#one the previous owners must have been a miner | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

worldofvanatas · 3 years ago

Text

When Two are One: On the Cultuurgroepen of Eduran Society

By Prof. Leiden Tildman

Translated into Interspeak by Dr. Maria Shotosotobosko

It has been said by many that Edury is a nation of opposites. Ecoralian/Eduran language but Sedic law, urban life but agrarian dreams, surrounded by monarchy (well, mostly,) but staunchly republican, living for pomp but austere in dress. This is perhaps best shown in their cultuurgroepen, or culture-groups. Namely, the working-class, urban, and older Tuinmannen, or gardeners, and the middle-class, suburban, and slightly younger bestuurderen, or drivers.

What they aren’t

Now, it should be noted that these two are not distinct groups, but subcultures of the larger native Eduran zeitgeist. They both eat the same food, they both celebrate the same holidays, etc. Two Edurans, one tuinmann and one bestuurer, from the same town of the same social standing (we’ll get to that,) will speak with the same accent.

As one last point of contention to drive home the fact that these two groups are part of the same whole, we must bring up the topic of social class. It is true that once, a tuinmann would (almost) always be an urban, unionized, labor-voting worker, and a bestuurer would have been a suburban middle class clerc, that just isn’t the truth anymore.

Today in Edury, it is possible to find bestuurer factory workers and miners, tuinmann bank managers, and every which one in each area and field. These are purely cultural groups, rather than the socio-economic ones they used to be; since the great kerfuffle of ‘72, they have been mixed. We’ll get to that in a bit.

History & Context

As with so many things in Eduran history, we must go back to the Revolution of 1801 to find the basis of both these groups.

After the death of Marshal Jager and the cementation of the political system of Edury, many people didn’t really know what to make of themselves in a socio-psychological sense. Before the Revolution, there had been strict caste denominations, with sumptuary laws and other regulations clearly defining who was where. Bonded peasants at the bottom, and the hereditary mercantile nobility at the top- mind, these laws were certainly less appreciated by those at the base than those at the pinnacle. However, come the new peace, people were adrift in terms of class definitions.

Many of the previous castes had been ripped asunder after the civil war and revolution. Many of the guild-member craftsman class were newly wealthy, taking a place as factory owners or bankers, but many of this same caste were forced into utter destitution. What's more, there was very little to legally define these new stratified peoples. Technically, everyone belonged to the same, one, new caste; citizen. However, as the second of the three revolutions- the industrial- marched on, it became clearer and clearer that this was just a pretty thought in the minds of the bourgeoisie.

The Electoral Commission broke people up into blocks for voting for their representatives, and determined who the new Lord-Magistrate would be. These blocks afforded the working poor very little representation, as this Commission weighted rural, agricultural districts nearly as strongly as urban, industrialized ones. As cities swelled in size, districts were slow to be updated with censuses and redistricting. And as time marched on to the late 1840’s and early 50’s, the ascendancy of Lord-Magistrate Johan Vorhees and his conservatives would only continue this trend. The anti-sumptuary laws of the revolutionaries were repealed, allowing the nouveau riche to wear splendid and fancy dress once more, flaunting their wealth; the poor were legally allowed to do the same thing, but no person who worked in the eastern mines or southern factories could ever afford the beautiful beaver hats or silk kerchiefs. What’s more, Vorhees and his cabinet would punish the working poor for their attempts to unionize and organize, until his grating personality, unpopular policy, and willingness to use violence to repress the workers movement would lead to his downfall.

In the late winter and spring of 1861, the new revolution swept the nation as a brushfire, not overthrowing the old system but appropriating it; the new unions would not only be workers associations for collective bargaining, but also social clubs, charities, political parties, and for a time, militias. The leader of this movement would turn out to be Barend de Boer, who is sometimes credited as the first tuinman. De Boer was born Martin Cain, in Lathadu. His family moved to Edury when he was a young man, and when he began his organizing career, he took the name ‘Barend’, the Bear, as a nom de plume (and then nom de guerre.) As he gained more notoriety, he also adopted the name ‘de Boer’, the farmer, as part of his idealization of the agrarian way of life. This will be visited again later.

Throughout the later half of the 1800’s, the tuinmannen, and their political party, the National Workers Association, would be politically and culturally ascendent. They gained their name, partly because of their idealization of the agrarian way of life, and partly for their habit of having small urban gardens in their backyards, windows, and rooftops. Until the first world war, they were the primary subculture of Eduran society; either you were a tuinman, or you weren’t. Ironically, many leaders of the NAV (Nationale Arbeidersverengening, or National Workers Assoc.,) weren’t Tuinmannen. Towards the turn of the century, many of the party leaders had been much wealthier than their partisan counterparts, which we’ll get to later. This was tolerated, however, because of the nature of the NAV (and later, its main opposition, the Liberal Union;) the local chapters and branches of the parties diverged in many ways, and so the party leadership was- and still is- beholden to the rank-and-file of the party membership.

This would continue until after the first world war. At this point, tram lines, interurbans, and subway metros had allowed for suburbs to be set up and flourish; in fact, these suburbs were endorsed and planned by tuinman and NAV leaders, who saw these suburbs as a way for the workers to get to live out their agrarian fantasy, away from the city, and with the ability to retain their employment. However, as these progressed, there soon came to be a moment of national reckoning for these suburbs; many of the ones based upon streetcar lines or urban metros had grown so much that they became part of the city they had split off from, and indeed many of our largest cities started annexing these suburbs as wards or districts. Further afield from these, a new type of suburb came about, based on one invention; the automobile.

Of course, this is part of each group’s story. In actuality, while many of these streetcar suburbs were amalgamated, many of them are independent politically and culturally today, and these ‘auto-suburbs’ aren’t actually much different from their older cousins. In fact, the automobile was much, much older than even some of these streetcar suburbs. That was part of the problem.

Largely, before WWI, automobiles were eye-wateringly expensive, both to purchase, and to upkeep; they required an inordinate amount of fuel, as well as daily cleaning and maintenance that required their own mechanic. Cars were such a status symbol, that some people put off buying one until they could afford both a mechanic, and a separate driver, the eponymous Bestuurder. Of course, the people of the class that could do this were certainly not tuinmannen, and were in fact largely despised by the primary subculture. That is until fuel, maintenance, and cars themselves became affordable enough for common people to own.

After WWI, this began to happen; shopkeeps, clercs, bank managers began to buy cars, and as they got cheaper, even bank tellers began to buy these now plain and simple cars that were, unmistakably, still status symbols. These people were derided as chauffeurs, bestuurder, by the main Tuinman politicians. Soon, these people began to form social clubs in the guise and aesthetics of the salons and etc. of their former economic betters, but in function were no different from the associations of the workers and laborers. Eventually, in 1920, these would form the Liberale Unie, or Liberal Union, which derived much from their older NVA counterparts.

While you would get Bestuurder members of the NVA and vice-versa for quite some time, these two groups would remain distinct until ‘72, when the great coal collapse rendered the NVA asunder. For decades, there had been a growing rift between two factions within the NVA; the dominant one, the ertes, enacted policies of top-down regulations and state-owned enterprise, whereas the other faction, called simply the anderen (others,) wanted regulations decided by groups of industries, and worker-owned collectives which would compete rather than single state owned industrial blocs. When March 12th, 1972 happened, and the final three anthracite mines in Edury closed, there was foaming discontent in the NVA, which to this point had been a dominant party, and had only lost the Magisterial chair once since the revolution.

Due to both human and institutional error, a cabal of moderates had held a choke-hold on the party leadership of the NVA. It is regarded by many economic historians that this cabal’s handling of the anthracite industry led to its collapse; in trying to run it both in a centralized, top-down and decentralized, competitive way, they ended up killing it and setting off the economic domino effect that would last years. The Lord-Magistrate and executive chairman of the NVA, Beucephalous Paardman, had an uproar on his hands, and he handled it poorly. Scores of anderen chapters of the NVA would declare their succession from the main body, some forming their own associations. Many, however, elected to join the Liberal Union, in what seemed to the Bestuurer leadership to be a splendid idea in taking members from their great enemy.

For various reasons, this backfired; as the former NVA partygoers were largely unionized laborers, and the splinter parties of the NVA collapsed and melted into the LU, all of a sudden there were as many Tuinmannen as there were Bestuurderen. The ideals of the splinter-chapters and the liberals merged; while the LU to this day still desires for less government regulation and more competitiveness in Eduran economics, they argue for worker-owned collectives, industry unions to set regulations, and other such policies. Today, you are as likely to find a Bestuurer in the NVA as the other way around.

The Similarities

In order to talk about what separates the two cultuurgroepen, we must first establish what unites them. In addition to both being aspects of the wider Eduran psyche, they are also both capital P capital R Post Revolutionaries, in the sense that their machinations are in response to all three great Eduran revolutions; 1801, 1861, and Industrial.

Relating to the first two revolutions, both groups have an almost pathological desire to look humble in dress and manner. The Tuinmannen define themselves by their proletariat beginnings. The Bestuurder define themselves by the fact that they are common folk, not the pre-revolutionary aristocracy that the Tuinmannen accused them of being. However, both of these also inherited the large importance of ceremony and pomp in Eduran culture, which is far older than either group, going back (as some archeologists say) to pre-Ayekist times. As such, both groups put an emphasis on non-ostentatious, but still formal clothing, as well as other aspects of Eduran life. However, interestingly, there is another love that both groups have which they imported; an idealization of rural, agrarian life.

The Tuinmannen get this largely from their founder, Barend de Boer. A Lathadun immigrant himself, he kept close contact with his homeland, writing letters and perhaps even meeting such figures as Pol Cambuc and Carmac Kneale. As de Boer was leading a movement of urban laborers, however, this love of all things rural was really a romantic light to shine upon city life. The eponymous gardens were a method for de Boer to get his followers (both tacit and fanatical) to become more food independent, as well as to go back to an idealized simpler time. His final appeal to idealized romantic rural life was the notion that each worker should have the ability to retire, and move onto their own little farm to sustain themselves in the twilight of their life, and so that their children might be able to grow up in a pastoral paradise before moving to the city to make something for themselves. As the decades marched on, the suburbs that sprouted out along tramlines became a way for workers to live a little bit of this rural fantasy before they could actually settle down on their own acre and a half of land.

The Bestuurder, having formed much later, had a similar but slightly different idealization. For them, the focus was not on the individual farmer living on their own little acre and a half, but on the rural village life. Many suburbs set up in the 1920’s-30’s would bill themselves as villages (despite being within a 20 minute train ride or drive of a large city,) and advertised themselves as a way for middle class families to own their own little hill cottages, and still work in the metropolises.

The Differences

Now that we know how the two groups are part of the same culture, we can talk about what truly makes them different. In a word: minutiae. In a sentence: not a whole lot, but details of daily rituals and idealizations that mean a great deal to the people who live within these two groups.

In regards to their love of rural life despite living in a quite urban country, the Tuinmannen have this idea that a perfect acre-and-a-half of land is how a person should end their life- although in the modern day, this ideal retirement is more of a rural vacation home, rather than a permanent dwelling. The Bestuurderen, however, treat their ideation as a way of life; it’s an ideal to have your own little slice of the countryside in the form of a single home somewhere, which can be your own little cottage. This subtle difference can be traced back to how the two groups were founded; the Tuinmannen were first an organizational and political group, which over time became a cultural one, whereas the Bestuurderen at first were social in nature, and only came to politics after they had developed their own distinct cultural identity.

This develops further. While both groups are in love with the supposed rural past, the Tuinmannen are unmistakably an urban, industrial culture. Most people who self-identify as Tuinmannen live in cities with population densities above 2,000 people per square kilometer. Most people, in fact, live in such dwellings; 80% of the population lives on 50% of the land in Edury. The Tuinmannen typically live in urbanized areas where rowhouses, townhouses, and apartments are the norm, and where you are more likely to walk or bike to work or the shops. As such, most of their daily rituals which have major import in Eduran culture are based around this urban, industrial lifestyle. The most popular example is how for the Tuinmannen, lunch is the most important meal of the day, with most Tuinman places of employment offering up to 2 and a half hours off for lunch breaks to go home and eat (60 minutes is the usual legal minimum in Edury.) They are also of the persuasion that simple button-up shirts, no ties, and cloth flat caps are appropriate attire for work and professional life, stemming from the days where most Tuinmannen worked in hot, dangerous workshops and factories, where wearing a tie could get you decapitated and a suit jacket would cause you to get heatstroke.

With all that in mind, you may think that the Bestuurderen are the rural counterpart. Not so; they’re more suburban, as a generalization. What ties they have to the Eduran agrarian past are things that their ancestors did not need to give up when they started industrial work. For example, breakfast and dinner are more important for Bestuurder families, as largely, these middle-class descended worked shorter hours. Today, most Bestuurder workplaces average around 1 hour and 15 minutes of lunch break, although this varies as these establishments tend to offer multiple shorter breaks, with one longer one in the middle of the day to eat in the break room. In most other cases, Bestuurder rituals are modeled after the ‘professional’ middle class; workplace attire is at least a waistcoat (yes, even at the time of writing,) and formalwear must at least include a jacket and tie. Bestuurder also typically lead urban or suburban lives, but tend to prefer municipalities where detached housing is the norm, and are more likely to take a metro or bus to work than walk or bike. Of course, all of these are generalizations for both groups.

At the end of the day, the Eduran preoccupation with ritual- both public and private- is a topic for another essay, involving the rise and fall of the Ayekist churches, as well as, of course, the Revolution. Which is in itself a topic of another one. To close this essay out, we call attention once more to the fact that the primary differentiators between these two groups are which Eduran rituals they place the most importance on, and what they are descended from. These is, of course, one more great unifier of both groups:

They are both equally insufferable tourists in Lathadu.

#Edury #vanatas #worldbuilding #politics #ic

6 notes · View notes

tabletoptrinketsbyjj · 4 years ago

Text

Trinkets, 38: Interesting baubles, semi magical objects and items touched by mystery.

A worn mercenary banner consisting of one rusty old spearhead atop a long wooden shaft. Five feet down from the head there rests a cross-piece four feet long tied to the shaft. From that hangs flag itself; A field of scarlet with nine hanged men in black and six yellow daggers in the upper left and lower right quadrants, respectively, while the upper right quadrant features a shattered skull and the lower left boasts a bird of prey astride a severed head. Knowledgeable PC’s will recognize it as the Standard of the Black Company a free mercenary company who can trace their history back hundreds of years through their well-documented archives.

A corrupted magic charm made of the skull a human who died in terror and with regrets. The bone is wrapped with dried kelp and algae, and the skull’s forehead and dome is inscribed with strange sigils made from flower pigments. The entire bonecharm hums with power, creating a faint but distinctive ‘song’ that the spiritually perceptive can hear.

A scroll covered with depictions of constellations.

