#maybe be less partisan

[beardedmrbean]

California’s largest daily newspaper, the Los Angeles Times, announced on Tuesday that it is laying off at least 115 people -roughly a quarter of its staff- as it continues to hemorrhage money.

The layoffs were announced in a newsroom-wide email from L.A. Times president and Chief Operating Officer Chris Argentieri, according to reporter Matt Pearce.

“This total, while devastating, is nonetheless far lower than the total number of Guild layoffs initially expected last week,” Pearce posted on X, formerly Twitter.

Last Friday, members of the Los Angeles Times Guild, the union representing newspaper staffers, staged a one-day walkout to protest the anticipated job cuts.

“Slashing a quarter of the newsroom is devastating by any measure – to our members and their families, to our morale, to the quality of our journalism, to the bond with our audience, and to the communities that depend on our work,” the Guild said in a statement. “We believe our decision to go on strike saved scores of newsroom jobs today.”

Tuesday’s layoffs come after the paper slashed 74 positions in July, the union said.

In an article published in the L.A. Times on Tuesday, the newspaper’s owner, Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong, said the cuts were needed to account for losses totaling $30 million to $40 million a year due to declining subscriptions and advertising revenue.

“Today’s decision is painful for all, but it is imperative that we act urgently and take steps to build a sustainable and thriving paper for the next generation. We are committed to doing so,” Soon-Shiong said.

Among the senior editors laid off were the paper’s Washington bureau chief and deputy Washington bureau chief, its business editor and music editor.

L.A. Times video game industry reporter Sarah Parvini was also let go.

“It’s been an honor to work at the paper for nearly a decade, launching a video game beat, helping to win Pulitzers, covering diverse communities. To my colleagues, [the L.A. Times Guild], readers: Thank you,” Parvini tweeted.

Soon-Shiong and his family purchased the L.A. Times and the San Diego Union-Tribune from Tribune Publishing for $500 million in 2018.

Layoffs and buyouts have hit a wide swath of the news industry over the past year. The Washington Post, NPR, CNN and Vox Media are among the many companies hit.

An estimated 2,681 news industry jobs were lost through the end of November, according to the employment firm of Challenger, Gray and Christmas. That was more than the full years of 2022 and 2021.

[batsplat]

there is that adorable pic of a 13 year old pecco and marc, hugging him by the shoulders. pecco hadn’t become a rossi protege yet, marc recently won his title in 125, they are both so so young. like, of course pecco is going to think a senior (albeit as famous as marc was at the time) is cool and worthy of “celebrity” picture! of course marc is going to take photos with kids that ask him to!

and then they meet at the rossi ranch years later, pecco after an abysmal rookie moto3 season, but part of vr46 academy, marc as a multiple world champion in different categories. like, i’m sure they’ve crossed paths in the paddock, but it looks like the ranch was their first outside of work get-together?

i do wonder at what point did pecco stop seeing marc as this admirable motogp giant? they are co-workers/competitors now, supposedly equals. does the childish wonderment and idealization ever go away, when you are put head-to-head? yes, pecco has said that he doesn’t consider himself on marc’s level, but it does really answer the question, when marc achieves something awesome, like a fucking pole on a honda, does it fill pecco only with the sense of falling short, jealousy, frustration, or is there that tiny 13 year old pecco somewhere inside going “wow, this guy is awesome”

anon... first of all this ask is right up my street. second of all, yeah no the thirteen year old never entirely went away

to some extent obviously all riders kinda do this when they end up competing with the guys they grew up admiring. (or well in modern motogp, that's how it worked out - the competitive windows do have to be big enough, yeah? I'm not sure about the nineties premier class riders, but starting from valentino who had the biaggi poster, was a capirossi fan, an norick fan... but then also didn't get to compete directly with doohan for instance and was instead just mentored by him. valentino sticking around for so long basically Breaks this.) like I was talking in this ask about the dani/marc relationship and how when we talk about dani being marc's 'reference', it does mean something slightly different than the valentino hero idealisation. basically, it's the question of whether you think you're gonna fight that guy one day, if all goes well... because if you're little pecco, right, you're looking up to marc and want to be him, but you also want to beat him (if little pecco is feeling very brave). so marc fills the role of 'reference', the bloke who is basically always a few steps ahead of pecco - exaggerated by how precocious marc was. the role of 'hero' is of course again filled by valentino, though in this case pecco didn't actually have to meaningfully compete against his idol. the separation is a bit cleaner

and look, I doubt this ever really went as far as marc's admiration for dani. but yeah as you say: at the end of the day it's this cool superstar who is tearing up the lower categories and then is tearing up the premier class... like that's this prodigy... and then you get to be part of your actual hero's academy AND you're there when the prodigy gets invited to your hero's home!! not only is marc cool, not only is he winning everything, but also valentino clearly thinks he's fantastic... you kinda want valentino to think you are fantastic in the same way he talks about marc and looks at him... and pecco is like. seventeen at this point. great age. super impressionable. he's having a marginally better season than his absolute flop moto3 campaign but it's still!! rough! you know, so far away from this world that valentino and marc inhabit. obviously young athletes dream, obviously they have to be a bit delusional, obviously they have to believe they'll make it, but those are the kinds of harrowing years that really dent your actual belief. like god, the world of valentino and marc must have felt kinda unattainable back then...

anyway, obviously a year later marc became public enemy number one. personally, if I had to guess, I don't really think valentino has ever spoken much to his proteges about the details of the marc feud. it's the kind of thing where you maybe occasionally badmouth a guy you all hate when the kids are in the room, some dismissive comment or some slightly ugly sideswipe... but valentino did probably prefer to keep his mentees out of the whole thing and isn't giving them particularly detailed hot takes on sepang 2015. I mean, look at what luca said last year

hey, he could be lying, but is he really the type? "I'm sure he's still angry" - even that doesn't sound like he knows anything particularly specific about where his brother's at these days. if valentino hasn't spoken much about sepang 2015 with his own flesh and blood, then is he really giving long debriefs to marco bezzecchi? are you sure? of course, unlike luca, pecco does have the dubious distinction of actually being at sepang 2015, so there's always the chance he was in the room when some nasty things were being said about marc... but my sense is that all the academy riders have kind of been left to their own devices when making up their minds about the marc/valentino relationship. just probably a bit of a no-go topic on most days. and while pecco may have initially been completely on board with the marc hate, over the years his stance has mellowed to the brave and bold position of 'actually, I have other stuff to worry about'. like, this is why you don't get this weird bez-style all-over-the-place behaviour from pecco - fundamentally, he is far too sensible and far too interested in his own career to be going around seeking revenge on the behalf of his mentor. it's not like valentino really seems to expect him to either. sometimes the best thing you can do is simply try not to care that much

soooooo fundamentally you get to this place where for quite a few years, pecco really isn't thinking about marc too often I reckon... it's very much background noise - even when he's gotten to motogp, he's obviously not exactly fighting with marc from the word go. he has other stuff to worry about! then marc is gone for a bit! 2021 is kinda weird because pecco never really felt in that championship fight (I mean, maybe he thought he was idk) because he only really got going late in the season, and marc definitely wasn't in that title fight... BUT pecco got his first ever motogp win as a result of a proper great defensive ride against marc at aragon! seven overtakes and re-overtakes in the last few laps! truly some proper smart riding, anticipating where marc was going to attack and figuring out how to get him back every time. and of course, that's like... got to be one of the coolest ways possible you can get your first win? beating one of the all time greats (even if a physically impaired one) in a direct extensive duel? genuinely looking at the current grid, I'd struggle to come up with a cooler maiden win... oh I suppose zarco last year would actually be a decent shout. one of those two imo! anyway what an ego boost that must be

typed out the response to this ask on wednesday and let it *vaguely gestures* simmer a bit, but actually thursday they had pecco on that motogp podcast thingy and talked him through basically his whole career. which is one of those cases of 'not necessarily anything new, but always interesting to hear how the bloke himself puts it', and anyway it does also cover a lot of the stuff referenced in this post, would recommend. I did want to quickly bring it up because pecco does talk about aragon 2021 in that (at around 23 mins in):

Q: And the amount of pressure, for everyone who doesn't remember - it was Aragon '21, vs Marc Marquez, anti-clockwise track, everyone's expecting a certain person to win. [...] Seven times, he passes you in the last three laps, and every time you have to find something, for your first win - A: Not bad, yeah? Q: How was that feeling crossing the line, because it's your first win but it's also the last three laps of craziness that you've come through? A: Yeah, I remember that... we were prepared to fight for this victory because we work at it a lot and we were finally prepared and as soon as started the weekend I was feeling great. Marc was very strong, Fabio was very strong also... We started to race and I did the pole position and then we started to race and Marc was like always super super fast in Aragon because it's a left hander track, he's very strong in Aragon, it's his home grand prix, so... I was trying the maximum and I was there fighting with him and for me was fantastic because I was very strong in a very complicated track for me. The first - was not the first possibility to win but was one of the first and we were fighting with the maximum with the top [player?] so defeating him in Aragon was fantastic and I never could have asked more for my first victory for sure. Because some win their first victory with gap or with some luck, we fight. [...] Yeah, was fantastic.

