#the lesbians won over the egg

[loustica-lucia]

DATV — Oliver Lavellan meets his father

Oliver Lavellan meets his father, a short comic! (feat. Sola [his father], Sera [his mother-in-law], Calico Aldwir [Rook] and mentions of the Inquisitor Sulevin Lavellan [his mother]) Solas seeing his son, after 8 years... He promised Sulevin he would leave them alone, not try to find them in dreams anymore. He remembered a toddler, now he's in front of a ten years old boy. The do not have the time to talk, and they never will. You bet Ollie (Oliver) knows how to curse fluently in elven (thanks to his mother), dwarven (thanks to Varric), in Qunari (thanks to Iron Bull) & in Common thanks to everyone lol But somehow, Bitch was never brought up. Baster, on the other hand... He probably heard Bitch before, but like "son of a Bitch ", and thought lots of women were called Abbytsche or something.😂

[coochiequeens]

A woman wanted to have a relationship with the child she gave birth to. And the men's response "was to insist that their son had no mother — only a surrogate — and that the child’s identity was as part of a motherless family." But the kid was created from her egg. She is the kids biological mother.

5 June, 2024 By Julie Bindel

This article is taken from the June 2024 issue of The Critic. To get the full magazine why not subscribe? Right now we’re offering five issues for just £10.

There is a contradiction at the heart of the international surrogacy industry. Its participants pretend that surrogates’ feelings for the children in their wombs do not exist, whilst simultaneously trying to prevent them acting on those feelings. Many commissioning parents broker the babies in jurisdictions that allow restrictions on surrogates’ rights.

In the UK, this contradiction was recently laid bare in a Family Court case (citation number: [2024] EWFC 20). A gay male couple were engaged in a long-running legal battle with their son’s surrogate. Rather than vanish after handing over the child, she wanted a role in the boy’s life. The men’s response was to insist that their son had no mother — only a surrogate — and that the child’s identity was as part of a motherless family. There was “no vacancy” for her to occupy in his life, they claimed, and it was prejudicial to gay families to suggest otherwise.

At the start of this story, G, the surrogate in question, was a 36-year-old single mother of a teenager and naive about what surrogacy entailed. The commissioning parents were friends of her sister but not people she knew. Aged 43 and 36 and married, they were members of an agency, Surrogacy UK, and very familiar with its protocols — which included a “getting to know you” period — and support. However rather than go through the agency, the men chose to fast-track the process with an independent arrangement with G.

Following a failed transfer of a donor egg, the trio decided to use G’s own egg. The men agreed that G would have contact with the child, but none of the parties properly considered the implications. The relationship between the three deteriorated during G’s pregnancy. G gave birth to a boy in September 2020.

After the birth, G would not initially consent to the parental order, under which she would lose parental responsibility as she feared being cut out of the child’s life. But during a lengthy online hearing in which she was alone and unrepresented — unlike the men — G was pressured by the judge to agree to the parental order along with a contact agreement called a child arrangements order.

After obtaining parental responsibility, the men quickly reneged on the agreement. When G turned up at their house for a pre-arranged visit they threatened to call the police. She recorded the meeting. The Family Court judge later declared of the recording “what was said has rightly been described as ‘horrendous’”. The men told G she was “harbouring a desire to have an inappropriate relationship” by wanting the boy to recognise her as his mother and accused her of having “rejected the role of surrogate”.

In January 2022, the men refused to allow G to visit her son and applied for the contact agreement to be changed. G then made her own application for the parental order to be overturned. She won her case in November the same year. This restored her parental responsibility for the child and removed it from the man who was not the child’s biological father.

The men redoubled their efforts to remove G as a parent, this time applying for an adoption order. During court proceedings, they claimed their son’s identity was that of a child of same-sex parents being raised within the LGBT community and that he belonged to a “motherless family”.

As a lesbian who came out in the 1970s, I’m only too aware of the history of demonisation of lesbian and gay couples. Parents who conceived children in heterosexual relationships were often denied custody and contact if they came out as gay after separation. Foster and adoption agencies were openly prejudiced. But times have changed, and same-sex parents are now a common sight at the school gates in some parts of the UK.

Claims that the children of same-sex parents are disadvantaged in some way have largely been defeated with an expanding body of evidence (e.g. Zhang Y, Huang H, Wang M, et al., BMJ Global Health, 2023) showing their outcomes are similar to those of heterosexual families. Gay rights are robustly supported in most public institutions and private organisations. For a gay couple to call on historic prejudice to justify excluding a mother from a child’s life is unforgivable.

In any case, the men’s argument was fatally — and obviously — undermined by its own logic. If the boy did not have a mother, there would be no need for the court case.

As the jointly-instructed clinical psychologist in the case recognised, the driver of the men’s case was the “elephant in the room” — G’s existence as the child’s legal and biological mother — and the men’s fear of her maternal bond with her son. The men had difficulties “accepting the reality” of the child’s conception, the psychologist found, and considering what sense the boy might make of the situation as he grew up.

“They have strongly held to the surrogacy agreement and the narrative of [G] being a ‘surrogate’ because in that narrative there are no, or hardly any feelings from the surrogate for the baby,” the psychologist wrote. He described the men as attempting an “erasure of the mother”, which he said was not in the child’s best interest as it did not reflect reality.

Refusing an adoption order that would likely have resulted in cutting G from her son’s life, the court ruled that G should have direct and unsupervised contact with him. The judge criticised the men for blaming G for everything that went wrong. The judgment also raised questions about how an adoption order would be explained to the boy, given it would have been made without his mother’s consent.

To some extent, history repeated itself in this case. There are multiple examples of legal battles involving lesbian couples who created a child with the help of a sperm donor who later inconveniently insisted on contact or on playing the role of father.

As the Court of Appeal ruled in one such case in 2012: “What the adults look forward to before undertaking the hazards of conception, birth and the first experience of parenting may prove to be illusion or fantasy. [The couple] may have had the desire to create a two-parent lesbian nuclear family completely intact and free from fracture resulting from contact with the third parent. But such desires may be essentially selfish and may later insufficiently weigh the welfare and developing rights of the child that they have created.”

What’s concerning in this case is the language used — the “erasure” of the mother

Contested surrogacy cases are little different from these wrangles and, indeed, from any other contact disputes. What’s concerning about G’s case, and what makes it different from the case of the lesbian parents above, is the language used. The psychologist explicitly referred to the men’s attempted “erasure” of the mother. They simply refused to acknowledge G’s existence in any of the forms in which she fulfilled a maternal capacity: legal, genetic and as the person who gave birth. They were supported in this illusion by the professionals who weighed in on their behalf.

In the space of a few years the term “motherless” has moved from an emotive description of absence to a positive identity argued for in court. This shift is entirely consistent with the narrative that surrogacy participants feed to the public.

When celebrity couples introduce their surrogate children on social media, the women who gave birth to them are rarely mentioned. The new babies are “welcomed” as if they have been sent by special delivery. That is in line with the attitude of the international surrogacy industry, which reduces the role of the birth mother to that of a “carrier” or rented womb.

For commissioning parents, it must be very easy to regard the woman who bore their child for nine months as a mere service provider, someone to be gratefully forgotten as soon as the final instalment is paid and the product handed over.

Meanwhile, parts of the NHS are determined to de-gender childbirth, routinely referring to “birthing parents” rather than mothers. As an example (there are multiple) the Royal United Hospital Bath’s “information for families” on labour induction refers to dads, but there is no mention of mothers — only birthing parents.

Feminists have long campaigned for gender-neutral language to reflect roles that are indeed, or can be, gender-neutral. But the uncoupling of sex from the necessarily female processes of pregnancy and childbirth is a step towards a dystopian future. In 2015 Victoria Smith wrote, “Gender-neutral language around reproduction creates the illusion of dismantling a hierarchy — when what you really end up doing is ignoring it.” I would go further. Gender-neutral language around reproduction — just like any language that obscures reality — reinforces and helps establish hierarchies of oppression.

To the men, G was simply a surrogate womb to a motherless child. But to G and to Z, she was his mother. As the psychologist said, “‘Motherlessness’ does not exist. The child was born from two people, biologically, and from three people, psychologically … The mother certainly played a part, biologically and psychologically, in the conception of the child.”

The case — unremarked and unnoticed by the media — will do nothing to change popular opinion of surrogacy. It is likely to encourage intending parents to explore dubious overseas jurisdictions, where surrogates have fewer rights. The surrogacy profiteers will continue to cheerlead wealthy couples in their exploitation of impoverished and naive women.

As for the word “motherless”: in time it may lose its negative connotations and become solidified as an identity. Will it become a badge that straight children can use to signal their connection to LGBTQ+ community? Or an oppression card that can be deployed by the children of wealthy men to explain bad behaviour towards women? Either way, Disney and Dickens are going to need a lot of rewriting.

[bluegekk0]

I actually think this concept quite cute, and I’m glad to find someone else who headcanons intersex Grimm! I’m honestly just glad to see I’m not alone in having some “gay baby fever” when it comes to my Hollow Knight AUs (this week I made my lesbian Nosks moms, one is trans so the kids are indeed biological). I guess it’s that time of year…

I think my favorite of the doodles is bottom right. Look at that protective dad. Wholesome. I love your PK and Grimm designs!

ah, thank you! this is very encouraging haha

it's definitely not something i'll likely do more of in the future. really, i just wanted to give them a child, and thought drawing this while i work on the design would make for an interesting... experiment, i guess? i can't say i ever had an opportunity to do this kind of art... man the way i talk about this makes it sound like it's something really nsfw, maybe that's part of the problem, maybe it's not really that big of a deal?

anyway hell yeah, lesbian nosk moms sounds great, happy for them! <3

and yes that one is probably my favourite as well, he's such a happy dad! terrified, but also very excited. so excited he wouldn't leave that egg alone even for a minute, and you know you won him over when he skips meals just to be with you hahaha

but yeah, thanks a lot for this ask! it does make me feel a bit better about everything :)

[happyhappybios]

DJ Cupcake

This page contains mention of stalking.

Danger scale: Calm

Key notes: Internet Famous, Ex-Heiress, DJ, Musician, Famous

(Was won in the adopt raffle from @.askthefantrollcast. Given the permission to change the design.)

🎧DJ Cupcake's mood🎧

🎵💗🍓🧁🍓💗🎵

Cupcake's music playlist

🎵💗🍓🧁🍓💗🎵

Interview / Albums / Perfume (Limited edition)

Nickname: DJ Cupcake

Name: Burnet Cerato

Age: 12 sweeps (26 y.o.)

Height: 5'7 (170 cm)

Blood colour: Fuschia

Wiggling day: 20 December

Symbol: Fish Major

Gender: Female (She/Her)

Orientation: Lesbian

Occupation: DJ, Musician

Place of residence: Big colorful hive on the cliff

Lusus: MotherLungfish (Queensland; Giant size; No longer lives with her)

Hobby: Singing and making remixes and electro-music

Hemoloyalty: She would like to not talk about it as she is afraid of public press twisting her words

Fetch modus: DJ Remixing. Each item has an audio track that she could cut, delete and copy.

Strife specibus/Weapon: Sound speakers/Sound Kind

Troll tag: GlitteringCupcake [GC]

Typing quirk: Puts 🎧 in front and end of sentences

Typing quirk example: 

[GC]: 🎧 Dancefloor! 🎧

Personality: 

When you see DJ Cupcake on the dj stand, she can be seen as an energetic and passionate dj who loves music with all her heart. That’s true.

Next time when you see DJ Cupcake in the interview, she can be seen as calm and sensible while also being positive and talkative who lives for the music. That's also true.

DJ Cupcake is always true to her character, her personality as she never wears a mask in front of trolls, her fans. She is who she is: easy-going honest troll with a passion for music. She is always in action, in a hurry and it’s hard to see her doing something that is not connected with music. It could be seen as an obsession in other eyes: always talking about music, always working on lyrics and listening to it all the time and DJ Cupcake wouldn’t lie she can see why everyone thinks it’s obsession. She has no interest in other things that aren't connected to music.

But she doesn’t care. 

She can live with this judgment. DJ Cupcake never cared about others' opinions about her, even if it's a good opinion. Let’s not even talk about criticism, she can’t handle it well…

DJ Cupcake is also really really messy. Her room, or even the whole hive, is cluttered and hoarded with trash such as empty cups and bags, clothes old and new, lyric papers and ect. She barely cleans her hive and even if she decides to do it, she’ll give up in a few seconds. DJ Cupcake doesn’t feel guilty as her friends never come over to her place (but if they suddenly come, she would be so embarrassed about it). 

And when she has the ‘inspiration week’ where she locks herself up for 5 days, it’s getting worse. She can overwork herself pretty fast in this condition. 

DJ Cupcake doesn’t have self-control most of the time. She can drink 6 cups of coffee in one day or get irritated from the smallest things.

But, still, DJ Cupcake is very friendly and kind and that just feels lonely in the music media.

Likes:

Electro-music

Music in general

Cupcakes

Browsing through internet

DJ

Vaporwave aesthetic

Abstraction pictures

Coffee

Dislikes:

Classic music

Pranks

Eggs

Tea

Stalking

Harassment

Silver

Onions

Trivia:

The nickname - DJ Cupcake was based on the strawberry chocolate cupcake she ate in the cafe near her studio.

DJ Cupcake has her own grubtube channel called ‘CupcakeGlitterSpark’. She has around 2 million followers on her channel.

DJ Cupcake hides her real name because of witnessing a lot of stalking and harassment that other celebrities went through. She wants her personal life to be private.

DJ Cupcake doesn’t really hate tea. The effect of tea is what she hates - it makes her super sleepy and tired for some reason.

DJ Cupcake thinks classic music is boring, but she respects it and never gonna shit on it.

DJ Cupcake has her own studio in the center of the city called ‘Cupcake Music’.

Relationships:

Matesprit - Open!

Moirail - Open!

Kismesis - Open!

Auspistice - Open!

Out of quadrants

Acquaintance/friend - Sha'truse (@.askthefantrollcast). DJ Cupcake didn’t expect to befriend a troll who hosts her favorite podcast, but she did! She really appreciates their friendship (even if they know each other for a few months) and feels happy around him.

Acquaintance - Nuriko. DJ Cupcake doesn’t know her personally, but they talked about some stuff during the competition registration. It was a nice conversation.

Backstory:

DJ Cupcake…or better to say Burnet Cerato is a one of the fuschia from the Cerato's family and the main pretender to the throne.

Instead of hatching in the Brooding Caverns, Burnet was hatched in the nursery of the HIC castle. It was common for Empress to take her eggs to her castle and let hired jades to take care of her descendants. Burnet was immediately given to MotherLungfish who took good care of her. She raised her as her own daughter: teaching her everything she knows, protecting her from danger. showing her a lot of new things and instilling love to music.

MotherLungfish left Burnet in the castle when she turned 2.31 sweeps (5 y.o.).

Burnet was placed in the Cerato's family (unknowingly) where she was raised in a strict atmosphere. She was assigned a personal governess to teach her everything that royalty fuschia should know: from how to behave and act to knowing Alternia’s geography and landscape.

Burnet never complained about it, because she couldn’t allow herself to complain. Everyone was telling her she would be the next Empress; she will change the Alternia for good; she’s the only who can do it but it’s not what Burnet wants.

Other fuschia put a lot of hopes, dreams and responsibility on her tiny shoulders. She felt pressured and she didn’t like it at all.

