#for various reasons Wednesday would be ideal

[herbertwest]

It would be really cool if I could finish the draft of the sci-fi sequel by uh...Wednesday. There is no way that is happening since I still have something like 14 chapters to write, I can usually write no more than a chapter a day (if I have work, which I do) so yeah. But it would still be nice.

Well, I'll do what I can.

[casino-lights]

so illario was in the final battle

and this was supposed to be a drabble, but I cannot be trusted to write Illario and Lidia succinctly. TW for a semi graphic description of wounds - I can't tell if it's not really that bad or if I just think the human body is neat so I'm marking that down anyway. no death or descriptions of the wounds being inflicted, though; this is fully set post-battle. the endgame spoilers are fairly mild though - just the location of the final fight.

if you saw my WIP Wednesday, this is what that snippet was from! I hope you enjoy it as much as these two enjoy arguing with each other. thank you for reading!

The dried blood matting half of Lidia’s bangs down against her split scalp didn’t bother her nearly as much as it bothered Teia. She fussed over her gently, blotting a damp rag against Lidia’s head and tutting like a disappointed mother.

“This is what happens,” she scolded between soft pats. “You always run ahead, and you always draw attention, and you always get yourself hurt.”

Absentmindedly, Lidia replied, “I usually work alone.”

“Yes, and this is why.”

“Mm.” The only sign she felt pain was a series of rapid blinks when Teia pressed against a particularly painful cut.

“If you would stop looking around, I’d be done faster.”

Lidia turned her head back toward Teia. “Is it still bleeding?”

“Not that I can see.”

She rose to her feet and brushed the dust of fallen Minrathous buildings off her thighs. “Then I’ll live.”

Teia gave up quickly. She was no one’s parent, no matter how much she cared. “Suit yourself. But Lidia?”

“Hm?”

“You’ve done immensely well. Not just here - since Lucanis’ return as well. House Dellamorte is lucky to have you.”

She smiled thinly. “We’re all just Crows today, Teia.”

“Yes, we are.”

“Speaking of Lucanis…”

Teia nodded her head in the direction of the raucous cheering and the gathered crowd surrounding a few figures climbing down from the rooftop where the final confrontation had taken place. They both saw the flash of a purple jacket at the same time, and a wave of relief washed over them as they shared a look.

“Vi is back a ways, checking the fallen for ours so we can arrange the funerals,” Teia continued softly. “Since you’re upright, could you see to them as well?”

“Of course. Tell Lucanis not to worry about us and just take care of himself if you get a chance to talk to him.”

Teia nodded, and Lidia turned away. She hugged her cape around herself like a blanket as she snaked her way through what was left of the Minrathous streets, hopping over and ducking under various bits of debris that cluttered the city. She caught a few of her fellow Crows out of the corners of her eyes as she passed - most bloodied, bruised, and limping, but alive - and they all shared reassuring smiles with her once they noticed her. We lived, said their grins. We won, and we lived.

She saw Viago leaning against a mostly-intact building, heaving a deep sigh, and she called out to him. He lifted his eyes to her as she approached, but his lips were pulled down into a scowl.

Quietly, Lidia asked, “Is it that bad?”

“We lost just over twenty,” he answered, voice low and solemn. “Not as many as I expected, but… less than ideal. Most were fledgelings, but there’s a small handful of master assassins.”

She felt a selfish desire to ask anyone I know? but stifled it. “Do you need anything? A hand with the bodies? A cart?”

“A cart,” he agreed with a nod. “Though I don’t know if we could get one to the eluvian with the state of Minrathous. We might have to carry them through on stretchers.” He pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed again. “Which means we’d need able-bodied volunteers, a relatively clear path back to the mirror, enough stretchers to make for less back-and-forth, a cart waiting in the Crossroads…”

“Maybe we can ask Lucanis if he knows a clearer route?” Lidia suggested softly.

He blinked, then sighed with relief. “You saw him?”

“Teia and I. He looks alright. Reasonably unharmed.”

He nodded again, more slowly this time. “It's nice to have some good news, at least.”

Lidia looked past Viago, into the building, and saw rows and rows of white linens draped over bodies. A cold, sick feeling gawed at her stomach as she counted them, and she wondered how many more would succumb to their injuries or simply hadn’t yet been found.

Another fear gripped her, too. She scanned the bodies again, making note of the taller ones. From the shoes she could see, none looked more distinctive than the regular steel-tipped Crow boots. Though some were burned beyond recognition. She felt guilty, searching for just one body among the two dozen lying before her, and guiltier still that she was looking for him at all. 

But she hadn’t seen him with the other Crows. He should have been with Teia, or Lucanis, or even here pestering Viago endlessly. She shouldn’t care. He didn’t deserve it. But she asked anyway.

“Viago–”

“I don’t know.”

“I didn’t even ask yet.”

“No, but you have that look on your face.” Viago sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know where Illario is. Teia saw him last.”

Lidia frowned. “She didn’t mention anything to me, and I was just with her.”

He pulled a hand down his face before pausing to smooth down his beard. “I did not see him among the dead, if that’s what you’re asking, but I have no idea where else he would be right now.”

“Well, he isn’t with Teia, and he isn’t with Lucanis, where he was supposed to be.” 

She glanced over her shoulder just in time to see a pair of Crows carrying the mangled corpse of one of their fellows into the building. Viago sighed again and raked his fingers back through his hair. 

“Dammit. One of Teia’s fledgelings.”

Lidia looked back at him, horrified. “I thought you told them not to come!”

“We did,” he answered, voice pained and eyes closed. “But you of all people should know that doesn’t stop them from wanting to prove themselves.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath, steeling himself to write another name on his list. After a moment of silence and a nod at the two Crows as they left the building, he sighed again and said, “Go home, Lidia. We’ve been sending the ones who can walk back to the Diamond for now to care for the ones who can’t.”

“Teia told me to help you.”

“And you can help me by going home,” Viago snapped. “And tell them to put a cart in the Crossroads. And station some people with it in case we need them to carry stretchers through the streets.”

She frowned, but gave a single nod of understanding before turning away. They were all Crows today. And she knew better than to question an order from a Talon.

She was welcomed by the warmth of Trevisan air once the cool, watery feeling of the eluvian faded. For just a moment, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, drinking in the flurry of scents that always filled the Cantori Diamond. The smells of spices, wine, and smoke wafted up from the casino floor, but the familiar chatter and laughter was replaced by eerie quiet, broken up only by the occasional groan or cry of pain.

Lidia’s eyes darted toward a flash of purple and she called out, stopping Chance in his tracks. He leaned back, peering at her curiously from around the corner, but smiled warmly as she approached. 

“Lidia! You made it back.” He touched her shoulder gently before bowing with a flourish. “Welcome home, my lady.”

She returned the expression as best she could despite her headache and festering worry. “Thank you. The Fifth Talon would like a cart prepared in the Crossroads outside the Minrathous eluvian along with some strong, uninjured Crows who can carry bodies back on stretchers if need be.” 

“It will be done. Any other requests?”

She glanced around, but saw no one else nearby. “I heard some of our wounded came through. Where are they now?”

“Using the card tables as extra beds,” he answered before frowning as he smoothed his moustache. “We’ve already lost three, and one more seems to be on his way out. The healers who stayed are all busy, and everyone else went to Minrathous. It’s… going to get better soon. I’m certain. Your arrival can only herald better tidings.”

Again, Lidia bit her tongue to keep herself from asking if the dead were known to her. Instead, she simply nodded to signal her understanding and left. 

As she descended the many flights of stairs separating the rafters from the casino floor, her brow furrowed as her concern compounded on itself. Every step felt heavier as she ran over the names and faces of her favorite Crows in her mind. Lucanis, Teia, Viago, and Chance were safe. Jacobus stayed behind in Treviso after Lidia begged him to - their argument consisted of shouting and frustrated tears, but ended with several forehead kisses and a warm, loving hug once he finally agreed to stay. But the others? Heir, Dolores, Cazi, Valerian? 

Illario?

She hated herself for worrying about him the most. He had not earned back that space in her head, and yet he’d stolen it again. He occupied her thoughts in various stages of injury, and images of him maimed or charred or exsanguinated flashed through her mind. With everything he put her through, everything he lied about, she knew she should be savoring the idea of him dead somewhere in Minrathous. But it haunted her, the thought of never seeing him again. It ached like a stone with sharp edges lodged in her chest.

I should’ve left Treviso entirely, she thought bitterly as she rounded the corner of the final stairwell.

The floor of the Diamond opened up before her, and she sighed at the state of it. About half of the card tables had wounded Crows perched on them - several with especially nasty-looking injuries - and a corner of the room was sectioned off with makeshift dividers. A few trails of blood - droplets, drag marks, or both - meandered off toward different tables. It would take days to get this place functional again. 

Overlapping voices from various healers and patients filled the room. Most were voices she recognized, and she felt a wave of relief as they registered one by one. And as one of them filtered in, her head turned immediately toward the sound.

“I know, quite heroic,” said Illario with a soft groan. “Maybe someday the heroism will outweigh the stupidity.”

Lidia spotted him on a table, shirtless and wrapped in bandages, with his hair swept over one shoulder and a healer tending to his right side. He moved sluggishly and only when told, but his posture was still straight and his voice was still clear. He looked… decent.

She chided herself again for being so worried. Of course Illario was fine. Of course he made it with only minor injuries. Why wouldn’t he? He always had demonic luck. Why worry about him, Illario the traitor, Illario the liar, Illario the cheater, heartbreaker, manipulator–

“Lidia?”

She looked back at him at the sound of his voice, realizing her fingernails were starting to dig into her palms. She grabbed a stray coin off an empty card table and turned it over a few times in her hand as she made her way toward Illario.

He smiled at her approach, winced as he turned too far, and gave a slightly smaller and surprisingly sheepish grin when she reached his side. “Stay right there,” he said, holding out his unbandaged arm. “That’s always been my good side.”

Lidia rolled her eyes. “You couldn’t possibly say hello, or ask me how I am, or ask after Lucanis, could you? Do you even care?”

“I–” He hissed sharply and cursed as the healer pried something off his skin with a sticky sound. He leaned forward at the same time Lidia did, blocking her view of whatever was removed from him, and flashed another forced half-smile. “Of course I care, but I trust your delightful bluntness. I’m certain you would have told me the second you saw me if he was dead. I’m also certain you would look like you’ve been crying.”

She scowled and crossed her arms, angrily spinning the coin between her thumb and forefinger. “You’re a bastard.”

“I’m not, strictly speaking, but I never did get to know my father as well as I would have liked, so I’ll give you–” He cut himself off with another wince as the healer removed another piece from him. Once more, Lidia leaned forward to look, and once more, Illario intercepted her, this time by reaching for her arm.

“Don’t touch me,” she snapped, pulling away from him.

He let his hand fall back to the table. “If there’s one thing I can say about you, it’s that you never gave me mixed signals. I always know exactly where I stand. I love this about you - have I mentioned that?”

“You have. A pity I can’t say the same about you.”

Before he could respond, his head surged backwards and he let out a pained cry as the healer unwound one of the bandages on his arm.

“Apologies,” the healer muttered, “but now that the debriding is done, I need to replace these compresses and apply the rest.”

“Sure,” Illario groaned through his teeth. “You’re the expert.”

Lidia took her opportunity and shifted her stance to see the extent of his injuries. She couldn’t stifle a small gasp, which seemed to hurt him more than anything else.

A splotchy pink burn blossomed across most of his right forearm and about half his bicep, and it continued across the corresponding side of his torso. For the briefest of seconds, he turned his head to look at her fully, eyes wide and pleading, as he inadvertently revealed the connecting burn across the right side of his jawline and down his neck. The moment passed, and he lowered his face and sighed quietly.

Raw, red, sticky-looking flesh was visible in a few places, and as the healer set a small bowl on the table to free his hands, Lidia finally saw its contents: a small pile of dead, mottled tissue. How long had Illario been here, having his skin peeled off piece by blistered piece? Most of the burns looked deep enough to go past the pain, but in some places they were angry and crimson, shining as if wet. 

The healer covered them one by one with bandages soaked in a healing solution as Illario tried to be still. “I told you that was my good side,” he muttered, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Lidia tucked the coin into her pocket and hoisted herself up onto the table beside him, legs kicking off the edge. “So… what happened?”

His eyes fell to the uninjured hand he had resting in his lap. “Magefire.” His voice sounded low, unenthusiastic - a far cry from the initial charm he laid on so thickly. “But this lovely gentleman here–” he motioned lightly toward the healer– “has assured me the wounds are not fatal. Just scarring. You’re crushed, I’m sure.”

Her headache throbbed dully, reminding her not to take his bait tonight. Instead, she said, “I’m just surprised you got hit at all. You’ve always been the luckiest bastard in Antiva.”

“Well, this time, I left Antiva.”

“Which you have done before, and you know what I meant anyway, idiot.”

He shrugged with his good arm, still refusing to meet her eyes. “Lucanis and I were cornered, and I stood in front of him. Foolish thing to do, I know. But I suppose I was trying to make up for something he would probably tell me not to worry about anyway. He was fine last time I saw him, if you’re concerned.”

“I’m not. Unless he tripped over something during his victory march, he’s alive and well…” She trailed off as she looked him over again. His right arm injured, mostly on the outside; his right side burnt while the left half of his body remained untouched; only the lower right corner of his jaw and cheek scorched… he shoved Lucanis behind him with his left arm and shielded his eyes with his right.

“Then I’m sure he’ll give me a stern talking-to for trying to protect him in the first place,” Illario said wearily, finally glancing up to her. “Who knows, maybe all I really achieved was making the First Talon look weak in front of the others.”

“Or making yourself look even more pathetic.”

“Which would just be impressive at this rate, no?” He breathed a soft, humorless laugh. “Illario Dellamorte, the Crow who lost all his dignity in record time. They’ll sing about my failures someday.”

As the healer left to attend to another patient, Lidia touched Illario’s leg, the weight of her hand pleasant and warm on his shin. “If nothing else, it was brave.”

He gave an indecisive tilt of his head. “It was also stupid.”

“More than one thing can be true.”

He gave a wan smile. “Lucanis probably would have been fine if he hadn’t been babysitting me in the first place.”

“Knowing him, he fought harder with you next to him.”

He studied her face, his eyes searching hers for a moment. “You’ve blood on you,” he said, nodding toward her hairline. “Your own?”

“I’m alright.”

“That’s not the answer to my question.”

She rolled her eyes. “It is mine, but I’m still alright.”

“Are you going to tell me what happened?”

“Venatori.”

When she did not continue, he deadpanned, “The picture you’ve painted so far is vivid.”

“Don’t vex me, Illario.”

“Am I not allowed to ask for details? To be concerned for you?”

She glared at him. “Now you’re concerned about me?”

“One concussion makes another more likely,” he reminded her in that insufferably knowing tone of his. “And I would hate for my hard work in facilitating your recovery from that first one to go to waste.”

“Yes, but whose fault was my first concussion?”

Indignantly, he flattened his hand against his chest. “I accept no responsibility for the actions of previous targets.”

“But said previous target would have been asleep if it wasn’t for you playing hero.”

“Must we always revisit that night?”

“You brought it up!” Her head ached as she raised her voice, and she massaged her tender scalp gently as she closed her eyes.

His teasing smirk faded to a soft frown, but he replaced it with a subtle smile before joking, “And here I had hoped you would be kinder to me now that you’ve seen the extent of my injuries.”

“Not a chance. My skin is still crawling from being this close to you,” she answered while making no attempt to move farther away.

