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rapeculturerealities · 4 years ago

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For millions of working women, the coronavirus pandemic has delivered a rare and ruinous one-two-three punch.

First, the parts of the economy that were smacked hardest and earliest by job losses were ones where women dominate — restaurants, retail businesses and health care.

Then a second wave began taking out local and state government jobs, another area where women outnumber men.

The third blow has, for many, been the knockout: the closing of child care centers and the shift to remote schooling. That has saddled working mothers, much more than fathers, with overwhelming household responsibilities.

“We’ve never seen this before,” said Betsey Stevenson, a professor of economics and public policy at the University of Michigan and the mother of a second grader and a sixth grader. Recessions usually start by gutting the manufacturing and construction industries, where men hold most of the jobs, she said.

The impact on the economic and social landscape is both immediate and enduring.

The triple punch is not just pushing women out of jobs they held, but also preventing many from seeking new ones. For an individual, it could limit prospects and earnings over a lifetime. Across a nation, it could stunt growth, robbing the economy of educated, experienced and dedicated workers.

Inequality in the home — in terms of household and child care responsibilities — influences inequality in the workplace, Misty L. Heggeness, a principal economist at the Census Bureau, concluded in a working paper on the pandemic’s impact for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Without a more comprehensive system of support, she said, “mothers will forever be vulnerable to career scarring during any major crisis like this pandemic.”

The latest jobs report from the Labor Department showed that some of the damage was reversed last month as the service industry revived, nudging down the jobless rate for women to 6.5 percent, slightly below men’s. But there were still 4.5 million fewer women employed in October than there were a year ago, compared with 4.1 million men.

And according to the Census Bureau, a third of the working women 25 to 44 years old who are unemployed said the reason was child care demands. Only 12 percent of unemployed men cited those demands.

Laci Oyler has felt that pressure. Her husband, employed by a large printing company, was already working from home when the pandemic shuttered day care and schools in Milwaukee. But after two days of taking care of their two young sons, “he said, ‘Absolutely no way,’” Ms. Oyler explained. So she cut her weekly hours as a mental health counselor for Alverno College, a small Catholic institution, to five from 32.

In August, when she learned that public schools would continue to offer only online classes for the fall, Ms. Oyler decided she had little choice but to take an unpaid leave.

This month, she decided to resign.

“Work is so much more than what you’re taking home as payment,” Ms. Oyler said. “But when you look at that bottom line of risk versus reward, it doesn’t seem worth it,” she added, referring to the cost of child care combined with the possibility of coronavirus infection for her or her children.

As a licensed professional, Ms. Oyler does not expect to have difficulty returning to the work force when she is ready. But for most working women, dropping out to take care of children or other family members exacts a sizable toll, several studies have shown. Rejoining is hard, and if women do, they generally earn less and have less security. And the longer someone is out of work, the tougher it is to get back in.

Claudia Goldin, an economics professor at Harvard, said this was the first recession where the economy was so intertwined with the network of child care.

“During the Great Depression, no one cared about the care sector,” she said. “Women weren’t in the labor force, and they weren’t supposed to be.”

One reason that Congress started giving financial assistance to poor households headed by women in the 1930s, under a program originally titled Aid to Dependent Children, was so they could stay home with their children and not compete with men for jobs, Ms. Goldin said.

Only during World War II, when women were urgently needed in factories and offices to replace men who were in the military, did the government establish a far-reaching federally subsidized network of nurseries and child care centers in nearly every state. Once the war ended, so did the support.

“You cannot have a contented mother working in a war factory if she is worrying about her children, and you cannot have children running wild in the streets without a bad effect on the coming generations,” Senator Carl Hayden, an Arizona Democrat, testified in 1943.

Women make up roughly half of the country’s work force. They range from entry-level to professional, they live in urban, suburban and rural areas, and they often care for toddlers and teenagers. But the burdens of the pandemic-induced recession have fallen most heavily on low-income and minority women and single mothers.

Members of these overlapping groups often have the most unpredictable schedules, and the fewest benefits, and are least able to afford child care. They fill most of the essential jobs that cannot be done from home and, therefore, carry the most risk for exposure to the virus. At the same time, they make up a disproportionate share of the service industries that have lost the most jobs. The jobless rate is 9.2 percent for Black women and 9 percent for Hispanic women.

When the pandemic caused housecleaning jobs to dry up, Andrea Poe was able to find cleaning work at a resort in Orange Beach, Ala., about a 45-minute drive from Pensacola, Fla., where she and her 14-year-old daughter, Cheyenne Poe, had moved in with an older daughter, her fiancé and their five children.

The families were behind in the rent and threatened with eviction when Hurricane Sally ripped through the coast in September. To escape the floods, they piled into two cars, drove to Biloxi, Miss., and spent five nights in a Walmart parking lot.

Now Ms. Poe and Cheyenne, who has turned 15, are in Peoria, Ariz., living in a room in her mother’s trailer.

She said she was applying for jobs every day, so far without luck. And the bills keep coming. Ms. Poe has missed two consecutive loan payments on her car and worries that it will be repossessed.

“I’m just hoping my unemployment checks come through so my car doesn’t get taken away,” she said. “If I lose my car, I’ll never be able to get a job.”

Women with more resources are in a better position, but they struggle in other ways.

When the pandemic ripped through Seattle and compelled Kenna Smith, 37, to work from home, she initially saw one upside — a chance to spend more time with her 3-year-old son.

“At first, I thought I’d just focus on my child,” said Ms. Smith, who had just started a branding and design company, Wildforth Creative. “It was fun for a while, but then the stress was intense.”

Like many families who were worried about the risk of infection or short of money and space, Ms. Smith and her husband let their son’s nanny go. Her husband, project manager for a general contractor, worked out of their bedroom.

“I’m not sure why it totally fell on me,” Ms. Smith said of child care. “I’m out in the living room, dining room area with a whole bunch of toys strewn about, with my laptop, trying to run my business.

“I was wanting to work and wanting my business to succeed so badly,” she said. “I didn’t realize. …” She paused, interrupted by a voice: “Mommy, I want some applesauce.”

The couple recently decided to hire a part-time nanny, concluding that despite the expense, it was the only way both could keep working. (Ms. Smith’s sister is also helping out.)

From 2015 until the pandemic, women’s increasing participation in the work force was a primary driver of the economy’s expansion, said Ms. Stevenson, the Michigan economist. “It’s why the economy grew the way it did, why employers could keep hiring month after month,” she said.

Since February, women’s participation in the labor force has been falling, with the biggest decreases among women without college degrees who have children.

Changes forced on women by the pandemic elicit a mixture of anxiety and hope.

Many women worry that the changes will sharply narrow women’s choices and push them unwillingly into the unpaid role of full-time homemaker.

And the impact could stretch over generations, paring women’s retirement savings, and reducing future earnings of children now in low-income households.

“We are creating inequality 20 years down the line that is even greater than we have today,” said Ms. Stevenson, who was a member of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. “This is how inequality begets inequality.”

Yet there is also the possibility that the mounting pressures could create momentum to complete the unfinished project of fully integrating women into the work force by providing a system of family support — like affordable child care and paid parental and sick leave.

“I think we’re really at a crossroads,” said Julie Kashen, director for women’s economic justice at the Century Foundation and one of the authors of a new report on the pandemic and working women. “We’ve never built a workplace that worked for people with caregiving responsibilities.”

#covid-19 #financial #sexism #misogyny

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overwatch-does-stuff · 4 years ago

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Lindholm Family Headcanon Dump!

