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horribluh · 25 days

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hilarious mpreg zosan thought, sanji has a kid that has green hair but its not zoros kid. he has in fact never disclosed who the other father was (choose ur own adventure dead beat dad edition) and his siblings already have amazing technicolour hair so its not outside the realm of possibility for his biological children to also have weird hair colours. but when the kid pops out with green hair everyone immediately connects the dots that hey, doesnt the strawhats first mate that sanji famously doesn't get along with also have green hair? is this why sanji never said who the other father was? hes a fucking dead beat! get his ass!

this misconception integrates into everyones mind bc it makes too much sense to not be true and everyone is suddenly deadset on "protecting sanjis honour" and making zoro "take responsibility"

sanji is screaming crying throwing up disgusted bc no!!! the shitty mosshead is not the father!!! stop saying that!!!! but since he still wont say who the actual father is, everyone is just like its ok sanji, you dont have to defend a deadbeat even if he is your crewmate and sanji has no choice but to kill himself and also zoro for daring to have green hair

when the strawhats show up for sanjis baby shower they also unanimously come to the misunderstanding that sanji and zoro totally boned. franky goes as far as to call the kid mini marimo. brook makes a hundred innuendos, chopper is upset at the implication of them having unsafe sex, and robin alludes to "knowing all along" in a very ambiguous way. usopp is the only one who refuses to connect the dots and he is sanjis favourite strawhat fr. jinbei pats sanji on the back and says he hopes they work through their differences for the sake of their kid. sanji is dying, youre killing him, you're killing your cook

even more shenanigans ensue when zoro shows up 3 whole days late to the baby shower and is gaslit into thinking hes the father by everyone in attendance despite being Pretty Sure that he and sanji never fucked. zeff gives a pretty good shovel talk and nami gives an even better one (debt increment is involved) while zeff nods approvingly behind her and then luffy slingshots in all parents should be married right? and doesnt wait for an answer

anyway, like 2 hours later zosan find themselves standing at a makeshift altar on the thousand sunny, saying their vows. sanji insists to the very end that zoro is not the father so they dont need to get married but alas luffy isnt giving him a choice in this (he wants to eat wedding cake)

to sanjis eternal despair, the kid grows up to really like swords

additional zosan thought, sanji does not help things by shouting "this is all your fault!" the moment he sees zoro. zoro is futher gaslit

#mine #zosan #one piece #love putting them in the funniest scenarios possible #the kid also cant be convinced that zoro isnt their actual father #i think zoro does his whole wandering swordsman thing and sanji has to endure lovelorn husband jokes #angst alternative: zoro is in fact the father but does not remember their one night stand bc he was black out drunk #and sanji refuses to be the only one that remembers their ~night of passion~ and decides to keep the father a secret #luffy forces them to get married anyway #op #this got kinda long oops #dont ask me why the baby shower lasts over 3 days i just think the strawhats party hard and party rock and theyd definitely go all out here #zoro in this is very much embodying this might as well happen

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taizi · 2 months

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every high and every low

i wrote a tiny little something for @mangogreent, it isnt much but i hope you like ! happy birthday lake ! title borrowed from glad you exist by dan + shay (listen with your platonic nakamaship hat on and dissolve into seafoam with me)

read on ao3

Luffy’s body doesn’t scar easily. It’s one of the many facets of a frankly unhinged healing factor; his body shuffles micronutrients and vitamins around like a circus clown juggling pins, wounds healing so quickly and completely that there is rarely a trace left behind.

There are, of course, exceptions to every rule. The smiling pencil-mark curve beneath his eye is one of them. The cruel, gaping burn across his chest is another.

Sanji and Chopper have spent hours going over dietary needs and goals for everyone aboard Sunny, not just their captain. But it’s their captain whose food works like a miracle in his stomach.

If Sanji thinks too long and too hard about Totto Land—about Luffy’s trembling, emaciated limbs when he handed over a disgusting, ruined bento, the way his skin plumped up and shone with good health within minutes of a meal—there are very good odds that he’ll spiral into a fit of grief or guilt or panic no matter where he is or what he’s doing at the time. So he tries not to think about it, and instead loads his captain with carbs and protein and fiber at every opportunity instead.

Suffice to say, Luffy’s skin is largely whole and undamaged, only a few faint scars scattered here and there that you wouldn’t notice if you weren’t really looking. His rubber body is a marvel, but it burns like a starving furnace, and sometimes it does him a disservice no one could have possibly seen coming.

“You don’t feel that?” Usopp says with a frown.

“Nuh-uh,” Luffy confirms blithely, watching the feather move back and forth across his arm. “If you pinch me or poke me with something sharp I will, but if it’s soft it’s like it’s not there at all.”

For a moment, everyone sits there and absorbs that information. Sanji can feel it settling over his nakama like a blanket of snow; cold and promising to pack in and be a pain in the ass to shovel through. Sanji has to readjust his understanding of the world, too. It takes him a minute.

The only touches that Luffy feels easily are the ones that hurt. That’s true for everyone, in a sense—but just because a slap might register louder and faster than a gentle touch doesn’t mean the latter doesn’t carry a weight of its own.

Sanji wonders, abruptly, if the last thing Luffy felt from him was the fight they had on Whole Cake when Sanji was desperate to free his captain of his obligations to a pathetic, useless cook—when he did everything in his power to drive him away.

Nami and Brook have joined Usopp in the game of poking Luffy’s arms and legs and squishy sides in the name of proving him wrong, finding a spot where he isn’t so thick-skinned. Brook’s phalanges drumming against his ribs make him giggle a bit, but how much of that is real feeling and how much is simply delight at all the attention and affection pointed his way?

It should be cute, but Sanji can see—and feel—it cutting everyone to the quick. Robin has closed her book, watching the scene without a smile on her face. Franky’s hands are unmoving around the great feathered monstrosity he and Usopp have been building at the table together up until this point, as if he’s forgotten he’s holding tools in the first place.

Enough is enough, Sanji decides, and sets aside his pride along with his bowl of red velvet cupcake batter and maryse spatula, moving around the counter with purpose.

“Got an idea,” he says at length and Nami scoots gamely to the side. Sanji keeps moving before he can get in his own way and takes Luffy’s round face in one work-hardened hand.

Luffy, who has been known to use his actual skull as a battering ram, usually fights with his whole chest and carries most of his injuries there, too. His face, aside from an unfortunate unsupervised incident with a knife when he was little more than a toddler with a highly questionable and often day-drunk role model, is unscarred.

Sanji brushes his thumb against Luffy’s cheek, where the skin lays very thin over sensitive nerve endings. His captain blinks up at him, brown eyes wide and trusting, every bit as if he’s looking at someone who has never hurt him before.

The crew present is watching raptly, their disquiet transforming into absurd, single-minded scrutiny. There’s a reason they’re not only living in the New World but thriving there—they’re good at adapting, at assimilating new information, at smacking the curveballs right out of the park on their second swing.

“Feel that?” Sanji asks.

Luffy tips his head curiously, just enough not to dislodge Sanji’s hand. Perfectly willing to sit still and be held when it’s his cook doing the holding.

“Kinda,” the boy says, the barest hint of a furrow forming between his brows. It’s the beginning of an epic spoiled sulk that everyone who loves him is intimately familiar with—because his nakama belong to him, and so Sanji does, and so his hand on Luffy’s face does, and it is rapidly occurring to Luffy that it’s not fair for all of those things to be true and for him not to be able to feel it.

Sanji can’t help but smile, always equal parts charmed and exasperated by the future king in a pout. He leans in and presses his mouth to the same place his thumb was, kissing the soft cheek firmly. He can almost see it when Luffy zings to attention, his overwhelming focus zeroed into that singular point of contact.

By the time Sanji straightens, Luffy is already beaming ear-to-ear.

“I felt that!”

Sanji returns to his dessert prep, perfectly satisfied with the changed world he leaves in his wake. Chopper is already clambering over the top of the table, scattering the bits and bobs of the engineers' project into an irremediable mess in his haste to bury his favorite human in fuzzy reindeer kisses, and similarly everyone else’s eyes are gleaming with promise.

Luffy’s rubber body is both a wonder and a menace, much like the golden soul it houses. But where it falls short and fails him, his friends will pick up the slack. Luffy is probably going to get his cheeks and forehead pinched and poked a lot more when he’s whining or complaining or elsewise being his annoying, incorrigible self.

But he’s also going to get kissed a lot more there, too.

#one piece #opfic #black leg sanji #monkey d luffy #sanlu #nakamaship #my writing #op #mangogreent #it turned into pure fluff 🥺🥺 nakama soup for the soul

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elderberries-and-honey · 2 months

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𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘭𝘢𝘸𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘥𝘥𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘢𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘵 "𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘦𝘦" 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘤𝘩 𝘪𝘯 𝘲𝘶𝘦𝘦𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘸𝘯, 𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥

Dear Marmee,

The bitter cold crept in slowly at first but there is no denying winter has arrived here in Wales. Everything is now covered in a sheet of white snow.

Every morning, I wake before the rooster's crow. Our friend Beth has moved in with us and she enjoys knitting very much. She has knitted me two new sweaters before Christmas has even come and they keep me much warmer than my worn-out coat from last Winter. It's a good thing too 'cause there's still much to be done on our farm, though I've made a rather decent amount of progress.