He arched a brow smugly. “Well, I suppose, as you said, more than one thing can be true.”

“I am… glad… you made it,” she managed reluctantly. “I was looking for you among our dead.”

“Hoping to see me with my skull split, were you?”

Her hand slid up and his uninjured one met her halfway. They locked gently at his side. “You would deserve it, but… no. I was hoping I wouldn’t see your boots.”

“Oh? And I would have thought you’d only know me by my gloves.”

I would know any part of you, her mind brought forth. She blanketed the thought and tucked it away to be scolded later.

“I suppose I’ll be escorted back to the villa and left there to recover,” Illario mused aloud when she didn’t answer his quip. “I wonder if it’ll be too much to ask for Caterina to let me stay in my own room again. And I’m sure Viago will be just as thrilled as you are that I survived.”

“He’s busy. I’ll take you.”

He sighed fondly - if a touch sadly - and stroked her knuckles with the pad of his thumb. “Do you remember the last time you took my care upon yourself? I don’t suppose you’ll be making me pastina this time.”

Lucanis’ wake. She made a hot meal every day and shared it with Illario in silence as they sat in his bed and he stared into the fireplace. At the time, she had no way of knowing that his grief was doubled by guilt and only compounded by her kindness. She did not regret it, not even now, and that frustrated her more than anything else.

She hopped off the table and pulled lightly on his arm. “On your feet, Dellamorte. Come on.”

He swung his legs over the side of the table and winced. “Where are we going?”

“Home. I’m not letting you take up space in the Diamond when others may need it more.”

“I won’t argue with the promise of a more comfortable seat,” he responded with a grimace as he rose to his feet. Looking down at their hands, still entwined between them, he added, “Though we could stop for coffee on the way…”

“The owners of Café Pietra could be lying under rubble in Minrathous right now.”

“...So, no?”

“No.”

She pulled him out the Diamond’s front door and they started the long walk back to Villa Dellamorte. Out of habit, Illario walked at her side so she was safely between him and the buildings. She pretended not to notice, but heat rose in her cheeks all the same.

At a side street, she directed him to turn, and when he gave her that quizzical where are you taking me look, she explained, “We have to stop at the market.” 

“For what?”

“Pastina, idiot,” she said pointedly, as if it should have been obvious.

He smiled and leaned against her, further entangling their arms. “I don’t deserve you, cara mia.”

She glared at him sideways. “No, you don’t. And don’t call me that. Lucanis would be cross with me if I let his brother starve, that’s all this is.”

Neither of them knew if that really was the extent of it. But for once, he neither questioned nor corrected her. 

She held his hand the whole way home, and they sat in silence as they shared a bowl of pastina on his bed. For a night, that could be enough.

[not-krys]

WIP Wednesday: Traveling Adventures of Mr. Fox and Miss Mouse, the Sprinto Sessions 1

Sprinto is a discord bot that is basically a writing timer. You set it to however long you want your 'writing sprint' to last and you write as much as you can in that allotted time. Once your time is up, you put in your word count and Sprinto will tell you what your words per minute were during that sprint. I use it when I need some focus time for writing and it has helped me on various projects in the past.

For this End of the Year WIP Wednesday, I wanted to share some of the brain dumps that didn't make it into the final product of Traveling Adventures Part 3.

They still have the possibility of being included in later chapters, but I think these are pretty fun tidbits on their own.

Raw, unedited unfinished writing down below~

-------

The train had pulled into the station at their latest stop when the grasslands were giving way to pebbles and sand. In the distance, you could just make out the silhouettes of the mountains. A truly breathtaking sight for someone that had never seen them before, but your wonder was short-lived with a gentle tap on your shoulder.

Ah yes, and Mr. Akechi was here too.

Truthfully, since that fateful breakfast yesterday where you made the agreement to be wife and husband (his idea entirely), he's refused to leave your side. It was a charade, you both had agreed it was such, but Mr. Akechi, or Mr. Fox as you had named him, seemed determined to be the ideal husband, even other ladies on the train reprimanded their own husbands, sighing and wishing they were as attentive as the white-haired gentlemen.

However loving as he appeared, you knew it was more to keep his eye on you, especially with this planned stop. He held your hand as you stepped down from the stairs, always kept two steps behind you, and would smile politely whenever you glanced his way. It was unnerving, having a man you barely knew following you so diligently. He watched as you looked at the small tourist shop, admiring this book or that little trinket. He spoke neatly to everyone that addressed either of you be it store clerks or fellow travelers. And when it came time to return to the train, he once again made sure you made it on first before boarding behind you, smiling and speaking cordially with the conductor and stewards.

You sat beside an open window, admiring the scenery for a brief moment before Mr. Fox sat beside you, far enough away to be polite towards you, but close enough for passersby to think you were together.

"That was a quaint little shop we visited, dear." Mr. Akechi said, "I'm surprised you didn't buy anything."

"I need to save my money for when we arrive in California." you said. "There's still a ways to go before we get there, after all."

"Ah, yes, my mistake."

He was quiet again, glancing around the train at the other passengers. You thankfully couldn't see those that troubled you when you first started this trip, but you couldn't help but see a few shady looking individuals a few seats down. Mitsuhide sighed.

"Do you recognize them?"

"Unfortunately," he said quietly. "I put quite a few of their fellow henchmen in prison a few months ago. Drug trafficking and kidnapping."

"Charming fellows."

"Quite." Mr. Akechi pulled his hat down over his face.

"Well, aren't you going to arrest them?"

"On what charges, Miss Mouse?"

"Didn't you say you sent some of their associates to prison a few months ago?"

"I did."

"So, then… shouldn't you arrest them?"

"That's not how the law works." Mitsuhide crossed his arms.

------

"Again, on what charges, Miss Mouse? If riding a train was committing a crime, then both of us and the rest of all these people should be arrested as well."

He turned towards her, smirking.

"Are you trying to get rid of me, dear? Truly you wound me."

You pouted and looked away. Mitsuhide chuckled.

"It's not my style to make arrests without probable cause. They're not doing anything wrong, so I have no reason to approach them."

"They keep looking this way."

"Because you are, dear."

"Please stop calling me that."

"What, you suddenly dislike it?"

"It's strange to me, being called something by a man I barely know."

"Then I suppose we should get to know each other, right?"

You huffed and looked out the window, the whistle from the train drowning out any other sound, followed by a sudden jerk forward, the wheels chugging and scraping against the tracks.

"You can ask me anything," he said, "Dinner isn't for a few more hours and I'm sure you'll get bored soon enough of the scenery."

You paused, quiet in your thinking as chatter started again in the car.

"…You know who I really am, don't you?"

"You are my darling wife, yes."

"No, who I actually am. And you're following me, right?"

"I'm sitting beside you, to be pedantic."

You frowned.

"[Evil pig man name, idk] paid you, didn't he?"

Mitsuhide was silent.

"I saw you looking at train routes when we were in town."

"Quite observant of you, Miss Mouse."

"I'm not going back. I refuse."

"I know."

"You're going to stop me, aren't you?"

"He's already paid me in advance and promising more once I bring you back."

"He's a horrible man."

"Horrible people keep my business afloat, unfortunately."

"So, you regret taking this job?"

"It's a paying job. My feelings on the matter do not matter, so long as I can keep my business."

------

"No, we're not doing that."

"But I just--"

The train jerked suddenly, sending all the passengers forward. You almost lost your balance save for Mitsuhide grabbing your waist, no warmth passing between the two of you with the many layers of clothes between you.

"That was a close one."

Mitsuhide was still holding onto you, helping you to stand straighter.

"What was that…"

Suddenly, there were loud voices at one end of the train car. Mitsuhide frowned.

"A train robbery?" you said.

"How quaint." Mitsuhide said.

------

Hiking up your long skirts, you found the nearest door and pressed on it hard, the sudden force of it opening nearly throwing you backwards.

"Hey, she's getting away, boss!"

"After her, numbskulls!"

You jumped down from the little steps, your heels shocking to your legs but you didn't stop moving, sprinting towards the desert landscape.

"Get back here, you little minx!"

You skidded behind a bunch of rocks, one of goons hot on your tail. Grabbing a handful of dirt, you threw it in his face and ran away again as he grunted frustratedly.

------

"I'm afraid I can't let this travesty stand, gentlemen." Mitsuhide said coolly, the rifle aimed straight and true.

"Wha-?"

"I'd start running now."

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

12 weeks down! 3 to go! 80% of the way there! the end is well and truly in sight! i’ve already had one of my final 2024 sessions (2025 pending score dates) and three more are coming this week, which is incredible even if i truly can’t believe how many of the kids are going right up to the week before christmas this year; also this wasn’t the case until a recent reschedule but now it seems that last week was my final seven day week. it’s happening… it’s all happening….

this week despite taking a full sick day monday, spending quite a bit of tuesday and wednesday napping, and not doing too too much work on thursday, i still somehow came in at a little over 34 hours? interesting to observe because it didn’t feel like i was cramming a lot of work in to various days… taking my tuesday sessions remotely probably helped but it’s also something to consider as i eye plans and intentions for 2025. the past couple years i’ve considered setting a goal for yearly hours worked to give myself a rough average weekly benchmark with the thinking being that doing more than the bare minimum on the weeks i could get away with doing less than 10 hours would help me stay on top of things and organized and work ahead in terms of reusable prep work (digitizing/making answer keys, writing problem sets in a way that lets me access them easily for future students so i don’t keep retracing my steps, organizing my gdrive lol) in a way that would help me feel less crazy and be actually less busy when the busy season hits. i also feel like maybe having an approximate weekly goal would help with the fact that even when i am working hardly at all i am thinking about work all the time and regularly stressed about whether i will have enough time for xyz in a way that makes it hard to devote time and mental energy to other personal goals and projects, as well as helping me set realistic goals for development work in my secondary gig when that comes up again. ANYWAY another thing i’ve been wondering about is a little every day vs. a lot on a few days a week and i sort of feel like this week suggests i may be more suited in some ways to the latter… much to ponder.

as stated above this was the week my annual november illness finally came for me, although mercifully it was much milder than in years past; i hit the symptomatic peak sunday night, spent two days mostly sleeping, and felt mostly better by thanksgiving, which was lucky because i had a very cozy thanksgiving with family early and friends late. consequently i also took the week all the way off working out even though it killed me a little to do that with 6 workouts left in my current program lol… the last time i had a cold and thought i was better earlier than i actually was i got a horrendous sinus infection which probably was not actually super related but i was feeling superstitious and disinclined to push my luck. but at this point despite some lingering sniffles i am pretty sure i’m better - the lack of a symptom flare-up at night is actually a pretty good clue now that i know about the circadian immune system thing lol - and i am in fact very excited to work out again tomorrow!

i was sort of idly thinking maybe december could be a time to get back on my habit tracking bullshit in anticipation of the new year but… i don’t think i’m there yet… but i am ready to start cleaning my room which is like the worst thing in my life right now. i would LOVE to go into my break with a reasonably tidy room instead of spending valuable break time tidying. i may even do a bit of journaling even if only because i need to test out if apple pencil journaling feels like it can be for me (i love apple pencil plannering so far so it is possible). i also do want to write at least a blurb a day or five blurbs total (ideally more but lol we’ll see) for amnesty week at tsj. work wise i keep waffling because on the one hand i’m at a point in terms of the calendar and the workload where i can probably work less than i have been and be fine - i have an actual specific list of all the things i have to do by the 22nd, including the ones that involve being prepped for the first sessions back after break, and it’s a comprehensible number of items - but the anxiety is still there, as is (1) the practical consideration that i should probably also get those lingering answer explanations up before the 23rd and (2) the fact that the manageableness of the list also suggests invitingly that if i keep up the grind another week or two i can slip into chill mode earlier even as i still have some final sessions…. i fall into this kind of trap constantly and it’s usually not true but this time feels different. well. anyway. let’s say 25-35 hours and anything in that range is good and i will play it by ear day to day. lol.

[spicykaraage]

Tenipuri Complete Character Profile - Yuushi Oshitari

[PROFILE]

Birthday: October 15th (Libra)

Blood Type: A

Relatives: Father (Eiji Oshitari), mother (Kazumi Oshitari), older sister (Erina Oshitari)

Father’s Occupation: Doctor (university hospital)

Elementary School: Dotonbori Second Elementary School

Middle School: Hyotei Academy Junior High School

Grade & Class: Third Year | Class 3-H | Seat 4

Club: Tennis Club (regular)

Committee: Foreign Exchange Committee

Strong Subjects: Math, science, engineering

Weak Subjects: Gymnastics

Most Visited Spot at School: Student lounge (mostly to read)

World Cup Team: U-17 World Cup Japanese Representatives

Favorite Motto: “Fortune is unpredictable and changeable.” ➜ “Lose your emotions to find inner peace.” [23.5]

Daily Routines: Reading books on the train

Hobbies: Watching movies (particularly romance), observing people (happy families and couples)

Favorite Color: Olive green

Favorite Music: Popular songs from the Showa Era

Favorite Movie: Japanese films (pure romantic genre)

Favorite Book: Romance novels ➜ Poems by Akiko Yosano [23.5]

Favorite Food: Kasujiru (sake lees soup), sagoshi kizushi (vinegared Spanish mackerel cut and served as sashimi), eihire (dried stingray fins) [23.5]

Favorite Anniversary: The day he wore his glasses for the first time

Preferred Type: A girl with beautiful legs (especially the ankles [23.5])

Ideal Date Spot: A peaceful park ➜ Liffey Falls [23.5]

His Gift for a Special Person: 7cm heel shoes

Where He Wants to Travel: Mare Tranquillitatis

What He Wants Most Right Now: It’s a secret ➜ Nothing anymore [23.5]

Dislikes: Natto, caterpillars [removed], huge insects [23.5]

Skills Outside of Tennis: Filleting fish into three cuts, katanuki [23.5]

Spends Allowance On: Going to see movies or plays

Routine During the World Cup: Glasses maintenance

[DATA]

Height: 178cm | 5’10” ➜ 179cm | 5’10.4” [23.5]

Weight: 64kg | 141 lbs ➜ 62kg | 136 lbs [23.5]

Shoe Size: 27cm

Dominant Arm: Right

Vision: 2.0 Left & Right

Play Style: All-Rounder

Signature Moves: Drop Shot, Higuma Otoshi (Bear Drop), Shut Heart, D.F.D.R., S.S.A.S., F&D, F.A.S.

Number of Times He’s Moved Houses: 6

Equipment Brands:

Racket: BRIDGESTONE (Wingbeam S65)

Shoes: MIZUNO (Wave Gist JP)

Overall Rating: Speed: 3 / Power: 3 / Stamina: 3 / Mental: 4 / Technique: 5 / Total: 18

Kurobe Memo: “There is certainly a hidden spirit within Oshitari, but I would like to see him put on a stronger poker face. After all, his strength is when his opponents cannot read his moves.” <Official Description>

[POSSESSIONS]

What’s in His Bag [40.5]:

Romance novel: He reads on the train to and from school and during breaks. He’s recently gotten into a tragic romance story by a female author

Film magazine: To check out new releases. He usually goes to the theaters on Wednesdays when there’s no club activities

Eyeglass cleaning cloth: He owns various types. He’s currently using scented ones that are supposed to have a relaxing effect

Cell phone: He loves the thin, foldable model. He mostly uses it for phone calls but also uses it frequently for texting. He often gets scolded by Atobe for fiddling with his phone during club activities

Totem pole pencils: Pencils he had masterfully carved into totem poles using a box cutter. He had done it during a boring class and has been hooked on it ever since. He claims that it “boosts his concentration,” but the real reason is a mystery

What’s in His Travel Bag [23.5]:

Eyeglass repair kit: He tampers with his glasses every night. He has multiple pairs as well

What’s in His Locker [C&S]:

Two tickets to a romance film

An antique radio

Souvenirs from Yokohama’s food theme parks: He went to the food theme parks with Gakuto and the others

[777sissy777]

Wednesday, 4 Dec 2024

Update

My gorgeous wife had a nice relaxing day at home today and I went to work.