I know Michael Chu retracted the statement that Torbjorn has a bunch of kids, but Chu just quit so I make the rules now. It’s a LONG post under the cut because I got carried away. Mostly starring Torbjorn, but featuring Ingrid, Reinhardt, and Brigitte (plus a bunch of other kiddos that exist but I don’t have headcanon names for yet oops.) There won’t be any Bastion in this one because that’s an entire other post’s worth of content.

- Torb has a big family. He and Ingrid had a couple children of their own while he had a stable position in Overwatch, but they found out that they loved having little children around the house, so after all of their biological children moved out, they chose to volunteer in the foster system! This lead to them adopting at least four more kids. - Which means they drive a huge van everywhere. - Both Ingrid and Torbjorn are masters at driving as a result. - They’re exactly equivalent in skill with one exception: Ingrid can parallel park the van, a skill he has yet to figure.

- Their house is pretty big (the Overwatch paycheck paid well, that, along with Ingrid’s income,) so there’s plenty of room for all of them. - There’s three levels: upstairs (for the bedrooms and playrooms,) downstairs (for entertaining spaces/the kitchen and stuff,) and finally, the basement, which is Torbjorn’s personal workshop. - Most third world countries would kill to have a workshop as good as his. - It’s all because Ingrid spoils him so much. He gets just as excited for Christmas as his kiddos do. - “The latest arc welder? Aww, honey, you shouldn’t have!” - Ingrid doesn’t work in his field, but she listens to his special interests dumps, and puts in enough research of her own, that she knows just what to get him every year. - Ingrid doesn’t like getting gifts as much as he does, so for Christmas, he always makes sure to spend quality time with her. He jokes that he ‘sucks at planning dates’ but he really doesn’t! For her, it’s nothing but the top restaurants and most exciting experiences. She loves going ice skating in particular, something that he hates but will always do with her. - Torbjorn and Ingrid split the cooking equally. They’re a bit traditionally gendered with what they like to cook, with Torb leaning more towards grilling and Ingrid preferring baking, but it suits them just fine. - Their grill, along with every other cooking contraption in the house, has been upgraded in some way. In fact, Torb’s the one who grills only because Ingrid still can’t figure out how to use the damn thing since he upgraded it. - Their house is covered in contraptions of all sorts. Other than the grill, Ingrid utilizes every single one of them. Meals get served and sent around via chutes. The floors sweep and mop themselves automatically when they’re dirty. The dishwasher loads, washes, and unloads itself in record time. - You know the zany contraptions in the Addam’s family house? Think that, but more brightly colored. - However, Ingrid’s taste in interior decorating is the opposite of gothic or minimalist- she loves quirky, unique features and bright colors. - She loves thrifting. - The huge chair they got for Reinhardt in the living room was a thrift store find that she’s still very proud of. - She also has an old-fashioned “live laugh love” wall with all of the family portraits. She knows it’s cheesy, but it’s nostalgic for her. - She doesn’t just bring furniture home. She also brings home cats. - That’s right. Brigitte got her cat love from Ingrid. - It’s a long-standing tradition, with the first cat she brought home was over thirty years ago when they were a new couple. - Torbjorn swore that it would be her cat and that he wouldn’t take care of it. - He was wrong. - Very wrong. - He now loves his cats and calls them cutesy nicknames in whatever language he feels like in the moment. - He built them automated feeders, automated litter boxes, and even some automated toys. He spoils them rotten. - Every time Ingrid brings home a new cat it’s the same routine. He swears that this will be the last one and that he’s not taking care of this one! But that’s wrong and he knows it. - But, because Ingrid’s always bringing things home, she’s a little more tolerant when Torbjorn brings. . . a specific Omnic. . . home.

- But that’s a whole other fanfic that I would need to write, so instead, back to the parenting! - Ingrid is 100% a feral soccer mom. Torbjorn is just as bad. - They’re the ones screaming their lungs out at sports games. - They have a house rule where their kids have to participate in one extracurricular sport. It can be school teams, club teams, or even just working out on their own, but fitness is something that both Ingrid and Torb consider important. - Torbjorn, of course, built his own gym in the basement. He trained with Brigitte, and now he trains with another one of his daughters who’s taken an interest in weight-lifting. - But this all doesn’t mean that the Lindholms discourage more creative talents! - Torbjorn crafted a giant steel board where any arts and crafts get hung with magnets. One of his little boys is an artist and he couldn’t be more proud. - Brigitte experimented with metal art when she was a teenager, and many of her pieces are now permanent fixtures in the Lindholm home. - She crafted a particularly beautiful string of lights that hangs above the dining room table.

- Now it’s time for Uncle Reinhardt!!! - Okay, so maybe he’s called just ‘Reinhardt’ by the older kiddos, but everyone knows he’s essentially an uncle in all but blood. - He’s been invited to every holiday celebration for about. . . actually, he’s just always been there. - He’s a true multi-generational staple. Brigitte can’t remember a holiday without him, and now the younger kiddos are getting doted on by him every Christmas. - Rein loves telling stories for the children. He spends the entire car ride there planning his multi-hour epics. - Now that she’s older, Brigitte sometimes helps with the storytelling, contributing sound effects and such. - Something which just causes Torbjorn to laugh and shake his head. - Reinhardt also loves nothing more than being a walking jungle gym. As soon as he walks in the door, he’ll grab the nearest kiddo and put them on his shoulders. He’s often seen walking around with a kid in each arm and usually an extra hanging off his back. - Sometimes he gives Ingrid a heart attack when he starts throwing kids around, but hey, she’s known him long enough at this point that she (mostly) trusts him. - Everyone gets sad when Reinhardt has to leave, but he insists that there is justice that needs to be done. He soothes the kiddos by promising an even better story when he gets back.

- Now it’s time to get sad. . . here’s my Brigitte headcanons. . . - Brigitte was REALLY close with her father growing up. She spent so much of her time in his workshop learning from him, as one of the only Lindholm children to take a liking to machinery and engineering. - However, when she moved out. . . she found it difficult to escape his legacy. Everyone, many of the older industry professionals and the like, expected her to be just like her father. They tried to cajole her into finishing old weapons designs that Torbjorn had abandoned. - It was then that she learned the full extent of Torbjorn’s involvement in the Omnic Crisis. - She had a lot of trouble reconciling this news with her love for him. It’s still something she had great difficulty with. - This shock played a big part in her decision to give up on finding a job in the industry and instead accompany Reinhardt on his travels. - It wasn’t a decision that Torbjorn endorsed, which hurt their relationship even further. - But it’s not like he doesn’t try to keep in touch. They call every other weekend or so to catch up, but there’s always a tension between them that neither one is ready to address. - They will talk about it someday. They’ll figure things out. They care about each other too much for either one to give up. - In the meantime, though, Brigitte has gotten a lot closer with her mother. She calls her much more often. - They talk about all of the things that Brigitte wasn’t all that interested in when she was younger. Stuff like fashion, makeup, and more traditional advice, such as how to get a date or what it feels like to fall in love. - Ingrid also makes sure to show her how the cats are doing over the online call.

