#comport recordings

[caelanfrostfounder]

Bio

Karrakin Archives // HouseStone/MinorFrostfounder/CaelanIV_7565SR

Title(s), Name: Lord Caelan Frostfounder, First Prospector, Hero of Production, Fourth in his Name

DOB: Gneiss ~2, 7565 SR / 24 Throne Karrakis years ago / 4992 u

POB: Un Secunda VI, Un Secunda

Title Notes: "First Prospector" - title of the heir apparent of house Frostfounder; "Hero of Production" - title traditionally held by the ruling family, awarded only after taking the life of a rebel attempting any stop work action; "Fourth in his Name" - Fourth in house records to hold that name, expectation to outdo previous holders

Family History: Frostfounders ennobled in 5750 SR for services to the House of Stone during a period of intense planetary discontent. Charged with the maintenance and expansion of industry in cisplanetary space and lunar partners. Year over year the Frostfounders have diligently worked for the expansion and strength of House Stone. Judged of high loyalty to the Hagiographic cause and philosophy; many Stone forces have records of Frostfounders comporting themselves with the highest honor in combat.

Family Philosophy: Favoring a "first citizen" approach usually only seen among republican minor houses, Frostfounder stresses leadership from the front lines. Scions of the house not destined for the title of First Engineer are given positions in direct mine and industrial management - even the First Prospector is expected to participate in day to day management and protection of industrial assets over the course of their education. Very much in line with House Stone on subjects of worker discipline, Un Secunde VI has never seen a successful work disruption since the ennobling of the Frostfounders

Notes: A striking feature of the Frostfounders is their heavy use of augmentations from an extremely young age; this reflects a similar practice among the ignobles of their planet. Un Secunda VI has been left largely unaltered due to its' rare, delicate natural resources (see: Un Secunda VI general entry, subsection "naturally accruing carbon nanostructures"). As such, the local population opted for augmentations to survive the extreme cold found in the local biomes - primarily taking on characteristics of polar and tundra region lifeforms in order to operate day to day without the use of heavy environment suits.

[muzaktomyears]

[Ron] Ellis is a keen observer. A man who understands the nuances of human behavior, he was, even as a young man, fascinated by the dressing-room behavior of artists, which in the case of the 1963 Beatles was telling. He saw them backstage twice: once in Southport and then at the Odeon in Liverpool for the group's triumphant Christmas concert in December 1963. It was there that he finally delivered the records [which they had previously ordered] to John, George, and Ringo. "And when I went in, they were all in the dressing room and Paul McCartney was mincing about, imitating Brian Epstein, "Oh, 'ello Brian," and this sort of thing, taking the piss out of him. George was a quiet person; John was very pleased to get his records; Ringo was, well, let me tell you what happened. Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas were on the bill at the time and they'd hidden Ringo's polo sweater. And they made him crawl around the room and beg before they'd give it back to him." "They... liked him?" I ask. "Oh yeah, they were just joking with him, you know? So I looked at McCartney and I thought, "This is somebody who's on a different level." John was in it, you know, for the laughs and the music and the birds and everything. Ringo was enjoying the ride... he was lucky; suddenly he'd a national star, you know? John loved all the music and fun, but you felt McCartney's on a different level here - he's a businessman, playing as a musician. That's the impression I got. He was very supercilious. I think he can see the big picture. He can see what's going to happen to the Beatles, and he wants to be in there making sure he controls it." (...) The sense of Paul's quiet ambition and manipulative powers were shared by both Beatles press officers, Derek Taylor and Tony Barrow, who play a pivotal role later in this saga. But my own dressing-room experiences, in 1964, were different. Paul never grimaced in my presence. In fact, he 'cracked up' at some of my questions. He did, by his comportment, show an aversion to any sort of controversy. He treated Epstein with respect in public, but privately complained to John whenever he believed Epstein was too controlling.

When They Were Boys: The True Story of the Beatles’ Rise to the Top, Larry Kane (2013)

[mariacallous]

In 1974, the United States Congress passed the Privacy Act in response to public concerns over the US government’s runaway efforts to harness Americans’ personal data. Now Democrats in the US Senate are calling to amend the half-century-old law, citing ongoing attempts by billionaire Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to effectively commit the same offense—collusively collect untold quantities of personal data, drawing upon dozens if not hundreds of government systems.

On Monday, Democratic senators Ron Wyden, Ed Markey, Jeff Merkley, and Chris Van Hollen introduced the Privacy Act Modernization Act of 2025—a direct response, the lawmakers say, to the seizure by DOGE of computer systems containing vast tranches of sensitive personal information—moves that have notably coincided with the firings of hundreds of government officials charged with overseeing that data’s protection. “The seizure of millions of Americans’ sensitive information by Trump, Musk and other MAGA goons is plainly illegal,” Wyden tells WIRED, “but current remedies are too slow and need more teeth.”

The passage of the Privacy Act came in the wake of the McCarthy era—one of the darkest periods in American history, marked by unceasing ideological warfare and a government run amok, obsessed with constructing vast record systems to house files on hundreds of thousands of individuals and organizations. Secret dossiers on private citizens were the primary tool for suppressing free speech, assembly, and opinion, fueling decades’ worth of sedition prosecutions, loyalty oaths, and deportation proceedings. Countless writers, artists, teachers, and attorneys saw their livelihoods destroyed, while civil servants were routinely rounded up and purged as part of the roving inquisitions.

The first privacy law aimed at truly reining in the power of the administrative state, the Privacy Act was passed during the dawn of the microprocessor revolution, amid an emergence of high-speed telecommunications networks and “automated personal data systems.” The explosion in advancements coincided with Cassandra-like fears among ordinary Americans about a rise in unchecked government surveillance through the use of “universal identifiers.”

A wave of such controversies, including Watergate and COINTELPRO, had all but annihilated public trust in the government’s handling of personal data. “The Privacy Act was part of our country’s response to the FBI abusing its access to revealing sensitive records on the American people,” says Wyden. “Our bill defends against new threats to Americans’ privacy and the integrity of federal systems, and ensures individuals can go after the government when officials break the law, including quickly stopping their illegal actions with a court order.”

