#seeing the words RETIRE

[dogwittaablog]

Tbh I'm so happy Nolan is retired, TBIs are nothing to fuck around about and I was already worried that he wouldn't be able to live a normal life and work anymore with what he's gone through.

Like man took 3 dangerous hits back to back in 3 back to back games in like 2018 (head to boards, shoulder to head and puck to head). Plus chronic migraine and other hits, the fact he's still able to function is incredible.

I know it sucks he's retired, but I think this is for the best, another hit and that could be it.

Yeah I fully agree! Head injuries aren’t a joke, even just going through one of them seems scary, so I cant imagine having to deal with multiple.

Him being retired was not some blind side hit (no pun intended 💀) I think we all knew before it was even said. Tho seeing it basically made official now cause his own friend/him said it, it’s like OH.

I also have a bunch of respect for him in making that big tough decision on fully just leaving, cause you have athletes out there that fully ignore health precautions n medical experts to risk there lives to just play the sport they love.

[matramancer]

"in your embrace" | Hoshina x reader

Synopsis: You were so used to the harshness of the battlefield that the silence in your room left you distraught. Hoshina felt the same.

Tags: angst with fluff, comfort, reader and hoshina are heavily implied to have PTSD, gn! reader

You were used to a loud, fast paced life. One where your gun was in hand’s reach, where all you knew was to shoot, reload, and repeat.

It was what made the silence so jarring sometimes.

You were by no means alone–you could feel Soshiro’s presence beside you in the dark, his fatigued body finally settling in at around 2 am tonight, now spread out on the cold sheets of your bed.

Maybe it was the lull of the air conditioner, or the pitter patter of the rain outside, but something about how mundane it all was pushed your eyes to drift, and soon, you found yourself staring at the still body of your lover.

You stared, and then studied. Your excitable, nimble boyfriend on the field had retired himself into the soft sheets and fluffy pillows of your shared bed, and you briefly recount how they didn’t come with the bed initially. It was a chilly winter Saturday where Hoshina had enough of the plain sheets and opted to change them into cozier bedware, taking note of how much more you hogged the pillows and leaned into his warmth compared to the previous seasons. As advantageous as it was for Soshiro to be able to open his arms and warm you up each and every time a chill ran down your body, he’d prefer a more comfortable and practical solution for you.

“Can’t always count on me to heat up the bed all the time,” he joked in his usual elated tone, the warm covers and pillows the two of you finally settled on snug in your shopping cart.

Tease as he might, it struck a chord in how it was a reminder of the reality of your relationship sometimes. Hoshina Soshiro loves you, but he might not be able to be there on his side of the bed all of the time. And you’re the same.

 You love Hoshina Soshiro, but you’re soldiers first and foremost. Spending a calm night on your bed was a luxury of its own. One day it could be his or your last day, and neither of you would know. Then you’d have to face the empty side the other left.

…

The thought of a cold bed scares you.

You hated it. You hated the familiar feeling that snaked itself into your chest, that same feeling when you saw your lover sprawled out in front of you on his deathbed, the splotches of his blood that seeped into your suit as you carried him to the medics burning a hole in your skin. When you didn’t want to let go, and fought against Captain Ashiro’s strong grip as every part of your body burned.

Breathe in, breathe out.

The screams of the other cadets telling you to stand down fell on deaf ears as rounds and rounds of shots flew out of your gun. When you weren’t satisfied with the firepower, your hands violently threw your gun to a barely breathing yoju, letting out a strangled cry as you ran headfirst to the crowd with your special weapon.

“Stand down! That’s an order!” You ignored Ashiro’s blaring voice in your comms, blasting the heads of kaiju open as you cleared a path to the daikaiju. 

“Her suit’s overheating!”

“Okonogi, force a shut down!”

Seeing the daikaiju enter your vision, you braced yourself with your weapon as you forced your body to withstand maximum combat power. As your grip tightened, you let out a large cry, as if to challenge the daikaiju standing in your way.

