox.

“We quiz the IPO to beginning discontinuance to the issuance price of Rs. 126 per share attributable to the firm-specific traits reminiscent of loss-making place, damaging web price and elevated borrowings. This paints an overall bleak picture for the industry in comparison with its listed peers reminiscent of Chalet Accommodations and Indian Accommodations. We, therefore, dwell cautious on the inform and counsel merchants who bear obtained half to sell their shares on the gap day and rob into consideration varied avenues for funding.”

Disclaimer: The views and funding tips expressed by funding consultants on Moneycontrol.com are their have and no longer those of the net net website online or its administration. Moneycontrol.com advises users to talk to licensed consultants sooner than taking any funding choices.

Shubham Raj has six years of abilities overlaying capital markets. He essentially writes on stocks with particular focal level on F&O and PMS-AIF commerce.

See the most modern industry news, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Intention Internal most Finance insights, tax queries, and knowledgeable opinions on Moneycontrol or secure the Moneycontrol App to tackle updated!

[freeworldallahmbaclass]

Watching the movie Lamborghini the man behind the legend of the car it's a pretty good movie 🍿 and reading Dale Carnegie and Associates book sell a great Sunday Owen Wilson did a good a great job in the movie paint 🎨 it's about the guy from Vermont no funny stuff that was painting 🖌️ 🎨 on the public Access Channel remember flicking pass the channels and you would see him with the Afro painting that was hot I remember I used to stop and watch him do his thing he was pretty good that is the movie about him be sure to watch it its extremely funny I like it and enjoy your Sunday movie day before you go back to work tomorrow and Rosario Dawson is looking better than ever and is funnier than ever what is your Sunday like cuddle up with a good book good coffee ☕ and a movie 🍿 my movie today is Lamborghini the man behind the Lamborghini remember when I had the Ferraris in my colors on 55th Street and Park Avenue in New York City half a billions dollars cars before I got rich and I'm just reflecting Cardi B says to me in the movie she is my teacher that Nicki Minaj from the Young Money Cash money records is my teacher my educator now a super super dime is my educator that's hot she got me and gave me my own library I love it thank you

Rule your day and create your future , set the direction of your life with the right attitudes about yourself and life's chances and love yourself babe it is a good world and movies like this movie reflect that .

Things I say about myself today I'm the first person to beat Voodoo a curse on my life my Pastor is Joel Osteen / Victoria Osteen and Joyce Meyer and I put God first in my life nowadays that's Godliness Good orderly directions for my life you should follow it and put God first in your life and practice Godliness and Good orderly directions for your life I feel better with Gods guidance and love and mercy on me , I love the Pastors I listen to I listen to mostly all of them

With them I win my Lamborghini and let's see I have my own Library and I'm on 5th Avenue NYC I got my own building on 5th Avenue New York they gave me a library I got a Hospital that heals and cure people and then a library that entertains and educate the public people and communities and I'm friends with Mayors and Governors I actually pass laws with Governors and Mayors free Gym membership for people on Medicare pour in millions in the economy won nobel prizes for economic sciences twice and my self image and how I identify my self is hopeful

Commercial real estate developer and investor

Deal maker and venture designer , fashion designer

Entrepreneur , professional , sales guru

Editorial Cartoonist musician , music producer and Rap 🎶 musician

Businessman , adventurist , value driven person and customer service specialist .

Black President Barack Obama style and class of a personand Jay Z and Nas and Martin Luther King JR class I'm a student of them and my Running mates K Shine , Vado , Jae Millz , Meek Millz and many others Lyricists I'm into politics and big business in my town Social consciousness and corporate culture And I got King 👑 of New York status Meaning New York is my town look at my list of accomplishments and my New York list of accomplishments and see who is the future and have the best plans and ideas moving forward for my city and hopefully other cities across America and then all over the globe from Africa with the cure for Aids in Africa see that CNN report in an earlier report on this page .

