#so mostly non-prescription but not entirely?

[tj-crochets]

Hey do y'all have any suggestions for crafts/uses for empty pills bottles? Both prescription and non-prescription pill bottles, between all my health issues I get through a lot of bottles and surely there has to be some way to reuse them

[crescenthistory]

heh-the anon who said i js sent my first ask and now this is my second!!!!

ok so....is there anything from the 2K event YOU want to write/expand on? like smt YOU wanna do.....cause this is me telling u to do it <3

i love everything youve written so far and i think you should write smt that you kinda wanna do....if that makes sense....not saying ur not happy abt ALL of the asks-i can tell u love ur readers-but js, smt you want to do yk?

this is SO sweet of you my dearest anon, thank you so so much<33 hahaha it's silly but you make me feel seen, thank you for daring to send asks! proud of you. in general, i want to write more drabbles for the valkyries, but i've also had magical!dealer!remus on my mind lately, so that's what we're going for !

✶・•・✦・•・✶・✶・•・✦・•・✶

i will EXPLAIN magical!dealer!remus

carina's 2k celebration

✶・•・✦・•・✶・✶・•・✦・•・✶

cw: kind of drugs but it's mostly magical, systemic injustice, wizarding war without casualties

remus who can't get a stable job seemingly anywhere in the wizarding world because he's a registered lycanthrope

despite the fact that he essentially helped save the entire wizarding world with the rest of his friends – most of which were offered honorary positions in the ministry for their efforts

not remus

he was dirt poor, burnt out and pessimistic about life and institutions

james and sirius tried to various extents to help support him financially, but he would not accept it unless he physically had to

he lived with sirius without paying rent but tried his best not to think about it – especially because after the war he couldn't really stand being away from his friends

still:

"i'm not your charity case, prongs, you have a kid to look after"

"i don't want you to use me to pay off your sins sirius"

"i can take care of myself"

i think he would angrily say "fuck this shit" for a while and work in a muggle bookshop in london while

and maybe he would even enjoy the reprieve

but he would quickly feel isolated

in the wizarding world, he feels that he is not fully understood because he's a werewolf, but in the muggle world he has to even hide the fact that he's a wizard

he winds up applying to random jobs in wizarding london again, everything from shopkeeps and waitressing to pharmacies

throughout his life, remus has used a lot of different medications, ranging from potions to muggle medication to various ~herbs for pain relief

and at hogwarts he always made sure he did as well as physically possible to "make up" for being otherwise highly unemployable

he particularly excelled in DADA, potions and herbology, for obvious reasons

at some point when struggling to pay for the super overprized ingredients he need for the next full moon at an official apothecary that had rejected his application weeks prior, i think a bulb would go off in his head

he would more or less run home to sirius and they would have this conversation:

"if i were to start a business, would you sponsor me?"

"i've been trying to shove money down your throat for years moons, you already know this"

"would you be willing to get your money dirty?"

".... go on"

remus pitches this: he opens a "chocolate store" on the outskirts of diagon alley to serve as a front for him dealing various magical and non-magical herbs, potions, medication, drugs. etc.

everything and anything that unconventional wix could need to get through life that's hard to access

whether that be other werewolves, other "half-breeds", those with permanent magical injuries/conditions that the ministry ignores, those with ptsd from the war, etc.

you need to show registrations or prescriptions to get most lycanthropy potions, pain remedies, etc. which makes it hard to get for anyone flying under the radar or too poor for medical documents

not with remus – anyone can come in and ask for anything

thus, a form of dealership

his intentions are 1) be anti-establishment and say f u to the minister 2) supply the people with what they need without the hellish and discriminatory bureaucracy of the ministry

(unless kingsley becomes the minister in this au, in which he would begin working on the problems from the inside while turning a blind eye to remus' endeavors)

i think remus would also have a designated section for helping treat addiction of different sorts

his pitch stretched on for forever but sirius was with him from essentially his first word

"hold up, i need to rope james into this"

james immediately suggests that the front store should be called "moony's delights"

"... i'll think about it"

the front store would serve as a regular chocolate shop to the average bypasser, so there would often be children stopping by getting chocolate

remus would sell regular chocolate – that i imagine marylily help bring to life – to regular customers

but his real services were to the non-regular wix, for which he's got stacks on stacks of alternative chocolates, in addition to his shelves upon shelves of ingredients and potions

i imagine remus fetches most of the ingredients and brews most of the potions himself, utilising all his expertise

for once, he allows his friends to join in because in his mind they're not just helping him but also the greater good

lily becomes his partner who helps with both chocolates and potions

molly prewett/weasley grows some of the herbs lol

sirius and james supply both any legal patents they need to put down to get a shop and then they preemptively set up a team of top notch lawyers for protection

by the time remus gets around to this, one of the best educated lawyers is their dearest order-member emmeline vance who is more than happy to help out

i believe frank longbottom could be her apprentice

the order of the phoenix remained close friends and kept an "it takes a village" mentality to everything, whether that be getting friends back on their feet or raising the little baby phoenixs

(because they fought way too hard to keep this village to not utilise it to its fullest extent)

it takes a while to get the shop up and running efficiently, of course

at first it's something you need to have heard about from a friend, but as it surges in popularity, more and more wix know where they need to go if they need a fix of any kind

within the "underworld" of the wizarding society, i believe word spread the fastest

and perhaps the knowledge that "moony's delights" sold potions and herbs specifically for various "half breeds" may be contained to just this underworld

while more everyday wix know that they can get general pain relief or help chilling the fuck out

there are so many reader insert ideas i have within this au that could be requested

customer!reader would be fun, but so would business partner!reader who is brought in by lily or emmeline and eventually falls in love with remus

in general i think little punk remus lupin would 100% open a semi-secret dealership while the marauders and co protect him

[angelg0tchi]

♡ hi, i'm chloe! ♡

୨୧˚ 162cm ✧ ‘94 ˚୨୧

♡ i love j-fashion (jirai kei + ryousangata), collecting cute things, makeup, skincare, taking pictures, vlogging, matcha, and sweets!

♡ i don't have a dni, but you can read my about page if you want more info!

♡ other socials ♡

♡ insta (fashion posts/reels)

♡ tiktok (vlogs, tutorials, fashion/beauty hauls - link redirects to linktree bc tumlr won’t let me link to tt directly ;;)

♡ mercari (my pre-owned j-fashion)

♡ all other links (linktree)

♡ discount codes ♡

(i earn a small commission when you use my codes on these websites, which is greatly appreciated! click the links to apply an auto-discount, or you can enter my code manually!)

♡ yesstyle (skincare, cosmetics, and clothing ♡) - use code KUROEAME8 for 2-5% off your order total - enter in “rewards code” section at checkout! this code can be combined with other discount codes, so ensure you do for maximum savings!

♡ honeywardrobe (excellent jirai kei/ryousangata clothing, accessories, and footwear selection ♡) - use code KUROE_AME for 5% off entire order! worldwide shipping!

♡ olive young (mostly korean skincare ♡) - use code KUROEAME8

♡ fuse lenses (prescription/non-prescription color-enhancing, highly UV-protective, super cute sunglasses and lenses! ♡) - use code KUROE_AME for 15% off your order total!

[exeggcute]

hello! you seem to know a lot about skincare stuff, so i'm curious what products you use for general daily use? i also have adult acne and it's very annoying. i would also appreciate any lip moisturizing ideas if you have any. thank you, and hope your day's going well!

oh yes! although fair warning that I am not a skincare expert at all (I don't even understand half the lingo that people use when they talk about products lol) so take any of my recommendations with a grain of salt...

other than sunscreen, literally all of the stuff I use is either from paula's choice, the ordinary, or good old cerave. I don't even bother trying other brands at this point because I assume they'll just be overpriced junk—plus, you can get almost all cerave products and a good chunk of the ordinary's products at, like, target. I'd also note that you don't need to (and really should not) go out and buy a million things at once; I have a pretty good arsenal at this point but it took me a couple years to build it up by trying one or two new products at a time and seeing what I like.

both paula's choice and the ordinary have "shop by concern" sections on their websites, so if you want actual targeted advice about what to try then I would definitely defer to them lol. but for some specific examples of what I like:

diehard fan of cerave face soaps. they have a foaming pump and a non-foaming pump, depending on whether your skin is more oily or more dry. I mostly use the latter, but since noelle uses the former I'll occasionally steal a pump of the foamy one if I'm having an oily streak lol.

likewise with cerave moisturizer, specifically for your body, but also works great on your face as a final skincare step. will not make you break out. however (important info incoming!!!) the pump lotion is far inferior to the giant tub of lotion—the pump stuff is just kind of watery and sad in comparison. get the tub. you deserve it.

the ordinary hyaluronic acid 2% serum is another "help I have dry skin but also acne" lifesaver. you can apply it directly to (damp!!!) skin or (wet!!!) hair or put a couple drops in your lotion for extra-moisturizing lotion. but it works by drawing outside moisture into your skin/hair, so make sure you're not applying it to dry skin/hair or it can backfire and actually dry you out.

paula's choice enriched calming toner = dry skin savior.

for acne specifically, paula's choice pore-reducing toner fucking rules. it's not harsh at all so you can use it as much as you want. pairs well with paula's 5% AHA exfoliant (which only use when I'm really flaky, since it is a little harsh, but you can temper it by applying lotion right after).

the ordinary azelaic acid 10% suspension is a little tingly, so I only use it when I'm actively breaking out (which tbf is often lol), but it's a great at starving out pimples.

from the paula's choice CLEAR line, I looooove the purifying clay mask. I use this one a couple times a week as needed, usually right after I get out of the shower, and then I'll wash it off and do the rest of my face potions as usual. even if my skin is pretty clear I just like how tight and clean everything feels after. I also recently tried the CLEAR 5% benzoyl peroxide daily skin clearing treatment (only because I got it as a free gift... otherwise I would Not have tried a benzoyl peroxide product lmao. bad memories of childhood acne treatment snake oil shit.) and was surprised how much I liked it, although I've been applying it verrry sparingly. the bottle recommends applying it (1) to your entire face and (2) EVERY DAY, but I've had luck using it as a sporadic spot treatment. pairs well with the enriched calming toner.

