#what are the insurance policies like. probably insane

[emikomusubi]

Being a civilian in the one punch man universe would be worse than being a civilian in marvel or dc

[midnight-pluto]

COFFEE: PG.00 — 8 Shots of Espresso

COFFEE: Tim Drake x gn!reader

SYNOPSIS: Tim meets a barista that gives him what he needed most - a large coffee with way to many shots of espresso. Though what happens when just a single action changes the other’s life, forever?

coffee master list || next

SUNDAY, MARCH 19 2023 — 11:32 PM

'WHY WAS I scheduled these hours? Hell, why did I even decide to work here?’

Oh, right, you need money. Just living in Gotham was expensive, not to mention the fact that villains and vigilantes stormed the street at hours like this and insurance can only cover so many villains. You’re almost bound to have a window or two broken. Though luckily, most of the vigilantes offer to pay for the damages caused or someone else offers to pay for them.

Checking your phone’s lock screen, you see that the time was 11:34. The cafe you worked at closed at midnight but there were still a few customers scattered around, most of them being students studying for upcoming exams or projects most likely.

Hearing the ding from the door you turn to look at the person who entered the door, “What can I get for you?”

The boy that stood before you was wearing wearing a dark attire - black pants, matching boots, and a simple red hoodie - all of the dark tones complimented his light blue eyes but they were clouded with something you couldn’t put your finger on; it didn’t help that their were dark bags underneath them as well.

Snapping out of your daze you look at him for his order, “A black coffee but add fives shots of espresso to it,” he deadpans. Before adding that to his order, you pause.

You slowly turn to look up at him to see if he was serious. He was very serious. “Um, y-you do realize that you’re asking for seven shots of-“

“Yes.”

“Alrighty then, um,” you swallow thickly out of pure fear at what had driven this poor boy into needing that much espresso in his coffee. You have met some insane individuals in your lifetime - mainly because you live in Gotham - but none of them have been driven to this extent, “Anything else?”

“No, that’s it,” he replies, shoving his hand into his pocket for ( what you hoped to be ) his wallet.

“Name?”

“Tim.”

A few seconds of processing payments and discussing sizes later, you’re on your way to creating a large drink that could possibly kill the very customer you’re making it for.

Meanwhile, said customer is actually relieved and really grateful for you on the inside. Tim had been running at max four hours of sleep for the past week while working on a case nonstop, and on top of that, he had patrol duty in 20 minutes.

Originally, he had left at eleven for his cup of coffee but unfortunately, his previous requests have been denied because apparently giving customers that much of espresso in their coffee was against company policy even if a Wayne was asking for it.

Multiple coffee shop stops and rejections later, he came upon the cafe you worked at and was able to get the coffee he so desperately needed.

A few minutes later, you gently slid Tim’s drink towards him with a small, “Enjoy.”

Thanking you with a nod of his head and a small smile, he took a look at your name tag - Y/N L/N.

TIMESKIP

The next morning later, you wake up at eleven thirty, feeling like a bag of shit. Turning over on your back with your arms extended outwards and legs barely touching each other; like a shy starfish.

'Is this my punishment for not applying for colleges the moment I graduated high school? Probably.'

After a few more moments of doing absolutely nothing, you decide to attempt to be a productive member of society. Grabbing your phone from your bedside table, you see that you have multiple message notifications, twitter notifications, and that it was now 11:42.

Checking Twitter first, you see that Tim Drake had tweeted something.

'Wait hol' up, wait a minute. Why am I mentioned in that tweet and why am I mentioned by so many other people? Also, how did he manage to find my twitter?'

Smiling at the comments that replied to your tweets, you decide to try and attempt to be a productive member of society.

Starting by brushing your teeth.

SPECIAL NOTE: this is a repost of my old post but I’ve now re-created it in a slight smau format that it was originally supposed to be in this could be read as a standalone oneshot still tho so yk

Also please ignore the fact that none of them are verified, I was to lazy to change them so I apologize once again

[recentlyheardcom]

Individuals going into the realm of business are deeply concerned with the potential profits that they barely wonder about the possible losses. This risk factor is embedded into any business initiative: one has to be careful on all fronts for this reason. Beginning entrepreneurs can manage and minimize probable business hazards with the help of a low-cost business insurance policy. Business Insurance It is necessary to note that every insurance provider is unique since each provides varying coverage and prices: this often leaves business enterprises in a dilemma with regards to how to handle their budget. Listed below are the top five tips for saving money on business insurance that are the tricks of the trade that an upcoming business or an established one should now and follow: 1- Keep Individual Business Requirements in Mind: All businesses have particular insurance requirements based on their risk factors and other concerns. What is fit for one enterprise may be exactly the opposite for another organization, irrespective of the size or area of operation. It is for this reason that prior research is essential so that low-cost business insurance can be selected and paid – for instance, in most areas establishments with a proper workforce have legal requirements for provisions such as employee compensation and even disability insurance. Read More: 5 Reasons Why Email Marketing is Important for Small Business 2-  Shop Around for Insurance: Since insurance costs vary from provider to provider, shopping for low-cost business insurance can be one of the greatest hacks for saving insurance money. Contacting the multiple brokers and/or companies specializing in the type of business helps one not only contrast prices but also gauge an estimate regarding the kind of services offered by these providers. Additionally, it is also crucial to select a financially healthy insurance company – this can be checked through rating companies. Read More: 15 Insanely Effective Health Hacks to Perk Up Your Lifestyle 3- Close Contact with Broker/Agent: Unforeseen business perils can be easily avoided with the help of the valuable guidance of the insurance policy professional. If the businessperson keeps him/her constantly in the loop regarding any and every significant business decision: this is inclusive of serious expansions, purchases, or transitions in a manner of operation. The counsel of the insurance agent becomes especially vital in the case of disaster planning, such as measures to ensure risk reduction in work-centric accidents and even in the possibility of a great business catastrophe. The correct coverage and a detailed disaster plan (such as business insurance Anaheim) save not only money, but they also save the business. Read More: Blockchain-Powered Remittance Project REMIIT Proposes to Build a Money Transfer Platform 4- Evaluation of Protection: It is important to carefully read through the insurance policy to ensure that one has not signed up for unnecessary coverage. For example, if there is no vehicle involved in the business, there is no need for auto insurance, or if there are no employees in the business, employment liability insurance is also not needed. Get risk assessment done to know the challenges your business is more likely to face. Avoid insuring for risks that the business does not face – this will consequently end up saving a lot of money as it is akin to opting for low-cost business insurance. Read More: Donald Trump: You Would Certainly End Up In WORLD WAR 5- Maximize the Deductible: Most policyholders are ignorant of the fact that the link between deductibles and premiums is inversely proportional. Yes, indeed: the lesser the deductible, the more the premium. Naturally, the best way of minimizing premiums is by maximizing deductibles. However, there is still the disadvantage of having to pay that particular deductible before getting any aid on a claim, so it is always wise to fix it at an amount which can be easily raised.

Ultimately, there is also the advantage that the increased deductible detracts businesses from filing for lesser claims. Read More: 7 Growth Strategies Sure to Spur Fresh Success

[nebulaleaf]

hiii!! i love seeing your collection, do you have any recommendations of websites etc for hunting down p5 merch? im outside the usa so things like mercari arent an option for me unfortunately T_T

Hi! I have many but some might be more or less effective depending on Where outside of the US you are. As I am Canadian, my options are a lot more feasible than say... someone from Europe yk. (god shipping fees are insane)

I will say, a huge chunk of my collection was bought off of Mercari or American Ebay, or American stores like BigBadToyStore and I just wanna make that clear. Two of these sites ship to places outside of the US still, but it's so much cheaper to get it sent to American friend and then over to me.

This got longer than I thought whoops under the cut it goes.

Anyway onto the actual recs. As always I have to shill Myfigurecollection.net. You can sort by the exact figure you're looking for, local currency, free or paid shipping and it's really handy. On top of that you can interact with the sites database or forum features! Make a wishlist or a list of a fave character's merch you want. Track what you've ordered already and when it's expected to arrive or be released from preorder. Find forum posts from your region about people discussing good places to buy from and so much more. It's such a huge and amazing tool for someone into collecting so long as you can get over the UI. Personally I've never found issues with it but I'm used to how older websites work anyway.

(Here is me sorting by European currency. There are so many euro sellers im jealous.)

Pros of mfc:

• Figures are usually in good condition and can even be mint in box. (you can even sort by condition, wow!)

• users are polite and can be negotiated with for a better deal oftentimes

Cons of mfc:

• This is not a site that focuses solely on selling like ebay, it's more like an ad section in the newspaper

• You have to trust who you are buying from as there's no 'insurance' so to speak. If you get scammed, there's no refunds and mods won't help you aside from banning the user, unlike actual buy and sell sites which have policies or insurance.

Next up is Zenmarket. This is a proxy site that allows me to buy straight from japan! What's handy about it is that you can browse multiple japanese sites straight within zenmarket's site. I can pick up items from Amazon.jp, JP Mercari, and Yahoo Auctions and have 'em all in one cart! You can also paste links into a special search bar if you've found a specific item you'd like to buy from a JP site. I personally browse JP Mercari and Rakuma the most. I like second-hand figures and both these places have good deals since they're flea-market esque sites. Yahoo!Auctions I've only bought one thing from, and I haven't had a *bad* experience per se, I just don't like auctions and buyout prices lol. Always so pricey... but I'm sure there's good deals to be had if you're willing to do a bidding battle. Pro tip! Search with japanese terms to get better results.

(Browsing a listing and the main mercari page, unsorted)

Zenmarket hasn't let me down before. They're speedy, and all my stuff has been well packed.

Pros:

• Can get the best base prices buying straight from japan

• Super simple layout and bundling orders is really easy

•Items can be held in their warehouse for 45 days if something happens/you wanna wait before bundling it into a package. You can also pay to extend this time.

•Quick shipping from the warehouse

•probably more lol

Cons

•If you're not american, shipping is gonna be like $30 CAD lol. At least you can fit multiple items in one box...? I got 2 books and several t-shirts without going over the small packet limit. i haven't used zennarket express, but if your shit is very small i think its about 10 dollars cheaper.

• ¥300 yen fee per item batch. So if I get a figure and book from Mercari I'll have to pay a ¥300 fee. If I then add something from Amazon or a different site other than Mercari to my cart, I'll have to pay another ¥300 fee. I don't mind this as its like what. 3 dollars? but if you're buying a lot from all over it can potentially rack up shit. also ppl just dont like fees so it's a con.

I also of course use ebay. I feel like I don't need to get into how ebay works so onto BRAND NEW MERCH CONDITION sitessss

I used to use Aitai Kuji but their selection of stuff is kinda mid these days so I stray from it. I've had good experiences with Ukiyo Kumo but it has a similar problem with Aitai Kuji.

Another site for brand-new merch is Meccha Japan, but holy fuck I hate their shipping and prices. If something becomes low in stock they jack up the price and label it as 'rare' or ultra rare or whatever and I find that irritating. They also use fedex and dhl for shipping which means fun fees woohoo yipee!!! i had to spend over 100 dollars to get my package wrangled from their graaaaaasp!!!!

So yeah, sorry for lame New Merch recs, I don't really buy brand-new figures since P5 hasn't released anything lately. I bought the Hello!Goodsmile mona and joker from BigBadToystore and I think shipping was only 15 usd? I like BBTS but if you're not american they're kinda slow in the shipping department.

I probably have more reccs but I can't think of any so. enjoy this. Anon if you wanna talk more thoroughly about this feel free to dm me! Talking about this stuff makes me so happy it's my lifeblood ♪♪

[eelhound]

"Climate change has long been compared to an approaching asteroid by incredulous scientists and activists who ask, as they tear their hair out, if we’d respond with the same denial and delay to the kind of planetary disaster immortalized in end-of-history blockbusters like Armageddon. Those movies have conditioned us to assume that no, we’d put together a plucky team of characters, rough around the edges but with a lot of heart, who, with the help of modern science and unlimited government resources, would win out over the space rock. Their only obstacles would be their own personal issues, their inability to work as a team, and the immensity of the task itself.

[Adam] McKay and David Sirota, the journalist and former Bernie Sanders speechwriter who cowrote [Don't Look Up's] story, flip that timeworn scenario on its head. What if stopping the actual disaster wasn’t the hardest part? What if the hardest part was convincing anyone to even bother trying?...

The people of the world of Don’t Look Up decidedly aren’t the problem. Bar patrons coax the horrible truth about the government’s inaction out of our heroes and respond with concern and violent outrage. A sweet Midwestern Christian boy played by Timothée Chalamet casually assumes the comet isn’t real, but changes his mind with evidence and exceedingly gentle persuasion. At a Trump-like rally, Jason implores the crowd that they 'Don’t look up,' until a doughy, red-hatted attendee does, and sees the comet clearly streaking right at them. 'Fucking lied to us!' he yells.

In a reversal of the prevailing liberal narrative since 2016 — which either casts all ordinary Trump voters as irredeemable, bigoted villains, to the point of fantasizing that they lose their health insurance, or dumps the blame on nonvoters for failing their politicians — it’s the country’s elites and institutions, including the media, that are the real problem in Don’t Look Up. All corrupted by money, they mislead, manipulate, and distract the rest of us from what really matters. Maybe this is why the film’s been met with surprising hostility from a lot of the mainstream press, which have complained chiefly about the film’s lack of subtlety.

But subtlety isn’t always a virtue. Dr. Strangelove, the Cold War classic that McKay’s film has been widely and justifiably compared to, was hardly a masterclass in understatement, featuring a US military advised by a Nazi scientist with a sentient, murderous hand, and its final shot of a cowboy pilot practically orgasming on top of a falling nuclear warhead. There are different ways to make a movie, and not every climate film has to be Paul Schrader’s excellent First Reformed. The impressive streaming numbers for Don’t Look Up so far suggest McKay and Sirota’s approach has been the right one for their purposes of shaking the public by the shoulders and begging them to pay attention...