Major player providing a great service with good quality of people that make us a leader in our industry .

Which means we are well suited to meet the demands of international business .

Book of the Week

Dale Carnegie and Associates book called Sell its sales training I got effective proposals writing self taught to me classes for myself and I got the best book collection ever so yeah to me I married to books , learning and business . I'm blessed man I'm truly blessed I love my pastor , I love my future and I love movies like Lamborghini the man behind the legend and the challenge to win and stay innovate and futuristic I will be the grey haired blackberry guy the movie blackberry and I will drawing my music videos working , working on my art hopefully still with Roc Nation Jay Z Roc I'm still on schedule I gave myself a year to get it together mostly been trying to get this blockage voodoo out of my life and whoever is doing it , I need to go back to living my life , dating , and conducting business working being a professional and recording my music and enjoying my movement in the here and now .

You know I was watching the movie Friends the reunion movie of 2021 with Rachel , Monica and Lisa Kudrow and Joey Triviani you gotta watch it and it showed me that all the people from my old life all my friends and family moved on from me 😭 yeah they moved on but Rachel was going in about us throwing a baseball ⚾ to each other from the movie mobsters 1991 that movie mobsters and now I got all these deals on the table for me and the stars like why don't you guys reunite and be friends again I said yeah I miss my friends and family I would be friends with them again I truly would I miss them so when we get around each other we can fight like the garage scene in the movie mobsters we could do that blackeyes for everybody and then we go on to run my corporation together even if I'm just a dreamer I'm funny you would like me as a boss I would hire people to run my businesses for me and stay to myself I truly forgive people like I truly forgive you and I moved on from any drama their was between us we can be friends again and Im a come through chill for a minute guy then I'm out I'm always working on the next thing Idea or plans I got going on and Funny I just found out that 50 Cent and French Montana is my makers like I was hired to clean up New York City clean it up look at my New York City accomplishments I did that like its now finish the job tell 50 Cent and French to finish the job I mean quiet is kept they made me thank you to them and then he Canaan means that from his show power that he is your maker he never really like put his hand on me and made sure I was aight for myself Im mean I'm a grown man since they hired me and I can get my own job or get or educate myself into my own employment and get my own apartment or place to live I don't need no counselor to do that for me plus they never do their job anyway so it is like I'm from Here New York and own sone of it now they used me for politics bro no lie and then when I started talking putting money in my pocket they got a problem with that some body call 50 Cent pretty ass out the mirror and tell him to finish helping me get me a little team and work with me on my business ideas 💡 🌟 you know what is as long I've known me people have had voodoo mind control on me and paralyze me physically now paralyze me with fear in their trap thank Jay Z , Beyonce , Keanu Reeves , Michael B Jordan for stepping up to the plate and trying to get me my freedom from those traps they got me in and recently Donald Trump he said to me on the news to fight like hell to get out of there I'm trying and Nicki got me my education my own library thank you sis to free myself from any trap or hell they try to put me in but darn tell 50 Cent and French Montana to finish the job they started they had it plan to put me on or put me back together and until that comeback I was just a rumor .

[thenextchapterbegins]

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDNT KNOW THIS ISNT A BIT? its been on every news station, every body is talking about it, arming for it, the sins have been RUNNING CIRCLES ACROSS HELL TRYING TO THINK OF A WAY TO DEAL WITH IT. i cant get on my media app without seeing 5 ARTICLES ABOUT IT."

"PLAY HERO? VERO IM A FUCKING OVERLORD NOW. I have a responsbility to IMP CITY my territory. which happens to house most if not EVERYTHING you just listed. if you stayed in imp city i would protect you as well." Tears were pricking his eyes now.