I've also been using this prescription tretinoin cream off and on for the past year (from the dubious skincare-as-a-service online pharmacy "forhers" lol) and it's Good but not a miracle. my skin is already pretty sensitive so I try not to use it that often, but it would probably work a lot better if it did. also makes you photosensitive as hell so watch out (sunscreen is a must).

specifically for lip moisturizer, nothing beats plain old burt's bees lip balm imo but if you need something heavy-duty I do like the paula's choice lip and body treatment balm. it's a little greasy but has great staying power and the tub lasts forever!

also important to note. you should always do stuff in this order: wash your face (duh) > toner > other stuff > lotion/moisturizer. I know you're supposed to do the "other stuff" in a specific order if you're stacking multiple products but tbh I just kind of wing it lol.

[shuunnico]

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor Stuff

This is not the review. Yet. It’s coming.

Someone was nice enough to buy me Jedi Survivor and I was able to get it to run on my computer. I’m going to do a review of it, but there’s a number of things in the game that I’m not a fan of that doesn’t actually impact the game at all.

Most of these are spoilers, so I’ll be putting a spoiler down below. Mostly these are things that I dislike being introduced/retconned into Star Wars from Disney. Mostly, this is an excuse for me to bring these up now because they won’t be in my actual review. My dislike for the lore changes doesn’t hurt the game at all.

Spoilers below:

Lightsaber Crystals and Bleeding

I really don’t like the change Disney made to kyber crystals. Originally, the lightsaber crystal colors were symbolic, with each color denoting a particular office or honor. Red lightsabers were red because synthetic crystals typically came out red and sith preferred the (arguably) stronger synthetic ones.

Now? Kyber crystals are empathic, borderline sentient, and lightsabers have a will of their own. The color of a lightsaber is now a definitive statement about the character of the person wielding it. Lightsabers will ‘fight’ wielders who it doesn’t align with.

Sith lightsabers are red now because kyber crystals are self aware and will resist being used for evil. So a sith has to force the crystal into submission, which turns it red.

So now, evil people just get a red lightsaber because they’re evil. I despise this change because it makes lightsaber colors prescriptive. Sith use red because they’re evil. Good Jedi will use non-red lightsabers because they’re good.

Of course, this all flies in the face of the originals idea. Anakin’s lightsaber didn’t bleed when he was off murdering children because this was never intended as a thing. So now Disney has to convolute a reason why.

I don’t know why Disney wrote it like this. My only theory is that they just enforced the meta. Sith are evil and use red lightsabers, so all sith must use red lightsabers, so all red lightsabers must be evil.

Inquisitor Lightsabers

Enough of these. Every time I see these, they get mocked. 

How do they work? Why do you have them spin? In what way do these function in any way better than a double ended lightsaber? Everyone who saw these initially though the same thing: “Why not stick your weapon into the center?” and that’s exactly what Kanan did in Rebels at the first chance he got.

How do these let you fight better? All the spinning blades do is be a liability for you to accidentally cut your own limbs off. They don’t make the lightsabers hit harder, you have to constantly reposition the blade at awkward angles if you want to spin it and they’re full of design weaknesses.

What’s worse is that Disney is clearly doubling down on this stupid design because Ninth Sister wields one in Jedi Survivor. And, what’s worse, is they’re doubling down on the fact that they let you fly. How does rotating a lightsaber make it function like helicopter blades, allowing you to fly/float?

Crossguard Lightsabers

I hated this design from the start. Someone wanted to make a ‘western’ style lightsaber and didn’t think beyond that. Now, Disney has to keep pushing them, like there’s some creative sunk cost fallacy going on here.

It makes no intuitive sense why a weightless blade has more ‘mass’ and be ‘heavier’. The vents do not operate like actual crossguards and, in fact, become a liability.

Disney is trying to retcon these into lore through The High Republic, where these were not only around, but common. From 600-100 years before the prequels, crossguard lightsabers were a thing, but then they disappear entirely until Kylo Ren decides to make one.

They didn’t exist because they were never intended to exist. Lightsabers were always intended to be elegant, katana-esque weapons. But because someone wanted to put in their cool, OC weapon into TFA, now we have to deal with them always being a thing.

Tracking Fobs

Originally introduced in Mandalorian. These things, apparently, use biometric data to track people across the galaxy. Why? Why did they put these into the canon? You plug in someone’s biometric data and now you can chase them anywhere?

These are absolutely terrible for world building because now you need to contrive a reason why someone CAN’T be tracked by one of these things. This has to be a case of “This will speed up the episode” and then nobody thought about the greater implications of one of these devices.

The High Republic

Disney is basically pulling a “Rings of Power” with the High Republic era. They’ve created a time period with no canon so they can play in it, free of any of the restrictions put into the universe by any other aspect of the franchise.

In the old lore, The Old Republic was around from 25,000 to 1000 years before The Empire. While this period had advanced technology and (in particular with the Sith) advanced blending of The Force and technology, this period ended up stagnating and declining.

In the new lore, after The Old Republic, there was a golden age called “The High Republic” that is full of advanced technology. This period only ended 100 years before the events of the Clone Wars.

Previously, it was understandable that advanced technology might end up being forgotten and buried, 1000 years ago. But the High Republic is within living memory. Why is it that it’s treated like some lost era of technology when you had people like Yoda and Dooku alive during that time?

Again, this seems mostly so that Disney has a random place in the timeline so they can do whatever they want and grandfather in whatever force powers, lore or technology they can for future use. It doesn’t make sense from a timeline perspective.

[mantisgodsdomain]

Milk and Green Apple for Penelope

(for this ask game)

Since we haven't introduced Penelope yet, as is standard, we'll do a quick write-up here. Penelope is a Galápagos fur seal (Arctocephalus galapagoensis). She's an accountant who works at a bank located in a tundra which primarily caters towards terrestrial animals. Though she doesn't particularly like her job, and initially picked this posting because it was the best option available to her during her CPA experience program, she sort of... got stuck.

Finding work is difficult. She was lucky enough to get rehired by the same branch after finishing her work experience program, but she can't really find anywhere else willing to hire her right now, and her branch is hesitant to let her go, considering that she's one of the most competent people available to her department. She can't really quit, but she can't really move forward, either, so she's sort of... stuck in limbo.

She's well-paid enough that she can live relatively comfortably, but she was at least partially a diversity hire to begin with, and the place she lives in now just plain isn't made for her. She's an aquatic species in a relatively dry area, and most of the species that her branch caters to are smaller prey species - hares, kea, and lemmings, and the occasional arctic fox. Most of the infrastructure is built for people half her size or more, and being an aquatic species, she's not really built to be living terrestrially 24/7 - wearing glasses is all well and good until your prescription breaks and the best replacement pair you can find is built for a stoat, and sure, she can afford a doctor if anything comes up, but no one in her area would really know much about her species, and can she really afford the time and effort added to the expenses of flying to somewhere else entirely just to see a specialist?

As is, she feels just... stuck. She handles it, mostly, with a mix of "gritting her teeth and bearing it" and "heading out to a nearby city which actually has infrastructure for anything bigger than a fox". She sort of has to make a Day of it every time she travels out, but it's better than staying in the same town all day, and paying a bit extra for a night out isn't *too* bad, all things considered. The situation, as is, is perfectly fine. She just... wishes that she could make something of her life beyond being stagnant in a town that she expected to just be a stop in the road.

🥛 [MILK] What is your OC's relationship with their biological parents like? What about their relationship with any non-biological parental figures?

Well... it's complicated. She doesn't have a bad relationship with them, per se, but it's a bit distant - she moved to an entirely different part of the world to take this job, and most of her communication with family members is by video call and similar things as a result. She cares for her family, and she wouldn't trade them for the world, really - but they expect a lot from her, and she's been stuck at the same place long enough that she's not sure she can live up to it.

Penelope sits in the awkward sort of space where she was academically successful, but that success didn't really transfer to almost anything else. She's got a job, she's good at it, she's got a degree - but she still can't get a job besides the one she's been stuck in for years already, and "still working at the same bank" isn't the sort of thing that feels good to say, especially when you've been in the same place for far longer than you've ever wanted to be.

Her parents love her. Her mother still holds out faith that she'll get that one promotion - just a few more years and you'll get your big break, just a bit more work and they'll notice how industrious you are, just a tiny bit more effort and you'll get a better position - but you can only believe something so much when you feel like you've been stuck in the same rut for so long. There's only so much you can hear about how you have so much potential before you start feeling like you're wasting yourself, and at this point... having the same things repeated starts feeling a bit like every day she doesn't get that break is a day she's wasting her potential.

