#i also need to read up on the candidates in my area before i go vote so theres just so much to do one after the other...

[megumi-fm]

.

[drdemonprince]

so first off, sorry bc this is super fucking heavy.

re: commonalities between cis and trans men, and that other ask. something I've had to come to terms with is how even as a teenager before I had the concept of transitioning in my head - I still got all of the societal messaging wrt misogyny, etc. I totally benefited from it, even as a woman. I put other girls down. I was the cool chick. I cashed in where I could with it. i was absolutely a chauvinist when I transitioned. I felt inhuman as a woman, but I understood that ultimately that's the way women were *supposed* to be, as much as I wished otherwise. it took a long time to unlearn that.

my personal experience makes me very uncomfortable when I see other trans men talking about gendered socialization, or how overly negative people are towards men as a class. I wonder if they have ever sat down and really reconciled with the way they have, and do, benefit from their gendered position, or if they've convinced themselves they can't be a "bad person" by virtue of their birth sex.

I can't find a nuanced way to talk about this that won't be read in bad faith as essentialist rhetoric. rape culture is the system by which consent violation is normalized, its all the music and books and movies and bad relationships I assumed were normal and romantic as a young adult. I really, really hurt people, and I did it as men are encouraged to do, and as they are rewarded for doing. I found affirmation in hurting people, and it is so fucking easy to do this without even really thinking of it because it's the entire culture you've come up in.

I'm not even talking like, obvious cases here like phyrical domestic abuse & intentional date rape. there are so many subtle boundary erosions, there's weird gray areas around drugs & alcohol, there's attitudes and expectations in established relationships, there's the potential to exploit community for personal gain. there are partners who will fear you, and freeze and fawn and will not tell you "no."

a lot of the "we need a special word for masculine transphobia" types seem to also disavow the possibility that they hold male privelege. but we need to look at that shit, sexual or otherwise. it's scary to see guys who see women talking about it and they knee-jerk shout back "I'm not a rapist" and "not all men." guarantee some of them are, and just aren't aware of it. i was.

Thank you so much anon for this really brave, candid message. I think it's something that a lot of the trans guys crowing in my inbox about how cis men "are the bad gender" need to hear. (yes, someone literally said that to me). Portraying gendered categories, especially ones based on birth assignment!, as ontologically more evil or pure than others sets people up for abuse. Separating cis men out from trans men erases the ways in which trans guys can both leverage power and the ways in which toxic masculine norms are transmitted culturally to everyone regardless of assigned sex at birth. Lots of trans guys are palpably uncomfortable with their power, and can only see that relative to cis men, they experience transphobia and misogyny in greater amounts, and so they presume they must be in a highly victimized category. But they dont ever consider that as men they can and do often wield power over women -- especially trans women -- and they've got to fucking learn how to handle that reality responsibly, which many cis men actually do know how to fucking do. Especially multiply marginalized cis men who have been preyed upon and exploited themselves.

I think it's really powerful to hear you taking ownership of the actions you've taken that have hurt others, and the allure such actions had. Very few people have the courage to look their lower moments in the face and affirm that it's actually a part of them. If we're ever going to stop abusing and talking over women we've got to own up to our shit. I've seen what can happen when men come together to be vulnerable about their struggles, own their wrongdoing, and seek to change -- back when I was working in a men's drug treatment program. We can overcome this shit and take responsibility. But a lot of the birthday boy trans guy squad is incensed by even the idea of owing anything to anyone. Like a lot of MRAs.

[biscuitswithroy]

Just to Know You’re Alive

Jamie Tartt x Reader

You are tasked with writing an article about Jamie and you gain an understanding of him that nobody else ever has

Note: Hello! This is my first Ted Lasso fic. I’m so excited to share it with y’all!

When you were first assigned to write an article on Jamie Tartt, you weren’t exactly thrilled.

All you had heard about, and seen on the pitch, was that he was an egotistical man who would do anything to win.

But when you met him for the first time, all of your prior opinions on him changed.

It was after the devastating loss to Manchester City. You knew that it was the best chance you had to get the best content for your article. After all, it was the first game against his old team that had all but erased his career.

You made your way towards the press room, but were soon told that Jamie wouldn’t be a part of the interviews. Respecting his privacy, you accepted that you weren’t going to get that conversation that you needed.

But then there he was in the hallway as you were leaving. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes notably red. He’s been crying, there was no doubt in your mind about that.

“Are you alright?” You asked him, deciding that you didn’t want to miss a chance to ensure that he’s okay.

“Fine, yeah,” he mumbled. And then he turned and looked at you. His eyes found the press lanyard around your neck. “You’re a reporter?”

“Oh,” you said, taking your lanyard and off and placing it in your bag. “Right now I’m just a person who wants to make sure you’re okay.”

Jamie looked at you a little suspiciously but didn’t try to fight how you might feel.

“No one gets me,” he said. “Not even my family.”

“I see. Family can somehow be the best people and the worst people in your life,” you said.

Jamie nodded to that statement. He didn’t know why he was opening up to you, but he didn’t stop. You two sat on the floor against the wall.

He told you about the locker room incident. You told him that he was valid in his feelings. No one had ever said that to him before.

“I’m y/n, by the way,” you told him after the conversation had come to a halt.

“You already know me,” he said. “You do now, at least.” He looked almost shy as he said his next words. “Are you going to use this conversation against me?”

“Of course not,” you said. “But to be perfectly candid, I am supposed to write an article about you.”

Jamie chuckled a little, but it wasn’t one of pleasure. You think he was nervous, perhaps even worried that you were going to use it against him anyway and paint him as weak.

“Tomorrow,” he said randomly. “I’ll do your interview tomorrow. Meet me at The Crown & Anchor.”

“Oh, okay. Are you sure?” You asked him.

“Just be there,” a little bit of his coined impatience came through.

And with that he disappeared into the locker room. The next day you stood outside the pub as you waited for Jamie.

When he got there, he asked you to join him for a walk. You didn’t expect him to take you to his favorite places around the area.

But he spent the entire day talking you about pretty much everything except for the game.

“Thank you for today, Jamie,” you told him as you walked back to your car. “I do hope you’ll enjoy the article I write.”

“See ya,” Jamie said as he watched you drive away.

As you sit at your computer now reading over the article you wrote, you title it and publish it.

Jamie’s phone dings along with the rest of the teams’.

“The Jamie Tartt You Don’t See,” Ted reads the article title aloud. “Oh this should be like reading that your favorite book is being adapted into a movie!”

The team cheers and pokes a little fun at Jamie before they leave to start training.

Jamie sits at his locker and reads through the article. It reveals his vulnerabilities while also making him appear as strong as he is.

He realizes that from the beginning he wanted you to see him as he is, not as the rest of the world does.

Something in him longs for more conversations with you. And he desperately wants to see you again.

[scrambledpancakes03]

Before the presidential debate...

I've got some thoughts.

While I know that even the "best" presidential outcome feels like a loss at this point, you do have to vote.

I totally understand not wanting to vote for Joe. There are a lot of reasons for that, some more valid than others. That's not my point rn. There's many genocides happening: read how joe is handling it from verified sources and make your own choices, I trust you'll do what you think is right. I'll just be here full of endless dread no matter what...

But for fucks sake before we all lose hope please remember...

Vote down ballot.

Conservatives win repeatedly all over the country and have been able to make life substantially harder for every individual working person, especially those with marginalized statuses... and it's not primarily due to the shit they've pulled in the Oval Office... it's because they're getting elected to sheriff's offices and school boards and zoning commissions and STATE LEGISLATURES.

Don't let your disillusionment with the president keep you from showing up for candidates you won't hear about from national news... because they are the ones who can save us.

Without progressives, leftists, and even more moderate liberals in local offices, every aspect of life gets substantially harder. Local programs shut down, public services are cut from city budgets, and police keep getting more and more absurd militarized resources. And in that environment, how would we ever stand in solidarity with people suffering around the world? Or even people marginalized here in the US?

Here are some (but not all) elected offices that may be on your ballot in the fall that need your attention in no particular order:

1. Secretary of state: oversees the states record keeping... including voting. Don't let them be fascists.

2. School Board: they decide pretty much everything to do with public school's funding, curriculum, and sometimes even personnel matters or district geography. They decide what your kids learn, where, how, and with whom. Don't let them be bigots.

3. District Attorney/Prosecutor: they decide what crimes have charges brought against them, and in what manner. They're the difference between a teenage kid being tried as an adult or a child for a felony, as well as other matters like that. Don't let them be racist.

4. Sheriff: have insane amounts of power over how criminal investigations are conducted and how a community is policed. FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP ELECTING RACISTS. Also we should just... reconsider the concept and maybe try not having sheriff offices at all. But that's a whole different goal.

5. Planning and zoning commissions: if you are struggling to get housing or stay housed, they are the reason there is little to no affordable housing in your area, because they decide what gets built or maintained in your area. Businesses, parks, houses... yeah. Don't let them be corporate puppets.

6. Public works commission: they control the utilities, the water, the trash, and the recycling. This is one of the main places the environmental movement should be looking to make change. They write regulations that can be used and enforced to reign whole groups of people and corporations in to make real collective change in the way we generate power, consume resources, and manage waste. They are also how we prevent more crisis situations like the one in Flint, MI.

7. City, state, and federal legislators. They write the laws. They appropriate the spending of your tax money. Stop narrowing your focus to the federal executive branch when the left needs to gain momentum writing laws at every level. Don't discount local change, because it adds up.

I know we are all focused on the genocides going on around the world right now. The best way we can continue helping as November comes and goes, is to elect local leaders who will support global liberation by writing laws and regulations that protect our free speech, ensure the quality and equity of our education, and commit to divestment from violence all over the world.

Okay? We all got this?

Can we all just agree to do this part, and we can fight about biden separately, please?

TLDR: Fuck you, vote in all the local races.

[buckets-and-trees]

Game: match the character with the trope & give a little explanation why you paired them/how you would go about writing that type of fic 🩷

Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Ransom Drysdale, Ari Levinson & Nick Fowler

Forced proximity, forbidden love, fake dating, hidden identity & arranged marriage

Okay, this was fun, Em! And at least this time I didn't get TOO carried away...

ARI LEVINSON - FORCED PROXIMITY - I don't know... maybe this 2500-imagine-ish pitch that spilled out of my fingers this weekend? Hahaha

BUCKY BARNES - HIDDEN IDENTITY - I think this could happen over many different period of Bucky's life, but I'm especially interested in Bucky on the run after Winter Soldier and before Civil War. I love reading fics that take place during this time, and I've got a fic that I started and need to go back to (and maybe rewrite so I can complete it) that would be him hiding for short periods of time in cabins/rentals/vacation homes as he makes his way out of the DC Metro area those first months after CA:WS and while he's crashed at one particular place, Reader shows up, and they spend a few days or maybe a week together before moving on to the next place (and the next and the next until he eventually ends up in Romania).

RANSOM DRYSDALE - FAKE DATING - When a petition citing some extenuating circumstances/technicalities/the manner in which his confession was coerced/etc, a judge is willing to review it due to Ransom's good behavior (read: MONEY) while he's been serving time, and he gets him out of jail. You are immediately hired to be his Cinderella-image of a girlfriend so he can become the public's wronged and misunderstood Prince Charming because Linda won't have any more bad press - it's affecting all of the family businesses. Why are you willing to take the deal? You came up in an initial pool of suitable eligible females in the local area and it just so happens that one of the editor's at Harlan's publishing house (still overseen by Walt) has been considering one of your novels for publication, and this presents an opportunity for them to sweeten a proposal for this PR relationship by offering you a six-novel publishing deal as long as you maintain the relationship with Ransom for at least 18 months.