All her childhood Burnet spent within four walls: eat, studies, work and sleep. She was alone most of the time as she was the only one young fuschia in the whole house. Sadly, Cerato's family was almost wiped out by HIC, so there were no kids of the same age to befriend. 

Burnet felt lonely.

The only thing she was waiting for the most was music class. Music saved her. Burnet could listen to it all day and never get tired of it. Unfortunately, the music teacher wasn’t really nice to her and always made fun of her clumsiness whenever she played piano, but she didn’t care. It won’t ruin her time in music class.

When Burnet turned 7.38 sweeps (16 y.o.), she discovered a really cool thing - the internet. One of the maids in the house mentioned it and told them where they could access it if they wanted when Burnet was walking down the corridor. Burnet got curious and she went to this place with the internet. When she first saw it, she wasn’t really impressed with it: just a stupid box with a screen but when she turned it on and saw the screen lip up, Burnet got curious even more. She started to browse through the internet, clicking on everything. It didn’t take long for the computer to get a virus, but she still was amazed how big and different it is. She wanted to browse it more, but… not at the moment.

After it was discovered that computer got a virus, it was replaced with a new one.  Burnet learned her lesson and never clicked on anything suspicious again. Soon enough, she knew how to work on the computer and so created a channel with the name ‘CupcakeGlitterSpark’ on the Grubtube. Of course, she didn’t start uploading music videos at first as she only watched videos, but later someone downloaded the music and video making software where she started to have more fun.

Every Friday and Saturday night, she sneaked to the room with the computer and just created music out of her mind and uploaded it on her channel. Her channel was growing slowly and only became a decent size after 0.92 sweeps (2 years).

During this time, she was pressured about her duty even more and only thanks to her channel, she wasn’t feeling like it’s the only thing in life.

But she couldn’t take it anymore.

As soon as her channel became big enough to earn money, Burnet ran away from home. She only took clothes, food and folders with lyrics with her. Thankfully, she prepared for the ‘run away from home’ mission as she researched everything about it. She wrote down her passwords from her social media, opened the bank account, bought the hive and other stuff she needs before running away.

No one knew Burnet ran away in the house. They only realized it on the next day.

For the first time, Burnet felt free. She can do whatever she wants and start a new page in her life. She was living her dream: her own hive, her own earned money, her own personal space… she’s her own person now, not a hope of someone else's dream.

Sadly, because she was living alone now, Burnet became a bit messy as her hive quickly turned into a mess. But she doesn’t seem to mind…

Her channel was growing each sweep as she started to post music regularly. Soon enough, she was noticed by her manager who offered to become a DJ. She didn’t accept the offer at first, thinking carefully about it. She wanted to be a musician, not a dj… But DJs are musicians, too? After two weeks she agreed and she signed her first and only contract.

Burnet started to work as a dj in the club at the age of 10.15 sweeps (22 y.o.) and got a nickname - DJ Cupcake. She created it when she was with her manager at the cafe and ate a strawberry chocolate cupcake.

Suddenly, her channel exploded in popularity after getting a job as a DJ. DJ Cupcake was shocked by this, but so happy at the same time. Her dream of becoming a musician was coming true. DJ Cupcake started to work hard from now on, creating four successful albums, going to interviews/podcasts, selling merch and so on. DJ Cupcake thought she was in the dream again. Each sweep brought her more popularity and relevance. At the age of 11.54 sweep (25 y.o.), her channel had 1.5 million followers and it’s still growing to this day!

The bad side of popularity was unwanted attention from journalists and stalkers. Wherever DJ Cupcake went, she always encountered very noisy journalists who couldn’t leave her alone or fans who were stalking her and trying to find where she lives. It was really bothering her and one time, one of her fans tried to break into her hive. Thankfully, the drones were patrolling her area and got rid of them.

DJ Cupcake still loves her fans, but for her own safety she put a big PSA about stalking in her social media.

DJ Cupcake was so busy with her career and success that she didn’t notice a letter from a Seadweller Council that she received. She noticed it only after guards from Cerato's family came to take her. At first, she refused them, but after they explained the situation she followed them to the spaceship. Turns out, she was still a candidate for the throne, even after she ran away from home and she hates this fact. She’s going to get rid of this label, this family put on her and be free once again.

Thankfully, she came early and signed the papers of not participating in the competition and disinheriting herself. She’s no longer a Heiress.

Feeling free once again, she was ready to return back home, but stopped to chat with a lovely violet who as she found out was worried about her sister who’s fuschia. She felt sorry for her. Sadly, their conversation ended early and DJ Cupcake went home.

And so, no longer feeling the obligation of becoming an Empress, DJ Cupcake started to live her life for herself: meeting new trolls, doing different projects and other things. Of course, she had a few rough moments there and there, but in general she’s happy where she is now.

[innytoes]

Chaotic Writing Prompts

Did you seriously eat all my Oreos?

Can I pet your dog?

We do not need that many tiny pumpkins.

Want to help egg my ex’ house?

Can I get a kid’s menu and a rum and coke, please?

At least your hair still looks good.

I’m a real adult, just last week I bought a vegetable.

What do you mean, ‘whoops’?

Get in the fucking blanket fort.

Please stop talking about how you want to bang my dad.

If it helps, this isn’t actually my cat.

This was supposed to be a date?

I have such soft hair and nobody is playing with it!

I’m sorry, what were you saying? I saw a dog and I stopped listening.

I want to sit on their lap and feed them grapes.

Go step on a lego.

Sorry your crotch is bleeding.

Be gay, do crime.

Why am I in your phone as ‘himbo number two’?

Oh no, she’s hot.

Go take a nap and maybe you’ll feel better.

He’s such a nerd.

That’s not a cat it’s an opossum.

Are you crying about dogs on the internet again?

For the love of all that is holy, please go to sleep.

I’m sorry my cat keeps stealing your underwear.

It’s my emotional support Furby.

Why are we running?

Sorry isn’t going to bring back the last slice of cheesecake.

Harold, they’re lesbians.

He knows the names of all my plants, I’m in love.

Are you drunk?

I’m just saying it could be a ghost.

Excuse me, I think you mean I just won a staring contest with a turtle.

I’m not annoyed that’s just my face.

You already did the stupid thing, didn’t you?

She’s so pretty it makes me want to punch myself.

Not today, Satan.

Maybe today, Satan.

It’s a good thing you’re cute.

Want to help me steal the neighbour’s cat?

Bad and naughty children get wrapped up in the blanket burrito for their crimes.

Sorry to text so late, can your dog come over?

You tried, buddy.

Fuck you, I’m a delight.

Why do you need 500 worms-on-a-string?

First of all, no. Second of all, no.

How many cups of coffee have you had?

They’re so small, I can’t protect them.

You know that phrase ‘fuck around, find out’? Well, I fucked around and found out.

You’d marry me if I asked, right?

Don’t worry, I think I have a tumblr mutual in this country that could help us.

I like your stupid face.

Sounds illegal, I’m in.

It’s three in the morning why are you in my kitchen?

Don’t be such a drama llama.

I’m sorry, I wasn’t catcalling you, I was catcalling my buddy.

If we get caught, I’m blaming you.

I regret to inform you that the straights are at it again.

Okay... this looks bad.

I killed you in the Sims, I’m a terrible friend.

Please stop talking.

Why are all my friends so pretty?

Pay attention to me, I’m cute and needy.

“Why is he on the counter?” / “He likes to feel tall.”

I like your shoelaces.

[murfeelee]

Skellige Skies

Geralt, Yennefer and Ciri during one of their many jaunts around the Skellige isles.

MY THOUGHTS (rabid fangirl ranting and rambling--SPOILER ALERT)

I’ve been replaying TW3 all summer. Best game of all time--fight me on this; I’ll Igni you in the frikkin face.

I swear, I was so frikkin happy when CDPR announced they’re doing TW4. Like, FINALLY. Leave Cyperpunk 2077 ALONE; you effed up, people don’t care what you fix anymore; its reputation’s already ruined.

Just go back to what you’re ACTUALLY good at, and give us more of that delicious witchering and butchering goodness!

I know CDPR said Geralt’s story’s done, which is fine--let him retire in style in Toussaint; he deserves it.

But Imma need TW4 to officially make Ciri a witcher.

I don’t care if the “best“ ending is to make her Empress, witcher!Ciri is my very favorite ending.

I get that, worldbuilding-wise, Ciri being empress is the best thing that can happen--all the other kings SUUUUUCK, so having her on the throne serves the greater good. But this is The Witcher, ffs--EFF the “greater good”!!

The Witcher is morally grey at BEST, where people are motivated by nothing but self interest, NOT self sacrifice.

In the very worst ending, Ciri becomes the ultimate martyr, sacrificing herself and dying for everyone’s sins to stop the White Frost; then Geralt effs off to the wilderness and basically kills himself.

So how is Ciri becoming queen supposed to be the “best”? Does this girl LOOK happy as royalty!?

All Ciri ever does is brag about beasts she’s slain and horse races she’s won and places she’s traveled to. So it just makes no sense to me that it would be BEST FOR CIRI for her to be shackled to some stupid throne she never asked for, in some stupid country she never lived in, for a stupid father she never met, when the entire game was all about her being wild and free, loving Geralt and Uncle Vesemir, and traveling on the Path.

Not to mention, it grosses me TF out how Emhyr (dad of the frikkin year ISTG 🙄) promised Empress Ciri to General Voorhis (that a-hole) in an arranged marriage that was HARDLY different from Avallach promising her to Eredin 🤮. And on top of that, if the player chooses to make Ciri a lesbian, then WTF are we doing consigning her to a loveless marriage to General Voorhis as queen?!

At least let Ciri marry Cerys! XD Ciri LOVES Skellige, and the whole An Craite clan loves Ciri, so that would just as easily solve CDPR wanting Ciri to remain as royalty, and also keep Skellige from going to war with Nilfgaard.

I SHIP IT. 😍

So yeah, I refuse to believe the Empress ending is canonically the “best” one. I will NEVER send Geralt & Ciri to Vizima, EFF EMHYR, eff Nilfgaard, and eff Voorhis while we’re at it.

In TW4 I hope they let us load our TW3 save, so Ciri can stay a witcher, and we can explore different worlds and times with her and her friends. CDPR already effed us over by not even having Ciri as an NPC in C2077, after all the easter eggs and hype, like WTF. A MAGAZINE!? That’s it? Are you effing kidding?

So if Ciri HAS to start off as empress in TW4, I hope she abdicates the throne once she realizes she effing hates being a pawn of Emhyr and the Lodge of Sorceresses--don’t forget about those scheming wenches! Philippa would’ve been in her ear the whole time--how is THAT a good ending for anyone?

PLEASE, CDPR, don’t eff this up. 🙏

OK, rant over.

___________________________________________

CC CREDITS

- Buy Mode CC by me, coming soon!

- Eternally grateful to @minervamagicka​ for the TW3 clothes conversions, cuz I sure couldn’t do it. U_U

[a-room-of-my-own]

A while before the latest hoo-ha about Judith Butler, I had just been reading her again. Though she claims her critics have not read her, this simply isn’t the case. I read Gender Trouble when it first came out and it was important at the time . That time was long,long ago. She was just one of the many ‘post-structuralist’ thinkers I was into. I would trip off to see  Luce Irigaray or Derrida whenever they appeared.

I got an interview  with Baudrillard and tried to sell it to The Guardian but they  didn’t know who he was so its fair to say I was fairly immersed in that world of theory.  For a while, I had a part time lecturing job so I had to keep on top of it. Though Butler’s idea of gender as performance was not new , it was interesting.  RuPaul said it so much more clearly in a  quote nicked from  someone else “Honey ,we are born naked, the rest is drag”

What I was looking for again , I guess is not any clarity – her writing is famously and deliberately difficult-  but whether there was ever any sense of the material body. She wrote herself in 2004 “I confess however I am not a very good materialist. Every time I try to write about the body, the writing ends up being about language” . 

Butler from on high ,cannot really think about the body at all which is why they (Butler’s chosen pronoun) are now the high priestess of a particular kind of trans ideology.  The men who worship Butler are not versed in high theory. The fox botherer had a “brain swoon” at some very ordinary things Butler said. Mr Right Side of history nodded along in an interview. Clearly neither of these men are versed in any of this philosophy and would be better off sticking to tax law and the decline of the Labour Party. Butler is simply a totem for them.

Butler said in the Guardian interview for instance  “Gender is an assignment that does not just happen once: it is ongoing. We are assigned a sex at birth and then a slew of expectations follow which continue to “assign” gender to us.”

So yeah? That’s a fairly basic view of the social construction of gender though I take issue with the assigned at birth thing ,which I will come back to and why I started reading her again in the first place.

This phrase “Assigned sex at birth” is now common parlance but simply does not make sense  to me. I am living with someone who is pregnant. I have given birth three times and been a birthing  partner. I know where babies come from. There is a deep disconnect here between language and reality which no amount of academic jargon can obliterate. 

Babies  come from bodies. Not any bodies but bodies that have a uterus. They grew inside a woman’s body until they  get pushed out or dragged out into the world. 

The facts of life that we are now to be liberated from in the form of denial. Only one sex can have babies but we must now somehow not say that. The pregnant “people” of Texas will now be forced into giving birth to children they don’t want because they are simply “host bodies”. The language of patriarchal supremacy and that of some of the trans ideologues is remarkably close, as is their biological ignorance.

There is no foetal heatbeat at six weeks for instance. When a baby is born , doctors and midwives do not randomly assign a sex, they observe it and they do it though genitalia. 

There is a question over a tiny percentage of babies ,less that one percent with DSDs but even then they are sexed with doctors having  difficult conversations with parents about what may happen later.

Somehow, though when I read the way in which this is now all discussed it is clear to me that the people talking have never been pregnant, never had a foetal scan, never been near a birth , never miscarried, do not understand that even with a still birth babies are still sexed and often named. 

If you want to know the sex of your baby you can pay privately and know at 7 weeks ((*49-56 days from the first day of the mother’s last menstrual cycle). A 12 week scan will show it. That is why so many female foetuses are aborted . I have reported on this. 

Talking to paediatricians about this is interesting because they do indeed have to think through these things that we are being told are not real eg. that sex is just a by-product of colonialism for instance.  Sometimes pre-conception , geneticists will be looking at chromosomes because certain diseases are more likely in men or women. Males have a higher risk of haemophilia for instance.  

One doctor told me “When babies are premature, the survival advantage of females over males is well known throughout neonatology. This is sometimes something we talk about with parents when there is threatened premature labour around 23 weeks' gestation and options to discuss about resuscitation and medical interventions. In fertility treatment (or counselling around fertility in the context of medical treatments) it is pretty inherent to know whether we need to plan around sperm, or ova + pregnancy.”

She also said that if she involved in a birth that “assigning” isn’t the word she world use. “Observed genitals a highly reliable observation, just like measuring weight or head circumference which is also done at this time. “ Another doctor said that anyone involved with a trans man giving birth  would be doing the best for the patient in front  of them. 

Sex then is biological fact. A female baby will have all the eggs she will ever have when she is first born which is kind of amazing. It is not bio-essentialist to say that our sexed bodies are different nor is it transphobic to recognise it.

Except of course in my old newspaper ,The Guardian who are now so hamstrung by their  own ideology they have got their knickers in such a twist they can barely walk.  They completely misreported the WiSpa incident , basically ignored the Sonia  Appleby  judgement at the Tavistock. Appleby was a whistle blower ,a respected professional concerned with safe guarding. She won her case. The cherry on the cake this week was an interview with Butler, themselves (?) in which they went on about Terfs being fascists and needing to extend the category of women.