The bill, first obtained by WIRED last week, would implement several textual changes aimed at strengthening the law—redefining, for instance, common terms such as “record” and “process” to more aptly comport with their usage in the 21st century. It further takes aim at certain exemptions and provisions under the Privacy Act that have faced decades’ worth of criticism by leading privacy and civil liberties experts.

While the Privacy Act generally forbids the disclosure of Americans’ private records except to the “individual to whom the records pertain,” there are currently at least 10 exceptions that apply to this rule. Private records may be disclosed, for example, without consent in the interest of national defense, to determine an individual’s suitability for federal employment, or to “prevent, control, or reduce crime.” But one exception has remained controversial from the very start. Known as “routine use,” it enables government agencies to disclose private records so long as the reason for doing so is “compatible” with the purpose behind their collection.

The arbitrary ways in which the government applies the “routine use” exemption have been drawing criticism since at least 1977, when a blue-ribbon commission established by Congress reported that federal law enforcement agencies were creating “broad-worded routine uses,” while other agencies were engaged in “quid pro quo” arrangements—crafting their own novel “routine uses,” as long as other agencies joined in doing the same.

Nearly a decade later, Congress’ own group of assessors would find that “routine use” had become a “catch-all exemption” to the law.

In an effort to stem the overuse of this exemption, the bill introduced by the Democratic senators includes a new stipulation that, combined with enhanced minimization requirements, would require any “routine use” of private data to be both “appropriate” and “reasonably necessary,” providing a hook for potential plaintiffs in lawsuits against government offenders down the road. Meanwhile, agencies would be required to make publicly known “any purpose” for which a Privacy Act record might actually be employed.

Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, notes that the bill would also hand Americans the right to sue states and municipalities, while expanding the right of action to include violations that could reasonably lead to harms. “Watching the courts and how they’ve handled the whole variety of suits filed under the Privacy Act, it's been frustrating to see them not take the data harms seriously or recognize the potential eventual harms that could come to be,” he says. Another major change, he adds, is that the bill expands who's actually covered under the Privacy Act from merely citizens and legal residents to virtually anyone physically inside the United States—aligning the law more firmly with current federal statutes limiting the reach of the government's most powerful surveillance tools.

In another key provision, the bill further seeks to rein in the government’s use of so-called “computer matching,” a process whereby a person’s private records are cross-referenced across two agencies, helping the government draw new inferences it couldn’t by examining each record alone. This was a loophole that Congress previously acknowledged in 1988, the first time it amended the Privacy Act, requiring agencies to enter into written agreements before engaging in matching, and to calculate how matching might impact an individual’s rights.

The changes imposed under the Democrats’ new bill would merely extend these protections to different record systems held by a single agency. To wit, the Internal Revenue Service has one system that contains records on “erroneous tax refunds,” while another holds data on the “seizure and sale of real property.” These changes would ensure that the restrictions on matching still apply, even though both systems are controlled by the IRS. What’s more, while the restrictions on matching do not currently extend to “statistical projects,” they would under the new text, if the project’s purpose might impact the individuals’ “rights, benefits, or privileges.” Or—in the case of federal employees—result in any “financial, personnel, or disciplinary action.”

The Privacy Act currently imposes rather meager criminal fines (no more than $5,000) against government employees who knowingly disclose Americans’ private records to anyone ineligible to receive them. The Democrats’ bill introduces a fine of up to $250,000, as well as the possibility of imprisonment, for anyone who leaks records “for commercial advantage, personal gain, or malicious harm.”

The bill has been endorsed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center and Public Citizen, two civil liberties nonprofits that are both engaged in active litigation against DOGE.

“Over 50 years ago, Congress passed the Privacy Act to protect the public against the exploitation and misuse of their personal information held by the government,” Markey says in a statement. “Today, with Elon Musk and the DOGE team recklessly seeking to access Americans’ sensitive data, it’s time to bring this law into the digital age.”

[girderednerve]

[aging userbase alert]

i got my W-2 today & i was like 'yaaay i will file my taxes while i am thinking of it, i now live in a direct file state! it will be easy & not involve handing my information over to some third-party company that might have terrible data handling practices,' because i like to file taxes as early as possible a) so i do not have time to misplace my W-2 and b) because my employer withheld tax for me, so i have functionally been giving the government a free loan & can i just say i do NOT like what uncle sam has been doing with that money, give it back you fucker!!! unfortunately you cannot direct file in my state if you contributed to an IRA (i know this sounds bougie but it is a very common & widely encouraged form of retirement savings, even if you've only got a little bit to sock away), or if you have cash tips, or if you worked as an independent contractor (so, like, gig work; the only 1099 it can handle is a 1099-INT, for interest on bank deposits).

& i hate that! i hate that a lot. the IRA thing is annoying for me but the part where it can't handle cash tips or independent contractor income is actually really bad in my opinion because this excludes a pretty big number of lower income american workers, who are more likely to be taken advantage of by tax preparation companies that will not protect their data & will often attempt to shunt them into confusing paid filing options. or they end up going with scummy irl tax preparers, who make a killing on low income people's tax returns! the IRS desperately wants everyone to e-file because it is much faster & more efficient & in many ways less error-prone, but the free file program has enriched tax preparation companies at the expense of american workers who were underserved & misled, and now direct file leaves out a bunch of basic stuff & excludes people who need it. if you want to e-file for free, supposing you cannot direct file (if you are reading my tumblr blog & need to file taxes in the united states i am sure you fall beneath the income threshold for the free file program), you must go to the IRS's page of free file partners, then shop around to find one that can handle your tax situation & hopefully doesn't have too terrible a track record with customer data. it's stupid & i'm mad about it! there should not be a united states & there absolutely should not be any government of human persons which comports itself with such ridiculous stupidity

[steveyockey]

Imagine this scenario from scratch. Imagine some God's-eye view of it. Not as it actually happened, in the end, but from the beginning. There is a place full of people. Into this place comes a person who has nowhere to live; who is hungry and thirsty and tired and in obvious distress; who very probably, like a huge number of Americans, including many without permanent residences, suffers from mental illness. Go ahead and grant that this person—homeless, hungry, thirsty, tired, stretched just as thin as those conditions might stretch any person—is behaving erratically; that their comportment might disturb others. So: Who is vulnerable here? Who is in the greatest need of help? What is the actual problem? How might this small ad hoc instantiation of community solve it?