A shattered mask, once belonging to an ecclesiastic of the occult. Though broken this mask still retains a trace of its original purpose. It hums with faint whispers when worn. They demand an offering.

A one gallon cask of Brewer's Pudding, an alcoholic “drink” so thick that the bartender needs to cut it like a loaf of bread to serve it. Bartenders typically put it in a bowl with lager poured over top, which slowly changes the "drink's" consistency similar to that of pudding. More squalid taverns sometimes serve it between slices of bread as a sandwich.

A gnarled pipe smells strongly of cinnamon and fish, disturbing your digestion. Its bowl has constellations etched around it.

A small, ragged figure crafted from human bone and hair, posed as though shading its eyes to see a long distance.

A charm bracelet of silver chain with five shield-shaped charms. The shields have various religious icons for luck. It's covered in dried blood on it, suggesting the previous owner wasn't that lucky.

A shifting monochromatic geometric, glass prism.

An ironwood skeleton key inlaid with spiraling lines of silvery mithril, and etched with flowing Sylvan script that reads “May this world know some measure of my skill as I depart to the next.”

—Keep reading for 90 more trinkets.

—Note: The previous 10 items are repeated for easier rolling on a d100.

A scroll covered with depictions of constellations.

A gnarled pipe smells strongly of cinnamon and fish, disturbing your digestion. Its bowl has constellations etched around it.

A small, ragged figure crafted from human bone and hair, posed as though shading its eyes to see a long distance.

A charm bracelet of silver chain with five shield-shaped charms. The shields have various religious icons for luck. It's covered in dried blood on it, suggesting the previous owner wasn't that lucky.

A shifting monochromatic geometric, glass prism.

An ironwood skeleton key inlaid with spiraling lines of silvery mithril, and etched with flowing Sylvan script that reads “May this world know some measure of my skill as I depart to the next.”

A smoking pipe made with a stem of gnarled wood and a deep bowl made of yellowed bone. The bowl has mystical lettering and runes carved into it.

A porcelain teapot inscribed with ancient symbols. A blue snake-like dragon coils around the pot, its body forming the handle and its mouth forming the spout.

A psaltery made from the darkest ebony wood. Its back is slightly curved with an indentation in the base so that it sits nicely on the player's lap. Inlayed in its face is a twisted branch covered in beautiful cherry blossoms. As the instrument is played the blossoms seem to fall away to reveal that the branch is not a branch at all but the bony hand of a skeleton.

An ornate lacquered box containing a set of spoons, thirteen in number. Each is topped with a tiny figure that represents one of the Immortal Heroes of an eastern cult that is thought to be extinct. In that cult, the spoons are considered a valuable prize that proves the courage and skill of its members. The set would be decently valuable to a collector or otherwise interested buyer.

An alabaster vase that has bas-relief figures of goddesses in skimpy clothing in provocative poses. Knowledgeable PC’s can identify the goddesses are in fact the handmaidens of the Martyr Prophet and even to depict them clothed is a right arrogated to the Prophet’s priesthood. The vase itself would be counted a blasphemy by the Prophet’s followers.

An oil lamp no larger than two cupped hands that’s both delicate and fearful. Unlike more common lamps of brass or even common earthenware, the lamp is forged of hair-thin and glittering black iron, cool to the touch. It bears a single looped handle, and is covered in finely rendered etchings of arabesques and stylized wings.

A number of sealed oval tins containing fillets of true monkfish in brine. The fish’s bland pale flesh travels very well and is an imperishable as a saint’s, hence its name. The fillets are filling an nourishing and there are enough tins to equate to 2d4+1 days’ worth of trail rations.

A large, cracked, spiral horn of some great beast, bound in silver and caked in blood. When blown, hot winds and swirling sands erupt from the mouth. All who hear the horn’s call are urged to fight with the unrelenting fury of desert storm.

A cerulean-blue semi-solid stone that is nearly translucent, and shines with an internal blue light.

An onyx hair pin topped with a golden sphere accented by ivory flowers. It's covered in dust and the sphere is a bit oxidized, but with some proper cleaning it might be a suitable gift for the daughter of a noble.

A black-green beeswax candle decorated with carvings of birds. The wick seems to be made out of gold threads. It faintly smells of ash and seawater.

A constantly-shifting jigsaw puzzle made of of muscle and viscera.

A dull green glass bottle, filled with transparent oil that rolls about like the sea's tides. Its label, written in Undercommon, reads "Immortality." It is sealed with a deep black cork, and if opened reeks of skunk spray.

A small stone that ticks evenly like a finely wound clock. Everyone who hears the stone becomes convinced that the stone must remain locked away or something very bad will happen.

A commemorative porcelain plate of the last royal wedding.

A jigsaw puzzle consisting of occult symbols that when fully completed opens a portal to that which the user desires most in the world. There are three pieces missing.

A black robe covered in tattered and worn crow feathers, almost giving the illusion of wings when the arms are raised.

A flexible skin tight, black-silk mask that covers the bearer’s face with just a slit exposing the eyes and perforations at the nose and mouth.

A wide iron-studded dog collar.

A sealed one gallon cask filled with a smoky, spicy spirit akin to weaker tequila. This aperitif is made from a flowering cactus found deep in the deserts heart. When drunk, it causes memories to flow more freely to the drinker's minds forefront, often sparking intense feelings of nostalgia or regret. If overindulged, it could even dislodged repressed memories, forgotten dreams, and other things forgotten (deliberately or otherwise).

A gilded wineglass fashioned from a human skull and set with lapis lazuli.

A set of seven humanoid shaped obsidian pendants.

A dark green egg-shaped stone has been worn away on one side to reveal a rough, vivid purple interior. Knowledgeable PC's can identify the mineral as a geode.

A metal mask resembling a deformed man with a protruding tongue, often worn by wrong-doers before they are paraded through the streets as punishment.

The "alchemical" recipe and blueprint for a "Big Mama", a strange series of nested barrels filled with gunpowder and nails and designed to detonate from a fuse.

A bloodstained scrap of parchment with a list of several names, including a couple of the PC’s. All but one of the non-PC names are crossed out.

A small silver bracelet fashioned in the style of a serpent with two small cyan-colored stones for eyes.

A beautiful, multicolored glass sculpture that seems to take different shapes depending on the angle it is viewed from. From one angle, a mother and child, from another a proud warrior, all in vibrant color and exquisite detail. There are eight distinct scenes visible, one from each cardinal direction.

A delicate tea set made of beautifully shaped glass. Each cup has been blown to look like a pair of child-sized hands clasped together, and the tea pot itself has the appearance of a cloaked human female kneeling in offering. Her hands reaching outwards act as the spout for the pot, and her pulled back hood acts as the lid. No liquid ever flows out of the teapot unless one of the cups in the set is directly beneath the spout.

A medium sized hourglass fashioned from dark walnut and brass. Inside, the sands shine in a variety of iridescent colors. There is a slight tinkling sound as they fall, almost like the sound of a music box, carried on the wind.

An exquisite scrimshaw design of dueling dragons made from a harpy claw.

A scepter made with scorched wood, that has an orb of solid, coagulated blood on it's edge.

A floating spherical chess board that when opened, reveals intricately crafted pieces inside it. The pieces magically adhere to the sphere as it floats, and allows you to play without the chessmen falling off.

A small, golden chime, tied with a red ribbon around the handle, that rings softly of its own accord with a bittersweet melody. It makes those who hear it think of sunlight on a coastline that they've never seen, holding the hand of someone they’ve never known.

A battered tin kettle, slightly warm to the touch. Any liquid placed into the kettle will become something almost, but not quite, exactly nothing like tea.

A pair of goggles that allow the bearer to see from the point of view of a random reef fish in some far off sea.

A black and purple scale of some enormous horror of the far realm.

A thick piece of leather on which was branded a prayer of contrition. It says that it is not enough to ask for absolution, penitence must be forced upon the impure. Some sins can only be forgiven with consecrated flame.

A stoppered, green glass bottle wrapped in grimy stained leather and cord. It is filled with an inferior moonshine containing alcohol distilled in the worst possible conditions. The liquor tastes worse than it looks, but provides a small degree of resistance to the horrors of daily life

A rather intricately filigreed belt buckle featuring a stylistic rendering of a heroic figure standing in defiance of a formless darkness looming above it.

A wine bottle sealed with wax containing a rolled vellum scroll.

A burlap pouch containing a handful of wooden tokens marked with a skull and crossbones on one side and "One Grog" on the other.

A jade carving of a flying fish, inexpertly done and with poor detailing.

An invitation to a charity ball rewarded for substantial devotion and contribution to community and individual well being.

A royal decree ordering all land-holding families to send one armed soldier to an official army muster. Any family that fails to respond is in danger of having their ancestral land titles revoked.

A leather plague doctor's mask with silver frames and buckles.

A copper-plated tin badge of a winged heart.

A wooden flute made of red wood with etchings of leaves around part of its base

An oddly shaped curved wand with elven writing carved within. When held at nighttime it helps its owner sleep peacefully to the sounds of nature.

A large wooden chest with many unique pelts, wrapped one inside the other. In the center a small jade figurine of a humanoid with a fish-like face. It is extremely cold to the touch.

A fancy gold coin with two crowns on both faces. It is literally embedded in a small cube of clearest crystal.

A bright red square tablet of unknown material about three inches to a side with a metal plate that slides to open a tiny window through the tablet that reveals a sheet of black material within. It is lighter than stone, metal, or wood and bears no markings other than a rectangle of gummy residue on one side and a small circular metal coin on the reverse.

A rose quartz paperweight shaped like a crushing fist.

A toy horse carved from bone.

A letter with the following written inside "We only need 300 more gold until we can bring her back and live peacefully once again as a family."

An ivory spoon with teardrop handle.

A miniature portrait of a young chestnut-haired beauty set in a silver frame. She appears to be set against the skyline of a metropolitan city on a sea, as though the portrait was painted from a tall building or hillside.

A tin box decorated with an embossing of a ship in a bottle, containing precision woodworking and knot tying tools with telescoping handles.

A fist sized ball of melted copper coins.

A bronze statuette of a chariot, with horses and charioteer.

A child’s painting framed beautifully. The art itself is fairly lacking but the frame is worth a decent amount, even more to someone who appreciates the juxtaposition of incredibly classy and messy.

A silken caul hair net decorated with small semiprecious stones.

An ebon walking stick with a monogrammed silver handle.

A bone pipe carved with intricate crimson sigils; its smoke appears as writhing shades of the damned.

A scrap of dirty parchment bearing a list of names, some of them crossed off. Investigation reveals all of the names on the list are dead people, mostly buried in the Gilded Graveyard. Those who have been crossed off have recently have their graves’ plundered, their bodies stolen. Further investigation still reveals that these were all jurors in the trial of Isabella Rasping, a necromancer convicted of using a zombies as murder weapons during the infamous “Meatpuppet Murders” two centuries ago. She was executed for the crime by her own creations. Isabella has returned as a revenant with unfinished business; she maintains her innocence and believes she can now prove it, and so is gathering the previous jurors for a kind of “retrial."

A ceramic dining plate edged with copper.

A bandolier from which hang a half dozen small securely stoppered flasks. Each is filled with a noxious substance, preserved at the height of its foulness: Human diarrhea, spoiled milk, vomit, cat urine, skunk stink glands and rotting fish. The flasks are flimsy and designed to break apart when they hit something solid and each stopper has a small eye-hook screwed into the cork. They can be thrown, shot from a sling or flask launcher (A modified light crossbow) or a length of twine has be tied to the eye-hook, creating a tripwire trap.

A brass bust of a famed scholar and medic.

An anklet of braided gold and silver worked with small carnelians.

A set of bagpipes made from the skin of a displacer beast, with the drones and chanter carved from its bones.

An antiquated torture device designed for mutilating hands and fingers.

A leather eyepatch with a turquoise stone surrounded by white agate resembling a crude eye.

A stuffed cockatrice clutching a sculpted marble hand in one talon.

An egg, roughly the size of a goose egg but navy blue with mottled flecks of gold leaf, mounted on a round wooden base with a tiny placard that reads "Imaskari Sun Hawk". When touched, the golden flecks on the egg gently glow that grows brighter and softer in time with the heartbeat of the one touching it and there is the sensation of rustling movement from within.

A fragment of a painting torn from a larger canvas depicting an unfamiliar princess.

A family portrait of an infamous noble house whose eyes seem to follow onlookers.

A pale gourd with ornate glyphs painted in black around the cork at its apex and twine braided about it. Try as one might, nobody has ever been able to open the stopper. A thin metallic clinking can be heard when the gourd is shaken.

A delicate pink flower, carefully preserved with magic and will not wilt or break yet preserves its natural beauty.

An old withered hand, no more than skin drawn taut across bones, and tarnished rings hanging loosely from the fingers. The bearer can rattle the rings on the hand which causes the smell of lilies to fills the air around him.

A small metal top seems like an everyday child’s toy except for the skull engraved into a button in the middle.

A sturdy wooden travel case containing a popular board game known as Roundels. It has similar elements to chess but is played on a circular board with a stylized keep. The game is abstract and is supposed to loosely simulate a siege. There is an attacking player and a defending player and each side has some unique pieces in addition to their common pieces. The etiquette of playing Roundels requires players to participate in two games, one as the attacker and the other as defender.

A horse femur that is as light as a feather.

An old yellowed skull that in spite of its lack of eyeballs, seems to be constantly eyeing the bearer.

A length of ivory shaped like a bone, covered in small onyx spiders that look all too real. The arcane rod can be used as an magical focus and is a grisly sight to behold.

A burlap bag large enough to hold a coconut. It is smooth to the touch and found in the color purple with a golden strap.

An arcane wand that is rough to hold and twists like a wild vine.

A translucent green stone the size of a fat grape. The item is sea glass, a fragment of a bottle that washed around the world and back, until it had no sharp edges.

A satyr statuette which increases the libido of everyone within line of sight of it.

A bewitched letter which appears to be addressed to whoever is currently holding it, describing their features and personality in adoring terms.

A small crystal which, when peered through, appears to show alternate universes. Actually a fragment of a much larger crystal, part of a complex device deep in the Old City.

35 notes · View notes

minnarr · 4 years ago

Text

Don’t Talk to Me About Naboo’s Moons

Last month, I had a little too much time on my hands when I ran out of things to do at work, so I made a Powerpoint. I did not expect to have 20 slides worth of yelling about Naboo’s moons, but here we are.

[ID: PowerPoint slide. The title, in big letters, reads “Don’t Talk to Me About Naboo’s Moons.” In smaller letters, the subtitle: “(Star Wars Writers Sure Didn’t Talk to Each Other About Them, Either)”. /end ID]

And now I’m adapting it to a Tumblr post, because why not.

How many moons does Naboo have?