“AAAAAH—“

“(Y/N)!” Gasping, you blink as your vision returns to the dark blue color of your dim bedroom. Your body wasn’t lit aflame, nor were you covered in any actual blood, but the sensation still felt like you were there. Like that battle when Soshiro…

“Shhh…” pale, strong hands gripped yours tightly, the squeeze bringing you out of your thoughts. Soshiro. He was warm. He was alive. Without realizing it, tears formed in your eyes.

Soshiro’s entire being encircled yours, with his arms on top of yours, slowly guiding them away, including your dominant hand at the side of your waist. 

You realized slowly that your index finger was itching to get into position, to pull a trigger. That your muscles were so tense. That it felt like you donned on your battlesuit already.

Soshiro was a very patient man, and in times like this, you were grateful. “Breathe in, breathe out,” he starts, intertwining his hands with yours once your fingers slowly uncurl. He attempts to remind you of the present. The soft sheets, your bare skin on his, his hair that tickled the area around your ear.

“You can put away your gun, it’s ok. It’s ok,” he repeats, heart stinging at how you were still quite shaky. “I’m here love.”

Finally, you gasp out the breath you didn’t even realize you were holding. “Soshiro–“ as you turn around to face him, he’s already enveloping you in a hug. “I…”

“Yeah… I get it.” He hugs you close. “I’m scared of losing you too.”

This scenario that the two of you were in was indeed unfortunately, a repeat occurrence for the both of you. Where the memories got too tough, where the other side of being in this line of work shows its ugly sides.

It happens to Soshiro too. Got especially worse when it was your turn to be the one on death’s door, the sound of your bones crunching fresh in his mind. It made him sick—how he couldn’t move fast enough, how he couldn’t wield a gun and help you from afar. 

It was like a cruel mockery of his existence, ripping apart his psyche. He’d probably be down the far end if you didn’t make it. But you’re here now, and so was he. It was a rare night where the two of you were in bed together, no alarms or overwork present. Just the two of you and nothing else.

After a while, your initial panic subsides, though the drumming of your heartbeat is still at large. Soshiro furrows his brows, tracing the surgical scars on your bare body. His touch grounds you, pulling your head out of the raging waters in your mind. 

You realize that Soshiro has the exact same expression you had when you were having these thoughts. Messy mops of purple hair, lips downturned, eyes crinkled as he sits deep in thought. A far cry of the jovial vice captain of the 3rd Division, but nevertheless, the love of your life.

“What’s in your mind?” He asks first, noticing your piercing gaze on him.

You quip back. “What’s in yours?”

With that, Soshiro lets out a sigh, the slight bitterness of it not going unnoticed. He’s fixated on the marred skin, weighing the thoughts in his head before opening his mouth. “That day..I thought I lost you.” He starts, his throaty voice hoarse yet soft. “I felt like if I left your hospital bed for even a second, you could have died a-and–” your fingers dart to his face as he sucks a breath, tracing soothing circles on him. A habit of yours he always favored.  “I wouldn’t have been there. I’d be all alone. I can’t go back.”

It’s Soshiro’s turn to sink into your figure, and you take all of him. You envelop yourself in him, prove to him that both of your existences are real. That the pounding of his heart is happening in front of you, that the shift of your diaphragm wasn’t part of his imagination. “We took turns, huh?” You joked, nuzzling into him. “Had to balance the scales somehow.”

He immediately mock-hits your back a couple times, letting out a sound of disapproval as his grip got harder. Oh, if the world ever knew that your dearest Vice Captain was akin to such a clingy cat. “Don’t say that.”

You hum an apology, nuzzling into him harder as you start to get tangled back into the sheets. This was nice, you think. Although you and Hoshina went way back, nights like these were sparse and few in the Defense Force. You’ve slept together many, many times in many many senses, but an uninterrupted early night where you could just bare your hearts out to each other? You might get greedy if this were to happen more often.

The gears in your head shifted a little as Soshiro and you now lay side by side, and even through the darkness of the room, you can see the outline of his sword sheaths and your gun. Something that chained you to the battlefield no matter where you went. 

Would there be a day where you could put down the weapons? Where the only sight you’ll see of them would be his twin swords as a decorative centerpiece in your living room, where the remnants of your days in the field manifested as picture frames and vintage, displayed awards.