Does anyone EVER stop to think that most gender critical women are of the left, supporters of gay rights, often lesbian and that this is not America? We are not in bed with the far right. This is bollocks. Just another way to dismiss us.  

As we watch Afghanistan and Texas ,to say Butler’s words were tone deaf is to say the least. But they didn’t even have the guts to keep the most offensive stuff in the piece and overnight edited it out without really explaining why : the bits where Butler described gender critical people as fascist. Perhaps because the person their “reporters” had  defended against  transphobia at WiSpa turned out to be a known sex offender,  perhaps because someone pointed out that Butler was throwing around the word fascist rather like Rik Mayall used to do in the Young Ones. 

All of this is rather desperate and readers deserve better. When I left that newspaper I said that I thought and expected editors to stand up for their writers in public. Instead they go into some catatonic paralysis. I may have not liked this interview but it should never have been cut. Stand by what you publish or your credibility is shot.

But this is about more than Judith Butler and their refusal to support women . Butler is not really any kind of feminist at all. What this is about is the large edifice of trans ideology  crumbling when any real analysis is applied. Yes, I have read Shon Faye’s book and there are some interesting points in it and I totally agree that the lives of trans people should be easier and health care better . I have never said anything but that.

What Faye does in the book is say that there can be no trans liberation under capitalism so there will be a bit of a wait I suspect. 

Yet surely it is the other way round and what we are seeing is that trans ideology (not trans people – I am making a distinction here ) represent the apex of capitalism .

For it means that the individual decides their own gendered essence and then spends a fortune on surgery and a lifetime on medication to achieve the appearance of it. Of course lots of people spend a lifetime  on medication but not out of choice.  Marx understood very well that the abolition of our system of production would free up women.

Now it is all about freeing up men. Who say they are women. Quelle surprise.  

 Nussbaum’s famous take down of Butler is premised exactly on the sense of individual versus collective struggle “ The great tragedy in the new feminist theory in America is the loss of a sense of public commitment. In this sense, Butler’s self-involved feminism is extremely American, and it is not surprising that it has caught on here, where successful middle-class people prefer to focus on cultivating the self rather than thinking in a way that helps the material condition of others. “

Such thinking now dominates academia. There is simply an unquestioning  rehearsal of something most of know not to be true thus Amia Srinivasan writes in The Right to Sex  “At birth, bodies are sorted as ‘male’ or ‘female’, though many bodies must be mutilated to fit one category or the other, and many bodies will later protest against the decision that was made. This originary division determines what social purpose a body will be assigned.”

What does ‘sorted’ mean here? A tiny number of intersex babies are born. A tiny number of people are trans and decide to change their bodies. The feminist demand to challenge gender norms without mutilating any one’s body no longer matters. What matters now is this retrograde return  to some gendered soul. This is not something any decent Marxist would have any truck with . Of course one may change over a lifetime and of course gender is never ‘settled.’ We are complex people who inhabit bodies that often don’t work or appear as we want them to.

But not only is there a denial of basic Marxism going on here , what becomes ever more apparent is  that there is a denial of motherhood. Butler said “Yet gender is also what is made along the way – we can take over the power of assignment, make it into self-assignment, which can include sex reassignment at a legal and medical level.”

Self-assignment is key . One may birth oneself. No longer of woman born but self -made. This is a theoretical leap but it also one that has profound implications for women as a sex class. We are really then, just the  host bodies to a new breed of people who self-assign.

Maybe that is the future although look around the word and there isn’t a lot of self-assignment going on. There are simply women shot and beaten in the street, choked to death or having  their rights taken  away. There is no identifying out of this , there is no fluidity here . This is not discourse. It is brutality and do we not have some responsibility to other women to confront male violence ?

Instead the hatred is aided and abetted by so called philosophers describing  other women as Terfs. It is utterly depressing.

The sexed body. The pregnant body. The dying body. The body is in trouble when we can’t talk about it . I thought of Margaret Mary O’Hara’s  beautiful and  strange lyrics and what they might mean. I await my child’s return from the hospital as hers is a difficult pregnancy and thank god they are on the case. The sex of the child she carries does not matter to me at all .

It simply exists. Not in language but within a body. 

Why is that so difficult to acknowledge? 

[btsmakesmehappy]

Palate Cleanser | 1

Genre: Agent au, friends with benefit (sort of), Stranger to lover, Angst, Fluff, Eventual Smut

Pairing: Agent!Taehyung x Baker!reader

Word Count: 5,6k

Rating: 18+ (M)

Warning: broken heart, cursing.

Chapter: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 completed

Summary: Taehyung needs something to take his mind off his broken heart. His best friend, Jimin, suggests that he should meet another woman and the first woman he met was you. Would you help him even though you have your own problem, that you hate men?

a/n: Hello again! This mini series is a continuation from Broken Vase. You can read it as as a standalone, but it’s better if you read it first for better understanding! As always, english is not my first language, so I would really appreciate if you give me correction or any suggestion. Please tell me if you want to be added on the taglist!

Also this is gonna be a part of The Company series (Click it for agents’ description!). Please look forward for it!

Taehyung walks mindlessly in the city. It is already noon, but still, he doesn’t want to go back to the company. The sun shines brightly like it is mocking him. And how the roads are full of couples, it is like hell to him. He hates it. He wants to be with someone too. Someone whose hand he can hold in the middle of a busy street. Not just someone, but someone he truly loves. That particular one who chooses Namjoon over him. He knows that the girl loves Namjoon deeply. He always knows it. Yet he refuses to acknowledge it. He thought that if he stays with her by her side, she will reciprocate his feelings. But it is just a mere hope. Love is not that simple.

His phone vibrates inside his pocket. He looks at it only to find Jimin is calling him. “What do you want, chim?” He then moves to the sidewalk, to take the call. His back leans onto a brick wall.

“Hello to you too. Where the fuck are you? The meeting is in 5 minutes, you know!” Jimin yells from the telephone. Taehyung taps his foot impatiently, waiting for Jimin to stop his blabbering. “Just come here fast!”

Taehyung interrupts, “I am not coming.”

There is silence on the phone and when Taehyung wants to turn his phone off, Jimin yells again. “Are you crazy? The meeting is about our mission in Hawaii. All of the agents who worked in it must be present. Our boss and that girl are gonna ask me about you.”

Taehyung can feel his heart stop for a bit after hearing about that girl. The girl he loves. But still, he doesn’t want to meet her. He is not ready. She will be together with Namjoon in the meeting. A sight he never wants to see. “Just act like you don’t know anything! I am hanging up!” Taehyung hangs up before Jimin replies back. He then turns his phone off and puts it again inside his pocket.

Yes, he thinks that it is not professional for him to avoid Namjoon and the girl. He doesn’t hate them, Hell no. Namjoon is one of his best friends and so does she. But he still needs a moment to mourn, to finally moving on. He sighs and walks again. His stomach grumbles. He hasn’t eaten anything since yesterday. He doesn’t even believe it himself. He thinks that only women will have anorexic as a breakup phase. But it seems, losing appetite applied for every human being who is brokenhearted.

His feet stop in front of a small bakery. It has a blue color outside and yellow inside, a rare combination since some people think that blue is not an appetizing color. He decides to buy some bread and eat it in the park, he is not in the mood of any rice right now. He just needs something to fill his empty stomach. The bell in the door rings as he opens it.

He is welcomed by delicious smells of freshly-baked bread. He takes a tray and walks around. Somehow the smells make his stomach growls even louder. After many considerations, he chooses a bread with red bean paste and butter and also an egg sandwich. He also takes a coke from the chiller and walks to the cashier.

He puts the tray in the cashier and his eyes wandering around the small bakery. The bakery itself is cozy, with some corners full of cute photo spots. There is only some seating area in front of the cashier. Taehyung is nodding at the rhythm of the music when his eyes dart at a little placard with a hand-written scribble beside the cashier.

Girls get 50% off

Taehyung frowns his brows and asks. “Why do only girls get 50% off?”

You raise your head. “Because all men are trash.” You reply dryly.

Taehyung gawks with that sudden explanation. “I’m sorry, what?”

Just before you say anything to the random guy, someone hit your head. “What the fuck, Hani? Why did you hit me?” you touch your head and look at another girl, Hani, who holds a rolling pin in her hand.

Hani then grabs the placard and tears it into pieces. “How many times did I tell you not to use this stupid ‘girl only’? You want us to go bankrupt?” She then throws it into the trash can. Hani turns to the man in the suit in front of them. “I am really sorry sir.”

“Why? I said the truth!” you shrug. Hani then glares at you, which shuts you up. “Fine. You handle this then.” you then walk to the back, to the kitchen, while Hani handles the cashier.

Taehyung is flabbergasted. His eyes following your back. What a weird girl. “So, how much?”

Hani then smiles, “2700 won. Would you want to pay with cash or card?” Taehyung gives her an exact amount. “Oh, this is a free cookie for you. It’s a new recipe.”

Taehyung takes the paper bag and nods politely. “Thank you.”

“Thank you! Please come again!” She yells to the girl as Taehyung walks out of the door. He can hear how the weird girl is being yelled at. Somehow he finds it amusing and funny, not at all weird.

He walks to the nearby park and sits on the bench. He puts the paper bag beside him. He looks at the bag. Palate Cleanser. A weird name for a bakery. It should be used for an ice cream parlor or that kind of stuff, but instead, they use it in a goddamn bakery. Well, not only the people working there are weirdos, the bakery itself is weird too.

He chuckles. Taehyung loves unusual stuff. He was once scolded by the higher-ups when he showed up in the Company in a pajama set and the other time in a suit with some doodles on the back. It is just his fashion sense, and everybody in the Company just looked at him like he was crazy. Why can't he be the unique one? It’s not that he bothers anyone with his habit nor his fashion sense. He opens the sandwich first and bites it. Not bad. Maybe he will come to that weird bakery again.

“What the fuck, Y/n? You almost scared him away!” Hani yells at you. She puts her hand on her hips. It may be the fifth time she yelled at you about this, this week.

You shrug. “So what? That is my intention anyway.” You open the kitchen cabinet and pull out a sack of flour, chocolates, caramel, and a bottle of peanut butter.

She pinches the bridge of her nose. “He just wanted to buy some bread for god sakes. Not making a move at you!”

You look away and walk to the kitchen island to make another batch of cookies. “Men still are trash.” You said as you rolled your sleeves.

Hani just shakes her head. “Not all men are trash.”

“They are!” you yell. “You lucky you found a good one.”

“Enough with the stubbornness!” She sighs. “Fine then, just think like that. But don’t you ever put that placard again! People would think that this bakery is a lesbian crib, you fucker.” Hani stomps her foot to the front, leaving you alone in the kitchen.

You sigh. I hope I am a lesbian, maybe It’s just better that way. You begin to measure the cookie ingredients. Your mind wanders freely as your hands work. You have done this for almost 5 years now, and you can measure a basic cookie dough subconsciously.

It’s because of Youngjae.

It was maybe the lowest point in your life. You found Youngjae naked in the bed with your college friend who you thought was your best friend. But frankly, she was just a bitch. Youngjae was your boyfriend for 3 years, you dated him in the last year of high school. He was kind, handsome, and smart, basically a grade-A boyfriend. You thought you were blessed for having a nice boyfriend. You gave all of you to him. But apparently, he cheated you all the time in your relationship. For 3 fucking years.

You are glad that you have a nice family and friends to help you through it. You cried, starved yourself, and did not take a bath for weeks in your break up. Hani is one of your friends that supports you in that hard time. Instead of just depressed and sad, she helped you move on. She was the one who printed huge ass banners that said ‘Youngjae got herpes’ with his photo and stuck it on every surface in your college. It probably cost you some dates but you were happy and satisfied. You were relieved that you got out of that unhealthy relationship. But still, you despise all of the men in this world.

You studied hard after that, took patisserie classes, not bothered by guys and dating. You get on your feet and finally, you open a bakery in the middle of the city with your best friend. It is like a successful revenge. Even that jerk ruined your life, you still have your best friend and a great job that you have always dreamt of.

You always love baking since you are just a little kid. You love the moment when you wait in front of the oven. You love to see how all the raw ingredients turn into an edible one. And you love to give your food to people, you love seeing their reaction. There was even a time when you made bread with a miso paste fillings. It was a horrible combination that made Hani and your family throw up. But you love trying new things, or just watching them trying your disgusting food.

You put the cookies in the oven. This time you made a batch of sumbitches, cookies filled with peanut butter, chocolate, and caramel. It is your bakery’s special and most favorite one because your customers are mostly girls. Who says that the girls need love? Well, who needs love if you can eat chewy, sweet, salty, and crunchy fresh baked cookies while watching Netflix?

Taehyung decides to go back to the Company after his lunch. He is racking his brain to avoid the other guys. He looks at his watch. The meeting should be over in an hour. He better moves faster. He speed-walks to his cubicle, nodding at everyone in his way. It is not that he has a job to do. He hasn’t got a new mission yet, so he basically can slack around. He sits on his chair. It’s been a while since he moved back to this city. He always chose to be located in other countries as an asset. He loves to interact with new people and to be in a new environment, not stuck in this tiny cubicle in a suit. But after that Hawaii Mission, the boss orders him to return to the head office, and well, he can’t refuse. Even Yoongi, who was an asset in Hawaii, ordered his return too.

He moves his chair around. He is bored. Maybe he is going to ask Jungkook to play with him. Oh but Jungkook is at the meeting. He sighs as he props his hand under his chin.

“Tae! Where have you been?” It’s the voice he wants to avoid the most. She walks to his cubicle with her bag on her shoulder. He can see the scar on her cheek is not as red as before, since it was from two weeks ago. “You are lucky, the Boss didn’t ask for you!”

He smiles sheepishly. “Ah, right. I kinda forget. So how is the meeting?”

She looks at him suspiciously and puts her arms across her chest. “Yoongi found that Ji Seok had contacted some people before he came to Hawaii. So, we need to investigate them. They sound suspicious from what Yoongi told us before. We thought that they might be the newest members of the Black.”

He tilts his head. “I’m sorry. We?” He is fine with another job to save him from boredom, but to work with her again? It’s just uncomfortable.

She laughs, “Oh, I am sorry. I mean you, Yoongi, Jin, Jimin, and Hoseok. Everyone except me and Namjoon. Can you believe that?”

Taehyung raises one of his eyebrows. At some point, he feels relief that he won’t work with her. “What? Why?”

“Namjoon is getting his ‘punishment’ and sent away to teach the recruits and as for me, I have finally decided to go on therapy.” She smiles proudly.

His jaw drops, “Oh my God! I am so glad you decided to do that!” He stands and hugs her tightly. “What makes you change your mind?”

She returns the hug. “Well, Namjoon kinda talked me into it. I was afraid I would get fired, at first. But he told me that if I get fired, he will leave too.” She laughs. “And after that, I gathered all of my courage to tell our Boss. Fortunately, he doesn’t fire me and encourages me to go to therapy. They told me to think about myself first.”

He gulps and gives a faint smile. “I am so happy for you.”

She then releases his hug. “I want to talk to you more, but I must go to my first session. Talk to you soon, okay?” she then waves and walks to the tall man standing beside the door. The tall man smiles and then puts his arms behind her back and walks with her happily. She never smiles like that before and if Namjoon is the only one who can make her happy, he will gladly let her go. Even if his heart aches whenever he sees her with Namjoon, he will be happy for her. He tries to be happy for her.

