#but i am saying i think it would be good for child welfare

[tanadrin]

[epistemic status: a bunch of semi-related thoughts I am trying to work out aloud] It has been noted countless times that reactionary politics rely on a feeling of threat: our enemies are strong and we are weak (but we are virtuous and they are not, which is why they’re our enemies!); we must defend ourselves, we must not be afraid of doing what needs to be done; we must not shie away from power generally, and violence specifically.

And there are lots of contexts--like when talking about the appeal of reactionary politics in the US before and at the beginning of Trump’s rise to prominence, or when talking about hard-on-crime policies that are a springboard to police militarization, or (the central example of all this in the 21st century) the post 9/11 PATRIOT-act terrorism paranoia that was a boon to authoritarians everywhere, and spurred a massive expansion of both control and surveillance in everyday life--where critics of reactionary rhetoric are chastised for their failure to appeal to the other side, because they come off as callous towards their concerns and their real fears and anxieties.

And while this might not be strategically correct, frankly, I think there’s a sense in which it is justified to be callous towards those concerns. Because those concerns are lies. They may be lies borne out of a seed of real experience (9/11 did happen, of course), but the way that seed is cultivated by focused paranoia, by contempt toward cultivating any sense of proportionality or any honest comparison of risk, the way it is dragooned into the service of completely orthogonal political goals (”the CIA/NSA/FBI must be able to monitor all private communications everywhere in the world, just in case it might prevent another 9/11″) chokes off any possible sympathy I might otherwise feel. American paranoia about another couple thousand lives being lost in a 9/11 like event resulted in a number of deaths literally multiple orders of magnitude larger in Iraq and Afghanistan. During the former, some years Iraq was suffering the equivalent of six or seven 9/11s a year.

So, any fear-driven policy must not (for example) say “to prevent disaster X happening again, we’re going to make it happen 270 times over to someone else.” That’s not reasonable. And “fear is a bad basis for crafting policy” is not exactly a revolutionary observation. There’s that probably-apocryphal story of a Chinese professor responding to Blackstone’s Ratio--you know, “better that ten guilty persons go free than one innocent person suffer”--with “better for whom?” Which is supposed to be this trenchant and penetrating question that makes you reexamine your assumptions. But it’s always struck me as idiotic. Better for society! For everyone! Because the law only functions well if it is seen as a source of order and justice, not as an authoritarian cudgel; because a society in which anxiety drives policymaking and legal responses to social ills is one that is in the process of actively devouring itself; because flooding the public discourse with language that dehumanizes criminals and makes it easy to separate the individual from universal principles like civil rights is an acid that destroys the social fabric.

Fear as a germ of reactionary politics manifests itself in lots of ways outside of both historical examples, like fascism, or more recent examples, like US foreign policy during the war on terror. Fear and its link to purity-attitudes, with a low level of scientific literacy in general, drives stuff like the organized anti-vaccine movement. In the Hertzsprung-Russel diagram of political tendencies, I’d argue it’s a big factor in the wellness-to-Qanon track. It’s a big part of tough-on-crime rhetoric, which in the American instance in particular also draws on an especially racialized form (cf. the “Willie Horton” ad). Fear and purity and anti-contamination anxieties are even big in opposition to nuclear power, because most of the public just has a really bad sense of what the comparative dangers of nuclear vs fossil fuel are; and because the former has been culturally salient since 1945 in a way the latter hasn’t, nuclear contamination feels much more threatening than fossil fuel waste, despite by any measurable harm the latter causing far worse problems, even before you factor in any risks from climate change.

I would like to argue in particular that true crime as an entertainment genre, and wellness culture, and fears about child abuse all contribute to reactionary politics--they are in themselves major reactionary political currents--in a way that cuts across the political spectrum because they are not strongly marked for political factionalism. A lot of the rhetoric both from and around true crime entertainment promotes the idea that violent crime exists, or at least can flourish, because of an insufficiently punitive attitude toward crime; one that can only be fixed by centering victims’ desire (or putative desire) for retribution in the legal process, by eroding the civil rights of the accused, and by giving the police and prosecutors more power. Obviously, this is just 80s and 90s tough on crime rhetoric repackaged for millennials; it centers individual experience a bit more and deemphasizes the racial component that made the “Willie Horton” ad so successful, but it posits that there is only one cause for crime, a spontaneous choice by criminals that has no causal relationship with the rest of the world, and only one solution, which is authoritarianism.

Wellness culture leverages purity concerns and scientific illiteracy in ways which are so grifty and so transparently stupid that it’s by far the least interesting thing on this list to me; its most direct harm is in giving an environment for the anti-vaccine movement to flourish, and I’m always incredibly annoyed when people talk about how the medical establishment needs to do more to reassure the public about vaccines’ safety and efficacy. Again, strategically, this may be correct; people dying of preventable disease is really bad. But doctors as a body didn’t promote Andrew Wakefield’s nonsense; doctors as a body didn’t run breathless article after breathless article about vaccines maybe causing autism; doctors as a body didn’t scare the bejezus out of folks in the 90s and then act all surprised when preventable childhood diseases started breaking out all over the place.

Although outside the whole anti-vax thing, I think there are lots of other harms that wellness culture creates. It tends to be fairly antiscientific; in order to sell people nonsense (because as a subculture it exists almost exclusively to sell people things) it has to discredit anything that might point out that it is selling nonsense. Whether the anti-intellectualism that flourishes in these quarters is a result of intentional deceit or just a kind of natural rhetorical evolution probably varies. But it is an important component of wellness culture to be able to play a shell game between “big pharma doesn’t have your best interests at heart,” “you don’t need your anti-depressants,” and “laetrile cures cancer.”

The way in which fears of child abuse are turned into a reactionary political cudgel probably actually annoys me the most; whether it’s Wayfair conspiracy theories, conservatives trying to turn “groomer” into an anti-queer slur, or just antis on tumblr, the portrayal of sadistic sexual threat aimed at children from an outside malevolent force is compelling only because the vast majority of child abuse and CSA comes from within families and within culturally privileged structures of authority like churches, and this fact makes everyone really uncomfortable, and no one wants to talk about it. I remember getting really annoyed during the Obama years when the White House wanted to talk about bullying and anti-LGBT bullying in particular, while studiously avoiding blaming parents and teachers in any way for it, despite the fact that all the coming out horror stories I know are from people’s parents turning on them.

Now, very conservative politics have always opposed dilution of a kind of privilege for the family structure; they envision a family structure which is patriarchal, and so dilution of this privilege is dilution of the status of patriarch. Very insular communities which cannot survive their members having many options or alternative viewpoints available to them, including controlling religions but also just abusive parents who want to retain control over their kids, also bristle at the idea of any kind of general society-wide capacity for people to notice how parents treat their children. But beyond that, I think our society still treats parents as having a right of possession over their children and their children’s identities, especially when they’re young, and bolsters that idea with an idea that the purity of children is constantly under threat from the outside world, and it is the parents’ job to safeguard that purity. The result is the nuclear family as a kind of sacred structure which the rest of society has no right to observe or pry open; and this is a massive engine of enabling the abuse of children. To no other relationship in our society do we apply this idea, that it should be free from “interference” (read: basic accountability) from the rest of society.

Moreover, the idea of childhood as a time of purity and innocence, which not only must be protected from but during which children must be actively lied to about major aspects of how the world works, is one of the last ways remaining to an increasingly secular culture to justify censorious and puritanical Victorian morality. It is hard to advocate for censorship to protect the Morals of the Christian Public, when nobody believes in the Morals of the Christian Public anymore; but “think of the children!” still works as a rallying cry, because of this nagging sense we have that age-appropriate conversations with children about adult topics will cause them to melt or explode.

