#the era of the functional queue is over :')

[ragnars-tooth]

One of my big compulsions is taking a fuck ton of screenshots Just In Case a piece of information is important in like 4 years and I can't remember it (sometimes the information is an instagram post that I might not remember later and of course needs to be recorded everywhere (I will Not be looking at that again)) so today is my transfer 16000 images off my phone admin day (woo)

Like yeah I never looked at any of them and they were completely irrelevant to my daily life, But what if I need them ✨️ later ✨️ (you'll see that the idea of Later is doing a lot of heavy lifting here) OR what if there's a vital piece of information in the mix somewhere that I'll lose forever if I delete them? So: onto the external hard drive they go

This is one of those cases where. Yeah. Ideally I wouldn't take 16000 screenshots in half a year. And YEAH ideally I'd just delete them and not transfer them somewhere else to never look at again. BUT at least I get a clean slate and I can maybe not mindlessly save everything for 2 seconds. It's like. Small wins? Progress. Yknow.

[ryin-silverfish]

A Guide to the Chinese Underworld (and what it isn't)

As many FSYY and fox posts as there were on my blog, I am actually a huge fan of the Chinese Underworld mythos. Mostly because I was once a morbid little kid that loved reading about the excavations of ancient tombs, and found the statues depicting hellish torture in the Haw Par Villa "super cool".

Apart from the aesthetics, the history of its evolution is also fascinating. Most of us, Chinese or not, only know the most popular version of the Underworld——the "Ten Kings" system, yet that isn't always the case. So today, I'll start off with a short summary of that.

In pre-Qin era, there was already this generic idea of a "Realm of the Dead" called the Yellow Spring, Youdu, or Youming, but we know very little about it.

Then, in the Han dynasty, two ideas start to emerge: 1) the Underworld is a bureaucracy, 2) the God of Mt. Tai ruled over the dead.

This early bureaucracy might not function as an agent of punishment; the main focus was on keeping the dead segregated from the living so they wouldn't bring diseases and misfortune to the latter, as well as using those ghosts to enforce collective punishments upon people for their lineage's wrongdoings while they were still alive.

Post-Han, after Buddhism entered China and took root, its idea of karmic punishments and reincarnation and the figure of King Yama was merged with folk and Daoist ideas of the Underworld bureaucracy, and, came Tang dynasty, resulted in the "Ten Kings" system that first appeared in Dunhuang manuscripts.

It was very rudimentary and far from well-established, as seen in Tang legends, with some adopting the Ten Kings system, some sticking to the Lord of Mt. Tai and some favoring King Yama, and overall little agreements on who's in charge of the Underworld.

But the "Ten Kings" system would become the mainstream version from then onwards, used in Ming vernacular novels and made even more popular by folk religion scrolls like the Jade Records (Yuli Baochao).

As such, most points in the following sections will be based on the fully matured "Ten Kings" system of the Underworld, as seen in the Jade Records and JTTW.

What happens when you die?

(This is a fictionalized walkthrough of the posthumous fate of souls under the "Ten Kings" system. I try to stick to the very broad progression outlined in the Jade Records, but many creative liberties are taken on the details.)

Let's say there's a guy named Xiao Ming, and he had just died of a heart attack. Bummers. What now?

Well, the first thing he saw would be the ghost cops.

There isn't really an unanimous agreement on who these ghost cops are: they may be a pair of ghosts in white and black robes, wearing tall hats (Heibai Wuchang), they may have the heads of farm animals (Ox-Head and Horse-Face), or they can just be generic ghost bureaucrats. For convenience's sake, let's say it was the first scenario.

"Who are you guys and where are you taking me?"

"Glad you asked!" The taller ghost cop, being the cheerful one of the pair, replied. It wasn't very reassuring, considering that his tongue was dangling out of his mouth way further than it should. "I'm the White Impermanence, my sour-looking colleague here is the Black Impermanence, and we are taking you to the City God's office."

This City God, a.k.a. Chenghuang, is just like how it sounds: the divine guardian of a city, who also pulls double duty as the head of the local Dead People Customs Office. They are usually virtuous officials deified posthumously, and in JTTW, they fall under the category of "Ghostly immortals", together with the Earth Gods a.k.a. Tudi.

So Xiao Ming went with the two ghost cops——not like he had much of a choice, made his way through the long queue at the City God's office, and was now standing in front of a gruff old magistrate in traditional robes.

"Name?"

"Wang Xiao Ming."

"Age and birth dates?"

"21, April 16 2003…"

After he was done asking questions, the City God flipped through his ledger, then picked up a brush, ticked off Xiao Ming's name, and told him to go get his pass in the next room. More waiting in a queue. Wonderful.

"I never heard anything about needing a pass to get to the Underworld," the girl in front of Xiao Ming asked the ghost cops, who were standing guard nearby. "Is this a new policy or something?"

"Yeah. In the old days, we'd just drag y'all straight to the Ghost Gate." The ghost cop in black said, then muttered to himself, "Fuckin' paperworks and overpopulation, man…"

(This "Dead People Passport" thing was popularized in the middle-to-late Ming dynasty, as shown by the discovery of such documents inside tombs in southern China. )

(It might have evolved from similar passes to the Western Pure Land in lay Buddhism that recorded their acts of merits. Which, in turn, might be traced back to the "Dead People Belongings List" of Han dynasty, to be shown to Underworld bureaucrats so that no one would take away the dead's private property down there or something.)

Anyways, after he received his pass, Xiao Ming departed together with the rest of the bunch, to be led to the Ghost Gate. It was like the world's most depressing tourist group, where instead of tour guides, you got two ghost cops in funny hats, and the only scenery in sight was the desolation of the Yellow Spring Road.

They weren't the only travellers on the road, though. Xiao Ming noticed other groups moving in the far distance, behind the fog and the flickering ghostfire, led by similar figures in black and white.

It made a lot of sense; realistically, there was no way two ghost cops could fetch hundreds of thousands of dead people all by themselves.

(SEA Tang-ki mediums believed there were multiple Tua Di Ya Peks——Hokkien name for the Black and White Impermanences, working for different Underworld Courts.)

At last, the Ghost Gate stood in front of Xiao Ming, guarded by two towering figures. Normally, they'd be Ox-Head and Horse-Face, like what you see at Haw Par Villa's Underworld entrance.

However, older Han dynasty works like Wang Chong's 论衡·订鬼 also mentioned two gods, Shenshu and Yulei, as guardians of the Ghost Gate, who would use reed ropes to capture malicious ghosts and feed them to tigers, making them possibly the earliest incarnation of "Gate Gods".

So here, they were what Xiao Ming sees, standing side by side like proper doormen, silently watching herds of ghosts being funneled through the entrance.

The place was more crowded than a train station during the CNY Spring Rush; the ghost cops had already said their quick goodbye and left to fetch the next group of dead people, leaving the resident officials of the Underworld proper to maintain order and quell any would-be riots.

Now you started seeing the Ox-Head and Horse-Face guys, poking at unruly ghosts with their pitchforks and dragging away the violent ones in chains. Among their ranks were other monstrous beings, blue-faced yakshas and imps, but also regular dead humans who look 100% done with their jobs, like the lady who stamped Xiao Ming's pass when it was finally his turn.

After this point, Xiao Ming had entered the Underworld proper, and his next destination would be the First Court, led by King Qin'guang. Here, his fate should be decided by what is revealed in the King's magical mirror.

If Xiao Ming was a good guy, or someone who had done an equal amount of good and bad things in life, he'd be sent straight to the Tenth Court for reincarnation. However, if the mirror, while replaying his life events, had displayed more evil deeds than good ones, he'd be sent to one of the 2nd-9th Courts for judgment and then punished inside the Eighteen Hells.

Each of the Ten Kings was also assisted by ghostly judges. Many of them were righteous and just officials in life who had been recruited into the Ten Courts posthumously——Cui Jue from JTTW is one such example, while others were living people working part-time for the Underworld, like how Wei Zheng, Taizong's minister, works part-time for the Celestial Bureaucracy in JTTW.

We decide to be nice to Xiao Ming, so, after reliving some embarrassing childhood incidents and cringy teenage phases in front of a bunch of dead bureaucrats, he was found innocent and sent to the Tenth Court.

The queue here was almost as long as the First Court's, stretching on and on alongside of the banks of the Nai River. King of the Turning Wheel made his judgment without even lifting his head when it was Xiao Ming's turn:

"Path of Humans, male, healthy in body and mind, ordinary family. Next!"

Exiting the Tenth Court building, Xiao Ming saw the Terrace of Forgetfulness, standing tall before six bridges, made of gold, silver, jade, stone, wood, and…some unidentified material. Before he could get a good look at them and the little dots moving across those bridges, he was hurried into the Terrace by the ghostly officials.

Now, both JTTW and the Jade Records mention multiple bridges across the Nai River. In the former, there is 3, and the latter, 6. The bridges made of precious materials are for people who will reincarnate into better lives, as the wealthy, the fortunate, and the divine, while the Naihe Bridge is either the common option or the terribad shitty option.

However, the Naihe Bridge proved to be so iconic, it became THE bridge you walk across to reincarnate in popular legends.

Anyways, back to Xiao Ming. He found himself standing in a giant soup kitchen of sorts, with an old lady at the counter, scooping soup out of her steaming pot and into one cup after another.

This is Mengpo, the amnesia soup granny; according to the Jade Records, she was born in the Western Han era, and a pious cultivator who thought of neither the past nor the future, only knowing that her surname was Meng.

Made into an Underworld god by the Jade Emperor, she cooks a soup of five flavors that will wipe the memory of the dead, making sure they do not remember any of their past lives once they reincarnate.

It tastes awful. Like what you get after pouring corn syrup, coffee, chilli sauce, lemon juice and seawater into the same cup.

Such was Xiao Ming's last thought, as he gulped down the soup, and then he knew no more.