like I said. it's a really cool win! pecco knows it's a cool win! he knows it's a cool win because it's marc! even two premier class title pecco still feels deeply aware of how special that was

*reaches up to scratch at ear in slightly self-conscious manner when saying "not bad" about beating the eight times world champion*

because it does mean something extra to beat marc, right? and that's also what this represents to pecco, as an opportunity... obviously on balance he'd very much want marc to not be in his team, because he's not an idiot and he's aware it's going to be a bit of a nightmare. that being said! of course, would there be anything cooler than for him than actually beating marc in the same team... I don't want to sound like a broken record on this topic but just to reiterate, none of the titles won post-2019 are in any way diminished by marc's absence - and fundamentally pecco must know he's a deserving champion, even if he still considers himself on a different level from valentino and marc. but of course it would mean something special to beat him! it's already meant something special to beat him in individual races! it'd mean something special if he beats him this year, older bike be damned! and it'd mean something special next year. pecco is deeply wary of marc, and rightly so, but don't take that to mean he isn't up for the fight. he always has been

weirdly enough, I do actually think being valentino's protege might help him be sensible about marc. because the thing is pecco has clearly put some thought into all of this at some point and had to decide for himself... or well, to make peace with the fact that he is not going to be the next valentino rossi - and that he doesn't really want to be. it's kinda the casey versus jorge distinction: you can be a valentino fan and admire everything he's done on-track but still very much know that valentino the persona isn't something you really want to attempt to emulate because it just isn't you, or you can hunger after attaining that kind of 'character' and popularity for yourself and find yourself disillusioned when things turn out differently. pecco's in the casey camp, minus the desire to shove valentino off the nearest cliff edge. like he says:

man wants a quiet life when he's not doing the death sport. and, y'know, marc might not have quite those stratospheric levels of popularity as valentino does... but it's fairly obvious pecco links them in his mind, which is not just about talent. they're both Characters, they're both figureheads in the sport, they're both larger than life. and maybe sometimes, deep down, someone like pecco might wish that kind of thing did come naturally to him... but if he has felt that way, then he's already kinda had to work through all that. he's valentino's successor! he's the next big italian motogp star! but he's never going to be valentino. and he wouldn't want that life, it wouldn't make him happy - and probably he looks at marc with all his drama and controversy and thinks he wouldn't really want all that either. pecco's given all of this a lot of thought, and he's still probably a bit too self-conscious and a bit too aware of all of this stuff for his own good, but that does also mean he knows his own head and where he's at when it comes to his own status in the sport. both when it comes to the character and when it comes to the talent. sure, having marc's fuck you talent would be nice, everyone would want that... but also if you're a two time premier champion, at a certain point you need a certain cockiness about your own abilities. he's spoken about how he needs a more well-settled bike than casey or marc, how he can't out-perform the bike like they can - there clearly is a lot of admiration there, still the sense of respect and awe you probably can't ever quite shake. pecco won't ever be one of those aliens. but he's had enough time to establish himself in the sport before he's had to deal with the marc threat in a more active way, has had the chance to find his place without worrying too much about marc - has been able to build up his own confidence. at the same time, pecco is still very obviously aware of just who marc is and the weight of that legacy and it shapes how he approaches fighting marc. it's pecco's admiration vying with his arrogance - and he has to hope the latter wins out. you can't be fearful of the legacy of those you're trying to beat. you have to kill your heroes, even if it's a strange flavour of hero

anyhow - one big way in which valentino does loom large here is that everyone else is aware of his rivalry with marc and how it is crucial Historical Context for the pecco/marc stuff. because pecco does have that dog in him, he's fundamentally disinterested in fighting his idol's battles and is mainly just looking out for himself. a big part of the general wariness towards marc isn't even valentino-related antipathy or just respect for his abilities, but also this kind of sense of... god, this marc thing is always going to have extra implications, will there be discourse, can there please not be discourse... he doesn't want to get into this stuff, he doesn't want to be part of the sepang 2015 reenactment society. he's pretty determined to stay clear of marc-related controversy at every turn, and generally does do a good job of not letting the undoubtedly extremely annoying marc annoy him... the only time pecco had proper marc-induced head loss was mugello last year - y'know, that whole thing when he felt impeded by marc and then slowed down long enough to give marc the chance to warm up his tyres and catch a pecco tow to the front row. like that was just head gone, the kind of thing that happens when you already find someone deeply annoying and then you kinda choose the wrong moment to get mad at them. with a bit of distance pecco may well have regretted reacting that way, like you don't really want to give marc that kind of opening. he's been way more disciplined since then, but it still opened the door

fundamentally, the less time pecco spends obsessing over marc, the better for him. pecco obviously has to be very aware of marc and wary of him, but he also can't spent too much energy on admiring him or being irritated by him or anything else. (given that valentino's descriptions of the marc/pecco rivalry do seem to frame marc as a competitor who sounds an awful lot like valentino himself, ironically valentino is quite well-placed to offer the 'try to avoid letting the guy who gets off on annoying his rivals annoy you' advice.) it's always going to be tough, isn't it, competing against your heroes, figuring out how to disentangle those past emotions from how you actually approach fighting them, how to feel comfortable enough in your own skin to not be cowed by that status... you can't get to a place where you're so admiring or respectful or intimidated that you're already beaten before the competition even starts - and to his credit pecco has shown he is both willing to stand up to the famous marc marquez as well as capable of doing so. my guess is that for him, the childhood idolisation isn't primarily expressed in a 'wow he dragged the honda to pole!!' (not least when he was using pecco's teammate to directly deny pecco). sure, perhaps you do get those knee jerk reactions of admiring the sheer craft of your rival's riding, just have to do your best not to let it affect you. but for the most part it's... really wanting to beat marc. and sometimes feeling a teensy bit insecure about just how good marc is. and really wanting to beat him. he kinda has to be sensible and talk down in his brain how special this one guy is so he doesn't do anything silly, tell himself it's just any other guy... but it's still always going to be there, hovering in the background. and god does pecco really want to beat him

[reasonsforhope]

For all the concern in recent years that U.S. democracy is on the brink, in danger or under threat, a report out Tuesday offers a glimmer of good news for American voters worried that casting a ballot will be difficult in 2024.

Put simply, the new data shows that voting in America has gotten easier over the past two decades. More voters have the ability to cast a ballot before Election Day, with the majority of U.S. states now offering some form of early in-person voting and mail voting to all voters.

"Although we often talk in a partisan context about voter fraud and voter suppression and whether voters have access to the ballot, the reality is, over the past 25 years, we've greatly increased the convenience of voting for almost all Americans," said David Becker, the founder and executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR), which authored the new report...

The data shows that, despite real efforts by some Republican-led legislatures to restrict access at the margins, the trend in the U.S. since 2000 has been toward making it easier to vote: Nearly 97% of voting-age American citizens now live in states that offer the option to vote before Election Day.

"The lies about early voting, the lies about voting machines and efforts in some state legislatures to roll back some of the election integrity and convenience measures that have evolved over the last several decades, those efforts almost all failed," Becker said. "In almost every single state, voters can choose to vote when they want to."

Forty-six states and Washington, D.C., offer some form of early in-person voting, the report tallied, and 37 of those jurisdictions also offer mail voting to all voters without requiring an excuse...

In 2000

In 2024

Infographic via NPR. If you go to the article, you can watch an animation of this map that shows voting availability in every election since 2000.

There are some political trends that show up in the data. Of the 14 states that don't offer mail voting to all voters, for instance, 12 have Republican-led legislatures.

-via NPR, March 19, 2024. Article continues below.

But maybe the more striking trends are geographic. Every single state in the western U.S. has offered some form of early and mail voting to all voters since 2004, according to the data. And those states span the political spectrum, from conservative Idaho to liberal California.

"It's really hard to talk about partisanship around this issue because historically there just hasn't been much," Mann said. "We've seen voting by mail and early in-person voting supported by Republican legislatures, Democratic legislatures, Republican governors, Democratic governors. We see voters in both parties use both methods." ...

In 2020, New York, Connecticut and Massachusetts all made changes to make voting more easily accessible, which have since partially or fully become permanent. Delaware is currently embroiled in a legal fight over whether it can implement early and mail voting changes this election cycle as well.

The South, with its history of slavery and Jim Crow laws, has long lagged behind when it comes to voting access. The CEIR data shows that, although some states have slowly started expanding options for voters, generally it is still the most difficult region for voters to cast a ballot.