- To be truthful, Ingrid isn’t too worried about Brigitte’s decision to live the rough-and-tumble lifestyle. It reminds her a lot of her own young adulthood, where she decided to pick up everything and move to the big city to get away from her parents. - She’s quick to remind Torbjorn that her own little rebellion is how they came to meet whenever he gets worried about Brigitte’s decision. - (They met at Ironclad. The only job Ingrid could find after her big move was working secretary. She fell head-over-heels for him immediately, while it took him a while to warm up.) - (Their first date was just walking around the city, with Torbjorn talking almost the entire time about random things he saw. He’d see the newest cars on the street and dive into what he knew about that industry. They’d pass by a construction sight and he’d point out what tool designs were similar to the ones he was working on.) - (When he realized that she was actually listening to him and taking him seriously, he agreed to a second date and never looked back.) - They aren’t a perfect couple- they’ve had their fair share of arguments, especially because they’re both deeply stubborn, but they’re always able to work it out in a way that makes them both happy. That skill is why they’ve lasted so long. - One thing they’ve never argued about, though, is Torbjorn’s commitment to duty. When they started dating he made it clear that his work was very important to him. Ingrid made it clear that she was willing to be patient. - It got hard when he was away for months at a time with Overwatch during the Crisis and its aftermath, but through constant online calls they managed. - The biggest surprise of Ingrid’s life was when he told her he wanted to have kids when the Crisis ended. - Turns out, having a major life crisis about how your career impacted the world makes someone want to find another purpose in life besides their career. - And thus, they dove into parenthood together. - Now they both couldn’t be happier :)

#overwatch #torbjorn lindholm #overwatch torbjorn #ingrid lindholm #reinhardt #overwatch brigitte #brigitte lindholm #I have so many feelings about Torbjorn and his family. . .#I'm not sure this is very articulate but eh #who cares #it's content

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the-colony-roleplay · 6 years ago

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IRELAND KRII | TWENTY EIGHT; ELITE

House: Calyset Status: Uninfected Elite Specification: Infection Medic, Evolutionary Specialist Alignment: New Age Rebels

HISTORY

Ireland was the third of four brothers, who were all the proud sons of two of the finest (and richest) doctors in western Europe. To say they grew up luxuriously would be an understatement. With two flats in the city, a beachfront vacation home and a couple of seasonal cottages around the countryside, the boys of the Krii family had it pretty easy in many terms.

No, it definitely wasn’t a bad life; it was just a bland life. The expectations were high and the rules were strict. Ireland grew up under the thumb of his parents’ wishes, but excelled nonetheless. He did his duties, went to private school, joined clubs and teams and sports—most proficient in the Science League and on the football team, Captain and centre halfback three years in a row—you name it, if it would look good on his ivy league application, he would do it.

But Ireland never found true passion in any of the extracurriculars he involved himself in for the sake of pleasing his parents and impressing potential universities. His heart was with his studies and with his dreams of someday being a renowned medical scientist. He spent his adolescence building a laboratory in his bedroom, obsessive about human genome and all its curious complexities. His teenage rushes came from watching BBC and medical channels (and, of course, English Premier League, when the occasion called for it) and he treated his own illnesses with antibiotics he’d manufactured himself.

At first, his parents were wary of his zeal, proud of course that he was so dedicated, but concerned as any parent would be that he might harm himself, and that when it came to his health, a sixteen year old boy might be better off leaving it to the professionals. However, many of his research documents were published before he finished school and so by then his parents knew they didn’t have anything to worry about. In fact, Ireland was well on his way to becoming the youngest scientist to design and build a cancer-seeking serum that deliberately and precisely attacked cancerous cells.

When he graduated high school—a couple years ahead of his original class and on an express route to practicing medicine for a living—he sent out his transcripts to universities and medical practitioners around the country, and became the youngest intern to ever be a part of a magnificent biological discovery. He was placed into a team who’s collaborative work led to a breakthrough that made it possible for a newborn’s genome to be decoded and diagnosed in just fifty-five seconds, rather than several weeks or months. He earned his PHD by eighteen.

When D-Day struck, his losses were many. Not only had he lost most of his family, but all of his work had been destroyed—or so was assumed. Rescue parties at the time had much graver things to worry about than mucking through household rubble to find Echo Chip—though that would become more of a concern a few years down the road. He was picked up and herded to safer stays, where he became part of a small clan of fortunate spared lives who were about to face the hardest survival test anyone had ever seen. But when he had the strength, and when it was deemed somewhat safer (not safe enough to risk, others had urged, but he’d ignored them), he made his way on foot back to where his labs once had been, and did his best to retrieve anything that he could that seemed salvageable. Data, Echo chips, research… it was all in pieces, much of it mostly or wholly destroyed, but every day he spent a few hours searching, and came back with an item or two that might help him (and the rest of the human race) in a future of rebuilding.

When news of the forming Colonies began to spread, Ireland volunteered to help in the establishing steps and to act as a medical personnel to those now filing into the colony’s safe houses. It was upon arrival at Colony 22, that he discovered that his brother, Soren (the second eldest of the Krii family) had survived D-Day. He’d been registered at Colony 4, but had left a few months later and there were no official traces of him since.

Now, it goes without saying that no survivor was without change after an immense tragedy such as D-Day, 2157. But the pivotal moments in Ireland’s life that altered him into becoming the man he is now, were three fold: the first, obviously, surviving the first Falling of the skies. The second: the emergence of evolutionary changes in man so drastic and ahead of their time that they defied everything that mankind knew about science up until that point.

Before Reformist power, Ireland was as content as he could be with his life in the colony. Flabbergasted by the new biological data that had landed like a bomb in their world, he became committed to the research of these changes in the Infected. No one had seen anything like this before, and though some seemed convinced that the falling of the asteroids had some kind of connection to these evolutions, Ireland was far from content to point blame and leave it at that. The human body was far too complex to do so—if this was happening, regardless of the source, it had to be understood. Because what were its capabilities? Its limitations? Would it both birth and die in those of initial contact, or was it fated to thread itself so deeply into human genetics that a hundred years from now it would be impossible to tell the difference between telepathy and standard, 21st century thought?

Would these genes be passed on to their children? Would they change through generations?

The apocalypse may have been the end of so many things, but it was the beginning of a whole new world. And it was a world that Ireland felt he was both destined and blessed to be a part of. To be here at the helm, at the beginning.

IRELAND TODAY

His research became the only thing that was important—impassioned about the future of mankind, and what these next ten years would unveil.

But there was a third turning point for Ireland—the rise of the NWRF.

Reformist control changed everything—it threatened everything. They wanted his work, his research, an eye over his shoulder and a finger in everything that he did. Suddenly there was new motivation for his research, and it wasn’t to empower mankind with knowledge and an insight into the possibilities of this new horizon of the 22nd century—it was to smother, to suffocate, to exterminate. It was clear that Reformists wanted to eradicate this new unknown, and use it exclusively as a tool that only a select few could control. Illuminate any power that made individuals threatening to the 'purity’ of the human species, because individuals could not be afforded that kind of power. It would surely get out of hand. It needed to be controlled.

But evolution was critical to the continuation of man. And Ireland was convinced that if this was the result of an apocalyptic event that nearly wiped out the entire planet, then this was the design of their new future. This feat of science and evolution needed to be protected. To be understood, and then protected. At all costs.

Ireland will be going into his fourth year of residency here at the Colony, and those who have been here long enough will have seen him go from a man of few words to a man of many. He has always been committed to his work, to the well being of the Evolved individuals he works with on a regular basis, and has always spent hours upon hours bent over his findings, and anything in Echo he has been able to salvage to try to make sense of all this.