"I CAME HERE to relax to detox from the everyday waking up stress to every moment of night spent trying to sleep. DO YOU KNOW FUCKED IMP CITY IS? TRULY? DO YOU CARE? because i care ive cared my entire life. Our infrastructure is fucked. half the hospitals to the schools to the police are understaffed, if our power is knocked out only a quarter of the city has emergency generators. only a small 5% of the population actually uses magic and our newly built academies to teach hellborn and imps magic are so understaffed that we can only teach very small groups of hellborn. We only recently have managed to force corporations out of imp city and propped up our own businesses. a large majority of imp city still has hands gripping it from other sinners to other overlords." tears were now falling from his face.

"Im so tired vero. I spent so much of my life under the collar of stolas. An object, a thing. And now that i have acquired everything i have ever fought for everything is being threatend by some fucking shitlord from heaven."

"Please..im so tired..."

@ladiesofhell continued from x

Txt: "Yeah...looks like only pride was hit. im gonna call some people, see if i can get emergency power kicked on in imp city...why now. why this month..i just dont get it."

[newcatwords]

where is hawai'i? can you point to it on a map?

if someone asks you to point to hawai'i on a map, where would you point?

before colonization, there was (and continues to be) an island called "hawai'i". the entire chain of islands is called "hawaii" and there is a state called "hawaii" made up of a large number of those islands.

now, because there are too many things named "hawaii," the island of hawai'i is often called "the big island", because o'ahu, the island where the city of honolulu is located, is what many people think of when they think of "hawaii". it's a mess.

on top of that, we have the "main hawaiian islands" (aka "southeastern islands" aka "windward islands") vs the "outer islands" (aka "northwestern islands" aka "leeward islands").

most maps of "hawaii" show only the "main" islands. the map above (created by USGS) shows more of the hawaiian islands, but omits the names of two of the islands in the "main" chain: lana'i & kaho'olawe. these are not insignificant omissions. lana'i is 98% owned by larry ellison, founder & chairman of oracle corporation. kaho'olawe has been relentlessly used & abused by the west. it has been used for ranchland, military training, and most notably, as a munitions testing site, resulting in the continued contamination of the island. after many years of protests & lawsuits by native hawaiians, the island is now only accessible by native hawaiians for cultural, spiritual, & subsistence reasons.

meanwhile, this tourist mug with a creepy colonial-style map of hawaii includes both kaho'olawe & lana'i. good job, tourist mug!

there are actually over a hundred islands in the hawaiian archipelago. the state of hawaii includes 137 of them (source). midway atoll (made up of 3 islands) is part of the archipelago, but not part of the state. it is one of america's territories: an unorganized unincorporated territory.

additionally, some of the islands "are too small to appear on maps, and others, such as Maro Reef, only appear above the water's surface during times of low tide. Others, such as Shark and Skate islands, have completely eroded away." [source: wikipedia page "list of islands of hawaii"].

in the course of writing this post, i failed to find a map that shows & names all the hawaiian islands and failed to even find a list of all of them (plus if an island only appears sometimes or has disappeared entirely, what do you even do with that?). if you find either or both of those, let me know in comments.

so where and what "hawaii" is remains a mystery.

but this has not prevented commercial & official interests from using maps of "hawaii" in all kinds of places! here on the islands, hawaii map imagery is all around.

maps are very common on tourist items:

the hawaiian telcom logo uses dots roughly arranged in the pattern of the islands on a map:

but i guess only five islands are worth including (i understand. branding needs come above all else!).

this souvenir cloth item is interesting because it includes all the main islands (including ni'ihau, lana'i, and kaho'olawe - which are often excluded), but smooshes them into the available space without much consideration for where they are in relation to each other:

the postcard above has the main islands in their rough places, but squishes them all together so that they fit in the space. also the islands are made more similar in size to each other so that you can better see the little illustrations.