NICK FOWLER - FORBIDDEN LOVE - You're a detective working for Interpol. You know the trouble he's caused. Even though he was able to cover up his deeds initially with the CIA, once the Chinese/MSS took him into custody, it all came out. But he's managed to escape. He's managed to find his way to Romania, which is where you just so happen to be stationed now. You worked a case closely with him six years ago in Portugal, and...though you both kept it professional, his charm was undeniable. He had no idea you were in Romania, but he's not mad about that in the slightest now that he's spotted you. He could have some fun with this. Are you ready to play with fire?

STEVE ROGERS - ARRANGED MARRIAGE - In a Steve Stays scenario, if he's going to refuse to be Cap, he's being lobbied to still use his influence and power to help bring some order to this post-Blip society. He went tried to retreat and fade into the background, but things are escalating, and Pepper - who had also tried to stay in the background - is concerned that there are things happening maybe because of their inaction. She's got an idea. She wants to get Steve into political office, and she's going to appeal to his sense of duty (which she can do because it's the guilt she's also feeling). He'll agree because he trusts her judgement. For the best image, he's going to need a wife - this is a harder sell, but - again - he trusts Pepper Potts, he doesn't even need to vet the candidates, because if he's all in on this idea, he'll be all in, and he knows Pepper will pick someone who will fit the bill as his suitable trophy wife. You.

would... well would anyone be interested in any of these if I thought about actually writing them?

[radicalstoner]

What disability do you have that prevents you from working?

Typically I would say mind your business, but, seeing as you're the apparent arbiter of whose disabilities are "bad enough," you of course must be informed so you can declare your ruling on whether my illness justifies my inability to work. And obviously your eminent anonymous opinion is what makes or breaks my entire lifestyle lmfao. But y'know what? Sure, I'll humor you, bc why not - have a peek at the hell that is my physical health and decide if I'm sick or just a lazy piece of shit.

I'm not giving you my full diagnostic history, bc you are not my doctor (unless he has tumblr but I doubt it) - I have multiple different diagnoses anyway, ranging from genetic to rheumatological to endocrine to neurological to gynecological, and rote listing them would probably mean little to you. What I will tell you is some of my symptoms, since those are more understandable to those who aren't aware of medical jargon and acronyms.

[Read more bc even symptoms alone are a huge list, no need for anyone to read all this, I just got going and it got long]

Let's start musculoskeletal: I have frequent falls from joint instability (and neurological issues like dizziness), and these falls often result in my joints (knees, shoulders, ankles, fingers, and collarbones are main offenders) coming partially or sometimes fully out of place and needing to be popped back in - I typically have to do this multiple times a day, and am very used to the cracks, crunches, thunks, snaps, and visceral squelch sounds that joints make when they move in and out of position. The pain of those injuries rarely bothers me anymore because I'm so used to it, so I just relocate joints and move on with my day - but the dislocations do inflame and damage surrounding tissues, and it adds up fast bc of how damn frequently my various bones decide they are getting divorced from their partners. I also have moderate scoliosis and bone-on-bone arthritis in my thoracic spine (meaning the spinal discs have degraded to nothing, so there's no cushion between the bones or around delicate nerves in the spinal cord, causing more neuro issues). My SI joints are degrading and constantly painful, and when they flare it gets to the point where I can't even shift an inch in bed without crying out. I have sprained/dislocated my right ankle so many times that it has permanent tendon damage, which would normally make me a candidate for surgery to fix them, but one of my conditions makes the surgery extremely likely to fail, so instead I'm stuck with chronic ankle pain and instability that gets worse with each proceeding twist or sprain (which are more likely to happen w the fucked tendons). My bone density is much lower than it should be in a woman my age. My hand joints are steadily losing their stamina wrt how long they can do things like write before the pain is really bothersome. My condition also just inherently causes muscle wasting, so building strength (though important in my treatment) can feel like an exercise in futility, and is incredibly frustrating. Nothing that I have mentioned in this paragraph can be treated at the root cause btw, symptoms can be managed and injuries can be rehabbed, but there's no fixing the disorder, these symptoms will haunt me my entire life.

Rheum: I am always high-inflammation, literally couldn't tell ya the last time my WBC tested in the normal range bc my body is constantly on high alert trying to fix the unfixable. Inflammation compromises your immune system, causes chronic fatigue, weight fluctuations, and just physically hurts, it's like a dull ache in dozens of areas on my body, and it moves around. That pain is also so familiar that it doesn't particularly bother me. What has been bothering me tho is that my thyroid is now overactive, which has led to new symptoms - I'm used to my typical set, I know how to cope, but new symptoms are a whole 'nother ballgame: I've been unable to sleep FAR too often, I'm now chronically sleep deprived and yet still alert and awake for 2-4 days at a time; I have lost 50 pounds in two months, and my body has been basically organically giving me Ozempic effects - no cravings, no appetite, no general urge or interest in eating - but the weight loss is still disproportionate and pretty shocking; I am anxious and fidgety all the time, to the point that my muscles get sore from fidgeting during the long wakeful periods; I hyperfixate even worse than usual on tasks (e.g. this fuckin ask response that you in no way deserve but I'm too engaged to not write it now). My healthy curly hair has started to feel brittle and frizzy, and some strands have broken (I have not used any bleach or heat since I had a buzzcut). The brain fog caused by the inflammation is also absolutely insane, I feel like I'm running in slow-mo even though the chemicals in my body are in high gear giving me energy and anxiety.

Gyno: I have PCOS and Stage III (of IV) endometriosis. Enough said?

Endocrine: my hormone levels have always been fucky (sky-high androgens) and when I went on testosterone a doctor medicated me incorrectly and made my hormonal imbalances drastically worse. my HPA axis is fucked, so all the different hormones/chemicals those organs produce are out-of-whack as well.

Neuro: Tingling/numb extremities, essential tremor, BRAIN FOG, balance issues, lack of coordination, nerve pain, vagus nerve dysfunction, icepick headaches. I have non-MS-type lesions on my brain, most likely caused by chronic physical and emotional stress according to my neuro. I have chiari malformation which means the bottom of my brain sags into the area of my spinal cord. I have endometriosis growing on my sciatic nerve, which is just as fun as it sounds; the sciatica pain is a different pain than I'm used to so it's much more uncomfortable mentally.

Systemic: Can't emphasize enough that I hurt All The Time. If my pain is at a 5 or less, that's a REALLY good day for me, I typically hang around a 7 on the pain chart. Pain stops me before strength or stamina, so I can't go on the walks my body wants to go on, I can't clean the apartment as deeply as I'd like, I can't even move some days, when the pain is all-encompassing and extra intense. I can semi-function with a LOT of pain by ignoring it, but I have had more and more days over the years when I just can't ignore it, or else I'll be punished with a knee dislocation or an SI joint flare for overdoing it. My autonomic system is an absolute disaster - this controls blood pressure, heart rate, digestion, breathing, temperature regulation, all the shit your body is supposed to do automatically. I can't rely on my body to do those things automatically. My stomach is paralyzed SOMETIMES because of my autonomic dysfunction; yes really. 3 gastric emptying studies, one was normal, one was very rapid, and one was basically immobile. The theory is that the fluctuations in my body and the storm of hormones/neurotransmitters/chemicals stimulate peristalsis unpredictably. Intermittent gastroparesis, and other times my stomach can't even hold onto food long enough to digest it and get nutrients before it moves on. And latelly I've had the fun little symptom of playing russian roulette whenever I dare to eat anything bc there's a 20% chance it will not be staying down - but also if I don't eat, I puke stomach acid and bile. I stock medical emesis bags like I'm a hospital, and have them stocked in my car, nightstand, living room, bag... bc I never know how my stomach will act, and when the nausea hits it is extremely sudden and intense so I need to have easy access to the bags. That's the reality of my gastric situation, eating holds no joy whatsoever, I've even lost a few safe foods after puking them up and developing taste aversion. My blood pressure is chronically low to the point that automatic BP cuffs sometimes are unable to detect it; my pulse is chronically rapid to the point that it goes over 3 beats a second sometimes, according to my watch. I even pass out sometimes because my blood pressure tanks even worse than usual (my father does the same thing, same disease).

Anything else you want to know? Social security number? Credit card info?

[walker-extended-universe]

Halfway to Freedom, Chapter 1

Relationship(s): August Walker/Sadie Yoo, Eve Edwards & August Walker, Bode Leone & August Walker, August Walker & Cordell Walker & Stella Walker, Geri Broussard & August Walker

Tags/Warnings: Prison, Crime, Estranged Family, Family Issues, Family Drama, Drug Addiction, Referenced Drug Use, PTSD, Running Away, Self-Esteem Issues, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Regret, Hope, Angst with a Happy Ending

Summary: After some poor decisions, August Walker ends up at Three Rock Fire Camp. ON paper, he's the perfect candidate for the program. But, in practice, Even Edwards knows it's never that simple. He has a long way to go if he's ever going to make it out into the real world again.

Written for @whumptober Day 28: "They caught me red handed"

Taglist: @theladywyn, @ihavepointysticks, @klaatu51, @itsjessiegirl1, @neptunium134

---------------------

Welcoming a new batch of inmates was always an exciting day. Nerve-wracking and panic-attack inducing at times, but exciting nonetheless. Getting everyone settled into their new bunks, introducing them to new routines, hoping there wouldn’t be any unexpected gang rivalries sparked…. It was a new experience every time.

One thing that Eve always took advantage of the first day to do was get to know her new firefighters. After some rough experiences in her first few years, she learned it helped to understand their stories before she became their captain. She could read their files, but that rarely held enough of the story. Actually talking to them helped her understand how they would react to certain things and plan around what accommodations they might need. She also felt it gave them a chance to know her too, rather than just seeing her as some distant authority figure that could (perhaps unfairly) decide their fate. It was easy enough to work some in-office interviews into the schedule, even when they had a larger group.

This time, the new group was pretty small, only 6 newbies. So, she had her last little interview just after the lunch shift. And this one was….interesting.

“So, yeah, they caught me red handed. Kind of hard to fight against security camera footage and about 10 witness statements.” August Walker slouched in his chair. 

“That’s very interesting, but that’s not what I asked you. I asked you why you were here.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Pretty sure that’s what I just said….”

“No, that’s why you got arrested. I asked you why you were here, at Three Rock. What are your goals here.”

“Oh.” August rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m here to get out earlier, I guess. It wasn’t my idea. My uncle kept insisting on it and I got tired of him hassling me about it so I applied. I was kind of surprised I got in, to be honest.”

Eve hummed. There was no reason for him not to be approved. He had a good behavior record, never caused trouble for inmates or prison personnel. He wasn’t even considered a violent offender, having only been arrested for felony theft. He didn’t even resist arrest.

So, this little interview told Eve that August was suffering from a severe lack of self esteem, or any hope for his future. That could be a problem. An unfocused firefighter posed a risk to themselves, their teammates, and any civilians in the area. “And your uncle is….?”

“My lawyer.” August rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I know, should be considered a conflict of interest but he knows all kinds of weird loopholes.”

She made a mental note to reach out to his uncle at a later date and see if he could provide any insight.

“Well, I think that’s all I have for you for now. We’ll get you started on training tomorrow, so why don’t you go get settled in? We always start our days early here so I recommend you get some rest.”

He shrugged. “I practically grew up on a ranch; I’ve never slept past 6 in my life.”

Eve smirked. “Good; we get up at 5:30.”