Even so, we hardly had any remaining produce leftover for ourselves after selling what I was able to salvage from our terrible blight. I won't burden you too much with our troubles but things have been rough here for us and I know Winifred is silently troubling herself over it.

You mentioned Jo is trying to get published? Please let me know how that goes for her. I think it might just inspire Winifred who is still glued to her typewriter whenever she has the time to write.

Hope to hear from you soon.

Sincerely, Lawrence

Dear Marmee,

I'm sorry to hear Jo was turned down in her quest to get published. Hopefully it won't discourage her from trying. Have you heard from Amy in Paris? How are Meg and Mr. Brooks? How does Beth like teaching piano?

Many of our animals, including the thorn in my side, Frank the Goose, passed on near the end of November. Without their eggs and milk to sell, money is tighter than ever.

Winifred has begun fretting over how we will make a good Christmas for Ozzy. So I've started working at the pub again to help us make it through the rest of winter and afford a few gifts for him. I'm struggling to come up with an idea on what to get Winifred, after all, how could I top her typewriter? If you have any ideas, please include them in your next letter.

Ozzy is doing quite well, thank you for asking. He likes to "help" me on the farm but mostly he enjoys playing in the snow with the garden shovels and trying to escape to our small pond. You would not believe the tantrums he throws when I have to wrangle him away from the edge. I can almost understand how my Father felt when I was a boy and he would paddle my bottom. The boy is like a fish the way he enjoys the water! Even bathtime seems to be his favorite part about bedtime.

It was a struggle to get him out of his crib and into a real bed but we needed to complete the transition before our new little one arrives. With Beth here to teach us patience, I can proudly declare we have finally succeeded.

Sincerely, Lawrence

Dear Marmee,

We're approaching our due date rather quickly, a little under 3 months now. Millie has been staying with Louise for the Winter (and giving her free cooking lessons) after agreeing to stay and help Winifred deliver the baby, which I'm thankful for. I know this is a huge relief for Winifred. Her last delivery was not without complications and I know she grows uneasy the closer we get.

I know Winifred believes the baby will be a girl but I have my own suspicions we will welcome another son. I'm not wholly certain I could handle another little girl after we lost Flora. Not yet, rather. The pain of losing a child never truly leaves, does it?

I did not mean to ignore your inquiry over how I'm fairing. I must keep a courageous face for my family, and consequently I've grown used to wearing my mask of gallantry. Since you so kindly asked though, I will admit that I am a little worn down as of late.

I spend long hours tending the farm and go to work even longer hours in the pub. Valerie, good hearted as she is, is not the best co-worker, often drinking herself stupid before the nights out. I suppose it's true what they say about you Irish folk.

Most of my trouble comes from myself, I suppose. I watched my father save this very farm many times over and I should want to do the same. But with every plant that refused to sprout, I found myself resentful over having ever inherited it.

I think of my wife, the writer, the poet, and how she is able to read Ozzy her stories. I think of Jackson with his pub, and his son, Patrick, who's becoming a doctor, and you with your bookshop. Even my father who provided my mother and I with food, and a roof over our heads because he cared for the farm so tenderly. All of you, with such passion.

Even if I was as passionate as my father, the farming industry is changing. All these extravagant advancements are putting farmers out of work all over. If the farm were to go under, what would I do? It's all I've ever known.

If I don't have time to write before Christmas Day - I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Send my love to your girls and wish them the same for me as well.

Sincerely, Lawrence

P.S. Don't be cross with me for the joke, I only say it in jest. The Irish could drink me under the table any day of the week and sing a merry tune whilst doing so which is rather remarkable.

next / previous / first

#lawrence is in his extensional crisis era 🙃#also did i make it canon that Lawrence made a little resting place for frank the goose? you bet!#ts4 historical #sims 4 historical #ts4 decades challenge #sims 4 decades challenge #ts4 storytelling #sims 4 storystelling #ts4 legacy #sims 4 legacy #the baudelaire legacy #1890 #winifred baudelaire #lawrence baudelaire #oscar baudelaire

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sassmaster-artjay · 1 year

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have some mh wips and abandoned things

Akasha Brooks, aka the backgrounder from Belfry Prep that deserved more attention. the name is my own invention

Astranova redesign. i wanted her more classically alien while keeping the crystalline structure

HC Cleo deserves more love tbh

Johnny Spirit redesign. if you can figure out the inspiration behind the road rash on his face i will be so impressed

River Styxx redesign. the pastel grim reaper idea wasnt enough imo, so i made her into a wild west undertaker and replaced her training scythe with a shovel and the chains with some ropes, a la gallows

#monster high #fan artjay

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blacklegsanjiii · 2 months

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I love the warlord!Sanji acesan shovel talk sm <3 also this is really sad but what would have happnd if sanji's execution had succeeded and he really did die? i nkow the warlords prbly wouldve still declared war on the wg and the straw hats would wreak havoc as wle, but do you have any thoughts? how does each parent grieve, how do the crew react upon finding sanji's secret only after his death? can sanji ever be brought back- maybe reiju pulls through again somehow with germa tech that somehow revives sanji- or is he gone forever? these thoughts are haunting me

JESUS OW! THAT HURTS I LOVE IT!

First, his execution if succeeded, would have been taped and possibly broadcasted after the fact, ensuring the fact his death is in fact truthful. The only person up on the platform who looks pleased is Akainu the fucker. Kizaru, usually so unbothered, and Sengoku watched this kid grow up in Warlord meetings but justice comes first and Sanji is a pirate. When Sanji is asked if his parents would be proud Sanji just smiles and in a way similar to Ace and says his parents would be proud, but not the ones the Government wants. After all, he was raised by five Warlords. He's smiling at Akainu, smiling in the face of death and stabbed by the spear/trident things they use in the executions.

The next the newscoo brings reports of Doflamingo and Boa Hancock declaring war on the World Government, the day after Mihawk, a few days later Crocodile and those he rounded up from Baroque Works. Jinbei doesn't but the crew sees how stricken he is. It is immensely heartbreaking to hear Jinbei cry about Sanji, his son, which rocks the crew. They plan a funeral and send out the calls to inform everyone when and where.

Everyone turns up, Law and his crew, Vivi and Karoo, Ace and the White Beard fleet, Perona, and the four warlords who declared war against the government. Law and Vivi are immediately ready for a fight but Jinbei stops them, reminding them they're all here for the same reason. They don't entirely let their guard down and when Zoro asks Perona how she knew Sanji she looks at him like he's dumb.

"We grew up in the warlord meetings together, dummy. He was my baby brother basically." Perona huffs and Mihawk sends a glare at them both.

"Does Moria know you're here?" Crocodile asks her.

"He let me go to Mihawk's for weeks on end to see Sanji, I don't see how his funeral would be different." Perona says solemnly and Crocodile nods. After the "service" if you could call it that everyone parts ways. The crew deals with the fact Sanji was raised differently. Zoro and Nami are angry at the secret, Franky and Robin understand the necessity of such a secret. Brook tries to comfort Jinbei but no parent should have to bury their child. Luffy is angry that Sanji is dead, furious, he doesn't care who Sanji's parents are, doesn't matter. Usopp and Chopper are crying, they've always been pretty free with their emotions so more secrets are just more tears for them.

As for the warlords grieving? Crocodile has always been a workaholic so he's definitely rebuilding his empire while waging war. Boa retakes Amazon Lily and builds a shrine to Sanji that's private, for her and Sanji's fathers. She sits by it every time she gets home and just sobs and lets her anger fester until she goes out again. Doflamingo lets his fury guide him, he's never really had to mourn before. He doesn't understand it and so he just kills whoever is in his way to get to whoever sanctioned the killing of his child. Similarly Mihawk has never really had to mourn before, but he understands the process in theory. He probably calls Shanks up at one point to ask when he stopped crying about Roger and Shanks admits he still cries about it, not as often, maybe a couple of times a year but in the beginning it was a lot and often.

Below is if Sanji is saved, miraculously.

IF SANJI is brought back by Reiju, or in my beautiful world of all the siblings defying Judge because the brothers are learning emotions, 0124 bring Sanji back I can't imagine them bringing Sanji to the Sunny is a safe option. Nor is Amazon Lily or Kuriagana and Doffy doesn't even have a ship which leads to four genetically modified siblings dropping off the least modified sibling in front of Daz, Croc, and a few others as they rush to explain they saved Sanji and revived him and they can't see their brother's crew because of the pact Judge has with Luffy. Sanji is also probably a mess because he died and now he's not dead and is having several issues with that and being away from crew.

Croc's first thought is to get his dumbass kid re-acclimated to being alive first and reuniting him with his crew second. The first does involve some of the best doctors Croc knows running tests on his kid to make sure he's alright because he knows Sanji has been revived before when he was a kid in Germa, also they used Germa tech to do it which makes it worse. But once Sanji is relatively calmed down and used to being alive again Crocodile calls the parents and lets them know A. Sanji is alive thanks to Germa tech and his siblings and B. Is taking him to his crew.

His crew is ecstatic to see him and there's happy tears all over but also he's alive. Reiju explains everything and Sanji is tucked away in a pile of Strawhat Pirates.

#black leg sanji #vinsmoke sanji #the vinsmokes #shichibukai #warlords #warlord!sanji #perona #one piece au #answers

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ur-favorite-worst-generation · 2 years

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Sensory Overload

We LOVE and respect Sanji in this household.