The Strangelove comparisons stick because both movies do a similar thing: They take a fundamentally absurd, nonsensical piece of logic that’s central to our politics — the nuclear policy of mutually assured destruction in Kubrick’s film and the denial of and even profit-making delusions toward the climate crisis in McKay’s — and let them play out in front of us. The results are laughable and unbelievable. It’s insane that people in power and influence would jeopardize stopping the literal apocalypse because they either saw it as a moneymaking opportunity or because they didn’t want to talk about bad news.

And yet this is the maddening reality of the climate crisis today, where business and political figures insist that preventing planetary disaster is too expensive and would cost jobs, and probably the most progressive anchor on cable news casually justifies the lack of his network’s climate coverage on the basis that it’s a 'ratings killer.' Just last week, one of the nation’s top newspapers giddily celebrated that leaders around the world were abandoning their climate pledges and 'starving the issue of political oxygen,' something it labels 'climate realism.'

For all the critics’ concerns that the movie is undermining its own goal, or that it’s stealing the thunder of hardworking climate campaigners, it’s worth looking to actual scientists and activists. There the film has been near universally positively received, one of the few bright spots in a year full of gloomy climate news. The gripes about its lack of subtlety haven’t landed with climate scientists, who instead recognize the scenes of the astronomers vainly trying to warn a pair of professional cable news morons not as over-the-top satire but as a reality they’ve lived through.

The scariest thing about Don’t Look Up is that absurd as it is, it barely exaggerates. Much of our political elite are just as greedy and foolish, our media just as vapid, and our response to impending disaster exactly as mind-bogglingly irrational as in the movie. But there is one major difference (and it does involve a spoiler): it may be too late for the characters in Don’t Look Up, but it’s not for us in the real world. Let’s prove McKay wrong by not sharing his characters’ fate."

- Branko Marcetic, from "Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up Captures the Stupidity of Our Political Era." Jacobin, 2 January 2022.

[dhaaruni]

I think what’s going on is that people are so used to Evangelicals being their enemies that hating them is boring. So they flagellate their allies instead.

Yeah like I think it boils down to when Bill Clinton once said that that Democrats feel the need to fall in love with their candidates while Republicans fall in line even if they personally don't like their nominee. The GOP has a set agenda so even if they don't like the messenger, they'll all vote in tandem for the guy that's going to nominate conservative judges and pass the policies their voter base supports. Meanwhile, Democrats play purity politics and live outside the realm of reality like we called Pete Buttigeg a conservative for his plan that would auto-enroll people in a public healthcare option but not abolish private insurance when our Congressional majorities can't even lower the age of Medicare or include vision/dental/hearing.

Like, the GOP vocally criticized Donald Trump so much and yet, when the time came, they all quietly voted for him and simped for him throughout his entire term while Dems felt the need to yell at Hillary Clinton probably even more than Republicans did for literally the most insane shit on a daily basis (see: hot sauce in her bag, her laugh, being close to Huma Abedin who seems totally harmless so is of course hated, etc.). Quite frankly, it's really impressive that despite the left AND right wing media's best efforts, HRC was only 77,000 votes across 3 states from the presidency and outran the WI/PA Senate candidates; she got nearly Obama levels of Black support even with a decimated VRA and even improved on his Latino support even though she got clobbered with white people.

[nevertheless-moving]

I always have mixed feelings about Jedi!Leia, like, on the one hand, she’d be SO powerful, and that’d be so cool to see. Literally all I wanted as a kid was to see Leia kick some ass w/ the Force, AND SHE COULD. She’s literally the embodiment of protective instincts and justice. But on the other hand, she’d be SO POWERFUL, and Leia is... an angry person. She has every right to be, too, but that kind of thing doesn’t vibe well with ‘partially-trained powerhouse’. But then on the other side of THAT, her NOT using the force feels like denying an important part of who she is and what she could do, and Leia is the sort to do EVERYTHING SHE CAN for those she loves and feels responsible for.

Do you think she’d do the responsible thing (Anakin could never) and more or less give her powers a hard pass, or do you think she’d figure out some way to make them work for her?

There are a lot of ways to channel the force, right? 

Jedi Knights are trained in the most obviously badass methods, with the clearest physical impacts. But the jedi order had other branches (and I realize canon's probably a mess about those so good thing im overwhelmingly informed by fanon).

I think wanting to be a jedi knight is similar to wanting to be a firefighter or cop- it's a job that's description involves saveing people and ALSO comes with the chance to kick down a door. That's appealing, and necessary sometimes. But unfortunately not all problems can be solved by breaking a window dramatically with a chair, and fortunately there are other ways to do good.

So we've got medicorps- force healing and using that understanding of the living force to direct medical research.

Exploracorps- these are the jedi who probably use the force most in the way that untrained forcesensitives do, but on purpose. the successful spacers are the ones who listen to their 'instincts' and 'gut feelings' when 'something' tells them to drop out of hyperspace now or approach that stranger over there. There's an energy field that binds the universe together. People who listen to it when it's loud or follow it when its twisting around something are probably going to be more successful in general, and that edge is going to be most OBVIOUS in high risk professions.

We've got agricorps-  and kriff as someone whose done hands on conservation and farm work isn't that one dreamy. A trained jedi who can just reach their hands into a layer of soil and over the course of a year speed up nitrogen fertilization and healthy root growth and all those other things that might take a hundred years to make a noticeable impact DAMN. I'm not saying it's as cool as being a knight, backflips and laser swords are objectively cooler but it's definitely as HELPFUL if not way more so.

And then educorps and diplocorps right? That last one might be fandom so let's talk educorps- how do you use the force to teach? If i could read a kids mind to understand what they didn't understand sure maybe it would be creepy but it would honestly be more helpful and less fucked up then all the impacts of repeated testing! Do you have any idea how much less stressful your education would have been if you never had to take a test because your teacher just KNEW what you were struggling with and partnered you with another student and overt the course of a conversation it all clicked into place? If you could just clear the bad vibes out of a classroom with a wave of your hand when something scary happened in the community, allowing children in low income areas to critically think and learn without the interference of a prolonged stress response, thus giving them the opportunity to excel in the way their core world peers do? Karking one generation of psychically enhanced education, just doing that alone, could lift a planet out of institutional poverty.

And then diplomacy, politics. I'm not sure if this a cadet branch of the jedi order or LITERALLY their primary role prior to disenfranchisement and conscription. Either way it's leia's chosen profession pre and post original trilogy, and I'm gonna say she could ABSOLUTELY be doing that as a trained jedi.

Well as trained as any jedi can be at that point in the timeline.

There's one really good au out there about crechemaster anakin. And honestly? If you have severe trauma and anger issues, your culture should probs be encouraging you towards pursuing a career that does not include violence. Maybe before their numbers were depleted and conflicts became increasingly violent, the most volatile jedi were encouraged as far from physical ass kicking as possible, not out of exclusion, but because it's only going to make their problems worse, while creating brand new problems for everyone else. The tendency of the culture I live in to encourage people with violent tendencies to become cops and soldiers has CAUSED SOME ISSUES FOR EVERYONE, INCLUDING THE COPS AND SOLDIERS. Look there's no such thing as a rule that's perfect for everyone but as far as healthy outlets for agression go, vulnerable people in high risk situations are really low on the list. 

Yeah so jedi leia would probably be taught how to Not accidently on purpose kill people with her brain by willing their spaceships to crash into asteroids or screwing with their blasters in a firefight so they consistently miss, or all the other ways she unintentionally but gleefully force murdered people in the original trilogy. 

And then she'd be taught to use her skywalker-bullshit-level powers for politics. 

And holy SHIT.

Do you know how many problems are caused by miscommunication? In international security theory, rational actors pretty much ONLY go to war because of unavoidable communication errors. If you could have a trusted neutral party guaranteeing treaties with demonstable magic SO much less military spending would happen. I'm sorry but that is LITERALLY how the vatican became a political powerhouse. As it lost its credibility, so many wars happened. So many.

And that's just one of the big most clear cut things.

Domestic politics? Government reform? Jedi politicians would be INSANE. I - look.

When a policy workgroup is trying to make a change in a democratic society they genuinely try to use mind tricks. Fearmongering is the easiest- imagine if the nra was able to put a little force suggestion behind the idea that criminals were trying to break into your home and murder your family and if you give up your gun then only criminals will have guns. You're already scared- and now there's a supernatural element pushing it along. 

On the other side of the political spectrum, again, the most successful campaigns uh, also involve fear, the left is just less good at structuring the entire argument in those terms (shame is the more common go to). Pushing the fear that anyone could get sick and lose everything, even you. You could get cancer and lose your job and then you wouldn't have insurance so that's why EVERYONE needs government health insurance. Shaming anyone who does racist shit publically was so effective that racist people started getting so quiet that they accidentally raised way less racist children. 

A jedi would be unbelievably  effective with the 'negative' emotion public outreach, but that might be darkside stuff. 'righteous' emotion driven social change does happen sometimes, compassion is at start of most human rights movements.  

Tho not going to lie anger and shame is kindof what keeps those movements going so...

Jedi Politician Leia using vaapad to reshape the galaxy? 

[lady-divine-writes]

Kurtbastian - “Always and Forever”

Summary: After the death of their daughter Grace, Kurt and Sebastian drift apart. Kurt wraps himself up in his grief so tightly he starts to push Sebastian away, and Sebastian, feeling himself shoved aside when he needs Kurt most, cheats. They make the decision to start over, to leave New York City and their pain behind, and start over again in a house Upstate. Sebastian buys Kurt a "fixer upper" and gives him free reign. While redecorating the room that will be his studio, Kurt comes across something interesting underneath the wallpaper. It starts to become an obsession for Kurt - an obsession that begins to replace Kurt's love for his husband, which Sebastian is holding on to by a thread. Can Kurt and Sebastian break through the pain and the hurt and find a way to fall in love again?

Notes: Inspired by the Klaine advent drabble prompt "ache". So this is a story I started a while ago, but stopped after chapter 4 because it started to get a little too real. But I’ve started revising, and now I’m ready to finish it.

Chapter 1 (3197 words)

“God! That traffic was insane, wasn’t it?” Sebastian complains, pulling off the highway and onto the less congested road that leads to the heart of Manhasset.

Kurt mutters in agreement, but he barely noticed. His right temple has been glued to the passenger side window the entire trip. Eyes pointed skyward, he watched the clouds pass by as they drove, counted the trees, followed a flock of birds as they flew off to warmer climes far, far away.

Away from here, the way Kurt wishes he could.

“I called ahead to turn the gas on. And the electricity... ” Sebastian has been rambling about nothing for the whole hour and forty-five-minute drive, filling the tense air of the Navigator with verbal static. “We’re gonna want to air the place out for a few hours. The realtor told me it stinks like mold but that there isn’t any actual mold in the house. I hired two separate contractors to go through the place anyway and make sure. I wasn't going to take the guy's word for it. He struck me as a sandwich short of a picnic. I mean, you should have seen him, Kurt! He was wearing a purple paisley tie and brown loafers with a grey suit. And not like royal purple. That would have worked. But puce! Jesus Christ!” He chuckles. It bleeds into a nervous cough. “I didn’t say anything, but it would have been nice if you were there to give him some subtle pointers. Or not so subtle. You know how much I love seeing you in action. Oh, and we'll have to go over our insurance policy. I’m having a second independent appraiser… ”

“Are we there yet?” Kurt interrupts, preferring to focus on how the changing leaves mute the skyline than on a single word coming out of his husband’s mouth. Not that he could catch a one the way they’re sprinting off his tongue like lemmings off a cliff.

The trees soothe Kurt, smooth the rough edges of this bumpy ride. They grow differently out here than in the city: springing up in rows, displaying their fall colors, blending one into the other like an ever-changing river - red tree, yellow tree, brown tree, gold tree… 

Their daughter Grace would call out the colors on their long car rides Upstate, conjuring rhymes where there were none. They roll through his memory in her singsong voice.

Green tree… uh... lean tree!

Kurt smiles, clutching on to the sound of her voice.

He's terrified of the day he'll forget what her voice sounds like.

“Just… uh… just a few more blocks,” Sebastian replies, his attempt at chitchat cut short by his husband’s impatient tone. Despite his infinitely expressive voice, Kurt only uses three tones nowadays - angry, impatient, and indifferent. Sebastian hasn’t learned how to avoid any of them, but he hates Kurt’s indifferent tone the most. “Not too far.”

“Good. Because I’m tired of sitting in this stupid seat.” Kurt switches positions, massaging his hip for emphasis. 'Tired of sitting in this stupid seat.' That's what he said. But he meant, 'tired of being stuck in here with you.' 

And Sebastian knows it.

Sebastian turns down two streets that spiral together tighter and tighter until he and Kurt are locked in to their new neighborhood.

Locked in to their decision to move here.

“Here it is.” Sebastian pulls up to the curb at the point before the street turns into a cul-de-sac.

Kurt sits up slowly to accommodate his stiff spine and numb ass. Looking around, he sighs in frustration. “Here what is? There are five houses on this block. Which one is it?”

“Guess.” When Kurt sighs again, Sebastian says, “I’ll give you a hint – it’s one of these three,” and motions to the houses on Kurt’s right. Kurt rolls his eyes but turns to the houses closest. They all appear relatively identical – three floors with a pointed roof and a square porch, reminiscent of a gingerbread house. They probably have basements – a huge selling point in this vicinity. But they don’t call them basements Upstate. They call them cellars. Somehow, the word cellar is more refined, and therefore more acceptable than having a dull, run-of-the-mill, drafty basement.

Need that cellar so you can have the most expensive cabernet on the market on hand in case we need to drunkenly judge Sally Jones’s latest highlight fiasco.