He needs to move on. He must let her go.

He drowns in his thoughts, not realizing Jimin walks to him. “Hey, bro. How are you?” Jimin has always been his best friend. They both went to college together and finally decided to work in the same place, Taehyung works in the field area, whereas Jimin works as a handler. Her handler. And Jimin was the one who introduced her to Taehyung.

Taehyung sighs. “So-so.”

Jimin pats his shoulder. “I know. You are doing good, by the way. I am so proud of you.” Jimin always knows about Taehyung’s love for her. It’s not that he is not supporting it, but Jimin has always known that the girl loves Namjoon, since a long time ago. Basically, he is stuck in between helping Taehyung, his best friend, or helping the girl. But love is not that simple, and can’t be controlled with a mere human being like him. It just goes with the flow like a log in the river. And unlucky for Taehyung, the log flows to another stream. “Just tell me if you want to hit the strip club okay? Hoseok is waiting for it too.”

“Haha. Yeah right.” Taehyung shrugs. “Maybe next couple of years.”

“Dude. Why are you so pessimistic about it? You are going to move on soon.”

Taehyung glares at him. “I have loved her for 3 years, okay? It’s not that simple to unlove someone you love.”

Jimin sighs. “You know what? I think you need a palate cleanser.”

Taehyung knits his brows. “What? Why do I need that bakery?”

“What bakery?” He asks back. “No, what I mean is you need some sex to help you get over her! And then you can get ready for a new one.”

“So, you suggest that I should hook up with a prostitute?” He crosses his arms across his chest, finding Jimin’s suggestion to be amusing. Amusing as Jimin who is a hopeless romantic and has been in love with his childhood friend since he was a kid suddenly told him to get a one night stand.

“Eww. No! Just look for a girl, you stupid. Hang out more.”

Taehyung chuckles. “Shouldn’t it be easier to find a prostitute?”

Jimin’s nose scrunches in disgust. “If you say a prostitute again, I won’t ever talk to you.” He then drops a binder on Taehyung’s desk. “Anyway, this is the data for our mission. Jin said that we would have a meeting tomorrow, so you should study it. Oh, did I mention that I am joining the fieldwork too? Finally, I don’t need to stay in front of my computer. I am so thrilled!”

“Wow, congrats bro.” Taehyung pats his shoulder and takes the binder and opens it. “But you should practice your gun skill more then.”

“Right! I think I will practice after this. Alright then, if you need other data just tell me, okay? I’ll see you soon.” Jimin then walks away.

Taehyung drifts his attention to the binder. It looks like there are 3 suspects. They have been contacted by Ji Seok for at least ten times in the last 3 months before Ji Seok is caught. The First suspect is Byun Baekhyun, he went to the same college with Ji Seok, now working in a restaurant in the city. The contacts all happened in his restaurant, with no telephone trace. The second suspect is Park Chanyeol, he lived in the same neighborhood with Ji Seok. He now works as a journalist in a food magazine, last seen with Ji Seok at a work party. The last suspect is Jung Eunji, she has no connection with Ji Seok, but her credit card was used to buy a plane ticket to Hawaii.

His forehead furrows. There is still not enough data to capture them, which means they needed to go to the field to investigate. Another troublesome mission. But at least, he won’t be stuck in front of his computer.

It is the morning. You wake up lazily. You are not a morning person. Even though you have a job which requires you to go to work at 6 am for years, you still go to bed after midnight. You always have other activities that make you busy, either you watch movies or read books. Well, not books. You have been using Tumblr for almost 10 years now. That application has occupied your browser history for almost 10 years, and that is the only reason why people never get to see your phone, there are too many links to your favorite smut authors. There is no way people can see that. Basically it’s just like porn, but you always think that it is more than that. Smut is just full of artistic things too. You love how the author writes such a poetic description of humping with emotional touches which make you cry until 2 in the morning. Well, you did other stuff too besides crying. Let’s just say that not only your face is wet.

You take a quick shower before you go to work. You wrap your body in a towel and pick your clothes for today in the closet. You never go to work in classy clothes, usually, you just wear a t-shirt and jeans, you have to change into your kitchen clothes later after all. You wear your black t-shirt and your ripped jeans quickly, then after tying your hair into a messy bun, you grab your jacket and your purse on the couch. You should go now if you don’t want to be late, or getting scolded by Hani. You shudder in reflex.

It is still chilly in the morning. You keep thinking to yourself, why you hate morning so much when you love the morning weather and how empty the road is, like you own it. You yawn. Well, you hate the wake-up part in the morning. You hate to leave the comfort and the warmth of your blanket.

The walk from your apartment to your bakery is not that long. You are lucky to find such an affordable apartment in the middle of the city. It is small, but it is still livable and pretty. It is close to many things, like the market, train station, and even your bakery. It is a pity you don’t live with Hani. You were going to be Hani’s roommate when you first moved to the city, but now she lives with his boyfriend, Jackson. That’s why, when you first saw the ad of your apartment, you called it without any further thinking.

You arrive at the bakery as you sigh in relief for not seeing Hani’s head inside. Lucky to you, she won’t scold you for this morning. You unlock the door and go straight to your locker room to change your clothes. You then skillfully sweep, mop, and wash all the dishes. And after an hour, you begin to prepare your today’s bread. It’s just your usual menu in your bakery. While you are preparing the dough, your mind wanders, where the hell is Hani?

It’s almost 9 am, and you still can’t find Hani anywhere. You wanted to call her, but as clumsy as you are, you left your phone in your apartment. So you just hope that Hani is fine but her ass will not because you are gonna kick her ass for letting you prepare the bread alone. You sigh as you walk to the front door to turn the sign to ‘Open’.

It has always been a hectic morning for two people to make, display the bread, and handle the customers. And now you are the only one here. It is basically like a war. You still feel lucky, to have people loving your bread. But after 2 hours of working alone, you are admitting defeat. You change the sign on the door to ‘Still baking’ and run to the kitchen to bake some more. It is the only thing you could think of right now. All the bread this morning has already sold out, after all. You are never a multi-tasking girl. So it seems fair for you to work in this type of situation or you will go insane.

Your next batch of bread is already in the oven, and you finally can take a breather. You look at your clock on the wall, it’s almost noon, and Hani is still nowhere to be seen. You begin to worry, but it’s not like you can leave the bakery alone. Then the bell on the door rings. You almost run to the front to yell at Hani for coming so late, but instead Hani, it is a guy.

It’s a guy from yesterday.

He wears a different suit from yesterday, now he is wearing a navy one. His curly hair falls on his forehead smoothly, framing his frowning brows. “Are you close or something?” he asks after he observes your display area.

“My friend is a little late, so I work alone right now.” You give a half-smile, a business one. “If you do mind, you can come back for an hour for the bread. Can’t you see the sign on the door?”

He turns his sculpted face to the door, “Oh, right. Sorry.” He then walks to the seating area, “Can I wait here?”

You bite your lip. But before you say anything to him to forbid him, your alarm in the kitchen rings. You snarl and walk back to the kitchen. “Your call.��� You begin to pick your bread and put it to the cooling rack. You then put the already cool one to the plastic back to put it on the display later. Your eyes leer to the guy sitting casually in the seating area in front of the cashier. The presence of a man close to you is kind of uncomfortable.

Taehyung looks at you from the kitchen window. It is a big glass window to show what’s going on inside the kitchen. And that noon, the window lives to its purpose, he can see what you are doing inside. He can see how uncomfortable you are. How you fidget every time you have nothing on your hand. How your eyes sometimes leer at him. It is his ability to know body language, he is an agent, after all. He knows that you are nervous.

Since you told him that all men are trash yesterday, he still thinks of you as a weird girl. Somehow he is drawn to you. At first, he thought it was just a joke or a prank, but seeing how awkward you are when you see him, he realizes that you do hate men. And he thinks it’s really adorable.

You then go out from the kitchen with a pan of freshly baked bread and walk to the display. You put them neatly, quietly, trying not to mind him, while mentally praying for Hani to come sooner.

“Wow, you really do hate men, don’t you?” He asks abruptly.

His deep voice startled you. Your empty pan falls to the ground as the impact, making a loud noise in the room. You then give him a dirty look. “Pardon?”

He walks to the display area, casually observing the bread. He then takes a piece of bread. “I thought it just a joke when you said all men are trash.” He walks back to his chair, opens the plastic, and bite the bread.

You raise one of your eyebrows. “So?” You ask without batting an eye.

“Nothing. Just find it amusing.”

You walk to the chair in front of him and pull it. You sit there facing him. “You have a problem with that?”

“No.” Taehyung throws his last bite to his mouth and chews it quickly. He inches forward to your face. “Let me guess. Hm.. You got dumped, didn’t you?”

You widen your eyes. “No, I didn’t! I was the one who dumped him!” You put your hand on your mouth. What the hell are you doing telling strangers that?

He hums and folds his arms across his chest. “Okay, let me try again.” He studies you for a bit. “Your boyfriend cheated on you with your friend?”

Your jaw drops and you can feel a flush crept on your face. “How do you know?” You ask in a shock.

He smirks and shrugs confidently. “I am just that good you know.” He chuckles. “Actually no, I just guessed it.”

Just when you wanted to reply to him, the door opened harshly. And there you find your best friend rushing towards you. “Oh my God, Y/N! I am sorry.”

You observe her from the top to her feet, well, she seems fine. That’s the important thing. You sigh. “Where have you been?”

“Jackson got sick so I took him to the hospital. I have been calling you for a hundred times, where is your phone?” Hani asks. You can see her face is bare, she didn’t even draw her eyebrows.

“I left it at home. Is Jackson okay?”

Hani takes off his jacket and rolls her sleeves. “Yeah, just a little infection, he will be fine.” She looks around the bakery. “I can’t believe you open this yourself, I feel terrible.”

You wave your hands. “It’s okay. But I think we should hire a part-timer. It has been a hell for me.”

She rubs her chin. “Yes, I think it is time for us to have a helper.” Hani then looks to the side to find a man there. “I am sorry. Am I interrupting something?” She smiles.

Taehyung smiles back and laughs. “Not really. We just discussed about her hatred of men. I got free bread for guessing the reason right!”

“It’s not free-“

You are interrupted by Hani’s laughter. “It is ridiculous, right? I talked to her all the time that not all men are like that.” Her voice then quieten. “I even told her to find a palate cleanser, you know. And, this is a lil bit TMI. But actually, it’s the reason why we use that name for our bakery.”

Palate cleanser. Taehyung then remembers what Jimin said to him yesterday. And an idea comes to his head.

You push Hani’s back to the locker room. “Alright, alright. Just go change already.” She follows your instruction as she waves to Taehyung.

Taehyung looks at his watch and then gathers his stuff and rises from his chair. He walks towards you and he holds out his hand to you. “I am Taehyung.”

You take his hand after many considerations. “Y/N.”

Taehyung smiles. He then takes his wallet out from his pocket and pulls out a card. A black name card. “This is my number. If you are interested in the palate cleanser thing,” he then forcefully puts the name card on your hand, “please give me a call.” He winks and Taehyung walks away to the door, leaving you speechless on the spot.

You are stunned, seeing the card on your hand. After a few seconds, you realize. You ran outside to catch him. “Hey, you haven’t paid!” but Taehyung has vanished in the crowded road.

“Finally!” Jimin yells. All of the 5 members gather in the meeting room, with Jin in the middle. It’s already 15 minutes past the meeting time. Taehyung walks faster and sits beside his friend.

Jin sighs, “I swear to God, if you are late one more time, I will kick your ass in the practice room.” He shifts his eye to Jungkook beside him. “Actually, I will ask Jungkook to do it.”

Taehyung being such a brat, like he always does, shrugs. “Fine. I am sorry. Please continue the meeting.”

Jin pouts and rolls his eyes. “What I am saying is, we need to gather as many pieces of information from the 3 suspects and they should know nothing. The Black is still an influential organization. We must be careful not to attract any attention.”

Hoseok raises his hand. “But actually, haven’t we attracted the attention already by capturing the leader in Hawaii?”

“That’s true. But most of the new members seem to be a rookie in this field, they haven’t been that loyal to him. For short, they are terrified. They will do whatever they take to throw all of the evidence that shows they’re in the organization right away. That’s why it’s our chance to dig a little deeper.” Jin continues.

“So what is the plan?” Jungkook asks.

Yoongi rises from his seat and connects his laptop. He then shows all of the suspect’s profiles. “Jin and I already talked to our boss. We think that we should divide ourselves into groups to tail them.”

“So, Jimin and Yoongi will investigate Jung Eunji. Taehyung and Hoseok will investigate Park Chanyeol, and the last, Jungkook and I will investigate Byun Baekhyun.” Jin folds his hands across his chest. “You will be needed to submit your report every single day at 00.00. Just tailing, no harsh approaches. If they suspect something, you will retreat and report to me. We don’t need another attraction. Are we clear?”

All of the members nod and rise from their seats as Jin dismisses them. Taehyung walks to Hoseok. “So do we get a stake-out van?”

It is almost midnight but you still can’t fall asleep. You move your body anxiously on the bed, trying to get comfortable. Finally, you surrender. You pick your phone, scrolling on Tumblr. It is a bad idea actually. You always think that reading some stories will make you go to sleep, but instead, you feel excited and end up reading fifteen chapters of 10k stories. But tonight, you can’t find other stories to read.

You sigh. Your mind begins to wander. And suddenly Taehyung pops out in your mind. A palate cleanser, huh? It is tempting actually. He looks nice. Well, nice doesn’t do justice to him. You have never found a guy as handsome as him. It really makes nonsense to you. His beauty is beyond words. And to have such a guy to offer you such service, you must be dreaming.

Or, is he a prostitute? That’s why he looks so ethereal!

You turn your headlamp on and walk to your purse, where you kept his name card. You look at it carefully on both sides. It is just a simple card, with simple ‘Kim Taehyung’ written in gold in the center, with his email and phone number under it and ‘The Company’ on the other side of the card. It seems too sophisticated for a prostitute’s agency, well, not that you ever got it though. Or is he like an exclusive prostitute?

Should I just text him? You sit on your couch. You input his number on your phone and hit the message button. What should I send? You tap your phone on your chin. You have never texted a guy since college. It is lame actually. Whenever you got a guy’s number, you always ignore it. But now, you just got the feeling that you can ignore Taehyung.

You walk to your pantry, pouring a glass of wine, and bring the bottle to the couch. You begin to type.

To Taehyung: Hey...

You knit your eyebrows, what are you? A high schooler? You can do better than this. You delete and begin typing again. You gulp the wine in one shot and pour another glass.

To Taehyung: Dear, Kim Taehyung. I was happy to receive your number and I hope to see you again.

Are you his business partner? Damn, woman. Just type casually. You drink your wine again. Typing and deleting, and drinking. For several hours. Until you fell asleep on the couch with the phone on your hand.

And just like the safety slogan on the road, ‘Don’t Drink and Drive���. You need a new one.