I'm glad you asked

Three

Inside the Worlds of STAR WARS Episode I (2000) stated that they had one moon, and from TPM footage it’s hard to claim for certain there’s any more than that. Apparently taking their cue from Secrets of Naboo, a supplement to the WOTC Star Wars RPG, later sources have run with three moons

Source: https://www.theforce.net/swtc/orbs.html#naboo

Thrawn: Alliances (2018) compares another system’s moons with Naboo’s: “They were small moons, smaller than any of Naboo’s three…” (Ch. 15)

Nexus of Power (supplement to the Star Wars Force and Destiny Roleplaying Game) says Naboo has “three small moons”

[ID: Moonlight over Theed, The Phantom Menace. One obvious moon shines in the sky over Theed palace. Another bright object in the sky may also be a moon. /end ID]

[ID: Amidala’s starship passes a moon of Naboo, The Phantom Menace. The moon in question is tan and barren-looking. /end ID]

So, we have designations for three or fewer moons, right?

Wrong

There's five candidates: Ohma-D'un, Onoam, Rori, Veruna, and a “nameless mass”

Sources and Canon in Star Wars

Before we go on, let’s look at how we get information about the Star Wars universe, and how I select from contradictory information. If you’re familiar, obviously, feel free to skip ahead to the next section. The imaginary audience for the PowerPoint might not have been.

The old EU passes into Legends

On April 25, 2014, in the leadup to The Force Awakens, Lucasfilm announced that all previous Expanded Universe material would now be published under the Legends banner. All six previous movies plus The Clone Wars series “are the immovable objects of Star Wars history, the characters and events to which all other tales must align.” Novels, comics, and other expanded universe material published after the changeover to Legends is now known as New Canon (or Disney Canon).

Every fan ultimately comes to their own arrangement with what they consider canon — which pieces of New Canon and Legends they stitch together to come to a satisfying understanding of the Star Wars universe.

Canon status of roleplaying game materials

The canon policy of Wookieepedia is fascinating and I have not even scratched the surface, but the section on roleplaying games makes for especially convoluted reading. Both the West End Games and Wizards of the Coast licenses for RPGs ended before the Legends changeover; these are firmly Legends.

Fantasy Flight Games, however, gained the license to card, board, and roleplaying games in 2011, just three years before the switch to New Canon. Lucasfilm Story Group has made no public stance on whether their material is canon.

For this reason and because their publishing time for the RPG sourcebooks stretches before and after the changeover, Wookieepedia has gone case-by-case and selected which books apply to Legends, Canon, or both for article-writing purposes.

Mainstream solutions to the three-moon problem

[ID: A quote from Nexus of Power: “Three small moons - Ohma-D’un, Rori, and a nameless mass that is little more than an overgrown asteroid - house small colonies as well as a handful of offworld and orbital shipyard and factories.” /end iD]

Nexus of Power is an FFG sourcebook that was determined by Wookieepedia’s standards to apply to Canon as well as Legends articles. Its entry on Naboo, however, differs from the later sourcebook Rise of the Separatists, which Wookieepedia deems canon and cites in its selection of moons.

The Rise of the Separatists entry reads:

Three moons—Ohma-D’un, Rori, and Veruna—orbit Naboo. They host small colonies with shipyards, orbital dockyards, and factories.

So even within one publishing license and one context, different moons have been attributed to Naboo.

Wookieepedia

Wookieepedia’s Canon page for Naboo lists Ohma-D’un, Onoam, and Veruna. Each of these comes from a different source:

Ohma-D’un cites Rise of the Separatists

Onoam cites Leia, Princess of Alderaan

Veruna cites Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia

They’ve made a choice—but it’s definitely not the only plausible choice. Each of the four names we’re given for Naboo’s moons has at least some backing in New Canon.

Onoam

Onoam is the only moon on this list that is fully and non-dubiously canonical, as Leia spent some time there in the 2017 novel Leia, Princess of Alderaan. It is, however, the funniest name choice: someone recently pointed out to me that it’s just an anagram of “a moon”

I love this, but Claudia Gray sure muddied the Naboo Moon Name Waters by making this the only choice it is impossible to reject. No shade, though. I loved the LPOA Naboo crumbs.

Onoam has both mines (plagued in the Imperial era by corrupt leadership and miner safety issues) and luxury housing. Before his assassination, Moff Quarsh Panaka resided in a chalet on Onoam, and Queen Dalné had a home there.

Sidebar: The Mining Moons

When discussing the assassination attempt on Padmé in Attack of the Clones, Mace Windu says, “Our intelligence points to disgruntled spice miners on the moons of Naboo.”

Leia, Princess of Alderaan establishes that Onoam was one of these moons; it mentions strikes and minor political violence a generation before Leia’s. It also establishes that Onoam is mined for medicinal spice, which by law can only be mined by humans, not droids

In Queen’s Shadow, which takes place in 28 BBY, the mining moons “struggle to maintain the balance between the rule of Naboo and their allegiance to filling their quotas”; the mining jobs are much less lucrative than farming on Karlinus

Veruna

[ID: a rather barren, tan-colored moon /end ID]

Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia (2017) identifies the moon pictured above as Veruna. The same moon was identified as Ohma-D’un by The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia (2008), according to Wookieepedia. I have access to neither, but it looks like the moon the ship passed in TPM. For being one of Wookiee’s choices, the evidence for this name is astonishingly thin, but the same can be said of some of the others

Sidebar: King Veruna and his moon

The likelihood is that Veruna (the moon) was named for Ars Veruna, Padmé’s predecessor as Naboo’s monarch in Legends novels Darth Plagueis (2012) and Cloak of Deception (2001)

It is very probable that Veruna is no longer canon, and it is certainly impossible that he served a decade-plus term that ended shortly before Padmé’s reign:

Padmé’s immediate predecessor, according to Queen’s Peril (2020), was Queen Sanandrassa

Sometime during Eirtaé’s childhood, Réillata served a single two-year term, according to Queen’s Shadow (2019)

Even if he’s placed somewhere before Sanandrassa, there’s not really room for him to have reigned that long unless there are two monarchs between him and Padmé

Rori

Rori was named and fleshed out in the 2003 game Star Wars Galaxies, which is now Legends. While it is one of the names given in the Fantasy Flight Games sourcebooks, it doesn’t seem to have a source anywhere else in New Canon.

Ohma-D’un

Ohma-D’un has one New Canon source outside of RPG sourcebooks: the 2018 reference book Star Wars: Smuggler’s Guide. In Smuggler’s Guide, Tyro Viveca (one of the owners of the in-universe book) mentioned seeing bursa-baiting on Ohma-D’un. Bursas are bear-like creatures originally from Legends material, where they were known to attack and destroy Gungan settlements.

I had a picture of a captive bursa for illustrative purposes, but honestly it made me too sad so I deleted it. Nevertheless, that’s stronger detail and evidence than we have for either Rori or Veruna.

Bonus fact: Naboo officially has no such thing as prison. When Panaka mentions this to Rabé, she says, “Only because we send everyone to the moon” (Queen’s Peril). Enjoy those implications!

TL;DR

While Onoam is definitely one of the moons, what you call the other two is up to each person’s discretion until something else is stated. Personally, I prefer Ohma-D’un and Rori, rather than Veruna. This partly because I don’t like Veruna the Legends figure (petty) and partly because Rori has some interesting Legends lore that could be drawn on in a pinch, which as far as I can tell Veruna does not.

#star wars #naboo #star wars meta #my headcanons #the subtitle isn't like. a real dig.#there isn't a lot of info about them! kudos to gray and johnston for picking up on mace's comment abt miners #there are so many little details i miss in the movies they've made interesting in books

29 notes · View notes

delicatelyherdreams · 5 years ago

Text

Pragma(tic) 22: She Unleashes Hell

Pairing: Persephone!Bucky Barnes x Hades!Reader

Summary: In a world where the old gods never truly died, you must learn to navigate your way through the ups and downs of immortality. And if living forever wasn’t hard enough, an ancient evil is now threatening to break free after centuries of silence. And as if that still wasn’t hard enough for you, now a pesky and infuriatingly handsome god is trying to wedge his way into your life. Gods, work, love, and conflict—what more could a goddess need? [Hades & Persephone AU]

Word Count: 4163

Warnings: Language, violence, blood, fighting, war, death

Pragma(tic) Masterlist

Previous 21: She Faces the End

The cry of agony was not yours.

But you felt it. You felt all the pain in the pitch just resonating around you. You could feel the agony and mind-numbing pain and it shocked you to your core.

Especially when you recognized the scream’s owner.

And it was then that you registered the lack of extra pain you felt and slowly peeled your eyes open.

And then you saw it: the body lying before you—the bloody body.

Bucky’s body.

Your lips parted in a scream as you saw Bucky writhing on the ground, ichor coating the entirety of his left side. It was just pouring from his arm—

No.

Not from his arm.

From the stub where his arm used to be.

He had taken the blow meant for you, somehow diving in front of you just in time to save your life, but not his arm. If you forced yourself to look, you would see the severed limb just lying in the grass feet away from its body. The scythe had cut through the bone like butter and left Bucky in terrible pain.

“Oh my gods, Bucky!” you cried out, your voice tearing through the air. You forced yourself to a crawling position despite the pain, ignoring all your nerves flaring up in protest as you dragged your limp body to the spot where Bucky lay. Nothing else mattered to you; not your father standing bewildered apart from you, not your siblings rushing over, not anything.

All that mattered was getting to Bucky.

As the adrenaline coursed through your veins, you could feel your healing increasing its pace. It seemed like your body was also desperate to get to him and care for him and it knew that, in order to do so, it would have to be at its best. Feeling slowly returned back to your right arm as the wound healed just enough to function. You crawled the few agonizing feet to Bucky’s side and fell beside him. Your vision clouded with red and tears as you pulled his head into your lap. “Bucky!” you sobbed, holding his head between your cold hands.

His skin was on fire and his eyes were squeezed shut. His lips were parted as he grunted and whimpered in pain. The sounds broke your heart. His hand blindly groped the side of his body as he tried to squeeze his limb to alleviate the pain, but there was nothing to grab onto. You couldn’t tear your eyes away from the stump of his arm. It’d been severed right beneath the shoulder. You weren’t even sure how it was possible. How had he jumped to be cut in such a way? Why had he done it?

“Bucky, you’re going to be okay,” you whispered to him, your voice trembling. “You’re going to be okay… You’re going to be okay.”

It was Kronos’ laugh that drew your eyes away from your maimed love. Bringing them up to your father, they flashed red and you felt heat rising in your chest. A fire burned dark and hot as rage filled you. “You…”

Kronos was too busy holding his stomach to hear the malice in your voice. “What a foolish boy!” he cried out in between laughs. “An imbecile! He thinks that by jumping in the way he can save you? Hah! As if his sacrifice will make a differ—”

“Silence!” You swiped your hand at him and the rage flowed out of you. Manifesting in the shape of a wall of darkness, your power slammed into him and knocked him flying through the air. The titan had only a moment before he was sprawled out on the ground two dozen yards away, crippled by the raw force of your anger.

With him at a distance, you turned your gaze back to the man lying in your lap.

He was losing color at an alarming rate and you knew it had all to do with the vast amounts of blood that were flowing from his arm. He was bleeding out. You knew one of his arteries was severed and contributing to the steady flow of ichor.

“Pietro!” you called desperately, searching for the god of medicine. He would know what to do. He would know how to save Bucky. Your eyes scanned the field and, there, across the valley, you saw him struggling out of his fight to get to you. But even with his enhanced speed, you knew he wouldn’t make it to Bucky in time to do anything.

Unless you did something to help first.

Your mind was racing as you looked around. You had no string or anything of the likes that could be used as a tourniquet. You had nothing to stifle the flow. He was going to bleed out before you could save him if you just did nothing, but what could you—

And suddenly, looking through the red lenses that covered the world, it struck you.

Hellfire coursed through your veins. Fire could possibly stop the bleeding.

It certainly wasn’t the best idea you’d ever had, but it was something.

Your breaths were labored as you pulled Bucky closer to you so that his head was pressed against your stomach and you could reach his arm better. Bending over him, you reached forward with both hands and cupped the stump.

He thrashed in your lap, reaching over desperately to try and tear your hands from his flesh, but you held on, his ichor staining your fingers with the sickening color.

“Oh, please. Please let this work,” you whispered as you took a shaky breath and commanded the fires of Hades to flow through your body and to your hands.

It was mesmerizing to watch. Your veins glowed red beneath your skin, surging with power and warming your body tremendously. It flowed through your arms, stemming from your heart until it came to rest in your hands which were glowing white with fire.

And that’s when the pain really hit Bucky.

You couldn’t imagine what he was feeling at that moment, but from his screaming, you knew it was excruciating.

Your heart wept for him, but you could not stop. As much as you hated this now—seeing him hurting like this—you would hate his death more.

You kept the fire on the stump for only a few more moments, feeling the flesh cook beneath your skin, before letting go. The fire dimmed down and you were able to look over him in his entirety.

He’d lost a lot of his color, but the bleeding had been stopped. Sweat made his skin shine and plastered his head to his forehead. His usually plump lips were chapped and parted as he drew in ragged breaths. His face was screwed up in pain, his eyes—those beautiful blue eyes that you loved so much—were squeezed tightly shut. He couldn’t even open them. His hand was balled into a fist, probably to help him handle the pain as much as he could.

Your gaze softened as you brushed your hand over his head. Despite the fire lingering in your flesh, he was burning up. “Oh, Bucky…” you whispered, tears welling up in your eyes. “Why did you do that? Why are you so stupid?”

A shadow crossed his body and you looked up right as Pietro knelt by Bucky’s side. The god did a quick scan of the man in your lap before he got to work, conjuring medical supplies out of thin air. “You’ve cauterized the wound,” he said as he began to dab at it with pristine white gauze. “The bleeding is stopped but he’s not in the clear yet. Don’t worry, I have him.” His eyes flickered up to meet yours and he smiled softly. “You saved his life. Nice thinking.”

You could only nod. “I… I didn’t know what to do… What can I do?”

“You can win this war.” He was looking back down at Bucky’s arm as his hands moved swiftly. “Defeat Kronos. The other titans are down. Kronos is the only one left.”

You glanced up and, sure enough, your four uncles were either on the ground or in chains being handled by the gods.

You could see Tony and Pepper holding onto a broken and bloody Crius whose hands were bound in vibranium chains. One second they were there, the next they were gone—teleported away to, probably, the Underworld to return him to Tartarus. One by one, the other gods followed suit, taking their respective titans away. No one dared go near Kronos.

Your father was still sprawled out at the other end of the valley. However, he was stirring now, pushing himself up. Your attack had taken him by surprise and he was only now recovering from it. You could feel his rage rolling toward you in waves.

He was the only one left; the only obstacle in your path.