Looks like he loves and respects you, too!

Conversations flowed with the Straw Hats as easily as drinks did.

Sanji, ever attentive, topping off every glass without hesitation, making the additional dash here and there to fill plates back up. Chopper shoving chopsticks into his nose and mouth, Franky, Usopp, and Luffy following shortly after, Robin and Nami talking about the weather and the ocean and fossils. Brook playing music to liven up the room further.

Nights like this were perfect.

...

So why did you feel so awful?

Quietly excusing yourself from the table, you wiggled your way outside and exhaled a huge breath that you didn't know you were holding in. Some days the volume and nonsense made it feel like you were drowning. You would scratch at your skin until you could break the surface of the waves and inhale. You dug your palms into the corner of your eyes, quickly wiping away whatever tears had been threatening to fall.

"Hey." You shrieked, scrambling away a foot or two before your eyes focused on the tall, blond chef who had barely peeked out from behind the door.

"O-oh San... Sanji, hey." It made sense he noticed your absence. He probably noticed the fact that you had barely eaten anything, too, watching Luffy yank whatever was left on your plate and shovel it down his gullet before he had a chance to stop his captain.

"You've never not eaten my seafood risotto before," he finally finishes crossing the threshold to the small walkway that extended across the ship and takes out a cigarette before lighting it. "You all right?" You broke eye contact and looked back down, hands starting to fidget with the edges of your shirt.

Truthfully, you weren't. You could feel the edges of your stomach burn with hunger but your brain had been stopping you from eating, nausea tickling the back of your throat with each smell wafting from the kitchen. Your throat fell dry and thick when you tried to swallow down your words, Sanji didn't need to know, he was asking to be polite. That's just who Sanji was. There wasn't a sense of burdening him with the twisted thorns writhing in your brain and your gullet.

"Hey," you turned your head, now realizing that your vision was blurry from tears. When did you start crying? His hand gently cupped your cheek, thumb swiping away the tears you hadn't noticed. His voice carried a gentler tone than you were used to, a husk added to it that you could probably equate to the morning voice you'd never heard. He transferred his cigarette to his hand, blowing the smoke away from your face before speaking. "What's going on?"

A nervous laugh bubbled up as he continued to gently swipe at the tears, dusting his hands off on the apron still wrapped around his waist. When his hands were off of you, you rubbed your eyes free of the stinging tears and quickly scratched at your scalp as a way to diffuse whatever static you felt in your brain. It didn't work, it never did. Your eyes peered through your lashes at him, still patiently standing there.

Words tumbled freely from your mouth, from the overstimulation of the noise to the way there were too many food smells tonight and the fact that it normally wasn't a problem but everything all at once and you just needed fresh air to clear your brain before you could walk back in there and your senses assaulted with -

His arms wrapped around you tightly, stopping the tirade that you were on, only causing you to burst into heavy sobs. His ever delicate hands stroked the back of your head, reassuring you that it was okay. You didn't need to be in there for the crew to love you, everybody has missed or skipped out early of a dinner or two to go about their own business. It's okay if you needed time - if you needed space. You missed when he tossed his cigarette and stomped it out, but you were hyperaware of the small, chaste kisses he pressed into the top of your head.

Neither of you knew how long you had stood there, Sanji waiting for your breathing to return to normal and you just waiting to... well, you supposed the same. You focused on the way he smelled. The smoke from his cigarette freshly stomped out, heated cooking oil, spices, rice, red meat, fish (tuna?). The longer you breathed it in, the easier it was to get through the mix. There was a cologne, you think, from early in the morning, one you had complimented him on a few weeks ago. The laugh you tried to let out was a little more choked than intended. Such a Sanji thing to do.

"You feeling better, pumpkin?" You flushed at the familiar nickname, choosing to bury your face deeper into his chest as his arms tightened around you instead of responding.

"Let's head back inside."

#vinsmoke sanji x reader #black leg sanji x reader #sanji x reader #gender neutral reader #one piece x reader #one piece #sfw

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sparkliest-bard-bracket · 1 year

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The ✨Sparkliest Bard Lineup✨!!

Here is our sparkly, bardly, lineup!

Polls are live! Vote today!!

Oh, and don't forget to keep everything civil! This is just a little game for fun, and we're all here to have a good time :D

Feel free to submit pictures and propaganda for your bards (see this post for more info)! The more, the merrier!

(Full Bracket with fandom names & poll links under the cut.)

1 - Jareth the Goblin King (Labyrinth) vs David Bowie (Real Life) 2 - Thom Merrilin (Wheel of Time) vs Gurney Halleck (Dune) 3 - The Bard/Kiwi (Wandersong) vs Daeron (The Silmarillion) 4 - Callie Cuttlefish (Splatoon) vs Finrod (The Silmarillion) 5 - Apollo/Lester Papadopoulos (The Trials of Apollo) vs Apollo (Greek Mythology) 6 - Bill Cypher (Gravity Falls) vs Chong (Avatar: The Last Airbender) 7 - Max Rebo (Star Wars) vs Edgin Darvis (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) 8 - Dimentio (Super Paper Mario) vs Will Scarlet (Robin Hood)

9 - Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem (The Muppets) vs Link (The Legend of Zelda) 10 - Katalina (Tabletop Time) vs Starling Birdsong (Realm of Elderlings) 11 - Orpheus (Greek Mythology) vs “Weird Al” Yankovic (Real Life) 12 - Dave BruBot/The Major Player (Toontown: Corporate Clash) vs Carrie Wilson (Julie and the Phantoms) 13 - Kvothe (The Kingkiller Chronicle) vs Elan (Order of the Stick) 14 - Raz'ul, Son of Daz'ul (BomBARDed) vs Edward Chris von Muir (Final Fantasy IV) 15 - Binary Bard (Poptropica) vs Christian (Moulin Rouge) 16 - The Bard (Shovel Knight) vs Fflewddur Fflam (The Chronicles of Prydain)

17 - Man with the Harmonica (Once Upon a Time in the West) vs Kyoami/The Fool (Ran/King Lear) 18 - Diedrich Knickerbocker (Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story) vs Hannah Montana (Hannah Montana) 19 - Bard the Bowman (The Hobbit) vs Leliana (Dragon Age) 20 - Sprig Plantar (Amphibia) vs Lucifer Morningstar (Lucifer) 21 - Neil Banging Out the Tunes (Tumblr) vs The Muses (Disney Hercules) 22 - Robinton (Pern) vs Thistle/Sissel (Delicious in Dungeon) 23 - Loquatius Seelie (Critical Role) vs Cicero (Skyrim) 24 - Michael Jackson (Real Life) vs Oli/TheOrionSound (Empires SMP)

25 - Megamind (Megamind) vs The Onceler (The Lorax) 26 - Mettaton (Undertale) vs Gamzee Makara (Homestuck) 27 - William Shakespeare (Real Life) vs William Shakespeare (Something Rotten) 28 - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Classicaloid) vs William Shamspeare (Ace Attorney) 29 - Marceline the Vampire Queen (Adventure Time) vs Brook (One Piece) 30 - Gerard Way (Real Life) vs Sea Hawk (She-Ra and the Princess of Power) 31 - Snufkin (Moomin) vs Frank Sinatra (Real Life) 32 - Lias "Cliff" Bluestone (Discworld) vs Rick Astley (Real Life)

33 - Alan-a-Dale (Robin Hood) vs Essi Daven (The Witcher) 34 - Lúthien Tinúviel (The Silmarillion) vs Stefen (The Heralds of Valdemar) 35 - Roman Sanders (Sanders Sides) vs Remus Sanders (Sanders Sides) 36 - Bard (Crypt of the Necrodancer) vs Kass (Legend of Zelda/Breath of the Wild) 37 - Steven Universe (Steven Universe) vs Glenn Close (Dungeons & Daddies) 38 - Miss Piggy (The Muppets) vs Nydas Okiro (Critical Role) 39 - Charlie Pace (Lost) vs Dob the Half-Orc Bard (Oxventure) 40 - Kitagra (Kings of the Wyld) vs Kaylie Shorthalt (Critical Role)

41 - Father Gabriel (The Mission) vs Gabrielle the Battling Bard (Xena: The Warrior Princess) 42 - Haer'Dalis (Baldur's Gate) vs Tsukasa Tenma (Project Sekai: Colorful Stage!) 43 - Tom Bombadil (The Lord of the Rings) vs Sylvando (Dragon Quest 11) 44 - Steve McKenzie/Jester (Galavant) vs Gieve (The Heroic Legend of Arslan) 45 - Jaskier/Dandelion (The Witcher) vs Kubo (Kubo and the Two Strings) 46 - Guiliastes/Gui (1/2 Prince) vs Rocky (Lackadaisy) 47 - Asmodean (Wheel of Time) vs Neil Ciciregea/Lemon Demon (Real Life) 48 - Kermit the Bard (Tales of Tinkerdee) vs The Pied Piper (The Pied Piper of Hamelin)