As options nationwide have become more widely available, voters have also responded by taking advantage.

In the 2000 election, 86% of voters voted at a polling place on Election Day, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

In 2020, during the pandemic, that number dropped to less than 31% of voters. It went back up in 2022, to roughly half of the electorate, but was still in line with the two-decade trend toward more ballots being cast early.

...in reality, Becker says, more voting options actually make elections more secure and less susceptible to malicious activity or even human error.

"If there were a problem, if there were a cyber event, if there were a malfunction, if there were bad weather, if there were traffic, if there were was a power outage, you could think of all kinds of circumstances. ... The more you spread voting out over a series of days and over multiple modes, the less likely it's going to impact voters," he said...

-via NPR, March 19, 2024

[aly-cat-universe]

As a active duty member of the United States Navy I feel it is my duty to make it clear that I do not in anyway shape or form support the current genocide being undertaken in Palestine. It is terrible and awful and has no possible excuse.

Aaron Bushnell, active duty US Air force, age 25, self-immolated in front of the DC Israeli embassy on Sunday, February 25th as a act of extreme political protest against the genocide. In his words "My name is Aaron Bushnell, I am an active-duty member of the United States Air Force and I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I am about to engage in an extreme act of protest, but compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

Do not make the mistake of belittling this act. News articles today are flashing suicide hotlines or trying to shame him for wearing his military uniform because you aren't supposed to protest in uniform. The headlines do not mention it was an act of protest despite him making that very very clear.

I guess they could court martial his ashes if they wanted for protesting in uniform since he passed in the hospital this morning, however the uniform was part of the point. Maybe you aren't supposed to "engage in partisan activities" in uniform but having to act in support of a cause you are profoundly ethically against isn't exactly nonpartisan either.

Self immolation is a time honored historical act of extreme protest with a very high cost used for anti war and anti genocide. It has been used for centuries. Most people have likely seen the photo of the monk Which Quang Duc's self immolation during the Vietnam war. Aaron Bushnell isn't even the first person to do so in protest of the genocide in Palestine. An unidentified woman self immolated in Atlanta not long ago, though there was significantly less news coverage.

The genocide in Palestine has killed 30000 people so far and displaced 80% of their population.

Self immolation is shocking and horrifying but that is the point. Take care if you watch the video it is upsetting and disturbing- but it is supposed to be. That is the point. Bringing home the shock and horror of a fiery death as so many experience when their cities are bombed. It does not take long for a human body to burn. And every single one of these deaths, both Aaron's and every single one in Palestine was preventable.

He has been described as "extremely principled" and very kind. Rest in Power Aaron.

[malottie]

after hinting in a conversation where polearms came up that i had a personnal ranking and obtaining no response, i've come to tumblr. tumblr has my back.

weapon side of tumblr; here we go

#5! : the Naginata

a very cool and classy weapon, however it looses point for being a 1-edged blade. not even 2 edges? not the best thrusting power either. slashing isn't great against armor, and though it can kill in a hit against bare skin, maybe even gambisons, it struggles against the most basic of chainmail. pierce and blunt superiority

contenders for 5th place were also the guan dao, the chinese version with sharp bits on the opposite edge, which should net it more offensive points but they make the weapon look less neat, and they barely add any functionnality

we also have the warscythe, inward-curving and lower-class cousin of these bad boys - a simple grass scythe with the blade turned for increased range, balance, slashing power and ease of use. while the wide availabilty and humble origins are great, i simply am not a fan of the design. notable though, for an improvised weapon, a farming tool, it works well, and is deadlier than it might look

#4! : the Partisan

a fairly straightforward polearm, barely upgraded from the base that is the spear/pike, with upward hooks on the sides to catch and deflect swords. perticularly good in defense, and just a neat shape

#3! : the Guisarme

often called Billhook because it's basically a billhook stuck on a spear, the guisarme is of this category of polearms i love called "more is better". to hit someone with that and not hurt them, you'd have to really try to. spikes everywhere isn't the cleverest design, but it's effective. the backwards-curving hook would have been used to dismount cavaliers off of horseback, although i like it best for the prospect of hooking on and pulling other weapons while clashing to try and disarm your opponent. notably though, said backwards hook makes for the perfect spot to be hooked and pulled on

#2! : the Halberd

yes, the classic, THE polearm, our beloved halberd. also a partisan of "more is better" (of which the Partisan is not) with its "axehead" and big spike, the halberd is more interesting than what its popularity might posit: as seen above, 'Halberd' describes a wider range of weapons than most terms. with or without a backspike, from a normal thrusting head spike to some of the longest ever seen on a weapon, from an almost Foulge aka a warcleaver, to basically a battleaxe on a stick, the halberd is an ol' reliable and has what you need, whatever it is. probably

#Honorable mentions!

i already mentionned the guan dao and warscythe, who didn't make it into the top 5, but how could i forget the most basic of polearms, forefather of our forefathers and original pokey stick;

apparently, whether it is named spear, lance or pike depends on its size and use. spear are for footsoldiers and can even be thrown like javelins in some circumstances, seeing how they're the lightest. lances are for horseback, while pikes, the longest, are used in tight formations to form a barrage of spikes, like against cavalry

finally, the closest thing to our top 1: the Lucerne hammer

used mainly for its hammerhead, the Lucerne is, for this reason and because of its less fancy, less french name, always in the shadow of my favorite polearm:

the Bec de Corbin

from the old french for "crow's beak", our beautiful corvid inspired weapon is used primarly with its sidespike, our namesake beak. an armor destroyer and danger from all sides, the bec de corbin can pierce and crush, with a thrust as deadly as its swipe. hack away at your foes in perfect serenity with the knowledge that a concussion and three broken bones is about the most unscathed you can get out of a confrontation with a bec de corbin. smash their helmet in with blunt force or pierce their chestplate with this XL warpick, the choice is yours. however, be mindfull of this heavy duty weapon, as its weight and force can be used against you, even moreso than with other polearms, with the thrusting spike the only part that remains deadly at close range

and that concludes this! please don't come for me. i am simply a weapons enthusiast and do not deserve to die for any mistakes, omissions or personnal opinions you don't agree with present in this post. please

[girlactionfigure]

jonnydaniels

With great sadness I learnt that Holocaust Survivor Esther Brand Stamfater passed away earlier this week. She was a remarkable lady. Born in 1929 in Krasnik, Poland, she survived the Holocaust by hiding in the forests with partisans. After her miraculous survival she met another survivor born in Ryki, Poland, they got married and together were able to get to Bolivia with the hope of one day getting to Brazil, where he had family. The World Cup of 1950 in Brazil provided that opportunity, he was able to get permission to come to watch the football, whilst here he started working and convinced the officials to allow him to continue working and bring his family. Together they built a beautiful family that became incredibly active and connected to communal life in Brazil. I had the profound honor of visiting with her in April and writing a letter together with her in our Survivor Torah. Her amazing grandson wrote to me this morning “My grandma left this world on Monday. I believe that maybe her last mission was to sign the letter from the tora… thank you very much.” There are sadly now less than 300 survivors left in Brazil and fewer every single day around the world.

May her memory be a blessing.

[canmom]

canmom.art is well overdue getting updated with a lot of posts on here. it still doesn't even have the music theory series, for example. plenty of other posts, book crit and such, needs to go on there. rpg posts are woefully behind current thoughts on all that.

unfortunately this seems to be slipping into the 'bin of large imposing tasks', which i rarely open, instead apparently preferring to say something about AI or some shit, which is easy to start doing.

the habits need to change. my relationship with reading and posting on this site (and other social media feeds like youtube) is not healthy - projects I want to continue have been backburnered for months of years, new ones barely get started, my work is not doing great rn. and yet it seems to represent something I need, because I keep coming back here for many hours when I planned to do other things.

I have tried other approaches, like keeping a personal journal that nobody else will read, but somehow I come back here, maybe because I will get a number for my trouble. the exact number isn't that important, if it isn't zero - sometimes it's less than 20, sometimes it's like 60, these are about equally satisfying. the rare numbers above 100 can be pleasing, but also slightly worrying, since they are more likely to bring in someone who comes in hot with an angry disagreement.