It’d be a good life–retiring one day. 

“(Y/N),” The call of your name brings you back to Soshiro, whose fingers are now tracing your jaw. “Are you getting tired again?”

You smile softly. Not just at the sight of Soshiro, so intimately in bed with you, staring at you with so much love in his eyes it was infectious–but at the prospect of how this could be your reality one day, with an older, aged Soshiro not at an apartment near the base, but in his private residence back home. 

Perhaps you’d spend the rest of your life fighting–hell, it might even end at the battlefield still, but if there was even a 0.001% chance that the life you were living now promised that reality with Hoshina Soshiro, then you’d crawl through both heaven and hell for it.

So, ditching the answer to his initial question, you hunch forward and seal his lips with a soft kiss, and like clockwork, Soshiro’s lips melded with yours. “I love you, Soshiro.”

At the sound of this, Soshiro’s face blossoms into a love so soft, it was like when he saw you in your wedding dress for the first time. “I love you, Hoshina (Y/N).”

Sounding absolutely delighted with that, you finally rend yourself to slumber.

And as he holds your sleeping figure close, tracing the ring on your finger, he thinks to himself that he’ll someday give you the life the both of you deserved. One where you’ll definitely grow old together.

[sainz100]

📸 by Martin Trenkler

[columboscreens]

[katyspersonal]

Djura x Valtr divorce thoughts

Tbh the first thing I thought about when I've learned this bit was that Valtr commissioned this weapon specifically, rather than just used one of them cool Powder Kegs inventions, but it could be even so much more!

'Old hunter' is the term referring to the Hunters of Gehrman's type, the different kind than Church's ones, and we know Djura is one of the Old Hunters as well! It would only make sense that Valtr got in Yharnam around the time when they were pretty active, especially since the pieces of Constable Set (corpses of his dead friends) are picked around Hunter's Nightmare, which is specifically built around Old Hunters era! It is also easy to assume that in that era, Powder Kegs were not active and instead it was Oto Workshop since you get Firing Hammer badge in Hunter's Nightmare, but:

It is hard to tell! The Oto Workshop badge, the Firing Hammer one, is dropped by NPC Bestial Hunter, whereas Oto Workshop did not create the Boom Hammer (funny enough!), and yet Old Hunters all over Hunter's Nightmare are using this weapon! Reasonable to assume that Hunter's Nightmare captivated the timeframe after Oto Workshop already fallen, and was replaced by Powder Kegs. And so, Djura was already a big deal!

I also love the attention to the bit that Boom Hammer entailed an especially strong vitriol towards the beasts. This attitude easily could have been Djura's past prior and during the time of Powder Kegs burning the Old Yharnam, something he came to regret (not unlike Maria). And so, Valtr had an idea for a weapon that would kill in especially twisted and aggressive way - an approach Djura could sympathise with! And moveover, sort of take Valtr under his wing, since he'd have a hard time, really:

Valtr instantly caught extreme prejudice and mockery on himself for the ""awful crime"" of not reacting in the most sane way on having his companions murdered by this beast. Valtr already has an aggressive temper, and clearly companionship means everything for this guy as his dying words are about his confederates, so of course he was more fucked than maybe even another hunter in this same situation would be. He was not even a hunter at that time! The way it is worded, in my opinion, emphasises what the Yharnamites think of him: that eating beasts is "just" what he does, or all those whacky foreigners do for that matter, rather than exceptional moment of his life. I think the nickname of beast eater got glued to him because of that, like eternal reminder that what he experienced, and how he reacted to the traumatic event, now defines him in everyone's eyes, rather than like... he made a habit of eating beasts... Heck, maybe it does define him. Maybe it did change him forever, and this "aggressive manic" character is what replaced the person that died in that day.

It is only fair that Djura would want to give a hand. I like the idea of him being the first one to try to reach out instead of being weirded out or afraid or disgusted: something that even other hunters could have felt nonetheless, as in, 'he is like a beast himself now lmao'.