“She should have gone with lowlights, Sharon. (sip) Haven’t I been saying that, Kayla? (sip) Haven’t I been saying that she should have stuck with lowlights? But only around her face. (sip) Ha-ha-ha-ha! Please, pass the brie.”

Kurt spent a good portion of his life living in a basement bedroom, so he’s not above the word. But he remembers a time back in high school when he thought that was the person he would grow up to be. He’d start out as one of the New York elite, then become an Upstate snob. When his kids (two of them – a boy and a girl) were grown and gone, he’d start an artists’ colony. He'd retire to a lighthouse, isolate himself in obscurity while being ironically jaded at the world.

Well, he's nearing forty, and he is jaded, but for entirely different reasons.

The house at the curve in the cul-de-sac is painted a sea green Kurt isn’t thrilled with. But that can be remedied with a bucket of paint and some elbow grease. From its position, it probably gets the bulk of the noon sun. 

There goes their electric bill. 

Kurt knows Sebastian doesn’t care about trivial things like finances, but just because they have the money to spend doesn’t mean they should shovel it out the window. Plus, there's their carbon footprint to think about. But more importantly, there goes his fair skin, which will freckle at every meal while he does nothing other than sit at the kitchen table.

No, thank you.

The house beside it is in a better position, slanted away from direct sunlight. But it’s painted a slate blue that comes across as too harsh considering the neighborhood’s neutral color scheme. Sebastian should know better than to see that house and say, “Yes. That’s it. That’s the one,” unless the inside looks like the Palace of Versailles.

The last house is also blue, but this blue borders on pale grey, a similar shade to his father’s house in Lima. A maple tree has grown through the pavement in front, shading the house and shedding its red-gold leaves all over the front yard. 

And this house has a porch swing. 

He and Sebastian used to talk about owning a home with a porch swing. It became a prerequisite for the home they wanted to retire in. Kurt pictured sitting on their swing side by side in the early mornings, sipping coffee and watching the sunrise.

Sebastian, on the other hand, talked about having sex on the thing and scaring the neighbors.

Same planet, different worlds.

“It’s this one,” Kurt guesses, gesturing to the blue-grey house. “The one with the swing. Isn’t it?”

“Don’t sound too excited,” Sebastian jokes but warily, afraid of what the fallout might be if Kurt doesn’t like it. Sebastian has been climbing a tenuous ladder to make his husband happy. One misstep and he'll plummet back to the bottom, with no certainty that Kurt will let him try to climb up again. It’s his own damn fault, Sebastian reminds himself as they get out of the vehicle. He did this to them, so he’ll let Kurt lash out, let him bare his teeth and his claws, let him dig in with both hands and rip.

Sebastian deserves it.

He leads Kurt up the walkway in silence, past the tree and the swing. He unlocks the front door and pushes it open, standing back so Kurt can be the first one over the threshold. Kurt takes his time, poking his head in first, then taking a hesitant step. This is an all-or-nothing moment for him. In his heart, once he walks inside, there's no turning back.

He sets his foot down, rests his weight on it, and a dozen memories come flooding back: the house he lived in with his mom and dad, the house he and his dad moved into when his dad remarried, the dorm rooms he suffered from high school to college.

The first night he spent in Sebastian's penthouse, the excitement of feeling like he'd found his true home.

The house he dreamed of raising Grace in. 

In the end, they stayed in the penthouse for convenience. He regrets not getting her an actual house with a yard and a swing.

Like this one.

The irony.

The room lists, Kurt's head swims, but he wraps his arms around himself and doesn't let it show. He focuses on the here and now. He's taken a step. He just needs to take another. And another. Keep going. Keep moving forward, or else he'll crumple to the ground.

And Sebastian will rush to catch him.

Kurt would rather bury himself under the porch.

Kurt breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth, relies on a cold and detached demeanor to help him instead of the strong arms of his husband.

This house has a different feel from the open floor plan of the penthouse they've been living in since college. It's cramped around the corners, with a lot more shadows and a lot less noise. Sebastian likes that better. He’s an Ohio native, same as Kurt. But unlike Kurt, he considers himself a country boy. Even though Sebastian built his identity around becoming a state's attorney like his father, he loved the quiet life: wide-open spaces, blue skies, unhurried, and just plain normal. 

Kurt saw Ohio as a cage he couldn't wait to break free from.

Sebastian could have bought Kurt any house he wanted. In that vein, Sebastian feels like a heel for jumping on this one without consulting Kurt first. He reasoned that he'd been the one house hunting, not Kurt. So when a contact told him that the owner of this house, a house Sebastian had had his eye on for a while, was finally selling, it seemed too perfect, especially considering the timing.

Sebastian bent over backward to rescue it from escrow.

Kurt didn't want to leave the city, but it was full of too much pain for him to handle, too many memories, friends and acquaintances who had yet to hear the news, and those who constantly offered their condolences. Few people greeted him anymore without their smiles dropping and the words, “I’m so sorry,” coming out of their mouths, as if joy shouldn't exist around him anymore. 

It made his head, his heart, and his soul ache.

Kurt loved New York City, but there was nothing left for him there but the constant hollow thud he felt whenever he saw something that reminded him of their angel Grace. School would be starting soon. All of her friends will be moving on to the fifth grade. But his daughter...

Life ended for her too soon.

“Here.” Sebastian reaches for Kurt’s hand, but Kurt reflexively pulls it away, slipping his hands into his pockets to cover for his flinching from Sebastian’s touch. Sebastian should be used to it by now, but he isn’t. “Let me show you why I think you’re going to love this house.”

Sebastian jogs up the stairs to the next level. Kurt follows a few steps behind. When he reaches the top, he sees three doors. They pass the first two without mention. Sebastian opens the last.

“Here.” Sebastian crosses to the opposite side and throws open one of two windows, filling the musty space with the crisp bite of autumn. “I thought this room could be your new studio.”

Sebastian knows him too well. The room is perfect. Even at dusk, it’s flooded with natural light. It looks out over the rooftops of the other houses, giving him a view of the surrounding forests and orchards stretching way past the highway. With a little TLC, it could look just like his studio in their penthouse.

Or he can turn it into something new.

Start with a clean slate.

“What are the other two rooms?” Kurt asks offhandedly. He doesn't need to. 

He knows what the other rooms are. 

There are only two rooms they can be.

“A bathroom and the master bedroom,” Sebastian answers, watching his husband stroll across the floor.

“So this would have been… ?”

“A spare? A guest room?” Sebastian shifts his weight from foot to foot, unable to find an easy groove to stand in.

Kurt frowns. No. It would have been Grace’s bedroom if she were still with them. Kurt was trying to get his husband to acknowledge that. Cruelly. But if she were with them, Sebastian wouldn’t have cheated, their marriage wouldn’t be falling apart, and they wouldn’t be running away from their problems.

“I guess I could put a foldout bed in here,” Kurt throws out as he estimates the space.

“You can if that’s what you want,” Sebastian agrees. “Or you’re just saying that to hurt me, which, if you are, you’ll be happy to know, it’s working.”

“I’m not saying that to hurt you,” Kurt eloquently lies. “I’m being practical. I’m not going to have easy access to the Vogue workshop if I live two hours away. If I expect to get a new line started, I’m going to have to pull long hours.”

Sebastian scrutinizes his husband, who’s doing his best to avoid looking at him. “You’re… thinking of starting a new line? You didn’t mention that.”

Kurt shrugs. “Did I have to?”

“No. I mean, I wasn’t sure that you would go back to designing so soon after.” 

"After?" Kurt tilts his head inquisitively but still makes no eye contact.

"After... moving. There's going to be a lot to do here. I thought you'd give yourself a year. Maybe more." Sebastian answers so quickly, Kurt wonders if he'd practiced. They talk in code, this whole conversation a carefully choreographed tango through a labyrinth of knives.

Sebastian didn't mean after moving. He meant after the death of their daughter. Kurt practically spent every spare second he wasn’t designing for work designing with her. Kurt has been a designer since high school. Aside from music, it's his passion.

Sebastian feared Grace's death might sever those harp strings.

"I think you underestimate me. Besides, you’re considering going back to working in the city after… ” 

Pivot, walk walk, close.

The dance changes. They switch places, and Kurt leads.

Kurt isn't talking about them moving or Grace.

Kurt means after Sebastian cheated. 

Kurt only agreed to move out of the city and live in a house he's never seen to keep Sebastian away from the man he's convinced will become too big a temptation to resist the next time they get into any kind of argument. Granted, it took their daughter dying for Sebastian to cheat, but Kurt figures it’ll keep getting easier from now on to come up with an excuse. 

Can't agree on where to go for dinner? Have a huge blowout over which cards to send out for Christmas? That's it! I'm sticking my dick in someone else!

“Anyway, I wouldn’t want to wake you by crawling into bed at four in the morning, not when you have to be at work at six,” Kurt finishes when he’s let that dig soak in long enough.

“I’m not going back to work for a while, remember? That’s what a leave of absence is. And even if I was, why would I mind you waking me?” Sebastian risks a grin. “In fact, I was thinking that it might be nice to get back to what we used to do in the mornings before work. I miss that.”

Sebastian holds his breath while he sees how that remark lands. He waits for Kurt to look at him. Kurt hasn’t been able to look at him, really look at him, since hungover Sebastian came home in a taxi the morning after, clothes ruined, their marriage officially in the gutter. Grace passed away six months ago, which means he’s been waiting for a while. 

He’s still waiting. 

“This isn’t all about you,” Kurt reminds him, raising his eyes to the ceiling.

Kurt didn't yell. But that doesn't mean he's not furious.

“I know,” Sebastian says softly. He rubs his cold hands together, wishing he could stick them underneath his husband’s thick, button-down sweater, and press his palms against Kurt’s skin. A year ago, Kurt would have squealed, “Bas! Your hands are freezing!” But he would have wrapped his arms around himself and held on, would have let Sebastian lean in for a kiss, would have fallen for the line, “Now that my hands are warm, maybe you can help me warm up a few other things.”

Then they would have made love on the wood floor with the door open.

If only he could make Kurt laugh the way he used to.

Then maybe Kurt would love him again.

But going by his husband’s expression, dreary as the olive sweater he holds closed with one hand at the neck, Sebastian knows that now is not the time.

“Is this what you need to make you happy?” he asks. If only it were that simple. If only a house, or a car, or a vacation could turn back the clock and erase everything that happened.

Erase everything Sebastian did, and bring their daughter back.

Kurt doesn't answer right away. He's not purposefully keeping Sebastian in suspense. He couldn't care less what's going on in Sebastian's head. This is his future he's considering. 

He's going to take his time.

He circles the room, contemplating the echo of his footsteps on the roughly finished wood, debating whether or not it's a sound he wants to hear for the rest of his life. If not, is it worth putting in the time to fix it? 

He traces the path of sunlight as it travels across the wall. That brings a new detail to his eye - a torn corner of wallpaper above the open window revealing a word underneath.

Darling.

Kurt eyes it from a distance, tries not to pay too much attention to it in case Sebastian is behind it. It doesn’t look like it was written recently. It's more than likely part of the pattern underneath. But leave it to Sebastian to try to woo his husband back with something syrupy like that. 

Something hopelessly romantic.

Something he thinks Kurt will fall for.

“No,” Kurt answers honestly, re-examining the fading wallpaper, the scuffed floors, the peeling ceiling. His gaze glances his husband’s face and settles on the dust-streaked window. He stares out at the sky, the clouds, the trees, the birds flying wild and free. He’s never going to be able to fly away like that, so he might as well accept this cage he's been given. It's what he's supposed to do, after all. “But it’s worth a try.”

He has little else left to lose.

[notwiselybuttoowell]

We're Stewards of Our Land: The Rise of Female Farmers

'I was always fascinated by getting things out of the ground’

Sinead Fenton

Grows vegetables and edible flowers at Aweside Farm, East Sussex

Sinead Fenton is on an early lunch break, hiding from the sun. “It’s ridiculously intense, so I think we’re going to call it a day and crack back on in the evening,” she says. Fenton and her partner, Adam Smith, have been putting in beds and getting ahead on groundwork for next year. This year, there will be no commercial crops on the couple’s 4.5-acre plot.

They signed the papers on their farm last November and moved onto the land in March. Around the time they needed to make decisions about how they’d manage their first harvest, lockdown happened. With restaurants and florists – their main clients – out of action for the foreseeable future, they made the decision not to sow seeds but concentrate on opening up the land. “We were going to do it over three or four years, so we’re squeezing three years of work into this year, so we can focus on growing next year,” Fenton says.

She and Smith cut their scythes at Audacious Veg, a 0.1-acre plot in Hainault, at the end of the Central Line between Essex and London. Shortly after volunteering at the allotment in 2017, they heard the project was about to finish: “Naively, with about three weeks’ worth of growing experience, we decided that we’d take it on and get the produce to chefs.”

Smith worked in insurance accounting and while Fenton most recently worked in software and food policy, her background was in geology. “I came at farming from an activist point of view,” she says. “I was always fascinated by getting things out of the ground, but that is a destructive industry. Farming is nicer because I can do something for the system instead of taking everything from it.”

There was a lot of insecurity around the project. Land is contentious, especially in London, and land law is difficult and expensive to negotiate for those with no farming background. “Adam and I are both from cities – I’m from London, he’s from Essex. We’re from low-income families, and we had no access to farms growing up,” Fenton explains. “It’s basically impossible to get on the land, because it’s so expensive, or passed down through generations.”

They got the land for Aweside through the Ecological Land Co-op, which buys fields designated by Defra as only being good for arable crops, then splits them up to create smallholdings. Aweside is neighbours with a veg-box scheme, and waiting for others who’ll transform what once was a 20-acre maize field into a cluster of small farms rich with biodiversity. Now Fenton and Smith have a 150-year lease, and no worries that what they create will be taken away.