But since the NWRF take over, he has been harbouring both an anger, and a fear of which he’s never felt before. In his entire life, nothing has ever or will ever come close to being of this significance. He believes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is the most important work he will ever do, and that he was meant to survive so that he could do it. The fate of the world lies now in the hands of those precious few who are able to think clearly enough to accept progress. And these traditionalists stuck in the past, arguing matters of conservatism and a God they put above science, above facts—they had to be stopped. The Reformists had to be stopped.

The key, however, was to find a way to do so without risking his work, his leverage. He couldn’t compromise his position, or the clearances he currently had to accessing the Database, the means to accomplishing his cause. And, being that he did not believe in needless violence, aligning himself with the Radicals was not an option.

No, something else had to be done. Something that had a shot in hell of working. Lasting. And he has yet to decide what that is—but murmurings of a New Age Rebellion has reached his ears and he thinks about it nightly. Perhaps all such a movement needs is a leader? A foot in the door, perhaps?

For the time being, he keeps his head down. Dutifully learning everything possible during his patient time with the Infected, and committing himself to his research and lab testing. He is known as being a level-headed man with a gentle touch and a surprisingly soft word, despite his stoicism. For all the work that he does, all the endless hours of focus and time he contributes to the Colony, he is a man of patience and compassion—and an intensely spirited belief.

However, when it comes to his work in the labs or on a particularly promising (or challenging) research binge, Ireland can appear cold and detached. His work is, after all, immeasurably important, and he fears that with every day that passes, the NWRF gain more and more traction, and it is something no one can afford. They are running out of time. And so his tendency is to shut people and the rest of the world out to allow him solid concentration. His intensity can at times border on unhealthy obsession, and if he feels he is responsible for solving a problem presented to him, he does not stop even to eat or sleep until he has exhausted all of his options.

Nonetheless, despite his introspective demeanour, the friends he has formed he holds very dear to his heart, and once he finally emerges from his shell in a relationship of any nature, his loyalty is steadfast and dependable.

He continues to look for signs of his brother, but it has been two years, and still nothing—he fears that with the Reformists’ purging of the wastelands, that he has not yet shown up in another Colony is a sign he may already be dead.

OPEN

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mateoxperezz · 3 years ago

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MATEO PEREZ ; THE INTRO

FULL NAME: Mateo Michael Perez

MEANING: Mateo is Spanish and means gift of God

NICKNAME(S): N/A

BIRTH DATE: March 25, 1988

AGE: 33

ZODIAC: Aries

GENDER: Male

PRONOUNS: He/Him

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Heterosexual

CURRENT LOCATION: Rosewood Hills

LIVING CONDITIONS: three bedroom, one and half bathroom home, fenced backyard with fire pit.

BACKGROUND

BIRTH PLACE: Fallbrook, North Carolina

HOMETOWN: Fallbrook, North Carolina

SOCIAL CLASS: Upper

EDUCATION LEVEL: High School Diploma

FATHER: Manny Perez

MOTHER: Angelica Perez

SIBLING(S): Middle Sibling, Younger Sibling ( both wanted connections )

BIRTH ORDER: Eldest Child

CHILDREN: None

PET(S): Nala, Golden Retriever, 1 year old

CURRENT RELATIONSHIP: Single

PREVIOUS RELATIONSHIPS: Isla Ricci ; high school hook up || Mara Horowitz ; first love

OCCUPATION & INCOME

PRIMARY SOURCE OF INCOME: Retired Baseball Player & Bartender @ The Pit Stop

CONTENT WITH THEIR JOB (OR LACK THERE OF)?: Yes

SPENDING HABITS: Pretty lax with his money as he still has lots left over from baseball, but is more cautious now that he is fully retired from it but makes decent money bartending.

SKILLS & ABILITIES

PHYSICAL STRENGTH: Above Average

INTELLIGENCE: Average

AGILITY: Above Average

STAMINA: Above Average

TEAMWORK: Works really well with a team. He loves being part of a community like that.

LANGUAGE(S) SPOKEN: English, Spanish

DRIVE?: Yes

JUMP-STAR A CAR?: Yes

CHANGE A FLAT TIRE?: Yes

RIDE A BICYCLE?: Yes

SWIM?: Yes

PLAY AN INSTRUMENT?: No

PLAY CHESS?: No

BRAID HAIR?: No

TIE A TIE?: Yes

PICK A LOCK?: No

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE & CHARACTERISTICS

FACE CLAIM: Michael Trevino

EYE COLOR: Brown

HAIR COLOR: Brunette

HAIR TYPE/STYLE: short, usually styled lightly

GLASSES/CONTACTS?: contacts, no glasses

DOMINANT HAND: Right

HEIGHT: 5′9″

WEIGHT: 165 pounds

BUILD: Muscular

EXERCISE HABITS: still teaches baseball, runs long distance around town

TATTOOS: None

PEIRCINGS: None

MARKS/SCARS: None

PSYCHOLOGY

TEMPERAMENT: Sanguine

PHOBIA(S): Dying Alone

DRUG USE: No

ALCOHOL USE: Drinks pretty regularly in social settings

PRONE TO VIOLENCE?: No

MANNERISMS

HOBBIES: coaching baseball, going to the gym, Sunday Football watching

NERVOUS TICKS: clicking his tongue, saying “you know”

DRIVES/MOTIVATIONS: being happy again

FEARS: Never finding a passion again

POSITIVE TRAITS: athletic, stubborn, teacherly

NEGATIVE TRAITS: non committal, overly protective, self critical

DO THEY CURSE OFTEN?: Pretty often

FAVORITES

ACTIVITY: Watching sports

ANIMAL: Dogs

BEVERAGE: Craft beer

COLOR: Green

FOOD: Hamburger

FLOWER: N/A

HOLIDAY: Thanksgiving

SCENERY: Oceanside

SPORT: Football to watch, baseball to play

WEATHER: Warm summer day

CONDENSED BIO

tw: injury

Mateo was born and raised in Fallbrook, North Carolina. He is the oldest of two siblings ( wanted connections ). Growing up, Mateo was incredibly involved in his siblings life and wanted to help with just about everything. When his parent’s got divorced when he was ten years old, he even wore the biggest smile he could manage just to help them get by.

He ended up finding his love of baseball spending one on one time with his dad and once he got involved with that, Mateo didn’t really know how to manage his priorities. He was completely focused on the sport, the only goal in mind was playing professionally.

In high school, Mateo was more of a womanizer. At least, he didn’t commit to just any woman. His primary focus was always baseball but he was a teenage boy with raging hormones and friends with a bunch of other guys with raging hormones. It was to be expected at some point.

At eighteen years old, Mateo headed off to Boston to play for the Boston Red Sox. He traveled all over the United States playing baseball and he was good at it. He loved the comradery of being on a team. Just as he did in high school. The team became more of a family to him than his own at times and often, he didn’t realize just how much he neglected his friends and family back home.

Mateo returned home every off season to teach baseball to the young kids in town, always looking for a way to pay it forward with the sport before returning back to Boston for the season. He made many friends and hooked up with many women over the years that he was in baseball. There was no shortage of going out when he traveled to different cities, releasing his frustrations over a loss or celebrating a win.

When he turned 28, Mateo injured himself, his rotator cuff going out during a game. It benched him and he worked hard to get back to the game. He listened to all the rules, did all the physical therapy, didn’t cheat his way through the system, not once. However, his injury rendered him unable to play at the end of it all. Two years early, his career ended just when he thought he was going to have the best season yet.