I'm struggling to put this into words. I can't tell if it's because what I'm trying to express is ludicrous or because it's so dully obvious that I've never bothered to actually think of how to say it before. Sometimes you have something that somebody else needs more than you do, and you can afford to spare it, and the easiest thing in the world is just to give it to them. In that moment, to have what you can give them is, itself, a gift, a thing to be thankful for. In my lifetime this society has seemed ever more fanatically opposed to that possibility, and ever more committed to the idea that of all the things a vulnerable person might legitimately need, help—simple material help—is never one of them. But, like, how many people were on that train? How come nobody just, like, offered Jordan Neely a swig from their water bottle? Or, hell, tried to pry off the guy literally strangling him to death right there on the floor? Did any of them have anything at all they could give to the person first suffering, and then just straight-up dying, right in front of them?

Thirty years is no time at all. Jordan Neely was a squishy little toddler yesterday, a gangly kid 10 minutes ago. At 30 he had no place to live. He was hungry and thirsty and tired and upset. He was experiencing a whole stack of separate crises piled onto each other. He walked into a crowded subway car carrying those crises; one of the people there decided that the problem, in that situation, wasn't that Jordan Neely was hungry or thirsty or tired, or that he was in obvious distress, but rather that on top of those other things he was also breathing, and killed him. Somebody else took their phone out and recorded it. That was Jordan Neely's whole and only life. It ended when he walked into a room full of people, homeless and hungry and thirsty and tired, and they helped themselves to his silence.

[binomech]

Newt picks up his phone and looks at his last message from Hermann. 2:04 AM.

Newton, if you do not respond to me in the next two hours I will report you as a missing person to the Cantonal Police of Geneva.

“Oh shit,” Newt says, his voice cracking as he sits forward, “what time is it?”

“Nearly four in the morning,” Søren says.

“Nearly four?” Newt says, simultaneously texting. “You’re sure it’s nearly four?”

“Not yet four,” Søren says, getting off the bed to unsteadily look over Newt’s shoulder as he types.

HERMANN. I am not missing. I have not been murdered by any truculent scientists. I have been catching up with a friend from the pre-PPDC days. Go to sleep. I’ll see you tomorrow.

“This does not seem like a communication between colleagues,” Søren offers. “His response seems disproportionately upset and yours overly conciliatory given that you are not romantically involved.”

“Wellll,” Newt says, feeling slightly more than slightly guilty and therefore predisposed to be fair. “His response is not entirely disproportionate given my track record over this past year or so.”

Fine, Hermann replies. I will see you tomorrow.

Why are you still awake?, Newt texts.

“Perhaps you should call him,” Søren says quietly, before vanishing in the direction of the bathroom.

Hermann, predictably, does not respond.

Newt does not call.

Instead, Newt turns off the light in the room and sweeps the blinds open, looking out into a bright mist of street-light illuminated rain that seems to hang in the air rather than falling, like rain is supposed to do. He removes his shoes and then his clothes, stripping down to his boxers, and piling his business casual outfit on the chair where he’d tossed his blazer, hours ago.

He stands at the window and looks down at the city, out at the rain, across a darkened lake.

In his head, he continues his letter.

Dear Hermann, he begins, I’d like to take this opportunity to both apologize for and explain my recent comportment, which I recognize has been less than ideal. A little bit sub par, even for me; a little bit of a bad idea in an unprofessionally disheveled shirt; a little bit like mv versus a brick wall, a little bit like one half mv squared versus a sick Wall, a little bit like critical mass meeting critical mass where both masses are previously apportioned parts of my personality. That got away from me a little bit, analogy-wise. I am sorry about that. I’m going to redirect into more intellectual territory and give it another go. The human brain, am I right? Very plastic. Very lazy. It relies on expectation and fixates on novelty, so we take things for granted, like the sunrise, like the sensation of clothing after a lifetime of wearing it. We don’t have to work so hard to understand phenomena conceptually related to that which we’ve mastered. Expectation. It’s great. I’m a fan. Generally.

I miss writing to you. That’s why I do this occasionally. Send the epic email from the next room, I mean. I’m better on the page. You know this about me. Arguably we’re both better on the page. I’m a little less me. You’re a little less you. Maybe we never should have met. There’s some appeal to that idea, except for the part where it would be totally horrible. Anyway, I digress. This has probably happened to you—defaulting to pathways where you think of Lightcap as alive. It’s worse in places that are unfamiliar. I know not to look for her at the Shatterdome. But here, at this meeting; it feels like I have to retrain stupidly hopeful neural subroutines and I suppose I just thought that was a thing that was over. That I was done with. Maybe it’s never over. Maybe I’ll be doing this intermittently for the rest of my life. The long tail of neurochemical shortcuts. I think the worst part about this meeting is that I feel like I’ve let her down. Every moment of every day, I am letting her down, because I’m letting this Wall go up. It’s not just a subjective perception—it’s an objective truth. I I’m failing to do what she asked. She doesn’t know, because she’s dead. A priori, one might predict that her being unaware of my failure would make it less painful. That, alas, is not the case. In fact, it turns out that it’s the opposite.

Out of Many Scattered Things by cleanwhiteroom

[alovelywaytospendanevening]

Homosexuality and the First Fifteen Roman Emperors

English historian Edward Gibbon (1737–1794) famously declared that "of the first fifteen emperors, Claudius was the only one whose taste in love was entirely correct" [i.e. strictly heterosexual]... but how true is that statement?

I did a little research and, while in no way offering a definitive answer over the matter, found evidence of homosexual activities for thirteen out of fifteen names. Besides the already mentioned Claudius, I didn't find any allegations about Vespasian and Antoninus Pius, who also seemed to be strictly attracted to women.

With the exception of the ones about Nerva and Hadrian, all following quotes were taken from Craig A. Williams' Roman Homosexuality.

(Warning: most quotes include mentions of some kind of non-consensual relationship, including with minors)

AUGUSTUS

Augustus himself acquired the reputation of an avid womanizer, but he also was said to have kept male slaves as his deliciae or “darlings,” one of whom, named Sarmentus, is mentioned in passing by Plutarch.

Augustus, one late source gossips, used to sleep in the midst of twelve catamiti and as many girls.