In many ways, these anxieties on behalf of theoretical children are the ones I am most contemptuous of. Not because child abuse isn’t a serious problem--it is--but because the vector imagined for it is almost entirely opposite the one it actually tends to occur along. People who pretend that the primary danger to children is from strangers are usually woefully misinformed; people who pretend it is from media are either idiots or liars seeking a cover for their craving for censorship.

In conclusion: while it’s not possible to exorcise all our neuroses from our politics, anymore than we will ever exercise all our neuroses from our aesthetics, there are some we should be especially on guard against. A sense of threat, and anxieties which tie into concerns about purity and fears of contamination, are two big ones. These produce policies that are not only badly correlated with the outcomes they ostensibly want, but actually and severely destructive to them, in the same way that invading Iraq was actively destructive to any notion of preventing terrorism, saving American or Iraqi lives, or promoting political stability in the Middle East. And we should hold in healthy suspicion anybody whose politics seem to be driven by similar neuroses. Some merely believe very harmful things. Some are actually actively deceptive. None will achieve any of the higher aims they claim as justification for their beliefs.

[shini--chan]

How would England and China react to s/o finding out they killed or staged there child's death just because the child wasn't theirs and the s/o becomes either insane or kills themselves because of it?

Not gonna go all the way to that last one. Trigger warning: forced separation, child death, suicidal ideation, emotional abuse, suicide attempt

Yandere Hetalia - China, England (Heart Blood) 

China

“Don’t you think that you are overreacting a bit?”, he asked over the howling wind. 

Yao was thankful that he had elected to still keep his hair tied back once returning from work. Though, it wasn’t like he had had a lot of time and opportunity to settle down - he had noticed you standing on the edge of the roof when pulling into the parking lot. With the momentary surge of panic that sight had inflicted upon him, he had gone bounding into the house and taking the quickest route to the top. 

You turned to him, loose hair whipping into your eyes. Still, the tear stains on your checks were visible and your eyes were red rimmed. Your lips were pressed tightly together and upturned to a grimace. Finally, you opened your mouth and whispered some words into the wind. 

“What did you say?”, he inquired, having not heard you. 

“You made me believe my child is dead! How dare you! You monster! Wasn’t that overreacting? Am I not allowed to be a mother?”, you ranted, obviously heartbroken. You hadn’t taken the news of your child’s demise well, so when you found out it had been all staged, your reaction had been even worse. 

Yao had left you alone at home today after a contentious discussion at the breakfast table, intent on getting some room to breathe and then resolving the matter. For all intents and purposes, you had other ideas. 

Lost in your grief and the feeling of betrayal, you shut your mouth and turned back to the ledge of the roof and leaned forward. Best end this all before the pain grew all the more. 

However, upon realising the imminent danger you were putting yourself in, he immediately sprung to action. A deft hand grabbed you by the collar of your pullover and harshly tugged your back. 

A gagging sound was forced out of your mouth by the violent change in motion and by the collar pressing into your windpipe and trachea. Skin was scraped open as your shins were dragged over the rough concrete of the ledge. You collided with his chest, and he stumbled backwards with you haphazardly locked in his arms. You weren’t going to die; not on his watch. 

China would use the whole incident and your reaction against you. He would argue that you’re unstable and therefore unsuited to be the legal guardian of anybody. Removing the child from your care would have just been a measure to ensure everybody’s welfare, the same applying to his decision of presenting the child’s absence as death to you. You attempting to take your own life would just play into this narrative. 

Once the attempt would be over, he would have you locked up in a psychiatric ward for a few weeks. The staff there would be under strict instruction to not give you a chance of tracking the passage of time or following the events of the outside world in any capacity. This would serve to take away some semblance of reality from you. Yao would have the intention of forcing you to adopt a coping mechanism, with something relatively non-destructive like depersonalisation/derealisation being preferable to other mechanisms like forming addictions or the like. 

Would use the fact that you were institutionalised to undermine your social standing, and to present himself as generous and optimistic and so smitten with you. Since it wouldn’t be actual insanity, he would have the opportunity to quickly reintroduce you to society and garner respect and esteem due to playing such an important role in your “recovery”.  

England

You were in bed, again. In Arthur’s high opinion, this was slowly getting way out of hand. Idleness was only a good look on the ill, and you were perfectly healthy in his eyes. Of course, the events of the past few weeks had been hard on you, it was expected for you to give in to grief. After finding traces of his responsibility in the death of your child, it was understandable that you were upset; not that that would be tolerated any longer though. 

Arthur stood up, and set the newspaper he had been reading to the side. Then, he went over to the window and ripped the curtains open. Back on the bed, you just blinked a few times due to the changes in lighting and then went back to staring blankly ahead. What a pity, even some noises of protest would have been preferable to your non-reaction. 

With a scowl plastered on his face, he strode over to your side, and wrenched one of your arms up. Quiet muttering commenced, just to taper off after a few seconds. Disappointing. 

“Can you really not say anything of meaning anymore?”, he spat at you and then wrenched you out of bed. You crumbled to the floor in a sorry heap, seemingly not conscientious of any pain inflicted. 

When you still didn’t move a single muscle even after a few minutes, he wriggled his arms underneath your armpits and hoisted you into the air. Next, he wrapped an arm around your waist to prevent you from falling in on yourself again, as you seemed so wont to do. 

A calloused hand grasped your face, and forced you to look at him. Not that it helped much, from the looks of it, with your bovine stare and flat affect. 

“Can’t you be more useless”, he remarked snidely. 

Arthur would find the whole affair very annoying. You just had to be clever enough to find out about his involvement in your child’s murder and you just had to be so sensitive to fall to insanity/catonia. At first, he would think that it is merely something that you need to snap out of, and proceed to wait. Maybe he’ll even be able to catch you red-handed at being “normal”. When that doesn’t occur, then he’ll go down the route of trying to provoke a reaction out of you. 

While he would love the fact that you aren’t cursing him out, or trying to run away anymore, your predicament would be the cause of a different frustration for him. Never had been wanted an inanimate object as a love interest. You are supposed to have a measure of your own agency, provided you heed his whims and desires. 

Would try to cure you or even just force you to become more reactive through a mixture of drugs that provoke/suppress certain emotions. In continuation, he would use any ensuing addictions to have tighter control over you. 

[mobiused]

To be honest the fact we got to the stage where we could agree that boycotting is the right thing to do kinda surprised me cuz I'm so used to people going "but what about the babygirlywirlys feelings🥺🥺 they are just simpleminded feeble little girls who dont know what a big word like BOYCOTT means and theyll think we dont wuv them and will want to kill themsleves,, so we cant do that to them🥺" Obviously the notion that these grown women would be unable to wrap their head around the concept of a boycott being for the greater good is even funnier seeing as Lawsuit Line have organised their own boycott (‼ so awesome!!) of Fab. So yeah they understand what a fucking boycott is and won't take it personally.

Like. if you have been an orbit for a long time you will remember how wuebits spoke and still speak about Choerry's boycott and how it mustve hurt her little feelings... like paying to see a child in a miniskirt moan in your ear and dance provocatively is somehow OK if you say you only paid money to the company that did this her because you........ don't want to upset her..??? (I hope you never have children if this is your mindset regarding safeguarding and welfare of kids.) So yeah I am actually impressed that Orbits have finally fucking finally changed their tune, especially in this day and age where a tweet talking about how gross it is to support children in the industry gets 20k RTs and yet somehow all you guys know the names of these freshly debuted kids and their favorite colors their token animal their mothers maiden name etc etc etc. Are you not embarrassed lol...