I do however have a lot of admiration for (presumed to be) autistic people who define their own little web corner full of blog posts, fiction, art, comics, manifestos etc. etc. etc. on all of their projects and scattershot interests. Jennifer Diane Reitz is the prototypical example. Schuschinus and xrafstar are powerful examples in the artistic sphere; floraverse is a more community-shape one; qntm is a more normie-aligned one; todepond is a newer flavour; bogleech is borderline, hewing a bit close to a consistent listicle Content(TM) flavour. they might deliver fiction, essays, or some other stranger thing. sometimes the material is quite inaccessible to outsiders, or requiring immersion in an insular but devoted community, but these are not totally inaccessible - they aren't timecube style crank websites. other times it goes to great pains to lay it all out and be somewhere you can get lost, and yet can't help but have its own specific character. it must be at least a little intriguing. you should be saying 'what's the deal with this' - it must have its own deal, but the more inscrutable the deal, the better.

depending on the person, the look and feel of such sites can be aggressively saturated and high contrast blast, or at the extreme end of programmer-driven cleanness and readability. what you should not find is ads. the site is paid for by a day job, or perhaps a patreon. it is personal. it accumulates sporadically over the years, more varied than your average webcomic site, by the whims of its creator.

very often people who run such a site will have strange opinions that interject unexpectedly into their work. JDR infamously positioned herself as the expert on 'transexuality' in the early internet, presenting a very partisan medicalist account best represented in the 'scientific' are-you-trans test called the COGIATI. today I came across someone from the ratsphere called 'gwern', whose site was among the most impressively featured static sites I've encountered with some very clever hover-based interactions, but they will also randomly drop into some bizarre eugenic parenthetical about the effect of mental illness on evolutionary fitness or some other condescending shit. baffling person. this is part of the character of such websites, though. you don't get to be a weirdo on the internet without being, well, a weirdo.

if you vibe with their flavour of weirdness, finding such a site is like finding a treasure trove, and feels more like getting to know someone's soul or whatever than most other encounters on this dreadful internet. even if this is as illusory as all other parasocial relationships.

this is what I want canmom.art to be. perhaps it already approximates it. and if I can make it the main nucleus of activity, then I am less tied to one or another social network. such is the hope...

when I die, I hope my website will serve as some sort of time capsule record of what I was, a place for someone to discover what one life was animated by in the early 21st century, and ideally a trove of art to fascinate them. but it is perpetually incomplete; for all the pride I take in making it standards-compliant web engineering, it's never quite there. some known issues: the comment field breaks the responsive design causing a huge horizontal scroll on mobile. it is not loading as instantaneously as a static site should, largely due to the large web font, with a warning about layout being forced that I have not solved. most images in the animation night archives do not have alt text, and may never. there are no pages which collate tags.

[badbatchposts]

Quiet Corners of the Galaxy, Ch. 29

Relevant tags/content warnings: Crosshair/Original Female Character, Slow Burn, Enemies to Lovers, Periodic Smut, Canon-Typical Violence, Alcohol Use, 18+/Explicit

Read the full fic so far on AO3

Read previous chapters on Tumblr: Ch. 1 l Ch. 2 l Ch. 3 l Ch. 4 l Ch. 5 l Ch. 6 l Ch. 7 l Ch. 8 l Ch. 9 l Ch. 10 l Ch. 11 l Ch. 12 l Ch. 13 l Ch. 14 l Ch. 15 l Ch. 16 l Ch. 17 l Ch. 18 l Ch. 19 l Ch. 20 l Ch. 21 l Ch. 22 l Ch. 23 l Ch. 24 l Ch. 25 l Ch. 26 l Ch. 27 l Ch. 28

Chapter 29 summary: The Partisans arrive on base, and Crosshair realizes how much he still doesn't know about Dara.

Extra content warnings for this chapter: References to last chapter's smut but nothing direct.

As the Partisans’ ship began its descent to the landing pad where they were all gathered, Crosshair was not looking at Dara. He wasn’t even thinking about Dara. He definitely was not glancing over at her to see her reaction to the ship’s arrival, wondering if that was anticipation or eagerness or anxiety on her face. He wasn’t remembering her trembling in his lap, crying out his name, and lamenting that he might never get to hear that sound again.

And maybe he didn’t technically need to be here for the Partisans’ arrival on base, but the rest of the squad was here anyway so he might as well be, and Crosshair definitely wasn’t here just because Dara was here and he needed to see with his own eyes how she reacted when Gerrera came walking off the transport, if she smiled or her eyes lit up or she kept her expression carefully schooled like she always did only to sneak away with Saw later to some dark corner—

He couldn’t do this. He should just go. He was only going to end up causing trouble, and that was probably the real reason why Dara had broken things off in the first place—because working out an alliance between their two groups was too important, and she knew he would just ruin this for her.

Or maybe it was because she knew something else. Suspected, long before he did, what he had only realized he couldn’t keep denying the moment that she had told him things had to end.

Maybe, somehow, she knew that when he laid awake in his bunk at night, he didn’t always fantasize about finding ecstasy between her legs. Sometimes he just pictured staying with her afterwards, burying his nose in her hair while she slept.

Something in Crosshair’s chest had clenched tight as soon as the words had fallen from Dara’s lips the night before, panic and desperation bubbling up from deep in his belly, and it was pure muscle memory to cover it over with snark. He had proposed having sex again just to delay the inevitable, to give himself some time to figure out where he had gone wrong. She was angry that he was being possessive because of Howzer—yes, obviously he was staking his claim there—but there had to be something more.

He didn’t really know much about Dara’s past, when it came down to it. All those long years that natural-born beings had, living unregimented existences. When he thought of everything he’d managed to get up to just during the handful of shore leaves they’d had while the war raged on, he had to acknowledge that it was unrealistic to expect her sexual history to be any less extensive.

But that, surprisingly, didn’t bother him. What bothered him was the thought of anyone else having her now.

Especially if it was someone who mattered to her.

Crosshair wasn’t sure if he was convinced by her pronouncements about Saw, but the least he could do was show her that he was just as good. Could offer just as much. Better. Even if sex was all she ever needed him for.

Dara must have seen right through him, though. The way he had declared how badly he wanted to make her cum over and over was practically a neon sign pointing out that his affection had strayed beyond what she could tolerate. Not to mention how he’d lied to get her to stay on top of him, just because he wanted to sit there with her a little longer before he had to let go and never feel her like that again.

He was so pathetically obvious. In retrospect, the way she had driven him wild with her mouth seemed at best a bitterly cruel parting gift, at worst pity.

Hunter squeezed Crosshair’s shoulder as the Partisans’ ship finally landed. “Easy, vod,” he murmured.

The sniper wasn’t sure what his brother’s enhanced senses were picking up from him. Probably that the hatch wasn’t even open yet and Crosshair was already seriously considering fist-fighting Saw Gerrera just to make himself feel better.

Crosshair huffed. “I’m fine.”

“Uh-huh. Just try to behave,” Hunter replied skeptically.

With a hiss of steam, the ship’s ramp finally descended, and the Partisans had arrived.

About a dozen people in a mix of species, all clad in hodgepodge armor and equally mismatched weapons, slowly shuffled their way out into the morning sunshine of the landing platform. Dara nodded and exchanged pats on the back with each one as they passed by, murmuring her greetings. Most smiled warmly to see her, though a few leaned in with serious expressions, speaking quietly and earning a significant look from her in turn. The Partisans had sent a mixture of fighters and Dara’s intelligence specialists, and Crosshair couldn’t be sure, of those who treated her like either an old friend or a superior officer, which group was which.

One individual, however, he had no doubt was a friend, as a tiny Theelin woman with silvery-blue skin and bright blue hair squeezed Dara tightly, chattering a klick a minute.

“You said the operation would only take a few weeks and it’s been months and you let yourself be compromised and captured and we are never sending you in without backup again, and your last message was utter banthashit by the way you barely gave me any details and don’t start with me with that mission security shit I was ready to track this place down and bust you out of here myself if it came down to it you absolute—"

“Everything’s fine, Yaru,” Dara soothed. “I had it all under control.”

Yaru brightened as she released her friend, somehow immediately appeased, her sudden change in attitude liable to cause whiplash. “Well, of course you did. But I need to get you up to speed on—”

The Theelin, who had been surveying the crowd of clones as she spoke, stopped short in the middle of her sentence and lifted her gaze, drawing it up, up, up, until she met Wrecker’s eyes where he towered at least half a meter taller than her.

“Well, helloooo there,” she greeted him, drawing the words out longer than strictly necessary. She looked him up and down without an ounce of subtlety. “You’re certainly a big boy, aren’t you?”

Wrecker turned bright red and rubbed the back of his neck a little sheepishly, but still laughed and beamed at her. “Uh. Sure am!”

Dara scrubbed a hand down her face, lifting her eyes to the heavens as if begging the Maker to spare her the indignity of witnessing this. Crosshair could relate.

She sighed, gesturing between them in introduction. “Wrecker’s one of the clones who picked me up when I crash landed. Yaru works comms and tech for me. Can we dispense with this until after you’ve taken more than five steps on planet, maybe, Yaru?”

The woman gasped in mock outrage. “Is that all I am to you, Dara? An esteemed colleague? And here I brought some of your things from base. That’s the last time I try to do a nice thing for you.” Yaru shoved a pack into Dara’s hands, tilting her head back dramatically and resting the back of her hand against her forehead as she stomped away, faking sobs, the effect of which was almost immediately undermind when she paused in order to wink at Wrecker as she passed by.