49 - Venti (Genshin Impact) vs Sir Robin's Minstrels (Monty Python and the Holy Grail) 50 - Oscar Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming) vs Franz Liszt (Classicaloid) 51 - Eddie Munson (Stranger Things) vs Puss in Boots (Shrek) 52 - Freddie Mercury (Real Life) vs Hoid/Wit (Cosmere) 53 - Noise (Roleslaying with Roman) vs The Amazing Devil (Real Life) 54 - Klavier Gavin (Ace Attorney) vs Rickety Stitch (Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo) 55 - Ron Stampler (Dungeons & Daddies) vs Thancred Waters (Final Fantasy XIV) 56 - Raine Whispers (The Owl House) vs Jack Black (Real Life)

57 - Scanlan Shorthalt (Critical Role) vs Éile (The Witcher: Blood Origin) 58 - Hap Gladheart (Realm of Elderlings) vs Alastair Nobledrifter (Saving Throw - DnD Podcast) 59 - Maglor (The Silmarillion) vs Bill & Ted (Bill & Ted) 60 - DJ Cadence (Club Penguin) vs Imp Y Celyn (Discworld) 61 - Bard Otter (The Last Dragonlord) vs Yara of Nowhere, the Wandering Bard (A Practical Guide to Evil) 62 - Dorian Storm (Critical Role) vs Maria von Trapp (The Sound of Music) 63 - Demyx (Kingdom Hearts) vs Hisirdoux "Douxie" Casperan (Tales of Arcadia: Wizards) 64 - Bilbo Baggins (The Hobbit) vs BMO (Adventure Time)

#let me know if you find any issues/typos and I'll do my best to fix 'em :D #polls #poll bracket #tournament poll #bracket #sparkliest bard bracket #bard #the witcher #critical role #william shakespeare #the silmarillion #lord of the rings #the hobbit #genshin impact #ace attorney #greek mythology #tumblr polls

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gina103 · 2 months

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Girl From The Belly Ch 2

Ch 2 - word count: 2353 Previous - Next

The rickety wooden table was covered completely.

A large bowl of hot, creamy potato soup, garnished with an oversized piece of parsley adorned the table. Complete with a large plate of cheese bread, slices of homemade bread with melted cheese on top. Each family member helped themselves to the delicious meal.

Lina sat next to her sister, barely focusing on the conversation as she shoveled soup into her mouth. She was famished – today had been so long. She glanced up only to grab a second piece of cheese bread, she’d already devoured her first piece. Eunice was also grabbing a piece at the same time, she also had to be starving.

Her mother coughed to clear her throat, clearly calling their attention.

“Girls? Your brother is here. Anything you’d like to say?” She glanced between Lina and Eunice expectantly.

There was a pause as Lina glanced up from her food. She looked over at Idris’ disapproving expression, he always stared at her like that.

“Glad you’re back, I guess.” She resumed her soup.

“Wh-what she meant to say was, um…” Eunice spoke awkwardly, trying to defuse the tension that had arisen, “that we are both very glad to see you, Idris.”

“I’m sure you are,” their brother replied in his signature monotone voice.

Eunice smiled nervously, glancing at her mother and father like they’d just had to diffuse a bomb. Mrs. Brook sighed in defeat before asking Mr. Brook more surface-level questions, such as “how was the market today, honey?” and “did they have the right screws you needed to fix the chair?” Lina had completely tuned out at this point.

After dinner, the two men got up and left the table. Idris, walking briskly down the hallway to his room, obviously didn’t feel like catching up with his family. Mr. Brook, with a quick “thanks for dinner!” went straight for the staircase that led down to his workshop. Both gone without even pushing their chairs in. This of course, left the women to clear the table and clean up the dishes.

It was a quite efficient system that they had developed over time. It was an assembly line. Mrs. Brook would wash the dishes in the sink, Lina would dry them off, and Eunice would put them away. They worked in silence at first, until Mrs. Brook turned her head to look at her youngest daughter.

“You know, you really ought to show Idris more respect. He’s your older brother.”

Lina rolled her eyes, “why should I respect him when he treats me like gunk on the bottom of his boots?”

Her mother paused, trying to come up with a good reason. It was most likely going to be the classic, he doesn't mean it! excuse, but Lina wasn’t having it.

“I’m not going to tolerate being treated like some dumb little kid anymore!” she continued passionately, “You see the way he treats Eunice too!”

Her sister whipped her head to look at them both, surprised at her name being mentioned.

It was true though, Idris had an annoying tendency to act like his sisters didn’t exist. He would often never make eye contact with either of them, would brush past them in the house like they were decorations that got in his way, and when he did look at them, it was either a disgusted or disapproving glare. Lina was especially on the receiving end of his attitude, much to her confusion. He never used to act that way when they were kids. Maybe he got tired of her talking so much, or maybe it was the fact that she wanted to be a watchman. Lina had no clue, all she could do was pray that time would speed up before he’d have to leave again.

Mrs. Brook glanced helplessly at them both, sighing in defeat and turning her attention back to the dishes. Lina knew her mother meant no harm in asking them to respect him. Deep down, she knew peace was the ultimate goal, her mother wanted to keep the peace in the house at all costs, she despised conflict. They finished the dishes in quiet diligence and trotted off to bed. However, before Lina could follow her sister down the narrow hallway to their bedroom, she felt a soft hand touch her shoulder. She turned, only to be almost crushed in her mother’s embrace. Mrs. Brook pulled away and Lina was caught off guard as she saw her mother’s eyes tearing up.

“You’re a strong girl,” she said softly, “I hope you know that. I only want you and Idris to get along.”

Lina smiled back at her mother’s teary face.

“Of course I know that, Mama.”

Mrs. Brook grinned, “That’s good, just making sure.”

They bade each other goodnight and separated.

Lina had trouble sleeping that night. While Eunice snored away in her bed across the room, Lina rolled from the right side to the left side a whopping ten times. She didn’t know exactly what was keeping her awake. Maybe it was her general restlessness, she always felt constricted by her society and family. There was nothing to do in The Belly besides working and socializing with the same people over and over again, it was just so boring. The same topics of conversation, the same rituals, the same traditions, the same houses, the same neighbors, nothing changed, nothing exciting happened, it made Lina feel like she was wasting away, decaying like the corpse of a mouse that was left in an abandoned passageway.

Her only entertainment, her only source of interest was the human prince. He had an air of otherworldliness to him, like he was a character straight from a storybook. He was hypnotizingly handsome, unreal, and unfamiliar. He was reserved and unapproachable, but he was poised, polished, and elegant at all times. Nobody in The Belly exhibited the level of manners and formality that he did. Hearing him speak was almost like hearing an alien speak, a beautiful alien. He was unlike anyone she'd ever known. Maybe that was his appeal, he was strange to her, different, and exciting. It was certainly not normal or appropriate for a borrower to have the kind of obsession of sorts that Lina had with the human. Only Eunice knew of her fixation, and she of course, heavily disapproved of it. But it wasn’t like Lina to listen to anyone’s disapproval, was it? Disapproval was the fuel to her fire.

And she would never let anyone extinguish it.

Cassian slumped down in his chair.

Finally, he had just gone through two of the most excruciating hours he’d ever experienced. In other words, he sat down for dinner with the King and nodded his head the whole time while his father talked of nothing but the engagement ball. It was all about who was attending, who they were bringing, the political advantages of hosting, the people he wanted Cassian to speak to, the dances, the food, everything that Cassian would rather watch paint dry than hear spoken of.

Once they had finished all the courses, he bade his father goodnight and almost sprinted for the privacy of his study, which was where he was now, leaning back in his chair with his desk in front of him, the only sound he could hear was the crackle of the fireplace. Now that he was finally, beautifully alone, he could get back to writing in his journal. He had been busy earlier that day writing about his experiences and everything he saw when he visited the neighboring country of Winden, which was where his betrothed lived. He wrote about the fantastic mountain ranges, the gorgeous river which ran through their capital city, the friendly people he encountered, and the glorious manor in which his betrothed and her family resided.

He was just finishing describing how the sun reflected off the windows of the manor he visited when he was suddenly struck by thoughts of his late mother, the Queen. Cassian found himself wondering, what would she think of everything?

He was only thirteen when she passed. It was a mysterious illness that nobody had any answers for. Suddenly, his mother, the Queen, a healthy woman in her thirties, fell sick one day and was dead less than 48 hours later. It was such a horrific slap in the face. To be laughing and joking at the dinner table one moment, then saying goodbye forever in the next. Cassian was never the same, he increasingly withdrew into himself, rarely speaking, or appearing amongst other people. Now, he barely remembered anything that happened to him in the few months following his mother’s death. All he knew was that it was the most painful time in his life, and he tried his best to not remind himself of it.

In an attempt to shake out of the hole of depressing thoughts, Cassian got up from his desk chair and strolled over to the window across from his desk. After opening it wide open, he leaned out, savoring the cool breeze that blew across the peaceful night sky. He took a deep breath – then two. He wondered cynically how badly he would be hurt if he were to take a leap out the window. His lowness was no doubt due to the engagement and his inevitable marriage. His life was perfectly laid out before him like the table of contents at the beginning of a novel, he was entering the marriage chapter, much to his dismay. The same question plagued his mind endlessly, is this the best it gets?

No adventures, no excitement, no unexpected plans, no spontaneity, same plan, same people, same circle, and that’s it. Cassian knew he should be grateful, he was a prince after all, with all the power and money and prestige. He just couldn’t shake this feeling ever since the death of his mother, the feeling that everything in his life was just dull and lonely and it would forever be that way.