And I hope we shame everyone we see who fails to boycott because it *is* embarrassing and it *is* weak, and it *is* putting money in the pockets of criminals and abusers. We can't just say it's okay~ I understand~ because no actually I don't understand how you can be so lacking in self control that its actually harder for you to literally do nothing than to waste money on some junk when you can pirate it anyway. How could you be so pathetic and somehow claim to care about these girls' wellbeing? Like this about people's real lives and real human rights and we need to take it as seriously as the girls deserve.

[messenger-of-stupidity]

NAH NAH NAH

Okay. Let's go through the thoughts of this latest update. There's a lot so buckle up buttercup.

1. Kravitas is literally so based. He's willing to spare Albus the suffering of long travel just because he's bored when typically he would enjoy Albus suffering.

2. Only Albus would risk insanity to spite a demon. Ever heard of cutting off your nose to spite your face, Albus? Seriously, these dude shot himself out of a fucking canon to stop Devlin from touching this hella cursed sword, but in typical Albus fashion when it's his safety and emotional welfare at stake common sense flies out the gods be damned window.

4. Is Kravitas really a demon or was his statement last episode about being more than that the truth that Albus just chose to call bullshit on?

5. Kerano, sweetie, if you don't like the sweater you don't gotta be nice to me and lie. Tis okay

6. Dad is back with his video of a casual demon attack. A normal Thursday. You'd think violence could slow enough for Faithful to get some groceries but I guess not.

7. AN ADULT TALK? EXCUSE ME? also yes now shoo child.

8. Guess I'll just go in a bunker and braid some hair or some shit. Whatever.

9. Don't you love it when the father figure of your child is so obsessed with transformers that he turns into a robot? (Yes I know he didn't turn into a robot. It just sounded kind of robotic in my head and it was funny.

10. What's the song called? It was kind of a vibe.

11. Oh my God we're raising a menace, thief, AND a liar. Where did we go wrong? 😭 Also can Faithful read minds? She was able to hear Kerano's mind about a key or something before Kerano had it, and was able to read the thoughts after that.

12. Move aside, Faithful is coming through like a badass. Hold the child

13. Oh neat. Both Albus and I have yelling voices in our head. 🥲

14. "I AM THE GREATEST GOOD YOURE EVER GONNA GET" - Faithful 2023

15. IS HE CUTTING OFF HIS HAND?! KERANO LOOK AWAY

16. Are... Are you seriously gonna make me choose between my two husbands right now? WHERES MY POLY OPTION? (Albus and Devlin in strictly familial relationship with each other. No condoning incest here)

-Branch-

Albus Route:

- yeah u tell him Devlin! How dare he try to reject us after saying it was our choice. Bitch

- UH I UH UHM ER

- daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry. Daddy? Sorry

- HOW MANY ROUNDS? Albus let her BREATHE before you fuck her to death omg

- I thought we became a bio mom to half demon children. But nah turns out we became a slutty saint

- YOOOO another thing in common with Albus! We both don't like kids. For different reasons but the point still remains

- Awww. He misses Devlin.

- Kerano is wholesome but I ain't forgiving her for snatching that key

- wait does anyone remember when he said he wouldnt tap faithful with a ten foot pole? Does that mean he tapped her with an eleven foot pole to stay true to his word?

- Devlin Route -

- that's what your brother said to me in an alternate reality when I chose him too.

- Albus back with the orgies. My angsty brain McThinks it's some copium since that's his whole "nothing hurts me!" Mask

- "HES A ROCKIN SPACE AGE BACHELOR MAN" I hope he gets his dream of being a monsterfucker

- Faithful got that holy rizz sheeeeeeesh

- astrology 🥰

- wait nevermind. Just some brotherly love

- you can call me darling any day of the week baby. I am living for it.

- Awww starry kiss. 🥹

Update: I keep forgetting there's a high chance that GBA will see this... BUT YOU KNOW WHAT?! I STAND BY WHAT I SAID (/lh) 😤😤😤

Update #2: for those asking about the third route thoughts, that's a secret that I'm saving for a fic.

[samueldays]

@eightyonekilograms asked:

What are the actual bits of legislation and policy which discourage people from having more children? I mean, people can and do argue furiously over this question, but

I don't know, but I think it would be funny to present some spurious correlations and non-correlations from Gapminder, to hint how high the bar for "evidence" is (or arguably should be) in these furious arguments. I have no specific conclusion here, only a sort of confused interest in the subject and a feeling that it should get more attention. I have my quibbles with Gapminder, but it provides a lot of easily visualized data.

Maybe the problem is low infant mortality. If you killed more infants, people would have more children to replace the dead ones. /s Note log scale:

I am confident in saying this is obviously not a real cause despite the high correlation; if you want to show a real cause then you should be able to present a correlation at least this strong to stand out from the noise!

(Color coding is blue=africa, red=asia, yellow=europe, green=americas)

Same data without the scaled-to-population data discs, and with one weird country highlighted:

Israel is clearly doing something right to have low infant mortality and lots of babies, and Israel is also such an absurd outlier on many other counts that trying to get policy from Israel is probably ineffective.

Maybe personal computers are to blame:

This is a linear scale but looks like a log chart anyway, and it's suggestive of needing less than 1 PC per 5 people to reproduce at replacement. Log off, go outside, touch ass. (Gapminder auto-adjusts years sometimes when it doesn't have later data, hence the 2006.)

81 suggested it's NIMBY housing policy and I didn't find a good measure of that, but here's something at least vaguely related to construction regulation, for what that's worth: Procedures to build a warehouse.

Mmmm not seeing a correlation there.

To some degree, a lot of the stats from Gapminder are proxies for prosperity, and there's something about prosperity that's negatively correlated with reproduction.

If you measure something like "energy use per person" or "life expectancy" or HDI, it's going to closely track GDP per capita. So let's look at some stats I think are less associated with GDP per capita.

Unemployment rate? This ain't it chief.

Motorcycle death rate? Nah.

(The far-right dot is Thailand. TIL!)

Here's another which is correlated with the overall GDP per capita. Rich states can afford more of it, and they do. It's similar to some programs suggested to increase birthrate:

Gapminder doesn't have specific data on parental leave or child subsidies, but the fact that welfare is so tightly correlated with lower birthrate suggests that you can't subsidise your way out of this.

(The outlier dot here is, again, Israel.)

