#and you would snitch on the revolution

[parasiticstars]

Friendly reminder that sexualizing/blorbofying Luigi Mangione and your support for him being a quirky little trending meme is exactly why 1. he's been almost forgotten about when any other time his actions would've had far more rippling consequences, 2. why nothing will ever get done in this fucking ass country, much less the positive-- if violent-- change we need, and 3. goes to show the sheer imbecility of the "lol be gay do crimes" demographic.

Where was your support for Briana Boston, who was falsely arrested just for quoting him? Oh, right, she's not a conventionally attractive white man for you to turn into your next Tumblr sexyman.

[jvzebel-x]

🦋

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Epic Systems, a lethal health record monopolist

Epic Systems makes the dominant electronic health record (EHR) system in America; if you're a doctor, chances are you are required to use it, and for every hour a doctor spends with a patient, they have to spend two hours doing clinically useless bureaucratic data-entry on an Epic EHR.

How could a product so manifestly unfit for purpose be the absolute market leader? Simple: as Robert Kuttner describes in an excellent feature in The American Prospect, Epic may be a clinical disaster, but it's a profit-generating miracle:

https://prospect.org/health/2024-10-01-epic-dystopia/

At the core of Epic's value proposition is "upcoding," a form of billing fraud that is beloved of hospital administrators, including the "nonprofit" hospitals that generate vast fortunes that are somehow not characterized as profits. Here's a particularly egregious form of upcoding: back in 2020, the Poudre Valley Hospital in Ft Collins, CO locked all its doors except the ER entrance. Every patient entering the hospital, including those receiving absolutely routine care, was therefore processed as an "emergency."

In April 2020, Caitlin Wells Salerno – a pregnant biologist – drove to Poudre Valley with normal labor pains. She walked herself up to obstetrics, declining the offer of a wheelchair, stopping only to snap a cheeky selfie. Nevertheless, the hospital recorded her normal, uncomplicated birth as a Level 5 emergency – comparable to a major heart-attack – and whacked her with a $2755 bill for emergency care:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

Upcoding has its origins in the Reagan revolution, when the market-worshipping cultists he'd put in charge of health care created the "Prospective Payment System," which paid a lump sum for care. The idea was to incentivize hospitals to provide efficient care, since they could keep the difference between whatever they spent getting you better and the set PPS amount that Medicare would reimburse them. Hospitals responded by inventing upcoding: a patient with controlled, long-term coronary disease who showed up with a broken leg would get coded for the coronary condition and the cast, and the hospital would pocket both lump sums:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/06/13/a-punch-in-the-guts/#hayek-pilled

The reason hospital administrators love Epic, and pay gigantic sums for systemwide software licenses, is directly connected to the two hours that doctors spent filling in Epic forms for every hour they spend treating patients. Epic collects all that extra information in order to identify potential sources of plausible upcodes, which allows hospitals to bill patients, insurers, and Medicare through the nose for routine care. Epic can automatically recode "diabetes with no complications" from a Hierarchical Condition Category code 19 (worth $894.40) as "diabetes with kidney failure," code 18 and 136, which gooses the reimbursement to $1273.60.

Epic snitches on doctors to their bosses, giving them a dashboard to track doctors' compliance with upcoding suggestions. One of Kuttner's doctor sources says her supervisor contacts her with questions like, "That appointment was a 2. Don’t you think it might be a 3?"

Robert Kuttner is the perfect journalist to unravel the Epic scam. As a journalist who wrote for The New England Journal of Medicine, he's got an insider's knowledge of the health industry, and plenty of sources among health professionals. As he tells it, Epic is a cultlike, insular company that employs 12.500 people in its hometown of Verona, WI.

The EHR industry's origins start with a GW Bush-era law called the HITECH Act, which was later folded into Obama's Recovery Act in 2009. Obama provided $27b to hospitals that installed EHR systems. These systems had to more than track patient outcomes – they also provided the data for pay-for-performance incentives. EHRs were already trying to do something very complicated – track health outcomes – but now they were also meant to underpin a cockamamie "incentives" program that was supposed to provide a carrot to the health industry so it would stop killing people and ripping off Medicare. EHRs devolved into obscenely complex spaghetti systems that doctors and nurses loathed on sight.

But there was one group that loved EHRs: hospital administrators and the private companies offering Medicare Advantage plans (which also benefited from upcoding patients in order to soak Uncle Sucker):

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8649706/

The spread of EHRs neatly tracks with a spike in upcharging: "from 2014 through 2019, the number of hospital stays billed at the highest severity level increased almost 20 percent…the number of stays billed at each of the other severity levels decreased":

https://oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/OEI-02-18-00380.pdf

The purpose of a system is what it does. Epic's industry-dominating EHR is great at price-gouging, but it sucks as a clinical tool – it takes 18 keystrokes just to enter a prescription:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2729481

Doctors need to see patients, but their bosses demand that they satisfy Epic's endless red tape. Doctors now routinely stay late after work and show up hours early, just to do paperwork. It's not enough. According to another one of Kuttner's sources, doctors routinely copy-and-paste earlier entries into the current one, a practice that generates rampant errors. Some just make up random numbers to fulfill Epic's nonsensical requirements: the same source told Kuttner that when prompted to enter a pain score for his TB patients, he just enters "zero."