It is also a no-brainer but I doubt Djura would hate Valtr for eating that beast over "beasts are people tho" sentiment (in other words, what Valtr did was cannibalism I don't see the problem lol). It doesn't feel very 'kind but foolish' person-ish to fear or hate someone for a psychotic reaction in an exceptionally extreme event even after his 'epiphany' on nature of beasts. That would also be at least two layers of hypocrisy on Djura's end then, as not only he himself had regrettable past, but also he doesn't mind "cannibalism" that much if he threatened Paleblood Hunter to leave them as food for his beasts! Three layers of hypocrisy, actually, because even under assumption that Djura did not take part in burning of Old Yharnam himself and just returned to the disaster, he forgave at least two people who did; Djura's Ally and Djura's Apprentice NPCs, who are both wearing Charred Hunter outfits:

Though if Djura was hypocritical in regards to going "actually I now find what you did inexcusable, bye ✌️", that'd be interesting reason for falling out also! It would be a cool goodbye if Valtr addressed it and rage quit, leaving Djura with feeling of shame forever! After all Djura is not only 'kind', but also 'foolish'? Lol Though I'd say Valtr's general attitude was probably the bigger factor, and he is the more likely initiator of the breakup!

Valtr outright states that nothing impure deserves to live, whereas Djura is willing to spare the surviving beasts of Old Yharnam based on the fact that they can't harm anyone outside. He is not against the hunt entirely and is reasonable enough to acknowledge that outside of Old Yharnam seclusion, beasts are roaming the streets and attacking people; he sends Paleblood Hunter off to "make the best out of the night". And Valtr, in turn, could see this as a betrayal of their previously shared still naive ideals to "exterminate all bad things to protect everyone :3". Beasts are a dark concept, they are humans that failed to uphold their willpower and fell for the darkest, dirtiest side of humanity. Even if those in Old Yharnam basically got infected, are not they still "filth" in his eyes? So, Djura suddenly sympathises with the "filth", all after having been the Old Hunter so legendary that Hunters are still modelling their caps after his to this day!

But also, Valtr turned out to be reasonable enough to leave him be. He is not summonable in Old Yharnam, unlike Alfred, who you just can tell has THE fanatical mindset. But Valtr sure could grasp the concept of being pragmatic: Old Yharnam beasts, and Djura himself, are isolated now, right? If he was willing to protect the world from the "filthy" things, as far as he was concerned, it was protected from Old Yharnam. Djura is like a gaoler and beasts are like his jailed criminals, and definitely Valtr would recognise the concept, of all people!

So he and Djura parted the ways without hate but for the same reason why Paleblood Hunter and Djura part the ways. Because there are dangerous beasts 'out there', that need to be stopped. And dangerous people, too, but for Djura there is no difference, of course. I imagine it would still be bitter. Maybe Djura would prefer Valtr to chase beasts in Old Yharnam to get isolated within instead of murdering them, but Valtr would be upset at the suggestion. Leave out the Ashen Blood patients, but the beasts outside certainly, definitely became those due to their own dark impulses. And if some asshole long ago didn't fall for the dark impulses, his companions would still be alive! So how can Djura sympathise with that? Is he implying that Valtr should be (retroactively) sympathetic towards THAT beast too? Really bitter things like this on both sides, and Valtr would have stronger grudge, but they are grown men and can agree to simply never see each other again.

[cinderflower]

New Twin Princes Fic - Stay (~5k, 18+) for the FolgersFlash72 event hosted on twt

[deus-ex-mona]

when freedom is in sight!!!!!!!!

[metal-mum]

Just a collection of things RetiRED lore wise. Been meaning to talk about it but chickened out in fear of being cringe. But I am free! And after an 8 hour flight your brain tends to think a lot.

I have more thoughts, but I think this'll do for now. Hiding it under a read under so it's not a chat flood.

RED is incredibly old (what a concept), but that doesn't mean he's much weaker than his prime!

Most of his abilities are in line with what is shown in the original creepypasta, but he has to work for it a bit more. For example, no "magical" lava fingers, but rather swiftly scooping up a nearby source and flinging it in a direction. Note that he isn't lava proof, just resistant. If he lets the molten rock sit on him long enough it will cause damage. Normal flames not so much.