here's a more "official" map to show where the islands "should be" in relation to each other, and their sizes relative to each other (although both of those can change depending on what projection the map uses):

in my mind, though, the ultimate hawaii map fantasy lives on the ubiquitous reusable walmart cloth bag (available for 50 cents at checkout to all who have forgotten to bring the right number of bags. there's a plastic shopping bag ban in hawaii.):

in the walmart commercial universe (wcu), the only islands that exist are islands that have a walmart. the general outlines of the islands & their general orientation is preserved (along with a rough topology too!), attempting to convey a sense of adhering to a recognizable reality, but islands without a walmart have been not only omitted, but the space where they would be has been eliminated as well - as if they were never there to begin with. in the walmart version of reality, what makes something "hawaii" is whether or not it has a walmart on it.

i've had a lot of time to think about this remarkable image because i have a whole bunch of these bags. this is the bag of the people - everyone uses it for everything. the one in the above photo is in a typical state - pretty rough - because it probably came from the side of the road. you can almost always find one on the side of the road. so wherever you are, you are probably within sight of the walmart version of the islands.

so why does it matter whether or not you can point to "hawaii" on a map? well, maps are political documents, meaning that they reflect the vision of whoever has the power to put the map in front of your eyes. so if you're the one with the power to make some of the most commonly-seen maps of hawaii and you decide to remove a few islands, well that can really shape what people think "hawaii" is! we're a sea of islands - many people here have only ever been to one or two of the islands. if it wasn't on the map, you might not know that it existed at all.

hawaii is incredibly important to the united states, not just for tourism, but in terms of global strategy. it's the largest outpost of american power in the middle of the pacific. it puts america & its troops half an ocean closer to some of america's biggest competitors, most notably, china. it's a springboard to all the other island territories of the pacific (which you maybe haven't heard of because they almost never appear on maps):

once you see a map of all of america's territories in the pacific, along with the exclusive economic zones (eez) that extend out for 200 miles around each island, you start to get a better feel for the extent of america's power in the pacific.

when a place is left off the map, it can be easy to make it (including its people!) invisible. so if you're america, with bases across the islands of the pacific, with a nightmarish history of atomic weapons testing in the pacific (rendering islands uninhabitable and leaving both land and waters too contaminated for people to use), perhaps you might not want some of these places to appear on the map.

in Foreign Policy in Focus, Khury Petersen-Smith writes:

"Many of us living in North America who are concerned about climate change, for example, have a sense that Pacific Islands are facing particularly severe impacts from rising sea levels. But that knowledge tends to be vague and limited, as actual residents of these islands are rarely invited to the table to speak for themselves.

This is not accidental. Commenting during the Nixon administration on U.S. nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands, which share the same region of the Pacific as Guam, Henry Kissinger said “there are only 90,000 people out there. Who gives a damn?”

The U.S. has long had an interest in Marshallese and other Pacific Islanders remaining “out there” in the American mind. This marginalization helps allow the U.S. to carry out military operations in the region, along with policies that further climate change and other harms, while keeping most Americans unaware of these practices’ impacts in the Pacific." [FPIF]

often hawai'i (and alaska - which is in many ways similar to hawai'i in its relation to the contiguous US) doesn't even appear on national maps of the USA.

here's a screenshot from the new york times homepage on march 21, 2020, just as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to spread:

there is no alaska and no hawai'i on those maps. so if you were looking for information on the most important issue that was happening at the time, and you live in or are concerned about hawai'i and/or alaska, there would just be nothing. and what does it say about the people who run the top newspaper in america that they decided it was fine to omit these two states? are they not states? do they not matter? do the readers in those states not matter? and this is not an unusual thing at all. it happens all the time.

i'd like to finish by sharing with you a poem by CHamoru poet Craig Santos Perez. CHamoru are the indigenous people of the mariana islands (which include guam, saipan, tinian, rota, and others).

in this poem, Craig Santos Perez writes about not appearing on the map...