Don't worry, Epic has a solution: AI. They've rolled out an "ambient listening" tool that attempts to transcribe everything the doctor and patient say during an exam and then bash it into a visit report. Not only is this prone to the customary mistakes that make AI unsuited to high-stakes, error-sensitive applications, it also represents a profound misunderstanding of the purpose of clinical notes.

The very exercise of organizing your thoughts and reflections about an event – such as a medical exam – into a coherent report makes you apply rigor and perspective to events that otherwise arrive as a series of fleeting impressions and reactions. That's why blogging is such an effective practice:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/09/the-memex-method/

The answer to doctors not having time to reflect and organize good notes is to give them more time – not more AI. As another doctor told Kuttner: "Ambient listening is a solution to a self-created problem of requiring too much data entry by clinicians."

EHRs are one of those especially hellish public-private partnerships. Health care doctrine from Reagan to Obama insisted that the system just needed to be exposed to market forces and incentives. EHRs are designed to allow hospitals to win as many of these incentives as possible. Epic's clinical care modules do this by bombarding doctors with low-quality diagnostic suggestions with "little to do with a patient’s actual condition and risks," leading to "alert fatigue," so doctors miss the important alerts in the storm of nonsense elbow-jostling:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5058605/

Clinicians who actually want to improve the quality of care in their facilities end up recording data manually and keying it into spreadsheets, because they can't get Epic to give them the data they need. Meanwhile, an army of high-priced consultants stand ready to give clinicians advise on getting Epic to do what they need, but can't seem to deliver.

Ironically, one of the benefits that Epic touts is its interoperability: hospitals that buy Epic systems can interconnect those with other Epic systems, and there's a large ecosystem of aftermarket add-ons that work with Epic. But Epic is a product, not a protocol, so its much-touted interop exists entirely on its terms, and at its sufferance. If Epic chooses, a doctor using its products can send files to a doctor using a rival product. But Epic can also veto that activity – and its veto extends to deciding whether a hospital can export their patient records to a competing service and get off Epic altogether.

One major selling point for Epic is its capacity to export "anonymized" data for medical research. Very large patient data-sets like Epic's are reasonably believed to contain many potential medical insights, so medical researchers are very excited at the prospect of interrogating that data.

But Epic's approach – anonymizing files containing the most sensitive information imaginable, about millions of people, and then releasing them to third parties – is a nightmare. "De-identified" data-sets are notoriously vulnerable to "re-identification" and the threat of re-identification only increases every time there's another release or breach, which can used to reveal the identities of people in anonymized records. For example, if you have a database of all the prescribing at a given hospital – a numeric identifier representing the patient, and the time and date when they saw a doctor and got a scrip. At any time in the future, a big location-data breach – say, from Uber or a transit system – can show you which people went back and forth to the hospital at the times that line up with those doctor's appointments, unmasking the person who got abortion meds, cancer meds, psychiatric meds or other sensitive prescriptions.

The fact that anonymized data can – will! – be re-identified doesn't mean we have to give up on the prospect of gleaning insight from medical records. In the UK, the eminent doctor Ben Goldacre and colleagues built an incredible effective, privacy-preserving "trusted research environment" (TRE) to operate on millions of NHS records across a decentralized system of hospitals and trusts without ever moving the data off their own servers:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/08/the-fire-of-orodruin/#are-we-the-baddies

The TRE is an open source, transparent server that accepts complex research questions in the form of database queries. These queries are posted to a public server for peer-review and revision, and when they're ready, the TRE sends them to each of the databases where the records are held. Those databases transmit responses to the TRE, which then publishes them. This has been unimaginably successful: the prototype of the TRE launched during the lockdown generated sixty papers in Nature in a matter of months.

Monopolies are inefficient, and Epic's outmoded and dangerous approach to research, along with the roadblocks it puts in the way of clinical excellence, epitomizes the problems with monopoly. America's health care industry is a dumpster fire from top to bottom – from Medicare Advantage to hospital cartels – and allowing Epic to dominate the EHR market has somehow, incredibly, made that system even worse.

Naturally, Kuttner finishes out his article with some antitrust analysis, sketching out how the Sherman Act could be brought to bear on Epic. Something has to be done. Epic's software is one of the many reasons that MDs are leaving the medical profession in droves.

Epic epitomizes the long-standing class war between doctors who want to take care of their patients and hospital executives who want to make a buck off of those patients.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/02/upcoded-to-death/#thanks-obama

Image: Flying Logos (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Over_$1,000,000_dollars_in_USD_$100_bill_stacks.png

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

[rei-ismyname]

Snitching ass Magneto explains

The Uncanny X-Men minus Magneto just returned from taking Tempus to see her mother, where they were ambushed by The Avengers. Caught off guard in a civilian area against gung ho supercops after his head, Scott had originally planned to retreat as soon as they attacked. Tempus freezing The Avengers in time plus a growing crowd enabled a propaganda coup for 'the revolution,' but they shouldn't have been there in the first place. Magneto snitched, as he admits!

Magik's initial reaction is a feeling of betrayal, understandably. I daresay she speaks for everyone present. Magneto spent the last few years building up trust - no easy thing for the former boogeyman the X-Men fought for half their lives. Mags wants to discuss it outside away from the kids. Scott normally would too, so it says a lot that he more or less insists. 'I'm about to lose it, Erik.'