She does not currently have any non-biological parental figures. Probably a bit late in her life to get one, but who knows at this point, honestly?

🍏 [GREEN APPLE] How do they differ from the norm and how are they punished for it?

...there's a lot.

Though her workplace tried to provide accomodations when she first arrived, it's been more than eight years, and nowadays she has to do most of her accomodation herself. Her eyes aren't really made to focus above water, she's got a very different body plan than most people at the branch, she's a predator big enough to make most of the other folks in her branch a bit instinctually nervous, and being one of the only seals that most people know means that she's been re-introduced to the same three harbor seals entirely too many times by now.

People don't really make chairs for people with tails the size of their bodies around here, which means that chair backs that accomodate her are generally a matter of either custom order or hoping that she's going somewhere that's dealt with one of the other half-dozen folks with the same needs.

Penelope is, fundamentally, Not From Around Here. She's not a species that's found around here, she's not a species that's especially adapted for here, and despite being a seal that's only around a metre long she still towers over most of the people at her branch. The closest person to her size is an arctic fox in the tax department, and he still doesn't really have the same sort of experience as her. She doesn't fit The Norm, pretty much in any way, and it... really, really shows.

[gikairan]

I thought i wrote something here dunking on the Vision Pro when i was announced, but i cant seem to find it....

Anyway, apparently production on it is winding down to basically nothing after lower than expected sales and

lol

lmao

lol

Literally everyone not up apples arse called this, because its just a dumb product through and through.

VR tech has been part of the gaming sphere for a good decade at this point in time, and has failed to be anything more than incredibly niche. There are multiple reasons for that - from the expense of a good set up (it used to be an extra grand on TOP of your PC rig cost), to triggering motion sickness in a not-insignificant portion of the population, to people just dont like wearing a bulky headset. Even hardcore VR enthusiasts admit they cant really use their headset for hours.

And gaming is basically one of the most mainstream uses of the technology.

Microsoft also, nearly a decade ago now, had the Hololens. Which got shown off to some fanfare at a gaming related event (e3? Maybe??) and never again. .... It mostly had enterprise uses, until being silently discontinued.

Vision Pro was an entirely new AR/VR platform, with absolutely no support for existing software/ accessories from other platforms. So it didnt really have any of the software from the last 10 years of VR, and most of those games were designed for controllers anyway. Which werent compatible.

The main selling point of the headset? productivity. .... Even the Quests attempts to appeal to non-gamers is in "hey, watch a film and drown out your surroundings!". Not "do your zoom call in 3d!" The battery life wasnt long enough for the movies they wanted you to watch....

Not to mention anyone who wears glasses needed to spend an extra $300 for prescription lenses, and if you had astigmatism specifically? Apparently they didnt even let you buy it.

Like, what were Apple thinking with this thing? You made a product that was going to be niche in an already niche market. The market for VR is already pretty established - and its miniscule. Because most people just arent interested in the format. It cost so much more than its closest competition and did less. I can understand research and development into something like this, theres STILL a certain level of futurism around VR tech. But it never should have gone to market....

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Least Restful Non-Working Day

So that was my day. My day was stupid.

Spent a couple of hours trying to coax a little bit of typing out of the mess of the "central network problem", whatever the hell that was. Managed three, just because the connection kept dying. Eventually logged out and, rather guiltily, went off and ran my errands - mallet meds, mostly. Aat least I didn't quite feel the need for the BIG painkillers.

(Side-note: the mallet meds are co-codamol. The BIG painkillers, for me, are Paramol, which is technically co-dydramol. The BIG painkillers work better in general, but are also way more expensive. So there are a lot of reasons that I'm generally happier when I don't need the BIG painkillers. Not needing the mallet-meds? Well, that's not an option, but at least I only use those at night. My GP is reluctant to actually write me a prescription for this stuff as long as I can manage on the OTC dose, which is fine. Still really wish there was an option to get medicinal marijuana on the NHS, though. I mean, it's legal, but it's one of those things that the NHS almost never offers to patients. I could go private for it, but it's complicated and expensive. I'll probably do it one day, though - it'd be way better than a codeine-paracetamol combo.)

Anyway, came back, switched on the machine ... couldn't log into the remote desktop at all anymore. Emailed the colleague I asked about this situation in the first place, asking if there was an update; got told "it went from bad to worse". By then it was a half-hour to my regular end time, so I just thought, "Fuck this". Let them know I was going to log off for the day and see how things look tomorrow, since I didn't see them fixing things before my regular close of play and sitting there attempting to log in over and over and over and over and over again was driving me batshit.

Four reasons I said I'd see what it looked like tomorrow:

I still had some items in my personal queue before the whole thing shut down. At minimum I have to move those back to the main queue, because we're not supposed to leave things in our personal queues. Just because if we do, no one knows they need to be typed and if we're away for awhile, no one can access them and they get to be late. I just didn't have the option to move them back before everything went tits-up.

The typing queue was already a mess because at least some dictation got done before this mess started.

The typing queue might be even worse, because I have no idea if the doctors' computers were working or if they had a workaround, so they could theoretically have spent all day dictating, and at 300-odd reports a day on top of the 360 or so that were already there? Erm. Yeah.

If they couldn't get any dictation done - or hell, even if they did - odds are good that folks are coming in to do more work tomorrow. As a "getting ahead of things before the holidays" situation.

I'm still not giving up my Sunday or Monday. I'm still not giving up my two days of annual leave just before Christmas. However, I refuse to come in on Tuesday to the kind of mess that I know for a fact will await me no matter what. Best case scenario? There's still 360 bits of typing in the queue. Worst case scenario? We're pushing the 900 mark by Monday. That cannot happen. We are not coming back from that without me spending the holiday period on overtime.

I tried so hard to keep Saturday free. I really did. And we'll see. Maybe if it's a best-case scenario, I'll only have to do a couple of hours. But odds are pretty good that I'll come in to 600 bits of typing and have to spend the entire six and a half hours I would have spent working today making some dent in it.

I wonder if Goblin will do the same.

(I bet she won't.)

Anyway, I wouldn't mind so much if I'd actually had a real break today. But I don't call "attempting to log in all day long with little to no success" particularly restful, even if the attempts were made while I was reading, or playing games on my phone. Still, I'd feel bad if I just didn't try at all for most of the day. If I'm going to work overtime on Saturday, it's going to be overtime, not "makeup work because the main server's got the integrity of a soggy biscuit". Even if no one's watching, I want to feel like I tried. I also wanted to know right off the bat when things were working again, because I was pretty sure that no one was going to email me with updates.

In more cheerful news, my mother went to North America awhile ago and picked me up more Sour Patch Kids. (Yes, I know they have them here in the UK, but again - the texture of both the gummy and the sour-sugar they're dusted in are wrong, and strawberry and blackcurrant do not replace cherry and raspberry for me.) This was just before the mess of overtime started, and we didn't get around to setting up a drop-off, but my stepfather dropped them by to me when he was finished with today's work on the other flat. So I may not have Saturday Shenanigans D&D, but I have proper Sour Patch Kids to have when my Sunday D&D session rolls around.

Gods, please, let this get better in the new year. This entire month so far has been a mess.

[dinosaurcharcuterie]

As someone working in private health insurance in a country in Europe where this stuff is regulated -- I still hate it.

Naturopathy, chiropractic included, got regulated to make these quacks have some accountability, be forced to look at an anatomy textbook and give people a sense of when they were being ripped off. In response, people assumed this was the government putting naturopaths on the same level as actual doctors and dentists. In response to that, you have actual doctors getting certified as naturopaths and "preferring" to give naturopath treatment unless "allopathic" medicine is "necessary". They say it has nothing to do with the prices for naturopathy being a bit higher, and definitely definitely nothing to do with them thinking their patients are faking things.

And, to be fair, direct injuries (as opposed to indirect damage done from delayed or avoided medical attention) from naturopaths are low and mostly limited to medication interactions where people fully believe herbal tea magically can't affect medication, or allergic reactions to massage oils... Except in one area. You get three guesses which.

So, chiropractic especially got regulated even more strictly when injuries kept happening. And it changed nothing much so far, half a decade later. They're supposed to send patients to a doctor if it's a more complex problem, but...

In my current caseload of chronically ill patients I've now got someone who got unlimited chiropractic approved. The original argument was that they'd need less physiotherapy (28-45 euro are covered per session, depending on diagnosis, of which 3 a week are necessary). They have since quit physio entirely, and their condition has gotten mysteriously worse, despite upping the chiro (70-90 euro per session) from twice a month to 3-4 times a week, and their doctors prescribing stronger meds and getting surgery.

I've got someone who has several all caps warnings to not pay out any chiro, as the professor of orthopedics who has been treating them for double digit months says it might be lethal. Their spine is so damaged, half the bones are misaligned and look like something out of a geode splitting ASMR video. After surgery. With half a hardware store worth of titanium screws and plates trying to keep their spinal cord straight enough to undo the nerve damage that kind of injury causes.

I wish those cases were rare enough that just describing them narrows it down to a small enough group of people to identify someone by, but I'm not.