You grit your teeth and, after gently pushing Bucky’s head off your lap, rose to your feet. Your bident had materialized in your hand again, finding its home in your palm. The pain in your shoulder was almost nonexistent now, the hellfire you’d conjured having aided its healing. You felt good. You felt powerful. And you were going to end this. Sparing one last glance down at Bucky, your stare hardened. You could do this; if not for yourself, then for him.

Your strides were wide and purposeful, and every step you took sent thunder ringing through the air.

All the gems and minerals in the ground moved with you, the wealth you governed shaking the earth. The air itself was charged with energy and electricity, and it took you only a moment for you to realize that your sister was causing that.

Carol fell in stride with you to your right, her lightning staff crackling. Her eyes glowed with energy as she looked over at you, a firm smile on her face. “We’re doing this together. You’re not alone.”

“I could kick our dad’s ass,” Natasha chimed beside you, a smirk of her own crossing her lips. “I think it’s high time he learned his place.”

You chuckled. “Damn right. Together.”

Flanked by your sisters, you marched toward your father who had risen to his feet and was now glowering at you with crimson eyes. His lips were curled back in a sneer as he twirled his scythe threateningly. “You think that you can defeat me now that you have your darling sisters?” he demanded. “I am still your father. I brought you into this world and I can take you right out.”

“We’ll see about that.”

You met him halfway through the valley.

Carol literally jumped the rest of the way as she brought down her lightning on him. The clouds darkened above you as the weather bent to her will.

Natasha came in from the ground, the earth shaking with every step. Her earthquakes tore crevices in the earth as she swept her trident in his direction.

You charged him straight on, interlocking his weapon with yours and driving him back. You could feel the hellfire filling your body again and you channeled that heat to your bident, turning the black metal red with energy.

The three of you struck him at once and it was magnificent.

Attacking from all sides, he didn’t know which way to look to defend himself. When he was fighting back the lightning, a bident and trident struck his side. When he fended off the bident and trident, lightning bit his back.

You were vicious as you attacked, your anger and rage renewed with a vengeance. With your sisters at your side, you felt that there was nothing you couldn’t do.

And your father seemed to realize this too.

The red of his eyes intensified as he raised his weapon and slammed it into the ground. The wave of force that rolled out knocked you away from him.

You flew back half a dozen feet, digging your heels into the ground to stop yourself from falling.

He followed you closely, cutting an arc at you and slicing down your chest in your moment of vulnerability.

Gods, it hurt, but your healing was on overdrive and the pain didn’t last for long. And even if it had, you weren’t alone.

As you stumbled back, Natasha took your spot, locking the blade of his scythe in between two prongs of her bident and twisting it. The scythe was wrenched to the side, leaving his torso open for Carol to stab.

He roared in agony and swiped his hand at her, hitting her stomach with the full strength of an enraged titan.

With a thundering oof, she fell on the ground. She skidded several yards before coming to a stop and trying to muscle herself up. You could see the ichor already matting her hair down. It took a lot of force to break a god’s skin, but she’d been hit hard enough to do so.

Natasha, seeing her younger sister wounded, growled and readied herself. Using the force of the raging sea, she charged him, wielding her trident and aiming to strike him in the chest.

But Kronos was expecting her attack and spun around just in time to slice her side open with his scythe. Ichor spilled over the blade, coating it with gold.

Natasha screamed and fell back away from him, clutching her side and trying to speed up her healing process.

You were the last daughter standing and Kronos turned his attention to you. His eyes burned red as he smirked and charged at you. You were the last threat and one he felt he could eliminate easily.

You weren’t thinking as you watched him come closer. You just waited for him to come, and when he was right on top of you, you did what any normal goddess would do: you shifted your grip on your bident so you were holding the base, pulled it back, and swung it like a bat with all your might.

The impact took him off guard and the prongs of your bident slashed his stomach as you hit him away from you. He flew across the field and landed with his back hitting a sharp boulder. His cry of pain rang out, drowning out all other noise.

He was down and—in that second—you knew you’d never get a chance like this again. He wasn’t defenseless by any means (he still had his scythe in his hand) but he was wounded and slower than normal. If you acted fast enough, you might just have a shot at ending it all here and now.

It could be quick. Just a simple blow to the chest to put a stop to this war for good. You could do it.

It wasn’t impossible to kill a titan—just very hard. Like all immortals, they could be killed by your weapons if struck correctly. A blow to the heart would do the trick.

You were getting excited at the prospect of finishing this and you glanced to the side to see if your sisters were feeling the same. But one look at them had your heart sinking in your chest.

They were in no condition to help you end this. Their chests heaved with labored breaths as they stood bent over to conserve their strength. Natasha was nursing a gaping wound on her side and Carol was still recovering from her slide on the ground. They wouldn't be quick enough to land the final blow.

You weren’t sure you’d be quick enough either for that matter, but you knew you had to try. This was a golden opportunity and your window was closing fast. You didn’t know if it would work, but you knew you had to at least give it everything you had—for all your sakes.

But the second you made up your mind, something caused you to hesitate, and looking around at your friends and family, you realized it was them. If this went south and you ended up wounded beyond repair, what were you leaving behind? A family you cherished and a man you…

A lump formed in your throat, threatening to suffocate you.

You’d be leaving behind a man you loved without even telling him you loved him.

Thinking back on it, you never had uttered those three simple words, and now you could possibly die without ever doing so. You couldn’t… You couldn’t just let him live out the remainder of his days without knowing that, despite everything, you really, truly loved him with every ounce of your being.

So, the only logical option, should things go wrong, was to have a backup plan.

Swallowing a lump that had grown in your throat, you looked at your youngest sister. “Carol? Will you promise me something?” Your voice was heavy with premature grief, mourning the words you might never get to say.

She didn’t seem to pick up on the solemn undertones in your voice. “Yeah, anything.”

You took a shaky breath. “If… If what I’m about to do doesn’t go the way I’m planning, tell Bucky that I love him for me.”

That got her attention. She turned her head towards you and narrowed her eyes. “(y/n)... What are you going to do?”

“Something I should’ve done a long time ago…” You tore your gaze away from her and focused on the titan still kneeling before you. Red clouded your vision as you steeled your nerves. “End this fucking war.”

You didn’t give her a chance to object because you knew she’d stop you if she had even a second.

Before she could register the meaning of your words, you were sprinting at your father, power building in you every time your feet hit the ground. You were going to need all the strength you could get.

Your eyes never once left your father as you ran.

He hadn’t changed at all. He still looked like he did when you’d fought him the first time. He still looked like he did when you were young and naive, just wanting your father’s love.

How many nights had you spent lying there thinking about him, about what you didn’t have—wondering what you could’ve done differently to avoid being eaten and avoid the war? How many times had you dreamt of what kind of a family you would be had things gone differently? Your father and mother would still be together. You and your sisters would’ve taken over ruling the universe when they decided to retire. He would join you and your mother for brunch. You could look in the mirror and admire your strong resemblance to him thinking, “Yeah, I look like my dad and that’s great.”

But things never worked out like that. He was a homicidal, power-hungry lunatic. There was no reasoning with him—no redemption. He would not stop until you and everyone you loved were dead.

And so, hardening your heart, you took a literal leap of faith.

The angle at which you fell gave you the perfect shot at his heart. You pointed your bident down, aiming for the critical hit.

His eyes narrowed at you as he tried to struggle to a sitting position. With a trembling hand, he lifted his scythe up to meet you. For a single second, you thought that he’d moved just in time; you thought that he was going to impale you instead.

But he was too weak.

And your aim was too true.

Your bident connected with his blade and the gold of the scythe shattered from the pure force of your strike. He had only a second to realize what you had done before it was too late.

Before you fell on him and the prongs of your bident buried themselves in his chest, the tips cutting straight through his heart and pinning him to the ground.

What remained of his scythe had fallen out of his hand as he sank back to the ground. His lips were parted as shallow gasps escaped his mouth. Ichor appeared at the corners of his lips and began to run down his face in thin rivulets, merging into the rather large pool that was forming around him.

Your arms shook with force as you shoved the bident down further, burying the prongs in his chest until the hilt could move no more. You could feel the ribs breaking beneath the pressure and the muscle resisting the damage.

But he couldn’t stop you.

He grunted as the metal shifted in him, and with a weak hand he reached up to grab the shaft. With all this might, he pushed at the vibranium in a desperate attempt to dislodge it from his chest.

But his strength had already left him. The push was nothing more than a slight force. It wasn’t hard to resist.

And it was then that he seemed to realize what had just happened.

It was then that he realized that he wasn’t going to make it out of this alive.

His breaths turned to wheezing as his punctured lungs tried to heal themselves. However, the unbreakable vibranium in his flesh prevented his healing from kicking in.

Fear filled his face as he gazed up at you, his firstborn and his killer, and he understood his death. He opened his mouth, but no words came out; only a strangled rasping you knew would haunt your dreams forever.

Death is a strange thing to see, you decided. The agonizingly slow pace of it can drive a person mad, and the pure horror of it is enough to terrorize even the strongest man. To know that this life before you is ending is a harrowing weight to bear on a soul.

But, in this case, it was necessary.

You took a moment to just look at him; to see him alive one last time if nothing else. Despite the ichor covering his face, you could still see every feature that you shared.

The same hair, despite his being matted and coarse.

The same nose, despite the ichor leaking out the nostrils.

Even the same mouth, despite the chapped and bloody lips.

The same eyes…

His eyes that you’d stolen from him to make your own.

His eyes and their color.

The red…

The red eyes that matched yours so perfectly began to dim with every passing second.

Because as his life left him and the light faded from his eyes, so too did the red—draining away until all that remained was a dull shade that mirrored your own (e/c) eyes perfectly.

Until he was gone.

Your legs gave out and you collapsed, clinging onto the bident and relying on it to be the only thing that held you up over his body. You sobbed. You wailed and cried and screamed as emotions, more intense than anything you had ever felt, washed over you: rage, loathing, guilt, and—most of all—grief.

The grief surprised you, but it was overwhelming.

It was all you could process.

The grief of losing a parent was one you never thought you’d know. Your mother was immortal, and you never really knew your father.

You should’ve hated him.

But your heart, the traitorous little thing it was, still harbored an ounce of love for him.

And it was only that ounce that was needed to feel this grief.

Your lips parted in a silent scream as your chest tried to cave in on itself. Your eyes squeezed shut as you shook your head. Your heart hurt. It hurt so bad you just wanted to rip it out of your chest and be done with it. You hated this feeling. You hated him for putting you through this—for putting you through all of it.

But, at long last, it was over. It was done.

Kronos was dead.

You were vaguely aware of your sisters’ presence above you, but it wasn’t until Carol grabbed your shoulders that you actually acknowledged them.

“(y/n),” Carol called softly, her voice as gentle as could be. “(y/n), you’re hurt. You need to let go.”

You didn't respond to her. You couldn’t find your voice. Your heart seemed to have severed your vocal chords as well.

“It’s okay… You did it. You ended it. We can go home now. Just let him go.”

How could you? How could you just let him go? He was your father. He was supposed to be the one to tuck you in goodnight as a child and love you unconditionally. How could you just let him go?

“You’re okay. I promise you’re okay, but we can’t stay here. We need you home. Bucky needs you. We can’t stay here. We have to go.” Carol pulled gently on your shoulders, coaxing you away from the body.

Your fingers gave way without any resistance, the shaft of your bident slipping out easily, and she led you away.

You didn’t even have the strength to resist.

Next 23: Her Heart Betrays Her

#pragma(tic)#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #hades #hades and persephone #hades & persephone #hades & persephone au #persephone!bucky x hades!reader #bucky #bucky x you greek au #bucky x reader #bucky x you #greek au #gods au

468 notes · View notes

d-noona · 3 years ago

Text

BARTERED BRIDE - Chapter 4

Ch 04 - Lunch Meeting

Kim Namjoon is a ruthless financier used to buying and selling stocks, shares and priceless artifacts. But now Namjoon has his eye on a very different acquisition - Park Han Byeol. Left destitute by her father's recent death, Han Byeol walks into Namjoon's bank looking to extend her overdraft. As Han Byeol needs money and Namjoon needs a wife, he proposes the perfect deal: he'll rescue her financially if she agrees to marry him. But in this marriage of convenience can Han Byeol ever be anything more than just a bartered bride?

Masterlist

"I nearly kept you waiting," said Namjoon. "I came back from the bank at eleven to go run in the park. As I was coming home I saw an old man on a bench who was obviously in need of medical attention. That held me up."

"Do you run everyday?" Han Byeol asks.

"I try to. Are you a runner?"

Han Byeol shook her head. "I play tennis and ski. I don't do work-outs."

He slanted an appraising glance at her figure. Today, in place of a black suit, she was wearing a designer outfit bought on a holiday in Italy. It consisted f a fine jersey-knit top in lilac, a waistcoat in violet, and swirling chevron-striped skirt combining those colors with pink and pale pistachio-green. The audacious color combination was perfect with Han Byeol's dark hair and brown eyes. "You look in great shape," he remarked. "But people in desk jobs like mine need some kind of fitness regime to stave off the bad effects of a sedentary lifestyle. Come and sit down. What would you like to drink before lunch?"

She remembered his remark about the wine she had been drinking when he forced his way in the previous evening. Was he one of those people who drank only mineral water and made everyone who didn't feel on a lower plane? Han Byeol had no intention of allowing him to intimidate her. "A Campari and soda, please," she said firmly.

Namjoon said to the butler, who had been following them at a discreet distance, "A Campari for Miss Park and my usual, please, Curtis." With a silent inclination of the head, the butler withdrew.

"Let's sit over here, shall we?" Namjoon steered her towards a group of comfortable chairs near one of the windows. "Have you finished your packing?"

"Almost"

Knowing that she wouldn't be able to sleep, she had worked on it till long past midnight. At half past nine this morning a dealer whom she had ought a lot of furnishings had come round to buy them back. Luckily Han Byeol had paid for them out of her bank account. Although the money in it had come from her father, technically they were her property, not his. As soon as his business had been forced into receivership, everything her father had owned, including the family home belonged to his business creditors. But the cash the dealer had handed her could go in her pocket. It wasn't much but it was better than nothing if, when Namjoon spelt out the terms of his trade off marriage, she found that she couldn't accept them. Looking up at the elegant cornice around the ceiling and the two crystal chandeliers, their chains swathed with coral tassels at the tops of the heavy cream curtains.

"Are you interested in architecture?" He sounded faintly surprised.

"Sometimes."

The butler came back with their drinks, hers a slight more vivid red than the coral linen slipcovers on some of the sofas, Namjoon's colorless except for a twist of lemon floating among the ice cubes. It could be in or vodka, or it could straight mineral water. Namjoon said, "This was my grandparents' house. My paternal grandmother still lives here when she's not staying with her daughters". I moved here when my father died. We had been living in Ilsan. I have an apartment near Gangnam but I thought you would feel more comfortable being entertained in the main house," he added with a gleam of amusement. After a slight pause, he added "I shall move out when I marry. The province is better for children, if their parents can choose where to live. Most people can't of course."