“Off-Island CHamorus”

My family migrated to California when I was 15 years old. During the first day at my new high school, the homeroom teacher asked: “Where are you from?” “The Mariana Islands,” I answered. He replied: “I’ve never heard of that place. Prove it exists.” And when I stepped in front of the world map on the wall, it transformed into a mirror: the Pacific Ocean, like my body, was split in two and flayed to the margins. I found Australia, then the Philippines, then Japan. I pointed to an empty space between them and said: “I’m from this invisible archipelago.” Everyone laughed. And even though I descend from oceanic navigators, I felt so lost, shipwrecked

on the coast of a strange continent. “Are you a citizen?” he probed. “Yes. My island, Guam, is a U.S. territory.” We attend American schools, eat American food, listen to American music, watch American movies and television, play American sports, learn American history, dream American dreams, and die in American wars. “You speak English well,” he proclaimed, “with almost no accent.” And isn’t that what it means to be a diasporic CHamoru: to feel foreign in a domestic sense.

Over the last 50 years, CHamorus have migrated to escape the violent memories of war; to seek jobs, schools hospitals, adventure, and love; but most of all, we’ve migrated for military service, deployed and stationed to bases around the world. According to the 2010 census, 44,000 CHamorus live in California, 15,000 in Washington, 10,000 in Texas, 7,000 in Hawaii, and 70,000 more in every other state and even in Puerto Rico. We are the most “geographically dispersed” Pacific Islander population within the United States, and off-island CHamorus now outnumber our on-island kin, with generations having been born away from our ancestral homelands, including my daughters.

Some of us will be able to return home for holidays, weddings, and funerals; others won’t be able to afford the expensive plane ticket to the Western Pacific. Years and even decades might pass between trips, and each visit will feel too short. We’ll lose contact with family and friends, and the island will continue to change until it becomes unfamiliar to us. And isn’t that, too, what it means to be a diasporic CHamoru: to feel foreign in your own homeland.

Even after 25 years, there are still times I feel adrift, without itinerary or destination. When I wonder: What if we stayed? What if we return? When the undertow of these questions begins pulling you out to sea, remember: migration flows through our blood like the aerial roots of the banyan tree. Remember: our ancestors taught us how to carry our culture in the canoes of our bodies. Remember: our people, scattered like stars, form new constellations when we gather. Remember: home is not simply a house, village, or island; home is an archipelago of belonging.

–Craig Santos Perez

----------

thank you for reading this post! please let me know if you see any errors.

if you'd like to learn more about some important issues in the pacific, here are just a few:

july 2, 2020: "US says leaking nuclear waste dome is safe; Marshall Islands leaders don't believe it" - Los Angeles Times

may 30, 2021: "Pacific Plunder: this is who profits from the mass extraction of the region's natural resources." - The Guardian

april 5, 2021: "75 years after nuclear testing in the Pacific began, the fallout continues to wreak havoc" - The Conversation

june 4, 2021: "Guam won’t give up more land to the U.S. military without a fight" - The World (radio program)

aug. 24, 2021: "The US is building a military base in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Micronesian residents have questions." - The World (radio program)

and if you'd like to learn more about how maps are political, here are a couple articles:

june 5, 2014: "The politics of making maps" by Amanda Ruggeri, for BBC

july 11, 2018: "Politics and Cartography: The Power of Deception through Distortion" by John Erskine, for the Carnegie Ethics Online Monthly Column

[shhhlikeme]

You know the working daddy captain fanart that you've reblogged recently.. I can't get Kuroo and his son out of my head so may I request a domestic married life au oneshot revolving around that particular fanart - him, his wife and their first kid, a toddler son? Fluffy and romantic, no angst please. If you're up to date with the manga maybe it could be based on post timeskip Kuroo? Thanks a lot!

DILF Day Care With Daddy Kuroo Tetsurō 🤱👼🍼 📆📈

(Fluffville)

‼️ TIMESKIP SPOILERS BELOW ‼️

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“Yeah. Yeah. So that’s what I told Jim in marketing already. To send Bokuto to Tampa to surprise a Japanese little league team there and to send a camera crew with him. Kenma is already putting our ads on his YouTube channel—he told you what?! That he’s not doing it? Well did he say why?! That bratty cat, must have caught him on a bad day. Okay. No, I need this handled TODAY, Greg! Hold on, he will. He’s currently in Italy at some big video game tournament but I’ll stop by his office right now to work it out with his assistant. Just give me thirty minu—“

“Oh no you don’t, Kuroo Tetsuro!”