TIBERIUS

Funerary inscriptions from the imperial household under Augustus and Tiberius reveal that among the different positions filled by slaves in the palace were those of glaber ab cyatho (a smooth boy who served wine), glabrorum ornator (a male slave who served as beautician for the smooth boys), and puerorum ornatrix (a female beautician for boys).

Suetonius’ allusion to Galba’s tastes for mature males is far removed in tone from his explicitly moralizing condemnation of Tiberius’ shocking sexual use of very young boys (what he did “cannot be mentioned or heard, let alone believed”).

CALIGULA

Suetonius uses the coded phrase “pudicitiae neque suae neque alienae pepercit” (“he spared neither his own nor others’ pudicitia,” signifying that he played the receptive and insertive roles in penetrative acts respectively), and then reports some examples in rapid succession: two relationships with men that seem to have involved an exchange of role; an affair with a young nobleman named Valerius Catullus in which Caligula played the receptive role (Valerius claimed to have been worn out by his exertions).

CLAUDIUS

Suetonius has this to say of the emperor Claudius: “He was possessed of an extravagant desire for women, having no experience with males whatsoever."

NERO

Suetonius, Tacitus, Dio Cassius, and Aurelius Victor tell us that the emperor Nero publicly celebrated at least two wedding ceremonies with males, one in which he was the groom and one or perhaps two in which he was the bride, and they provide stunning details: dowry was given, a bridal veil worn.

GALBA

Suetonius records that the emperor Galba was particularly fond of men who were “very hard and grown up,” and it is worth noting that Galba’s fondness for mature men seems to have caused no eyebrows to rise, presumably because he was observing the two basic protocols of masculine sexual comportment: maintaining the appearance of an appropriately dominant stance with his partners and keeping himself to his own slaves and to prostitutes.

OTHO

Dio notes that Galba’s successor Otho alienated many people by having relations with Sporos and generally associating with Nero’s followers.

VITELLIUS

Vitellius began his brief reign as emperor in A.D. 69 by publicly honoring a freedman of his named Asiaticus, with whom he had had a stormy affair when Asiaticus was a young slave of his.

VESPASIAN

[No reports of homosexual activities.]

TITUS

Dio also mentions Domitian’s affair with Earinos, adding that the emperor’s brother and predecessor Titus had shared his tastes for eunuchs.

DOMITIAN

Statius imagines Venus proclaiming that Domitian’s beloved eunuch, Earinos, will surpass in his beauty some legendarily gorgeous young men: Endymion, Attis, Narcissus, and Hylas—the first two of whom were loved by goddesses.

NERVA

It is often insisted that Domitian was sexually abused by his eventual successor, the Emperor Nerva.

TRAJAN

Trajan kept delicati, and this detail is dropped in such a way as to suggest that this was a standard feature of the imperial household.

HADRIAN

Hadrian appears to have preferred the company of men and homosexual relations. The great love of his life, Antinous, was a young man from Bithynia.

ANTONINUS PIUS

[No reports of homosexual activities.]

[lurkingshan]

I gotta be honest, I am struggling with Absolute Zero right now, which frustrates me because I love the premise and the vibe and I really wanted to love it. @bengiyo noted that I am getting to the point where I’m actually kinda mad about this drama, and it’s true! For me it’s all down to the same core issue: the show needs to get a better handle on its main character.

Similar to last week, throughout most of this episode I had no sense of what adult Suansoon is thinking as he continues to functionally date teen Ongsa. Is he thinking about future Ongsa, his actual partner who he has abandoned in a dire health situation, at all when he touches teen Ongsa, hugs and gropes him, brings him to his apartment and cuddles on the bed with him? Does he actually realize he is an adult and Ongsa is a kid and this is all super inappropriate? I do not know, because there is zero indication on my screen to tell me what’s running through his mind as he continues dating Ongsa while also making vague gestures towards connecting with his own teen self.

We’ve now spent three entire episodes with Soon drifting around in the past with no clear sense of what he’s doing or why. It’s a lot of story time spent just to get back to where we started in episode 1. And it would feel worth it if I felt like I knew what Soon is thinking or planning or had any sense of his motives with teen Ongsa, but I don’t. Throughout this whole episode it felt like I was being kept at arms length from the main character and his thoughts while being forced to watch him do things I don’t understand.

And then, right at the end, we finally hear from Soon about what he wants to do, when he tells Ongsa he is from the future and he came back to “correct the past” so that teen Ongsa and teen Soon will never meet. And that was such a big record scratch for me, because it does not comport with his actual behavior. If his intention is to keep them apart in the hopes that not being together will prevent Ongsa from being in an accident, why did he approach and date Ongsa? He has already made Ongsa fall in love with him, and now he wants to say never mind actually, don’t meet me and I’m just gonna bounce back to the future and hope we’re both alive and not together in the new alternate reality I am creating. Does he know Ongsa at all? Of course he is not going to listen to him. This plan makes no sense. And he only finally told Ongsa anything at all because he was forced to; how was any of this going to work?

And even before I get to dissecting his nonsensical behavior toward teen Ongsa, I don’t have any sense of how or why Soon arrived at this plan in the first place, because the show has not let us into his mind at all. Future Ongsa is not dead, and Soon does not have any idea of how his recovery is going because he’s not there. What makes him think changing their future is necessary? Why is he so convinced it’s their relationship that is the important variable to prevent the accident rather than any number of other things? His motives here just were not set up properly.

This is getting very ranty so let me just cut to the point: I am open to a narrative about a Suansoon so overwhelmed and dazed by trauma that he goes back in time and starts mucking around doing foolish things with no real sensible plan, if this is in fact what the narrative is trying to accomplish here. This is the bread and butter of time travel narratives and can be very compelling when done well. But that requires giving the audience some insight into why he is making these choices, what is driving his decisions, and how he intends to make things happen. And we are just completely missing that insight in this show.

[aftapati]

❛  i promise you i'm going to make your life a living hell.  ❜ / i mean he’ll kinda try 🤷‍♂️. You know who : )

( @ofcentvries / prompts / accepting )

❛ Goodness gracious. Haven't you got tired acting like a broken record, Captain Hitsugaya? Such comportment of yours never ceases to disappoint me. ❜

A subtle yet audible enough exhalation took its transpiration, as gloved arms took a folded formation thereunder clothed sternum. One unbinded nuance of chocolate would glance at the significantly shorter figure, acting as the illustration of exasperation. Such anticipated flurry of reaction and emotions, consequently marking this whole encounter quite dull in his mind. And if there's one of the many things Aizen himself despised, was predictability.