His lips quirked into almost a smile. “Sounds like a plan. I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” He quickly left her office and jogged to join the rest of the men in the outdoor gym area.

Once he was gone, Eve pulled out her phone and dialed a very familiar number. “Hey, Manny, are you busy tonight? I could use some advice….”

[lone-rhapsodist]

I had just left school to go home when I got the email from the headmaster. I opened it, read it, and fell to the floor -- knees on the concrete, head in my hands. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe it. I got myself up, dashed across the street, jumping up and down like a kid, looking like a madman, feeling like the happiest person in the world. When I got to the station, I could feel tears filling my eyes, but I did not cry. I wanted to be home and hug my partner, be in her arms and just let it all out. But the problem with a shitty commute -- that crazy commute which was the main reason why I applied for the job in the first place -- is that I was still 1 hour and 15 minutes away from that moment.

24 hours later, the phone rang -- the call to discuss the job. The headmaster made his offer. It was way more than I expected... way better than I could ever imagine. "Would you like to take some time think about it?" "Sir, if I could ask just a couple of questions... I'm not sure there's really anything to think about!" I ask my questions. He answers. Again, the things I hear... "There is no way I could ever say no to that. Yes! I accept!". I say thank you about a thousand times. I close the call. I call my parents.

The new job is less than 20 minutes away from my house. It's an independent prep school, which is very different from a state school. Not so much about bringing Classics to young people in a very deprived area. More about helping young boys get into the top schools in the country. Which is of course not something that enthuses me, and at some point, I think I'd like to return to the state sector. However, for now, this is the right move. I really needed something closer to home. What I didn't expect is that I would stumble on the opportunity of a lifetime.

It's not just the money. Though the money itself is incredible. I'll be back to being a regular teacher again, which is what I really wanted, and yet I'll still be getting a massive pay increase. Also, when you add to that the money saved on travel, free food, low teaching workload, the 4 weeks extra holiday -- imagine finishing the year in early July! -- it starts getting ridiculous. I have really lucked out, in a way I never have before in my life, and I'm just so happy. There must be a catch somewhere, I'm sure they'll find ways to screw me over -- I just know. But for now, I'm just so grateful they made this happen for me -- I still can't believe it!

I'm also glad that my headteacher has been so understanding about it. When he asked me about why I was looking for jobs and I told him how long my commute was, even he couldn't say anything. Then, when I told him that I had received an offer and was going to accept it, he simply thanked me for everything I have done for the subject. I thanked him too, and I told him that, if he lets me know when the job ad goes live, I can share it with my teacher training provider and they'll have candidates like me who'll be able to give continuity to the subject at the school. He seemed genuinely grateful for that. He shook my hand and wished me good luck.

I still have three months left here. Saying goodbye, especially to my students, will be so hard. I already know I'll be crying a lot. But it's the right to do. It's the right step for me and my career. And if I could leave some legacy too, with a great successor taking on from me at the school, then I will really have pulled off something very special.

Anyway, it's the end of term. It's time for a holiday. But when I come back, I know I'll be working with such renewed energy. Because for once I'll have something to really look forward to. And that is simply the best feeling in the world.

[newgenog]

REVENGE

Notes: I'm not done guys, but I'm making progress! 😭 So, I'm claiming it. This is the last teaser from chapter seven, dammit. 

If you're just stumbling across this, and haven't already done so, please stop and start by reading chapter one. 

This #Batwoman AU is based on the ABC tv series #Revenge. Ryan Wilder had just about everything taken from her when we met her, and she was doing her best to get it back. In this version of the story, that means taking some people down along the way. And, she's definitely no hero.

It's getting really hard to find teasers that won't spoil the fun too much. But, I can't leave you guys hanging. You've been holding me down for too long...I feel like we're really in this together!

So, thanks for the patience and good vibes, and happy teaser reading.

CHAPTER SEVEN SNEAK PEEK

Ryan sees Tommy Elliot standing in front of the chrome elevator doors, waiting for them to open and presumably take him to the same place she's headed. She doubts Kate’s expecting him, because she didn’t mention being double booked. And, even though Kate’s primary purpose in Ryan’s life is to get her access to the people who took her young life from her, to Robyn Wilde, Kate has become a close confidant. So, Tommy will need to quickly clarify if he’s here as friend or foe.

Ryan: “Surprise visit?”

Tommy tries to fight back the unexpectedness of hearing Robyn's voice with a small smirk. 

Tommy: “Kate’s used to my drop-ins…She’s had plenty of visits from me.” 

Ryan: “Because someone tolerates a lack of boundaries doesn’t mean they prefer them.” 

Tommy: “We’ve always had a very candid relationship. I’m sure she’d tell me if she wanted me to do something differently.” 

Ryan: “Fair enough. I have no doubt Kate’s the honest one in your friendship.” 

The doors open, and Jacob Kane is standing inside of the elevator. Neither of them walks into it, right away.

Jacob: “Tommy! It’s been a while…"

Tommy: “Yes, sir. It has been a while. It’s not the same without you around the house.”

Jacob: "Yes, well, hopefully I’ll be back soon… And, Robyn is it?”

Ryan nods, and offers a small smile as he steps out.. 

Jacob: “Do you both have a meeting with Kate?”

Ryan: ”I do, and I have to get back to Luke right after. So, I should head up.”

Tommy: “I was in the area and thought I’d stop in to see my friend.”

Jacob: “Well, if you have a moment, I’d like a word.” 

Tommy: “Sure…” 

Ryan takes the opportunity to get a head start, hitting the button to the top floor, and smirking at Tommy as the doors close in front of him.  

~~~~~

Ryan: “You’ve got company, and it isn’t just me.”

Kate: “Wow! Busy day. Who else is coming up?”

Ryan: “Oh, just your bestie.” 

Kate frowns, and then remembers.

Kate: “You don’t mean Tommy?”

Ryan: “Oh, but I do…”

Kate: “Okaaay…this should be interesting. Did you see him checking in, or something?”

Ryan: “Actually, he was here before me, but your dad wanted to talk to him, so I came up to warn you.”

Kate: “Thanks for that, and while I'm at it, thanks for the connection to Julia. My dad came by to tell me about their meeting, and to check on things with Luke… and apologize.” 

Ryan nods, trying to limit her words in reaction to Jacob Kane’s organization’s part in making Luke unconscious.  

Ryan: “So, are things going to work out with her?”

Kate: “I think so…but I also think he’s about to keep her pretty busy. I hope that’s not going to interfere with anything you needed.” 

Ryan: “So far, my stuff has been pretty easy. Simple contracts. I just wanted someone I knew I could trust involved. I can wait for her.” 

The elevator doors chime, and Tommy walks through them. Ryan glances over her shoulder, briefly and then takes her seat at Kate's desk. He tries not to be ruffled by her presence and smiles wide at Kate.

Tommy: "Kate…I've missed you."

Kate: "What are you doing here, Tommy? Shouldn't you be somewhere worshiping Catherine and trying to fast forward through the corporate ladder?"

Tommy: "I did start my internship yesterday, and it's great so far, thanks for asking."

Kate stares at him, already completely over his audacity. 

Kate: "So you're not here to make amends, but to gloat?"

He glances down at Robyn who hasn't looked back at him. He hates that she's here, and would much rather do this privately. But he made a commitment to Catherine and Evan. So, he decides to make an example out of her presence instead.

Tommy: "You're upset because I wasn't more honest, right? Consider this me turning over a new leaf."

Kate: "Seriously Tommy, as you can see, I'm busy. So, whatever you came for, can you get to it already?"

Tommy: "Okay, I can see your sense of humor is on limited supply, so I’ll cut straight to it. We’ve been friends for a long time, and I don’t want my recent behavior to ruin that. And, in the spirit of being more forthcoming, I’ll add that I was present when you texted Evan. I’m concerned that what’s been going on with us has had an impact on the two of you. I don’t want them caught in the middle, so if there’s anything I can do to improve our situation, let me know."

Kate looks down at Robyn, who she hasn’t shared the full story with, but who has been more supportive lately than her supposed best friend. Robyn looks back as if to say, ‘this choice is all yours.’

Kate: “I have a friend in the hospital, and my family is a wreck. I really don’t need any more drama in my life.” 

Tommy: “I was hoping you’d feel that way.” 

Kate: “Let me finish. If you’re going to be in my life, I’m going to need you to bring something positive to it. From where I stand, you’ve been using us and judging us, all at the same time. And because you’re my friend, I would have helped you if you’d just been honest with me. But because I’m your friend, and it seems you’re going through a hard time right now, which has evidently made you bitter and desperate, I’m going to forgive you. I don’t forget though, and I’m not huge on repeat chances. So this is it. I can’t really handle another thing…” 

Tommy drops his head, because that dig stung, but he’s also not surprised that she’d take the chance to get a lick in. He’s getting his way, and if that means he has to take a small verbal beating for them to move forward, he needs to find a way to do that. When his eyes return to hers, his expression is amicable. 

Tommy: “Understood. I’ll limit the drama. But you know us divas come with a little extra pizzazz.” 

Kate shakes her head, accepting his agreement, knowing that’s probably the best she’ll get from him. 

Kate: “Is there anything else…? I think we’ve kept Robyn waiting long enough.” 

Tommy: “Right. You two have a party to plan?”

Kate: “A fundraiser, but it’ll be a good time.” 

Ryan completely distrusts Tommy. She can tell he’s fishing, but if Kate wants to indulge him as a way to mend their bond, she doesn’t want to be outwardly discouraging. So when Kate smiles down at her, she simply grins back.

Tommy: “You’ve got the best in Gotham helping you with your plans, but if there’s anything I can do…” 

Kate: “I doubt Catherine is going to share two people from her team with us.” 

Tommy: “After all you’ve done for me, I’d figure out how to manage.” 

Kate: “I appreciate the offer.” 

Tommy: “Well, I’ll leave you to it, but maybe we can get a drink or dinner soon?” 

Kate: “We can do that…” 

Tommy nods, and then turns to leave. When they hear the elevator doors close, they give each other exasperated looks. Then Ryan shifts hers to one of sympathy. 

Ryan: “You okay?”

Kate: “Are you? Is okay even within the realm of possibility right now?”

Ryan: “I guess not…which makes me want to say thank you, again, for still wanting to do this right now.” 

Kate: “No, really, I’m grateful. It’s good to do something…good. I think Luke would prefer it too.” 

If only Kate knew how true that was. Luke has committed too much of himself to Ryan for her to squander his time and efforts because he wasn’t in shape enough to help her. If ever there was a time to rise to the occasion, and show how much she valued him, it was now. Kate’s gaze shifts to one of greater concern, and Ryan wonders if she’s shown too many of her cards.

Kate: “Can I ask you something off the cuff?”

~~~~~

To be continued...

What's Kate going to ask Ryan about? 😁 See you next week (ideally with a finished chapter)! 🤞🏽 Support the Writer and Actor strikes. #wgastrike #sagaftrastrike #StopCancellingDiverseShows

[hearsayhorizons]

Memory Bank

Spoilers for An Enchantment of Ravens Margaret Rogerson and probably Lord of the Fading Lands by CL Wilson, depending on what you call a spoiler.

Tl;dr:  (also length warning!)

The idea of sidestepping age gaps via... I dunno, magical lobotomies, may not 100% make everyone comfortable. But for the moment it works for me, with the added bonus of dealing with time abysses and meaning literally anything could be an armed memory bomb.

Is there a stepping stone path that has been artfully tied into someone’s memories ascending from grief to new appreciation for life? If new construction means a place needs to get torn down, are there calls sent out offering people with good memories to come sew them into the area so people can see how it was before? ARE there artists who seek out wonderful experiences and then sell them?