"Where are you thinking of moving to?" Han Byeol asked.

"I haven't decided." His expression was enigmatic. "Where would you choose to live, given a free choice?"

Han Byeol considered the question. Once the answer would have been "Wherever Yoongi wants to live." She said, "Ideally I'd like more sun than we get in this city. I wouldn't mind living by the sea, getting some fresh air...or a lake would do as long as it has mountains round it. I'd like to look out on mountains...big ones with snow on top."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Sounds as if New Zealand would suit you."

She shook her head. "I'm sure it's a beautiful country but it's too far away from Korea. Have you been there?"

Namjoon nodded. "The scenery's magnificent...when it's not raining. Unreliable weather. I went with old friends, you might know them since they run in the same circles you do. Where have your travels taken you?"

"Mostly to holiday places...the Caribbean in winter...resorts round the Med in summer. My mother's a passionate gardener. She doesn't like travelling alone, even in a group. I've been on some garden tours with her...the south of France, Ireland, California. Where do you for holidays?" Han Byeol takes a sip of her Campari.

"I used to go with my father who also liked someone with him. We went to Japan together and other Pacific Rim countries. I travel a lot for the bank. For pleasure I usually go to France, Greece or Spain. Where would you like to go for our honeymoon?"

The question, tacked on to innocuous small talk, took her by surprise. "I haven't agreed to marry you," she said coldly.

"If you found the idea unthinkable, you wouldn't be here," he said dryly. "Let's be straight with each other Han Byeol. I need you...you need me. It's a sensible, practical arrangement."

She knew that at least the first part of what he said was true, but she wasn't about to admit it. Was it pride that made her reluctant to fall in with his plan too readily? She said, "I'm not clear why you've selected me."

"You're very attractive...as I am sure you're aware." he smiles at her gently.

"Is that all you want from a woman? An acceptable face and figure? Don't you care what I'm like inside?" Han Byeol scoffed.

'I can make some intelligent guesses. People can't hide their characters," he told her casually. "Even in repose a face gives a lot of clues to its owner's temperament. Apart from yesterday's evidence that you have a short fuse, I haven't detected any characteristics I wouldn't like to live with."

His arrogance took her breath away. In that moment of shock, she was struck by the thought it would be both a challenge and public service to bring this man down from his lofty pinnacle and convert him into an acceptably unassuming person. But perhaps it was already too late . One of gran's favorite sayings was, "What's bred in the bone must come out in flesh." Namjoon with his long-boned thoroughbred physique and his handsome features, looked a descendant of generations of men who had felt themselves to be superior beings and never experienced the doubts felt by ordinary people.

In a different, more rough-hewn way, her father had been the same. Probably somewhere far back in Namjoon's ancestry, there had been a man like her father: a rough-diamond unscrupulous go-getter who had founded the Park Fortune. Perhaps if Mr. Park had married someone better equipped to handle him than her quiet and easily cowed mother, her father might have been saved from becoming an overbearing braggart. Whether, at thirty four, Namjoon's essential nature could be modified was problematical. But it could be interesting to try.

She said, "I don't find you as transparent as you seem to find me. It takes me longer to make up my mind about people;"

"You haven't had as much experience of summing up people as I have."

The butler reappeared. "Luncheon is ready when you are, sir."

They ate in a smaller room with a view of a large garden, an oasis of well kept greenery in the heart of the city. The surface of the round Regency breakfast table had a gleaming patina resulting from years of regular polishing' It reflected the colors and shapes of the red-streaked white tulips arranged in a what Han Byeol recognized as an antique tulip pot, its many spouts designed to support the stems of flowers which had once been costly status symbols. The meal began with potted shrimps served with crisp Melba toast, tiny green gherkins and white wine, which they continued to drink with the main course, chicken with minty yogurt dressing.

While they ate Namjoon talked about plays and art shows he had been to recently. It was the kind of conversation made by strangers at formal lunch parties and although his comments were interesting Han Byeol thought his choice of subject was irrelevant to this particular situation. When the butler had withdrawn, leaving them to help themselves to a fruit salad with fromage frais, or to selection of more substantial cheeses, she said, "Why do you want a wife when you could go on having girlfriends and a change them when you get bored?"

Offering her elegant Waterford compote, its apparent fragility emphasizing the powerful but equally elegant form of the hands in which it was cradled, he looked at her with unexpected sternness. "I have a responsibility to my line. I need sons to carry on the traditions established by my predecessors."

She found this solemnly irritating. "Are you expecting me to provide proof of my fertility?" Before she could add that, if he was, he could forget it, Namjoon said, "No, I'm prepared to chance that."

"Big deal!" Han Byeol said sarcastically.

She had a feeling that Namjoon wouldn't hesitate to divorce her if she failed to live up to his expectations in some way. But although he struck her as a monster of cold-hearted self-centeredness, she couldn't deny that he was extraordinarily attractive. Every movement he had made since they sat down had heightened her awareness of the lean and muscular physique inside the well-cut suit and the long legs under the table. His hair was dry now but still had a sheen of health. There was nothing about him suggestive of stress or tension. He seemed entirely relaxed. Yet why did he need to arrange a businesslike marriage instead of falling in love the way people usually did?

Wondering, suddenly, if he might be in the same situation as herself, heartbroken, although it didn't seem likely, she said, "When did you dream up this scheme?"

"It's an idea I've had for some time...probably since my contemporaries started divorcing. I have about a dozen god-children, most whom now have step parents, some official, some not. I don't want that for my children."

"Did you parents stay married?" she asked.

It seemed to her that his face underwent a change. His lips didn't tighten. His eyebrows didn't draw together. But there was a subtle hardening and chilling, reminding her of the impression she had received that morning when they sat on opposite sides of his imposing desk/ Now they were at a table designed for a more intimate and relaxed conversation. But she sensed a change in the atmosphere and knew she had trespassed in an area of his where she was an unwelcome intruder.

"They separated. They were never divorced," he answered.

Han Byeol wanted to ask hold he had been when the separation happened, but something made her hold her tongue. Later, going back to the flat in the taxi he had laid on for her, she regretted her curiousity.

When-in-two people were going to marry, there shouldn't be any "No go" areas between them...or at least none of that nature. His past girlfriends were not her business, but his family life certainly was. She shouldn't have allowed herself to be put off. From now on she wouldn't be, she told herself firmly.

#bts #bangtan sonyeondan #kim namjoon #joonie'#RM #bangtan army #rm x reader #rm x original character #rm motherfuckers

4 notes · View notes

henryobsessed · 4 years ago

Text

The Widow and The Witcher Chapter 20

Summery: Will Julia be in trouble now the book is reveled?

Word Count: 2900

Warning: Fluff :)

A/N thank you all for the wonderful encouragement :)

Chapter 20

Cautiously Julia walked to Vesemir. Knowing how Geralt had reacted when he had seen the book, she waited to hear what he had to say. Vesemir looked back to the book reaching out he caressed the page it was open to, as he continued to gaze at its pages he asked with a soft painfilled voice "Where did you get this? How did this book come to be in your possession?" expecting an irate Vesemir it took Julia by surprise to hear the softness and pain in the old man's voice. She reached out a hand touching his arm, he turned to face her his old tired eyes seeking answers. "Vesemir, I am happy to answer your questions but right now I need to finish looking after Eskel. Why don't you go sit by the window and I will be with you soon?" His shoulders stiffened as he gave her a subtle nod.

Julia quickly moved to get a sleeping elixir and pain reliever to help aid Eskel and moved back to the brothers. Geralt seemed barely holding on to his frustration and anger as she approached Eskel. The poison seemed to have been neutralised, but his body needed time to heal. "Geralt can you hold up his head please" Following her request Geralt gently placed his hand under Eskel's head who groaned at the contact. If this had been any other person Julia knew this would have been a vastly different situation. She brushed some of his rich brown hair from his forehead and then lifted the mixture to his lips, Eskel turned his head away from her towards Geralt. Julia chuckled silently at the childlike refusal but said in a calm authoritative voice "Eskel, you need to take this it will help you sleep and give you some pain relief as you heal." Geralt eyed his brother with a nod confirming what she said "Trust me Eskel it will make it a lot better. She knows what she is doing. But before she does who did this to you? Do you know who poisoned you?"

Eskel nodded his head slowly and responded in a quiet husky voice "My fault, picked the wrong berries" groaning Geralt shook his head but Julia noticed the tension leave his shoulders. She took Eskel's chin in her hand and guided it back to her face speaking with kindness she said" Eskel were they blue in colour with a soft green tinge?" he nodded at the description "You are lucky Geralt got you here in time, they are quick acting and we have tried for years to eradicate them from this area. Now please take this so you can sleep" Eskel nodded opening his lips allowing her to administer the liquid. Geralt laid Eskel's head back to the pillow and then pulled a blanket over his body as sleep overtook him.

Julia enjoyed seeing how much love Geralt had for his brothers particularly Eskel. They had gone through so much together. Moving to Geralt's side Julia put her arms around him and whispered, "He will be ok Geralt, you got him here in time." He wrapped his arm around Julia in response and pulled her tight into his side. Looking over to Vesemir Julia wondered how she was going to tell her now father in law about the book and its previous owner. Wanting Geralt's support she rested her head on his side "Geralt, Vesemir saw the book. I must go talk to him about it. Eskel will sleep for a few hours can you come with me? I am concerned that there is more to that book for Vesemir than it just being a Witcher's book." Geralt looked over to his mentor and noticing the slump of his shoulders as he looked out over the gardens he nodded his agreement.

Geralt rarely saw Vesemir look his true age, but right now his old mentor was not looking great. Julia was seated across from Vesemir but Geralt had decided to sit next to him giving him support if he needed it. He watched Julia as she seemed to shift in her seat. It was not a nervous shifting rather, that she was trying to work out how to tell the story. Clearing her throat, she spoke "Vesemir you asked me how the book came into my possession. It's a short story but it might not be so easy for you to hear. My mother was a young healer when she was asked to tend to an old man, he had been found on the road by a local villager. He looked like he had been in a fight and had many wounds too many to save him. Before he died, he talked to my mother, his name was Barmin he said he was a Witcher and that he had a book in his satchel that he wanted her to have. He insisted that she keep it hidden and not let anyone else see it. My mother tending him dutifully until he died. she then took the book and hid it amongst her things. On her death bed, she told me the story, and the book was given to me to look after."

Vesemir was visibly shaken, Geralt placed a hand on his arm as Julia had shared her story. Vesemir was not one to shed a tear, and it took Geralt by surprise to feel one land on his hand. Heeding his mentor Geralt could see a myriad of emotions crossing his face along with the few tears that were on his cheeks. Geralt gently asked "Vesemir what is it? Did you know this Witcher?" Vesemir nodded and after a moment of composing himself said "he was my mentor father figure, during the ransacking of Kear Moran those of us that survived thought he had been killed. We did not know he had survived. We could have helped him." Julia leaned forward and placed a hand over his speaking softly "Vesemir, I'm sorry this must be hard for you to hear, but I want you to know that my mother took great care to make sure his last days were comfortable and he was never alone"

Vesemir regarded Julia his face relaxing back to his normal stoic expression. It was like his walls were being erected again, speaking softly but with his normal confidence, Vesemir addressing her said "Thank you, At least I know he was cared for and that the book remained safe. I am glad you had it on hand to assist both Geralt and Eskel. Will you continue to keep it safe? At least until the last Witcher has died. Geralt can I entrust that you will make sure it is kept safe."

The gravity of what Vesemir was asking the couple was not lost on them and both nodded in agreement. With that, the old man stood and moved over to Eskel who was now beginning to snore quite loudly. A smile creased Vesemir's face as he looked down at the man saying quietly but loud enough that Geralt could hear "Knucklehead, when will he learn to think with his head first and stomach second." with that he left the room.

It had only taken a day for Eskel to be back to his old self and Julia was glad. The poor man hated being laid up in bed almost as much as Geralt had. The first day he had been too tired to be a problem but on the second day, he had been giving Visenna a hard time, and eventually, by that night Julia had sent him back to be with his brothers.

Today Julia was taking a well-deserved break, the healing rooms were closed, and the estate was quiet except the sounds of tents being pulled down and carts leaving. She had not had a relaxing swim in the mineral spring for many months and she now felt like she needed it. The hot water felt good on her aching muscles as she submerged her body. Allowing herself to float ears under the water she shut out the world, for just one moment she wanted to disappear. As she lay floating her senses became alert to the feeling of being watched. She opened her eyes and lifted her head to see Geralt a soft smile of his face as his eyes gazed over her body.

Geralt had finally felt he could leave the others to supervise the pack down of the Field hospital. It had been weeks since his wedding to Julia and his arms were aching to hold her. They had spent no time with each other since then as they had literally been ships in the night. Apart from a few stolen moments when they both were so tired all they did was fall asleep in each other's arms. Today he was determined to find her and whisk her away for some time alone. Sure of where he would find her he entered the healing rooms. Looking around he almost missed her, the only thing alerting him to where she hid was the soft relaxed heartbeat. His eyes scanned till he saw her body stretched out floating in the spring. Her hair flowing along the water, eyes closed a peaceful look on her face. Geralt waited for a while just watching his beloved, it filled his heart with warmth watching her. She had worked so hard helping others he wondered how often she had been tended to. He turned and locked the door, walked to her tables and found some oils then removed his clothing and entered the spring.

Julia was happy to see Geralt, they had spent to much time apart since their wedding. He moved with purpose and on reaching her pulled her into his arms. They held each other for a few moments before Julia felt Geralt start to walk them towards a section of the spring where there was a bench. He sat down and turned her around to sit on his lap her back leaning into his chest. Julia was not sure what he was up to but happy to just relax with him in the water hummed appreciatively. She felt his hands sit her up a bit then they started to knead her tired shoulders. His big hands were surprisingly gentle, but they still found every knot spending enough time on each on to release the tension.