In closing, consider more teen pregnancy:

[fabaceous]

I love your jackieshauna thoughts, so Id love to know what you'd think would've happened if Jackie had lived, and Shauna had the baby, with both and her and her child surviving? Would Jackie ignore the baby? Forgive Shauna? Care for the baby? And post rescue?

ahh i am so flattered thank you and im glad you enjoy them! so if all three of them had lived, you're saying? honestly that is such an optimistic scenario that i dont think ive ever really devoted any serious thought to it😂 i dont know... i could see a world where jackie throws herself into the stepdad/dad-who-stepped-up role in the woods and cares a lot about the baby ... it could be kind of a reverse divorce scenario lol she and shauna may not really reconcile at first but sort of grudgingly coparent the child because they care about its welfare so they put aside their issues ... and then maybe over time the coparenting thing gives them some perspective and brings them back together... our very own yellowjackets romcom!

im kinda struggling to think of other scenarios tbh. i could see jackie like you said, ignoring the baby for a bit because she's so pissed at shauna and wants nothing to do with her (and by extension nothing to do with the baby bc it's also this reminder of jeff, and jeffandshauna, which would be extra painful) ... but i also feel like jackie's the kind of person who is a sucker for babies so i dont think she'd last super long!

post rescue, good question. i always draw a blank for post rescue scenarios just because we know so little about that timeline to begin with that and i do my best speculation when i have at least something to go off of... like, i assume the baby would live with shauna and her mom, right? lol imagine if jackie is over there so much that she basically moves in (a win-win right, cause she would probably be happy to escape her own parents) and she, like, bans jeff from the house because fuck that guy, SHE'S the dad. sorry this is kind of turning into a romcom again hahaha

[jellybeanium124]

the collapse of the united states government would not be good. I know that the US gov't has fucked shit up literally everywhere, but there is a lot of stuff they do that you don't think about. let's talk about just the domestic stuff as I am a citizen of the empire and am most familiar with that. in no particular order, completely off the top of my head:

funding for the upkeep of the interstate highway system

FDA and USDA making sure the food and drugs we're ingesting don't harm or kill us

some states pay more in federal takes than they get back but some states don't these states are funding their shit with federal funds. schools, for example. our FREE public education system. FREE public education age 5-18 WAS NOT ALWAYS A THING

let's be honest, if the federal government collapsed, that would affect things at the state and local level. your fire department. your library. the upkeep of your public parks. public universities. hospitals.

How are we gonna import foreign items?? you know like all the stuff from china we consume on a daily basis?

they print all the money. if you think inflation is bad now wtf do you think will happen without the federal government keeping it in check??

medicare and medicaid

CHIP and food stamps

about 3 million people work for the federal government. that's 3 million people, from the politicians you want to firebomb down to the janitors cleaning government buildings out of a job. and remember that federal employees work all across the country. this isn't just the good old swamp that will be affected.

state and local government employs tens of millions of people. social workers work for the state. public defendants. all out of a job.

speaking of social workers, not to cry "think of the children" but fuck it yeah think of the children. no school = no outside adults watching them for signs of abuse. no social workers/child protection agency = nobody intervening at all. what about all the kids up for adoption? what about all the kids in foster care? the federal government supports state child welfare and foster care, although there are private foster care agencies. what happens to those kids?

without taxes how are you paying for anything

the national parks?? who is looking after them?

911? what are we supposed to do in an emergency?

I'm stopping here. This is just the domestic stuff a shmuck like me could think of in a few minutes with minimal googling. To say nothing of foreign aid elsewhere in the world.

Yes, the federal government has done many horrible, tragic, unforgivable things, at home and abroad. this is not a brain-dead patriotic defense of the united states. I also know many people would like us to shove our foreign aid up our own butts because it's the opposite of helpful. but the us gov't also does many thankless upkeep and maintenance tasks without which many many many people will DIE. The collapse of the united states government would be a horror and a tragedy. the united states is an empire and the collapse of an empire will be bloody and tragic and brutal. maybe that makes your blood hot with righteous revolutionary fervor, but what happens when it's your mom or dad or sibling or best friend or partner or you? what happens when the world as you know it collapses around you and you can't get your medications or gas for your car and your money is better off being burnt in a fire? what happens then, huh?

[protect-daniel-james]

found a lovely little interview with Unai from his co-written book "Mentalidad ganadora":

What is perfect happiness for you? - A deep inner feeling that is not conditioned by the outside.

What is your greatest fear? - I try not to use the word "fear" because I know well that it conditions. There is a fear that is perhaps necessary at certain times in order to be able to respond to events. (proceeds to talk about football which is irrelevant here) I don't live in fear.

Which historical figure do you most identify with? - I have never had a clear reference, to be honest. The prototype can be a person of integrity, respect, and a fighter for positive things.

Which living person do you admire the most? - I admire hard-working people and people who put in place the progress, welfare, and peaceful coexistence of human beings.

What is the personality trait you like least about yourself? - Uncontrolled selfishness.

And what do you dislike the most in the others? - Envy and resentment.

What is your biggest extravagance? - I don't consider myself an extravagant person. I would be embarrassed.

On what occasions do you lie? - In white lies. For example, when your mother calls you and asks, "Have you had dinner?" And you haven't had dinner yet, because you haven't had time. Things like that, of little importance.

What do you like least about your appearance? - I don't like to see myself on television or on the internet. I don't look good (to) myself. I think it's the conflict we people have of wanting to be perfect. I like to give a personal touch to my clothes. A coach once told me, "You talk faster than you think", yes, I speed up when I talk.

When and where have you been happiest? - I think I have always been happy, I feel happy internally, with virtues and defects. I have never had excessive ambitions. My images of happiness are: as a child, with my friends, siblings, and family, and with a lot of football around me. I have always felt fortunate.

If you could change anything in your life, what would it be? - Maybe, when I was a soccer player, I stopped studying for too many years.

If you could change anything in your family, what would it be? - My wife is from Malaga and I am from Guipuzkoa. From the virtues of seriousness, responsibility, and dedication to our obligations, maybe we northerners have the defect of not being very caring and detail-oriented for the "little big moments". The attachment of families, in the North, is more to do than to say. When it comes down to it, it really should be half-and-half…

What do you think has been your greatest achievement? - Doing my profession with patience and perseverance.

If you died and were reincarnated as a person or a thing, what would it be? - Actually, I would like to be me again. A person close to me, whom his friends call "vinegar" because of how negative (sour) he can be, thinks things like, "Why was I brought into this world if I didn't ask to come?" My position is the opposite.

What is your most precious treasure? - My son, without a doubt. My heart is largely occupied by my son and my family, my friends, and the teams in which I have been lucky enough to develop: Real Sociedad, Toledo, Ferrol, Leganés, Lorca, Almería, Valencia.

What do you consider to be the greatest human misery? - Inequality, which leads to poverty. I am neither left-wing nor right-wing, but I consider this world to be very badly distributed. And that we are all quite selfish… In this generalized selfishness, everyone moves in 80 percent only for what is in their interest. The 20 percent in the most solidary ones are the example, thinking of others. There are few people who really work against inequality.

Who are your heroes in real life? - My son, because he embodies his mother's values and mine. What I value most in my son is how happy he is. To see in a son how much he loves his mother and how much he loves me is fantastic.

What do you dislike the most? - Getting up in the morning when the day before we lost a game. Since I was a player I can easily disconnect and sleep thinking about positive things, but the memory of what happened comes to me when I wake up. I sleep well but I wake up thinking about and working on the game.

How would you like to die? - Without being afraid of death, which is something I'm not worried about right now. I would like to die surrounded by the people I love the most. And providing more peace to them than they would do to me.

What is your personal motto? - My internal motto is: "Come on, come on, Unai, don't stop, move forward" and I tend to express it in different ways. Go forward, with strength. For example, when we score or when we win a game, I make a very characteristic gesture (a very sportsmanlike gesture, moving my right arm inwards) I think that you have to do things as well as possible, the circumstances that you create are the path to success. Because the better you do things, the more likely you are to succeed.

I love all of this; especially the way it goes from "who is your hero" to "how would you like to die", lol. But seriously, it's a nice insight into Unai's soul, and I will be using the hell out of it.