Things you should know about the Chinese Underworld:

1. It's not the Christian Hell.

Rather, the Chinese Underworld functions somewhat like the Purgatory, in that there are a lot of torment, but the torment's not eternal, however long the duration may be. Once you finish your sentence, you get reincarnated as something else, though that "something else" is not a guaranteed good birth.

Other people can also speed up the process via transferring of merits: hiring a priest/monk to chant sutras and perform rituals, for example, or performing good deeds in life in dedication to the dead, or they can pray to a Daoist/Buddhist deity to save their loved ones from a dreadful fate.

Interestingly enough, a thesis paper I read mentions that, whereas Buddhist salvation from the Hells was based on transference of merits——you give monks offerings and pay them to chant sutras, so they can cancel out the sinners' bad karma with good ones, Daoist ideas of salvation tend to involve the priest going down there, sorting it out with the Underworld officials, and taking the dead out of the Hells themselves.

(The paper also stops at the Northern-Southern and Tang dynasties, so the above is likely period-specific.)

2. Nor is it run by evil demons.

Underworld officials are not nice guys and look pretty monstrous and torture the sinful dead, but they are not the embodiment of evil. Rather, the faction as a whole is what I'd call Lawful Neutral, who function on this "An Eye for An Eye" logic, where every harm the sinner caused in life must be returned to them, in order for their karmic debts to be cleansed and move on to their next life.

They can absolutely be corrupt and incompetent and take bribes——Tang dynasty Zhiguai tales and Qing folklore compendiums featured plenty of such cases, but that's a very mundane and human kind of evil, not a cosmic/innate one.

This is just my personal opinion, but if you want to do an "evil" Chinese Underworld? It should be a very bureaucratic evil, whose leaders are bootlickers to the higher-ups, slavedrivers to their rank-and-file workers, and bullies who abuse their power over regular dead people.

Not, y'know, Satan and his infernal legions or conspiring Cthulu cultists.

3. The Ten Kings are not Hades.

Make no mistake, they still have a lot of power over your average dead mortal. But in the grand scheme of things? They are the backwater department of the pantheon, who only show up in JTTW to get pushed around and revive the occasional dead people.

When Taizong made his trip to the Underworld, the Ten Kings greeted him as equals——kings of ghosts to the king of the living. If they see themselves as equal in status to a mortal emperor, then, like any mortal emperors, they are subordinate to the Celestial Host, and the balance of power is not even remotely equal or in their favor.

Also, it isn't said outright, but under the Zhong-Lv classification of immortals JTTW is using, Underworld officials will likely be considered Ghostly immortals, the lowest and weakest of the five types, much like Tudis and Chenghuangs.

Essentially: they are ghosts that are powerful enough to not reincarnate and linger on and on, spirits of pure Yin as opposed to true immortals, who are beings of pure Yang.

It's pretty much the shittiest form of immortality, the result you get when you try to speedrun cultivation (the Zhong-Lv text also made a dig at Buddhist meditation here), and if they don't reincarnate or regain a physical body, there is no chance of progressing any further.

Oh, and fun fact? In the Song dynasty, commoners and literati elites alike believed that virtuous officials in life would get appointed as ghostly officials in death.

However, the latter viewed it as a punishment. Which was strange, considering how they still held the same position and the same amount of authority, just over dead people instead of living ones, so there should be no big losses, right?

Well...it was precisely the "dead people" part that made it a punishment. See, a lot of the power and prestige they had as officials came from the benefits they could bring to their families and kins and native places, as well as the potential wealth and reputation bonuses for themselves.

A job in the Dead People Supreme Court would give them the same workload, but with none of those benefits. Since all the dead people had to reincarnate eventually, they couldn't have a fixed group as their power base, or keep their old familial ties and connections. At most, they could help out an occasional dead relative or two.

Like, working for the Underworld Courts was the kind of deadend (no pun intended) job not even living officials wanted for themselves in the afterlife. That's how hilariously sad and pathetic they are.

4. In JTTW at least, they aren't even the highest authorities of the Underworld.

That would be Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha, who is technically their boss, though he seems to be more of a spiritual leader than someone who is actually involved in running the bureaucracy.

Which makes sense, since he has sworn an oath to not attain Buddhahood until all Hells are empty, and his role is to offer relief and salvation to the suffering souls, not judging and punishing them.

Now, historically...even though Ksitigarbha in early Tang legends was still the savior of the dead, he seemed to be unable to interfere with the judicial process of the Underworld, merely showing up to take people away before they were judged by King Yama.

However, in the mid-Tang apocryphal "Sutra of Bodhisattva Ksitigarbha" (地藏菩萨经), he had evolved into the equal of King Yama, with the power of supervision over his judgements. By the time the Scripture on the Ten Kings came out, in artistic depictions, the Ten Kings had become fully subservient to him.

5. Diyu usually refers to the prison-torture chamber part, not the courthouse, nor is it the entirety of the Underworld.

And for the majority of souls that haven't committed crimes, they'll only see the courthouse part before they are sent to reincarnation. That's why I personally don't like, or use the name Diyu for the Chinese Underworld: I prefer the term Difu ("Earth Mansions"), which encompasses the whole realm better.

Also: even though historical sources like the Scripture on the Ten Kings and Jade Records seem to suggest that the dead were just funneled through this Courthouse-Prison-Reincarnation pipeline with no breaks in between, in practice, that isn't the case.

According to popular folk beliefs, after the dead were done with their trials/sentences, they stayed in the Underworld for a period of time and led regular lives, while functioning as ancestor spirits and receiving offerings.

Which would imply that the Underworld had a civilian district of sorts, populated by regular ghosts, making the whole realm even less of a direct Hell/Purgatory equivalent.

6. It is located in a different realm, but still part of the Six Paths and doesn't exist outside of reality.

In Buddhist cosmology, like the Celestial Realm, the Underworld is part of the Realm of Desires and thus subject to all the woes of samsara.

The pain and misery of the Path of Hell may be the worst and most obvious, but becoming a celestial being isn't the goal of serious Buddhists either: despite all the pleasures and near-infinite lifespan they enjoy, they are not free from samsara and will eventually have to reincarnate.

So if, say, the world is being destroyed at the end of a kalpa, all beings of the Six Paths will perish alongside it, leaving behind a clean slate for the cycle to start anew. The dead won't all end up in the Underworld and face eternal damnation.

7. The Black and White Impermanences would not appear in the Underworld pantheon formally until the Qing dynasty.

The concept that when you die, you get fetched to the Underworld by petty ghost bureaucrats is already well-established in Tang legends, but these were just generic ghost bureaucrats in all sorts of colorful official robes, with yellow being the most common color.

The idea of there being two specific psychopomps in black and white would only become popular in the Qing dynasty. Mengpo is kinda similar: although she existed before the Ming-Qing era as a goddess of wind, venerated by boatmen, her "amnesia soup granny" incarnation came from the Jade Records.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Chris D'Angelo at HuffPost:

When it comes to the public’s ability to pry documents loose from federal agencies, Donald Trump’s supporters accept nothing less than full disclosure and have spent the past few years bombarding federal agencies with requests for records. But it seems overwhelmingly likely that posture will soon change ― right around noon on Jan. 20.

Take Trump-era Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who is now a key member of the president-elect’s transition team and is widely expected to land another powerful administration post next year. In a May 2023 episode of the America First Policy Institute’s podcast, “The Tank,” Bernhardt bemoaned that left-wing organizations he’d “never heard of” had “inundated” federal agencies with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests during Trump’s first term, “to the point that it created a lot of activity in terms of slowing down the agenda.” “Frankly, I think they were very effective,” he said. “They’re highly funded by non-disclosed entities, and that’s fine. I was even surprised to find that much of their activity is tax-deductible.” “I’m not suggesting it’s illegal, but what I am suggesting is that it is incredibly one-sided,” he added. “That one-sided effort meant that their voice was often the only voice in the echo chamber surrounding policies related to the administration.” Bernhardt’s condemnation of perceived political adversaries using the 1967 law as intended to shine light on the inner functions of government is ironic. As a longtime lobbyist for oil, gas, mining and agricultural interests, Bernhardt entered the Trump administration with so many potential conflicts of interest that he had to carry around a card listing his former clients. Under his watch, the Department of the Interior repeatedly meddled with FOIA, going as far as to withhold information about Bernhardt ahead of his confirmation hearing to take over as secretary after the departure of scandal-plagued Ryan Zinke. And over the last couple of years, right-wing organizations, including the America First Policy Institute — many of them tax-exempt nonprofits and led by former Trump administration officials — have swamped the Interior Department and other federal agencies with thousands of records requests, many of them targeted at specific employees. (Bernhardt is chair of AFPI’s Center for American Freedom.)

Leading that sleuthing effort is the Heritage Foundation, an influential right-wing organization that spearheaded Project 2025, the extreme-right policy blueprint that GOP operatives compiled to guide Trump in a second term. Mike Howell, a former Trump administration official and current executive director of Heritage’s Oversight Project, told ProPublica last month that the foundation has filed more than 50,000 FOIA requests since 2022. Many of those requests target specific career civil servants and seek communications that mention a variety of “culture war” topics, including climate change action and diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. Others target internal discussions about Trump.

[...] One employee in the FOIA office of a government agency told ProPublica that the right-wing effort has jammed up the FOIA queue to the point that it has severely affected the agency’s ability to keep up with requests. And ethics watchdogs expect that the fishing expedition is part of Project 2025’s authoritarian vision of dismantling federal agencies and replacing tens of thousands of career staff — so-called rogue bureaucrats — with Trump loyalists willing to advance right-wing policies.

[...] The Trump administration has a record of doing exactly what Howell takes issue with. During Trump’s first year in office, federal agencies set a new record for censoring and withholding government documents requested through FOIA, The Associated Press reported at the time. Trump’s Interior Department changed its FOIA policy to allow for political appointees to review public information requests prior to their release and at one point proposed new regulations to grant the agency the ability to reject “burdensome” records requests and impose monthly limits for individual requesters. In a 2020 report, the Interior Department’s internal watchdog concluded that political appointees blocked the public release of documents related to Bernhardt ahead of his confirmation hearing in March 2019.