Having excellent mastery in wordism, he could effortlessly entertain himself with what was presented to him. A miscellany of contemplations crossed his mind, all of them divulging the same content. De facto, Hitsugaya Toshiro was reputed for his amount of knowledge, pragmatism and sensibility. A child of prodigy, if you will. But still --- a child in mind and soul. Oh, how easy it was to vexate the young captain; making him lose composure, lose his mind and eventually make him act out of paralogism, with all means of rationality disappearing. And it only took the mention of one particular name. Alas, he will not indulge himself in something of such prospectiveness.

❛ Someone of your class and level of intelligence should not behave like a petulant child, don't you agree? ❜

❛ And besides, you flatter yourself too much if you think that you possess the capabilities in meddling with my life. So I suggest you act like the individual with the common sense and collectedness that you are reputed for. ❜

[autumnslance]

FFXIV Write 2023 Day 20: Hamper

(this one got away from me, and touches on an aspect of WoL's adventures dear to me. Also it's not a FFXIV Write anymore without nebulous future Iyna)

Outwardly, Sharlayan hadn’t changed much in the last hundred and fifty years or so. The buildings were still primarily the native white stone in rounded styles with columns, the tiles of the streets were still blue. Thaliak’s statue still watched over Scholar’s Harbor, and the Last Stand was still the best restaurant in the city, Debroye keeping it much the same as it always had been.

Thankfully for the city, other restaurants had cropped up in the intervening decades.

Iyna still preferred the original, though, and only in part because she had known the owner since the girl was a student during the harrowing Final Days. In part because of the sea breeze coming in with the view, far enough from the docks to not worry about the less pleasant underlying scents that would affect one’s appetite.

And in large part, the nostalgia; memories of old friends at the tables a pleasant one, whenever she visited. Iyna was getting sentimental as she grew older.

It was Debroye herself who served her now, setting a tantalizing lobster dish before Iyna. “I’m gaining weight just from the scents,” Iyna joked. “What have you done to improve even this classic?”

“I can’t give away all my secrets, now that I have real competition in this city,” Debroye said. “But I will say certain spices from Tural do help.”

“Gods, it’s been so long since I went West,” Iyna said idly. “Perhaps I should take a vacation, once done with this commission for the Forum.”

“I haven’t seen you take a vacation in over a century. I’d say you’re about due. Meanwhile,” Debroye looked around. “If you don’t mind, you might have company for your meal.”

“Oh?” Iyna raised a brow as she began to snap apart the crustacean.

“I’ve a history student at the counter with a few burning questions for someone who knew the Warrior of Light and the Scions of the Seventh Dawn. And being a good student, she recognized you by sight alone and is about to jitter off her seat.”

“General academia, or actual project work?”

“Project; she’s fifteen and working on her archon thesis.” At Iyna’s raised brow, Debroye nodded. “She almost beat the Leveilleur’s record for entering the Studium, only missing it due to when her nameday falls during registration—and all without the benefit of family wealth or connections as they had.”

“Not a Viera, I take it?”

“Highlander.”

“Always so impatient, Hyurs,” Iyna noted. “Needing to get so much done so soon, they miss what youth they have. By all means, send the girl over. If nothing else, we can set up a better time to meet for the in depth interview I’m sure she’ll want.”

Deboye nodded, thanking Iyna and returning to the counter. It took about two minutes for the Highlander girl to compose herself and take a seat at Iyna’s table, controlling her underlying giddiness. “Thank you for taking the time to speak to me.”

“Of course,” Iyna said. “What might I do for you, Miss…?”

“Alina Breck,” she said. She was a gangly young thing, not yet filled out to the usual height and broad build of her people. She was fair-skinned and freckled all over, with bushy red hair pulled back in a semblance of a ponytail, curly strands escaping. She had large round glasses over hazel eyes, and wore a simple gray dress, with a wide belt keeping pens, notebooks, and other needed tools on hand. “I was hoping to ask a few questions about your time with the Scions of the Seventh Dawn.”

“Very well; though I do have only so much time now. But we can get a start, and if needed, perhaps arrange a longer meeting?”

The girl beamed, the image of a serious wannabe adult scholar breaking for a moment. “Oh that would be great! Ahem. Thank you.” She comported herself again.

Iyna smiled, and let the girl ask her questions, answering in between bites of her meal, sometimes to think.

Also because one did not let a Last Stand Lobster go to waste.

As the hour drew close to when she had to leave to speak to her contacts on the Forum, Alina looked over the notes taken so far. “There are definitely things I want to ask more about, and some things I hadn’t even considered before this discussion, I’m embarrassed to say.”

Iyna shook her head. “Don’t be; there’s always more to discover, even in seemingly well-known topics. It’s why you came to me for this, isn’t it?”

Alina nodded. “I would like to meet again, for sure, and consider some of those questions, especially once I’ve had a chance to check some other sources, but…One last thing I noted…”

Iyna waited. 

“It seems like, well. There were a lot of times Aeryn was on her own, with no other comrades. And sometimes it almost seems by design.” Alina flipped through her notes, a little frown creasing her forehead.

“At times it was,” Iyna said. “I wasn’t there, but when the Crystal Braves betrayed the Scions, for instance, they ensured the group was separated. Particularly Aeryn, with the Sultana. They hoped by dividing the archons and the champion from the leadership, they might have a chance.” Iyna leaned back. “It wasn’t the last time, of course; one of the best ways to try to rein in the Warrior of Light was to separate her from her support; without the other Scions’ knowledge and skills, or those of other comrades and companions she worked with, such as the Garlond Ironworks, adventures could be much harder. Aeryn noted it herself a few times—especially when young adventurers would speak to her, eager for advice, wanting to be like her.

“She often had to remind them that the times she fought alone were the worst; that she was hamstrung without her friends to back her up. There were things she couldn’t do that they could, knowledge they had that she needed. And many of her victories came with help; from her allies, from the dragons, from Hydaelyn Herself. Being cut off from such support was the way to mitigate her strength. Or so her enemies thought.”