It’s not yet a permanent home. Fenton says they’ll be living in a caravan for a few years: “Another part of land law in the UK that makes land inaccessible is that if you want to live on your land you have to go through five years of proving your business is profitable, viable and that there is a functional need for you to live there.” Having livestock is an easy way to pass the test, but because Aweside is a vegan farm, Fenton and Smith need to cultivate and show they use every bit of plot.

It’s daunting but Fenton is excited about having a blank slate to work with. “There’s so much more to food than what supermarkets tell us to eat,” she says, explaining that they’ll grow varieties at risk of extinction, or that aren’t commonly grown in a mass market food system. “Seed diversity and plant genetics are serious issues.”

The three principles the couple work to are: more flowers, more trees, thriving soil. They’re working no-dig, putting compost directly on the ground and letting the soil life mix everything over time. They’re pesticide-free and are counting on the fact that the more diversity they have in the system, especially with a high proportion of flowers to pollinators and insects, the fewer problems they’ll face.

“Socially, economically and environmentally, something needs to change. Things have been done the same way by the same people for a long time,” says Fenton of the farming industry’s need for greater diversity. “I learned to grow on an allotment site where there are lots of different things growing at once. Bringing that approach into sites like this is needed – the industry needs it to keep itself relevant.”

'I'm hoping this will be seen as quite a cool career… even if it’s not’

Abi Aspen Glencross

Head of grains at Duchess Farms, Hertfordshire

It was, Abi Aspen Glencross was well aware, an odd, even inopportune time to launch a crowdfunding campaign. In June, with the country still locked down, Duchess Farms asked for support to buy dehulling, cleaning and milling equipment. The Hertfordshire farm needed about £16,000, and the money would go towards boosting the production of ancient and heritage grains for making flour.

“A lot of crowdfunders have been for charity or ‘please keep our restaurant open’,” says the 28-year-old Glencross, head of grains – or “senior flour nerd” – at Duchess Farms since 2019. “We felt a bit bad, but we lost a lot of our business overnight when all the restaurants closed and we were like: ‘God, we hope we don’t go under.’ It was quite a scary time for everyone.”

Still, if we have learned one thing from Covid-19, when times are hard, British people get baking. Perhaps inspired by countrywide shortages of flour, maybe invigorated by a new interest in left-field, older wheats such as einkorn and emmer, Duchess Farms sprinted to its target. “We’ve just done some ordering of equipment this morning,” says Aspen, when we speak in July. “It’s been a tough time for everyone but it has cascaded into some beautiful things and we’re just so thankful.”

Glencross’s path to farming was circuitous. She studied chemical engineering, but while her classmates were heading off for jobs at ExxonMobil and Procter & Gamble, she was more of “a hippy at heart”. She decided she wanted to learn more about soil and its role in food production. This led her to Blue Hill Stone Barns, Dan Barber’s pioneering farm-to-table restaurant in the Hudson Valley, north of New York. She spent four months working on the farm and in the bakery, receiving a crash course in ancient grains – an obsession of Barber’s. But the moment Glencross knew she herself wanted to farm came in 2016 in a field in Hertfordshire. She was with John Cherry, who was showing her around Weston Park Farms, 2,500 acres of land he maintains with minimal fertiliser use and zero tillage.

“We were walking around the fields of wheat and I just said: ‘Where does all this go? There’s so much of it,’” Glencross says. “And John goes: ‘Oh probably for animal feed. It’s a consistent market, they’ll take it, it’s easy, even if we don’t earn that much money from it.’ And I was like: ‘This is crazy.’ And that was the beginning of me getting on this grain bender because I was like: ‘Why can’t we grow these grains organically and not feed them to animals?’ So I realised I’d have to start a business, because there were not very many people doing that.”

Heritage grains can be harder to produce in vast quantities – einkorn, especially, is “a bitch to harvest” – but they do have advantages over conventional wheats. They typically have deep roots and grow tall, which means they shade out weeds and do not require chemical sprays. The end product is more nutritious and then there’s the taste. Since 2017, Glencross has run a roving supper club called the Sustainable Food Story with Sadhbh Moore, and Duchess Farms has worked closely with bakeries such as E5 Bakehouse in east London and Gail’s, and restaurants including Doug McMaster’s Silo. “Heritage grains are delicious: when you stop growing for yield and you start growing for quality the flavour is insane,” says Glencross.

Learning to farm from scratch has not been straightforward, but you sense that’s a big part of the appeal for Glencross. “There’s all these decisions the farmer makes throughout the year and why he sprays and why he doesn’t,” she says. “You realise that most people get up, sit at a computer all day and if they press the wrong button, they just delete it. When you’re a farmer, you plant at the wrong time of year and tomorrow it washes away your whole crop.”

Glencross acknowledges that it is almost unprecedented for women to run arable farms. She struggles to name a single other example in the UK. She also notes wryly that men dominate all the farming conferences, saying: “They have a wife but it’s always the men who have written the book and given the presentation.”

With more role models, Glencross hopes things will change. “I’m not cool in any way, but I’m a reasonably young lady,” she says, laughing. “And so when people say: ‘What do you do? Oh, you’re a farmer. Maybe I could do that …’ So I’m hoping that it might become seen as quite a desirable, almost cool career.” A pause: “Even if it’s very much not cool.” 

[persimmonteas]

managing chaos | Ch 1

masterlist here | AO3. send an ask/DM to me or ghost to be added to taglist. 

collaboration with @ghost-flakes​

summary:

You stared at your inbox in despair. It felt like just an hour ago that you had emptied it out and now here you were again with 50 unread emails. "Look, I’ll do a lot to be left the fuck alone," you groused.

You work for buzzy health startup Plus Ultra and talks around town are that you'll become the next unicorn company. You're on a project supporting their new customer account, Lovr - your project pod is insane but is somehow keeping your sanity intact.

multi-chapter. slow burn pairing TBD 

tags: startup culture/office/business!AU, slice of life, crack, humor, power of friendship, program manager pain, y/n is absolutely done and is only here for the $, catharsis writing. all HS characters are aged up to 22+

note: unicorn means a startup with a $1bil valuation. we're just two tired ex-PMs who are now catharsis'ing out on a fic. shoutout to @andypantsx3​ for being the ABSOLUTE most hype for this

You were wondering how you got here. You found yourself sitting in the middle of an all-glass conference room watching the woman standing in front of you.

She had cheeks flushed from excitement, her eyes sparkled brightly, and her hair was smooth, shiny, and straight. You were lowkey jealous, as your hair never even came close to being so orderly.

You could see company-hoodie-clad people walking past the conference room, peering at you curiously. This gave you serious fishbowl vibes, and you resisted the urge to puff up your cheeks and pull a face at the passerbys.

Branded t-shirts, notebooks, and pens laid neatly in front of you on the table. You dutifully clicked the pen and opened a notebook, ready to take notes.

“My name is Ochako! I’m the Director of Happiness. Or, in boring terms, I’m Head of People Operations. Welcome to Plus Ultra! We hope we can become your family.”

Even though there were only two people in your cohort, Ochako sounded like she was giving a speech to a whole crowd. It was impressive.

You’d typically groan at the cheesy family term—like, family where bitch?—but Ochako seemed so sincere that you almost felt bad. Almost.

You exchanged a look with the purple-haired dude next to you - he subtly shrugged with one shoulder. Good to know you both were mildly apprehensive about the sheer amount of good-natured cheer seeping out of Ochako’s pores.

“Let’s talk about company culture. You’ve probably already met our Office Manager, Hawks, during your interviews. Hawks is incredible and you’ll love him. He’s the reason why our company is fun to work at.” You nodded - you could see that. Your interviews had gone well, but you noticed that Hawks had brought a certain levity and smoothness to the part that he had conducted.

“We have a bi-weekly happy hour and quarterly cultural event. Budget is allocated per function or project pod so you can do whatever you want—within reason, of course,” Ochako chuckled. All right, alcohol and party money! It felt like the adult version of being bribed with free pizza in college. Looks like some things never changed.

“We have a keg in office but we encourage all of you not to abuse it. Only two drinks maximum per day. And have at it after hours but do not consume alcohol if you cannot behave appropriately.” Ochako paused and then smiled, but it felt more like a warning. It sent a shudder down your spine. You were sure there was a story there, but you weren’t entirely sure you wanted to know what it was when it put such a sharp expression on Ochako’s face.

“Since we are a growing company, our PTO is modest. You’ll have 15 days a year, with three sick days. There are 10 holiday days, with one of them being a floating holiday decided by management at the start of each calendar year, although it usually ends up being sometime around Thanksgiving or Christmas.” She covered the insurance policy briefly, as well. You nodded as you jotted this information down.

Ochako paused and her eyes flicked down to the notes in front of her before she continued. You were surprised, as you were sure that she had given this speech many times before. Then again, you understood the occasional brain fart. If nothing else, it made Ochako more human in your eyes, instead of a borderline ethereal HR entity.

“Why don’t we go around the room and get to know each other? Name, title, team. Basic stuff. Then we want to know your favorite vegetable and workout!”

You groaned internally. Was this the penance you’d have to pay working for a health and fitness-oriented startup? It felt like you already had done so much to seem health oriented. Before your interview, you even bought an Ultrabit in a panic to make it look like you used the product. You fiddled with the “smart fitness product that helped improve personal health metrics” on your wrist.

“I’ll be a Junior Account Manager.” You introduced yourself before continuing to describe your role. “I’m not sure which team yet—” stupid NDAs; it was fun not knowing what you’ll be working on until starting day— “but I’m excited to join Plus Ultra! My favorite vegetable is brussel sprouts and I love running.”

“What’s your favorite dessert?” Ochako asked. “Can’t be totally healthy all the time!”

You paused and thought about it. Look, dessert was great but you were honestly just making money to fund your boba addiction. “Does boba count? ‘Cause boba.”

“I love boba too! We should get boba sometime,” Ochako casually remarked. The comment gave you whiplash.

Oh, wow. Gotta remember that you don’t work at a place with a clear hierarchy anymore. You smiled and nodded. Ochako seemed nice, and maaaaybe she could give you the lowdown on the prime boba spots nearby.

Purple-haired dude absentmindedly rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m Shinsou. I’ll be starting on the IT team as an IT Support Specialist.” Support specialist, huh? Sounded like code for a poorly-paid errand runner, and you hoped for his sake that your interpretation was wrong.

You took a moment to look at him closely, your eyes traveling from the top of his head, down the rest of his face, pausing at his shoulders before taking in his general composure. He had wild, slightly gelled up purple hair, and under-eye bags so deep they could be luggage. He carried the unfortunate air of a creature of the night forced to participate in society.

Underneath that veneer, you could sense that he had a snarky vibe. He reminded you of your roommate in some ways, which made sense. You had heard of Shinsou through the roomie but had not met him in the flesh before today.

“I like ants on a log. My favorite workout is either aerial silks or bicycling. One of these is a lie.” Ahhh, there was the snark. He paused, leaning back in his chair a fraction.

“And my favorite dessert is lavender ice cream.” This was spoken almost as though he was a little unwilling to share. Either way -  nice. You could respect color coordination.

“Nice to meet y’all! Again, my name is Ochako and I’m HR. My favorite vegetables are carrots, I love going rock climbing and my favorite dessert is mochi ice cream.” Ochako beamed. Huh, made sense. She kinda reminded you of a bunny with her straight blinding white teeth and rosy cheeks. You wondered if they were natural or brought to you by Invisalign.

“It’s cool to meet you. Mochi is great,” Shinsou offered. He stretched and spun his chair once.

“Yeah! Thank you for going through this presentation with us,” you smiled at Ochako. She returned your smile as she stacked her notecards together and turned off the laptop in the conference room.

“Alright! Now that introductions are over, you can meet your managers over there.” She gestured to someone behind you.

You looked over and it was the blonde guy from your interview. Hizashi, you think? He enthusiastically waved at you with a bright grin.

Grabbing your onboarding stuff, you left the conference room and walked over to greet him. He felt like an oversized golden retriever just bursting with energy. Between him and Ochako, you weren’t sure how you’d survive; they gave you strong Morning People vibes and you very much were not part of that group.

“Hey! Hizashi, right?”

“Yeah, yeah!” He lit up more than you thought possible at the fact that you remembered his name. It blinded you. “You can call me Mic though. How was your orientation?”

“It was good! Learned a lot of fun facts.” Mostly food facts, but that was all that really mattered.

“Let me show you your desk, get your headshot taken and then we’ll get started on team introductions and training, ‘kay?” Mic rattled off. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them with glee.

You grinned back, hoping to match Mic’s level of joy.

He walked you through a maze of people sitting at their desks typing away. Some were chatting, but most were focused on the task at hand.

You tried to keep your soul from instantly recoiling in disgust. Ugh, open floor plans. You knew what you were getting into by interviewing at a baby startup, but the reality still made you cringe.

Just think about why you were here and where it could take you. You’ve seen worse. Open floor plans ain’t shit.

They.

Ain’t.

Shit.

(This would become your mantra whenever you felt eyes upon you.)

Overall, the vibe felt pretty welcoming, but that was from the outside looking in. You would see how this impression held up a couple of weeks into the job.

As you walked, Mic pointed out the kitchen, vending machines, and various doors decorating the edges of the room that led to conference rooms, C-level offices, customer offices, and other various and sundry rooms.

As you approached the heart of the wide room, he pointed out the various teams before gesturing to a cluster of ten white tables. “You’ll be sitting over here with our project pod. Looks like they’ve gone on their typical coffee run. You’ll meet them soon enough!”

You gulped, seized by a flash of nerves as you looked at the random assortment of stuff on everybody’s desks. You spotted:

Five succulents, a cute crocheted superhero plush and a stack of clearly abused notebooks

You swore you saw multiple veggie mini-figurines but they were obscured by a monitor and cookbooks

The tidiest desk you’ve ever seen, stationary so neatly laid out it was almost a work of art, and a picture of a smiling man

Krav maga gear and a jump rope. Motivational quotes littered the person’s monitor

A desk tear-off pinup calendar omg

Pretty sakura blossom reusable Starbucks cup, a Muji campus notebook, and colorful pens

Nothing, not even dust. Just three monitors and a laptop

Washi tape and what must be a bullet journal and a pyramid of stacked oranges

Mic pointed at the empty desk next to a desk that had headphones that looked like they cost more than your actual life and merch from a popular podcast on it. “You’ll be sitting next to me! Put that hoodie on so we can take your headshot.”