[incomingalbatross]

Completely unedited and unexpanded reading notes on Tenthragon Ch. 8-19

Ch. 8

(filled with rage) Mary!!!!

That is all I have to say about chapter 8. This poor BABY. He doesn't understand how rules work! Scaring him doesn't HELP!

Okay wait I do have something else to say, and it's that I genuinely don't know what Hugh was getting at with his hints about Brendan's relationship to Paddy.

The obvious idea is that Brendan is Paddy's father, but then A) Hugh wouldn't hate Paddy if he weren't the Snake's son, right?? and B) Hugh says Paddy IS their cousin, implying he is ALSO something else.

This suggests a relation might be through Paddy's mother's side--was she a relation of theirs? I don't think she could be Hugh and Brendan's sister, though, because I think someone said she lived in China.

*throws up hands*

Ch. 9:

Paddy trying to hide from the Nightmare Guilt lurking in his mind is all too relatable. :(

Wait did Ellen say Hugh TOOK Paddy from his parents? I mean, no names obviously, but the baby mentioned has to be somebody we know and there's nobody else. How does THAT fit in here?

Ellen. Thank you for giving good advice, but also TAKE IT YOURSELF. If it's better to be punished by Brendan than kept in bondage by Hugh (and it IS), act on that? Don't ask the child to braver than you're being.

Ch. 10

Hugh: *tortures a child*

Hugh: UGH why are you always crying

I DO understand that he's replicating what Paddy's father did to him.

…That should really make him LESS surprised by the results.

Ch. 11:

All right, Hugh suffers SOME pangs of conscience. Not enough to actually face what he's doing, but some.

Ugggh this man. Wilfully fighting back against his softer feelings toward Paddy, of course, but I'm also just mad how he assumes Paddy will ENJOY misbehaving or breaking things. Even when Paddy says he doesn't want to! Hugh doesn't listen!

Ch. 12:

"surely you love him well enough to trust him?" That's the WHOLE THING, that's what Paddy can't get to, because he can't tell what's reasonable and what isn't so maybe a person like Brendon WOULD still cut his thumbs off for what he did! Maybe that's a reasonable consequence in Brendon's eyes! He can't piece together that that's incompatible with his love and respect for Brendon. Because he is a CHILD.

Hm, the sister lived in Other Thragoness all her childhood and Hugh refuses to say any more. Some evidence she could be Paddy's mother, then.

Oh NO poor BABY (he was caned)

Ch. 13:

Hugh: Hm. Why does hurting my baby cousin/nephew feel bad. Why am I trying to make him feel better. Why CAN'T I make him feel better by just pressing a button and magically turning off all his hurt feelings, it's like my actions have consequences

Ah yeah, Hugh's got a point, doesn't he? The "telling Brendon" threat isn't just empty, it's more likely to end HIS world instead of Paddy's.

Hugh: Well, having recreated my childhood trauma, I guess I'll recreate the consolations we got as well! Please don't examine any of this too closely (SUCH a mess)

And he literally HAS a way out of this self-created trap. Brendon wants to tell him Paddy's here! He is asking for an opportunity! And Hugh decides to keep going with the layers of lies instead.

"Hugo mio" aw that's cute

"DON'T TELL ME HE'S LIKE ROBIN I DON'T LIKE THOSE IMPLICATIONS"

"You would like him yourself if you knew him." OOF

Ch. 14:

Can't believe Paddy told Hugh he was "mean" for the first time ever and it was over Hugh's teasing him with a glimpse of "the baby"

(Also that Paddy's immediate reaction to hearing the baby was in the house was "Brendon doesn't like it better than me?" <3)

Brendon's a knight for the costume party. Of course.

Hugh speaking well of Quentin is…a lot. But also OW the blatantly awful things lying BARELY under the surface of what he tells Paddy--and that is the best he has to tell! It's just All Awful! 

Of course, this isn't sustainable either. But give Hugh credit, he has very little practice thinking about other people's emotional welfare. He's trying not to be actively cruel here!!

Ch. 15:

Oh no, baby. :( Progress with Hugh is good but a barrier between him and Brendon is BAD. Unfair to both of them.

Ugggh, ANOTHER unjust adult in his life. Just what Paddy needed.

"Did you enjoy living at Victoria Lodge?" "Why, was I meant to?"

NO

Brendon is his world! And yet he believes Brendon might cut his thumbs off! THIS is why little children are so vulnerable!!

He's HURTING HIMSELF ON PURPOSE to make a chance for Brendon to take care of him. HONEY

Oh the ESSAY. The best thing Miss Prince ever did was send Brendon Paddy's essay.

His mostly-dead relatives are his imaginary friends. I can't believe Paddy actually brought MORE Gothic to Thragoness.

His imaginary dad is just a version of Brendon who approves of him AUGH

He's REENACTING THE RING ABUSE AS A PRETEND Brendon get this child some better occupations

Ch. 16:

No Brendon not like that

…The flipside of the problem is that Brendon ALSO doesn't get that Paddy loves HIM. Because Paddy doesn't TRUST him and Brendon is misdiagnosing the symptoms (and doesn't have confidence he CAN do a decent job with Paddy)

Hugh. Hugh. I GET that you can't cope with Brendon's feelings being hurt either, but it doesn't help to yell at Paddy without actually explaining what he did wrong, and it ESPECIALLY doesn't help when this whole thing is your fault

(Though tbf, Paddy HAS been hiding his problem from Hugh. And Hugh doesn't want to see anything unpleasant unless it's put directly in front of him, so)

Hugh is such a WILD mixture of growing self-knowledge and complete blindness to Paddy. "Not that YOU would know anything about living in dread of discovery, of course"

Ch. 17

Ah yes the WORST POSSIBLE PERSON to catch Paddy. SURE WHY NOT.

All three of the Tenthragon boys are having the WORST DAY IMAGINABLE.

Incredibly impressive, though, what coherent characters both of these brothers are even filtered through Paddy's POV.

Oh Brendon. Buddy. I understand what you're doing, and Hugh literally asked for it because he can't achieve emotional honesty to save his life, but DON'T.

Ch. 18:

Okay, I did not give Brendon enough credit. I mean, I still suspect he doesn't know how MUCH he means to Hugh, but he's putting more even thought into this than I thought.

Paddy loves Hugh too. :( It shouldn't have been his job to learn to understand Hugh, but he has a bit anyway.

He's writing LETTERS to Hugh.

No one is entirely happy and everyone concerned here misses each other and it doesn't CHANGE anything

Oh, the mysterious sister is here?? She's here with her husband???

Auggggh the Snake is HERE.

UGGGGH the sleeper command to "obey Brendon" at the beginning of the book came from HIM? Of course it did. Lifelong expert in frightening children.

Hey. Hey Hugh. Thanks for stealing Paddy when he was a baby.

Ch. 19:

…Oh. Somehow I did NOT place that all the tragic Tenthragon deaths probably weren't accidents.

…Really should've picked up on that.

Oh GOLLY. (Quentin getting legal and financial guardianship over Hugh.)

Hugh telling the whole story in third person because he can't deal with actually TELLING Paddy.

I repeat: even if it wasn't Hugh's intention, the arrangement he put into place ended up being probably the best outcome possible for Paddy.

…I'm sorry, are you telling me that Hugh is STILL NOT A LEGAL ADULT. CURRENTLY.

I knew he was young, but…

That's what you DO miss when POV is filtered through a nine-year-old.

(Brendon might still be in his twenties himself, then. He probably is. OOF he has had WAY too much on his shoulders for WAY too long.)