Are we looking at Augmented Reality and vid stuff from a magic perspective? Maybe. Is there way too much here? Definitely. Will it all hit the reader at once or, maybe, at all? Hell no!

I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy romance novels lately, mostly because Reddit recommendations throw worlds that sound super neat in my direction. But then the worldbuilding or plot doesn’t go far enough, or the relationships are inherently problematic in a way some people probably find appealing, but I don’t (current gripe: thousand year age gaps, fated mates). Most of those suggestions have fae, although some have dragons or other species inherently more powerful and “wonderful” than humanity. “in this essay I will...”

Fae have always been an interest for me. The actual mythologies, as well as what people do with their fantasy takes: their relationships to mortals, to each other—are they elemental forces given faces by contact with humanity, or an elder race fading as younger energies take precedence and the magic fades away, or actually aliens?

My brain wants to organize fae into three categories, and I’m not sure they can all live in the same plot: elemental versus physical, seasonal courts, and manner of existing.

Elemental fae are those who correspond to winds and heat and life energy. They may connect with flowers or work with frost on window panes, but they would still exist and thrive without those physical trimmings. Physical fae like dryads and brownies and fairy god parents tie themselves to trees or households or people. They are more powerful in the physical sphere than elemental fae, but it does give them... weaknesses. Typically, the greater the power, the more irrevocable the bond: more than one villain has a reluctant FGP behind them, while brownies can pick up sticks and find a new house if their customary cream is expired.

Seasonal courts are very popular ways to sort fae. That ties into the elemental nature noted previously, but I’m intrigued on how some fiction has all four courts and some only have the two extremes of Summer and Winter. What if, in the past, there were only two seasons, only two courts, and it took a lot of death of lesser fae and people who were not able to live in those extremes for them to acknowledge the need and place and rightness of Spring and Autumn? This could be a recent change as far as the fae go—or maybe it’s just about to happen. Maybe some ascended human plays Persephone as the land either bakes or freezes

Have the original courts selected candidates for the role of Autumn and perhaps other contenders for the role of Spring, and the “”love triangles”” are just seeing who wants to see who spending eternity alongside them? Is the trick, the ending... Spring and Autumn actually must be shared crowns with a king and queen or two queens etc otherwise, they fall into human or abhuman extremes? The rigid fae would not be able to do that willingly; it would not occur to them to have shared crowns, as the original courts don’t.

That dipped into a bit of plot building, but it does bring me to my last metric for fae: existence. Are they: timeless, elemental beings who do not age at all and may or may not be killable and may or may not be able to pass on the helm; physical fae who age and can die, but “respawn” via taking over a nearby animal or object of their type when they die (I was VERY influenced as a kid by the stark picture of the Cat Lord staring out at me from a D&D monster manual...); or fae that live and breed and die like mortals?

If there are such fae in that last category, they may be considered “lesser spirits” AND there may be no distinction between “fae” and mortals. Humans are lesser spirits and are—according to the fae—subject to the same laws that govern all people... and given all the respect the People give to very smart dogs. Not ALL fae would regard humanity in that light, especially those who know the secret to the “high fae” and their natures and problems.

See, powerful and knowledgeable beings are intriguing. But a warrior with two hundred years under his belt in love with a seventeen year old, or a warrior over a THOUSAND years old in love with someone in her twenties is... suffocating, to me. There’s six years between me and my spouse and still sometimes I see the edges where they had experiences I didn’t. By the time I was the age to go out on the town with folks... I had someone safer and more comfortable to come home to, so I did that. I’m a homebody anyway so it might not have changed much, but it does come up when we discuss shows or music—what we enjoyed, what wasn’t in the right age bracket.

Sometimes people have like... an odometer reset regarding ages, I think. Other than just “it’s fiction, let me enjoy my unicorn fantasy.” Someone who is 1500 years old, who has been away from the world, sure he’s powerful but he’s driven to his knees by the thought of hurting her—that’s fine. Things are SO different that they both have to find new ground and understanding, right? I  guess. There are opportunities for the younger of the pair to restore wonder and hope in the other, which is nice.

The idea of true immortality and how humans and their memories would work with that—sure, fae operate differently because they’re not human, but what if they were? What if, instead of the one SPECIAL (or few...) human woman being reborn with awesome power in some giant cauldron, what if that was the standard MO? If high fae (that is, a placeholder for “humanoid”) MUST come from human stock... What if they can’t cope with their memories as time passes?

Alistair Reynolds’ sci fi work is HUGE for me in terms of imagery and ideas, even if the “... okay, and then where does it go?” can get a bit much. In House of Suns’ incredibly far future, human subspecies have their own individual ways of dealing with memory overload. The shardlings (clones of one person) have regular conclaves where they “spin” their memories off so that they can be reviewed by the others in their house and, more importantly, be stored. There is another subspecies that deals with the demands of time by constantly growing, so there is more room to store more everything—to such an extreme that a main character having a conversation has to enter SUSPENDED ANIMATION between exchanges because it takes so long for other person to respond.

In an Enchantment of Ravens, there is a well whose waters will turn a mortal fae. They pretty quickly lose their... spark, I guess. Human willpower and ingenuity and Craft cannot live in a fae body. The high king of the fae demands that any human who falls in love with a fae (probably because of that Craft...) must drink the water and join the fae world. From what I remember, there’s no reason given for this, it’s his decree and sets a terrible pain on love: if you bond over your gift (or in general) you must then forsake that light to keep your love, which will probably then be very very shallow. Rule of drama, basically.

I’m seeing a river whose banks gleam with precious gems. Mortals or lesser spirits who bathe in its waters emerge as high fae able to feel and bond with the elemental and physical matter of the world as their inclinations and those of the world permit. But the cost is some memories, preserved on the banks as those gems—and another layer of the price is the inherent knowledge of how to offload memories at your own convenience.

How good it is, to set aside the awkward how-was-I-supposed-to-know of childhood. How tempting to turn bad dates, food poisoning, long days at work, parents’ divorces and drunken husbands into rubies and sapphires and pearls. How beautiful they become at a distance divorced from yourself—touch them, and feel it again. But not for long.

Or you bind your memories to places. When they tear your old high school down, maybe the nostalgia and homesickness for the past is too great, so you stand where it used to be and sew your memories to that grass. It won’t bother you unless you come back to this place—but since you don’t remember it now, why would you do that?

The ability to do more magic is a consequence of stripping off the memories, not a price. As you hollow yourself out because it’s easier, or because you just can’t keep the days straight, the anima of light or earth feels so good in those gaps. Or maybe you stop to clean a house for a struggling single father, and then that’s your household; you don’t remember your old one anyway. Or you hear a child crying, and the bond lets you soothe them, dress them, help them make a good match, and you’re a fairy god parent before you realize you have any power at all.

When you remove who you were, you open the possibilities for who you could be; the magic of the land mindlessly knows that.

So Titania heads the Summer court as a timeless elemental filled with power and a few core memories, while Oberon shelters most—but not all—of the physical fae in Winter; he is also an elemental, but he has shed fewer memories and has a soft spot for a warm seat before the fire and ice skating on the lake.

They both acknowledge—mostly at Oberon’s insistence—that their elements are too harsh. Lesser spirits have been spawning, living, and dying short lives for too long. They must make room in the pantheon. They each have one or more candidates who are either humans or high fae whose age doesn’t matter (theoretically) because they’ve been stripped mentally bare to make room for the seasons. I don’t think either reigning ruler would forcibly almost-drown their near candidates in this river Lethe to get them into the running, but an underling might. If one of these high fae candidates is super old and has better command of his or her magic—that’s news to them, and genuinely doesn’t matter unless they have a Chekov’s gun sewn into the lining of their coat—an enemy's weakness, or a big working they removed from their mind because it is a BIG working and they almost died last time.

The idea of sidestepping age gaps via... I dunno, magical lobotomies, may not 100% make everyone comfortable. But for the moment it works for me, with the added bonus of literally anything could be an armed memory bomb. Is there a stepping stone path that has been artfully tied into someone’s memories ascending from grief to new appreciation for life? Are there artists who seek out wonderful experiences and then sell them?

Are we looking at Augmented Reality and vid stuff from a magic perspective? Maybe. Is there way too much here? Definitely. Will it all hit the reader at once or, maybe, at all? Hell no!

[satsumaspeach]

WORDS I'LL TREASURE FOREVER

January 25

You are my only romantic fiction

February 13

Well I don't know, I enjoy you

March 28

If I am a sapiosexual flirt the answer is you

April 19

Don't be sad though, think what you have achieved in the last few months. Your much better off than you were and you only narrowly missed out on this job. Not because you couldn't do it but becsuse they preferred another candidate for their own personal reasons.

Not entirely, but you are a friend who I would not wish to hurt

April 27

Always a good choice is my favourite as well x

April 29

Make the most of it you deserve it.

Don't cry, toast to your success and go to bed more than satisfied with all you have accomplished.

May 3 (Chicken Wings)

Saw that on TV and thought of you

May 5 (Maria Ressa)

The thought of my two favourite Filipinos working together lol

Well I had faith in you so eventually I believed that you would change your mind

May 17

It's been a long day for me too. I think you'll like this one https://youtu.be/seZMOTGCDag get some rest and enjoy and sleep well

Its very chilled I listened to it this morning and thought of you.

May 29

Hi Ri I am fine, my weekend is still going and is a good one, I managed to achieve what I needed to yesterday and was busy fixing the garden. I have heard people say before how reading an old book is like revisiting an old friend but not being a reader of books its not something that I have experienced. I am glad you enjoy it though. Why do you say your existence is stagnant is it because you are still yearning for change or because you are missing something? I found that when I was younger I would think about doing great things, but growing up and growing older is a process of coming to terms with the limitations of life and the constraints of this world, realising what actually is important. So find your place in this world, enjoy it and continue to flourish because I know that your existence can never be stagnant x

June 3

Morning Ri x, hope you are well. How has your week been? Have you connected with the real world a bit more. I would ponder that on my trip into London each day. Please remember I am always wishing for the best for you x.

Thats okay I thought a lot about messaging you but based on your previous reply I thought maybe I give you a little time. I kind of thought thats why you hadn't messaged.

June 4

Morning Ri, I am not sure if it is a long or short 6 months. So much has changed since we first spoke but it also doesn't feel like that long ago. Its very suprising what an awkward conversation can lead to and sometimes its the unexpected things that give us the greatest joy.

June 7

You have to remember alcohol is a strong social drug

Lol, the trick is to drink a little, which is good for overcoming anxiety and involves you into their social customs…. but not too much.

June 9

Well there is questions about most efficient and flexible way for governments to meet the needs of people, but by creating federal states there is a risks… such as fueling those areas want for independence or increasing the divide between areas

July 7

Keep excelling and using your muggle born magic lol

July 10

I wil toast the girl for swatting up better than even the swattiest of swats 🍻

July 14

I would say always take positive steps, if you are unsure of your current work the answer is not to step backwards but find a way of taking another step.

Personally I don't think your reasons are strong enough to make the decision to go back. You were overworked,your colleagues were lazy they relied on you too much, you worked crazy hours, you horrendous travel and no expenses.

Also, going back seems like an easy option… its certainly an easy option for them. However recruiting you to the same position doesn't make me think they value you as much as they should and once they have done that where is the progression, where is the incentive for them to proactive in helping you progress.