RetiRED never had a "Zach" due to having very little contact with humans, these few times were during eras of madness. Acacius, on the other hand does exist, and the roles are basically the same:

- RED appears when a world has devolved into madness, a complete and utter lack of hope. He does not create these events himself, he just arrives and makes it worse.

- Acacius is that hope that comes and makes sure not all life is lost and to restore hope.

Despite being opposites, they've come to an agreement that this constant loop of life wasn't worth it. Que the "RetiRED" name given.

He currently lives a relatively quiet life on Zenith, which has recently became incredibly boring and a stagnant lifestyle. Nowadays all RED can hope for is something new to happen rather than the daily routine of basic survival.

[keeps-ache]

ooooh this is such a scam [<- looking up references]

[crystalsandbubbletea]

This was NOT news I needed today-

Screw layoffs, they're the worst thing to exist.

[compacflt]

wip wednesday: really makin you guys read today

[dogwittaablog]

obvi people are gonna be normal and give him some sort of appreciation considering his situation but it’s kind of refreshing to see the people on social media who’ve been rude/not so normal about him in the past actually say that they wish the best for him

THIS! Everything I’ve seen being said towards Nolan on pretty much all platforms have been nothing but love and well wishes. You get your occasional idiots still wanting to bring up the draft/“bust”comments, though the support towards him has really outweighed anything negative.

*Also not surprised if a bunch of people from the league are reaching out to him*

[katyspersonal]

1 Insight: Djura's third companion is Josef

15 Insight: Josef is just a cooperator variant of the NPC type 'Izzy's Successor', Djura's third companion is that corpse you pick Charred Set from

40 Insight: 'Djura's companion' might not even necessarily mean Powder Kegs. For example, Djura's Ally doesn't have any Powder Kegs weapons but is clearly included! Even then, there were multiple Powder Kegs, why just three specific ones? Maybe 'companions' refers to his polycule divorces closest friends or whatever. Could that mean Bestial Hunter who is from Oto Workshop (beta Powder Kegs workshop)? Could that mean Valtr since his weapon was made in Powder Kegs? Could that mean Izzy? Who knows!

60 Insight: Djura's third companion is an OC spot because developers forgor/had no time and we've been doing blue curtains effect this whole time

99 Insight: Djura's third companion is a Blood-Starved Beast that Djura's Apprentice fights with, they left Old Yharnam together and this one was poisoned with Ashen Blood all along and eventually turned

0 Insight: You've been fighting Brainsucker in Upper Cathedral Ward's corridor for too long lol

[gingersnapwolves]

So today I want to talk about puberty blockers for transgender kids, because despite being cisgender, this is a subject I’m actually well-versed in. Specifically, I want to talk about how far backwards things have gone.

This story starts almost 20 years ago, and it’s kind of long, but I think it’s important to give you the full history. At the time, I was working as an administrative assistant for a pediatric endocrinologist in a red state. Not a deep deep red state like Alabama, we had a little bit of a purple trend, but still very much red. (I don’t want to say the state at the risk of doxxing myself.) And I took a phone call from a woman who said, “My son is transgender. Does your doctor do hormone therapy?”

I said, “Good question! Let me find out.”

I went into the back and found the doctor playing Solitaire on his computer and said, “Do you do hormone therapy for transgender kids?” It had literally never come up before. He had opened his practice there in the early 2000s. This was roughly 2006, and the first time someone asked. Without looking up from his game of Solitaire, the doctor said, “I’ve never done it before, but I know how it works, so sure.”

I got back on the phone and told the mom, who was overjoyed, and scheduled an appointment for her son. He was the first transgender child we treated with puberty blockers. But not, by far, the first child we treated with puberty blockers, period. Because puberty blockers are used very commonly for children with precocious puberty (early-onset puberty). I would say about twenty percent of the kids our doctor treated were for precocious puberty and were on puberty blockers. They have been well studied and are widely used, safe, and effective.