You dropped your orientation materials on your brand spanking new desk and scrambled to throw on your company branded hoodie, as Mic was already halfway across the room at a makeshift photoshoot area.

Before you knew it, a photo had been taken and you prayed that a.) it was better than your driver’s license photo, b.) you weren’t blinking, and c.) you didn’t have a stupid or murderous look on your face.

You glanced over your photo and sighed in relief as you gave Mic a thumbs up. With that done, he led you back to the desk cluster.

By this time, it seemed like your new teammates had returned, cheerfully chatting with each other with drinks in hand. You were dying to know which desk belonged to whom.

Mic joined the group like a bowling ball scattering pins.

“Welcome back, y’all!” he boomed, introducing you by name. “Here’s your new junior account manager.”

He turned to look at you, with a glint in his eyes, “You’ll be working on Project U-A.”

[chikkou]

Did work go ok? ): im so sorry you had to do it on no sleep

ok i ate now so i feel a little more focused LMAO

anyway the fucking weird thing is it wasnt even a bad day?? it was just fucking bizarre. i think i was just barely keeping it together so things that wouldve been frustrating or red flags about the job were just fucking HYSTERICAL to me

some highlights included:

- literally EVERYTHING that was supposed to be prepared for my arrival (my email, some software im supposed to have access to, etc) was not ready. they had 2 weeks to get this shit ready. stuff that was supposed to take maybe 2 hours tops ended up taking the entirety of my shift. the guy training me ended up showing me how to do half the shit on HIS computer because we couldnt log me onto mine.

- my monitor being so fucked during a zoom call that it kept duplicating this one persons video onto other videos like a virus, and when i refreshed to fix it, not only did it start duplicating a DIFFERENT video, but it also broke the colors and started turning this dude purple and grey and the wall behind him green and red. i was shaking laughing the entire time and the guy training me just looked tired

- the automated door to the IT office locking us out. like the dude punched the numbers in and tried to open it and it just wouldnt budge. when someone inside tried to open it for us it STILL wouldnt open. we had to walk around to the other side and wait for someone to open THAT door, which was in another department so we had to wait until someone from that department noticed and let us in. this made what shouldve been a 5-10 minute process turn into an almost half hour long sojourn. the icing on that cake - and i shit u not - is that roughly 3 minutes after we finally got inside, someone else tried the door from the inside and it opened just fine. incidentally i was chatting with my trainer during all that and now im pretty sure hes gay so thats nice LMAO

- because nothing was ready and i couldnt do much of anything, but also am not (technically) allowed to be on my phone, i spent the majority of my shift reading and rereading the company website. thats literally 80% of what i did for the entire 8 hour shift. i was exhausted and crosseyed by the end but hey i sure know their fucking insurance policies now (and theyre bad ♥)

- the piece de resistance for all of this: the reason everything was in such fucking disarray during my shift is because, apparently, the (unofficial?) head of IT quit out of the blue the day before and abandoned everything he was supposed to be doing, including processing my paperwork. no one outside of IT knew and i literally only found out bc i mentioned that he hadnt answered when id called him earlier, to which this other IT guy responded, "well, he quit yesterday, so. thats why."

in fairness to the dude who quit im sure the other IT employees could have done it on their own, but his quitting was really sudden and when i told my trainer what happened he got all sullen and was like "oh. okay... that makes a lot of sense." so i get the impression this dude was probably the backbone of the IT department and him leaving so abruptly really upended their whole shit fgjkdfg

thats not even all of the stuff that happened either. these are literally just the things i personally found the most fucking insane/the funniest. like... this was all my FIRST DAY bro LMAO

[no-whump-on-main]

Apartment 307 (Elora Series)-3

Finally picked out a title! I was told “Apartment 307) sounded very Stephen King horror-esque and honestly that’s the dream so I’m going for it!

The hurt starts here so be warned.

TWs: Blood, fear of death, cutting/stabbing, graphic descriptions of a knife wound, mentions of stalking, mentions of vomiting

Special thanks to @sableflynn for being my cheerleader and letting me bounce ideas while I wrote this and @quirkykayleetam and @greatandquestionablecontent for title help!

also long chapter today yay

     Elora didn’t stop screaming until she ran out of breath and couldn’t go on a single second longer. The man lingering in the doorway looked incredibly irritated by that point.

     “It’s real early to be hollering like that,” he said, in that same deep, gravelly voice. Elora looked horrified, but he didn’t seem to care.

    “It’s only four in the morning.”

     Tears were starting to form in the corners of Elora’s eyes. She blinked them out just to get them away, despite the shame she felt for letting them flow.

     Clyde caught a glimpse of the fallen droplets, and felt a strange, warm feeling emanating in his gut.

     Elora swallowed and spoke next, her voice wobbly despite her best efforts to stay calm. “I have-I have money. That’s what you want, right? I have money. Plenty. My mom got a big insurance policy when my Dad passed and she put it all in a savings account for me to go to college, but I decided not to go, you can have it, it’s probably a few hundred thous-”

     The man suddenly screamed at her, and she flinched, her shoulders rising up and hugging her ears.

     “SHUT UP!” He shouted, his face going slightly red. Elora immediately shut her mouth, her entire body shaking. She was afraid to die. She couldn’t die yet, she wasn’t ready. She-

     “I don’t want your money,” he seethed. He seemed to be calming down from his initial outburst, which Elora was grateful for.

      “I don’t want your money, I don’t give a shit about it. I’m not gonna kill you either, okay? Just fucking listen. How about some ground rules, yeah?”

     He stepped forward, shutting the bathroom door behind himself. Elora looked on in terror, not wanting him to get any closer to her. A pit quickly formed in her stomach; if he didn’t want money, what did he want? If it was just money, she could be home by the end of the day. But it wasn’t that easy. Of course it wasn’t. 

      Elora sucked in a breath and closed her eyes, terrified as the man walked up until he was right in front of her.

     “Stop,” he warned. She re-opened her eyes and watched him carefully as he sat down on the closed toilet lid.

     “Rule number one,” he started. “Don’t talk back to me. You can speak when you’re spoken to. And I want you to shut the fuck up and listen while I explain this.”

     Elora’s eyes widened. She wanted to scream, to protest, but she knew in her head that she had to be smart. Getting him angry wouldn’t help her. She stayed quiet, chewing on her lip.

     “Rule two. You stay where I put you and keep out of shit that doesn’t belong to you. I’ll give you a hint-nothing here belongs to you. So keep your hands to yourself.”

     He paused, taking a long breath. In the silence, Elora noted that he smelled heavily of cigarettes.

     “Rule three. You can call me sir, if you have to refer to me at all. I’d prefer it if you didn’t.”

     The mere thought of that made Elora feel sick to her stomach.

     “And finally, rule four. You belong to me now, Elora, and the sooner you accept that, the easier this transition is gonna be on you.”

     Elora lost her handle on her emotions entirely. She knew she needed to be rational and level-headed to get out of this, but that last rule made her explode. She didn’t even know how he knew her name.

     “YOU’RE FUCKING CRAZY!” She shouted, bucking wildly against the chains keeping her locked in place in the bathtub. “YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW ME! YOU’RE INSANE!”

     Her heart hammered rapidly in her chest. She was fighting the chains so hard she was already getting out of breath. “LET ME GO YOU CRAZY FUCK!”

     She was so distracted with useless attempts to free herself that she didn’t notice the man had stood up until his hand came down and slapped her roughly across the face. 

     “I told you to shut up,” he seethed. “You will respect me. Understand?”

     Her brow furrowed, filled with rage. “NO! YOU’RE CRAZY, YOU DON’T EVEN KNOW WHO I AM! LET ME GO!”

     He silenced Elora with nothing but a look.

     “I do know you, actually. You just don’t know me.”

     Elora’s expression twisted and fell. 

     “You’re lying,” she said through her teeth.

     “Am I? Are you not Elora Lucille Larkin of 673 Seabrook Lane? Born February 18th, 1999? Daughter of Judith and Parker Larkin? Shame what happened to your dad, really. Cancer is a monster. And you were hardly 12, huh? Must have been rough. My condolences.”

     Elora’s jaw fell wide open. How did he-?

     “You like cats, too, don’t you? I have one here. Maybe she’ll help you adjust. And I know you like to work Tuesdays, because you haven’t had one off in months. God knows how long that pattern had been going on before I started watching, too.” He paused. “Are you really that stupid, Elora? I’d think you’d at least recognize my car by now. It’s been looming around practically everywhere you’ve gone since July.”

     Elora wanted to scream, but no noise would come out. Realization hit her like a train and she was completely mortified, frozen in shock. The sedan. Had he been following her? Was she stupid? If it had been following  that long, she would’ve recognized it, right? Since July. That was five months ago.

     But she didn’t recognize it. She could swear the first time she ever saw it was just before he kidnapped her.

     He stood. “But I’m just lying. You know, I must have made all that up.”

     Without another word, he turned and left the bathroom.

     “Don’t hold your breath. I’ll be back in a minute,” he called through the closed door.

     Elora had to force herself not to cry. She sucked in a breath, her chest so tight it was hard to breathe.

     The man was back within what felt like far less than a minute. She barely had time to process what she’d been told before he returned, holding a small potted aloe plant. 

     He walked over to her and she flinched back again, pressing her body against the farthest wall of the bathtub. He ignored her fearful cower, placing the plant down on the edge of the tub.

     “Grow it,” he commanded. His voice boomed through the small room.

     Elora’s brow furrowed with confusion, for a moment, before that emotion turned into realization, and then finally, strong-willed defiance.

     “What?” Her tone sounded genuinely puzzled, though it was just a ruse.

     “Grow the plant,” he repeated, his voice slightly angrier.

     Elora inhaled, having to clench her fists to keep her voice from wavering. 

     “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t just-”

     “Shut up,” he growled. “I know who you are and what you can do. Or have you forgotten?

     Shit.

     She abandoned the act, but didn’t give up on her adamant refusal.

     “No,” she told him. “You don’t tell me what to do, you sick fuck!”

     The man laughed again, breathy chuckles that made the hair on her arms stick up. “Oh, but I do. Don’t make me ask you again. Grow the goddamn aloe. I know you can.”

     This time, Elora didn’t reply. Instead, she spat at him. She was forced to sit in the bathtub while he stood, so she couldn’t get him in the face, but she did successfully aim for his hand. While not as bad as a face shot, it was still gross.

     He cursed and wiped his hand off on his pants, storming out of the bathroom. Elora almost smiled, pleased with herself.

     He was so angry that he didn’t bother closing the bathroom door. He turned on the lights in another room, and it was just bright enough for her to make out a kitchen and living room. And the front door, all the way back. If she could just get there-

     Soon. She would. It was a when, not an if. Soon.

     He ducked out of her sight for a good thirty seconds, leaving Elora to look around the small frame of view she had. She could tell it was an apartment, as everything was so compact, it had to be. It looked like a college kid’s apartment at that; it was sparsely decorated and filthy, with random trash on the floor and a thick coat of dust covering everything she could see.

     When he reappeared, the first thing she noticed was that he was holding a knife. It was huge-it looked like a butcher knife. Just the blade itself was easily the size of her forearm and looked sharpened. She swallowed. He didn’t say anything, just stormed towards her. He’s going to use it. He’s going to-

     “Okay, okay, I’ll grow the fucking p-”

     The man was deaf to her offer. It quickly devolved into a desperate plea.

     “Please, I’ll grow the fucking plant, stop-STOPSTOPSTOP YOU’RE CRAZY!” 

     She started to scream before he even hurt her, dread and anticipation and knowingness filling her as he ignored her begging.

     She couldn’t have anticipated the pain that came next. She knew it would hurt, but nothing in her life had ever been so painful. She felt every moment of her skin splitting apart as the blade slammed down against her right thigh, layers of her body just separating all at once. Her vision whitened for several seconds as her screams pierced even her own ears, the sharp sound agonizing as it reverberated in the room. Even Clyde winced at the noise, wondering if he had done too much too soon.

     No, she deserved it. I told her to follow instructions.

     Elora didn’t stop screaming for almost a full minute. Her chest heaved once she finished, gasping for air. The pain in her thigh was both sharp and throbbing, and constant. She realized she had wrenched her eyes shut in anticipation of receiving the wound, and part of her was scared to open them again and look at the damage.

     She opened just one eye at first, but the other quickly followed as she stared on in shock. The blade had easily slit her work khakis open, hardly phased by the barrier of the material.

     The cut looked at least  an inch wide, with little yellow bubbles lining the sides and making way for something that was smooth and reddish purple to be just barely visible in the bottom. Blood was gushing from it steadily, making it hard to tell too much about the true extent of it. She began to panic as the gravity of the situation hit her. Tears poured down her face as she turned her head and looked up at the man, fear constricting her chest. He was holding the now-bloodied knife by his side.

     “I- it-it’s bleeding,” she stammered out, stating the obvious. “It’s bleeding, I-please! Please, I-that’s a lot of b-blood, that’s bad, I need h-help! Please, I don’t want to-I don’t want to um-”

     Die. She doesn’t want to die. She’s scared.

     A choked sob tore from her throat as she found herself staring down at the wound again.

     “You’re fine,” the man said flatly.

     “NO! No, please, I need-”

     He sighed and left the bathroom like a petulant child.

     Elora sobbed in fear, looking at the puddle of blood that was already forming beneath her leg. 