Cassian turned away from the open windowsill, he needed a drink. Badly.

A trip to the water pump was the first chore to complete every morning. And, it was the only one that Lina actually volunteered to do.

Even though walking to the nearest pump, filling both of her buckets, and carrying them home was tedious and annoying, there were some amazing perks. For one, all the women also getting water for themselves and their families, used the local water pump as a place to catch up on all the latest gossip, both inside and outside The Belly. Mrs. Acorn was always there when Lina was, giving herself a chance to find out all the latest news on the royals, the neighbors, and anything else going on. Nobody knew exactly who or what Mrs. Acorn’s sources were, but nobody really cared to investigate. The water pump was also the only place where Lina could gossip herself since Eunice and her mother both disapproved of it, calling it “useless and unnecessary.” They would often not contribute or become very disinterested at any news of the neighborhood Lina tried to inform them of.

That morning, as Lina dragged her two large empty metal buckets towards the pump, she caught sight of Mrs. Acorn and her daughter Mary, she was younger than Lina by a few years, her blonde hair always woven into two little braids, she was petite and bubbly, if not a little ditzy. Her mother had an equally bubbly nature, but with greying hair, and a strong propensity for nosiness.

“Oh, Lina!” Mary called out, “how are you this morning?”

“Alright, I guess,” Lina replied tiredly, she had not slept well the night before.

“Have you heard? There is to be an engagement ball for the prince tomorrow!”

A jolt of shock traveled through Lina’s nervous system. The prince, engaged? She mentally slapped herself. It was utterly idiotic to think that he would forever be single. Obviously, he had to marry at some point to continue the royal bloodline and all that, but it didn’t stop Lina from feeling a little bit sad about it. Did she think she had a chance with him? Of course not, but she couldn’t help her emotions. She wondered briefly what his fiancé looked like, she had to be beautiful and accomplished, no doubt about that. Maybe she played loads of instruments or spoke multiple languages or –

“Lina, are you listening?”

She snapped out of her train of thought. The two women were staring at her.

“Sorry, what were you were saying?” Lina asked.

“I was saying how I wish that we were able to see it! I want to see what all the ladies will be wearing, their dresses will be gorgeous. I can only imagine!” Mary said excitedly.

“Oh sweetheart, we won’t have to imagine. We’ll be able to watch the entire thing!” Mrs. Acorn assured her.

“What?” Both Mary and Lina said at the same time.

“Yes! I know of a passageway that leads directly above the ballroom!”

“Oh Mama! You must take us! Please, please, you must!”

“Of course I’ll take you girls! As long as you both promise to keep your lips sealed about it.”

“We won’t say a word, right Lina?” Mary turned to her, face red with breathless excitement.

“My lips are sealed.” Lina said using her hand to make a zipping motion.

“Alright then, it’s decided!”

The two girls squealed with delight. Even though Lina might’ve been sad briefly at the prospect of the prince’s marriage, she was thrilled at the thought of getting to watch the entire ball. She had always been fascinated with the human royals and their many rituals and way of life ever since she was a little girl. She couldn’t help it, the dancing, the dresses, the etiquette, the decadent food, everything was so over the top that it blew Lina away, and she couldn’t help her fascination.

Now that she had the chance to watch the whole engagement ball, she was so excited she could barely concentrate on her chores. She almost tripped on herself trying to bring her full water buckets home.

How was she supposed to get through the whole of today and tomorrow? Lina had no idea.

#g/t #g/t writing #sfw g/t #g/t fluff #g/t community #the borrowers #giant/tiny #oc: cassian #oc: lina #oc: eunice #oc: idris #Giant/Tiny #borrowers #size difference #g/t original story

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stevebattle · 7 months

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Grendel (1992) by Rodney Brooks, Colin Angle, and Helen Greiner, IS Robotics (iRobot), Somerville, MA. Designed for spaceflight and planetary exploration, “The rovers had to weigh only half a kilogram, and they required a new onboard computer architecture. At the end of the summer of 1992 we had three good test rovers. By this time Colin Angle and I had been joined at our company by Helen Greiner, another former Artificial Intelligence Lab student. Helen did mechanical design, Colin electrical, and I wrote the software. It was intense work but fantastically satisfying. … Our flight vehicle was installed in the payload of a kinetic kill vehicle and left there for some days, with no communications, to simulate the time it takes to get to lunar orbit. The kill vehicle itself had been modified with landing legs. Everyone was evacuated from the test site, lest the rocket motors blow up. A countdown happened just like a real one. The kill vehicle lifted off, and hovered in the Earth’s gravity, six times what it would encounter on the Moon. It automatically flew over to a mocked-up lunar surface, then descended and landed with only a minor thump. The first major hurdle of the mission had gone without a hitch. … The robot had its legs all folded up to minimize its volume so that it could fit into the cocoon. To get out it had to use one of its folded legs to unlatch a retainer holding the pod together. The robot realized that its mission had started right on cue, again with no explicit control from the mission overseers. … Grendel, the robot, untangled its legs. It stood. It started walking away from the lander, looking for a place to scoop up some soil with its underbelly shovel. The control room crowd went wild. This scheme actually worked!” – ROBOT: The future of flesh and machines, by Rodney A. Brooks.

#cybernetics #robot #1992 #iRobot #hexapedal

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mostlysignssomeportents · 1 year

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Biden set to appoint mass foreclosure cheerleader to the Fed

Personnel are policy, something that the Biden administration has proved again and again since the 2020 election. Biden himself is a kind of empty vessel into which different wings of the Democratic party pour their will, yielding a strange brew of appointments both great and terrible.

If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/06/personnel-are-policy/#janice-eberly

On the one hand, you have progressive appointments like Jonathan Kanter at the DoJ and Lina Khan at the FTC, leaders who are determined to challenge and curb corporate power:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/10/see-you-in-the-funny-papers/#bidens-legacy

On the other hand, you have deferential leaders like Pete Buttigieg, who fill their own staff with status quo counsel, and then let those timid corporate apologists run the show, leaving the substantial enforcement powers of a powerful agency to gather dust:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/10/the-courage-to-govern/#whos-in-charge

While the Democrats’ anti-corporate wing got to drive the administration’s competition agencies, the corporate wing has enjoyed near-total dominance over finance regulations (with notable exceptions, e.g. Rohit Chopra), starting with Trump’s Jerome Powell, a bloodletting monster happy to shovel workers into their bosses’ crushers all day long:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/19/creditors-vs-workers/#finance-colored-glasses

Corporate Dems continue to flex their muscle. A seat has just opened up on the Federal Reserve Board, and the WSJ is pretty sure the seat is going to Janice Eberly, a corporate ghoul who helped Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner steal Americans’ houses on behalf of the bankers who destroyed the world economy in 2008:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/white-house-considers-two-economists-for-fed-vice-chair-58f13344

A quick refresher: Obama inherited the Great Financial Crisis, a massive global asset crash that followed from a decade of real-estate and derivatives deregulation that saw the world’s largest banks issuing mortgages they knew would fail, and then placing massive bets on “collateralized debt obligations” that were supposed to offset the risk.

The banks gambled trillions, nearly destroyed the world’s economy, and then blamed it all on reckless borrowers — mortgage holders who had been mis-sold predatory mortgages that were designed to trigger defaults thanks to low “teaser rates” that later “ballooned” into monthly payments the banks knew the borrowers couldn’t afford.

Geithner was Obama’s go-to guy for the GFC. It was under his leadership that billions were handed out to the banks to bail them out and keep them solvent during the crisis — and it was also under his leadership that bank execs were able to pay themselves millions in bonuses using that public money.

When the banks were in trouble, Geithner leapt into action. When the banks’ customers faced crises, he was MIA — especially during the foreclosure epidemic that followed, as the banks stole our homes out from under us, often forging the paperwork. No bank was seriously punished for this policy.

Back to Janice Eberly, who served as Geithner’s assistant secretary of the Treasury for economic policy — his hatchet-woman, in other words. Now, sometimes people in senior government roles stick around because they disagree with their bosses and want to mitigate the harm of their bosses’ policies.

That’s not why Eberly took the job. In 2014, she and Arvind Krishnamurthy co-wrote a Brookings Institute paper called “Efficient Credit Policies in a Housing Debt Crisis,” that explained why Geithner had it right all along — bailing out the banks and leaving homeowners in foreclosure is “efficient”:

https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/fall2014bpea_eberly_krishnamurthy.pdf

Writing in The American Prospect, Max Moran from the Revolving Door Project breaks down “Efficient Credit Policies,” explaining how Eberly’s stated views should disqualify her from sitting on the Fed board, especially as we teeter on the brink of a deep financial crisis:

https://prospect.org/economy/2023-03-06-janice-eberly-fed-nominee-mortgage-crisis/

The first thing you need to understand here is HAMP, the Home Affordable Modification Program, which received the $100b Congress allocated to help homeowners whose mortgages were “underwater” — that is, whose houses were worth less than they owed for them.

That money could have gone to “principal reduction” — that is, to paying off part of your loan. If you owned $350,000 on a house that was now worth $300,000, the Feds could give the bank $50k and you wouldn’t be underwater anymore. The FDIC proposed just this, in a plan that would have required homeowners to pay back the US government if the price of their homes rebounded.