Later...

So, I’m really excited because a woman called Claire, who I played with a couple of times about a year ago, has got back in touch, and says that she wants to play with me again., Before I write any posts about Claire, the purpose of today’s post will be to explain the situation with her. Here goes…

As I say, about a year ago, a woman got in touch with me who said that she wanted me to perform clean-up duties for her, after various boyfriends that she was fucking came inside her. I have to say that at the time, I thought she was just another random housewife wanting a bit of naughty fun. I do have an advert on my profile saying that I am very keen to perform clean-up duties, but I wasn’t expecting the set up that Claire was proposing.

At the time, Claire and I, just by sheer coincidence, happened to work quite close to one another in central London. We both worked in buildings in the city, and Claire’s thing was to fuck various guys in the toilets at her work.

Before I describe what Claire was into, I should probably describe her. To my mind, she was an absolutely stunning, classically beautiful office worker who always wore smart business-like clothing to work, and always wore either pantyhose or stockings with her high heels. She was absolutely stunning and always very sexily dressed for the workplace. She was single, and I suppose part of the reason was that she was incredibly sexually promiscuous, and loved fucking the city boys, without becoming committed to any of them. In short, she was a very beautiful, very sexy woman, who was frankly, just having a bit of fun, and had a particular fetish for being fucked at work.

Anyway, I got chatting online with her, and she told me about how she loved fucking random guys, and was quite excited about the idea of having somebody like me clean her out after they had come inside her. I told her that I would be incredibly interested in doing this, and would love to do it for her one day to see how we get on. As I say, the only reason she got in touch was because my profile says I love performing clean-up duties for people.

Anyway, at the time, I was working in a building with a really nice basement, and there was a very large disabled toilet in the basement. The great thing about this basement is that it was not very heavily used, and was very quiet 99% of the time . I told her that it would be an absolutely ideal place for her to meet one of her guys and let him fuck her, and then I would clean her out afterwards. She normally fucked guys in her own building, but she was quite excited about meeting a guy with me, and letting him fuck her in a completely different building. She said that it added quite a lot of excitement for her.

The very first time we did this, she got in touch with me and said that there was this guy that was bisexual, but that he was desperate to fuck her, and that she had agreed that she would let him fuck her, but only if she let me suck him off first before he fucked her, and then was happy with me being around to clean his load out of her pussy after he had unloaded inside of her. The guy was very keen, but wanted to meet me first, which I was perfectly happy with, so we actually met one lunchtime in London for a drink to talk through what we were going to do. I had met Claire for a quick drink a week or two before then just to meet her myself, which is why I knew how unbelievably gorgeous she was!

Anyway, the three of us met up one lunchtime for a drink, as I said, and the guy seemed to like me and I liked him, so we decided that it was on. We picked a date, and I said I would meet them at 12:30 at a pub near my building for a quick drink before we return to my building to play.

Anyway, the day came around, and we met at the pub at exactly 12:30. I do have to say that I remember how incredibly gorgeous Claire looked. She always looked good, but on this particular day, she was wearing a very tight, white blouse, black leather pencil skirt, and very sexy stockings and classic black high heels. She looked absolutely fucking amazing. I ordered a bottle of Prosecco, and we basically shared it at the pub before we headed off to the building.

You must remember, that although I have played with Claire numerous times since meeting her, this was our first encounter and I was a little nervous and incredibly excited.

I signed them in as guest, and we headed down to the basement bathroom without being seen. As soon as we were in the bathroom with the door locked, Claire told me to sit on the toilet, and they stood in front of me. Claire started kissing the guy, and as she did so, she told me to basically take his cock out of his trousers and start sucking him. The guy turned towards me and I undid his belt and his zipper, and pulled his cock out of his underpants. His cock was absolutely amazing, and it actually landed up getting really big when he got hard. I looked up at the two of them, and he was already unbuttoning her blouse and beginning to play with her tits.

I had his cock in my mouth and Claire started encouraging me, and telling me what a complete little faggot I was for enjoying sucking his cock so much. I do have to say that his cock really was amazing.

In a few minutes, Claire had her blouse and her skirt off, and was standing in her lingerie and stockings. It was absolutely no wonder the guy was so hard, because she looked so fucking incredible. She really was a beautiful woman.

After a minute or two of kissing the guy again, she got down on her haunches next to me, and told me that she wanted to suck his cock for a minute, and that she wanted me to suck his balls. I didn’t hesitate at all, because he had a lovely pair of silky, smooth balls as well, and he was absolutely loving us both sucking him. Claire was wearing dark red lipstick, and I have to say that her mouth looked absolutely amazing with his cock sliding in and out of it!

Eventually, Claire got really horny, and basically turned towards one of the walls of the bathroom, and told the guy to start fucking her. He didn’t waste any time, and he gently parted her legs and pushed his cock into her pussy. Almost immediately, he started fucking her and she started groaning. It was so fucking sexy to watch.

At this stage, I was done on my haunches next to them watching them fuck, and I was mesmerized by her tits, jiggling around as he was fucking her. She smiled at me and asked me whether I wanted her to take her bra off so that I could play with her tits while he fucked her. It was like she was reading my mind. She got the guy to undo her bra, and within a second or two it was off, and her tits were swinging around as he was fucking her. She told me to squeeze them and, fondle them quite roughly, which is exactly what I did. It was absolutely fucking amazing.

All in all, he must’ve fucked her from behind for a good 6 to 7 minutes. He was very obviously enjoying himself, and I cannot blame him given how beautiful Claire is. Eventually, he said that he needed to come, and immediately, Claire told him to push as hard into her as he could so that he unloaded as deep inside her pussy as he was able to. He seemed to come for ages, and Claire was pushing her arse against him as he was unloading.

She told me to get ready, and she pulled away from him and turned around with her back to the wall. She pulled my head between her legs, and I immediately started sucking really hard on her pussy. She squealed at first, but soon she started enjoying it, and I made absolutely sure that I ran my tongue over her clit as much as I could, whilst at the same time, sucking really hard on her pussy. It didn’t take long for me to start getting quite a lot of the guy’s come streaming out of her pussy, and I obviously swallowed every drop I could get.

I must’ve sucked her pussy for about three or four minutes in the end. When I thought I had swallowed as much cum as I could get out of her pussy, I focused on flicking my tongue over her clit, whilst spreading her pussy with my fingers. I’m really pleased to say that I did actually make her come really hard and whilst she didn’t exactly squirt, her pussy got really juicy and runny as she came. Obviously, I swallowed every drop of liquid her pussy produced. It was absolutely fucking amazing.

As you can imagine, I was unbelievably horny at this stage, and the very first time that we played together, she did actually turn around and let me wank off over her arse. She did say that she didn’t let little come swallowing faggots fuck her, but she would honour me by letting me unload over her backside. She turned around towards the wall again and stuck her ass out, and to cut a very long story short it only took me a few seconds to wank myself off over her arse. I came incredibly hard, and she immediately made me get down and lick every drop of come off her backside. I do have to admit that I had come so hard that some of it actually dripped onto the floor.

Once it was all over, we all had a bit of a giggle about it and she slowly got dressed. We left the building, and we actually went back to the pub for another quick drink before parting ways. We had a really good giggle about the naughty session we had enjoyed, and we said that we would definitely be doing it again.

Since that very first visit, I have played with Claire about three or four times in a very similar way. She never did let me fuck her, but she does let me play with her tits while the guy she is fucking is pounding her, and she very obviously lets me lick her pussy and take my time when I am cleaning her out.

She did say that she would let me fuck her one day, but I think she wants to continue with the current arrangement for the time being. I do have to say that I have absolutely no problem with that.

So, now that I have introduced my friend Claire, as I said at the beginning of this post, she has got back in touch and wants to start playing again. Obviously, if I do play with her, I will let you know how we get on.

Later…

Before bed, I was quite horny, so my gorgeous wife did let me wank off over her tits before she jumped into the shower. Obviously I licked her clean afterwards. Short and sweet!

Sissy duties

Cum swallowing.

Sissy training

This morning, I sucked my oral shower dildo for two minutes, and fucked my anal shower dildo for three minutes as usual.

Trackers

Times my wife has fucked other guys - 1

Times my wife has let other guys play with her tits or her pussy - 0

Guys I have sucked - 0

Guys who have fucked me - 0

Cum I have swallowed – other guys - 1

Cum I have swallowed – my own - 1

[verystressedcollegestudent]

sitting here in various stages of rage after reading my peer review from ied lol

so we had a report due the wednesday after spring break and NONE of these fuckers did anything until the monday we got back and i asked for help twice, once someone was willing to help but i had to give them a goddamn PLAY-BY-FUCKIN-PLAY on what was needed in the section (they didn't even think they needed sources for fucks sake) and the other time i asked someone to add sources for the section THEY WROTE as we're finishing the report an HOUR BEFORE THE FUCKIN THING IS DUE and they were too busy studying for another exam to do anything

like do...do they expect me to hold their hand through following a damn rubric? the project is explicitly divided into sections so we had decided everyone would take two sections and some people just didn't like what the fuck do you mean i need to "ask for help" this is a group fuckin project and the only reason i did more (other than picking bigger sections) was because you fuckers couldn't hold up your end of the bargain

like i had to bullshit entire paragraphs 30 GODDAMN MINUTES BEFORE THE FUCKIN THING WAS DUE because for one section, i kid you not, the idiot put in two tables with a single sentence before them saying "x is a table with y" how the fuck am i supposed to trust you idiots to do ANYTHING when the things you do contribute are half-assed, short and leave out half the damn rubric

and ofc we didn't even have a finished report by 8pm the night it was due which would have been not ideal but okay if everyone in the group was working on it but NO. fuckin no. it was just me and one person (the two who already wrote over half the damn thing) desperately trying to finish it and make their portions halfway presentable all while getting "i can't do this because i have an exam to study for can someone else do it" texts as well as reminders from them to "submit it because we have x minute left." and then i ask how their exam went and they say that it was HORRIBLE because they were up till 1 AM studying like bitch? i pulled a fuckin all nighter trying to flesh out your mediocre tiny paragraphs and here you are complaining to me that you had to stay up a little late to study while blowing alex and i off completely? EXCUSE ME?

so it just genuinely boggles me that they pull all this shit, contribute half assed mini paragraphs and then have the gall to ask why i don't trust them to help more or why i don't ask them to help more like why should i trust you to help when i have to explain that you need to CITE where you got your price range???? like either i do it myself or i have to sit there for twenty minutes talking you through what's on the rubric and what needs to be cited like you're a fucking middle schooler

[almostjollyprince]

100ish Days of Productivity: I fell behind

I uh... fell behind on this. Not because I wanted to, but I'm being pulled in a number of directions and just not finding the time for this like I would have liked.

Day 12 - Jan 15 2024 This was a holiday. I studied a bit for my certification and then spent the rest of the day jumping between other games (Final Fantasy 14 was down for a day-long maintenance for the upcoming patch and infrastructure expansions) and planning out my D&D campaigns. I got an update from the artist I'm commissioning regarding the token I need for my Saturday campaign, and the work so far looks great. I'm excited to see the end result. There's a lot I want to talk about regarding games. Like how one of my friends reminded me that Palworld was finally entering early access later this week (he's super excited for it because he's one of the many people who are disappointed with the direction Game Freak has been going with Pokemon) or how Enshrouded was coming out next week. I'm hesitant on Palworld if only because PocketPair has a habit of making games but not finishing the polish on them. Like, excluding Palworld, they have 3 other games that have been in early access since 2020 (one game per year or something) and they still haven't fulfilled their promises for any of those games. For a game with a lot of promises and expectations, it'd be a real shame if Palworld fell to the wayside. Enshrouded on the other hand I'm neutral on what I'm hoping to expect from it. I dabbled a bit in their playtest but I didn't put in the full 8 hours available for the demo. Sure there's plenty to see, but... it felt empty? Not on the same scope as Pokemon Scarlet/Violet or Breath of the Wild. All their scenic environments are gorgeous, but I was hoping to find something interesting for going in some direction. Enshrouded has a lot of what I call "mountains and valleys". Your mountains are your safe points because the valley is where the shroud is and that's full of danger. But if you wanted to go to the mountain that's across the way from your current location in the hopes of finding something (didn't have to be lore-related), when you did finally make the journey to get there, there was nothing of interest. There's a healthy balance game devs need to find between oversaturating the overworld with points of interest (and handholding the players to get there) and just... not having anything of interest in that general direction. I guess I'm hoping Enshrouded will be closer to that ideal balance than say, Horizon: Zero Dawn and Breath of the Wild.

Day 13 - Jan 16 2024 I was reminded today at work that we have a new employee starting next week and that one of the other people we were hiring wasn't going to be able to start anytime soon for reasons I'm not allowed to discuss. Updated the work schedule to adjust for that information and just worked with the junior devs to get the project going. After work was... Final Fantasy 14's latest patch. The wife and I were talking about running the last bit of the Main Story Quest together, and we very much enjoyed the new character they introduced that'll be integral to the next expansion. I also wrapped up the new quests that dropped, collected the rewards, and... hm. I guess aside from gathering the currency for various things all that's left is achievement hunting. Not really looking forward to that. There's raiding, I suppose, but I don't have the time to commit several hours a night for multiple days of the week trying to face Savage or Ultimate content (both of which are among the hardest tiers of difficulty for various raids). The D&D campaign that I play in on Tuesdays was supposed to start today, but the DM pushed it back another two weeks. The DM that runs that campaign happens to be a player in my other campaigns and she looks up to me for DMing D&D games, so I'll have to do my best to meet and exceed her (and the other players) expectations.

Day 14 - Jan 17 2024 It is Wednesday my dudes. Work ended up being a lot planning, and the bossman who was supposed to come out this week to talk to the team in person couldn't make it, so there'll be a different meeting later in the week in regards to that. There's also talks of my project getting started up again, but we'll see where that goes. I honestly don't think I'll hear anything regarding it until later next month. After work, I played Monster Hunter World to get caught up to the wife who's already in Iceborne content. I'm... not particularly thrilled about rerunning this unskippable content again, and my thoughts on it can be found in a previous post. The big thing I'm concerned about regarding Monster Hunter has been Capcom's attitude towards their player base ever since a certain event happened involving a Street Fighter tournament a while back. I'll skip the details of what happened, but essentially their view is 'any modification to our games is a bad modification' and they've been installing anti-cheat software in all their games that have been released in the past couple of years or are still available on various platforms. This particular anti-cheat software is apparently causing significant performance issues, and when the issue was brought up, the response from the people who owned that particular anti-cheat software was... not that great. I didn't like the direction most AAA game companies have been going in for a while, but we've pretty much reached the point where those companies are now like "you don't own the games you buy" as a means of trying to stop people from developing mods for those games. I don't use mods for most games (at best I have a couple of mods for Lethal Company), but I get why mods exist as well as why companies are turning against the modding community. If you honestly need a hot take from me in regards to my opinion on modding, it's "don't change the rating of the game with your mods. *cough cough NSFW mods cough cough*."