(He IS in his twenties. He's I think twenty-five?? What an INCREDIBLY good adult he's been.)

Noooo, Brendon, Paddy DOES deserve to know. He's already in the middle of this, he should get to navigate it with some understanding of what he's seen.

Oh, all right, if Hugh didn't want it read then it's fine. Hopefully Paddy can wait a bit to understand his family fully.

Dread.

It ends THERE?

[ainyan]

coral— what’s something you’re passionate about?

salmon— would you prefer a partner who is an introvert or an extrovert? why?

pastel pink— do you prefer to dress up and go out or stay in and relax?

-each for one precious FFXIV baby of your choice :3

coral— what’s something you’re passionate about?

"What am I passionate about?" Kyszarin reaches down to stroke his hand along Raine's hair where the other viera sits cross-legged at his feet. "Besides him?" He smiles when the younger man tilts his head back and beams upwards at him. "I think... the welfare of children," he admits softly. "And the preservation of wild spaces - but mostly the former."

Raine pipes up. "It's true, nothing gets him angrier than seeing a child neglected or abused. I can't tell you how many parents have been given a taste of what they give their kids."

"Children are precious," Kyszarin says flatly. "They're a gift. You don't neglect your gifts. You don't abuse your gifts. You admire them. You cherish them." He strokes his hand over Raine's hair again, soothing himself. "You love them."

salmon— would you prefer a partner who is an introvert or an extrovert? why?

Szah'li shifts uncomfortably. "I mean, I don't know," he says, ears flat to his skull and tail twitching back and forth like an irritated cat's. "I guess an introvert, 'cause I don't want a partner who's gonna get upset when I'm all hunkered up and hiding." Grimacing, he mutters at himself. "I mean," he adds, his diction shifting, becoming more precise as he concentrates, "I would not be a very good partner for someone who is extroverted. I don't really like being in the spotlight, and they will be awfully bored when I don't want to go out and... mingle." His eyes slide to the side and he falls into a brooding silence. "I don't think she's an extrovert?" he murmurs, his voice almost too soft to carry.

pastel pink— do you prefer to dress up and go out or stay in and relax?

Ciprys laughs gaily. "Dress up and go out, of course!" she cries, springing to her feet and doing a quick twirl, skirts swirling and skin flashing. "Why would I own so many pretty dresses if I don't want to be seen?"

Cirdan leans back in his chair and sighs grumpily. With a giggle, the tiny Au Ra twirls and slides onto his lap, throwing her arms around his neck. "Don't listen to Mr. Frump here - he cuts quite a resplendant figure, himself," she assures you. "He just doesn't like to show off as much as I do. He makes an excellent foil for me, though. And he's so terribly indulgent."

Cirdan grunts again, but nods, allowing that he is, indeed, terribly indulgent.

Original Ask Meme

Thank you for the ask!

[fightingthetides]

2 truths and a lie

I regret that I did not know what my family was from the beginning.

I am afraid I will stain my hands with blood.

I am scared my father and I will never have good relations again.

Taken from meme: [x] ||Accepting||

Hard to say, but Ravein was inclined to towards one of the options. It was harder to dig for information on subjective or non-tangible things like emotions. For those who don't speak on their emotions or always construe their emotions as something else, it was hard to get accurate information on such things.

Still, knowing that she'd been a civilian for so long, coming to suddenly find out the true occupation of your Father must've come as quite the shock. It was reasonable to think that the fear of having your hands stained with blood eventually.

He knew from experience how it felt to stain your hands with bloods due to the mafia.

Did she fear that her relations with her Father would never be good again? He was conflicted. He dare say that she may be worried about it, or rather instead be bitter about how things turned out because he kept this part of her life a secret from her until now.

It was a plausible choice.

However, the first one had his attention. Why? The wording. Regret, to feel sorrow for what has been done or failed to be done.

She was never given the choice in the matter of knowing the true nature of her family. The truth was kept from her, and so there is no regret for what was failed to be done. You can't regret when you were never given the choice.

You simply lament over what could have been or become bitter over the injustice of the situation.

Though maybe he's thinking too much into things. In regards to relations, it took two parties. If she was willing to put forth the effort to mend the relationship, that was half the battle. If he saw no reason to mend their relationship, then it was doomed to fail.

Ravein, being the simple-minded and optimistic fool he was, wanted to believe that no parent would wish to have a bad relationship with their child. What parent wouldn't care for their child and their welfares?

Nunnally seemed resistant to the mafia world, so he didn't think she wanted to acclimate herself to the cutthroat and dark world, so fearing what she may become if she sticks around would be a valid concern.

All in all, the first option was looking the most likely.

[#1]

So, tell him. Is he right?

[scrollsfromarebornrealm]

wayward (grand)daughter (6)

“Dmitri, Derenenov...”  Y’shtola muttered as she paged through the book, Urianger next to her. 

“Thee has't not hath found aught of Roderick DeGlass yet, then?”  Urianger asked. 

“No, not yet.”  Y’shtola answered.  “But there has to be something.  Master Matoya said she remembered him being a regular fixture here when the colony was active.  Given his mastery with aether and his pedigree, he would have been allowed access to some of the more sensitive workings.”

“I am still having trouble believing what we have been told.  Moenbryda told me of the events in her letters, but-”  Urianger exhaled.

“To think that Riven could be the child that survived such horrors...”  Y’shtola looked up at the elezen.

“The scandal resulted in a massive overhaul of the child-welfare system, correct?”  She asked.  “It wasn’t just Astrid DeGlass that had failed the granddaughter, it was everything and everyone.  I remember having some significant paperwork to deal with simply because Master Matoya had adopted me.”

“It did.  The determination was that never again would the city fail any child in need.” Urianger watched as Y’shtola turned another page.

“Doth thou believe that Riven is the granddaughter?”

“Zoisette’s notes--and Sebastian’s-- present compelling coincidences.  But sadly, adults who have been abused in their childhoods can be found almost everywhere.” Y’shtola began.  “But then with how neatly her memory has been erased, combined with other factors--one of them being how Forum member DeGlass acted when we came back from Ultima Thule...” 

“Sevestre Albright’s own behavior, too.”  Urianger added, a dark scowl crossing his face.  Y’shtola sighed, shutting the book and putting it back.

“There is much about this story that makes no sense.”  She began.  “To begin with, the events of the night that the grandchild supposedly passed.  While I cannot claim full expertise in the medical field, I feel confident in saying that it is highly illogical for a teenage girl, who was in poor health-and suffering a concussion--to make her way to the cliffs and fall off.  And then there was her kidnapper.  He confessed to his other crimes, but on the matter of the granddaughter he remained firm.  He claimed that something hit him from behind after he’d struck the girl down, and when he woke up, he was in an entirely different location in that underground room”

“Did no one verify his claims?”  Urianger asked. 

“The lead investigator felt there was enough of a discrepancy to warrant a deeper look.  But before he could do anything, the man ended up dead and his body parts on display all over Scholar’s Harbor.  Not to mention the stepmother’s man--or rather parts of him, were found in a shark that had been fished up some days ago.  And the stepmother was never found--the suspicion was that she fled the island.”  Y’shtola tapped her knuckles against her cheek.

“It reeks of someone cleaning up after themselves.  And why bother to go to such lengths unless there was something about that night that needed to stay hidden?”

“The something being Kari--or rather, Riven.”  Urianger finished.  “But then...why hide her presence?”

“Another good question.”  Y’shtola answered.  “I needs must speak with Zoissette, but I think...”  She paused for several moments, gathering her thoughts.