If you want to keep Americans from losing their homes, principal reduction is a straightforward and reliable approach. But the banks hated this — and that meant Geithner wouldn’t do it. Banks don’t like principal reduction because it means that they’ll lose out on future payments: reducing your principal by $50k now means that the banks won’t get hundreds of thousands of dollars over the 30 years of your mortgage.

Using the money for principal reduction would have meant the banks’ balance sheets would have looked a little worse — which, as Moran points out, is a perfectly fair outcome for banks that had just come close to destroying the world economy, especially since many of these underwater borrowers were destined to lose their houses and would never make those payments.

But Geithner didn’t do principal reduction. Instead, he did HAMP, which was just a way to temporarily lower borrowers’ monthly payments so they could stay in their homes. Geithner sold Obama on this plan, convincing him to renege on his election promise to support a “cramdown” on the banks, which would have saved homeowners:

https://www.propublica.org/article/dems-obama-broke-pledge-to-force-banks-to-help-homeowners

HAMP was full of the kinds of complex requirements and paperwork that the professional managerial class love, rules that made it almost impossible for homeowners to invoke HAMP and improve their payments. Meanwhile, the banks got “investor incentive payments” that let them take in public money even as they foreclosed on the public:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/principal-reduction-alternative-under-the-home-affordable-modification-program

HAMP was a disaster. Almost no one managed to use it, and even among the lucky few who did manage to do so, many were tricked into foreclosure.

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/mar/30/government-program-save-homes-mortgages-failure-banks

This is the policy that Eberly and Krishnamurthy defend in their paper: rather than reducing debt, just temporarily restructure mortgage payments. One reason they defend this: it’s cheaper, and Congress didn’t allocate enough money to help everyone who needed principal reduction. But, as Moran points out, Geithner’s anemic response to the crisis caused Congress to claw back $225b of the money allocated to deal with it — enough to do $50k principal reductions for 4.5m households. Under Geithner, HAMP only spent $10b.

But of course, the US government didn’t need to pay the banks off to do principal reduction. They could simply order the banks to take a loss. That’s how lending usually works: lenders who originate bad loans have to eat them — they don’t get made whole by Uncle Sucker.

But when Eberly was working for Geithner, “federal officials convinced themselves this was impossible.” Rather than hold banks to account for their reckless speculation, Geithner announced that he was going to “foam the runway” for the banks, pureeing Americans’ homes to make the foam.

But Eberly’s tenure coincided with the banks’ rebound — by the time she went to work for Geithner, they were rolling in dough, posting massive profits. As @[email protected] put it, “If you force them to eat a bunch of foreclosure losses, maybe a few hundred billion over several years, it probably wouldn’t have been that bad.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPLbnr1mxBs

Moran nails it here: “When a bad loan is made, it is both prudent and fair for the lender to bear the most responsibility. They are supposed to be wise stewards of their own capital. Instead, ordinary homeowners who did the least of any actor to cause the financial crisis ended up eating the losses.”

Eberly and Krishnamurthy claimed that Geithner’s policy would be efficient, and that it wouldn’t lead to mass foreclosures. As neoclassical economists love to do, they “proved” this using elaborate mathematical models. And, also in the grand neoclassical tradition, they didn’t bother to check whether their model was correct.

To quote Ely Devons: “If economists wished to study the horse, they wouldn’t go and look at horses. They’d sit in their studies and say to themselves, ‘What would I do if I were a horse?’”

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/27/economism/#what-would-i-do-if-i-were-a-horse

Here’s what Eberly and Krishnamurthy missed: the choice to foreclose wasn’t being made by the lenders, they were being made by the mortgage servicer, a kind of consequence-free middleman who made more money by foreclosing on homeowners, even if the lenders lost more money over the long term:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228125783_Why_Servicers_Foreclose_When_They_Should_Modify_and_Other_Puzzles_of_Servicer_Behavior_Servicer_Compensation_and_its_Consequences

Eberly and Krishnamurthy barely mention the existence of servicers, but another researcher was keenly aware of them: a law prof named Katie Porter, who delved into the servicers’ role in foreclosure in a report for the California AG:

https://oag.ca.gov/sites/all/files/agweb/pdfs/mortgage_settlement/01-report-waiting-for-change.pdf

Porter identified the servicers’ “dual track” approach to distressed mortgage borrowers: on the one hand, they slow-walked HARP-based changes to payments, and on the other hand, they raced to foreclose on those borrowers who were waiting for their payments to reset.

The servicers’ hunger to throw people out of their homes knew no bounds: they set up massive robo-signing boiler-rooms where low-waged employees forged deeds to plug the paperwork holes created by the high-speed, unregulated speculation on mortgages that precipitated the Great Financial Crisis:

https://www.reuters.com/article/robosigning-plea/ex-mortgage-document-exec-pleads-guilty-in-robo-signing-case-idUSL1E8ML0C120121121

Eberly knew about robo-signing, she knew about servicers, she knew about foreclosures. It was her job to know. But she still wrote her paper defending Geithner’s runway-foaming and all those ruined lives:

Principal reduction can be helpful, but it is a less efficient use of government resources, since it back-loads payments to households that cannot borrow against these future resources to support consumption today, and also because it is most helpful in reducing strategic default, rather than payment-distress-induced default,

This is just means-testing by another name, a fetish for separating the “deserving poor” from “moochers” (AKA “strategic defaulters”). The PMC loves means-testing, but only for poor people. As Moran points out, rich people like Trump use strategic defaults all the time:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/12/nyregion/donald-trump-atlantic-city.html

Elite economists and finance ghouls convinced themselves that helping people stay in their homes would enable waves of crooked “strategic defaulting” but there’s no evidence this was ever widespread — rather, it was a fairy tale that justified mass foreclosure:

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w27585/w27585.pdf

Eberly helped throw millions of Americans into the street in order to reward reckless banks, already wildly profitable banks, with even more profit. And far from regretting this, she went on to write elaborate justifications for the cruel policies she helped administer.

The historian Michael Hudson describes debt and debt cancellation as a key determinant of whether a given civilization survives. In every venture, producers have to borrow capital from lenders — farmers, for example, must borrow to pay for seed and fertilizer and labor. When the ventures are successful, the borrowers pay back the lenders.

But not every venture can succeed. There will always be blights, droughts, fires and other risks that can’t be fully mitigated. When failure occurs, borrowers can’t pay back creditors. If you farm long enough, you’ll eventually lose a crop, and have to roll over your debts next year. Eventually, you’ll owe so much that you can’t even make the interest payments.

In the absence of some structured, periodic debt cancellation — such as the Bronze Age tradition of Jubilee — creditors eventually end up controlling the work of the entire productive sector. When that happens, your society stops producing what everyone needs, and instead just makes the things that rich people want:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles

A civilization can’t survive if all of its farmers are growing ornamental flowers for rich creditors’ villas instead of staple crops. It can’t survive if every productive worker is stuck in a dead-end job or a dead-end place because of medical or student debt.

Personnel are policy. Eberly has explained, in excruciating detail, exactly what policy she favors — policy that rewards reckless speculation by incinerating the life chances of everyday Americans. Appointing her to the Federal Reserve board would be a giant Fuck You from the Biden admin to every person who got their home stolen by a bank.

Tomorrow (Mar 7), I’m doing a remote talk for TU Wien.

On Mar 9, you can catch me in person in Austin at the UT School of Design and Creative Technologies, and remotely at U Manitoba’s Ethics of Emerging Tech Lecture.

On Mar 10, Rebecca Giblin and I kick off the SXSW reading series.

Image: Medill DC (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Timothy_Geithner_in_2011.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

[Image ID: A bombed out neighborhood. Over the crumbling houses is the 'HOPE' wordmark from Shepard Fairey's Obama campaign posters. On the right is the grinning face of Obama Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, colorized to match the Fairey posters. On the left is an ogrish, top-hatted capitalist figure, chomping a cigar and disdainfully holding aloft a single-family home between a gloved forefinger and thumb. He stands before a podium bearing the Citibank logo. The podium has a lever in the shape of a golden dollar-sign, which he is yanking with his free hand. He, too, has been colorized in the mode of the Fairey poster.]

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hangmanbradshaw · 4 months

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Okay okay more from me then. I wanted to ask about the popstar/popstar one but almost typed "pornstar/pornstar" so let's not, and instead go with "canon survivor (not the show)" and "support women's wrongs" maybe? If you want to? Thank you, you are amazing ❤️

LMAO I mean...it would fit in my big reputations series if you get my drift.

Canon survivor (not the show) is my little (not so little most likely) post canon fic that's about surviving vs living, saving someone in more than one way, saving yourself and living for yourself but also saving someone else and living for them too. Think a world where someone you don't expect steps in and saves you in a way, and then you get to save them in return. Think saying something you don't mean and then having to face the consequences. Think trying to do right by someone else even when you know it'll make them hate you. Think the Beaches of Cheyenne by Garth Brooks (thanks Kale.) Think probably the most evil, heartbreaking (in a good way) thing I could write. Yeah <3

Support women's wrongs I just got too so did that separately, BUT it's very much angry female rage country songs in the Nat centric fic she deserves. Kinda funny too. I've made way too many hypothetically shovel kinda jokes not to maybe be literal with it finally.