To lick his wounds, Mateo traveled to many places around the world. Beaches, mountains, you name it, he went. He had no will to do anything else, not even sure what he would do with his life.

After those two years of meeting what was probably hundreds of beautiful women to try to heal himself, he returned to Fallbrook with his tail tucked between his legs. He bought a house in Rosewood Hills, a modest home but it was still nice nonetheless.

Upon his return, he dabbled in a variety of jobs, nothing really sticking. He ended up working as a bartender because it did make him happy, to some degree. It was never the same as baseball, of course, but he got to hang out with people, serve drinks and the tips weren’t half bad either.

Mateo has been back in Fallbrook for three years now and working as a bartender for just as long. He has a one year old golden retriever named Nala and he can often be seen out with her.

#fallbrookintro #tw injury

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col22promo · 6 years ago

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IRELAND KRII | TWENTY EIGHT; ELITE

House: Calyset Status: Uninfected Elite Specification: Infection Medic, Evolutionary Specialist Alignment: New Age Rebels

HISTORY

Would these genes be passed on to their children? Would they change through generations?

IRELAND TODAY

His research became the only thing that was important—impassioned about the future of mankind, and what these next ten years would unveil.

But there was a third turning point for Ireland—the rise of the NWRF.

HOME | PLOT | SURVIVORS | INFECTIONS | 2157 was the end of the world.

#para roleplay #bio roleplay #lsrpg #reilly dolman #reilly dolman fc

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theconservativebrief · 6 years ago

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Republican leaders, pretty clearly, were annoyed when sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh emerged but were never seriously troubled by them on the merits.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell vowed to “plow right through” Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were in high school before even listening to any testimony. Soren Midgley of the Federalist put it even more bluntly, publishing a story Tuesday morning titled, “Why Brett Kavanaugh should be confirmed to the Supreme Court even if he’s guilty.”

And virtually the entire party (with the honorable partial exceptions of Sens. Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska) has resisted any real effort to gather facts or information. At the end of the day, they like Kavanaugh and simply don’t care about Ford’s charges except as a political inconvenience.

Ford recalls that some time in the summer of 1982 (subsequent documentary evidence suggests July 1 as the most likely date), Brett Kavanaugh, along with his friend Mark Judge, cornered her in an upstairs bedroom of a center-split Cape Cod-style house in Montgomery County, Maryland, locked the door, and attempted to have his way with her — going so far as to put his hand over her mouth to silence her cries for help — before he drunkenly let her slip away.

Kavanaugh says this did not happen. But recognizing that Ford has no earthly reason to lie about this, Republicans are mostly coalescing around the idea that she is perhaps honestly misremembering. Sen. Ben Sasse (R-NE) said during the hearing: “I think Dr. Ford is a victim, and I think she’s been through hell and I’m very sympathetic to her.” He just thinks she’s somehow gotten mixed up.

But human beings are exceptionally good at recalling the faces of people they know and the central elements of traumatic events. To the extent that faulty memory is an issue, it’s much more likely that Kavanaugh at least temporarily forgot about what would have been to him a not-particularly-noteworthy experience that happened to coincide with one of his seemingly frequent bouts of heavy drinking.

While most high school seniors do not drink heavily (even in the considerably boozier 1980s), it’s of course not exactly a rare occurrence for an 18-year-old. And in a stroke of bad luck for Kavanaugh, the drunken antics of his social circle happen to be recounted in two books Judge wrote: Wasted: Tales of a GenX Drunk, and God and Man at Georgetown Prep. And they’re documented in surprising detail on Kavanaugh’s own yearbook page.

This meant he’s had to get out from under the fairly clear reality that he got blitzed, did exactly what Ford said, perhaps forgot all about it, and then had it unexpectedly threaten to derail his career ambition. So he did exactly what he did during his 2004 confirmation hearings: He offered a range of false and misleading testimony to Congress about his drinking habits.

Some of his current contentions about booze are clearly untrue (that he was of legal drinking age in Maryland as a senior), disingenuous (that he and his friends referring to themselves as “Renate Alumni” was a gesture of friendship, not a smear on the name of fellow high schooler Renate Schroeder), or simply risible (that admission to Yale Law School proves he wasn’t much of a partier).

On its face, his nomination should have died at the end of his testimony. But it didn’t, in part because of blind partisanship, but more importantly because of what was revealed in an NPR/Marist poll taken before he testified: 54 percent of Republicans believe Kavanaugh should be confirmed whether or not he is guilty of the sexual assault allegations against him.

Neither Kavanaugh himself nor the senators on the Judiciary Committee have pressed this argument squarely. But it’s pretty clear that a key driver of pro-Kavanaugh sentiment from the grassroots to the White House and, likely, to Kavanaugh himself is simply a conviction that what Ford said he did is not seriously wrong.

Mollie Hemingway, a writer with the Federalist, one of the media outlets most in line with the spirit of Trump-era conservatism, offered a bon mot over the weekend that made it clear she believes Kavanaugh stands accused of nothing more than what you’d expect from any red-blooded American man in a social situation.

Alert to Senate Democrats: dude here at the bar appears to be making a move on the attractive lady he’s here with. Should I alert FBI?

— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 29, 2018

Rod Dreher, a conservative pundit deeply inflected by social conservatism, concedes that it is “loutish” to trap a woman in the bedroom of a spare house and try to tear her clothes off, but observes that lots of people do loutish things as teenagers only to mature later.

I do not understand why the loutish drunken behavior of a 17 year old high school boy has anything to tell us about the character of a 53 year old judge. By God’s grace (literally), I am not the same person I was at 17. This is a terrible standard to establish in public life.

— Rod Dreher (@roddreher) September 17, 2018

Rep. Kevin Cramer (R-ND), currently a candidate for US Senate, is one of the few elected officials to actually say what conservatives largely seem to think about this: that since Ford got away, it’s essentially a “no harm, no foul” situation.

Republican Congressman Kevin Cramer, the U.S. senate nominee in North Dakota called the Kavanaugh accusation “absurd” today because they were drunk and assault attempt “never went anywhere.” @CNNPolitics https://t.co/jc48DOKb6w

— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) September 21, 2018

The very first weekend the allegations aired, CNN ran a telling segment featuring Republican Party activists from South Florida who simultaneously maintained that Ford’s accusations were an outrageous smear campaign and that Kavanaugh is merely accused of doing things that every boy does.

Being less professionally trained than the 11 men of the Senate GOP Judiciary Committee, these women give voice to the shadow argument that Republican professionals don’t want to make: The outrageous slander isn’t to say that Kavanaugh did what Ford says he did; it’s to say that what Kavanaugh did was wrong.

As Vox’s Constance Grady’s brilliant deconstruction of rape culture in the 1980s film 16 Candles shows, the social mores that prevailed when Kavanaugh and Ford were young were very different from the overt message about consent that prevails in America today. And while 16 Candles is an unusually noteworthy example because its primary intended audience is specifically young women, cinema of the late 1970s and early ’80s simply abounds with relevant examples:

Critically, even though all these films are depicting what we would today call rape or sexual assault, it’s very clear from the context of the movies that, in the fiction, the men are not doing anything wrong. These assaults are conducted by heroic protagonists that the audience is supposed to identify with.

There is real moral ambiguity in some of these movies (about Deckard’s work, for example) but there’s no ambiguity about taking advantage of a drunk girl (it’s her fault) or using a little light force as part of a seduction strategy (it’ll probably work and end up with her glad you did it).