Also, going back seems like an easy option… its certainly an easy option for them. However recruiting you to the same position doesn't make me think they value you as much as they should and once they have done that where is the progression, where is the incentive for them to proactive in helping you progress.

What you should have learnt after quitting is that you have talent and those talents are saleable. Be the ambitious and driven person that you are.

July 15

Not everyone no

July 26

Hopefully your life is clicking again where you can find comfort in both your personal and professional life.

August 4

I think you are more successful than you realise, I am pleased that finally you feel appreciated at work. I hope that this vindicates your decision to battle through for a bit longer and proves that you arethe person that she hired 😀.

August 9

I hope you will figure things out. Our conversations correlate with a big change in your life and I believe a very positive one. Relationships are often formed and grounded by shared experiences, so aside from lust, thats how more meaningful bonds are created.

August 10

The problem is its not the movies and the world is not ideal, no matter how much you can try to be okay and pretend to understand… really how are you supposed to feel. Especially when you would not have done the same thing. In the movies romance conquers all and love is something that shines through and is even strengthened by adversity. I completely understand how terrible such a thing is and the damage that it can cause. But you get have continue on, find new meaning and eventually be brave enough to trust someone again.

And thats the cruelty of it a mental scar that is not visible to anyone but you.

August 11

It would be easier if you were a slut, but you may be lonely and weird and have misplaced beliefs, but above all you are caring

Well I don't think it will be easy to forget you.

You are a complication, not what I originally expected

Something I shouldn't exploit

Someone so open to be loved and to love with the fullness of their heart

September 2

I do realise. I like your deeply affectionate nature. However it also worries me because in searching for affirmation you show that you are vulnerable and fragile. I wish you could just be Ri and enjoy life, confident in how great you are (but not big headed lol). The question is what am I a friend, a part time lover or a projection of your wants and desires. I think it has been a muddle of them all. I am not sure what I can be for you, or what is best for you. I would just like you to be happy.

[rivikah]

I work in public service in a data analytics kind of role, our hiring system is a little different in a way that trips people up. Here's a few job application tips in my area:

Applications

The questionnaire that we have you fill out tells you exactly what we care about. Be as direct as you can in answering those questions. If you're asked to tell us your experience with statistical analysis you should be giving the two sentence description of the statistical analysis you've done. Cut all the fluffy buzzwords. I just want to know what methods you've used and how long you've been using them.

Never say you have no experience with something listed as required in the job ad, tell me about the most closely related thing you do have experience with.

Don't worry about your answers being repetitive. You used both statistical methods and statistical software on the same project? Great! Talk about it twice. There's a scoring rubric behind the scenes that means we mainly consider only one answer at a time and will have mostly forgotten what you said in question 1 by the time we get to question 2. Be careful though, the questions are different and tell you exactly what we're looking for.

Don't email us to try to get around the process. We're not allowed to take anything outside of the official process into account. You cannot get around the official process by trying to set up a quick chat about the job. You don't need to demonstrate your enthusiasm or your hustle at this stage and the process is designed to de-emphasize those things, but you sure can be annoying. We have jobs that are not screening job applications. Just wait. The process will play out in due time.

Interviews

Our interviews go like this: we will start by introducing ourselves and give a short introduction to the role. Then we will ask you 4 to 6 questions.

The questions will be prescripted. We ask every candidate exactly the same things. You will probably be given the whole list right at the beginning of the interview. You may be given 5 to 10 minutes alone to consider your answers before we begin. You will probably be told you can answer them in any order you like and be given an opportunity to go back and add to any of your answers at the end of you want. You don't have to.

Your interviewers will take notes the whole time. They will not make eye contact because they are busy writing down what you are saying. The pacing will be odd and may not feel very conversational with weird silences while they write. We're trying to make you feel comfortable, but we need to be able to document our decisions.

The questions will be things like "Tell me about a time when you had to do X, how did you approach the problem? What was the result?" This is your chance to tell us about the cool things you've done! Be enthusiastic! Do not treat us like idiots! We too have advanced degrees and a whole bunch of technical experience. Give the explanation geared to the technically minded peer who has not been involved in your project. We're also not allowed to fill in the blanks for you. Be explicit about the methods you've used.

There may be follow up questions that were not prescripted. Say more! We're trying to get you more points in the omnipresent behind the scenes rubrics.

If you've never had to do X, tell us what you would do if you did.

You can sort of predict some of the questions you will be asked by carefully reading the job posting. If it says we care about communication you may be asked to talk about communicating. If it says the job requires leadership you can expect a question about leadership. The best answers go beyond your immediate work to consider how others are affected. If you're interviewing for multiple jobs in public service you may see the same questions again. We're all choosing from the same list.

Use the interview length to determine how much you should say. If there are 5 questions and the interview is scheduled for an hour, you want to talk for 8-10 minutes or so on each to leave some extra time.

There will be time for you to ask questions at the end. Ask things about the job that you are genuinely interested in. Unlike in other industries we're not evaluating you on the contents of your questions. Therefore ask questions about the job that you want answers to, not questions that you think will make you look good. If there's been a good discussion about the job itself already, not having questions won't hurt you.

The question above about the day to day work is a good one. But all the others are bad. Questions about the projects that the team is working on or the history of the role would be great. Questions about the process are fine. Trying to sell yourself at this point just reveals that you don't know how the public service operates.

Your clothing matters very little. We're not supposed to consider it. Wear something that makes you feel professional.

A couple job interview hacks from someone who has to give a job interview every single goddamn day: (disclaimer: this goes for my process and my company’s process, other companies and industries might be different)

1. There are a few things I check and a few questions I ask literally just to figure out if you can play the game and get along with others in a professional setting. Part of the job I interview for is talking to people, and we work in teams. So if you can’t “play the game” a tiny bit, it’s not going to work. Playing the game includes:

- Why do you want to work here? (just prove that you googled the company, tell me like 1 thing about us, I just want to know that you did SOME kind of preparation for this interview)

- Are you wearing professional clothing? I don’t need a suit just don’t show up in a ratty t-shirt and sweatpants.

- Are you able to speak respectfully and without dropping f-bombs all the time? Not because I’m offended but because I don’t want to be reported to HR if you wind up on my team.

- Can you follow simple directions in an interview?

2. Stop telling me protected information. I don’t want to know about what drugs or medications you’re on, I don’t want to know about you being sick, I don’t want to know if you’re planning to have children soon, I don’t want to know anything about your personal life other than “can you do the job?” 

3. When we ask, “What questions do you have for me?” here are my favorites I’ve heard: - What does the day-to-day look like for a member of your team?

- If one of your team members was not performing up to his usual standard, what steps would you take to correct that?

- What can I start doing now to accelerate my learning process in this job?

- What are some reservations you have about me as a candidate? (be ready for this emotionally….it will REALLY help you in the future, and I’ve had people save themselves from a No after this, but can be hard to hear)

- In your opinion, what skills and qualities does the ideal candidate for this job possess?

- What advice would you give to a new hire in this position/someone who wanted to break into this industry, as someone who has worked here for a while?

Those are just my tips off-the-cuff. I work in sales in marketing/SAAS, so these can be very different depending on the industry, but I wish the people I interview could read this before they show up. 

[plasticsosmeticsurgeondelhi]

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[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Things to Know Before You Vote

Disclaimer: As you can probably tell by my blog name, I'm a right winger. I vote Republican or Libertarian and I've only voted for a Democrat once when I was 18 and I still regret it to this day. But the information I'm providing in this post is an unbiased as I can make it. I want this to be a general guide so people can make as informed a decision as possible when they go to vote. If you don't believe me, read the post for yourself and decide.

Things to Know Before You Vote

First, check out a sample ballot to familiarize yourself with the candidates running and the issues up for consideration. Pay special attention to the names down ballot, and extra special attention to the ones without a party affiliation. Sample ballots can be difficult to find, so it might take a little work. For example, I live in Ohio, so what I do is go to the Ohio Secretary of State website, click on my county, put my name in, and it will give me a downloadable PDF of my ballot. This will be the same ballot you get when you go to vote. I said it before, but it needs to be repeated, pay special attention to the candidates with no party affiliation. These are usually for judge spots, and those are super important. You can't just vote for the one with the name you like. Bad judges can ruin your district. When you see these candidates, you need to look up who they are. You can do that by putting their name, along with the position they're running for, into a search engine. Or you can try a website like Ballotpedia that collects election information, but those sites don't always have every candidate listed. More on Ballotpedia after the break, but for now let's talk about what happens if you can't find a listed party for a candidate. Sometimes you can't, but that's okay. Pretty much every candidate will tell on themselves. Just look up who endorsed them, which they will usually have on their websites, or it can be found through searching. If they're endorsed by a bunch of Democrats, chances are they're a Democrat, and vice versa. They'll also usually state their positions on issues somewhere, or in the case of an active judge, you can find how they ruled on cases with some more searching. Both of those are more important than party affiliation, especially if they were unopposed in the primaries. Once you know who you want to vote for, write their names down and take that paper with you to the polls. It's not illegal to look at a piece of paper while you're voting. It is illegal to campaign within 500 feet of a polling place though, so don't pass that paper around inside the building, or you might be in trouble, depending on how strict they want to be.

Now, I know searching each name on your own is really tedious, so let's talk about aggregates.

I'm going to use Ballotpedia for this post. They seem to be mostly non-biased, and I used them for my last local election and it was a great help. But if you have a preferred alternative, feel free to use that instead.

It's easy to use Ballotpedia to find candidates in your area. On Ballotpedia the "sample ballot" isn't really a sample ballot like the one you get if you followed my advice earlier. It's a list of the issues on your ballot and the candidates running in most of the races, but not all. You can click on the issues and the candidates and find information on who they are, what they support, what they've done previously in and out of politics, who they ran against in the primaries, how many votes they received, etc. You can read brief summaries of the issues, along with the exact text that's up for a vote, and you'll usually see a short summary of what supporters and detractors have to say about it, complete with actual quotes. You can also see a lot of info on how your district voted in the last election, and some other interesting stuff. They try to present both sides of the issues, but as always research further if something seems off to you. Candidate pages are usually decently detailed, with links to each candidates website and social media (if they exist) so you can read what they post for yourself.

I can't stress enough how important it is to know who you're voting for. Don't just blindly vote, or assume you know what a candidate supports. I know it's work, and I know it's boring, but you'll feel great when you show up and know you're making an informed decision. Especially in local elections. Those can be decided by the smallest number of votes between winners and can have lasting consequences not only for your town, but for you directly. Vote wisely.

[gatheringbones]

["At the end of August in 1981, I found myself in a small town in Arkansas, where I knew no Lesbians other than my new lover, Lynn. I wanted it that way. We were living in hiding from my armed and vengeful ex-lover who had abused me for four years and had threatened both of us with deadly harm. This was five years before the publication of Kerry Lobel's ground-breaking book, Naming the Violence: Speaking Out About Lesbian Battering. I knew I had been battered, but I did not understand how deeply I had been injured.

I only knew that I seemed to have saved my life at the cost of my sanity. I jumped at loud and not-so-loud noises. A frown from a stranger could reduce me to tears. I was afraid to bathe if I was alone in the apartment. I relived every word of every fight in relentless flashbacks. I had blocked much of the unbearable pain of the previous four years out of my consciousness at the time, in order to cope with immediate danger. Now that I was "safe" it all came flooding back. To escape, I watched TV compulsively, avoiding anything violent—nature shows were my favorites—and I read science fiction. Having lost faith in women as well as men, I was a serious candidate for a species-change operation.