#asks #i'm very excited about both of these #my fics #tag games

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officialyourdailyinspiration · 6 months

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Do Not Go Down to Egypt

1 “Ah, stubborn children,” declares the Lord, “who carry out a plan, but not mine, and who make an alliance, but not of my Spirit, that they may add sin to sin; 2 who set out to go down to Egypt, without asking for my direction, to take refuge in the protection of Pharaoh and to seek shelter in the shadow of Egypt! 3 Therefore shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation. 4 For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes, 5 everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace.”

6 An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb.

Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them. 7 Egypt's help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still.”

A Rebellious People

8 And now, go, write it before them on a tablet and inscribe it in a book, that it may be for the time to come as a witness forever. 9 For they are a rebellious people, lying children, children unwilling to hear the instruction of the Lord; 10 who say to the seers, “Do not see,” and to the prophets, “Do not prophesy to us what is right; speak to us smooth things, prophesy illusions, 11 leave the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.” 12 Therefore thus says the Holy One of Israel, “Because you despise this word and trust in oppression and perverseness and rely on them, 13 therefore this iniquity shall be to you like a breach in a high wall, bulging out and about to collapse, whose breaking comes suddenly, in an instant; 14 and its breaking is like that of a potter's vessel that is smashed so ruthlessly that among its fragments not a shard is found with which to take fire from the hearth, or to dip up water out of the cistern.”

15 For thus said the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.” But you were unwilling, 16 and you said, “No! We will flee upon horses”; therefore you shall flee away; and, “We will ride upon swift steeds”; therefore your pursuers shall be swift. 17 A thousand shall flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you shall flee, till you are left like a flagstaff on the top of a mountain, like a signal on a hill.

The Lord Will Be Gracious

18 Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.

19 For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. 20 And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. 21 And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it,” when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left. 22 Then you will defile your carved idols overlaid with silver and your gold-plated metal images. You will scatter them as unclean things. You will say to them, “Be gone!”

23 And he will give rain for the seed with which you sow the ground, and bread, the produce of the ground, which will be rich and plenteous. In that day your livestock will graze in large pastures, 24 and the oxen and the donkeys that work the ground will eat seasoned fodder, which has been winnowed with shovel and fork. 25 And on every lofty mountain and every high hill there will be brooks running with water, in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. 26 Moreover, the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day when the Lord binds up the brokenness of his people, and heals the wounds inflicted by his blow.

27 Behold, the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; his lips are full of fury, and his tongue is like a devouring fire; 28 his breath is like an overflowing stream that reaches up to the neck; to sift the nations with the sieve of destruction, and to place on the jaws of the peoples a bridle that leads astray.

29 You shall have a song as in the night when a holy feast is kept, and gladness of heart, as when one sets out to the sound of the flute to go to the mountain of the Lord, to the Rock of Israel. 30 And the Lord will cause his majestic voice to be heard and the descending blow of his arm to be seen, in furious anger and a flame of devouring fire, with a cloudburst and storm and hailstones. 31 The Assyrians will be terror-stricken at the voice of the Lord, when he strikes with his rod. 32 And every stroke of the appointed staff that the Lord lays on them will be to the sound of tambourines and lyres. Battling with brandished arm, he will fight with them. 33 For a burning place has long been prepared; indeed, for the king it is made ready, its pyre made deep and wide, with fire and wood in abundance; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of sulfur, kindles it. — Isaiah 30 | English Standard Version (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Cross References: Genesis 12:9; Exodus 9:23; Exodus 14:14; Leviticus 26:36; Deuteronomy 4:24; 1 Samuel 18:6; 1 Kings 20:30; 1 Kings 22:27; 2 Kings 18:21; Job 9:13; Job 19:23; Psalm 25:8-9; Psalm 42:4; Psalm 62:10; Psalm 65:9; Psalm 78:12; Psalm 108:12; Isaiah 1:2; Isaiah 1:10; Isaiah 10:3; Isaiah 10:12; Isaiah 31:1; Isaiah 34:2; Matthew 3:12; Matthew 4:10; Matthew 7:7; Acts 13:8; Romans 16:18; 2 Thessalonians 2:8; 2 Peter 3:9; Revelation 21:23; Revelation 2:27; Revelation 19:20

#worthless treaty #Egypt #God's mercies #rebellious people #Isaiah 30 #Book of Isaiah #Old Testament #ESV #English Standard Version Bible #Good News Publishers #Crossway Bibles

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txemrn · 1 year

Text

Wounded

Book: TRR/TRH Post-series

Pairing: Liam Rys x MC (Riley Brooks-Rys)

Word count: ~2500

Song Inspo: "Wounded" - Maddie Wilson

Warning: for mature audience only; the TW are the plot twists in this story; if you are not sure if you want to read this and/or you are a fairly sensitive reader (nothing wrong with that!), scroll to the very end of this post (right above the tags) for a more specific list of TW

A/N: I am SUPER pumped to be participating in week 9 of @choicesflashfics prompt challenge! I chose prompt #3: “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but this was definitely not it.” The prompt will be in bold.

A/N 2: Most of the characters and some of the plot points belong to our friends at Pixelberry; HUGE thanks to my dear friend (and birthday girl) @sfb123 for pre-reading this for me. Please excuse my errors! Also, if you are curious about Royal Roulette: it's a fun little challenge you can do anytime for yourself! Take your music and hit mix! Take the first song that pops up, and use it as a muse for a fic! No need to credit me, but do tag me if you do it because I LOVE reading other RR!

~🖤~

(Present)

It's just past 8PM, and I find myself in the tiled coffin of my personal sanctuary: my shower. The balmy steam hides the evidence of my swollen, tear-stained cheeks, my own words replaced by wails of mercy. The sweltering water stings across my porcelain skin, the unbearable discomfort distracting from the emptiness, the nothingness of my shattered, lifeless heart.

Today. Of all days, why today?

If only my body didn't complicate things...

If only my body did what it was supposed to do…

If only my body did what I was crowned to do…

Liam and I have spent over six years testing every last inch of my body for an answer. The simple answer is polycystic ovarian syndrome… if only life were that simple…

------

(Yesterday)

"PCOS isn't what it used to be, though. There are so many women living with it–myself included!" Savannah takes another bite of cake, and I've never been more grateful in all my life for the reprieve from her voice. This is my fourth time hearing this speech about PCOS, and how the diagnosis is taken 'too seriously'. I mean, afterall, we are at her baby shower for Beaumont baby number two. And three. "They gave me the same talk, blah blah blah, percent this and that, and after taking Clomid for only two months," she smiles joyfully, massaging her rounded belly.

I fake a smile, shoveling some fruit salad in my mouth in hopes of keeping my sharp tongue quiet. I'm happy for her; I really am. .

But she's also never lost a baby. Or three.

Two months? 'Only' two months? God…

Liam and I have been prescribed every drug on the market to conceive; we've even tried more natural, holistic remedies, like crushed up superfoods and tree roots, tiny needles being stuck in my eyelids and in between my toes, religious relics and crystals

God, if you've never experienced humility before, the struggle with infertility will strip you bare of any pride left in your body, and after six different specialists, we finally resorted to my biggest–our biggest fear: in vitro fertilization.

But, IVF might actually be the answer to our infertility story.

As Savannah answers more intrusive pregnancy questions about her own body from our close family and friends, my mind disengages. Shielding the bright sun from my eyes, I look across the palace's heavily-decorated back lawn. Soft petal pink and pearl-colored balloons litter the divine scenery. Signage that boasts kitschy baby phrases seem to be multiplying before my eyes.

I feel a sudden shift in the atmosphere, one that is making me feel– I don't know… funny? I don't feel like myself. In fact, I'm starting to feel slightly ill.

An abrupt piercing shrill of pressure shoots through my temples as my breathing quickens. A trickle of sweat courses down my back as everything begins to spin wildly around me. The laughter of the group of women I'm with becomes sinister and terrifying.

I need to get out of here…

"What an exquisite group of lovely ladies!"

Leo Rys, my ever-charming, newly-divorced brother-in-law. He is well-trained in managing a crowd, but the heart-throb is a master at wooing a very specific demographic: women.

Case in point.

"Sav," he tenderly takes her hand in his, "you look absolutely radiant. Where is that foolish husband of yours, leaving your beautiful self alone–" he slows down his flirting rampage, and I instantly look up, making contact with those familiar Rys crystal-blue eyes. He mouths, 'Are you okay?' before taking out his phone, no doubt to text Liam. "'Scuse me, ladies," Leo nods with a forced, jubilant grin.

With a skip in his step, my brother-in-law takes a knee while placing a tender touch on my clammy arm. "You're looking a little green there, sis," his lips curl softly as he pushes back my careless wisps.

"Kermit the Frog did warn us that it's not easy being green,'' I chuckle. The vibrations of my voice soothe my slightly queasy stomach. I relax further into my chair, fanning myself as I pull my oversize sunglasses over my eyes. "I'm fine," I grin cheekily, welcoming a sudden cool breeze over my skin.

His phone chimes. "Eh… negatory," he snickers under his breath, holding out his hand for me to take it. "The queen has been summoned to his majesty's presence."

Damnit, what did he say to him?

"You better not be making my husband worry about me–"

"Someone needs to keep an eye on your bad self," Leo jokingly winks. "C'mon."