You just wouldn’t make scenes like that in today’s films, especially given that in almost every case, their construction — and at times, their presence at all — is largely incidental to the main story.

But it’s obvious that the large change in official norms about consent overstates the amount of actual change on the ground. Sexual assaults remain frequent and remain infrequently reported, since the mechanics of both the legal system and corporate HR departments remain fundamentally unequipped to enforce contemporary views about consent.

And, critically, most of the people who made and watched those old ’70s and ’80s movies and found their depiction of sex and consent appropriate are still around and running most of America’s institutions. The Kavanaugh nomination, but also the broader #MeToo movement, is fundamentally about whether America means what it now says about consent.

There’s a concept in the social science of political revolutions known as the “revolution of rising expectations.” It describes a scenario in which people rise up against the powers that be not necessarily because conditions are getting worse, but because earlier events led to the expectation of rapid improvement that has not come to pass.

One way to think about the emergence of #MeToo over the past several years is as precisely such a revolution. A cohort of women raised to expect something better than 16 Candles treatment is challenging America to live up to its currently stated norms and values. But after a couple of instances in which investigative reporting brought to light previously unknown facts followed by swift justice, it’s become clear that an entrenched culture of “himpathy” presents a powerful challenge to that revolution.

On one level, Ford’s critics are doubting her story. But they actually all agree that her testimony seemed heartfelt and sincere and that she has no conceivable motive to lie. The doppelgänger theory of the case is fairly ridiculous — especially since there is no evidence of the existence of any such doppelgänger. But it seems like a more politically palatable thing to say than for Senate Republicans to simply shrug their shoulders and say, “Who cares?”

But we really should care. Slogans about believing victims aren’t just about believing factual recountings of past events. It’s about believing victims when they tell you that their experiences were a big deal and did lasting damage to their well-being. And seeing Kavanaugh face consequences for his actions would send a powerful message to young men — something that conservatives openly acknowledge but see as a bad thing rather than a good thing.

As the father of a son, I’d like my boy to grow up in a country that sends a clear and unambiguous message about consent and that delivers real consequences to people who unapologetically violate the terms of the deal. That’s how people learn right from wrong and can come up asking appropriate questions about affirmative consent, self-control, honesty, alcohol, and all the rest.

Republican senators were obviously impressed by the sincerity of Kavanaugh’s outrage at hearings last week. And he really did seem to be very sincerely outraged. But the pairing of absolute sincerity with multiple clear instances of dishonesty is in fact the scariest thing of all.

He’s not telling the truth about his conduct as a student in high school and college, but he’s totally sincere in his conviction that he did nothing wrong, and genuinely indignant that people would think to hold a powerful person accountable for mistreating girls 35 years ago.

And on some level, I suppose I can even sympathize — it has not, in fact, been standard practice to hold men accountable for sexually assaulting women, and I can see why it could feel unfair to be punished for something that so many other people have gotten away with.

But if change is going to happen, it needs to start somewhere. And Kavanaugh’s decision to handle these allegations from day one with angry denials and weird dissembling rather than an apology and a plea for mercy makes this an excellent place to start.

Original Source -> Republicans don’t care if Kavanaugh is guilty because they don’t think what he did was wrong

via The Conservative Brief

#IFTTT #The Conservative Brief

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proven-paradox · 6 years ago

Text

Rosa’s Campaign Journal, Session 1

((A recording of this session is available on Twitch! Check it out here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/296588645))

Strange dreams aside, today was my first time on a real adventure. It sucked.

I wasn’t expecting it to be FUN per se. If adventuring were fun, it wouldn’t be something people were paid so much to do. But the mixture of unpleasant situations and awkward company was rather trying. I suppose I’ll start by describing that company.

First, a goliath, Kuro Stonestander--I couldn’t hear that last name clearly, so I’ll try my best here--Agolicori. At first I thought this one a warrior, but they battled with song and spell instead. They are a good natured, amicable sort I suppose, but some cracks in that facade showed quickly. While they seem genuinely morally upright, they also try to sound more intelligent and accomplished than they actually are in a terribly inelegant way, constantly bragging about deeds that I suspect exist only in their head, exaggerating accomplishments wherever possible. That braggadociousness and bravado vanished the moment we were in danger, quickly turning to pathetic cowardice. Not quite to the point of fleeing, but they spent the time we were in combat hiding behind the others. They did approach to heal me in the middle of one fight, so I think they can be depended on when it’s absolutely required. They also have a sound grasp of battlefield tactics. I think they could do with some humility though.

Next is Spyro, a tiefling. At least I assume she’s a tiefling; she looks more fiendish than human. Handy with a lockpick and a dagger, quite brave. Beyond that, she seems to speak in word salads a lot. She doesn’t seem -stupid-, but perhaps a bit... vapid. Shallow maybe? That feels harsh as I write it, but something about the way she speaks gives the impression--likely false given her performance today--that she’s intellectually unimpressive. It doesn’t help her case that she struggles a bit with numbers, and seems unwilling or unable to accept help when others offer it. She’s friendly to a point where I suspect it’s not entirely genuine. It -is- entirely annoying. Perhaps that says more about me than her. Her bravery also bordered on carelessness at a few points in this adventure. Still, of my four companions I am least concerned about her. I don’t think we’ll spend much time together outside of work, but on a professional level she’s pleasant enough.

Percy came next, a drow. At first I thought him a quiet sort, but it turns out he is actually physically unable to speak and communicates through a familiar. An imp named--again, unsure of this spelling--Kenicky. Percy himself is handsome enough I suppose, but with several red flags that tell me to keep him at arm’s length. First, he’s a spellcaster of some sort but the spells he casts aren’t divine in nature, nor did I see any evidence of a spellbook on him. It’s possible he’s hidden a grimoire somewhere on his person, but I think more likely he doesn’t need one. He couldn’t be a songmage without a voice either. That leaves sorcery or pact magic, and I do not think sorcerers often take familiars, let alone imps. Pact magic suggests a dearth of good judgement. He is also rather greedy for magical items, as will come up later in this entry. There was not much means of communication directly from him; he spoke entirely through Kenicky with their telepathic bond. The imp, for its part, seems weirdly responsible and friendly. I wonder how much of that is at Percy’s bidding and how much is the imp putting on a show to lull mortals into its hellish ways?

Finally, Helja, a dwarven warrior woman. Also quiet, but when she did speak she had a decisive and confident tone. She and Kuro share some kind of bond, the former claiming they’ve been travelling together for some time. I’ve already established Kuro’s tendency to exaggerate though, so for all I know they met yesterday. Helja seemed amicable enough in the meeting beforehand, but fell quiet once we were into the adventure proper. She also seemed keen on entering combat where the option presented itself. I only saw her strike one blow today, but said blow was powerful enough to pulverise her target--sending the remains into my face rather rudely. I suspect she and I, being the two party members most heavily armored, will spend a fair amount of time holding back our foes for the group should our partnership continue. Still, I get the impression she has little to contribute outside of combat. Then again, perhaps she’s just new to this; whatever the case hopefully she will open up somewhat as our partnership progresses.

On to the task itself. Derek Jenkins--a local farmer’s adolescent son--fell into a coma after encountering something in a local abandoned mansion, long rumored by locals to be haunted, full of locked doors that no one has ever opened. (I have my doubts about that, but I will get to that in due course.) According to the two companions who found him, he had been training with a set of lockpicks and was working on a door in the third floor while the other two were looking around elsewhere. They came back to him and found him apparently asleep, unable to wake him. Our task was to enter the mansion and look for a possible countermeasure.