Luckily, at some point in that bleak winter, I read a magazine article on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Vietnam Vets, and I recognized all my symptoms. I had a name for my suffering, and 1 knew I was not "crazy." I'd felt so much guilt and anger towards myself for not being okay, that is, my old self, since I was "free." Now I knew healing would take time and effort, and I gave myself permission to not be normal right away. Also, seeing how much my condition resembled that of war survivors helped break down some of my denial about the hell I'd been through.

Still, I had no guidance on how to recover from PTSD. I followed only the dimmest instincts. First, I began to read accounts by survivors of any serious trauma. These people became my invisible support group. I found myself drawn especially to stories of political prisoners and concentration camp survivors. Although my experience was not like theirs, these were the people I felt would understand how my will had been sapped and my strengths twisted, how the smallest acts of resistance and mere endurance had needed all my wits and courage. Bruno Bettleheim in his chapters called "Behavior in Extreme Situations" (The Informed Heart) finally answered the question I'd put to myself every 44 hour since my escape: "How could I have been so stupid?" He made me realize that under abuse, especially the combination of intermittent threats, unpredictable violence and constant psychological torture, everyone responds differently, but everyone changes fundamentally, and everyone has their breaking point.

One day as I sat reading at the kitchen table, I looked out the window at the small yard beside our duplex apartment, and I began to imagine growing a garden there in the spring. It seemed like a highly improbable idea: the area was very small, steep, bare of everything but gray shale and orange clay, and the house shaded it part of the day. But the notion of a garden took root strongly. For the first time in several years I had something pleasant to anticipate.

I wrangled my landlady's permission to put in a garden. Then I mailed off postcards for seed catalogs. I persuaded an acquaintance who owned a truck to bring me a load of cedar slabs discarded by a local sawmill, and I used these to construct two frames, about four feet by six feet, and two even smaller ones, just three feet by four feet. By this time Lynn and I had saved enough money to buy a very old VW bug, so we drove to a nearby creekbank and filled bushel baskets with rich bottom dirt, which we dumped into the frames to make raised beds about four inches deep.

To supplement the tiny growing space, Lynn scavenged large cans from the cafeteria of the hospital where she worked. I painted them a hopeful green, filled them with soil and placed them along the sidewalk below our porch. Old-timey "Corn-row Beans," originally bred to tolerate the shade of cornfields, grew up strings tied to the roof and bore prolifically.

I didn't have much money from my SSI income to spend on garden gadgets, so I made do. I wove a trellis for my peas from six-pack rings liberated from a liquor store trash bin. (I can testify that this plastic never biodegrades—the pea fence survives to this day.) I got some more bushel baskets from the local grocery, painted them with non-toxic preservative and lined them with garbage bags after snipping a few drainage holes in the bottom. Placed around a small stone patio above the garden, these became containers for large plants.

The garden rewarded me before the first mouthful of early spinach was harvested. It moved me out of the gloomy apartment and into the sunshine, watering can in hand. It motivated me to interact with people and to occasionally risk asking for help. I found out they would usually say yes. My attention was now focused on the future, not the bitter, unchangeable past. At night when the flashbacks threatened to roll, when I dreaded the dreams I might have, I put myself to sleep with 45 detailed plans of my next crop rotation. I found out I could learn a major new skill, a little at a time. I could do things right, even come up with ingenious solutions to seemingly impossible difficulties. And when I did things wrong, plants were most often forgiving. The plants themselves were a tremendous source of inspiration. Talk about survivors! They defied every book written about their needs, often thriving with too little sun, too little water, and too little soil. At the end of a year, I could easily stick my shovel in the dirt up to the hilt, where only four inches of top soil had previously existed; compost and the action of the roots had created friable loam out of shale and clay.

When I experienced failure with gardening, it was never the kind of disaster I'd grown to associate with mistakes. We didn't go hungry, because other crops outstripped our expectations. My lover didn't beat or berate me, but sympathized and helped. The garden was important to us economically, because we'd both lost almost everything we owned in our escape. Luckily, in southern Arkansas, it's possible to garden yearround. The garden gave me precious, desperately needed tastes of success. Disabled, unemployed, I still felt like an important contributor to the household. I even had food to give away sometimes, and that was a delicious feeling.

Gardening was not the only factor in my recovery, but it was an important one. I didn't grow up with abuse, but battering and similar traumas can expand minutes into hours, years into decades, until four years feel like most of a lifetime. At the end of a year and a half of gardening, I no longer felt as if I'd spent the majority of my life in a battering situation. Healing had acquired a new definition for me: I didn't insist on having the old me back; I'd mourned her long and well. I accepted the fact that some injuries are too severe to be made whole, that I might never be the same again. But I began to actually like and trust the me I am now, scars and all. As my garden taught me, I must make do with what I am. I have discovered that my flaws are not fatal and my successes are greater than I'd hoped for. So far I have not gone hungry, and I even have something to offer."]

Amy Edgington, Gaining Ground, from Garden Variety Dykes: Lesbian Traditions In Gardening, Herbooks, 1994

[rays-of-fire-and-ice]

Oh. My. God!!!

More under the cut

Where do I begin with this one?! How about the fact that the title is a double entendre that made me giggle?! Or how about the fact they went camping together (albeit for training)?! Or that you're looking at the consequences of Toshiro being too protective (which I rarely see in fic)? I can't choose, so let's start from the actual beginning of the fic:

I love the idea behind all of this, that everyone is training for Hell's impending invasion, but some individuals need to up their skills. And they have to go camping to train, I'm down for this already!

However, the day before the mission, her name was taken off the list with a curt note saying that her kido services would no longer be required. During the prior lieutenant’s meeting Renjii looked at her with a regretful glance, squeezing her shoulder sympathetically and she later received an apology Hell Butterfly from the Thirteen Captain before the expedition team left.

Loving the little bit of friendship there between Renji and Momo! I can't help but wonder how they would've gone on this mission together with the others. Can totally imagine a scene where they have to be back to back and think about on the struggles they went through, like in their Academy days. Also, I remember reading this and going 'No...No don't tell me he did this!'. I had this gut feeling Toshiro was behind this from the start but didn't want to believe it.

The shock must have been evident on her face as her captain immediately took one look at her before bringing her to the couch and placing a warm cup of tea in her hands.

T_T That's my man! So nice to read this moment!!

She had been reviewing the list of volunteers who wanted to train with her and was surprised at the number of people. If she were to spend time with each one, she would have to remain in the World of the Living for at least a month.

Why am I not surprised?! Aside from being who she is, I can totally see a lot officers wanting to learn how better their kido from her.

However, she had not seen Toushiro’s name on her initial list—much less expected him to volunteer.

My immediate reaction reading this: Oh no...it he DID do it, didn't he?! And now he's feeling bad or wants to explain himself!

He sighed in quiet exasperation. “I heard from Abarai that Hitsugaya-taicho requested you off the mission,” he said reluctantly. “And when there was no other candidate to go, he volunteered himself.” “And why would he do that?” she asked quietly, still processing what she had heard. Hirako shook his head, his bangs falling away from his eyes. “He never brought it up at the captain’s meeting. He went directly to the Soutaicho & the expedition team.”

This is something I would absolutely HATE to see Toshiro do (see my reactions above), and it's somethign I can see some thinking is out fo character for him. Yet, given the right circumstances, I can absolutely see him doing it. He knows Momo is a capable Shinigami, but his feelings can get in the way, and then his protective instincts come out. To see this in fic, where the reason he did it makes sense but also made me go 'No, why?! Why would you do that?! You failed my guy! You failed!' it a rarity, and I loved it! It make me want to explore this too, though I haven't got a fic idea for it yet.

I'd also be curious about Shinji's reaction to this. He must have been fine with Momo going on the expedition, otherwise he would've had her pulled, but when he found out Toshiro stepped in and went over him and straight to Kyoraku, how did he feel I wonder?

The tension is thick now though, as Momo clearly agreed to train with Toshiro. She's going to confront him!

It had been the first time they had seen each other in a long while, and Momo was still feeling unsettled—so introductions were short, and she immediately led him to the training area where she was now beginning a demonstration.

“We’ll start off with one of my prior combination spells in battle: from during the Winter War era when Rangiku-san and I had to fight the three arrancars.” She avoided looking at Toushiro for she knew much after the fact that he hadn’t approved of her coming onto the battlefield—which apparently, things still hadn’t changed between them. “Let me show you first.”

Momo had to stop herself from reacting openly to that. She hadn’t remembered telling him that it was her first attempt, a decision crossed in between luck and adrenaline. However, she had a lot to prove—and evidently, there were still people that doubted her.

Momo could only watch as Toushiro immediately called a cool wind forth to snuff out the embers, leaving just a sizzling trail of smoke as the remains of the misspell. “I think we better call it for the night,” he said with a measured tone, evaluating the scene. The slip back into their gigai was so quiet and routine that even the shift of corporeal bodies couldn’t cut the thick tension between the two.

These are gut punching moments T_T A totally understandable reaction from Momo -- she has every right to be anxious, upset, and angry here -- but still very sad to see. I can't imagine how it'd feel to have someone so close to you do something like what Toshiro did.

Her student nodded along, with a furrow in his eyebrows that Momo knew he was mentally taking notes.

“You can follow me for now and then we can try separately on our own, Hitsugaya-taicho.”

This hits different. Out of context, I'd likely think 'Aw, she knows him so well that she knows when he's really trying to absorb somethign someone is teaching him.' With the context of this fic though, it's makes me sad because she does know him well enough, but it's an endearing thing she knows and notices in him. Then there's the fact she refers to him by title! Momo has done this before of course, but more times than not, she doesn't use his title. Another sign of her trying to distance herself from him.

Also, side note: MOMO TEACHING KIDO SCENES! WE LOVE TO SEE THEM!

“Hirako-taicho and I went on camping trips as a way to get to know each other when we first started working together. The other Vizards would also join us as well.”

#LetShinjigofishing2k24!!

Toushiro rolled his eyes. “It still amazes me how he can circumvent rules to do it.” It was an offhand comment, nothing out of the ordinary for the young captain. However, at that moment it deeply grated at her nerves, and it struck raw. Momo snapped a branch in her hand. “Hirako-taicho completes his work as necessary. He also doesn’t cross the line—unlike you Hitsugaya-taicho.” He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, Hinamori?” “You pulled rank and took me off the Hell expedition,” she said curtly, yanking out the matchstick box from her pocket and snapping the match strong against the box. There was a pause where Momo could only hear the friction of the match

I audibly went "Whoooooooooooa!' Let's go!! That last lien is an absolute burner (pun not intended)!! Later when the match lights, it's at the perfect moment!

She looked up to see the fire reflecting in his turquoise eyes, resolute. “If I had to do it again, I would,” he said solemnly, holding his ground across the fire from her. “Well that’s the difference between us, Hitsugaya-taicho—I would be honest with someone if I didn’t think they were good enough.” “That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he sighed. Momo straightened her shoulders back and stared firmly back at him through the flames. “I am a lieutenant of the Fifth Division, I have earned my way to serve the Gotei 13—whether you like it or not.”  

I can't put into words how much I love this scene. I can see it so clearly in my mind. Neither side backing down, with Momo not fully knowing Toshiro intentions but still making a 100% valid point about her abilities and right to fight as a Shinigami; and Toshiro's determination and over-protectiveness making him stubborn, now seeing the consequences his actions had.

“Did you read the information pack that Hisagi-san had sent? Apparently, this used to be a habitat for bears.”

“Yes, and I read the amended version Ise-fuukutaicho sent—the local bear population has become endangered. The only thing we’re in danger of is losing our sleep,” he grumbled.