And maybe it was a good thing for me to get away from those women, to get away from this party and out of the sun. I do have a lot on my mind as well–too much actually. Enough to make anyone unwell.

I hate exiting groups earlier than expected. I just… I just know the inevitable will happen when I leave: they will talk about Liam and me. Worse, they will look at us as if… as if we're wounded.

Gone are the days of hailing us as the 'it' couple…

Gone are the days of discussing our bright future…

Gosh, I really don't feel all too well as I stand up with Leo's assistance, but we make it inside the palace to a secluded sunroom. Bracing myself, I ease into a lounge chair while Leo helps me prop up my feet.

He really is a kind man, much like Liam. I hope he knows how much his return to Cordonia has meant to us as a family, especially his brother. Sure, we have staff that can help us with the countless doctor's appointments and emergency trips to the hospital, but these are intimate times that should be spent with family. And I'm glad it's with Leo.

"Are you okay, love?" Liam appears at the opposite end of the quarters. Worry is etched across his face as he slowly saunters to my side. "I got here as soon as I–"

I wave my hands in the air. "I'm fine, babe. I think I just got a little overheated," I playfully roll my eyes.

He lets out a slow exhale, wiping the perspiration off of my forehead. "You know better–"

"I know, I know," I raise my hands in surrender as he kisses my head. He's always watching me closely, so carefully, especially with so many hormones pumping through my veins.

"I'll leave you two alone," Leo clicks his tongue as he casually shoves his fists into his khaki shorts. "Text me."

Liam stops him, leaning in closely to whisper, "Grab us some seltzers please. And crackers." Leo nods as Liam makes himself comfortable next to me.

I sit up, adjusting the pillows around my husband before I quickly find the crook of his arm. My crook. By the time I am settled, my gaze is happily met by his.

God, I love him.

Even after all of this time, he still looks at me like I'm the only woman in the room. He doesn't see my shortcomings as a wife or as a queen. He sees me… and still loves me.

I study his face, counting the fine lines around his eyes. He's beautiful, but this has taken quite the toll on us, aging us both. I reach up to caress the perfectly smooth skin of his jaw, my thumb tracing over his dry lips.

He pulls my hand from his face, peppering the inside of my wrist with sweet kisses. He finally rests my palm on his chest, weaving his finger through mine.

I hate that it takes loss to make us appreciate life more, but watching each rise and fall of our hands reminds me that right now, in this moment, we have each other. And each heartbeat, each breath is to be cherished.

Suddenly, we hear a voice clear behind us. "Are you not well, your majesty?" Gretchen, our part-time nurse, carries a tray of snacks and seltzers into the sunroom.

"Oh, Ms. Gretchen," I quickly wipe away my tears, brightening to her approach. "We're fine."

She is an older woman who actually helped care for Liam's mother in her pregnancies, and also for his father in the end. Liam trusts her, and he thought hiring her would be immensely helpful to us right now.

And he was right; she's been a perfect angel. I don't know what I would've done without her help.

"Leo told me what happened." She pulls up an end table, setting the wooden tray down. "It’s too early for your medicine, but I figured some refreshing snacks might be in order."

"Mmmm," I hum with approval as Liam helps me sit up. "This looks absolutely perfect. Thank you."

Gretchen kindly bows before excusing herself.

I grab a piece of toast, spreading some fresh apple-butter on top. "Have you eaten today?" I pass him a ginger ale as I take a sip of my drink.

I abruptly stop fumbling with the tray when I feel his steely-stare boring holes into me. I glance once, then twice as I watch a large Cheshire grin crawl across his mouth.

"What?" I chuckle as I take a bite of my toast. "You have trouble written all over that face."

He wiggles his eyebrows as he pulls me safely back into his arms, our lips instantly meeting. His tongue swipes eagerly in my mouth. "Baby!" I squeal, pushing back from him as I wipe the corners of my mouth.

He snickers, swiping his thumb across his lips before sucking on it. "Mmmm," he quietly moans, "just what I thought." I raise my eyebrows in curiosity. "That's the best damn apple-butter I've ever tasted." He tenderly squeezes my bottom as I claim his lips again. And again.

I love this man.

I rest my head back on his chest, listening to the deep thrumming of his heart. My home. We lay in perfect silence, watching the shadows shift throughout the afternoon glow.

But as the sun sinks lower into the earth, I feel my body cling tighter to Liam.

"What are you thinking?" he whispers gravelly.

Damn him. He knows me too well. I reposition myself, sitting up on my side. My eyes begin to sting as tears threaten to fall. I grip his shirt as his fingertips lightly trace the freckles on the back of my arm.

"About tomorrow," I quietly exhale.

"The doctor's appointment?" He drops his hands to my lower abdomen, giving it a hopeful caress.

Overwhelmed with emotion, I can only nod my head, my breath hitching in my chest as I nuzzle into his shoulder.

Damnit, why us?

"Riley," he croons, enveloping his arms around me. His fingertips become lost in my waves as his lips press intimately against the shell of my ear.

"I–I'm so scared, baby," I whisper, my voice rattled with hoarseness as I wrap my arms around him.

"Shhh," he pulls me closer. He gently rocks my body, a hand tracing soft figure-eights across me back. "Me too."

------

It's early. Liam and I sit in the doctor's office, waiting for her to return with our test results so we can form the next plan of action for our family.

I've been sick most of the morning, my nerves getting the best of me. But Liam remains steadfast, my rock. He's been reassuring me all morning, wiping my anxious tears away. He refuses to let go of my hand.

A child needs a father like him; this can't be the end of our journey. It… it just can't be.

We hear a click, and Dr. Nguyen walks into the room with a thick file folder. I can't read her as she takes a seat, but suddenly, I see my husband's knee begin to anxiously bounce.

She finally makes eye contact with us, revealing her swollen, red eyes as if she's been crying for days. She clears her throat, dabbing at her cheeks. "Your majesties, I–" she stops to gain control of herself. “I don’t know what I thought was going to happen, but this was definitely not it.”

Her voice trails off as a subtle ringing forms in my ears, and suddenly, everything seems to be moving in slow motion. Liam let's go of my hand; he rests his elbows on his knees, burying his face in his hands.

I take a deep breath, shaking my head. What just happened? I've missed something. I frantically look between my husband and his oncologist. "I–I'm sorry. What?"

"I'm sorry, your majesty," she swallows back the lump in her throat having to deliver the news again. "The cancer? It–it didn't respond to the treatment. And from his scan last week, there are new spots on his kidneys, liver and lungs."

I blink a couple of times, feeling as though I don't know what all of this means. Because it can't possibly mean what I think she is saying.

He's not dying. He can't be dying…

"So," I swallow thickly, "you have a plan. Right?"

"Well," the physician folds her hands on the desk. "We… can… make him as comfortable as possible–"

"I'm sorry," I interrupt. "Are you–are you saying that my husband...?" I pause as I gasp for a morsel of air. "The love of my life is, that he... he's–?" I clamp my hand over my mouth. No, I can't-- I refuse to say it.

But through the blur of my tears, I see the truth.

She’s nodding.

------

(Present)

"Riley?"

I break from my thoughts as I turn towards the deep voice. There at the entrance to the shower towers the most handsome man I have ever seen… or will ever see. His golden curls have been gone for months; he and his best friends shaved their heads when he first started chemotherapy a year ago. His shoulders are still broad, but with his colon resection and loss of appetite, he's thinned out quite a bit.

He is weaker; his skin has weathered. But he's still my Liam. Even in all of this, he remains my North Star, my hope and my strength.

Which is why I can't get out of the shower. Not yet.

He flashes me a crooked smile, handing me a towel. "C'mon, love," he turns off the shower.

I carefully stand up, wrapping the towel around my damp body. Liam extends his large hand towards me, my petite grip finding his palm. He leads me out of the shower and twirls me into an embrace, my back against his chest.

He buries kisses into my hair and across my shoulders. "I need you," he lovingly growls.

Then he tenderly drops his hands to my growing, pregnant belly. "And I need you too, my little peanut."

My poor husband… how do I do this?

Without warning, a rush of agony roars around my 22-week abdomen, the abrupt sharp pain causing me to double-over. I grab onto the sink in front of me as I groan from the intense throbbing.

This can't be happening.

"Riley?" Liam steps out of the bathroom, and hollers down the hallway. "Leo! We need help!" He takes me back into his arms. "What is it? What's wrong?"

The pain subsides, and I begin to sob. I can't look at him.

Today. Of all days, why today?

"Liam," I choke out , "my water broke."

~🖤~

TAGS (updated 09/2022; please let me know if you wish to be added/removed):

PERMA

@21-wishes @alj4890 @ao719 @charlotteg234 @issabees @kat-tia801 @kingliam2019 @mainstreetreader @mom2000aggie @neotericthemis @nikirennie87 @peonierose @socalwriterbee @tessa-liam

ALL TRR

@3pawandme @alyshak92 @iaminlovewithtrr @lovingchoices14 @malblk21 @rubiwalker @sfb123 @twinkleallnight

***

TRIGGER WARNINGS: discussion of infertility; discussion of cancer; insinuation of a major character death; miscarriage

***

#the royal romance #choices trr #trr fanfic #choices fanfic #liam rys #king liam rys #liam x mc #liam x riley #royal roulette #choices flashfics #prompt challenge

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