“I believe Astrid DeGlass saved her grandchild that night, and spirited her away into hiding for a reason that is currently unclear.  She also went so far as to change the crime scene, and I possibly suspect killed the stepmother’s man and the kidnapper for that same unknown reason.  Then later on, something else happens that results in the granddaughter-Kari, leaving Old Sharlayan for Limsa, where she takes the name Riven Sadler, and has no memory of her past life.”  She began.

“Skipping ahead to current day, it seems Astrid recognized Riven, possibly from when we were first called up by the Forum.  It was directly after that meeting that we were given financial support in the form of our meals being covered at the Last Stand, but when we returned from Ultima Thule, DeGlass--in a rather uncharacteristic display, persuades the Forum to put guards on Riven and the others while they were in the infirmary.”

“A grandmother protecting her grandchild.”  Urianger finished.  Y’shtola nodded.

"The question now is...from what?  A family enemy, perhaps?  Or a political opponent?”  The sorceress’s tail twitched.

“What sort of danger threatened a child that not only DeGlass felt she had to commit murder, but--and this is another theory that I don’t have evidence for--but also possibly wipe her granddaughter’s memory and send her away to assume a new identity and life?  And years later-draw attention to herself to ensure a random stranger--world-saving heroics not withstanding--is safe while she recovers?”

“...This may also explain Albright’s sudden interest in Riven’s background.”  Urianger said.  “He is a political enemy of Astrid DeGlass, and she him.  Might it be that he has learned something of those events?”

“Perhaps.”  Y’shtola mused.  “But there is one thing I feel confident in saying about this.  Astrid DeGlass herself is the key to all of this.  It would be best to start looking into her affairs.”

---

wayward (grand)daughter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

[sortyourlifeoutmate]

A Christmas Carol is very of its time, yes, and has been done to death (and back again), yes, but I still have something of a queer soft spot for it, and I still think it has some pretty good lines here and there - not for nothing do people remember Dickens!

Also kind of a bummer that some of the sentiment remains relevant in this, the space-year of 2022.

To whit:

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Besides—excuse me—I don't know that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

And:

"But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faultered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

And this, heavy-handed but still:

"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."

"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die."

"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared."

"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population."

Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.

"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

And:

Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment."

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"

"I!" cried the Spirit.

"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.

"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.

"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name; who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us."

And:

"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw!"

"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the Ghost.

They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!"

"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.

"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"

Hamfisted and paternalistic Victorian moralising it may well be, but when hamfisted, paternalistic Victorian moralising looks like it might continue to have a point you should probably be a little uncomfortable.

So I think...

[teabooksandsweets]

A City of Bells

Chapter I — Part V

“Mr. Jocelyn,” said Sarah, and left them together.

The welcome that the two old people gave to their grandson was typical of them. Grandfather bounced to his feet and hurried forward delightedly, his hand out and his whole face beaming. Here, his manner implied, was the one person whom of all others he was most anxious to see and in whose welfare he was most interested. And there was no insincerity in his welcome. His interest in his fellow-creatures was so deep that whoever was with him at the moment seemed to him to be the very best of God’s creatures … And Jocelyn was his favourite grandson.

Grandmother, meanwhile, sat in her chair very stiffly, her hands folded on her knitting, and waited to see how Jocelyn had developed before committing herself. Her bright eyes darted critically over him, noting his fair, close-cut hair and moustache, his trim figure, well-brushed clothes and slight air of fatigue.

“Humph,” she said, “you’re improved. More like your dear mother and less like your father, thank God. I never could take to your father, good man of business though he is.”

“Dear Jane,” murmured Grandfather, “there is good in all.”

“I didn’t say there wasn’t,” said Grandmother, “I merely said that I don’t take to the good in Thomas … You dress better than you did, Jocelyn. When you were at Oxford you were a radical, I remember, and dressed accordingly. I told your mother what I thought about it at the time, but she said she had no influence. I will say for the Army that it teaches the compatibility of a sense of duty with a crease in the trousers … You may kiss me, Jocelyn.”

His kiss produced one of her rare moments of softening and she touched his cheek gently with one of her dainty, mittened hands. “You look tired, dear boy,” she said. “You’d better be fed up. I’m sorry about your leg, but, as I said to your grandfather, it’s a mercy it wasn’t your stomach or your brain. Given belief in God, a good digestion and a mind in working order life’s still a thing to be grateful for.”

She abruptly stopped talking and became engrossed in the ritual of tea-making, her little hands hovering over the old silver and Worcester cups and saucers. A hush fell, the steam from the tea-kettle rose into the air like incense and the fragrance of china tea mingled with the scent of flowers. Jocelyn leant back restfully in his chair, feeling life halt a little and its grip on him relax. It seemed no longer a river in spate, whirling him along without time for thought or feeling, but a calm backwater where the opening of a flower and the song of a bird would be important and significant.

“Does time ever pass in Torminster?” he asked Grandfather.

“Dear me, no, dear boy, nothing ever passes here. The past steps into the background, of course, but it never seems to disappear … I think, dear Jane, that you are putting too much milk in Jocelyn’s tea.”

“It’s a sleepy place,” pronounced Grandmother. “I’ve started two working parties for Missions to wake them up a bit, but I never saw women make flannel petticoats so slowly in all my life … Thank you, Theobald, but I am quite capable, at my age, of making a drinkable cup of tea … Help yourself to bread and dripping, Jocelyn.”

It was not perhaps usual to eat bread and dripping at afternoon tea, but Grandfather liked bread and dripping and insisted upon having it, in spite of Grandmother’s repeated assurances that it “was not done.” It was his habit to do what he liked, whether it was “done” or not, provided that what he liked was compatible with his religion … He did not eat dripping in Lent.

“Where’s Hugh Anthony?” asked Jocelyn.

“Having his tea downstairs,” said Grandfather. “We find that best. He’s eight years old and exhausting, though a dear boy. We’ve adopted a little girl to keep him company, thinking female influence might quiet him down, but there’s little improvement noticeable as yet.”

“Your grandfather’s latest,” said Grandmother in resigned tones. “He saw the child at that orphanage he’s on the board of, liked her eyes and brought her straight home with nothing to her name but a Bible, three pinafores and a couple of vests. Did you ever hear anything so ridiculous?”

“I was guided to do it,” said Grandfather.

“Well, all I can say is I hope someone will be guided to care for the poor children after our death,” said Grandmother forcibly, and sighed. She had been married to a saint for fifty years, but still found it as difficult to adjust herself as she had done in the first month of her marriage, when he had given away their bed to a woman whose need, he felt, was greater than theirs.

“When that dear child’s eyes met mine,” said Grandfather, “I knew that her welfare was my responsibility … I have sometimes thought, dear Jane, that, should Jocelyn marry, he might, after our death, feel guided to take upon him the fatherhood of both those dear children.”

“Well,” said Jocelyn doubtfully, “you never know.”

“Not until the time comes,” said Grandfather happily. “So, as I say to your dear grandmother, why worry beforehand?”

The atmosphere felt a little tense and to lighten it Jocelyn asked them about the house in the Market Place.

“Who lived there?” he asked. “It’s a jolly little house. It’s a crime it should be empty.”

All the happiness drained away from Grandfather’s face, leaving him looking stricken and old, and it was Grandmother who answered.