I found ti more amusing than I should that 1) Hisagi compiled a info pack/guide about the area (did he go on location and find out about the area? If so, what did he do? Did he ask locals? Camp out in the middle of woods to get the full experience? Does this technically fall under his duties?) and 2) Nanao made a revised guide XD (see, I can see her doing the equivalent of Googling about the area and reading books about it, with annoations and references and footnotes everywhere to back up her info).

Toushiro stepped in front of her sleeping bag, his stance defensive as he mimicked Momo’s earlier pose from the training session. “I’ll handle it. I’ll use the kido weaving to stop whatever it is in its tracks.” That got Momo to pause. “Wait, Hitsugaya-kun—I’m not sure if you’re ready.” He started to chant, slow and steady as the noise picked up. Momo could only focus on her heart racing that she almost missed the slip of incantation: Toushiro had skipped a line—a very crucial line. “Hitsugaya-kun—you forgot—” The threads burned amber, casting a bright glow against the surrounding boundary of trees before they began to constrict against themselves. The woven net grew and expanded, closing in around the two of them instead of pushing outward. Toushiro realizing his error, quickly turned around and crouched over Momo as the net imploded into great sparks, rivaling a fireworks show.

Again with that protectiveness! But also, I couldn't help but grin throughout all of this >w<

A bubble of laughter escaped from Momo’s mouth which earned her an exasperated look from her friend above her. Toushiro’s hair was mussed with grey soot streaking the spiky edges; he looked like the human confection of a burnt marshmallow—which made Momo laugh even harder.

I had a flashback to the explosive results of Renji's Academy training XD

“I’m sorry for yelling at you today.” There was a long pause and she had wondered if he had heard her. “I deserved it. I apologize for not being transparent with you.”

Well at least he recognised that! I'm glad they're making up though!

“I can take care of myself, Hitsugaya-kun.” He sighed. “I know you can—I don’t doubt it at all.” “Then what makes this different?” Momo whispered. Toushiro was silent for a while before turning to her. “It’s what we don’t know—everything we’ve been taught feels…upended.” He grimaced & even in the dark she could see the storm brewing in his eyes. “Ukitake-taicho, the Soutaicho…they’re all there now. It feels like the rules have changed and things are out of control.” Momo smiled sympathetically before reaching a hand across, and gently placing it on his shoulder. “I know. I’m scared too. I’m scared for everyone at the Fifth, for Hirako-taicho, Rangiku-san.” She paused and stared into his eyes. “I’m also scared for you.” His eyes widened slowly. “Hinamori…” “But I won’t let that stop me from wanting to protect everyone—to protect you.” She squeezed his shoulder. “That’s why I became a shinigami, right?” Momo could sense his inner storm abating and smiled in relief. “So—trust me, okay? Like I trust you to stay safe.” He sighed deeply and stared back at her. “Okay—I will try.”

TwT I can't!! This was a goo resolution. Toshiro can't change magically overnight, and he's always going to be protective, but he'll try to not let it be his immediate response to Momo going into battle. He bleives in her, of course he does, but he loves her too.

And Momo showing she's protective of him too, worried about him in the upcoming battle T_T

Thank you sharing this with us, it's a beautiful read!!

For your reblogs milestone requests (congratulations!!) If this pings you, I'd love to see Hitsugaya + Hinamori + CAMPING. Good trip, bad trip, planned, unplanned, business, pleasure... Any kind of camping and any kind of tone!

how to start a fire

Rating: K+

“Hinamori, you’re imagining things—go to sleep.”

“I am not,” she hissed, with a little more bite than intended. She was still bitter about their squabble. “I know there’s something out there.” She turned to her backpack, fumbling around in the dark as she searched for the flashlight. “Did you read the information pack that Hisagi-san had sent? Apparently, this used to be a habitat for bears.”

“Yes, and I read the amended version Ise-fuukutaicho sent—the local bear population has become endangered. The only thing we’re in danger of is losing our sleep,” he grumbled.

…

Momo is sent to train Toushiro in the World of the Living in combination kido.

Word Count: 3670 words

Setting: after the Bleach Anniversary Hell Chapter

Prompt: @hitsuhina-week Gift Exchange 2023 for @whipplefilter

"maybe we didn't argue, but we don't agree"/ "Hitsugaya asks Hinamori to teach him her kidou-weaving"/"HitsuHina from unexpected/outside POVs"

Authour’s Note: This is SO LATE IN ALL THE SENSES. Firstly, because Whipple sent this request in like, summer. And then I was matched with them for the Gift Exchange which I thought I could make! but holidays! & falling sick! (are we really ever as productive as we would like over the holidays??)

(Thank you @rays-of-fire-and-ice for being understanding!)

When I saw the prompts that Whipple sent, I immediately thought of their initial fic request & thought it was such a perfect thing to combine! Unfortunately, I couldn't get in the Hitsuhina from an outside POV but maybe one day in the future!

I had a lot of fun trying to flesh this out and was really happy to go back to writing after so long! However, I believe much like the rest of the fandom, life is going to get busy in the coming months for me and I won't be as active in writing as I would like to :( I hope to still participate in events but it does really inspire me reading everyone's work when I come back to try to write on my own!!

Happy New Year everyone! Here's hoping 2024 is one with happiness and laughter and fun for everyone!!

I hope you all enjoy this!

---

Momo dropped her duffel bag and began to rummage around it, pushing overnight clothes and toiletries aside. “Here’s a clearing: we can proceed here.”

Toushiro looked around skeptically, noting the abandoned fire pits and wooden pavilions in the distance. “Won’t we be disturbing the humans?”

“Soutaicho had reserved the whole camping ground area while the Twelfth Division set up a barrier that would send any human that would walk towards the training facilities, confused but turned around.” She swallowed the gikon pill, feeling her human body leave her as if she were shedding a coat off.

The tenth captain raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t the Kido Corps have facilitated that?”

Momo shrugged, though she admitted she wondered about the ethics of the research division sometimes. “All the training leaders were assured that they wouldn’t be harmed. Nanao-san also reiterated that each cell would be allocated a parcel of the forest—so we don’t have to worry about anyone else while we train.”

With the new frontier of Hell on the line, the Gotei 13 were implementing new training tactics to prepare for the unknown battle. Each division had received a list of candidates for leaders of the cell groups—specific internal training groups to provide targeted instruction on skills soldiers may find lacking. Momo had been selected from the Fifth Division to lead high level kido proficiency, specifically on combination spells. The leaders ranged in rank, from captains to lieutenants and even high ranked seated officers. She had heard later from Matsumoto, Ikkaku had been selected to lead swordsmanship skills, Isane for healing during combat, a fourth seat in the eighth division for defensive spells among many. The cell groups would then be volunteers from across the Gotei 13 that would train with the leaders in World of the Living on a reserved human camping site.

Momo had been flattered (even when her captain had bemoaned jokingly why he hadn’t been picked) but was also left feeling disconcerted at the letter.

A few weeks ago, there was an expedition team sent out earlier to understand the spells and mechanisms that opened Hell’s Doors as well as scope its initial terrain. The list was short and concise with only a few captains and lieutenants selected. Renjii & Rukia were on the list as they had already prior experience in the hellscape. Momo had been keen to go, as she heard her name was nominated by Rukia to help with kido to break down the entrance. However, the day before the mission, her name was taken off the list with a curt note saying that her kido services would no longer be required. During the prior lieutenant’s meeting Renjii looked at her with a regretful glance, squeezing her shoulder sympathetically and she later received an apology Hell Butterfly from the Thirteen Captain before the expedition team left.

Momo had walked back to the Fifth Division in a daze, feeling a bit bereft at the sudden change in plans. The shock must have been evident on her face as her captain immediately took one look at her before bringing her to the couch and placing a warm cup of tea in her hands.

“Hitsugaya-taicho seems to have requested you for your first training session.”

“Why?” Momo asked. She had been reviewing the list of volunteers who wanted to train with her and was surprised at the number of people. If she were to spend time with each one, she would have to remain in the World of the Living for at least a month.

However, she had not seen Toushiro’s name on her initial list—much less expected him to volunteer. The tenth captain was quick on his feet in battle and she never assumed his skills were lacking.

Hirako-taicho shrugged. “Maybe he wants a brush up as well? I know he had gone on the Hell Expedition Team & him and the little Kuchiki realized there was some reworking off spells to be done.”

That got Momo to pause as she was sorting through the files. It had been a couple of weeks since the team had returned from Hell. “Hitsugaya-taicho had joined the expedition?” As far as she knew, he was never a candidate for the expedition, and he hadn’t mentioned anything like that to her.

Her captain stilled, his eyes avoiding her questioning look. “I believe he was the last-minute change…”

“Hirako-taicho—why did Hitsugaya-kun go on the expedition?”

He sighed in quiet exasperation. “I heard from Abarai that Hitsugaya-taicho requested you off the mission,” he said reluctantly. “And when there was no other candidate to go, he volunteered himself.”

“And why would he do that?” she asked quietly, still processing what she had heard.

Hirako shook his head, his bangs falling away from his eyes. “He never brought it up at the captain’s meeting. He went directly to the Soutaicho & the expedition team.”

The news sat with Momo as she prepared her training plan and packed her bags to go the World of the Living. The unease festered inside of her, leaving her with feelings of self-doubt and anxiety. She found herself unable to sleep well and only when she stepped onto the campgrounds and breathed in the fresh air, could she feel the tension loosening in her shoulder.

Momo had an earlier departure time and was preparing the grounds when the Tenth Captain dropped in, much later in the evening when the sky was hedging into dusk. It had been the first time they had seen each other in a long while, and Momo was still feeling unsettled—so introductions were short, and she immediately led him to the training area where she was now beginning a demonstration. If the boy noticed anything unusual, he made no comment and followed suit.

Momo slipped into teaching mode, something she had learned while part-timing at the academy to help compartmentalize her life as a lecturer separate from a lieutenant.

“We’ll start off with one of my prior combination spells in battle: from during the Winter War era when Rangiku-san and I had to fight the three arrancars.” She avoided looking at Toushiro for she knew much after the fact that he hadn’t approved of her coming onto the battlefield—which apparently, things still hadn’t changed between them. “Let me show you first.”

The girl lifted her hands in front of her, demonstrating as she spoke. “The strength of the spell also comes from the foundation of the pose. I know after we graduate and go into battle, it’s very easy to skip this step as we’ve become comfortable with the incantations.” She moved her hands as if they were framing a triangle. “However, as we introduce combination spells, I find that there’s strength in using combative stances with defensive spells and vice versa.”

Her student nodded along, with a furrow in his eyebrows that Momo knew he was mentally taking notes.

“It started off with Hadou 12 Fuishibi: I had used it as a defensive base before obscuring it with a concealment spell.”

“That was Kyokou, right?” Toushiro piped in.

She nodded in affirmation. “Yes—that was the key to catching the arrancar off. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been able to blindside them in the initial attack.”

Toushiro’s eyebrow raised slowly, almost as if he were impressed if Momo had to guess. “That’s quite commendable that you were able to weave that many kidou together—especially for your first time.”

Momo had to stop herself from reacting openly to that. She hadn’t remembered telling him that it was her first attempt, a decision crossed in between luck and adrenaline. However, she had a lot to prove—and evidently, there were still people that doubted her.

“However, the key is finding the right igniting spell: Shakaho is a common one and it doesn’t matter how proficient you are in kidou—it’ll still give you the right amount of power you need.”

She beckoned with her head, her arms still held in front of her in stance. “You can follow me for now and then we can try separately on our own, Hitsugaya-taicho.”