She felt like she was floating, the tension of the last few weeks fading away. Fighting to stay awake under his ministrations Julia whispered "Geralt, I love you." He finished his massage and turned her around to face him. Looking into her eyes he could see she was fully relaxed he dipped his head and kissed her soundly on the lips. Their kiss started slow and leisurely savoring each other's taste but as they continued the kiss grew deeper and their actions more passionate. A banging started on the healing room door, Geralt pulled back just enough to rest his head against Julia's forehead and growled "Ignore them, they will go away" they began kissing again until Tobias called though the door in a panicked voice "Julia the baby's coming"

Julia pushed away from Geralt and pulled herself up out of the spring, yelling out to Tobias as she grabbed the few elixirs she knew could help "Were on our way Tobias, go get Visenna". Looking back at Geralt and seeing his wounded expression Julia taking a breath said "Rain check? I'm sorry" she was thankful when she saw the resignation and relaxed look settle on his features. Softly he replied as she ran to the door "I'll hold you to that"

It had been a grueling 12 hours as Julia and Visenna coaxed and encouraged Renee to walk, then breath as the babe she carried continued to try to make an entrance into this world. Tobias had attempted to help until Renee started to cry and yell through each contraction at that point he had panicked and was shoed from the room joining Geralt and the other men. Yennefer seeing Tobias had left the room entered to help. She stayed by Renee's side. Finally, the moment arrived, and a Healthy 6-pound little boy entered the world. Both Visenna and Julia checked him over and satisfied he was ok Visenna went to tend to the coming afterbirth. Julia looked down at the wriggling infant, counted all his toes and fingers then smiled "you are perfect little man" with that she wrapped him up in a warm blanket and went to hand him to Renee.

Bending down to hand the baby to Renee she noticed the young woman scrunching her face in pain "what's wrong are you ok?" crying out she said "Something else is coming" Julia looked to Visenna who looked up with a broad grin "there's another one, the head is crowning" handing the baby to Yen Julia said in a hurried voice "Hold this little man Yen" Yennefer looked down at the little bundle in her arms and smiled totally smitten with the infant until he opened his mouth and began to wail. Panicked she looked around for help, but Julia was massaging Renee's stomach with one hand and hold her hand with the other, while Visenna was helping to maneuver the next child into the world.

Yennefer decided to hold the infant against her chest and patted him on his bottom until the crying ebbed a little. Looking over at the others she heard Visenna say "Just one more push Renee, that's it" Renee red-faced pushed until at last she gasped and relaxed. The room was silent Visenna looking at the newborn, brow furrowed until she heard the faint cry. Visenna looked up at Renee a broad grin on her face and said in an amazed voice "It's a little girl!" Lifting her up and taking her to be cleaned Julia motioned for Yen to bring the little boy back to Renee. Placing the infant against Renee's chest was hard for Yen, she didn't want to let him go. The look on Renee's face held compassion for Yen but also showed Yen he would be safe there. Yen knew in that instant that Renee would be a fierce protector of her children.

Visenna was looking after the little girl, as she washed the blood and mucus off her body she counted her toes and fingers and made sure there were no defects. The little girl grabbed hold of her finger and was tugging it as Julia came over. Smiling Julia said "Well you are a surprise little one" Visenna wrapped her up and carried her to Renee as she held out her free arm to cradle her little girl. Overwhelmed seeing Renee with her two babies in arm Yen got up, and reaching for the door said "I will go get the boys"

Tobias, Geralt, and Jaskier had been waiting with Ciri in the Library. The rest of the Witcher's were out making sure the final pack down happened without incident. Tobias was pacing around unable to sit still as worry for his wife and child consumed his thoughts. Ciri was sitting reading a book trying to escape her own worries for Renee, and Geralt was getting annoyed at the worry he was trying so desperately not to feel and at Jaskier who was currently composing a song about the courageous healers of Wolnosci. Yen walked into the library and motioned to Tobias; he gave her a silent look wanting confirmation that all was well. Yen understanding the father's worry nodded her head and said with a soft voice "Come meet your children Tobias." The look on Tobias's face was comical it went from a worried look to a slack-jawed open-mouthed "Oh". Ciri hearing the news squealed in delight "Can I come too please?" Yennefer looked at the young girl and said with a soft smile "Let's give Tobias some time first with Renee, I'm sure you will have plenty of opportunities to be with your cousins.

Tobias still slack-jawed looked like he was going to topple over. Geralt noticed the increase of his heartbeat and before the man fainted stood up and helped him to sit. "Tobias put your head between your knees, that's it and breath deep" Tobias did as his now father figure encouraged him to. Finally feeling better, he looked up at Geralt and said with a small voice "will you come with me?" Frowning not sure he wanted to be around the infants yet Geralt looked at Tobias, the poor man was truly shaken. Taking a deep breath he realised this was going to be part of being the father to this house, he nodded and helped Tobias to stand.

The two lingered at the door one terrified but also excited to meet his children the other just terrified. Knocking they waited Geralt could hear his sweet wife's voice call out "who is there?" responding in kind Geralt's said in his familiar gravelly voice "I have the father here to see his wife and children" Tobias stood next to Geralt mumbling "children, I have children" the door opened and Julia stood there bright smile on her face holding a little bundle in her arms. "Tobias, Geralt come in".

Previous Chapter Nineteen Next Chapter Twenty one

A/N Awww, I feel like this story is coming to a conclusion soon. Would love to know what you all think and if you have any suggestions for how I can improve. I feel like there are some chapters that worked really well and others that need to be changed so I will go back and revise them once I finish.

Thank you for reading and please comment :)

I have Tagged people who follow me and who I follow if you want to be removed or added please let me know :)

@keanureevesisbae @darkverrmin @viking-raider @littlefreya@madbaddic7ed @the-soot-sprite @thelastsock @lovetusilver20@crimsonrae @demivampirew @ladyreapermc@henrycavillobsessed @nitannichionne @runawayolives @heartfelt-pen @omgkatinka @star017 @llly113 @sad-ghost-of-garbage @ayamenimthiriel @starstruckkittyangel @lebguardians @summersong69 @notyouraveragemochii @imneonpanda @carriebee1 @ivyfatale @thereisa8ella @lucy930 @sarahmichelle5 @stuckupstucky @cleodoramer @kmuir1 @elliepower @xobriellaxo24 @xxxkatxo @supernovacocorocha @hennerslionhat @xo-mery-ox @waitedforlove743 @ladamari68 @coksy @wickedrum @harleyfranquinn @mysticalstrangerearthquake @justrae9903 @willkatfanfromasia @daddys-littlewhitegirl @cavilladdict @lebguardians @theblondetumbleweed @snowbellexx @radaofrivia @geralttheewitcher @acdd22 @thullyana @fanfictionaddiction99 @beckythfc1882 @heyheyharry @sauve-et-libre @shy-violet-soul @elliepower @msamericanrebel @minion-of-the-lord

#thewidowandthewitcher #the witcher #geralt #geralt of rivia #geralt fanfic #henry cavill

25 notes · View notes

ledenews · 4 months ago

Link

#AAL2 #belmontcounty #BrookeCounty #CoachRes #downtownwheeling #JoshResignalo #MarshallCounty #MatterPorter #NAL #ohiocounty #UpperOhioValley #WesbancoArena #WestVirginia #WheelingMiners

0 notes

welcometomy20s · 3 years ago

Text

August 25, 2021

We interrupt this programming to give you an anniversary post.

Anniversary: 100 Years - The Battle of Blair Mountain

West Virginia had their days, but they are now the pinnacle of being left behind... but most doesn't realize what has left for them to be behind. And therefore the story is lost and we are left confused.

Red Necks originally came from the red bandanas that miners would wear to showcase worker solidarity. You think the word 'red' should point to its socialist origins... but whatever, the Red Neck Army (integrated a generation before the US Army) formed to fight for worker's rights and unions among other civil rights.

This is the big fear... see North Carolina in the 1890's for a horrific resistance to a worker's union. And also Rainbow Coalition for a more modern take on the process and the resistance that idea took...

Sorry for the tangent, but did you see Blair and Kazinski doing the pitch regarding the first women Pinkerton guard? Talk about especially bad timing... and also bad idea in general. Come on...

West Virginia was (and still is to some extent) largely a sham run by big companies, mostly in coal. The people living there were definitely not a sham by any reach, but the system that surrounded them were 100% designed to exploit labor to further the company's benefit.

Post-war always had a heavy hand in conservatism, as wars always gives a glimpse of socialism... one of the reason wars are the booster shots of modern government. The continued pressure boiled until we had one of the biggest uprising against the federal government since the Civil War, but unlike the previous uprising, this came from the other side, a remnant of what have been done since that last riot.

Federal government was brutal, putting machine guns on them... it was all but done for the miners, and when the federal government stepped in, the battle was all the owner. Federal government gave an unusually calm head and punished the anti-unionist for their reckless behavior that led to this mini-war. But the deed was done, labor participation dwindled as the 'Roaring' Twenties continued, and only the New Deal help bolster the labor movement, perhaps for the last.

As we see in this series, 1920's was a bloody time, the post-war boom was unequal and repercussion of war and the pandemic echoed mightily throughout the world. It is a good mirror of the world today, a glimpse to how to better manage this troubling times, and what possible failure are possible. People do not learn this in schools. But there are resources available, and we must keep them available.

#anniversary #labor rights #west virginia

1 note · View note

evolutionsvoid · 4 years ago

Photo

With the twisted Cantor sent back to her endless song, the path now opens forward. Before treading, though, be wary of the words she left behind. What lies ahead cannot be stopped, its conclusion inevitable. Once the next step is taken, there is no turning back. What has been unleashed cannot be put back, only until the final blow is struck. The bearer would be wise to pause and ask themselves if they are capable of handling such a weight. Is their cause worth this sacrifice? These are questions only oneself can answer. If one's heart is not strong enough, then they may leave now and that will simply be the end of it. But for those who truly believe, those who truly want to change the world, they may accept this mantle and continue the journey. They shall take the blessing and call out to the Minister of Pestilence. The summoning of the Minister calls for sacrifice, one of beast and blood. The hearts of livestock must be cut out and offered, so that the Minister may take notice and come forth. The bearer will know when the ritual brings success, as the reek of rot and disease shall pour from the earth. Rising from a pool of blight and bone, the Minister of Pestilence shall arrive. His writhing body and putrid odor may bring disgust, but now is no time for such childish revulsions. When the Minister is summoned, he shall immediately call out to the bearer and demand their full attention. Unlike others before him, the Minister is quite serious about the role he plays and knows that such a force is not one to be trifled with. The road ahead is one he is quite familiar with, and he has had many come begging for the strength of the Emissaries. His relic, however, is not given away so easily. While other previous Emissaries may be wooed with offerings and compliments, the Minister is very much not. The bearer will find themselves under scrutiny by this rotted entity, and will face a barrage of questions. Why have you called upon the Emissaries? What is it that you are after? Are you aware of what lies ahead, and how this all must end? Are you truly confident in your cause? Are you willing to give your life for it? This interrogation must be faced and the questions must be answered. If the Minister is unsatisfied, then they hold tight to their relic and cast the bearer out. They are not ready for the task ahead, so he turns them away for their own sake. If one passes his test, then he shall reluctantly give his relic. Before handing it off, though, he will ask one last time: Do you truly wish to unleash this? There is no turning back from here, and any stumble or pause shall mean certain death. If this is truly one's wish, take the relic and let it all begin. Granted from the Minister of Pestilence is the Salt of Effluvia, held within a blessed container of pus and grime. Despite the slime and filth that drips from this vessel, the salt it holds always remains crystalline and pure. Do not be fooled by the appearance of this blessed mineral, as its heart is festered and foul. Take a mere pinch of this substance and cast it upon the earth, sow it upon the fields and pastures. Wherever the salt lands, it shall leech into the ground, tainting the land with disease. Any livestock who tread upon this infected soil shall immediately be struck with a horrible sickness. Their skin shall ooze, their flesh shall fester and their bones shall crumble. These poor beasts will fall to pieces, as their flesh sloughs off the bone and their organs turn to soup. Death will be swift, leaving behind a vile pool of rot. Spread this salt to the farms and lands of the enemy, and watch as their beasts are consumed by this foul disease. It is warned, though, that one should be sparing when casting this cursed substance. A simple sprinkle will suffice in blighting the land for a few days, but a handful can turn a pasture into an endless wasteland. Too much salt will poison the soil for years to come, killing both beast and plant that dares to dwell there. Saturate the land with this salt, and there will be no home left for either friend or foe. With sickness sowed and the fields filled with rot, the vessel and its horrid salt may be returned. Once given back to its rightful owner, the bearer must prepare themselves for the next plague. There are no blessings anymore, no rituals to be performed. It has truly begun, the cataclysm is in full swing. No more will the bearer call to the Emissaries, as they shall now come on their own accord. Be ready for their inevitable arrival, for this must now be seen through to the end. "Oh, sweet Mother, they do not fear. Your children seek you once more..." ----------------------------------------- Here is another Emissary, as I had to post one on Halloween! As should be obvious by now, there is no way these guys are getting finished in October, so the other five will be spread out into November. Turns out ten of these fellows is quite a lot! Five down, five more to go!

#plague #disease #pestilence #ten plagues #monster #creature #rot #art #drawing

18 notes · View notes

ill-will-editions · 5 years ago

Photo

QUARANTINE LETTER #4

A fourth letter in our quarantine series, from our friend Icarus.

-----

EVERYTHING IS TRUE, NOTHING IS PERMITTED

“They’ve already destroyed everything, all the structures we believed in, trusted. Maybe we’re in a transitional phase, you know? There’s some sort of substitution going on. Meanwhile, we’re navigating in a tremendous vacuum, vaguely oriented by the stars but with no true reference point. Our compasses have gone wild, spinning madly, attracted by thousands of magnetic poles. We might as well throw them out the window, they’re obsolete. It’s just us and the night sky, like it was for the early explorers, while we wait for new, more advanced navigational devices to be invented. My only fear is that the stars have somehow gotten out of place and will be no help as references either.”

- Ignacio de Loyola Brandao, “And Still the Earth”

Dear friends,

It can be strange to intervene in someone else’s debate, but I don’t believe you’ll hold it against me if I do. Over the past weeks, I’ve rather enjoyed the commentary and exchange of letters between my friends, August, Kora, and Orion. Something about the reflections of my friends is missing for me still, so I’ll chime in without wasting too much time, I hope.

QUARANTINE: INCOMPLETE—WHAT WE THINK IS HAPPENING IS ONLY SOMEWHAT ACCURATE

Today, millions of people are working. In warehouses, in offices, in fields, kitchens and storerooms; from the computer, the sorting room and at construction sites, millions of Americans are sharing the coronavirus with each other and with their neighbors. Many of them are asymptomatic, a portion are not sick yet, and certainly some of them are still hiding their symptoms from their families, employers, and coworkers. No zombie apocalypse is complete without the inconsiderate hot-head who insists, deceptively, that his injury is “nothing, it’s fine, let’s keep moving”. Orion wrote that the virus imposes “its own temporality, which immobilizes everything.” If only.

Logistics, shipping, freight, warehousing: these are some of the largest sectors of the 21st century workforce, and they are all on overtime. From Whole Foods to Old Dominion, these disposable workers are simultaneously killable - insofar as the market facilitates their endangerment via assured contact with the virus - and indispensable, insofar as they must not be allowed to strike, unionize, or cease working that this society may minimally function. In these industries, overwhelmingly, black men and immigrants are crammed into job sites without any protective equipment. In other words, they are proletarians in the classical sense, and they are still at work. A true quarantine, a dignified exodus from the commodity society and its extensive productive apparatus, would halt all forms of labor and toil, a circumstance as yet unrealized. If we can say we are living in a quarantine, we must say that it is still incomplete.