‘Don’t drink and type’

[cattles-bians]

the 'um. are our exes dating' damie thread

post directory

em: unfortunately i have ‘rebecca as jamies old flame’ brainworms and ‘viola as danis old flame’ brainworms bc lesbians sure be forming these intricate webs of exes

obsetress: bestie the best part of this is that, like all exes, dani and jamie end up together, but so do rebecca and viola, yes this is canon and no i will not be taking questions

em: holy SHIT now THAT is a rarepair!!!!!!!

em: i mean they have a lot of free time stuck in that lake.......

obsetress: so what if i made custom discord emotes specifically so it would look like they were on a date

em: WHAT IF

em: viola: on her nightly wander through the grounds

me twirling my hair: haha do you come here often

obsetress: sometimes i just like to think about how viola is a taurus and rebestiecca is a virgo and they have the swankiest flat in london together with marble countertops and stainless steel appliances and rebecca is a high powered attorney and viola buys all the designer clothes she wants and dani and jamie will come into the city to visit them but then rebecca and vi immediately start fighting and dani and jamie are like "uh owen can you come pick us up they're fighting again" but he's too busy taking hannah out to a nice dinner so they just end up getting a hotel instead and then show up to brunch the next morning and rebecca and viola are there smiling pleasantly like nothing happened and viola didn't throw a box of biscuits against the wall just last night and when dani can't control her big mouth and asks about it (jamie elbowing her in the ribs as she takes a big gulp of bloody mary) viola and rebecca just look confused and rebecca furrows her brows and is like "what fight?" and dani and jamie just look at each other and jamie shrugs and slings an arm over dani's shoulder and then they order another round of drinks but like i said i only think about this sometimes it's not like it's a full-blown headcanon or anything)

em: there is so much to process here hannah but: taurus viola is such a god tier take & i can’t believe i never thought about it?? earth sign queens

obsetress: thank you i agree and i promise you this is not my taurus ass projecting, viola is actually a textbook taurus and in this essay i will––

em: i love typing a response and by the time i send a reply there is a full fic in my mentions

obsetress: like i said! not something i think about all the time or anything!

em: yeah viola is a little volatile sometimes but they always talk abt it after and most importantly they never go 2 bed angry! violas workin through some stuff n rebecca doesn’t let her push her around

em: i MEAN or they’re totally dysfunctional but i’m dying at damie like ‘ah owen cna u pick us up the girls are fighting again’

obsetress: rebecca sits her down and makes her talk about it and she gently steers vi towards "i feel" statements, focuses on stating "you did x, and it made me feel y," and when she covers vi's hand with hers, gently stroking her thumb over her knuckles, all the tension leaves vi's body

obsetress: and viola's willing, just for a minute, to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, rebecca was right. but only this one time

obsetress: (rebecca does her best to hold back a smirk, because "only this one time" seems to happen every time, but she's not about to say that to viola's face, not now, when vi's leaning into her and nuzzling against her cheek)

em: oh this is Tender

em: damie sitting in the restaurant completely baffled makes me Lose It like yeah ok we all wanna be gentle emotionally intelligent lesbians dani clayton or jamie taylor but some of us aren’t quite there yet!!

obsetress: viola, staring at jamie's arm slung over dani's shoulder and the way dani's beaming over at her, tangling her fingers with jamie's: do you two... need to be doing that? why are you doing that

obsetress: rebecca: they're in love, babe

viola: i don't feel the need to do... that, and i love you just fine

rebecca: i love you just fine, too

dani and jamie: (staring, horrified, across the table as their waiter serves them their eggs benedict)

em: @ dani @ jamie some people aren’t on the cusp of fucking at Any Given Moment

obsetress: you: (that)

dani: i don't understand the question

rebecca: it... wasn't a question

obsetress: they're just tryna be cottagecore and vi and rebecca are out here all big city earth sign power lesbians fighting in their penthouse apartment and dani's just like "wow you two have a dishwasher???? how neat"

em: vi constantly answers the door in expensive dressing gowns that show way too much leg and the first couple times dani and jamie are suddenly v interested in the wall paper but eventually they’re just like congrats on the tits maam can we have a spot of tea

em: violas like, gloating about some business investment or properties or a lucrative deal she was ruthless enough to land and danis like oh cool :) i’ve been making a lot of jam lately. would u like some jam

obsetress: inflated property value ex-gf and homemade jam ex-gf

obsetress: meanwhile, their respective gfs, won over the jury in closing arguments ex-gf and successfully integrated a new bee colony and harvested her first jar of honey ex-gf, are sipping their whiskey and watching, enamored, as it all plays out

em: viola cannot understand they’re perfectly happy in their cosy little apartment above the shop n she’s like ‘i have some gorgeous new properties if you ever want to-‘ and rebecca and dani have to figure out how to change the topic before jamie goes off w her Kill Landlords polemic

obsetress: jamie, later: i will tolerate her, dani, i will tolerate her because you love her and because rebecca loves her, but i swear to GOD if she "not all landlords" me one more time i'll––

em: jamie ‘card carrying socialist’ taylor cannot fucking stand viola half the time n eventually she half jokes that dani ‘downgraded’ to her drop out working class ass n danis like ??? oh babe. baby cmere. me and vi broke up for like 1000 reasons but the class difference didn’t Help

em: way later dani mumbles something like ‘i said the $2 aldi wine tasted perfectly drinkable and she didn’t speak to me for days’ and jamies like ‘pardon?’ but danis already Zonked Out

obsetress: ldkjfslkdfjlsj this part SENT me just. the idea of dani's final, dozing thought being viola pressed over the two dollar aldi wine

obsetress: sometimes jamie doesn't understand how dani could've dated viola at all, but then they'll be at dinner and rebecca will make some comment about some case and dani and viola's hackles will raise in the exact same way and they'll start popping right tf off down the same lane

obsetress: and jamie's like "oh, right. that"

obsetress: (it also doesn't hurt, jamie begrudgingly admits to herself next time viola answers the door Tits Out™️, that viola's hot. super hot)

———

bonus:

audacity: just. the chaos of capitalist vi and socialist jamie being in the same fucking room

audacity: liberal versus leftist ding ding ding round one fight

obsetress: i’m crying liberal vs leftist that’s literally it

obsetress: “of course i’m a leftist, jamie, i’m gay” “that’s not—“

audacity: i love you vi but my money’s on jamie HSKDHSKDHSJSH

audacity: GOD

audacity: VI NOT EVEN KNOWING LIB IS NOT LEFTIST I—

obsetress: “it’s not like i’m a conservative just because i have money, please”

audacity: jamie looking at vi’s ostentatious new dress and going “how many renters did you make homeless for THAT”

[busterkeatonfanfic]

Chapter 8

Buster woke the following morning feeling like hell. His nostrils were so stuffy he could barely breathe out of them, his nose was on fire, and his mouth still tasted like blood even though he’d brushed his teeth twice before bed. He stumbled to the bathroom to look at the damage. Two small purple bruises underscored his eyes and the bridge of his nose was swollen to twice its size. His appearance confirmed that canceling filming had been the right decision. He swallowed some aspirin, cleaned his teeth again, and took a shower, letting the steam open his clogged sinuses. 

The aspirin barely touched the pain. He toweled off and pulled on a dressing gown, then poured himself a breakfast whiskey to go with the steak and eggs he ordered. Once he’d eaten, he called Nate. To his relief, he was patched over to her line; she hadn’t left for Sunday brunch at Dutch’s yet. 

“Hello?” she said.

“Hi, how are you?” he said.

She told him that she was well. 

He said, “I broke my nose in the game last night.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry. How?”

He explained the eighth-inning fastball to the face. “But we won the game. 9 to 6.”

“Did you?” she said. “That’s too bad about your nose though. I’m sorry, darling.”

She sounded suitably sympathetic, but he craved more. He wanted the soothing, the I’ll-be-right-there, the kissing and canoodling. 

“How are the boys?” he said.

“The usual,” she said. “Full of the devil.”

“Good,” he said. “I won’t be filming for a few days because of my nose. You should really consider bringing them up. They’d love the steamboats and I’d like you to see the set. They say the shopping is good in Yolo, too.”

“Oh Buster,” she said, her tone telling him the answer was already a big fat no. “You know I’d love to, but six hours on a train is too much for them, don’t you think? I know you’re disappointed, but we must think of what’s best for them. And wouldn’t they be in your way? I’d have to bring Connie to mind them, and I think four is getting to be a crowd. I don’t suppose your suite would hold another four, would it?”

“Nate, you don’t have to bring the governess. I think you’re perfectly capable of managing them for a few days, don’t you? We can get a second suite or even a third, if that’s what has you concerned.”

“I’m flattered by your faith in me,” she said with a little laugh, “but you’ve never traveled with three- and five-year-old boys! I know I’m letting you down, but it’s only another month, isn’t it? Five weeks tops? That’s really not so bad when you think of it.”

“Yeah, it’s not too bad,” he said, echoing her hollowly.

“I miss you dreadfully,” she assured him, before launching into a story about the picture Dutch was filming and the party she intended to throw with her sisters at the Villa next weekend. He listened with only half an ear. He wasn’t surprised about her answer to his proposal, but he still felt lousy.

Since Bobby had been born and Nate had booted him out of the bed, he’d accepted that his needs would have to be satisfied by other women. He knew that Nate hated him for it, even though he’d stuck to his original promise and been the soul of discretion. In spite of her rejection, he still desired her and wanted to win her back, but the most she would ever permit was necking and light petting. If he so much as thought about taking things further, she’d squirm out of his grasp. He just didn’t understand, even three years since he’d last made love to her, why he couldn’t have both a wife and the rights that other husbands were entitled to. He’d gone over it in his head a thousand times. Was he a bad lover? Was it her upbringing? Peg’s sermonizing? Her religion? Could she be a lesbian? He didn’t know and God forbid he even try to broach the topic. She’d give him such a withering look before she stalked out of the room that he felt like he ought to be thrown in jail on charges of sex depravity for even mentioning the idea. 

Divorce was out of the question, naturally. There were relationships to preserve: the one with Joe for starters and those with his famous sisters-in-law. He didn’t trust that Nate wouldn’t try to keep the boys from him, either, if he tried to end it. He could just hear her saying to some attorney, ‘Well, he doesn’t see them much anyway.’ In the meantime, all the saphead could do was to keep trying vainly to find that opening in his wife’s affections. Casting her as his leading lady hadn’t worked. Building her a little love-nest, then a great big love-nest, hadn’t worked. He’d recently decided that maybe a real honeymoon instead of the post-nuptial cross-country train trip that had masqueraded as one might work on her. He figured deep down it wouldn’t change her mind, but still he had his foolish hopes. 

When Natalie was done prating, he told her he had to get ready for lunch with Joe and said his goodbyes. There wasn’t any such lunch, but he no longer wanted to talk. 

He ended up spending the afternoon at the new zoo, disguised by a fake moustache, a tweed cap, and jumper vest that constricted him in heat on what was already a sweltering day. It worked, though. No one looked twice at him. The zoo was a disappointment. To begin with, it was extraordinarily tiny, but more importantly most of the animals featured—deer, wild turkey, raccoons—could be seen if you just sat in a Muskegon tree long enough. The most exotic offering consisted of some listless-looking monkeys in cages. A pack of adolescent boys thumped on their wire enclosures and screeched at them to perform. “Pick on someone your own size!” he yelled at them, and they scattered. The monkeys blinked back at him, not seeming to care one way or the other. 

He did have dinner with Joe that night at the Italian Restaurant in the Julius Hotel. As Buster tucked into his truffle tagliatelle, Joe dropped the bomb. 

“We can’t have the flood sequence.”

Buster laughed. “It sounded like you just said ‘We can’t have the flood sequence,’ Joe, but I don’t think I heard you right,” he said, and took a bite of tagliatelle. “Good one, though.”

“I’m not kidding. Think about how it’ll look. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi—”

“Sacrasippi,” Buster said, lifting his eyebrows.

“Cut it out,” said Joe, frowning. “I’m trying to be serious. You’ve got a river that’s supposed to be the Mississippi and it’s supposed to flood. Well, you know as well as I do that hundreds of people just lost their lives in the Mississippi floods.”

“Since when do you care?” said Buster. If there was one thing he’d always liked about Joe, it was that he let him alone and let him make the pictures his own way. Something about this smelled fishy.

“It’s in poor taste. It’s not going to get laughs, it’s just going to bring bad publicity. I don’t want it to flop. There’s too much money in it.”

Buster set down his fork. Two words had stuck out: publicity and money. “This is Harry, isn’t it?” he said, narrowing his eyes.

Joe gave a slight wave of his hand, dismissing the comment. “Now don’t go blaming Harry. I happen to agree with him. It would be a risky thing, and God knows what it would cost to pull it off anyway.”

“Well that god damn bean-counter,” said Buster, anger flaring. “We’ve already got everything set up for a flood! The entire god damn picture is about a flood. That’s the entire point!” Joe looked at him with a firm expression. “I’ve made up my mind. We can’t do a flood.”

“Well, we may as well can the whole picture then,” Buster said. “All my best gags are built around the flood. I can’t just start from scratch.”

“Look,” said Joe, continuing to eat his own meal. “We’re talking about lost lives here. You can see that, can’t you?”

“Horseshit,” said Buster. “Remember Chaplin’s picture Shoulder Arms? The ink wasn’t even dry on the Armistice when he released that. I remember ‘cause it was the first thing I saw after I got back from France. Everyone loved it. No one was thinking about how many soldiers had just gotten their heads and legs blown off in the war, they just knew a funny picture when they saw one.” He clenched his left fist in his lap. 

“Why not try another disaster?” Joe said.

“Like what?” he said. He stabbed at the pasta with his fork and took a bite without pleasure.

“I’m not the brains here.”

“What, like a cyclone? Joe, I bet you tornadoes and hurricanes kill more people each year than floods. Sure we wouldn’t get bad reviews and angry letters from folks whose families have been killed by tornadoes?”

Joe waved his hand again. “A cyclone sounds just fine. Anything that’s not a flood, you can do.”

It stunk to high heaven as far as Buster was concerned, but he knew Joe well enough to see when he’d made up his mind. He finished his tagliatelle in silence and didn’t even pretend he was willing to pick up the tab when Joe went to pay. He took a taxi back to the Senator and went to bed early, tossing between the sheets and stewing about his lost flood. There were butter cookies in the brown paper sack making dark greasy spots on its sides. Nelly stood outside Buster’s dressing room, her heart racing with the memory of what had happened last time she’d stepped inside it. Before she lost her nerve, she tapped on the door. 

“Come in!” called Buster. 

She slipped through and closed the door. He was sitting at his table again, not in costume today but wearing dark slacks and a long-sleeved blue jacquard shirt with faint stripes.

“Hi, it’s Nelly,” she said, by way of greeting. 

“I haven’t forgotten your name,” said Buster, one corner of his mouth quirking. “What do you have there?”

She stepped a few feet forward and extended the bag. “I made you cookies.”

He looked from the bag to her as he took it, surprised. “What did I do to deserve such an honor?”

“I heard you broke your nose,” she said. Indeed, she could see up close that his nose was swollen near the top and there were small faded bruises beneath his eyes, not noticeable unless you were next to him.

“So you baked me cookies.” He peeked inside. 

“Yes. I wanted to thank you, too,” she said, feeling the full ridiculousness of her gesture. “For taking care of me last Friday night.”

“No one’s ever made me get-well cookies before, not even my own mother. I’d just get cod-liver oil, even for sprains.” He sounded pleased.

“How’s your nose?” she said, as he bit into a cookie. 

“Hurts like the dickens,” he said, chewing. “I’m hoping the swelling will go down by Friday so I can start filming again.” He didn’t remark upon the cookie as he finished it, but she noticed he pulled another out of the bag. “We’re doing the night scenes soon.”