Day 15 - Jan 18 2024 The team had a meeting with the bossman. He has high hopes for the team and is trying to get us more work. It'd be cool if we had more stuff to work on, but he also put a hiring freeze on the team. It was a weird choice and I'm wondering if there's corporate politics going on, but that's above my paygrade and not really my problem at the moment. Aside from the meeting, it was mostly working on setting up validation checks on our input boxes. There were some issues which I think I've managed to narrow down to it being that one of our component libraries isn't playing nice with the others. I have brought this up to the senior devs but I don't know if it'll get addressed or if we'll get direction on what to do regarding it. It would be nice if we had some sort of document that kept track of known issues (not necessarily bugs, but like... technical difficulties), but I guess the only way one will exist is if I make it. After work I played Among Us with some friends. For the uninitiated, you and a bunch of other players have to complete a bunch of objectives while also trying to identify who the killer is. There's a bunch of games out there with similar concepts (Town of Salem comes to mind), but this one is probably the best known one. I didn't have a particularly good time playing this last time (public servers are rampant with cheating that just leaves you in a bad mood at the end of the game), but I figured a private server with friends would be better. And to be honest, it was. It's not the usual friends I game with, but I've acknowledged that if I wanna play games that my usual friends won't play I'll have to seek out those friends that do want to play it. I had a blast playing with them, and I'm hoping we'll get to play again soon. If they're not going to be playing Palworld non-stop, that is...

Day 16 - Jan 19 2024 We got some unfortunate news regarding one of our juniors. The team's already pretty small but with their upcoming departure it'll be even smaller. It didn't seem like they had much of a plan about what they'd do or what living arrangements they had made since they were going out of state, however. I'm sure they'll be fine. The senior devs aren't particularly thrilled about it, but they have my blessing to go seek out what will make them happy. And hey, they can always come back if things don't work out for them. Our Hardware guy is also going overseas for some company work starting sometime next week, so the team had a breakfast together to get together one more time for the hardware guy. It snowed the night before so the roads were particularly tough to navigate getting to the diner. But everyone made it despite the challenges. The rest of the day was pretty slow and the team ended up playing Jackbox.tv games the rest of the afternoon. We're ahead of schedule and we haven't received any sort of direction for the project yet (they pushed the demo day back a few weeks), so this is mostly to break up the drudgery of not having much to do. Palworld entered early access today, and unsurprisingly it's the only thing being talked about in a lot of a lot of my usual hangout places. The game was surprisingly well-put together for a game in early access (minus the clipping and out-of-bounds issues that they're going to address. Definitely a better Day 1 than what Pokemon Scarlet/Violet had with the multiplayer bugs and glitches) based on some of the gameplay I've seen, but there's... a lot of drama for it as well. People are going after it for "ripping off Nintendo's IP" in regards to how some of the Pals look, but the reality of the matter was how game journalists spun the game. Since its announcement a couple of years ago, game journalists have been calling it "Pokemon with Guns" (they do this with a lot of games - Enshrouded is "Valheim with Dark Souls combat", for instance, as a means of trying to market what a game is to people who aren't following it), but the game itself is more than just violating the Geneva Convention against fantasy creatures. PocketPair never described their game as "Pokemon with Guns". The two big issues people had with the game was 1) 'Was it made using AI assets based off of a couple of messages on X that the CEO made some time back?' and 2) 'Did they rip off Pokemon?' Jury's still out on those answers. My take, however, is 'no' to the first, and 'undecided' on the second. For the 'no' to the first question, it looked like someone twisted the words of the CEO. I don't have the messages in front of me at the moment, but when I saw those messages circulating around, it sounded more like the CEO was interested in the direction games could go with AI (I'll talk more about AI later, but let's not forget that AI is more than just asking a computer to generate art using whatever teaching materials you give it). As for the second question... Original ideas don't really exist anymore. Just because some concepts look similar to another game's concepts doesn't mean they're stealing them. Some of Gen 1's Pokemon look similar to some of the monsters from Dragon Quest (and some ideas from later Pokemon generations seemed to be taking ideas from Digimon, but that's neither here nor there). Is using Elves and Dwarves as your fantasy races ripping off Lord of the Rings? Is using dragons and dungeons ripping off Dungeons & Dragons? All of these examples fall under the "Medieval Fantasy" category. Most of the content you consume in media has existed in some form or another for centuries or millennia. Everything draws on inspiration from somewhere.

Day 17 - Jan 20 2024 It's the weekend, but not just any weekend. It's D&D weekend. I had to finish some prepwork for the session (getting my notes up regarding the temple they raided last session, writing out some concepts that have been introduced previously but finally giving the players the necessary information they need for it now that they're encountering it, finalizing some ideas, etc), but I woke up too early and ended up with some free time between when I finished the prepwork and before the session started. So I picked up Palworld. The game plays more like Ark: Survival Evolved than Pokemon. Instead of dinosaurs that you capture and use for various purposes in the game, you capture these creatures called "Pals" and use them for various purposes in the game. You're less of a Pal Trainer and more of a Monster Tamer or Beastmaster since the only time you'll properly encounter humans in the game using Pals against you is in the various towers. Otherwise, you just have various factions wielding firearms and other weapons to combat the people and Pals in the game that you yourself can fight against or sic your creatures of mass destruction upon them. And I suppose the various Pals you can fight either by yourself or with your monster buddy in the overworld and in caves. I didn't get too far in the game since I only had an hour, but I had fun with the hour I did have. D&D went pretty well. Since the players had taken care of all the major events I had planned for them in that region in the previous session, today's session was mostly figuring out where to go next. It wasn't a particularly long session, but I set up enough to leave them with a cliffhanger for the next arc. I am... intentionally leaving my individual players with bits and pieces of relevant information based on where their characters came from. It's fun to see them come together and discuss between sessions what the hell they think I have planned for them. The artist I commissioned finished the piece I requested, and I paid them for their services with an extra bonus. I think I definitely made the right call sending them information about the character for the piece to look this amazing. I'll be sure to request them again when they have an opening and commission another piece. If you take care of your artists, they will take care of you in return. I won't get the same level of care from an AI model that generates art, and that's part of the reason why I'm against the current training materials that are being used to train AI. There's a reason why Public Domain exists. You don't need to steal other people's work to generate something just because you're not creative enough or don't put in the time to make something of your own. Use the Public Domain to train your models. Don't rob someone of their hard work.

Rest Day - Jan 21 2024 Played some more Palworld. Hung out with some friends and ran some content in Final Fantasy 14. Watched a couple episodes of wrestling with some buddies as a distraction (I think it was the qualifiers for the mens and womens' Royal Rumble from last year?). The Wednesday crew plays this week so I'll need to start finalizing some things for the session coming up.

Day 18 - Jan 22 2024 The new guy started today, but he was going to be coming in a little late. The team sat in on a demo at the recommendation of the bossman. We got the new guy up to speed pretty quickly to the point where he was like "Man I didn't think I'd be able to put my hands on code on the same day I start". Normally you'd be in processing hell for a couple of weeks in this industry, but our team's pretty good about getting new employees access to what they need if not the same day they start then the day after. I had plans for him to work with one of the senior developers all week so that he could understand all the processes but unsurprisingly the senior devs got dragged into doing other stuff. It's fine. He can sit with me and my buddy for the day. After work I did some work on finalizing some details for the Wednesday D&D session. I'm not sure what it is regarding some people and their original characters but I'm always reminded of the meme with the used car salesman. "This OC can hold so much trauma and emotional baggage". I don't usually talk about my plans for either of my campaigns, but the Saturday campaign was always a story of redemption. The Wednesday campaign was something I threw together in some of my spare time so while it doesn't have the level of polish that my Saturday game has, I do try to find something that appeals to each of the players and that's a character arc for each of them. Each of the characters has some sort of emotional trauma they carry with them that the players came up with when they made their characters. One character lost the love of her life, her crew and her ship to a rival pirate. She had since gotten revenge against the pirate and reclaimed her ship, but she had once again lost the love of her life. Another character had a bitter dispute with their father about their career choices and left to become a clergyman before entering piracy. They ran into their father again by chance and had to put aside their differences to work with him to save their family and their village from being sacrificed to a great leviathan. A character currently going through their arc was neglected by their family as the runt of the litter and was picked up by their mentor to commit criminal activities before being betrayed by him. Now, an opportunity has presented itself for them to get their revenge. Will they be able to do so? We shall see~

Day 19 - Jan 23 2024 I ended up having to write up more stories for the project to give to the other developers so they could have something to work on because the senior developer who is the project lead for it was working on other stuff. The other one is stuck writing up an article for a magazine as a means of advertising the company and the team. We're short-staffed, but man, I sure wish we had some more hands to free our senior developers. Work-wise we had to figure out some issues with input validation, so we wrote some tests first to figure out how to design the code. The team doesn't usually work with Test Driven Development (everything we do is dependent on the project), but at least we can say we have some experience with it. There's still a couple of issues we need to work out, but that's a problem for another day and another pair. After work, I realized I hadn't actually created a character sheet for the mentor that the players would be fighting against, so I spent my evening working on that. It was my first time building a Sorcerer, so I can only hope that it doesn't end up being too unbalanced of a fight. After that I did some cert studying and replaced some lights that had burned out over the weekend.

Day 20 - Jan 24 2024 I can't believe we're already a fifth of the way through this challenge that I'm having regrets about. The new guy was with me again today but he had to deal with some project-related stuff so he was out for the morning. I ended up creating the front end of a couple of pages on my own (having my buddy for the day the senior developer in charge of the project look over the visuals to see if everything lines up with how the original project looked and if the modernization matched our prototype Figmas even though he had to work on something else). When the new guy got back in the afternoon I worked with him to finish the design and layout of the other page I was working on. We realized pretty quick that the library component we were having issues with last week was causing problems displaying the data we want to display in our tables, so we'll work out something for that another day. After work, I did some final prepwork for the D&D session. Some people forgot we played today despite my reminders (I now have a general idea of who mutes the server and who doesn't) but everyone showed up on time. The session itself went pretty well. Granted, I had to improvise some ideas because the characters all split off to do their own thing in different groups, but I was told I did a good job balancing the seriousness nature of some scenes and the lightheartedness of other scenes. Next session, the character this arc is for will face the source of his trauma, his mentor. I also did a reveal regarding the NPC companion that was with the party for this arc that caught everyone off guard, but once they started putting the pieces together, everything was making sense for them. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, and it sounded like some of the players are ready for the emotional damage to hit them next time.

Day 21 - Jan 25 2024 The bossman is asking us for logos for the team so that they can get some corporate swag made, so guess who had to go help with that? That's right, not me and my buddy for the day because we lost the rock-paper-scissors game to decide who worked on what. Which, granted, was mostly because we only have 7 people on the team and our senior devs are doing things outside of their job scope due to a lack of personnel and we still needed someone to work on the projects we currently have. We rewired some pathing on some of the pages and reworked the placeholder visuals. We had a team lunch so it was nice to get away and enjoy a good burger. I was also asked to give some feedback regarding some of the designs that the other pair was generating for the logo (using Midjourney as a baseline to generate concepts that they would rework later) and after I gave some input it seemed like we would have something by tomorrow to give to the bossman. The 24th happened to be the day Enshrouded released into early access on some platforms, so I picked that up to play with friends. We got a server going for the usual crew and got into shenanigans for a couple of hours. Overall a good time.

Day 22 - Jan 26 2024 It snowed a good couple of inches in my area so myself and another person on the team weren't able to go into the office today, so we worked from home. My buddy for the day requested the day off so I mostly focused on certification study. I took a practice test to see where I was at, but the questions were... really vague. Somehow only got one question wrong, but I'm not going to complain. The logo designs were posted so we placed our votes on our top choices, and I think whichever ones everyone agreed on were gonna be sent to the bossman for swag. The evening was a mix of Final Fantasy 14 and Enshrouded. I think my biggest complaint regarding Enshrouded is that for a survival game, your only real danger is in the shroud. The game has a food buff system much like Valheim, but there's no worry of death if you run out of food/water like with other survival games that have a food and thirst meter. If the camp had to deal with random enemy raids I could see more of the survival genre aspect the game's being marketed for, but again, your only real danger is the shroud. We have removed the doors to our camp because everyone's struggling with the doors, but there's no serious danger in the mountains outside of the shrouded areas. At least tomorrow is the weekend.

[thetruearchmagos]

Hey! Happy Worldbuilding Wednesday! 🌻

For a wip of your choice: If it is set in a fictional world, how would you describe the society there? If it is set on earth: What are things you love to describe? Tell me why, if there is a reason.

Hiii, thank you so much!

Well, honestly, in a setting like the 12 Worlds it'd be impossible not to have so many different and unqiue societies that I can't speak for all of them at once, so as usual, I'll go with the United Commonwealth.

In the broad sense, the UC populace, those masses who've spent generations ingrained with the UC's systems, institutions, and norms, are exceptionally idealistic. The principles of liberty and democracy aren't just slogans, for many they hold a place nearing a religious tenet in importance.

Public society is, with little exception, highly politically engaged and aggressively progressive. Voter turn out is never below 90% in a collective of states almost 3 million strong. Public policy is freely, constantly, and deeply debated at all levels, and the principle of absolute democractic public accountability and a hate of corruption in state affairs, a conviction arguably first promoted by the principles of the UC institutions itself, now runs deep within the public norms. Civil liberties and rights are a fiercely protected notion, and the great crimes of slavery and such genocidal horros elicit feelings of deep and utter fury, in a society that has harboured a violent and unyielding opposition to such acts for a hundred years, doubly so when a good fifth of its people have had recent, almost still living memory of subjugation under such structures. Concepts like women or various minority groups in the military or political office are deemed so basic and obvious that even questioning is seen as a strange joke, for are we not a polity formed under beliefs higher than race or faith, and are we not well past outdated such outdated institutions.

The aggressive conviction in the democratic institutions and systems that provide shape and direction within UC public life translates into a zeal to protecting the integrity of those long lasting institutions, from internal corruption and external invasion, and a deep belief in the act of spreading and sharing those systems far and wide. The former sees its place in the aggressive prosecution of corruption of any kind in civil and public service, as well as a patriotism of a sort disconnected from their own nations but rather towards the UC and its democratic allies on the greater whole, which has seen the UC fight and win its way through many a war and crisis. The latter takes form through the eternal support for the expansion of the Commonwealth ideal into foreign lands, be they well developed and close allies hardly different from them, or states whose political institutions are undeveloped or outright tyrannical, leading to support for actions to change such a state of affairs across borders. In addition, a complete and blanket support for immigration into UC society is another major aspect of the public conscious, for who could deny that it is a sign of societal glory to have others flock to it. The institutions of immigration follow suit, to the point where it is simply a matter of stepping foot on UC soil or approaching an Embassy, and requesting citizenship, in order to receive one, often a process concluded within 2 to 3 days of the request.

This is often eased by the laissez-faire and appreciative approach to diversity within UC society. Hundreds of languages are spoken, though English is the chief intermediary, and faiths number hardly less. Cultures are a messy, uncoordinated blend of the ethnicities and peoples within them, a single creed never more than 2 thirds in the majority. Cultural intermixing, of product and people, is a natural and loved process, appreciated as a simple fact of life. In the streets of any city worth a damn, you will find the cuisine and life of every last one of the diverse peoples, if only you look for it. The goods of culture are enjoyed freely and with no care at all for ones own personal identity, for nothing is as uniting as the common experiences here. Again, this appreciation for diversity and difference is a driving force of greater things, in this case the belief that the only thing that seperates those within the UC and those without is a line on the map and some paperwork, both of which can and will be changed. When your state is in fact a patchwork of several dozen, it hardly hurts to add a few more to the mix, and only helps

I hope this little look into the society and beliefs of the UC was enough for you, let me know if you want anything more substantial!