I asked to see the boy before entering. The boy’s father, Rodrick, said that he had already been seen by the local doctor, a half-orc named Krusk. I’ve not had a chance to get to know this doctor, so I wished to do my own examination just to be certain nothing was missed. I found him to be quite an odd case; other than him being unable to awaken he seemed healthy. I surmised that, should all else fail, a Greater Restoration spell would awaken the boy. Alas that is an incredible expense and would require the boy be taken to a proper city where priests of sufficient power could be found; logistically infeasible on multiple axes. So our next stop was to be the mansion.

The mansion itself might have been an impressive sight in its prime, but today it is a shameful waste of potential, falling apart and overgrown. According to Rodrick, the place is frequented by teenagers on dares; tests to see if they’re brave enough to sleep in the supposedly haunted place, as well as an asylum that hides activities teenage stupidity from adult eyes. In hindsight I should have asked more about the place’s history. Once our business with the place is done, I intend to see if there’s a town historian or an archive to look through. I somewhat doubt my companions would have patience for history lessons, so perhaps it’s for the best we skipped that part today. Worst case, I suspect Father Namfoodle would know a bit of the place if I can get time to speak with him about it.

We entered, and after some discussion on how best to climb upward (I had doubts about the staircase’s integrity beneath the weight of armor and a goliath) we went straight to the third floor, where Derek was found. Once up there, I cast a simple magic detection spell and looked through the walls of the rooms. The room where the lock that knocked out Derek had an abjuration spell placed behind the door, and an adjacent room had an illusion spell within it. I immediately cautioned my allies about the potential powers of abjuration spells, mentioning things such as the powerful Symbol spell. In hindsight, I was -wildly- overestimating what security measures were in this mansion, but better to overestimate the danger than underestimate it. We discussed some potential countermeasures for a while, ultimately to no real conclusion. Afterward I continued down the hall, scanning lower floors with my magic detecting sight while Spyro worked on the primary lock. I noted a large necromancy presence below us an immediately informed the rest of the group. Once Spyro had the lock done I moved to get out of the vicinity of the door while she opened it. Turned out the spell I was detecting was a simple Alarm spell, and I spied the necromancy pings below moving toward us.

A skeleton approached from below. Most of the party was in the hallway expecting something foul to come from the revealed bedroom, but I remained on the stairwell landing. Truth told, the primary reason was so I could watch the abjuration effect through the wall and be sheltered from it, but my positioning near the stairwell was still useful since I am well armored. The skeleton was unable to get past my shield. Percy cast a necromantic spell upon the skeleton--Chill Touch or some variant thereof, if I’m not mistaken--doing the thing a grievous injury. I followed up by tapping my holy symbol to my shield to produce the ring of a Toll the Dead spell. With Percy’s initial attack empowering my own, the skeleton crumbled before it could do any harm.

Alas, four more followed after it. Here the battle became much more chaotic, so my recollection is not as detailed. I advanced onto the landing to draw their attention, trusting my armor to protect me. Percy remained in the hallway content to fling cantrips. Kuro joined him, showing their cowardly streak for the first time. They also revealed an old lyre, playing an empowering song for me. (I should discuss tactics with them at some point; the nature of my spells typically rely on an enemy’s weakness over my own strength, and so their song would be more effective used on one of the others.) Spyro was swiftly at my side, and with the undead’s attention on me she was able to strike at vulnerable points a few times. She seemed to have trouble with their lack of anatomy though, stabbing through the ribs expecting it to accomplish something once or twice. I moved into the skeleton group, intending to grab their attention, when one got a lucky stab through the side of my armor, thrusting my first wound upon me. Spyro, more lightly armored, was also cut by one whose attention left me, though her wound was not that deep. Percy and I struck down one with spells, while Helja--lagging behind due to her dwarven stature--caught up. She and Spyro did something to destroy one behind me, I didn’t see. Kuro gathered their courage and skirted the outside of the battle to heal me, and I moved to flank one with Helja. She brought down her hammer so hard that it powderised our target, sending bone dust into my face. It is -horridly- unpleasant to get a recently ended undead up your nose. I sputtered with that for a moment while the final skeleton dealt Helja a terrible blow. Still, it was one against many, and the thing went down quickly. The final blow was dealt by Kuro, but the swing seemed sloppy, almost as though they had closed their eyes to make it.

We took a moment to regroup, I tended to Helja’s wound, and we investigated the room we had opened, the master bedroom. The exploring children said there was a rumor that room contained keys, a rumor which proved true. Apparently before the skeletons arrived, Spyro found a severed hand on the floor clutching a note and a keyring. The note I will add to the next page when we get it back; at the time of writing we have taken it to Rodrick for reasons that should be obvious once the note is read. The room itself had decorations indicating devout worship of Pelor, a skeleton laying on a bed, and a few pieces of somewhat expensive looking furniture, all covered in dust. I suspect some members of our party will try to recover the furniture to resell. I worry the stairs will not support their weight. A problem to ponder later.

I am Darius Bertholdt III, last of a line of Lords in Stillwater. When I die, this mansion shall die with me. Allow this to be my last will and testament. I have come to learn a disturbing truth, a truth I dare not repeat for fear that Stillwater would be razed to the ground to hide the evidence of a single letter. I have managed to correct this truth and this mistake, but at the cost of great pain. My enemy has taken the life of my only son and heir, and soon, they shall take mine as well. So long as I refrain from speaking their name in this missive, enough damage has been done that they won't bother destroying what little evidence remains, but should some poor soul in the future wander into this house and spring one of the traps I no longer have the time to deactivate, I share with you the simple antidote. ANTIDOTE TO THE DEATH SLEEP 1 MOONVINE FLOWER (Growing in the Watch Tower) 1 SUNROSE (Growing in the Greenhouse) 1 BLACKLEAF VINE (inside my Workshop room) MIX TOGETHER INSIDE A SILVER BOWL (there is one in the family's sanctum beyond the cellar) WITH THREE DROPS OF BLOOD (of a race kin to that who was poisoned) LET REST IN THE SUNLIGHT FOR TEN MINUTES In my time, I have tried to make this antidote common knowledge enough that the Death Sleep Poison should now be useless to my enemy. I may not have ended all suffering by their hands, but I go to my final rest with a clear conscience, knowing that I have taken their greatest weapon. If you are reading this, my greatest hope is still that you may find your way back to the proper path of our vows. If you are beyond that, then may you rot in the deepest hells for all eternity.

After that, we moved to continue exploring the mansion. There was a room across the hall with a reinforced door that was our first target--the room where I had spotted the illusion earlier. Kuro almost injured themself trying to shoulder tackle the door down. After that, Spyro stepped forward to try and pick the lock. She complained of rust interfering, to which I replied by casting a Mending spell that broke the rust and restored some of the lock’s weathered state. This seemed to help--though first attempt had Spyro breaking a pick, once that was extracted and restored using the same spell. Eventually Spyro succeeded, revealing a library that was mostly empty of books. The few still inside were books about herbalism, but not with any mention of the ingredients we were looking for. They may be useful later though, so I took them with me.