In front of everyone then, though he ceases hovering so everyone is on the same level. Mags opens with the new sentinel problem and how little they know about it, deliberately and unconcerned. That doesn't move Scott at all, who hurries him up with hints of a threat. As he spills the rest of the tea the kids are loving the drama, but Scott is not. I imagine he's especially sensitive to betrayal after the last few years and definitely doesn't appreciate his authority being undermined. Mags' unapologetic, stonefaced demeanor gives away nothing, as he answers 'when were you going to tell us?' with 'I just did.'

Magik takes it hardest, outright asking him to leave. Scott says it's unacceptable, but doesn't get any further before Emma chimes in supporting Magneto's actions. She has a point - it is very clever, though with the amount of variables in play it was risky.

Seemingly conceding the point, Scott presses his issue with how he went about it. Mags pushes back against Scott's authority - pointing out that he only has the authority they give him. Scott is the most obvious choice and the reason they're here, though he doesn't push it - no doubt because of how public the discussion is. Mags highlights the disadvantage they're at and insists that they need to be smarter. They need better intelligence, especially considering they're all wanted for arrest - Scott most of all. Magik is still wholly suspicious and doesn't trust him. Interestingly, Magik and Mags were both on the outs at the same time on Utopia. Untrusted due to previous behaviour, they both worked hard to earn their social positions and stood against the world during AvX.

Emma's approval seemingly earns a stay of execution, so to speak. Mags still has the floor and he uses the lull to pivot focus onto the outcome of his spy games and Tempus' interesting (and powerful) development. The incident did end about as well as possible, at least purely from a strategic perspective.

The embodiment of the risk inherent to Magneto's plan - Tempus' mom mum (she's Australian and we say mum) - appears on the news just as Mags focuses on her. She has more reason than anyone to be upset. I'm sure she is, but her words are broadly pro-Eva/Scott/X-Men. More importantly, she legitimises Scott's declaration of intent while making the Avengers seem unreasonable and frightening (which they absolutely were.) Hilariously, the Avengers are still frozen in time while this is all happening, which means Eva's probably being scrutinized by every black ops and alphabet agency in the world.

The tension and conflict at the core of this argument doesn't go away by any means. Magneto resents Scott a lot, even if he's not willing to admit it. It's mixed up with respect, love, and the mission, but it doesn't take much for Mags to act on it. For now though, they accept the good outcome while Scott and Emma have their own cute little back and forth. The team stays together for a good while and mostly get along, but this incident sets the tone for the leadership dynamics. Mags isn't the only one with complicated feelings towards Mr Summers, and he's definitely not alone in pushing back against his authority. Some miscommunication during the Matthew Molloy/Xavier's Will incident blows it up entirely, but that's a tale for another day.

[bonbonrobespierre]

Citizen Robespierre the Younger,

You were supposed to meet me in Hyères in two weeks. However, I will take the necessary measures to relieve you of this responsibility.

I got wind of your "exploits" at the beginning of April, and once again had to face the wrath of our friend Ricord. Your behavior embarrasses me, and is unworthy of the respect your name is supposed to inspire, and of the importance of our work. It would seem that nothing in the world matters to you beyond your own pleasure. I hope at least, she was worth it.

Therefore, do not bother coming. I shall ask Citizen Carnot to send me someone more suitable who will really take this Revolution and the battles we are waging seriously.

Send my regards to your family,

-@ange-noir-de-corse

[ He stares at the letter in stunned silence, rereading each word until they blur. His eyes dart back and forth across the words like he’s trying to find a hidden line—a joke, maybe. But there is none. His face twists, disbelief hardening into horror, then something sharp. He lets out a breath too shaky to be steady, too short to be angry. But he is angry—at least, that’s easier to name than the shame. The paper shakes in his grip. And then he lets out a furious, strangled noise and throws the letter across the room. It bounces off the wall and lands uselessly by the fireplace. He stares at it as his breathing quickens. ] [ Bonbon shoves his desk hard enough to topple the inkpot, black staining his papers like spilled rot. A glass shatters against the fireplace. The coat rack crashes to the floor as he yanks it down in passing, then the books piled beside the bed. He paces, muttering curses—none of it coherent. ]

Carnot—Carnot—! I knew it, I knew it! Miserable, petty, self-important—snitch! Just whisper a word in his ear and he'll throw me to the dogs, gladly. Couldn’t wait to get rid of me, could he? Bastard..

[ He kicks the leg of his bed, it’s less satisfying than he thought it’d be. His shoulders sag a little. His breath comes uneven. ]

That conniving bureaucratic gargoyle has been waiting for this. That shriveled little gremlin.. Always with his damn smug decrees and his spreadsheets and his infuriating little notes—sniveling, two-faced, paper-pushing—As if it were something sordid. As if she were—

[ The desk drawer gets wrenched open, papers scattering as he digs through them. He throws a handful of old letters across the floor like confetti at a wake, as though by scattering them he might silence the sting of the latest. ] [ His breath hitches. For a moment, he just stands among the wreckage, chest heaving, paper and wood and broken pride at his feet. ] [ Bonbon wipes his eyes with the heel of his hand, then he throws on his coat. The buttons go uneven, and he moves out of his flat. Augustin crosses the narrow street, boots echoing loud against the cobblestones. He then slams his fist on the Duplays’ door harder than necessary. Waits a breath. Then calls through it. ]

Maxime! Maxime, are you in? I—I’m going to Hyères. Now. Don’t try to stop me.