AUTONOMY OR AUTOMATA?—THE PANDEMIC AFFECTS ALL OF HUMANITY—WHICH NO LONGER EXISTS AS SUCH

What we once called "society" (an entity which now insists it can survive unity and distance simultaneously, even distance for the sake of unity), has been replaced by billions of apparatuses. These apparatuses constitute a vast ACEPHALOGRAM - a system of machines designed to trace and retrace the consciousness of a world that has definitively lost its head.

The period of real domination opened by the aggressive economic and political restructuring in the 70s, 80s, and 90s - “globalization” - has pushed a vast quantity of workers out of manufacturing and into service related industries. Services being overall less profitable then commodity manufacturing and heavy industry, other technological implements such as we see emerge from Silicon Valley have filled the gap, so to speak, of lost profits for the economy by allowing large advertising and analysis firms to mine directly the collective human ambitions in art, sex, politics, culture, and society. To open up this mine, which has produced an existential ruin comparable to the environmental ruin associated with mineral mining, the internet has developed as a global network of pseudo participatory information systems. The data thirst of these industries cannot be sated by the administration of facts from the center or top, they must be produced by the masses directly. But technology does not simply catch data falling naturally from the sky or running off the gutters of consciousness. It produces data by arranging relations such that they produce content that can be bought and sold. Under such conditions, the medical, political, technological and ontological crisis of a pandemic cannot help but be experienced as a video, a collection of tweets, graphs, memes, as background noise, as a conspiracy theory, as a genre in the endless relay of notifications.

THE MIDDLE OF THE BEGINNING OF THE END—WHAT MAKES INDIVIDUAL INTERPRETATION POSSIBLE, MAKES COMMON UNDERSTANDING IMPOSSIBLE.

The truth is that social media has allowed billions of people to coordinate themselves into large and small containers of meaning and virtual energy. These containers, ecosystems of signs and signifiers, by dint of their polycentralized arrangement, function as an epistemological subversion of established truth-making infrastructures that require a certain amount of hegemony or global purchase: the scientific method, fact-checking, and debate. Occasionally, the understanding produced in these containers, theory-fictions more than anything else, incidentally conform to an intensity with physical correlatives capable of overpowering police infrastructures and seizing public space, as we saw across the world in 2019. More often, the echo chambers, as they are often called, curtail feelings of common dialogue and the perception of shared futurity that would be seemingly embedded in such a “global” sharing of information. This curtailing allows people of all “types” to be bundled together as data sets, insulated from the experience of true diversity of thought, of experience, of analysis. The polycentralized arrangement of the internet today may be even less participatory than previous eras of information sharing, even though it doesn’t feel that way.

Commentators and critics have used the ongoing crisis to delay the moment of our collective education with unwavering ideological entrenchment. At work, it is not uncommon for me to hear small business owners and day traders talk about the failures of socialized medicine in Italy, implicitly endorsing greater privatization in the US. Among activists, liberals, and leftists, it is impossible to imagine a greater indictment on the privatized, decentralized, healthcare system than what is taking place. Apocalyptic Christian sects believe the government is going to repress churches for gathering, and social justice advocates believe the coronavirus crisis will be “the same, but worse” on every oppressive axis. It’s hard to imagine another reflex.

While they recognize that the internet has plunged billions of people into a pulverized simulacrum, some of my comrades would have us devote ourselves to the dissemination of real news, of verified and sober analysis, of scientific rigor, in order to combat the prevailing disarray. This warms my heart just as it saddens my intellect. We have always been machine-breakers, in a way, revolting against the forward and crushing movement of industry to preserve a less alienated experience of reality, labor, and community. We aren’t wrong for that. We should be reliable sources of information, but not because we will convince people with our reports — which may no longer be so possible online — rather because we believe it is the right thing to do, and because we can at least proceed on a clear and shared basis with each other. But what other strategies could we utilize for analyzing the world that would allow us to act within the protracted vertigo, without trapping ourselves or others in ideological camps, and without losing revolutionary aspirations in a world where global verification of facts seems impossible, but where universal need for a transformation, fascistic or revolutionary, feels like common sense?

EVERYTHING IS TRUE, NOTHING IS PERMITTED—THE SYSTEM REDUCES ITSELF TO A PURE FLUX OF DYNAMICS

“We dreamed of utopia and woke up screaming

A poor lonely cowboy that comes back home, what a wonder”

-Roberto Bolano, “Leave Everything, Again”

For millennia, the administration of public facts was the cornerstone of political power, and stamping out alternative readings the chief objective of the repressive machinery. The ruling bureaucracy has organized itself to prevent any global loss of control. They’ve always done that. What is surprising is how readily, since 9/11 at least, perhaps much earlier, they have abandoned many important methods for doing so. As the possibility of imagining its own future became increasingly stamped-out, the reigning order abandoned any pretense of pursuing the ideals it propped itself up on, its sole promise being to ward-off unforeseen eventualities. Without embarrassing myself with long-winded arguments about things I am ill-equipped to discuss - certainly less knowledgeable than my dear friends are on such matters as philosophy and critical works - I’d prefer to refer to an argument advanced by Brian Massumi in his essay “National Emergency Enterprise”. In this piece, he argues that a primary strategy of governance is to identify all possible causes of a scenario. The market refashions environments that submit the living tissue of relations one and all to technological “dataveillance”, information which, in principle, allows the administrators of such a system to model its every possible outcome, translating every action into a trans-action, while ensuring that every aberration meets a form of control. He utilizes the example of a forest fire, but we can just look at the pandemic and it’s consequences.

The ruling class everywhere, has argued and governed as if the coronavirus is "merely the flu", justifying late responses and insufficient care, while also closing borders and taking emergency measures as if we are living in a veritable plague. There are strategies attached to every discourse, interests silently advanced with each interpretation, and powers produced and mobilized by every kind of theory and operation. Anyway, we have been living in the fall out of multiple convergent strategies for controlling and responding to this situation. The governors of the world, at least of the democratic countries, are basically throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks. We can imagine that modeling and predictions are conducted endlessly based on analytics produced through data mining and network analysis purchased from Google, Facebook, Twitter, and elsewhere. As technocratic governments subordinate welfare states to the "science" of neoliberalism, the nihilism of the powerful today subordinates everything to the "science" of control.

Anyway, who organizes oblivion today acts with no principles and can only speak in lies. What does this mean for the rest of us?

NOTHING IS EVERYTHING, TRUE IS PERMITTED—TRUTH DOES NOT REQUIRE A SUBJECT ONLY LIES DO. LET'S KEEP IT REAL, WHATEVER THAT IS.

We can and are responding to this situation. The most important thing, from my perspective, is that we develop a vibrant enough ecosystem of strategies, corresponding to the largest possible interpretation of facts, without dividing our sympathies and concerns into rival fiefdoms and ideological sects. There are benefits to arguing that nothing of the situation is unique, that in fact the worst off before are the worst off now, that today simply represents an opportunity for us, etc. I am not among the comrades advancing this position, but I want to see the results of that framework as soon as possible, if it does not in fact raise the threshold for meaningful interventions. There are benefits to arguing that the quarantine is not deep enough, that the politics of mobilization have failed utterly to devastate the economy, but that a true lock down of the world could resemble the worlds first ever international wildcat general strike. I want to hear advocates of this position contend with the possibility of carceral interpretations of this argument. For those planting survival gardens, for those running autonomous rent strike hotlines, for those training in firearms, I want us to develop a shared enough perspective to see that there is a simple unity in our strategies, which is what is precisely, and incorrectly, attacked in Kora’s most recent letter to Orion: our autonomy. Beyond any individualistic misinterpretations, it is my perspective that the ability of human beings to self-authorize our activity, to determine our shared destinies, to control supply chains, vital infrastructures, and means of subsistence without the mediating factors of the market, are necessary prerequisites for a dignified life on earth. This is not to say, as Kora has intelligently argued, that anyone could come to control the unfolding course of history - a delusion that preppers, governors, and revolutionaries have all held - but precisely that autonomous, self-organized, structures are the only structures capable of responding quickly enough to the destabilizing, frightening, and uncertain futures lying in wait regardless of what we or anyone else do. We must utilize the current situation to repolarize the circumstances to the best of our ability around foundational concerns of power: on the one hand, there are all of the people of the world, some of them bastards we would not live with, and our shared need for dignified healthcare, housing, sustenance, and livelihood; and on the other hand there are all of the bastards waiting this out on yachts, manipulating public data for the sake of a geopolitical PR battle, utilizing the pandemic to pursue totalitarian power fantasies and clampdowns. We don’t need to steer the ship forward, we need to be able to swim in the wreckage.

Sorry, I wrote too much. Thanks for reading and I look forward to reading what others think soon.

-- Icarus

04.11.2020

STATE OF EMERGENCY, DAY 40

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

#Quarantine letters #COVID19 #USA #articles

50 notes · View notes

cnbiz · 4 years ago

Text

Small Business Tax Deduction: Capital expenses

Before digging out the capital expenses we should be clear in expenses and losses as both decreases owner’s, shareholder’s equity. The difference between expenses and losses is that we can’t get any benefit from losses vs. we will get benefit from the expenses. Expenses can be of two types: Capital nature expenses and revenue nature expenses. Revenue nature expenses are short term in nature and benefits can be derived only for short period of time e.g. for less than one year. In this article we are going to discuss about capital expenses which can be claimed as amortization. We will discuss Depreciation and revenue nature expenses separately in next article. Any expenditure whose benefit can be derived for more than one year is capital expenditure.

The IRS views capital expenses as investments in the business, thus the business can't simply deduct the money spent on the asset from its gross income. The money hasn't really left the business, it was just transformed into an asset that the business hopes will generate more money. Deductions for capital expenses typically must occur over several years, except where Section 179 applies. Spreading the deduction over multiple tax years - also known as "amortization" or "depreciation" or depletion - helps businesses to accurately assess their profitability from year to year.

The Internal Revenue Service has provided several rules for capital expenses which can be claimed as depreciation, amortization and depletion in preparing income tax return. If the capital nature expenses are incurred to obtain asset which has physical existence those we can touch, feel and see, then this type of expenses can be claimed as depreciation. If the capital expenditure is incurred to obtain benefits for several years whose physical existence does not exist, such type of expenses can be claimed as amortization or depletion.

Amortization of Capital Expenses can be summarized as follows:

a) Start-up Cost: Expenses which could be deducted as an ordinary and necessary business expenses if the business is already operating or in existence and incurs before the active trade or business begins are start-up cost. Start-up cost include an analysis or survey of potential markets, products, labor supply; advertisement for the opening of the business; salaries and fees paid to employees or professionals; travel and other necessary cost for securing prospective distributors, suppliers or customers.

The IRS says that start up costs are amount paid or incurred for:

Creating an active trade or business or

Investigating the creation or acquisition of an active trade or business.

The IRS regulation state that business start-up costs are typically considered capital expenses because they are for the the long term, not just the first year. Start-up cost can be deducted up-to $5,000 in the first year of business. This deduction is restricted if you have over $50,000 in start-up costs. Any start-up cost which can’t be claim as deduction in first year can be deducted in 180 months as amortization.

b) Organizational Costs: Organization costs for tax purposes are costs incurred in forming a partnership or corporation, including the legal fees for drafting a partnership agreement or corporate charter and bylaws, necessary accounting services in forming the entity, filing fees, and costs of organizational meetings of stockholders and directors. Amounts paid to organize a corporation are the direct expenses of creating the corporation or partnership. A corporation using the cash method of accounting can amortize the organizational cost in the first year of business even if doesn’t pay cash to them. A partnership using the cash method of accounting can deduct an organizational cost only if it has been paid in that year.

Examples of cost of organization include cost of temporary directors, the cost of organizational meetings, state registration fees, the cost of legal services etc. The organizational cost treatment for IRS is almost like start- up cost. If the expense is below $50,000, the amount of$5,000 can be deducted in the year of first year of business. Remaining expense can be claimed as amortization in 180 months.

c) Cost of Getting a Lease: Very often when an existing lease is obtained from another lessee, the amount must be paid to the previous lessee to get the lease, besides having to pay the rent on the lease Cost paid to previous lessee for getting the lease besides having to pay the rent or lease should be amortized in remaining period of lease. For example, if $10,000 is paid to get a lease and there are 10 years remaining on the lease with no option to renew, $1,000 can be deducted each year. The cost of getting an existing lease of tangible property is not subject to the amortization rules for section 197 intangibles discussed in.

d) Improvements by Lessee: Cost of the improvement in leased property or making permanent improvement to leased property should be depreciated using the modified accelerated cost recovery system (MACRS). Depreciate the property over its appropriate recovery period. The cost of improvement in leased property can’t be amortized over the remaining term of the lease. If the improvement has to give up at the end of lease, gain or loss should be figured out based on adjusted basis in the improvements at that time.

e) Exploration Costs: The costs of determining the existence, location, extent, or quality of any mineral deposit are ordinarily capital expenditures if the costs lead to the development of a mine. These costs can be recovered through depletion as the mineral is removed from the ground. However, it can be elected to deduct domestic exploration costs paid or incurred before the beginning of the development stage of the mine (except those for oil and gas wells). A corporation (other than an S corporation) can deduct only 70% of its domestic exploration costs. It must capitalize the remaining 30% of costs and amortize them over the 60-month period starting with the month the exploration costs are paid or incurred. A corporation may also elect to capitalize and amortize mining exploration costs over a 10-year period.

f) Barrier Removal Costs The cost of an improvement to a business asset is normally a capital expense. However, it can be elected to deduct the costs of making a facility or public transportation vehicle more accessible to and usable by those who are disabled or elderly. The facility or vehicle for use in connection with trade or business should be owned or leased. The most you can deduct as a The cost of removing barriers to the disabled and the elderly for any tax year can be deducted up-to $15,000. However, any costs over this limit can be added to the basis of the property and depreciated these excess costs.

g) Section 197 Intangibles: Generally, the section 197 intangibles in connection with trade or business or in an activity engaged in for the production of income should be amortized ratably over a 15-year period.

The following assets are section 197 intangibles and must be amortized over 180 months. 1. Goodwill. 2. Going concern value. 3. Workforce in place. 4. Business books and records, operating systems, or any other information base, including lists or other information concerning current or prospective customers. 5. A patent, copyright, formula, process, design, pattern, know-how, format, or similar item. A customer-based intangible. 7. A supplier-based intangible. 8. Any item similar to items 3 through 7. 9. A license, permit, or other right granted by a governmental unit or agency (including issuance and renewals). 10. A covenant not to compete entered into in connection with the acquisition of an interest in a trade or business. 11. Any franchise, trademark, or trade name. 12. A contract for the use of, or a term interest in, any item in this list.