Well. It turned out, the doctor I worked for was the only doctor in the state who was willing to do this. And word spread pretty fast in the tight-knit community of ‘parents of transgender children in a red state’. We started seeing more kids. A better drug came out. We saw some kids who were at the age where they were past puberty, and prescribed them estrogen or testosterone. Our doctor became, I’m fairly sure, a small folk hero to this community. 

Insurance coverage was a struggle. I remember copying articles and pages out of the Endocrine Society Manual to submit with prior authorization requests for the medications. Insurance coverage was a struggle for a lot of what we did, though. Growth hormone for kids with severe idiopathic short stature. Insulin pumps, which weren’t as common at the time, and then continuous glucose monitoring, when that came out. Insurance struggles were just part and parcel of the job.

I remember vividly when CVS Caremark, a pharmaceutical management company, changed their criteria and included gender dysphoria as a covered diagnosis for puberty blockers. I thought they had put the option on the questionnaire to trigger an automatic denial. But no - it triggered an approval. Medicaid started to cover it. I got so good at getting approvals with my by then tidy packet of articles and documentation that I actually had people in other states calling me to see what I was submitting (the pharmaceutical rep gave them my number because they wanted more people on their drug, which, shady, but sure. He did ask me if it was okay first).

And here’s the key point of this story:

At no point, during any of this, did it ever even occur to any of us that we might have to worry about whether or not what we were doing was legal.

It just never even came up. It was the medically recommended treatment so we did it. And seeing what’s happening in the UK and certain states in America is both terrifying and genuinely shocking to me, as someone who did this for almost fifteen years, without ever even wondering about the legality of it.

The doctor retired some years ago, at which point there were two other doctors in the state who were willing to prescribe the medications for transgender kids. I truly think that he would still be working if nobody else had been willing to take those kids on as patients. He was, by the way, a white cisgender heterosexual Boomer. I remember when he was introduced to the concept of ‘genderfluid’ because one of our patients on HRT wanted to go off. He said ‘that’s so interesting!’ and immediately went to Google to learn more about it. 

I watched these kids transform. I saw them come into the office the first time, sometimes anxious and uncertain, sometimes sullen and angry. I saw them come in the subsequent times, once they were on hormone therapy, how they gradually became happy and confident in themselves. I saw the smiles on their faces when I gave them a gender marker letter for the DMV. I heard them cheer when I called to tell them I’d gotten HRT approved by insurance and we were calling in a prescription. It was honestly amazing and I will always consider the work I did in that red state with those kids to be something I am incredibly proud of. I was honored to be a part of it.

When I see all this transgender backlash, it’s horrifying, because it was well on the way to become standard and accepted treatment. Insurances started to cover it. Other doctors were learning to prescribe it. And now … it’s fucking illegal? Like what the actual fuck. We have gone so far backwards that it makes me want to cry. I don’t know how to stop this slide. But I wrote this so people would understand exactly how steep the slide is.

[weaselle]

i want to talk about real life villains

Not someone who mugs you, or kills someone while driving drunk, those are just criminals. I mean VILLAINS.

Not like trump or musk, who are... cartoonishly evil. And not sexy villains, not grandiose villains, not even satisfyingly two dimensional villains it is easy to hate unconditionally. The real villains.

I had a client who was a retired executive for one of the big oil companies, i think it was Shell or Chevron. Had a home just outside of San Francisco that was wall to wall floor to ceiling full of expensive art. Literally. I once accidentally knocked a painting off the wall because it was hanging at knee height at the corner of the stairs, and it had a little brass plaque on it, and i looked up the name of the artist and it was Monet's apprentice and son-in-law, who was apparently also a famous painter. He had an original Andy Warhol, which should have been a prize piece for anyone to showcase -- it was hanging in the bathroom. I swear to god this guy was using a Chihuly (famous glass sculptor) as a fruit bowl. And he was like, "idk my wife was the one who liked art"

I was intrigued by this guy, because in the circles i run this dude is The Enemy. right? Wealthy oil executive? But as my client, he was... like a sweet grandpa. A poor widower, a nice old man, anyone who knew him would have called him a sweetheart. He had a slightly bewildered air, a sort of gentle bumbling nature.