“A young man called Gabriel Ferranti lived there,” she said. “He looked like an organ-grinder and wrote books that nobody could make head or tail of, and was considered to be clever for those reasons, though why untidy hair and an inability to make oneself understood should be the hall-mark of genius I have never been able to understand. Your grandfather took a great fancy to him; what for I don’t know.”

“There was great good in him,” murmured Grandfather sadly.

“What happened to him?” asked Jocelyn.

“He got into the financial difficulties that were only to be expected of a young man with a name like that,” said Grandmother, “and disappeared just as your poor grandfather was trying to bring out the good in him. Your grandfather naturally took it all very much to heart, for goodness only knows what has become of the young man now, or of the good that your poor grandfather thought he was bringing out.”

“If he had only told me about his difficulties,” mourned Grandfather, “I could have relieved them.”

“What with?” asked Grandmother a little sharply. “I’m thankful the young person had the good taste to disappear before you’d given him our last halfpenny … If Jocelyn’s finished his tea take him to his room while I get on with my knitting.”

The two men went out together while Grandmother’s voice drifted after them in its habitual chant of, “Knit one, purl one, knit two together.”

[rockinlibrarian]

🍌🍈

Thank you, nonny! This is the fruit ask, if you, too, want to ask me fruit!

🍌 In your opinion, what’s the funniest joke/reference/pun you’ve made in a fic?

"My prior hist’ry with this one’s (forgive me) discommodius," It's just that it's in verse, it's accurate, AND it's a pun! It's funnier in context! And you may have to have read the source material to even understand why! But I wrote it three years ago and it still cracks me up! @dannypageoflight have you ever read The Trials of Apollo? Because I feel you would appreciate this joke SO MUCH if you have.

🍈 Who’s your blorbo and what are some of your favorite headcanons/ideas about them that repeatedly show up in your fics? Free pass to rant about blorbo opinions.

I'm not entirely sure what THAT fruit is, but "blorbo" is a good name for it, actually.

But my number one double-blorbo is Cary and Kerry Loudermilk from Legion, and I wanted to rant out all my headcanons and ideas and opinions so much that I once wrote "Everything I Know About Writing the Loudermilk Twins" which is 9,913 words of free pass ranting! Or raving! Or thoughtful consideration! And me a sheltered white woman doing crash course research on The Indian Child Welfare Act to get my cultural frame of reference right!

--I really recommend cultivating blorbos with at least one major characteristic that you have no personal knowledge of, which forces you to learn and care about issues that would never have affected you otherwise. Opens your mind.

One of my second biggest blorbos and the one that's been on my mind the most in the past couple weeks as you've seen from my Tumblr is a bi trans man, and I am firmly a cishet woman, so that's another one I feel compelled to Allyship In The Name of the Blorbos. Here is my recent post about Viktor Hargreeves! Ranty headcanons-- well, besides my determination that his soul mate is his adoptive brother, my spiciest take on Viktor-- and I had no idea this was a spicy take until I saw other people disagreeing, that's how firmly I stand by it-- is there was nothing wrong with him writing and publishing his memoir, even if his siblings hated it, even if he regretted it later-- he NEEDED it dangit! His whole life suppressed and ignored and invisible? All he wanted was to be SEEN! And it's HIS STORY, even if it involved other people who didn't want their dirty laundry aired. I always think of this quote from Anne Lamott about telling your story no matter what the people in your life think-- "Then they should have behaved better!" I am very firmly against suppressing anyone's own story, especially somebody who's never had a voice, no matter who it angers. That's not to say he should be immune to the fallout, and there's a lot of interesting nuances you can get into about someone so convinced of their unimportance that they don't notice the ants they're stepping on-- but better out than in! --again, I may take the Just Ordinary stuff a little too personally... but at least I don't have earth shattering energy wave powers!

[justtogetthrough]

Just when you think you’ve seen all the possible evil in your field of work.

Then somebody who works for a Children’s Aid Society on behalf of the government speaks such an evil thing like it’s nothing and you interrupt him to be like I’m sorry, what did you just say? And the person repeats it, and you have several of your colleagues on this call as well and you all sit there on camera, mouths agape, and two texts pop up on your phone from your manager, both simply saying “OMG.” That’s it. OMG. Twice, because we can’t believe anyone would feel this way let alone say it out loud so cavalierly.

While this buffoon keeps speaking, either under the impression if he keeps talking we’ll eventually come on board with him (less likely) or just power tripping and saying this is what he’s going to do, just because he can, and yeah in reality there’s not much we can do to stop it (more likely). We all just sat there stunned. I looked from face to face and no one could mask the horror they felt.

The man went off camera halfway through and stayed off (coward) while his colleague remained on camera and fucking smirked every time this senior person spoke. Every time my colleagues stared at their screens in complete shock and disbelief, that man sat there barely trying to restrain glee? while the senior person doubled and tripled down on a plan for a child that is virtually guaranteed to result in an act of self harm before all is said and done.

We will not work with people who don’t treat children as humans. We do not accept children into our foster homes if we know their CAS cares more about dollars and cents than a child having the care they need and living a good life. Historically, we’ve only ever had one or two CAS’s blacklisted for this. I was trained when I joined this agency to receive their referrals and politely decline, maintaining positive rapport because we don’t want them to know we’ve blacklisted them. When there’s been giant ruptures and a fundamental difference in philosophy, we just smile and move on and let them ruin kids’ lives in other people’s homes and not ours. We refuse to be complicit.

But good lord, twice a year theres a new agency really showing up the rest by how heartless they can be these days. We have a good reputation in the province and we’ve been around a long time because agencies know we provide good care. It makes me wonder how we even get to places like this. It makes me wonder if the exact things that made us sought after in eras past are now what makes us come to meetings 4, 5, 6 staff strong to put up a fight, and if that makes CAS’s now consider us undesirable to work with. CAS’s talk and I’m always curious how these fights get framed. How honest agencies are when recounting why there was conflict. At what point do we become “difficult”?

We don’t want to place with agencies that don’t treat children fairly. I am so alarmed at the rate at which agencies care more about the dollars and cents than children’s wellbeing and I worry about the state of and future of child welfare, and all those kids being traumatized by the system in place to protect them. So few agencies will stand up to CAS like we do, and the more we do it and the more these agencies stop placing with us, the more those children end up as pawns, after-thoughts, and objects/collateral under other peoples supervision where none of the adults/decision makers care about them as human beings.

It’s jarring, upsetting, and defeating to be faced with this. There is so little we can do when the legal guardians won’t take our advice based on our knowledge and experience of directly caring for these children for so many years. We can’t stop agencies from taking actions that very clearly will damage children and make their lives worse. We can support children in contacting the Ombudsman and encourage them to fire any lawyers who aren’t promoting their voice, but we are so limited. We lose excellent foster parents to the defeat from these battles each time it happens. The moral injury is too much to bear and so many devoted foster parents retire when the kids get pulled from their loving homes and families they’ve attached to. For dumb fucking reasons, usually. That’s when it hurts the most.

Of all these battles we’ve charged into head on, today was the second if not the most horrible things I’ve ever heard CAS managers say. I wish I could wrap this up with some sort of hope. I don’t have any. This is just a long vent because it took me an hour to stop shaking from that meeting today and I’m still in disbelief it happened. I hate what’s happening to this kid. I hate how obtuse the agency is being, how unwilling they are to listen to the kid, to listen to us.

I hate knowing that shit like this happens. I hate watching ~adults~ add so much pain and suffering into a young person’s life for no reason other than they view this child’s wellbeing as an unnecessary cost.

I don’t know. It touches something firey hot inside of me.