[...] Trump and his allies are pledging, yet again, to dismantle the “deep state” bureaucracy that they claim is conspiring against them. That is likely to include dismantling federal offices they deem not essential to an agency’s core function, including those working on climate change and environmental justice. What they conveniently forget is that the people in government they view as the enemy are, by and large, simply carrying out the Biden administration’s agenda.

Donald Trump’s first term was a censorious mess with FOIA requests. His 2nd term will be much worse.

[sharpace]

Now I HAVE to know more about Jayvik's Divorce and then Reunion.

What are their whole feelings on the situation? Do they miss eachother often but ignore those feelings? Are there times where they have a fluttering of love for the other and then squash it out?

How do they come back together into having a relationship again?

SO SO many good questions... I actually can't wait for the Divorce Era + Reconcile comics when they come out (speaking of which, are they going to be Ko-Fi exclusive, or do you plan on eventually releasing them out on tumblr or some other platform?)

Love your silly little AU 🥺 it hurts to think my boys will separate at some point but at least it will be silly </3 the amount of petty shenanigans they must get up to in the Divorce Era.. Amazing

So I’ll go more in depth in the illustrated timeline (it’s 13 handwritten pages 😬) but i can expand on some info I’ve shared in other asks. Jayce is still very much in love and trying to be so cool about the divorce and Viktor is still very bitter and wants to close the door behind him. However, Jayce is also incredibly frustrated with the path Viktor chose and Viktor misses having someone truly understand him inside and out.

Yes, they do love each other but they are also pulling at different directions and were at a crossroad where there was no path together.

Ummm, tbh, I wrote it down but keep changing it up so I will leave that up to you until I lock it in with the last bit in the illustrated timeline.

For platforms, I’m deciding! The main function is to be the bonus content for my subscribers so I want to respect that and need to think it over how I want to put it together. Determining the timeline for release will also help.

Thank you!!! It means a lot!! Sometimes it can be isolating writing things and then setting them up on the queue and just… hoping y’all like it because I can’t check messages until a few hours (or days) later. So thank you!! And yeah as sad as the Divorce Era, they are so petty and stubborn and DO have to share custody with Rio.

[gracegrove]

Harringrove 90s au/Frasier crossover

Tw for: implied panic attack, implied depression, mental health themes, implied dark-ish/teensy bit angsty, era-appropriate sexuality stereotyping

It's 1994 and Steve is a mover and shaker in the hot, hot, hot real estate market of the Seattle metropolitan area. Finding a slump in his mood and a slow in his lunch hour between daily showings, Steve begins calling in to a popular local radio show on KACL for an emotional pick-me-up with radio personality and psychiatrist, Dr. Frasier Crane.

At first Steve is just a passive listener, but after hearing first hand during his lengthy commutes, how this soothsaying guru can calm and put the pep back in his caller's days Steve gives him a call.

"I dunno Doc, I just don't have that spark anymore..." He sighs into his cellular phone from the driver's seat of his year-model Buick. "Y'know what I mean? Like, it felt like everything was in my grasp and now it's just..." He grumbled in frustration.

The psychiatrist chuckled warmly through the phone line, "well Steve, a lot can change a man over time. When would you say you last felt that spark?"

Steve looked out the car window, caramel eyes reflecting upon the Puget Sound but his mind seeing the soft rolling hills and shallow valleys of central Indiana. Thoughts settling over gentle golden curls waving in the breeze.

"Steve? Are you still with us?" The radio host coaxed.

Steve opened his eyes, the vision fading from view. "Yeah. I'm here..."

Steve progressively becomes a regular call-in. Sharing more overtime about how he left behind 'a special someone' and how he regrets and second guesses so much about his life because of it. Thinking "if only I'd stayed. If only I'd told them how much they really meant to me". Feeling that his life really doesn't amount to much because of the decisions he made, or didn't... in the past. The radio host's producer, Roz, begins an unofficial fan club for Steve. Cheering him on, and giving him small pep talks each time he is in the call queue to talk with Dr. Crane. "Hey kid, how's it going today? How'd that date go? She sounded real nice! Things'll look up!"

Approximately a year later, Billy moves to Seattle picking up a transfer from his employer, hoping that working for the company's flagship will help him climb the pay scale faster. And leave the local union politicking and small-town, big-ego dickwads in his rearview mirror.

Things have improved somewhat for Billy over the years but it's still not great, and he seeks the services of a local psychiatrist, Dr. Niles Crane. Billy works with Dr. Crane to unpack and explore how his past experiences may have influenced his "current level of functioning", or so Dr. Crane says. They do a lot of daydreaming, picturing, and hypothetical scenarios that Billy sometimes despises and other times finds amusing. He also finds Dr. Crane's neurotic disposition rather endearing and thus decides to remain a loyal patient for the time being.

Cut to Billy's third month living in Seattle when it happens. He suffers a major setback. Calling Dr. Crane's emergency number in a panic. He can't breathe, he's hyperventilating and speaking so frantically that Dr. Crane can hardly understand him.

"Billy, you sound so terribly upset. I know that we discussed rather hefty themes in session this week. What's going on?" Dr. Crane's chittery voice spoke, encompassing the gravity of the moment.

"Him..." Billy gulped down air, his throat dry and lungs burning. "I saw him today. He was never supposed to be here." Billy moaned in distress.

"Take a breath Billy, and one, two, three, four, five. Out." His psychiatrist prompted him. "This is highly unusual indeed. I can understand now why you are so concerned." The sound of papers rustled on the other end of the phone. "Billy, would you like to come in sooner?"

A shaken exhale, "Yes."

Meanwhile somewhere else in Seattle Steve is the brightest he's been in years. He practically feels like he could walk on air. He has to share this, so he calls in.

"Doc the most amazing thing has happened!" Steve is beaming ear to ear. "Well, Steve it certainly sounds stupendous with that tone! Let's hear the good news!" His radio therapist encourages.

"I saw them!" Steve gushes. "Them! The special someone I told you about. They're here in Seattle. Now's my chance! I gotta tell them!" Dr. Crane smiles, "Ah, serendipity... Steve, you must take her while she is still yours."

Steve didn't quite understand the doctor's point but he appreciated the sentiment. "Thanks, Doc. Y'know I'm gonna look 'em up. Take them to a nice dinner. Make things right this time." Dr. Crane clapped his hands together, "Steve that's a lovely idea! And might I be so bold as to suggest that you consider taking your special someone to La Belle Gourmande? The ambiance is divine... and the prices aren't half bad either."

Two nights later Steve was sitting at the restaurant, nervously drumming his fingers on the table, his eyes flitting up every time a person walked by. He was tense, feeling suffocated in the crispest white button down he owned. Fidgeting with undoing the second button from the top and then redoing it. He couldn't afford to screw this up, the phone call had already been botched.

It took some effort, randomly dialing the number of a familiar name in the Seattle area, but luckily not many people had the same name as his 'special someone'. When their voice came over the line and Steve heard it for the first time in nearly a decade, he choked. Couldn't even utter a "hello". "Who's this? Fucking answer or I'm hanging up." In an all out rush Steve replied.

"-lo!'s Steve! youwannagetdinner ...'n catch up?" he rushed out in a frazzle.

The other end of the line was silent for a beat, the tension broken with a soft chuff.

"Ketchup?" the voice asked bemused, followed by another pause. "Where?"

Squinting at his messily scrawled note taped to the cabinet, Steve replied, "this place owned by some Belle lady. Comes highly recommended."

There was a pause. "Steve... this can't be -"

"Please come," Steve begged.

As Steve waits for his 'special someone' to show, a certain radio personality ducks into a corner booth and picks up a menu, Dr. Frasier Crane. He has become so invested in his caller's well-being that he has come to the restaurant to watch Steve from afar. To root for him, and watch his little bird spread its wings and fly. Or so it would seem.

"Frasier? What on earth are you doing here?" Dr. Crane looks up from his crooning over his 'patient', his eyes panic-stricken and caught. "Niles?" His brother, the younger Dr. Crane is also here.

Frasier's eyes dart to the menu for a saving excuse, "It's the soup du jour Niles," he deflects craftily, "everyone knows the Gourmande has the best Soupe au Pistou on the western seaboard." Niles rolls his eyes and follows Frasier's worried gaze over to the young man at a nearby table. "That may be true Frasier, but I believe you are here for more than just soup." Frasier sniffs indignantly about to snap out a reply when Niles hastily takes up the opposite seat in his booth and hides his face behind a menu.

Frasier cranks an eyebrow high and looks at his brother accusingly. "And pray tell what fare Provençal brought you to dine here?" he moons sarcastically. Niles peers over the edge of his menu at the other table, as a blonde man arrives. Frasier gasps dramatically and shields himself behind his menu as well.

"Mouchard!" Frasier hisses at his brother treacherously. Niles looks back at him unamused and replies, "says the snoop, snooping." They exchange glares and peek over their menus to watch the scene unfold.

Steve abruptly bumps the table, standing up quickly the minute he sees them. Him. The blonde. He can't help but smile, his chest is aching, fully flooded with a torrent of emotions.

"I don't understand," Frasier says in confusion, looking at Niles and then back over the menu. Niles looks over his menu, eyebrow cocked, "What?" "He talked as if... well... his 'special someone' was..." Frasier was fumbling uncomfortably with his words and reasoning. "You thought Billy was a woman?" Niles completed. Frasier winced, "Steve never said he loved a man. I just assumed..."

They both peered over again. "Assumptions get us nowhere Frasier. They leave us to speak for others in spaces we don't know. Only they know their truth." Frasier nodded slowly, the information sinking in. "Too right you are Niles. I was wrong to presume Steve's path to a whole self was like my own."

Billy sat down, followed by Steve, he seemed anxious, his eyes wandering all over the room, causing the two psychiatrists to duck and cower several times, lest they be discovered.

Steve called over a waiter and they ordered drinks. As the night began to unfold a certain ease settled over the pair like a familiar blanket, warm and comforting. Softly exchanged touches of hands, and lingering smiles arrived in greater frequency than the refillable bread basket, with feet sliding across one another under the tablecloth and resting calf-to-calf.