She was still a little fuzzy on Steamboat Bill’s plot, but this week’s filming had involved hundreds of local extras, and the grander of the two steamboats was piloted up and down the river, belching out huge plumes of black smoke. She’d taken a break to watch the spectacle. The crowd’s enthusiasm for the steamboat seemed real. The whole set certainly looked real thanks to all the props down by the riverside, the small boats, the large pennants reading KING, and the patriotic bunting draped on storefronts. Buster had been on hand near the cameras helping direct, but hadn’t noticed her in the throngs.

Buster went on. “I’ve got this publicity man who says I can’t have a flood because of the lives that were lost when the Mississippi flooded, so we’re changing everything up for a cyclone.” She marveled a little that he was telling her anything about the production, but tried not to show it. “I wondered what those airplane propellers and big motors Bert had me order were for,” she said. 

“These are good,” said Buster, pulling a third cookie from the bag. “Remind me to get hurt more often.”

“Or rescue foolish girls from themselves more often,” she said. 

“It was nothing,” he said. 

“It was something to me.” 

He considered her as he started on the third cookie. 

“Anyway, I already took lunch. I’ve got to get back to the shop,” she said.

“Okay,” he said. 

She had her hand on the door when he spoke up again. 

“Why that Shrew play, anyway? Why not Juliet?”

She turned back and looked at him, thoroughly confused. She had no idea how he knew about one of her dearest and closest ambitions.

He noticed her puzzlement and clarified. “You said your dream was to star in that Shrew play. Why? Why not Romeo and Juliet?”

“I don’t remember telling you that,” she said, feeling abashed

“Well, don’t get bent out of shape about it, I was just asking,” he said, a little defensively. 

“No, I’m not bent out of shape, I’m surprised,” she said, as she faced him. “I don’t remember saying that. I’m afraid of what else I, uh, might have said that night.” She cringed to think of what else might have come out of her mouth. “I hope I didn’t beg you for a break or anything.”

He regarded her with a calm expression. “You didn’t. I’d still like to know, though.”

“Well, Kate has a mind of her own. She wants to control her own fate. Marriage isn’t for her,” she said, conscious of how clumsy her words were. “She’s fun to play. Romeo and Juliet is a little boring.”

In truth, it was Katherine’s spirit which she loved, the rebellion against her father and Petruchio, and hang the end of the play. In her experience, the audience never remembered the end of the play, only the beginning and middle where Katherine was at her most defiant and fiery. 

Buster nodded, elbow on the table and finger sliding absently under his lip. The silence stretched on for long enough that Nelly said, “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Thanks for the cookies,” Buster said.

Note: It’s easy when writing a fiction about Buster Keaton to cast Natalie Talmadge as a villain. I prefer to listen to Buster’s granddaughter Melissa Talmadge Cox who points out that the divorce is ancient history and that fans should get over it! Even though I’m writing a story that is obviously canon divergent, I always remember that Buster lived happily ever after with Eleanor Norris Keaton and considered himself to have had a lucky life with very few dark spots. Why did Natalie put a end to her sex life with the gorgeous, winsome Buster Keaton? I think the likeliest explanation is that she just wasn’t attracted to him or simply didn’t like sex. I do think Buster really loved her too and wanted things to work out, which is why their marriage lasted as long as it did. I’ve tried to convey that with this story. Also, I’m with Natalie. Trying to travel hours on a train with two young rambunctious boys sounds like a nightmare, even with a governess.  And yes, the Keaton governess was also named Connie, not to be confused with Constance “Connie” Talmadge, who was also frequently called Dutch. Finally, with a lot of digging through newspapers I learned that the date Buster broke his nose was July 30th, 1927! So the first scene takes place on the 31st. The second occurs on Wednesday, August 3rd.

[cicaklah]

2020 - a year in fic

2020 was a terrible year, of course, but in terms of yer girl cicak writing fic, it was the most bumper year since *checks official records* records began. (Records in this case being 2010 and in the AO3). Ten years on the ao3! What a milestone.

It was a weird year in fic. I started out super obsessed with The Witcher, and was sure this was the second coming of old fashioned big fandoms, and then almost as soon as I started, I promptly lost interest. I like writing it, but I wasn’t really interested in reading it, or rewatching the series. Therefore I just sort of...wandered away, and periodically came back when some really stupid idea grabbed me and wouldn’t let go.

These were: look what you made me do - the most popular fic I’ve written in a decade of concentrated fic writing. In which Jaskier is basically Taylor Swift c. 2014, and everyone in fantasy Poland wants to know who inspires all those bangers he keeps churning out, and Geralt has a lot of feelings about turnips and his horse and badly timed goats and also whether Jaskier really has been singing about him this whole time. Contains goatus interruptus and my second favourite OC, Titch Westmoreland, tax collector and enthusiastic shipper.

I wrote a sequel to that called Jas Queen, where Geralt goes to see Jaskier perform his new song cycle, and then gets hella laid in the dressing room by Jaskier in drag as Queen Calanthe. 

Then @nim-lock drew said hella laying and as thanks I wrote vestis virus whatever the latin is wrong, which is Jaskier, rich aesthete, taking advantage of someone stealing Geralt’s clothes to play dressup, which was an excuse to write SEXUAL TENSION, which way too many months later, I consummated in an indentation in the shape of you. 

I continue to not apologise to tswift for anything.

And then out of the blue I decided I wanted to write something stupid and so wrote how an egg makes another egg, which is the best thing I’ve written all year, you should all read it, I am a genius, all praise Meluhha and may she bless us with thick shells and double yolks in 2021. 

Anyway in the spring I got SUPER INTO Star Trek Picard, and by that I mean SUPER INTO Agnes Jurati and into how she got away with murder and shagged Santiago Cabrera, who was extra attractive this year, (and I consolidated that by watching The Musketeers, for which I wrote no fic, but I did think about writing fic for it a LOT). I wrote a small thing called ‘a knife in the country’ expecting it to get jossed within a week, and when it didn’t I went kinda...mad? and wrote a series of interlocking stories that I will collect into a series when I can think of a title. They are: red to port, green to starboard, white to guide the way, not a star in the sky that’s got our name, and nothing to fear from the siren’s call. Of these, nothing to fear from the siren’s call, my Rios manifesto that also doubles as a reflection on 10 years of my own PTSD journey, is my second favourite thing I wrote this year. 

The other thing I did this year was a WIP Amnesty, which I called the Coronavirus Decameron because at heart I am pretentious as balls. I really liked doing that, and will continue it for as long as the coronavirus continues to provide us with Unprecedented Times.

I finished off a Star Trek The Force Awakens cosmic horror story called if there is love at the end of everything that no one read because no one goes here anymore. 

I completed a DS9 erotic farce called ‘I was born like this don’t even gotta try’ which is the closest I’ll probably ever come to writing ABO (where Garak goes into heat, and asks Julian to help, so Julian volunteers his encyclopedic knowledge of holosuite wank programmes, and finally his own arse, to the cause), and then a pet gen project about Bashir’s genetic augmentation from the POV of his mother called all the sinners, saints, that led to people in the comments accusing each other of wanting autistic people to be exterminated, because this is still 2020 after all.

I wrote part 4 of lesbian han solo, it takes a village (but there’s only you and me) a series I will eventually finish at this rate sometime in 2040, where Han and Leia’s daughter is born, and their relationship begins to fail. 

I finished off one of my many, many Star Trek Discovery WIPs from 1st season when the show didn’t make me want to pull my hair out, and rediscovered my deep ashburn feels in someday I’ll love what I can’t find in you, thanks to the eternal cheerleading of @drstrangewillseeyounow. 

I also finished a Modern Raffles story that I started writing in summer 2019 when England won the world cup, that if you know your raffles and your cricket is a work of genius, but mostly went over people’s heads. It is called by the barest of margins and just, this is my third favourite thing I’ve written this year. 

Finally for the decameron, I wrote a hitman story called in every life a little rain about 47 being poisoned and hallucinating/fantasising/remembering Diana wearing fancy shoes and them maybe having a secret relationship, that I am really proud of. 

Outside of the above, I also wrote a tenet fic called never odd or even, where I attempt to fix the film somewhat, and somewhat succeeded. I’m happy with it, even if I thought it would do better in terms of engagement.

All in all I published 68,140 words of fic, most of which was written in 2020. I also wrote about 30,000 words of thesis and 20,000 words of reports for my new job. Overall, I would have written more, but I got a proper job that requires me to do things and use my brain in October, so then lost the ability to sit in front of my computer on an evening. 

Thank you to everyone who read my stories and commented in 2020, especially all the hannibal fans who discovered my old works, and anyone who reads even steak don’t cry or the rose of terok nor especially. 

May Meluhha bless us all in 2021.

[sanktprongs]

Mist ~ Rubyjane

Looking through her window, she saw the clouds begin to form and cover up the sky. Sighing, she recovered the window with the curtain. She bit her lip, leaning against the wall. One of her least favorite things in the world was rain. It didn’t rain much in her city, but when it did, it made her sad. She couldn’t go anyway without an umbrella or some sort of protection. Her curls refused her the right to go out in the rain unprotected. She hated it when her curls became a frizzy mess.

“Jane! Did you see outside? It’s about to rain!” her roommate, Ruby Gillis, calls from the hallway. Jane looks up to Ruby standing in the hallway, her cheeks flushed. At that moment Jane had thought that Ruby had never looked more beautiful. Her blonde hair was as long as she was tall and pulled back into a ponytail. Growing up Ruby had loved anything pink and frilly and she had refused to let those loves go as she transformed into an adult. Her pink skirt reached the floor and her white long sleeve had ruffles at the end of them. Her face was bare except for a hint of mascara and a lot of blush, Ruby liked looking flush all the time. Jane loved that about her.

Well, Jane just loved her.

“I did,” Jane answers, staring down at her clothes, feeling rather plain all of a sudden. She had on brown pants with a white sweater. It was practical, like herself. Wow, clothes sure did say a lot about a person.

“Oh, Jane,” Ruby says, setting her bags down on the dining table and making her way over to her brunette best friend. She leans against the wall opposite and crosses her arms, staring at her. “What is it this time?”

“You know I don’t like the rain,” Jane says, rolling her eyes, which she regrets immediately. She never meant to make Ruby upset, but she did really hate the rain.

“Okay, well, we don’t have to spend our time watching the window,” Ruby smiles, taking one of Jane’s hands in hers and pulls her away from the wall. 

“What should we do instead?” Jane asks innocently, raising her eyebrows.

Jane Andrews had been in love with Ruby Gillis since the two were sixteen and Jane had figured out what being a lesbian meant. She knew the feelings she held for her best friend were not platonic, but she also knew they were unrequited. Ruby had had her fair share of flings with boys she met in college or her co-workers. Jane was always pleasant around them, she knew she could never have Ruby so she wanted to make sure the boy that did was right for her. So far, none of them were.

Jane and Ruby had gone to college together, they had been roommates, and now they lived in their own apartment together. It was a cute, little apartment next to the city and they struggled to get by sometimes, but they managed. Neither of them wanted to take any money from their families, but both of their families were very gracious so they only accepted when they really needed it. Ruby worked as an interior designer and loved every second of it. She was always redoing random parts of their apartment with things she had gotten from work and Jane would always sit and watch her. She watched the way she struggled but refused help. She watched the way her tongue stuck out when she was thinking really hard. And she watched the way her eyes lit up when she had finally gotten something perfect. To Jane, anything Ruby did was perfect.

Jane worked as a counselor for the nearby high school. Growing up she hated hearing about other people’s problems and avoided deep conversations as much as possible. That all changed when she took a class in college about humans and their emotions. Most of the class was spent talking in groups about how certain things made you feel and why you thought that way. Jane loved hearing what people had to say and their explanations. She loved it even more when people didn’t have an answer and she could chime in and try to explain why an emotion was the way it was. She kept taking class after class about humans and emotions and ended up with a degree in psychology. Who would’ve thought that one class could change her whole life’s direction?

“We could…” Ruby hesitates, biting the inside of her cheek. Jane knew that she was struggling to come up with an answer by her motions. Ruby knew that Jane was very good at reading people so she made her promise not to comment on anything Ruby was doing or feeling unless specifically asked. Jane followed the rules most of the time.

“Bake?” Jane finishes the sentence, throwing out a suggestion. She was not a great baker, and neither was Ruby, but the two really enjoyed baking together. They would never end up with a perfect creation, but it tasted good at least.

“Read my mind,” Ruby grins, pulling Jane into the tiny kitchen of theirs. Right now the kitchen was different shades of purple, one of Jane’s favorite colors. Months ago Ruby got some purple wallpaper and Jane jokingly suggested that she put it in the kitchen and redecorate it. Well, needless to say, Ruby did not think that it was a joke. Now they have a purple kitchen.

“What should we make today?”

“Brownies? Last time we made them we almost burnt the house down,” Ruby giggles, pulling a box of the brownie mix down. A smile appears on Jane’s face as she nods her head.

“Redemption time,” Jane says, grinning from ear to ear. Ruby hands her apron to her and Jane accepts it. “Can you tie it around my waist? My hands are busy.”

“Anything you say,” Ruby smiles, walking behind Jane. She leans her chin on Jane’s shoulder as she grabs the two pieces of fabric. She quickly ties them together but lets her chin linger for a tad bit longer. She wraps her arms around Jane’s waist and Jane can feel her face heating up. Thank goodness Ruby couldn’t see the look on her face.

“Alright, grab me the eggs,” Jane says, moving slightly so that Ruby’s hands fall off of her.

“Coming up lovebug,” Ruby giggles, her hair swishing back and forth as she walks over to the kitchen. Jane can feel her heart beating faster and faster by the second. How she wished she could turn around and kiss the girl she loved. Yet, the girl she loved wasn’t aware of the fact that Jane liked girls. She could never get the words out, believe her, she tried.

Ruby goes to hand her the eggs and their hands touch for a moment. Jane feels how soft her hands are and she smiles to herself before pulling away with the eggs in her hands. She grabs the mixing bowl and slowly starts to incorporate all the ingredients together. She notices Ruby isn’t doing much work and she turns to ask for help, but then she sees her.

Ruby is staring out the window, her chin resting on her hands. Her back is completely turned towards Jane, but she can tell that Ruby is smiling. Jane looks out of the window to see that it’s misting outside. Jane sets down her spoon and walks over to Ruby, placing her hands around her waist (which took a lot of courage).

“You want to go play out there, don’t you?” Jane asks, resting her chin on her shoulder like Ruby had done minutes before.

“I told you not to psychoanalyze me anymore,” Ruby mumbles, leaning her head against Jane’s. “But yes.”

It took everything out of Jane to not move. The mention of going out in the crying sky made her feel sick, but the way Ruby talked caused all gross emotions go away. Ruby and Jane locked eyes and Jane smiles, which is her way of saying yes.

Ruby’s entire face lit up and she kisses Jane’s cheek before quickly pulling away and disappearing into her bedroom to grab a raincoat.

Jane stands in the kitchen, all alone with her thoughts. Ruby just kissed her. Okay, she didn’t kiss her, but she kissed her cheek. She had just felt Ruby’s soft lips press against her skin, if only for a short amount of time. Jane places a hand to her cheek, closing her eyes to relive the short moment.

“Jane! Come on!”

Jane opens her eyes and sees Ruby standing by the door, her hand on the knob. She opens the door and rushes outside, leaving Jane to catch up with her. She does, but she forgot her raincoat so she stands outside, the small droplets continuously hitting her body. 

She watches Ruby dance around, noticing that her raincoat was not on her body. She glances to the railing and sees that she had left it there. She probably wanted to feel the rain on her skin.