Dara shook her head, an amused smile playing at her lips that made Crosshair’s chest ache, before she caught a glimpse of the final person descending the ramp and her expression turned serious once more.

Saw Gerrera had piercing blue-green eyes in a severe, scarred face that his unkempt beard and buzzed head did little to soften. His demeanor was somehow even harsher than Crosshair remembered. It had been two standard years since he had seen the Partisan leader, and through the haze that permeated all his memories of that time under the influence of the inhibitor chip, he could still recall the simultaneous contempt and foreboding that he had felt when Saw had warned them that a civil war was coming.

Crosshair wondered how the rebel had seen what was happening so early on, when they themselves were still floundering. Though he had thought Gerrera was simply an arrogant insurgent at the time, destined to be destroyed, the rebel had been right, in the end. The Batch needed to pick a side, and shortly after their encounter, they had.

Unfortunately, Crosshair had not been on the side the rest of his squad had chosen at first. But he was here now.

Dara nodded at her leader, greeting him no more or less than she had the rest of her comrades—to Crosshair’s quiet joy—but then furrowed her brow at his glare.

“Saw. Did something happen?”

“We had a stowaway,” he growled.

Dara, confused, looked beyond him deeper into the interior of the ship. Suddenly, her eyes lit up, and she smiled, her expression radiating warmth. It was dazzling, like staring directly into a star, and Crosshair felt his chest ache again.

She’d never looked at him like that. From where he stood, he couldn’t see who made Dara shine like the night sky, and maybe he’d been wrong about Saw all along—maybe someone else was the reason she’d ended things with him. And how could he possibly compete with anyone who had an effect on her like that?

The moment felt impossibly long, far longer than it could have been, before the person came into view, and Crosshair’s fragile and confused emotional state hurtled into the next system when he caught sight of a sullen teenager.

The boy couldn’t have been much older than Omega. He had rich copper skin and dark, wavy hair, but his eyes were a strange milky-gray, pupils barely pinpricks. He blinked in the sunlight, gaze flicking uncertainly between Dara and Saw as he shifted from foot to foot. Dara folded her arms and scowled at him, but her eyes gave her away, still twinkling with happiness.

“What, I’m gone for a few months and suddenly you’re too good to give me a hug?”

Relief washing over his features, the boy took the last few steps at a run, practically tackling Dara in his eagerness. “I thought you’d be mad,” he breathed. “Saw was.”

Dara drew away from him, grinning. “I could never be mad at you for coming to see me.”

The boy frowned. “But I left my post.”

“Well, it’s about time you gave me a field report, isn’t it?” She ignored Saw’s displeasure entirely as she looked the teen up and down for a minute. “Dank farrik, kid, how much taller did you grow?”

The boy only shrugged before he glanced out at the group of clones and realized they had an audience. Dara patted his back in support when he drew back.

“Boys, this is Brith, my best field agent. If you want to know everything there is to know about a target or an Imperial base, all you have to do is drop him in town for a few weeks and wait.”

Brith shrugged a little self-consciously as the men smiled and nodded at him. Omega caught his eye with an excitable wave, and Crosshair was certain she’d be interrogating him, wide-eyed, about his adventures before the hour was up. Crosshair himself, though, wasn’t sure exactly what to make of it—Dara had certainly never mentioned anything about a kid before, and he couldn’t help but wonder how much else she hadn’t told him.

Dara stood aside for a moment, murmuring quietly to Brith, while Rex stepped forward to clasp Gerrera by the hand. “Good to see you again, Saw,” the Captain welcomed him.

“You too, Rex.” Saw drew himself up as he returned the gesture, surveying the crowd of clones. When his gaze alit on Crosshair and the rest of Clone Force 99, his eyes darkened. “Just wish I could say the same about all your men. You know…” he took a step toward the sniper, arms crossed, expression murderous. “I promised myself if I ever saw you again then I’d even the score.”

Crosshair smirked. “I suppose you could try,” he drawled.

Saw addressed the Captain over his shoulder without looking away, fists clenching.“I’ve got to be honest, Rex—if we’re supposed to be trusting each other, having him on your side isn’t doing you many favors,”he spat.

Crosshair surveyed him quickly, already sizing up his weak points in case it came down to a brawl. Behind him, he felt his brothers stiffening. Wrecker loomed menacingly over his shoulder while Tech shuffled Omega behind them, to her muffled protests.

“Hmm,” Crosshair sneered. “I would give you a list of all the Imperials I’ve killed to prove myself, but I’ve already lost count.”

“Can’t say it would change my mind,” Saw retaliated. “Betrayed the Republic, betrayed your squad, betrayed the Empire…doesn’t seem to me like you care much which side you’re killing.”

Hunter stepped up beside Crosshair. “You’re gonna want to back off, Saw,” he growled. The Sergeant could tell his brother to behave all he liked, but when it came down to it, Crosshair couldn’t help but appreciate how quickly he’d back him up anyway. Both sides were preparing for a fight now, the tension ratcheting up until the air was thick with it, and the part of Crosshair that whispered that he was doing exactly what Dara didn’t want him to do warred with the element that would rather let his feelings out through his fists.

When the woman herself intervened, standing between Saw and Crosshair and glaring at each of them in turn, the sniper almost found himself shrinking back a little.

“Far be it from me to put a stop to this little pissing contest,” Dara interrupted, “but I’ve already had this discussion.” She turned toward Saw, arms folded. “And I’ve made my peace with it. You don’t have to trust him, but you should at least trust my judgment.”

Saw worked his jaw, still glowering, his eyes darting between Dara and Crosshair for a moment.

“You’ll vouch for him?” he finally asked.

Dara glanced back at Crosshair, expression unreadable, and he felt a traitorous flip in his stomach. It was ridiculous, how his nerves were steel in the face of what very well could’ve escalated into violence, only to wobble the minute she looked at him.

She nodded. “I trust him. We wouldn’t be doing this otherwise.”

She trusted him. Surely, she didn’t mean that—she had told him the opposite herself. Dara was just trying to appease Saw, to get this alliance to work. Inexplicably, Crosshair suddenly noticed that the bruises he’d left on her neck had disappeared, and, his stomach churning with all the jealousy and anticipation and disappointment and everything else he’d been subjected to over the last rotation, he wondered if she’d also bothered to waste bacta on erasing the lovely, succulent marks he’d dedicatedly inscribed over her breasts. He hoped she hadn’t.

Saw didn’t relax even an iota, still chewing stubbornly on her affirmation, but most of his fighters did, sensing that the moment had passed. From the corner of his eye, Crosshair saw Hunter signal the rest of the squad to stand down.

Rex placed a firm hand on Gerrera’s shoulder. “The Empire’s hurt all of us, Saw,” the Captain avowed quietly. “It’s time to work together.”

Finally, Saw tore his gaze from Dara, shooting Crosshair one last mistrustful scowl. “We can do that. At least, for now.” He turned to Rex, gesturing with his chin. “Lead the way, Captain.”

As the clones and Partisans followed their leaders from the landing pad toward the briefing room, Crosshair was close enough to hear Dara and Saw’s quiet conversation.

“Where’s Ryndi?” Dara asked, glancing over the group behind them as if expecting to see another face there.

Saw tensed his jaw almost imperceptibly. “She had to stay behind on base to keep an eye on her patients. We had some injuries during an operation on Eriadu.”

“You infiltrated Tarkin’s compound without me?” To the casual observer, Dara was looking at Saw with mild disapproval, but Crosshair could tell she was furious, her nostrils flaring ever-so-slightly. He scoffed internally, thinking that Saw’s boldness must really outweigh his intelligence if he thought he could take on the Imperial governor in his own base.

“It couldn’t be helped,” Saw asserted. “There was a summit of high-ranking Imperial officers that we were targeting. I didn’t want to pull you out from here.”

Dara was gritting her teeth and seemed to want to object, but appeared to decide to bite her tongue. “Well did you at least complete the objective?” she asked instead.

Saw gave her a look. “Do you think I would have this expression right now if we had managed to take out Tarkin?” With that, he caught up with Rex at the head of the group, leaving Dara shaking her head in frustration behind him.

Crosshair was beginning to see where some of Dara’s hesitation in describing her relationship with Saw had come from during his interrogation the night before. Perhaps it was more complicated than he had thought. Though a small part of him was still ringing with a stubborn, certainly misplaced hope—she trusts me, she trusts me, she trusts me—he couldn’t be sure if that was a good thing for him.

Tag list: @stardusthuntress @skellymom @megmegalodondon @somewhere-on-kamino @morerandombullshit @zahmaddog @flaming-dumpster

Read next chapter

[mightyflamethrower]

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a landmark compromise between Democrats and Republicans, the Senate is set to vote on a new anti-murder bill that will limit the allowed murders to only 5,000 per day.