Yes, we get sat down once every quarter or two and told what numbers look good and what numbers make the CEO so so sad. They're happy if a 70 euro chiro visit means the problem is fixed, instead of a 20 minute doctor visit (12 euro, 25 if they're feeling frisky, because regulated prices) with a prescription (3 euro) of 6 rounds of physio (usually the 28 euro/session kind, plus a one time 16 euro fee for non chronic issues or new therapy attempts). But that's only true if the doctor-cum-naturopath types are right and the patient is faking and just needs to whine a little and feel another human being touch them to feel better forever.

Statistics show it's costlier to pay out naturopaths in the long run. Because we can't cancel cover over here. We can't adjust what kind of cover someone has once they have the insurance. We can hike up premiums if costs rise, but that just makes all the healthy cash cows seek greener pastures. The limit to out of pocket pay is 5k annually, and most companies cap it at half that at most, usually just 1.2k.

So why is it covered under those circumstances? The same reason GSH dogs still get liability cover despite causing the most damage, both material and personal, of any dog breed, pit bulls included: it's part of the cultural landscape, and to exclude it would cost you customers and have you branded as a tyrannical, unreasonable company.

And to make matters worse: the fact that we are more or less forced by convention to accept naturopaths as legitimate physicians, means we ask about how often you've visited them in the past as a prospective customer. We can only adjust cover before anything is signed, after all. And because naturopaths have to pretend to be physicians to operate, they have to say what diagnosis they're treating. If they have a medical degree (most don't), that's not too hard and they tend to stay realistic. If they don't, they still have to write something down which they feel is plausible, but serious enough to warrant (further) treatment. Ideally they'd communicate with a physician over that, but that requires a treating physician. And also scary legal paperwork. And the cooperation of said physician, because they sure as fuck can't argue they're providing vital and necessary care beyond the doctor's skill level.

Any stab in the dark they take is now a pre existing condition. Not fixed in six months? Welp, that's chronic. And, yeah, private health insurance companies will refuse to accept you if your health status too egregious (with very few exceptions if you're not a newborn). Or maybe they will--and then be legally in their right to charge up to juuuust under double the usual premium until you can prove you don't have that diagnosis.

How? Easy! A physician needs to confirm (25-40 euros) through lab work (anywhere from 15-2500 euros), and your naturopath can't charge for it anymore if you do get in, or at least one of you will get sued for fraud. In which case you're now on the hook for all costs related to that diagnosis which you've incurred with an insurance company. Plus interest at the current rate of inflation.

So... Only healthy people and the naturopaths are harmed the least by this. Because--oh yes--they recommend healthy people get treatment prophylactically.

I'm not saying health insurance are the good guys (my job would be so much easier if there was universal, science based, tax funded health insurance) but this particular flavor of fuckery is 100% organic woo lobbying.

Periodic reminder that you should never trust a chiropractor with your body under any circumstances

[dantasunt]

Gain Higher Details About Cortexi Customer Reviews

Cortexi really is a hearing and seeing augment the towards the top notch you could have by means of strengthening communicating from the favourite songs whilst your mental. It does work to minimize psychological fog and additionally sharpen an individual's focal point, so you're able to undertake significantly better in the office possibly your very own life-style. Additionally, it produces tvs and radio stations health and wellness with raising circulation of blood towards the ears, getting rid of radio stations soy wax, not to mention corroborating certain looks. Cortexi has reliable, natural ingredients and contains the 60-day money-back guarantee. The manufacturers relating to cortexi real reviews formulated the supplement right after in need of 100 % natural ingredients that would aid people today listen to a lot better reducing ear noise. People determined exploration validating you will find many variables into their supplement, which combines natural ingredients combined with substances.

In a very everyday playing process, ear hairs body cells change distractions easily into electrical related indicators which your thought process can easily translate. Although, the actual listen excess hair skin cells could certainly diminish caused by health problems, their age, several prescription medications. Cortexi is often a supplement which will promises to sustain wholesome hearing through organic and natural, plant-based elements. The product or service has multiple nourishing herbs, including astragalus, chromium picolinate, and maca root. Astragalus may well be an adaptogen, so effect your entire body command anxiety. The makers in Cortexi report that astragalus are able to exclusively support "clear does seem,Inches wide that can suggest it may help those with ringing in the ears and ringing in the ear. Chromium is mostly a mineral that may assists favourite songs and also neural health and wellness. This may improve vigor, improve aim, combined with raise memory space, with regards to the designing patterns from historical about Cortexi. Individuals who should try to have an understanding of cortexi side effects, they will likely go here.

Additional list of ingredients contain ginkgo biloba, which happens to be a great antioxidant which might maximize circulation in the mind plus headsets. It is possible to decrease the danger of dementia and various mental issues. Cortexi can also include acetylsalicylic acidic, that is a good anti-inflammatory which will strengthen ear canal not to mention thought processes wellbeing. The actual acetylsalicylic chemicals with Cortexi will probably prevent noise in the head or tinnitis by reducing inflammation of the joints and then increasing movement.

The creators of your respective Cortexi ram memory supplementation recommend consuming item day-to-day for three time to watch end results. This device is actually non-habit building and has now little uncomfortable side effects, besides individuals pre-existing issues. It is recommended to require a dropper from the product or service inside window of water before morning meal. It truly is that can be purchased on line from the manufacturer’s recognized web pages, as well as a lower price emerges for multiple-bottle systems. Coursesmart provides totally free US delivery to help save consumers cash delivering service fees. Some 30-day risk-free trial is additionally accessible to visitors to have a shot at this system previous to doing a lengthier membership. People who presumptions to be familiar with cortexi customer reviews along with features can be able to click here.

Users claim that they have viewed advanced concentrate in addition to clearness mainly because commencing just take Cortexi. They have also known small ringing in the ears, ring, along with whirring as part of their ear canal. A particular prospect explained Cortexi afforded your dog comfort throughout the night subsequently she or he might possibly go to sleep more effective. One additional stated it aided your ex emphasis each day and even actually feel considerably less fatigued. Any supplement can be purchased on your firms web it is supported by a good money-back guarantee.

[murielcook]

being your own doctor has its pitfalls and issues, for sure. like not being able to do any bloodwork is challenging.

but otoh what medical doctor would bother to address things like "sometimes it hurts to touch water that's any cooler than yeast proofing temp" in a meaningful way? It's possible I'm being too dismissive, and it's not like I had worthwhile access to any doctors in the last decade to prove it. but a certain volume of stories paints a picture of a kind of surface level, loosey goosey approach that frankly doesn't feel worth my time.

listen, i promise I mostly do my homework and do not believe in horse-size doses of dewormer as a means of beating a virus.

Anyway I blasted myself with allergens emptying the vacuum and just took a quick, cool shower to remedy the issue and I both had the follow through to do so and it didn't hurt to do. That's entirely with my own fucking around with various non-prescription substances, diet and habit tweaking, and is absolutely an accomplishment.

[mikerickson]

9/8 - 9/19: 700-mile road trip through Portugal

This was my first non-family related vacation since 2019 and it was sorely needed. I’m mostly documenting everything under the read more line for myself, but if you wanna peek, knock yourself out.

I studied Portuguese for two years before this trip mostly on a whim because I’m always tackling one language or another, but when we were trying to decide where we wanted to go on vacation this year, this fact kinda weighted my decision towards Portugal. Definitely came in handy because I did encounter a dozen or so people with zero English, but for the most part people in the touristy areas would switch once they detected me struggling, which was a little disheartening. In retrospect, I think I was initiating interactions with very informal speech, which probably signaled I was more competent than I actually was.

First contact with a native speaker was with the customs officer I spoke to in the Lisbon airport. I stumbled pretty poorly through that interaction, but I don’t know if it was because it was my first time conversing with someone in the language in an actual scenario, because I was sleep deprived and jet-lagged because I didn’t sleep on the plane, or because he was one of the single most handsome men I’d ever seen in my life.

The food was consistently fantastic and surprisingly cheap. Very carb heavy with breads, pastries and fried seafood though, and I found myself craving salads and fruit by the end. Also forgot that Americans drink water like fish compared to other countries; I was constantly dehydrated because I’m used to drinking like a gallon of water a day.

Churches, chapels, cathedrals, and castles out the wazoo in this country, but there was just so much detail in every single nook and cranny you can look at.

The entire country from north to south was way more hilly than I was expecting. It honestly felt like I was climbing the equivalent of a skyscraper’s-worth of stairs every day in every single city we were in. Because I have an eye for designing handicap ramps because of my work, Lisbon struck me as an exceptionally wheelchair-unfriendly city; they definitely don’t have any equivalent to ADA-compliance.

Lisbon and Porto - despite being two cities in a relatively small country - had totally different vibes. Lisbon was much warmer, Mediterranean, and slower-paced, whereas Porto had cooler colors, had almost French-looking architecture, and seemed way more active. I wasn’t expecting such a blatant difference in character between these two.

Apparently I speak Portuguese with a Spaniard accent. One woman in an ice cream shop told me that outright, but in another instance I asked a waiter for a table for four and he clocked me as a foreigner, but he brought out Spanish-language menus for us before we corrected him and asked for the English ones.

This was my first vacation in three years, but it was also my first time getting sick in three years. We landed on a Friday and by that night I came down with a sore throat. I knew some Nyquil would set me straight right away, but they’re legally not allowed to sell it there without a doctor’s prescription. It’s kind of a paternalistic system where you go to the pharmacy, tell them your symptoms, and then they tell you what they’re going to give you based on their opinion; you can’t just buy anything you want, which was frustrating.