     The man came back holding a small box and a hand towel. He tossed them both at Elora, careless of her inability to catch them. The corner of the box landed directly on top of the cut and she groaned, her teeth clenched as tears spilled from her eyes.

     He approached again, holding a small key. She looked on in horror as he undid the handcuffs, letting her right hand free but leaving her left still in one cuff, with just a small amount of give on the chain.

     Elora looked terrified. “What? I-”

     “I know you sew for fun,” he said casually, shrugging. “You make all sorts of stuffed animals, right, and donate ‘em? What a Mother Theresa you are. Anywho, this can’t be much different than patching up a tear in a teddy.”

     Her mouth dropped open in shock. She was acutely aware of the feeling of warmth steadily dripping down her thigh.

     He gave her an angry look.

     “Fix it,” he growled, and left.

     As soon as the door closed, Elora let out a loud sob, covering her mouth with her free hand. No. She can’t. Needles and threads for stitching people are different than ones for sewing, she can’t just do a stitch like she’s sewing fabric. She doesn’t know what to do.

     She interrupted her racing thoughts by looking down at the bloody gash. She had to. It was bleeding badly and she needed it to stop.

     Shakily, she took the towel he threw her and placed it over the wound, trying to soak up some blood so she could at least see what she was working with. The towel was originally tan, but a spot that was a deep shade of reddish brown formed in the middle of it within seconds of her laying over the wound.

     Inhaling deeply, she opened the sewing kit next. It was nothing fancy, just some needles, a seam ripper, some tiny scissors, and small spools of thread. She plucked the spool of white thread and the smallest needle in the box.

     Her hands were so shaky it was difficult to thread the needle. Come on. Come on, just-just-thread, come on-

     She finally got the thread through the eye of the needle. This is bad. It’s probably old, she’s going to get an infection, she could die.

     But there wasn’t another choice. She tied a tiny knot in the two loose ends of the thread and took a deep breath. She held the two sides of the wound together with her left hand, which hardly had enough chain to reach, and gripped the needle with her right.

     She desperately wanted for there to be a way out, but there wasn’t. She was too shaken and too terrified to try any sort of magical healing or painkiller. God knew she would fuck it up and make things worse for herself in the frazzled state she was in.

     Biting her tongue, she moved the blood-soaked rag back and stuck the needle through her skin on the far end of her cut.

     She wailed as soon as it punctured through, the original pain from the wound just amplifying with the sharp prick of the needle piercing through and the uncomfortable tugging of the thread pulling across her skin. She still needed to go back through the other side.

     She bit back her scream this time. He didn’t need to hear it. She saw that glint in his eye when he stabbed her; she knew he liked that she was hurt. She wouldn’t give him any more satisfaction.

     In, and out.

     It hurt so badly, she didn’t know if she could keep herself quiet.

     In, and out.

     She was hardly making any progress. She kept the stitches close together, desperate to keep it closed tightly so she wouldn’t have to do this again.

     In, and out.

     Tears spilled down her cheeks so quickly she could feel little pools forming on her chest.

     In, and out.

     She wondered if anyone even knew she was gone yet. Probably not; this was only the first night. Only the first night, and she got fucking stabbed. What else was going to happen to her?

     In, and out.

     Mom will figure out something is wrong by Sunday at the latest.

     In, and out.

     The agony started to get so bad that her vision spotted.

     Dima will help Mom find her. They’ll find her, right? The police will find her soon. All she needed to do right now was make sure she doesn’t bleed out and then someone will find her soon. They have to.

     In, and out.

     This stuff only ever happened in movies. Maybe it was just a nightmare. Maybe she was going to wake up nice and warm in bed in the morning with her thigh perfectly intact.

     In, and out.

     Maybe it was all a nightmare.

     In, and out.

     It hurt.

     In, and out.

     It hurt a lot.

    In, and out.

     She wanted to puke. The pain was so bad it was hard to breathe.

     She went on and on until the wound was completely stitched. It was hard to count, but she was pretty sure it was thirty seven. Thirty seven tiny stitches. She could have done half of that and still closed it up, but she was terrified of her handiwork not being tight enough or coming apart. Once she did a full row up, she did another back down, forcing herself to double up to keep it secure despite the pain. Relief flooded her as she finally got back to where she started and tied off the remaining thread with a knot.

     She wanted to try to pick the lock on the handcuffs with the sewing tools, but the thought was distant in her mind. Pain danced around and ignited her nerves constantly now that there was thread in her leg that wasn’t meant to be there. It looked bad already; her skin was red with irritation and every point where the needle had gone through her skin was throbbing. The pain was dizzying.

     She couldn’t hold on any longer. With a shudder, she fell back against the wall of the bathtub, her world going black. 

Tags: @exploringspaceinpyjamas

[wrongfullythinking]

Twitter and the “Public Forum”

There is a very large looming legal question about whether or not social media sites, such as Twitter, are “Public Forums.”  Most would agree that they are not... at least... not yet.  But the question is... should they be?

First, a look into why it matters.

In a public forum, all First Amendment protections apply.  So you can say any number of very objectionable things (https://scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=12634874511090553174) and be protected.  In a private forum, this is not so.  I can kick you out of my house for wearing an Abercrombie shirt, and you have no Free Speech/Expression reason to contest my staggeringly good decision-making.

Second, the public forum cannot be policed for any content that may be stated.  This is why if you go to reserve time at a public park, you don’t have to tell the Parks and Rec department what your event is for.  Just things like how many people, how long the event will last, etc.  This is well-established and well-backed by many years of precedent.

Finally, there is the very serious matter of personal liability.  In certain circumstances, officials can be held personally liable if their policies deliberately and knowingly infringe upon Bill of Rights protections (most often First Amendment protections).  This means that you could literally sue for the property and assets of a person.  (Also, this is why those of us who own either physical property [like a house] or intellectual property [like a book] buy “Umbrella Coverage” from insurances... I recommend State Farm, but that’s totally irrelevant and I’m not getting any kickbacks for that shill =P.)

But hang on... so if the government owns a billboard and rents it out to whomever can pay, can I rent it and post a naked lady?

You could try, and you might win!  What you can’t do is post something obscene.  And yes, whether or not a naked person is obscene is staggeringly controversial.  There’s a 3-part test from the Burger court, a host of vague terms like “average person” and “contemporary community standards,” and “lacks serious artistic/literary/political/scientific value.”  And then there are protections for children, a whole separate piece, as well as child pornography, which is always classified as obscene... except when it is not, like in the cases of naked cherubs in church windows.  So, confused yet?  We’re off topic, but I make this point to explain that even in public forums, where First Amendment rights are fiercely protected, there are still outstanding issues of content censorship.

So, is Twitter / Facebook / Tumblr a public forum?

At this point, the answer is no.  They are privately controlled by companies, not owned by the feds or states or local municipalities, and thus can make almost any policy they want.  The idea here is that the free market dictates the life or death of these platforms... and that idea tends to hold true!  Tumblr itself is a good case-in-point, because it has lost millions of dollars in value due to bad leadership decisions, and at least partially because of censorship.  There are countless examples of others... I remember when Yahoo! was the primary search engine of the internet and Xanga was the biggest blogging platform.  While you can still Yahoo, I’m not sure there are more than a few hundred people on Xanga, if it still exists in any useful format.  So, since places like this are subject to the free market, and thus can die... they should be allowed to make all the good or bad decisions they want about their content.  Or at least, that is how the theory runs.

But really... ARE they subject to the market?  Now we’re getting into the really interesting territory.  If Facebook shut down tomorrow, would it be a problem?  Maybe, but life would continue.  But if Google shut down tomorrow?  Well, millions of schoolchildren are in GoogleClassrooms right now, so that would certainly be a problem.  It would at least cause massive disruption... and Facebook shutting down would cause some disruption.  Likewise, Twitter controls so much speech that instead of publishing headlines from Newspapers, newspapers publish headlines from Twitter!  The 14-year-old looks at that line like “well, duh” and the 44-year old reads that line like “wow, we’ve come a long way,” and the 84-year-old reads that line with just a sad headshake.

So, now we’ve joined one of the most controversial points of the last 20 years... the Fannie Mae “Too Big to Fail” problem.  Basically, a set of banks and big mortgage companies (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) made a bunch of bad decisions in about 1995 - 2008.  [As an aside, whether or not Fannie Mae {technically, the “Federal National Mortgage Association”} is actually a company comes up as an issue... it originated as a government program, but is today a publicly-traded company and has been since the late 60s, though it was delisted from NYSE and is only traded off-exchange].  And the government had to step in.  You can read all about that issue at another time, the bottom line is that actually Fannie Mae has paid back more than it borrowed, but there was a ballooning of the debt ceiling by over 800 billion.  Some people care about the national debt, some don’t, and again, not the subject of this commentary.  The point is that it set a very odd precedent, whereas a company could make extremely bad decisions and then the burden would be placed on the taxpayers to fix their decision, because the company itself was a part of so many people’s lives.  Would social media fall under this guidance?  Unlikely, and I think we would all run from state-sponsored social media... but hey, what do I know.

So... get to the point.  Should they be public forums, or not?

My two cents always comes down against censorship, especially censorship by entities that don’t have my best interests at heart... so basically, everybody else.  I think that it is so easy to self-censor the internet at the personal end (for example, by installing filters and blocking services for objectionable content), that companies should not be unilaterally making these decisions, especially if those companies want to be venues for mass public communication.

Let’s go with another example... let’s say you wanted to call up your buddy and have a nice long phonesex session.  Good for you.  Or just chat with them about the latest Dr. Doe video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXgT8WXaPUY), because enthusiasm is important.  Would you be okay with Verizon telling a robot to monitor your call, and then automatically hang up if you said “penis” too much?  Or “Trump”?  Or “Black Lives Matter?”  What about “Nazi,” “Rohypnol,” “Mary Jane,” “negritos” [I’ve got your back, Mr. Cavani], “snowbunny,” or “Insane Clown Posse”?  I think most people would be upset about any of those, and they would rightfully tell Verizon that they will find another provider.  So Verizon doesn’t do that, although it could.  But Twitter does do that.  And the availability of another Twitter is in question.  Will something succeed Twitter?  Absolutely.  But right now, Twitter is under no market pressure, so it is succeeding at taking off its platform any number of conversations that it probably should not be policing.

There’s also a social-justice side of this.  So, let’s say that we all decide Twitter is a bad platform and move to something else.  And that something else costs us 10$ a month.  I wouldn’t notice this fee.  Others would.  So that’s an access issue.  Or, let’s say that some people start migrating to a new platform, and they only tell their friends about it.  That’s okay, right?  Absolutely... but imagine that college student who is trapped at home in a pandemic right now who cannot get any viewpoints outside of what her parents approved of, and previously used Twitter to explore and challenge her upbringing.  If she doesn’t get an invite to the new platform, is she just lost?

And that brings up the Pandemic.  Many, many common public forums have been shut down due to the pandemic.  This alone has caused serious controversy (see: BLM protests on crowded streets where state governors participated, while those same governors implemented executive orders enforcing 6-foot distancing in churches and stores), so the argument for Twitter censorship “but you have many other public forums!” is tough to substantiate during the COVID-era.  And this is a HUGE problem.  Historically, taking away public forums is always an early move of totalitarian regimes.  Taking away rights to assembly and speech follows soon after.  We’re now in Phase 2 there... and our governors keep assuring us it is temporary... while at the same time, encouraging Twitter to take off any viewpoints they don’t like, under the guise of “false or misleading information.”  Soon, they start moving into the schools, and that leads to...

SCIENCE!!!

So, to talk about what rigorous debate means, we need to understand a bit about Science.  And specifically, the philosophy of science, what scientific discourse looks like, and why review and critique are parts of the scientific process.

Point 1: “Scientific consensus” is hogwash.  Yes, we all agree that the Earth orbits the Sun, and the Sun itself moves, but beyond that, there isn’t much scientific consensus.  If you see an article that starts with the phrase “Expert say,” you can go ahead and close your browser window right there.  The rest is bull****.

Point 2: The limits of science are boundless.  Any specific scientific paper is, by necessity and the peer review process, very strictly bounded.  “Whether or not a vaccine is efficient” is an entirely different paper than one titled “Whether or not 80-year-olds with lung cancer should get the vaccine,” and both of those are different than “How the US should achieve herd immunity, and if it is even possible for COVID-19 before significant mutations cause current immunizations to be ineffective,” and all three of those are different from “Do we need to vaccinate our cats from COVID in order to reach herd immunity?”

Point 3: There is no “finalized” science.  The answers are never finished.  What is “cutting edge” science today is out-of-date tomorrow, barbaric and backwards by the end of the year, and grounds for an abuse lawsuit by the end of the decade.  The best examples of this are from Psych treatments.

Point 4: I get very worried when anybody starts to censor scientific content... especially those without any qualifications.  Okay, so this one is a personal sentence (note the “I”), but I’m going to go ahead and guess that Twitter robots and interns flagging posts don’t have any idea the difference between sensitivity and specificity, the background as to why the FDA has never approved an mRNA vaccine previously, the difference between statistical and clinical significance, and how to read a limitations section.  The people who are qualified to do so are peer reviewers... and in the case where those fail (which happens!), the rest of the writer’s peers.  And we do that.  Anything published is open to critique, which leads to the final point, that...

Point 5: Critique and Review are THE MOST IMPORTANT PARTS of scientific publishing.  If a piece is published without review, it is called an “opinion” and not science.  Even more worrisome than the censoring of unpopular papers is the censoring of the opinions of scientists on the papers of their peers.  Should someone publish a paper where I believe they overstretched their claims, it is a HUGE part of my job to call that out.  For an agency like Twitter to be able to say “you don’t have the right to say that they overstated their claim, because expressing a concern about a vaccine is against our Terms of Use” is a very big problem for science.