When he mirrored suit, she started reciting the incantations—pausing in between lines to explain the steps.

“You start trying to imagine a series of lines, crossing each other. Imagine the intersection and focus on that. Personally, for me, it helps to visualize the centers becoming brighter to build a stronger net.”

“Like Bakudo #4, Hainawa?”

Momo winced, sensing the kidou web pull away from her. “Not really. It’s the foundation—it’s not the main goal. You’re setting up trajectory for the blast to follow.”

“Is it necessary to recite the full spell?”

“Sort of—I find it helpful to not focus fully on the incantation but instead what it represents. Breaks down the rigidity of the tradition and make it more malleable in combining different spells.”

“How do you control the scale of the net?”

“It’s all in the visualization—you need to imagine it,” she responded quickly as she felt herself faltering. The net grew dimmer and wilted, like a flower causing Momo to repeat the previous line again. She wasn’t used to being interrupted so often.

“When do you switch hand positions?”

“Hold on Hitsugaya—”, Momo could feel the net pull away from her like a storm wind catching hold of a kite. She proceeded forward and, in her haste, she skipped two lines ahead in the incantation.   

The effects were immediate with the strings of the net burning brighter and brighter. Momo faltered, immediately stopping the incantation but it was too late. The net hummed in power before it exploded, sending sparks back at the shinigami & the wooden structures.

Momo could only watch as Toushiro immediately called a cool wind forth to snuff out the embers, leaving just a sizzling trail of smoke as the remains of the misspell.

“I think we better call it for the night,” he said with a measured tone, evaluating the scene.

The slip back into their gigai was so quiet and routine that even the shift of corporeal bodies couldn’t cut the thick tension between the two. The moon was hanging high & alone by the time they had returned silently back to their campsite.

Momo immediately started collecting broken branches and twigs to start the fire. She kept her head down, repeating the recent events in her head over and over. Even though Toushiro had been peppering her with questions, she knew she was accustomed to that from teaching new recruits—and inwardly Momo knew that it was her earlier feelings towards the young captain that made her mess up the incantation. There was a strong part of her that was ashamed for getting her emotions get in the way of teaching—something she had promised herself she would learn to keep professional and private matters separate.

Momo sighed deeply, walking back to their clearing, and dumping the wood into the firepit. As she rearranged the pieces into a tented position, she could feel Toushiro’s eyes on her—much like earlier, observing quietly and learning.

“It’s to help structure the flame,” she explained quietly. Momo pulled some newspapers she had brought with her and began shredding them over the pit.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“Hirako-taicho and I went on camping trips as a way to get to know each other when we first started working together. The other Vizards would also join us as well.”

Toushiro rolled his eyes. “It still amazes me how he can circumvent rules to do it.” It was an offhand comment, nothing out of the ordinary for the young captain. However, at that moment it deeply grated at her nerves, and it struck raw.

Momo snapped a branch in her hand. “Hirako-taicho completes his work as necessary. He also doesn’t cross the line—unlike you Hitsugaya-taicho.”

He raised an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, Hinamori?”

“You pulled rank and took me off the Hell expedition,” she said curtly, yanking out the matchstick box from her pocket and snapping the match strong against the box.

There was a pause where Momo could only hear the friction of the match. “You’re not ready,” Toushiro said carefully, as if he were approaching a skittish creature. “There are far too many unknowns, and the risk is too great.”

“You had no business deciding to do so.” The match didn’t catch, and Momo cursed under her breath as she flicked it to the ground. She pulled another one out and began again.

“Other lieutenants were pulled off as well, it came down to essential personnel only.”

“No, Hitsugaya-taicho, you are a captain of the Tenth Division and were overstepping your bounds. Kuchiki-san had requested me on that mission for my skills and you decided to pull me off.”

The match ignited brightly in her hands. Momo dropped it into the pile of wood where it immediately spurred into large flames. She looked up to see the fire reflecting in his turquoise eyes, resolute.

“If I had to do it again, I would,” he said solemnly, holding his ground across the fire from her.

“Well that’s the difference between us, Hitsugaya-taicho—I would be honest with someone if I didn’t think they were good enough.”

“That’s not what I meant and you know it,” he sighed.

Momo straightened her shoulders back and stared firmly back at him through the flames. “I am a lieutenant of the Fifth Division, I have earned my way to serve the Gotei 13—whether you like it or not.”  

--

Dinner was a quiet tense affair with the two of them eating their packed meals quite far and separated from each other. Momo had already started to feel awful from such negative feelings, but on principle she held her ground, quickly scarfing down her onigiri.

They had changed in silence to their sleeping clothes, each taking turns to watch shift before tucking into their respective sleeping bags across the fire pit. In the absence of a “good night,” Momo felt remorse, and found herself consciously holding back from asking if Toushiro was awake.

When they were younger, they’d climb up onto the thatched roofs to stargaze during the night. The hay would itch at bare skin and it would always take the two of them a while to get settled, but when they had found their spots, it was like the world quieted again and they lost themselves in counting the constellations. Sometimes she would speak and Toushiro would respond, in either one sentence responses or noises of affirmation—but always honest. And when it became too quiet to speak, the two would just lie in silence. It was those peaceful moments that would ground Momo whenever she was away studying in the academy; where it felt like possibilities were endless, but home was right behind her, keeping her grounded and safe.

But that felt like a different lifetime with too much death in between to tie them to the same life.

A loud rustle startled Momo from her stupor.

She pushed herself up off the ground. “Did you hear that?”

There was another sound, a creak.

“Hitsugaya-kun,” Momo called out, a twinge of fear creeping into her voice.

“I’m trying to sleep,” he groused.

She persisted, sitting up and listening carefully. The fire crackled and hissed, and Momo strained to hear through the crackle of the fire. Internally she felt at lost without being able to detect the rieatsu of whatever was out there.

“Hinamori, you’re imagining things—go to sleep.”

“I am not,” she hissed, with a little more bite than intended. She was still bitter about their squabble. “I know there’s something out there.” She turned to her backpack, fumbling around in the dark as she searched for the flashlight. “Did you read the information pack that Hisagi-san had sent? Apparently, this used to be a habitat for bears.”

“Yes, and I read the amended version Ise-fuukutaicho sent—the local bear population has become endangered. The only thing we’re in danger of is losing our sleep,” he grumbled.

“I forgot how grumpy you get when you don’t get your sleep,” Momo murmured.

“What was that?”

“Nothing.”

A rustle was heard and Toushiro shot up, his eyes much alert. “I think there’s something approaching.”

Momo fought the urge to roll her eyes as she fished out the flashlight. “That’s what I was saying.”

A twig broke and immediately Toushiro slipped a gikon pill in, his human body falling back onto the sleeping bag.

“I’m not going to use Hyourinmaru—the weather changes will alert the humans nearby.”

Momo rustled through her duffle bag, pulling things out rapidly. “I can’t find my gikon pills—I must have left them at the training site.”

Toushiro stepped in front of her sleeping bag, his stance defensive as he mimicked Momo’s earlier pose from the training session. “I’ll handle it. I’ll use the kido weaving to stop whatever it is in its tracks.”

That got Momo to pause. “Wait, Hitsugaya-kun—I’m not sure if you’re ready.”

He started to chant, slow and steady as the noise picked up. Momo could only focus on her heart racing that she almost missed the slip of incantation: Toushiro had skipped a line—a very crucial line.

“Hitsugaya-kun—you forgot—”

The threads burned amber, casting a bright glow against the surrounding boundary of trees before they began to constrict against themselves. The woven net grew and expanded, closing in around the two of them instead of pushing outward. Toushiro realizing his error, quickly turned around and crouched over Momo as the net imploded into great sparks, rivaling a fireworks show.

The rustling noise got louder and two of them could only look up as the bush rumbled and rustled—before a bunny slipped out. It stared comically at the two of them, cocking its head to the side before hoping through the campgrounds as the two childhood friends watched.

A bubble of laughter escaped from Momo’s mouth which earned her an exasperated look from her friend above her. Toushiro’s hair was mussed with grey soot streaking the spiky edges; he looked like the human confection of a burnt marshmallow—which made Momo laugh even harder.

“This isn’t funny,” he grumbled, swiping away at his face with soot coming off.

“It kind of is,” she continued to laugh. “I’m sure when you get back into your gigai, it’ll go away.”

Whatever previous tension that was there before, disappeared and now there was a lightness as the two young shinigami cleaned up the area. The campfire that had been blazing strong before had calmed down to a dying ember, its small spark still burning bright against the night.

Momo cleared her throat, sheepishly looking down. “Would you mind if we pull these closer?” she gestured towards the distanced sleeping bags.

Toushiro shook his head. “No, not at all.”

After rearranging the bags, the two settled in quietly, lying on their backs and looking up at the stars. Momo sighed in content, feeling a lot more at peace than before but still wanted to clear the air about one more thing.

“Hitsugaya-kun,” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

“I’m sorry for yelling at you today.”

There was a long pause and she had wondered if he had heard her. “I deserved it. I apologize for not being transparent with you.”

Momo raised an eyebrow. “The great Hitsugaya-taicho is apologizing to me?”

“Oh, shut it.” Even though it was dark, she could hear the eyeroll in his voice. “And I’ve done it before,” he added softly.

“I know.” Momo remembered it well, especially after the Winter War. “But those for things that were out of your control. This is for something you deliberately did.”

The young girl heard him sigh deeply. “It’s something I’m working on,” he conceded.

“Rangiku-san put you up to it?”

“Something like that…” he drifted off.

“Well…” Momo tucked the blanket around her tighter her shoulders. “Thank you.”

When he didn’t say anything back, she continued on, speaking softly. “You need to trust me—I understand you’re worried, but you can’t go around making decisions on my behalf without talking to me.” She turned onto her side and faced him. “I can take care of myself, Hitsugaya-kun.”

He sighed. “I know you can—I don’t doubt it at all.”

“Then what makes this different?” Momo whispered.

Toushiro was silent for a while before turning to her. “It’s what we don’t know—everything we’ve been taught feels…upended.” He grimaced & even in the dark she could see the storm brewing in his eyes. “Ukitake-taicho, the Soutaicho…they’re all there now. It feels like the rules have changed and things are out of control.”

Momo smiled sympathetically before reaching a hand across, and gently placing it on his shoulder. “I know. I’m scared too. I’m scared for everyone at the Fifth, for Hirako-taicho, Rangiku-san.” She paused and stared into his eyes. “I’m also scared for you.”

His eyes widened slowly. “Hinamori…”

“But I won’t let that stop me from wanting to protect everyone—to protect you.” She squeezed his shoulder. “That’s why I became a shinigami, right?”

Momo could sense his inner storm abating and smiled in relief. “So—trust me, okay? Like I trust you to stay safe.”

He sighed deeply and stared back at her. “Okay—I will try.”

She chuckled quietly. “That’s all I ask.”

Momo let her hand fall in the space between them. “Now let’s go to sleep. We still have to finish training tomorrow. I can’t send you back not knowing how to do one combination spell.”

“This will definitely be an experience I will never forget,” he said softly.

She smiled, her eyes already closing shut. “Good night, Hitsugaya-kun.”

Sometime during the night, Momo felt her hand being pulled, and held tight. That even if they drifted in dreams under the stars, she was grounded and safe, held tight to home.

---

Authour's Note: Again, this happens late at night because I am a sucker for late night conversations. I had a lot of fun trying to write Momo's teaching methods for the kido (as if I know anything lol) I also just love that something doesn't go splendidly well for Toushiro (though I wish there were more people to witness it hahahaha)

Until next time everyone :)