[ He pauses. Then, trying too hard to sound casual; ]

If anyone's replacing me, they’ll have to come rip me out of the south themselves.

[dykesevika]

(Feel free to ignore. I needed to whisper into the void) I've heard through the grapevine that Miguel is sort of a front of house/money collection person. (That was supposedly confirmed through dm's)

But regardless, I think it's so crazy that some people think Babette would send somebody directly to one of her sw's for info. That sounds like a massive safety risk! Like, do we all collectively think that someone portrayed as she is would do that??? If so, I would never fucking work for Babs. I know if I sent someone to an employee to basically snitch on a big bad figure (ESPECIALLY IN ZAUN), I'd be fearful for their safety thereafter. Also, Sevika could realistically withhold or tell workers anything during a visit. What we do know is that the money trail will never lie. It only makes sense to send Vi down that path with a trusted, knowledgeable person who has the anonymity of employees in mind. The supposed money manager, Miguel.

P.S. I do think Sevika is a lesbian. Her commitment towards revolution for her community, though she is not appreciated along the way, is reminiscent of our own lesbian history. I personally hold that close to my heart, but if she ends up being bi down the line? Oh well, I was wrong ig? But she's still a lesbian right now. <3 Apologies for the ramble, I was just super upset about the employee issues!

If you ever have proof about the first part, I'd really love to see it, it would put my mind at ease 😭

I also feel that would make muuuuuuch more sense.

[lottiesnotebook]

hello hello! happy thedasweekend! would love to see cara and varric interact, maybe for the prompt "a lively townhouse, where folks from multiple social strata gather" from the regency prompt list?

You get 2 promptfills tonight, because apparently this was the week for them! You get a Baby Cara prompt fill tonight, which I hope is what you were looking for, bc I feel like it sets up really nicely what their relationship becomes by the point of Veilguard...

Varric Tethras & Cara Hawke-Laidir, Rhiannon Hawke & Varric Tethras, Justice/Anders/Rhiannon Hawke (background), Varric Tethras/Anders (implied), Varric character study, found family, yearning of all shades

@raptortier | @thedasweekend

to love a haunted house

The old Amell house stood abandoned for many years after the daughter fled and the son gambled away his inheritance. In a few years, it will be abandoned again: its burnt-out shell the last monument to the place that was, for a scant nine years, the home to Kirkwall’s Champion, and those she called kin. It is, in a sense, already haunted by the ghosts of its past and future selves. Already, there are rooms with sealed shutters and locked doors, where Rhiannon Hawke's ghosts (her mother, her brother, her far-away sister) dance with the dust and the cobwebs.

But for now, the great front door is thrown open, pouring golden light and sweet music out into the Hightown dusk, and despite his best intentions, Varric Tethras cannot help but let the insidious softness of homecoming draw him in like the siren-song of a Desire demon. Home, to him, has never been golden light and sweet music and laughter so loud, so bright, that it fills the square. Home has always been the mingled stenches of wine and whiskey and vomit, the voices of his mother and brother rising to shrieking, angry crescendos he tried (failed) to soften with a joke or a lie. Perhaps that's why he can't quite bear to leave the Hanged Man: the raucous drunks and spilled booze are the closest he can come to home, now.

That's not entirely true. Home could be a Hightown manor not far from Hawke's, the Tethras crests carved into the yellow stone to match the Amell. He could take his own haunted house and try to make it a sanctuary, a home. Rhiannon Hawke did it, after all. But Rhiannon Hawke killed the Arishok with her twin blades and bow and wicked, wondrous will. Rhiannon Hawke clawed her way out of the Deep Roads with a bag full of gold and a babe in her belly and said: I will not go hungry again. Rhiannon Hawke took an abomination, a martyr, a man destined to go down in history as the spark that lit a torch of revolution, and made of him a husband, a father. Such things have never been within Varric's gift. He's never had her skill for locking ghosts away in dusty rooms, for filling haunted houses (haunted men) with laughter, love, and song.

Then again, he's never had her reason to. They both lost a sibling in the Deep Roads: Rhiannon to the Blight and the Wardens, Varric to Bartrand's betrayal, but where he could let himself slip into a slurry of bitter, bloody grief, she took the shattered pieces of her life, her family, and made them into something beautiful. She had to. She had Cara.

Cara who should, tonight, be in bed already. But as he steps into the hall and Sandal takes his coat, he glimpses a flash of magpie black-and-white between the bannisters, and hears the unsubtle “Psst! Uncle Varric!”

She's lucky neither he nor Sandal are snitches. He climbs the stairs (made lower and wider, more comfortable for the legs of a dwarf or a little girl who should be in bed) with his customary quiet, and crouches to meet her glittering, impish eyes.

“Do your parents know you're up, Princess?” he asks, and of course, her eyes widen with guileless innocence.

“Justice said I could stay up until you arrived,” she says, sweetly, and he feels an unaccountable guilt for being so late to the party — she might have caught cold, waiting in the chilly hall in her nightgown. She's not his kid. She's not. But every time Hawke hosts one of these gatherings, to sweep the ghosts back to their rooms and fill the halls with light, she waits up for him, eyes bright and glittering, in expectation of a story. “Daddy said not to plague you for stories if you wanted your dinner, but asking isn't plaguing, is it?”