It was a beautiful country to drive through, and my favorite part was through cork country (apparently a third of all the cork wood produced in the work comes from Portugal, which I had no idea before I saw all of it for myself). Didn’t take any pictures because I was driving for that stretch, but it kinda looked like this.

Getting to the airport today reminded me that there is a certain kind of fearlessness that local taxi drivers possess that I don’t necessarily aspire to, but I do respect and fear in equal measures.

[insipid-drivel]

For any of my non-American mutuals doubting these:

1: Most metropolitan cities and roadways in the US have access to sidewalks, but sidewalks generally aren’t very comprehensively planned that makes it easy for pedestrians to get around on foot. Where the road goes, the sidewalk goes, and most deviations from that path are for sidewalks that lead to houses, residences, and businesses. Outdoor parks are almost never conjoined with shopping or groceries, because screw utilitarianism I guess?

2: In some states in the US, sales tax is factored into the price of purchases at checkout. However, there are states that don’t mandate that as part of general sales policies. Therefore, yes, you do have to have extra money than exactly what the cost on the tag says for the thing you’re buying, and you won’t see how much the sales tax is until you try to purchase it. It’s bullshit.

3: Minimum paid vacation times are for the upper echelons of workers, like lawyers and executives, and not lowly peasants that work 9-5 unless the business they work for or the union they’re protected by provides them. It’s often difficult enough to find an employer that can provide workers with health insurance, much less paid leave.

4: The reason waitstaff in the US are generally paid mostly in tips is so the restaurant owner can get away with paying them below our state and national minimum wages and justifying any financial hardships on the employee’s part as being their fault for not being personable enough to “earn” more tips from customers. This is an insanely screwed up system because there are no explicit laws that force fair payment via tips from customers, and so servers have to rely entirely on their customers being taught, knowing to, and choosing to tip them a fair percentage of the total cost of their meals/drinks.

5: Prescription drug ads run on our media all the time. The companies that produce these ads aren’t regulated by the government and actively attempt to cajole and subvert real doctors by convincing uninformed viewers that their (usually outlandishly expensive) drug will make you healthier than what your doctor prescribes you. It used to be legal for drug companies to pay physicians to prescribe their company’s drugs over other drugs regardless of whether it was really the best for the patient, too. It’s A Problem.

6: It can be ridiculously hard to wire money directly to other people without third party apps or, in other cases, either sharing the same bank or being on a pre-registered plan with a bank that allows for fast or immediate transfers. That’s why you see American users online primarily seeking financial help through apps like venmo and paypal. Without a pre-established policy with your bank that allows for fast transfers with a specific person, it can take 3-5 business days or more for money to be transferred. I’m not an expert, but I’ve heard that this is in part to avoid stuff like tax fraud and money laundering, but I’m not sure.

7: I honestly don’t know why this is true, but it is. In American public toilets, there is a narrow gap between the door and the frame that is precisely the perfect size for you to make eyecontact with someone on the other side of the door. Additionally, for some godforsaken reason, there’s space between the floor and the bottom of the stalls on every side and not just at the front door so a passing person can see if the cubicle is occupied. A lot of Americans have bathroom anxieties because of this. Ostensibly, it seems to be a means so if you’re out of toilet paper, you can ask for some from the person the next stall over, but I honestly have no idea what the real justification for it is.

8: Americans mostly associate electric kettles with tea, and we’re not a massively tea-drinking people (ask the Boston Harbor). Most Americans prefer coffee or energy drinks, and so you’re more likely to find an electric coffee maker in the average American kitchen than an electric kettle. More and more coffee makers come with in-built tea options, but coffee still tends to be the favorite.

9: During a part of the 1920′s-30′s, the US successfully (temporarily) outlawed all alcohol except for cooking alcohol. Additionally, state authorities tend to hate homeless people, and so antiquated, puritanical laws are still in place to further make it uncomfortable and impossible for consenting adults - especially the homeless - to exist comfortably. This is why you see people drinking from bottles concealed in paper bags in our TV and media; it’s to add credence to the “No drinking in public” law, and has gradually become eponymous with the depiction of a homeless person or addict struggling financially. Our representatives continuously throw their backs out finding reasons not to provide affordable housing to the underprivileged.

10: A lot of us would love it if there were systems in place that did our taxes for us automatically without any thought or meddling from us. However, powerful Americans really, really love dodging taxes, and so keeping the rules about how you file both as loose and complicated as possible so you can either get away with everything or nothing based upon the current power regime suits the IRS great! Also something about Al Capone.

11: Portion sizes in most American restaurants can be absolutely ridiculous, but there are a couple of points of logic behind it. The first is that Americans love leftovers and avoiding cooking, and so when you have a really good meal at a restaurant, it’s pretty common to bring leftovers home so you can eat more the next day. This is also how many poor families stock up on extra food for things like school lunches. You’ll find that portion sizes in the US correlate with the general tax brackets of the clientele; a place like McDonald’s will give more food for your dollar because it feeds more people vs. a boutique restaurant with expensively-sourced ingredients that mostly caters to the upper class. Not finishing your plate when you’re going out to eat in America isn’t usually considered rude.

12: I am an American who uses a bidet. I have tried to convert the people I know. The #1 complaint I have received from my own personal experience is, “I don’t want a wet ass”. I have explained that you can still use toilet paper to dry off with and that it just keeps you cleaner and saves on the amount of toilet paper you’d usually use. I have swayed no one. There is something about a wet ass that seems to upset people in this land.

13: Roundabouts and traffic circles are seen mostly as a European and English thing, and a lot of people find them confusing. They’re not totally absent from the country, but they were never really implemented as a regular part of our road infrastructures, and so most driving students are rarely taught much about how to properly navigate the turning and etiquette. I have also met people that complain that roundabouts give them motion sickness.

14: Even though it’s generally seen as common, normal, or an expected nuisance for people to drink alcohol prior to age 21, most American families balk at the notion of their 18-year-old being able to drink alcohol. For most school systems in the US, the formal public education doesn’t end until the age of 18, and so there tends to be a lot of strange and disjointed relationships and understandings about what is and isn’t okay for an 18-year-old growing up should be allowed to try doing.

15: We suck at change. Even though metric makes more logical sense, our entire country was essentially built using the same borrowed measurement systems as the English in most populated and moneyed areas. While England is a lot better at using the metric system nowadays, adopting it now would kind of result in us having to recalculate everything, completely change school curriculum, and also American doctors cite that they prefer Fahrenheit for measuring a fever in patients due to its closer degree of accuracy when predicting a fever’s severity and risk to the patient.

16: From my own experience, a lot of Americans aren’t fond of having the washer and dryer in the same space as the kitchen or bathroom due to the noise they cause. While this is more or less true depending on the individual household, it just tends to be a big point of preference. Those machines also tend to put out heat and humidity. The biggest complaint I’ve ever heard is related to the noise.

deep insights into the american psyche

[3wisellamas]

Giant Sweet Cap’n Cakes Headcanon Masterpost!

(Fun fact, I thought most of these up while on one REALLY long hike.  ^^;  You can tell I fell for these three pretty hard.)

Music:

-I like the idea that, while the three all share a love of hip hop, glitch hop, electronic music in general, and a little lo-fi for chill times, they all have different tastes outside of those.  (Meaning if you pass them the aux cord, they WILL argue!)

-Sweet's actually the biggest audiophile of the group, with by far the most eclectic tastes; he will literally put together playlists that go from dubstep to heavy metal to classical to rap to vaporwave to even country.  The others don't really get it, but they're cool with whatever he puts on, and learn a lot of new music from him!

-He also owns an electric guitar, which he just plugs into himself to use as an amp and plays early in the morning to wake the others up if needed (he's the early riser and the other two are night owls...)

-Cap'n's definitely got a more narrow focus than the other two; he likes rap and also R&B, jazz, and even a little swing/electro swing.  He's also been caught more than once listening to cheesy romantic pop songs, claiming he's just into them for their potential madamoizel-attracting uses but really he's just a sappy romantic.

-He can also rap, very well in fact, and gets Sweet to beatbox while he freestyles. 

-Heck, he's just got a good singing voice in general, helped by having a built-in autotune, and dominates at karaoke!

-K_K also has a really broad range, but stays more towards the electronic end of the spectrum -- melodic dubstep, synthpop, disco, trance, chiptune, DnB, even occasionally puts on straight-up ambient spa music to chill out to (the only genre the other two will NOT tolerate.)

-K_K has also, in the past, set up entire mini-raves just by themselves, complete with glowsticks and everything, while Cap'n and Sweet were out doing whatever.  They were...not pleased, when they got back, mostly because they weren't invited.  All three got to have one together eventually though.  

-Physical media is king in their shop; if it's not on a CD, cassette tape, or a vinyl record (or an 8-track, though they have to dig out their old player for it), they will refuse to play it, and might even ask you to leave.  "MP3" is an extremely dirty word to them.

-(In fact, they don't get along too well with the MP3 player-headed robots elsewhere in the city.)

-They are indeed always listening to music on physical media as well -- K_K and Cap'n are their own CD players (though Cap'n's one of those models that's also got a built-in FM radio), while Sweet has a straight-up Walkman.    