Alina tilted her head. “Because she was powerful enough on her own anyway?”

Iyna smiled. “Oh, she was often stronger than even she thought, that stubborn gremlin of a woman. But that strength came from love for those friends, and from them, even when apart.”

“That’s one of the things I’m looking for clarification on,” Alina said. “How she actually stopped the Final Days. Some say she fought only with an enemy at her side; others that the Scions were with her through it all.”

“Both are true,” Iyna said. “Like many others, the Endsinger thought she could deprive the champions of each others’ support, break their hopes, and leave the Warrior of Light without aid. But in that place of pure concept and dynamis, merely physically separating the Scions was not enough. Their hearts were ever aligned with hers.”

Alina wrote that down in her shorthand, thinking for a moment. “I see. I think.”

“Mull it over; we can meet again,” Iyna checked the calendar on her tomephone. Alina compared her own, and they came to an agreeable time, two days from now. “I’ll do some thinking too, and dig through some old notes. I have access to the Baldesion Archives, after all…and might be able to finagle permission for you. No promises, though!” she quickly said as the girl’s eyes lit up.

“Of course, I understand. Thank you, Miss Cauld!”

“Call me Iyna. And it’s been a pleasure, Miss Alina.”

Iyna nodded, paying for her meal—and Alina’s, as one of the constants in life aside from death and taxes is the minimum stipends of graduate students, even one as gifted as this girl—and headed for her meeting with the Forum, a few minutes behind schedule, but they likely would be as well, and would understand her reasons. Losing track of time in academic discussions was another thing that hadn’t changed in Sharlayan.

She thought back on all those old adventures, tapping reminders to herself into her tomephone idly as she went, recalling the times the Scions and companions had been separated, not by choice, from one another. How they had succeeded anyway, often by trusting that the others would do what they must, what they could.

Iyna made sure to note that, too. She smiled and put the tomephone away as she climbed the steps to the Rostra. She did not often dwell on those times in such detail, and it had been some time—she really would need to hit up the archives for writings and reminders of those days—but given the girl’s questions, and the focus on the Warrior of Light’s companions and how they helped her succeed, Iyna was quite willing to delve into those memories.

There was always, after all, more than one perspective to a story, and more than the popular myth. Aeryn had never wanted to be that, and to give due credit to her beloved friends and companions was a gift Iyna was more than willing to offer to her memory.

[ronmanmob]

Thoughts on Ron  👓

All That Free Time In His Life After

Especially in the life he can build out in NYC, Ron's ties to gangland and the imposition that involvement made on his time waver into non-existence. And while this disorientates the man for a period - as so big a life change would anyone - once the dust settles Ron finds himself able to find himself in ways he'd never had the chance to when the criminal underworld was all up in his business. He gets to wander where curiosity takes him, unbothered by needing to maintain a reputation that (while thoroughly well earned in London) didn't really comport with the man he was beyond his high walls and propensity, when pushed, to exact immense violence.

All that is to say, our actually quite friendly neighbourhood not-a-gangster finds the time, space and want to get into new kinds of hobbies and pastimes once he's out of the hell-scape that is gangland. These include but are not limited to:

Boxing - for enjoyment and conditioning now, nothing else

Volunteering at the local animal shelter

Poking through the history section of old bookstores

Collecting vintage records to add to his Wurlitzer

Curating his war games paraphernalia - hand painting his soldiers

[m-blackwell-and-associates]

Follow Up pt 4

This dour mood followed Angelina for the rest of the car ride and doubled when pushed into the morgue to find the medical examiner already there with Peitro’s Proxy.  The Rosselini took one look at her and then her gaze slid to Pietro standing just behind her. Angelina knew she had been dismissed out of hand and the anger seethed.  Such a thing had happened many times before.  When people went to meet the Donna of Grenoble, they expected a woman in her prime, perhaps one aged into wisdom, all demure silk velvet over maternal steel.  When they saw a slight girl frozen forever at 18, round face still carrying the memory of childhood, they discounted what they saw and turned to Pietro as the continuing authority, he having been her voice and direction up until the moment of their first meeting.

Pietro, well schooled and endless amused by this bitter bit of theater, stayed where he was and said nothing, waiting for Diana Rossellini to figure out the silent error she had made.  Angelina did not wait for those brown eyes to widen, or the face go ashen to realize she had dismissed the one that had given permission to be Proxied and that permission could be revoked.

“What did you find?”

The Proxy caught herself, startling to be addressed, but not looking alarmed to be caught out.  “Donna Angelina, a pleasure to - “

“Yes,” Angelina agreed, a great pleasure to meet yet another family member that would have to be taught respect and comportment.  “Your findings?”

Angelina could feel Pietro’s amusement behind her, like a wave of warmth coming off a fire and she made a mental note to address his instigating these awkward introductions at a later time.  One did not humiliate one’s enforcer.  Not if one wanted to keep their good humor and loyalty.

The medical examiner cleared her throat from where she stood on the other side of the table, a skeleton, white and unweathered, laid neatly on a steel topped table.  “I’ve been able to narrow it down to three missing persons.”

“A three way tie?”  Angelina asked, brows raised as if mildly curious about the outcome and the examiner flushed, turning a faintly accusatory stare at Diana.  

“I had just arrived with the dental records, Donna.”  Diana handed them to the examiner, as cool as you please.  The way the other woman snatched them out of the Proxy’s hands suggested that the files had been withheld, either for spite or for testing of the examiner's skill in reading the bones.  It wasn’t that Angelina disapproved of testing the academic might of the people called upon to perform a service, just that at this moment, Angelina wasn’t in the mood for delays.  Or for anyone to decide now was the time for a power play. 

Hurriedly, the woman took out the x-ray images, the shaded transparencies hung up on the light box to be studied.  They waited, Angelina not unaware of the Rosselini’s subtle attempt to size her up, comparing what she saw to what she had imagined.  For her part, she let it go.  There would be time later to put Pietro’s Proxy in her place if necessary.  

“This one, Ms. Giovanni,” the medical examiner said, hurriedly.  Taking down the transparency, she slid it back into its file and handed it to Angelina over the table holding their mysteriously departed.  ��I’ll give you a moment.”  Stripping off her gloves, the woman left.  