To Cara Hawke-Laidir, home is full of golden light and laughter, a surfeit of parents and aunts and uncles, a city built not on the bones of slaves and blood magic but formed purely to adore her, to keep her in safety and comfort and happiness. Her mother drinks, sure, and her father has his own black moods to rival Bartrand's, but they do not raise their voices at her. They wrap their daughter in ruffles and ribbons and cotton wool, her every bruise or broken bone brushed away with spirit magic. She does not know her house is a haunted one. She does not see the darkness in her father, the worn-thin grief in her mother, the glittering lies Varric uses to paint over his bruises and broken heart, the cracks in his façade. She sees only Uncle Varric, storyteller, hero, who’s known and loved her since before she was born, who’s carried her to bed more times than either of them can count.

She says, as she settles beneath the blankets of her canopied bed: “Will you tell stories about me one day, when I have grown-up adventures?”

He lies: “Of course, Princess.”

He never wants to see Cara Hawke-Laidir as the hero of any story he could tell. He wants to keep her like this: bright-eyed, soft-edged, innocent and unburied. He does not want to see her trailing her own ghosts in her wake, to see her carry her father’s darkness, her mother's grief. He wants, more than anything, to keep her from becoming her parents. He knows, from the shaving-glass that shows a face more like his mother's every day (the same broken veins, the same false, gleaming smile) that what he wants is impossible.

But Varric Tethras is accustomed to longing for impossible things. He has never had Hawke's gift for making them real.

[witchofthevale]

↷ september '23 fave fic recs!⋆☂｡☽˚.

Okay, okay here we go! This nearly killed me to make, so you better read them.

I'm kidding... I think.

Gentle reminder that what I consider 'fave' is by my own personal tastes and preferences, and you might not agree with them and that's okay! These are very lovely authors you can peruse on your own to find the right fic for you, and there are always the tags + algo. Just because your favourite fic isn't here doesn't mean it's not good; it could be potentially for a variety of reasons (I haven't read it yet, I have just not this month, I don't vibe with that character, etc).

That's what I love about the individuality in fandom and writers— there will always be that right fic from that right author that just hits all your good spots.

This is mine. For the month of September. If you find your next favourite fix here— I'm glad! If not, that's still swell! Hope you find it!

To the writers— thank you for writing such brilliant fics! I struggled setting this up because of how many I enjoyed 💝.

Anyways...

More quick reminders!

This is set chronologically; both by character name and by fic title.

If you are familiar with my blog, you will mainly see HOTD, some TLK, then random characters.

There may be smut! There may be dark fiction! I support and consume both! Please read trigger warnings actively! You are responsible for your own person! Community Labels ruin fandom ecosystems, stop snitching! Ignore or block at bloody will!

There are no series parts here. That is in a different display post that is still being processed lol.

If you see repeated author names, it can be numerous things— mostly, they're just that good, okay? Okay.

These are only for September 2023. I've read about 500+ on this account alone, and would die if I tried to go back before then, sorry. You can still check them out through tag navigation here!

I've also added some of my works that I enjoyed writing for the month, because why not.

Now that's fucking over, I hope you enjoy!

ABRAHAM (Grantchester)

*Untitled Piece by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

AEGON TARGARYEN II

Ceilings by @sapphire-writes

Lemon Cake To My Tea by @darlingofvalyria

Merciless or Ruthless? by @lovelykhaleesiii

Moan for Me by @st-eve-barnes

AEMOND TARGARYEN

A Mutual Feeling of Hate by @fan-goddess

Gelato by @oneeyedvisenya

Hell Hath No Fury @fromforeigntofamiliarity

His Love by @valeskafics

I'm A Fire, And I'll Keep Your Brittle Heart Warm by @randomdragonfires

Revolution by @valeskafics

The Black Stag by @darlingofvalyria

Til Death Do Us Part by @asumofwords

Unnerved by @dulcewrites

*Untitled by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

*Untitled by @missglaskin

Vulnerability by @valeskafics

ALDHELM

My Heart by @silens-oro

BILLY TAYLOR

The Perfect Send Off by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

BILLY WASHINGTON

Lonely This Christmas by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

DAEMON TARGARYEN

Ask, and You Shall Receive by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

A Thousand Words by @arabellasleopardcoat

Capital by @arabellasleopardcoat

Curse of Womanhood by @just-some-random-blogger

*Untitled by @barbiedragon

Valyrian Bride by @cryingforlife

HARALD SIGURDSSON

A Political Arrangement by @valeskafics

JACAERYS VELARYON

In Bastards of Blue, Wager in War by @darlingofvalyria

MAEGOR TARGARYEN

Little Lights by @dreamsofoldvalyria

OSFERTH

Lacnunga, Or, Remedy by @assortedseaglass

SIGTRYGGR IVARSSON

Little Warrior by @ewanmitchellcrumbs

SIHTRIC KJARTANSSON

Hours by @valeskafics

It's Urgent Darling by @sihtricfedaraaahvicius

Take No Wife by @valeskafics

TOM BENNETT

A Good Wife by @valeskafics

Rest by @fidelias

VISERYS TARGARYEN III

*Untitled by @barbiedragon

MULTIPLE CHARACTERS

Conquerors Reborn by @undertheorangetree | Helaena, Aemond x Reader

El Tango De Roxanne by @valeskafics | Jace, Aemond x Reader

Royalty Fucked by @oorhaellaoo | Baelon, Alyssa x Reader

[the-sunhold-coven]

Just started reading and by God it's amazing ! Love your writing style, very cool. I would give the world for our little Lady. Can't wait for more ! I bet i'll have plenty of fun theories for ya pretty soon ! This being said, I would absolutely make a revolution happen. That damn king. He done fucked up. I'll become a medium just so I can snitch to his wife and she can shake his little fucking head like a goddamn maraca.