The illusion aura I spoke of came from a chest that looked conspicuously spared from the ravages of time. Spyro approached and found that it was a simple Displacement aura, a rather lackluster security measure overall that just made the chest’s position visually inaccurate. After some bumping and feeling around, Spyro located the proper chest and disarmed the trap on it with ease, revealing a trove of coins and a wand. The latter was quickly scooped up by Percy, with no discussion. If I’m correct about his being a pact mage he will not be able to Identify the wand, making it quite useless in his hands until I tell him how to activate it. As of this writing I have not yet confronted him about this issue, but I find this behavior entirely unacceptable. I did not press the issue at the time, as he’ll be quite reliant on me to reveal how to use the wand anyway. No hard feelings until we have to actually Identify the item and discuss how best to allocate it, I suppose.

The next room we found was a workshop, covered in dust and filled with chemistry and herbalism equipment. It didn’t take us long to find a sample of Blackleaf Vine, and there was not much else in the workshop that seemed worth taking. I may come back here later--if we can confirm there is no danger remaining in the mansion--to try and learn a bit of how to use the tools within.

At this point I pointed out to the rest of the group that we should probably take the note outside so there would be a record of it in the event we were unable to complete the cure ourselves. We flagged down a town guard to take the note you see above to Rodrick, just to be sure.

Since we were already outside we decided to go to the back yard, where both the watchtower and the greenhouse were waiting. Spyro took a shot at jumping the rather tall fence to get to the back while the rest of us went through the first floor. I surmise the attempt went poorly, as she was not far behind us going through the first floor, nursing a scrape on her knee.

We went toward the watchtower first. At this point Percy was carrying the keys, so he went in first, sending his imp to the top of the tower to check ahead for us. He found the flower we sought as well as a “big cylinder thing.” Curious, Spyro went ahead to check what it was and promptly walked into a hole covered by an illusion. (The man who wrote that note had time to tell us to go to hell, but neglected to mention there were traps in the watchtower. Prick.) The next few moments were rather chaotic; it sounded like there was some other trap at the bottom of the pit Spyro landed in. Fortunately it wasn’t enough to knock her out, though I’m surprised she still had the strength to climb up the rope Percy let down for her. Once she was back up I cast another healing spell on her and warned the group that I only had one remaining. Spyro seemed oddly grateful about this healing--I don’t understand why she felt the need to praise me for performing my most fundamental duty in this journey.

Alert for traps now, Spyro made a second attempt to get upstairs against my warnings--I had begun the ritual to cast Detect Magic again, which would reveal any more illusions without extra effort. Fortunately there were no other traps to trigger (or we simply passed the triggers altogether; we should still use caution if we go into that tower again) and Spyro brought down the flower as well as the object Kenicky referenced: an old telescope designed for astronomy. The thing is tremendous and unwieldy, but in excellent shape for being forgotten for hundreds of years. I Mended a few dings and bits of damage while examining it, but it needs a proper cleaning with a clean cloth (and my robe was still covered in the dust of the skeleton Helja obliterated at the time). Perhaps when we take it back to town I can do it justice, and then I suspect we can sell the thing for quite a profit. Maybe not in this tiny town, but elsewhere for certain. For now, we left it on the ground floor of the watchtower; it’s too heavy to carry around while we explore.

I had completed my Detect Magic ritual, and while it was too late to aid Spyro in the tower, we still had some time to utilize the spell at the greenhouse. We paced around the structure from the outside, having grown paranoid at the other traps and tricks we had encountered. Spyro spotted a pair of cockatrices sleeping inside the structure as well as a crack in the glass that all of us but Kuro could likely fit through if we moved carefully. I was able to identify the sunrose we were seeking. Growing directly between the two beasts, naturally. What followed was a long conversation where I started out advocating we carefully slay the beasts using ranged weaponry, not considering that they would likely flee through the cracked glass, potentially releasing them to cause trouble on the townfolk. We wasted a several minutes debating the correct course of action, and that was mostly my fault. In the end I agreed with the others to just send Kenicky into the greenhouse to quietly pluck a flower without waking them. We will inform the town guard of this potential threat after we’ve brewed the antidote. I intend to come with them to help slay these beasts. I suspect Helja will join me in this, as she seemed keen to do battle with the things, while the rest of the group--especially Spyro--seemed ready to wash their hands of the situation.

Next was the cellar, where the adventure took a decidedly unpleasant turn. We found door to the basement without issue, but the interior was flooded with about two feet of water. The smell of mold was choking. We noted several wine barrels inside, untouched for a long time. The water has likely ruined most of them, but perhaps there’s still something we can take to sell later.

My magic detection was still active at this time, and I immediately noted another necromancy aura beyond a door on the far side of the room. At this point I dropped the detection spell in favor of Lighting my holy symbol. Percy (speaking through Kenicky as usual) kindly offered to guide the group through the dark with his powerful drow sight, but I pointed out that we would already be attracting attention by sloshing through the water, quite ruining any attempt at stealth. Percy still lead the way since he could see so far beyond the light I produced. We entered the water (poor Helja in up to her chest), and that is when the serpents struck.

A pair of tremendous water snakes surrounded us as we sloshed through the water, and we were caught completely by surprise. The first reared back about to strike me, but Spyro acted faster and stabbed the thing before it finished the strike. She stumbled on her follow up strike, falling into the water and giving the snake an opening. It attacked Spyro in retaliation, biting her and afflicting her with some painful venom. (Writing this now makes me feel a bit guilty about what I wrote introducing her… What I wrote is still all true, but her actions reveal she has a good heart.) While she floundered in the water another snake struck at Percy, nearly killing him as well.

Kuro moved to heal Percy and Helja charged forward to handle the snake on them, so I kept my attention on the snake attacking Spyro. I attempted to Toll the Dead to end the injured beast’s life, but it managed to resist death’s chime. I did my best to take the snake’s attention, intending to give Spyro a chance to withdraw. Instead, she righted herself and decapitate the snake, then threw a dagger to try and injure the other one. What happened next wasn’t entirely clear to me, as I was moving to make sure Spyro was in no further danger from the snake’s venom. But it seems Percy cast some sort of very powerful spell which essentially reduced the other snake to chunks.

I’ve always detested serpents, and this encounter has obviously done nothing to improve my opinion of them.

I dipped my glowing holy symbol into the water to make absolutely certain there were no more threats under the water, then used the last of my healing spells on Spyro. As an aside, she argued for drinking a healing potion instead, reinforcing my low opinion of her intelligence--my spells are free and renewable, that potion is expensive and gone once it’s used. Were we still threatened it would have been one thing, but there was no danger at the time so drinking the potion would have been a -terrible- waste of resources. Anyway, Kuro also confirmed that they had used the last of their mana. With the necromancy aura lingering in my memory, we decided that continuing forward for the day would be too dangerous. We all quickly exited the water and withdrew from the mansion. (The two from the Under both took the snakes’ remains for some reason. I think I spied Spyro actually eating one of them raw. Eugh.)

As I write this, my robes are on a line after a thorough washing. I fear one of the group may catch cold after this encounter. I’ve started sneezing on occasion, so it may well be too late for me on that front. I am direly disappointed no one in the group can cast Prestidigitation to make these kinds of hazards less miserable, but that spell is arcane rather than divine so I can do nothing to correct the situation myself. At least we all still live and are in relative good health after our searching. For my part, I intend to check the second floor of the house after the antidote is secured; there is much about this mansion that does not make sense and I do not like leaving loose ends. It boggles my mind that the doors hadn’t been forced open at some point during the mansion’s long abandonment, and I want to search the place thoroughly in hopes of finding an answer to that lingering doubt. But that will come later; as I close this entry I intend to take what solace I can with this town’s low quality pipe weed.

#dnd 5e #Rosa Campaign Journal

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