1 note · View note

basicsofislam · 4 years ago

Text

ISLAM 101: 5 PILLARS OF ISLAM: ALMS AND CHARITY: FIQH OF ZAKAT IN DETAIL:

WHO IS OBLIGED WITH ZAKAT

WHO IS LIABLE FOR ZAKAT?

Before collecting zakat from the obliged, it is essential to first ascertain who these individuals are. This requires certain prerequisites, like the knowledge of Islam, freedom, wealth, sanity, maturity—in addition to the requirements concerning wealth, namely ownership, augmentation, nisab, an elapse of a year and the exclusion of basic necessities.

Moreover, there are additional points pertaining to the collection of zakat that must crucially be observed. In sum, zakat must be requested strictly of those who are eligible, and eligibility demands certain requirements relating, in part, to the person in question, and in part, to the person’s wealth.

WHAT FEATURES MUST ONE POSSESS TO BE OBLIGED WITH ZAKAT?

These requirements can be encapsulated as follows: being a Muslim free of any constraints, possessing the ability to obtain basic needs, being free of debt, and having reached maturity, all of which demand a separate elucidation.

ISLAM

Before anyone, Islam addresses the believer, constructing its precepts on this solid foundation of belief. Therefore, as is the case with other responsibilities, the first requirement for zakat is being a Muslim. The requirement of those who have not accepted Islamic teachings but continue to live in Muslim lands is a simple tax, or jizya, identified by the government.

FREEDOM

Zakat has not been ordained compulsory on those enslaved or incarcerated; conversely, those in this situation are advised, firstly, to utilize their wealth, if they have any, to obtain their emancipation. From this perspective, slaves historically were not compelled with zakat, owing to their lack of physical freedom and their financial constraints.

BEING DEBT-FREE

Falling into debt, in normal circumstances, is something a Muslim should avoid, as it may involve entering the domain of subverting another’s personal rights. The Prophet (upon whom be peace) had conceded to perform the funeral prayer of a deceased Companion only after another Companion agreed to finance his outstanding debts.1 As the time and place of death of any one of us is unknown, the attitude of a wise Muslim would be to avoid, if possible, going into debt in the first place, as the hadith makes clear that dying while in debt can incur a difficulty for the community and a serious burden on our souls.

Critically, of course, Islam has never burdened man with obligations that exceed his capacity; contrarily, it has incessantly promulgated what is easy. This principle is also valid for zakat. Even though a person in debt may possess wealth which surpasses nisab, he is first advised to resolve his debts, and thus excused from zakat. People who find themselves in this position are, in fact, eligible to receive zakat, as testified by the Exalted Creator in the Qur’an.

SANITY-MATURITY

Maturity is the point where obligations start, and in effect, a child is not responsible until he or she reaches that phase. Perhaps some voluntary duties may be taken up for the sake of becoming accustomed to servanthood, although this does not imply an obligatory activity. The advice of the Noble Messenger, for example, is to accustom a child to salat (prayer) at the age of seven, and impart gentle words of encouragement if the child is still not offering salat at age ten. Yet again, the Messenger has pronounced that the pen (responsibility) has been lifted from a child until maturity, from a sleeper until he is awake, and from the insane until sane.2

WHAT ARE THE REQUIREMENTS OF THE PROPERTY SUBJECT TO ZAKAT?

Offering zakat necessitates the prior fulfillment of some requirements pertaining to wealth. Thus, as mentioned above, a person is obliged only to pay zakat on the possessions that meet these terms—namely, a person must possess the entire ownership of the wealth; the wealth must be augmentable; it must have surpassed the set amount well above the basic necessities; and a full year must elapse since its attainment. This description needs to be elaborated further at this point.

OWNERSHIP

In calling upon those obliged to perform their duties of zakat, Islam does not want them to pay zakat on the wealth they are yet to possess, a demand that would indubitably inflict people with financial hardship. Wealth is generally obtained by virtue of legitimate methods like earnings, inheritance, mutual agreements, donations, and so forth; hence, a person can freely dispose of and orchestrate his wealth, and take full responsibility in doing so. This, in turn, verifies the full ownership of wealth and therefore, within this framework, whichever method may be used in attaining this wealth, the owner meeting the requirements of full ownership must unavoidably pay its zakat.

Should zakat be given on loans?

In a case where a person is the creditor, that is, he possesses money that is temporarily lent to somebody else, we are faced with two outcomes in ascertaining the necessity of zakat.

Firstly, if the money that is expected to be paid back is under guarantee, like a check or promissory note seen as certain repayment, then this wealth is virtually commensurable with the wealth at hand, and as a result, its zakat must immediately be paid. Given that the chances of repayment are doubtful or improbable, then the zakat on this money should be delayed until reimbursement takes place. When the repayment does take place, we are then faced with another two alternatives: some scholars believe that as well as not giving zakat for previous years, the current year’s should also be withheld, because in a sense, it resembles newly acquired wealth. The others, who approach the issue from the perspective of the rights of the poor, maintain that its zakat should still be offered. Insofar as caution is concerned, undoubtedly, the additional payment of the previous year’s zakatis more appropriate, both as a means of steering clear from breaching the rights of the poor, as well as taking a step towards attaining the pleasure of God.

AUGMENTATION

(THE INCREASE OF POSSESSIONS)

Islam does not necessitate zakat on property that by nature does not increase, though conversely, it targets augmentable possessions. Augmentation or nama denotes valuables that increase and attract revenue and earnings, and is classified into two: absolute augmentation and relative augmentation. Absolute augmentation is basically the increase of property or possessions through birth, reproduction, trade, or the like. Accordingly, animals or livestock, gold, silver and commercial merchandise fall under this category. Relative augmentation, on the other hand, is the wealth possessing possibilityof increase at the hand of its owner or agent. Irrespective of whether the owner increases it or not, he will effectively be asked for zakaton that wealth, owing to its potential. However, in Islam, if the property is lost or stolen, and the owner consequently becomes powerless in its management, then he is not obliged with zakat.

NISAB

(MINIMUM EXEMPTION LIMIT)

As mentioned earlier, nisab is the minimum extent which wealth must reach to become eligible for zakat. Zakat must imperatively be given of wealth that has realized that amount. As zakat is a critical means of social assistance, it would be meaningless and beyond its aim to either fail to implement such a measure or to demand everyone to pay from whatever trivial wealth they might possess.

Accordingly, the Prophet of Islam (upon whom be peace) has clearly identified the amount of nisab for each item. The nisab has been identified as 5 for camels, 30 for cattle, 40 for sheep, 8 5 grams for gold and 595 grams for silver. The nisab for commercial merchandise is established in concordance with gold and silver. As for agricultural harvest, the ratio is one- tenth for crops grown by rainwater or streams, or one-twentieth for crops grown through personal irrigation. For storable crops like wheat, barley and raisins, the nisab is 5 wasq (approximately 653 kg), and the prevalent conception is that no zakat is required for vegetables such as onions and lettuce. Abu Hanifa, however, maintains that regardless of theirnisab, all agricultural goods, more or less, are subject to zakat.

Insofar as minerals and marine products are concerned, they do not possess a specific requirement for nisab and therefore their zakat, at any rate, must be paid. Because we have thoroughly handled the matter of nisab in the chapters concerning the recipients of zakat, those who desire more information are advised to throw a glimpse there.

THE WEALTH MUST EXCEED BASIC NECESSITIES

Another prerequisite for zakat is that the wealth should surpass the amount needed for sustenance, which may vary depending on social, economical and current circumstances. Nonetheless, there are always aspects on which all can mutually agree on, enumerated by the Hanafi scholars as consisting of basic food items, clothing, housing, enough wealth to see to one’s debts, work utensils or apparatus, furniture, a means for travel—or, in today’s conditions, a car or books needed for education. Moreover, the needs of those who, in Islam, are required to be taken care of—such as children, spouse, parents etc.—are similarly allowed basic necessities which are not liable to calculations of zakat upon the person providing their care.

THE ELAPSE OF ONE YEAR

For one to become obliged with zakat, at least a year has to elapse on the earnings beginning from the date of their attainment. This elapse of a year, called hawalanu al-hawl in Islamic terminology, is calculated in reference to the lunar year. However, this requirement does not necessarily aim at all types of wealth: it does pertain to livestock, money and commercial merchandise; but it does not affect agricultural crops, fruit, minerals, treasure, honey and similar items.

Another aspect needs to be elaborated. A person who continues to acquire new wealth in addition to the base wealth which has reached nisab and is thus subject to zakat, no longer needs to wait for the elapse of a year on these possessions; on the contrary, these augmentations need to be progressively included in the base wealth and calculated accordingly. This point is overwhelmingly agreed upon for commercial merchandise and for the offspring of livestock, although there is a minor difference of opinion between the schools pertaining to increases in different types of livestock. The general consensus, however, is that under such circumstances, one must start anew; for instance, if a person owns camels equivalent to nisab, for which he is paying zakat, and acquires a further 30 cattle or 40 sheep, he would wait a year for these new acquisitions, and then pay their zakat, owing to the difference of type. However, if the person isdoing business with these animals, then without waiting for the elapse of a year, he must pay zakat on them. For this reason, if a person buys a further 100 sheep, for instance, in addition to the 40 sheep for which he is paying zakat, according to Abu Hanifa, he must provide zakat on 140 sheep without waiting for a year to elapse.

7 notes · View notes

hhinsectmafias · 5 years ago

Photo

(Although there is information similar to the previous description in Butterfly’s and Spider’s mafia, there are some points that are different. The three mafias get to have some equal characteristics; however they have different systems, it is recommended to read each point carefully, thankies :3)

The main leader is Urania, a free and independent woman, always ready before everything and surrendering is not in her vocabulary. Although his mafia is in the last position of the three, he does not doubt that his plan of success will manage to take it very high. Ready, agile, seductive and beautiful, she has proved brave to face the dangers of the sea. The ocean is large, but there are still certain points to cover, are you ready to be part of the fleet?

- DESCRIPTION:

In addition to strategic alliances with companies in the city. The mafia is responsible for the export of precious gems and minerals that can be used as jewels or that have great value to the large companies of decorations, modeling, etc., in addition to serving to manufacture lethal weapons with diamond edge, which are also traded . Being the owner of more than 80% of the marine territory rich in minerals found in islands and underwater mines, has allowed her to find wealth in the sea than on land, using that to her advantage.

- JOBS:

It is true that in a fleet there are many charges but in this mafia they are divided into four:

OFFICIAL: To this group belong high-ranking pirates, who despite having experience negotiating, are characterized by being explorers and adventurers. Being brave, they are dedicated to finding the rarest treasures or objects in the most dangerous places on the ocean islands, even finding more territory to use.

HARVESTOR: They are responsible for caring for and protecting underwater mines, as well as mineral exports. If you want to work either harvesting or monitoring the mines, it is mandatory that you have to be a marine creature, in order to breathe underwater. But if you want to export, you can be either a sea creature or another specie.

CRIMINAL: They are in charge of dirty work, either in the city for some adjustment of accounts or blowing up an enemy fleet. In this range include experts in any type of weapons, and the ability to navigate at speed and complete their work as soon as possible. They are the wildest and fiercest pirates.

PAWN: They are the ones in charge of the rest of the ship, they can include chefs, musicians, candle keeper, navigator, map drawer, treasure researcher, etc., without them the ships would not have an orderly function. They only go to the city to collect the money.

- RULES:

Be loyal, love and respect the main leader, your captain Urania, as well as obey the mandates of the main leaders of each rank. In this way you demonstrate your absolute fidelity.

You need to have the tatoo.

Once you have been part of this mafia, there is no going back. No other of the three mafias will be able to receive you.

Do not make exchanges or close deals without Urania being aware, she will always have the last word on her links.

Do not reveal the secrets and strategies of the group.

Do not commit treason, or you will be expelled.

If you have a friend from a rival group, they should only be that … FRIENDS.

- TREASON:

Is practically considered treason if you disobey any of the mafia rules, but the worst betrayal is when you break rule number 7. Currently the three mafia groups are in a kind of cold war, proving to be better than others in certain aspects. Why not resort to sabotage, wars, murders, etc.? Simple, the answer is in the younger sisters of each leader of each mafia, who despite belonging to different mafias they are very close, like sisters, which led the leaders to be more considerate at that point. It is permissible to only have friendly, but not romantic, relationships, because there is a risk that secrets of each mafia will be revealed. If any member discovers your betrayal, you and your partner will not have a happy ending.

- SECRET LOVE 💖:

“Hidden love is the prettiest of all,” said a sage.

No human being is perfect, and for that reason we are in hell. It is impossible to deny what your heart tells you, love that person very intensely and do not let it go. The representatives of each rank are the ones who are in charge of patrolling the city daily, verifying that each of its allies does not break any of the rules. But every person always sins of a failure. So don’t give up, there are ways to love in secret!

- INITIATION RITUAL:

To seal the fidelity and commitment to serve the Urania mafia, the ritual is that Urania will tear one of her feathers from her fur on her neck, then make it thick thanks to her magic and deliver it to the new member, in this way the new member gets something from her, a symbol of trust, and she/he must keep it carefully forever.

- CREATION OF YOUR MEMBER:

With all this explained, are you ready to join?

If you want to include any oc within the mafia, you must make the following table of information, Urania needs to know everything about your oc to fully trust in it.

Your oc does not need to be a butterfly to be part of the mafia, it can be whatever you want! Maybe a butterfly, a spider or a moth! Or if you prefer a plant, an animal, a sea creature, maybe something more mythological. Use your imagination as much as you want! But remember! It has to have an adventurous appearance wearing pirate costumes, moderating the elegant of the wild.

After all those points, you must complete the following table:

- Name:

- Age:

- Height:

- Gender:

- Sexual Orientation:

- Cause of Death:

- Mafia:

- Job: (If your oc is going to be an Official, a Harvestor, a Criminal or a Pawn, you need to put it here)

- Abilities:

- Personality:

- Likes:

- Dislikes:

- Other data of interest:

- Secret Love: (Optional) (If your oc has any secret relationship with any oc of any of the enemy mafias, you must mention it and label the creator)

As I said before all mermbers need to have the tatoo of the mafia. You can use it on a piece of clothing in full view of everyone or in any part of your body where everyone can see it.

That would be all, You can start to create your ocs!

If you already have any oc that you want to join, you must also complete the table

Ask first in my ask box or in private message before join an oc to the mafia or if you want to solve any doubt. Don’t forget to mention me when you create your oc.

All mafia’s information finally were posted yey! >:D

PLS Support me with your like and reblog for more people to join in >:’D

Thanks for all your support QvQ 💛

91 notes · View notes