"Well Frasier, I think our worst fears have been allayed." Niles injected into the hour. "We weren't needed." Frasier smiled proudly, "I think you're right Niles. Would you care for un repas de fin de nuit?" Niles rose from the table, "Après-vous."

As the pair of brothers exited the restaurant Billy and Steve looked up, "Who do you think those guys were?" Steve asked curiously, "They were kinda loud. Seemed really interested in us..." Billy sighed, dropping his fork to his plate, "The twiggy one was my shrink. No fuckin clue who the other guy was though."

Steve looked at Billy mildly concerned, "You have a shrink?" Billy nodded wiping his mouth with the napkin. "Yeah, Dr. Crane." Steve watched the pair as they waited for the valet to bring their car. "The Dr. Crane that has the radio show?" Billy shook his head, "No that's his brother..."

Steve slumped in his seat taking a long drink from his glass, as Billy swiped the final bite of gateau.

[tomyo]

Street Pass Mini Game Special

I truly love my 3DS. Even though I came in to owning one a lot later than everyone else, it's been something I've loved deeply. From themes to kisekae plates to the virtual console IR to AR, I really love exploring the full functionality of the system. At some point I'd probably start a series on other functions of the 3DS but today I wanted to focus on the beloved street pass!

So yes, I did buy ALL the street pass dlc when I hear the shop was closing and it's....an experience to say the least. This has given me the chance to go through them however! So let's go!!

Puzzle Swap

I loved this one a lot when I started using my 3DS. Collecting is definitely a brain activator for me. Admittedly though when they updated to multiple pieces getting collected, it was a lot healthier of a job. Right now, I sit extremely frustrated since my current memory card only shows the standard puzzles and not the ones added over time. I know at one point I was at least to one final puzzle needing filling so now I sit frustratingly finished but not really finished on it.

Find Mii 1&2

Find me was where I truly put more of my attention and also equally frustrating at one point in time as I rarely got passerbys and mostly relied on hires mercs. The biggest struggle was I got my 3DS after I moved back to the suburbs meaning I no longer had the benefit of living in a city or it's huge campus. By the time I did move back to city living, I went to a much smaller school at a time where the switch was about to be released. Sometimes I think back to watching my friends get to play Animal Crossing New Leaf and Pokemon X & Y(which I actually like) with a little bit of envy. There's the tug and pull that I went to a lot of cons at than time and could afford it because I was frugal or how getting an og 3DS likely would've stopped me from getting my beloved new 3DS but sometimes it sucks that I didn't shell out the $180 or so to be apart of all that. The 3DS was probably more of a kawaii golden era staple than any other system could have been and just little things like this suddenly come to mind.... Wait wasn't I supposed to be talking about the games? Ah yes, I truly love the two find Mii games. I think they're extremely fun and you can see the way they paved the path for Miitopia. I still have yet to collect all the rewards you can get partially because of that whole tangent issue but hopefully if I start to walk around with it more I can regularly beat the game. I've started to bring my 3DS to cons and now even own a second one after a lucky find so regular street passing is more common for me!

When it came to the next games, you had to pay for them in I believe $15 increments. Either two to three packages where available alongside the premium upgrade which allowed you to have a longer queue and one additional features. Each game also has a guide character for the stories.

Slot Car Rivals

This was the game I selected from the free choice when they offered that up for the game releases. You race against passers to try and progress and build up your car. If I'm honest I don't get this one much. Your guide character is a race team assistant.

Market Crashers

If somehow you can still get this one I'd choose it of the free choice. You get to do capitalism simply put with more passers equalling better predictions on stock shares going up or down through a session. The gameplay per a session is really short once it starts but I find it fun thus far. Basically rapidly hitting by or sell to make more money as quick as possible. There's also art assets to grab up and hold onto. I definitely get excited at chances to play this one. Your guide character is a reddit looking business man.

Feed Mii

Another concept I really like. You essentially grab ingredients and try to cook the best meals possible for your passers who are going out on quests. Do good and you get good reviews from their success. Sadly also really short gameplay overall. While you're encouraged to try cooking more before ending a session, the gameplay can feel a little to quickly done. Your guide character is a cozy male cook in a bandana.

Ninja launcher

Another extremely quick gameplay session one. You're trying to match up passers to be in your shooting path as they'll give you equipment to fight an enemy but you have a time limit to try and get the most ideal shot. Once you fight the target the session is over. Your guide character is a Yamato nadeshiko ninja.

Mii Trek

This one reaks of edutainment in the best way. Each passed adds to the amount of traveling you can do as you lead an expedition for treasure and find real life animals along the way. It's not fully my cup of tea but I like the journey you get to take being a longer and more complicated game session than the previous ones. Your guide character is a toucan straight out of the 90s era gif graphics.

Mii Force

Another longer game. You're in a classic side scrolling shooter with each passed equating to being a weapon with variation based on shirt color. Its sometimes even a little challenging for me. At points I even feel a bit frustrated because enemy shots aren't always clear on the screen noise but that also means I'll have more reason to come back to it as I progress through it. Your guide character is a robot captain.

Flower Town

One of my favorites and one I was really excited to finally get to play. You raise and breed flowers to create a plethora of breeds. I like anything that involves raising so this one spoke to me a lot. That being said it goes pretty slow hahahah. Your guide character is this calming older dude with glasses.

Warriors Way

I remember my best friend talking good of this one and I do enjoy it. Your troops are your total street passes and then most passer's numbers will also be added to yours which you then use to conquer other nations. Because I started so late I started off with a sizable 900+ and then a few thousand from others joining me. However I did run into a monster army I would of had to of challenged but I was too overwhelmed by the size. The battles are rock paper scissors but with the right number and it letting you know the win outcomes, it can be doable without ever losing. Your guide character is a butler.

Monster Manor

You're stuck in a mansion and collect essentially Tetris pieces that turn into halls to help you discover the stairs to help guide you up to freedom. You also occasionally fight ghosts. I don't know how to put it has more meat of a game but it doesn't hold my attention as much. Your guide character is a tiny girl who you employ (I promise I don't mean it in that way but she's a loli type)

Ultimate Angler

You fish various species with bait you receive from your street passes. It’s even local to your area based on how you registered yourself. To catch certain fish you need the right bait which is based on the color of your street passer’s shirts. When I had a lot of street passes pulled up it was pretty fun but it’s not as great when you struggle to get the right bait. I also wish you could change areas and save bait for new locations but sadly you have to use it all at once. When you get back you can stick the stuff you caught in an aquarium and sometimes get new rods which I haven’t explored much yet. You guide character is a bikini clad girl who runs the desk.

Battleground Z

The final of them is a zombie brawler where passers give you weapons or fight with you. I'm not a big fan of beat em ups so I'm a little sad I'm not a huge fan of this one. Sad because you're guide character is a blonde, Bayonetta looking onee-san.

[carluexstore]

Redefining In-Car Connectivity: The CARLUEX AIR Wireless CarPlay | Android Auto Adapter

In today's fast-paced world, staying connected while on the move is not just a convenience but a necessity. Whether it is for navigation, communication, or entertainment, drivers rely heavily on their smartphones. However, using smartphones while driving can be unsafe and even illegal in many places. To bridge this gap between connectivity and safety, CARLUEX presents its innovative solution – the CARLUEX AIR Wireless CarPlay | Android Auto Adapter.

This revolutionary adapter offers a seamless and wireless connection between your smartphone and your car's infotainment system, transforming your driving experience. With CARLUEX AIR, you can enjoy the benefits of Apple CarPlay or Android Auto without the hassle of cables or cords, ensuring a safer and more convenient journey.

Installation of the CARLUEX AIR Wireless CarPlay | Android Auto Adapter is quick and straightforward. Simply plug the adapter into your car's USB port, and you are ready to unleash the power of connectivity. There is no need for complex installations or professional help – within minutes, you can enjoy the full functionality of CarPlay or Android Auto right from your car's display.

Once installed, the CARLUEX AIR Adapter opens a world of possibilities. With Apple CarPlay, iPhone users can access their favorite apps, make calls, send messages, and get turn-by-turn directions using Siri voice commands. Whether you need to navigate to a new destination or queue up your favorite playlist, CarPlay puts everything you need at your fingertips, all while keeping your eyes on the road.

Similarly, Android users can benefit from the seamless integration of Android Auto, accessing their favorite apps and services directly from their car's display. Whether you prefer Google Maps for navigation, Spotify for music, or WhatsApp for messaging, Android Auto ensures that you stay connected and entertained while on the move.

One of the key advantages of the CARLUEX AIR Adapter is its compatibility with a wide range of car models. Whether you drive a compact sedan, a spacious SUV, or a sleek sports car, CARLUEX AIR is designed to seamlessly integrate with your vehicle's infotainment system, providing a tailored solution for all drivers.

Safety is paramount when it comes to driving, and the CARLUEX AIR Adapter is designed with this in mind. By minimizing distractions and allowing for hands-free operation, this adapter helps keep your focus on the road ahead. With Siri or Google Assistant voice commands and intuitive controls, you can stay connected and in control without taking your hands off the wheel.

In addition to its core functionalities, the CARLUEX AIR Adapter offers a range of other features to enhance your driving experience. With support for third-party apps like Spotify, Pandora, and Waze, you can personalize your driving experience and make the most of your time on the road.

Furthermore, the CARLUEX AIR Adapter is designed to receive over-the-air updates, ensuring that your adapter is always up-to-date with the latest features and improvements. This ensures that your investment in CARLUEX AIR remains future-proof, providing you with a reliable and long-lasting solution for in-car connectivity. In conclusion, the CARLUEX AIR Wireless CarPlay | Android Auto Adapter is a game-changer for drivers looking to enhance their driving experience. With its seamless integration, wide compatibility, and focus on safety, this adapter provides a convenient and intuitive solution for staying connected on the road. Say goodbye to tangled cords and hello to a new era of in-car connectivity with CARLUEX AIR.