[justalittlebluetiefling]

We’ve all got things that we want to talk about after that episode, but the biggest moment for me that I want to dig into is:

Jester fucking hesitated.

Why can’t I ever just get to the point? This got long. 

Jester’s playlist came out two months ago and it sent me into a weird spiral about Jester’s place in the Mighty Nein. If you were following me then, maybe you remember lol. Her two songs for Artagan were very conflicting: Formidable by Amy Lilley vs Anywhere U Go by Tove Lo. Like she said. Her relationship with the Traveler had become... complicated. I made more than one post talking about how worried I was about Jester feeling a lack of connection to the Nein and how it felt like she might leave because of it. Leave with the Traveler because of it. I didn’t think she wanted to leave the Nein, but if it came down to a choice, the choice felt obvious. It has never felt like a stretch to me. It’s seemed very possible. Because Artagan saved her from loneliness.

And so I want to talk about Connect by Elohim real quick before I move on. When she set off on her own, she was “desperate to find someone to connect with. Someone who would understand her and be what she always read about in storybooks.” (Again, as a few people have said, that is clearly a split paragraph from the next, Summer’s Gone, but I digress.) This song was the reason I started thinking about the way she connects to the Nein and I started paying attention to how invested she seemed in the group dynamic.

So... here’s the deal. I really do believe that Jester has been struggling to feel the connection with the Nein. It’s not that she doesn’t love them or consider them friends, but she has one of the strongest sets of external ties in the group. And part of her external ties travels with her, in a sense. He’s her patron. God. Funky little archfey buddy. Whatever he is. 

And because of this, because I think she’s been struggling with connection, I think that Fjord’s conversations with her were truly beneficial. Fjord went out of his way (in a way that he hasn’t before) to make sure that she knows that she is valued and she is wanted. Jester’s got a high wisdom. I don’t necessarily think she reads what he’s been saying to her as romantic love, but it is very clearly love of some kind. 

It was just... incredibly poetic, the way the whole scene played out. Of course Jester would cling onto Artagan and of course Fjord would do what he could to get up to her. This is... weird. I don’t know how to word it. Really, I’d put money on Artagan being grateful that Fjord was up there trying to get Jester to let go, because he also wanted Jester to let go.

Okay I’ve gotten super off track. This is about Jester’s hesitation and what that means for her and how she’s evolved. 

When she started traveling, as I mentioned above, she was desperate to find someone to connect with. She already had Artagan at this point. And even she knew that it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. And then she met Fjord. Who she was immediately infatuated with. And that relationship/friendship has grown and deepened to something very different over the almost year that they’ve known each other. They’ve been there for each other without hesitation the entire way. Jester followed Fjord across the ocean, underneath it, into danger repeatedly for his personal journey. And now Fjord has done the same. He’s never hesitated to follow her into danger, diving off the side of a tree, teleporting out into the shadows as a distraction when she fell off the roof. He’s made sure that her mother was safe from Algar, run out into the night after Jester because she accidentally left her mom at a party, that she got a chance to see The Gentleman. 

She loves these two people very much. In very similar ways. She’s idealized them both at various times and has been coming to terms with what she really feels as she’s traveled through the world and met new people. Whether or not she loves them the way she thought she did. Whether it’s different than she thought. 

And that’s what it comes down to. The planar being asks her: “Do you love him this much?”

And Jester hesitates.

“I look at Artagan.” [long pause] “I look back at Fjord.”

The way this felt to me was Jester evaluating. Does she love Artagan enough to go into imprisonment with him? Yes. But does she love Fjord enough to stay behind?

Even last Wednesday, I would have told you that she would never hesitate in a situation like this. I seriously expected her to say, “I’m sorry, Fjord.” or something along those lines. But she looked at Artagan, restrained. And then she looks back at Fjord, who is showing no signs of letting go either. He’s followed her into danger once again. Would he have held on if she did? Could she condemn him to that? Make him pay for Artagan and Jester’s mistakes here? Can she leave him behind? Can she leave her friends? Her home, she says later.

Now, I’m going to make some speculative leaps here. But when they’re back down with the group later, Jester all but admits that she would have gone if Fjord hadn’t been there (and Artagan kicked her off, but that’s not what Jester was talking about). Jester thanked Fjord for going after her. She said she was glad that he was hanging onto her. She implies that if he wasn’t there, she would have gone. People are talking about this scene a lot and I’m surprised that more of it isn’t about the fact that we very well could have lost Jester in this episode if it weren’t for Fjord. She is absolutely able to make her own decisions, but she was panicking and clinging to her friend, trying to save him, and letting go of him wouldn’t have occurred to her as a possibility if Fjord hadn’t been there. 

For some reason, I’ve got to bring it back to discourse, but not in like a hateful way I swear. It is genuinely strange to me that people are so offended over Fjord’s treatment of Jester when Artagan and Fjord literally want the same things for her. Neither of them wanted her to make that sacrifice. And the thing is... maybe it’s because it was such a shippy moment, on Fjord’s end, and people don’t like the ship. But it was truly a selfish act on Fjord’s part. I’m sure there was some urge to protect as well, but Fjord didn’t want to lose Jester, so he went and he begged for her to stay. Neither Fjord nor Artagan wanted Jester to pay for Artagan’s mistakes, no matter how culpable Jester is. It was pretty cool to see how far Fjord would go to “save” her. To keep her around.

Putting it that way, I kind of wonder if that hit Jester, too, in that moment. Because she’s been struggling to feel the connection with the Nein, maybe she thought that they wouldn’t fight if she tried to leave. But Fjord proved to her that they would. And I think that’s neat.

And I mean, to end this, I’ll say it again. Jester hesitated. This is the first time it’s felt like there was a chance she wouldn’t have left. That she might not choose him over the Mighty Nein. Of course, thankfully, it sounds like for now, she won’t be put into that position again. Neither the Nein nor Artagan appear to want or need her to choose. But Jester did just have to face whether or not she’d leave her oldest friend behind for her new friends (who she later called her home). And I think we’ll be seeing the ramifications of this dilemma play out over the next few episodes.

[ravenbrenna09]

minor note: for this, i’m saying that lies is two or three years younger than jens and lotte is about 9 or 10 (she looks about 8 in s1 right?); also: this does cover a cancer diagnosis from a parent so please be cautious when reading (and sorry for not adding this earlier).

ideal seizoen vier: aflevering vier

main: Jens Stoffels

clip one (zaterdag): it’s well after midnight but the party keeps going. jens doesn’t mind of course, in desperate need of a break, and the boys are more than happy to stay out a little while longer. even as the party keeps going at senne’s apartment—that he reluctantly was forced to move back into for reasons that jens didn’t know—jens excuses himself and heads downstairs in need of another drink. he checks his phone and finds a worried message from his mom, asking where he is. jens texts her and says that he was staying at robbe’s tonight to which his mom comments that she’s forgotten and tells him that she’ll see him tomorrow afternoon. jens types out a text asking how she’s feeling but he deletes the message and heads back upstairs. 

clip two (zaterdag): jens wakes up to someone poking his side—and he wakes up to find robbe standing above him with a cup of coffee—who comments about how jens drank too much last night. jens swats him away and robbe catches his arm and jens turns over, commenting that he hadn’t slept well. robbe apologizes for the couch and jens replies that it’s okay, saying that he wouldn’t want to share a bed with robbe anyway. sander pops up, saying that it’s a good time, and jens replies that robbe has kicked him off the bed more than once. sander makes a comment about why he sleeps near the wall and robbe slaps his arm. robbe’s mama comes in and informs them that dinner is ready and there’s a sad look that washes over jens’s face. robbe seems to notice and goes to question but jens gets up and moves towards the kitchen.

clip three (zondag): after waking up to a quiet household (and his cat behind his head), jens heads downstairs to find his mom sitting at the dining room table with a list in front of her. he asks if he needs to go and his mom shakes her head, saying that she’s going with his father later. jens nods and asks where the girls were. his mom says that lies (the oldest of his sisters) went to meet friends and lotte went to the park with their father. the two of them fall into what feels like a restless silence with jens seeming like he wants to ask something. before he can, however, his mom speaks up and asks if jens can pick up lotte and watch the girls on tuesday because she has an appointment with the doctor and his father is going with her and they are going to stay overnight at a hotel so they don’t have to worry about driving home so far. jens nods and says that he’ll take care of them. his mother smiles, standing up, before giving jens a hug and a kiss on the cheek. she thanks him for all of his help in the past week and promises that they’ll find their new “normal” soon once the doctors have a plan. jens looks like he wants to say something—but doesn’t—and simply nods his head.

clip four (maandag): at lunch, the broerrrs are talking about something. even though they just filmed a vlog last week, moyo and aaron want to film another vlog because they’ve managed to brain storm over the weekend about various ideas. while the two of them are talking, jens gets a text message from his mom, asking him if he could possibly pick up milk on the way home and one of her prescriptions. while he’s looking at the text message, jens zones out of the conversation and isn’t brought back until robbe nudges him, asking if he’s okay. jens nods and texts his mom back. he asks when they’re planning on shooting. moyo suggests tuesday and jens says he can’t, saying that he has to watch take care of the girls after school. aaron questions why—commenting that jens never had to do it before. jens hesitates, but eventually shrugs and says that his parents are going on a date night or something. moyo and aaron don’t seem to notice but robbe gives him a questionable stare. 

clip five (dinsdag): after picking up lotte from school, the two of them head back to the house with lotte telling jens all about her day at school. lotte asks where mom and dad is and jens says that they had to go out of town. lotte and jens do homework at the kitchen table with lotte completing hers a lot faster than jens does his before going into the living room to play. lies comes home and finds jens sitting at the dining room table. jens asks what she wants for dinner and lies asks where their parents are. jens says they’re out of town and lies asks for what with tears in her eyes. before jens can answer—obviously affected too, lotte comes in and asks jens if they can watch frozen ii. jens says that they can watch whatever she wants. jens gets up and follows her into the living room, giving lies a worried look over his shoulder. 

clip six (dinsdag): after putting lotte to sleep and reading her a story, jens goes back downstairs and finds lies in the kitchen putting the rest of the pizza in plastic baggies. spotting him in the kitchen, lies makes a comment about how she doesn’t like keeping it from lotte and jens says that he agrees but that’s on mom and that she doesn’t to tell lotte about the diagnosis until they have a plan and they see that it’s working. lies looks over at jens with tears in her eyes and admits that she’s scared of losing their mom. jens says that he is too but that she’s got the best people in the world to help her through it. lies starts to cry and moves to hug her brother, who holds her back just as tightly.

extra content: jens texts jana and says that he misses her. jana says that she misses him too and teases him about being awake. jens says that he and lies were talking and time got caught away from them. jana asks if everything is okay. jens says that no but that everything will hopefully be okay soon. 

clip seven (woensdag): after school on wednesday, jens and robbe head out to a café to hang out for a little bit. jens asks if sander is going to join them and robbe says that sander isn’t joining them. glancing at robbe, he sees the concerned look on robbe’s face as they sit down and jens questions what’s wrong. robbe says that he’s noticed that something’s going on with jens and he’s worried about him. jens says it’s nothing. for a minute or two, they’re quiet before robbe raises an eyebrow, throwing jens’s own words from last week back at him. robbe says that he’s jens’s best friend and that he knows something is wrong. jens can sense that robbe has something more to say, but, unable to keep it to himself anymore, jens tells robbe the truth: his mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. jens tells robbe what happened—or as much as his mother had told him—that his mother had her annual test and she had to have surgery and they had to run tests and it came back positive. jens says that it’s treatable and the doctor caught it early, but jens admits that he’s scared and lies is scared. robbe is quiet and asks if he’s talked with his mom about it. jens says he hasn’t, commenting that he doesn’t want to worry his mom more. robbe says that he should and jens asks why, not wanting to put so much stress on his mom. robbe shrugs and says that last year, when robbe finally broke down and told his mama what was going on with sander—back when she didn’t know who ‘sander’ was quite yet because he was scared she would react negatively too—his mama had wished that he had told her sooner. robbe suggests that jens talk to his mom about his feelings. 

clip eight (donderdag): before lies comes home from her dance class, jens finds his mom in the kitchen again with her list. spotting him in the kitchen, she questions him on his day and the two of them talk briefly about school. after a small period of silence, jens swallows and confesses that he’s confused and frustrated and sad about everything going on. when his mom doesn’t cut him off, jens admits that he didn’t want to bring it up because he wanted to help them and didn’t want to worry her more but he keeps getting confused and he doesn’t know who else to talk to. his mother comforts him, saying that none of them expected this, and while she appreciates jens’s help with the girls and groceries, he doesn’t have to take it all at once and that he’s allowed to be upset too. jens hugs his mom and says, almost breaking down, that he doesn’t want to lose her. for a minute, the two of them hold each other, before his mom reminds him that her cancer is treatable and it’s going to need a lot of work but she’s going to fight for a future with him, the girls, and their eventual significant others—and jens laughs, shaking his head. she has jens promise to talk to her or his father whenever he feels overwhelmed—or, if he doesn’t want to talk to them, they could always look into finding a professional to talk to. jens nods and thanks her and falls into her embrace. his mother holds him and thanks him for coming to her, saying that she didn’t want him to put it all on his shoulder. 

clip nine (vrijdag): after school on friday, jens and the broerrrs are leaving and moyo mentions a party that might be going on later that night. jens comments that he can’t go, saying that he and his family are having a well-needed family night. robbe asks if he can join and jens said that his family might like that but he’ll clear it with his mom and let him know. aaron asks if jens really can’t come and jens nods saying that he needs to be home with his family. aaron asks if everything is okay to which jens shakes his head. after glancing at robbe, jens tells the other broerrrs about his mother’s diagnosis and how his parents went to the doctor, but they have a plan and the doctors are confident. aaron hugs jens unexpectedly—with robbe joining in a second later—and jens appreciates the hugs. aaron says that he’s sure that everything will turn out okay. after the moment passes, moyo gives jens a handshake and has him promise to ask if he needs anything. moyo says that he’s had to take care of his mom before and that he knows how weird it might be sometimes. jens thanks him before coughing and saying that he needs to go pick up lotte. the boys promise to meet up sometime the next weekend at the skate park to skate.

[bigbrotherlouis]

hi friends i've been gone for a while but here are some lil life updates

- i'm back in nashville for the first time in three years and VERY emo about it. mixed feelings about my time in the city but it's good to be back

- all of my good friends are fully vaccinated (they all work in the helping professions and tennessee is open appointments) and so i've been able to see them and it's lovely.

- my old roommate did not know i was back and i got to surprise her and i watched the video like sixty times bc it makes me so happy

- i get vaccinated tomorrow or maybe wednesday morning :)

- i am considering moving back for the summer, for various reasons. we shall see.

- i think i hate hockey being on at 6? i miss all the games bc all my friends work 9-5s and so we hang out for dinners and i don't like the 1ams so much but i think hockey at 10 would be my ideal

- job's doing fine

- i'm working through my fear of spending money and i'm trying to buy things i need + that will make me happy. i get a new phone this week!

- i have decided i love the devils and the ty smith / jack hughes thing happening is just so interesting

- i gotta answer messages and fic comments this week !