And the fact that he was both of these things, a Sweet Little Old Man and The Enemy, at the same time, seemed important and fascinating to me.

He reminded me of some antagonist from fiction, but i couldn't put my finger on who. And when i did it all made sense.

John Hammond.

probably one of the most realistic bad guys ever written.

If you've only ever seen the movie, this will need some explaining.

Michael Crichton wrote Jurassic Park in 1990, and i read it shortly thereafter. In the movie, the dinosaurs are the antagonists, which imo erases 50% of the point of the story.

book spoilers below.

In the book, John Hammond is the villain but it takes the reader like half the book to figure that out. Just like my client, John is a sweet old man who wants lovely things for people. He's a very sympathetic character. But as the book progresses, you start to see something about him.

He has an idea, and he's sure it's a good one. When someone else dies in pursuit of his dream, he doesn't think anything of it. When other people turn out to care about that, he brings in experts to evaluate the safety of his idea, and when they quickly tell him his idea is dangerous and needs to be put on hold, he ignores his own experts that he himself hired, because they are telling him that he is wrong, and he is sure he is right.

In his mind, he's a visionary, and nobody understands his vision. He is surrounded by naysayers. Several things have proven too difficult to do the best and safest way, so he has cut corners and taken shortcuts so he can keep moving forward with his plans, but he's sure it's fine. He refuses to hear any word of caution, because he believes he is being cautious enough, and he knows best, even though he has no background in any of the sciences or professions involved. He sends his own grandchildren out into a life-threatening situation because he is willfully ignorant of the danger he is creating.

THIS is like the real villains of the world. He doesn't want anyone to die. Far from it, he only wants good things for people! He's a sweet old man who loves his grandchildren. But he has money and power and refuses to hear that what he is doing is dangerous for everyone, even his own family.

I think he's possibly one of the most important villains ever written in popular fiction.

In the book, he is killed by a pack of the smallest, cutest, "least dangerous" dinosaurs, because a big part of why we read fiction is to see the villains face thematic justice. But like a cigarette CEO dying of lung cancer, his death does not stop his creation from spreading out into the world to continue to endanger everyone else.

I think it is really important to see and understand this kind of villainy in fiction, so you can recognize it in real life.

Sweetheart of a grandfather. Wanted the best for everyone. Right up until what was best for everyone inconvenienced the pursuit of his own interests.

And my client was like that too. His wife had died, and his dog was now the love of his life, and she was this little old dog with silky hair in a hair cut that left long wispy bits on her lower legs. Certain plant materials were easily entangled in this hair and impossible to get out without pulling her hair which clearly hurt her. When i suggested he ask his groomer to trim her lower leg hair short to avoid this, he refused, saying he really liked her usual hair cut.

I emphasized that she was in pain after every walk due to the plant debris getting caught in her leg hair, and a simple trim could put an end to her daily painful removal of it, and he just frowned like i'd recommended he take a bath in pig shit and said "But she'll be ugly" and refused to talk about it anymore.

Sweet old man though. Everyone loved him.

[princesspeach5]

[ID: a graphic of hands washing dishes with the caption "men and boys! Revolution begins in the sink! Only when men take full responsibility for their share of the cooking, the cleaning, and the washing up… only then can they join with the women, and together build a new world!!!" End ID.]

My least favorite things about anti- UBI discourse is always the techbros whining that "nobody is going to work anymore! People will just watch Netflix all day!" and I have 2 responses:

1) Who the fuck cares. Who the fuck cares what people do with their time! That's kind of the fucking point!

2) People aren't going to stop laboring. Housework (look, it's right there in the word!) will still need to be done. So will maintenance on our homes and personal spaces. Children will still need carers, as will the elderly and disabled. There are millions of examples of ~work~ that we do all the time, uncompensated, that won't suddenly stop because we aren't forced to sell our labor to provide corporation's profits.

I'm not surprised that what is traditionally women's work is invisible to these dipshits, but it never fails to anger me.

Anyway. Join the IWW.