[metamaxblog]

The Rise of Online Shopping: How Our App Keeps You Ahead of the Curve

In a world driven by digital innovation, online shopping has experienced a meteoric rise in popularity. It's not just a convenient way to shop; it has become a lifestyle. The online shopping landscape is continually evolving, and consumers are embracing this transformation wholeheartedly. If you want to stay ahead of the curve and make the most of your online shopping experience, Metamax Dstore app is here to lead the way.

The Online Shopping Revolution

The rise of online shopping is a phenomenon that has reshaped the retail industry. Over the past decade, traditional brick-and-mortar stores have witnessed a significant shift as consumers increasingly turn to the internet for their shopping needs. There are several factors driving this change.

Convenience: One of the most significant advantages of online shopping is the convenience it offers. With a few clicks, you can browse a vast selection of products, make purchases, and have them delivered to your doorstep. No more long queues or crowded stores.

Endless Variety: Online shopping opens the door to a world of products. From the latest fashion trends to unique artisanal goods, the internet provides access to a virtually limitless range of items, often from around the globe.

Price Comparison: Online shopping allows you to compare prices and find the best deals easily. This transparency has put pressure on retailers to offer competitive pricing, benefiting consumers.

Personalization: Retailers are using advanced algorithms and data analytics to personalize the shopping experience. This means tailored recommendations and a more engaging shopping journey.

24/7 Accessibility: Online stores never close. You can shop at any time, whether it's early in the morning or late at night.

The Role of Our App

In this era of online shopping, our app has emerged as an essential tool for consumers. We recognize that navigating the vast e-commerce landscape can be overwhelming, and that's where our app steps in to make your experience not just easy but enjoyable. Here's how our app keeps you ahead of the curve:

1. Seamless Shopping Experience:

Our app is designed to provide a seamless and intuitive shopping experience. It's user-friendly and accessible, making it easy for both seasoned online shoppers and newcomers to find what they need. With features such as a streamlined checkout process, wishlist creation, and easy search functionality, we prioritize your convenience.

2. Personalized Recommendations:

The key to staying ahead in online shopping is discovering products that resonate with your unique preferences. Our app employs sophisticated algorithms to analyze your browsing and purchase history, tailoring product recommendations to your tastes. This level of personalization ensures that you discover items you truly desire.

3. Exclusive Deals and Promotions:

In the competitive world of e-commerce, our app excels at helping you save. We collaborate with a network of online retailers to bring you exclusive deals, discounts, and promotions. This way, you can enjoy the best prices and discover products you might not have found otherwise.

4. Secure and Trusted Transactions:

We understand that online security is a top priority for shoppers. Our app is committed to providing a secure and trusted environment for your transactions. We use state-of-the-art encryption and security measures to protect your data and payment information.

5. Real-Time Shopping Insights:

To stay ahead of the curve, it's crucial to keep up with the latest trends and offerings. Our app provides real-time shopping insights, allowing you to discover the most popular products and trending items in various categories. You'll always be in the know about what's hot in the world of online shopping.

6. Customer Reviews and Ratings:

Making informed decisions is vital when shopping online. Our app features customer reviews and ratings for products, helping you gauge the quality and satisfaction levels associated with each item. This transparency empowers you to choose products with confidence.

7. Easy Returns and Refunds:

We understand that sometimes, a product may not meet your expectations. Our app facilitates easy returns and refunds, ensuring that your online shopping experience remains risk-free and hassle-free.

Conclusion: Embrace the Future of Shopping with Our App

As online shopping continues to evolve and reshape the way we purchase products, staying ahead of the curve is crucial for consumers. Metamax app is not just a shopping platform; it's your trusted companion in this ever-changing digital landscape. With a commitment to convenience, personalization, security, and savings, our app ensures that you can make the most of the rise of online shopping.

Embrace the future of shopping, embrace our app, and enjoy a shopping experience that is as dynamic and exciting as the online shopping revolution itself. Stay ahead of the curve and discover a world of possibilities at your fingertips.

[fernandoadwin22]

Contactless payment and the details of its working

The process of transacting is becoming simpler each year. Payments can be made in a variety of simple methods, and the contactless payment mechanism is one of these. Contactless payment methods are one of the important inventions of this era. Customers can use their debit or credit cards with RFID technology to make contactless payments for goods and services.

When making an in-store purchase, using contactless banking is among the most widely used payment options. Because the customer can use these cards to pay without making physical contact, transactions go more smoothly. 

To learn more about contactless payment and how it functions, continue reading.

What is contactless payment?

Customers can make purchases utilizing contactless payment instead of cash or card swipes. Tapping and waving on the card reader is required to pay using contactless payment. The terminal will then establish a connection with the bank account, and the payment will be processed immediately.

How does contactless payment work?

Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is used in contactless payment cards. The card connects with the scanner when it is in close proximity to one to complete the transaction.

When tapped or waved over the reader, the card reader verifies the information on the card. Following that, the transaction is sent to the card issuer by the merchant's point-of-sale system. After reviewing it, the card issuer approves the transaction.

If individuals desire to do financial transactions using their phones, contactless payment is an additional choice.

The invention of contactless banking has taken payment methods to a whole new level. The quickness and security of contactless banking is unbeatable. The features of contactless banking will get better in the coming years.

Strong authorization

People could believe that contactless payment is hazardous since anyone can take cardholder data. Contactless payments, however, are quite secure. Contactless payment is difficult to hack or breach because they need validation to be completed.

On the card, the information is encrypted. As a result, it is more challenging to steal card information and perform unauthorized logins.

It’s a secure payment method.

Due to its ability to let users complete transactions fast, contactless payments are growing in popularity. Customers can make payments faster because they don't need to input their PIN.

Customers also don't need to carry cash. Contactless payments eliminate this bother, making transactions simple.

What benefits do contactless payments offer?

Contactless payments, facilitated by a bank account app, can significantly expedite the checkout process while also enhancing security. These payments are not only quicker than cash transactions but also take less time compared to typical credit card payments. As a result, contactless payments are particularly well-suited for micropayments and other low-value transactions, making the bank account app a convenient and efficient tool for managing your finances.

Using contactless payment methods can speed up transactions at parking garage checkout stations, turnstiles for public transportation, and toll booths. Although the actual amount of time saved for every transaction may be less than a minute, the minutes saved can pile up and drastically lessen the amount of time clients must wait in queues.

Final thoughts

Institutions and third-party payment processors are experimenting with ways to make checkout more seamless as upi money transfer app technology becomes more widely used. To assist mobile users in finding ATMs, certain payment providers offer GPS technology. Other carriers give clients the option to participate in loyalty marketing run through focused geofenced campaigns.

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

hi honeys i'm home

[dk-thrive]

I’ve taken a million pictures – 50 were good

‘Do not call me master, for heaven’s sake,” says Ferdinando Scianna, welcoming me inside his studio, a cosy ground-floor space in the centre of Milan. “I do not teach anything to anyone. Come in, take a seat.”

Scianna has just turned 79. Photography, for him, was an obsession that lasted 60 years. “And it is over today,” he declares. He has not taken pictures for years and says that when young photographers approach him for advice, he wants to ask them for theirs instead. “I tell them the most obvious thing: photograph what you love and what you hate. But they should tell me how to sneak around in this weird era that I do not really know.”

Scianna has taken more than a million photographs and, in his words, the good shots number about 50…

He loves to work on books though. He has published over 70; more, he says, than prudence would have advised him. The first was published in 1965 and is about religious rituals in Sicily (Feste Religiose in Sicilia). “I was just a 21-year-old Sicilian kid, and that book built my career. Today, when I leaf through the pages, I feel confused. I look at my photos and I ask myself, who took those images? I was too young and ignorant. You know, I learned to take pictures over the years – basically, just by taking them.” …

“I do not think I can change the world with my photographs, but I do believe that a bad picture can make it worse,” he says. “And the point is that we have too many images. If you eat caviar every day, eventually you will want pasta e fagioli.” He thinks that photography went into an irreparable crisis a couple of decades ago, when we stopped building family photo albums. “Today we all take photos with our phones, but they are background images. Even a selfie is not a self-portrait but a kind of neurosis about a moment of existence that must immediately supplant another, and so on. And we all know what happens when something loses the identity that has determined its success and cultural function. It dies.” …

He also disdains the pace of change driven by the internet. “On the web, everything is consumed quickly. Culture, on the other hand, is slowness and choice. I made my theory; it is the theory of the three risottos. Do you want to hear it?” He clears his throat. “If someone has never eaten a risotto in his life – and if they have never been to Sicily, they certainly never have eaten a good one – the first time they taste it, they can only say if they liked it or not. The second time, however, they can argue that it was better or worse than the first one. Only from the third time on can they have their own theory of risotto and, if they want, give advice on how it should be cooked. Culture, to me, is knowing things and having a choice.” …

His last solo exhibition was at the prestigious Palazzo Reale in Milan. More than 200 photos were on show and, on some days, there were long queues waiting to get in. “Graham Greene once wrote, while travelling from Marseille to Paris, at some point he deeply believed in the existence of God. With photographs it is a bit the same. And the world, you know, practises forgetfulness. Millions of men lived before us, men who had dreams, who have done things. We do not know anything about them.”

But then, I ask, what remains in history? “Things that have found their shape,” he replies instinctively, adding: “I have walked my entire my life only to take photos. I am like those little dogs who, while walking, have left their poop around the streets. But if you really want to know the truth, then yes, taking pictures has given me a lot of happiness.” He takes another puff on his pipe and watches the smoke slowly rise towards the ceiling until it becomes a giant white cloud that evaporates in a second.

— Maurizio Fiorino, excerpts from “”I’ve taken a million pictures – 50 were good’: photographer Ferdinando Scianna” (The Guardian, July 26, 2022)

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: Have you read Anne Applebaum’s new book The Twilight of Democracy? I’d be curious to hear your thoughts as a Brit living and working in Europe about how she writes about the schism in conservatism around democracy in the post 1989 era.