The bill will also send $60 billion to Ukraine, $15 billion to Israel, and another $100 billion to Iran.

"Democrats wanted more murder, and we wanted less. We feel this is a reasonable compromise," said Senator Mitch McConnell to reporters before staring blankly at the cameras for 10 minutes straight. "Every day once we hit 5,000 killings, that's it — no more killing! And we're gonna be strict about that."

"Just think of all the additional killings above 5,000 per day that will be prevented by this important legislation."

Some conservatives in Congress have challenged the language in the bill, suggesting that zero murders would be a preferable number. "I dunno, do we have to have murder at all?" said a confused Ted Cruz. "Like, murder is bad and stuff. Maybe zero would be a better number than 5,000." Cruz was quickly condemned by every journalist on the hit show Morning Joe as a shameful partisan.

At publishing time, senators had reassured their biggest pro-murder donors that the bill wouldn't solve anything.

[greatwyrmgold]

So, apparently Biden started building more of Trump's border wall back in October. Hardly anyone talked about it, partly because American liberals don't like bringing up similarities between Democrats and Republicans, partly because the war crimes in Palestine were distracting sensible people around the same time. But now that I know, I have stuff to say about it.

Biden promised not to build the wall, he said it won't do anything. His administration says we need to build more walls "in order to prevent unlawful entries into the United States in the project areas". Biden says he's only building any of it because he's legally obligated to, because Congress wouldn't undo the budget appropriations; he then waived dozens of federal laws so the construction wouldn't be slowed down by concerns or lawsuits about endangered species, pollution, indigenous burial sites, drinking water, etc.

One of the articles I read pointed out that barriers at the US/Mexican border have historically been a bipartisan project. Clinton ordered a few fences, Bush and Obama a bunch more. It wasn't a partisan issue until Trump built his campaign and political identity around The Wall; I guess it's not partisan any more, either.

Maybe Blue is still better than Red, but they're working hard to make that as much of a technicality as possible. The Democrats are at best spineless accomplices to the Republicans, and at worst willing collaborators. Some individual Democrats are worth supporting, but do your research.

"Vote Blue no matter who" just gives Democrats more leeway to get away with whatever they want, so long as they are infinitesimally less vile than Republicans.

Links to the news articles I read before writing this can be found below, if you're interested.

Probably the best summary from the articles I read:

An article with a completely different focus, which actually lists all 26 laws Biden is breaking waiving for the barriers' construction:

Two articles that are pretty similar to each other and the first article, but each focus on some different details:

There was technically a fifth article, but it was basically just quotes and talking points repeated ad nauseum in the other articles.

[limerental]

ficletvember 2024 - day 14

gascon/twn!jaskier

Arriving with Geralt's company to Queen Meve's army, Jaskier immediately hones in on Gascon as a potential bardic muse

The Duke of Dogs, they called him, which initially brought to mind some dull and stuffy huntsman, the sort of noble who kept a kennel of caged hounds and let them run to hunt trespassers on his land more than as game. 

Jaskier, personally, was more of a cat person. Yes, yes, he'd dedicated a good chunk of his life to musing over wolf-heavy metaphors, but he'd written all that before and then some. After their company's dreary slog all the way from Brokilon to the Yaruga had resulted in not much more than near death experiences and a lot of bug bites, he needed a new muse, something inspired and fresh.

Armed with a fresh stack of parchment gifted to him by a kind old sorceress in the infirmary (he hadn't suffered a scratch during the Battle of the Bridge but it seemed unfair that everyone else got cooed at and fawned over.), Jaskier set out to dictate… something. 

His first impression of the Duke turned out to be wildly inaccurate.

The Queen's partisan army was an eclectic bunch, largely made up of commoners and former bandits with a handful of career soldiers and knights and even a company of dwarves. The Duke, who introduced himself as Gascon, fit right in to the ragtag army, rakishly handsome and gaudily-dressed and loudly animated. Jaskier first saw him leading something like a strange parade around the camp or maybe it was meant to be a training exercise.

He found himself tapping out a melody on his thigh, his hand itching to snatch up his quill and slap down a sheaf of parchment on any available surface to begin to compose lyrics about his latest canine subject. The howling and whining was a bit much, but artistic liberties and all that.

“What are you doing?” asked Cahir, whose slumped shoulders had proven a decent surface to write on. 

“Hold still, would you? You'll smudge the ink.”

Cahir sighed and held still long enough for Jaskier to scribble a verse, but given he really didn't know a thing about his muse, he crumpled and scrapped the page.

“Nevermind, nevermind,” he mumbled tossing the parchment to the wind. “Do any of you know which tent is this Duke of Dogs?”

“Jaskier,” warned a weary Geralt, who probably should have still been in the infirmary. “Don't.”

“It's simple artistic curiosity, is all!”

Well and all the tromping through the wilderness lately had left him a bit pent up. It couldn't be helped that he was a man of very particular taste and a very active libido.

After dark, he found his way to the Duke's tent easily enough. The Strays had built an impressive bonfire in the center of their camp, and he needed only to follow the chorus of yelps and howls and then slip into the tent with the most snarling dog banners hung above the door.

Jaskier promptly found himself with a knife to his throat.

“Ah! Well, hello, good evening, mind the throat, would you? I'm a simple bard, you see. I'm here for a song.”

The steely-eyed, snarling bandit melted back into the easy-going Gascon, who laughed and lowered the knife and clapped Jaskier on the shoulder. A stiff wariness didn't quite leave him, but it was war time after all. Jaskier was a stranger, if an entirely harmless and endearing one.

“Ah, you're tha’ little jester from th’ Witcher’s company. Careful, lest someone nastier tear your throat t’ bits.”

Shaking off the insult to his livelihood– jesters required far less finesse and worldly knowledge than bardhood– Jaskier shook off the little hum of aroused adrenaline that the dagger to the throat had inspired and offered his most seductive grin.

“My dear Duke–”

“It's Gascon.”

“Ah yes, well, in my line of work one must seize inspiration where they can, and I've had a bit of a dry spell lately. You sir may have daggers and all that but my only weapons in the fight against the recent injustice and ugliness are my quill and my lute and my voice and so– I'd like to write a ballad about you or at least–”

“Fancy a lay then?”

“Oh yes please,” Jaskier said in a rush, already stripping out of his travel-worn clothing.

The tent was plainly-furnished and lit by several candles, and the Duke proved to be an alarmingly competent kisser. He was lean and devilish, body dark with hair and marked equally with ink and scars. 

Though Gascon was a head shorter, they were equally matched in all else including enthusiasm, and Jaskier soon fell into the give and take of his favorite sort of love-making, switching leads as easily as a dance. Or a swordfight, he supposed, amused by the thought.

It was only as their lusty ardour cools, sitting together on the rug with a bottle of wine shared between them that Jaskier thought to wonder why the leader of the Strays hadn't joined them in their revelry. 

His expression was almost somber, lost in shadow. Perhaps he was simply tired. The battle yesterday had been hard-fought and bloody, a hairsbreadth from Nilfgaardian victory and the end of the Rivian-Lyrian army.

“I plan to write about all this, you know,” he said. “It's history in the making. The words I dictate today may be all that's left to tell the tale one day if you– Well that is to say–”

“If we lose th’ war, you mean,” said Gascon, only a mockery of his bright grin left. “You’ll write a pretty song once th’ lot of us are long dead.”

“Well. I'm still holding out for a happy ending myself,” said Jaskier. “For my company and yours. But I'm only a bard. I can shape how the story's remembered, but that's all.”

“Nearly lost her.” Gascon's voice was no more than a whisper, utterly changed from his public bravado from earlier.

Jaskier thought of Milva. The blood, how pale she had looked lifted in Regis’ arms.

There was little doubt who Gascon was thinking of. Queen Meve had not allowed the fresh wound that sliced her face to slow her down in her command of the camp, but had the blow struck that much higher… Had their company not happened upon the bridge at all…

It was no use muddling through the possibilities, the could have been, should have beens.

Instead, Jaskier, shrewd as ever when it came to such things, leaned close to pour Gascon another brimming glass of wine.

“Queen Meve, eh?” he asked in the most suggestive tone he could manage.

The hardened former brigand flushed red to the tips of his ears.

[th3-0bjectivist]

Chipper and Romi, A Love Story (and page update w/ Springin’ Chip)

Heya Tumblr folks, its page mascot Springin’ Chip here, and its autumn! And I’m in loooooove. Met a young woman. Her name is Romi. Young love is painful, folks. It’s supposed to teach you lessons that’ll help you adjust as an adult. And let me tell ya, there’s lots of pain in this relationship! So far, Romi and I enjoy playfully fighting in the park, late-night sleepovers, and deep talks about our future and the nature of the universe. It’s good to find something positive in 2024! I hope you had little specs of happiness this year as well. ANYWAYS, onto the brief page update.