The flipside is that you get into the part where now a company can, through its policy, dictate what science gets done.  For example, lets say I wanted to examine an unpopular question... and I’m a social scientist, so there are plenty of those, but say I wanted to do something semi-controversial but apolitical.  I’ll say my research question is “How do the happiness of those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships compare to the happiness of people in similar economic and social situations but in closed marriages where additional intimate partnerships would be viewed as grounds for relationship termination?”  There are plenty of ways I could conduct this study and I’ll spare you my methodological musings, but safe to say there are platforms who would not want me to publish my results.  And that’s fine. 

But let’s say that I did publish my results, and a commenter took to Twitter.  And their response was “I read your paper, and I see your conclusion that those in committed multi-year polyamorous relationships score no differently on a happiness scale than those in the closed marriages.  However, I disagree with your use of this scale, because it was tested on populations of retirees, and most of the people in your sample are in their late 20s or early 30s.”

That is an EXCELLENT and VALID critique.  And let’s say that Twitter was heavily into the social justice and had a policy that said “you can’t say negative things about polyamory.”  And they deleted this person’s comment.  Now, Twitter has interfered with the scientific process.  That comment IS PART of the dialogue and that dialogue is part of Science.  Yes, there are other places that those comments could be made, and not be censored... but we should not be encouraging that censorship ANYWHERE.  And Twitter has vastly overstepped the line on this point.  Random Twitter employees have no business removing professional critiques about a study, even if there are other platforms for those critiques.

Other Thoughts

1) Generally, you can’t prohibit meetings in a public forum based on prior behavior.  Thus, “X group was violent in the past” is not a reason to prohibit X group from accessing a public forum for speech.  So there’s no saying “Proud Boys were violent once, so no Proud Boys on Twitter” if it were to be declared a public forum.

2) I’m really not aware of any large precedents for taking a private company and declaring it a public forum.  That may seem redundant (obviously, if there was precedent, this wouldn’t be such a hot-button issue), but it bears specific mention.

[365days365movies]

February 23, 2021: His Girl Friday (1940) (Part 1)

Oh, we’re going BACK for this one!

Yeah, this is smack dab in the Golden Age of Cinema! Post-depression, the cinematic culture boomed like CRAZY. Obviously, this age had started before this point, but there was no stopping Hollywood here. I mean, in 1940 alone, Disney came out with Pinocchio AND Fantasia, films like The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Dictator, and Rebecca came out, and some of those were prefaced by short cartoons featuring a brand new certain someone.

Oh, also, there was some war of the world 2 thing going on overseas, I dunno. But anyway! Another well-known film that came out that year was The Philadelphia Story, a George Cukor-directed film starring Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn, and one of a subgenre of comedies called the screwball comedy.

Arguably starting with the 1934 film It Happened One Night, these are romantic comedies that usually feature a self-confident and stubborn female protagonist inevitably falling in love with the male protagonist, who’s probably initially mismatched with her, personality-wise. You should also throw some slapstick comedy, disguises (cross-dressing’s a feature of a lot of these, weirdly), and class struggle. Yeah, also apparently a trend of these films, that were CRAZY popular from 1934 through the ‘40s.

And in case you’re thinking, “That plot structure sounds familiar, where have I heard that before?”, well, I just watched a later-era screwball comedy, Pillow Talk.

But today, the screwball comedy’s mostly disappeared. Some tropes survive, but the reason for the genre’s extinction is simply because of lack of demand. Part of that is because the genre emerged due to questions of class struggle post-Great Depression. Yeah, seriously, the Great Depression is involved in this shit! Obviously, though, that’s not currently as much of a stressor now, so this genre is dead save for some conventions.

But OK, screwball comedy. Why not look at older members of the genre, rather than this film from smack dab in the middle of it? Well, a few reasons. One, this film stars leading man Cary Grant in his prime. And two, because this film was directed by the one and only Howard Hawks.

Hawks directed yet another Grant-Hepburn vehicle, Bringing Up Baby. And yes, that IS a leopard in a car! I’d watch that this month, but I’ve already seen it. Anyway, Hawks is an understated but excellent director, and his female characters are an archetype in and of themselves, known as Hawksian women. They’re tough-talkers, and the main characters of most old screwball comedies.

OK, but Hawks had a lot of romance films with these characters, so why His Girl Friday? Well, other than knowing it from pure reputation as a good movie, it’s also been called one of the best romcoms of all time, and it’s one of his highest rated films as well. And honestly...I kinda just wanted to watch it based on the premise, which is...interesting. But OK, enough navel-gazing. On with the show! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap (1/2)

We start in a newspaper office in the year 1940, where “Hildy” Johnson (Rosalind Russell) has arrives with her fiancee, Bruce Baldwin (Ralph Bellamy), a sweet man who clearly loves her. Shit. He’s the guy destined to be left behind for the actual love interest of the movie Goddamn it, OK.

Anyway, Hildy apparently used to work here, although I’m not sure of the capacity as of yet. She’s only here now to visit her ex-husband, chief editor Walter Burns (Cary Grant). Their reunion is a bt icy, although Walter still seems to be in love with her still, while Hildy’s absolutely not interested. For now.

And as the two have a back-and-forth, I gotta say, GODDAMN is this some snappy dialogue! Fast-paced, but well-written and understandable all the same. It shuld also be noted that this film was adapted from a 1928 play, The Front Page, and it shows in how these two are playing in front of the screen. Their chemistry’s basically immediate, and you sense an unseen history between them easily.

What I’m saying is, it’s great. Anyway, the two have gotten divorced, and while Walter originally agreed, he’s now fighting the divorce to stay with Hildy, even though she doesn’t want that at all. He’s been calling her constantly, and bugging her. He also talks over her, trying to prevent her from getting a word in edgewise, and Hildy ain’t fuckin’ HAVING that shit!

He asks her to come back to work for him as a reporter (THERE’S the connection to the office), and if that doesn’t work out...they can get married again? Yeah, Walter, Jesus, take a hint. She tells Walter that she’s not coming back to him, and not coming back to work on the paper.

The two, through increasingly impressive dialogue, argue intensely, which is capped off by this well-timed and impressive dodge by Walter, followed by a crack that her aim used to be better.

This movie...holy shit, this movie. Anyway, through the argument, Walter gets a call and pretends that one of his reporters called out sick, in order to get Hildy to work one more job for him. Whoof, that’s manipulatiiiiiiive. But she breaks through his constant pressing to finally tell him that she’s now engaged, and is quitting the newspaper business.

Walter insists that quitting would kill her, s she’s a “newspaperman,” which is interesting. But she’s tired of it all, and wants to live a respectable, normal life, as she says. Her fiancee is an insurance man, which Walter notes is too boring. But Hildy notes that he’s kind, sweet, and considerate, and wants a home and children, and her mind is made up.

Walter relents (seemingly) , and gives Hildy his blessings. However, he decides that he wants to meet Bruce in person, and goes out to say hello, That results in...what is legitimately a VERY funny interaction between Water, Bruce, and a random-ass dude named Pete Davis. It is...it is funny.

So, for the record, Walter’s a verbally-manipulative asshole, and...I kind of like him? Like, he’s an ABSOLUTE DICK, but also a charmer. He quickly coerces Hildy and Bruce into getting lunch at a local place. There, we learn that the two are planning on moving to Albany, where Bruce is confident that the insurance business is strong. I’ve been to Albany, and I can see that.

Walter, during the lunch, is once again a DICK, doing his best to intimidate Bruce and sabotage their plans to leave for Albany that day. He makes his way to the phone, where he schemes with Duffy (Frank Orth) to keep her in town. Back at the table, he tells her of the case of Earl Williams.

Williams is, apparently, a man recently convicted of shooting a police officer...who was black...and they use a word to describe him that begins with a C...that makes me uncomfortablllllllllllle. But it’s 1940, so it could be FAR worse. Anyway, he’s going to be executed, even though he claims that he’s innocence. And while Hildy’s intrigued by the case, she refuses to cover it for Walter.

UNTIL, that is, Walter offers to buy an insurance policy from Bruce for $100000 in 1940 money, which means a commission for $18,000 in today’s money. Uh...yeah. Yes, please. And yet, Bruce says NO, not wanting to involve his future wife in his affairs, like a GODDAMN GENTLEMAN. But Hildy don’t give a FUCK, and basically accepts the deal for him. And, uh, I DO NOT blame her, that’s a lot of goddamn money!

Understandably not trusting Walter, she has Bruce give her all of the money that they have, to his equally understandable reluctance. Because there is NO WAY that she isn’t gonna lose all of that money. We find out from a group of reporters staying near the prison that Williams is to be hung tomorrow, and that he’s a bookkeeper that was recently unemployed.

Meanwhile, after a doctor’s check-up, Bruce and Walter write up the life insurance, and Walter tells Bruce to make Hildy his beneficiary. And Bruce is understandably awkward about that, but Walter ends up convincing him, the smooth and conniving DICK that he is.

Duffy walks in to give Walter a check for more money than originally intended, and it’s even been certified! Which is...odd, but OK. Bruce calls Hildy to let her know, and she’s very suspicious. She tells Bruce to put the check in the lining of his hat, claiming that it’s an old journalist’s superstition (it is not). Looks like she’s right to be suspicious, as Walter brings in a short gentleman for unknown reasons. He follows Bruce out as he leaves the office.

Meanwhile, Hildy brides a prison guard to speak with Earl Williams (John Qualen) before his execution. He’s a shy and bookish man, who was thought to become radicalized by people speaking in a pubic park, where he went after losing his job. This, it’s believed by the press and court, eventually drove him to go insane and kill the policeman. 

But Earl seems perfectly sane, and committing murder goes against his morals. He also wasn’t won over by said radical park speakers, although he admits one of them made some good points. But still, he had a gun, and he apparently did shoot the policeman. 

In their interview, Hildy learns that the man in the park was talking about “production for use”, which is the idea that everything produced should be used, basically in a way that production meets demand, and profit is less important than product. Which, granted, is an interesting idea. But Hildy uses that to convince Earl that he shot the gun because he had it in his hands. And since the gun was produced, it needed to be used, so...

Well, that’s...something. We also learn about Mollie Malloy (Helen Mack), who’s been unfairly labeled by the press as Earl’s mistress and the witness to his case. And she gives a very passionate and heartfelt plea with the male journalists, who are...vicious. And Mollie’s hurt indeed. And while she’s there, they all treat her terribly.

But she breaks down in front of them even further when she sees the gallows being prepared outside. And as Hildy takes her out, the men left behind actually do seem ashamed. And in a single stroke, in a single scene, the film uses an immense moment of drama to show exactly why Hildy wants to leave, and the things that it makes people in this profession do. It’s...masterful.

Good place to pause! See you in Part 2!

[hypnoticwinter]

imagine actually reading this post lol

looks like this weekend is a wash in terms of writing, or just in general. I keep waking up at 6:30 in the morning for some reason, I’m not setting an alarm and I don’t usually wake up at that time, it’s just happening. And once I’m up, I can’t go back to sleep. I guess my assumption that if I keep going to bed at the same time I always do I’ll eventually just get so tired that I’ll start waking up at a reasonable hour isn’t panning out.

I did all the writing I needed to do this weekend on Friday so that I could have yesterday and today off. Someone had made plans with me so I cleared my schedule and then they ended up not following through. On the bright side I did realize exactly how little I do besides write. I guess the smarter thing would have been to just write more anyway since I suddenly had time to, but I didn’t. 

Still deciding what to do about the story-within-a-story issue in my novel. I think probably the overall best thing to do would be to cut it down some. I’d thought originally that I could just alternate between Roan and Peter so that way there’d be more variety but that isn’t going to work due to the way the plot is going. At the same time, I think the story and characters are compelling enough that they really do work on their own, so an alternative would be to break it apart into two stories, probably both ending up novella-length, and just have that be that.

That being said I’m probably just going to ape DFW because if he can get away with it I can get away with it, and the story is going to end up being insanely long for what it is anyway, so at this point I think embracing it is probably the way to go. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing but I need to be very careful to make sure that the reader doesn’t forget about or get bored of Roan chapters; I think probably I ought to go back and alternate more with what I have already, but the narrative of the Roan sections is pretty good and I don’t think I could add anything without inventing an extraneous subplot that doesn’t really add anything other than padding; clearly this does not need more padding. Another issue also is the nature of serializing a story like this makes it very difficult to go back and make sweeping changes without confusing everybody reading along.

At the end of the day I think the only real option is to just press forward without really altering anything. Peter and Makado are good enough characters that the story doesn’t really lose anything, but I don’t want them to take the spotlight away from Roan. That being said, does Roan really need that much of a spotlight? Maybe it was a mistake to make the story first-person from her perspective. You get more of a lens that way but she has too much personality to just be a lens.

Hoping to do chapters 9 and 10 this week, and 11 early next week. Roughly 18k words but if I do 2k a day that’s manageable, and I can probably crank out 4k a day next weekend. Got to make up for lost time.

Just realized as well that for the last four years I’ve been worth more dead than alive, as I received a free 2000 dollar life insurance policy from my bank and since then my net worth has hovered in the eight or nine hundred range at most, I think. I need to hurry up and finish this story before someone offs me for the insurance money. I don’t even remember who I made the policy out to.

[wolfpawn]

I Hate You, I Love You, Chapter 116

Chapter Summary - Danielle arrives home with Mac to an empty house, but it is not long before her two pups meet.

Previous Chapter

Rating - Mature (some chapters contain smut)

Triggers - references to Tom Hiddleston’s work with the #MeToo Movement. That chapter will be tagged accordingly.

authors Note - I have been working on this for the last 3 years, it is currently 180+ chapters long.  This will be updated daily, so long as I can get time to do so, obviously.

All image rights belong to their owners

tags: @sweetkingdomstarlight-blog @jessibelle-nerdy-mum @nonsensicalobsessions @damalseer @hiddlesbitch1 @winterisakiller @fairlightswiftly @salempoe @wolfsmom1

If you wish to be tagged, please let me know.