Thank you, that's so nice to hear! ❤️

Lady is a treasure, there will be more dog content in future updates where you get to treat her with all the love she deserves.

I'd love to hear about any theories you come up with! Seeing my story from a different perspective would be so fun.

The king has fucked up big time, yes. On some level, he knows that he has and that the person his wife married would never have acted as he has. The problem is that his heart died along with his wife.

[optical-vagueness]

Ok so while my compooter is being repaired, let's put some thoughts about Lauren aka mommy Mother Lauren.

As some of you have said before, it appears that Lauren was the owner of Strexcorp. Kevin was the founder of the Joyous Congregation of the Smiling God. It is unclear when did Kevin changed into what he is now. On It Devours! it's implied that Kevin went to the DOW before the Strex arc on WTNV, met the Centipede, and founded the Congregation. I personally think that from then on, he was kind of like Jekyll and Hyde and he both wanted to keep his radio show and to dominate Desert Bluffs with a religious capitalist corporation so everyone would share his beliefs.

If that is the case, then Lauren helped him. And, when Strexcorp took over, they apparently co-managed it, along with all of Desert Bluffs. They struggled with power but still, Lauren was above Kevin.

After Night Vale made a revolution and both Kevin and Lauren got sent into the DOW, Kevin made his own town out of nothing. Or, well, he did after Carlos left. So it makes sense he would be above Lauren. And, being Lauren superior to him before, it makes sense that it was more tense between them.

Until all that Thing happened and Lauren got the frown tatoo and got banished from Desert Bluffs Too.

Imagine being first, the owner of a big company, then, of an entire city. Then that city conquered another and you were, legally, the owner of that city, too. Then it all is snitched from your hands. You lose it all and you're in a desert where you don't feel hunger or thirst, and there's this fucking lighthouse you can't get away from. You spend some time in that goddamned awful place until you notice that your former employee who you shared ownership of your company and everything you had before with, has founded a new town, but he won't share it with you. He's your boss now.

It would suck.

And then, from an order you received from him, you get mocked and hated by this new community. And while that bastard is happy building his adoration pit and being happy with his boyfriend, you're being tattooed a permanent frown on your face, losing whatever little power you got to recover and being banished from the new town.

I believe that, after all the traumatizing Experience of being thrown into the DOW, Lauren just wanted to be loved. To feel the sense of community she thought she felt before. But she wasn't loved. She then was hated and rejected. So, being that new society a religious one, a way of being loved could be through religion.

And so she became Mother Lauren. First, being the High Priestess — probably the equivalent of the Pope. She would have had to ascend slowly through different ranks to get to that point. So she built that image by herself, and she did that so other people would love her. To connect with others.

But now? Now it seems like Mother Lauren, apparently the counterpart of Huntokar, has possessed her like Huntokar did with Susan Willman.

And, it looks like Mother Lauren is the og Smiling God.

It's like. Huntokar said that while Night Vale used bloodstones to adore her, they didn't know it was she who they were adoring. In the same way, people from Desert Bluffs adored the Centipede without knowing it was Mother Lauren who they were really worshipping. And it makes sense. Total sense in fact. Because, after reading It Devours!, there was something that I couldn't sit with. Darryl & Co. continued worshipping the Smiling God, even after Carlos killed what they thought was the Smiling God, the Centipede. It made a bit of sense, because religion is about community and faith. That's why I also thought that you can't kill a god. Because belief in a deity is about faith. And, if the group shares the belief that it's not dead, then it's still alive.

The only ones that witnessed the burning of the Centipede were Nilanjana, Darryl & Co, so it wouldn't make sense that other worshipping sites believed in the death of their god: it should still be alive. Science can't kill a god. The only thing able to "kill" a god is another god, or another belief.

The Centipede was the manifestation of the Smiling God. Kind of like Jesus was the manifestation of God. In the last episode, I think I heard something about there being more existing centipedes (in It Devours!, the characters haven't seen another centipede). Again, kind of like Jesus was also a man, and there exist other human men.

All this to say that, based on the descriptions of the last episode, we know Lauren has lost control of herself. She's no longer Lauren Mallard. She's Mother Lauren. And, based on the descriptions of the last episode, Mother Lauren is becoming her manifestation. She's turning into a Centipede.

[prelude-magazine]

*PRELUDE MAGAZINE PRESENTS VIVA LA REVOLUTION!!!! (Exclusively on NamiComi) a one shot inspired by many things but more specifically, SHOWA 99 aka, Jet Set Radio. MAIN CHARACTERS - - - #13, Masked Menace:

The Masked Menace #13, and his gang the Crimson Hearts are going up the ranks quicker than any group in the Central Americana!

As they pursue their rank up match, they get ambushed by the police getting snitched on by the rival group they were going to face. It all goes south as the captain of the force comes in and attempts to disband the group as a whole to give his last day as captain a "bang."

With this #13 seeks a opening to free his friends only for the captain to react quickly to shoot him to the back of his head, rendering him unconscious for the time being until he dies. Leaving his crew traumatized and crying for him to get up.