-(He's also the group's cassette champion, claiming his media of choice is superior to CDs because you can record music on BOTH sides of the tape!  The other two just don't have the heart to point out that each side only holds half as much music as a CD, and you don't even have to rewind those...)

-Jury's still out on Hit Clips.  Cap'n and Sweet think they're just toys, but K_K genuinely collects and appreciates them and treats them like actual music (it helps that they are only around four seconds long!)

-Believe it or not, the headphones are only decoration, all three actually just...listen to their music entirely within their own heads, though they can also switch to playing it externally on their speakers as well.  Perks of being robots!  Though, sometimes K_K has his internal volume up too high, and misses things that other people say because of it.

-Sweet also has an input port, and connects himself to his turntable to act as the speakers!  The other two are WAY too embarrassed to ask if they can use it as well.

-Sweet can play almost any instrument you throw at him, as long as it's not a woodwind (Surprisingly, he can do brass, since those work on vibration rather than air!).  He prefers his guitar or violin when he isn't spinning records on his turntable.  Where the other two just enjoy music, he's the actual trained musician.

Voice headcanons:

-Sweet:  Kind of deep, bass-y, lots of reverb, a slight tinny audio distortion to it like a low-quality recording that becomes much more pronounced when he gets upset or starts shouting.  And since he's a speaker, you can literally feel the vibrations he makes when he's speaking!

-Cap'n:  Scout from TF2.  I am sorry, but I absolutely cannot get that out of my head for him.  XD  However, he's actually putting that voice on as an "accent" of sorts, his real voice is actually super autotune-y like K_K's, and it comes out whenever he gets flustered, his pitch only getting higher and higher as it gets worse...

-K_K:  Pure autotune, he can just do whatever the hell he wants with his voice -- pitch, tone, whatever, and while he tends to keep it a little higher he can and does change it to fit his mood!  He often has a completely different voice every day, but the others are used to it.  He also just straight-up vocalizes sound effects (like, the kind that make you go "How did you just make that sound with your mouth?!") and can mimic other people perfectly (though the slight mechanical distortion does give it away).  There are absolutely no rules when it comes to K_K's voice.

-They harmonize perfectly whenever they sing together! 

Sweet:

-I like to think Sweet's actually the brains of the group; like, not SMART, he just holds their one collective braincell most often.  He does any technical work when they're building stuff, like soldering circuits or the occasional programming, and even handles a lot of the actual business operations and pays the bills.  The other two also like to follow his lead when it comes to rebellion plans, even if he’s not the official leader.

-That said, though?  It's balanced out by him being rather hotheaded and having the shortest temper by a lot.  There are REASONS why he's not usually out selling bagels with the others -- he's unfortunately prone to some more "extreme" sales tactics, like hurling half their stock at random passersby until they finally agree to buy some.  On the plus side, he's always the first to step up to defend the gang from anything that dares to harm them, and is always on guard.

-He can also hold a heck of a grudge -- don't ever get on his bad side!  Cap'n and K_K are mostly immune to this though, if he gets upset with them he works through it by the end of the day.  It helps that they can all hug it out.

-He's a bit of a perfectionist, often working overtime to try and get everything they build exactly right.  He can get really frustrated when things don't work out the way he plans, or when he can't make sense of a problem, or when Cap'n and K_K are goofing off instead of doing their part, and needs to go blast some loud music and blow off steam.

-He does have a really tough time keeping his balance, since his head is a bit heavier than the rest of his body, but he takes tripping over his own feet constantly in stride.  The biggest problem he has is with dancing -- while he'll join in with the others on occasion, he can't match their more acrobatic moves and sticks more to actually PLAYING the music they're dancing to.

-He's also really, really unlucky, just in general.  He actually considers the other two his good luck charms, since they help him out whenever he trips or gets into a bad spot!

-He's the fashionista of the group, surprisingly.  It's difficult for him to find clothes that fit his body, so he tends to get a little creative with it and has a whole closet full of different stuff!  And since Cap'n is roughly the same size they'll occasionally swap jackets.

Cap’n:

-Cap'n actually has managed to score a handful of dates with girls in the past!  However, NONE of them went well, and only one actually made it to the second date (only to break up right in the middle of it), so he always ends up returning home heartbroken and in tears.  Sweet and K_K, by this point just ready for it whenever they hear that he's going out that night, always dry him off before he shorts himself out, take him to bed and cuddle with him (platonically, I don't see them as brothers but I also don't see them as having that conversation until Cap'n's ready, which he clearly is NOT), remind him that it doesn't hurt forever and he isn't unlovable and that he'll find someone eventually, etc.

-They have sat him down multiple times to try and gently suggest to Cap'n that he might just not be into women?  And that he’s actually turning them off by trying so hard?  To which he's always just like "No, of course not.  I'm straight.  Love the ladies.  Totally.  Oh no they didn't catch me checkin' out that one dude earlier did they?  Is that what this is about?!"

-(Basically, Cap'n is just a hopeless romantic in love with the idea of being in love, but is absolutely clueless as to how it works or what he actually wants, and his best buds are always there to catch him when he falls.  ;v; )

-The glasses are prescription -- he's SUPER nearsighted, a hardware glitch he refuses to fix.  Sometimes when he's working on something close up he'll take them off, panicking when he can't find them afterwards, only to have the others point out that they're just on his head.  He’s also got non-tinted glasses, but you will not catch him DEAD wearing those unless it’s an absolute emergency.

-This dude is SUPREMELY insecure with himself.  Like, his rather questionable fixation on romance aside, he basically runs off of others' validation, the "cool" persona he's spent much of his life building up being how he hides the fact that he isn't really sure who he is, or what he wants to do with his life, or what he's even good for -- the others have learned to check on him now and then whenever he hides away in the back of the shop, since he can slip into some pretty dark places when left alone to sulk.  It took a long time for him to open up even to them to share his feelings, and sometimes still has doubts about whether they or anyone else really care about him as more than just The Smooth One...

-He's the only one of the three to actually enjoy the occasional silence, especially when he's trying to think, or whenever he's upset.  So, his headphones also serve a dual purpose -- they're noise-cancelling!

-He's the video guy, carrying around a small camcorder and constantly trying to record the group's activities, to put together into music videos!  He also just likes to record himself doing stupid stunts for posterity, though K_K just takes these and makes (affectionate) blooper reels.

-Cap'n is not his real name, similar to K_K.  However, unlike K_K, he refuses to say what it is, just that it's embarrassing.

K_K:

-K_K has a bad habit of just completely zoning out when he gets into his music, getting completely lost in the groove and needing to be pulled back to reality.  It's not a bad thing during jam sessions, but at work, or in the middle of a battle...not so much.

-He kind of needs to have some kind of music going at all times -- silence drives him absolutely CRAZY!  Though, because he gets distracted by his own music, he then misses out on entire conversations, only tuning back in towards the end.  Sometimes the other two have to repeat or summarize what they just said for him.

-He knows sign language, and taught the others to use it.  They're able to communicate reasonably well no matter how loud their shop gets, or on days when K_K isn't able to form words properly (he's just shy, and even when he isn't he gets tongue-tied a LOT).

-He's easily the best dancer of the three, and uses his extendable body to get really creative with his moves!  He even knows a little ballroom, somehow, which he'll pull out sometimes to make the others laugh.

-(Seriously, K_K CANNOT stand to see Sweet or Cap'n not smiling.  He'll do anything to keep the group's spirits up, usually cracking jokes during a scrap project or doing little favors, and they appreciate all his efforts!)

-K_K has the WORST sleep cycle, ever.  If you let him, he will stay up all night working or partying, finally going to bed at 6AM, and will then sleep until 6PM if the others don't wake him up at some point.  If they know he was up really late they'll let him sleep in a little, but he's often pretty sleep-deprived and running solely on sugar and caffeine, which doesn't help his natural loopiness.  

-He is a VERY physical guy.  Seriously, he will just scoop up and hold Sweet or Cap'n like a cat every five minutes; at first they were just like "Oh.  Okay.  We're hugging now I guess," but after a while they got more used to it and even anticipate when K_K is going to do it.  And he also initiates tons of snuggles and gives piggyback rides whenever one of his bandmates (usually Sweet) requests.  

-K_K actually scrapbooks, collecting pictures and little mementos of places he and the others have gone and things they've done.  After the library fountain is sealed, he pulls them out to show everyone else from Cyber City and reminisce about home.

-It's very hard to make K_K angry, since he tends to stay super chill and brushes off almost everything.  But, on those very, very rare occasions when something does get under his metal outer casing, he'll go full-on silent treatment, not speaking to anyone for up to a week as he sulks and stomps around the junk shop, and even refuses to play any music!  And no amount of sweets or hugs or cheering up will bring him out of it, either; the other two have learned to just wait him out and let him have his space, letting him come to them when he's finally ready to talk about it.

Misc:

-Though all three love everything sweet, K_K's the only one who really goes overboard with it, making whole meals out of candy.  Sweet, ironically enough, actually prefers more salty/savory snacks, while the less is said about Cap'n's hot sauce addiction, the better.

-Okay, actually, I will say more about it.  Cap'n loves spicy food in general, and literally drinks tabasco sauce right from the bottle.  However, he's got a bad habit of daring himself to eat hotter and hotter stuff, ESPECIALLY if someone is watching, and can easily get in WAY over his head before begging for milk.

-They also all totally drink battery acid like Queen.