I must thank you for dropping this question because I would not have got around to finishing this book if I hadn’t been prompted by your question. I was sent The Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends some time ago by a good friend of mine who works as a newspaper foreign correspondent and knows Anne Applebaum well. I don’t know her but I have read a few of her journalistic pieces over the years when she was with the Economist and the Spectator.

I also read her harrowing book The Gulag: A history (2003). Applebaum's account of the Gulag was majestic and full of pathos. Almost 40 years after Robert Conquest's classic, The Great Terror (1968), she brought the terrible history of the Soviet camps to life again. She made brilliant use of Gulag and secret police archives to write a compelling history of how cruel and evil the Soviet system really was. Her book is one of the most vivid histories we have of a system - "the meat grinder", Russians called it - that marked or destroyed the lives of millions.

So it was with trepidation I approached this latest book because it’s dealing with weighty stuff. It’s partly a brilliant political reportage, partly a Central European-style psychodrama, partly a political analysis, and partly a personal diary. It is also a postscript to a distinct epoch when the Berlin Wall comes down and we enter the post-Cold War. The story Applebaum tells is that of the death of anti-communism as the public philosophy of the West. During the Cold War, the Soviet Union wasn’t only America’s principal military adversary but also its ideological and moral “other.” Both left and right in America and Western Europe defended their competing visions of a liberal society in reaction to the Stalinist nightmare. But in the absence of the Red Menace both the left and the right turned on liberalism and that continues today with Trump in America, Brexit and the EU, and Victor Orban in Hungary.

I cowardly put it near the back of my reading queue because I already reading more than a few weighty tomes (mostly history and literature books) and I didn’t want my senses to be overloaded. I typically have fifteen books on the go and I travel with four whenever I’m stuck in a business class lounge or in a hotel room and so I can switch according to my mood. With Applebaum’s book I also wanted to take notes and so I took my time with it. I’ve finished it but I’m still processing my thoughts on it. I hope to write up a book review as part of my on going Treat Your S(h)elf post in my blog. So don’t hold your breath.

I’m glad that I’ve read it, but it’s a haunting book, that’s for sure. It’s a potent, and somewhat apocalyptic, reminder that democracies are only as strong as the people who live in them, that there is nothing about them that is ontologically strong and secure. In order to continue to function as they should, they require buy-in and maintenance and support and, above all, faith. Without those things they are subject to corrosion and destruction from within.

I love how she mixes the personal with the political because Applebaum as a Yale and Oxford educated historian and journalist, and as someone who is married to then Polish deputy foreign minister, Radek Sikorski, was as connected as anyone in the 1990s and 2000s to both liberal and conservative wings in Western democracies.

It’s a great opening to start at a soirée of the great and the good to see the dramatic scene.

On New Year’s Eve in 1999, Applebaum and her husband Radek Sikorski, who was then Poland’s deputy foreign minister, hosted what sounded like a really great party. Their home was filled with American and British journalists, Polish dignitaries, and some of their neighbours. Applebaum characterises them as representatives of “the right,” which at the time meant something vastly different from what it means today. They were staunch anti-communists in the Thatcherite tradition, who were optimistic about Poland’s embrace of democracy and free markets. The gathering was held at an old manor house that had been abandoned in 1945 by its previous owners, who had fled from the advancing Red Army. It turns out Sikorski’s family had purchased and renovated the dilapidated house, making it the perfect metaphor for a nation rising from decades of oppression at the hands of the Soviet Union.

Unfortunately, the friendships and the optimism that animated that celebration have largely evaporated in the past 20 years or so. According to Applebaum, “Nearly two decades later, I would now cross the street to avoid some of the people who were at my New Year’s Eve party. They, in turn, would not only refuse to enter my house, they would be embarrassed to admit they had ever been there.”  

Many of her Polish friends, colleagues, and acquaintances have abandoned their belief in classical liberalism and embraced an illiberal right-wing authoritarianism that sees democracy as flawed and free markets as rigged by elites. She maintains that the bitter political divisions that developed among those who attended this party in Poland are similar to those now found in many countries today, including Hungary, Spain, Italy, Great Britain and the United States.

“Were some of our friends always closet authoritarians?” Applebaum wonders. “Or have the people with whom we clinked glasses in the first minutes of the new millennium somehow changed over the subsequent two decades?” The book is an admirable quest for answers and goes a long way toward providing them. 

Applebaum identifies several factors that have contributed to the rise of twenty-first-century illiberal movements, often using personal anecdotes to illustrate her points. She is not then particularly concerned with theories, nor is she attempting to offer a grand thesis about the phenomenon. She makes a few passing references to the ideas of Hannah Arendt and Theodor Adorno among others, and relies on the work of a behavioural economist, Karen Stenner, to point out that about a third of the world’s population simply has an authoritarian disposition that makes them deeply suspicious of views different from their own.

Indeed throughout the book, Applebaum is as concerned with people as she is with processes, in that she often focuses on the individuals whose choices and political actions have led to the current state of affairs. There’s a potent truth here, for it’s a fact that no authoritarian is able to rise to power without having the support of at least some of those in positions of cultural authority to buy in, what Applebaum, following in the footsteps of Julien Benda’s classic 1927 book, The Treason of the Intellectuals, refers to these sycophants as clercs. These are the people who make authoritarianism palatable to the masses, whether through their positions in powerful media or by distorting museum exhibits to support a dominant agenda (which has happened in Hungary).

Applebaum helps us better understand the disturbing increase in division, the roiling anger, the willingness to discard democracy by not just the elites but also the masses and especially the populists. It used to be we understood revolution by charting the inequality and desperate poverty that led to them, but in Hungary, Poland, Spain, the UK, and in the United States, while many may be hungry few are starving. And those in the streets of London and Washington are hardly destitute.

Applebaum writes, “They have food and shelter. They are literate. If we describe them as ‘poor’ or ‘deprived,’ it is sometimes because they lack things that human beings couldn’t dream of a century ago, like air-conditioning or Wi-Fi. In this new world, it may be that big, ideological changes are not caused by bread shortages but by new kinds of disruptions. These new revolutions may not even look like the old revolutions at all. In a world where most political debate takes place online or on television, you don’t need to go out on the street and wave a banner to assert your allegiance. In order to manifest a sharp change in political affiliation, all you have to do is switch channels, turn to a different website every morning, or start following a different group of people on social media.”

Applebaum is a very good writer; her style is lucid, and her arguments are bracing. This has made her one of the most powerful voices of the anti-populist resistance. But the strength of her new book is not so much in exposing the authoritarian nature of populists in power but in revealing the intellectual hollowness of the anti-communist consensus. I didn’t find myself agreeing to everything in the book because it’s not always easy to compare apples to oranges when one looks at the USA, Britain, Europe, and Eastern Europe. Culture and history gets in the way of easy generalisations.

Overall, this book is, at least my first impressions, something of an intellectual call to arms. It reaches out to each of us, asking us to do our part to ensure that democracy doesn’t go the way of so many other failed political systems. As she reminds us near the end of the book: “no political victory is ever permanent, no definition of ‘the nation’ is guaranteed to last, and no elite of any kind […] rules forever.” There’s something more than a little terrifying about the idea that history is one long cycle, that every political victory must be re-fought again and again and again. But such, alas, is the nature of modernity.

Thanks for your question.

[thewindsofsong]

Ok ok ok!!! So last night I had a dream that I rec’ed a dmbj/svsss crossover fanfic, but never actually read the fic. Then I woke up because my cat was yowling in the middle of the night.

After talking with @1ebilcat and @merinnan for a while, I managed to flesh out a basic outline of what that fic might look like. Please know that because this is a crossover with svsss, there is papapa mentioned. several times.... (nothing actually explict is described because that would make this not a not-fic)

So one day SQQ and SQH are messing around trying to figure out what this new “unique one of a kind treasure” does when SQH accideny drops some melon seeds on it or something and it suddenly activates.

Meanwhile in dmbj world, the Iron Triangle are pretty much retired from the whole tomb raiding business, but still run Wushanju (better now that wu xie actually concentrates on running it instead of running off every week). Someone comes in with a strange artifact that they found while clearing out a deceased relatives store room they want to sell. Wu xie buys it because he’s never seen anything like it before and wants to research it.

Xiaoge gets super weird vibes from the object, but it doesn’t seem overtly menacing, so he leaves wu xie be (if wu xie is preoccupied he gets in marginally less trouble). However, when xiaoge touches the object with wu xie and Pangzi nearby, it grows a point and gives xiaoge a paper cut. The blood touches the object and it activates.

One blinding flask of light and disorienting tumble latter, they find themselves at the foot of a picturesque mountain with a gate that labels them at the foot of cang qiong mountain. They’re quickly found by the cang qiong crew and everyone is super weird out by each other. Things happen and eventually LBH crashes in and says his shizun is missing mobei-jun is there too because SQH is also missing. More communication happens and everyone realizes this is the artifact’s fault. No one knows where the artifact is.

Meanwhile SQQ and SQH wake up someone completely unfamiliar to either of them. After using magic to light things up, they see that they are in a tomb absolutely covered in different depictions of penises: there’s pictures on the walls, statues of men with WAY TOO BIG penises, sooooo many dildos. Queue SQQ immediately launching himself at SQH with a shriek of outrage because “THERE’S NO WAY THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT YOU SHITTY HACK AUTHOR!!”

Back with the iron triangle, there’s a research montage going on as they and other CQ sect member scour the libraries for any information about the mcguffin that caused all this randomness. At some point in all of this, iron triangle go to MQF to see if he can take a look at Xiaoge regarding his memory problems. After some more research, MQF learns about an herb that could stabilize his qi and stabilize the fluctuations that cause his amnesia.

Turns out that while proper cultivation doesn’t exist in dmbj world, the Zhang family line has managed to cultivate the family line to extended life but because they’re the only ones that can (maybe due to bronze gate?) it has a lot of dangers. 