“Simeon Boucher,” Angelina read aloud before putting the file down on the metal table.  “One parent still living, two siblings living abroad, no spouse, no children.  Cause of death, blunt force trauma.”

“That would be consistent with what we saw when we dumped his body,” Diana confirmed.  “We - “

But Angelina wasn’t interested in the explanations or stories the Rosellini was quick to give.  Ignoring her, she stripped off her own gloves and set the soft black leather aside, concentrating on the well ordered bones before her.

“Simon Boucher,” she murmured under the self-aggrandizing chatter of the Proxy.  “Let’s see if you’re still here.”  Angelina laid both hands on the bones, one hand cradling around the smooth curve of the skull, thumb tracing along the zygomatic arch where a spider web of fractures hinted at the violence of the man’s final moments.  The other hand rested on the cracked and ragged remains of the sternum.

She wasn’t surprised to feel that Simon’s soul still lingered.  A death as sudden as violent as his had been, often made spirits bound to this world.  Ones so bound were unable to let go of their former lives and find whatever peace was beyond the Shadowlands.  Angelina called to the spirit gently, testing to see at what strength the contest of wills between her and the unwilling dead, and while she hadn’t been surprised to know he lingered, she was surprised at the promptness of his response.

Simon’s soul manifested as suddenly as switching on a light, vivid and clean as if drawn on her vision by some bold artist with only a faint transparency to suggest that he wasn’t of this world.  Whatever chatter Diana had been engaging in stopped and Angelina had blessed silence in which to contemplate the spirit.

“You’re like her,” it whispered, voice coming from some other place.

“Like whom, Mr. Boucher?” Angelina asked, hand absently stroking the smooth bone of the skull, as if petting a cat, or soothing a child.

“I assume he’s talking about Elizabeth,” Diana put in unnecessarily.  “I didn’t think little Miss Princess could do the family business.”

Angelina set her jaw, cross that the Rosselini dared to speak, but before she could order her cousin to silence, the sad and despondent shade of the late Simon turned to survey the room.  Once his eyes fell upon the disdainful Diana, it flared, a shadow behind a flame, blown to grotesque proportions and flickering as if caught in a hot and terrible wind.

“You left me to die!” It roared, leaning towards the shocked Rosselini, mouth agape and hands turned to grasping claws.  “YOU KILLED ME!”

Sternly, Angelina bound the enraged wraith of Simon Boucher so it could not attack the stunned woman.  But, with a bit of satisfied spite, she let it slowly drift in her directly, forcing Diana to back up a step.  Aloud, she said, “Perhaps your recounting of your mission wasn’t entirely correct, Ms. Rosselini?”

The look that Diana shot her before looking back at her slowly stalking wraith was murderous.  “No, Donna.  We found him dead and - “  The wraith roared, cursing.  “He was beyond saving!  I could see that just by looking at him!”

Angelina believed Diana when she said that she had seen the man’s fast approaching death.  It was her family curse, after all.  Everything was on the cusp of death to her and everyone that had the Rosselini gift.  She did not, however, believe that Simon had been beyond saving.

“He might have been more useful alive, Ms. Rosselini,” Angelina said, sounding disapproving of Diana's protests and indifferent of her discomfort. 

[jessicamessicavillageofspillage]

Good Faith Questions

So, I am an oldhead who basically held the radfem beliefs in 2015, but knew some also oldhead transfolks who seemed very cool with my pesky materialist view of sexbased oppression- So, I let it all go, did the whole maybe the children are actually abolishing gender gag and just tried to do my volunteerism around IPV without "offending" anyone. Flash forward to now, when many of the "never going to happen" scenarios proposed as political conflicts between cyberfeminism, gender theory and a materially based view of radical feminism have occurred. I have some questions for the desister and ex TRA radfems about this transing the dead stuff and how that comports with self-identification and the so-called harm that people experience by being misgendered. This is probably the thing that drove me back to Tumblr- I am really curious about it, as I have now had several people under 25 explain to me my lesbian heros are transmen according to shit they have learned in school. I am so confused as to how conversations around this go as it appears to me to be driven by racist and misogynistic slashfictionification of the historical record. Can someone get a little into how this is understood by the youth trans culture?

[une-touille-en-vadrouille]

Un résumé se trouve en fin de poste

Par un beau matin de Septembre, je m'éveillai suite à un rêve agité, portant sur la cuisson d'un saumon à l'aneth. D'un coup, je sursautais! Aneth! Qu'était elle devenue, elle qui avait disparu au beau milieu de la ville d'Hanoï ? Était elle seulement encore vivante après tout ce temps ? Je commençai immédiatement une enquête, fouillant avec acharnement l'internet mondial, dans l'espoir de trouver des signes du persil, fussent-ils sur le dark web. Après des minutes frénétiques de recherche, je finis par tomber sur une obscure conversation WhatsApp, qui, bien que vieille de plusieurs secondes, pouvait tout aussi bien dater du siècle dernier. Doué d'un esprit de déduction peu commun, je conclus que si je voulais retrouver ma camarade, il me fallait me rendre en pays lointain, peuplé de petits vendeurs d'orange et de flûtes de pan.

Ni une ni deux, je courus vers le premier avion que je vis, stationné entre deux camions de pompiers. Je profitais que l'attention générale soit tournée vers un réacteur de l'avion, et lorsqu'une lance à incendie fut utilisée pour arroser celui-ci, je me glissai dans l'appareil. Je pus profiter des deux heures d'attente qui suivirent, d'une part pour regretter mon choix, et d'autre part pour observer des experts en action. Ceux-ci m'étaient facilement reconnaissable grâce à leur comportement typique, si semblable à celui de mes directeurs de thèse. En effet, ceux-ci se tenaient le menton entre leurs mains et fixaient d'un air perplexe et intense le réacteur, réaction parfaitement similaire à celle mon équipe lorsque je leur présentais mes résultats. Après une correspondance sans heurts, où je pense avoir humblement battu le record du 500m dans les couloirs de l aéroport de Madrid, puis découvert avec joie que mon prochain avion accusait lui aussi un retard de deux heures, je m'endormis paisiblement en direction de Lima. Les collations frugales fournies dans l'avion purent heureusement être compensées par l'équivalent en fondant au chocolat du lembas. Cette denrée, généreusement offert par ma maman, comblait aisement les besoins caloriques hebdomadaire d'un adulte. J'atterris sans encombres à Lima

Après quelques menues péripéties, dont la récupération de ma carte bancaire, avalée par un ATM taquin, je finis par atteindre mon auberge. Quelle ne fut pas alors ma surprise d'y découvrir Aneth! La pauvre enfant semblait encore secouée par ses mois laissés à l'abandon, mais nul doutes qu'elle se remettrait vite maintenant que j'allais la ramener en France.