“Jane! Miss sensible Jane, please come out and dance with me!” Ruby begs, extending her hands. Jane shakes her head, but then Ruby puffs out her bottom lip. The poor puppy look won Jane over and she gingerly walks out to the misting rain and grabs Ruby’s hands.

Ruby leads the two of them, gently grabbing Jane’s waist and twirling them in circles. As they waltz around their yard, the rain starts to become harder and splash bigger droplets onto them. Jane didn’t care though, she was dancing with the woman she loved, nothing could beat this.

But then, something did.

All of a sudden, Ruby stops dancing and stares at Jane. Jane stares at her back, not knowing what else to do. 

“I love you,” Ruby says quietly, bringing her attention to her shoes that were very damp.

“Rubes, I love you too,” Jane says back, tilting her head to the side. Why on earth would Ruby say that right now? That was a very random thing to-

Jane’s thoughts are interrupted by Ruby placing her lips onto Jane’s. Jane doesn’t think as she leans into the kiss, her hands cupping Ruby’s face.

Maybe she did love the rain.

[somethingusefulfromflorida]

TLDR: Republicans believe themselves to be infallible and cannot be convinced otherwise

Republicans think America is perfect and always has been, while simultaneously believing that America is DOOMED and ON THE EDGE OF COLLAPSE at all times and want to bring us back to the Before Times™ when men were men and women were household appliances and minorities were someone else’s problem.  If you bring up a genuine critique of American culture or history they throw a pissbaby shit fit and start spewing nationalist platitudes, “America: Like It or Leave It!”  All their complaints stem from their perceived self-importance being eroded; they don’t like to realize that other people with differing opinions exist and should have their voices heard.  If a “brown” or a “black” or a “red” or a “yellow” is allowed to speak, that just means there’s one less space for a “white.”  All their complaints come from a slippery slope argument that if we don’t model our society after their specific cherrypicked interpretation of The Bible then we will degenerate into amoral savagery.

They say being gay is an abomination and allowing it will damn our children to hell; what they really think is that it’s gross and they don’t want to see things they think are gross.  There’s literally no good argument against marriage equality besides “I don’t personally like it.”  America is not a theocracy, so the belief system of Christianity should not be construed as the law of the land.  This stems from their belief that the Bible is infallible, “because the Bible says so.”  They don’t know and don’t want to know about the history behind it, nor the very contentious political landscapes at the times the books were written, nor the personal biases of the very human authors.  If the Bible is a literal textbook, then why?  What makes it so special?  By whose authority were its contents collated and designated THE Good Book?  If the Bible is literal, why not the works of Homer, or the Epic of Gilgamesh?  Just because the Bible says the Bible is right doesn’t make it so.  For the record, I am a Christian, and I think the Bible is just an old book.  I’m a Christian in that I follow the teachings of Christ, which can be summed up as “DON’T BE AN ASSHOLE.”  I live by that, and All the ChrINOs (Christians in Name Only) need to learn it.  Jesus would be ashamed of what he saw today.

They say that abortion is baby murder, on par with ritual human sacrifice and Satan worship. They don’t understand biology, they have a Sunday School understanding of philosophy, and live in a world so black and white that they can’t even imagine a reason someone would have an abortion besides that they’re a terrible person; a woman who would have an abortion is unfit to be a mother in their eyes because they see abortion as equivalent to smothering a baby with a pillow because you don’t want to take care of it anymore.  “He or she is alive, he or she has a heart beat!”  Well, at this point is is just a blob of tissue, not a living person; a heart beat alone does not make something alive or dead.  Your life comes from your brain, not your heart.  If someone is alive the moment their heart starts, then they must be dead the moment is stops, so CPR is necromancy.  A person isn’t considered dead until their brain is dead, so if they wanted to argue that life begins at brain activity they would have a stronger argument, though still weak because brain activity is not personhood either.  Patients in permanent vegetative states on life support may have some brain activity, but they are effectively dead.  There is no way a judge, appointed by senators elected by the people of the United States, can prove that not only do souls exist but that they are created the second a sperm fertilizes an egg.  If “souls” exist, they aren’t so much created as built up over time as we gain new experienced and our brains develop.  What we are is electricity in a ball of meat jelly in our skulls, and that comes to being at a point after which abortions are already banned.  Conservatives also just want to control women; Roe v. Wade isn’t explicitly about the right to an abortion, it is about the right to body autonomy.  Do women have the right to control their own bodies, or do they defer that right to their fathers and husbands?  Are women people or property?  Can a man make decisions on a woman’s behalf?  “You must forgive my daughter; as a simple minded woman she’s fallen into a stupor of female hysteria.  We’ll have the family doctor bring out the smelling salts and leaches.”

They say that certain vices are crimes against God, but only when some people do it.  Divorce is a sin because marriage is sacred, except when a conservative does it, then it’s totally justified because of such and such explanation.  Tattoos are the mark of the beast, worn by degenerates and lesbians, except when a conservative does it, then it’s just art and harmless self expression.  Marijuana is a gateway drug and we need to lock away its addicts and throw away the key, unless a conservative does it, then it’s just recreational, no big deal, we don’t want to ruin the [white] boy’s future because of it.  A black person who does cocaine is a criminal, a white person who does cocaine is a public figure (you’d be surprised how many actors and politicians regularly use coke; they have to have high energy 24/7 in case there are any cameras, so they need uppers to keep themselves presentable).  This all springs from the fundamental conservative philosophy of “it’s okay when WE do it, but not when YOU do it.”  That’s the long and short of it.  The in-group is allowed to do things, but the out-group isn’t.  It’s the Us vs Them mentality taken to the logical extreme; WE are people, THEY are monsters.  WE are allowed to have faults, THEY have to stay in line and follow all the rules.  OUR lives matter, THEIR lives are lesser.  When you strip away the showy bits and get down to the core of their beliefs, everything stems from their desire to hurt anyone who isn’t them.  They want power, they want to be special, they want the Good Guys™ to always prevail over the Bad Guys™, and they want to be the ones to decide who is good and who is bad.  Their opinions are the only ones that matter, everyone else is wrong because they’re not them.  Now, it’s not like you could solve every problem by opening up your mind to new opinions; there are some issues that are indeed black and white with objectively right and wrong answers, but they live in a world where they are incapable of being wrong.  They see personal growth as a betrayal of the self, that admitting a fault is terrible, that apologizing and learning from a mistake is traitorous.  No, they have to double down on every single one of their beliefs to re-instill it in their minds.  They can never doubt themselves, because God will punish them forever if they ever have doubt.  They can’t ask questions or look at things from other perspectives because that would be an admission that their perspectives are fallible.  They are afraid of changing their minds so much that they refuse to even listen when someone explains their opinions because they don’t want to have their minds co-opted by Satan’s LIES!  If they hear something convincing, it’s all over, their entire world collapses, everything they believe is a lie, they lose, they go to hell forever, The End.

That is the dichotomy under which Republicans live their lives.  Nothing matters but what they believe.  They don’t believe what they believe for logical reasons, so no amount of logic will ever make them not believe it.  They’re making up their own rules to win.  You’re playing Rock-Paper-Scissors and they throw Nuclear Bomb, which defeats all three, so you lose.  You say that’s not fair, they say tough.  You throw Nuclear Bomb, and they say they have a bomb proof shield, so the bomb doesn’t hurt them but kills you, so you lose.  You can’t even beat them at their own game because they’ve been playing it longer, and they cry foul when you stoop to their level, suddenly saying that you need to be the bigger person, walking right up to the line of admitting that what they do is wrong but not quite getting there, simply reverting to the complaint that you shouldn’t be allowed to do it.  “I can, but YOU can’t.”  That’s why it infuriates me when nobody ever calls out a Republican for their hypocrisy.  They do something, a Democrat does that exact same thing, they cry foul, but nobody ever says “well, you didn’t have a problem when you did it,” they just try to excuse their own actions rather than demand justification for theirs.  Democrats are always on the defensive, they always look like they’re losing even when they’re winning, so the Republicans can use that to build their base and rally together for the occasional victory (Democrats won 7 of the last 8 presidential elections; the last Republican to legitimately win the presidency was George H.W. Bush in 1988).

I don’t know how you’d even begin to fight someone who is this far down the rabbit hole of self denial.

Democrats self-reflect, Republicans self-deflect.

Democrats are progressive, Republicans are regressive.

Now I’m sure there are no Republicans reading this, but if there are they’ll make themselves known and “totally refute” everything I’ve said with some paper thin argument that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, but they don’t care because it stands up to them.  They only need to show one example of a Democrat failing to write off the entire party; they only need to show one black Republicans to deny the existence of racism; one gay Republican denies homophobia; one women denies sexism.  They are the party of tokenism.

They will point out the mote of dust in your eye and ignore the plank in their own.

Debate me, I have nothing better to do with my time, I’m a dirty libtard cuckflake soyboy beta with a case full of participation trophies and handouts paid for by other people’s tax dollars (funny, they think handouts are for degenerates, except when they get them.  Inheritance?  Privilege?  Never heard of them!)

[sweetsmellosuccess]

Sundance 2021: Days 6 & 7

Films: 5 Best Film of the Day(s): Users

All Light, Everywhere: In 2015, during the riots and rebellion in the immediate aftermath of the Freddy Gray killing by local police, the Baltimore Police department agreed with a private entrepreneur to send up a secret surveillance plane over the city, in order to monitor, in clear HD images, those neighborhoods most primed for a violent reaction. They did this without informing the mayor’s office, or other local government agencies. This is only a facet of Theo Anthony’s far-reaching doc on the subject, not just of surveillance, but also the Act of Looking as any type of objective measure of reality. Anthony stays fixated on Baltimore, his hometown, when he tours the AXON corporate headquarters in Arizona, the makers of the most used police body cams and taser weapons, where the company CEO enthusiastically walks through the offices and production warehouse, as these items are being manufactured. Not surprisingly, despite their near-ubiquity amongst American police stations, AXON’s most lucrative asset is its intense data collection, via its evidence.com portal, where law enforcement uploads thousands of hours of video each day. Anthony also spends time with marketing focus groups, camera-toting carrier pigeons, and scientists exploring the framework of our visual understanding. It’s at times an abstract experience  —  the film communicates its intentions largely through bracketed text blocks, and a voice-actor, who acknowledges their role in your understanding the film’s premise. He also makes frequent use of past scientific thought on the subject, including the creation of the earliest forms of motion picture recording, to best exemplify the more we attempt to create visual “truth,” the more the standard slips through our fingers. Notably, the AXON recording equipment is designed to give the idea of full-disclosure with respect to the police’ behavior, as a means of protecting the community, but it’s clear that the appeal to law-enforcement is actually quite the opposite: Providing enough legally permissible evidence to either exonerate their officers, or to put the plaintiff behind bars. As Anthony’s pithy film points out, the act of seeing is still an act.

The World to Come: It is, of course, deeply unfair to compare each film to the highwater mark in a given genre  —  to say, for example, ‘Well, I quite liked that hard-boiled egg, but it’s no souffle au fromage’  —  but the current spate of turn-of-the-century hardship lesbian romance films makes it near impossible not to put them in canonical order. Leading the way, it must be said, is the first of this current iterations of romances, Céline Sicamma’s excellent Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which took my breath away. If the low-water mark of this triad is last year’s Ammonite, which relied far too much on its esteemed leads to do all the heavy lifting; Mona Fastvold’s film nestles somewhere close to the latter, but nowhere near the rarefied air of the former. What Fastvold does make use of is the natural environment in which the film was shot (Bucharest, as a believable stand-in for Upstate New York), filled with snow, and mud, and the damp gray features of that clump of woods in the valley of the mountains nearby. The story gives us two farming couples, both miserable, albeit in slightly different ways. Abigail (Katherine Waterston) and Dyer (Casey Affleck) genuinely care about one another, but the loss of their young daughter to diphtheria has turned their marriage into a sort of continual wake; and Tallie (Vanessa Kirby) and her dour husband, Finney (Christopher Abbott), who don’t have any children, and with Finney’s grimly cruel nature, aren’t likely to have any. In their shared loneliness and misery, Abigail and Tallie become friends, then eventually lovers, finding in each other’s arms, the wonder of worlds and joys otherwise lost to them. The film certainly means well, but as told mainly in journal entry and letter VO  —  Waterston’s voice so muted and unwavering, she sounds like an NPR journalist reporting a story  —  it's so modulated and chaste, the emotional arc never rises beyond the slightly bowed. We aren’t given enough privvy into Tallie’s own state of mind, so thoroughly are we inside the consciousness of Abigail, to feel the full weight of her decisions. It’s earnest, but not particularly moving.

Flee: You don’t see a ton of animated documentaries, but in the case of Jonas Poher Rasmussen’s harrowing immigrant’s survivor tale, there was no way to catalogue the early life of Amin, the film’s subject, without extensive recreations in the first place. As a result, there is a strikingly evocative visual element to the manner Rasmussen and his animation team document Amin’s journey from war-torn Afghanistan, to Moscow, to Estonia, back to Moscow, and finally to Copenhagen. After his father is taken into custody by the Mujahideen in the late ‘80s, Amin and his mother, brother, and sisters fly out to Russia, in the months just after the fall of communism. From one chaotic country to another, the family desperately try to leave Russia for western Europe, but with unreliable traffickers, and a lone older sibling in Sweden, having to scrounge every penny he makes in order to make arrangements, things move in an agonizingly halting way. Eventually, Amin gets safely to Copenhagen, but is allowed to stay only by having to lie to Swedish authorities that the rest of his family is dead. If that weren’t enough, adding to Amin’s fears, he feels the need to tell his family  —  now scattered about Europe  —  about his being gay. Through extended interviews with Amin, Rasmussen teases out his friend’s full story, spread out over multiple flashbacks, while interlocking with Amin’s current serious relationship in Copenhagen, with a man he plans to marry, if only he can finally accept and trust in the idea of having a permanent home. Rasmussen’s genuine friendship with Amin adds a warm sheen of empathy to the proceedings, even in the ways not everything makes perfect sense. You get the understanding that Amin, having long buried his extremely difficult past journeys, is hesitating, even now, to fully unburden himself all at once, as if he has to take the time to reconcile all the different versions of his own story he’s had to live with, in order to make sense of it all.

Hive: In the era of #metoo, and Sundance’s continued efforts to represent female-helmed films at the festival, it’s becoming ever more clear in film after film, the biggest impediment to systemic change in culture and government is the ever-so-delicate male ego, which protects itself from damage more often than not by absolutely brutalizing anything that would dare threaten it. In Blerta Basholli’s excellent debut feature, based on a true story, the year is 1999, and in the aftermath of the grisly Serbian War, many communities are still awaiting word on the many missing, presumed dead family members who were taken away and will very likely not be coming back. One such half-widow is a fierce woman named Fahirje (Yllka Gashi), who still takes care of her missing husband’s father (Cun Lajci), as well as her two children. With funds dwindling, and her honey business not faring as well without her husband, a seasoned beekeeper, Fahirje gets a drivers’ license and begins a new business, hand-crafting jars of ajvar, the Serbian roasted red pepper sauce, and selling them at the local grocery. Despite violent, brutish opposition from many of the men in her small village of Krusha, whose favorite put-down is to call her a “whore,” Fahirje soldiers on, eventually enlisting many of the other village widows to join her business. Through it all, she has to contend with her own emotional pain  —  her husband vanished years ago, but has yet to be identified amongst the remains of the mass graves that become the final resting place for many Serbians. Basholli shoots the film primarily as handheld verite, documenting the day-to-day building of the business as well as the emotional upheaval of her protagonist. In this, Gashi, with her smoldering eyes, the lines of determination etched into her face, is a revelation. Fahrije suffers the multitude of slings and arrows  —  most miserably coming from her own teen daughter, who is embarrassed at first at the attention and gossip her mother is getting   —  with dignified solemnity. By the end, she has empowered a generation of women, while paving the way for countless others. Not all revolutions are won on the battlefield.