So, folks, we’re going to be taking election week entirely off, maybe two weeks. When we get back, we’ll have three more songs to post and a few more paintings/drawings in 24’. Why take election week off you ask?? Well, primarily because partisan politics completely ruined Tumblr this year. It literally sucked all the fun out of everything and turned some usually normal people who we follow(ed) into shrieking, insufferable, irrational, pants-shitting dipshits. There’s nothing more useless than keyboard activism, and when we log in to Tumblr, we’re mostly looking for something that helps us mentally escape the harsh reality we’re living in. I mean, folks, as a dog, I really couldn't care less how you vote. What you do in the voting booth, just like in your bed, is none of my damn business. I followed your blog because I think you create exceptional art, or take excellent pictures, or generate excellent poetry, or make quality sounds, or because you have some hidden X factor, or because I think you’re a goddamned bona fide genius. I do NOT come to Tumblr for politics for several reasons, but mostly because… no one on here is a political expert and I’d rather not know how you vote at all. I’d rather you keep me guessing at how you vote and keep that to yourself. If for no other reason, because your politics matter to you, and I appreciate a bit of mystique.

Th3-0 wants me to tell you he early voted in North Carolina today. He said it was easy; he showed up early, he’d done his research beforehand, so he knew how he wanted to vote, it took like ten minutes. It was like, zip-zip-zip. The people at the voting site were friendly, the ballot process was streamlined. You don’t need to know how th3-0bjectivist votes. All you need to do is stop telling others how to vote and go out and vote. If you’re with friends or family that haven’t voted, tell them, “Okay c’mon! We’re all gonna go vote now!” Stop whining, stop whinging, and just go and vote folks. These last six months have been exhausting and demoralizing for the entire US. And if your side loses, learn how to lose with grace. Don’t let them see you sweat and think to yourself; what did my side do wrong to lose this election!?

Depending on the seismic reaction after the election, it could be up to two weeks until this blog is back up folks. Just please, grip fast to your mental health, hold your nose, and treat each other with respect. This year has been crazy enough. There’s no need to get crazier. th3-0bjectivist’s blog will be back for about two months and then after that we’re gonna take a LONGASS break from this platform to recover from the wretched, traumatizing, ass-ramming partisan shitstorm that was 24’.

Alt-links below in case you miss th3-0.

Stop bitchin' and just vote, Springin’ Chip

*****

The 0bjectivist on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC2sONH8IwzL_2sZie0ZNSnw/

I’m also on BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/uvKfJpNkzkIL/

FULL ART GALLERY on Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/th3_0bjectivist_gallery/ <—- This just in, Instagram is for selfie-takers and living-my-best lifers! Delete your account early, just like early voting! We deleted our account this year, and we don't miss it!

FULL ART GALLERY on DeviantArt at: https://www.deviantart.com/th3-0bjectivist/gallery

[keepmeinmind-01]

Hello! So interested in exchange student AU and the dogs, but I HAVE to ask about plug in baby because that is giving me a weird image in my head.

thank you so much for asking @tina-mairin-goldstein :D

I'll go through them! I did a little too much writing last week and haven't managed much at all this week. No idea whether I need to rest and recharge or just get a bit more inspired LOL. But I can share some snippets—I write in chunks in the first draft stage so they're a bit everywhere, and these bits might not even make it into the final :')

Exchange Student AU

This is actually the prompt you gave me about a little Newt seeing Theseus and Percy together and being his accepting self!

A Second Person? Visiting the Scamander household?  Well—Second Person wasn’t trailing in. He seemed very confident and self-contained. In fact, Newt has always thought Theseus was exactly like that; but next to this shorter, dark-haired stranger, Theseus suddenly looked coltish and far too smiley. Newt clicked through the settings and accidentally zoomed in far too much on the stranger’s expensive-looking scarf.  Why does he want to spend time with Theseus? Newt mused, as most seven-year-olds with older siblings sometimes do: sure that his brother could hang the moon and stars if he tried, but chagrined by the pure bossiness their relationship seemed to entail enduring. 

Thesival Dogs

It's a one-shot (with several chapters LOL, I don't know if that stops it being a one-shot anymore). I started drafting this in a frenzy over four days because I felt bad about how kmim Theseus never really finds a partner he's comfortable with again. Losing those feelings of intimacy and trust forever hurt me. So, it's set sometime after the end of the election in kmim and kind of diverges from the rest of the outline I have planned for that long story. Theseus and Percival get into a sort of casual-sort of not relationship complicated by their respective traumas. When Percival accidentally triggers Theseus while they're working on a case together, they have to get through it and figure out how to re-negotiate the physical stuff. It goes well—well enough that Theseus accidentally summons his Patronus (a borzoi). But after Percival summons his (a German Shepherd) too, as a joke, the dogs stick around, so they spend the next day figuring out how to make them dispel and thinking about their relationship.

Nearer the start:

Each like a damning indictment—because of him, it could never be long term. Because it’s you, Theseus imagined, because it’s you, and it’s me, they could tangle their broken bodies together, but they couldn’t fix them.

Nearer the middle:

"Tell me how you imagined it," Percival demanded, voice roughening.  "I, ah..." Theseus faltered, uncharacteristically flustered by the heat kindling behind Percival's eyes. Get it together, Scamander. “Mmh?” “Er…” Theseus racked his brains, but it’d been weeks since he’d had a vaguely sexy thought. I thought it’d be nice seemed like a mood killer for someone as skilled in talking filth as Graves. And I love you was all of the steps too far. “You…hmm. You would…um. Or maybe I...or maybe not.”

Plug in Baby

This is named for a song by the band "Muse", because I always end up doing song lyric titles. I do have four other songs that fit wayyy better with the themes, plot points, etc, but even though Muse said they forgot what the song was about because they were high (LOL), there's something particularly good about this as a title imo. This is my dark!thesleta fic, where Leta joins Grindelwald at a rally and Theseus follows her. It's set in a world where Grindelwald and Dumbledore are much more organised and there are very partisan 'sides'. Theseus is less certain, trying to convince her to leave, but when something happens that makes him fall apart, Grindelwald has enough and brainwashes/reconditions him using a mixture of drugs and magic. The 'character is turned into a weapon against the ones they love' trope, basically. It goes downhill from there, and involves Newt, Tina, Grindelwald, and Dumbledore, focusing mostly on Theseus, Leta, and Newt. The ending is a bit bittersweet, but I'd say positive, given what happens. I'm curious what the image in your head was! Hopefully, no actual babies? XD

I have no big chunks of text for this one. Even though it's all planned in detail, it's being written in spotty chunks, so here are a few lines I've jotted down:

"You're getting better at this," Gellert said, removing the needle. His voice was approving, almost fond. "Hardly even a flinch anymore." How much did he require tonight? Surely his tolerance was not increasing this quickly.

Power still crackled through his veins like lightning seeking ground. He felt half-feral, drunk on destruction. Unstoppable.

[sanctificationinprogress]

dear christian never-trumpers,

i am voting for trump, and i am christian.

i won't go so far as to say that one cannot be truly a christian if they vote for harris, just as i hope people won't go so far as to say one can't be christian if they vote for trump.

i think either camp of christians must have their reasons, and they arrived at deciding who they would vote for with some form of logic.

however, i just wanted to explain why choosing trump is the better logical choice for christians.

to start off, i would have to concede that trump is a sinner. he is a public figure who has publicly fallen to all categories of sin that people can: pride of life, fear of man, and lust of the flesh. So he is an adulterer, unable to control is tongue, and (depending on who you talk to) a felon- among other flaws. And these things are not the type of christian qualities one would hope for in their country's leader. i understand that.

but let's consider this... if back in the early days of israel, and instead of having their kings appointed by God through prophets, people actually voted for their leaders. would the christians today have voted for david? after all, he too was an adulterer and even worse he was a murderer... 1st degree murder- where he had motive, planned it out, and executed his plan to have uriah killed.

trump wasn't as evil as this. but we name our kids after king david. we echo the sentiment that david was a man after God's own heart. really? a person as flawed as david? by the same standards the modern christian holds trump, maybe david wouldn't have been elected king.

you see, trump, while he is a sinner, he will enact policies and are less anti-God than our other option- harris. And while seeing or hearing about trump's outlandish tweets and soundbites might grieve one's soul, you can turn off all that noise. however, the policies of a harris administration cannot be turned off by avoiding social media or partisan news outlets.

what i mean is, if you vote for harris and she wins, then no matter where you go, your wife, your daughter, your girl friends, your mom, all the women you care about will have to share spaces with men claiming to be women. you can't turn that off.

you will be supporting the already prevalent sentiment that a baby in the womb is the woman's body... maybe it isn't a person at all, or is of less value... wasn't Jesus the champion of the powerless? wasn't Jesus the one who gave worth to the people thought of as worthless by the world?