The wife of the sexiest businessman in the Japanese Volleyball Association Corporation set a cup of French vanilla coffee in front of her talkative husband before stomping her foot. Kuroo quickly covered the speaker part of the phone and gave you a pleading face.

“No!” You repeated. “I am going to Lev and Alisa’s Vogue Magazine cover day-party at their mansion. The babysitter is on vacation. Which means you and only you have to take River to his appointment cross-city.”

Giggling because he understood his own name, almost 2-year-old baby River Tetsurō blew bubbles with his own spit and clapped his tiny hands. Kuroo looked down at the miniature baby he held in his lap as he was on the phone. River looked up at his Daddy and Kuroo’s stomach tightened in return. He quickly said bye to his group call with the interns.

After marrying you 2 years ago, Tetsurō never thought he would love someone as much as he loved you....but he was happily mistaken 9 months after the honeymoon when little River Kuroo popped out.

***

“This is my son?” Kuroo, decked out in a light blue hospital dress—took his baby from the doctors hands. He was the first to hold him. He stared down at his son, already seeing the start of little jet black hairs pressed to his baby’s head.

“Yes.” The nurse grinned, moving Kuroo’s hand so that it was supporting the newborns neck.

Fresh tears sprung out of the ex-middle blocker’s eyes as he shuffled his son to one arm as he moved hastily to hold your hand and show you. He squeezed your hand and the tears kept pouring, showcasing the life you two just created to the wife he loved so much.

“Oh Kuroo....” you whispered drowsily as your eyes filled with tears also. You looked up at your husband in amazement. “He looks just like you.” You whisper to him and then sit up so that you can hold your beloved son yourself.

“Yeah, he does.” Kuroo handed him over to your weak arms, still keeping his hands under yours to support you and the baby. He kissed you on the side of your forehead and wiped your tears. “I love him so much already, Y/N. I love you so much.”

You smiled through your happy tears and leaned your head in to reciprocate Kuroo’s embrace, then leaned down to kiss your baby boy. After a few minutes of admiring him, you handed him back to Kuroo and told him to show the baby to your families and Kenma who were all still waiting in the waiting room. You knew Kenma seemed disinterested to others because he was on his video game, but all who knew him well knew that Kozume was only distracting himself because he was itching to meet his new Godson.

“Okay.” Kuroo whispered into your hair before taking River and planting a kiss on your lips.

***

Returning from his flashback, Kuroo realized that you were in the middle of lecturing him about the balance between work and parenting. He was a phenomenal father and he was there 95% of the time, but he was still a businessman and that meant sometimes he had to work more than he would like to.

Your son started to cry because he didn’t like seeing his mum worked up, so like second nature, Kuroo gave his two index fingers to River to grasp in his tiny hands. That, combined with his dad bouncing him on his the leg (which is exactly what Kuroo was doing) stopped River’s crying in its tracks. River loved holding onto his father’s fingers for some reason, it soothed him. Baby River blew more spit bubbles and giggled.

Kuroo watched you lecturing him, biting his lip because damn was his wife sexy when she was mad. You were all dressed up for this day party in a long black sundress that hugged your curves and as his eyes roamed your figure Kuroo decided that the amazing morning sex you two had earlier suddenly wasn’t enough.

“—Kuroo!! Are you even listening?!”

He returned his eyes back up to yours.

“Uh yes. Listening and undressing you with my eyes. Yep.”

You narrowed your eyes at your man then reached over the expensive island to use River’s bib to clean your son’s snot and spit off his babyface.