Users: It’s indeed jarring to see a film so dedicated to visual sumptuousness, so satisfyingly transfixing in its use of pattern, motion, and juxtaposition, but all in service towards an epitaph to our inevitable extinction. Natalia Almada’s cinematic essay uses its visual poetics to lure us in, to bewitch us with its beauty as it gently eases the blade of the knife deep in our midsection. A mother of two young children, Almada begins the film contemplating her babies, and the world in which they have been brought into, voracious in its use of natural materials, polluting the oceans with miles of fiber-optic cable, burning our forests to the ground, exploiting the Earth for every gram of mineable material, every ounce of oil, all to fill the growing chasm between ourselves and the formerly natural world in which we used to inhabit. The film moves at a placid, even-keeled pace. There are many beautifully composed slow-fixed shots of fields, trees, cityscapes from high above; juxtaposed against contrasting conceptions: an overhead drone shot of the Pacific’s cresting coastline cutting to an AT&T manhole cover; her own child’s face lit by the glow of a computer as he fixates on the screen in front of him, to a distant plane’s long vapor trail through a swath of sky; an infant breast-feeding to the endless rows of sprouts in a hydroponic lab. There is so much stuff, so many things, from shipping crates to solar panels, all slipping past the lens of DP Bennett Cerf’s cameras, so as to become something akin to a sort of visual intervention: You can see it, the film is telling us, you know very well how this is going to end. Almada doesn’t provide answers, or even firm conclusions, exactly. These are the things she is wrestling with in her own conscience, the horrific implications of otherwise deeply pleasing symmetric images. The film is a stunning ode to our demise.

Sundance goes mostly virtual for this year’s edition, sparing filmgoers the altitude, long waits, standing lines, and panicked eating binges  —  but also, these things and more that make the festival so damn endearing. In any event, Sundance via living room is still a hell of a lot better than no Sundance. A daily report.

[corkcitylibraries]

The Irish Marriage Equality Campaign and Referendum

by Deirdre Swain

May 22 of this year was the fifth anniversary of the marriage equality referendum, which made it legal for same-sex couples to marry. In 2011, when the Labour and Fine Gael political parties formed a coalition government, they agreed to establish a Constitutional Convention which would consider and make recommendations on six specific issues, including provision for same-sex marriage. Following from this, in April 2013, this Consitutional Convention was scheduled to discuss same-sex marriage and to either reject or recommend it for constitutional change. The Convention secretariat proposed that Marriage Equality, the Gay and Lesbian Equality Network (GLEN) and the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) would make presentations on one side and that the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, the Knights of Columbanus and the Evangelical Association of Ireland would present on the other. 79 of the 100 delegates voted to ask the Government to change the Constitution to allow for civil marriage for same-sex couples. On November 05 2013, the government announced that a referendum on same-sex marriage would be held in 2015, and on February 20 2015, the Taoiseach announced that the date of the referendum would be May 22 that year.

An organisation called Marriage Equality was formed to support Katherine Zappone and Ann Louise Gilligan’s High Court case to get their Canadian marriage recognised in Ireland. GLEN had been campaigning for full legal and constitutional equality for lesbian, gay and bisexual people since 1988. The ICCL had been a long-time champion of gay rights over much of its 40-year history. These three organisations now had one common objective: to legalise same-sex marriage. Gráinne Healy from Marriage Equality, Brian Sheehan of GLEN and Mark Kelly of ICCL met regularly and, together with the barrister Noel Whelan, who joined them later, became the main leaders of the marriage equality campaign. “Yes equality” was the name chosen for the campaign, as it did not identify the campaign as LGBT, but rather, it was about the collective values of the Irish people as a whole.

  The first undertaking organised by Yes Equality was the Register to Vote initiative. The Union of Students in Ireland (USI), college societies, the LGBT youth organisation BeLonG To as well as other LGBT organisations galvanised young people to register to vote. Voter registration clinics were run by LGBT groups across the country. The aim of reaching young people worked well through social media. The Register to Vote initiative put at least 40,000 new voters on the electoral register.

One of the main strategies of Yes Equality took its inspiration from Scotland: during the Scottish Independence referendum campaign, a woman had held a home-made placard on which she had painted the words, “I’m Voting Yes, Ask Me Why”. The personal stories were crucial to the yes side of the marriage equality campaign. These included not just stories from gay and lesbian people themselves, but from their children, their parents, and also from heterosexual people who explained why they were voting yes. Two groups in the United States, Freedom to Marry and the Human Rights Campaign, who had campaigned for marriage equality across the United States, shared their experiences with Yes Equality. This advice as well as focus group research done in Ireland revealed to Yes Equality that the segment of the electorate which could be easily swayed to vote no were men between the ages of 40 and 60. These advisors in the USA stated that the best way to reach these soft voters was to use the personal stories of heterosexual people and parents of gays and lesbians, as well as people who had not been in favour of same-sex marriage but who had changed their mind. For example, the actor Colin Farrell, a heterosexual man, declared his support for the Yes vote on Claire Byrne Live, stating that his brother was gay and had had a very hard time in school because of his sexuality, and he wanted him to experience equality. Former President Mary McAleese, whose son Justin is gay, spoke in favour of the Yes vote as well. And Simon Coveney recounted on Newstalk that he had previously had reservations about same-sex marriage because of his traditional views on marriage, but that he now believed that everyone had to be treated equally. The focus of the campaign was therefore on personal stories, which were credible and uncontrived. The campaign would engage with doubts and reassure. Yes Equality was non-threatening and would strive not to show the No side to be victims. People were not being directed to vote yes. They were being asked if they wanted to hear why other people were voting yes.

The other important strategy of Yes Equality was to challenge misinformation and misleading messages. The focus of the No campaign was on children and parenting. One of their posters showed a picture of a baby with 2 parents, stating that a child needs a mother and a father. Another No poster contained a photo of a small vulnerable child on her own, stating that a child needs her mother forever, not just for 9 months. The arguments that these posters were raising were that children should not be adopted or raised by same-sex couples, and that surrogacy for the benefit of same-sex couples was not in the best interests of a child. Both of these arguments were completely irrelevant to the question in hand, because nothing would change with regard to either of these issues if same-sex marriage were legalised. Children already existed who had same-sex parents. As Safia, Colm O’Gorman’s daughter said on the Ray D’Arcy Show of her two dads: “My parents are my parents and I think my family is great, as it happens”. She went on to say that: “It should not matter whether a child’s parents were a man and a woman or two men or two women as long as the child is loved, cared for and supported.” Gay couples could already adopt children, and this would not change if same-sex marriage were voted in. The instance of surrogacy would not necessarily increase either. The first poster actually caused upset to non-gay- and lesbian-headed families, because it was implying that any family which did not have both a father and a mother (including a family with a widowed parent) was damaging to a child. Even though the No side’s arguments had nothing to do with what was being voted on in the referendum, Yes Equality felt it was important to tackle these points, in order to engage with voters’ doubts. To this end, Geoffrey Shannon, child law expert and chairman of the Adoption Authority of Ireland was on the Claire Byrne Live show during a media debate on same-sex marriage. He pointed out that irrespective of whether the adoption applicant was single, a married couple, a cohabiting couple or a same-sex couple, the assessment looked at the potential parent’s or parents’ capacity to care for a child until they became an adult, and it was not concerned with gender or sexual orientation. He emphasised that birth mothers are centrally involved in the decision about the placement of a child and actually determine who a child is placed with. Most importantly, he stressed that whether the Yes vote won or not, the adoption process would not change. On a different episode of Claire Byrne Live, the Health Minister Leo Varadkar spoke about surrogacy. He explained that only around 10-12 children were born each year in Ireland through surrogacy, most of whom were born to an opposite-sex couple who had fertility difficulties. He stated that anonymous sperm and egg donations were already banned in Ireland and that forthcoming legislation would not only ban all commercial surrogacy but would require those seeking to avail of altruistic surrogacy to be approved in advance on criteria similar to that currently operating for adoption. These authoritative independent voices were important to reassure people with concerns about adoption and surrogacy. Yes Equality also emphasised that every children’s organisation, including ISPCC and Barnardo’s, supported a Yes vote in the referendum. 

The third argument that the No campaign made was that civil partnerships were available to same-sex couples, so marriage was not necessary. One powerful counter-argument to this put forward by Yes Equality was that civil partnership did not recognise children whose parents were gay or lesbian. Katherine Zappone affirmed that even if civil partnership contained all the same rights and obligations as marriage, it was still exclusionary; it was a lesser form of acknowledgement and was rooted in a principle which promoted inequality.

  The closing argument of Yes Equality was the message that gay men and lesbian women were part of every voter’s community; that they could be your neighbour, your uncle, your teacher, your friend. This idea was depicted in posters. The number of people who travelled home from abroad to vote in the referendum was astonishing. The turnout (just over 60%) was one of the highest ever for a referendum. The referendum was passed by 1,201,607 Yes votes (62.07%) to 734,300 (37.93%) No votes. All constituencies except Roscommon had Yes vote majorities.

  References

Gilligan, A. L. and Zappone, K. (2008). Our lives out loud: In pursuit of justice & equality. Dublin: The O’Brien Press.

Healy, G., Sheehan, B. and Whelan, N. (2016). Ireland says yes: the inside story of how the vote for marriage equality was won. Co. Kildare: Merrion Press.

[docholligay]

an overwatch/friends crossover sounds........... so fucking WILD. mccree, working retail,

This is an extension of that Doc Hates everything Friends episode, but would we like to talk about what people who were in Overwatch (that I write about) do before Pharah and Tracer get the bright idea to start it back up? No! I don’t care I want to be self-indulgent and pretend you do. (All in my HON HON HON canon, of course) 

Ana

Well she’s busy pretending to be dead, but a girl’s gotta eat

She becomes a mercenary, and while she’s picky about her jobs, she does, in fact, know that she has to pay rent and sometimes you just get the itch to snipe a man. 

She reads about all of Pharah’s accomplishments and is convinced she’s doing the best thing by letting Pharah think she’s dead. 

McCree 

Thinks for about .5 seconds about going back to the Deadlock Gang. Even his total lack of pride won’t allow him to. They left him, didn’t they? He won’t come crawling back. 

It occurs to Jesse he doesn’t have loads of skills. 

He takes a job working a Murdoch’s in Salida, Colorado, selling rope and bailing wire and bullets and various farm and ranch items. 

He has a little mobile home on some land and a horse and his cats and other than being lonely, he’s reasonably happy. 

Jesse McCree just can’t leave well enough alone, and this is how Reaper gets to him. 

Mercy

First she has convince the medical board that just because the UN brought her and Reinhardt up on ridiculous charges because they couldn’t find hardly anyone else, doesn’t mean she ought to lose her license. 

Tracer is still struggling to recover from Doomfist ripping her through time. 

A technicality means they can’t charge Winston, as he is not human. 

Conveniently everyone that SHOULD be charged is dead. 

“Dead” 

In any case, she manages to convince them and goes about repairing her reputation. She’s won Nobel prizes, she never patented a single medical breakthrough she made, but all people remember is seeing her in front of the UN. All they remember is hearing it said that she was a bad person. 

She works a speaking circuit, which she hates but which allows her to rebuild some sort of good graces. She takes a job teaching pre-med in Zurich. 

It only takes a couple of years for Harvard to forget the unpleasantness of the inquiry and remember her genius. She takes a teaching position at their medical school, gets a little apartment at the back of a house, and gets takeout. 

She meets Fareeha Amari, and her life changes forever, and the sun seems to finally rise. 

Tracer

First things first, Lena thinks, she has to get back to normal. The tear through time rattled her fairly well, and recovery is slow. 

Ang is busy getting written up by the world’s principal’s office and still spends nights and weekends adjusting medications and such for Lena, trying to help get on her feet. Ang is a good egg, a kind person, and it makes Tracer so angry she can’t hardly think to see her humiliated on a world stage. 

She damn near tosses open the door and marches down to New York City to give them a piece of her mind, save for the fact that the world still brings her to her knees more than she’d like. 

In time, she does recover. It takes about six months for her to be back in life again, and another month for her to get well enough that she decides to go out and get a job, no matter what Winston has to say about it. 

Her pilot’s license was never formally revoked, because they, in truth, never thought she would get better, and it would reflect ill on them to strip the Hero of London. 

But that doesn’t mean anyone will let her get in the air. She can’t get hired by fucking RyanAir, even. 

She spends a fair amount of time screaming at the sky no one will let her into. 

Lena takes a breath, and decides she’s going to get a job, whatever it is, and worry over the flying later. Her uncle Teddy offers to let her come work in the bakery, says he’d love to have her, but it feels too much like charity, and also baking starts at 3 am. 

She gives her resume, typed neatly on linen paper, to anyone who will take it out of her hands. Bars, restaurants, (”I’m very cheerful, mind. Excellent customer service”), Harrods to Marks and Spencers, but no one bites until she wanders into a little suit shop, and, quite by starting a conversation, manages to sell a fine suit to a fellow butch lesbian. 

The owner is not a stupid man, and sees an untapped market. 

Lena enjoys it quite a bit, helping up the selections of boys’ suiting for the smaller among them, helping with tailoring, and in general, making excellent sales and feeling like she’s contributing in life. 

But then, she gets an offer from Top Gun. The Americans are as crazy as she’s always thought and they’d love to have her come teach. She’s one of the finest fighter pilots ever born, so who cares if she might disappear in the air? 

She loves it. She’s so happy, the feel of being back in the cockpit, of flying, of coming to close to the line, it fills her in a way she had missed so very much, even, she realizes, when she was doing field work for Overwatch. 

But she misses London terribly, and her family, and Winston is in Boston, so when Red Air offers her a position, even thought it’s theoretical, she takes it. 

But the good news is, Helix also wants to work with her. They need a pilot to help with some prototypes for flying. 

She’ll be working with Captain Fareeha Amari. 

Winston

He has to take care of Lena. This is the only thing he knows for sure, is that she’s sick, and she needs his help, and he has to take care of her. 

Overwatch fell down around their ears, but he doesn’t even care. He has to help her. 

He repairs mobile phones, tablets, and laptops out of his house, and the pay is not great, but it’s enough to keep them together, especially with Tracer’s family helping out. 

They always treat him so kindly, like he was one of them too. 

He hates that Lena feels she has to get a job. But there’s no arguing with her once she’s made her mind up. 

Besides, it’s lifted her mood so much that he thinks better of his hesitation. 

He invents a new kind of battery for a cell phone, and the royalties come trickling in, and suddenly Winston has so much less to worry about than normal, and nothing again if it ever takes off, save for the fact that Lena has an offer in America that she intends to take. 

He thinks about just going with her, but decides instead to apply to do research at universities. He’s a doctor. He should have the same chance as anyone else. 

He didn’t really believe in himself, but he gets a position at MIT. 

Lena flies to come see him at least once a month. 

(Pharah and Dva are not on this list because they were not in 1.0)