your children, if you choose to use public school, will have teachers who are mandated to divide your family. everything regarding their questions about gender and sex, that will arise because the teachers are mandated to teach it in the health portions of instructional time, will not be shared with you. it is a state mandate, where the teachers will be criminalized and lose their license if they share this confidential information with a child's parents. so you don't know if your child is watching a video illustrating different forms of love which includes same-sex couples and transgender people and actually being encouraged to explore and normalize experimentation of gender fluidity. is this biblical? what did the Bible say about causing children to stumble again?

you can't turn any of that off if harris wins.

so what i'm getting at is your vote isn't just for the person, but for the ideology that is ushered in.

if the israelites didn't want david, they were surrounded by plenty of other powerful nations willing to take control and usher in their anti-God ideologies of the time- the philistines, the amalekites, the assyrians, the babylonians, etc. maybe one of those nation's rulers was more charming than david and didn't have a rap sheet that included adulterer and 1st degree murderer on it... would you have voted one of them in david's place then?

if you wouldn't have voted in an anti-God ideology back then, then why would you vote an anti-God ideology now?

moreoever, we know what happened to israel whenever they got a king that followed an anti-God ideology because he was seduced by the false promises of the gods of other nations. will you too be seduced by the false promises of the gods of the democratic party?

[pranklinfierce]

This was a random question that popped into my mind. What was the relationship between m🚐b and John C Calhoun?

Thank u

Unfortunately, I am not the resident expert on either of these men, but I'll do my best to answer this, even if my answer lacks the detail that could be expected if I were more read on them specifically. I like your bowl of aliens.

They are the two men who were vice president to Jackson under his two terms, obviously. Calhoun was disposed of (or, rather, resigned, disposing of himself) after the Petticoat Affair and grievances following the Nullification Crisis. Van Buren was already involved in the administration at this point, as he was Secretary of State and later Minister to England, and was the major advocate for Jackson's election in the north. After Calhoun's resignation (which was quite close to the end of the term), it was known Van Buren would be put on the 1832 ticket as his replacement, and he was later confirmed by the Democratic National Convention. So, just as is the case between Calhoun and Jackson, their relationship was dependent on where you look in the timeline.

I don't believe they were ever friendly, but there were plenty of times, early on, when they had to collaborate. For instance, Van Buren, always a maneuverer, sought Calhoun's alliance in his aims to aggregate the Democratic party, already becoming factious. Additionally, both with an interest in Jackson's 1828 election, they pursued his election, though in different regions. To my understanding, the short-lived positive dynamic was purely political.

A lot of Van Buren's alliance with Jackson was the cause of the growing resentment between him and Calhoun. Many of the things you can think of as reasons why Calhoun and Jackson hated each other were true for Van Buren too, except Calhoun maybe received fewer murder threats from Van Buren lol. Van Buren's show of respect towards the Eatons both elevated him further into prominence while making him the enemy of Petticoat agitators. But more importantly, and less isolated within Jackson's cabinet interests, their differences in regard to sectional interests and states' rights made their relationship politically contentious. Calhoun's support of Nullification was adverse to Van Buren's unionist interests. In a personal sabotage, Calhoun was the one Senate vote to deny the confirmation of Van Buren's appointment of Minister to England (basically, this happened due to a strategic move by Van Buren to resign his SoS position so Jackson could fire and reorganize his cabinet with less opposition.) Another personal sabotage was Calhoun's attempt, early on, when being accused by Jackson of speaking ill of his Florida escapades, to blame Van Buren for conspiracy. These letters are really funny, honestly (they're free on Google Play Books and pretty entertaining if you have the stamina for long-winded bickering that reads like the 1800s equivalent of a YouTuber dramatically revealing "receipts" for an accusation made against them. Calhoun released the letters in an attempt to defend himself. He only makes reference to Van Buren once, though, so they're more relevant in regards to the broader feud than his blame of Van Buren.) They clashed in more minor respects regarding partisan issues like states' interests and internal improvements, etc., but that's all I know of.

Van Buren and Calhoun experts may have more specifics, and may correct anything I've said. But the general impression (TLDR) I get of their dynamic was that they were technical political allies when in the mutual interest of an end, and enemies along the same trajectory of Calhoun's split with Jackson.

[dynared]

While Robert Kirkman and friends have made it clear they have no immediate plans for characters outside of US G1 for now, I'm once again pondering what might be done in the near or far future with certain characters. Admittedly some of this is also because I know there are certain characters Earthspark won't touch for anything, even if they might have some use there, because Mae Catt was told she couldn't make them gay couples.

Anyway, my rambling will start with one character that was screwed over hard in IDW and really deserves more of a chance to shine, especially given how nice his Haslab and third-party figures are. I'll probably do this for other characters later. So let's start with the biggest victim of IDW's writing - Star Saber.

Star Saber is someone who got a REALLY bad look in IDW thanks to his characterization being based on the one from James Roberts's shitty fanfic, to the point Hasbro has essentially done an about-face with him everywhere else. Knowing that Hasbro won't return to the insane religious fundamentalist that he was mutilated into is already a relief. Still, there is something to the idea that if Optimus and presumably Rodimus aren't going to be gone for volumes at a time as the leader of the Autobots, there may be another role Star Saber can fit into in the Energon Universe.

Swordsman/Master of Metallikato -

One of the ideas in Transformers lore that has existed since the Furman run of the 1980s but has surprisingly never been elaborated on, even in IDW, was the idea of Metallikato. Metallikato is supposed to be a mysterious Cybertronian martial art thought lost to the ages, until the Decepticon Bludgeon began bragging to everyone within earshot that he was a master of the art, a combination of bare-handed fighting techniques and swordplay. While on occasion you get a Bot or Con who claims training in it, like Drft for example, it rarely gets elaborated on in any meaningful way.

Maybe it's my love of martial arts movies talking, but the idea of an ancient martial art in the tradition of kung fu movies being used to turn the tide of a civil war has a lot of potential. Star Saber being a master of Metallikato along with others, wondering if he should lend his blade to a partisan cause, only to find that bots like Bludgeon and Drift have made that choice for him. From there there's a ton of ideas that could sprawl from that, both sides wanting to train new Metallikato practitioners, the philosophical issues with lending a blade to a partisan cause, or the idea that a master would want power for themselves.

As an aside, if he were to show up in Earthspark, Saber training one of the Terrans in the mastery of Metallikato seems like it would be a pretty natural fit. Then again, considering what the rejected script with Drift looked like, I doubt they were entertaining such a notion.

The Single Dad in the galaxy -

While Star Wars may have abused the utter hell out of the framework of Lone Wolf and Cub since The Mandalorian became a hit (Bad Batch and Obi-Wan both try to replicate the core idea to much less success) one of the bigger parts of Star Saber's original characterization (which was ignored by IDW like everything else) was that he was essentially a father with an adopted child. A human child, named Jan.

The second episode of Transformers Victory actually has Star Saber doing paperwork to get Jan into a private school.

While, as noted before, the idea of a lone warrior traveling with a kid has been used a lot in recent years, there are definitely a lot of ways this could be taken that would be new to Transformers. The human element (or another alien if the EU goes that route) forcing Star Saber to interact with other people a lot more than he would have to otherwise. Hard to be the straight-laced, serious sword guy when you're worrying about your adopted kid being able to socialize with others and get an education. At the same time, there's definitely a lot of comedy to be milked out of such a setup. You just know the other Bots would groan whenever Saber shows pictures of his son.

The Super Robot Parody/Reconstruction -

Simon Furman, the quintessential Transformers writer guy, has been writing a lot of stuff for the mobile game Transformers: Earth Wars (and he also helped to write the script for the Earthspark game). In it, he has Star Saber as an active character, but as something of a worrywart/blowhard whose speeches about JUSTICE and other platitudes oftentimes rub his Autobot compatriots the wrong way. Then he fights and everyone is quickly reminded why he's the head instructor of the Autobot's War Academy.

As I mentioned in another post, the idea of a super robot parody is not one that Transformers has ever really dealt with despite having super robot elements in past shows, and Bang Brave Bang Bravern showing the potential of such a concept. Granted, I don't see Star Saber being nearly as...affectionate as Bravern can be, but the fact that Transformers hasn't played around with this parody concept outside of some flavor text in a mobile game few want to whale for is something that you think would have potential. Is he genuine about it or is this something he thinks is cool? How do the other Bots and Cons react? How do the humans? And what happens when they underestimate him and the end result has them lose to the weirdo?

Like I said before, I get not wanting to have the straight leader archetype if you're not planning to get rid of Optimus or Rodimus. But with the religious extremist angle having been rejected by just about everybody, there are ways to make Star Saber work in the Energon Universe and other animated material.