[morwensteelsheen]

WIP wednesday thoughts:

willow cabin is utterly fucked because i changed my intended ~moral~ halfway through and now im stuck trying to integrate this shitty political intrigue plot into what should’ve been a more interesting story about éowyn adapting to life in gondor. hugely fucking annoyed by it and just totally unsure how to proceed. i could significantly increase the chapter count, but im worried that because the initial framing device was this bandits shit that closing out that plot and then still going for ages afterwards would be really shitty? i honestly don’t know, it’s so difficult. really i just need someone to read my outline and tell me if im being a dumb twat about it lol

meanwhile I know exactly where I want to go with AFTA but for some unaccountable reason im stressed that my ass is gonna get roasted for the direction i want to take it in. it’s all based in both tolkien’s personal politics and (some) historical precedent, but im worried people are gonna see it as a marysue-ification? but also im hoping to do sthg of a sequel to afta to practice the political intrigue writing so i don’t make the same mistakes i did in wc, and to do that it would require this specific set up in AFTA. im gonna put my AFTA thing under the cut so don’t click read more unless you’re gucci with potential AFTA spoilers!!

this royal affair au is definitely gonna get published at some point but im trying to decide if i want to do ~tasteful~ smut that drives a longer narrative or if im really just gonna do a whole 3,000 word build up to some run of the mill, old fashioned PWP lmao

okay so i have spent a Lot of time thinking about what impact i think éowyn and faramir would have on each other in a pre-ring war setting, and the honest to god conclusion ive come to is that they would somewhat inadvertently egg on each other’s (wildly divergent) idealism.

faramir’s an idealist politically in ways that, as Big D rightly points out, are not super productive in a wartime scenario. but so far as im concerned, the war doesn’t feel as warlike until they have to blow the bridge at osgiliath. until that point, there’s not really anything to say that faramir’s whole throwback optimism isn’t a perfectly justifiable position to have.

but what that idealism is and how it manifests are two really important considerations. the crux of his idealistic politics is that he looks at númenor and sees something valuable in it, and looks at gondor and sees a lot that he thinks is fucked up. outside of articulating a general angst towards the glory hunting, it’s not like he’s spending time talking about his specific policy prescriptions. however, we do know a few things that can guide us to a more coherent reconstruction of his politics:

he’s pretty rigidly hierarchical (when it’s convenient for him). as seen in: him basically telling sam to fuck off and stay in his lane in WOTW, and in how and when he chooses to refer to his father as ‘father’ vs ‘my lord’ or ‘lord of the city’ in the aftermath of the osgiliath retreat and then before he gets his ass sent back there. i don’t want to go into too much detail here but if i go with this i’ll definitely justify it more thoroughly in the footnotes.

so we’ve got faramir’s emphasis on hierarchy and his occasional (when convenient) belief that the upper echelons of a hierarchy are there because they’re intellectually and/or morally better. or, maybe to remove the causation from that instance, because they are in those upper echelons, they have an obligation to be more morally/intellectually upstanding, and the people in the structure below them have an obligation to show deference. unless you’re faramir and you’re dealing with denethor in which case that all goes out the window. classic.

we know there is some sort of nascent pseudo-democratic tradition of popular sovereignty in gondor. we know this because faramir asks the masses at aragorn’s coronation if they’ll accept him as king. faramir is a lot of things, but he is certainly not a progressive political radical, and i cannot imagine any situation in which he cooked up that rigmarole himself. that then implies to me that it’s building on some sort of political/cultural expectation in gondor. so: some sort of relationship to popular legitimacy. the people of gondor are subjects, but perhaps not as totally passive and unconsidered in the power structure as we might assume given the comparability to feudal europe/asia.

given those two things, i want to use AFTA to argue:

that faramir, in looking to assign blame for the faults he sees in gondor, would not directly assign blame to the lower classes, but rather to the aristocracy, because he will have seen them as failing in their moral obligations to the people they rule over. this is not to say that he isn’t fucked off about The People™ valorising war, but i think he’d take the position that they couldn’t possibly be expected to form those values and opinions of their own volition, and the fault lies in their rules. faramir: not gramscian.

faramir lacks any power that is non-military, and even that is of questionable worth because the rangers seem to be fairly distinct to the general structure of the army, and are not exactly a huge force.

faramir lacking any political power isn’t necessarily a huge concern for him (as in, he’s not actively trying to change that), because he knows he’s not going to lead a moral revolution and isn’t interested in taking up the responsibilities having political capital would engender because he’s stuck dealing with this war, that he fucking hates btw has he mentioned that he hates it?

however, given that he is apparently eminently versed in lore and scholarship, he is probably keenly aware that there is this incipient notion of popular legitimacy somewhere in gondor’s culture. it’s not, for most of his life, knowledge that actually does anything for him, but it is there.

éowyn, meanwhile, doesn’t really have many strong political convictions (yet). not because she’s a dumbass or whatever, but because she looks at court politics as kind of a farce, and doesn’t believe that power legitimately emanates from anywhere that isn’t a Big Fucking Army. and why, strictly speaking, would she not think that? the event that brought about the creation of her kingdom was not careful, soft spoken negotiation, it was her ancestors being in the right place at the right time with a Big Fucking Army.

and the internal politics of the Riddermark actually seem to be fairly stable, all things considered. i sincerely doubt that Théoden or Théodred are having to negotiate complex politicking in the way Denethor and Boromir are. so where, then, would éowyn see that kind of political behaviour outside gondor? with gríma.

éowyn, then, will see the immediate contrast between gríma (backroom dealer, manipulator extraordinaire) and théoden (owner of Big Fucking Army). and gríma goes and fucking wins that fight. that forces éowyn to confront the fact that, jesus christ, maybe there are different types of power.

at the same time, she’s going to be in minas tirith and needing to cover for théoden letting his shit get wrecked. not just because she’s prideful, which of course she is, but because if denethor/gondor think that théoden is too weak to hold up his end of the bargain, why would they ever go help the Mark? éowyn, seeing that théoden’s f-f-fucked, knows that there’s a very very good chance the Mark will need help.

against her feelings about courtly politics, she starts to accept that she’s going to need to do something to get power in gondor. not anything substantial, it’s not like she’s trying to overthrow anybody, but enough that when push comes to shove she can force denethor to help out the Mark (if he doesn’t do so willingly).

but, as ive sort of already shown in AFTA, she’s a bit of a dogshit diplomat. good for a little big-brawny-enforcer stuff, but not exactly brimming with cultural sensitivity. by the time she realises théoden + the Mark are fucked, she’ll have burnt quite a few bridges with the gondorrim nobles, and it’s not like she’s the sort of person to go running cap-in-hand begging for mercy.

so: she has to look elsewhere. and wow! a chance for faramir to do his favourite thing — talk about his opinions! and by god, his weird idealistic politics are… actually kind of helpful? because he’s like, look, you’re never gonna be a diplomat, but there are other ways of consolidating power. and one of those ways is by appealing to The People™. so why not work that angle?

and actually, we know that this is a viable route for éowyn because hama, in arguing for her to take up the mantle of théoden’s heir when théoden and éomer fuck off to helm’s deep, basically says that The People™ love her and would have willingly chosen her to lead them.

we also know, based on faramir’s middle men speech, that the people of gondor and the mark have grown alike in nature. not totally unreasonable to then think that the people of gondor would take to her like the people of the mark did.

éowyn, then, in various ways begins to try to win over the people of minas tirith. i need to do a little more research on this bc what ive got on the practicalities of that so far are a bit, uhhh, sketchy, but the least jargony way to describe this is to point to when natalie dormer’s character in GOT gets out of the carriage to go hug and kiss some babies. (marc bloch, eat your heart out)

this would later segue into a potential sequel where, while trying to secure the way for aragorn’s coronation, éowyn actually plays an interesting role because she’s fallen into this incidental Diana, People’s Princess™ role and so is better positioned than almost anyone to go advocate on his behalf. wow! cool! éowyn getting to be politically useful in more ways than just getting hitched!

so yeah. that’s how i am thinking it might play out. this would obviously have a rolling impact on the remainder of AFTA and how certain (🔥) events pan out later, but i think that building up part has to begin pretty much now, narratively. also this lets me get in a reference to “and then her heart changed, or else at last she understood it” and have it not be almost entirely about wanting to shag faramir, but actually about her gradual evolution from valorising war above all else to being like, hmm, maybe there are other ways of being powerful. which i think still largely captures the “no longer I will vie with the great riders” stuff, but more subtly and without feeling quite so… deferential, I guess? Like it’s not that she’s swapping one form of power (violence) for nothing (gardening?? healing?? tolkien accidental articulation of necropolitics??) but swapping violence for a different type of more sustainable power.

yeah. that’s the take, basically. who fucking knows.

[drewgaither6]

Issue Anaylsis 6 - Chinese World Domination, Imperalism & What Gives?

Drew Gaither

Professor Brown

Honours Global Issues

6 November 2020

Issue Analysis 6 – Chinese World Domination, Imperialism, What Gives?

“Brushing Off Criticism, China’s Xi Calls Policies in Xinjian ‘Totally Correct’” outlines a relatively clear violation of human rights by the Chinese government against multiple ethnic minorities within its territory including the Uighurs and the Kazakhs. This, of course, is not a first for China given its history of brutal oppressive measures and “revolutions” which entailed massive cultural destruction and a collective transformation in beliefs by the Chinese people. Notably, before the Uighur crisis was China’s annexation of Tibet and the forced exile of Tibetan Buddhists and the Dali Lama. I want to caution that it is not necessarily bad to have firm education reared in collective collaboration and empathetic growth, as well as horizontal understandings of power. China claims they are doing this despite their actions speaking to the contrary. They are, rather, an elite oligarchic society.

Furthermore, certain religious beliefs and other ideologies that run contrary to the ideals of collectivism and empathy should be reasonably challenged in the classroom via an exchange of ideas. However, China is not a noble actor in this manner, and their efforts have been misguided, supremacist, and have evolved well beyond an exchange of ideas to a state of authoritarian hegemony. I also would like to add that I find the United States government’s criticisms of China’s practices hypocritical and unsubstantiated given its OWN erosion of soft power, and it is clear that the United States acts in a very similar manner as China. Still, as citizens of the United States, with hopefully just intentions, we can and should SHINE A LIGHT on and put an END to such atrocities occurring ABROAD as well as AT HOME (Confucian Value of Yin/Yang) - The Tao)).

The Chinese government plays a central role in their society in promoting cultural nationalism. Nationalism, of course, is not always bad, especially in terms of solidarity. This is somewhat demonstrated by President Xi’s comments when he states that there needs to be “education about a shared awareness of Chinese nationhood into education for Xinjiang cadres, youth and children, and society” and calls to make “a shared awareness of Chinese nationhood take root deep in the soul” (Buckley). In theory that is the ideal statement you want from a government that intends to ensure the citizens' democratic control over every aspect of their lives (aka Marxism/socialism/communism/anarchism); however, China—as a competing capitalist empire—falls short on its promises and cannot credibly disprove massive human rights atrocities in the name of “shared awareness”. They clearly violate all three generations of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, violating even the first generation, which is negative rights—the bare minimum of just outlining things the government shouldn’t act on. In other words, the government has to be proactive and go out of its way to violate these, WHICH China has.

It is also worrisome when one looks at how the U.S. government will try to “handle” this situation and elicit a “positive outcome.” The article states that on “Wednesday, the House of Representatives approved legislation that would bar imports from Xinjiang unless they were proven not to have used forced by forced labour. The Trump administration has imposed sanctions on officials deemed responsible for policy in Xinjiang and imposed restrictions on imports of clothing, hair products and technological goods from that region” (Buckley). One can only hope economic sanctions do not surmount global conflict, as they are a form of hard power that has historically lead to escalations between competing countries. While the House’s sanctions may indeed be the correct course of action, given the United State’s own involvement in industrial slave labour in LDCs throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America for both domestic goods as well as their invaluable precious minerals and resources that are essentially robbed from the Earth, and vulnerable developing countries (who are tied to the will of transnational corporations, the IMF, World Bank, and various imperial states), one has to ask if American interests really lie with preserving human dignity and rights in China, or is it about the U.S.’s ability to expand imperial dominance and economic supremacy?

China, in its imperial efforts, has expanded its country into a colonial empire, annexing more and more of the surrounding territories despite clear ethnic divisions and separate sovereign groups, like the Tibetans. The Uighurs and the Kazakhs are other such examples, as outlined by the New York Times article. The interpersonal result of conflicting ethnic minorities is victimisation and surrender to the ethnic majority’s nationalist calls for imperial unity. The article discusses that their “Turkic language and Muslim traditions have set them apart from China’s Han majority, and many members of these minorities have resented the expanding presence and power of the Han Chinese majority” (Buckley). Other such efforts of imperial domination can be seen at China’s South Sea where they have been pouring large quantities of sand, creating artificial islands, to increase their naval border. Just recently the government has enacted a new security policy in the once semi-sovereign Hong Kong, despite massive civil unrest and a clear demonstration that this goes against the will of the people—a violation of the first generation rights as outlined in UDHR. While challenging the idea of someone’s religion in a positive forum may be respectable, it has to be on an equal and mutual exchange of beliefs from two equally recognised people.

It cannot be in the concentration (or “indoctrination”) camps that deprive sovereign people of their rights and freedom; that is unacceptable. Just as I condemn the U.S.’s role in imprisoning immigrants and refugees in concentration camps here, and illegally detaining suspected “terrorists” in Guantanamo Bay—a space occupied against the wishes of the sovereign government of Cuba—in violation of even our own constitution, I also condemn China’s many attempts to act in the same fashions. We are the TWO PRIME examples of dominating empires whose lowest peaks@!, with Russia foaming at the mouth as they dream of imperial domination. We fundamentally prove the inefficiency of the imperial system and demonstrate that a NEW ORDER DEL MUNDO needs to take root in the GLOBAL community before competition leads to MASS DESTRUCTION and CONFLICT. We need MORE socialism and Marxist-oriented WORKER SOVEREIGNTY as well as more international COOPERATION like the UN but with equal, sharéd-power Bé-[T]ŵęęñ nations (preferably DECENTRALISED collectives of PEOPLEZ loosely identified as “states”).

[blog20041994punam]

Numerology And Lucky Colour Of Your Day

Numerology is a divine ‘science’ that believes that numbers have their own vibrations which produces various effects and influence on us. Since we are influenced by planetary objects, which have their own wavelength of cosmic rays, resulting in a certain colour, colours have an equally important effect on our lives. Numbers are associated with planets and colours are associated with numbers. The interplay of all these vibrations, have a great impact on us and it’s important to understand that your lucky number and colour can greatly affect the success and happiness in your life. It can bring prosperity and good health in abundance. Try and wear your lucky colour for the day and see the difference it makes in your life. Also, know your lucky colour from your birthdate and you can use the two for maximum benefit.

For Birth date Number 1(Those born on 1,10,19 and 28) the lucky colour would be orange, yellow and gold, since they are ruled by the planet Sun. These colours amplify the bold, courageous, honest and daring nature of Number 1.

For Birth date Number 2(Those born on 2,11,20 and 29), the lucky colour would be different shades of green, yellow, silver and creamy yellow.

For Birth date Number 3(Those born on 3,12,21 and 30), the lucky colour would be orange, lotus pink and all shades go red.

For Birth date Number 4(Those born on 4,13,22 and 31) all shades of blue are good for them as they have a clean heart like the clean blue sky. Other than black, rest of the colours are neutral.

For Birth date Number 5(Those born on 5, 14 and 23) the colour of mercury, i.e. grey would bring them success. Alternatively, they can wear light shades of any colour

For Birth date Number 6(Those born on 6, 15 and 24), the ideal colours are dark green and dark blue. They can also wear red and other shades of blue.

For Birth date Number 7(Those born on 7, 16 and 25), light green, light yellow and light blue are the luckiest. Even white works well for them.