-Heck, being both Darkners and robots, they can really eat literally anything.  Normal food, milk, oil, batteries, gallons of pure sugar, toothpaste, moss, glitter (NEVER let K_K get hold of any though, he gets lost in the sauce), broken glass, etc, and of course their own deep-fried CDs.  Only thing they can't do is water, since, you know, robots.

-With a lot of the aesthetics of Cyber City being close to turn-of-the millennium and early 2000s (CDs and boomboxes, popup ads, wired mice, Queen theorized to be one of those see-through iMacs, EVERYTHING about Spamton), I like the idea that the boys DO NOT have smartphones, and if you handed them one they'd have no clue how to use it or what to do with it.  But they do have cell phones:  Sweet's got an old flip phone covered in stickers (courtesy of K_K), Cap'n splurged for one of those that slide open and with a camera (he set his background to a tiny, grainy photo of the three of them!), and K_K has one of those indestructible Nokia bricks, that Sweet got him after he kept breaking all his other ones.  They can all text, but that's about as high-tech as they get.

-Same with tablets or newer computers in general, they might share one tiny netbook at most.  Cap’n never remembers to log out of his Dark World dating profile, so the others will snoop or post embarrassing things to it.

-They're really, really durable, even without milk -- they're made of 90s plastic and electronics, so it takes a LOT to take one of them down!  Plus, they regularly repair each other back at the shop (it took a LONG time for them to gain enough trust to physically open and work on each other), so as long as at least one's left to drag the other two to safety they'll be just fine.

-However, if they get splashed with water, caught in the rain, or worse, drowned, they will short out, or shut down on the spot to prevent damage.  Once they completely dry out, though, they'll start right back up, no worse for wear.  When only one of them gets waterlogged the other two will break out the hair dryers to dry them out faster, or even pop them into the oven in a pan of rice like an iPod that got dropped in the toilet...

Finally, backstory?

-Cap'n and K_K met first -- maybe both as new recruits to another, much less savory gang of music equipment robots, and bonded as a result of being put upon by the more established members (Cap'n probably even had to defend K_K more than once when his inattentiveness got him into trouble!)  But, they both had enough one day, and decided to break off and form their own thing, making music and selling CD bagels to support themselves.

-Sweet, meanwhile, has the complete opposite background, coming from a rich and important family of musicians in Cyber City who regularly entertained Queen in her mansion (hence why he always used to get sweets from her!)  But, he was kind of the black sheep, preferring his own style of music, and decided to strike out on his own as a street musician instead.

-They met when Cap'n and K_K accidentally set up to sell bagels on Sweet's usual corner, and he battled them to reclaim his turf.  But, they were evenly-matched (even two-to-one; Sweet's definitely the strongest of the trio!), and impressed each other with both their fighting and musical skills, so Sweet decided to join their tiny group, and thus Sweet Cap'n Cakes was formed.  

-After the whole situation with Queen is resolved, SCC turns their rebellion into an anti-DRM kind of thing?  Nobody can hold back the music, man!

[elamarth-calmagol]

What actually is LACE? (an informal essay)

What’s LACE?

Laws and Customs among the Eldar, or LACE, is the most popular section of the History of Middle Earth books.  It's available online as a PDF here: http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/tolkien/online_reader/T-LawsandCustoms.pdf .  There’s a lot of LACE analysis in the fandom, Silmarillion smut fics are usually labeled “LACE compliant” or “not LACE compliant”, and I’ve been seeing the document itself show up in actual fics, meaning that the characters themselves are discussing it.

LACE is an unfinished, non-canonical essay split into several parts.  It covers the sexuality of elves, which is mostly what people talk about.  It also covers elvish naming (which I want to make a whole different post about), the speed at which elves grow up, changes that happen throughout their lives, their death and rebirth, and finally the legal and moral issues of Finwe remarrying after Miriel’s death.  The discussion about rebirth conflicts with Tolkien’s later writings about Glorfindel’s re-embodiment, but to the best of my knowledge, LACE is the best or only source for most of the topics it covers.

However, LACE is not canon since it doesn’t show up in the Silmarillion.  Counting all of the History of Middle Earth as canon is literally impossible, considering Tolkien contradicts himself all over the place.  It is only useful because it has so much information that is never discussed in the actual canon.  Many people consider it canon out of convenience.

Another important thing to remember is that, other than presumably the discussion of the growth of elvish children, the information is only supposed to apply to the Eldar (meaning the Vanyar, Noldor, Teleri, and Sindar) and not the dark-elves such as the Silvan elves and Avari.

The rest is behind the cut to avoid clogging your feeds.

Problems with LACE interpretations

But because it’s hidden in the History of Middle Earth (volume 10, Morgoth’s Ring), barely anyone actually gets the opportunity to read it.  I don’t think most people are aware that you can get it online, so it doesn't get read much.

I feel like this leads to a handful of people saying something about LACE and everyone else going along with it.  I definitely did this.  I was amazed by all the things that were in the actual essay that nobody had ever told me about, or had told me incorrectly.  For example, most people seem to believe that elves become married at the completion of sexual intercourse (whatever that means to the fic author).  In fact, LACE explicitly says that elves must take an oath using the name of Eru in order to be legally married.  Specifically: 

It was the act of bodily union that achieved marriage, and after which the indissoluble bond was complete… [I]t was at all times lawful for any of the Eldar, being both unwed, to marry thus of free consent one to another without ceremony or witness (save blessings exchanged and the naming of the Name); and the union so joined was alike indissoluble.

I’ve seen a marriage oath being included in a few stories recently, but most writers leave out the oath entirely and just have sex be automatically equivalent to marriage.  What would happen if elves had sex without swearing an oath?  I don’t know, but I’d love to see it explored.

Then there’s a footnote that might explicitly deny the existence of transgender elves... or not, but I’ve literally only seen it mentioned once or twice.  Overall, I feel like all of LACE is filtered through the handful of people who read it, and we’re missing out on a lot of metanalysis and interpretations that we could have because most fans never see the actual document.

Who wrote LACE?

I mean within the mythology of Middle Earth, of course.  Since LACE appears in the History of Middle Earth and not the Silmarillion, we can be pretty sure that J.R.R. Tolkien himself wrote it and it wasn’t added to by Christopher Tolkien.  But that’s not the question here.  Remember that Tolkien’s frame narrative for all of his Middle Earth work is that he is a scholar of ancient times and is translating documents from Westron and Sindarin for modern audiences to read and understand.  The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings come from the Red Book of Westmarch, and I believe The Silmarillion is meant to be Tolkien’s own writings based on his research (though it might also be an adaption of Bilbo’s “Translations from the Elvish”, but I haven't looked into that).  So what does LACE come from?

Christopher Tolkien admits in his notes that he doesn’t know.  He says, “It is clear in any case that this is presented as the work, not of one of the Eldar, but of a Man,” and I agree, because of the way it seems to be written as an ethnographic study rather than by someone who lives in the culture.  Honestly, it talks too much about how elves are seen by Men (e.g. speculating that elf-children might look like the children of Men) to be written by an elf.  This changes once it gets to the Doom of Finwe and Miriel, but that could be, and probably is, a story told to the writer by an elf who was there at the time.

Tolkien actually references Aelfwine in the second version of the text.  The original story behind The Lost Tales, which was the abandoned first version of the Silmarillion, was that a man from the Viking period named Aelfwine/Eriol stumbled onto the Straight Road and found himself on Tol Eressea.  He spoke to the elves and brought back their stories to England with him.  So it makes a lot of sense that Aelfwine would also write about the lives and customs of the elves for an audience of his own people.

Does LACE exist in Middle Earth?

I keep finding fics where first age elves discuss “the Laws and Customs” openly, as if it’s a text in their own world.  I usually get the impression that it was brought by the Noldor from Valinor.  But did the document actually exist in that time period?  For me, the answer is definitely not.

First of all, LACE was probably written by a Man, meaning it could not have dated back to Valinor in the years of the Trees, because Men hadn’t awaked yet.  In fact, the closest thing to an established frame narrative for it is that it was written by Aelfwine, who comes from the time period around 1000 CE (though Tolkien doesn’t seem to have pinned him down).  This is at least the fifth age, if not later.

But what if you don’t believe that it was written by a Man?  It still couldn’t have been written in the First Age, because it discusses the way the relationship between elves’ bodies and souls changes as ages go by.  For example:

As ages passed the dominance of their fear ever increased, ‘consuming’ their bodies... The end of this process is their ‘fading’, as Men have called it.

A lot of time has to go by in order for elves to get to the point of fading.  As a bonus, here’s another reference to the perspective of Men. LACE also discusses the dangers that “houseless feas”, which are souls of elves who do not go to Mandos after their bodies died, pose to Men.  How would they have known about that in the First Age?  It further says that “more than one rebirth is seldom recorded” (which isn’t contradicted anywhere I know of), and that’s not something you would know during your life of joy in Valinor, where almost nobody dies.  That’s something you learn after millennia of war.  This has to be a document written well after the Silmarillion ends.