You leaned in for a kiss from River and the angel cutely bumped his face against yours, getting saliva all over you. You used his bib to wipe your face too.

“River, honey? Mommy is going to go and have some fun at a party that mommy put on the obvious calendar weeks ago.....the party that she has been excited about going to FOR MONTHS! So, baby boy, your annoying twin will take you to see Dr. Wimble this time because he shouldn’t be working on his days off anyway not to mention he promised, okay my Riv-honey?”

Kuroo deadpanned. “I hate when you speak to our son but you’re really talking to me.”

“Don’t care. I left both your boys’ breakfast is on the stove. And Don’t forget River’s diaper bag!” You stole a sip of your husband’s French vanilla before snatching the car keys and your purse off the island.

Kuroo tried to think about what he was going to do as he continued to bounce his son on his leg, his analytical brain running through dozens of scenarios in a matter of seconds. No matter how he spun it—though, the sexy businessman knew he wouldn’t be without his son today. Looking down at his spiky haired mini-me that looked back up at him with bright, happy eyes, Kuroo realized that—no matter how he spun it—nor would he desire to be without his son today.

“Wait, Y/N! What time is the appointm—“

“—Calendar! Use it!” You yelled dryly before you shut the door and headed to the car Kuroo bought you for Valentine’s Day.

Back inside, Kuroo dragged his son’s high chair next to him at the island and served him the kiddie breakfast you made. Your husband sat beside him, giving River his finger while he drank his coffee and ate his food with one hand. When both boys were done he picked up River and walked over to the calendar.

You were right: it was there. In plain capital permanent marker on today’s date:

It read:

RIVER’S APPOINTMENT - 3:30PM

HAIBA’S VOGUE PARTY - 1PM

DO NOT MAKE PLANS KUROO!

River giggled as if he was making fun of his father and Kuroo looked down at the love of his life. “River, should daddy piss mommy off and erase it so that daddy looks like he was right?”

River stopped giggling and pouted up at his daddy, his tiny lip quivering like he would cry if he did anything to upset mommy.

“Okay okay!” Said Kuroo hurriedly, giving his son his finger again so he’d stop crying. River smiled. “We have 2 and a half hours until your appointment Rivs, which is on the other side of town, and in between is Uncle Kenma’s office. So we will stop there on the way and then the park. Let’s go, son.”

The raven haired baby cheered. “YWAY DA!”

In 30 minutes flat, Kuroo was decked out in an elegant Armani navy blue business suit. He had every colour and material. He collected River’s diaper bag, packed snacks and his baby chest carrier.

Locking up, Kuroo buckled his son in the back of his 2020 Jag, checking thrice if he was safe in his car seat. Then, he clicked the button to play River’s favourite kid show on the car tv and handed him the stuffed cat Hinata got River for Christmas. It was his all time favourite toy.

Once Kuroo parked in front of Kenma’s high-rise office, he strapped on his baby carrier over his Armani suit and placed River in it. The tall and sexy businessman garnerned SO MANY stares as he looked PRIMO SEXY DILF as he locked his car and strutted inside Kenma’s office building with his son, pressing the elevator button. As he waited, he called his best friend who was in Italy. Kuroo held his phone in between his shoulder and cheek before he snapped at his friend.

“Kenma. Do you need me to hop on a plane with River and crash your video game tournament right now?! Because I will.”

There was murmuring on the other line.

Kuroo gasped.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN RIVER CAN COME BUT I CAN’T?!”

River squealed loudly because he heard his name.

“Listen Kozume....... I have the keys to your loft, did you forget? You’ll come home to a mountain of River’s diapers in your game room if you back out now. You can’t just say no because my administrators are calling too much!!”

Baby River smiled cheekily and clapped his adorable hands as he rode the elevator with his daddy all the way up to his godfathers top floor.

That boy had a mother, father, godfather and a long list of pro volleyball player uncle’s who doted on him....

He couldn’t be happier.

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