For Birth date Number 8(Those born on 8, 17 and 26), who come under the planet Saturn, their ideal colour is yellow. They can even wear dark green and dark blue.

For Birth date Number 9(Those born on 9, 18 and 27), ruled by Mars, the lucky colour is blood red and crimson red.

Lucky colours for the different days of the week are:-

Sunday - This day is ruled by the Sun, who is the Lord of soul, ego, glory, health, honour, bravery and relationship with father. To seek the Sun’s blessings, one should wear bright colours associated with him - yellow, red and orange.

Monday - This day is ruled by the Moon, who represents interest, respect, sleep, happiness, mother, power, wealth, travels and water.To seek the Moon’s blessings, one should wear white, silver, light blue and similar colours.

Tuesday - This day is ruled by Mars, who is the Lord of authority, courage, bravery, competition, land, moveable property and younger brother. To seek the blessings of Mars, one should wear red or orange coloured clothes.

Wednesday - This day is ruled by the planet Mercury, who is the Lord of intelligence, eloquence, logical reasoning, studies, examination, business, precious stones, friends and maternal uncle. To seek Mercury’s blessing, wear shades of green colour.

Thursday - This day is ruled by Jupiter, who is the Lord of wisdom, intelligence, teaching, mentor, philosophical outlook, muscular body, elder brother, son, wealth and pious place. To seek Jupiter’s blessings, wear yellow clothes.

Friday - This day is ruled by Venus, the harbinger of happiness, significator of spouse, marriage, sex, love relationships, luxury, beauty, wealth, music, poetry, home decor and vehicle. To seek the blessings of Venus, wear pink, off-white or white coloured clothes.

Saturday - This day is ruled by Saturn, who is the Lord of age, disease, death, crises, poverty, unethical and non-religious deeds, robbery, disability, science and technological studies, foreign language, iron and oil. To seek Saturn’s blessings, wear black and navy blue colour.                                                                                                                          Learn more about it and get your personalized numerology report for free.

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

Descending into Madness An Anarchist-Nihilist Diary of Anti-Psychiatry

Just sayin’... The opinions expressed in this text represent no other than my own. My position against psychiatry is based on my own personal experience and should not be taken as an authority on the subject. Psychiatry, medications, and or psychiatric incarceration is considered helpful by some, and I wish them the very best experience with it.

But also... To the ‘freaks’, the ‘weirdos’, the ‘delinquents’, and the unruly... To those who embrace these words like daggers drawn against civility, To the insubordinate youth who refuse to tranquilize their play with meds, To those who riot in the asylums, and those who dare to escape from them...

Let the moonlight illuminate our iconoclasm, witches and savage animals spellbinding fire in the night, for the destruction of society, with the courage of unmedicated confrontation.

Any society that you build will have its limits. And outside the limits of any society, unruly and heroic tramps will wander with their wild and virgin thought — those who cannot live without planning ever new and dreadful outbursts of rebellion! I shall be among them!” — Renzo Novatore

I’m sittin’ at a big round table with about three nurses and two doctors. My eyes are sensitive to the light cus I haven’t slept in days. A nurse directly beside me has been gently nodding at me with the same look of concern for about an hour. My vision keeps blurring and then re-focusing. My hands are slightly trembling. I’ve been fighting the urge to lay my head down since I sat down. It appears this awkward meeting is almost over, and I have some papers to sign. The doctor who has been talkin’ since I got here is still talkin’ and I admit, I haven’t really been paying much attention. Finally the talking stops and everyone stands up. The nurse beside me helps me up by my arm. I start to feel dizzy. We begin walking down a long hallway and eventually enter a room. Another nurse in the room greets me with a pillow, a blanket, and a pill to “help with rest”. Before sittin’ down on the bed I’ve been assigned, a nurse calmly requests my belt and shoe laces. I comply and decide while I’m up I might as well take a shit before I go to sleep. About five seconds after my ass hits the toilet seat I hear a commotion - frantic pounding and demands to unlock the bathroom door. Confused and startled, I jump up, trip over my pants, and unlock the door. Apparently I’m not allowed to lock the bathroom door - or have it totally closed while I’m in there. I quickly finish shitting in plain view of a nurse and walk back to bed. I notice a different nurse has pulled up a chair right beside it and sits down with a clipboard and pen. I lay down and try to get comfortable while accepting the awkward close watch by this nurse beside me. As I start drifting off to sleep I reflect on everything that’s goin’ on. Oh that’s right. Earlier today I tried to hang myself in my apartment and this is my first night in a psych ward.

**** INDIANAPOLIS, March 18 th 2018 — Resource Treatment Center Riot Nearly a dozen Indianapolis police officers were called to respond Wednesday night to a riot at a juvenile psychiatric treatment and addiction facility on the city’s east side.

Eleven officers were dispatched to 1404 S. State Avenue just before 11 p.m. Wednesday on a report of a disturbance at the facility. The location is home to the Resource Treatment Center juvenile psychiatric facility, as well as Options Transitional Living, which provides sober housing for homeless or at-risk youth.

Police arrived to find that a group of juvenile residents had done more than $50,000-worth of damage to the facility and assaulted four staff members. Officers took nine juveniles ranging in age from 13-17 into custody on preliminary charges of vandalism, rioting, battery and disorderly conduct.

****

During my time at this psychiatric prison I was subjected to what’s called ‘one on ones’ which basically means I’m at risk to myself and therefore require 24 hour observation by staff. Two different nurses watched me shit, sleep, cry in my sleep, and eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I was required to take meds and a sleep aid everyday. I had face-to-face therapy once a day. I was only allowed one 15 minute phone call per day. I wasn’t allowed outside at all. I was told to “set anchor” because the faculty had no intentions on releasing me “anytime soon”.

All the reasons I was originally depressed took a backseat to this new horror show I found myself in. Everyone in my ward talked about one day gettin’ out, despite being told they would “never make it on the outside”. I couldn’t help but notice the striking similarities to incarceration at a prison for criminals. This was a prison. The more I heard stories of attempted escape, violent physical repression, and hopeless isolation, the more I realized this was not a place to ‘get well’, nor any hospital I ever been to. These prison guards wore scrubs, enforced order with chemical warfare and physical restraint jackets. “The hole” was the padded room. Those who resisted were tackled to the hard floor causing cuts and bruises. And to the nurses and doctors, we were all just “case files” or “subjects” to be talked down to and humiliated. We were in their world now and it was their rules.

“We need a program of psychosurgery and political control of our society. The purpose is physical control of the mind. Everyone who deviates from the given norm can be surgically mutilated. The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electrically control the brain. Some day armies and generalswill be controlled by electrical stimulation of the brain.” - Dr. Jose Delgado, a Spanish professor of neurophysiology and author of the book ‘Physical Control of the Mind: Toward a Psychocivilized Society’

The era of institutionalized ‘care’ for those with ‘mental illnesses’ began somewhere around the 19th century with heavy support from the state. Public asylums were built in Britain after the passing of the 1808 County Asylums Act. This created an upsurge of asylums being built everywhere. These asylums were known for inmates havin’ to live in filthy conditions with bars, chains, and handcuffs.

The Lunacy Act 1845 was known to have changed the status of ‘mentally ill’ people to ‘patients’ who required treatment. This led to the eventual chemical treatment of people as ‘medical patients’ – despite the fact that lab tests, X-rays, and brain scans have never verified psychiatric disorders as medical diseases or brain damage. Over time, this inspired the emergence of psychiatric medical experiments on ‘patients’ in order to chemically ‘cure’ their ‘disorders’. The 20th century saw an explosion of psychiatric drugs. The first anti-psychotic drug, Chlorpromazine (brand names: Thorazine, Largactil, Hivernal, and Megaphen) was first synthesized in France in 1950.

Psychiatry, asylums, and prescribed drugs contributed heavily to reinforcing social order and individual submission through fear. As the years went on psychiatry and asylums expanded, re-defining and strengthening the power of state repression and civilized control.

Along with this came an ever-expanding culture of publicly calling out those who were considered ‘disturbed’ or ‘mentally ill’. The first to be targeted were those who didn’t fit the narrowly defined behavioral expectations of society. In the 18th to early 20th century, individuals assigned female at birth were often institutionalized for damn near everything including unpopular opinions, social unruliness or a politicized refusal to be controlled by patriarchal society. Other individuals of various assigned identities who sexually deviated from hetero-normativity were institutionalized and considered “confused” and in need of being converted.

One major marketing scheme deployed by the pharmacology industry was the social construction of an ideal emotional state that every ‘normal’ individual was expected to experience. Today this same ideal can be found everywhere – from televised entertainment to billboard advertisements and so on. The ‘happy’ and ‘depressed’ binary was used to create social pressure leading people to feel isolated or out of place for not happily accepting the conditions of society on a daily basis. Being “sad all the time” was, and still is frowned upon and ridiculed – regardless of its complex nature and the reasons behind it.

Despite being emotionally fluid by nature, the individual human (animal) is expected to fulfill the civilized role of positivist supremacy. This normalized obsession with positivity plays a key role in suppressing emotional responses of outrage to the multitude of oppressive experiences. The obsession with - and normalization of - positivist performance also encourages people to overlook the deep-seated trauma caused by civilization on a daily basis. Everything from the fear of flying, car wrecks, workplace injuries, to being late on bill payments – all examples of fears attributed to trauma. But because civilized life requires wage-slavery and commitment to continue, these forms of trauma are trivialized and written off - usually followed by something like “that’s life” or “it is what it is”.

As techno-industrial society advances, new laws are constructed to create new definitions of ‘criminality’. This means there is an ever-narrowing idea of legalism. The same can be said for psychiatry. As more labels and identities for ‘disorders’ are created, the pharmacology industry expands. And as the conditions of capitalist, industrial society continue to worsen, more misery becomes available for exploitation with the sale of “feel good” prescriptions.

Under capitalism, where there are ‘correctional’ facilities, there is a profit motive to keep them filled. Where there are ‘inmates’ to fill those institutions, there is financial gain or cheap labor. And where there is any potential for social unrest, there is an ideology and identity to categorically define an unruly individual as ‘anti-social’. Society turns ‘disorders’ into categorical identities assigned to those it considers ‘undesirable’ in order to reinforce the social conditions that pressure people into behavioral uniformity.

Today, within the realm of identity politics, psychiatric-assigned identities garner social capital where ever victimhood is glorified for social benefit. As with any form of identity politics, I have seen many individuals exploit psychiatric identities by brandishing them as reasons to rid themselves of responsibility for their actions. And as this plays out in the all-too-familiar social cannibalism of identity politics, individuals personalize these psychiatric- assigned identities and create inverted hierarchies of social entitlement.

Ultimately, a new identity-based movement is formed, gaining media recognition and becomes assimilated into the broader prison of society.

****

Thursday, September 4, 2014 Riot at Central New York Psychiatric Center A dozen staff members were injured when several inmates started rioting in a kitchen area at the Central New York Psychiatric Center on Wednesday.

Four people were hospitalized for their injuries, authorities stated. The fight broke out at about 11:45 a.m., when five to six inmates started attacking staff in one of the kitchen areas using kitchen utensils as weapons, according to the state Correctional Officers & Police Benevolent Association. The inmates tried to fight their way into the mess hall.

At the same time, another fight broke out between inmates and staff on the floor above the kitchen, officials said. The emergency alarms were raised, and security personnel inside the facility were able to break up the two fights, with help from the state police.

****

After careful planning, I was released from psychiatric incarceration much sooner than originally set. The walls were closing in on me and the monotony of daily under-stimulation, medicated numbness, and confinement started breaking me down. Witnessing the prison cannibalism of infighting between incarcerated individuals, I began spiralling worse than I had prior to being there. On top of that, my two attempts to secretly organize a rebellion had failed miserably; the wards or ‘bunks’ were so small that an artificially constructed bond was easily created between most staff and patients. Snitching was heavily rewarded.

Nobody wanted “any problems”. So instead I turned to another method of emancipation; using my own high school knowledge of psychology to convince my therapist I was merely suffering from “a broken heart” due to a “recent romantic breakup”.

Despite the full spectrum of my hatred for society, the life I was living at the time, and the complex emotional storm that raged in my head on a daily basis, I was able to convince my therapist and the other nurses I was just upset over a breakup. The humiliation of having to role-play such a lie paled in comparison to my desire for freedom from that place. Released into my mom’s custody, I was required to continue taking my medications three times a day and seeing a counsellor once a week.

Against the wards request, I went back to living in my apartment. I could see where the police had went through all my notebooks as well as a pocket book of phone numbers. The noose I worked so hard to construct and attach to a wooden beam along my ceiling was gone. To this day I don’t know if my landlord took it or if the police did. My rent was overdue indicated by the notes in my mailbox. Luckily I was working a self-managed painting job at the time so I couldn’t get fired. I could start back up the next week.

That night I masturbated for the first time in what felt like years. But I couldn’t orgasm. The next day I called the doctor who dealt my meds. According to him, my impossible orgasm was common with people on psychiatric medication. A week went by and I continued to feel numb. Nothing was interesting to me. I often found myself watching the hands on clocks move or staring out my window at passing cars. I didn’t feel sad. But I didn’t feel good either. I just existed.

After about a month of being out of the psych ward, I decided to stop taking my meds. The hassle of getting them filled as well as keepin’ up with taking them everyday just wasn’t worth it. And neither was feeling numb. I didn’t know what would happen. Would they find out and send the police to take me back? A couple weeks went by without meds and I started to feel slight changes. I was scared but prepared for the hellish withdrawals I had heard all about. I got dizzy a bit, and some headaches but nothing more. Soon I stopped gettin’ calls from my counsellor. I expected her to be upset and leave me angry voicemails. It never happened. Eventually I felt my appetite change and I could experience emotional reactions to things easier and more frequently. And I finally had an orgasm!

For the next couple years, I reflected on those experiences and began exploring the origins of my suicidal thoughts, the origins of the morbid depression that caused them, as well as the consumerist life I lived as a wage-slave law-abiding citizen.

****

A Riot on Thanksgiving Morning 2016 at Springfield Hospital Center (a regional psychiatric hospital and former slave plantation located in Sykesville, Maryland) In the early-morning hours of Thanksgiving Day, Catherine Starkes and April Savage huddled in an office with several other employees at the Springfield Hospital Center in Carroll County as patients rioted around them.

Starkes and Savage said patients threw chairs, knocked over file cabinets and tried to break into the staff's Plexiglas-enclosed refuge. The patients poured cooking oil over the floors, making them slippery. One patient tried to crawl into the office through the suspended ceiling, Starkes recalled.

It was like no other night she could remember in 22 years of working with dangerously mentally ill patients at Maryland state hospitals.

"They wanted to take over the unit. They seized the unit," she said.

****

“What we say is the truth is what everybody accepts. ...I mean, psychiatry: it's the latest religion. We decide what's right and wrong. We decide who's crazy or not. I'm in trouble here. I'm losing my faith.” -Dr. Railly from the movie “12 Monkeys”

Similar to religion, psychiatry assumes a powerful role in defining “right” or “wrong” in terms of “normal” vs “abnormal” behavior. The standardization of a particular, socially expected behavior is essential for creating categories of people defined in terms of their contribution to the collective success of society. With psychology as a basis for analytically outlining ‘problems’ and suggesting “potential cures”, mass society becomes dependent on its authority for deciding who is “normal” and who isn’t. Certain behavioral characteristics unique to an individual become outlawed in order to maintain this social conformity.