But as the police clean up the site, they didn't bother taking #13's body, trashing him in a corner of an alley way letting him rot to death until a he hears a voice reaching out to him in his mind. . . .

Copguy ( Captain Ogendaka)

A young recent hire to be the replacement as a police captain due to his uncle forcing him to take his place while he retires, telling him "use it as a way to rebuild yourself, your wife would want the better for you. . ." his wife being dead, passing away during a modern day genocidal crisis, leaving him mourning for her for 3 years while trying to cope with the two things that brought them together, Anime and Video Games, re watching old shows and playing the games he remembered playing with his distant wife before her passing, until his Uncle comes in and forces the job as Police Captain to him. . .

END OF BROADCAST. . . STAY TUNED FOR MORE INFO LATER ALSO CAUSE IM TIRED SORRY GOTTA EEP

[ic-napology]

I'm back talking about Napoleon and Josephine: A Love Story✨️

At first I had a problem with how inaccurate it is in so many points, yet now I think that almost every inaccuracy seems to serve a justifiable purpose. Much like in The Gladiator, whose story is good even if it's based in historical inaccuracies. That's what sells this miniseries to me anyway.

The most blatant example of this is the premise, in the first episode: Robespierre being a delulu megalomaniac, Napoleon being openly critical of him thus being sent to prison, while they supported each other's work in real life, and circumstances behind Napoleon's arrest are linked to the Terror's end instead.

Why do I find this justifiable nonetheless? Because first of all, this miniseries caters to a broad audience and its main purpose clearly is to tell a good romantic story with a historical setting, not to give you a documentary. That's the reason behind Bridgerton popularity too. I empathise with Robespierre fans over there, but a generic viewer is more likely to have a stereotypical view on French Revolution where he's cast as a flat main villain, so Napoleon could not be his supporter, being the male lead.

Another inaccuracy is the Bonaparte family still living in Corsica at the time of Napoleon's marriage. Showing them living in Marseille with no context would have been confusing. So Napoleon is Corsican, then why does his family live in France too? But also explaining that they were forced to escape from Corsica by Paoli - thus explaining Corsica's political situation - that would have been too complex and "useless" for the main story, since everything happened years prior to its beginning.

I'm still sad that Napoleon has not a great background story set here though, just some tips mentioned. We do get to know Josephine's full story and its emotional impact on her is crystal clear. I love how Napoleon is portrayed here as a character, but you don't get to know where does his ambition come from. What does give him that energy, what does he believe in and why?

So I see these as more of historical simplifications rather than blatant inaccuracies. I see thoughts behind it. Fleshing out things like these would have required a ton of explanation, but that was just the premise to another whole story, which has to be set in a short time on a script. I wouldn't say it's an impossible task though.

So storytelling-wise, I see a point in this inaccuracy, despite disliking it and finding it hugely misleading.

This miniseries also puts attention to details and facts that other movies may ignore instead. One example of this is the fact that Napoleon and Josephine had to marry a second time before the coronation, thanks to Josephine's snitching to the Pope about their only civil marriage. Little Hortense teaching him to dance is a playful nod to the fact that she actually tried that as an adult before Napoleon got married a second time. Josephine's talent on the billiard table is mentioned and useful to set her interactions with Charles. These bits are loveable for those who are passionate and create a more lively story for those who are new.

What do you think?

[handeaux]

A Secret Organization Scoured Cincinnati For Bolsheviks But Found Only A Schoolgirl

It is inevitable, once you have created an organization to snitch on your neighbors, that you will find neighbors to snitch on. So it was with the American Protective League.

The American Protective League emerged from the jingoistic fervor that gripped America during the First World War. According to Steven L. Wright [Queen City Heritage, Winter 1988]:

“The American Protective League (APL) organized in Chicago in March 1917, had units in 600 cities and a membership roster of nearly 100,000. And by 1918 membership had grown to 250,000. Its membership consisted of bankers, businessmen, attorneys, chamber of commerce leaders and insurance company executives. Because of their ‘high’ position, they easily obtained information concerning ‘troublesome’ citizens, especially those who opposed the draft.”

Nationally, the APL received quasi-legal status as an affiliate of the federal Department of Justice. Locally, the Cincinnati branch of the APL was instrumental in arresting thirteen socialists who were charged with treason for circulating literature opposed to the military draft. Those charges would eventually be dismissed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1924.

With the conclusion of hostilities, the APL technically disbanded on 31 January 1919 when Gerson J. Brown, the wholesale tobacconist who led the Cincinnati chapter, turned over all League records to Calvin S. Weakley, special agent of the Department of Justice. Even though the organization ceased to exist, however, some members insisted on carrying on the work of the League. Germany’s surrender had revealed, according to these men, a new and even more sinister enemy working to conquer America – Bolshevism. John L. Richey, head of the Cincinnati Association of Credit Men, announced through several very public speeches that his position as chief investigator of the American Protective League had revealed to him that Bolshevism was alive and well in Cincinnati. According to the Enquirer [9 January 1919]:

“Mr. Richey declared speakers at recent meetings in Cincinnati had advocated immediate revolution and deliberate assassination of public officials who could not be influenced as part of the Bolshevist doctrine. There has been an increase, Mr. Richey said, in the Bolshevist movement in Cincinnati from 500 members 60 days ago, to a membership of a few more than 3,000 today.”