So what about the sex part?  That’s all we care about, right?  Well, it is entirely possible that this was written down by the elves and Aelfwine translated it (though my impression is that he mostly recorded stories told orally to him and that elves were not very much into writing, at least in Valinor where you could get stories directly from someone who experienced them).  However, why would the elves write this down?  They know how quickly their children grow up.  They’ve seen actual marriages.  They don’t need that described to them.  And if they did have a specific document or story explaining the expectations of them when it comes to sex and marriage, why would they call it “Laws and Customs”?  That’s a very strange name for a set of rules for conduct.  I’m sure they had a list of laws written out somewhere in great detail, like our own state or national laws (that seems very in character for the Noldor, at least).  But I seriously doubt that those laws are what we’ve been given to read. LACE is not an elvish or Valinoran document.

Is LACE prescriptive or descriptive?

Here’s the other big question I’m interested in.  Prescriptive means that the document describes the way people should behave.  Descriptive means that it describes how people do behave.  And the more I worldbuild for Middle Earth and the culture of elves, the more I want to say that LACE is prescriptive in its discussion of sex, marriage, and gender roles.

But wait.  I’ve been saying for paragraphs that I think LACE is Aelfwine or another Man’s ethnographic study of elvish culture.  Then it has to be descriptive, right?

Does it?  How long do we think Aelfwine stayed with the elves?  Did he wait fifty years to see a child grow up?  Did he get to witness a wedding ceremony?  Did he meet houseless fea?  I don’t think he could have done all of that.  Maybe a different Man who spent his entire life with the elves could, but then when was this written?  When the elves were still marrying and having children in Middle Earth or when so much time had gone by that they had begun to fade already?

Whoever wrote this was told a lot of information by elves instead of experiencing it firsthand, the same way he heard the stories from the First Age from the elves instead of being there.  Maybe it was one elf who talked to him, maybe several different ones.  But did those elves accurately describe their society the way it was, give him the easiest description, or explain the way it was supposed to be?  If I was describing modern-day America, would I discuss premarital sex or just our dating and marriage customs?  Maybe people would come away from a talk with me thinking that moving in together equated to marriage for Americans in the early 21st century.  And I don’t even have an agenda to show America in a certain way, I'm just bad at explaining.  Did the elves talking to what may have been the first Man they had seen in millennia have an agenda in the way they presented themselves?

Or did the writer himself have an agenda?  Imagine going to see these beautiful, mythical, perfect beings, and you find out that they behave in the same immoral ways Men do.  Do you want to share the truth back home?  Or do you leave out things that don't match your worldview? Did Aelfwine come back wanting to tell people what elves were really like?  Or did he want to say “this is how you can be holy and perfect like an elf”?

Anyone studying the Age of Exploration will tell you that Europeans neber wrote about new cultures objectively, and often things were made up to fit the writer’s idea of what savages looked like. For example, my Native American history teacher in college told a story of how explorers described one tribe who (sensibly) didn't wear clothes as cannibals, because cannibalism and going around naked went together in their minds and not because of any actual incident.  Unbiased scholarship barely existed yet. Even Tolkien was extremely biased and tended to be imperialistic, as we all know.  There’s absolutely no reason to think that Aelfwine wasn’t biased in his own way.  (Of course, now we have to consider what biases a Danish or English man from the centuries around 1000 would have when it comes to things like gender roles. I assume he would have been more into divorce and female warriors than the elves are said to be.)

But is that what Tolkien intended? Probably not. He probably wanted LACE to be descriptive. But he also never got much of a chance to analyse the essay after the fact, which might have led to him discussing its accuracy and even the exact issues I just pointed out about explorers. Anyway, we know he's biased, and honestly, what he intended has never slowed down the fandom before.

Conclusion

In short, I take LACE to be a prescriptive document describing the way elvish culture is supposed to be, not a blueprint I have to stick to in order to correctly portray elves.  I also don’t believe the document that’s available for us to read existed even in the early Fourth Age, where The Lord of the Rings leaves off.  There maybe have been some document outlining the moral behavior of elves, as a set of laws, but thats not the Laws and Customs we have.

Of course, canon is up to you to interpret.  If you want Feanor discussing LACE with someone back in Valinor, go ahead.  If you want to throw out LACE entirely, go ahead.  It’s not even a canonical essay.  All of this analysis is honestly useless when you consider the fact that no part of LACE exists in any canonical book.

But that’s Tolkien analysis for you.

[zedecksiew]

Sentimental thoughts about the OSR

OSR -- Old School Renaissance? Revival? A style of making and playing games, where the focus is on the experience of shared imagined space, not narrative plots or arcs.

A style fostered by a community.

That community was ugly. Many alt-right-leaning white dudes. It sheltered abusers, like Zak S -- a person who, to my shame, I'd been a fan of.

That community was good. Many key figures were queer / trans. More so (to my impression) than any other RPG community (even other indie groups). Non-white folks, like me.

The popular TTRPG eye remembers the OSR for its ugliness, not its inclusivity. Probably because the assholes were loud. And because the non-white / cis / het-ness of folks was rarely advertised as a community selling-point: "Look at how diverse we are!"

The latter aspect made me feel welcomed. My work -- entirely informed by my SEA context, as it's always been -- got attention based on its merit, not its topicality.

+

The OSR as I joined it was based on blogs, and on G+. When G+ was shut down, the community had a diaspora.

You hear about BOSR (British OSR), or NOSR / NuSR. You used to hear about SWORDDREAM? I think FKR (the Free Kriegsspiel Revival) is an offshoot of the old community? There are a million Discord channels. Questing Beast, on Youtube.

The blogs are still going strong.

I can't keep track of all the places folks have ended up. I do feel bad about that -- that I'm less community-oriented, that I work more in isolation, now. I squat Twitter mostly. Twitter is not a good place for a creative community.

But it is what it is.

+

An article Ewan Wilson was writing about the OSR got spiked at Polygon. I was one of the folks he emailed questions to.

Ewan's questions prompted this bout of sentimentality, I guess?

Here are bits from email I wrote him, in reply:

+

The OSR scene began on blogs? That's certainly how I discovered it. I can actually remember the specific post that hooked me:

Patrick Stuart / False Machine, reading James C Scott's "The Art Of Not Being Governed" -- a history of the Zomia region of mainland Southeast Asia, a place of fluid cultures and peoples that have traditionally resisted the settled states surrounding it -- riffing on the historical information in Scott's book, spinning them into RPG campaign ideas.

+

A facet of the OSR scene is its willingness to use popular rulesets as a shared language.

Dungeons & Dragons (tm) not as a WOTC corporate property, but D&D as a community vernacular. (And D&D is just one example.)

Folks like Emmy Allen and Luka Rejec have talked about this quite eloquently, I think?

I think the OSR prioritises making stuff for games rather than crafting the bestest, most elegantly-designed game possible. If you are stuck arguing about which language works best for poetry, you'll never get to the point where you actually start making and sharing verse.

+

I associate the OSR style with possibility, too. I'm not sure why.

Mainstream WOTC D&D is trapped in a self-referential loop, recycling its own Forgotten Realms-adjacent tropes. Then you have the vast forest of licensed RPGs: "Alien: The RPG", "Avatar: The RPG"; "[Insert Popular Nerd IP Here]: The RPG".

Many indie-RPG communities prize genre-emulation -- here's a game where you can mimic the narrative shape of a slasher film; an urban-fantasy novel; Legend of Zelda.

Not that there is anything wrong with this. But if emulation is where you start and end you doom RPGs to a secondary role -- forever in the shadow of other arts.

For sure the OSR has its pop-culture and games-media touchstones; the scene loves to riff on metal album covers and Dark Souls a lot.

But I'd argue that -- relative to other RPG subcommunities, in my experience -- OSR creators are willing to push further down the rabbit-holes of their particular obsessions more often.

So, yes: Dark Souls and metal music. But also references weirder, personal, and as-yet-untapped: Zomia, punk zines, walks in backyard forests, Birkenhead folklore, the Permian Period, Moebius, East Malaysian myth --

Composted together to the point they become game things utterly unlike anything else, and the stories / experiences you can have in those game things you can have nowhere else.

+

The blogs are still going strong.

Today I was reading this series of posts, a theory-based critique at D&D, the OSR, and games design in general:

"the goal of what we call "old-school play" is not to create a story but to traverse a fantastic space guided by desire, such that any story which emerges is incidental and retrospective (much like stories that emerge from 'real life'). edwards prescribes that the goal of play is to create a story, elevates this prescription into a truth about play as such, and then claims that players who do not play with this aim actually fail to meet this aim because they are mentally damaged. perhaps this can be remedied by playing the correct game, or maybe not, but regardless the implication is that by playing the correct game, one can avoid brain damage.

my take is to not let salespeople convince you that you must buy their products to be politically or mentally correct, and on the flip side do not entitle yourself to the enjoyment of other people."

Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4. All four are worth reading.

Today I was also reading the very first OSR blogpost I ever read, about Zomia. It is still as good as it was, six years ago:

"The Lisu, aside from insisting that they kill assertive chiefs, have a radically abbreviated oral history. "Lisu forgetting, Jonsson claims, "is as active as Lua and Mien remembrance." he implies that the Lisu chose to have virtually no history and that the effect of this choice was to "leave no space for the active role of supra-household structures, such as villages or village clusters in ritual life, social organizations, or the mobilisation of peoples attention, labour or resources."

18 Radically forgetting tribes. How far can you push that? Ancestor free tribes, then further away, one-year tribes, then in the reaches of the deeps, the one-day, impossible even to understand as they remember only for one day.

Patrick's blog turned 10 this week.

The blogs are still going strong.