The herb needed is of course incredibly rare and only found in some horribly dangerous location. Xiaoge wants to go alone because he doesn’t want wu xie and pangzi to be in danger, but knows that they won’t be left behind. There’s some agnst had about how Xiaoge feels he’s brought pain and suffering to wu xie and pangzi, but of course neither of them are having any of it. The three of them talk about how they’ve never regretted meeting each other and how the adventures they’ve shared have brought meaning and joy into their lives. 

The three of them cobble together some hotpot and spend the night before setting off soaking their feet side by side, content and secure in their bonds with each other. Its very sweet. 

The next day, the three of them set off with LQG and LBH. Right before arriving at the location, bullshit happens and Iron Triangle get trapped in the location where the herb is located and trigger a wife plot in which papapa is the only way out. Iron triangle proceeds to have incredibly kinky marathon sex. LBH and LQG can only listen awkwardly from the boundary, not able to get through, but also not wanting to leave completely just in case something else happens. The sexual tension between LBG and LQG grows to new heights. Neither will do anything about it until SQQ is back home safe. 

After the marathon is over and iron triangle has time to actually sleep, the three of them get cleaned up with the herb in tow and head back to Cang Qiong. They get the herb to MQF who tells them it will take at least a day to prepare the pill for xiaoge to take. That night, Iron triangle has sweet, tender, affirming sex because while they all agree that while xiaoge not losing his memories every few decades is for the better, it also means that he’ll have to carry the memories of wu xie and pangzi long after they’er gone, with no hope of them ever being together again.  Xiaoge assures wu xie and pangzi that this is what he wants, to know that at least at some point, he loved and was loved, that he had a connection to this world and that his life has meaning beyond his obligations to the Zhang clan. Wu xie and pangzi make xiaoge promise to live on after they pass and to find him in their next lives.

Xiaoge takes the pill and the search for a way back home continues again in earnest. Eventually, LBH travels back to the demon realm and figures out how to track the artifact through space and time because his protag halo is too strong to keep him away from his love interest for too long. 

Wu xie and pangzi learn some basic meditation techniques that disciples would learn when first arrive at the mountain. Its too late for them to cultivate to longevity and there’s no guarantee that its even possible in their home world to cultivate if you aren’t a Zhang. Regardless, wu xie and pangzi don’t want immortality, they just want to spend as much time as they can with xiaoge. Wu xie is gifted a flute made with special bamboo and pangzi is gifted a wine jug from Zui Xian Peak. Both have spiritual properties that may or may not be able to function when back home, but they’er good gifts given in good faith. 

LBH, losing patience, forces iron triangle to get moving so he can save SQQ. He bursts through time and space and iron triangle plus LBH, MBJ, and LQG end up in dmbj world, in Wushanju. After scaring the crap out of Wang Meng, the group realizes that while several days have passed in svsss world, its only been a few hours since iron triangle was pulled away. Which is good because Ershu was likely to call in an army if wu xie went missing for no apparent reason. The whole thing would have been way too messy. Probably more than one person would have died. 

What follows is a night of LBH, LQG, and MBJ attempting different divination spells to try and pin point the exact location of SQQ and SQH to varying degrees of success. None of them are good at divination. Regardless, the three of them manage to get a general location of where the two missing peak lords might be and the iron triangle gets to work searching the internet for any rumors or information of any tombs that might be in the area. (Its just wu xie and pangzi looking, but xiaoge standing around still in his beautiful borrowed robes from CQ is good moral support.) 

They hear about some local legends about an ecentric noble from a bygone era that was buried in a very peculiar tomb. Potential tomb located, the whole group prepares to head out. the SVSS gang is convinced to not fly over immediately because that would be waaaaay to flashy and draw unwanted attention to them that would delay things even more. The six of them cram in together into the van and head off. Svss gang are forced into modern clothing and are def a little too big to comfortably sit in the van. LBH hits his head on a doorway at least once on this adventure. At lease two women and maybe a guy slip their numbers to him too. The man is supernaturally gorgeous.

After some more road trip shenanigans,  they arrive at the rumored entrance to the tomb and head in. The tomb has a few traps here and there, but is practically child’s play for the iron triangle to get through. Svsss are appropriately impressed by their competence and LBH and LQG think specifically about how the iron triangle is a true threesome that supports each other and fights together. MBJ just wants his hamster boy back. 

When they near the central chamber of the tomb, they hear the faint sounds of fighting which spurs SVSSS to speed ahead while iron triangle tries to get them to at least be a little cautious about setting off traps. 

The sight that LBH sees when he breaks into the main chamber like the kool aid man is a disheveled SQQ beating SQH over the head with a baton? Kind of. Its a baton carved into the shape of a penis. SQQ immediately stops and tries to put on his “peerless immortal cultivator” mask on with a flick of his fan, but its hard for that to be effective when your hair is all over the place and your in a room covered in penises. SQH dives for his king’s thighs and cries in relief that he’s no longer trapped in a room full of dildos and penises with SQQ. 

Then the iron triangle catches up and the realization that SVSSS gang is in modern clothing sinks in. The transmigrators freeze for just a second before jumping in front of iron triangle with a thousand questions. They ask in their shitty English which leaves answering the questions mostly to wu xie because pangzi’s english is pretty spotty and xiaoge doesn’t like talking in general, let alone a foreign language.

The whole group eventually leaves the tomb and all its phallic glory behind and get above ground where there’s phone service again. After a bit of searching, the transmigrators realize that while this world is very similar to their original world, there’s no signs of “Proud Immortal Demon Way” ever being written here, no other signs pointing to the two of them existing in this world. SVSS gang are very concerned as they watch SQQ and SQH talk in a strange language to these relative strangers, but don’t feel like its the time to figure out whats going on until everyone gets back home. The now expanded group makes their way back to Wushanju in an even more cramped road trip back. SQQ absolutly ends up in LBH’s lap at least once and SQH ends up with MBJ’s head in his lap at some point. its all very cute as the feeling of everyone being accounted for and safe settles in. 

Maybe there’s some stuff about SQQ and SQH being transmigrators and them being tempted for all of half a second to stay in this world that is so very much like their original world but choosing to go back with their lovers and the lives they’ve made for themselves. 

As the complete SVSSS gang now gets ready to head back home, the Iron triangle makes a huuuuge goody bag of all the snacks and treats that SQQ and SQH have been missing ever since they’ve transmigrated and put together a basic netbook plus solar charger for them to take back. There won’t be internet service back in SVSS world, but they loaded it up with a whooole bunch of web novels and pop songs, along with a few spare parts. 

SVSSS gang finally makes their way home after having a large farewell dinner at Wushanju at Pangzi’s insistence and LBH bullies his way into helping out. Its a very sweet scene of laughing and drinking. After dinner is done, SVSSS decide to go back immediately because the time dilation thing would mean they would be away for longer than they would like. 

Once back home, LBH, SQQ, and LQG have a confrontation/conversation about their relationships with each other and figure out if they want to try being all together, all three of them. MBJ confines SQH to his northern palace. Specifically their bedroom. He was also the one that remembered to grab the artifact that caused all these problems to begin with while everyone else was distracted by dildo tomb.

Iron triangle goes back to their retirement, at peace with the decisions they’ve made and the lives they’ve chosen to live.

THE END!!!

[digitalbhaavesh]

Best image creator tools online (On web, no need to install programs)

We live in an era when visual contents get more attraction than the normal ones. You can apply your creativity to attract your audience’s attention towards your contents.

It’s very important nowadays to create attractive and well designed images to enrich your written contents. Patent issues and piracy also need to be taken care of, to avoid legalisation issues.

Just like me, most newbie digital marketers start with MS paint and rely on it only for most of their image content needs. But once you come across beautiful tools available online, your life becomes much easier.

You don’t need to hire a designer for making good designs. There are few image creating tools available in the market. Some of them are free, some are partly free and some are paid tools.

Don’t confuse these tools with “Image Editing Tools”. Image editor tools require altogether different features. Please visit our article on “Best image editing tools”.

Remember, these tools will be used online only and you don’t need to download and install applications (programs) to use them. Just to make the designing simpler for newbies, this is the most important.

Let’s look at them one by one.

1. Canva

It’s easy to use drag-and-drop software. Create, mix, match, try whatever you want. Even if you haven’t created any image in your lifetime, just no need to worry. Canva is there for you.

From high-end design to logo to visiting card to letter head; you can create anything very easily. Almost all your design related needs can be fulfilled by Canva.

There are preset sizes for every purpose of images like Facebook Post, Instagram post, etc. Canva’s giant library with lots of images, icons, layouts, text styles and shapes will help you create your ideal images. You can upload your own graphics also.

Their premium plans offer even more of the resources to enable you to create professionals like images.

Price:- Free for 8,000+ templates, 1GB storage, and up to 10 team members; from $9.95/mo per user for Canva for work, which offers unlimited storage, access to 300,000 assets and templates, custom fonts, transparent backgrounds, and more

2. Stencil

Another easy-to-use graphic design tool for you. Stencil provides with you 650+ pre-designed templates, over a million images and few lacs icons and graphic elements to choose from. Free and simple image creating tool for beginners, social media marketers, bloggers and small business. With a free plan you can create upto 10 images per month.

3. Snappa

Snappa is another quick and easy graphic design software similar to Canva. It offers a free plan which includes 40,000+ free photos and upto 5 downloads per month. The free plan contains limited design templates to choose from and integration with 2 social accounts. You can upload your own graphics too in Snappa editor as well as import your custom fonts. Connecting your social media account allows you to share the graphic on the social platform right from the app.

Snappa goes all-in for this design, building its app around making vibrant, polished share images as quickly and easily as possible. While Snappa, like many similar apps, includes a thorough template library, they put more emphasis than other apps on getting the background image just right. With a library of free (and royalty-free) images, choosing the perfect background image is just a few clicks away, whether you’re using one of Snappa’s images or uploading your own. From there, Snappa offers an effects sidebar that helps you create the perfect image effects for your post–whether that means darkening or coloring the background image to make white text pop, or brightening the image to highlight dark text. (It’s important to note, however, that while Snappa has a library of additional graphics and shapes, these features are more limited compared to other apps.)