Not quite a week later, the Cincinnati Post [14 January 1919] announced that Richey now estimated a Cincinnati cabal of Bolshevists, International Workers of the World, and various other radical fellow travelers had more than 7,000 members. Richey pledged to continue his investigative work in Cincinnati despite the dissolution of the American Protective League through a new “secret patriotic organization.” According to Richey:

“Members of these groups of radicals, or revolutionists, are guided by a national head, who directs from New York and Philadelphia. Cincinnatians in the organizations principally are foreign born. There are Germans, Italians, Russians, and Hungarians, with some malcontent Americans.”

In a statement that foreshadowed the Red-baiting tactics of Senator Joseph McCarthy thirty years later, Richey predicted that eight to ten Cincinnati officials would soon resign once the Justice Department digested the reports submitted by the American Protective League. By February 1919, Richey’s estimate of Cincinnati radicals had reached 10,000, holding regular meetings to urge the “seizure of banks, manufacturing plants, and private property.”

Richey repeatedly asserted that the Cincinnati Board of Education fanned the flames of Bolshevism here by allowing teachers to spread radical propaganda. After all his stomping and fuming, Richey had trouble producing a single Bolshevik. Nevertheless, he told the Cincinnati Post [3 February 1919], he knew exactly where to find one:

“The home of a Cincinnati school girl, the alleged meeting place of supporters of Bolshevism, is being watched by the secret patriotic organization of which John L. Richey is head, he said Monday. Richey told of existence of a Bolshevik school where students are taught principles of Bolshevism and urged to spread them in educational institutions. A Woodward High School pupil is leader in the movement, according to Richey.”

The moment Richey made that accusation, the city turned against him and his “secret patriotic organization.” The pupil in question was Rose Simkin, aged 19, who had immigrated from Russia six years earlier. Since that time, she had been employed at the Cross Overall Company while studying in the morning before work and in the evening after work at Woodward High School, hoping to earn citizenship. She told the Post [7 February 1919]:

“I hardly know what Bolshevism means. I am an American. I didn’t even know it was I who was being talked about until told so by the school authorities. Ever since I have been in America and lived in this free country I have thought of nothing except what a wonderful land this is.”

Miss Simkin pointed to her bookshelves, filled with volumes by Poe, Shakespeare and other classic authors and defied Richey to find any hint of subversive literature.

Helen T. Wooley of the Cincinnati School Board was outraged by Richey’s accusations against Rose Simkin.

“There has been excessive zeal in trying to uncover un-American plots and in this case they have hit an innocent girl.”

The American Israelite pointed out that Rose Simkin’s brothers were serving in Palestine as part of the British army there and that Richey may not have known the difference between Zionism and Bolshevism – a not-so-subtle accusation of anti-Semitism. Mainline organizations such as the City Club and the Women’s City Club passed resolutions condemning Richey’s accusations.

As the Simkin debacle faded, so did Richey’s “secret patriotic organization.” When Richey died in 1962, his obituary made no mention of the American Protective League or his secret organization.

In 1920, Rose Simkin married Edward Trieman, her father’s partner in a Race Street haberdashery. She lived to be 70 and gave birth to a son who became a doctor. Her tombstone identifies her as “A Devoted Daughter In Israel.”

[gayisslayyyy]

Please pick a angst AU!!!

Ok thanks you for filling out the poll. The poll will be up for the next 5 days if you haven't and would like to do so

Ok a have a few au that I would like to talk about but let's start with one. I will list some and you please tell me which one you want to hear more about, make art of, and maybe even RP if people like it.

Court jester AU. Court jester AU is a au after the prison. Dream has full power and is working with XD and punz and others. The land is in complete chaos and ruin. Each do there thing kind of but Dream is like the king. Dream has Tommy in his possession and Tommy is his court jester. In this Tommy is the son of creation so Dream drained Tommy's power, took the disc (which where a gift from Mumza) and he is now his prisoner. There are a few others Dream would love to have in his possession but most are in hiding. George is like XD's pet because George sold his soul to heal the sickness he had. George is seen as a traitor because he helped XD take over by snitching and cowering behind him. Most every one in this au is a villain of some kind. There are lots of other characters I didn't say but that's the bass line.

2. Asylum AU. After L'manburgs defeat in battle shit goes down. Eret manipulates and tell others about Wilbur. Eret was very close to Wilbur during the revolution so they knew his weakness and stuff. Others see Wilbur as he falls in a state of depression, anger and even some say insanity. Eventually Eret and Dream get everything they need to lock him up in a asylum. This is a abusive Eret x Wilbur au so he is abused by Eret who goes to visit him and the doctors in the asylum. After that he goes even more mad and gets some new ideas.

[abc1dspntjlc4]

"If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear" Maddie Townsend you would be a snitch during the revolution you FREAK

[ladyhawke]

i’m finishing episode 9 of fathoms deep and literally had to pause because their reading of max is just so fucking wrong!!!! they say they love her but they don’t seem to understand her at all

they’re claiming she’s different from silver because silver only cares about himself and max cares about other because she cared about eleanor. like we didn’t just see her snitching on the other whores to jack because it would benefit her. in later seasons she’s the one mining the chances of the revolution happening. the former whore who happens to be a black woman.

it’s about how she understands power and uses it to her advantage which is why she survives but it’s not honorable, is she the most intelligent person in the whole show? yes but she is questionable and that’s why she’s an interesting character and if you can’t see her for what she is then you can’t really love her