Speaking from my own experience, psychiatry and all its theories, roles, and chemical prescriptions at best aims to merely manage ‘symptoms’ of ‘disorders’ - not eliminate the sources of their creation.

By ‘symptoms’ I am referring to any set of behaviors or emotional responses that indicate an individual’s struggle to conform to societal expectations or ‘normal’ behavior.

By ‘disorders’ I am referring to the set of behaviors or emotional responses that have been selected and condemned by society, and therefore declared a ‘mental illness’ by the authority of psychiatry.

By ‘sources’ I am referring to any and all prisons, societal forms of coercion, and civilized society – all of which pressure individual subservience and ideological conformity.

The conflict of interest in ‘curing’ the ‘mentally ill’ becomes apparent when acknowledging that successful cures to particular behaviors and emotional responses would require the abolition of civilized society all together - the same civilized society that creates trauma, followed by the concept of mental illness and subsequently a ‘solution’ via many forms of emotional anaesthesia.

Another factor of social control built into psychiatry is its ability to distort and control dissenting information. Social systems that require the subordination of individuals are always sharpening their ability to suppress or demonize information – especially information derived from rebellious experience. When it is individuals themselves who are considered living examples of this information, those seeking total control will portray them in such a way that renders the nature of their rebellion a mere product of mental illness. For example, the Soviet Union responded to rebels with psychiatric wards called “Psikhushkas”. One of the first Psikhushkas was a psychiatric prison in the city of Kazan. In 1939 it was transferred to the secret police. Psychiatric incarceration was used in response to political demonstrations and attacks. It was common practice for soviet psychiatrists in Psikhushka hospitals to diagnose those who rebelled against soviet authority with schizophrenia.

Just as religious authority figures speak of purging people of their sins and demons, psychiatry seeks to purge people of their ‘sickness’ and ‘bad’ habits. In the church of psychiatry, only those most committed to social conformity (or emotional suppression) can enter the heavens of being socially recognized as ‘sane’ or ‘normal’. Normal or civilized behavior is rewarded with social capital and easier access to survival resources. And in the eyes of those who fear unbridled freedom, without the church of mental psychiatric authority, ‘the masses’ just might descend into madness...

****

Sept 5 2016 John George Psychiatric Hospital Riot Nurses at Alameda County’s embattled mental hospital say three patients tried to incite a riot overnight and escape the facility. Staff members are blaming chronic overcrowding at John George Psychiatric Hospital’s emergency room. It’s the latest in a string of troubling incidents at the hospital uncovered by 2 Investigates.

Nurses – who didn’t want to be identified for fear of jeopardizing their jobs – tell 2 Investigates that two male patients and one woman demanded to be discharged from John George’s Psychiatric Emergency Services (PES) department Sunday night. But when they were refused, they turned violent, according to staff.

The patients allegedly tried to encourage others to help them push the facility doors open to escape.

****

“The Law, social expectation, and psychiatric tradition and practice point to coercion as the profession’s paradigmatic characteristic. Accordingly, I define psychiatry as the theory and practice of coercion, rationalized as the diagnosis of mental illness and justified as medical treatment aimed at protecting the patient from himself and society from the patient.” - Psychiatrist turned anti-psychiatry, Thomas S Szasz, M. D.

While reflecting on my experience with psychiatry, including being on three different medications and my stay in the ward, I started asking myself questions I had never thought to ask before: what are the social conditions contributing to my feelings of misery? What type of behavior is characteristic of ‘mental illness’ and ‘normal’ functioning? Who enforces these definitions as universal truths to begin with? Is it the same psychiatric authority that at one point considered homosexuality a mental illness – then changed their minds in 1973?

I couldn’t help but notice that despite all the therapy, meds, and psychiatric hospitality the world outside my head was still the same. Poverty still dominated my hood, rich billionaires were still playin’ golf while the government continued bombing other countries. Millions of non-human animals were still bein’ mutilated in slaughterhouses on a daily basis, and the environment was still bein’ devastated by industrial expansion. I still needed to wage-slave away to pay my rent. And like everyone else, I needed to do this until I got too old and eventually live out my days in a nursing home. But somehow I was supposed to be ‘happy’ - or at least apathetically accepting of it all without a fuss. Obedience without incident. Without question. Or as the others in the ward had said to me “no problems”.

Currently in my life, I am still angry, still depressed, and still sometimes suicidal. But rather than seeing these things as what’s broken about me, I see them as a reflection of how fucked up the world is around me. I find little things to help me channel the anger, depression, and suicidal thoughts. I exercise, practice mixed martial arts, enjoy a walk in the woods at night. I star-gaze from park benches, rooftops, and moving freight trains. I indulge in stolen food and cherish the excitement of criminal activity. Managing my emotions is a daily activity coupled with observation and growth. I listen to the stories of others and learn from their experiences. I listen to my emotions and source their origins, making it easier to understand my needs and desires. My emotions – my madness - manifesting as anger, depression, and so on remain sharp and act as the best tools for understanding the effects of this imprisoning society on my well-being.

My disposition lacks evidence of being broken or brain damaged – if anything, it would suggest the contrary. My emotional state is a complex response to the anxiety that occurs when recognizing society for what it is – a prison propagating itself as ‘normal’ life. And integrated within this prison is a web of altered realities that materialize the logic of control and domination: Wage-slavery masquerading as productivity and personal responsibility. Coerced submission and obedience to law and order in “the land of the free”. Pictures of happy cows on packages of mutilated body parts. Borders, bio-technology, cyberspace communities of friends interacting with the emotional vacancy of digital communication.

And it is here, in this same social prison society, that the word insanity is used to describe an individual person rather than industrial civilization - the epitome of mechanized social control.

“The stars up close to the moon were pale; they got brighter and braver the farther they got out of the circle of light ruled by the giant moon” ― Ken Kesey, from the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

I believe deep down all people are ‘insane’ - not in terms of mental illness - but in terms of individual, unique differences that remain defiantly incompatible to behavioral order. In society, some people hide these differences better than others. And many people I have come across express frustration with having to keep themselves locked up inside, aching to break out. The fear of being socially labelled insane or crazy keeps people passive and submissive. But some people experience difficulty assimilating themselves. And while society attempts to frantically control and eliminate certain undesirable people and behaviors, natural responses to environmental conditions continue to produce both.

If one were to really examine the social interactions between individuals, one can see the subtle tip-toeing of animals peeking from within the wardrobe of humanism. It is the fear of being too loud, too angry, too sad, too imaginative – the fear of allowing oneself to exist at full bloom – that incarcerates the animal individual. It is the fear of exhibiting any personal qualities or characteristics that would violate the boundaries of socially expected behavior. Breaking the laws of psychiatry could be punishable by chemical injection, imprisonment, or even death.

This fear also plays a vital role in creating an obsession with relying on institutional specialization rather than peer to peer support. This obsession is normalized when, in response to someone reaching out for emotional support, friends suggest ‘professional help’ as if to surrender themselves ineffective by default. It says something about the nature of one’s confidence, ability, and will to support another when that support is often outsourced to an elite group of ‘professionals’. I’m not tryin’ to say that every individual has the capacity to support others at all times: I am suggesting an examination of the inferiority complex internalized by people in the face of institutions, and how individuals often find themselves too busy obeying the demands of capitalism, or too distracted by consumerism to make time for supporting their loved ones – let alone themselves.

If one were to examine society as a whole, one can see how over-simplified, quick-fix solutions to complex problems is built into it. If one were to examine this even on a personal level, one can see how everything about industrial society reduces personal time to the point where one often neglects their own emotional health. Against the demands of technological addiction and wage-slavery, making time for supporting one’s self and or those they care about is, however under-rated, nothing less than an act of personal revolt. “You need professional help” is often the quick response to an individual simply looking for support from close friends. Not all people (including myself) enjoy being pathologized or assigned a diagnosis like a broken machine. It is this ‘professional help’ that replaces intimate support with capitalism where someone struggling is treated as a profitable ‘case file’ and dealt a bottle of pills.

From a vibrant friend struggling with a unique history of complex emotional experiences, to a patient branded with an over-simplistic set of psychiatric identities – the individual becomes merely a unit of diagnostic measurement.

Diagnoses act as identity configurations defined in terms of symptom-based sameness. These identity assignments are constructed by the specialists of psychiatric authority, and are enforced socially by those who uphold its power. The same way that leftists are quick to use statist terminology to publicly label and shame “undesirables” or those unwanted by The Movement (for example, using the word “terrorist” to describe proponents of anarchist attack), they are equally quick to call people ‘mentally ill’, or ‘toxic’- demanding they seek ‘professional’ help. Perhaps without realizing it, leftists socially reinforce the validity of the state and psychiatric authority by reducing the complexity of individual behavior to mere psychiatric constructs and moral condemnation.

Psychiatry provides a comforting sense of order in the refusal to accept the chaotic nature of behavior. By asserting psychiatric terminology and morality many leftists seek control over social interactions with the intent to sterilize and homogenize them. This attempt at behavioral uniformity goes hand in hand with the treatment of individuals as members of monolithic, identity-based groupings. Behavioral uniqueness and variety are often discouraged or condemned when they don’t fit neatly constructed scripts. One’s behavior or emotional expression could be trivialized by being socially called out as ‘problematic’ - a label which itself requires the conformity of a generalized consensus to define and enforce.

Society and all its defenders require the dam of psychiatry to subordinate and control the tidal waves of individualist variety and social unrest. I can only imagine what would happen if the mechanisms of control failed on an individual level - if freedom of emotional expression took aim at the crystal castles of psychiatric authority, shattering the illusion of sterilized permanence. One after another an individual cannonball weakens the continuity of the structure, an ungovernable individual compromises the strength of collectivized subservience.

****

Jan 31, 2006 Riot at the Riverview Hospital For Children and Youth Five male patients at a state-run psychiatric hospital for children face rioting charges after they ripped out a phone line and tried to steal a worker's car keys before barricading themselves in a room over the weekend, a state official and other sources said Monday.

The incident at Riverview Hospital For Children and Youth occurred less than a week after employees protested over conditions in the facility, contending that the hospital is increasingly unsafe because of the volatile mix of patients.

Sources said that between 11 p.m. and midnight Sunday, a group of boys in the hospital's 11-bed Lakota Unit came out of their rooms and started confronting and arguing with staff. A male clinician and two female employees were assigned to the unit at the time.

Sources said the boys surrounded the man and tried to get him to turn over his keys but he refused. When one of the female workers tried to use the phone to call for help, the boys pulled the phone line out of the wall, sources said. The youths then barricaded themselves in a room and tried to smash a large exterior window, which broke off its hinge.

Sources said the boys intended to escape through the window but were stopped by a Connecticut Valley Hospital police officer who was called to the scene and was outside near the window .

Authorities would not release the names or ages of the boys involved. All face charges of inciting to riot, disorderly conduct, criminal mischief, unlawful restraint and threatening.

****

When, in expressing themselves, individuals let their emotions rupture the confines of psychiatric authority, and fan the flames of their contempt for social control, psychiatry begins to resemble the shell of a burnt out police car. If psychiatry is the agent enforcer of mental law and order - let it die along with every cop and agent of the state. As with identity politics, I refuse to participate in the use of psychiatric terminology when describing other individuals. As with all other socially constructed assignments, I reject psychiatric labels as they seek to limit the horizon of emotional complexity.

When, in expressing themselves, individuals become wild with nihilist hostility toward all ideological roles and identities, what is left of a society without individual conformity? What is ‘male’ or ‘female’ without being fixed to an aesthetic or performative role? What is ‘black’ or ‘white’ without the social construction of race? What is the sane/insane binary without the commanding authority of psychiatry? What is social law and order without anyone willing to obey?

My anarchy is found in the obliteration of these social constructs and the rejection of their ‘social contract’ that universalizes their false existence. I use the phrase social contract because that is precisely what accepting these identity assignments is. It surprises me to see such little prisoner solidarity with those incarcerated at psychiatric facilities. I imagine total anarchy looking like all prisons - including every manifestation of the educational-industrial complex, every zoo, and every asylum – being burned to the ground.

****

On New Year’s Day, 2018, 10 Children as Young as Age 12 Riot and Escape from Strategic Behavioral Health Center in South Carolina During the New Year’s Day incident, patients broke furniture to make weapons. The state report suggest Strategic staff missed warning signs that patients had planned to escape. They did not question residents who were wearing multiple layers of clothing that would allow them to change what they were wearing when they left the hospital.

In a less than five-hour span beginning in the late afternoon, there were seven “Code Purple” incidents in which workers are alerted to trouble. A state investigator reviewed video showing patients going from room to room, throwing a trash can, tearing up paper and tearing schedules off the walls. When one employee arrived, according to the report, he heard loud noises and cussing and saw trash all over the floor in the hallway. Patients had barricaded themselves in a room and had weapons he described as boards with six-inch screws.

“There was no staff trying to get into the room and he was told by staff, ‘They have weapons. Don’t go in,’” records say. “The nurse described the situation as a ‘riot, complete breakdown.’”

By the time police arrived, the south Charlotte psychiatric hospital had descended into chaos. Patients at Strategic Behavioral Center — some wielding wooden boards — attacked one worker, barricaded themselves in a room and escaped through a broken window.

**** For many years I paraded psychiatry as a valuable scientific instrument for understanding the inner workings of human behavior. I no longer find it useful after learning to recognize people as complex beings with unique emotional responses to this civilized nightmare. I have come to recognize psychiatry as, at best, another form of identity politics that ultimately attempts to force the infinite complexity of emotional expression into rigid categorical boxes.

Individual people are far more than ‘bipolar’, ‘psychotic’, etc could accurately express. While a person may experience combinations of emotions socially identified by a psychiatric category, their emotional state can not be summarized or represented by any list of fixed terminology.

My refusal to define a person by the emotional struggles they experience is similar to the reasons I refuse to identity people struggling with intoxication as ‘addicts’. An individual's struggle in coping with society is complex and unique. Psychiatric labels and identities are tools of the state – an entity which I reject. As a tool of civilization, psychiatry creates alienation and violence by treating people found to be emotionally unfit for society as ‘broken’, and therefore socially inferior. I personally refuse to disregard an individual’s struggle for survival by assigning them a psychiatric identity that puts blame on them as ‘mentally ill’ - rather than focusing attention on industrial society itself. Like prisons for ‘criminals’, the ‘correctional’ facility of the psychiatric ward seeks to condition submission through coercion and confinement. Solving or curing ‘mental illness’ in the societal sense often ends up becoming a re-defined ability to condemn, suppress, or sterilize emotions.

Like all governments, presidents, and authority, psychiatry never gave me freedom. Assigned psychiatric labels didn’t help me – they only filled me with an internalized sense of victimhood and inferiority. Medication didn’t ‘cure’ or ‘fix’ me – only damaged me, numbing me to my own senses in order to create an emotional void between me and the fuckery of civilized life. So instead, with nihilist celebration I descend into madness, taking aim at social order and civilization. With armed animalism I realize now that there was nothing to fix - my natural contempt for domestication and social control reminds me that I was never ‘broken’ to begin with.

With maniacal laughter I mock the conventional standardization of human behavior. I reject the authorities of psychiatry, their holy book (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM–5)), and their prisons. I refuse to continue being a test subject for their ever-expanding pharmacotherapeutics. I am an individualist against the collectivized consensus used to materialize institutions of psychiatry. I am a nihilist - hostile to the ideological sane/insane binary and all social constructs that, with pathology, attempt to categorically subjugate individuality. I desire nothing less than a feral revolt against civilization. If civilization and psychiatry marry at the church of morality, then let my anarchy be a fiery black smoke that chokes their gospel of social control.