Snappa is similarly thorough when it comes to text. Easily edit your text from the sidebar, adjusting font, size, alignment, line spacing, opacity, and—my personal favorite–an optional drop shadow effect. It’s not an overload of features, but it’s more than enough to make your text, and therefore your message, really stand out.

Unfortunately, Snappa’s free plan is more limited than similar apps, allowing only 5 shares or downloads per month, which won’t be enough for many brands. You also cannot save designs in Snappa’s free plan. However, the free plan is a good way to test the app and see if it’s right for you.

4. Desynger

One of the easiest application especially for your phone, be it iOS or Android. Desynger can create graphics as smooth as Canva. Starting with a template or from a scratch, create a smooth design. Desygner’s library of free images and design elements will leave you speechless.

Even in its mobile app, Desygner doesn’t skimp on features. Multiple menus allow you to hyper-customize image and text settings, while never becoming cumbersome to use on a small screen. You can even pull up a list of all layers, making it even easier to select, deselect, and rearrange image elements with a few taps.

Desynger’s web app works almost identically, with sidebar menus to help you select the design assets and effects you need. The tool is simpler than Canva and provides fewer templates, images, and assets with its free plan, but combined with the mobile app, Desygner becomes a very versatile tool for quickly creating unique, professional social media images.

Desygner Price: Free; from $6.95 for more templates and assets, as well as features like versioning.

5. Pablo by Buffer

Pablo Created by the social media scheduling tool, Buffer, Pablo is as minimalistic as they come, making it drop-dead easy to add a nice-looking, customized graphic to your social posts.

Pablo has only a few features and really only one workflow. Choose a template or just an image for your blank template—all free and royalty-free, provided by sites like Unsplash and Pixabay. Pablo’s keyword search is fast and precise, so you can pick the perfect image for your post. From there, choose from one of three sizes, each fitted specifically for Pinterest, Instagram, or Facebook/Twitter.

Image customization is limited—choose from a few preset filters, designed to provide the right level of contrast between your image and your text. You can also add up to three text boxes. Pablo displays them as “Header,” “Body,” and “Caption,” but you can adjust size and font to redesign the text as you see fit. Add one adjustable logo or graphic, and you’re good to go!

When you’ve finished your image, you can either download it, put it into your Buffer queue, or share directly to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram.

Pablo Pricing: Free—Buffer subscription not required (but certainly recommended!)

6. Crello

Crello is an alternative of Canva and offers similar features and functionality. This free online graphic design software allows creation of design using pre-created formats such as social media covers, ads, posters etc. Crello offers over 5000 free designs and collection of over 60 million images.

7. Gravit Designer

Gravit Designer includes many of the classic graphic design functions of tools like Photoshop, Sketch, and GIMP—such as layers, drawing tools, grouping, shapes, text, effects, and more—with a much more simplified, easy-to-learn interface.

As a self-described intermediate (on my best days) designer, Gravit Designer suited me perfectly. All the controls and effects I needed were easily available, so I could really make the design my own without spending a lot of time starting from scratch with Photoshop and its overabundance of tools. A tutorials tab in Gravit Designer’s main view also gives you ready access to all the knowledge you need to get started.

While Gravit Designer is ideal for building your own designs from scratch, it does come with a small library of templates pre-sized for uses like blog posts and social media images. Start with one of these preset canvases, or define your own. The app also offers a small library of shapes, illustrations, and icons. While not comprehensive as the asset libraries included with some other apps, it’s nonetheless a handy addition to a tool that already does so much.

Want to backup your design files or make them easily shareable with your team once you’re done? Gravit Designer is built to sync with the Gravit Cloud, which is also free. Simply create a Gravit account, enable the sync, and you���ll be set!

Gravit Designer Price: Free

Read full article on here

[border-spam]

What is a brotherly thing that Troy does that Tyreen loves\appreciates and vice versa?

YES YOU MAY. 

These would be early / mid COV era within my AU:

While their personal ships are considered super private do not enter unless someone is dying / NO TYREENS ALLOWED / TROY IS A LOSER safe zones, they spend a fair amount of cooldown time in the shared cloister between both docked sanctum ships in any cathedral, and it’s where the majority of actual sibling shit happens.

Troy is a habitual night owl ( to an unhealthy level ), and always keeps Ty in mind while he’s browsing the echonet or queueing shows to watch while she’s asleep. He’ll throw new seasons or episodes of shows he knows she hasn’t seen into her playlist as he watches, or sometimes just shit he found interesting in the hopes she might want to discuss it with him after she watches it.

Tyreen will leave drinks or snacks next to him if he’s out cold on a couch or by a computer when she wakes up, she tends to subconsciously monitor his weight and pushes him to eat more without needing to say it if he looks like he’s lost any.

Tyreen doesn’t eat much herself - the Leech Siren power keeps her hungry but not for actual food. Troy does cook for himself quite often and will bring leftovers into her ship and leave them in the kitchen if she’s out. He cooks with a lot of fresh vegetables and herbs, and she appreciates the switch up from the junk she normally eats as prepping it herself would be near impossible when the plants wither at her touch.

While the intimate closeness of growing up with only themselves and Typhon, and then surviving for a year with only each other on Pandora is something they quickly stopped doing in public due to it being misinterpreted in ways they didn’t want to have to deal with, they fall into old habits easily when in private.

Passing the same cup of coffee back and forth between them, eating with their hands from the same plate, sprawling half on top of each other on the same pile of cushions or couch as they plan upcoming streams or review cult data passed on by their Saints.

Troy has an incredibly steady hand trained through years of engineering and creating art, while Tyreen has the dexterity of a log but two strong arms to work with. An unspoken arrangement they have often is she will sit behind him with her legs around his waist, massaging into the painfully strained muscle of his neck and right shoulder while he paints her toenails and they talk complete shit about anything interesting that’s happened.

Troy never questions her sudden neediness for contact that can appear after a stressful or frightening day. He knows her, he gets it, and he’s the only one who she can take comfort from when she desperately needs an arm around her shoulders, or to bury her face in his chest and insist she isn’t crying.

Tyreen is painfully aware of his frail physical condition and habitually appears at his ship door every week or two with a small testing kit and takes bloods while he gives her a rundown of how he’s feeling. 

He would never trust a COV medic for this, mostly because his ego wouldn’t want his health issues to be public and damage his persona and reputation, but he’s never been concerned by Tyreen drawing a sample even before his spinal implant was installed and could provide one without a needle. 

He self medicates based on the results and gets very irritable if she tries to give any advice, but she’s learned a long time ago that feeling like a burden.. a parasite.. is something that would hurt him deeply, and understands why she needs to not be involved and she should leave this to him.

While Troy is noticeably neat and tidy in his living space, Tyreen is not, and tends to let her private quarters get to the point of causing her stress over how messy they get. No cult priest has access to either ship, so after multiple failed attempts to get her to keep her quarters clean before the mess would get out of control, he just said fuck it and made his bot fleet do it instead.

The final part of their cleaning script has a:that_bitch.DefilthTyreenAbode()function that sends them across the living space and into her ship if it hasn’t run in the last 2 weeks.

It took her months to realise it was happening, but the first time she spotted the procession of janky little junk bots wobbling across the inner cloister floor and through her ship’s airlock to go tidy and dust, she found the most expensive bottle of whiskey she could fling a million $ at online, and left it on his workdesk.

He still has it years later, stashed away and unopened in the same storage area he keeps Typhon’s old jacket and his faded photo of them as young children with Leda.

Asks are Open!

[justanotherpiccplayer]

Just Amateur Orchestra things

As one who’s spent a year in a local amateur orchestra, damn, have I seen some strange things

1) flute spaces?!? AHAHAHA come join the queue of these 30 other flute players who are all at least twice your age waiting for the people in the flute chairs to literally keel over and die because that’s the only way a chair becomes free

2) no seriously, I am the youngest by at least 20 years

3) you see some strange sights at the back of the violins

4) @ the guy back of seconds who holds his bow backwards like a bass player how do you still have like a FUNCTIONING WRIST

5) why does everyone write literally everything in the music, like, Barbara, do we really need to know that there’s a slight rit then a tempo halfway through our SIXTY BARS REST, WHY ARE YOU NOT JUST WATCHING?!?!!!?

6) pretty sure the second oboist is from the Victorian era, he has the suit, the hair AND the beard, and his oboe is so old it has like 7 keys maybe

7) all the snobby “I’m so professional” not professional people who don’t know what being professional is actually like

8) like seriously, my desk partner moved forward a seat because someone was away and I was using her music. She asked me to write in stuff on her part and then proceeded to glare at me every time the conductor opened his mouth and wouldn’t stop until I’d written something.... I hope you enjoy that anecdote about the conductors baby son....

9) we did Beethoven 9 over Easter and I’m doing it this summer with the local youth orchestra and one of the violinists had the balls to say to the youth orchestra conductor “a youth orchestra???? Doing Beethoven 9???? They won’t be able to do that !!!” because of course you’re so professional that we can’t possibly play it in the youth orchestra (we’re a miles better string section)

10) there’s a dude back of seconds who’s so old that his hands are so shaky and he can only play fucking tremolo

11) why all the old ladies got to bring their handbags on stage every concert? Like you never open them, look at them or use them throughout the entire concert and it looks so stupid, just whyyy

12) it’s very fun making eye contact with the flute teacher across the way who’s playing cello because there’s no flute spaces and we wince when the flutes are particularly out of tune knowing that the both of us can play way better 😂

13) for some reason all the flutes have really blingy expensive instruments like I had a conversation with a lady who bought a 2 GRAND piccolo having never played piccolo because “it’s her hobby and she’s enjoying it !!!!” And like I’ve seen more gold flutes in amateur orchestras with incredibly mediocre players than I have in any professional circumstance, perks of having a normal job, eh?

14) no seriously what’s with the handbags on stage like what is that

15) everyone has at least 7 pencils each and haven’t lost any ever

(pls add your own or any more you can think of)