Danielle sighed, the day had been long, but Mac rubbing his muzzle against her as she sat in the trailer made her feel better. She checked her phone and smiled. She brought up Tom’s number and pressed call.

‘Hello, Ms Hughes, how are you this evening?’ His voice all but purred at her.

‘Very well,’ Her tone was warm and playful. ‘But I fear I have a confession to make.’

‘I am listening.’

‘I have someone with his head on my lap at the moment.’

‘And we only apart with a fortnight, Darling, why must you hurt me so?’

‘Yes, but in all fairness, he has had my love for the past few years and has returned it longer than you have.’

‘I feel like I should be challenging him to a duel.’ Tom chuckled.

‘He would win.’

‘He cannot hold a gun, or a sword for that matter, he has no thumbs. I think.’

‘Dewclaws are their versions of thumbs.’

‘I read before that people remove them.’

‘Yes, no licensed vet in Ireland or Britain will do it though, they can be struck off for it if it is not needed.’ She explained. ‘How is our little boy?’

‘He is great. Did you get my picture?’

‘I did. Did he cry in the car?’

‘A little. Though I did something bold.’

‘Tell me.’

I may have left him sleep with Poppy at night.’

‘I can’t blame you.’

‘It’s not that bad, is it?’

‘More for Poppy than Bobby.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, he is fully vaccinated as of tomorrow, meaning that he can then be around Mac, but she will have no one, but going down to one before losing all her littermates is not life ending. Your mum will pamper her.’

‘She already is doing that. Do you like the name?’

‘I do actually, Bobby suits him.’ She smiled. In the end, she had given the duty of puppy naming to Tom, seeing how much time and effort he put into his names. She watched as he went Googling multiple sites in hopes of getting the best possible one, looking at the picture of the puppy on his phone over and over as he thought of the names. Seeing what it meant to him, Danielle assigned puppy naming duties to Tom, with the right to veto if needed. Tom acted as though she had bestowed some immense honour on him and took it very seriously.

‘I cannot believe you had everything readied before you left.’ Tom chuckled, recalling how there was nothing left to chance with Danielle’s planning. ‘The training pads were the best investment ever.’

‘I can well imagine. Have you done what I told you to do?’

‘He is good, not there yet though.’

‘They learn, with consistency, he will catch on quick.’

‘He is getting there.’

‘Good, with Big Brother Mac, he will thrive even more. I cannot wait to see them together.’

‘I cannot wait to see you.’ Tom smiled.

‘Do you miss me?’

‘Terribly. Do you miss me?’

‘From time to time.’ Tom growled. ‘I do, so much, but mostly because we are forced apart to be safe and not because of work. It will be worth it when we and our boys are going for walks on the beach.’

‘We won’t be doing this too often.’ Tom agreed, ‘Bar everytime we add a puppy.’

‘And become dog hoarders.’ Danielle laughed.

‘Wait and see, it will be one of those crap tv specials yet.’ Tom joked.

‘I cannot wait to see you again.’

‘Tomorrow cannot come soon enough. How was work?’

‘Good, tiring. Mac loved it on set. There were seagulls, so you know him.’

‘He was only protecting you.’ Tom laughed.

‘And he did a great job, no thanks to me, I went within a few feet of one and he nearly lost his life.’

‘I told him to look out for you, he promised he would.’

‘I love you.’

‘How could you not?’ Tom joked, causing her to laugh. ‘I love you too, my beautiful Elle. I better go here, someone is....yep.’

‘Go, bye. Don’t scold him.’ Danielle called out before the line went dead.

*

‘Now, be nice.’ Danielle warned as she turned the key in the ignition and took it out. ‘Bobby is small and young, so he is scared.’ Mac sat up, seemingly knowing he was home again. She got out of the car and went around to the boot, opening it before undoing his harness. ‘We will have to sort something for him too actually, two hoops I suppose. I guess my car is officially the doggie car now.’ She rambled as Mac relieved himself against Tom’s car.

Collecting her suitcase and her laptop case, Danielle closed up the car and walked up the steps. She made sure to get in first, dropping her belongings in the hallway before letting Mac in. After a few moments, it was obvious there was no one there. Wondering where they could be, Danielle watched as Mac inspected the new smells that infested his domain with keen interest. She put her dirty laundry in the back kitchen then brought her case upstairs, all the time Mac trying to establish what was afoot. As he continued to investigate this new revelation, Danielle got everything else out of the car and looked at the locked gate that protected their home, wondering where Tom and Bobby had gone.

With the car cleared, she tidied everything away and let Mac out into the garden, only for him to continue his thorough assessment there. He looked at her more than once with an appearance that could only ever be accused of being concern. ‘I told you about this. You’ll get to meet him soon, I think.’ Mac gave a grunt in return.

It was another hour before Mac’s ears went up and he ran to the front of the house to see what was going on, telling Danielle that Tom and Bobby were returning. When she heard the key in the door, she walked out to the hallway and brought Mac into the kitchen before closing the door, meeting Tom in the hall. ‘Hi.’

‘What are you doing home early?’ Tom asked, his eyes wide as though shocked.

‘I said I would be back at lunchtime.’ She frowned.

‘No, you said dinner time.’

‘Tom, I sent you a text that clearly says lunchtime.’ She took out her phone and got up the message. ‘Yeah, “Okay, we will be home in time for lunch”.’ She held it up for him to see.

‘I didn’t read it right.’

‘Apparently not.’ She smiled. ‘It doesn’t matter, we are home now. Hello.’ She leant forward and kissed him.

‘But we weren’t here.’ Tom looked at her sheepishly. ‘I wanted us all to be here.’

‘Tom, it’s fine, it’s given Mac a chance to realise there is someone new here, he is very intrigued.’

‘How come you are ignoring him, how can you?’ Tom looked down where Bobby was currently jumping up all over Danielle’s legs.

‘I have to ignore him until he stops and gives me the behaviour I want from him, then I reward his behaviour with attention.’ She explained.

‘But he is being adorable.’

‘I know, but I want him to be adorable and good and the only way to get that is to be like this now, as much as I want to cuddle my little boy.’ Danielle shrugged with a small smile. Tom gave her a small look that made her frown again. ‘What’s up?’

‘I just feel like I messed up.’

‘Tom, please stop, you are being silly.’

‘So you are in no way upset that I was not here when you came home?’ He challenged.

Danielle was about to answer when Bobby, upset at the lack of attention, sat down to consider how to get her to pay him some. By doing that, he unknowingly did as he was wanted to do and Danielle smiled at him. ‘Good boy, hello.’ She knelt down and began to scratch under his ear. ‘You are far more cute that when I last saw you, are you being a good boy?’ The puppy, ecstatic with the attention, began to lick her hand. ‘I have a new friend for you, he is all nosey about meeting you, you are going to have so much fun together.’ she promised. ‘Did he get microchipped?’

‘Yes, and the vet nurse or receptionist or probably both, whatever she was, she said to look into insurance.’

‘Yeah, I need the microchip number to add him to the policy Mac is on, microchipping means a lower premium.’

‘So what is “pet insurance” exactly?’

‘Same as health insurance for us, if they get an issue and the vet needs to look into it, we can get them every sort of procedure done for little or nothing.’ She smiled. ‘Mac has never needed his, but it is something I think they should have regardless.’

‘Yeah, how will we sort that?’

‘Sort what?’

‘Well, you have Mac on it, so it is being charged to you.’

‘Tom, we are not going to start to half the bills.’

‘Why not, surely that is the best thing to do, we both pay them together?’

‘You want to do it that way?’ Tom’s face told her he thought it was the best idea. ‘Okay, sure, we can discuss it later at dinner.’ She looked at Bobby, who was sniffing at the kitchen door with his ears up, on the other side, there were responding sniffs. ‘Ready?’

‘How will we do this?’

‘I will go in and pull Mac back, you carry Bobby in and I will keep hold of Mac as you place him on the floor, we let Bobby make the first move. When he comes over, we wait for ears up and a tail wag from Mac and for Bobby to not look like he is about to pee himself, then I let go of Mac and we supervise introductions.’ She instructed.

‘If Mac does not like him?’

‘He will, he loves other dogs, but if, in the off chance that he goes insane here, I grab him and when I say get Bobby, you get him, not before.’ She ordered. Tom nodded and watched as she slipped into the room, him holding Bobby back as she did, the puppy’s ears perked as he whined at her for leaving them. ‘Hey, we talked about this, remember. Come over here to me and we’ll wait for him to come in, be nice.’ There was a moment of silence. ‘Okay Tom, come in.’

Tom lifted Bobby and walked into the room. When he got in, Mac seemed focused on Tom for a moment, wagging his tail happily at him before realising what was in his arms. Mac strained to get forward, his tail wagging already and his ears up as he sniffed the air in front of him to get as much of Bobby’s scent in as possible. Bobby, for his part, seemed as interested and was wriggling in Tom’s arms to get closer the other dog. Danielle gave the nod and Tom placed Bobby gently on the ground, as soon as he did, the puppy bounded the older dog, who shrank down as though attempting to not look as formidable to the pup. The sniffs only took a few moments before Bobby pawed Mac’s nose and the older dog playfully opened his mouth. Danielle let go of him and he immediately went forward, his two forelimbs on the ground with his behind in the air, urging the puppy to play.

‘Well, that went as expected.’ Danielle smiled, looking at them. ‘I knew they would get on. And you thought they would argue.’ She leant against Tom as she watched the dogs get to know one another. Tom continued to watch them as he put his arm around her, saying nothing.’Is something the matter Tom, you’re not acting like you.’

‘I am just wondering how I did not remember you were coming home this afternoon.’

‘Is that really bothering you that much?’

‘I had everything planned.’

‘Ooh, sounds fun.’ She smiled.

‘I was going to have dinner ready and everything and I feel like I fucked it up.’

‘You did not, please stop. You know I hate seeing you annoyed about something like this, it was a simple mistake.’ She pleaded. ‘Where did you two go for yourselves?’

‘Well, we went for a very short walk, since he is just fully vaccinated and he is less than pleased with his lead and harness.’

‘Mac will have him too occupied with fun to notice it from now on, wait and see. It cannot have been too short a walk, we are home for nearly two hours.’

‘I bumped into someone and we went for coffee.’

‘Ah, that makes more sense.’ Danielle nodded. ‘Anyone interesting?’

‘Lolita.’

‘From Hamlet, right?’

‘Yes.’

‘Very nice, how is she?’

‘Good, she is working on a slightly larger scale production soon.’

‘That’s good.’ Danielle gave a small smile and nod, she did not seem overly enthused.

‘Are you alright, you seem somewhat….off?’

‘Tired, worn out.’

‘Much paperwork?’

‘So much bloody paperwork, I did most of it while waiting to get the all-clear to come home, but there was a shit tonne of it.’ She leant into him. ‘I want nothing more than us and a few nights of quiet and maybe a few movies and to tidy it up before sending it.’

‘And plenty of dog walks.’

‘You are speaking my language.’ She moaned as she leant into him more. ‘Damn you smell good.’

‘Do I?’

‘Mmhmm. I saw the pictures by the way, of you and Bobby, you look so cute together.’

‘You’d swear I was caught out with another woman the way some of the photographers acted.’

‘But it is you, who is sexy and incredible looking, with an adorable puppy, have you any idea how that will look online for you?’ She laughed. ‘I can only imagine your fans, they are probably balls of baby talking mush right now. Can’t say I blame them, puppy looks good on you.’

‘You make me sound like Cruella DeVil.’

‘“Cruella DeVil, Cruella DeVil, if she doesn’t scare you, no evil thing will,” except maybe Thomas Sharpe, or the High Rise, actually yeah, maybe the High Rise, less dog eating here hopefully. You play a lot of villains.’

‘Laing is not a villain.’

‘High Rise is interesting, they are all villains in their own way. Laing not as much as others, no rape or needless fighting, but he was never one to nail his colours to the mast. A survivor, an adaptor, but still, willing to ignore the plight of others.’

‘Well, as the Jag campaign stated, we Brits make the best villains.’ He grinned.

‘Ye usually are the villains anyway.’ She retorted.

‘Really, Ireland versus England jokes.’

‘Hey, you invaded us, don’t be getting uppity when we make jokes about it.’ Danielle nudged him slightly. The dogs seemed to get over the formal introductions and were trotting around the room together. ‘Uh-oh.’ Danielle walked forward and scooped up Bobby. ‘Outside Mister.’

‘He wasn’t doing anything.’

‘He was sniffing, that is a boy choosing a peeing spot.’ She placed him on the ground and waited. Bobby got sidetracked by smelling the place, since Mac had scented it since his return home, but within five minutes, he began to pee. ‘Good boy, oh he is the best man.’ Danielle gave him attention as soon as he finished, Bobby adoring every moment of it, trying to lick her face as she bent down to pet him.

‘You cleaned up.’ Tom noted when he looked around. ‘I was going to…’

‘I got it sorted, I did not want Mac trailing it in the house.’ She smiled. ‘Ready little man?’ Bobby trundled over to Tom, his ears flopping comically. ‘I love him so much already.’

‘He is adorable.’ Tom agreed. When they walked in, Mac seemed to realise he had not given Tom a proper hello and ran over to him, wagging his tail excitedly. ‘Well hello, I missed you too. Did you look after our girl when you were away, did you have fun?’ Mac grumbled back at him. ‘We need to have a good jog tomorrow, just you and me.’

Bobby looked on curiously before Danielle sat on the floor, causing the puppy to rush over to her for attention. After Mac felt that he and Tom caught up, Tom looked to Danielle, who was looking at her legs where Bobby had decided to fall asleep. ‘I don’t want to wake him.’

‘You have to get up.’ Tom reminded her.

Mac trotted over before mimicking the puppy and used her as a pillow. ‘Well, now I’m fucked. I am not getting up for the afternoon.’ Danielle laughed.

‘You did that to yourself really.’

‘I am surprisingly okay with it.’