Résumé : ne voyagez pas avec AirEuropa

[sayorkunau]

As someone who sits in Criminal Court all day every day here's my reactions to Season 2, Episode 2 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds

There's a lot of yelling.

--PLEA DEALS hahahahaha "this comports with our prosecutorial standards your honor" --ARRAIGNMENTS TAKE 5 MINUTES AT MOST BITCH --Dismissals aren't all bad things jsyk --this is like the time the judge asked what was different between a homeless person using drugs to cope with mental illness and the rich white woman standing there using medications stolen to cope with hers --I WOULD LIKE TO USE THE 24-HOUR RULE YOUR HONOR I DID NOT GET A CHANCE TO READ THE AMENDED INFORMATION AND IN FACT I MOTION THE COURT FOR A HEARING ON THE MATTER

Im dying you guys. This hurts me. This is hurting me so much.

--One time a case got dismissed because of a typo in the Information. This happens. And it's fucking dumb and hilarious at the same time. --God damn what does this JTMR even look like. How many witnesses, how many days, please for the love of god mark your exhibits right pls pls pls pls pls --So again Nyota is the only sane person here. Got it. --HOLY SHIT ITS COURTROOM ZOOM NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO LET IT DIE --Yes. Yes. Some opening arguments end up being some stoic bullshit and yes it comes off as tacky. It's a bench trial mother fucker you're not trying to impress a jury --also. WHERE IS THE CLERK. WHERE AM I. WHERE IS MY REPRESENTATION STAR TREK? WHERE>>@>>!?! --the poor fucking soul who has to run the recording software --WHAT A FUCKING STUPID OBJECTION REALLY? --Also where the fuck is the judge stopping the questioning and the answering from the witness when an objection is raised? Im sorry????? --WHY ARE YOU APPROACHING THE BENCH GET OUT OF THE WELL --THIS IS TERRIBLE NO ONE HAS EVER STEPPED FOOT IN A COURTROOM BEFORE WHAT THE SHIT IS THIS --lawyers soapbox all the time this isn't new and it's shitty for the defs --expert witnesses are the WORST --so there wasn't a stipulation that they all must refer to the def in a professional manner??? --again these are TERRIBLE objections --"Dont badger your own witness" hahahahahaha I should tell that to ______ --um.....why is associate counsel allowed to approach the witness? --WHY ARENT YOU OBJECTING TO ASSOCIATE COUNSEL APPROACHING AND ASKING QUESTIONS --THERE IS NO REAL COURTROOM PROCEDURE HERE I MOTION FOR A MISTRIAL --holy fuck it's an exhibit that's not properly admitted before the Court! THE COURT CANT CONSIDER THIS WHERE IS MY FOUNDATION --I JUST SAW THE CLERK THE CLERK OF T HE COURT EXISTS I AM REPRESENTED OH MY GOD YOU GUYS I AM FINALLY A FUCKING PART OF SOMETHING NOT JUST PART OF THE CONSTITUTION IA M ON MASS MEDIA --I am so uncomfortable why is she up on the bench pls go away pls stop --Please for the love of god. Don't clap for lawyers. Don't ever. EVER clap for any lawyer ever.

The best thing about this episode was the two brief appearances of the Clerk, and Pike's hair.

[disease-danger-darkness-silence]

Dee Snider has ALWAYS been antisexist, which is what baffled me when I found out he was friends with Trump (Apparently, he's not anymore). But this part was great:

SENATOR ROCKEFELLER: "...In the vehemence with which you attacked, um, uh, Senator Gore's wife... I detected a sort of defensiveness, some- somehow, on your part. A sort of a lack or unsureness of where you, uh, where you stand in this. Why did you feel it necessary to attribute, uh, some of the qualities to her that you did? Why- why was that important to your testimony?"

MR. SNIDER: "First of all, I wasn't attacking Senator Gore's wife, I was attacking a member of the PMRC, okay? Those are two se-"

SENATOR ROCKEFELLER: "Senator Gore's wife by name."

MR. SNIDER: "Her name is Tipper Gore, isn't it?"

SENATOR ROCKEFELLER: "Yeah."

MR. SNIDER: "Okay, I didn't say, 'the Senator's wife,' I said, 'Tipper Gore,' okay? Secondly-"

Dee Snyder says, "a woman's work is separate from her butthurt husband's title and name, so fuckin' jot that down."

Also, a record of the whole hearing can be found here. If you just want Snider's part, it starts here. I could have gone my whole life without hearing 1985 Al Gore say the word, "masturbation," aloud. Downside: the transcript leaves out how much they kept interrupting Snider.

He comported himself amazingly, tho. Like, watch the video if nothing else. Not flustered or embarrassed or stuttering, just stating shit with an incredulous and yet unfazed facade. I bow before the master of taking a bitch down a peg.

Also, later in the transcript Frank Zappa speaks and he also serves it up. He brought an attorney, too, and his speech was a condensed version of a prepared five-page statement. Learn your censorship history, kids!

Honestly, this applies a whole lot to the whole "anti" culture right now. Y'all lost in the 80s and you'll lose this time, too. Censorship has a fine history of losing long-term.

I was just under a year old when this statement took place (literally, it was 10 days before my 1st birthday). My dad watched it with me on his knee. Radio, telephone, and recording were my dad's passions, so even though he wasn't a huge Twisted Sister fan (my mom was), he was interested. I have vague memories of sitting on his knee watching boring court shit, but when Dee Snider walked in I very clearly remembered "fluffy hair" talking and realized, I'd watched this before, as a literal infant.

We've been fighting this fight for centuries, but y'all. 40 years. 40 years of specifically like... This.